Chapter 63: News Leaked from the Shanghai Station

Xiaguan Wharf.

As the gunfire subsided, hundreds of passengers at the ferry terminal were pulled out one by one by the operational agents. The rest of the people on the wharf were not spared either; they were driven to an open space and gathered together.

Old Zhao was among them, though fortunately, amidst the earlier chaos, he had managed to toss his gun into the river.

"This is brute-force law enforcement! I'm going to file a complaint against you!" shouted a middle-aged man in immaculate attire, burning with rage.

"Oh? May I ask where this gentleman is employed?" Zheng Guoen walked up to the man, wearing a pleasant smile.

"City Hall, Department of Health," the man replied loudly, straightening his clothes.

Would someone from the Department of Health dare to speak with such arrogance?

"It seems I am blind and failed to recognize a person of importance. Someone, escort this gentleman aside and take good care of him." Zheng Guoen raised his hand and patted the man lightly on the cheek.

Such was the nature of shifting from haughtiness to subservience.

Two agents dragged the middle-aged man into a nearby shop, and shortly after, cries of agony echoed from within.

"Does anyone else wish to file a complaint?" Zheng Guoen asked loudly, standing before the crowd.

Silence blanketed the crowd.

Seeing this, Zheng Guoen waved his hand and instructed his agents, "Search them and interrogate them."

The agents immediately sprang into action.

Anyone without a household registration card, unable to clearly state their business at the wharf, or stuttering in their speech was hauled onto the trucks.

Soon, it was Old Zhao's turn.

An agent searched Old Zhao and found his household registration card and delivery order.

Starting in 1928, the Nationalist government successively issued various ordinances and regulations to guide household registration and management.

One of the primary objectives was to root out underground party members hiding in Nanjing.

Over the past few years, the strict household registration system had indeed caused numerous troubles and crises for the underground party.

"Where is your ancestral home?" the agent asked, looking at the registration card and beginning the interrogation.

"Anhui Province."

"What brings you to Nanjing?"

"Doing business. I run a bookstore on Huaipailou."

"What are you doing at the wharf?"

"Here to pick up a cargo shipment. The delivery order is in your hand."

An old underground operative who could survive the White Terror relied not only on luck, but even more so on extreme caution.

Had Old Zhao not deliberately brought the delivery order with him before leaving home, he probably would have already been loaded onto a truck by now.

The agent glanced twice at the delivery order, found nothing amiss, and handed it back to Old Zhao.

"Wait off to the side. You can't leave until this is over."

Old Zhao had managed to slip past this ordeal.

On the other side, however, Jiang Quji and his companions were facing a crisis.

At the entrance of the Taikoo Sports Ground.

Agents from the Special Service Directorate were locked in a standoff with the security personnel of the sports ground.

"Team Leader Zheng, the people at the Taikoo Sports Ground are refusing us entry." Sun Xi stood outside the stadium gates, reporting the situation to the newly arrived Zheng Guoen.

Zheng Guoen frowned slightly. Knowing the background of the Taikoo Sports Ground, he dared not force his way in. "Who calls the shots here?"

"Officer, you can speak with me," said a plump, middle-aged man in his forties, stepping forward.

"And you are?"

"I am Hong Laifu, manager of the Taikoo Sports Ground." Hong Laifu cupped his hands in a greeting.

After mutual introductions, the two men stepped aside.

"I wonder if Brother Hong could grant us a convenience."

"Officer, it truly isn't that I want to make things difficult for you. There is a group of foreign devils playing golf inside the grounds. If I let you in and anger them, to say nothing of whether I'd be ruined, even you might find yourself in some trouble." Hong Laifu sighed with a helpless expression.

Foreign devils had always been arrogant, and Zheng Guoen was naturally well aware of their temperament.

"Officer, I assure you on my honor that absolutely no outsiders have entered the grounds," Hong Laifu said, holding up a finger to swear, before reaching into his sleeve to pull out a small bundle of banknotes and pressing them into Zheng Guoen's palm. "A small token of appreciation, please have a cup of tea on me, Officer."

