After Nanjing fell, clock shop owner Dong Hui used watch repairs as a cover to pass along intelligence through a pipe engraved with a torch. Its seven flames concealed the codenames of seven underground Party members.
Betrayed, Dong Hui went calmly to his death, and the pipe vanished without a trace.
After victory in the War of Resistance, a new squad cook joined the Eighth Route Army. He spent his days cheerfully puffing on a pipe as he tended the fire and cooked. No one knew his name, and no one knew that he was the very man who had betrayed Dong Hui all those years ago.
Until Lao Zhou, the contact from back then, was transferred to the same unit.
One pipe spans two eras. A keepsake of the dead becomes a death warrant for the living.
When the hidden markings finally match, there is no turning back from the truth.
