Episode Summary
The police identify Li Guokun as Feng Xiaojuan's killer after finding his DNA on a glove recovered from the trash. Li Guokun flees, leading Cao Jin, Tao Zi, Lu Fan, and Ning Zhen on a chase. He evades capture by ditching a taxi, stealing a bus ticket, and then getting off the bus mid-route. During the wilderness search, Ning Zhen uses her tracking skills to follow Li Guokun's trail, discovering he used pine resin to mask his scent from police dogs. However, they find Li Guokun murdered, with the same cryptic symbol from the 15-year-old Ning Defu case left at the scene. Investigations reveal Li Guokun contacted an untraceable number before his death and was taking expired medication. Cao Jin decides to reopen the old case due to the symbol's reappearance and asks Ning Zhen to join the team, revealing to her that Lu Fan is the little girl connected to the original incident.
Spoiler Alert
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Alright, so picking up where we left off, Ning Zhen and Lu Fan are literally digging through trash, searching for clues at a garbage dump. The heat is definitely on, because Li Guokun gets word that his ex-wife's shoes (remember those?) have been found, and the guy starts sweating bullets.
Meanwhile, Cao Jin is also hot on the trail, specifically looking for the garbage truck's route. He spots something crucial on CCTV footage: an old scavenger was seen rummaging through that exact pile of trash earlier. Tao Zi immediately tracks down this scavenger and recovers a glove. And boom! Forensics works its magic – the glove has Li Guokun's DNA and blood from the victim, Feng Xiaojuan. That seals it; Li Guokun is officially their guy for her murder. Cao Jin wastes no time and leads a team to arrest him. But, surprise surprise, when they bust down the door (okay, maybe they didn't bust it down, but you get the picture), Li Guokun is long gone. Vanished.
Our fugitive, Li Guokun, manages to hail a cab. But he's acting super weird and agitated, making the driver really nervous. The driver tries to play it cool, making small talk, trying to figure out where this sketchy passenger is headed. Thinking fast, the driver pulls into a gas station, pretending he needs fuel. When Li Guokun gets out to use the restroom, the driver slams the car into gear and peels out, leaving Li Guokun stranded. Smart move! The driver immediately calls the police.
Back at HQ, the tech whiz Xiao Yu spots someone on surveillance footage near the gas station who looks suspiciously like Li Guokun. Cao Jin and Tao Zi race over there. Li Guokun, meanwhile, pulls another fast one: he steals a bus ticket from an elderly woman and hops onto a long-distance bus. By the time Cao Jin arrives at the station, the poor woman tells him which bus Li Guokun boarded. Cao Jin quickly gets on the horn and notifies the police department at the bus's destination city to be ready.
Cao Jin and Tao Zi start driving towards that destination. Just then, Lu Fan calls Cao Jin. Since Cao Jin needs all the help he can get, he tells Lu Fan to bring Ning Zhen and head towards the same target city. It's becoming an all-hands-on-deck situation.
On the bus, Li Guokun isn't dumb. He sees police ahead setting up an ID checkpoint. He quickly makes up an excuse and gets off the bus before reaching the final stop, somewhere out in the sticks. But eyes are everywhere – "Tianyan" (China's surveillance network) catches him getting off mid-route. Xiao Yu gets this crucial update to Cao Jin immediately.
Night falls, and Cao Jin organizes a massive search party in the wilderness where Li Guokun was last seen. There's a problem, though: the police dogs can't pick up his scent at all. This is where Ning Zhen's sharp eyes come in. She notices pine needles scattered unnaturally on the ground. Her theory? Li Guokun has been rubbing pine resin on himself as he runs, masking his scent from the dogs. Pretty clever for a desperate guy.
Worried about Ning Zhen and Lu Fan's safety in this manhunt, Cao Jin orders Tao Zi to stick close to Ning Zhen, while keeping Lu Fan near him. Ning Zhen, however, is laser-focused and moving fast, almost losing Tao Zi in the process, but he manages to catch up. Following the trail of pine needles, Ning Zhen discovers a shoe, likely dropped by Li Guokun.
Right at this tense moment, Tao Zi gets a message on his phone – it's the background check info on Ning Zhen. He quickly forwards it to Cao Jin, who learns the shocking truth: Ning Zhen's father, Ning Defu, was one of the victims in that infamous cold case from years ago.
Just as the police finally close in and find Li Guokun... it's too late. He's dead. Murdered. Ning Zhen is visibly devastated; the main lead in Feng Xiaojuan's murder, and possibly linked to her father's case, has just been silenced. The trail goes cold again. And here’s the kicker: found at the scene where Li Guokun lies dead is the exact same cryptic symbol left at the Ning Defu murder scene all those years ago. Chills, right?
The forensics team gets to work and determines Li Guokun was killed within the two hours before the police arrived. Cao Jin theorizes that Li Guokun must have contacted someone while on the run, probably asking for help or an escape route, but whoever he contacted decided to permanently silence him instead. Adding another layer, the tech team finds that the medication Li Guokun carried was expired, and missing doses could cause severe hallucinations. Was he already losing his grip?
Tao Zi digs into Li Guokun's phone records via the mobile company. His last call was to an untraceable, unregistered number – a burner phone, essentially. Meanwhile, Lu Fan is poring over his own father's old, unsolved case files, clearly trying to find any connection to Li Guokun's case, a fact not lost on Cao Jin.
Amidst all this, Ning Zhen continues her heartbreaking personal mission: visiting morgues whenever an unidentified female body turns up, desperately searching for any sign of her missing mother.
Finally, Cao Jin approaches Ning Zhen. With that old symbol resurfacing, he tells her he's officially reopening the 15-year-old cold case. He wants her unique insight and personal connection on the investigation team. And then, he drops the episode's final bombshell: he reveals to Ning Zhen that Lu Fan, the young detective she's been working with, is the very same little girl who was involved in that traumatic incident connected to the original case all those years ago.