Zheng Guoen's brow furrowed deeply, caught in a dilemma.

If he led men into the sports ground to search, he risked offending the foreigners. Should a diplomatic incident erupt, he, Zheng Guoen, would come to no good end.

Yet if the Red faction remnants were indeed hiding in the grounds and he failed to search, his tenure as team leader would surely be at an end.

After much deliberation, his official position proved more important. Zheng Guoen pushed away Hong Laifu's bribe.

"Manager Hong, no matter what, I must search these grounds.

I will only take two men inside for a covert search, without making a commotion, and I guarantee it will not attract the attention of the foreigners.

How does that sound?"

Hong Laifu hedged, "Officer Zheng, why don't you go apply for a search warrant? The moment you have a search warrant, I will gladly let you in."

Zheng Guoen's expression shifted. Since when did the Special Service Directorate ever require a search warrant to operate? "Manager Hong, you may work for foreigners, but do not forget where you are. Do you believe I won't have you detained the moment you get off work?"

Hong Laifu lamented bitterly, "Officer Zheng, I'm merely trying to make an honest living. Why must you make things hard for me?"

"You've been stalling and dodging at every turn. Could it be you really are harboring criminals?" Zheng Guoen threatened coldly.

"Where would I find the courage for that?" Hong Laifu protested defensively, then gritted his teeth. "You may only bring one person inside, and the search time is limited to half an hour at most."

With that, Hong Laifu added, "Officer Zheng, searching the Taikoo Sports Ground is a complete waste of time. If any thieves had broken in, we would have caught them long ago."

Zheng Guoen didn't reply. Taking one team member with him, he followed Hong Laifu into the sports grounds.

The locker rooms, the lounge areas, the restaurant, the fields...

Zheng Guoen and his companion trailed behind Hong Laifu, skimming past everything along the way.

The grounds were simply too vast; it would take half an hour just to walk a full circle, let alone conduct a search.

Glancing at his pocket watch, Hong Laifu prompted, "Team Leader Zheng, time is up. I will now escort you out."

"Wait, what place is that?" Zheng Guoen asked, pointing to a detached villa not far away.

"That's where our president receives distinguished guests. It's kept locked on ordinary days," Hong Laifu explained.

"Let's go take a look inside."

"The key is with the president's secretary; I can't get in," Hong Laifu said helplessly.

Ignoring Hong Laifu, Zheng Guoen led his men around the perimeter of the villa.

"Team leader, the doors and windows are all locked tight, and there are no signs of anyone scaling the walls."

Zheng Guoen, too, found nothing abnormal.

"Can we leave now?" Hong Laifu urged.

"Let's go."

Emerging empty-handed from the grounds, Zheng Guoen glanced back once more at the detached villa.

Whether it was a trick of the light or not, he thought he saw the curtains on the second floor flutter slightly.

After Zheng Guoen and his party had departed, Hong Laifu had the stadium gates locked.

Taking advantage of the moment when no one was paying attention, he approached the detached villa, drew out a key, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

"Old Jiang, the people are gone," Hong Laifu called out softly.

Six figures descended from the second floor of the villa—none other than Jiang Quji and his party.

"They were indeed Special Service Directorate agents, led by Zheng Guoen from the 3rd Intelligence Team," Hong Laifu reported.

Wan Mu stepped forward and grasped Hong Laifu's hand. "Due to organizational rules, I cannot reveal my identity. But if Comrade hadn't intervened this time, our group's fate would have been grim indeed."

"This is my duty. The comrades should rest easy here; once the storm blows over, we will figure out a way for you to leave," Hong Laifu said modestly.

"You should go attend to your duties," Jiang Quji said.

After Hong Laifu left, Wan Mu said, "If today's operation was truly targeted at us by the Special Service Directorate, then who fired the first shot at the wharf?"

