Spying

39 Conspiring

The choice of a safe house to secretly accommodate Okamura Neiji was entirely different from the Western-style building on Gold and Silver Street where he had resided after the surrender signing ceremony two years prior. The Lizhi Society Guesthouse on Emerald Isle in Black Tortoise Lake represented a completely different approach.

Before the preliminary hearing of the military tribunal, Okamura had been under semi-public "house arrest" in Nanjing. The location had been arranged by He Yingqin—chosen because it was near a cemetery, deserted even in broad daylight. However, this location was exposed after he was transferred to Shanghai to await trial. Now, following the inconclusive preliminary hearing, the director of the Second Department of the Ministry of National Defense, adhering to the philosophy of "hiding a tree in a forest," had Okamura and his entourage stay at the Lizhi Society, which typically hosted U.S. military officers.

This way, whether Okamura traveled or high-ranking military and political officials of the Nationalist Party came to visit, it would appear natural—as if another expert from the U.S. military advisory group had arrived.

Moreover, Black Tortoise Lake, nestled close to nature yet secluded within the bustle, suited Okamura well. He even personally thanked Director Hou for considering his health.

Lan Youyin, posing as a tourist, sat in a boat and observed the building half-hidden among dense pines and bamboo from afar. She had to admit: Director Hou really had thought this through.

From what she knew, Director Hou of the Second Department wasn’t originally from intelligence but had risen through the ranks as a military officer. Back when Qiao Mingyu was stationed with the Fifth Army in western Yunnan, Hou had been a deputy section chief in the staff corps.

But precisely because of this, his appointment as head of intelligence had raised doubts about his competence. Recently, complaints from frontline troops about inaccurate military intelligence from the Ministry of National Defense, coupled with the failure to capture key defectors to the Communists, had put immense pressure on Director Hou. Thus, in handling Okamura’s reception in Nanjing, he had spared no effort, personally overseeing everything to ensure nothing went wrong.

Yet, military thinking was too straightforward—intelligence work required navigating the darkest trenches.

According to driver Zhao Mingyuan, every time he picked up Okamura, they entered through Black Tortoise Gate, drove onto Ring Isle, and finally waited on Emerald Bridge, which connected Liang Isle and Emerald Isle. Guards were stationed on the bridge, making Emerald Isle the only area off-limits to ordinary tourists. In this scenario, Okamura appearing on Emerald Bridge would present the perfect opportunity for a sniper to assassinate him from a concealed position.

Lan Youyin’s chartered boat circled the lake before docking at Fang Bridge Pier. She strolled leisurely past attractions like the Lake God Temple and the Scenic Tower, with the boatman doubling as her guide assuming she was an enthusiast of ancient Six Dynasties relics. "These five isles—Ring, Cherry, Liang, Emerald, and Water Chestnut—are the five small islands of Black Tortoise Lake…" he explained, unaware that her mind was calculating firing angles, distances from various buildings to Emerald Bridge, and the possibility of a sniper escaping undetected from the rear of a structure.

The pagoda on the northeastern shore of Ring Isle faced the midpoint of Emerald Bridge, but the distance was too great. She had also considered striking from a boat in the middle of the lake—controllable range and a wider field of view being the advantages—but escape would be too difficult. The Fish-Watching Pavilion on the northeastern shore of Liang Isle was another potential spot, but it was too close, leaving the sniper vulnerable to immediate counterattack from the guards.Finally, she settled on a section of the southeastern embankment of Liangzhou, positioned at the opposite vertex of a triangle relative to Emerald Bridge. Even better, there was a naval training platform built during the Southern Dynasties period. Lan Youyin estimated the distance from the pavilion at the highest point of the training platform to Emerald Bridge to be about 130 meters. The shooting angle might be a bit narrow, but there were no better alternatives.

Liangzhou was famous for its autumn chrysanthemums, and this year, as usual, a chrysanthemum exhibition would be held. She was certain that on a certain day afterward, the place would be bustling with crowds. If a shooter descended from the training platform after completing the sniper mission and blended into the flower-viewing tourists, the guards on Emerald Bridge, even if they reacted immediately, would be lost in the crowd for quite some time.

Lan Youyin thought, Ren Shaobai, I’ve gone above and beyond for you on this assignment. Afterward, she boarded a pleasure boat again, hailed a rickshaw outside the Shence Gate, and returned to the city center.

As the saying goes, "Two flowers bloom, each on its own branch." Meanwhile, Zhu Yanjun, a reporter from Wenhui Bao , arrived in Shanghai and began her own investigation. Though she knew the obstacles were numerous, as she had previously told Lan Youyin, once this matter had public value, she had to report on it.

