Spying

24 Within a Square Inch

As the crimson evening glow rose behind Purple Mountain, Han Guizhang, wearing a round-topped hat and carrying a rattan suitcase, walked out of Xijiadatang. He headed south along the market on the eastern bank of Jinxiang River. It was the time when nearby residents were returning home from work, and students from the adjacent National Central University were leaving campus to grab a bite. The artificial canal’s banks buzzed with a cacophony of dialects, and no one noticed the man walking among them, about to face the most uncertain moment of his life—one step forward toward his ideal, one step back into an abyss.

At the market, a line had formed outside a braised food stall, where the shop assistant handed out salted duck heads wrapped in lotus leaves. A few steps away, children crowded around a popcorn tricycle. With a loud "bang," white smoke billowed out, and the children shrieked with a mix of fear and delight. The mute old woman selling newspapers and white magnolias was packing up her stall when a running child bumped into her, nearly knocking her over. Han Guizhang reacted swiftly, steadying her with one hand and her half-empty newspaper basket with the other.

The old woman gestured incoherently, offering him a newspaper as thanks. The local papers were all sold out, leaving only the nationally distributed Shen Bao . Han Guizhang waved his hand in refusal but picked up a string of white magnolias with scattered petals from the ground. "I'll take this," he said.

This steel-willed man from the northwest suddenly thought of his mother on this summer evening in Jiangnan. Over twenty years ago, she had borrowed a middle school diploma for him, setting him on a military career filled with gunfire and bloodshed. She surely never imagined life could have moments like this—buying a string of flowers just to hang on his lapel for fragrance and beauty.

Carefully tucking the flower into his pocket, Han Guizhang continued forward. There were five bridges over Jinxiang River. When he reached the foot of Dashi Bridge, he spotted a row of rickshaws waiting. He approached the second-to-last one by the river and asked the puller, "Master, is there a Three-Eyed Well nearby?"

The puller replied, "You’re mistaken. The Three-Eyed Well is east of Xicang Bridge."

"I just came from Xicang Bridge—that’s clearly the Nine-Eyed Well."

"Oh, my mistake. The Three-Eyed Well is west of Lotus Bridge."

"And here?"

"There’s no well here, just two gardens."

The code matched. Han Guizhang added, "Then I need to go to Lotus Bridge."

Once in the rickshaw, as the wheels clattered along, Han Guizhang retrieved an envelope from beneath the seat cushion. Inside was a British colonial passport and a return ticket for a Hong Kong-Nanjing round-trip flight. Three days earlier, Hong Kong architect "Zheng Jialiu" had visited Nanjing to meet a professor at National Central University and co-founder of Huagai Architects. His passport and ticket were flawless, and now he would use them to return to Hong Kong.

At Ming Palace Airport, though there were more guards than usual, it was clear that Li Helin’s operatives were all concentrated at Zhongshan Pier and Pukou Railway Station.

As for their target, Han Guizhang? He walked straight ahead, presenting his Hong Kong British government-issued passport to enter the airport and clear customs, then took a seat in the departure lounge.In the waiting lounge, other passengers for the same flight were gradually arriving—businessmen shuttling between Hong Kong and the mainland, foreign journalists based in Hong Kong, and a religious group Han Guizhang couldn't quite place under any specific Christian denomination...

As boarding time approached, passengers stood up to queue, when suddenly, the guards who had been outside rushed in anxiously. Customs officers shouted after them, "What's going on? You can't just barge in here!"

The lead guard declared, "We're apprehending a fugitive. Everyone needs to be rechecked!"

Han Guizhang frowned slightly. Had the Ministry of Defense suddenly caught wind of something?

The guards pulled over an English-speaking customs officer and demanded that all passengers bound for Hong Kong present their documents again, along with their carry-on luggage. Naturally, the first to protest this unreasonable demand were the foreign journalists. One of them pointed at his suitcase and asked sarcastically, "Do you think there's a person lying in here?"

The guards didn't understand English but sensed hostility from their tone. Nervous, they backtracked, saying, "We'll only check the Chinese passengers."

Most of the Chinese passengers stood up apprehensively, ready for inspection. However, a foreign man dressed as a pastor from the religious group spoke to the English-speaking customs officer: "Please tell these people I know what they're trying to do. When they can't catch the fugitive, they'll pin it on innocent people. Your government's treatment of its own people is already internationally infamous. Last year in Taiwan, wasn't it under the pretext of catching traitors that civilians were suppressed and brutalized?"

