Chapter 23: Dual Roles

Chapter 23: Dual Roles

The night was quiet, and people had long since fallen asleep.

Darkness enveloped the houses.

Cheng Qianfan was like a traveler returning from the night itself, walking along the deserted streets.

Subconsciously, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette case.

He flicked out a cigarette.

He lit it and took a deep drag.

The midnight wind cut through his clothes. He pulled his coat tighter around himself and quickened his pace.

Chenzhou was the alias he used in the Third Section of the Communist Party Special Branch, the Red Team.

Flame was his codename in the Second Section of the Special Branch, the Intelligence Section.

Aside from Comrade Zhulin, who had already been martyred, no one knew that Comrade Chenzhou, the famous operative of the Special Branch’s Red Team, and Comrade Flame, the mysterious underground Party member of the Intelligence Section, were actually the same person.

One was a Red Team anti-traitor operative with exceptional skills, whose strikes were steady, precise, and ruthless.

The other was an underground Party member silently holding the line on the covert front.

Even Old Liao only knew that Cheng Qianfan was Comrade Flame. He knew nothing of his other identity.

Within the Red Team itself, the other team members had only heard the name and had never seen Comrade Chenzhou’s true face. He was a Red Team operative directly under Comrade Zhulin’s command.

The order to uncover the truth behind the murders of Ms. Luo Huijun and another female comrade had been given to Comrade Flame.

The order to avenge the fallen comrades had been given to Chenzhou.

By eliminating the traitor Old Mo, he had avenged the martyred comrades and, to the greatest extent possible, prevented more comrades from being exposed or even killed because of Old Mo, this Japanese agent hidden within the French Concession.

Comrade Flame and Comrade Chenzhou had once again each completed their respective missions brilliantly.

Having completed the final task Comrade Zhulin had assigned before his arrest and sacrifice, Cheng Qianfan felt both joy and relief at having accomplished the mission.

At the same time, he felt an indescribable loneliness and confusion.

After the Special Branch organization had been broken by the enemy last winter, the surviving members had lost contact with the organization.

Cheng Qianfan even suspected that the organization itself had no way of knowing which comrades had survived.

Only through the channel of Old Liao, specially arranged by Comrade Zhulin before his sacrifice, had Cheng Qianfan been able to maintain one-way contact with the local Party organization in Shanghai:

Given the severe losses suffered by both the Jiangsu Provincial Committee and the local Shanghai Party organization, this one-way contact arrangement was absolutely necessary for security reasons.

Old Liao could provide intelligence to the local Shanghai Party organization. Under normal circumstances, the other side could only receive intelligence and was not permitted to issue orders back through this channel except in emergencies.

Cheng Qianfan’s organizational affiliation belonged to the Special Branch, and to protect him, only Old Liao knew of this contact channel.

Now that Old Liao had been martyred, unless the Shanghai Special Branch was reorganized and activated the long-agreed signal to awaken Cheng Qianfan, he was effectively cut off from the organization.

Thus, at this moment, Cheng Qianfan not only felt the relief of having completed his mission, but also the crushing loneliness of being disconnected from the organization.

Before, there had still been Old Liao.

Now that Old Liao was gone, he was truly fighting alone.

A light drizzle began to fall.

Cheng Qianfan raised his head and extended a hand, feeling the fine rain gradually dampen his skin.

These past few days, Shanghai had seen more and more overcast and rainy weather.

Qingming Festival was approaching.

After returning home, Cheng Qianfan poured more than half a bottle of liquor into himself.

As a result, what the neighbors saw the next morning was a Cheng Qianfan suffering from a hangover and lacking energy.

“Qianfan, why’d you drink so much?”

“You young people need to take better care of your health too.”

“You rotten thief, stealing my hot water!” This was Granny Ma cursing in the street. She grabbed Cheng Qianfan as he passed by. “Brother Fan, this is serious, we’ve got a hot-water thief on the loose.”

“Granny Ma, you stole Zhao Laonian’s coal briquettes again, didn’t you?” Cheng Qianfan said with a laugh.

Granny Ma and Zhao Laonian were sworn enemies. Granny Ma loved taking small advantages and would secretly take coal briquettes from Zhao Laonian whenever he wasn’t paying attention. After discovering it, Zhao Laonian never argued. Instead, once Granny Ma had boiled her water, he would quietly come over and use it himself.

One coal briquette couldn’t possibly boil a whole kettle of water. In his view, he was the one making a profit.

Greeting the neighbors as he went, Cheng Qianfan began another day of the life he was accustomed to amid these snippets of neighborhood chatter.

At this moment, he was not Chenzhou, the Red Team operative who struck fear into enemy agents and traitors.

Nor was he Flame, the underground Party member hidden within enemy ranks.

He was simply Cheng Qianfan, the Cheng family boy whom these old neighbors had watched grow up, now employed at the Central Police Station of the French Concession as a police constable.

“Brother Fan, save me, Dad’s going to beat me to death!”

A half-grown boy ran over seeking rescue.

With practiced ease, Cheng Qianfan pinned him down with one hand, patted his hands clean, and walked away. Behind him came the sounds of a father scolding and beating his son, and the boy’s stubborn retorts.

“Brother Fan, you betrayed me again!” the boy cried in grievance.

No. 22 Rue Vallon, Central Police Station.

Cheng Qianfan stood at the entrance.

He straightened his uniform and adjusted his hair, making himself appear more presentable.

Yes, he needed to appear drained from a hangover.

But lacking energy did not mean being sloppy. That would not fit his usual habits.

