A Long Song in Troubled Times: War Smoke Stains the Iron Armor

In the thirteenth year of the Republic, the entire Shen family, silk merchants in Jiangnan, was brutally killed, and their only son, Shen Yanqing, ended up overseas. That same year, the head of the escort agency, Old Master Guan, was killed on the river, and his son, Guan Tieshan, was adopted by his family's enemy. Shi Ping'an, an abandoned baby at a bathhouse, survived thanks to a bronze token. The three had never met, yet each held half of a keepsake: a pocket watch chain, a wrist chain, and a bronze token. They were once the three pieces of a single jade pendant, tied to an old case from sixteen years earlier that no one dared reopen: the River Burial Order.

Sixteen years later, Shen Yanqing returns to China, carrying the air of a scholar, to search for his roots. Guan Tieshan uncovers his adoptive father's deception in a life-or-death struggle, while Shi Ping'an builds an ever-larger home amid Shanghai's bustling streets. Just as the truth of the old case comes to light, the guns of September 18 shatter an entire era. The three decide they won't just search for their own homes anymore: the escort agency goes up in flames, a bold manifesto takes shape on paper, and the Ping'an Hall opens its doors. With the land in ruins, they choose to share the homes they've found with many more people.

Over the next eight years, from the defense of the Great Wall to the Battle of Shanghai, Tieshan leaves the mountains in iron armor, unites spear and martial arts, and sinks his blade in the river; a man who never faints at the sight of blood, he refuses to kill his enemy. Before Lugou Bridge, he sets up a stall to serve noodles to defeated soldiers. Amid the ruins of Zhabei, he establishes a station for the wounded. At the end, beneath the sign of Ping'an Hall by the Suzhou Creek, the words "No Land" stand in the morning light. The iron-clad heroes have fallen with the land, but their chivalrous spirits will shine on those who come after.