Spying

59 Funeral

White funeral wreaths lined the corridor from the capital funeral home all the way to the entrance of the mourning hall. Attendants in dark uniforms ground ink and presented brushes, inviting mourners to sign the guestbook. Among the names already inscribed were many notable officials from the Nanjing government. Passing the writing desk and stepping into the square-shaped mourning hall, one could see long elegiac couplets covering the walls, while at the center hung a photograph of Lu Peng in military dress uniform, adorned with plum blossom epaulets—taken last year when he was promoted to colonel. Who would have thought it would become his portrait in memoriam?

"First incense offering—" chanted the funeral officiant.

Li Helin held the incense sticks, bowed before the memorial tablet, then inserted them into the censer. The smoke curled upward, winding around the plaque above that read "Unyielding Loyalty." It was the Confidentiality Bureau director’s succinct summary of the thirty-four years of his subordinate, the head of the Operations Division.

Li Helin glanced once more at Lu Peng’s portrait—such a resolute and capable face, in the prime of his life. How could he have fallen to a Communist Party member who could no longer stir much trouble?

Ten years ago, Lu Peng had enrolled in the 16th class of the Whampoa Military Academy. Li Helin had been his instructor and knew even then that this young man, excelling in tactical training, had one major flaw: his stubborn, inflexible nature. Once he fixated on something, no one could pull him out of it.

And now, hadn’t he fixated himself right into this? Li Helin had always maintained that crucial intelligence came from the front lines, and counterintelligence work shouldn’t devolve into the cat-and-mouse games of the rear, where the mouse could still trip the cat.

Kneeling beside the memorial altar was Lu Peng’s seldom-mentioned wife. Li Helin realized he might never have met her before. Her eyes swollen, she thanked the mourners, but when she looked up and saw Li Helin, recognition flickered in her gaze.

"Are you Instructor Li?"

Li Helin was slightly surprised but maintained his composure as he acknowledged her. Only then did he recall briefly meeting her—Lu Peng’s wife of several years—after a graduation ceremony at the military academy. He sighed inwardly, offered a few words of comfort, and then asked, "Has the burial site been chosen?"

"Director Mao arranged for it to be at Linggu Temple, along with a few other brothers from the Confidentiality Bureau."

"Director Mao is thoughtful."

"Instructor Li." Lu Peng’s wife showed no intention of seeing him out. Instead, her expression turned hesitant. "About Lu Peng’s operation... how could it have ended like this? I can’t understand. But since it involves a leak, I don’t know who to talk to..."

"Madam Lu trusts me enough to share her doubts. Is there something you wish to ask?" Li Helin inquired, though he still wondered why she hadn’t approached her husband’s colleagues or superiors at the Confidentiality Bureau.

"The official conclusion is that his operation failed due to a leak, leading him into a Bandit spy’s ambush."

Li Helin nodded. "One of his operatives took a Defense Ministry section chief hostage and is now missing. But since he later shot and killed a policeman on the roadside, both the Confidentiality Bureau and the police department are hunting him. I’m sure he’ll be apprehended soon."

"But there’s one more thing. I don’t think this operation was known only to insiders at the Confidentiality Bureau." Madam Lu fixed her gaze on Li Helin. "He had a close junior from Whampoa—Ren Shaobai. Is he currently employed at the Defense Ministry?"

In that moment, Li Helin understood why she had chosen to voice her doubts to him."Before he took action, he had met with Ren Shaobai. The two had a meal at 'Laozhengxing' on Shandong Road. So I'd like to know if Mr. Ren is also on the list of suspected informants?"

Other mourners were still waiting in the memorial hall. After exchanging a few more brief words with Director Lu's wife, Li Helin exited the hall and headed toward the guest lounge.

Shen Tong sat in a corner with one arm in a sling. She had come from the hospital earlier. Since this was her first time being involved in such an operation, her father had already had a fierce argument with Li Helin, demanding his daughter leave the Ministry of National Defense and quit this dangerous line of work.

