Breaking the Clouds

Breaking the Clouds is a long-form crime and mystery novel by Huai Shang. It was first serialized on Jinjiang Literature City starting in 2017, and in June 2019 Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House released the simplified Chinese print edition. The novel runs to about 317,000 characters and this is the first of three volumes. The story begins with an unsolved old case. Three years earlier, a drug bust in Gongzhou spiraled out of control after commander Jiang Ting made a misjudgment; a series of explosions tore through the scene and the anti-drug unit suffered devastating losses. Jiang Ting himself fell into a vegetative state and was presumed dead, his remains never found. Three years later, he miraculously wakes from his sickbed. The people he once stood beside are gone, the truth is still buried under layer upon layer of concealment, and from a position of almost nothing he must return to the world of the living and dig out, inch by inch, the full story of that explosion—to clear the names of the dead and to find answers for himself. In the course of the investigation, Jiang Ting crosses paths with Yan Xie, deputy head of the criminal investigation unit in Jianning. One is calm and meticulous, in the habit of pressing every emotion into his reasoning; the other is blunt and forceful, a man of action through and through. From testing each other and mutual wariness they move to working cases side by side and covering each other's back, drawing ever closer to the net hidden in the shadows through a string of cases involving a frozen corpse, a kidnapping, and poisoning. The novel drives forward on its cases, weaving crime-scene investigation and physical evidence analysis together with the contest of human minds, while also painting a group portrait of the police force and the faith of those who hold the line. This volume is the first in the Breaking the Clouds series and includes the opening arc, the Case of the 502 Poisoned Frozen Corpse, making it the starting point of the whole story.