Chapter 1

A piece of goat meat at a celebration dinner exposed the secret I had kept for seven years.

Our captain enthusiastically spooned some into my bowl.

“Try it! It’s Old Trần’s famous specialty!”

The instant it entered my mouth—

I felt the final terror of three women before their bodies were dismembered.

And the restaurant owner smiled at me.

“How does it taste, Dr. Trần?”

My name is Trần Mặc. I’m a forensic pathologist with the city police.

My tongue can taste memories.

It began after my mother died.

While sorting through her belongings, I reached out, as though compelled, and touched a few gray hairs caught in her comb.

In that instant, the heavy smell of disinfectant, a weariness that never lifted, and a profound loneliness I had never seen on her face flooded over me. Beneath them throbbed the dull pain of terminal cancer. My vision darkened.

Yet clearer than the pain was her last thought—

“If only I could make Mặc Mặc one more bowl of soup. Such a shame I don’t have the strength.”

I collapsed on the floor and cried like an abandoned dog.

Then I understood.

This ability wasn’t a gift.

It was punishment for everything I had failed to do in time.

During my mother’s final days, I had been busy contacting famous doctors and hunting down folk remedies.

I had forgotten to sit down and truly taste the soup she no longer had the strength to make.

Forgotten to listen to the words she no longer had the breath to finish.

I drew back my hand.

From then on, I always wore two pairs of gloves.

I kept the secret for seven years.

Until that night, the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, when the pot of goat meat arrived.

Steam filled the private dining room at Old Trần’s Clay Pot Restaurant.

A commendation banner bearing the words “Swift Justice” glowed blood-red.

We had just solved a burglary, and the whole team was celebrating.

Captain Triệu Chấn Quốc, flushed with drink, slapped my shoulder.

“All thanks to Dr. Trần! At the crucial moment, that moss-spore sample he collected gave us the key lead. Cornered the criminal right in that abandoned building!”

Everyone laughed and clinked glasses.

Only I knew the truth.

Three days earlier, at the scene, my lips had accidentally brushed the moss on a railing.

Instantly, I had “tasted” the burglar’s sweat, his cheap cigarettes, and the cloying saltiness of the sausage he had eaten before climbing over.

I had run downstairs to dry-heave.

Then claimed I was afraid of heights.

Because I knew that if my ability came to light, what awaited me wouldn’t be a commendation.

It would be a dissection table in a research institute.

“Here comes the house-special goat meat!”

A copper pot arrived, red oil bubbling on its surface.

Before anyone could pick up their chopsticks, Captain Triệu ladled a generous helping into my bowl.

“Try it! Best thing in the house!”

The meat had been stewed until tender.

Then…

Another “flavor” forced its way into my mind.

Thick.

Cold.

Carrying the rusty tang of blood and a pungent, gamey smell.

I sensed a large hand, wounded in the web of the thumb, holding a knife to a throat…

Skin split.

Blood spurted.

The dull crack of bone and the killer’s soft whistling pierced my ears.

Finally, a limp ankle appeared in my vision—

A faded red cord tied around it.

A tiny silver bell caked with mud.

There was more than one person.

I sensed at least three distinct kinds of despair.

Beneath them, I tasted something sharper still.

A dazzling, fierce refusal to let go.

Just like…

Just like my mother’s last thought about that bowl of soup.

I turned away, coughing violently.

Cold sweat instantly soaked my back.

The piece of goat meat dropped into my bowl.

“Trần Mặc?”

Detective Lâm Hiểu was the first to notice. She quickly patted my back.

“I’m fine. Just ate too fast.”

I grabbed my cold beer and gulped it down, struggling to suppress the spasms in my throat and the pain churning in my chest.

Captain Triệu laughed tipsily, his breath thick with alcohol.

“Good, isn’t it?”

I clenched my fist, using the pain to force myself calm.

“Certainly distinctive. May I ask where it comes from?”

“Of course. Oh… where’s Old Trần?”

The owner, Trần Kiến Quốc, was quickly summoned.

He was thin, in a faded apron, with a friendly smile permanently on his face.

But my attention stopped at the scabbed wound in the web of his thumb.

It matched the knife-wielding hand in the memory exactly.

“Is the goat meat local?”

“Pasture-raised goat from Gansu. Direct supply. Fresh every day.”

He answered easily.

“If you officers are worried, there’s half a carcass in the freezer behind the kitchen. Shall I bring it out?”

“No need. What happened to your hand?”

“Nicked it chopping goat bones. Only a little cut.”

After a few simple questions, everyone returned to eating and drinking.

Before leaving, he glanced at me.

His welcoming smile faded.

Only a stillness as deep as a dark pool remained, with a barely perceptible flicker of scrutiny.