Of course, she couldn’t directly verify whether Okamura Neiji had been secretly released from the Gaojingmiao War Criminal Prison. So, she devised a pretext, using the follow-up coverage of the recent first public trial as her banner, and began running around Shanghai. First, she contacted the prison warden, vaguely requesting an interview about the treatment of inmates. The warden refused to meet her, only answering a few questions perfunctorily over the phone. However, when Zhu Yanjun subtly shifted the topic to specific prisoners, the other party clammed up.

Next, she attempted to interview the presiding judge and prosecutor involved in the trial. But perhaps because the public trial had ended barely half a month prior, the two judicial officers had already been besieged by local Shanghai reporters and had cut off all interviews. Zhu Yanjun didn’t even get a chance to speak with them.

However, on the third morning of her continuous stakeout at the courthouse, a slight opportunity arose.

She managed to corner a junior judge who had also participated in last month’s public trial. He was young and told Zhu Yanjun that they weren’t allowed to disclose trial details to reporters, so she shouldn’t bother waiting—she wouldn’t get the results she wanted. But Zhu Yanjun keenly detected a hint of emotion in his words and immediately pulled him aside, slipping him a note with the address of a café, asking to meet there after work.

"I won’t go, and I can’t say anything. Please wait for the next public trial and stop making things difficult for us civil servants here."

"But what if there isn’t another public trial?"

"What do you mean? The case hasn’t been concluded yet—of course there will be another one."

"But the people awaiting trial are no longer where they should be. Judge, the procedural justice you seek is utterly insignificant in the face of certain people’s manipulations."

That evening, Zhu Yanjun met the young Judge Lu again at the café. After hearing her explanation of her earlier remarks, Judge Lu didn’t believe her at all—medical parole required court approval, and as a judge directly involved in the trial, he knew nothing about it."I've said it before, there was no due process in handling that man's case." Zhu Yanjun ultimately refrained from mentioning Okamura Neiji's name in public and lowered her voice slightly as she continued, "Back then, the Far East Military Tribunal specifically went to Nanjing to demand his extradition, yet they still found a way to keep him from leaving."

"And who exactly do you mean by 'they'?"

"What do you think? The Minister of Defense, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the President—"

"Miss Zhu." Judge Lu cut her off sharply. "Why are you telling me all these irrelevant things?"

Zhu Yanjun could see that while his words were full of skepticism, his expression held a trace of curiosity. She decided to get straight to the point: "I want to write this report—about high-ranking military and political officials interfering with judicial fairness. I want you to be a named source."

"But I haven't provided you with any information," Judge Lu said.

"You will," Zhu Yanjun replied. "You'll go back to the courthouse to verify this with your colleagues. You'll look through the case files to see whether Okamura Neiji's absence from Gaojingmiao Prison was ever officially documented."

"And you think I'd share the results with you?"

"Wouldn't you?"

Judge Lu looked at her and shook his head. "Your reasoning is flawed. You've already assumed the answer, but you don’t have direct evidence that Okamura—that man—isn’t in prison."

"I’ll get it. Judges aren’t the only ones who understand evidentiary chains—reporters do too. That’s why I came to you. And you won’t be my only source. So let’s each do our part—what we believe is right."

Judge Lu fell silent, thinking for a moment before standing up, though his gaze remained fixed on the determined female reporter before him.

As for the reporter, she tilted her chin up slightly, meeting his "scrutiny" without a trace of hesitation or unease.

"How should I contact you later?" Judge Lu asked.

Zhu Yanjun pulled out her business card, on the back of which she had already written the phone numbers for both her hotel and the Nanjing branch of Wenhui Bao . Smiling, she said, "I’ll await your good news."

They parted ways outside the café, and Zhu Yanjun walked back to her hotel two streets away in high spirits. Tomorrow, she planned to meet another person—an apprentice from a traditional Chinese medicine shop. She had never met him before, but the connection had been made through one of her existing informants—a shoeshiner who worked near Hongkou, carrying a wooden box and a stool to set up shop on the street. It was he who had first learned that Okamura Neiji had been staying at a Japanese-run clinic.

As for the apprentice, he knew his master had prepared a tonic for Okamura Neiji to alleviate rheumatic joint pain. Zhu Yanjun hoped he would become another named source for her report.

When she returned to her small hotel, she greeted the front desk clerk.

