The impeccably paced story starts in the throes of one of the most tumultuous periods of the Cultural Revolution, before jumping to the near future. It introduces us to a world populated by scientists an soldiers, plutocrats and police. One scientist, Wang Miao, is recruited to investigate an unusual rash of suicides among theoretical physicists. The extra-governmental cabal that recruits him hints darkly that these deaths are part of an ongoing secret war.
As Wang digs deeper into the mystery his whole world begins to fall apart. And then there is that tantalizing video game…