You Tianxiao entered the Yuji Money Shop and went upstairs again to report:
“We’ve got people watching every part of the bank. Every floor has manpower stationed, and both the front and back doors can be sealed off on order at any time. We borrowed an armored car from headquarters’ military police unit—parked in the middle of the road, it’s a fortress in itself. If they try to force their way out, they’ll just smash headfirst into a wall.”
“With such an elaborate mobilization, hasn’t it alarmed Director Mu?” Ye Qinian said lightly.
“Director Mu has gone to Nanjing. I’m afraid he won’t be back until after the New Year.”
“Absurd. The government has repeatedly ordered that departments not exchange New Year greetings with each other, not take holidays—yet some people just forward the notices and issue the documents while keeping every old feudal habit unchanged.”
“Director Mu has many relatives and friends in Nanjing. He’s busier there than he ever is here.”
“The Military Law Department is a critical office. Some people just occupy the position without doing the work. Don’t you pick up such bad habits—work hard, and when the opportunity comes I’ll recommend you to the higher-ups.”
“Thank you, teacher. Though honestly, things are fine as they are now. Director Mu probably thinks Longhua carries too much killing air, bad for his official fortune, and doesn’t care for the department’s routine business. That suits me just fine.”
Ye Qinian nodded, expressionless.
“What are they doing in there right now?”
“We have five men inside the main hall. The two sitting on the sofa in the deposits section are back to back, positioned so they can see the whole hall. The man and woman who went in are at the far end of the hall—Assistant Manager Wu is receiving them.”
“Tell your men not to get too close. Let them get the case out smoothly. We want them caught with the goods in hand.”
“Yes, teacher.” You Tianxiao smiled. “There’s something odd, too. They actually have someone sitting in the café at the mouth of Fucheng Lane—I suspect it’s a rendezvous point. That person is Yi Junnian. Not sure what they’re up to.”
“Right at the mouth of Fucheng Lane?” Ye Qinian laughed as well. “We set up our command post inside Fucheng Lane, and they set up their rendezvous point at its mouth—how amusing. Will your men going in and out of the lane mouth be spotted by them?”
“I’ve told them—everyone stays at their assigned position, no wandering around.”
“Chen Qianli still hasn’t shown himself?”
“The man we stationed at the Shenxin Hotel says that since he returned to his room in the middle of last night, he hasn’t come out at all. Should we send someone in to check?”
“Just keep someone watching. First get what’s in the safe deposit box, then arrest Lin Shi, and finally sweep up the whole net.”
Lin Shi took out the slip for safe deposit box No. 279 and handed it to Assistant Manager Wu.
“Assistant Manager Wu, I’ll be opening the box today. Also, here’s three months’ rent.”
“Ah, Mr. Lin, happy New Year—” Assistant Manager Wu’s expression was somewhat unnatural. That morning at home he’d received a call from Mr. Song, who told him that no matter what, he had to come to work today and see properly to the matter of safe deposit box No. 279. He had no idea why this box had drawn Mr. Song’s attention, but Mr. Song had simply told him to handle it as normal business—do whatever the customer asked, and other matters would be taken care of by other people: “We’re a bank, not police, not secret agents. Everyone who comes to us is a customer. We mustn’t give people grounds to say that things aren’t safe with us.”
With Mr. Song’s words to reassure him, Assistant Manager Wu felt steadier. Mr. Song had never personally called him before—in fact, even when Mr. Song came to the bank in person, he never so much as noticed Assistant Manager Wu. But he understood clearly—as did everyone in the bank, from top to bottom—that Mr. Song’s older brother was a formidable figure. Otherwise, why would this small bank manage to get a slice of the Ministry of Finance’s government bond business every year?
Assistant Manager Wu finished preparing the paperwork and led Mr. Lin and his wife upstairs. The staircase was on the west side of the bank hall; upstairs on the second floor, corridors ran around all four sides overlooking the hall below. Ling Wen swept her eyes across the scene.
Sofas sat among the marble columns of the corridor. Far off, two people sat alone on one of the sofas, their Western suits looking somehow ill-fitting.
“Per bank regulations, only the customer who rents the safe deposit box may enter the vault. Mrs. Lin, you can only accompany your husband this far.”
Ling Wen sat down on the sofa in front of the vault door and said with a smile to Assistant Manager Wu: “Mr. Lin’s leg just healed from a fracture and he’s not very mobile—I’ll leave him in your hands, Assistant Manager Wu.”
The vault entrance was on the south side of the second floor. Outside the vault door was a railing enclosure, like an iron cage. Assistant Manager Wu used a key to open the steel lock on the gate, revealing behind it a gleaming round door, forged from a single piece of stainless steel. He turned the combination lock back and forth until he heard a click, then turned the wheel at the center of the steel door several times and gave it a gentle pull—the vault door opened.
