Spying

58 Conclusion

If she hadn't been sitting in Shen Tong's car, Lan Youyin might have noticed something amiss a little sooner.

The black government car drove down the street of Peach Blossom Village. Due to the curfew, shops on either side had closed two hours earlier than usual, leaving the entire street quiet. Yet even so, the silence inside the car, with just the two of them and neither speaking, was far more stifling.

Her hands tightened around the steering wheel. People often said unease could be felt in the heart, but Shen Tong felt as though her stomach was slowly sinking instead.

When they reached the building where Lan Youyin lived, a harsh noise suddenly pierced through the window. Both turned to look—it was a large truck, with workers hauling furniture and luggage. The chains of the flatbed scraped against the ground, clanking loudly.

"Moving at this hour?" Shen Tong voiced the question, though it sounded more like an excuse to break the silence.

"Moving away," Lan Youyin replied, catching on effortlessly. "Probably because the toll fees are cheaper at night."

Peach Blossom Village had originally been home to government employees, but by now, everyone was eager to leave if they could. This wasn’t the first family to go.

"I heard the Third Department is making plans to relocate south to Guangzhou," Lan Youyin added. "Not sure if you’ve caught wind of it."

"But hasn’t Xuzhou been preparing for a counteroffensive in Shandong? Or do you think we’ll end up partitioned with the Communists across the Yangtze?"

"It might not even stop at the Yangtze..."

Shen Tong turned her head sharply, staring at Lan Youyin in shock. "Are you really—"

Lan Youyin cut her off. "Does it even matter?"

Silence fell between them once more.

After a long pause, Lan Youyin reached for the door handle, ready to pull it open, when Shen Tong suddenly spoke again.

"I always thought I was clever. Ever since I was little, my memory was good—far better than most. I could remember anything after seeing it just once, whether it was numbers or words." Her gaze dropped slightly, her voice losing its usual brightness. "Later, when I entered Intelligence School, even though the other students had their own strengths, I still believed I was the sharpest among them. Except once, during code class, the instructor gave us an encrypted telegram as homework. I decoded it and proudly announced in the next class that it was just a two-week weather report. But the instructor said I was wrong—it wasn’t just a weather report. It was the retreat timetable and routes of Japanese forces from Burma in early 1945."

"Then he told us that these encrypted messages had been decoded back then by a codebreaker from the Sino-American Cooperative Organization in Chongqing. They provided critical intelligence for our Expeditionary Force’s rendezvous at Nankan and the counteroffensive on Rangoon. After class, I went to ask the instructor who that codebreaker was—whether they were a man or a woman, their name, where they worked now. He said her name was Lan Youyin, the smartest woman he’d ever met. But after the war, she got married and never returned to intelligence or code work.""Do you remember, Youyin? The first time I met you, I told you I'd heard your name and knew your story, that I admired you immensely. That wasn't just politeness—I truly meant it. So when we became friends later, I was overjoyed... It sounds a bit silly, but growing up as an only child—or maybe just being too arrogant—I never had many friends. Never imagined I'd make one as an adult, at work, and one I'd cherish so deeply like you. That's why before... I was always willing to help you, as long as it didn't cross any lines...

"But Youyin, I considered you a friend. How did you see me? Did you ask for my help because we were friends, or were you just using me?"

Shen Tong's voice grew quieter, like a little girl clutching a coin for cotton candy, only to be told they'd run out of sugar—her excitement turning to disappointment, yet still clinging to that last shred of hope, wondering if the leftover syrup in the pan might still yield a few strands...

Lan Youyin reached over, pulled out the car keys, and said, "I told you I'd explain at home. Why the rush?"

Shen Tong looked at her, momentarily stunned.

"Let's go. It's cold at night—this isn't the place to talk."

The two stepped out of the car and walked one after the other into Lan Youyin's apartment building, unaware that behind them, the workers unloading the truck exchanged glances.

One jumped into the driver's seat, and the truck's headlights flashed twice.

From his perch on the rooftop, Lu Peng received the signal. With a wave, he led two other Operations Division special agents quietly downstairs. Though most of the division had been dispatched to control the student protests at Central University, he and his small team were more than enough to corner one woman.

It wasn't until Lan Youyin reached the final step that she sensed something amiss. She turned, motioned for Shen Tong to stay silent, then looked up through the stairwell.

"The light's out—watch your step," she said deliberately.

Upstairs, Lu Peng tensed. Damn it, why hadn't those idiots outside warned him Lan Youyin wasn't alone?

The plan was to swarm down the moment they heard her key in the lock, but now there was an extra person below. Lu Peng hesitated for a second before growling, "Go!"

