At eight in the morning, at the gate of Gujiazhai Park, Chen Qianli was indeed waiting for Wei Dafu.

Lu Zhongde remained perfectly composed; he knew that in the car parked across the street, headquarters’ well-trained marksmen were watching intently. If Wei Dafu made the slightest suspicious move, a bullet would go straight through his skull. Just before coming out, Ye Qinian had hesitated once more. In that secret chamber at the Zhengyuan Hotel, he’d said to Lu Zhongde that using Hao Han as bait to draw out the secret boarding location from Chen Qianli was, in his view, too large a bet to place on this one hand.

Lu Zhongde felt his teacher might really be getting old. If this succeeded, they stood to capture a great many senior figures of the Chinese Communist Party. This was a decisive battle with the underground Communist organization—any stake was worth wagering.

“Teacher, please rest easy. We’ve deployed men, we control the meeting point—Chen Qianli won’t be able to pull off any tricks.”

Though Lu Zhongde said this aloud, in his heart he didn’t feel as settled as usual. At first he hadn’t regarded Chen Qianli as a real match for himself; ever since the racecourse meeting, he’d never understood why Teacher Ye was so worried about this man. He’d encountered plenty of underground Party members before, even a seasoned one like Long Dong, who’d all fallen at his hands. But that time at the bank vault, it had truly left the calculating Lu Zhongde secretly impressed—though he still felt this reserved, understated opponent had mostly been relying on luck. These past few days, You Tianxiao had led so many men in the manhunt, all of it undone by Chen Qianli one time after another, which had indeed shown a remarkable, quick-witted skill. Now Lu Zhongde reassured himself again—intelligence work wasn’t something you could win at just by knowing a few combat moves and relying on luck to escape danger every time.

Chen Qianli still wore that same inscrutable expression, and showed no surprise on seeing Lu Zhongde. “Your business is settled?”

“Lao Yi has something to report to you—” Wei Dafu was about to throw out the bait straightforwardly, but then remembered what Lu Zhongde had told him—not to rush, to hear what Chen Qianli had to say first.

“Then you two speak first.”

Wei Dafu glanced hesitantly at Lu Zhongde.

Lu Zhongde, without looking at Wei Dafu, said to Chen Qianli, “This is what Lao Fang told me before he died a martyr’s death—actually, it was before the meeting at the market.”

Talking at a park gate always carried a certain sense of unease. A servant carrying a shopping basket hurried past, glancing at them warily before rushing off. A tricycle cart rattled past, loaded with a partitioned wooden crate full of empty milk bottles, the bottles bouncing in their compartments, clinking constantly. Several foreign schoolchildren dashed toward the park gate, “chasing and killing” each other along the way; one of them, hit by a water pistol behind Lu Zhongde, collapsed theatrically, then jumped back up to retaliate.

They watched the children run past laughing, each facing a different direction. Chen Qianli said quietly, “Let’s talk somewhere else, it’s not convenient here. There’s a car parked across the street—it’s been sitting there a good while.”

Lu Zhongde steeled himself and agreed to move elsewhere. They entered the park gate, walked along the tree-lined avenue to the edge of the pond, and stopped by a bench facing the Huanlong Monument. Chen Qianli and Lu Zhongde sat down; Wei Dafu stood before them, and because the ground sloped, he shifted a little to the right so he could lean against a small tree by the pond.

Now, Lu Zhongde meant to formally cast the bait, but before that, he wanted to tell a story about Lao Fang first.

“The morning of the market meeting, before seven o’clock, someone was already knocking on the shop’s door panel. When I opened it, it was Lao Fang. Cold as it was, he was drenched in sweat—he must have walked a long way. His face looked terrible, as though he hadn’t slept all night. I got fried dough sticks and soy milk from the shop next door, and we ate while we talked. There were only a few hours left before the meeting; I told him to rest in the back room, and I’d wake him when it was time to go together, but he said no, he had to leave right away—there was an urgent contact meeting that had just come up. Once he finished that, he’d go on to the market meeting.

