U.S. energy giant Connex Oil is losing control of key oil fields in a Persian Gulf kingdom ruled by the Al-Subaai family. The Emirate 's foreign minister, Prince Nasir, has granted natural gas drilling rights to a Chinese company, greatly upsetting the U.S. oil industry and the U.S. government. To compensate for its decreased production capacity, Connex initiates a shady merger with Killen, a smaller oil company that recently won the drilling rights to Kazakhstan 's Tengiz Field. If Connex-Killen were a country, it would rank as the world's twenty-third largest economy, and antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice (DOJ) have concerns. Whiting-Sloan, a Washington, D.C.–based law firm headed by Dean Whiting, is hired to smooth the way for the merger. Bennett Holiday, an associate of that firm, is assigned to promote the impression of due diligence to the DOJ, deflecting any allegations of corruption.

Mike Weiss, a young Houston lawyer and drug addict, and Paul Danziger, his longtime friend and straitlaced law partner, are the personal injury lawyers behind the law firm Danziger & Weiss. They decide to take on a case involving Vicky Rogers, a local ER nurse, who was pricked by a contaminated needle on the job and contracted HIV. Vicky shows Mike and Paul a safety needle, invented by her family friend, Jeffrey Dancort, which defends against accidental needlesticks by only being used once, and she urges them to help bring the product to hospitals. Vicky later dies from her illness. Mike digs deeper into the case, and discovers no one is willing to buy the needle because of a healthcare/pharmaceutical conspiracy and bribery racket. With the threat of exposure, heavyweight attorneys move in on the defense led by attorney Nathaniel Price. Out of their league and out of money, the mounting pressure of the case pushes the two underdog lawyers and their business to the breaking point. In the meantime, Mike is struggling with his heavy drug usage and his loneliness. He seeks sex therapy as a source of comfort and is consistently in the company of prostitutes. His personal struggles hinder the realization of his professional ambitions, as he misses many of the meetings and investment events, driving a wedge between him and Paul. Mike, Paul, and Dancort gain the support of Senator O'Reilly, not before she gives Mike an ultimatum: get clean. Mike's heavy withdrawal leaves him hospitalized, only adding to the financial burdens of the firm. The momentum of the case seems to come to a standstill: Senator O'Reilly pulls out after United Medical Health Supplies lobbies for her re-election campaign and Paul, with a new baby at home, is not interested in pursuing the case over his family. They meet with Nathaniel Price, and he offers a settlement, the tipping point for the conflict between Mike and Paul. Their conflict comes to a head as Mike argues to take the case to trial and seek justice, while Paul protests there is no feasible way they can continue all the way financially. Mike meets a former employee of Thompson Needle Manufacturers and a friend of Vicky's, who implores him to continue the case on behalf of the lives affected by used needles, which spread AIDS and hepatitis worldwide. Mike meets with Nathaniel Price and pledges he will personally find new clients and hospital employees affected by these unsafe needles across the country. However, the next day, Paul finds Mike dead from an overdose. At the settlement conference, Paul walks in with famous personal injury attorney Mark Lanier, declining the settlement and proclaiming that they will see them in court. The movie's postscript tells the audience that in 2004, Attorney Lanier settled a lawsuit against one of the nation's largest medical supply manufacturers for over $150 million. "As a result, thousands of hospitals throughout the United States now use safety needles."

