It was 1917, China. CHEN was an innocent young man who worked in a grocery store and had no ambition, other than to be with his lovely neighbor, the Peking Opera student QIU. But a fateful night had changed Cheng's life forever, as he literally walked right in the affair between his lady boss and the chief of police. To hide this secret, the chief decided to throw Cheng into prison, accusing him of raping his lady boss. Desolated, Cheng met a cellmate MAO, who happened to have an escape plan.The duo broke out, and Cheng had no choice but to leave his life, and his dream girl behind. Cheng found a job as a bouncer in the casino owned by the powerful inspector JIN. As Jin indulged himself in debauchery all day long, Cheng began to climb up the underworld ladder step by step. He soon won the affection of the famed songstress BO. Although Bo loved him deeply, but Cheng found his heart belonged only to the vanished Qiu.As Cheng became one of most powerful mob bosses in Shanghai in the late 1930s, fame took its toll when he found himself stuck between the looming Japanese army and the scheming local secret service. To make things worse, he bumped into the love of his life Qiu, along with her writer husband.