He wasn’t looking at a customer.

He was assessing how dangerous an object might be.

Lâm Hiểu drove me home.

“You weren’t telling the truth.”

She kept her eyes on the road.

“You weren’t choking. When you put your chopsticks down, your pupils contracted slightly. That happens with extreme terror or extreme nausea.”

I said nothing.

Only the engine filled the car.

“And it isn’t just today.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Her voice was clear in the enclosed space.

“Trần Mặc, whenever you examine a scene, you always leave food-related evidence until last.”

“In the canteen, you order the same few dishes. You avoid all soups and stews.”

“And at that victim’s home last time, you stared at a jar of sweets for a full minute.”

Her words were a scalpel, precisely slicing open my armor.

And my silence…

Perhaps, to her, it was already an admission.

After a long time, I spoke.

“What are you trying to investigate?”

“That pot of goat meat… reminded me of a rumor from an old case. Unscrupulous food processors mixing meat of unknown origin into their products.”

I paused.

“And a few personal things.”

“An answer I’ve never really been able to accept.”

Lâm Hiểu lowered her voice.

“A university student called Lý Vũ Đồng disappeared from the shopping district in the west of the city.”

“Old Trần’s was investigated too.”

“Her mother said she always wore a red cord with a silver bell around her ankle.”

“But that detail doesn’t appear in any of the public surveillance footage.”

My fingertips turned cold.

Red cord.

Silver bell.

The ankle dragged through that memory…

Suddenly, it was terrifyingly clear.

The next morning, in the records room, I opened Lý Vũ Đồng’s file.

Twenty-two. Third-year university student. At 8:46 p.m. on the night she disappeared, she entered the shopping district. She never appeared on any exit camera.

I played the footage from inside Old Trần’s.

[21:20:12. As she stands, her right foot pauses for less than a second, as though something has tugged it.]

[21:20:15. She walks toward the till. Her left hand brushes the outside of her right thigh. The movement takes less than half a second.]

She wasn’t adjusting her trousers.

It was an instinctive touch, checking that something was still there, the way we unconsciously pat a pocket for our phone.

If the red cord and bell had gone missing, she would have looked down to search.

But she only touched it.

A chill ran down my spine.

“Found something?”

Lâm Hiểu stood behind me.

“This footage may have been replaced. Someone overwrote the original file with a similar time segment from another day.”

“What do you need?”

“Two things. First, seize all the surveillance storage devices for a full data recovery.”

“And?”

I lowered my voice.

“A legitimate reason to enter the kitchen.”

At ten thirty that morning, I returned to Old Trần’s with a food-safety inspection notice.

The kitchen was spacious.

Three large freezers lined the wall. A preparation table and stove stood in the middle. The clay pot was still warm.

Beneath the heavy spices in the air lingered a faint, oppressive smell of blood.

I recalled what I had “tasted.”

A boning knife hung on the east wall, its handle pointing left.

I looked over.

The third boning knife on that wall had its handle pointing right.

The opposite of the memory.

“Do you use this knife often?”

“Often.”

I took it down.

The blade was well maintained, but near the handle, the spine had a few tiny, irregular chips.

They didn’t look like marks from chopping livestock bones.

More like it had struck something harder and uneven.

“Human bone is much harder than goat bone, you know.”

I let the remark fall with a faint smile.

The kitchen froze.

His smile vanished. His eyes turned icy.

“Dr. Trần… what do you mean by that?”

“Oh, just thinking aloud. I often see blade marks on bone during autopsies. Rather like the wear on this knife.”

He didn’t answer.

I continued collecting samples, then pointed at the clay pot.

“A sample of the stock.”

“This stock… has been simmering for more than ten years. Taking a sample could spoil the flavor.”

“Required procedure.”

I picked up the long-handled ladle and stirred the thick, cloudy-white broth. A few dark, fibrous scraps rose to the surface.

Just as I was about to scoop some up, he seized my wrist.

Hard.

“Dr. Trần.”

“You really mustn’t touch this stock. It’s a family secret. Disturb it, and the flavor is ruined.”

I looked him in the eye.

There was no deference left.

Only a cold warning.

And an excitement I couldn’t put into words.

Like a beast catching the scent of its own kind.

“Let go.”

He didn’t move.

Losing patience, I twisted free.

The ladle tilted with the movement, splashing hot stock onto the back of his hand.

He recoiled in pain.

I immediately poured the stock into a sample jar and screwed the lid tight.

“Sampling complete. We’ll notify you when the test results are available.”

He cradled his hand and stared coldly at me.

“Dr. Trần.”

Suddenly, he smiled and lowered his voice.

“That tongue of yours… isn’t it a little too sensitive?”

I went rigid.

My heart seemed to miss a beat.

Did he know?