December 1937, Nanjing.
When Bai Mohan, deputy chief of the Intelligence Section of the Military Command Station, was burning the files, he snatched a page from the brazier - a fragment of the top-secret list "Plan Mei", with his own name clearly written on the 18th position.
Shen Xiaoshan, the party introducer, ranked fourth.
Stationmaster Zhou Bingkun played with the jade ring and pressed a military command code on the back of his neck: There is a mole, leave tonight.
That night, he cracked the safe, took pictures of the names, and left false clues. Before he could leave, Shen Xiaoshan's throat was cut with a knife by the Qinhuai River. Before he died, the old man wrote a radical - wood on the table with blood. It's not wood, it's the first stroke of "Zheng".
"There is a traitor on the list. It's not you. It's -" He didn't finish the sentence.
From Nanjing to Wuhan, from the Yangtze River ferry to the French Concession mailbox, Bai Mohan took the talismans, copper keys, and sword-shaped badges left by the deceased to trace the truth in the triple snare of the Military Command, the Mei Agency, and No. 76. Every step he took stepped on the hidden thread laid by the dead man's cloth, until he found that all the threads were tied to the same person - the man who wore an emerald ring and drank tea without sugar.
"Those who use swords must be the loneliest people." Shen Xiaoshan taught him for three years. Later, he worked as a sword for twelve years. Finally, someone took the edge of the sword and he turned into the scabbard.
This is a group of people who have been keeping in the dark for seventeen years. The files are burned to ashes, but the names in the ashes, and the people who know them, will be passed down.