“But he never came that day. The meeting was delayed a good ten-odd minutes because of him, and then the agents burst in. Luckily it was delayed a while—otherwise, if Comrade Lin Shi had already passed on his task, Cui Wentai would have learned the secret, and in that case the agents might not even have let us go.

“Lao Fang died on the twenty-first of the twelfth lunar month. At that time I was still locked up in the Longhua detention center, released only on the twenty-second—the moment I got out, I learned from a contact inside the police station that Lao Fang had died a martyr’s death. At the time I felt so grieved, so full of anguish, I had no thought left to spare for anything else. It wasn’t until the next day that I remembered something.

“Lao Fang and I actually had a secret dead-drop—well, ‘dead-drop’ is a grand word for it, really it was just a seat in the audience section of the New Stage theater on Penglai Road. Behind the backrest of the seat there’s a slit under the panel, just wide enough to slip a piece of paper into. Push the paper in and give it a pinch, and you can’t tell it’s there at all. But if you know about it, you just sit in the row behind, and once the show starts, you lean forward, feel for it, and gently pry it open, and the paper tucked in the crack in the wood will fall out.

“Lao Fang and I had agreed long ago that if there was ever an emergency, he’d leave a secret message there. I only remembered this the next day, and rushed to buy a ticket and go into the theater. I felt for it, and sure enough, there was a slip of paper. The moment I saw the handwriting on it, tears poured down my face—it was Lao Fang’s handwriting.

“In the secret message, Lao Fang told me that after the New Year, on the fourteenth of the first month, I should place an advertisement in Shen Bao. He’d written out the content of the ad on the paper, and required that it be printed word for word, exactly as written. The advertisement was a secret signal for a contact meeting. Guess who the comrade meant to receive this signal was? Hao Han. The moment I saw that name, everything made sense to me.

“Why couldn’t Lao Fang come to the meeting? Why did he die a martyr’s death? It turns out he died a martyr’s death to cover for Comrade Hao Han. The advertisement needed a telephone number attached; once Comrade Hao Han saw the ad, he’d call that number to make contact. So when you told me to leave the shop, I couldn’t agree—because Hao Han was going to call that number, and I had to stay by the phone. Although I made contact with Comrade Hao Han, I had no way to arrange for his evacuation. According to Lao Fang’s written instructions, I was supposed to discuss the escape route with Comrade Lin Shi, but he’d died a martyr’s death too. I thought it over for a long time, and could only come to discuss it with you.”

“Where have you placed Comrade Hao Han in hiding?”

Lu Zhongde had originally meant to say he hadn’t yet met with Hao Han, that he’d only arranged a meeting point over the phone, but the words changed on their way out of his mouth, and instead he said, “I’ve already met with Comrade Hao Han, and placed him in a secret residence. The location is extremely safe—no one knows of it at all.”

“Did Lao Fang not give you instructions on how to evacuate him?”

“He only said that when the time came, I should discuss it with ‘Lao Kai.'”

Chen Qianli thought for a long while, and finally said to him, “I’ll arrange the evacuation. Where have you placed Comrade Hao Han?”

Lu Zhongde shook his head. “It’s not that I can’t tell you. Lao Fang said Comrade Hao Han is too important—the fewer people who know, the safer it is. This is the task Lao Fang assigned me before he died a martyr’s death. I must complete it. This is a mission I must complete even at the cost of my own life.”

Lu Zhongde spoke with some agitation. Chen Qianli said nothing more, thinking quietly for a moment. “Actually, it’s not just Hao Han. Several leading comrades at Central are due to evacuate Shanghai in the near term. Higher-ups assigned this task to the Shanghai action group long ago. Comrade Lin Shi came to Shanghai specifically to see this task through.

“I suspect that higher-ups told Lao Fang to make contact with Hao Han on the day of the meeting precisely because it had been decided the Shanghai group would handle Comrade Hao Han’s transfer.

“The evacuation route has been arranged over these past few days. In fact, tonight a group of comrades will already be leaving by ship. We’ve chartered a cargo vessel; tonight, at midnight, the ship will be anchored at the mouth of the Wusong, waiting. We’ll use a small launch to ferry the leading comrades aboard.

