In the 16th year of the Republic of China, Shanghai was a gilded cage.
The neon lights scorched the dark night, illuminating the golden threads on the edge of the cheongsam in the dance hall, but not the frozen bones deep in the alley.
He Yan lives with three faces: Young Master He with red makeup, the newly promoted commissioner of the Supervision Section, and Lu Zhanming who only wakes up late at night.
When he smiles, the ends of his eyes are curved just right, and even the hair on his forehead is measured - romance is drama, suaveness is makeup, and even the affection on his fingertips when handing a rose is a temperature calculated with precision.
Until I met Fu Chenyuan.
The man was wearing an old robe and a half cup of cold coffee. When he looked at people, he looked like he was using his gaze as a knife, tearing open the skin layer by layer to reveal the tendons.
"Young Master He lived abroad and also ate fried dough sticks?"
"Senior Fu drinks coffee, doesn't he live like an old man from the Republic of China?"
The ink trap in the archives room, the temptation at the end of the corridor, the arc of the firelight when destroying the note——
Everything is a silent spy war. They use Shanghainese to show off their skills, use English to create confusion, use smiles as daggers, and look for their own reflections in each other's pupils.
"Do you know what is the most luxurious thing in troubled times?"
"It's not sincerity, it's a fool who dares to put his sincerity on the gambling table."
There is a gun pointed at the back of the heart in the dark, and the telegraph code is hidden in the rose.
He holds up the false heart and exposes the falsehood.
But the fake show reached the emotional point and actually touched the bones under each other's skin that refused to bend.
"We exchange lies like wine glasses at a dinner party."
"We hide our sincerity like we hide our last bullet."
——
"What if I'm the enemy?"
"Then let's play until the last piece."
"What if I were a friend?"
"We will go to the execution ground before dawn together."
Purpose: I love my motherland