No Epitaph, 1993

Xiao Yong, a discharged reconnaissance soldier whose expulsion was kept secret, returns to the chaotic city of Bingang and finds himself on the brink of destitution. Struggling to get by at the docks, caught up in street violence and teetering on the edge of a life of crime, he is coerced by anti-drug squad captain Chen Guohua into signing a “devil's contract”: infiltrate the Four Seas Gang, Bingang's biggest cancer, as an undercover agent. Refusing to become a pawn, Xiao Yong chooses a more dangerous path: starting from scratch. He takes over the dilapidated Nightingale nightclub and dances on the knife's edge of Red-Light Street under the name Chen Mo. Facing the brutal oppression of drug lord Liu Qiang, the tragic past of Yang Lili, a woman who has fallen victim to him, and the allegiance of Ding Xiao, a disabled veteran who is a “blade tempered in fire,” Xiao Yong must fight to survive by the most ruthless means and gather strength in the dark underworld surrounded by wolves. His goal is not merely survival. As a “new power in the underworld,” he will launch a lethal assault on the heart of the Four Seas Gang and carve out a path to redemption through the vortex of blood and fire, for himself and for the souls swallowed by darkness. This is a lonely, brutal first trial by fire, with every step taken on the edge of hell.