Near the river, a pair of photographers are trying to get a good shot of the local birds
when they accidentally discover the body of a woman.
Meanwhile, top forensic pathologist Kang is finishing teaching another class at the police
academy.
This is his last semester as a professor because he'll soon be retiring to spend more time
with his daughter, who is living in the USA.
She was supposed to be visiting today, but her trip got delayed.
After class is over, Kang is called by the police to look at the body found near the
river.
There, he's surprised to find Detective Min, who used to be his student.
Min isn't taken seriously by her peers for being a woman, and she's often relegated to
minor tasks.
At least this time, she finds something useful to get her started: mysterious footprints
that she takes pictures of.
Kang takes a look at the body and finds that it has been dismembered; however the murderer
left all the parts behind together except for an arm.
Later at the police station, they look over the little information they have: the victim
is Eun-Ah, a 29-year-old that had been reported missing.
Kang asks for theories and Min thinks the murderer wanted them to find and identify
the body.
Detective Yun berates her as usual, thinking this was just some crazy guy with a grudge,
but Kang agrees with her and asks her to stay for the autopsy.
Kang is cold and methodical with his work, but Min can't stand the sight for long and
leaves the room to throw up.
Later, Kang gives the cop a summary of the preliminary autopsy.
Eun-Ah died from a fractured skull caused by a long, hard object.
Soil containing granite was found and her nostrils and mouth, marking the place where
she died.
There were also signs of salt that indicate she was dismembered by the sea, so the body
was moved between the killing and the cutting.
Yet the parts were thrown in the river, which adds a third location to the list.
Min remembers there's a construction company working on the Coastal Reclamation Project,
and their factories are on the seafront; meanwhile, Yun has found out Eun-Ah used to have a boyfriend;
and the cops are divided into teams to follow these two leads.
Yun goes around the city asking if anyone has seen the boyfriend and has to arrest multiple
gamblers until he comes across Byung-Do playing the horses.
He's taken to the station for interrogation, but Byung-Do swears he hasn't seen Eun-Ah
in a month and the night of the crime he had been gambling.
In the meantime, Min interviews a few factory managers, who swear they're working 24/7 to
keep up with order, especially because they keep being harassed by environmental protesters,
so it's impossible for a murder to happen there without them seeing it.
However, the workers still end up finding the missing arm in the soil.
Later in the evening, Min visits Kang at his home to discuss the case, and she's told to
open the door with a piece of rope he left there because the electronic lock is broken.
After petting Kang's friendly dog, she presents the crime pictures to Kang, who reaches the
conclusion the killer is trying to tell them something and that the three locations should
have something in common.
Afterward, Min stays up late investigating the locations.
The next day, she has an extensive report to present that Yun tries to dismiss, but
Chief Oh gives her a chance.
The environmental group "I love Venus" has been trying to stop the construction company
from destroying the sea and river life.
The leader Sung-Ho wrote a book comparing the local river to the famous statue of Venus
and the way the government is destroying the river coasts to the way Venus had been severed
in the past.
This damage matches the state of Eun-Ah's body, and the three locations had all been
under construction by the same company.
The day of the crime, there was a confrontation between the workers and the protesters, so
operations were stopped for twenty minutes, leaving enough time for the killer to strike.
The leader has a disability that causes him to walk with a cane, which matches the twisted
footprint and the little hole in the mud too.
Min's research is taken seriously and she's sent together with Yun to arrest the leader
Lee Sung-Ho, who surrenders himself easily, claiming to have to pay for what he did.
Later at the station, Yun can't get Sung-Ho to talk about anything other than the importance
of the species living in the river, so Min takes over the investigation.
She knows Sung-Ho's family was one of the many that lost their ships when construction
started, which means they also lost their livelihood and had to leave their homes.
Shortly after this, Sung-Ho's father Mr. Lee died and his sister Soo-Jin ended things for
herself.
Min also reveals she sprayed water outside to take a new footprint from Sung-Ho, which
matches the one from the scene of the crime.
Seeing this evidence, Sung-Ho admits to being the killer.
Meanwhile, Kang is at the airport waiting for his daughter, but she never arrives.
A stranger approaches him to give him an envelope sent by Sung-Ho, and inside he finds pictures
of his daughter Hye-Won tied up.
The stranger is already gone so Kang can't ask him anything, and at that moment, Min
calls him to tell him the killer was Sung-Ho, the same person that sent the envelope.
Kang hurries towards the station while he calls a friend at customs, who confirms Hye-Won
did arrive the other day as planned and the delay had been a lie from the kidnappers.
Back in the station, Yun is asking Sung-Ho for the details, but he doesn't say anything
and only looks at the clock as if waiting for something.
