In 1941, during the darkest days of the Japanese army’s sweeping campaign across North China, Li Yunlong’s Independent Regiment suffered heavy casualties and was pushed to the brink. Then a top-secret order arrived without any explanation: abandon the position, enter the Valley of Death, and carry out a covert suicide mission in which defeat would brand them deserters and victory would earn them no recognition. With no reinforcements, supplies, or official authorization, Li Yunlong disobeyed orders and formed the Eighth Route Army’s first anonymous commando squad. They ventured deep into an uninhabited forbidden zone in the Taihang Mountains and uncovered the Japanese army’s long-hidden, shocking plot: a biological weapons experiment codenamed “Operation Dead Grass.” If deployed, it would turn the North China base areas into a living hell. The covert battle was silent, its blades drank blood.
He faced more than a three-way encirclement by elite Japanese special forces, Wang Jingwei-regime agents, and Nationalist intelligence operatives. He also had to bear the accusation of “fleeing in the face of the enemy” and withstand internal inquiries and the full weight of military law. Once the commando blade was drawn, there was no turning back.
When the bioweapons base collapsed and Operation Dead Grass was utterly thwarted, half the squad had been buried in the mountains. Only Duan Peng and the Monk made it back alive. They had won a covert war to defend their country, one that could have changed the course of the conflict, yet their record would remain sealed and their names erased. No one would know. No one would remember.
