Chapter 146: A Night Visit to Avenue Massenet

Under the dim yellow streetlights, the constables swept their flashlights around as they cautiously passed through the alley.

Scattered throughout the small alley were six or seven corpses.

Blood flowed from beneath the bodies, soaking into the soil.

The air was filled with a heavy smell of blood.

It was May in Shanghai, and the air carried humid warmth, yet everyone felt their scalps tingling and cold chills running down their spines.

It was not as though the constables had never seen dead people before, but a gun battle on this scale, with so many corpses, delivered an overwhelmingly intense shock to the senses.

Everyone glanced at Lu Dazhang.

Following a patrol chief like him might not bring many opportunities for merit, but it was safe.

Lu Dazhang grabbed Fei Ming by the collar and forced him down in front of a corpse whose brains had been blown out.

“Come on, take a look. Weren’t you shouting about wanting to go make arrests? Look. Take a good look. What is this?”

The man lay sideways in the corner of the wall, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

Blood and brain matter were mixed together.

His vacant eyes seemed to be staring directly at him.

Fei Ming felt his mind go completely blank.

His knees had gone weak.

“Patrol Chief, I...”

Even Fei Ming’s voice was trembling, and his body was shaking as well.

“What about you? You little brat who doesn’t know the height of heaven or the depth of earth.”

Lu Dazhang released him.

Fei Ming nearly fell directly onto the corpse.

Terrified, he scrambled away on hands and knees.

Lu Dazhang glanced at the young man and snorted, saying nothing further.

The boy had no sense.

All day long he thought about making great achievements.

He had never seen dead people and did not understand how cruel reality was.

After this experience, he ought to behave himself.

“Patrol Chief, should we head over now?” Old Hat asked after lighting a cigarette for Lu Dazhang.

Taking a deep drag, Lu Dazhang used the tobacco to dilute the bloody smell in his nose and throat.

Instead of answering Old Hat’s question, he asked, “Got it figured out?”

“We’ve got it figured out.”

Old Hat nodded and spoke quietly.

“The man leading the operation was Ding Naifei from the Party Affairs Investigation Department. They’re currently inside the courtyard.”

The identities of Party Affairs Investigation Department agents were secret, but veteran constables could still recognize many of the operatives who frequently moved around the French Concession.

“It’s basically certain that Ding Naifei led the arrest operation against the Communists and got hammered badly.”

Old Hat continued.

“As for the group that arrived later, the leader was probably higher-ranking than Ding Naifei. Sankui saw that man slap Ding Naifei.”

Sankui was one of Lu Dazhang’s lookouts.

He had been sent out to watch from a distance in secret.

After all, this was a gunfight.

The danger level was too high.

There was nothing wrong with being cautious.

If they had misjudged the situation and the opposing sides were merely deadlocked, charging into the combat zone with a team would have been disastrous.

“We’ll go over in ten minutes.”

Lu Dazhang tossed the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground.

Old Hat immediately understood and nodded.

Those fellows from the Party Affairs Investigation Department had suffered heavy losses and were currently full of anger with nowhere to vent it.

If they suddenly blundered into the scene now, trouble could easily erupt.

Waiting ten minutes would allow tempers to settle.

It would be safer.

Wang Kangnian did not speak immediately.

He silently smoked his cigarette.

After hearing Ding Naifei’s full report on the arrest operation and learning that a highly skilled Communist operative had single-handedly inflicted casualties on more than a dozen Party Affairs Investigation Department agents, rescued the surrounded Communists, and escaped unharmed himself, a name immediately surfaced in Wang Kangnian’s mind:

Chenzhou!

The surviving member of the Communist Party Special Branch Red Team who had slipped through the net.

His suspicions had received some confirmation from Ding Naifei.

“Tell me about this Chenzhou. What else do you know?” Wang Kangnian asked as he crushed out the cigarette butt.

Ding Naifei looked like a reckless brute, but he had survived five or six years as an agent and was still doing very well.

Moreover, Ding Naifei had risen from a Green Gang background to become deputy leader of an operations group.