Valerie Plame is employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, a fact known outside the agency to no one except her husband and parents. She is an intelligence officer involved in a number of sensitive and sometimes dangerous covert operations overseas. Her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, is a diplomat who most recently has served as the U.S. ambassador to Gabon. Due to his earlier diplomatic background in Niger, Wilson is approached by Plame's CIA colleagues to travel there and glean information as to whether yellowcake uranium is being procured by Iraq for use in the construction of nuclear weapons. Wilson determines to his own satisfaction that it is not. After military action is taken by George W. Bush, who justifies it in a 2003 State of the Union address by alluding to the uranium's use in building weapons of mass destruction, Wilson submits an op-ed piece to The New York Times, claiming these reports to be categorically untrue. Plame's status as a CIA operative is subsequently revealed in the media, the leak possibly coming from White House officials, including the vice president's chief of staff and national security adviser, Scooter Libby, in part to discredit her husband's allegation that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. As a result, Plame is instantly dismissed from the agency, leaving several of her delicate operations in limbo and creating a rift in her marriage. Plame leaves her husband, further angered by his granting of television and print interviews, which expose them both to public condemnation and death threats. Wilson ultimately persuades her, however, that there is no other way to fight a power as great as that of the White House for citizens like them. Plame returns to him and testifies before a Congressional committee, while Libby is convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice and given a 30-month prison sentence, although President Bush commutes the jail time on Libby's behalf.

Veronica Guerin, a neophyte crime reporter for the Sunday Independent, becomes aware of how much Dublin's illegal drug trade is encroaching upon the lives of its working class, especially the children, and vows to expose the men responsible. Guerin begins by interviewing the pre-pubescent addicts who "shoot up" on the street or in abandoned sections of the Dublin housing estates. Her investigation requires her to establish a relationship with trafficker John Traynor, who provides her with a great deal of information about the criminal underworld. Traynor is willing to assist Guerin but is not above misleading her in order to protect himself from Dublin mob boss John Gilligan. Notably, he manages to convince her that Gilligan's rival Gerry Hutch, a gangster known as "The Monk", is running heroin. Guerin pursues Hutch, wasting time and resources before discovering that he has no involvement in drugs. Guerin and her family soon become targets: a bullet is fired through their window and Guerin is shot in the leg by a gunman on her own doorstep. Despite being urged by her loved ones to halt the investigation, Guerin personally confronts Gilligan and is harshly beaten, with Gilligan threatening to rape and kill her son if she doesn't back off. Rather than press charges, which would necessitate her removal from the story, Guerin forges ahead with the investigation. On 26 June 1996, Guerin appears in court to respond to parking tickets and speeding penalties that she had ignored. She is given a nominal fine of IR£100. En route home, she calls her mother and then her husband to report the good news. She is speaking to her office while stopped at a traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway when two men riding a motorcycle pull up beside her. The driver breaks the window of her car and shoots her six times. The two flee and dispose of the bike and gun in a nearby canal. Guerin is mourned by her family, friends, associates and the country. Her violent death results in the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau, and Gilligan, along with several of his men, are tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. The epilogue states that "Veronica Guerin's writing turned the tide in the drug war. Her murder galvanised Ireland into action. Thousands of people took to the streets in weekly anti-drug marches, which drove the dealers out of Dublin and forced the drug barons underground. Within a week of her death, in an emergency session of the Parliament, the Government altered the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland to allow the High Court to freeze the assets of suspected drug barons."

