1939, Nanjing occupied area. A traditional Chinese medicine shop called "Jishengtang" barely survives in the south of the city. Shopkeeper Shen Qinghe weighed medicines and prepared prescriptions every day, nodding and bowing to the Japanese soldiers. No one knew that the dozens of medicinal materials exposed in the courtyard were the code book for his connection with Chongqing; no one noticed that the abacus beads he fiddled with every night recorded the movements of Japanese military transport ships at Xiaguan Pier. Until fragments of a top-secret list were scattered into the hands of three people with different identities-a drug store apprentice, a dance hall singer, and a Japanese army translator. Within three days, the fate of everyone was twisted into a fuse that could explode at any time.
