Top-Secret Hidden Line: 1940

While organizing classified archives, historian Lin Hao accidentally activates a long-sealed “temporal beacon,” and his consciousness is swept into the maelstrom of Shanghai in 1940. When he wakes, he has become “Gray Crow,” a member of the Shanghai Station action team of the Military Statistics Bureau, secretly a deeply embedded Communist Party operative. He is in the heart of enemy territory, dancing on the edge of a blade. Along with him awakens a silent, damaged “Strategic Intelligence Support System” called “Firefly.” It has no shop and provides no weapons, only cold data analysis and warnings that drain its energy again and again. The agents of the 76th Bureau close in from the front, while suspicion and infighting plague the Military Statistics Bureau behind him. At his side are comrades who need protection and top-secret intelligence that must be delivered. The spirit of drawing one’s sword like Li Yunlong lies in tactical ingenuity and fearless courage in desperate straits. The twists and turns of espionage lie in psychological battles like those in a locked room, and in labyrinths of hidden identities. Lin Hao must use his knowledge of history’s broad strokes and the faint light of Firefly to make the right moves in the darkest hour. He knows how history unfolds, but also understands that even the smallest change could unleash a colossal wave. This is no game. It is a tribute paid while carrying a heavy burden. Can he protect himself while safeguarding those nameless flames destined to vanish from history?