1938: Doing Business in the Military Police

Cao Meng is twenty years old, a covert military intelligence agent with the codename “Dizang.” In Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1938, he works openly as a Japanese interpreter for the military police, while secretly walking a tightrope with death at every step. After an accident, he activates a Blind Box System that randomly gives him an item each day: gold bars, medicine, weapons, listening devices, bulletproof vests... Using the resources he accumulates through the blind boxes, he takes a path no one could have expected: he draws the entire military police force into business. He sends gold bars to Colonel Yamada and helps junior and mid-ranking officers earn extra money, using real gold and silver to turn the Japanese, one by one, into “his own people.” Chiyo, the proprietress of an izakaya, and Yuki, the wife of a military police major, also become links in his intelligence network. He passes crucial intelligence to military intelligence while steadily rising in rank right under the Japanese people's noses, from interpreter to warrant officer, then earning a commendation from headquarters. Shanghai is turbulent, the Special Higher Police are watching him closely, and there is a mole within military intelligence. Cao Meng gets deeper and deeper into this murky mess, using profit as his net and his identity as his shield. He doesn't want to be a hero. He just wants to survive. But in these chaotic times, simply staying alive is an extraordinary skill.