For years Qingpu County had wanted to build a road connecting directly to the city of Shanghai. Construction had finally begun a few years earlier, but even now it was still only a dirt road with a few wooden bridges built along it. Cui Wentai had no idea why he had driven the car to this place—he had run out of road, out of options.

On the morning of New Year’s Day, in front of the bank, the moment Ling Wen had placed the suitcase into the back seat of the sedan, he had felt a sudden rush of heat to his head. For an instant, he thought he had caught the scent of gold bars. He couldn’t say exactly what that smell was, only that his heart was pounding, his temples felt like they might burst, and the people and vehicles on the street around him all seemed to turn into drifting shadows—looking back on it now, it felt like a dream. And yet he remembered clearly, one by one, the string of actions he himself had performed: pressing the clutch, shifting the gear lever, releasing the clutch, releasing the brake, pressing the accelerator, turning the steering wheel—the trouble was, none of those actions seemed to have passed through his own mind at all, and even later, when he had slammed the accelerator and shot the car right past the agents from the Investigation Squad, it hadn’t felt like something he himself had done either.

He cursed all the way, at the pedestrians crossing the road, the rickshaws, the oncoming cars, the cars in front of him—he even cursed at people simply standing on the sidewalk. He did remember stopping for gas, but as luck would have it, just as he finished filling the tank, he spotted the owner of his own car garage running toward him from across the street. He suddenly recalled that the car hadn’t been back to the garage since it had been driven out the day before, and he hadn’t even called to check in—the realization gave him a jolt, and only then did he notice he had, in his confusion, driven the car to the gas station near Jinji Motors. He hurried into the car and hit the gas, pulling away without any concern for the bald, potbellied man standing in the middle of the road behind him, arms spread wide, shouting and stamping his feet.

He drove for a long while, and his mind gradually began to clear. He knew full well he had gambled big this time. What was he, Cui Wentai, that he dared offend both the Nationalist and Communist parties at once? He thought the only thing that could save him now was the five gold bars in the suitcase on the back seat. Even now, he did not dare stop the car and open the case to look. It wasn’t that he feared being robbed on the road—the feeling was more like the anxious hesitation of returning home after a long absence, because he had dreamed his whole life of making a big score, and those few gold bars in the case were the largest sum of money he had ever laid eyes on. Though he did not dare open the case to look at the gold bars right away, he did stop to buy a newspaper from a paperboy, checking the day’s price for standard gold, and his heart leapt with joy.

He thought he would go find Fifth Sister once it got dark—with this money, he’d feel secure. If Ye Qinian really pursued him relentlessly, he’d leave Shanghai. Driving was something he was good at; he could find work anywhere. For that, he really ought to thank Lao Fang. Sometimes, thinking of Lao Fang, he did feel a twinge of guilt, though he’d never meant to get him killed—he had only told certain people that Lao Fang had likely gone to the barbershop. That day, he had dropped Lao Fang off on North Sichuan Road, watched him get out and disappear into the lane, and had immediately guessed where he was headed. He hadn’t meant for him to die—the outcome wasn’t entirely his doing, though thinking about it still left him uneasy.

But now he had five gold bars, worth several thousand silver dollars—maybe he could even become a boss himself, open a car garage somewhere. He could go to the newly founded “Manchukuo”—once there, surely even Ye Qinian’s reach wouldn’t extend that far?

He didn’t dare enter the lane where Fifth Sister lived. He stopped the car across the street and watched for a few minutes before finally deciding to leave. He saw two men—why were they standing at the mouth of the lane in this cold weather? Did they know Fifth Sister? Did they know where her family lived? He couldn’t be sure of any of this. But he was quite certain that if he went in through her door right now, her older sisters would give him quite the look. He thought it over and drove off.

But he had nowhere to go. He drove west along Suzhou Creek, crossing a wide stretch of farmland, snow beginning to fall from the sky. The car bumped along country roads for a long while before turning onto Baili’nan Road. He couldn’t turn back, couldn’t stop. He guessed that by now every police station in Shanghai had his photograph—he wasn’t just a wanted Communist now, he’d also be treated as a gold-bar robbery suspect. The Communist underground wouldn’t shelter him either—they’d be looking for him too, the traitor who had betrayed his comrades.

