Bai Le Men: Blades Beneath the Neon, Songs in a Turbulent Age

In the early days after Shanghai fell in 1937, the Paramount Ballroom in the French Concession was a strange fixture of a world at war. Neon lights and music gave it the appearance of carefree revelry, with Western music mingling with Suzhou storytelling songs as celebrities and tycoons came and went. In truth, it was an intelligence hub for four forces: the Chinese Communist Party's underground network, the military intelligence service, the Japanese Kempeitai, and the Wang Jingwei regime. Behind the scenes, secrets lurked in hidden compartments in the dressing rooms, grooves in the record library, and the lyrics sung by the hostesses, all edged with danger.

Su Manqing, the ballroom's star singer, wore a moon-white qipao and an old silver bracelet engraved with the character "Night" on her left wrist. It was the token of "Nightingale," her codename in the underground Communist Party. The bracelet concealed invisible ink, and the gesture she used to touch it while singing was both a signal that the coast was clear and a way to hide her past. Her mother had died fighting the Japanese, and Su had entered the entertainment world to extract intelligence about a Japanese arms depot. Lu Zheng, who frequented the ballroom posing as a foreign-trading-company manager, wore tailored suits and gold-rimmed glasses. He seemed to be living for pleasure, but was actually the military intelligence service's Shanghai station operations chief. A Browning pistol sat in his inner pocket, and the rhythm of his absent-minded tapping on the table as Su sang was Morse code used to decipher intelligence. His mission was to assassinate "Old Gun," the underground party's contact, but after repeated clashes with Su Manqing, the "Ice Beauty," he fell for her.

When they first met, Su Manqing mistook Lu Zheng for a sleazy tycoon and tossed his invitation into the trash. But when Japanese soldiers harassed her, Lu draped his still-warm suit over her shoulders and quietly warned her, "That bracelet is old. Don't let it show." When a patrol appeared at their rendezvous in a dark alley, Lu covered her mouth and pulled her into a corner.