One year later.

On the outskirts of Binhai City, the village once shrouded in the shadow of death is slowly awakening.


The land, once barren from high-concentration carcinogenic waste, has been restored with rich, dark soil after a year of professional treatment. Rows of newly planted saplings timidly sprout tender green buds in the early spring breeze, like newborns cautiously peeking out into the world. The river, which once emitted chemical stench and displayed eerie colors, has now regained its natural clarity. Sunlight scatters across the water surface, creating sparkling, clean ripples, and schools of small fish can even be seen happily darting among the water plants.

Under the old crooked-necked locust tree at the village entrance, villagers no longer gathered with tear-stained faces and desperate eyes. Instead, several children chased and played with each other, their crisp laughter echoing across the open fields, sounding especially precious. The adults gathered together, speaking in low voices about new plans for their families. Some said they wanted to use the compensation money to rebuild their leaking old houses; others said they wanted to send their children to the best schools in the city, never letting them follow their own difficult paths; and still others said they wanted to visit their relatives buried in the back mountain during the Qingming Festival, to tell them that the skies had finally cleared.

The working group sent by the provincial government handed over a thick stack of bank deposit slips and an official apology letter with the red seal of the provincial government to each villager. That letter contained no fancy rhetoric, only the most sincere confession (اعتراف) of regulatory negligence and the deepest condolences for the victims. Many villagers' hands were trembling when they received the letter. They couldn't understand the complex official language on it, but they understood the apology that came ten years too late. An elderly man with graying hair held the letter, his cloudy eyes filled with tears. Facing the young members of the working group, his lips quivered for a long while before he finally uttered just one sentence: "Thank you... thank you to that police officer..."


No one knew the police officer's name. In the official announcement, he was just a faceless individual referred to as "Chen," who ultimately "committed suicide out of guilt" as a suspect in the case. But in this village, in every family that received compensation, drank clean water, and saw hope in life again, he was a true hero. His name was engraved in people's hearts and on this land that had survived catastrophe.

When the tender shoots of life and justice stubbornly emerged from the soil soaked with blood and tears, hundreds of kilometers away in the provincial prison, cold walls blocked out all signs of spring.


Zhao Lixin was sentenced to death for murder, environmental pollution, and other charges, with immediate execution. Before facing his punishment, he didn't tearfully repent like in TV dramas, but instead calmly adjusted his prison uniform and said to the judge: "It's simply a matter of winners and losers."

Gao Jianguo was sentenced to life imprisonment for bribery, abuse of power, and harboring criminals. This once immensely powerful figure in Binhai City's hair turned white overnight. His former subordinates and colleagues either faced investigation themselves or hastened to distance themselves from him. The power empire he had built crumbled like a sandcastle, washed away completely by a tsunami called justice, leaving no trace behind.

The Binhai City Police Headquarters still stands tall in the city center. However, the people coming and going have changed time and again. After that earth-shattering political earthquake, the entire legal and political system of Binhai City underwent a complete overhaul. Most of those once-familiar faces have now disappeared.

In the office of the Second Brigade of the Criminal Investigation Unit, sunlight filtered through the venetian blinds, casting dappled shadows on the floor. The air was filled with the musty smell of archive papers and the cheap aroma of instant coffee. Everything seemed the same as a year ago, yet for those who worked here, everything was different.

Li Xiaodong sat by the window, in what used to be Chen Mo's seat. On the desk before him, files were stacked neatly, each categorized in different colored folders, clearly labeled. To his left was a police computer, its screen flickering with complex ballistic analysis data; to his right, a half-drunk cup of black coffee without sugar.

His back was very straight, his shoulders noticeably broader than a year ago. Having shed the somewhat childish uniform of a police academy graduate, he now wore a dark duty jacket with collar and cuffs that had faded somewhat white from washing, yet it was meticulously ironed. His hair was cut very short, revealing a full forehead. The most significant change was in his eyes.

Those eyes that had once been as clear as a mountain stream, full of idealistic light, had now become deep and calm, like an unfathomable ancient well. When looking at people, his gaze was sharp and focused, as if able to penetrate directly through their disguises to see their deepest essence. He rarely smiled, and rarely spoke. Most of the time, he just sat there silently, reviewing case files or staring at data on the computer screen, sitting like that for an entire day.

All the newcomers in the team were somewhat afraid of him. They only knew that this young Officer Li was the team's ace with the highest case-solving rate, and a technical backbone who had been specifically commended by the provincial department leaders. His case-handling style was incisive, his logic meticulous, and he had an almost obsessive pursuit of every detail. When following him to a crime scene, any slight oversight would be pointed out by him without mercy. He was like a precise and efficient case-solving machine, always calm, always correct, but also always maintaining a sense of distance that made people hesitant to approach him.

Only some of the veterans still remembered that a year ago, Li Xiaodong wasn't like this. Back then, although his professional skills were solid, he was more like a "fanboy" who followed behind Chen Mo with a face full of admiration. He would get extremely excited about a new technical discovery, and indignant at the sight of injustice. His emotions—joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness—were all clearly written on his face.

And now, he had buried all his emotions in those eyes as deep as wells.

