The story: The king of Pei (Zheng Kai) is content with the status quo and has no plans to take back the territory of Jingzhou. So he is furious when Commander Zi Yu (Deng Chao) challenges Jingzhou’s general Yang Cang (Hu Jun) to a duel. Most of Yang Cang’s opponent barely survives after challenging him to a dual. But unknown to all, the commander appearing in public is actually Jing Zhou (also played by Deng) who was actually captured to be a “shadow” of Commander Zi Yu from a young age.

Following the dual, Jing Zhou is actually manipulated and trained by the injured and much-age Zi Yu from behind the scenes. The commander’s wife, Xiao Ai (Sun Li), is the only other person who knows this secret and gradually falls in love with her husband’s surrogate. Knowing that he can no longer defeat Yang Cang by his own merit, Zi Yu trains Jing Zhou to prepare him for a re-match with Yang Cang; the re-match being a decoy for Pei’s army to take over Jing Zhou…