Spying

57 Yesterday Once More

Lan Youyin had sensed something amiss from the moment her favorite fountain pen suddenly went missing one day. When the pen reappeared the following day, she was certain—something had happened.

"Youyin-jie, have some orange candy." Shen Tong opened her palm, revealing two pieces of candy wrapped in colorful cellophane.

"Oh, thanks." Lan Youyin reached for them without a second thought, but Shen Tong playfully dodged.

Before Lan Youyin could react, Shen Tong performed a quick sleight of hand, tossing the candy past her side and catching it with the other hand. She laughed, "Sorry, Youyin-jie, just teasing you!" She pressed the candies into Lan Youyin’s palm, waved, and dashed off. "I’ve got a meeting to attend!"

—So it was then. The pen that had been tucked into the side of her notebook.

Shen Tong’s suspicions about Lan Youyin had begun with A Mang’s arrest. That blowhard Lu Peng might be insufferable, but he wasn’t entirely wrong—in the world of intelligence, there were no coincidences.

She jotted down every known detail related to Lan Youyin on slips of paper, searching for a pattern. It started with Qiao Mingyu’s arrest while Lan Youyin remained untouched. Then there was her near-voluntary involvement in the investigation team during Han Guizhang’s escape. Next came her probing questions about Ren Shaobai’s field assignments. And finally, the shooting at Black Tortoise Lake…

The real "Silkworm Keeper" had been captured, and A Mang was released. So why had Lan Youyin gone to Yuhuatai to witness the execution? Shen Tong couldn’t shake the thought—even if Lan Youyin wasn’t aligned with the Silkworm Keeper, she knew him. Knew some of his secrets.

On the day of the execution, Lan Youyin had seemed distracted, oblivious to the gazes—intentional or otherwise—that swept over her from the crowd.

But Shen Tong noticed something else—aside from herself, agents from the Confidentiality Bureau were also present.

Before the sea of raised umbrellas blocked her view, Lu Peng had spotted her too.

They met again the next day. Lu Peng asked Shen Tong to use her proximity to Lan Youyin and retrieve a personal item—something that could yield fingerprints.

Shen Tong instinctively resisted. "Fingerprints aren’t foolproof. If it’s a document or something others handle, prints could be smudged or incomplete. It’d be meaningless."

"Which is why I’m asking for your help—to get something personal, like a fountain pen." Lu Peng studied her hesitation before adding, "If the prints don’t match, Section Chief Lan’s name will be cleared. And you’d have peace of mind."

Shen Tong frowned. "Why drag me into this?"

Lu Peng smiled. "You’re sincere, Miss Shen. It’s understandable to worry you might’ve unwittingly aided an enemy."

The word "enemy" made her bristle, but she swallowed her retort.

"If you refuse to help, and Lan Youyin is later proven guilty, both you and Deputy Director Li could be accused of shielding her—"

Shen Tong’s gaze turned openly hostile.Yet, she still took Lan Youyin's pen. Later, even though she knew the other party might have noticed, after the Confidentiality Bureau inspected it, she decided to return the pen—quietly placing it back in the gap between Lan Youyin's desk and the wall, with just the tip of the cap peeking out to make it seem as if it had accidentally fallen there.

While eating in the cafeteria, she seemed to feel Lan Youyin’s gaze on her. She lowered her head, pretending not to notice. She decided to be a guilty ostrich for the time being. Fortunately, things were already busy—an incident at the American embassy had occurred, and she was assigned to fieldwork.

To be precise, it was a series of events triggered by the embassy.

A Shanghai newspaper had published a letter from President Chiang to Truman, requesting military aid for the Nationalist government. This led to students in Nanjing surrounding the American embassy on Xikang Road, protesting U.S. support for Japanese troops assisting the Nationalists in the civil war. They clashed with military police from the Ministry of National Defense sent to maintain order.

This incident infuriated the Presidential Office, as some protesters carried banners from National Central University—where President Chiang himself had once served as chancellor. It was like setting fire to one’s own backyard, a slap in the face from "his own students."

