Spying

06 Breakthrough

Unlike Lan Youyin, who held the record for the lowest absenteeism in the Ministry of National Defense, there was someone from the Fourth Department who stood in stark contrast.

Lu Changhai, head of the Second Division, stood in his office, staring at the only empty desk with a look of exasperation. "The moment he gets promoted, his true colors show. All these years, he really couldn’t climb up on merit!"

But in truth, Ren Shaobai had arrived on time that day—just not at his own office.

No. 1 Honggongci, the Confidentiality Bureau building.

Lu Peng, the newly promoted head of the Operations Division (no longer "acting"), was briefly surprised to see him but soon greeted him with a warm smile. "What brings you here today?"

For once, Ren Shaobai was uncharacteristically serious and direct. "Senior Brother, I’m here about Qiao Mingyu."

He and Lu Peng had been classmates at the Central Military Academy, both recipients of the "Soldier’s Soul" dagger personally awarded by the academy’s president—true products of the Whampoa lineage. If anyone could recall what Ren Shaobai was like before he became the smooth operator he was now in the Ministry of National Defense, it was Lu Peng.

And at this moment, bluntly questioning someone of higher rank might just be the version of Ren Shaobai that Lu Peng remembered.

So, Lu Peng merely suppressed his smile, circled around his desk, sat down first, and gestured for Ren Shaobai to do the same before leisurely countering, "What about Qiao Mingyu?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

"Junior Brother, as far as I know, it was you who exposed Qiao Mingyu’s corruption in the Central Plains. How is it that I’m the one playing dumb now?"

"Stop deflecting. I asked first."

"Fine, go ahead."

"But you have to tell me the truth."

"You ask first."

"Is Qiao Mingyu a Communist Party member?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"Good, I see."

Lu Peng chuckled. "What exactly do you see?"

"Senior Brother," Ren Shaobai leaned back in his chair, shedding all pretense of composure, "you know why you always lost at mahjong back in the day? Your face gives everything away!"

"Cut the nonsense. If I couldn’t even control my expressions after all these years, I’d be a disgrace. Tell me, where did you hear this? I need to investigate—some people clearly don’t understand the meaning of confidentiality, no matter how many times we emphasize it."

"Forget it, Senior Brother. Don’t blame your own people. I figured it out myself. Qiao Mingyu’s actual financial situation is too clean—what else could he be but a Communist? And after the case was submitted, the prosecutor’s office has been dragging its feet. I guessed it—higher-ups ordered a media blackout, didn’t they? Otherwise, it’d be too embarrassing. The Ministry’s personnel vetting is full of holes."

Lu Peng sighed. "Honestly, I’m relieved you figured it out yourself. Others might not be so understanding. I heard the General Staff is blaming us for poor counterintelligence work."

"And now the Ministry’s assigned me to clean up the mess!" Ren Shaobai raised his voice.

Lu Peng laughed again. "So you’re here to hold me accountable?"

"Who else would I turn to? Now, out of everyone in the Ministry, I’m the one sticking my neck out. Who knows how those higher-ups who’ve been lining their pockets will see me now...""Alright, alright, I owe you one for this." Lu Peng shook his head as he looked at Ren Shaobai's displeased expression and added, "Shaobai, don’t take this the wrong way, but back when I tried to persuade you to join the Confidentiality Bureau, you refused. If you had, would Lu Changhai still be able to use you as a pawn to clean up others’ messes now?"

"Heh!" Ren Shaobai laughed. "It’s not that I mind—I just didn’t fall for it. At my bureau, I clock out on time every day and still have time for a drink or two and some fun."

Hearing this, Lu Peng nodded resignedly. "Fair enough, you’re the smart one who knows how to live. Not like me, with no fixed hours, on call around the clock."

"After plugging such a huge hole, they don’t even give you time off?"

"Not everyone’s born with your silver spoon and leisurely life. Shouldn’t you be at work right now? Better hurry before you get chewed out…"

The two bantered back and forth, their camaraderie masking the fact that neither was revealing everything they knew or thought.

After leaving Lu Peng’s office, Ren Shaobai didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he went down to the first floor and slipped into the restroom, hiding in the innermost storage closet. He checked his watch—the overnight field agents should be returning soon.

Sure enough, before long, footsteps began coming and going.

Ren Shaobai listened carefully, piecing together snippets of conversation to deduce their assignments, operational zones, and the next shift rotation. In less than half an hour, he had gathered the information he needed—along with an unexpected bonus. Then, he left the Confidentiality Bureau building and returned to work on Huangpu Road.

He braced himself for a scolding from his director, but as it turned out, Lu Changhai was too preoccupied to bother with him. That day, following Chen Cheng’s resignation as Chief of the General Staff the previous month, Bai Chongxi also announced his resignation as Minister of National Defense. He would soon depart for Wuhan to assume command of the Central China Bandit Suppression Headquarters, while the post of Minister of National Defense would be taken over by He Yingqin, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

Personnel changes always concealed power struggles.

But for mid-to-lower-level staff like Ren Shaobai—or even Lu Changhai—these were matters beyond their concern. Minister Bai becoming Minister He simply meant all their work would have to be adjusted accordingly, and previously approved but unimplemented plans would have to be redone.

For a time, every department was buried under paperwork. Even Ren Shaobai, who usually started packing up fifteen minutes before quitting time, only managed to slip out before sunset to buy a few steamed buns before returning to work overtime.

