Reborn as the Tanaka Family's Fake Grandson? I'm a Military Intelligence Spy, Autumn Cicada

Shanghai, 1927. I’m Lin Shen, a low-ranking agent for the Military Statistics Bureau. Every day I do lousy work, delivering intelligence and tailing people. My name in the files is nearly gathering dust, until the station chief slams a stack of documents in front of me and roars, pointing at the photo of a Japanese boy: “You look exactly like Tanaka Yoshikazu’s grandson! Starting today, you’re Tanaka Akihiko!”

I stare at the photo, at a face almost identical to mine, my fingertips trembling. Who could have imagined that my utterly ordinary face would become a blade aimed at the heart of the Japanese army?

“Code name: Autumn Cicada!” The station chief’s voice is ice-cold. “Remember, walk with the arrogance of Japanese nobility. Speak in halting Chinese. Even if they slap you, don’t let a thing slip!”

And so, under the identity of “the young master of the Tanaka family,” I move into a mansion right under the Japanese army’s nose. By day, I drink and carouse with collaborators, listening to them brag about how they’re seizing Chinese territory. At night, I sneak into the study and mark up Japanese troop deployment maps. Every time I climb through a window, it feels like a trip through the gates of hell.

The “Tanaka Akihiko” in the mirror grows more and more unfamiliar, but the photo hidden inside my pocket watch is always warm: it shows my hometown, reduced to rubble by Japanese bombs, and my parents, waiting for me to return. Once, Tanaka Ryukichi, the adopted son of Tanaka Yoshikazu, suddenly came to visit. My hand shook around my teacup, and I could only bluff my way through by claiming I had a cold and a sore throat. Cold sweat soaked through three layers of kimono.

They all think I’m a pampered Japanese aristocrat, but they don’t know that beneath this borrowed skin lies a Chinese heart. They also don’t know that I’m an antiwar agent.