Assistant Manager Wu supported Lin Shi as he stepped through the round steel door. Behind it was an enormous stainless steel cavern—walls, floor, and ceiling all steel plate, with light tubes set into the seams, illuminating the square hollow as bright as day. Deep within the cavern were small rooms; Assistant Manager Wu led Lin Shi into one of them, furnished with a table and chairs. Once Lin Shi was seated, Assistant Manager Wu said: “Please wait a moment, Mr. Lin, I’ll go down for a bit.”
The vault entrance was on the second floor, but the safe deposit room itself was underground. Assistant Manager Wu stepped into an elevator that could fit only two or three people, and went down to the safe deposit room.
At the window seat of the Yiyuan Café, Yi Junnian ordered a milk coffee, laid a newspaper on the table, and turned to look out the window. Outside was a small courtyard with a few sun umbrellas, folding tables and chairs beneath them, unoccupied in the cold weather. The courtyard had two doors, one facing Tianjin Road, the other facing the mouth of Fucheng Lane.
It was New Year’s Day, and the café had essentially no customers. The owner hadn’t planned to open for business at this hour, but since the banks and money shops in the area weren’t taking holidays, he thought someone might come by. For this unexpected customer, the owner threw in an extra serving of pudding. A small spoon sat on the pudding plate, untouched by the guest.
“I went to look—Yi Junnian is still inside. Our man saw him cut through the lane from Jiangxi Road. Looks like they’ve parked a car there too. It’s a car from the South City Police Bureau.” You Tianxiao reported to Ye Qinian.
“Who told you to watch them so closely? Reckless—if you spook them—” Ye Qinian wasn’t really angry. He sipped the good tea the money shop’s owner had prepared, in rather good spirits.
“So there really are underground Party members in the South City police.” Ever since the underground Party member had turned up in the market last time, You Tianxiao had begun to suspect there were moles hiding within the Chinese-administered police as well. “Catch him and pull the thread—we’re bound to reel in a whole string of them. Teacher’s plan really is brilliant. We just sit here, and the Communists pop out one by one.”
Ye Qinian wasn’t quite so optimistic: “You can’t wipe out the Communists just by arresting them. Arrest one, and they’ll send you a dozen more. Arrest a dozen, and they’ll send you a truckload.”
You Tianxiao thought his teacher was about to launch into one of his long speeches again. Just as he had back in the training class in Hangzhou, he pressed his heels together and waited to receive his teacher’s instruction.
“In the struggle against the Communists, the most important thing is ideological purging. Once people no longer believe in that Communist doctrine and believe in our Three Principles of the People instead, we will win without fighting, and the Communist Party will perish without a battle. When you have time, you should read some books too—the one written by Professor Tao of Central University is quite good. Once you’ve read it and understood the reasoning, when you interrogate Communist suspects in the detention house, you can reason with them and persuade them to defect to the government. Spread it from one to ten, ten to a hundred, a hundred to a thousand—thought is like a contagion. Once they’re infected, they become our people. Don’t always resort to beating people, killing people. Beating and killing can settle one person, a few people, but it can’t settle the spread of an idea across tens of thousands.”
Assistant Manager Wu returned by elevator, set the iron case he was carrying down on the table, inserted a key, turned it once, and said to Lin Shi: “Mr. Lin, here’s your case. Just use your own key to open it. Once you’re done, ring the bell on the table and I’ll come back to let you out.”
With that, he left the safe deposit room, closed the round steel door, and locked it.
Not long after Assistant Manager Wu left the vault, the light on Little Shi’s desk in the safe deposit section came on.
Earlier he had escorted Mr. Ji into the vault. Mr. Ji was clearly a very important man—the fur trim on his robe was obviously the pelt of a thousand-gold fur, certainly not the skin of just one or two beasts. Little Shi had seen Mr. Song’s fur robe at Miss Tao’s home, and this one looked much the same. His eyes were sharp—anything valuable, he’d remember at a glance.
That earlier encounter had scared him badly, and in the end it was Miss Tao’s quick wit that had saved him, claiming he was her cousin—that was how he’d gotten through it. And as it turned out, misfortune had turned to fortune, as Mr. Song had simply arranged for him to be placed at the bank.
Little Shi kept a clear head—he wouldn’t dare have anything going on with Miss Tao, though she always had him come to her house, help her fetch a piece of clothing, buy her something to eat. Miss Tao would be in her house jacket, knee-length shorts, a stretch of leg showing above her socks. Most tantalizing were the two pink silk trouser cords fluttering beneath her short jacket, swaying whenever she moved. Once, as he sat on the sofa, she leaned over to speak to him and the silk cord actually brushed across his hand—he could barely restrain the urge to reach out and tug at it.