Thus, this was the first time Li Helin was hearing about what happened that night from someone who was actually there.

Shen Tong repeated the account she had already given several times to the Confidentiality Bureau investigators to Li Helin.

"Sister Youyin was assisting Director Lu in arresting that Communist surnamed Lu, while I happened to be in the Peach Blossom Village area chasing a university student. Then I saw Sister Youyin about to enter a building with that photo studio owner we'd investigated before. She spotted me and signaled with her eyes for me to leave, so I knew she was in danger. But how could I just abandon her? I circled to the back of the building and entered through the kitchen via the fire escape, just in time to hear them confronting Director Lu inside..."

"Why set up an ambush at Sister Youyin's home? It was Director Lu's plan—having Sister Youyin tell the Communist that she'd found some belongings Qiao Mingyu had hidden at home, apparently meant for Communist organizations. That Communist didn't know it was Sister Youyin who had exposed Qiao Mingyu originally..."

"It was dark inside, and I was solely focused on saving Sister Youyin, so I didn't get a clear look at the others' faces. But after the shooting started, that Lu guy was hit. His accomplice from the Confidentiality Bureau continued holding Lan Youyin hostage while negotiating with Director Lu. Director Lu probably thought he could win through negotiation, but unexpectedly, that Lu guy wasn't dead and shot Director Lu again. I fired a follow-up shot at him. But there was another one—the guy who ambushed us outside. The bullet that grazed me came from him. Then they took Sister Youyin away together, driving the Confidentiality Bureau truck originally meant for the ambush."

"Three people," Li Helin summarized. "Lu A'mang, the Confidentiality Bureau traitor, and a third person. They killed six skilled agents from the Bureau, including an Operations Division director. About that third person—did you notice anything else?"

"No. Before the shooting started, I was hiding in the kitchen, and afterward, everything was too chaotic."

"What about Lu Peng? Did he have any particular reaction to that person?"

Shen Tong paused. This wasn't a question the Confidentiality Bureau investigators had asked, nor one she had anticipated. But knowing her uncle as she did, when Li Helin asked a question, there was always a presupposed purpose behind it.

The story she was providing now was one she, Lan Youyin, and Ren Shaobai had hastily devised that night. Under the moonlight, with bodies strewn about, she, A'mang, and Lan Youyin were all wounded. Her injury was the lightest—the bullet hadn't hit her. The arm currently in a sling was from a fall when she rolled to take cover behind a bedroom wall (her close-quarters combat scores at school had indeed been subpar).Lan Youyin had been shot in the shoulder. A Mang's condition was the worst—a wound to the abdomen. Blood gushed out relentlessly. Ignoring her own injury, Lan Youyin rushed over and pressed down on the wound, shouting at her that there was a first aid kit under the bed.

But it was already too late. A Mang lay on the ground, staring down at his stomach and at his own hands, now covered by Lan Youyin’s. With great effort, he spoke: "Cousin… so Aunt and Uncle’s revenge… has already been settled."

Shen Tong’s heart clenched.

Lan Youyin kept repeating, "I’m sorry… just hold on… I’m sorry…"

"I understand what you mean. Even though you hate Qiao Mingyu, you couldn’t bear the thought of someone else taking his life… I have to say, Cousin, you’re usually so smart, but this time you were really, really…"

Shen Tong knelt on the ground, clutching the first aid kit, but A Mang never finished what he meant by "really." When she looked up again, his hand had slipped from his stomach.

That night, Shen Tong once again felt her stomach sink.

After an unknown amount of time, Ren Shaobai, who had been kneeling beside Lu Peng’s corpse on the other side of the room, stood up and walked over to her. "Lend me your gun," he said.

Then, he pulled Lan Youyin away from A Mang’s body and said coldly, "Regret is useless now. What you should be thinking about is how to clean up this mess."

