Li Yan–Yifu relationship

The Li Yan–Yifu relationship joins family affection to an education in how to think. Yifu’s mentorship remains present in Li’s work and in his memories of their shared home, while the expectations attached to his uncle’s reputation complicate Li’s own achievements. After Yifu’s death, that bond continues through Li’s care for Xinxin and the stories he tells her about the man whose room she now occupies.

Identity and Shared Home

Li lived with his uncle Yifu for more than ten years in an apartment in the Ministry compound. Yifu’s room became Xinxin’s, but his smiling photograph remained on the wall. The domestic setting makes the relationship part of Li’s everyday life: his recollections of Yifu are attached not only to instruction and work, but also to a home that has passed from one generation of the family to the next.

Mentorship and Method

Yifu taught Li to think laterally, often testing him through playful mischief while passing on a lifetime of experience. His central lesson was to look closely at details, because they could hold the truth. That method outlasts the lessons themselves: as Li faces investigations, he imagines Yifu’s advice guiding him to attend to evidence rather than dwell on what might have been. The relationship thus becomes an inheritance of practical judgment, not simply a source of comfort.

Grief and the Weight of Comparison

Li continues to ache over the circumstances of Yifu’s death, and memories of it disturb his sleep. His uncle’s influence also complicates Li’s standing within the police. Some people attribute Li’s successes to Yifu’s connections, while senior officers who worked with Yifu suggest that Li’s uncle set a standard too large for him to match. Li therefore carries both the benefit of Yifu’s teaching and the burden of being measured against his reputation; even failure can call up Yifu as an example Li is expected to follow.

Continuity through Xinxin

After Yifu’s room becomes Xinxin’s, she asks Li to tell her stories about the old man in the photograph. Li always makes time for her. In doing so, he keeps Yifu present in the family through recollection and gives Xinxin access to a relative she knows through his stories. The bond survives as both a private source of grief for Li and a shared family memory he actively passes on.