Chapter 177: The Dagger

“The first person I killed was Hideko’s father. He was a stubborn old man whose words showed great disrespect toward the Empire. I killed him with a dagger and cut out his tongue.”

“Hideko’s mother was a very polite and gentle Chinese woman. She truly regarded me as Hideko’s husband and treated me very well. Her tragedy was that she had a husband who opposed the Empire. I gave her a dignified death. I strangled her with a belt. The hatred in her eyes replaced the gentleness she once had, and it made me very uncomfortable.”

The coldness in Cheng Qianfan’s eyes was terrifying.

He had actually found in Miyazaki Kentaro’s notebook a record of how Miyazaki had murdered Zhuo Peiyun’s entire family.

Zhuo Peiyun was the “Hideko” mentioned in Miyazaki Kentaro’s notebook. This executioner, Miyazaki Kentaro, had given Zhuo Peiyun the Japanese name Hideko.

Miyazaki Kentaro described in detail the process of killing Old Mr. Zhuo and Old Mrs. Zhuo.

Finally came the account of murdering Zhuo Peiyun.

Miyazaki Kentaro used only five sentences.

“At last, I killed Hideko. Every time she cursed me, I stabbed her once with the dagger. I was very sad.”

Beast!

He continued reading.

To his surprise, he discovered that in later diary entries, Miyazaki Kentaro repeatedly mentioned Hideko again.

In the diary, he poured out his feelings, describing how painful it had been to kill Hideko. The dagger he plunged into her had felt as though it were piercing his own heart.

“I hate that stubborn old man beyond measure. It must have been him. His anti-Japanese thinking influenced Hideko. He destroyed the life that Hideko and I could have spent growing old together. Hideko must surely have hated her father as well.”

Cheng Qianfan continued reading.

He frowned in thought.

Miyazaki Kentaro’s writing revealed his love for Hideko.

His mental state was becoming increasingly abnormal.

He had begun drinking heavily, and his alcoholism was growing worse and worse.

“I saw Hideko again. She was still as beautiful and gentle as ever. I have decided to take her back to Fukushima and accompany her to visit Mr. Uuu, whom she was so interested in.”

Had he gone mad?

Cheng Qianfan glanced at Miyazaki Kentaro, who was tied to the chair.

From this passage, he obtained a piece of intelligence.

Mr. Uuu had actually died five years ago.

During those five years, Miyazaki Kentaro had never returned to Japan.

More precisely, he had never returned to Fukushima.

In addition, Cheng Qianfan judged that Miyazaki Kentaro was using alcohol to numb himself.

Longing for Hideko, Miyazaki Kentaro had begun hallucinating under the influence of alcohol and had “seen” Hideko.

This discovery delighted him and created a powerful dependency.

The diary entries recorded a love for Hideko that was profound.

Every line was filled with seemingly sincere emotion.

But none of this moved Cheng Qianfan.

On the contrary, the chill in his eyes grew stronger and stronger.

What this executioner, Miyazaki Kentaro, truly loved was the so-called Hideko, the Hideko who existed in his imagination, the one who approved of Japan’s invasion of China and obeyed him in all things.

Her name was Zhuo Peiyun.

She was not Hideko.

And she would never have accepted that name.

She had been a brave, kind, and admirable patriotic young woman.

A female martyr who had sacrificed her entire family for the nation’s cause.

Cheng Qianfan put down the notebook.

These three thick diaries recorded the events of the five years since Miyazaki Kentaro had left the Japanese home islands and come to China.

Miyazaki Kentaro did not write every day.

Sometimes he wrote once every two days.

Sometimes only once a week.

What he recorded were mostly matters that interested him and summaries of important investigative reports.

Another portion consisted of correspondence with friends, elders, and teachers, as well as amusing incidents from their interactions.

It was obvious that Miyazaki Kentaro was indeed poor at socializing.

In the diaries, he mentioned only five names.

The first were his two assistants.

One had died of illness in Chengdu.

The other had been bitten by a venomous snake, had his leg amputated, and returned to the Japanese home islands.

Then there were three other people.

One was Miyazaki Kentaro’s mother.

However, she had died four years earlier.

Because Miyazaki Kentaro had been “traveling” in China, he had been unable to return home to see her one last time.

He frequently expressed guilt and regret over this in his diaries.

The second was Imai Futoshi.

The two childhood friends had come to China at different times and lost contact with one another.

They had only reestablished contact during the first half of this year.