With the first person speaking up, others joined in protest against this abuse of power. The waiting lounge quickly descended into chaos, and the guards began to lose control.

Just then, boarding for the flight commenced.

Some passengers simply ignored the guards and walked out directly. Thinking that the authorities wouldn't punish the many, Han Guizhang picked up his suitcase and blended into the crowd forcing their way to board. Yet, just as he was about to step out of the waiting lounge, he suddenly heard a voice from behind—

"Sir in the hat, please wait!"

Han Guizhang halted. In an instant, another group of men—dressed in the distinctive black uniforms of the Confidentiality Bureau—swarmed in from nowhere. The previously noisy passengers fell silent immediately, recognizing that these men were different from the earlier guards. Among them, a lean, sharp-faced man who looked no older than thirty-five stood out as someone formidable. He strode straight toward his target.

Han Guizhang turned around. He had seen this man's photo in the materials Peng Yongcheng provided—Lu Peng, head of the Confidentiality Bureau's Operations Division. He thought to himself, Lu Peng must have seen his photo too.However, Han Guizhang had altered his appearance at this point. To better resemble Zheng Jialiu from the passport, he had glued on a mustache, worn glasses, and spoke with a Cantonese accent hastily taught by Peng Yongcheng—Peng was a master of disguising accents, as evidenced by how Ren Shaobai had been fooled by his flawless northeastern dialect when they first met at the casino. If it were just a matter of exchanging a few simple phrases, he shouldn’t be detected. Moreover, the Ministry of National Defense had focused their efforts on the docks and train stations far from the city center. At the airport, he should have been able to board the plane without issue.

Unexpectedly, Lu Peng appeared as if descending from the sky.

“The Confidentiality Bureau and the Ministry of National Defense are jointly pursuing a fugitive who threatens national security. Please cooperate with our investigation. We will resolve this quickly and not delay your travel plans,” Lu Peng announced loudly to everyone in the departure lounge. At the same time, he drew his sidearm, holding it loosely but with the safety already switched to the firing position.

No one in the lounge dared to object.

He then turned to Han Guizhang. Though the man before him bore no resemblance to the person in the Ministry’s personnel files, Lu Peng said, “We’ll start with this gentleman. Please present your passport again. The more you cooperate, the sooner you can board. Otherwise, the aviation authority has already notified the captain—no one will be flying to Hong Kong tonight.”

Amidst low murmurs of complaint, Han Guizhang silently handed over his passport.

“Please open your suitcase as well.”

Han Guizhang crouched down and placed the rattan trunk on the ground, opening it.

Lu Peng flipped through the passport while a special agent from the Confidentiality Bureau inspected the luggage.

“Mr. Zheng—” Lu Peng glanced at the contents of the trunk. Inside were simple belongings: a change of summer clothes, a set of sleepwear, a pouch for toiletries, a book, a ticket stub from the Dahua Cinema, and a receipt from a hotel near Central University—all under Zheng Jialiu’s name.

These had been prepared by Peng Yongcheng to ensure he looked like a genuine traveler.

Originally, Peng’s first layer of the plan had been to divert the Ministry’s attention toward the foreign community in the capital, creating a diplomatic incident. Ren Shaobai would then fan the flames, making the fabricated documentary crew’s relocation plan seem credible. However, this decoy tactic was quickly uncovered by Lan Youyin and Shen Tong, who exposed their real second-layer plan—to escape by sea to Dalian.

When Ren Shaobai informed Peng Yongcheng of this setback, he even blamed the code they had used in their telegrams.

“Could the codenames be any less subtle? ‘Carpenter’ for a person, ‘Cotton field’ for the northwest—why don’t we just call this relocation plan ‘Operation Huarong Escape’?”

Peng Yongcheng thought his tone was too harsh but understood it stemmed from anxiety, so he didn’t reprimand him. Instead, he revealed his third-layer plan—

A risky move, of course. If Li Helin also saw through the blind spot in their two-pronged diversion, Han Guizhang might be walking straight into a trap. The final safeguard was this genuine Hong Kong British passport, rightfully belonging to Zheng Jialiu.Zheng Jialiu was indeed a real person, an architect who frequently traveled between Hong Kong and the mainland to study ancient architecture. Over a year ago, he went to southern Anhui to study Huizhou-style architecture but unfortunately contracted a severe illness and passed away during the trip. His documents first ended up with the local guide he had hired and later made their way to the Shanghai underground party organization. The intelligence station staff deliberately kept them for potential future use.