With the Ministry of National Defense’s Second Department preoccupied with military affairs in the Xuzhou-Bengbu region, Shen Tong was tasked for the first time with independently leading an investigation into the organizers behind the protests. Working alongside Zhu Yanjun, who had by then become a seasoned informant for Li Helin, the two operated openly and covertly, quickly gathering intelligence for arrests—primarily lists of student activists and union leaders across Nanjing’s universities. However, when the military police raided the campuses, they haphazardly detained over twenty students but failed to capture any of the key organizers.

Thus, a second round of arrests was launched on the third day.

Naturally, resistance followed.

Students from National Central University gathered near the dormitories at Sipailou, loudly denouncing the Nationalist government’s civil war and persecution of democratic figures while voicing support for those arrested the previous day. From morning till night, the sounds of protests and songs filled the air, with some nearby residents joining in. Traffic came to a complete standstill, and even police and military police vehicles couldn’t get through.

The situation escalated. Sipailou was barely two kilometers from the Presidential Office. Protesting students seized the loudspeakers originally used by school administrators to mediate and directly addressed the Presidential Office, demanding that "Chancellor Chiang" come out and resolve the issue.

But at this moment, "Chancellor Chiang" wasn’t even in Nanjing—he was in Huludao, witnessing the fall of Shenyang to Communist forces and the retreat of Nationalist troops, marking the complete collapse of the Northeast.

The Presidential Office was also deliberating countermeasures. Initially, they planned to have Chen Bulei, Secretary-General of the Central Party Committee, step in to pacify the students. But just then, gunfire erupted.

It was the hour when the moon hung on the treetops. The police bureau had deployed several fire trucks, intending to bypass the crowd using ladders to climb into the outer dormitories and advance from inside the campus. But as soon as officers began ascending the ladders, students hurled rocks from below. One officer fell from a height, and then—they opened fire on the students.

Screams erupted from the crowd. Some students lunged at the police in desperation, only to be met with a hail of bullets. In an instant, Sipailou’s Chengxian Street—once a scholarly haven of books and quiet study—became a blood-soaked execution ground for the violent suppression of student protests.A female student leader, who had been preparing to climb onto a fire truck to give a speech, stumbled and scrambled away, her ears filled with screams and cries. She didn’t dare run into the university campus, fearing that disguised special agents might be lying in wait there. So she headed east, ducking into the maze-like alleys of a nearby residential area.

After running for what felt like an eternity, the student finally stopped, leaning against a wall to catch her breath, convinced she had put enough distance between herself and the crowd. But then she heard rapid footsteps behind her—she hadn’t shaken them off; the police were still chasing her! Lifting her head, she realized she had no idea where to run next. Her legs grew heavier, and she had no way of knowing from which alley the pursuers might emerge. Just then, someone suddenly grabbed her from a side alley.

She was about to scream when a pair of cool hands covered her mouth.

"Don’t make a sound. I’ll get you out," said a calm, composed female voice.

Terrified, the student glanced sideways and saw a woman in what looked like some government uniform, barely a few years older than herself but with far steadier eyes. She nodded repeatedly, and the woman lowered her hand, adding, "If we run into the police, tell them you’re my little sister, walking home from school together. Fix your hair—it’s a mess."

The student hurriedly obeyed, smoothing her disheveled clothes from the frantic run. Then, arm in arm, they walked out of the alley.

Sure enough, a policeman was blocking the exit.

At the sight of them, the officer hesitated. The student guessed he must recognize the uniform her companion was wearing. The stranger repeated the rehearsed story and pointed in a direction. "We live over there, in Peach Blossom Village." When the policeman still looked skeptical, she added, "Here’s my officer’s ID. I work at the Ministry of Defense."

The officer took the document, flipped it open, and immediately snapped to attention. "Sir! My apologies for the disturbance."

"Mhm. You’re just doing your job."

The policeman stepped aside, watching as the two walked past.

At the next intersection, the student finally exhaled, her shoulders slumping as the tension drained away. The haze of survival left her dazed, and she followed the woman mindlessly for a while longer. When she finally regained her senses, a fresh wave of panic hit her—what if this woman was using this ruse to capture her? By now, she could have been...

She frantically looked around, but instead of finding herself in some unfamiliar place or shoved into a waiting police van, she saw the woman had stopped beside a bus stop.

"Where do you live? Should I take you home?" the woman asked.

"I live in the school dorm..."

