After the defeat of the Japanese, the leadership of the Communist forces are invited by Chiang Kai-shek to "discuss the state of affairs" in Chongqing, with the goal of avoiding civil war.

In Shanghai in 1937, a journalist meets and falls for a woman who refuses to tell him her name, referring to herself only as "Ghost". She disappears, and his efforts to find her lead the journalist to clear up an old, unsolved murder case.