Courtyard House: Initial Donation of 50 Million

Hacken Lee's office has been completely transformed.

The desk, which was originally piled high with intelligence files, was now submerged in a mountain of file folders. The glaring "Top Secret" stamp on the kraft paper bags gleamed coldly under the light. The CIA's bald eagle emblem, the Japanese Special Higher Police's chrysanthemum crest, and the Taiwan Bureau of Investigation and Statistics' Blue Sky with a White Sun emblem—symbols that once struck fear into countless hearts—were now piled together like garbage, exuding the rotten smell of old paper and conspiracies.

He grabbed a copy at random, and the words "List of Mainland Undercover Agents (Updated 1958)" on the cover made his eyelids twitch. Turning to the inside pages, he saw black and white photos with faces that were either obsequious or sinister, clearly visible. Below each photo were detailed aliases, contact information, and undercover locations. Some photos even had the background of a hutong entrance in Beijing!

"Good heavens..." Li Keqin gasped, his finger tracing the line "Leader of the Dongcheng District Covert Team: Codename 'Night Owl'". The man in the photo, with his parted hair and round-framed glasses, was clearly Zhang, the always-smiling, good-natured technician from the steel rolling mill's third workshop! "He's been hiding it well!"

He slammed the file on the table, making a stack of documents next to it rattle. He then pulled out an English file labeled "Operation Golden Dragon," which detailed the coordinates of the listening stations secretly deployed by the United States on islands off the southeast coast and the timeline of infiltration plans, specifying the exact date on which "special materials" would be dropped on a certain commune via fishing boat.

"Damn it!" Li Keqin spat fiercely, his chest churning like a boiling kettle. This wasn't just trouble; it was like gold bricks falling from the sky, tons of them raining down! With these, how many lurking vipers would be wiped out? How much impending destruction could be nipped in the bud? He could almost picture the horrified expressions on the faces of enemy agents as they were pinned to the bed.

"Bang!" The office door was kicked open, and Secretary Zhao rushed in, panting, waving a telegram in her hand: "Director Li...Director Li! Urgent telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! The Americans, the Japanese, and that bald guy from across the strait have all sent urgent notes! The wording is very strong!"

Li Keqin didn't even lift his eyelids, slowly refilling his enamel mug with hot water and blowing away the foam: "A notification? What kind of notification? Let them look in the mirror! Is the content saying their house was burgled and they suspect we did it?"

Xiao Zhao was stunned: "You...how did you know? The Americans said their CIA headquarters was bombed, many people died, and a huge amount of classified documents were lost! The situation in Japan is even more bizarre; they say their Emperor is dying, the Empress died on the spot, and even hundreds of tons of gold stored at the central bank have vanished! The situation on the other side is even worse; the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics building was razed to the ground, the bald man was so angry that he had a stroke and became paralyzed, and even the planes and warships their American daddy gave them are all turned into scrap metal..."

"Pfft—" Li Keqin spat out a mouthful of tea, not from fright, but from laughter. He slapped his thigh, laughing until tears streamed down his face: "Hahaha! Serves him right! Serves him right, damn it! The CIA headquarters was blown up? Good riddance! The Special Higher Police is gone? Good riddance! Is Hirohito about to die? Heaven has opened its eyes! Hundreds of tons of gold were lost? Brilliantly lost! Baldy is paralyzed? Paralyzed to the bone!"

He abruptly stood up, hands on his hips, and stared out the window at the hazy Beijing sky, as if he could pierce through the clouds to see the chaos on the other side of the Pacific. He roared in a powerful voice, "Retribution! This is retribution! For blocking the city! For sabotaging us! For your persistent attempts to destroy us! You deserve it!"

Across the Pacific Ocean, the air in the Oval Office of the White House was as still as lead.

President Eisenhower's usually composed face was now so dark it looked like it could be wrung out. The top-secret report spread out in front of him, each page like a red-hot branding iron, made his fingertips numb.

"Langley (the CIA headquarters)...is reduced to ruins?" His voice was hoarse, trembling with disbelief. "Three hundred and seventy-four of our most elite agents, along with the National Guard reinforcements...all wiped out? Our Far East intelligence network files, accumulated over ten years...completely looted?"

CIA Director Allen Dulles, the notoriously ruthless head of the intelligence community, was deathly pale, cold sweat trickling down his temples. "Yes, Mr. President. There were no traces of explosives at the scene. Witnesses claim that a humanoid creature wearing bizarre pink, white, and black armor... destroyed the main building with a single kick—yes, just one kick. He identified himself as... Kamen Rider Decade."

"Knight Decade?" Eisenhower grappled with the strange Eastern term, finding it utterly absurd. "And then? This 'knight' went to Fort Detrick?"

