The Sin Puzzle

Twelve clay figures stand in an air-raid shelter. Inside the clay are people. Wrapped while alive. Lu Chen, the head of the provincial special case team, can enter the killer's psychological perspective by touching the crime scene—feeling their anger, pleasure, fear, and satisfaction. Each use brings him closer to madness. In the clay figure's palm is a blood-stained note: "Act One: Gluttony." Seven deadly sins, seven acts. The mastermind behind the scenes, codenamed "Director," stages serial murders as a theatrical play, selecting an executor for each act and discarding them after use. He lives in the blind spots of the digital world—no phone, no accounts, like a man who vanished fifteen years ago. Fang Qiming is the actor of Act One. Killed eleven people, then was killed. Zhou Min is the sample of Act Two. Locked in a white room, asked daily, "What are you thinking today?"—until the fifth day, she thought of nothing. Liu Hongbin is the target of Act Three. Covered in gold leaf and locked in a box, with a mirror on the inside of the lid. Once he looks in the mirror, the act is over. The Director speaks to Lu Chen for the first time: This time, I'm not watching the actors. I'm watching you. When the hunter becomes a character in the play, when the cost of empathy shifts from coldness to hatred—can Lu Chen outrun a man who has waited fifteen years? Slow down, and people die. — Description from novelcodex.org