Anyone who genuinely believed he was merely a hotheaded fool would probably die without understanding what had happened.

“I’ve never personally crossed paths with this Chenzhou, but there is one case that may have been connected to him.”

After thinking for a moment, Ding Naifei spoke.

“Let’s hear it.”

Wang Kangnian became interested.

“This was an unsolved case. The killer was never identified. But now that I think about it, the murderer was very likely Chenzhou.”

Eight months earlier, in an apartment on Route Tardy, a Communist defector named Su Yishan had been killed despite being protected by five bodyguards.

“Section Chief Wu was acquainted with Inspector Zhao of the Investigation Unit, so he arranged for me and my men to assist them at the scene.”

“Of the five bodyguards, three were shot in the head, all killed with a single bullet.”

“Of the remaining two, one was stabbed to death with a dagger, while the other’s neck was nearly twisted off. I knew that man personally. He was quite skilled in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Su Yishan was killed near the doorway. My conclusion was that he tried to escape, reached the door, and was stabbed directly through the back of the neck by the killer.”

“A note was left at the scene.”

“It read: ‘The fate of a traitor.’”

“The Investigation Unit spent over half a month on the case and found nothing. Eventually the matter was shelved.”

“My brothers and I investigated for nearly a month as well, but we couldn’t find a single clue.”

“You didn’t uncover any information at all?” Wang Kangnian frowned.

“None. It was extremely clean.”

Ding Naifei shook his head.

“The man was exceptionally cautious and left no clues whatsoever.”

“The murder occurred deep in the night, and nobody saw what the killer looked like.”

“The only thing we can be certain of is that it was the work of the Communist Party Special Branch Dog-Beating Squad.”

“And judging from the scene, there was only one killer,” Ding Naifei said.

“In that case, it does fit Chenzhou’s style perfectly.”

Wang Kangnian nodded.

Precise marksmanship, exceptional combat skills, swift and ruthless execution, utter ruthlessness.

Most importantly, the man operated alone.

Everything matched what he knew about Chenzhou of the Communist Party Special Branch.

Suddenly, his pupils contracted.

His expression became even colder, though mixed with excitement and frustration.

“Section Chief, what’s wrong?”

“Think carefully. What level of Communist would warrant assigning a top expert like Chenzhou as a bodyguard?” Wang Kangnian asked.

He picked up another cigarette but did not light it, merely clamping it tightly between his teeth.

Ding Naifei understood immediately.

That meant the Minister Wang they had nearly captured held an extremely high rank.

Perhaps he was not even a local Communist leader in Shanghai, but an important figure dispatched by the Communist central leadership.

Wang Kangnian shot Ding Naifei another glance and forcibly restrained the urge to hit him.

At that moment, Cheng Qianfan arrived at the safe house where he had stored his bicycle.

He did not remove his disguise.

Instead, he filled a basin with clean water and took a medicine bottle from a drawer, pouring some of the liquid into the basin.

He meticulously washed both hands, paying special attention to his fingernails.

The purpose was to remove every trace of blood.

Afterward, Cheng Qianfan pulled a wooden chest from beneath the bed, opened it, and took out a somewhat worn but extremely clean long gown.

After changing into the gown, Cheng Qianfan took out a comb and restyled his hair.

He also changed into a pair of slightly worn “new” shoes whose soles carried a bit of dirt.

He placed the two Mauser pistols inside the stove.

Then he moved aside a slightly lopsided bookcase and retrieved a Webley-Scott pistol and a spare magazine from a hidden compartment behind it, slipping them into his pocket.

From a drawer, he took out a prepared pair of plain glasses and put them on.

He picked up a half-worn leather satchel and placed several lecture notes and a flashlight inside.

Hanging the satchel from the bicycle’s handlebars, he pushed the bicycle out the door.

The night grew deeper.

A solitary figure and a solitary bicycle passed through several alleyways.

The chirping of insects gradually rose from the roadside.

Occasionally, two night cats darted out.

The cats glanced at him as he disappeared into the distance.

His destination tonight was Avenue Massenet.