The Path of Malevolism

❤️ Main Relationship

Shen Yexi (沈夜熙) × Jiang Hu (姜湖)

✨ Introduction

坏道 is one of priest's earliest novels: a modern criminal-investigation danmei serialized on Jinjiang Literature City (晋江文学城), completed, HE; the author's published-works list includes a print edition. Genre: police procedural built from unit cases, with criminal psychology at its core.

Jiang Hu, a criminal-psychology consultant with black-rimmed glasses and an unhurried drawl, joins the major-case squad of a first-tier city's police headquarters. His Chinese apparently covers only everyday modern speech and his own professional jargon — classical idioms and slang go straight over his head, which becomes a running squadroom joke. His new boss, Captain Shen Yexi, is a man of overwhelming presence, fierce righteousness, and a jealousy problem that observes no boundaries of time, place or professional propriety — he gets sour even over the things Jiang Hu says to criminals while out-psychologizing them.

The squad — sharp-tongued An Yining (安怡宁), easygoing Sheng Yao (盛遥), steady Su Junzi (苏君子), "police ruffian in a beauty's skin" Yang Man (杨曼), a droll veteran coroner, and the dreaded Dr. Huang (黄芪) — works through a string of ugly cases: a copycat of the "Amber Killer" Wu Ju (吴琚), who once sewed his victims up and kept them in formaldehyde tanks; a child-murder case involving an ice-cream truck; bus bombings traced to Zheng Yujie (郑玉洁), a divided, almost gentle woman who sent flowers to the man she bombed; and a threatening-letter case coiled around a film script. Between the gore and the psychology runs a classic adult romance: no grand confessions, no manufactured misunderstandings — just instinctive protection at life-and-death moments and a cup of hot tea in the small hours.

🌏 Background

Police headquarters, autopsy rooms and crime scenes in a modern metropolis; a case-of-the-week structure where each file is a study in how a person becomes a monster — childhood abuse, Stockholm syndrome, dissociation, revenge. The question under every case: "Where some do evil, there are others who do good" — which one wins, and why.

🔖 Description

This is a detective story filled with all kinds of people—from those with abnormal behavior to the mentally unstable—with numerous absurd cases with handsome men and beautiful women interwoven in them.

A series of missing children, corpses down the drain, a murderer who died and was revived, an obsessive serial bomber who targets public buses, the bloody words on the walls belonging to a family all murdered…….

🎭 Themes & Tone

Human nature between Mencius and Xunzi: is it born good or bad?
The making of monsters — trauma turned outward
Adult love: protection without speeches, jealousy without reason
The right of the dead to be remembered, and of the living to keep a clear conscience
Faith and hope as the difference between living and merely breathing Tone: gritty unit-case procedural lifted by constant squadroom banter; grim cases, warm people, unhurried mature romance; HE.

👥 Main Characters

Shen Yexi (沈夜熙) — captain of the major-case squad; commanding, hot-blooded, almost unreasonably jealous; the shield that stands between his doctor and every knife.
Jiang Hu (姜湖) — the squad's criminal-psychology doctor; soft-spoken, slow-drawling, quietly mischievous; reads minds for a living and needs someone to remind him not to live inside them.
Supporting cast — An Yining (安怡宁), Sheng Yao (盛遥), Su Junzi (苏君子) and Yang Man (杨曼) of the squad; the veteran coroner and Dr. Huang Qi (黄芪); An Jie (安捷), Jiang Hu's friend and elder, whose visits reliably sour the captain's mood.

✨ Iconic Quote

Narration: "Where some do evil, there are others who do good."
Shen Yexi: "He spent his whole life trying to mend his broken world."
Jiang Hu: "Thank you — but if Mount Tai collapsed right in front of me and my expression didn't change, it would probably be because I had fainted."
Jiang Hu: "People cannot decide whether they are lucky or unlucky. They can only be their best in the worst of circumstances."
Narration: "'Unless you stop wanting me, or I die.' Even in the daily grind of rice, salt and squabbling, there was still one person holding such foolish, life-and-death devotion."
Narration: "Many, many years from now, I will remember the moonlight outside that window, and remember you, who broke into my black world — like the world's most fearless knight, my dear, tearing open the night and walking ahead of the light."

🎬 Adaptations

Audio Drama: an early author-authorized fan radio drama by Chunse Jinghong Drama Society (春色惊鸿广播剧社): Episode 1 "天使之翼" (Wings of Angels; trailer 2011-08-28, full episode 2012-11-01), Episode 2 "琥珀" (Amber, 2013-04-17), Episode 3 "最后的绅士" (The Last Gentleman, 2014-02-21), Episode 4 "黑岚" (2015-05-02).

🔥 Why It’s Popular

One of the founding texts of Chinese crime danmei — the direct ancestor of priest's later landmark 默读 (Silent Reading).
Its unit cases are remembered for their psychological portraits: killers who are tragic without ever being excused.
The squad ensemble is beloved — a jealous captain, a deadpan doctor, and a bullpen full of gossips.
Audience fit: readers who like criminal-psychology procedurals and mature, low-drama romance.

📚 Reader Notes

Beginner-friendly: ★★★★☆

Angst level: ★★☆☆☆

Plot complexity: Medium

Romance visibility: Medium

Mystery focus: High Recommended for readers who enjoy criminal-psychology police procedurals and slow-burn adult romance.

✍️ Author

priest Jinjiang Literature City's "supreme-tier" grandmaster; 坏道 is her early-career crime novel, already carrying the trademarks — rigorous case logic, gallows humor, and compassion for the damaged — that later defined 默读 (Silent Reading) and 镇魂 (Guardian).

🔗 Useful Links (Official)

晋江文学城《坏道》

🌌 Similar IPs

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