Undercover: I Use Counterfeit Money to Buy Up the Japanese Empire

“Colonel, this money sounds wrong. The pulp hasn’t matured, and the ink is too strong.”

Shanghai, 1939. The execution ground at 76 Jisifeier Road.

Facing the black muzzles of the Special Higher Police, condemned prisoner Gu Weijun endures the agony of ten tortured fingers, closes his eyes, and flicks the counterfeit bill in his hand.

That single flick turns him from a man about to die by firing squad into a “living god of wealth” in the eyes of the Japanese army.

He is heir to the Gu family’s antiquities business in Jiangnan, and a black-market “white glove” whose pair of ghostly hands can restore national treasures.

To go undercover, he willingly becomes a traitorous artist reviled by all, struck from his family genealogy and despised by his countrymen.

At the 76th Department, he is meek and timid, plagued by stomach problems, a technical nerd anyone can bully.

In the shadows, a word from him decides who lives and dies. He is the hidden “judge” who controls the lifeblood of counterfeit money.

No System, no cheat, no brothers by his side, just a mute apprentice and a katydid to keep him company through the winter.

Alone, he dances among a pack of wolves.

By day, he prints counterfeit money for the Japanese, plundering the wealth of occupied territories.

Late at night, he mixes photosensitizers into the ink, breeds paper-eating mold in the pulp, and engraves Morse code into the watermarks.

He exploits Japanese greed to set up an astounding Ponzi scheme, using wastepaper to buy up the empire’s penicillin and gold.

Only in 1945, as the invaders retreat, do they realize the wealth they plundered was nothing more than a golden dream.

By then, Gu Weijun has already turned the backbone of the Chinese people into plum-blossom patterns invisible to the naked eye, engraving them into every counterfeit bill.

When autumn comes on the eighth day of the ninth month, my flowers bloom and all others are slain.