In an unnamed large city with multiple daily newspapers, star reporter Hildebrand "Hildy" Johnson and his Morning Post editor, Walter Burns, hope to cash in on a big story involving an escaped convicted murderer, Earl Williams. Williams is scheduled to go to the gallows at 7 o'clock the following morning for an anarchist-related murder of a black policeman. Esteemed newspaperman Johnson is about to quit the journalism trade and is on his way to marry his sweetheart Peggy Grant and relocate to New York City where an advertising job awaits him. Not surprisingly, his unscrupulous boss Burns does not want him to quit. He wants Johnson to remain on his staff so he can cover the major news story for the Morning Post. Although he is an avowed anarchist, it is revealed that Williams is likely an innocent man who has been wrongly convicted of the policeman's murder due to rising anti-red sentiments in his city. Accordingly, Burns will do anything to make sure Johnson works on that angle of the story — including delaying his wedding trip. Hours before Williams' scheduled execution, while being interviewed by an Austrian alienist and reenacting the murder, Williams manages to escape custody with the help of Sheriff Pinky Hartman's gun which the inept lawman had carelessly loaned to the doctor. With the assistance of Johnson and Burns, the newspapermen hide the fleeing Williams in a rolltop desk in a room usually occupied by a bevy of newspaper reporters gathered to cover Williams' execution. Johnson's soon-to-be mother-in-law, Mrs. Grant, sees Johnson and Burns hide Williams in the desk. To silence her, Burns has some of his cronies roughly escort her out of the building. Sheriff Hartman and the mayor of the city get a missive from the governor. It is a reprieve for Williams. However, Williams' execution would be a political boon for the two men in an upcoming election, so they refuse to accept it. Instead, they send the messenger away with a bribe and the address of a house of ill repute. Johnson's future mother-in-law eventually returns to the press room and Williams is found in the desk. The reporters all rush to call bulletins into their editors, each with widely varying and greatly exaggerated details about how the fugitive Williams was re-arrested. Johnson and Burns are about to be arrested by Sheriff Hartman for aiding a fleeing criminal and kidnapping Mrs. Grant when the messenger from the governor reappears. Saying he is happily married and his conscience cannot let him accept the bribe, he tells the reporters about the politicians' refusal to accept the governor's pardon for Williams. The politicians quickly agree to drop their charges against the reporters in exchange for them not mentioning their own wrongdoings in the newspapers. Despite offers of a promotion at the Morning Post from Burns, Johnson says he is retiring from the newspaper business to go on his wedding trip. Burns seems to accept Johnson's career decision gracefully, even giving Johnson his prized gold watch as a thank-you gift for his services as a star reporter for the Morning Post. However, moments after Johnson and Mary depart for the railroad station, Burns arranges for the police to arrest Johnson at the train's first stop on the pretense that Johnson has stolen his watch.

Two engineers, Aaron and Abe, supplement their day jobs with entrepreneurial tech projects, working out of Aaron's garage. During one such research effort involving electromagnetic reduction of objects' weight, the two men accidentally discover an 'A-to-B' causal loop side-effect: objects left in the weight-reducing field exhibit temporal anomalies, proceeding normally (from time 'A,' when the field was activated, to time 'B,' when the field is powered off), then backward (from 'B' back to 'A') in a continuously repeating sequence, such that objects can leave the field in the present, or at some previous point. Abe refines this proof-of-concept and builds a stable time-apparatus ("the box"), sized to accommodate a human subject. Abe uses this box to travel six hours into his own past—as part of this process, Abe stays in a hotel room, isolating himself from any communication with the outside world, so as not to interact or interfere with the outside world, after which he enters the box then waits inside for six hours (thus going back in time six hours). Once he exits the box, Abe travels across town, explains the proceedings to Aaron, and brings Aaron back to the self-storage facility housing the box. At the facility, they watch the earlier version of Abe enter the box. Abe and Aaron repeat Abe's six-hour experiment multiple times over multiple days, making profitable same-day stock trades armed with foreknowledge of the market's performance. The duo's divergent personalities – Abe cautious and controlling, Aaron impulsive and meddlesome – put subtle strain on their collaboration and friendship. Additionally, the time travel is taxing on Abe and Aaron's bodies: effectively