A faint suspicion began to form in Jiang Quji's mind. "Comrade, let's talk inside the room."

Once the two entered the room, Jiang Quji asked, "Does Bureau Chief Wan remember Lushan?"

Wan Mu pondered for a moment. "Wasn't that the comrade dispatched to infiltrate the Special Service Directorate a few months ago? That line isn't under my direct charge; I only know the codename, but I'm not familiar with the specifics regarding Comrade Lushan."

Jiang Quji said with a heavy heart, "From the sixteenth year of the Republic to the twenty-third, the Nanjing underground party organization has experienced eight major crackdowns, and even endured a 'period without an underground party' over the past two years, from which it has yet to fully recover.

Since Bureau Chief Wan came this time to expand the Nanjing underground party organization, then according to organizational rules, I must brief you on Comrade Lushan's situation."

Hearing this, Wan Mu's expression inevitably turned grave.

As the capital of the Republic, Nanjing's importance went without saying.

If the underground party wished to acquire more intelligence, starting from the central organs was undoubtedly the most efficient path.

Chiang Kai-shek was well aware of this, which was why the situation facing the Nanjing underground party was extremely perilous.

"Old Jiang, the two of us are old acquaintances, so there's no need to beat around the bush. Speak your mind."

"Bureau Chief Wan, although Comrade Lushan has been with the Special Service Directorate for less than three months, he has earned Dai Li's deep trust and is now the leader of the 4th Intelligence Team."

Wan Mu asked in astonishment, "Promoted that quickly?"

"Comrade Lushan is an absolute master at capturing Japanese spies. In just three months, he has captured dozens of them, and during that time, he even saved Dai Li's life and had an audience with Chiang Kai-shek." Jiang Quji genuinely regretted sending Song Yingge to the Special Service Directorate.

Had Song Yingge been sent to the Northwest instead, he was certain that the covert agents planted there by the Party Affairs Investigation Bureau and the Special Service Directorate would have been unmasked.

"It seems this Comrade Lushan possesses formidable capability," Wan Mu remarked with emotion.

"Do you remember that sum of one hundred thousand yuan in funds from not long ago?"

"Of course I remember. That money was truly timely assistance that resolved our urgent crisis. Were those funds also provided by Comrade Lushan?" Wan Mu asked in disbelief, as one hundred thousand yuan was a colossal sum.

"Indeed they were." Although Jiang Quji had never met Song Yingge in person, introducing him to Wan Mu gave him the lingering sensation of a proud elder showing off a promising junior.

"While work behind enemy lines is important, a talent of this caliber should be dispatched to work in the Northwest," Wan Mu said regretfully.

Jiang Quji was momentarily at a loss for words. "You can't look at it that way. I suspect that the gunshot at the wharf today is highly likely related to Comrade Lushan. Had I not sent him to go undercover, all of us would have gone to meet Old Man Marx today."

"That's a case of losing the arm in the east, but gathering the harvest in the west," Wan Mu chuckled.

Jiang Quji smiled as well, though his expression quickly grew solemn again.

"Your arrival in Nanjing was known to me alone, so we can basically rule out any possibility of a leak from my side. The Northwest side must be thoroughly and rigorously investigated to weed out this hidden mole; otherwise, we will face endless trouble down the line."

"Rest assured, as long as he is still in the Northwest, we will dig him out," Wan Mu said, still feeling lingering fear as that leak had nearly cost him his life.

While the two men were conferring in secret, Liu Chuanshu—who had fired the first shot at the wharf—was wrestling with how to deal with Huang Yue.

When the Special Service Directorate agents had searched the warehouse earlier, they found nothing abnormal and subsequently departed.

In reality, Huang Yue was locked away in the basement.

This basement was something Song Yingge had specifically instructed the Zhendong Hall men to construct.

He hadn't expected it to come in handy this time.

To call it a basement was generous; it was essentially a large cavity dug into the earth.

