Yifu

Yifu is Li Yan’s deceased uncle and formative mentor, whose lessons in lateral thinking and careful observation continue to guide Li’s work as a police officer. His legacy is both a source of instruction and a weight: Li misses him, but also feels measured against the example he left behind.

Identity and Background

Yifu was the uncle with whom Li lived for more than ten years in a police apartment block on Zhengyi Road, within the Ministry compound. Li remembers him as a mischievous teacher who tried to unsettle easy assumptions and trained his nephew to think laterally. For Yifu, details were not incidental: they could conceal the truth as readily as they revealed it.

Influence on Li’s Work

Yifu’s lessons recur in Li’s thinking during investigations. Li recalls his uncle urging him not to dwell on what might have happened and to look closely at the details; he also remembers Yifu’s sayings about patience and effort. The advice has become part of Li’s working habits, as well as a voice he imagines beside him when a case presses forward.

That inheritance is recognized by Dr Lan. When Li points out that determining the bodies’ time of death may be impossible, Dr Lan teases him for echoing his uncle’s tendency to state the obvious. Li replies that Yifu considered the obvious precisely what people most often overlooked, and credits that principle as one reason he was such a good police officer. Dr Lan confirms that he knew Yifu and observes that Li has inherited more than his pedantry.

Family Memory and Absence

A photograph of Yifu, with curly black hair streaked with silver, hangs in the room where he once lived. The room now belongs to Xinxin, who asks Li to tell her stories about the man in the picture. Li always makes time to do so, keeping Yifu present in the child’s life through memory and family storytelling.

For Li, that continuity does not soften the loss. He still aches over the circumstances of Yifu’s death and sometimes wakes with the memory intruding on his sleep. The familiar room, now occupied by Xinxin, joins the uncle’s remembered presence to Li’s responsibilities in the present.

Legacy and Narrative Role

Yifu’s influence is also a source of pressure. Li feels that his failures invite comparison with his uncle, while his successes are attributed to Yifu’s influence or connections. Senior officers who worked with Yifu make clear that they consider his example difficult for Li to match. Admiration and resentment thus gather around the same inheritance: Yifu’s reputation guides Li, but also leaves him feeling that he must walk in footsteps too large for him.

Although absent from the present action, Yifu remains a recurring standard by which Li interprets both police work and himself. His attention to overlooked details links personal remembrance to the practical demands of investigation, while the stories Li tells Xinxin show that his legacy extends beyond professional technique into family life.