The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty 成化十四年 stars Guan Hong (New Meteor Garden) as local officer Tang Fan, who must work together with secret police agent Sui Zhou (Fu Mengbo) to solve a series of murder cases that are all connected within a bigger conspiracy. Liu Yaoyuan costars as Wang Zhi, leader of the Eastern Depot.
The 40 episode web drama is based on Meng Xishi’s novel of the same name, supervised by Jackie Chan and directed by Guo Shuang (Love Actually).
The original novel isn’t exactly short. Probably will check it out to see whether it will work as a
“socialist brotherly love/brotherhood” (社會主義兄弟情) drama, without the socialism and probably not much brotherly love. More emphasis on whether the cases are interesting and logical enough to stand on their own.
Found a Chinese article which lists a bit more about the director, set/costume/makeup/artistic designers, and action/fight scene coordinators. Nothing about who wrote the script. This automatically drops my expectation to the lowest level.