Lin Zhou, a rookie in a Kuomintang training program, falls into a river on his way to Shanghai for an undercover mission. When he opens his eyes again, his body houses a soul from a century in the future, and a bizarre Undercover System has appeared in his palm. Red warning boxes flicker in his field of vision, measuring the distance between life and death. Above the heads of passersby, chilling labels appear: “Japanese agent,” “76th Division collaborator,” and “underground Communist contact.”
On his first day at the Shanghai station, he discovers that the intelligence outpost has already rotted from within, riddled with moles and leaving everyone on edge. Ordered to go undercover in a collaborator-run police bureau, he edges along a knife’s blade with the System’s warnings to guide him. He counters spycraft with modern logic, survives a hail of bullets, and accidentally uncovers the most deeply buried traitor.
After one success after another, he is assigned directly to headquarters and becomes “Shadow Blade,” a covert operative personally controlled by Dai Li. From the police bureau to the 76th Division and then the Japanese military police, his identities are nested one inside another. At a drinking party with the military police, he plays drinking buddy to the Japanese while stealing a vital deployment map. Targets on assassination lists always seem to die just when he “happens” to appear. The name “Shadow Blade” becomes a curse haunting the enemy.
By chance, he saves an underground Communist Party member, and the System’s label “one of us” suddenly blazes before his eyes. When the man hands him an application to join the Party, Lin gazes at the Rising Sun flag on the military police station’s wall and tightens his grip on the two sets of intelligence hidden in his sleeve. From then on, “Shadow Blade” is both the secret service’s blade and a Communist Party mole, his three identities tearing him apart amid the flames of war.
No one knows that the “comrade” who drinks and banters with the Japanese military police is the very same “Shadow Blade” who strikes terror into the hearts of collaborators.
It's too messy, I can't stand it anymore, it's so confusing
At present, the early writing is not coherent and a bit off-topic. I hope the author Hu Xu can work harder.