The Pretender: Kite

In 1943, Shanghai seethed with intrigue under the Wang Jingwei puppet regime. Zheng Yaoxian, the ace agent known as “Ghost Six,” was ordered by the Military Statistics Bureau to infiltrate the puppet government’s Special Services Department under the codename “Kite.” In reality, he was a senior Communist agent. Ming Lou, meanwhile, became the puppet government’s chief financial adviser after returning from overseas with a degree in economics. Publicly, he was the Military Statistics Bureau’s “Viper,” but in truth he was also an underground Communist Party member. The two top agents, each bearing multiple identities, met in enemy territory without knowing the truth about each other.

Zheng Yaoxian won the puppet government’s trust with his ruthless methods while secretly sabotaging the Special Services Department’s covert operations. Ming Lou used his authority over economic policy to quietly undermine the puppet regime’s economic lifeline. Their separate missions brought them into conflict time and again. Each suspected the other of being a genuine traitor or a rival, and tensions ran high in the puppet government’s arena of power. Then, during a crisis that threatened the survival of the Communist underground, they discovered that their secret signals came from the same code system...

In Shanghai, a city of shadows, can two believers hidden behind layers of disguise see through each other’s true identities? With danger closing in and trust as fragile as paper, how will they navigate the Wang Jingwei regime, the Military Statistics Bureau, and their own true missions? And when their lives are on the line, can they join forces to complete the breathtaking “Twin Shadows Operation”?