Whitewolfattar

I know it's a long comment but I wasn't able to clarify my point before so.. XD
I didn't mean that Shen Yu planned the framing murder. What I meant is that Shen Yu wanted to frame He Weiguang without committing any murder. This is because she started programming He Weiguang before receiving Hu Shanquan notebook. After the first session of programming He Weiguang into the murderer of the previous 5 murders, she received the notebook and the instructions about the 6th murder.

How I see it, Shen Yu heard that Leng Xiaobing is investigating her father disappearance, then the same cop is investigating He Weiguang who has a lot of similarities to her father. Besides, Shen Yu knows that the police think the killer 17 years ago has characteristics that her father and He Weiguang have. It is obvious to her that Leng Xiaobing investigated He Weiguang as the suspect of the Haizhou case. However, as similar as He Weiguang is to the description of the killer 17 years ago, you don't need to dig deep to find that he is not, and Leng Xiaobing would go back to investigating her father and might find something. So, what Shen Yu thought is to program He Weiguang into believing that he is the killer of the 5 girls and get a solid confession that he is the killer of Xia Jinlan on her colleague's camera. Besides, she has already received many souvenirs from "her father" in each birthday which are items from the previous victims. She wanted to give them to He Weiguang to implicate him further. To this point, it is all Shen Yu's plan and there is no murder involved in the plan.

why is it Shen Yu's plan and not Hu Shanquan?
Evidence 1: After hearing about Leng Xiaobing's investigations, she started brainwashing He Weiguang, and she didn't receive the notebook or instructions yet. Therefore, we can conclude that the framing of He Weiguang plan is for sure Shen Yu's.
Evidence 2: When she went to Xia Mu's home after he called her on her father's old phone, she found the room of Xia Jinlan untouched and there is still blood stains on the ground. Besides, she never went to Xia Mu's home any other time, so this is definitely the time she took Xia Jinlan's blood and dust to put it on the old souvenir to implicate He Weiguang further.
With Shen Yu doing all this to He Weiguang, if the police investigate him more, they will find all kinds of evidence to condemn He Weiguang as the killer of the Haizhou case.

However, after she started programming He Weiguang, she received the notebook and instructions from Hu Shanquan, which means that Hu Shanquan saw her trying to implicate someone else and decided to modify Shen Yu's plan. The modification was that all She Yu had to do after brainwashing He Weiguang was to send him to the crime scene to be seen in the camera, which during the investigation, they mentioned that Shen Yu must have called He Weiguang and told him to go there, yet there is no call history between then which is explained by the other phone that Shen Yu gave to He Weiguang, and this was mentioned in the investigation. Both Shen Yu's plan and Hu Shanquan's would lead to the same result, clearing Hu Shanquan and implicating He Weiguang. However, Hu Shanquan's is faster and is guaranteed. On the other hand, Shen Yu's plan requires the police to dig deeper into He Weiguang to reach any result.


Being a killer would ease breaking people mentally through torture. True, a hillbilly wouldn't be able to tab into an intelligent person's mind and find what breaks him/her. However, if you know basic psychology, you can break people through torture and fear. Truth be told, most of the times you don't even need any basis in psychology to break people through torture and fear. Besides, they said that Hu Shanquan tortured people from Shen Yu's past like the college professor who hits on female students and there were other examples.