Aside from the small stretch of road lit by the headlights, everything around was pitch black. Cui Wentai crossed Hualun Road, the road nearly at its end, with nothing ahead but wild wasteland. He had no choice but to turn onto Luobiegen Road, following a small river south, then onto Hongqiao Road. Ahead, some faint light was visible; by the time he drove close enough, he realized it was an airfield—snowflakes dancing in the light, a few soldiers and police standing outside the guard post, staring at the car in astonishment. Panicking, he wrenched the steering wheel, and the car turned onto a dirt path to the left of the airfield entrance; without a second thought he floored the accelerator, the wheels bouncing over pits and stones, plunging headlong into the darkness.

The dirt road seemed endless, with many plank bridges along the way. Only as dawn approached did he realize this was a road under construction, freshly laid with an earthen roadbed.

He had no idea this was the Zhusong County Road, and did not know he had driven the car into the Dianshan Lake region. He had never been to this place before. Around dawn, he drove past a village; a stone marker by the roadside read “Songze,” a place name he also had no knowledge of. But the car was getting harder and harder to drive—there were many small tributaries and stretches of marshland, thick with withered reeds. Further on, the road simply ended, and he had no choice but to stop the car. He sat in the driver’s seat for a while, took out a cigarette and had a few puffs, then climbed into the back seat and opened the suitcase—the moment he looked inside, everything went dark before his eyes…

Several hours passed before he came to his senses. He started the car again and drove slowly into the depths of the reeds, stopping by the lakeshore. Fortunately the weather was cold; though it had just snowed, the muddy shoreline had frozen solid, and the wheels did not sink into the marsh. He walked out of the wasteland on foot; there was not a soul in sight in any direction.

Cui Wentai wandered, dazed and at a loss, around the Dianshan Lake region for over ten days. He first found a small inn in the town of Zhujiajiao, but after two days he began to panic. This place was close to Qingpu County town—word-for-word arrest notices might turn up on the streets any moment. So he took a small boat to the west side of the lake, making his way to a small town called “Shangta.” In the old days, merchants traveling between Suzhou and Songjiang prefectures had always gone by water, a two-day journey, and would rest for the night here. “Shangta” literally meant “where the merchants set down.” The town had quite a few inns; for only two jiao a night, one could get a bed and even a bowl of straw-wrapped pork and a couple of cups of aged Shaoxing wine. Surrounded on all sides by lake, the place made Cui Wentai feel quite safe. But less than a week later, he found he was out of money. That night, he spent the last of his cash on pork and wine, and passed out drunk on the inn’s table.

The next morning he took a boat and left Shangta. He decided to sneak back to Shanghai. He still had the car, a Dodge—he could sell it. He’d already had this idea in mind. When he’d first started as a driver at Jinji Motors, he had made inquiries about whether it might be possible to secretly sell off a car and make a big profit. A used car like this was worth two or three thousand silver dollars; even if he stripped it and sold the parts and engine separately, he could still get eight hundred to a thousand. With that money, he could still make his way to some remote corner of the world and live a good life.

He planned to wait outside Fifth Sister’s home and have her find him a place to hide for a few days. That way he could sell the car at his leisure, then flee far away. If she was willing, she could come with him; if not, that was fine too—he could settle in somewhere first and come back for her later, or find another woman. His life had had its ups and downs, he’d seen his share of the world, and he believed that one day he would surely rise from the ashes again. Today was the twelfth day of the first lunar month; he would remember this day—it was the first day of Cui Wentai’s comeback.

In the afternoon he got off the ferry. It was not yet the fifteenth, and the townspeople were still celebrating the New Year; the streets were nearly empty, only a handful of shops open. He had no plans to linger in town, and headed straight for the reed marsh by the lake. He found the car, poured a spare barrel of gasoline into the tank, silently congratulating himself on his foresight—he’d bought two extra barrels and kept them in the car back when he’d filled up that first time. With this much fuel, he figured he could not only drive the car back to Shanghai, but even drive it all the way to a buyer.

He didn’t dare turn the car around in the reed marsh, so he put it in reverse and slowly backed it out of the lakeshore, then drove up onto the dirt road. Sunlight fell on the reeds; the gradually thawing soil surface showed many small holes, and in the distance, birds circled above the lake. Cui Wentai felt his spirits lift. Over the past few days he’d read the papers and learned that this road under construction was called the Zhusong County Road, running from Qingpu County town at one end to Hongqiao Road Airfield at the other. This time, he decided, he would take a good long look at the planes—right now he sat in his car, as pitiful as a stray dog fleeing for its life, but who could say, maybe one day he, Cui Wentai, would board a plane himself and look down at this world from above.

