This is an excellent psychological thriller that can give any of the recent hits in the crime/thriller genre a run for their money. This drama grippingly explores criminal profilers - those who get into the minds of monsters - those who gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. It is a dark story about how we all struggle with our inner demons and how the devil inside can be unleashed and insidiously take over. It is another excellent thriller with an unreliable narrator that sneaks up upon you.

Fang Mu is a graduate student in criminal psychology who consults with the local police department to solve difficult and gruesome serial cases. He is considered a gifted profiler who is able to build an identifiable profile of the murderer from seemingly random and opaque clues. I am quite surprised at how some graphic and gruesome details of the rape/murder cases made it through the Chinese censors. That said, the introductory or peripheral cases fail to convincingly establish Fang Mu's credentials as some kind of profiling wunderkind although the shock or gore value is quite high. The two "real" cases however are meticulously mapped out and articulated.

After a traumatic case, Fang Mu struggles to matriculate and his police collaborators exhort his professor, another gifted profiler salvage their protégé by helping him battle his inner demons and complete his thesis. Another series of baffling murders compels Fang Mu to work together with the police department again. This awakens memories of the shattering case from three years ago that destroyed his confidence and left him a shadow of his former self. The story brilliantly weaves the destruction and subsequent salvation of Fang Mu's character into the two defining cases, one in the past and one in the present. Unlike some of the overrated the 2020 vintage that morph into character dramas (Horizon Tower, The Long Night), Fang Mu's character evolution an integral part of the plot and is not a digression from the plot.

There are enough clues throughout that it is possible (but not easy) to partly solve both of the main cases before the big reveals. At the very least, a very shadowy outline of the truth is visible in a way that made me want to keep watching; to find out if my suspicions were correct. This achieves that perfect balance between the element of surprise and anticipation or validation of the viewer's working thesis and I can't be more impressed. The acting and chemistry between the cast is excellent with the villains in particular being very subtle but still planting the smallest seed of suspicion. This really hit my mystery, psychological thriller, dark gore sweet spot. At the same time, in so many ways it is also a very human, very sad story. You will feel a ton of empathy for many characters and how the vagaries of fate and chance conspire to steal their dreams without completely killing them. Chen Xi and Fang Mu's story broke my heart - even though I was on to them from the second episode, I never wanted more badly to be wrong.

While there are some flaws and maybe some holes, this is an excellent watch - I rate it 8.5. It is very under appreciated but dark and complex.

If you are going to watch it on iQiyi be warned that the last two episodes are incomplete. Episode 23 seems edited to end the show with some of the most important threads left open. And Episode 24 is missing. iQiyi has ignored my many messages to complete the season so like me, you will have to watch the last two episodes somewhere else (Dramacool).