In the car, Wei Dafu was blindfolded with black cloth. Through the hood he could only make out flickers of light and shadow. But before they covered him, he saw the car pass over the long line of barricades set up in the middle of the road. He knew the streets of Shanghai as well as he knew his own fingers, and he guessed they were taking him to Zhabei.
Before the car stopped he heard the whistle of a train, the clatter of wheels on the rails—so close, he thought they must be near North Station. As they entered the building he stumbled and fell against the steps, and in the confusion, through a gap beneath the hood, he glimpsed the outside. He knew this building; from just one glimpse of the corner he could picture the whole structure. He guessed at once that this was Lai’an Li. He vaguely recalled that Lai’an Li had an inn.
He rarely came here, because this area lay close to North Station, a place where the concessions and Chinese territory crisscrossed, and the police from neither side liked to come patrol here; the people who frequented the area were of a complicated sort. Early last year, when Japanese forces bombed Zhabei, not only the train station but the buildings on Baoshan Road and Xinmin Road had all been destroyed, rubble strewn everywhere.
Because it faced the train station directly, the alleys, rooftops and terraces of Lai’an Li had once concealed troops of the 19th Route Army. At the time, several hundred Japanese soldiers had tried to push through Lai’an Li toward the station, and had been crushed from the high ground. But as a result, ordinary families living nearby could no longer stay there; anyone who had a way out fled into the concessions. Thus Lai’an Li became a den of gambling houses and opium dens; besides these, there were also many pawnshops and loan houses. Those who frequented the place, besides gamblers, opium addicts, prostitutes and gangsters, were left with only shoe-shiners and cigarette peddlers.
Wei Dafu knew that having been kidnapped and pushed hooded into the inn, even if the people around saw it, they wouldn’t think anything of it. Once he was in the room and the hood came off, he’d have a better sense of things.
He was pushed upstairs, though he had no idea in which direction. The room had been cleared out; inside was only a bed. The bathroom was shared with the outer suite. The door was locked from outside. The lower half of the window had been boarded up with planks, and the upper half fitted with iron bars, leaving only a few narrow gaps. Through the gaps he could see, far off, many railway tracks, and a corner of the waiting hall; the main station building was blocked by the railway administration building. He knew there was no use looking further, so he lay down on the bed. Though the bed had no bedding, only bare boards, he hadn’t slept all the previous night, and fell asleep the moment he lay down.
He thought he had slept a long time, and even dreamed of his long-dead parents, but in fact not much time had passed before he was roughly shaken awake. He vaguely recalled that in the last few minutes of his dream he had been surrounded by a crowd of people kicking and beating him, and the moment he opened his eyes, two men seized him and dragged him out of the room. Outside was what had once been the suite’s living room; the furniture had all been cleared away, leaving only a table, with two chairs behind it and one in front. Wei Dafu understood at once—this was the interrogation room.
This room had no window to begin with, and the window outside had also been mostly boarded over; with the door shut as well, the interrogation room was dim. Someone switched on the lamp on the table—this was a specially made interrogation spotlight; the people who invented such lamps had originally meant them for use on stage, yet here they were being put to this use instead. The light was frighteningly bright; the moment it hit Wei Dafu, his eyes stung sharply. The beam gathered into a tight circle, wrapping around him, which made everything else seem all the darker by contrast. He could dimly make out two dark shapes by the table; the one in front he could just barely recognize as Captain You of the detective squad. The one seated slightly behind, off to the side, was utterly indistinct.
The room fell silent for a long while; now and then a train whistle sounded from outside as trains entered or left the station, but by the time the sound reached this sealed-off room, it seemed to come from very far away. After the train passed, the room grew even more deathly still. Wei Dafu strained to keep his eyes away from the direct glare of the light, but the light seemed able to envelop him from any angle no matter which way he turned his head. He grew hot all over, sweating, and his head began to ache. The light seemed suddenly to turn into a vast sound, rumbling in his ears.
“Do you know why you’ve been brought in?” You Tianxiao opened with a line utterly lacking originality, his voice sounding distant too, as if heard from underwater with someone speaking above the surface.
Wei Dafu suddenly broke into a smile, raised both open hands, turned his wrists against each other, and said, “Cut!”
You Tianxiao froze. Wei Dafu went on: “That line’s no good, no originality at all. Try again, Captain You. Every time you people ask someone, ‘Do you know why we brought you in?’ You’re the ones who brought me in—don’t you know why yourselves?”