Kang arrives then and asks for a moment with Sung-Ho, who isn't surprised to see him.
His deal is simple: Kang must prove him innocent in three days or his daughter will die.
Desperate to help Hye-Won, Kang rushes to the lab to see what evidence has been found
so far.
The analyst shows him the blood-covered saw they've found, but the DNA test hasn't been
done yet.
Kang takes a scalpel on his way out and goes home to use it on his dog, he also requests
a psychiatric evaluation of the suspect to delay the investigation.
Afterward, Kang calls the analyst and asks him to wait for him at the office.
With him out of the lab, Kang sneaks inside, washes the saw, and covers it with the dog's
blood instead.
Min also comes to the lab to pick up the test results and finds the analyst in the office.
Then Kang shows up and tells the analyst to finish his work before having a chat with
Min, saying Sung-Ho's limited mobility couldn't have allowed him to kill a person and the
evidence is circumstantial, so they should wait for the report before requesting a warrant.
Next, Kang asks for a favor from a cop friend and gets to visit Sung-Ho in prison, wanting
proof that his daughter's alive.
Sung-Ho takes Kang's phone and makes a call, angering Kang when he discovers Sung-Ho is
only pretending to talk to someone.
Kang begins beating Sung-Ho up, only to be interrupted by his phone ringing: it's Hye-Won,
who asks her father for help before the call is cut off.
Then, Kang asks Sung-Ho to tell him where the murder weapon is, but he refuses and asks
Kang to think about why he killed the girl instead.
The next move's to break into Eun-Ah's home.
Kang finds a business card and makes a call to meet Ah Ri, a friend of the victim's.
She doesn't recognize Sung-Ho and explains there weren't men in Eun-Ah's life, except
for Byung-Do, who was just a harasser and not an actual boyfriend.
The next morning, the analyst gives Min the test results and they're shocked to see the
blood on the saw belonged to a dog.
Later at the station, Chief Oh is furious by this development, so he demands the team
to find the murder weapon asap.
However, Min is being shamed for her failure and asked to stay behind with the paperwork.
Meanwhile, Kang is trying to find Byung-Do.
When Min calls him to ask for the autopsy report, he pretends he stayed at home because
he was sick.
While talking to her, Kang sees Byung-Do on the street and gets ready to catch him, but
then Min mentions the cops are looking for the murder weapon and Kang decides to take
care of that first.
Driving like a maniac, Kang manages to arrive at Sung-Ho's house first and finds a picture
of him with Park, the stranger from the airport.
At that moment, the police arrive, so Kang runs to hide, accidentally dropping the scalpel
on the way.
The cops pick up the scalpel and find a crowbar with blood outside, taking it as the murder
weapon.
In the meantime, Min goes to Kang's house to check on him.
Since he won't answer the bell, she gets inside by pulling the rope and finds the dog, who
has a bandage around its blood-covered leg.
Min takes the dog to the vet, who tells her the wound is a cut from a particularly sharp
knife, perhaps a scalpel.
The location of the wound indicates it's been made on purpose.
Back to Kang, he goes to the local police station to send the picture to a police friend,
but a cop there recognizes the boys and gives him the information he needs: Park was an
orphan that Mr. Lee took in; he and Sung-Ho grew up as brothers.
Park and Sung-Ho's sister Soo-Jin had been dating, but after she died, they moved out
of town.
Kang goes to the Lees' abandoned childhood house by the river and while most of it is
empty, breaking into a locked room comes with a shocking discovery.
The walls are covered with pictures of Eun-Ah and Hye-Won, there also are old news articles
about a student that had been attacked by three boys from wealthy families, but these
boys were declared innocent.
At that moment, Park arrives at the house and sees Kang, causing him to run away.
Kang goes after him and gets hit by a car in the process, so by the time he reaches
Park, he's too weak to fight.
Park beats him up and reminds him to play by the rules before knocking him out.
When he wakes up, Kang returns to the station, remembering the night his daughter got sick,
and punches the mirror in anger.
Later, Min is asked to take the scalpel to the lab, and she remembers what the vet said.
She asks the analyst if the lab was ever empty, and he points out the night Kang had asked
him to come to the office.
Then, Min searches the office, finding the broken mirror and the picture of Sung-Ho with
Park.
In the meantime, Kang visits Sung-Ho and confesses he's finally remembered who he is.
The abused girl from the newspaper articles was Sung-Ho's sister Soo-Jin, and Kang's testimony
about the autopsy report had helped the criminals get free.
He explains he only did his job back then and that now the cops have the murder weapon,
so Kang can't do anything to help Sung-Ho anymore.
However, Sung-Ho still refuses to break the deal and tells him to find a way.