Wei Ningsheng nibbled on a vegetarian bun and grumbled, "Boss, did you do this on purpose? Going all the way to Lüliuju just so we’d have to cover more of your work?"

"Tired? Take a break then." Section Chief Ren said sympathetically. "Here’s the receipt—why don’t you go ask Accounting if they’ll reimburse it?"

Wei Ningsheng immediately shut his mouth and lowered his head, mumbling, "Beggars can’t be choosers," before returning to organizing the supply reports bound for Henan.What he didn't know was that when Ren Shaobai borrowed his bicycle and pedaled all the way to Taiping Road to buy steamed buns, it wasn't to slack off. That morning, he had overheard an operative from the Confidentiality Bureau telling a colleague that after monitoring a radio all night without any activity, he had just dozed off at dawn when the sound of steaming buns from Green Willow House downstairs woke him up.

That location must be a recently seized Communist transmitter. Ren Shaobai deduced that the Confidentiality Bureau had already figured out their transmission patterns and was trying to gather more intelligence by maintaining regular contact. Lu Peng had people guarding it day and night, with the next shift change likely in the evening.

While waiting in line for buns, Ren Shaobai surveyed the surrounding residential buildings and quickly spotted the shift change—he couldn't understand why Confidentiality Bureau agents always wore black Zhongshan suits and moved in unison, turning what should be low-key into something conspicuous. By the time he got his buns, he had also pinpointed the transmitter's location.

Minutes later, residents in the low-rise building suddenly heard someone shout, "Fire!" Looking out the window, they saw thick smoke billowing up from below. In an instant, everyone rushed out of their homes. Amid the chaos, a certain someone holding steamed buns climbed up the fire escape, slipped through a curtained window, tampered with the receiver inside, and tapped out a series of long and short Morse codes on the transmitter, sending it to an open frequency.

So, by the time Ren Shaobai returned to the office, finished his buns, and wrapped up overtime, a monitoring officer from the second floor had delivered a transcript of a local transmission to a public Communist-area radio station to the head of the communications department.

Soon after, Lu Peng of the Confidentiality Bureau received an inquiry call.

When he hurried to the secret location on Taiping Road—known only to a select few—he not only found the receiver malfunctioning (the two useless guards hadn’t even noticed!) but also learned about the "fire" incident that evening, which had produced smoke but no flames.

Lu Peng immediately realized that someone had right under their noses used the transmitter they controlled to contact the Communists. The content of the message didn’t need decoding—it was undoubtedly a signal to the Communist area that this location had been compromised. In one stroke, his plan to reel in a bigger fish was ruined.

Lu Peng personally searched the area with a flashlight and soon found two empty medicine shells near the base of the wall—the kind of plastic casings used for wax-sealed traditional Chinese medicine, about the size of longan, commonly found in hospitals and pharmacies. Inside were traces of a powder mixture: sugar and match-head residue, which, when ignited, could produce thick smoke.

His first thought was that there must still be loose ends from the recent operation, so he decided to re-interrogate the batch of Communist spies. However, when he ordered the Operations Division to head to Tiger Bridge Prison, he discovered that one of the interrogation team members was missing—

"Pan didn’t come in today. Heard he was out drinking again last night," someone tattled, eager to please.

"Then let him drink himself to death! And dock three months' pay!" The head of the Operations Division was furious, and anyone in his way would suffer.At this moment, however, he had no idea that the next day he would receive a call from the city police department, inquiring whether a man named Pan Dahe was employed under him—the traffic division had discovered the accident victim’s identification documents in a minor car rollover accident on the curve outside Zhongshan Gate.

The Confidentiality Bureau had been plagued by misfortune lately, with everything going wrong. They absolutely had to visit Qixia Temple before the Ghost Festival to pray for better luck.

While one side was on high alert, on the other side, Ren Shaobai returned to his home in Huiyuanli and mentally revisited the events of this long day, finally overwhelmed by a lingering sense of dread.

Everything he had done today was incredibly risky—yet risks he had no choice but to take.

And so, for the first time in years, he heard his own heartbeat—pounding not for the trivialities of his daily life, but for something that transcended them, for the impulsive decision he had made once more, for the ideals he had once held before becoming another cold and worldly cog in today’s bureaucratic machine.

Yes, Ren Shaobai had once been a "Communist spy."

The word "once" was key—because ever since his handler was exposed five years ago, he had not been contacted by the organization again, nor had he sent out any intelligence.

This had been his superior’s instruction when he first began his covert work for the Communist Party: if he ever lost contact with the organization, he was to immediately go dormant, conceal himself, and wait patiently. But over the years, after repeatedly compiling reports on the Kuomintang’s personnel and military deployments in Japanese-occupied and guerrilla zones based on his access to military grain supplies and equipment—only to destroy them each time for lack of a means to deliver them—his espionage career had effectively ground to a halt.

He was like a stranded piece on a chessboard—not merely "dormant," but already dead.

And yet, this useless "advisor" had still ended up becoming an accomplice in cornering Qiao Mingyu and the others.

If he wanted to change anything, he would have to break through on his own. He needed to let the Communist Party’s intelligence apparatus know that he still existed, deep within the heart of the Kuomintang’s military institutions. Ren Shaobai wasn’t afraid of his actions being detected—he wasn’t even afraid of his senior colleague Lu Peng deciphering that telegram. To get the message into the hands of those he truly wished to reach, he had to take this gamble.