The Guardians Episode 1 Recap
> The Guardians Recap
In mid-1940, as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression reached a stalemate with battles raging on open fields, a covert war unfolded in the shadows. Here, Morse code dots and dashes became weapons, and cipher systems acted as shields. Both sides leveraged radio waves in aerial combat, with enemy defenses growing stronger while Chinese code-breakers drew closer to cracking them.
In Shanghai, at the Southeast Trading Company, a branch of the Mei Secret Service, Joseph Lee, a renowned cryptographer, was invited to lecture the Japanese. Though appearing blind, Joseph could see perfectly well. During the lecture, he explained how a seed key and a key derivation function could generate a key stream, which then applied a one-time pad rule for encryption, a type of symmetric algorithm.
When Kondo Saburo, a cipher officer, pressed him with a question, Joseph feigned a lack of English comprehension, then arrogantly delayed answering, dismissing the Japanese students as a waste of his time until the class ended. Section Chief Takeda, despite Joseph's disdain, promptly offered him double the payment, grateful that Joseph's encryption method had successfully evaded Chinese military reconnaissance. Takeda noted that the Chinese army in Northern Jiangsu was on the verge of total defeat, making Joseph's contribution invaluable.
Back in his hotel room, the man who had just lectured the Japanese, an actor named Ding Yi, removed his disguise and ceased feigning blindness. The real Joseph Lee was also present in the room. Ding Yi tried to discreetly pocket some of the double payment, but Joseph, who had deliberately omitted details from the day's lecture to provoke the Japanese, called him out. Joseph reasoned that the Japanese, believing Ding Yi's feigned dissatisfaction, had overpaid.
Ding Yi, realizing Joseph had orchestrated the situation, reluctantly handed over the extra money, complaining about the constant scheming. Joseph, meanwhile, felt confirmed that the enemy was stumped by his cipher system but found their slow reaction unsettling, sensing an unknown factor at play. Ding Yi, initially attempting to slip away through the window after changing clothes, decided to return to the hotel. As he knocked on the door, he heard a struggle inside.
When the door abruptly opened, he was pulled in by a man in black. Joseph lay unconscious, and Ding Yi was startled by a dark opening that he only briefly saw. After Ding Yi had first left, Gu Yangshan, an old acquaintance of Joseph's, had entered Joseph’s room.
Gu recognized Joseph's specific expertise in stream ciphers and XOR operations from their past academic interactions, and knowing Joseph had studied at Oxford, he believed Joseph was the designer of the Mei Secret Service's new, unbreakable cipher. He confronted Joseph, revealing that many lives were being lost on the Northern Jiangsu front due to the Japanese's new cipher.
Joseph, however, was indifferent to the human cost, seeing it as their personal "battlefield" and only cared if Gu Yangshan had managed to crack his code. He accused Gu of trying to "blackmail" him with "unrelated individuals' lives." Joseph revealed his deep-seated resentment towards Gu, who had eclipsed his career at Oxford by cracking his encryption model, leading to the International Mathematicians Association withdrawing his invitation and plunging him from academic heights into obscurity.
Joseph confessed that a brain tumor had pressed on his optic nerve, causing his blindness just as he completed his masterpiece cipher to defeat Gu. He vowed to be Gu's eternal enemy, refusing to serve anyone else, asserting that his cipher would be Gu's lifelong nightmare. As Ding Yi knocked, Joseph, in a fit of rage, lunged at Gu with a small knife, forcing Gu to knock him unconscious. Ding Yi, terrified, confessed he was just an actor.
Gu, claiming to be from the Anti-Traitor Squad, injected Ding Yi with a neurotoxin from his cufflink, warning him that he would die in six hours without an antidote, which he would only receive if he helped. Moments later, Section Chief Takeda and Kondo Saburo arrived at the room to offer their apologies.
Ding Yi, improvising, introduced Gu as "Charlie," his new assistant recently returned from the UK and suffering from jet lag, explaining why "Charlie" almost let the Japanese guards carry Joseph’s suitcase, which contained the real Joseph. The two quickly left the hotel in a car, with Ding Yi desperately pleading for the antidote. Gu, however, noticed they were being followed by Kondo's men and prioritized their escape.
Gu drove them to the Chaosheng Theatre, where Ding Yi, thinking it was safe, led them and the suitcase into the backstage props storage. Their hopes for safety were dashed when theatre staff arrived to move props, and the Japanese pursuers closed in. They hid in a cabinet, but Ding Yi's cane was left outside, and Gu's blood from an earlier injury attracted the Japanese's attention. Inside the cabinet, Joseph regained consciousness.
Gu reiterated his invitation to Joseph to join the resistance, emphasizing that the national crisis was no time for personal vendettas. Joseph, however, remained resolute, expressing his lifelong desire to defeat Gu. Their argument escalated into a struggle, during which Joseph lunged for Gu's gun, resulting in Joseph being accidentally shot. With his dying breath, Joseph told Gu that his cipher would become Gu's "lifelong nightmare."
As Section Chief Takeda and his men arrived at the theatre, Xian Biyun, the leader of the Chaosheng Troupe, confronted them. Unaware of Gu Yangshan's identity or the full situation, she firmly declared that she would not let a few "uninvited guests" disrupt her theatre.
Asserting the sanctity of the Public Concession and her connections with William, a director at the Municipal Council, Xian Biyun orchestrated a frantic prop change, ingeniously hiding Ding Yi, Gu Yangshan, and Joseph’s body inside a large stage tree. The disguised prop was then moved onto the stage as the next act began, successfully concealing them from Takeda and his searching men.
