After the 1932 Battle of Shanghai, Su Qingyuan, a female doctor who has returned from studying abroad, opens the Chunze Clinic in the French Concession. She is determined to use Western medicine to save lives, but repeatedly finds herself in danger after refusing to treat Japanese officers. One night, while making a house call, she unexpectedly saves Lu Jingyuan, an underground Party member who has been badly wounded and is being hunted by secret agents.
One is a doctor who wants to “keep herself out of the turmoil” in a world at war; the other is a soldier willing to “give his life for his country.” One believes that “life knows no borders,” while the other holds that “the nation comes before everything.” Their clashing views at their first meeting gradually dissolve as they weather one crisis after another together. Su Qingyuan uses her medical skills to supply medicine to Lu Jingyuan’s organization and treat its comrades, while Lu Jingyuan helps her see the truth of an age in turmoil: “A doctor cannot keep herself out of it.”
When the Japanese army shuts down the clinic and coerces Su Qingyuan into developing biological weapons, and Lu Jingyuan’s identity is exposed, leaving the entire city in pursuit of him, they finally realize that their love has long been bound to the fate of their country. In the end, Su Qingyuan infiltrates a Japanese laboratory under the guise of a “pharmacist” to pass on intelligence, while Lu Jingyuan leads his team in a coordinated assault from within and without to destroy the stronghold. As spring deepens in Shanghai, they clasp hands amid the smoke of battle, certain they can make it through the chaos and find their way to a future together.
