In Shanghai in the 26th year of the Republic of China, neon was wrapped in gunpowder smoke. Shen Meigui, the top star of Paramount, was a money-worshiping singer with "big breasts and no brains" in everyone's eyes. But underneath her rouge and gouache, she hid the edge of the Red Party's top spy "Nightingale". She used beauty as bait and coquettishness as shield, and her target was Gu Hanzhou, the deputy director of the Blue Party Intelligence Station - a cold-faced, ascetic man who believed in order.
When they first met, he was disgusted with her frivolity, and she played him into the game. However, the shadow of the Japanese military's special high school and the corruption within the Blue Party entangled the two into a deeper whirlpool. She deliberately misses the mark in delivering the code, borrows three thousand silver dollars to set up a trap, and uses a lie detector to expose his heartbeat in the interrogation room; he goes from doubt to wavering, stops drinking for her, rescues her from sieges, and even spends all his money to redeem her from the Japanese auction house when she "betrays."
There is a small pistol hidden under the cheongsam, and the sweet words are wrapped in true intelligence. When the "vase" tears away the disguise, and when the "orderer" betrays the camp, they are pulled amidst the swords and shadows of the spy war, choosing between national justice and personal emotions. The fog of Suzhou River, the lights of Paramount, the escape on a snowy night, the last waltz, every step is on the edge of life and death.
On the eve of the fall of Shanghai, the sound of gunshots at the dock pierced the darkness. She, dressed in men's clothing, walked side by side into the unknown with him who was determined to abandon darkness and turn to the light. This thorny rose finally used its own way to bloom the beauty of family, country and faith in troubled times.
