Three Years in the Archives Department, and the Entire Police Force Wants Me Back

The Fog Harbor Case Files

My name is Shen Chi. Three years ago, the entire Fog Harbor System treated me like trash and tossed me into the basement's second level.

The reason was absurd: I have face blindness. I can't remember anyone's face.

My colleagues laughed at me. "If you can't even remember what a suspect looks like, why are you a cop?"

Hmph.

I really can't remember faces. But I remember the dried red mud on your shoe sole, tracked in from the north bank of Old Sha River; the callus in the web of your thumb, worn there by years of holding scissors; the way your right foot drags when you walk, because someone broke it three years ago.

I was watching you the whole time you were killing someone.

Over three years and 110,000 case files, I examined every person who died in Fog Harbor over the last twenty years, one by one.

Later, Captain Lu, who never looked anyone in the eye, stood at the entrance to the basement's second level and asked me, "Could you come back and help us?"

I said yes. But let me make one thing clear: I don't look at faces.

I look at traces.

People lie. Faces lie. Tears lie.

Traces don't.

They killed one person after another, and the law let them go, one after another.

So I'll bring them back, one by one.

Until I came across that 1998 case file.

The name in the reporting party field was two characters long.

Shen Zhao.

That was my older sister.