Li Helin, noticing Shen Tong’s distant, haunted expression, added, "Do you think Lu Peng knew that person?"

Shen Tong shook her head. "I don’t know."

Worried that she might spiral back into the terror of that night, Li Helin ended his questioning. He glanced around and asked, "Where’s Ren Shaobai? He said he’d come after the meeting this morning. Did he already leave?"

In a blue-brick bungalow in Xijia Datang, Lan Youyin injected herself with morphine for the fourth time—the intervals between doses growing shorter. She figured it must be because of the excessive phenobarbital she’d been taking; her nervous system was already wrecked.

And so, she had ended up like this.

Late the night before, Ren Shaobai had half-dragged, half-carried her here. The entire way, he hadn’t asked her a single question about exposing Qiao Mingyu—though someone as sharp as him had surely pieced together most of it from Lu Peng and A Mang’s final words.

Truthfully, she also wanted to know what A Mang had been about to say.

From the moment she had decided to seek revenge, A Mang was the last person she wanted involved. For a long time, he had been kept far from the actual operations, only handling some preliminary technical preparations. It wasn’t just because they were cousins—she was avenging her parents, Yin Wenrang was avenging the real Lan Youyin, but A Mang? He had only said, "Cousin, you’ve always looked after me since we were kids. You can’t leave me out now."

He had helped her purely out of loyalty.

And yet, it was because of A Mang that she had finally confirmed the identity of her mother’s killer.Having always operated in the shadows, A Mang had never actually seen Qiao Mingyu until earlier this year. It was when Lan Youyin discovered confidential telegrams, internal memos, and agent reports that Qiao Mingyu had smuggled out from the Ministry of Defense at home. She called A Mang over to help her dispose of them, and it was then that he saw the wedding photo of her and Qiao Mingyu in her house. A Mang first muttered that Qiao Mingyu looked familiar, and the moment he remembered, his face turned deathly pale. He said, "Sis, the officer who came looking for you at the pharmacy back then... it was him..."

Lan Youyin's face also drained of color.

She knew Qiao Mingyu had spent several years in the Military Intelligence Section and had indirectly learned from him the names of the personnel in the General Affairs Department who oversaw the demolition of the Northwest Army in Chongqing. But Qiao Mingyu had never told her that he was one of them.

Yet, when she confronted him, Qiao Mingyu eventually admitted it.

It was after the incident in Luo Family Bay that he began to reconsider and decided to leave the Military Intelligence Section—an organization that treated human lives as worthless. Even later, when he was recruited as an underground operative for the Communist Party, it was related to this.

In his belated confession, Lan Youyin finally learned the full truth of what had happened back then. The special agent in charge of the forced demolitions was Yang Kaizhi, now the head of the Confidentiality Bureau's First Division. The ones who dragged the resisting man onto the roof and threw him down were Pan Dahe and Zhao Xiaowu from the Confidentiality Bureau. And the one who shot the desperate, helpless woman in the back and was later dispatched to deal with the couple's surviving relatives—was Qiao Mingyu himself.

Facing Lan Youyin, who trembled uncontrollably, Qiao Mingyu's eyes also filled with terror.

"Youyin... how did you know—"

Lan Youyin didn’t let him finish. "They were my parents. I am the daughter born and raised in Luo Family Bay."

Of course, she wanted revenge. She knew exactly how to make him suffer the most.

Ren Shaobai pulled the car over abruptly, startling the night birds perched on the branches above into flight.

He turned to look at Lan Youyin’s pale lips and said, "You don’t need to explain any of this. War, factions, the times, chaos—in a world like this, anything can happen to anyone, and anyone can make any choice."

"But you still saved me." Lan Youyin’s voice was weak. The wound on her shoulder, hastily bandaged, had begun bleeding again, yet she continued speaking slowly. "If you hadn’t found A Mang, I would have walked right into the Confidentiality Bureau’s ambush... But you still made one mistake. You shouldn’t have shown yourself..."

