Chapter 176: Real Spies Never Keep Diaries

The moonlight tonight was beautiful.

Bright moonlight filtered through the frosted glass window and shone into the room.

Cheng Qianfan stood in the darkness several meters from the wooden bed. A beam of moonlight fell upon the drunken sleeper on the bed. The man was lying on his side, and for the moment his face could not be seen.

Cheng Qianfan walked to the window and gently drew the curtains.

The person on the bed stirred slightly.

Cheng Qianfan immediately took two steps to the bedside, an old felt hat in one hand.

Relying on the memory of the quick glance he had taken earlier, he accurately found the cord of the incandescent lamp and gave it a gentle pull.

Almost instantly, he raised the old felt hat before his eyes, blocking his vision for a moment.

This prevented the lamp’s sudden brightness from causing temporary visual impairment.

At the same time, Cheng Qianfan swiftly tossed aside the felt hat and looked toward the person on the bed.

Looking at the handsome young man who was almost identical to himself, Cheng Qianfan immediately determined that this person was indeed Miyazaki Kentaro.

The sudden light stimulated Miyazaki Kentaro.

Drowsily, he opened his eyes and saw another version of himself.

“Kentaro, return.”

“Kentaro, return.”

It seemed as if the voices of his mother and relatives were calling to him in his ears.

Then Miyazaki Kentaro’s vision went dark, and he lost consciousness.

Cheng Qianfan struck Miyazaki Kentaro on the neck with a palm strike, knocking him unconscious.

At the same time, he imitated a woman’s voice in Japanese.

He had once heard Imai Futoshi tell a story about something that had happened to Miyazaki Kentaro.

When Miyazaki Kentaro was a child, he had fallen unconscious for many days and failed to awaken despite taking medicinal soups.

His mother and family invited Mr. Daikarasu from Erimatsu Shrine. Friends and relatives loudly called Kentaro’s name, and Mr. Daikarasu bestowed “sacred water” and helped summon back his soul.

From that day onward, Miyazaki Kentaro firmly believed in the existence of souls.

Mr. Daikarasu was the mother of Mr. Uuu, and was likewise a tanuki.

Cheng Qianfan moved the unconscious Miyazaki Kentaro from the bed and placed him in an armchair.

His hands and feet were bound to the chair.

A rag was stuffed into his mouth, and a black cloth covered his eyes.

Upon closer observation, even Cheng Qianfan could not help being amazed by Miyazaki Kentaro’s handsome features.

It felt completely different from looking into a mirror.

Normally, when he looked in a mirror, perhaps due to visual familiarity, he knew he was handsome, but the sensation was not particularly strong.

Looking at the handsome man bound to the chair, however, the direct visual impact was striking.

Cheng Qianfan felt an unreal sensation, as though he were binding himself.

Several empty liquor bottles sat on the table.

Several more lay on the floor.

There was also a pile of vomit in a corner of the room.

Cheng Qianfan frowned slightly.

He regarded the arrival of the real Miyazaki Kentaro in Shanghai as an extremely important matter.

His decision to inspect Imai Futoshi’s residence in advance today had been motivated by caution.

As for Miyazaki Kentaro, he had previously entertained two possibilities.

First, the man was a civilian auxiliary serving Japanese intelligence agencies rather than a trained spy.

Second, Miyazaki Kentaro was a spy.

Regardless of which possibility was true, anyone intending to travel throughout China would require a relatively strong physique and perhaps even some combat ability.

Therefore, eliminating Miyazaki Kentaro without attracting attention would require considerable effort.

How should he make contact?

Should he appear in his true appearance or in disguise?

What should they discuss upon meeting?

How could he extract information?

Or should he simply kill him the moment they met?

With a knife?

A gunshot?

Strangle him with his bare hands?

If the man managed to raise an alarm or escape and a pursuit followed, how would he get away?

Cheng Qianfan had previously devised countless contingency plans.

Yet no matter how much he had imagined, he had never expected his first meeting with Miyazaki Kentaro to occur under such circumstances.

A drunken Miyazaki Kentaro!

Roasted peanuts were scattered across the tabletop.

There was also a half-eaten braised pig’s trotter.

Cheng Qianfan picked up an identification document from the table.

It was Miyazaki Kentaro’s Empire of Japan passport.

The man in the photograph wore a smile and looked exceptionally heroic.

He wore a uniform resembling that of a domestic Japanese police officer, though without rank insignia or a cap badge.

It was actually a military training uniform for Japanese university students.

Cheng Qianfan picked up the documents scattered on the floor one by one and examined them carefully.

His expression became serious.

These were Miyazaki Kentaro’s latest travel reports.

Miyazaki Kentaro had just arrived in Shanghai from Kunshan.

Previously, he had gone sketching and traveling near Kunshan.