“The assembly point is in Pudong. The launch will come ashore there at ten tonight.”

“Where in Pudong?”

“The exact landing point for the launch hasn’t been fixed yet—this is to guard against river police patrols, and also to prevent leaks. Chen Qianyuan will board the launch early this afternoon, to direct the small boat as it moves slowly along the Pudong shore. After dark, he’ll choose a dock to bring the boat ashore, and go ashore himself at Tangqiao in Pudong, to receive the comrades waiting there to board. Tonight, before seven, you’re to rent a sampan from Dongjiadu and cross the river; Li Han will be waiting on the other side, and will see you safely to the assembly point at Tangqiao.”

“Assembling at Tangqiao.” Lu Zhongde mulled this over. “So the small boat will dock somewhere nearby?”

“It might be very close, or it might not be. Chen Qianyuan is on the launch—he’ll decide.”

“If it’s too far from Tangqiao, how will we get there?”

“On foot, that’s all.”

As they parted, Chen Qianli said to Wei Dafu, “I’ll be boarding that cargo ship shortly, going to wait at Wusong. You could come along too, take a ride on the big ship.”

Wei Dafu smiled at Chen Qianli, and said Lao Yi needed him more here.

That night, at the Dongjiadu ferry crossing, the river wind was bleak. Along this stretch of the Huangpu, there were few boats. With no lights, the shoreline of Tangqiao across the river could no longer be made out. On the outer road at Dongjiadu, a car pulled up and stopped. After a moment, someone opened the car door; the first to get out was Lu Zhongde.

Chen Qianli was hiding on the flat roof of a timber warehouse, binoculars in hand, watching Lu Zhongde from a distance. By the light of the street lamp, he recognized the man who got out after him—Comrade Hao Han.

He began to run swiftly, dashing through the darkness toward the riverbank, and threw himself into the cold waters of the Huangpu. He’d calculated for a long time, reasoning that Ye Qinian must already have a large force of troops and police deployed at Tangqiao. Even though this side of the river, on the western bank, appeared calm and peaceful, there were surely many enemies hidden in the darkness as well.

At this hour, the sculled ferry boats should long since have stopped running; the boatmen had retreated into the ferry house, drinking and eating meat. Just before five that afternoon, someone had come to the crossing, saying he was from the Garrison Command’s detective squad, telling them to have a ferry ready, the boatmen on standby—someone would need the boat around seven. Furthermore, none of the boatmen were to leave the crossing after their shift ended, on pain of being treated as Communist collaborators, to be caught and shot at Longhua. Having said this, the man had then gone to a Muslim restaurant on the inner road and had several pots of food sent over, inviting everyone to eat mutton hotpot and drink that evening.

The night was thick with darkness. Lu Zhongde led Hao Han up onto the pier; someone was waiting at the far end of the pier—that afternoon, at the Zhengyuan Hotel, Ye Qinian had introduced Lu Zhongde to this man.

“Is everything arranged?” Lu Zhongde called out to him from a distance.

The man waved toward a wooden boat moored at the dock.

Across the river at Tangqiao, all was dark now. You Tianxiao sat in his car, watching the ferry dock along the riverbank. He saw a figure appear on the pier—it must be Li Han. He could hardly wait to seize him at once; at the Maochang coal yard, Li Han and Chen Qianli had killed several of his men.

A subordinate who’d come from Tangqiao town to report told him that several strangers had entered the town, knocked on the door of a small restaurant, and sat down to eat dinner inside. They hadn’t gone over to look closely, for fear of alarming the group. From a distance, they could see quite a few people at the table, and had recognized Dong Huiwen among them. The moment You Tianxiao got this news, he had someone signal with a light across the river.When Lu Zhongde reached the crossing, the Shanghai station agents waiting there would quietly signal to him that everything was ready, and let him cross.

This was Section Chief Mu Chuan’s first visit to the Zhengyuan Hotel; it was also the first time he’d learned that the Special Services Headquarters had a secret station in Shanghai. He knew he was about to be transferred to Nanjing, and guessed that Deputy Director Ye had invited him here for a visit perhaps because he’d heard some news. Of course, Deputy Director Ye had his reasons too—this operation to capture the leading figures of the Chinese Communist underground organization would be carried out jointly by the Special Services Headquarters and the Songhu Garrison Command’s military tribunal.