Rather than angry, You Tianxiao laughed, and turned his head to speak to the shadow seated behind him: “This Wei Dafu—looks all soft and sluggish on the surface, but at critical moments he’s still got some street-tough spirit left in him.”
The shadow seemed to shift slightly, but said nothing.
“Last time, at the meeting at the Fourth Road vegetable market, you were there too. You ran fast—we didn’t catch you.”
“What market? What meeting? How do you know I was there?”
“Where have you been these past few days, why haven’t you gone home again?” You Tianxiao asked further.
“You’re not my wife, it’s none of your business whether I go home or not.”
At this even the shadow let out a stifled laugh, but stopped it at once, as though clearing his throat instead.
“You have no wife or children—that’s an advantage for you, actually.” You Tianxiao thought this line rather meaningful, and paused a moment before continuing, “But then again, without even a wife and children, you’ve made rather a failure of your life.”
Wei Dafu didn’t respond, seeming lost in some private thought. You Tianxiao, believing he’d struck a nerve, pressed the advantage: “Your associates, including Chen Qianli, we’ve invited them all here too. This place has many rooms—they’re being interrogated right next door as we speak.”
Wei Dafu’s heart lurched, but he quickly realized this was a bluff, and said nothing. Fahua Town too was an area where roads had been extended beyond concession boundaries, its policing split among the International Settlement, French Concession, and Chinese authorities. They had hidden themselves well; a search wouldn’t be easy. If secret arrests and abductions were the method, then they still had no idea which building the group was hiding in.
“Tell me, what have your comrades been busy with lately?”
“I spend my days helping people look at houses to rent. I don’t know who this ‘comrade’ you’re talking about is. Besides, if you want to know what other people are up to, you should ask them yourself.”
“Do you know what this place is?” You Tianxiao suddenly raised his voice. “You want to be smart with us, want to die faster?”
Wei Dafu fell silent again.
“Hand Chen Qianli over to us, and whatever you want, we can give it to you.”
“I don’t know that man. Besides, betraying others isn’t something Wei Dafu does.”
“You’re quite the loyal one. Very good—the Nationalist Party likes people with a sense of loyalty too. Tell me, what can you hand over to us, in exchange for your own life?”
Wei Dafu thought for a moment, then said, “How about I write you an IOU—you let me out, and someday when I get rich selling houses, I’ll send you ten thousand silver dollars. I, Wei Dafu, keep my word—I definitely won’t renege on this debt of gratitude.”
To teach Wei Dafu to speak properly, You Tianxiao called in several strong men and had him dragged into another room. Wei Dafu’s head was covered again, this time with a padded black hood. Because they wanted to build up sufficient psychological pressure on him, the preparations were carried out very slowly. Once the padded hood was pulled down over his head from above, a rope was cinched tight at the bottom; then his hands and feet were bound, and he was hoisted up, hung head-down.
Though his head was covered, Wei Dafu was still aware he’d been hoisted up quite high. They began striking his head at a steady rhythm—not very hard, but very fast—so that his head swung side to side like a punching bag. Before long he felt his skull was about to split apart with pain. The sound of the blows grew louder and louder; even the friction of his ears against the padded hood became unbearably sharp.
He lost all sense of time, felt this process would never end, might never end at all.
After a long while, someone asked through the padding whether he was willing to answer questions properly. He made no sound, didn’t even move his head slightly. So the agents turned to work on his joints instead. His elbows and knees were forced in the opposite direction. He was straightened out and pressed to the floor, face against the ground, his arms pulled forward from behind; his shoulder joints creaked as though slowly coming apart.
The agents doing the torturing were well trained; they worked unhurriedly, gradually increasing the pressure on his body, giving him ample time to surrender before his arm would actually be torn off. When they released their grip, blood seemed to rush back into the joint all at once. This was exactly the effect the torturers wanted—to make his body swing back and forth between extreme pain and numbness.
Wei Dafu couldn’t help but let out a groan, and nodded.
He was dragged back to the chair, the ropes untied, and the hood removed.
The intense circle of light bore down on his face again; before his vision fully returned, he dimly saw the shadow seated behind say something to You Tianxiao.
“Willing to talk now? You don’t want to betray others, that’s fine too—” You Tianxiao said. “Then just tell us something you know.”
Wei Dafu hesitated again. Too fast, he thought—if he started talking on the first round, whatever he said would be worth too little. They might not take it seriously, and then he’d have played the traitor for nothing. He decided to hold out one more round. He shook his head, refusing to speak.
So the strong men were brought in again. This time they didn’t put the hood back on, nor did they drag him to another room.