That afternoon, the sunshine was just right. Li Xiaodong had just finished organizing the files for a serial theft case and was about to go to the cafeteria for lunch. A colleague from the logistics department walked in carrying a somewhat worn cardboard box.

"Xiao Li, there's a package for you." The colleague put the box on his desk. "There's no sender information, just your name and work address. It was picked up from the security gate and has been there for several days."

Li Xiaodong was puzzled. He had no relatives here, and his friends all knew his phone number and would contact him directly if anything came up. Rarely would anyone send him something this way. He thanked his colleague and picked up the package to examine it.

It was an ordinary delivery box with a somewhat blurred shipping label attached. The sender's address and name fields were blank. He shook it, and a slight, muffled collision sound came from inside, making it impossible to tell what was in it.

He grabbed a paper cutter and sliced open the tape on the package. The box was filled with foam debris used for cushioning. He reached in, pushed aside the white foam pieces, and his fingertips touched something cold, hard, with a metallic feel.

His heart suddenly skipped a beat, and an inexplicable, strong sense of unease and premonition welled up inside him.

He took a deep breath and pulled that object out from among the foam pieces.

It was a small cube wrapped in deep blue velvet cloth. The edges of the velvet were worn, showing signs of age. With slightly trembling fingers, he unwrapped the cloth layer by layer.

When the final layer of velvet was removed and the object was fully exposed in the afternoon sunlight, Li Xiaodong felt his breathing completely stop in that instant.

It was a police badge. An old-style badge with edges that had been worn shiny from use.

On the back of the police badge was engraved a now blurred serial number: 075421.

It was Chen Mo's police badge.

Li Xiaodong's mind buzzed as if struck by something heavy. He reached out, wanting to touch the badge, but his fingers stopped midair, frozen and unresponsive.

This badge was all too familiar to him. For many years, he had countless times watched Chen Mo take it out from the inner pocket of his old jacket and pin it to his chest. He remembered Chen Mo always saying that this thing was just an ID, nothing special. But the reverence and solemnity in his eyes whenever he polished the badge couldn't deceive anyone.

According to the official announcement, all of Chen Mo's belongings had been returned to his only relative back in his hometown. This badge should have gone with those possessions, to be buried or forgotten.

Why would it appear here?

Who had brought it here?

The police badge had been meticulously polished, gleaming with a warm yet resolute radiance in the sunlight, without a speck of dust, without a hint of rust, and even the scratches left from countless days and nights of wear seemed to have been smoothed away by some force. It looked like a brand-new badge just taken from the furnace, carrying an immortal soul.

Li Xiaodong finally reached out his hand and lightly touched the police badge with his fingertip.

The cold metal, at the instant it contacted his skin, felt like a warm current flowing from his fingertip and instantly spreading throughout his entire body.

He remembered that rainy night, when Chen Mo handed him the memory card, with those bloodshot yet extraordinarily bright eyes.

"...If I don't make it back, give these to someone you trust."

He remembered in the hospital, when he retreated due to fear and hesitation, the disappointed and desolate expression on Chen Mo's face.

"……This is how the world is, we can't change it."

"But someone has to try."

He recalled the final scene at the celebration stage, where Chen Mo was pinned firmly to the ground by several security guards, yet still struggled with all his might to lift his head, shouting the truth into the camera with that resolute, lone wolf-like figure.

Those images, those sounds, like sharp engraving knives, had been carving into his memory over and over again throughout more than three hundred days and nights, already becoming part of his flesh and blood.

Li Xiaodong slowly closed his fingers, clutching that cold police badge tightly in his palm. Its hard edges dug painfully into his palm, but this pain gave him an unprecedented sense of clarity and groundedness.

He could almost feel Chen Mo's body heat still lingering on the badge, along with his never-cooling, burning conviction.

He didn't cry. He simply closed his eyes and stood quietly, allowing that complex and surging emotion to crash and roll within his chest, until finally, it settled into something harder, more composed.

That flame, ignited ten years ago and nearly extinguished a year ago, ultimately did not go out. In a more hidden, more persistent way, it had transcended life and death, crossed over high walls, and was passed into his hands.

At that moment, the shrill ring of a telephone broke the silence of the office.

It was the red landline on the desk, the dedicated line for reporting major cases.

Li Xiaodong opened his eyes, the turbulence in his gaze now receded, restored to his usual calm and sharpness. He glanced at the police badge in his hand, now hot from his tight grip, then carefully and solemnly placed it in the innermost pocket of his jacket, right next to his heart.

He walked to the desk and picked up the telephone receiver.

"Hello, Criminal Investigation Unit."

His voice was steady and clear, showing no emotional fluctuation, just like the countless emergency calls he had answered over the past year.

From the other end of the line came a voice that had changed slightly due to panic: "Officer! There's been a murder! An abandoned building in the west suburbs... a female corpse has been found!"

Li Xiaodong's gaze moved past the files on his desk and toward the window.

The sky over Binhai City was high and blue. Sunlight penetrated through the clouds, illuminating the entire city with brightness. It was a brand new day, just like countless ordinary days, with sunshine, evil, new life, and also death.

He had put down his police badge, but the weight of that badge had been forever branded on his heart.

That flame, he had ultimately taken it up.

In his eyes, it burned once again.