Moonlight Across the River

Autumn, 1937. Shanghai.

Jiang Xie wears a moon-white changshan and carries a Xiangfei bamboo fan as she hunts traitors alone in the shadowy alleys along Suzhou Creek. Her movements are swift and her thoughts unfathomable. No one knows that she is a woman disguised as a man, the coldest blade plunged into the enemy’s heart on this occupied island.

Lin Zhuo is the girl who works the till at a shengjian bun shop. When she was three, she put a sesame candy in Jiang Xie’s hand, and never forgot her after that. She knows nothing of grand patriotic causes. All she knows is to save Jiang Xie the innermost table and push the biggest plate of shengjian buns in front of her. Jiang Xie never says a word, but whenever she leaves, she straightens Lin Zhuo’s crooked hair clip.

Shen An plays the sanxian and is an agent planted by the Military Statistics Bureau. Ordered to get close to Jiang Xie, he burns the dossier he wrote to ashes after countless moments of silence and exchanged glances. He keeps Lin Zhuo’s little clay figurine in his heart.

The world is boiling in chaos, and people are like specks of dust.

As identities are exposed, pursuers close in, and old friends fall one after another, Jiang Xie stands by the Huangpu River twice. The first time, someone pulls her out of the water.

[Just started posting, so the rating will go up later~ If you like the feel of Old Stories of the South of the City, come check out my story!]