But he had no more time for dreaming—ahead on the dirt road appeared two black cars, and he recognized at a glance the vehicles of the Shanghai-Wusong Garrison Command. He quickly threw the car into reverse, retreating desperately back toward the reed marsh. But behind him was Dianshan Lake—there was nowhere left to retreat to.

You Tianxiao strode forward, one foot high and one foot low. He had originally intended to exchange a few jokes with this “Xi Shi,” but by the time he reached him, he had already grown somewhat angry.

He sneered, “You really know how to run, don’t you—all the way out here to Jiaoli. Freezing weather like this, and you come out here to catch fish and shrimp?”

“Jiaoli” was the local term used by the people of Zhujiajiao; whatever he said, You Tianxiao always liked to make himself sound like a local expert.

Cui Wentai was dragged out of the car and pressed down into the muddy reed marsh; he gasped for a good while before steadying himself enough to speak, his voice choked with tears: “There’s no fish or shrimp here at all. I’ve been hiding here more than ten days and haven’t seen a single shrimp. Every day I’ve been scared to death, terrified the Communists would catch me and shoot me. Seeing you here, Captain You, is such a relief. Captain You, the underground party wants to arrest me—I can still be of service to you.”

“It’s not just the Communists after you now. Your fellow Nationalists are also under orders to catch you. Both parties, Nationalist and Communist, after you—you’ve really played a big hand this time. No wonder—after all, you’re the famous ‘Xi Shi’ of Special Services Headquarters.”

The men You Tianxiao had brought this time were all his own trusted subordinates, all aware that Captain You was not only the Investigation Squad captain of the Garrison Command, but also the Nanjing Special Services Headquarters’ station chief in Shanghai.

Hearing You Tianxiao mention “Xi Shi,” Cui Wentai felt somewhat reassured: “Captain You, please take me to see Director Ye. I have something to tell him.”

Someone took the suitcase out of the back seat of Cui Wentai’s car and set it down on the muddy ground.

“There’s only old newspapers and some weights in that case,” Cui Wentai hastily explained.

That day, when he had opened the suitcase in the back seat, he had found it stuffed full of old newspapers, wrapped around several iron scale weights, coated in coal dust—likely lifted from the scales at a coal yard. He hadn’t dared to throw away the suitcase; perhaps he sensed he would sooner or later be caught, and without the gold bars, if he threw away the suitcase too, the whole thing would become even harder to explain.

He guessed he’d been tricked, played by Chen Qianli. He’d thought in the car that Chen Qianli had probably meant for him to use the suitcase as a decoy to draw the agents away—so cunning, deceiving his own comrade like that. For a moment, he had even entertained the wild idea that if he’d successfully drawn the agents away, that would still count as a meritorious act, that Chen Qianli might not even realize they had been betrayed, and he could still go back and rejoin them. But afterward, even he himself realized this was thinking of others as fools just like himself.

The suitcase really did contain nothing but newspapers and scale weights. The old newspapers had been rolled into balls, stuffing the case completely full.

“Where did you put the gold bars?” You Tianxiao demanded sharply.

“Captain You, there are no gold bars in the case. I never touched a thing.”

“You dragged this suitcase all the way from Tianjin Road out here, and you’re telling me you never touched a thing?” In truth, You Tianxiao wasn’t all that angry. Ye Qinian didn’t care about the gold bars, and neither did he. They had genuinely been trying to catch Communists, and this fellow had wrecked a perfectly good operation. And to think he was called “Xi Shi”—the most precious undercover agent of Special Services Headquarters. He had long harbored resentment toward this man—Teacher Ye’s favorite, with the entire headquarters revolving around him, the Shanghai station having served him alone for days on end.

Very well. Teacher Ye had given the order: quietly dispose of him. He understood Teacher Ye’s feelings—his most beloved subordinate had turned into this sort of trash, absconding with a few gold bars—it would be humiliating if word got out. There were people at headquarters who had long harbored dissatisfaction with Teacher Ye. Killing this man off, You Tianxiao felt, would give him a double pleasure, perhaps even more.

