Most people in Silver City know Li Hao as a young investigator working for the Inspection Office.
His coworkers consider him reliable, easy to get along with, and perhaps a little too interested in old case files. If anyone finds that habit unusual, they rarely think much about it. Every office has someone willing to spend hours digging through forgotten records that nobody else wants to touch.
What people do not know is that Li Hao has spent more than a year searching for answers that never seem to come.
The trail begins with a case that should have ended long ago. Instead, it leaves behind loose ends, strange details, and enough unanswered questions to keep pulling his attention back. The deeper he digs into old reports and archived investigations, the more often he encounters incidents that feel oddly connected despite being separated by time, location, and circumstance.
None of it is enough to prove anything.
That is part of the problem.
Every clue appears just convincing enough to continue chasing, yet never quite enough to explain what is really happening. Most reasonable people would have given up long ago. Li Hao keeps going.
His search gradually leads him toward rumors that circulate far outside official records. Stories whispered between certain investigators, unexplained events that never reach the public, and people who seem aware of things that should not exist. Silver City begins feeling less familiar the more closely he examines it.
What makes matters worse is that Li Hao has his own reasons for refusing to let the past stay buried. The answers he wants are of his personal interest, which makes it difficult to walk away even when common sense suggests that he should.
The novel starts as a mystery more than anything else. There are investigations, missing pieces, conflicting accounts, and a protagonist trying to make sense of information that never quite fits together. Each discovery solves one question while creating several new ones, gradually revealing that the world around Li Hao may be much larger than he ever imagined.
For a long time, he is not chasing power, fame, or adventure.
He is simply trying to find out what really happened.
That turns out to be far more dangerous than expected.
