Dark Night and Dawn Episode 1 Recap, Plot

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> Dark Night and Dawn Recap

In May 1949, on the eve of the liberation of Shanghai, police officer Lin Shaobai had a gun pointed at his head. If he didn't execute the person in front of him, it would be his own life on the line. The clock rewinds twelve hours earlier. Lin Shaobai, a young man from a wealthy Shanghai family, went out to stockpile goods to prepare for the imminent war.

The last time he didn't stockpile enough, the memory of his hunger was still vivid, and he didn't want to go through that again. Lin Shaobai, working at the police station, believed that the bandits wouldn't dare to touch him. Confidently, he rode his bicycle to the police station to collect his salary. The streets were chaotic—some people were beaten, others cried. Lin Shaobai couldn’t help them, so he silently pedaled past without stopping.

At the police station, Ye Shiwu was in the middle of beating someone. Lin Shaobai tried to sneak by unnoticed, pretending to be invisible, but Ye Shiwu called out to him. Director Ye informed him that due to financial constraints, Lin Shaobai’s salary would be reduced by 20%. Lin Shaobai was unhappy but had no choice but to accept it. Ye Shiwu also warned him not to boast just because his father had died in the line of duty.

Lin Shaobai let the words go in one ear and out the other, as he didn’t take Ye Shiwu seriously. A truck carrying Jin Yuan Coupons (a form of currency) arrived. Lin Shaobai and Xu Wei worked together, diverting the people in the warehouse so they could sneak in and steal goods as compensation for their reduced wages.

However, the front yard was filled with people collecting their pay, so Lin Shaobai and Xu Wei hid the goods in a box, planning to secretly take them out during overtime in the evening. Lin Shaobai told Xu Wei that these goods were in high demand and could fetch the equivalent of two years’ worth of their salary at the market.

But just as they were about to leave with the goods that evening, the police station was brightly lit, and surprisingly, Mao Sen, the head of the station, was there. Ye Shiwu had brought in a group of Communist Party members to be secretly executed, and Lin Shaobai and Xu Wei accidentally stumbled upon it. They tried to sneak away, but Ye Shiwu caught them. Ye Shiwu decided to make them each execute two of the Communist Party members.

Once the bullets were fired, their hands would be stained with the blood of Communist members, leading to the scene where Lin Shaobai had a gun to his head, forced by Ye Shiwu to pull the trigger. Thinking quickly, Lin Shaobai shouted upstairs, claiming he had urgent enemy intelligence to report. Mao Sen heard this and told him to come upstairs to report. Having overheard some information earlier, Lin Shaobai offered to stay behind as an undercover agent.

Knowing that Mao Sen desperately needed undercover operatives in Shanghai, Lin Shaobai pointed out that neither he nor Xu Wei had blood on their hands yet, and they had no ties to the Bureau of Confidential Affairs, making them trustworthy. Mao Sen was eventually convinced by Lin Shaobai. However, Xu Wei, thinking the plan had failed, shot and killed the two Communist members in frustration.

Few dared to negotiate with Mao Sen, so Mao Sen believed he could impose his conditions, forcing Lin Shaobai to work for him. After leaving the police station, Lin Shaobai devised a plan to escape to Hong Kong with Xu Wei. Meanwhile, Mao Sen personally sought out Zheng Lanting, also known as Bailao, trying to persuade him to come out of retirement.

Zheng Lanting had no interest in taking up an official post, but what did interest him was the list of all the undercover agents in Shanghai that Mao Sen held. Unable to make the decision on his own, Mao Sen failed to strike a deal with Zheng Lanting. He left his secretary, Liu Guihang, in Shanghai to wait for the right opportunity to seize the trump card that Zheng Lanting held.

That night, Lin Shaobai and Xu Wei took three women and prepared to board a boat. Xu Wei went to purchase tickets but found there were only four. Xu Wei initially intended for Lin Shaobai to take his wife and Lin Shaobai’s two mothers, but Lin Shaobai volunteered to stay behind—and was then captured again by Ye Shiwu.

Episode 2 Recap

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