Chen Qianli went next door and found a room, having the comrades come in one by one to receive their individual assignments. Truth be told, Lin Shi wasn’t entirely comfortable with the way he was handling this. Lin Shi felt that the main point of the mission needed to be kept most secret—but since it had already been communicated to everyone, the matter of assigning specific tasks could just as well be raised in a full group meeting, discussed together.
For instance, exactly who should go to Guangzhou—Lin Shi felt this could perfectly well be raised at the meeting; if someone volunteered, all the better. A person, after all, always understands himself best. He thought that for a mission like going to Guangzhou, Liang Shichao would surely step forward on his own initiative. That’s right—a Red Army commander would certainly call it “answering the call to battle.” Lin Shi also believed Liang Shichao was highly suitable. First, he was Cantonese. Second, as a soldier, he was skilled in action and stayed calm in the face of danger. Third, if possible, after completing this mission, the organization could transfer him directly to the Soviet base area—that would work out well too, since his military combat experience was much needed there.
Chen Qianli, however, thought Liang Shichao wasn’t quite suitable. He already had someone in mind, though he said he needed to look into it a bit more first.
Lin Shi felt that Chen Qianli was, in some ways, a bit rigidly by-the-book—why did he need to call people into the small room one by one to assign tasks? He truly was formidable—his mind could sort things like a set of drawers, arranging people and matters in perfect order. If Chen Qianli hadn’t shown such quick wit and decisiveness during the bank operation, Lin Shi might not have agreed to let him proceed this way. A group was a collective; completing the mission mattered, but so did unity and trust.
Still—let him try it his way. Faced with such a dangerous situation, the organization must have deliberated carefully before sending Chen Qianli. Lin Shi had already witnessed his ability firsthand. It had taken him only half an hour to devise the plan for moving the gold bars out of the bank safe deposit box. Though there had been some flaws in the details, coming up with an effective plan of action in such an urgent moment was already quite impressive.
Before the other comrades came in, Lin Shi and Chen Qianli had first discussed things privately in the small room for a while. When Chen Qianli told him, “I can’t yet tell you all of my plans—some of it is still hazy, not yet fully formed,” Lin Shi thought it over and, in the end, agreed. Establishing a communications line involved a great deal of tedious work, especially at the two ends of the line, where security problems most often arose during the process of making outside contacts. Just as with a water pipe—the problems usually occur at the joints where two pipes connect. Providing proper cover for this process required a great deal of work. Lin Shi had spent a long time as a confidential courier, and later had been responsible for establishing and maintaining communications lines—in this matter, he was without question an expert.
When Chen Qianli began speaking with people individually, Lin Shi initially sat in and listened. Sometimes he understood Chen Qianli’s intentions; other times he had no idea what he was thinking. But gradually he came to see that Chen Qianli was dividing everyone into two groups. Some could disregard enemy surveillance entirely—if they genuinely discovered a plainclothes agent tailing them, they could simply pretend not to notice. Others, by contrast, needed to be extremely cautious in every single move.
During these brief conversations, Chen Qianli also passed along to everyone some methods for detecting and shaking off surveillance—in this too, he was an expert. He reminded each person that whenever they went out to conduct business, they should make it a habit to repeat the maneuver of losing a tail several times. Qin Chuan’an, during his conversation, mentioned that he’d noticed these past few days that although the agents appeared to be watching closely, in reality their surveillance was quite loose—every time he went out, shaking a tail was easy. Chen Qianli told him that if the enemy was clearly watching you, yet let their surveillance grow so loose that they let you slip out of sight without a fight, then somewhere—in a spot you hadn’t noticed—something must have gone wrong. He had a point, Qin Chuan’an thought, and his mind turned to Cui Wentai.
Lin Shi came to believe Chen Qianli had prepared two separate plans—one open, one covert. He listened for a while, then pushed open the door and went out to the outer room.
Those who had spoken with Chen Qianli slipped away from the coal yard in the wind and snow, under cover of night. Some of them, in the days ahead, would have to fight alone, maneuvering under the enemy’s watchful eye for the next ten-odd days—not merely a battle of wits against the enemy, but a contest of psychological endurance as well. Though Chen Qianli had explained to them several possible scenarios for the enemy’s next moves and had devised countermeasures for each, such predictions would often run into all manner of unexpected complications.
Chen Qianyuan also came out of the inner room. Lin Shi didn’t know what the two brothers had discussed inside, only that Chen Qianyuan seemed somewhat agitated. Outside the room, Dong Huiwen was waiting for him, and the two of them left the coal yard together.