He held the same rank as Ye Qinian, so there was no great need for excessive formality between them; the two men sat on the sofa drinking tea for a while, and then the phone rang. It was You Tianxiao. He reported that Tangqiao town did indeed have quite a few Communists there now; he’d recognized several of them himself. These people were all sitting in a small restaurant; the Shanghai station’s operatives and the military tribunal’s detective squad had already surrounded the place, waiting only for “Xi Shi” to release the bait, draw Chen Qianli in, and get him to reveal the launch’s landing point—then they would move in and make the arrests all at once.

“Has Lu Zhongde reached the crossing?” Ye Qinian pressed.

“Can’t see what’s happening on the other side. We’ve already signaled to the operatives lying in wait at the crossing across the way—everything is ready.”

“Where are those two boats now?” Ye Qinian put down the phone and turned to ask Secretary Weng.

“The Lintai Shipping cargo vessel has just finished loading, still docked at the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company’s North Wharf. The Gongmao Transport launch left the dock alone this afternoon without a tow, and has been cruising up and down the Huangpu ever since, occasionally approaching small docks along the shore—possibly scouting the situation onshore. Chen Qianyuan is aboard.”

“Can we keep watch on it?”

“Section Chief Mu borrowed a patrol boat from the Garrison Command, but the river is quiet, and the engine noise is too loud—we don’t dare get too close, for fear of alarming them. The boat’s on the Huangpu, they can’t get away.”

Ye Qinian glanced at Mu Chuan. “Where is Chen Qianli?”

“Our men followed him all the way from Gujiazhai Park. This afternoon he went to the China Merchants wharf. Once he left the wharf, the tail lost him.”

Ye Qinian nodded, and Secretary Weng withdrew.

Mu Chuan gazed at the map hanging on the opposite wall—a military map at a scale of one to ten thousand, showing in detail the terrain of both banks of the Huangpu, marked also with the positions of garrison outposts and police stations. Mu Chuan had brought this specially from the Garrison Command as a gift for Deputy Director Ye. After last year’s fighting at Zhabei ended, the Garrison Command had re-surveyed the terrain of its defense zone; the map was a military secret, and though giving it to Deputy Director Ye at the Special Services Headquarters wasn’t a great issue, it was still a favor of some weight.

Word in Nanjing had it that Mu Chuan was about to be transferred to the Military Council’s Secret Investigation Section—in the future, he and Ye Qinian would be colleagues in the same line of work.

“I hear Section Chief Mu is to take charge of investigative work as well?”

“Until the transfer order comes down from above, I remain Section Chief of the military tribunal, and will continue to work with Director Ye and Captain You.”

“Director Ye is too modest. I’m rather easygoing by nature—these past years, it’s Captain You who’s had it hard.”

Ye Qinian thought this over, then said with a smile, “It sounds as though Section Chief Mu has some views about investigative work?”

“Investigative work is vital business of the Party and the nation—the Generalissimo relies on it heavily too, regards it as his eyes and ears. I didn’t understand this before—found it rather too bloody-minded. But seeing how Director Ye has worked himself to exhaustion over this, treating the Communists as a personal enemy, determined to root them out and destroy them utterly—I’ve been moved by it too.”

Across the river, at the Dongjiadu crossing, Lu Zhongde had Hao Han board the boat first. Once the two of them were seated, the boatman untied the mooring rope, and the small boat slowly pulled away from the dock.

At the small restaurant in Tangqiao town, business was normally nonexistent by evening, but tonight a whole group of guests had come. The restaurant wasn’t prepared for it, but the guests weren’t fussy at all—just told the owner to stir-fry some greens, steam a piece of salted pork, and cook up a pot of rice. The owner, having seen to his guests, went off to his own family table in the back.

