Basically, our story starts with a mu*der. A gruesome mu*der on the poorer part of the city evokes much interest and outrage from the netizens, forcing the Police to involve the MCs team. Now let's introduce the main cast *clap clap*

Luo Wenzhou (MC/seme) - police officer, hates Fei Du, very gay, in love with his straight best friend

Tao Ran - police officer, very poor, straight best friend mentioned above

Zhongyi- mu*der victim mentioned above

Fei Du (ML/uke) - rich young master, playboy, good at playing detective, bis**ual... maybe, also in love with Tao Ran, hates love rival Luo Wenzhou,

fei du can interrogate a child sociopath better than a psychologist that works with the police department. they didnt even attempt to bring a child psychologist!!!

They didn't invite a child criminal specialist to interrogate but Fei Du has said that there was no evidence and they were running out of time, also, so he wanted to take the chance and talk with the little girl. He was the one who made her drop the weapon, too

Fei Du was trained by his father to be a sad*st like himself, he was ab*sed and filled with the thoughts of harming others since young. His hands were tainted red from the lives of baby animals and birds: his father tortured him into being a monster. He treated himself with electric shocks to unlearn those habits, he had PTSD and forgot some of the memories. He also studied about serial killers and their cases. That's why he knows how a mind of a psychopath works, he places himself into their shoes and analyzes the cause and effects.

Yes, she's a victim whose upbringing led her to have an extremely warped mentality on the world. Despite the fact that she is a victim, her warped view on the world and participation in the deaths of numerous other children still remains, and she shows no remorse for her actions, which shouldn't be unexpected. I honestly thought Chenchen was an interesting look into morality and stuff. I don't ever remember seeing anything that completely portrayed Chenchen as "deserving 0 sympathy." as one reviewer might mention.

In fact, the narrative makes it pretty clear that Chenchen acts and feels the way she does now mostly because of her upbringing. It takes no shortage in highlighting the fact that Chenchen's mother (the woman who was "raising" her during her formative years) and the other people taking care of her were very f*cked up people. It also connects the way Chenchen was raised to her current warped mindset. Ergo: Chenchen is like this because of the shitty environment she grew up in. The novel was pretty clear in showing that.

gore, child trafficking, pe*ophilia, mentions of r*pe, child ab*se, psychological torture, physical torture

The corrupt cop is the exception here because we get a lot of his POV and get to see how much his childhood broke him. He has people who he cares about very much and that he would do anything for but is willing to excuse almost everything for their sake. I'm glad we got so much of his POV including before the full reveal of his villain status.

In contrast, his brother is a never delved into at the psychological level, just hinted. At. Meeting his brother's son early on does help give definition to his brother but he doesn't quite feel grounded. Both he and the other big bad, the Reciter, feel more like cartoon villains. The Reciter in particular runs a cult and also was part of a key memory in the CEO-psychologist's childhood but his motivations lack all depth. The only part I liked about his character depiction was his reaction to a photo of the person who he'd in some ways carried out his plans for. It would have been better if the cult members hadn't been in the room when he and FD were talking at the end. The cult members had already been established very effectively earlier through the surviving family of one of the cases so having this mass of people who were very flat in these scenes flattened things.