“Captain You, let me see Director Ye, I have something to tell him.” Cui Wentai cried out toward You Tianxiao in a panic.

Ye Qinian had no wish to hear anything he had to say, but You Tianxiao did have a question he wanted to ask him: “Tell me the truth. That day, why were you running off with a bunch of scale weights? Why did you suddenly decide to flee?”

“I should have known—that day I really was possessed by demons. They put the suitcase in the car, and I suddenly thought I smelled gold bars.”

He had told the truth, and You Tianxiao burst out laughing. He said, slowly and deliberately, word by word:

“The smell of gold bars—that’s the smell a man gets when he sinks to the bottom of Dianshan Lake.”

Cui Wentai’s legs went weak with fear. He fell to his knees, stretching his hands out toward You Tianxiao, screaming with all his might: “I have something to say to Director Ye.”

You Tianxiao said with a smile, “Director Ye doesn’t want to hear you talk. But I’ll let you say three sentences. Go on, three sentences.”

Cui Wentai froze for a moment, then hurriedly continued: “The gold bars are probably still at the bank…”

You Tianxiao waved his hand, and two burly men from the Investigation Squad stepped forward, tied Cui Wentai up tightly with rope, and prepared to stuff him into the back seat of the car to drown him in the lake.

You Tianxiao stopped his men: “It’d be too good for him to be buried with the car. Confiscate it for the Investigation Squad.”

From the distant town came the sound of firecrackers, mixed with Cui Wentai’s ceaseless screaming:

“Captain You, you said you’d hear my three sentences… Captain You, you can’t go back on your word…”

That evening around eight o’clock, You Tianxiao returned to the city. He went straight to the Zhengyuan Hotel near the North Railway Station, where he met with Ye Qinian. On the surface this was a hotel, but in reality it was a property built with funds from Special Services Headquarters—the headquarters’ Shanghai station office occupied the top floor of the hotel, and most of the guests staying in the rooms below were also personnel visiting from headquarters. If any unwitting traveler tried to check in at the front desk, they would usually be told the hotel was full; a few who seemed particularly suspicious might even be taken to the back for a thorough identity check.

Ye Qinian showed little concern for what became of Cui Wentai. Hearing You Tianxiao mention the scale weights, Ye Qinian only remarked, “This Chen Qianli, taking scale weights from the coal yard—how are people supposed to do business now?”

“Teacher, I’ve been thinking—could the gold bars still be at the bank?”

“I had someone check at the bank. On the morning of New Year’s Day, a quarter of an hour before you took your men to Tianjin Road, someone posing as a wealthy merchant went into the bank and opened a new safe deposit box. This person spent a full hour inside the vault storing items. Which is to say, by the time that man Lin Shi went in, there were already two people in the vault. Chen Qianli used a switching trick—Cui Wentai’s little scene threw off our attention, and we never thought the items might still be at the bank.

“That afternoon, the same man came back to the bank a second time, claiming he had only deposited part of the items that morning, and requesting access to the safe deposit box again. Though the box was still under rental, I suspect the goods had already been removed by then. Guess who this man was—of course, it must have been Chen Qianli. I estimate that Cui Wentai’s little scene was completely unplanned—Chen Qianli doesn’t have that kind of pull, to have convinced Cui Wentai to sabotage things for him on purpose. If not for Cui Wentai’s outburst, that day when he brought the suitcase in, I would have guessed right away that someone had made a switch in the vault. Chen Qianli came up with a bad plan, but ran into a stroke of good luck. Next time, though, he may not be so fortunate.”

“But now we’ve lost ‘Xi Shi’…”

“That’s not something you need to concern yourself with,” Ye Qinian said. “Chen Qianli sails back to Shanghai tomorrow on the Guisheng, docking at the Gong He Xiang wharf around noon. On the underground party’s side, Yi Junnian will go to meet him. Take your men over there, stay hidden in the car—I’ve arranged for marksmen up on the rooftop of the wharf company building as well. If he doesn’t fire, you’re not to make any move. If he does fire, go out immediately, let Yi Junnian go, dead or alive doesn’t matter, but bring Chen Qianli to me.”

“That Yi Junnian—don’t we need to capture him too?”

Ye Qinian thought it over for a moment. “Let him live a few more days.”