In the bathroom, a long bench lay in the bathtub; two legs at one end had been sawn shorter, so the board slanted, one end high, one end low. He was laid flat on the incline, feet toward the high end. They tied him to the bench and brought a wet towel, which they laid over his face.
Wei Dafu heard the pipes gurgling. Through the towel, something like a rubber tube prodded his face, and then water began to flow. At first he thought he could bear it; he held his breath, thinking he could snatch breaths in between, but the tap water kept flowing steadily onto the towel, the heavy wet cloth pressing to his face, and he felt himself suffocating, stars bursting before his eyes. When the water stopped he began to cough, but before he’d finished coughing the water came again.
He was dragged back to the chair.
“Ready to say something now?”
He coughed for a while longer, his head hanging almost to the floor; the fried buns and clay-pot wontons from breakfast had long since come back up. He vomited a great deal of water.
“What do you want to know?” he said.
“First, you need to admit to us that you’re a member of the underground Party.”
Wei Dafu nodded—there was no point hiding this from them now. Earlier he’d simply not wanted to give in to You Tianxiao. Chen Qianli had already told everyone about Lu Zhongde, so surely they already had all this information anyway.
“Where did Liang Shichao go?” the shadow behind him spoke up as well.
“He originally came to Shanghai to recover from an injury—he was a Red Army commander. Now that he’s recovered, he’s gone back to the Soviet base area.”
“And Ling Wen? Where did she go?”
“She went to Guangzhou, hasn’t come back.”
“That’s very good. You don’t resist us—that makes things easy. And Chen Qianli? Where is he?”
“I don’t know, he’s not at Fahua Town.”
“I want to hear about this so-called plan of yours. I understand you probably don’t actually know very much—just tell me what you do know.”
“That’s extremely secret. All of us have only heard the name, know it’s something big. Most likely they’re building a new secret transportation line.”
“We already know all that. You’d better tell us something we haven’t heard, and then you and we can be friends, and everything else will be easy.”
“Let me have something to drink.”
“Water?”
“I want liquor.”
“I don’t have the Shaoxing wine you like here, only a bottle of Johnnie Walker.” The man hiding in the darkness told You Tianxiao to go fetch the bottle from his room.
“I know this Chen Qianli very well—he’s a fool.”
While You Tianxiao went to fetch the liquor, the shadow made this idle remark, not expecting Wei Dafu to answer. After a moment he added, “He thinks we don’t know about the sneaking around he does. These past two years, the government has racked its brains trying to wipe out the Communist Party, and has accumulated no small amount of experience. We have many eyes and ears; whatever you people do, it won’t be long before we know of it. I was the one who suggested they not send you straight to Longhua, but instead quietly bring you here—this is a chance given to those willing to reform.”
The liquor came. Wei Dafu actually wasn’t used to this kind of drink. They also brought him some food, but he didn’t feel hungry. He’d hoped they would raise questions on their own during the interrogation, so that it would seem more natural. But they didn’t ask; they simply wanted him to say what he knew. This meant the topic had begun circling around again. He thought perhaps they hadn’t yet discovered certain arrangements that Chen Qianli would complete today.
“What did you go to do at the Shen Bao offices on Third Road?”
“Placed an advertisement. Chen Qianli told me to go find the advertising department there. It’s supposed to run in tomorrow morning’s paper.”
“What did the ad say?”
“It’s written on a slip of paper, I can’t remember all those words. You’ve surely already gone to Shen Bao to check it.”
“Why place this advertisement?”
“That I don’t know.”
The interrogation reached a stalemate, and the man sitting in the darkness quietly left the room. You Tianxiao suddenly began asking about Yi Junnian, wanting to know why that man, knowing full well they meant to catch him, still dared not flee, still lay low in his painting-and-calligraphy shop. Wei Dafu thought it over, then answered that Yi Junnian was his superior, and according to underground Party rules, he couldn’t ask about his superior’s work or whereabouts. He told You Tianxiao he’d just been worn out and wanted to rest. You Tianxiao, thinking he was being glib again and not answering properly, grew angry and left the interrogation room.
They didn’t let Wei Dafu return to the room where he’d been held before. The place Wei Dafu was newly put into couldn’t even be called a room—no window, no furniture of any kind. The agents shut the door, and inside there was not a sliver of light. Wei Dafu crouched on the ground, feeling his way around in the dark, and found the space extremely cramped. He thought this wasn’t so bad—he could get some good sleep. But they weren’t about to give him the chance to rest.
