Crimson Delta

In the bitter winter of 1937-1938, war between a fractured China and a bellicose Japan is spilling across the continent. Shanghai is on the verge of capitulation to advancing Japanese forces after weeks of brutal urban warfare. As the days progress , the writing is on the wall: Nanjing is the next domino to fall, and the twenty-year-old Wang Wei, an awkward, but extremely intelligent student studying at National Central University, finds himself stuck in an increasingly deteriorating situation, where rations are running out, refugees flood into the cramped capital, and the echoing of Japanese boots grow ever louder.

In the midst of Wang crafting his own plan to rendezvous with his father in Chongqing, he is approached by his former mentor Li Quang detailing a plot to escape the city via his sampan to British Hong Kong. The shaking of hands as equals cements Wang's role in the plot. However, as the plot to escape Nanjing is in its final stages, Wang Wei encounters Amelia Smith, a prospective, nineteen-year-old British nurse volunteering at the behest of the League of Nations. As the world grows ever more chaotic around them, the two find solace in each other, and a romantic bond begins to blossom between the two.

With the journey beyond the capital beginning to unfold, Wang Wei is forced to face his first real dilemma: will he flee with Amelia to Hong Kong and live safely with her, or will he have to leave her behind to find his father?
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