Wei Dafu went in. Now only Ling Wen and Yi Junnian remained. The day’s operation had given Lin Shi a new appreciation of Ling Wen. This female comrade had stayed remarkably calm throughout, and proved highly resourceful when things came up. If he himself could travel far, letting her accompany him to Guangzhou might be the best arrangement. Why did it have to be his leg that got injured? He thought it over and decided he should discuss it with Chen Qianli before he approached Ling Wen.
The inner room was small, also with a stove, the fire burning strong—the coal yard never lacked for coal. Two stools sat by the stove; the kettle steamed, and two buns roasted atop the ring of the stove’s cover.
The conversation was drawing to a close, having moved on from the mission. Wei Dafu sounded somewhat put out: “What do you mean, weak and wavering? Who said that? I’ll admit I like to grumble sometimes, that I won’t deny. But saying I’m wavering—when has the Party organization ever given me a task that I didn’t complete a hundred percent, never once cutting corners? Don’t just look at me acting like a scaredy-cat around the stove all the time, ducking my head one moment and shrinking back the next—when it counts, I can be a real man too.”
“You’re not wrong,” Chen Qianli said, smiling. “A person’s nature is what it is—but when it really comes down to the critical moment, it’s whether your heart is resolute that matters. If your heart understands things clearly, if it’s resolute, then even if you’re sloppy the rest of the time, at the critical moment, that scaredy-cat can turn into a tiger—and produce results beyond anyone’s expectation.”
“You’ll see. There’ll come a day I’ll show you.”
Wei Dafu grabbed a bun that had been roasted golden-brown and took a big bite: “Cold bun—tastes best once it’s roasted a bit burnt.” Tossing off this remark, he left.
Chen Qianli came out behind Wei Dafu, just about to speak to Ling Wen, when Lin Shi spoke first: “Let me discuss a few things with you first.”
Seeing the two of them go into the inner room, Wei Dafu nodded a greeting to Yi Junnian, pushed open the door, and strode off into the deepening wind and snow.
“I don’t think Chen Qianli is telling the whole truth,” Yi Junnian said, seeing the room was now empty except for himself and Ling Wen. He pulled his chair closer to her. “This morning’s bank operation—it can’t possibly have been just to lure Cui Wentai into exposing himself.”
He lit another cigarette and continued: “When Comrade Lin Shi called the bank, it didn’t sound at all like he was acting. So there must have been something important in that safe deposit box. Could it be he never actually took it out—that it’s still sitting in the box?”
“The box was closed out. Before leaving the bank, Comrade Lin Shi settled the rent in full.”
“Then the thing really was taken by Cui Wentai. Chen Qianli only said that to put everyone’s mind at ease. Did nothing else happen at the bank?”
“Nothing—” Ling Wen suddenly remembered. “Oh, right. We ran into Miss Tao at the bank. The woman from the Longhua detention house—I told you about her before.”
“Why on earth would she be there? Strange.”
Ling Wen didn’t tell Yi Junnian that in fact she hadn’t entered the vault at all. The previous night, Chen Qianli had told her that from now on, even among members of the same cell, no one should share task content or operational details laterally: “A ship sailing on the sea might always run into a storm, hit a reef—that’s why the compartments of the hull are kept sealed off from one another. That way, even if one section springs a leak, the whole ship won’t sink.”
“This morning, sitting in the café, I saw you through the window getting out of the car—these past few days you’ve really looked a bit worn, thinner—” Yi Junnian reached out to touch Ling Wen’s cheek; Ling Wen pushed his hand away.
Ling Wen realized this push of hers would likely leave Lao Yi feeling somewhat hurt. A month or two ago, she might not have done that, even though it might have made her uncomfortable inside. There had been moments when she was even moved by the things Lao Yi said to her, the things he did for her. To her, Yi Junnian wasn’t merely a superior—nor merely a comrade-in-arms with rich experience in the struggle. In her most lost, most difficult time, Yi Junnian had appeared before her.
After the failure of the Great Revolution, the underground work system to which she and Long Dong belonged had suffered a severe blow. Long Dong had been forced to evacuate urgently amid the crisis; she herself had been captured by the enemy and imprisoned for several months before a lawyer from the Relief Society had bailed her out. But when she returned home, all she found was a letter Long Dong had written to her before he left.
Their home had been searched by the enemy; every scrap of paper with writing on it had been confiscated. But the letter had been hidden in the lining of a flowerpot, the flowerpot sitting on the windowsill outside. This meant Long Dong had come back—of course he would have come back.