their days become 36 hours long when including the extra time afforded by the box. As the film progresses, the two men begin to notice alarming side effects of time travel which take the form of earbleeds. Later, they notice their handwriting progressively worsening. The tension between Abe and Aaron comes to a head after a late-night encounter with Thomas Granger (father to Abe's girlfriend, Rachel), who appears inexplicably unshaven and exists in overlap with his original suburban self. Granger falls into a comatose state after being pursued by Aaron; Aaron theorizes that, at some unknown point in the future, Granger entered the "box", with timeline-altering consequences. Abe concludes that time travel is simply too dangerous and enters a secret second box (the "failsafe box", built before the experiment began and kept continuously running), traveling back four days to prevent the experiment's launch. Cumulative competing interference wreaks havoc upon the timeline. Future-Abe sedates Original-Abe (so he will never conduct the initial time travel experiment) and meets Original-Aaron at a park bench (so as to dissuade him), but finds that Future-Aaron has gotten there first (armed with pre-recordings of the past conversations, and an unobtrusive earpiece), having brought a disassembled "third failsafe box" four days back with his own body. Future-Abe faints at this revelation, overcome by shock and fatigue. The two men briefly and tentatively reconcile. They jointly travel back in time, experiencing and reshaping an event where Abe's girlfriend Rachel was nearly killed by a gun-wielding party crasher. After many repetitions, Aaron, forearmed with knowledge of the party's events, stops the gunman, becoming a local hero. Abe and Aaron ultimately part ways; Aaron considers a new life in foreign countries where he can tamper more broadly for personal gain, while Abe states his intent to remain in town and dissuade/sabotage the original "box" experiment. Abe warns Aaron to leave and never return. Multiple "box-aware" versions of Aaron circulate—at least one Future-Aaron has shared his knowledge with Original-Aaron, via discussions, voice-recordings, and an unsuccessful physical altercation. Future-Abe watches over Original-Abe, going to painstaking extremes to keep him unaware of the future. An Aaron directs French-speaking workers in the construction of a warehouse-sized box.

Nine years after the events of the series finale, former teenage sleuth Veronica Mars has left Neptune, California, and moved to New York City, where she is in a relationship with Stosh "Piz" Piznarski and has a job offer from the prestigious law firm Truman-Mann and Associates. Veronica is contacted by her ex-boyfriend Logan Echolls, now a Lieutenant in the United States Navy, who has been accused of murdering his girlfriend, Carrie Bishop. She was a fellow Neptune High graduate who became the self-destructive pop star, "Bonnie DeVille". He is being bombarded for help from lawyers, and Veronica agrees to return to Neptune to aid Logan find one who will best represent him. She reunites with her father Keith Mars, Neptune's former sheriff-turned-private investigator, who shows her that corruption and classism are rife under Sheriff Dan Lamb, the brother of the previous Sheriff Don Lamb. Veronica investigates the circumstances of Carrie's death. During her investigation, she attends her ten-year high school reunion with Wallace Fennel and Cindy "Mac" MacKenzie. There, she learns that former outlaw biker Eli "Weevil" Navarro is now a reformed family man. During the reunion, Veronica realizes Carrie's murder is connected to that of Carrie's best friend, Susan Knight, who disappeared off a boat nine years earlier. After Veronica's nemesis Madison Sinclair projects a copy of Veronica's college sex tape with Piz, a fight breaks out. The reunion comes to an abrupt end as she sets the sprinklers off. Attending an after party, she speaks with Dick Casablancas, Luke Haldeman and his fiancée Gia Goodman, and Stu "Cobb" Cobbler, all of whom were with Susan and Carrie on the boat the night Susan disappeared. Meanwhile, while driving home from the reunion, Weevil stops to help a driver being harassed by bikers, only to be shot by her, Celeste Kane. The sheriff's department plants a gun so she can claim self-defense, and Keith agrees to prove Weevil's innocence. Veronica concludes that those on Susan's boat years ago covered up the circumstances of her death and Carrie was killed because she threatened to confess. As compromising videos of Carrie are posted online, Veronica traces them back to Vinnie Van Lowe, who has been planting spyware on celebrities and selling the footage. Veronica uses Vinnie's footage to prove Gia lured Logan to Carrie's the night of her murder, suggesting that she and Luke killed Carrie, framing Logan. Lamb ignores her evidence and refuses to follow up, but unbeknownst to him Veronica records the conversation. Having stayed in Neptune longer