1. Have you heard of "Shelf Life Extension Program (SLEP)"? You'd be surprised to know that this program proved that there are medications that can live to more than 10 years past their expiration date. As for how much he needs to kill all 6, not much because you see, the muscle relaxant vial contain around 5-10 mL, in every mL there is 10mg muscle relaxant. As for how much you need to paralyze someone, it is around 0.6-1.2mg/kg. However, what they actually didn't research well is the fact that all muscle relaxants cause respiratory depression, so the victims would die because of that way faster than dying because of the wrist bleed.
2. If I remember correctly they raised the question regarding the expensive camera and the fact that even normal people at the time don't have these kind of cameras. Hence, they searched photo studios, him working there is how he got the expensive camera.
3. Hu Shanquan was actually educated by Shen Haiyang, and he taught him how to do injections and work in the hospital. Besides, he didn't plan ahead that Shen Yu will find an imposter and frame him, he was simply watching and admiring her from afar, and she did the framing all on her own when she heard that the cop from the Haizhou case (Leng Xiaobing) is investigating her father's disappearance and then investigating He Weiguang, she thought about orchestrating the frame on He Weiguang. Even the letter to She Yu that they can finally meet and be together forever was sent after she started the brainwashing of He Weiguang, so this means he saw an opportunity to be with "his daughter" as his name will finally be cleared.
4. It is very possible for mentally ill people to actually be very smart and meticulous. Besides, they showed that Hu Shanquan frequented the library and read all the books that Shen Yu read over the year, so a guy like this would easily develop intelligence.
5. Many of the books Shen Yu read, and Hu Shanquan as well, were psychology books, so it is acceptable for him to know how to mentally break someone especially that he is after all a killer with no remorse.

Shen Yu was invested in Xia Mu because he tailed her, but more importantly, she was informed by Hu Daodao that he is the foster kid of Xia Jinlan who is a victim of "her father". Would there be a reason for a guy like him to join the major crime unit other than finding the killer of his teacher? So, Shen Yu was getting his dirty secrets to be able to counter him if he actually reaches something that would implicate her father.

It is sad just how much content was lost due to censorship. I am pretty sure the final chase of the killer suffered a lot due to deleted scenes. I mean if you look closely, when Leng Xiaobing was tailing Shen Yu as she was going to the restaurant, he was driving his silver volkswagon. However, when he arrived to the restaurant, he was actually driving a black car (maybe corolla? 🤔 I am not that good with cars). This shows that there was actually a missing gap and these two scenes are not related, yet they had to just put them together. I am really curious how the original plan of 24 episodes would've been...

Yes I understand, just wanted to highlight some points that I really liked 😆
Maybe if it was the original plan of 24 episodes, we would've got what we wanted but it is what it is 🤷‍♂️

I agree with your points whether pros or cons. However, as underwhelming as the ending was regarding the killer's reveal and chase, there is some strong sense to why the killer is like this. I mean for a case to be without clues as much as this and inactive for 17 years, it make sense to have a killer with these characteristics. For the clues part, there is no connection for the police to base their investigation on and he left nothing at the crime scene, as it is one sided admiration with the other party not even knowing this person exists. For the inactivity part, Hu Shanquan admiration shifted to Shen Yu who, in his mind ,is looking for him and has a complete focus solely on him, so there is no need to murder her and resurface the case again, yet we are left with a question which is why is it when Xia Mu came into play, the case actually resurfaced? IMO the writers actually did a good job in this regard too. The only reason that made Shen Yu make a move is because she heard the Ling Xiao Bing is actually investigating her father, and then he investigated He Weiguang as the killer of the Haizhou case. Her focus would be to clear her father and put the blame on He Weiguang which intrigued Hu into finally coming out and meeting her face to face as he is thinking she is doing it for him.

IMO, the writers focused more on how the story of the 3 protagonists would wrap up rather than how they would end the Haizhou case and catch the killer, and Hu Shanquan character would give you a good conclusion to their struggle in these 17 years. Even the decision of making Hu Shanquan the killer of Ning Li instead of Shen Yu would make the audience sympathise with Shen Yu more in the end. They made sure that Ling Xiao Bing makes the shot in the end and have a closure. Xia Mu overcame his PTSD, catched the killer, and gave a proper burial for his grandfather.

Without a doubt the performance of the 3 main actors actually strengthened the endings of the characters making the underwhelming chase and capture into good ending (if you take it from a different angle) IMO. I personally would give this drama 8.5.