In the letter, Long Dong said he would certainly return to find her. But the organization’s system had been destroyed by the enemy, and there was never any word of Long Dong again. She waited alone for nearly three years. By the second year, someone told her that Long Dong had died in the Guangzhou Uprising. At first she didn’t believe it—but gradually, she came to believe it. During that period, she tried every means to find the Party organization; she went to lectures at left-wing bookshops, to Russian-language classes—but the Party had long since gone underground, and it was impossible to find the organization through those public activities.
Just as she was on the verge of despair, Yi Junnian appeared before her.
She had first met Yi Junnian in a bookshop; he hadn’t told her the truth at the time. She’d just picked up a new novel published by Spring Tide Press—she knew of it, having seen an introduction to it by Mr. Lu Xun in a magazine a few days earlier. February, she remembered the title. In the book was a widow whose husband had died in battle, left raising two children. The book wasn’t thick—it cost only eighty cents.
She held the book close, examining the cover carefully; the woodcut design was simple, but she couldn’t make out what it depicted. Someone beside her said: “Can’t tell what it is? That’s a river, with leaves, rain, and the faces of many people floating on its surface.”
That was how she came to know Yi Junnian. He insisted on taking her next door for coffee, and for some reason she agreed. Later she learned that Lao Yi was particularly skilled at persuading people. He walked her home, and along the way their conversation moved from the novel to woodcut art, from the wandering confusion of youth to the antagonism between classes—never once telling her that he had been sent by the organization to make contact with her. She later came to believe he had been assessing her the whole time. Revolution was a great sifting of sand; after the failure of the Great Revolution, there had indeed been many who wavered, who sank into despair.
A few months later, she discovered she had found the organization again—it was Lao Yi who had brought her back home.
She knew that Yi Junnian’s concern for her went beyond the bounds of comradeship. At times, this concern moved her, so long as it wasn’t stated too explicitly. But the moment Lao Yi put his feelings into words, into actions, laying his intentions out plainly before her, she would feel a vague sense of unease, a sense that something wasn’t quite right.
And sure enough, Lin Shi had brought word that Long Dong was still alive.
Just as when she’d first heard the news of Long Dong’s death, her reaction to this new piece of news was similarly slow to take shape. At first she didn’t believe it; only gradually did she come to believe. But once she believed it, she seemed to become a different person, her thoughts entirely changed. Take just now, when Yi Junnian said he’d seen her through the café window getting out of the car and going into the bank—in the past, this might have softened something inside her a little. Now, instead, she thought: how could you possibly have seen that? After getting out of the car, my back was to the café the whole time—I never turned around, went straight into the bank, and besides, there was a car behind me too. The news Lin Shi had brought seemed to have made her mind clearer, more level-headed.
Chen Qianli opened the door of the inner room and, seeing only Yi Junnian and Ling Wen outside, asked: “Where’s Li Han?”
“He said he was going to make a round checking the coal piles. He said the yard is usually quiet at night, but with all this coming and going today, he wasn’t at ease—wanted to go check.”
Chen Qianli nodded and had Yi Junnian and Ling Wen come into the inner room together.
“The situation now is this: Comrade Lin Shi can’t make the trip to Hong Kong and Guangzhou,” Chen Qianli said, coming straight to the point. “The communications line from Shanghai to Ruijin—this stretch is our responsibility. We receive here in Shanghai, put them on the ship, three days by sea, then Hong Kong, then Guangzhou, where we make contact with the local communications station and ensure safe rendezvous.”
“Give this task to me,” Ling Wen said at once.
Chen Qianli looked at Yi Junnian. “Comrade Lin Shi’s original plan was to have Liang Shichao go in his place. He’s Cantonese, familiar with the area, and speaks Cantonese too.”
“I can go together with Comrade Liang Shichao—the two of us can cover for each other.”
Yi Junnian, seated to one side, hadn’t spoken at all up to this point. It was only now that he made up his mind: “Let me go with Ling Wen instead. We’re familiar with each other, better suited than Comrade Liang Shichao. I’ve also worked in Guangzhou for several years—I speak Cantonese too.”
The snow had stopped. On the far bank of Zhaojia Creek, the sound of firecrackers gradually rose—scattered at first, then merging into an unbroken clatter. People began setting off fireworks, chrysanthemum shells and shooting-star rockets, blossoming above the water like flowers. The concession police strictly prohibited such fireworks, but it was New Year—who was going to pay attention to them now? Several of them stepped outside and stood looking up at the sky over the far bank.