The agents saw Lan Youyin and Shen Tong standing on the landing—but in the next instant, the door behind them swung open from inside. Simultaneously, Shen Tong raised her gun and fired. The lead agent crumpled against the railing, blood blooming on his chest.

The door slammed shut. Lu Peng cursed, vaulted over the body blocking the stairs, and lunged at the door.

Inside, the lock clicked into place. Below, the three agents disguised as truck workers rushed up at the sound of gunfire, only to find Director Lu firing at the lock, then kicking the door open.However, in the pitch darkness, the first thing they saw were the two special agents originally lying in ambush at Lan Youyin's home, now lying face down on the ground. Lu Peng immediately realized they had already been killed before this moment. In other words, his ambush had failed, and Lan Youyin had accomplices.

Yet the house was eerily silent, with no sign of anyone in sight. Only the door leading to the bedroom was unusually tightly shut.

Lu Peng made a gesture, and the remaining three special agents fanned out to either side, creeping stealthily toward that door. Lu Peng raised his gun again, aiming at the door lock—

"Director Lu, what are you trying to do?" Lan Youyin's voice suddenly rang out from behind the door.

Lu Peng's finger paused. He quickly calculated: she likely had at least three people inside, while he had five. The odds of forcing their way in weren't absolute. Silently, he signaled for reinforcements, and one of the agents began backing away quietly. However, the moment he stepped outside, he felt someone attack from behind. A cold sensation touched his neck, and before he could cry out, he collapsed to the ground with a thud.

The door creaked shut.

Lu Peng turned his head in shock, seeing fresh blood seeping in from beneath the door. A chill ran down his spine—how could he, after all these years of operations, be outmaneuvered here?

"Director Lu, this is what they call 'the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind,'" Lan Youyin's voice came again.

How could he lose to this woman?

Unless—

"Your operation was compromised. It's as simple as that."

Lu Peng whipped his head around to look at the three remaining men behind him. They were already terrified. Initially, they had thought the director was going to excessive lengths to capture a single woman. But now, half their team lay dead or unconscious. They had no idea how many opponents they faced, nor how the other side had turned the tables despite their ambush. More importantly, they didn't know if they would survive what came next.

At this moment, Lu Peng slowly spoke: "So, it's that 1207, isn't it?"

On the other side of the door, Shen Tong's eyes widened in the darkness as she turned to look at the third person in the room.

"Director Lu knows who 1207 is?" Lan Youyin asked.

Lu Peng paused before replying, "I'm not interested in who he is. In fact, over these past three months, the only person who's interested me is you, Section Chief Lan—oh wait, I shouldn't call you Section Chief Lan, because you're not the real Lan Youyin at all."

Shen Tong's mouth was covered by Lu A'mang. She struggled briefly, but Lan Youyin grasped her hand and shook her head. Then, she heard Lan Youyin continue speaking to Lu Peng outside.

"Is it because the fingerprints on the pen you had Miss Shen steal didn't match the records on file with the Military Intelligence Section? Director Lu, fingerprint symbols being misrecorded isn't uncommon—"

Since the early years of the Republic, the Nationalist government had promoted using "loops" and "whorls"—triangles and circles—to record fingerprints on resident identification cards. With ten symbols total from both hands, the probability of two people having identical combinations was considered small enough to prevent impersonation.

Of course, clerical errors in recording still happened occasionally.So when Lan Youyin passed the entrance exam for the Sino-American Cooperative Organization and was undergoing information registration, the personnel officer hesitated slightly while comparing her hand to the fingerprint records on her ID card. The record for her right hand on the ID read "loop, loop, whorl, whorl, loop," but Lan Youyin's right hand clearly showed "loop, loop, loop, whorl, loop." The fingerprint on her middle finger was different.

Yet at the same time, he glanced at the party membership application Lan Youyin had brought, which bore the unmistakable signatures of Zhang Jigong and Wu Zhigong. What was there to question or doubt? Moreover, her exam results were excellent—nothing like those of an unemployed drifter trying to slip through the cracks. And so, Lan Youyin entered the Sino-American Institute and had her identity recorded in the Military Intelligence Section's archives, including her fingerprint symbols, with her right hand recorded as "loop, loop, whorl, whorl, loop."

Lan Youyin wondered: if the registrar back then hadn't avoided trouble by logging her actual fingerprints, would the sole vulnerability in her file not have been left behind, only to be dug up years later by the hyena-like Lu Peng?

"Are you trying to say it's a coincidence?" Lu Peng said, raising his hand again to aim at the lock on the door. "But don't you think there are just too many coincidences surrounding you? And more importantly, I never believe in coincidences—"

The lock was hit.

Lu Peng gripped the gun with both hands, loading another bullet into the chamber.

