The Republic-Era Detective: Qiao and Lu's Stormy Adventures

[Republican-Era Sleuth fan fiction + two male leads + powerful allies + espionage intrigue + everyday life raising a child + mystery and deduction + nation and family + happy ending]

Shanghai's most unlikely partners solve its most unlikely cases.

The playboy detective Lu Yao, fresh back from studying in Britain, is greedy and afraid of death, but boasts a mind far sharper than anyone else's. Qiao Chusheng, the ruthless yet loyal detective known as the King of Hell, was born into the Qinglong Gang and can take down anyone with his bare hands. Add Bai Youning, a gang boss's daughter and gossip reporter who loves stirring up trouble, and the three are forced to team up. From then on, bizarre cases plague the foreign concessions: a wedding shrouded in blood, a ghostly radio station, a famous opera singer who vanishes... Each crime scene leaves behind a taunting puzzle.

They think they are only solving cases for money, unaware that they have stepped into a deadly game spanning twenty years.

The bacterial warfare of the Mei Organization, the lost ancient kingdom's Nether Lantern Project, a plot to bomb the wartime capital... As the flames of war spread from Shanghai to Hong Kong, from Wuhan to Chongqing, Qiao Chusheng takes a bullet for Lu Yao, and Lu Yao braves a den of tigers alone for Qiao Chusheng. Amid the ruins, with the gunfire still raging, the two men finally commit to each other: “If we die, we die together. If we live, we live together.”

Later, they find a daughter abandoned in a mass grave and bring her home.

King Qiao teaches her self-defense, while genius Lu teaches her how to decipher codes. When the ultimate mastermind kidnaps the one person they cherish above all, the former King of Hell detective and the genius sleuth go on a rampage. They call on every ounce of their intelligence, connections, and skill to make one thing clear to everyone: hurt our family, and you had better be ready to be ground to dust.

From Republican-era sleuths to life under assumed names, from the smoke and fire of war to years of peace.