Chapter 20: Moving Through the Night

Chapter 20: Moving Through the Night

Everyone glanced at the drunken Xiao Cheng and burst into laughter before continuing their wild boasting and gossip.

Deputy Inspector Ma Yishou brought up an incident.

A shooting had occurred on Avenue Joffre yesterday, and Inspector Lu Dazhang had been thoroughly berated by Lieutenant Marais of the Political Department.

The gloating tone in Ma Yishou’s voice was unmistakable.

Previously, Ma Yishou had lost to Lu Dazhang in the competition for the position of inspector on Avenue Joffre.

The two men had employed every dirty trick imaginable during that contest, and a grudge had formed between them.

Lying there pretending to be drunk, Cheng Qianfan was startled.

The shooting on Avenue Joffre should refer to Old Liao’s assassination and martyrdom.

“I know about that.”

Jin Kemu nodded.

“Lu Dazhang is truly unlucky. Has the case been solved yet?”

“Solved my ass!”

Ma Yishou chuckled.

“A policeman did spot someone who looked very much like a little nobody from the Party Affairs Investigation Department they’d arrested before, but the man got away. Lu Dazhang was so furious he cursed up a storm. Still, all he could do was curse. Without catching them in the act, there’s nothing he can do to those fellows from the Party Affairs Investigation Department.”

The relationship between the police station and the Party Affairs Investigation Department was complicated.

They were enemies at times, yet they had cooperated repeatedly as well.

As a result, an unspoken understanding existed between the two sides.

Unless someone was caught red-handed, the police station could do little against members of the Party Affairs Investigation Department.

The Party Affairs Investigation Department!

So it was them!

Although Cheng Qianfan had already suspected that Old Liao had been killed by agents of the Nationalist government, the government possessed numerous intelligence and secret-police agencies.

There was the Party Affairs Investigation Department, the Special Service Office, and even the Songhu Garrison Command maintained its own intelligence apparatus.

Furthermore, Cheng Qianfan had once suspected Japanese agents.

Old Liao had been associated with the Anti-Japanese United Army, and it was entirely possible that Japanese operatives had been tracking him.

Now, hearing Ma Yishou confirm that the killers were agents of the Party Affairs Investigation Department, Cheng Qianfan felt fury and hatred fill his chest.

His entire being was engulfed by grief.

Old Liao had been his closest comrade and an elder he deeply respected!

This was a blood feud that could not coexist under the same heaven.

One day, he would avenge it!

“Xiao Cheng, you all right?”

The banquet had ended.

Jin Kemu patted Cheng Qianfan on the shoulder.

Hearing faint snoring sounds, he chuckled.

“This little rascal is sleeping quite comfortably.”

“Qianfan, come on, let’s keep drinking.”

Swaying drunkenly, He Guan came over and vigorously shook Cheng Qianfan.

Cheng Qianfan raised his head with bleary eyes.

“Drink, let’s keep drinking.”

As he spoke, he staggered to his feet.

Yet his footing was unstable, and his body swayed helplessly from side to side.

Squinting as though lost in clouds and fog, he seemed completely unaware of where he was.

Suddenly, he shoved He Guan aside, grabbed hold of a chair, and vomited all over the floor.

Everyone hurriedly covered their noses and backed away.

One person, overwhelmed by the smell, could not hold back either and immediately vomited as well.

Meanwhile, after finishing, Cheng Qianfan leaned against the wall.

It looked as though he was about to fall asleep standing up.

“Old Fang! Old Fang!”

Jin Kemu shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Coming, coming. Inspector Jin, don’t worry. Everything’s already arranged.”

Manager Fang of Yingbin Restaurant was a meticulous man.

He had prepared several rickshaws in advance and arranged for young attendants to accompany them.

Patting his chest, he guaranteed that every officer would be delivered safely home.

Yande Lane.

After jogging all the way there, breathing heavily, the young attendant took the key from Cheng Qianfan’s pocket, opened the door, and together with the rickshaw puller helped the drunkard into the room.

They tossed him onto the bed, carelessly pulled a blanket over him, grumbled a few complaints in irritation, and finally left after closing the door.