“Qianfan, have you heard?” Liu Bo came over and patted Cheng Qianfan on the shoulder. Catching the lingering smell of alcohol, he glanced at him. “Whoa. You alright? You look completely worn out. If you can’t handle your liquor, tell Chief Jin.”

“I’m much better now.” Cheng Qianfan yawned. “It was just a miserable night. Brother Liu, what were you about to say?”

Yesterday’s operation, the one conducted by Jin Kemu’s unit, could be considered highly successful apart from Officer Mo Shouli being injured in the line of duty.

Meanwhile, the arrest operations commanded respectively by Liang Yuchun and Yuan Kaizhou had produced one success and one failure.

Liang Yuchun’s team had successfully captured their target.

When Yuan Kaizhou’s team arrived at their target location, however, they had the misfortune of running directly into the suspect. The target suddenly drew a gun and opened fire. One constable was wounded by a bullet, and the target escaped with assistance from accomplices.

As Liu Bo spoke of it, he looked deeply relieved.

Fortunately, they had been assigned the mission of arresting Zhu Yuan. If they had been assigned to Yuan Kaizhou’s target instead, they would have been the ones taking bullets.

Rumor had it that the enemy’s firepower was formidable and had caught Yuan Kaizhou’s team completely off guard. Had the constables not been highly experienced at running for their lives and scrambling away, the casualties would likely have been far worse.

“These Communists are pretty bold,” Cheng Qianfan said in surprise.

The Communists rarely opened fire within the French Concession, let alone taking the initiative to shoot at police constables.

This was determined by the circumstances and environment of the Party’s underground work within the French Concession.

When the French Concession authorities arrested Communists, they generally interrogated and sentenced them within the concession itself.

The Shanghai Second Special District Court established by the National Government within the French Concession, as well as the Third Branch of the Jiangsu High Court, had to submit formal extradition requests. Only after approval would the concession authorities transfer Communist members to the National Government.

The entire extradition process took a considerable amount of time. If the right lobbying efforts succeeded, the French Concession authorities could even reject extradition requests on “legitimate grounds,” leaving room and opportunity for rescue operations by the organization.

Therefore, even when facing arrest by concession police, Communist operatives generally avoided extreme violence in resisting arrest. Avoiding such violence was a prerequisite for successful rescue efforts.

By extreme violence, one meant the use of firearms.

This incident involved not only firearms, but also the deliberate initiation of an attack against police officers.

The matter was highly likely to provoke the fury of the French Concession authorities and worsen the Party’s operating environment within the concession.

What astonished and interested Cheng Qianfan was the identity of Yuan Kaizhou’s target.

Among the Party’s underground organizations in Shanghai, only the Red Team of the Shanghai Special Branch possessed such formidable combat capabilities.

However, the Shanghai Special Branch had already been devastated by enemy action and had entered a dormant stage.

Had a comrade from the Special Branch been exposed and forced to choose violent breakout in the face of encirclement and arrest?

After Liu Bo walked away, Cheng Qianfan sat alone at his desk, smoking and drinking tea.

He Guan and several colleagues were noisily playing cards.

From time to time, Cheng Qianfan offered He Guan a suggestion or two.

Yet his thoughts remained focused on Liu Bo.

Just now, Liu Bo had approached him enthusiastically and struck up a conversation.

Before last night, Cheng Qianfan would never have thought twice about it, because Liu Bo had always been that sort of warm and sociable person.

Because Old Mo’s “dying words” had pointed suspicion toward Liu Bo, Cheng Qianfan paid extra attention to him today.

What occupied his mind was this: Liu Bo had hurried over before Cheng Qianfan had even entered the office. Was he really just looking for conversation?

Or was his real purpose to observe Cheng Qianfan’s condition at the earliest possible moment, in order to judge whether he had truly been drunk unconscious the previous night or merely pretending?

Cheng Qianfan knew there was a strong possibility that this line of thinking was merely a form of unwarranted suspicion caused by psychological suggestion from Old Mo’s words.

Yet he had no choice but to consider the possibility that Old Mo’s suspicions might actually be correct.

He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled smoke.

He needed his mind to be clearer.

Although he was pretending to be hungover, there was in fact still plenty of alcohol in his system. It made his thinking less sharp than usual, though that was also the most natural state and therefore the least likely to arouse suspicion.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that Liu Bo, this colleague with whom he had always enjoyed a good relationship, was unexpectedly difficult to see through.

Compared with being Flame, he actually preferred the straightforward satisfaction of Chenzhou’s way of settling scores.

Cheng Qianfan went to Jin Kemu to request leave, stating frankly that Xiu Gongshen had invited Chief Inspector Qin Detai to tea and wanted him there as company.

Jin Kemu happily approved the leave and asked Cheng Qianfan to pass along his greetings to Translator Xiu and Chief Inspector Qin.

Standing by the window and watching the young constable’s departing figure, Jin Kemu pondered for a moment and muttered with a smile:

“Nothing but old foxes.”

“Brother Qianfan, is that you?”

Just as Cheng Qianfan stepped out of the police station gate and raised a hand to hail a rickshaw, a soft female voice sounded behind him.

He stopped and turned around.

There stood a beautiful young girl wearing a blue blouse and black skirt school uniform, brown calfskin shoes, and a neatly braided plait. She looked at him quietly, her expression timid and uncertain.

“I’m Cheng Qianfan.” He nodded, while his mind rapidly searched for who she might be.

The moment Cheng Qianfan confirmed his identity, light blossomed in the girl’s beautiful eyes.

Grasping the hem of her clothing with both hands, she said:

“Brother Qianfan, it’s me, Xiaoye.”