The moment he lay down on the floor, the spotlights fitted into the ceiling switched on. He couldn’t tell how many bulbs were up there; for the first time he experienced just how bright light could be—the beams like countless fine needles stabbing at him, and even with his eyes shut tight, those needles of light seemed to bore straight through his eyelids into his skull. He wanted to smash the bulbs, but couldn’t reach them.
A moment later the lights went out, and a deafening noise began pounding against his eardrums. They’d installed car horns in the room, as though some mischievous child were pressing the button and refusing to let go. The horns blared for perhaps less than a minute before Wei Dafu felt his brain was about to explode.
In another room at the Zhengyuan Hotel, Lu Zhongde lounged on the sofa smoking. Seeing Ye Qinian enter, he half-rose in a token gesture, then sat back down.
“How did you get in?” Ye Qinian was mildly surprised that Lu Zhongde hadn’t stood to greet him properly; his prized student, just back from Guangzhou, had a certain strangeness about his manner—perhaps simply exhaustion.
“Secretary Weng opened the side door in the corner, no one saw me.”
“What’s happened, that you’d come running here?”
“Chen Qianli sent Tian Fei to the shop once, to tell me they’re preparing to cut off contact with the outside. Since I have the task Lao Fang assigned before he died, and can’t get away to the hidden assembly point, they’ve stopped contacting me for now.”
“Cutting off contact?” Ye Qinian found this odd.
“I think they must have some major operation planned.”
“‘A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains’?”
“Possibly.”
“This ‘Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains’ plan—what exactly is it trying to accomplish?”
They had racked their brains trying to uncover this secret plan, spent so much time on it, and still had not gotten hold of even a rough picture.
“It’s always connected to the transportation line, surely.”
“It’s not that simple. Headquarters has been analyzing intelligence gathered from all over, and I have a feeling the Communist Central leadership may be about to leave Shanghai soon. Hao Han’s case may not be an isolated incident. We caught him once, and then he vanished completely, without a trace. A few days later, one of the Communists was persuaded by us, agreed to hand him over to us. We learned he was going to make contact with Fang Yunping. We sent people over, and he got away again. What’s noteworthy is that this Fang Yunping is precisely the head of your provisional action group—the very day he was to meet Hao Han, he’d originally planned to go straight on to the market meeting afterward. When we went to seize Fang Yunping, he’d rather die than let us take him. What a pity—”
“A thousand li of rivers and mountains, the Communist Central leaving Shanghai—it really does sound like that could be it.” Lu Zhongde pondered this, then his shoulders suddenly gave a start, and he slapped the arm of the sofa. “Charter a ship, take over the passenger cabins?”
“You called me last night. I had people sent to Fahua Town straightaway, had them drive around the streets in the area from first thing this morning, and sure enough they spotted Wei Dafu. They followed him all the way to the Shen Bao offices and brought him in.”
“What did he go to Shen Bao for?”
“To place an advertisement.”
“Another advertisement? Meant for Hao Han?”
“No, not this time. Taking the advertisement you brought from Guangzhou, we ran the numbers in it through the Morse code cipher, and it revealed the name of another major figure in the Communist Central leadership.”
“Who is it?” Lu Zhongde said excitedly.
Ye Qinian glanced at him, but didn’t tell him.
“Teacher, what do we do now—go to Fahua Town and take them all in?”
“That place, Fahua Town, the terrain is complicated—we don’t even know exactly where they are. Going in rashly would only spook them into hiding. You should have gone with him that day.”
The day Chen Qianli fled from Menghua Street, he’d gone to the painting-and-calligraphy shop and asked Lu Zhongde to withdraw with him. The reason Lu Zhongde had given Ye Qinian was that he’d already made contact with Hao Han, and worried that if he followed Chen Qianli in flight, something might go wrong. But Ye Qinian knew the truth was that Lu Zhongde hadn’t dared go—he was afraid of Chen Qianli.
“You should have killed him at the dock, or brought him back captive. If you weren’t going to act there, you should have gone with him. At the critical moment, one mustn’t hesitate.”
“Teacher, if we’d killed him then, we’d never have gotten to see this ‘Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains’ business unfold.”
Ye Qinian nodded approvingly at Lu Zhongde. “That much you got right. In planning an operation, one must always weigh more than just a single moment, a single place, a single person. They’re interrogating Wei Dafu upstairs—I just sat in the back and listened for a while. That slippery character, doesn’t want to die, but doesn’t want to betray the other side either—whenever it comes to a critical question he starts dodging and evading. He can take a beating, I’ll give him that—getting him to talk properly won’t be so easy. I think we should start by breaking through with him first.”