Meanwhile, the detectives discover that the crowbar isn't the actual murder weapon because
the blood on it doesn't match Eun-Ah's and the thickness doesn't match the wound either.
After the Sung-Ho visit is over, Kang bumps into Min, who tries to arrest him for tampering
with evidence.
Kang explains his daughter is in trouble but leaves without giving Min any more information.
Min decides to research Kang and discovers his involvement in Soo-Jin's case; not only
Kang had been in charge of the autopsy, Eun-Ah had been one of the witnesses.
Min tries to talk to Sung-Ho about it, but he only tells her not to trust Kang before
giving her his cane, claiming it's the real murder weapon.
In the meantime, Kang finds Byung-Do again and calls Ah Ri to help him with a plan.
Ah Ri approaches Byung-Do to have a drink with him at a bar and then takes him to a
hotel room, where they spend a few hours together.
Kang retrieves the glass Byung-Do used and Ah Ri brings him Byung-Do's seed before accepting
her pay, although she did this because she wants revenge for Eun-Ah.
Suddenly, Kang is approached by Min, who received a call from Park to tell her about Kang's
whereabouts.
However, Park shows up as well and knocks Min out to give Kang time to finish his plan.
While Min is taken to a hospital, Kang returns to the lab to finally do the autopsy report.
He plants Byung-Do's fingerprint and seed inside the body, thus his final report makes
him look like the killer.
While working, he remembers the trial of Soo-Jin's case, where Eun-Ah had testified that she
saw Soo-Jin with the boys and she had looked like she was having fun.
Such testimony made Mr. Lee cry out in the middle of the trial because they were sullying
his daughter's name.
Then Kang testified that there hadn't been any torn tissue found in the body, so there
wasn't any proof of violence or force.
These two testimonies made the judge decide that the three boys were innocent.
By the time the detectives try to prosecute Sung-Ho, he's following Kang's plan and has
gotten himself a lawyer that explains his confession had been done under duress and
he's now taking it back.
The cane matched the shape of the wound but it didn't have blood on it, and the footprints
can be explained by the fact Sung-Ho lives in the area, so they can't be used as proof
either.
Then the autopsy report arrives, and the detectives have no choice but to let Sung-Ho go and arrest
Byung-Do instead.
When Sung-Ho leaves the station, Park picks him up and Kang follows them to their house.
At the hospital, a friend of Min's brings her some information.
In Soo-Jin's case, two different autopsy reports had been used, and one of them did include
tissue damage, which means Kang gave false testimony.
It wouldn't be surprising if the boys' wealthy parents paid the witnesses off because the
whole case had been a mess.
Speaking of the boys, they're all dead now, and by adding Eun-Ah to the list, Min suspects
Kang is next.
She leaves the hospital to look for Kang and asks her coworkers to dispatch a unit to Sung-Ho's
house.
However, when she looks at the picture again while waiting at the stop lights, she remembers
the abandoned childhood home by the river and decides to go there instead.
At Sung-Ho's house, Kang shows up to apologize for Soo-Jin and demands to know where his
daughter is.
Sung-Ho doesn't buy the apology and hits him for sullying his sister's name, causing Kang
to remember what else happened that day.
Hye-Won had been sick with a rare illness that required her to go to the USA for treatment.
In order to pay for it, Kang accepted the bribe from the boys' parents to change his
testimony.
Mr. Lee had approached Kang to ask for mercy, but Kang ignored him while a young Sung-Ho
watched from afar.
Back to the present, Kang asks Sung-Ho to kill him instead of his daughter as Sung-Ho
explains how much hatred he grew up with because everyone in town thought his sister was a
tart, so it's too late for Kang to ask for mercy for his daughter.
Furious, Kang jumps on Sung-Ho and beats him up until he confesses the location of Hye-Won.
Kang drives out at a high speed, almost crashing against the detective unit on his way.
Min arrives at the river house and is found by Park, who tries to kill her, so Min must
shoot him in self-defense.
She also finds the disturbing revenge Sung-Ho has prepared for Kang.
When the professor arrives at the river house, Min tries to warn him not to go inside, but
he doesn't listen and searches the rooms for his daughter.
Hye-Won is found lying down on a pile of rose petals, but when Kang tries to pick her up,
she discovers her body is missing and only her head and limbs are there.
It turns out she's been dead all along, and the messages he's heard had been recorded
before she got killed.
The reason why her body isn't there is that it had been used to replace Eun-Ah's, thus
Kang's autopsy and evidence tampering had been done on his own daughter.
While Kang suffers in despair, Sung-Ho shows up to tell him now he knows the pain he's
gone through.
Furious, Kang steals Min's gun and shoots Sung-ho, claiming that's what he wanted.
However, Kang can't forgive himself now, so he uses the gun again, this time on himself.