Little Shi opened the vault’s steel door; Mr. Ji stood empty-handed behind it, waiting for him. He’d planned to walk Mr. Ji to the bank’s front entrance, since before entering the vault, Mr. Ji had slipped him a silver dollar. In all his years, Little Shi had never received such a large New Year’s gift. But halfway there, Mr. Ji told Little Shi he urgently needed a toilet and to not wait for him—he’d find his own way out.
Mr. Ji was in fact Chen Qianli. Though he had altered his appearance somewhat, he was still worried about being spotted by the plainclothes detectives scattered throughout the building. He didn’t go to the toilet—instead he slipped into the stairwell used by the cleaning staff, climbed all the way up, and made his way onto the rooftop terrace of the bank building, hiding beside the water tank to observe the surroundings. He noticed the people going in and out of Fucheng Lane didn’t look like ordinary residents.
After about ten minutes, Lin Shi rang the bell to summon Assistant Manager Wu to open the door. Once out of the vault, Ling Wen took the leather case and supported Lin Shi as he stepped out. The two of them made their way along the corridor, down the stairs, and back into the bank hall, in full view of everyone.
Just as they were about to leave, a woman came sweeping into the bank hall like a gust of wind, calling out the moment she entered: “Little Shi, come here!” Little Shi, seeing her, hurried over. Ling Wen turned toward the voice—it was, of all people, Miss Tao. Miss Tao recognized Ling Wen too, and seeing there was no avoiding her, walked over with an embarrassed expression. “Ah, Mrs. Ling!” Miss Tao’s voice was exaggerated, but then she suddenly lowered it: “You’re out too? I said—the moment I got off the rickshaw, my heart started pounding, as if something good were about to happen—”
As she spoke, she raised a hand and pressed it to her chest.
“Miss Tao,” Ling Wen said, “thank you for delivering my letter.”
Miss Tao tried to cover her embarrassment: “Oh, it was nothing, just happened to be passing by—”
Ling Wen had a sudden idea. She simply took hold of Miss Tao’s arm and pulled her over to the deposit counter, took a small notebook from her bag, borrowed a pen from the counter, and had Miss Tao write down her address, saying she wanted to properly thank her. In the detention house, Miss Tao had learned that Ling Wen was also the wife of a wealthy merchant; though the guard had said she was a Communist, Miss Tao had always half-believed it. Now that she was out, surely she was in the clear—so she happily wrote down a phone number. Miss Tao grew increasingly warm as she spoke, walking Ling Wen all the way out of the bank. Cui Wentai sat in the car, waiting for them.
Ling Wen set the leather case on the back seat of the car and said to Cui Wentai: “Deliver the case.” She turned, closed the car door, and supported Lin Shi as they crossed the street, turning her head to call back to Miss Tao: “If you have time later, come by for a piece of cake too.”
“I love cake, I love it…” Miss Tao’s words trailed off incoherently; before she’d even finished speaking, she’d already run back into the bank.
Cui Wentai started the car and drove forward. He didn’t follow the route Chen Qianli had designed, evacuating by a different road. He had, in fact, arranged with Director Ye that the moment he got the case, he would drive straight into Fucheng Lane and hand it over to Captain You for inspection. No one had anticipated that they would set up their own rendezvous point in Fucheng Lane too—Ling Wen and Lin Shi, having crossed the street, were also heading toward the mouth of Fucheng Lane. This left Cui Wentai with a strange, indescribable feeling in his chest. Was he really going to defect to the enemy, out in broad daylight, on a public street?
He drove the car forward a stretch, paused a moment, then turned around and drove back onto Tianjin Road. As the car approached the mouth of Fucheng Lane, he suddenly shouted a curse: “Screw all of you—I’m not defecting to anyone, I’m defecting to myself!”
He slammed his foot on the accelerator and the car shot straight through Fucheng Lane. You Tianxiao, standing in the lane waiting to receive the goods, hadn’t expected the car to simply barrel past—it left him standing there, utterly bewildered.
You Tianxiao rushed up the stairs and reported to Ye Qinian: “Cui Wentai’s taken the case and run.”
Ye Qinian nearly spat out his tea. He thought for a moment, then suddenly cursed: “That bastard—neither the Nationalists nor the Communists can hold him.”
“Teacher, should we arrest him now?”
Ye Qinian thought for a long while: “Have your men keep watching, don’t arrest anyone yet. But you—go get Cui Wentai back for me. Dead or alive, doesn’t matter. The case must come back untouched.”