than planned, Veronica calls Piz in New York to explain that she cannot return yet, and he breaks it off. Truman-Mann rescinds their job offer, resulting in an argument between Keith and Veronica. Keith meets with Deputy Sacks about Weevil's case, but they are attacked by someone in a truck who slams into Sacks's car, killing him and leaving Keith in critical condition. Veronica and Logan sleep together, establishing a relationship. She sends bugged flowers to Gia's and calls her with recordings of Carrie's voice, hoping to scare her into confessing to being behind her death. Gia panics and calls Cobb, revealing his involvement. Veronica goes to Gia's apartment to confront her, where Gia reveals that Cobb is the mastermind of Carrie's death and framing Logan: Susan overdosed, and he took photos of a panicked Carrie, Gia, and Luke dumping Susan's body and has been blackmailing them. Veronica's bug broadcasts this via a radio frequency which she believed to be unused but is actually that of a local radio station. Cobb hears their conversation over the radio from his apartment in the building opposite, then shoots and kills Gia through the window before coming after Veronica. She calls the police and lures Cobb to the basement, beating him unconscious. Logan returns to active duty in the Navy but promises to come back to Veronica. Cobb's photo and the secret recording of Lamb refusing to investigate Veronica's claims leak online, forcing Lamb to arrest Cobb, with calls to oust Lamb from office. Keith and Weevil recover from their injuries, but Weevil returns to the criminal lifestyle. Veronica takes over her father's private investigator business with Mac as her assistant, resolved to help fight Neptune's corruption.

In 1950s Cayuga, New Mexico, teenage disc jockey Everett helps prepare for a high-school basketball game. He and his friend Fay test her new tape recorder before Everett walks her to her job as a switchboard operator and begins his shift at WOTW radio station. While listening to Everett's broadcast, Fay hears a mysterious audio signal interrupt the program. A woman calls to report a large object hovering over her property, though the static weakens her voice. Fay alerts Everett, who asks listeners to call in with information about the signal. A man named Billy phones the station, and Everett broadcasts the conversation live. Billy says he served in the military and was transported to a secret desert facility, where he and other personnel constructed a vast underground bunker to contain an enormous unidentified object. During a flight away from the site, he heard the same strange signal over the aircraft radio. Billy later developed a lung condition that he attributes to his work there and learned of similar military operations involving buried cargo accompanied by the same signal. He believes the sound functions as a communication signal, sometimes transmitted from altitudes beyond the reach of human aircraft. After the call is briefly disconnected, Billy phones again and explains that all personnel involved in the projects were either Black or Mexican, which he suspects was intended to make their testimony easier to dismiss. He says a friend secretly recorded the signal and distributed copies to former workers, including a deceased United States Air Force member from Cayuga. Realizing the tapes were donated to the local library, Fay retrieves them. Everett and Fay locate the recording and broadcast it, but the station suddenly loses power. They rush to the switchboard office, where Fay receives numerous reports of "something in the sky". On the way, they encounter Gerald and Bertsie, who have been pursuing the same object. An elderly woman named Mabel then calls, offering further information. Everett and Fay visit Mabel's home and find her reciting phrases in an unknown language. While Everett records the conversation, Mabel claims the phenomena are spacecraft operated by "the people in the sky", who communicate with and abduct humans. She believes the beings target isolated individuals while the town attends the basketball game and are responsible for encouraging conflict among humanity. Mabel asks them to take her to the ship so she can reunite with her son, who she says was abducted years earlier, or at least deliver a written message. Skeptical, Everett refuses and leaves with Fay, who returns home to collect her baby sister Maddie. Gerald and Bertsie pick them up, but when Everett plays Mabel's recorded speech, the two men fall into a trance and nearly crash the car. Frightened, Everett and Fay flee with Maddie into the woods. There, they discover charred trees and branches, convincing Everett that the visitors are real and nearby. Reaching a clearing, they witness a spacecraft rejoin a massive mothership, which sends powerful winds swirling around them. After the basketball game ends, the townspeople emerge to find Everett, Fay, and Maddie missing. Only their footprints and tape recorder remain.

