Tracing the Bones

Tracing the Bones [Criminal Investigation]

 Li Shang, with a clean and handsome appearance, possessed an extraordinary memory.
Instead of choosing a bright future, he insisted on joining the City Bureau’s small Missing Persons Investigation Division.
People whispered about his suspicious connections: a parachuted handsome face, nothing but a useless sweet pastry.

Yet, after a short time of working together, the team members jumped up in awe:
Whose so‑called useless pastry solves cases like a god, fears no authority, has a sense of direction like the North Star, and can take on a gang of suspects alone during arrests?!
Whose “frail as a flower” beauty races suspects through narrow alleys, leaps off buildings in split seconds, and dislocates arms in an instant?!

The teammates instantly fell to their knees in worship: Wonderful! It’s the God Li, we’re saved! Mother will never worry again that we’ll lose our way while solving cases!
.
Only Captain He Lin looked at Li Shang with deep concern.
He had discovered Li Shang’s secret—his brilliance was bought with blood.

Li Shang had walked through the gates of death several times. His body was covered in old wounds, tormented by illness and pain. His overwhelming strength was just a facade—in truth, he was like a lantern that could be extinguished by the slightest gust of wind.
.
He Lin, the captain of Yun City’s Missing Persons Investigation Division, came from a special operations background. A head injury had once taken his memory.
After retiring from the special forces, he joined the investigation division, only to find himself inexplicably drawn to the new recruit, Li Shang.

He Lin wanted to know: what kind of past did this beautiful man, whose body was full of injury and sickness, truly carry?
Why was it that the more he tried to uncover, the more familiar it all seemed—until he found himself unable to extricate his heart?
.
He Lin did not take his memory loss seriously. But there was someone else who minded it deeply.

To forget was a regret, to remember was a punishment.
In his memory, He Lin had lost his lover.

He did not remember the dumplings hand‑wrapped for him on his birthday.
He did not remember the refrigerator magnets carefully chosen in a faraway land and given to him as gifts.
He did not remember the snowball fights of youth, nor the warmth taken from each other in the cold.

The two tested each other with caution, desiring to gain yet terrified to lose.
Unbeknownst to them, the red string of fate had already, long and silently, tied them together.
.
Heraclitus once said, a man cannot step into the same river twice.
Yet He Lin would step into it once, twice, a third time—falling in love with the same person over and over.
Even if he lost his memories, even if that person bore a different name with each encounter.

#Even if the chance of finding the missing one is only one in ten million, I will still tread bones to trace your steps, and bring you back.#

Criminal Investigation Captain × Former Special Forces Captain
Amnesiac Wolf‑dog Gong × Aloof Beauty, Battle‑scarred and Frail Shou¹
Childhood Friends, Lovers Reunited After Separation

Cover: Kobayashi Zexu

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