Finger Nine moved the crate blocking the entrance, looked at the unconscious Huang Yue, and felt a headache coming on. "How do we handle this fellow?"

"We can't kill him. What if we kill him and the boss asks us for him later?" Liu Chuanshu said.

"Then where do we lock him up?"

"Right here in the basement. The two of us will take turns watching him over the next couple of days, and once the storm blows over, we'll relocate him."

As the two spoke, Huang Yue regained consciousness from his swoon, feeling that his future was utterly bleak.

He had already guessed Song Yingge's true identity.

Only if Song Yingge were a Red party member could his motives be explained.

He doubted he would survive this ordeal.

"Awake? How was your sleep?" Finger Nine noticed Huang Yue.

Feeling the throbbing pain at the back of his head, Huang Yue had no inclination to speak; he knew that even if he begged for mercy, these two men wouldn't let him go.

"Fine then, looks like you didn't sleep well."

Finger Nine picked up a club, walked over to Huang Yue, and knocked him unconscious once more.

"Do you think the boss is really a Red?" Finger Nine asked.

"Whether he is or isn't, does it change the fact that he's our boss?" Liu Chuanshu replied.

The two exchanged glances and both smiled.

...

Central Hospital.

Song Yingge had finished his surgery, but the effects of the anesthesia had not yet worn off, and he lay soundly asleep in his hospital bed.

Dai Li walked into the ward, cast a glance at Song Yingge, and turned to ask the doctor, "How is he?"

"Excessive blood loss; he was already in shock when brought in. Any later, and even Hua Tuo returned to life couldn't have saved him.

The bullet in his chest was a mere centimeter from his heart; he can only be considered lucky.

The bullet in his calf passed through the muscle without injuring the bone.

The surgery was a success. After a period of recuperation, he will recover."

Though the doctor did not recognize Dai Li, he dared not be negligent, as the bodyguards trailing behind him did not look like benevolent men.

Hearing this, Dai Li's brow relaxed slightly.

Based on the doctor's assessment, the possibility of a self-inflicted苦肉计 (ruse of injuring oneself to gain trust) could essentially be ruled out.

Suspicion was second nature to Dai Li; even if a stray dog walked past him, he would stop to sniff it.

Trust was something that inherently required continuous proof.

And Song Yingge's performance had once again earned Dai Li's trust.

Shortly after, Song Yingge stirred awake. Seeing Dai Li standing in the ward, he struggled to push himself up.

"Don't move around recklessly, just rest and recuperate," Dai Li said gently.

"This subordinate has failed in his duty; please punish me, Director." Song Yingge insisted on sitting up and immediately pleaded guilty.

"What crime is there to speak of? Your deployment at the scene had no loopholes; had an accident not occurred, the operation would have been a success.

Furthermore, you were injured in the line of duty and nearly lost your life—how could I bear to punish you?" Dai Li consoled.

Hearing this, Song Yingge's eyes reddened. "Director..." Before he could finish, his voice choked with emotion.

"Rest easy and don't let your mind wander."

"Yes. Director, there is one more matter this subordinate must report."

"What is it?"

"This subordinate suspects there is a Red party spy within the Special Service Directorate."

"You are referring to Huang Yue?"

"Not just Huang Yue.

There were four distinct sources of gunfire at the scene, which clearly shows someone had laid an ambush at the wharf in advance.

While Huang Yue bears heavy suspicion, only a little over forty minutes elapsed from the time I received the assignment to the moment our operational agents arrived at the wharf. Huang Yue simply had no opportunity to notify the Reds.

Even if he had somehow tipped them off, the Reds could never have reached the wharf before us."

Song Yingge's analysis was piercingly incisive. Dai Li nodded slightly, as this was precisely the point that had baffled him.

"There is only one possibility: the leak originated from the Shanghai Station.

There is a Red party mole inside the Shanghai Station."

Song Yingge said with absolute conviction.