The third person mentioned in Miyazaki Kentaro’s writings was Teacher Taniguchi Hiroyuki.

This man was a professor at Kobe University and Miyazaki Kentaro’s academic adviser.

The research intelligence gathered by Miyazaki Kentaro during his “travels” in China was compiled and submitted to Taniguchi Hiroyuki every three to six months.

According to Miyazaki Kentaro’s writings, the relationship between them was not particularly good.

In his diary, he had given Taniguchi Hiroyuki the nickname “the Executioner.”

The reason was that whenever the time came to submit an investigative report, Miyazaki Kentaro worried that the strict Taniguchi Hiroyuki would scold him.

“Every time I meet that stubborn old man, I feel as though I am facing an executioner. Oh, every time I carry the materials into his office and slip away while he is not paying attention. Even the air in that place displeases me.”

Later:

“I came to prefer mailing the materials. This allows me to avoid meeting the Executioner. I imagine he is not particularly eager to see me either. We should both be quite satisfied with this method of communication.”

Taniguchi Hiroyuki was currently supposed to be in Beiping.

He had long been active in China under the identity of Associate Dean of the Chinese Literature Faculty at Kobe University.

Cheng Qianfan suspected that Taniguchi Hiroyuki was a genuine intelligence agent and that his professorship was merely a cover identity.

In addition, Cheng Qianfan gleaned another piece of information from the diaries.

Although Miyazaki Kentaro engaged in activities that could clearly be classified as espionage, he was not an intelligence operative.

He genuinely conducted research and investigations and had never maintained contact with any Japanese intelligence organization.

Every so often, his investigative reports were either delivered in person or mailed to Taniguchi Hiroyuki.

On the surface, this appeared to be normal academic activity.

That was precisely what made this form of espionage so well concealed.

Or rather, even if the Nationalist Government knew it was espionage, there was little it could do about it.

Cheng Qianfan was delighted to have obtained these three diaries.

His thinking was simple and direct.

Because of Miyazaki Kentaro’s special identity, he could potentially use it during certain critical moments and achieve extraordinary results.

He had never considered infiltrating a Japanese intelligence organization under this identity.

That was far too dangerous.

Yes, he was fluent in Japanese.

Kawada Eikichi had even mistaken him for someone from Fukushima.

But infiltrating a Japanese intelligence agency required far more than simply knowing Japanese well.

The cultural environment was different.

Living habits were different.

Even the smallest mistake could expose him.

Most importantly, it was impossible for him to master every detail of Miyazaki Kentaro’s life.

The simplest and most direct example was this:

Suppose Miyazaki Kentaro happened to know some Japanese person whose information Cheng Qianfan had never learned.

One day, the two happened to meet...

Therefore, considering that Cheng Qianfan only intended to make use of Miyazaki Kentaro’s identity at certain critical moments, or at least that was his current thinking.

With these three thick diaries, he possessed enough information to handle most situations he might encounter.

Now only one final question remained.

Why had Miyazaki Kentaro come to Shanghai?

Who knew he had come to Shanghai?

After arriving in Shanghai, aside from Lu Bingjiu, whom else had he met?

What had he said?

Cheng Qianfan looked at the photograph in his hand.

It was tucked inside the third diary.

The photograph showed the handsome Miyazaki Kentaro standing beside a beautiful young woman with a smile at the corners of her mouth.

The woman’s smile was sweet.

On the back of the photograph was a single line of writing.

Commemorative photograph of Mr. Gong Jun and Ms. Zhuo Peiyun.

Gong Jun was presumably the Chinese alias used by Miyazaki Kentaro.

Cheng Qianfan’s expression was incomparably cold.

He removed his own coat.

Bending down, he took a suit from Miyazaki Kentaro’s wooden trunk.

It was the same suit Miyazaki Kentaro wore in the photograph.

After changing into the suit,

Cheng Qianfan glanced at the photograph, found a comb, wet his hair with water, and combed it into the slicked-back style shown in the picture.

The Miyazaki Kentaro from the photograph immediately appeared before him.

Inside the trunk was a dagger wrapped in a handkerchief.

This was the murder weapon used to kill Zhuo Peiyun and Old Mr. Zhuo.

He bent down and picked up the dagger.

Carefully examining the dark brown stains upon it, he recognized them as dried blood that could never be washed away.

Cheng Qianfan stood up.

He turned and thrust!

Thump!

The dagger plunged precisely into the anterior deltoid muscle of Miyazaki Kentaro’s shoulder.