"At the university?"

The student shook her head. "Ginling College."

For a fleeting moment, the woman seemed to hesitate—or was that just her imagination? Before she could be sure, the woman turned to check the bus schedule. "From here to Ninghai Road... There’s a direct route that bypasses Shipailou. Can you get back on your own?""Yes! I can. Thank you just now—" the female student said solemnly, but before she could finish, she noticed the person before her suddenly change expression, their gaze shifting past her to look behind...

The student turned her head to see the policeman who had just let them pass chasing after them again—and with him was a girl who appeared almost her own age, even somewhat familiar-looking—

"Youyin-jie, when did you gain a younger sister without me knowing?"

The student was still stunned, but Lan Youyin had already stepped in front of her, loosely positioning herself between the girl and the approaching figures.

"Miss Shen," Lan Youyin said.

Shen Tong, dressed in plainclothes, kept one hand resting near her waist, ready to draw her gun at any moment as she advanced step by step. "The student behind you has been leading the recent protests. If you're just passing by and feeling momentarily soft-hearted, it's best to hand her over to me now. The Second Department of the Ministry of National Defense suspects Communist Party instigation behind this farce. You wouldn’t want to become a suspect yourself, would you?"

"Hasn’t Miss Shen already suspected me? The other day, you took my fountain pen—I assume for fingerprint testing. Have the results come back yet?"

"That’s a separate matter—" Shen Tong instinctively denied it. Besides, she had already received the results from the Confidentiality Bureau yesterday, confirming that Lan Youyin was not the one who left fingerprints on the rifle. She had even felt relieved about it, proving that Lu Peng had been wrong after all. Yet who would have thought that today, under such circumstances, she would see Lan Youyin standing so clearly on the opposite side.

But she didn’t want—not in the slightest—to be enemies with Lan Youyin.

"I know who you are!" the student behind Lan Youyin suddenly shouted. "You were among us yesterday, joining the protest! So you’re not a university student from Suzhou after all—you’re a plainclothes agent!"

Shen Tong frowned slightly, visibly displeased by the term.

The student continued, "This officer truly was just passing by. I don’t know her. If you’re here to arrest someone, I’ll go with you—because I don’t want to drag others into this. But you won’t get anything from me." With that, she tried to step around Lan Youyin, but as soon as she moved, her forearm was gently restrained.

Shen Tong tilted her head with a smirk. "Youyin-jie, your newly adopted little sister has no idea what’s really going on."

Lan Youyin ignored the remark, instead turning slightly to the student. "You can’t go with her. You don’t know their methods. You only participated in one protest—there’s no need to throw yourself into this." Then, she looked back at Shen Tong. "Miss Shen, one ordinary university student more or less in your custody won’t make the slightest difference to the real war against the Communist Party on the front lines."

By November, Nanjing’s autumn wind had finally taken on a sharper edge. The rustling of the plane tree leaves overhead sounded different now—a brittle, dry crispness. In a few more days, they would scatter in broken fragments across the ground.

"I don’t understand—why are you protecting a stranger you just met?!" Shen Tong raised her voice.At that moment, accompanied by the jingling of a bell, a bus slowly decelerated into the station. The female student looked up—it was the very one that could take her back to school. Her hands nervously clutched the hem of her clothes, unsure whether she was unlucky or fortunate, or whether she should yield or struggle a little longer.

Suddenly, another pair of hands covered hers.

"Next time, if you're going out for these kinds of activities, wear a fashionable dress under your coat," Lan Youyin turned around, gripping her hand without a care for the police coming to arrest her, then tilted her chin toward the bus. "When you run, take off your coat and change your shoes. They won’t think you’re a radical student anymore."

The girl froze for a second before understanding dawned on her. Softly, she murmured, "Thank you," then dashed toward the bus.

The policeman behind Shen Tong startled, seeing his target about to escape again, and immediately drew his gun, shouting, "Don’t—"

But before he could finish the word "move," Shen Tong’s hand, resting at her waist, swiftly rose and fired a shot straight at his head.

Bang!

The muffled gunshot merged with the roar of the bus engine as the girl leaped aboard. Shen Tong turned her head back to Lan Youyin. "Youyin-jie, I just wanted to hear your explanation."