Ren Shaobai knew she was right. He shouldn’t have let Lu Peng see him. He had acted impulsively—the first time he heard the real reason Qiao Mingyu had been exposed. And so, he finally had to ask, "Didn’t you consider, the moment you reported him to the Confidentiality Bureau, that Qiao Mingyu would be left with no way out?"

"I just wanted him to suffer."

In the past, Ren Shaobai had often seen something sharp and fierce in Lan Youyin’s eyes. But now, that sharpness had dissipated, replaced by confusion and detachment.

He thought he understood what A Mang had wanted to say to Lan Youyin:

You’re pushing yourself too hard.After two short knocks followed by a long one, Lan Youyin opened the door and let Ren Shaobai inside. He studied her face—it looked no healthier than the day before. He wanted to ask, but the words of concern stuck awkwardly in his throat.

Both he and Lan Youyin knew exactly what made them uncomfortable.

“Ren Shaobai, you must have realized that the moment you decided to ambush the Confidentiality Bureau, only one of you and Lu Peng could survive,” Lan Youyin said to him.

After tending to her wound again, she had regained some energy.

But the bullet, which had missed its mark due to Ren Shaobai’s sudden appearance distracting her, remained lodged between her collarbone and humerus—far beyond what a home first-aid kit could handle. After injecting herself with morphine, the pain dulled slightly, but Lan Youyin still couldn’t risk going to a hospital.

“Wang Jingwei lived for years with a bullet in him,” she remarked.

Ren Shaobai didn’t know how to respond.

For now, the two seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement—to avoid discussing that painful night and focus instead on the more pressing matters at hand.

They moved to the inner room of the house, where a blackwood desk stood. Where inkstones and brushes should have been, Peng Yongcheng’s transmitter now sat.

Lan Youyin had only ever worked as a code translator; she had seen but never operated a transmitter before. Still, her familiarity with encoding allowed her to pick it up faster than a beginner. Ever since decrypting the Ministry of National Defense’s new cipher and sending it to the fake “Heishui” in the 9th Column of the East China Field Army, she had taken over Peng Yongcheng’s role—relaying intelligence from 1207 to his superiors.

To the Ministry of National Defense’s communications monitoring, this was an unfamiliar operator who kept shifting locations, leaving them completely clueless.

This was how Ren Shaobai relayed the contents of every military meeting at the Ministry of National Defense to the Central Military Commission almost in real time. Then, on the second or third day, he would hear from Li Helin about the latest intelligence “Heishui” had sent regarding the East China Field Army’s movements.

“The Ministry of National Defense plans to gather all corps in Xuzhou, fortifying positions on all four sides—east, west, north, and south—with deep trenches and high walls, ensuring each corps connects with the others. Their goal is to defeat the Communist forces piecemeal before they can unite,” Ren Shaobai recounted the meeting minutes to Lan Youyin, as he had done several times before. “Your message should cover two points: First, ask whether the East China Field Army can advance their operation timeline. Second, suggest that Heishui report to the Second Department, claiming Su Yu’s primary target is the 9th Pacification Corps near Lianyungang.”

Lan Youyin listened, jotting down the draft message on paper, then trimming a few words to make it more concise.

Seeing her silent and not pressing for details, Ren Shaobai volunteered an explanation: “We need to buy time for the East China Field Army.”

Lan Youyin glanced at him, gave a quiet “Mm,” then lowered her head again, swiftly encoding the text before switching on the transmitter.

Since Ren Shaobai had to return to the Ministry of National Defense that afternoon, he left after watching her send two transmissions correctly. Neither of them said anything unnecessary.

But at the door, Ren Shaobai suddenly turned back and asked, “You’re not drinking, are you?”

Lan Youyin replied, “Where would I get alcohol here?”"Oh," Ren Shaobai said, then lowered his eyelids and pushed the door open to leave.