Episode Summary
In 1929 Shanghai, newcomer Xia Mo and rookie detective Tang Zhenyun are thrown together after the discovery of a gruesome triple murder staged with bizarre ritualistic details. Their investigation is immediately stonewalled by the powerful and cold-blooded Gao Ying, the mistress of the lavish Rosefinch Hall, who has mysterious ties to the victims and the police force's top brass. After she uses her influence to seize and destroy crucial evidence, Xia and Tang form an alliance, returning to the scene of the crime to begin untangling a dark conspiracy.
Spoiler Alert
Rosefinch: Episode 1 Spoilers - A Ritualistic Murder in Old Shanghai
In the hazy, neon-lit nights of 1929 Shanghai, the opulent Rosefinch Hall is a world of glamour and danger. The episode opens by introducing the ruthless Gao Ying, the lady of the house, who calmly presses a lit cigarette into the hand of a dancer named Hong Xiu as a punishment, setting a chilling tone for the darkness that lies beneath the city's glittering surface.
The story then shifts to Xia Mo, who has just arrived in the city. His quiet entry is disrupted when he stumbles upon a stray dog carrying a woman's severed hand. Persuaded by his companion, Fu Ying, who sees a reflection of her own mortality in the grim discovery, he takes the hand to the local police station.
There, he crosses paths with Tang Zhenyun, a detective new to his post at the Zhabei precinct. The report of the severed hand is his first major case, and he and Xia Mo follow a trail of blood to a horrifying scene. Inside an apartment, they find the body of a woman named Kong Qian'er, dressed in an opera costume and propped up with a stick in a bizarre ritualistic pose meant to "guide the souls of the dead." A "soul-scattering nail" has been driven into her head. The horror intensifies when they discover two more corpses—a man and a woman—stuffed into a closet in a "reversed yin and yang" formation. Before they can process the scene, Tang Zhenyun accidentally triggers a booby trap, and the bodies are instantly consumed by flames. Xia Mo, with his keen eye, identifies this as a ritual of "immolation to achieve immortality."
Back at the station, the case's strangeness causes the medical examiner to quit on the spot. The plot thickens when Gao Ying arrives, using her high-level connections with the Chief Inspector to claim one of the bodies, believed to be her dancer, Hong Xiu. Tang Zhenyun is powerless to stop her. To make matters worse, Gao Ying's men then set the corpse ablaze in the morgue, destroying any remaining evidence as the Chief Inspector once again ties Tang Zhenyun's hands.
Frustrated but not defeated, Tang Zhenyun learns of Xia Mo's background in criminal investigation and forensics from his time abroad and quickly enlists his help. Xia Mo's expertise immediately proves invaluable. He deduces that Gao Ying likely swapped the bodies and that the victim she took—while having died from drowning—may not be Hong Xiu after all. The episode closes with the newly formed duo, Tang Zhenyun and Xia Mo, secretly returning to the crime scene under the cover of night, determined to uncover the truth behind the ghastly murders.