The two lead characters appear as the robotic forms of Daft Punk and are credited as "Hero Robot No. 1" and "Hero Robot No. 2". One wears a silver helmet and the other wears a golden one. An opening scene shows the duo driving in a 1987 Ferrari 412 with its license plate displaying "HUMAN". After passing through a Southwestern United States landscape, the duo arrives by car at a town in Inyo County, California. The town's residents are also shown to be robots physically identical to the two main characters, but at different ages, with different clothing and alternating gender. The pair drive to a high-tech facility where liquid latex is poured over their heads. The latex morphs into human-like faces with the aid of prosthetic appliances and wigs. The resulting look caricaturizes the members of Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. When the two leave the facility, the locals of the town are shocked by their human appearance. The townsfolk gradually begin to chase the duo, whose faces eventually melt in the sun. The two take cover in a public restroom where the gold robot discards his ruined mask, then encourages the reluctant silver robot to do the same. Again appearing as robots, the pair then undergo a lengthy hike across desert salt flats. After walking for an extended period, the silver robot slows down and comes to a stop. Becoming aware of this, the gold robot walks back to the silver one. The silver robot continues to stare at the ground for a moment before removing his own jacket. He then turns away from the other robot, revealing a switch on his back. The gold robot flips the switch, which begins a timer. When the countdown ends, the silver robot is blown to pieces. The remaining robot piles the remains of the silver robot, then continues to walk. The gold robot eventually falls to his knees and attempts to reach the switch on his own back, but to no avail. Another moment passes before the robot removes his helmet and repeatedly slams it into the ground until the helmet shatters. Using one of the shards as a burning-glass, the robot focuses the sunlight to set his hand ablaze. The film ends as the robot, completely on fire, walks in slow motion through darkness.

Helen Quilley is sacked from her public relations firm. As she leaves the office building, she drops an earring in the lift, and a man picks it up for her. She rushes downstairs to the London Underground, when a young girl slightly delays her, and the sliding doors shut before she can board the train. Time seems to rewind, and restart, but this time, the girl's mother pulls her child out of Helen's path downstairs, and Helen forces open the nearly closed sliding doors to board the train. Two different versions of Helen continue on with their lives, alternating between two diverging stories. Helen, who boards the train, sits beside James, the man who had picked up her earring in the lift, and they strike up a conversation that cheers her up. She gets home to catch her boyfriend, Gerry, in bed with his American ex-girlfriend, Lydia. Helen leaves him and moves in with her friend Anna. At Anna's suggestion, Helen cuts her hair short and dyes it blonde to make a fresh start. James befriends Helen and she begins to move on from Gerry as he cheers her up and encourages her to start her own small PR firm. They fall in love, despite her reservations about beginning another relationship so soon after her ugly breakup with Gerry. Eventually, Helen discovers that she is pregnant by James. She goes to see him at his office and is stunned to learn from James's secretary that he is married. Having discovered that Helen has learned he is married, James searches frantically for her before finding her on a bridge and explaining that while he is married, he is separated and will soon be divorced, and that he and his wife maintain the appearance of a happy marriage for the sake of his sick mother. After she and James reconcile and declare their love, Helen walks into the road and is hit by a van. Helen, who missed the train, is further delayed by an attempted mugging, which leads to a hospital visit where the cut to her forehead is treated. She arrives home after Lydia has left, and remains oblivious to Gerry's infidelity. Unable to find another PR position, she takes two part-time jobs to pay the bills to support Gerry, who is unemployed and struggling to finish his novel. Gerry continues to juggle the two women in his life, and Helen gradually becomes suspicious. She discovers she is pregnant but does not tell Gerry. Lydia soon realizes Gerry will never leave Helen for her and angrily breaks things off with him, to Gerry's relief. Lydia also realizes she is pregnant by Gerry and summons Helen under the guise of a job interview, but instead reveals the affair and her pregnancy to Helen. Distraught, Helen flees and falls down the stairs. In both timelines, Helen is taken to the hospital and loses her baby. Helen who boarded the train, succumbs to severe injuries and dies with James at her bedside, expressing his gratitude at meeting her on the train. Helen who missed the train recovers and tells Gerry to leave for good. James, who is visiting his mother, picks up Helen's dropped earring in the hospital lift, encouraging her to "Cheer up. You know what the Monty Python boys say..." (the same joke he told Helen in the other timeline), but this time, Helen preempts James, correctly quoting the punch line, " No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition." They turn and gaze at each other.