His true objective had been to reconnoiter the Kunshan branch line of the Nationalist Government’s defensive network between Shanghai and Nanjing.

However, because the platoon leader at one of the guard posts on the Kunshan branch line had been highly vigilant and driven away the sketching Miyazaki Kentaro, he feared that remaining there would attract further suspicion.

Therefore, he had left Kunshan early and arrived in Shanghai ahead of schedule.

Although he had failed to complete his reconnaissance mission, Miyazaki Kentaro’s efforts had not been without results.

“This is a small village located three kilometers (~1.9 miles) from the Chinese military defensive zone. There is a relatively secluded footpath that bypasses the guard post. Along the route there is a well and two forked paths. One leads to another village. The other continues straight to a river with a depth of half a meter (~1.6 feet), suitable for swimming across.”

Cheng Qianfan cast an unfriendly glance at Miyazaki Kentaro.

There was even a map drawn on the document.

Although simple, it included scale markings.

The location of the footpath, the well, and the river were all immediately clear.

Cheng Qianfan judged that even the soldiers guarding the Kunshan branch line might not know that such a path existed around their checkpoint.

Pulling a wooden box from beneath the bed, Cheng Qianfan opened it.

Aside from some spare clothing, there were three thick notebooks.

He opened them and was astonished to discover that they were Miyazaki Kentaro’s diaries.

This genuinely shocked him.

Spies and secret agents absolutely do not keep diaries.

Yes, real spies never keep diaries.

Or rather, they never keep truthful diaries.

Perhaps because Miyazaki Kentaro traveled throughout China under the identity of a scholar, his lack of experience and vigilance had caused him to commit the grave taboo of keeping a diary.

However, Cheng Qianfan quickly overturned his own assumption regarding Miyazaki Kentaro’s inexperience.

To his surprise, aside from the first two pages, which were written in Japanese and merely recorded the weather and places visited, the rest of the diary was written entirely in German.

No wonder Miyazaki Kentaro was unafraid of others seeing the diary.

Even if he encountered an inspection, he had nothing to fear.

On the one hand, Chinese soldiers were generally reluctant to cause trouble for a scholar carrying a Japanese passport.

On the other hand, let alone ordinary soldiers, how many officers could actually read German?

Turning to the fifth page, Cheng Qianfan saw the following written there.

“This small village lies deep in the mountains of Leiyang. It is connected to the outside world only by narrow mountain paths. Buying fish, meat, and miscellaneous goods requires traveling more than five kilometers (~3.1 miles) over mountain roads. However, one thing is very convenient here: coal.”

“Beneath the village lies a deposit of high-quality anthracite. I conducted some tests and discovered that it truly burns without odor or smoke. After burning completely, only a small amount of white ash remains.”

“The village’s transportation is inconvenient and information is isolated. Only the villagers know about this deposit. Once one leaves the village, no one knows there is high-quality anthracite here.”

At the end, Miyazaki Kentaro had added a special note:

“There is an anthracite mine on the mountain at Tianxinpu, Leiyang, Hunan. It is worth occupying.”

Cheng Qianfan was stunned.

He even felt a trace of admiration.

In preparation for invading China, the Japanese had made such meticulous preparations.

He had long known that students of the East Asia Common Culture Academy undertook journeys every semester and carried out activities similar to those of Miyazaki Kentaro.

However, he had never before had the opportunity to see actual travel reports.

The impact had never been so intense.

Alongside that admiration came horror and hatred.

He deeply felt the deeply rooted nature of Japan’s ambitions to invade China.

Hunan lay in the interior heartland of China.

At present, Japan occupied only the Three Northeastern Provinces and coveted North China.

Yet in truth, it had long harbored ambitions of conquering all of China.

In another diary, Cheng Qianfan found an entry titled “Chengdu, Sichuan.”

Miyazaki Kentaro and two assistants had gone into the streets of Chengdu.

They wandered everywhere, displaying a particular fascination with maps and charts.

Transportation maps, mineral distribution maps, resource distribution maps, river system maps.

Anything that qualified as a map was collected.

The three men enjoyed photography and measurement.

They climbed high places such as Wangjiang Tower and the city gate towers to photograph Chengdu from above.

Then they carefully measured buildings and city walls with tape measures, recording the thickness and height of the walls as well as the length and width of Wanfu Bridge, Wanli Bridge, and Anshun Bridge.

Of the two assistants, one died of illness in Chengdu.

The other was bitten by a snake, had his leg amputated, and eventually returned to Japan.

At the end of this diary entry, dated June 11, Shōwa 9, there was a final sentence.

“Care nothing for life, fame, or money. Filled with grievance, ambition, and accumulated resentment, far from one’s homeland, one day one will see the Yamato cherry blossoms and the Rising Sun flag shining brightly atop the mountains of Shu.”

Cheng Qianfan felt a chill run down his spine.