Now, that potential future use had come into play, just one step away from Han Guizhang leaving Nanjing.

Han Guizhang reached into his trouser pocket, and the special agent beside him immediately pointed a gun at him.

"Don't move!"

Han raised one hand to show he was unarmed while using the other to pull out two white magnolia flowers strung together.

Lu Peng truly hadn't expected this.

"Bought them on the way, didn't have time to pack them in the suitcase," Han said, gathering the slightly loosened magnolias in his hand before bending down to place them on his open luggage. He then looked up and asked, "Are we done with the inspection?"

How could a fugitive wanted across the entire city still have the leisure to buy flower garlands by the roadside?

Lu Peng signaled the special agent to help close the suitcase and said, "My apologies, Mr. Zheng, for the inconvenience."

Han smiled, closed the suitcase himself, stood up, and even tipped his hat at Lu Peng in a gentlemanly manner before walking through the boarding gate.

On the empty airport runway, the evening wind howled, but Han Guizhang remained unhurried, taking one deliberate step after another toward the boarding stairs.

Lu Peng stood in the departure lounge, watching the back of this "Zheng Jialiu," vaguely feeling he had missed something. But what exactly?

A subordinate special agent asked, "Director, should we continue the search?"

Lu Peng withdrew his gaze and said firmly, "Search."

They stood at the boarding gate, inspecting each passenger's documents and luggage one by one, detaining anyone suspicious. But even after the last passenger passed inspection, they found no trace of the person they were looking for.

Lu Peng's eyes turned to the runway. As the last passenger ascended the boarding stairs and the plane's door began closing in preparation for takeoff, he suddenly shouted, "Stop that plane!"

The special agents swarmed out, yelling at the mechanics retracting the stairs as they ran.

"Mr. Zheng Jialiu, please come out," Lu Peng called into the cabin from outside the door. "If you refuse to cooperate, every passenger on this plane will be implicated for harboring a fugitive!"

Han Guizhang took a deep breath, preparing for the worst.

The high-wattage runway lights illuminated Ming Palace Airport as brightly as daylight, yet neither Han Guizhang nor Lu Peng shielded their eyes. The summer clothes of those around them billowed in the wind like ancient battle flags, encircling the two opposing commanders as distant echoes of war drums seemed to reverberate in their ears.

"Officer, I'm afraid you've mistaken—"

Han maintained his composure, but before he could finish, Lu Peng called out his real name.

"Commander Han Guizhang, please remove your hat."

Han's heart sank, but he didn't move.

"Even if your face can be disguised, the indentation from years of wearing a steel helmet on your forehead cannot be hidden," Lu Peng declared loudly again. "Commander Han, take off your hat."Han Guizhang felt the blood vessels at his temples throbbing violently, but he complied nonetheless.

Lu Peng stepped closer, and under the glaring lights, he saw the marks on Han Guizhang’s head again—this time a hundred times clearer than the fleeting glimpse in the airport lounge.

“General Han, don’t try to deny it now by claiming these were left for some other reason. Have you abandoned the dignity and honor of a soldier just to save your own skin?”

Han Guizhang knew this was a provocation, yet he had no retort. He stood there in silence, his mind flashing through scenes like a revolving lantern—from military academy to the Northern Expedition, from secretly joining the Communist Party to being suspected time and again, only to narrowly escape each time... This time, there would likely be no escape.

Seeing the shift in his expression, Lu Peng grew even more certain. Smugly, he declared, “General Han, you should have expected this day when you leaked the Forty-Sixth Division’s intelligence to the bandit army during last year’s Laiwu Campaign. Such is the fate of a traitor.”

“A civil war where kin slaughter kin. Who have I betrayed? And to whom have I pledged my loyalty?”

“To the Party-State, of course!”

“I dislike the term ‘Party-State.’ Does the Republic of China belong solely to the Nationalist Party, and not to the rest of the Chinese people?”

Lu Peng stared at Han Guizhang in disbelief. Even now, the man could twist words so shamelessly. Furious, he was about to order the special agents to seize him when suddenly, a pair of headlights flashed from behind, followed by the screech of tires against pavement—

From the opposite end of the runway, several military vehicles roared toward them, kicking up dust. The Confidentiality Bureau agents hastily retreated to either side as the lead car slammed to a stop right in front of Lu Peng.