The guests spoke little. They knew that outside the small restaurant, a large force of secret agents lay in wait, that many enemies were hidden in that darkness. They knew that before long they would be captured, might even die as martyrs. Qin Chuan’an, Dong Huiwen, Tian Fei—everyone had come, even Liang Shichao. Chen Qianli had once said to him, “Lao Liang doesn’t need to go to the riverside—they think you’ve already left Shanghai.”

But Liang Shichao had said he wanted to go too. At night, if he simply altered his appearance and clothing a little, the enemy wouldn’t be able to tell who he was from a distance. He was needed here—the more people who showed up in Tangqiao town, the more the agents would believe their “bait” was working. The comrades willingly walked into the trap the enemy had set, their hearts full of resolve, without fear.

Chen Qianli swam swiftly, and in the middle of the Huangpu’s channel, he caught up with the ferry boat. Lu Zhongde had not taken his advice to rent a separate sampan to cross; he was still using the regular ferry, with a kerosene lamp hanging at its stern. Lu Zhongde, being extremely cautious, had also brought along a flashlight. This complicated things somewhat.

He swam to the side opposite where the boatman stood, and lifted his head out of the water to look. It was now the ebb tide; on this stretch of the river the current ran northward. To reach the far shore accurately, the boatman first rowed hard toward the southeast, and once at mid-river, began to turn the bow northeast.

Having swum underwater to the side of the boat, Chen Qianli silently set his hand on the gunwale, and waited motionless for a moment, letting his body relax completely and drift along with the boat. When he heard voices begin to speak aboard, he gripped the gunwale tightly, and with a heave of his body, leapt up and rolled onto the boat. He had already worked out his direction; the moment he boarded, he knocked the kerosene lamp straight into the Huangpu. Lu Zhongde was startled, and grabbed for his flashlight, shining it toward him.

Chen Qianli didn’t stand up; he lunged straight at Lu Zhongde where he crouched, the knife in his hand thrusting forward. In the confusion, Lu Zhongde raised the flashlight to block it, and the flashlight too fell into the water. Chen Qianli knew he couldn’t afford to drag this out—he had no idea whether, if Lu Zhongde cried out, the troops and agents lying in wait on both banks would hear it. The moment the light went out, he sprang up and, with a single kick, sent Lu Zhongde into the Huangpu. He leapt into the water right after him, throwing himself bodily at Lu Zhongde. He grabbed hold of Lu Zhongde’s clothes and dragged him down into the water. He meant to finish him with the knife, but as the other man struggled, the blade caught against his collar and slipped from his grasp, sinking to the riverbed. Chen Qianli held his breath, dove beneath the surface, seized Lu Zhongde by both legs, and dragged him relentlessly down toward the bottom of the Huangpu. He held on for a minute or two, until he felt Lu Zhongde’s body stop struggling. He pulled Lu Zhongde’s head close, and underwater, dug his knuckle hard into the man’s throat; then he let go, and watched the agent drift further and further away on the current of the Huangpu.

Chen Qianli looked toward the right bank of the Huangpu; the world grew darker still. He knew that those comrades would soon be arrested by the enemy—and Qianyuan too. For the sake of the “Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains” plan, they had thrown themselves forward without hesitation, bravely turning themselves into “bait”—and to deliver that bait directly into the mouths of Ye Qinian and Lu Zhongde, Wei Dafu had deliberately let himself be captured by the agents, feigning betrayal. At the gate of Gujiazhai Park, something had stirred in his heart, and he’d told Wei Dafu not to follow Lu Zhongde back—he’d wanted to pull Wei Dafu out of the enemy’s clutches. But Wei Dafu had smiled and declined that perhaps only chance of escape.

Yet he could not go save them—he had to see Comrade Hao Han safely delivered to Ruijin. On the night of New Year’s Eve at the Maochang coal yard, when assigning tasks to the comrades, he had already arranged two groups—one visible, one hidden. While Ling Wen and Lu Zhongde went to Guangzhou, he himself had taken Liang Shichao to Shantou, and there opened up another top-secret transportation line.

Chen Qianli climbed back aboard the boat, wiped the water from his face, glanced once at the cabin, and ordered the boatman to turn the ferry toward Suzhou Creek.

Completed March 2022, in Sinan, Shanghai