The Flames of War Have Yet to Die: Unsent Love Letters from Shanghai

[Action-packed spy thriller] + [Passionate, tragic romance] + [The groveling chase for a lost love] + [Emotional redemption] + [The Disguiser fanfiction]

In an age when the flames of war have yet to die, the scent of jasmine from a qipao mingles with gunpowder in the damp air. Ming Tai watches Yu Manli, twenty paces away, checking a bomb. Known as the “Black Widow,” she uses a wire to garrote a traitor, her pale embroidered shoes stepping lightly over the corpse.

As the most pampered young master of the Ming Group, Ming Tai could have enjoyed champagne parties in a foreign-style mansion in the concession. Instead, he is recruited on the streets of Hong Kong by Wang Tianfeng, a senior Military Statistics Bureau officer. A poisoned tie clip and a fountain pen that shoots fire become the toys of his new world, until he meets his partner, Yu Manli. The tattoo on the back of her neck is a death-row inmate’s number, and there is always cyanide hidden in the buttons of her qipao.

“The Sakura Express leaves in three minutes.” Yu Manli suddenly leans close and slips the dismantled detonator into his inner jacket pocket, her fingertips still carrying the bitter tang of TNT. They pose as newlyweds to sabotage a Japanese military transport plan, but in the attic on Xitaizi Lane, they discover each other’s real wounds: the crisscrossing whip scars on her back.

As the flames of the explosion dye the Huangpu River red, Ming Tai grips Yu Manli’s hand. “Your life is mine! As long as I’m alive, I won’t let you die!”

What they don’t yet know is that a web of blood is slowly spreading above their heads...