In 1999, dismembered body parts are found scattered across various coal factories in Heilongjiang Province; the victim is identified as one Liang Zhijun from an ID card found at one of the scenes. Recently divorced detective Zhang Zili is assigned to the case; his investigation leads him to Liu Fayin, a coal truck driver. The police track Liu and his brother to a beauty salon, but they botch the operation, resulting in the deaths of several policemen and the suspects, with Zhang himself being shot, effectively killing the case. Five years later, Zhang has quit the force and become an alcoholic. Encountering his former partner Xiao Wang on a stakeout, Zhang is told that two similar murders have occurred since the first - with both victims found wearing ice skates, and were romantically linked to Liang's widow Wu Zhizhen, a dry cleaners worker. Zhang himself enters the dry cleaners and hands over his clothes to Wu. He learns from owner Rong Rong that Wu had once damaged an expensive leather coat, with the owner returning to demand compensation for a week before he inexplicably stopped coming. Wu is aware of Zhang tailing her and demands that he stop, but he continues to follow her. At one such stakeout, Zhang's bike is tampered with by an unknown person. Rong Rong is revealed to be sexually assaulting Wu. Zhang sees Wu with an injury caused by Rong Rong and offers her medicine; he also kicks an unruly customer out of the store. He invites Wu on an ice skating date, which she accepts. At the ice rink, Wu skates away into a remote area, followed by Zhang, who knocks her down and kisses her. Meanwhile, an undercover Wang notices a truck following the two. Wang confronts the driver, who wears a pair of ice skates around his neck, and is cut down. Zhang discovers a registration plate number Wang had supposedly written down, leading to him boarding a bus, before noticing the skate-slinging truck driver following him. He lures the driver into a crowded nightclub, forcing him to abort his pursuit. Zhang picks up the driver's trail the next day, discovering his employment as an ice delivery man, which he exploits to hide Wang's dismembered remains in ice blocks; Zhang then witnesses him dropping them onto a passing coal train from an overhead bridge. Zhang follows the driver to the ice rink and asks the service desk to page 'Liang Zhijun'; the driver flees upon hearing the announcement. Wu is then brought in for interrogation; she confesses to Zhang that Liang had faked his death to cover up the first killing, which he committed during a robbery, and has since been killing anyone who gets close to her. Using Wu as bait, Liang shows up to meet her before the police gun him down. Forensics policemen approach Wu, wanting to test the ashes of the first murder victim; she claims that she has scattered them in the river. Having witnessed Wu bury the ashes five years ago, Zhang approaches Rong Rong and demands the leather coat Wu damaged, which leads him to the nightclub Daylight Fireworks. The owner states that the coat belonged to her husband, and he had run away with another woman in 1999. She had reported his disappearance to the authorities a year later, only to be told that he had gone missing. Zhang invites Wu to a date at an amusement park; they ride a ferris wheel, and Zhang points out the flashing sign of Daylight Fireworks to Wu. Zhang goads Wu on; she kisses him and they have sex. Wu is arrested the following day, where she reveals the truth - she had been unable to pay back the coat's owner and was thus blackmailed into a sexual relationship. Eventually, she killed him and Liang had disposed of his remains along with his own ID card to hide her complicity. Zhang watches as she is driven away. He heads to a dance hall where he has a breakdown, dancing wildly. The police bring Wu back to her old apartment to gather evidence. As they leave, they are interrupted by a drunk man (implied to be Zhang) setting off fireworks in broad daylight, which Wu recognizes before she is taken away.