"Miss Zhu, a friend of yours called for you this afternoon," the clerk volunteered.

"A friend? Who was it?" Zhu Yanjun grew wary. She had only informed her newspaper about her trip to Shanghai—no one else should have known.

"A Miss Shen. She left a number and asked you to call her when you got back." The clerk opened the register and showed her the number he had written down earlier. "Why? Don’t you know her?"Upon hearing her surname, Zhu Yanjun's expression softened slightly. "Oh, her," she said, recalling the business card she'd left behind. Shen Tong must have called the newspaper looking for her, and someone had redirected the call here.

But why would Shen Tong be looking for her?

The only reason Zhu Yanjun could think of was that Shen Tong had heard something from Lan Youyin. Could she, as an insider from the Ministry of National Defense, be reaching out to leak information?

With this thought, Zhu Yanjun immediately dialed the number Shen Tong had left using the front desk telephone. After a brief wait, the call connected.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end was unmistakably Shen Tong's.

For some reason, that single word carried a different tone from the panicked night over a month ago. But Zhu Yanjun didn't dwell on it. "Miss Shen, this is Zhu Yanjun," she said.

"Reporter Zhu!" Shen Tong sounded both surprised and urgent. "I've been waiting for your call all afternoon—"

"Is there something you need?" Zhu Yanjun asked.

Shen Tong replied, "I know you're in Shanghai, and I know why you're here."

Zhu Yanjun felt her left eyelid twitch involuntarily.

Shen Tong continued, "But your activities have already drawn attention, especially from my unit in Nanjing. You know where I work, don't you?"

"I do," Zhu Yanjun answered instinctively, realizing now that Shen Tong wasn't here to leak news but to warn her. Her heart tightened—had that Judge Lu reported her before their meeting? Was his supposed sense of justice just a trap?

Though Zhu Yanjun had only been in journalism for a few years, she'd heard plenty of stories about reporters being persecuted by the authorities. The possibility frightened her, and she trusted Shen Tong completely—they'd met before, and Zhu Yanjun had helped her. Now, it seemed, Shen Tong was returning the favor. From this point on, Zhu Yanjun found herself following Shen Tong's lead without question.

"You're staying at the Baiyun Hotel, right? You need to leave immediately."

"You mean... someone might come after me?"

"We've met once before, which is why I'm breaking protocol to tell you this," Shen Tong's voice grew more urgent. "I'm in Shanghai too, and I might be able to help you. But you need to act fast—we have to work within a narrow window, or it'll be too late."

"Then... what should I do?"

From that moment on, Zhu Yanjun completely lost her composure.

After hanging up, she rushed upstairs, packed her belongings in a frenzy, then hurried back down to check out early, the innkeeper showing no curiosity about her sudden departure. Following Shen Tong's instructions, she exited through the back door, crossed the street, entered the Yong'an Department Store, and cut through to the Jiujiang Road exit. There, she approached a lollipop vendor and bought two pieces of zongzi candy.

As he handed her the candy, the vendor also gave her a key, saying, "Your friend is waiting for you in Room 502 at the Yangtze Hotel."If it hadn't started with that phone call, Zhu Yanjun wouldn't have been swept into the tense rhythm Shen Tong had created. If Lan Youyin hadn't come to her with a business card just days earlier, making her unconsciously link the two and believe neither meant harm. If that summer night hadn't seen the three of them driving away that annoying captain together, leaving her with an instinctive trust for Shen Tong despite being younger... Zhu Yanjun, standing at the intersection of Jiujiang Road and Yunnan Road, might not have so easily stepped through the doors of the Yangtze Hotel.

Or perhaps, if she'd been just a bit slower before entering the elevator—if she'd stopped at the front desk to make a call—then by the time she reached the fifth floor and unlocked room 502 herself, she wouldn't have vanished from the lives of her family, colleagues, and friends.

The next day, her potential informant, an apprentice in traditional medicine, waited in vain at their meeting spot. On the third day, Judge Lu from the military court called Baiyun Hotel and the Nanjing branch of Wenhui Daily, but no trace of her could be found. By the fourth day, Zhu Yanjun's parents grew worried and went to her office in Beititing Lane, asking when their daughter would return from her business trip. On the fifth day, the newspaper editor reported her disappearance to the police—their chief editor and star reporter were both missing, not together, but separately...

Yet in the memories of the Yangtze Hotel's front desk and staff, the hurried young woman had walked in on her own days earlier. Though she never reappeared afterward, her room fees were paid on time. What guests did in their rooms was their own business—certainly not the hotel's concern.