The moment the two men left, Cheng Qianfan opened his eyes.

Approximately seven or eight minutes later, he quietly got up and went to the window.

Pulling aside a small gap in the curtain, he looked outside.

The alley was silent and pitch black.

He fetched a washbasin and forcefully induced vomiting.

With a loud rush, he expelled nearly half a basinful.

Then he took some sobering medicine from a drawer and swallowed two pills.

After washing his face with a basin of cold water, he immediately felt much more alert.

Carefully, he took a blanket and covered the window completely.

Only then did he light an oil lamp.

Moving aside a bookshelf and removing two bricks hidden behind it in the corner wall, he retrieved a Mauser pistol.

Bringing it close to the lamp, he swiftly disassembled it completely and then meticulously reassembled it, confirming that everything from the bullets to the firing pin was functioning properly.

He quickly changed into an ordinary black laborer’s outfit.

A dagger was tucked into each trouser leg.

He carefully attached a false beard to his chin.

Then he applied a prepared medicinal solution to his face, turning his complexion waxy yellow.

Stuffing a walnut into his mouth, he quietly spoke a few sentences.

His voice became exceptionally hoarse.

Only then did he nod in satisfaction.

After waiting another quarter of an hour, he locked the door from the inside.

Extinguishing the oil lamp, he quietly opened the window and slipped out in a crouch.

He pulled the curtain closed, shut the window, and tugged on a thin black cord.

Click.

The window latch snapped into place.

One end of the cord was tied to a small wooden stick, which he casually wedged into a crack in the exterior wall.

His movements were as agile as a cat.

Keeping low, he darted across several rooftops in rapid succession and vanished into the night.

At that moment, Wang Kangnian led Ding Naifei into a darkroom on the second floor that was used specifically for developing photographs.

Under the dim red lighting, everyone’s faces appeared strangely eerie.

“Team Leader, they’ve all been developed.”

Xiao Si wiped the sweat from his forehead and spoke.

During yesterday’s operation to arrest Old Liao, Xiao Si had hidden in a corner with a camera and taken numerous photographs.

Now their task was to identify suspicious individuals among the people who had appeared at the scene.

“Anything suspicious?” Wang Kangnian asked in a deep voice.

As the saying went, every profession had its specialists.

Xiao Si excelled at photography and possessed an astonishing ability to notice details in the faces captured by his lens.

Even the usually self-confident Wang Kangnian admitted he could not match him in that regard.

“Team Leader, there were forty-five photographs in total. I’ve selected five.”

As he spoke, Xiao Si first pointed to the forty photographs he had eliminated.

“These are provisionally free of suspicion. The ones over here are the five I selected. Team Leader, please take a look and see whether I’ve overlooked anything.”

Meanwhile, Song Fuguo also received new information.

After conducting discreet inquiries at St. John’s Middle School and confirming the matter repeatedly, they discovered that there was no male mathematics teacher surnamed Fu.

To be precise, St. John’s Middle School had only one male mathematics teacher.

That man had received a telegram reporting his father’s death and had returned to his hometown in Beiping a month earlier to attend the funeral.

The operative assigned to gather information from the police station also reported back.

The officers responsible for the operation at Shuanglong Lane Residence on Route Père Robert that day belonged to the unit commanded by Inspector Jin Kemu of the Central Police Station.

Reportedly, they had arrested a Communist.

The Central Police Station.

Jin Kemu’s unit.

Song Fuguo’s eyes flickered.

He thought of the young policeman named Cheng Qianfan.

Kang’an Lane.

On the second floor of a residential house.

Using a bent iron wire with practiced ease, Cheng Qianfan fiddled with the window latch a couple of times.

The latch shifted softly.

With a gentle pull, it opened.

He did not enter immediately.

Instead, he instantly stepped aside and used a tree branch to hold up a felt hat against the window glass.

After waiting for roughly half a minute and hearing no movement, he carefully pushed open the window.

Then he extended the hat inside on the branch.

More than ten seconds passed.

Still hearing nothing, he finally put on the hat, drew the dagger from his right trouser leg, and clenched it between his teeth.

Then he slipped inside with agile ease.