"Director Lu, help me!"

Shen Tong, held at gunpoint by A Mang with the muzzle pressed to her temple, cried out helplessly to Lu Peng. Lu Peng froze—was it really her who had returned with Lan Youyin?

Things had just gotten more complicated. He could feel his back drenched in sweat. If the hostage had been someone else—an ordinary staff member or intern from the Ministry of Defense, for instance—he wouldn't have hesitated to shoot the hostage first rather than allow himself to be threatened. But why did it have to be this young woman, who was related to the head of the Ministry's First Department?

Meanwhile, the Colt M1911 in Lan Youyin's hand was aimed squarely at his face.

"So it really is you," Lu Peng said. ".38 caliber, expanding bullet—you were the one who killed Yang Kaizhi from the Security Bureau outside the shantytown in Yeshan. Then you planted a bomb under my Confidentiality Bureau vehicle. And before that, Pan Dahe and Zhao Xiaowu—their deaths were also your doing. Your target is the old Military Intelligence Bureau. Just who are you?"

After hearing Lu Peng's accusations, Shen Tong seemed to have forgotten to feign fear at the gun pointed at her. She stared at Lan Youyin, dumbstruck. The room was unlit, save for a faint sliver of moonlight filtering through the latticed window, casting a jade-like glow on Lan Youyin's profile. Then, she thought she saw Lan Youyin glance at her, and her heart wrenched violently."In the year 1941, the Military Intelligence Section planned to establish the Sino-American Cooperative Organization. They set their sights on the area between Ciqikou and Gele Mountain in the northwest suburbs of Chongqing. They forcibly demolished homes and drove civilians to their deaths. In a place called Luo Family Bay, there was a couple—the husband was pushed off the roof and killed, while the wife was shot through the back. Afterward, fearing retaliation from relatives, they sent a special agent to find their daughter in Chengdu. But the daughter wasn’t in Chengdu at the time. The agent waited near the herbal medicine shop where she worked as an accountant. A few days later, the shop’s young manager handed him a death notice from Chongqing, informing him that the person he was looking for had just died in a Japanese air raid..."

As Lan Youyin recounted this, Lu Peng’s expression grew increasingly somber. Of course, he remembered the Military Intelligence Section’s demolition campaign in the northwest suburbs of Chongqing. But naturally, he didn’t remember the couple who had died at their hands—because—

"So you’re that daughter? Are you saying you didn’t actually die, but faked the death report to evade the Military Intelligence Section, changed your identity, and then spent all these years figuring out who exactly was responsible for demolishing your home and killing your parents—just to take revenge? Then why do you want to kill me? In 1941, I had just joined the Military Intelligence Section and was immediately sent to Hebei on a mission. I wasn’t in Chongqing, nor was I part of the General Affairs Department handling the demolitions."

"I know," Lan Youyin replied lightly. "I don’t want to kill you for my parents’ sake. It’s for my husband."

"What?" Lu Peng frowned.

"This year’s incident—surely you haven’t forgotten, Director Lu."

Indeed, it was impossible to forget. Lu Peng had accidentally drowned Qiao Mingyu in the Confidentiality Bureau’s underground interrogation room and had gone to great lengths to cover it up. But now he looked utterly bewildered, as if Lan Youyin had just told him the most unbelievable thing in the world.

"It was you who handed over the materials accusing Qiao Mingyu of Communist affiliation to the Confidentiality Bureau. His name wasn’t even on the list of Communist spies they had. You personally sent your own husband to the executioner’s block—"

Creak.

The door to the stairwell swung open again from the outside, and a figure stepped over the corpse of the special agent whose throat had been slit by a dagger.

Shen Tong’s eyes widened. "Ren Shaobai? What are you doing here?"

Lu Peng instinctively turned his head—and Lan Youyin seized the moment to pull the trigger.

But at the same time, the three other special agents in the room immediately raised their pistols.

In an instant, gunfire erupted. Bullets flew, and blood splattered everywhere.

In the following days, major newspapers in Nanjing and Shanghai received warnings from government authorities, prohibiting them from "exaggerated" reporting on the student protests at Central University. Only Nanjing’s local Xinmin Evening News wrote on its front page: The student unrest at Central University was peacefully resolved after Mr. Chen Bulei intervened to mediate. No violent clashes occurred. The gunshots heard by nearby residents were from an exchange of fire in a nearby residential area—a crucial operation by the Confidentiality Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense to apprehend Communist Party members and dismantle a Communist organization.

Meanwhile, another section of the newspaper carried an obituary for a government official.

Closing the newspaper, Shen Tong thought to herself: Youyin-jie, you’ve used me again.