Where Ashen Roads Meet the Steadfast

A series of bizarre deaths sweeps the city, each one looking like an accident brought on by divine punishment. Most of the victims are people who slipped through the cracks of the law, their crimes too difficult to prosecute. The scenes are spotless, the evidence airtight, and public opinion dismisses it all as just deserts. Detective Lu Zheng throws himself into these cold cases, stripping away the illusions one by one and searching for hidden clues among the tiniest traces. Along the way, a vague figure keeps appearing at the edges of each case. Shen Xu, detached from every storm. Quiet and taciturn, he seems no more than a passerby by chance. Two old friends who once walked side by side in their youth meet again after many years, amid a series of crimes. One carries a torch through the light of day, doggedly pursuing the secrets concealed beneath appearances; the other walks alone through an endless night, hiding a past no one has ever seen. Black and white face off, old acquaintances reunite. They understand each other's deepest obsessions and restraint better than anyone, gazing across the distance between law and their shared past. To outsiders, it looks like two people bound by fate, rushing toward each other. But strip away the layers, and it is a years-long hunt for the culprit, a contest that never ends.