The Chinese government launches a daring operation to arrest a violent drug cartel following the discovery of thirteen Chinese crew members' bodies on two ships sailing through the Mekong River.

Nanotechnology researcher Wang Miao is taken to the Joint Operations Center by police officer Shi Qiang, who's investigating the mysterious suicide wave among scientists worldwide. He is recruited to sneak into an organization called the Frontiers of Science to help the investigation. When Wang Miao is contacted by the leader of the organization, Shen Yufei, she introduces him to a sophisticated VR video game called Three-Body, but soon he discovers that it's more than just a game.

In 1937, the Japanese imperialists launched a brutal war of aggression against China. Xu Tian was a color-blind accountant in Shanghai with military training who decided to stay close to his mother after the death of his father. After an accident involving a group of patriots led by a friend of his late father, he was touched by the patriotic spirit. He used his sharp mind to help the patriots transporting important materials, which also drew the attention of Japanese occupying the city to himself. During this period, he befriended Jin, a conman-turned-businessman and Tielin, a police officer working in the Shanghai French Concession. At the same time, pharmacist Tian Dan rented a room in Xu's house after losing her parents in an incident Xu was deeply involved. On the backdrop of the national crisis, people were living their intertwined lives with their own agenda, be it for revenge, for duty, for self-interest, or for ideology.