Episode Summary
Xu Qingli escapes and assumes the identity of a dead man, Ni Xiangdong, even burning his own face to match the ID. He travels north, living a life of poverty and petty crime, while sending money home to his grieving father. In the present, Meng Chao's investigation into a past murder and a current disappearance leads to a stunning revelation from a child witness. She confirms that Cao Xiaojun is alive and that the man they know as Ni Xiangdong is an imposter with a scar.
Spoiler Alert
The Fugitive's New Identity
A Body in the Woods
The episode opens with Xu Qingli on the run. He’s hiding out in the mountains, completely exhausted and hungry. He finds some sweet potatoes just to have something to eat. While he’s trying to sleep in the bushes, he hears a motorcycle. He follows the sound. Instead of a person, he finds a body. And with that body is an ID card for a man named Ni Xiangdong. Xu Qingli looks at the ID, and you can just see a tiny, chilling smile form on his face. He's found his way out.
Becoming Ni Xiangdong
We then flash forward to Xu Qingli's journey after this discovery. He takes the ID and heads north. He starts a new life as Ni Xiangdong. He uses the ID to get by, but he's constantly terrified someone will notice he isn't the man in the photo. So, he does something drastic. He takes a flame and burns the birthmark off his own forehead. The pain must have been intense. But now, his face is a much closer match to the real Ni Xiangdong.
The Long Road North
From Odd Jobs to Crime
Life as Ni Xiangdong isn't easy. Xu Qingli is timid and awkward. He tries to find day labor jobs in a market, but no one will hire him. He ends up homeless, sleeping on the street. A kind beggar even takes pity on him and gives him a bottle of water.
He finally lands a job with another guy, but the boss stiffs them on their pay. His coworker suggests they steal and sell some electrical wires to make money. Xu Qingli goes along with it. This is his first real step into crime. After making some cash from selling the stolen wires, he sends all of it to his father, Xu Caizeng. He sends it anonymously from different locations. His father, of course, thinks his son is dead and is wasting away from grief.
A Birthday on the Streets
We see Xu Qingli alone on his birthday. He steals a takeout box and a beer from a restaurant. He hides in an alley to eat his sad little meal. The beggar from before finds him. When he learns it's Xu Qingli's birthday, he shares his own food. It’s a small moment of kindness in a pretty bleak existence.
Later that night, the restaurant owner and his buddies track Xu Qingli down to get revenge for the stolen food. They start beating him. Something in Xu Qingli snaps. He grabs the beer bottle and fights back, scaring them all off. This is the first time we've seen him be truly violent toward another person.
He keeps moving north after that. He works odd jobs, including one on a film set. A woman called Sister Tian is nice to him and gives him extra pay for his hard work. He eventually makes his way to the city of Weihai. He remembers Sister Tian (whose full name is Tian Baozhen) talking about how beautiful it was.
The Investigation Heats Up
Digging Up the Past
Back in the present, Meng Chao and Tong Hao get the green light to exhume a body. It's the one they believe is Xu Qingli. When they open the coffin, Meng Chao notices the watch on the corpse's wrist. The way the watch is worn gives him a bad feeling. Something is off.
Xu Qingchun then takes the detectives to the spot where Bao Desheng was murdered years ago. We get the story. There was a traffic accident. A man on a motorcycle was covered in blood, but he just picked up his bike and sped off. The truck driver involved called the police. Cops later found Bao Desheng's body in a deserted area near an old bridge. A motorcycle mirror was at the scene. He had been robbed of everything, including the gift money from his wedding.
The detectives also get a huge lead. The money being sent to Xu Caizeng all came from the same person. The wire transfers trace a path heading north, with the last one sent from Weihai.
A Child's Testimony
Meng Chao goes back to the apartment complex to ask about Wu Ximei, the missing girl. He talks to her grandmother. The grandma mentions something odd. She says her granddaughter claimed she saw Cao Xiaojun a few nights ago. She brushes it off, saying kids have wild imaginations.
Meng Chao decides to talk to the little girl himself. She tells him she had a fever and woke up in the middle of the night. She heard a noise outside her door. She peeked through the crack and saw the man she knows as "Uncle Cao Xiaojun." Meng Chao is skeptical. He asks if the man had a scar on his forehead. The girl's answer changes everything. She says no. Uncle Cao doesn't have a scar. The man with the scar is "Uncle Ni."
