Su Yanci dies in an air raid. Even as she dies, she still remembers Shen Yu’an’s name. In her previous life, she followed her father’s shadow-puppet troupe to Shanghai, where she met and fell in love with Shen Yu’an, the young master of the Yuhe Trading Company. Later, the company was betrayed, Shen Yu’an’s identity as an underground operative was exposed, and he was tortured to death. She could neither save him nor live to see peace return to the land.
When she opens her eyes again, she is back in 1935, still holding the strings of a puppet, while Shen Yu’an sits in the audience below.
Drawing on her memories of her previous life, she gives an advance warning and uses the troupe’s performances and travels to track down the informant. She and Shen Yu’an move from mutual suspicion to working side by side. Every time she changes an old event, new dangers follow. Her father refuses to let the troupe risk getting involved, the trading company’s employees worry about making a living, and their unseen opponents keep adjusting their plans. Su Yanci gradually realizes that saving someone takes more than knowing when disaster will strike. She must also face everyone’s different interests and choices.
As the flames of war spread, the two rebuild the trading company and their intelligence network, protect their companions, and rescue the displaced. Shen Yu’an finally makes it safely past the date of his death in her previous life. Su Yanci thinks they can at last have an ordinary life as husband and wife. But her old memories gradually become unreliable, and she must stop depending on foresight and take responsibility based on her own judgment.
Later, a crucial piece of intelligence that could determine the fate of countless lives must be delivered urgently. After weighing every viable option, Shen Yu’an still decides to face the final danger himself. On the night before he leaves, beneath the fading light of the opera lamps, he promises that he will marry her when he returns.
The intelligence is delivered at last, and the trading company is saved. Many people survive because of it, but Shen Yu’an never comes back. In the end, he does not return...