"Yes," Dulles's voice was filled with the lingering fear of a survivor. "He breached the base's tightest defenses as easily as tearing a sheet of paper. All fortifications were rendered useless before him. He precisely massacred all members of the 'Tokyo Rose' project team (the researchers from Unit 731 who were taken in as war criminals), and took away our latest 'Swift' nerve agent sample and all the data. The base's defenses... suffered over eighty percent casualties."

Defense Secretary Charles Wilson followed up with a dry report: "Longley Air Force Base in Virginia, Fort Knox Army Base in Kentucky… suffered the same attack. A total of forty-seven state-of-the-art F-104 Starfighter fighters, twelve U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft prototypes, and one hundred and thirty M48 Patton tanks… all vanished into thin air before our very eyes. The guards reported that the 'Decade' simply waved his hand, and these steel behemoths were swallowed up as if by an invisible maw… The soldiers tried to fight back, but bullets didn't even leave a mark on his armor; with a casual wave of his hand, soldiers were sent flying like rag dolls…"

Eisenhower closed his eyes, rubbing his throbbing temples. The order to block the news had been given, but how long could it last? The CIA headquarters had been razed to the ground—how could that be kept secret? He could almost see the hawkish members of Congress on Capitol Hill waving reports and roaring.

"What about Japan and Taiwan?" he asked wearily.

"Worse still," Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (Alan Dulles's brother) said gravely. "The headquarters of the Japanese Special Higher Police has been completely destroyed, and all files on Chinese agents have been lost. Their central bank vault has been emptied, a full 596.2 tons of gold reserves... vanished without a trace. Emperor Hirohito was attacked with 'Swift' gas at the Imperial Palace; the Empress died on the spot, and the Emperor himself... according to reliable intelligence, his organs are rapidly failing, his skin is festering and oozing pus, and doctors predict he will not live more than a week. Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi has suffered a heart attack and has been hospitalized. Their Maritime Self-Defense Force... all its operational warships are now scrap metal in Tokyo Bay."

He paused, his tone growing even more grave: "On the Taiwanese side, the headquarters of the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics was completely wiped out, and Director Zhang Yanyuan and all the core members were killed. All of the gold reserves that Bald Man kept in a secret vault near Taipei—believed to be the last batch looted from the mainland—as well as the finest artifacts from the National Palace Museum that were moved south, have all disappeared. All the military equipment we deployed in Taiwan, including six U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, two squadrons of F-86 fighter jets, and a destroyer detachment in Kaohsiung Harbor… have all been destroyed. Upon hearing the news, Bald Man suffered a stroke and fell into a coma on the spot. He is now paralyzed and has lost the ability to speak. His eldest son has taken over power, but… Taiwan's military and economic system has, in effect, collapsed."

Eisenhower's eyes snapped open, and he slammed his fist on the heavy mahogany desk, making a pen jump. "Collapse?! Our Far East defense chain, built with countless efforts! The First Island Chain! Just like that, it's been torn apart by... by a madman in a theatrical costume?! Is he going to come to the White House and kick my ass next?!"

The office was deathly silent. The bright sunlight outside couldn't dispel the biting chill inside. That monster, who called himself "Kamen Rider Decade," had swept away America's long-cultivated hegemonic foundations in the Far East, plunging them into the abyss of the Pacific like a sudden hurricane. Blockade? Now, it was they themselves who needed to block the news. Eisenhower slumped back into his chair, feeling for the first time a profound sense of powerlessness in the face of inhuman power. Island chain blockade? Containing the new China? Now, all he wanted was for that demon not to turn back!

Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, was shrouded in an apocalyptic silence.

The once heavily guarded Imperial Palace was now filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant and an atmosphere of despair. Inside and outside the palace walls, figures in white protective suits and gas masks hurried about like ghosts. The cordon stretched three streets away, and the armed Self-Defense Force soldiers had vacant eyes and their morale was extremely low.

Grand Secretary Yoshida Shigeru staggered out of the intensive care unit, which reeked of medicine. Unable to hold it in any longer, he leaned against the cold wall and vomited violently. The scene inside the room was like hell: the once-lofty Emperor Hirohito, Showa, lay on a specially made isolation bed, his body riddled with tubes. His once-pale skin, a symbol of "divinity," was now covered in large patches of purplish-black, festering sores, from which yellowish-green pus constantly oozed, emitting a stench a mixture of chemicals and rotting flesh. His face was swollen and distorted, his features almost unrecognizable; only the occasional, labored "hoarse...hoarse..." sounds squeezed from deep in his throat proved that this executioner who had once commanded the trampling of much of China still clung to life. Doctors privately asserted that the virus was frantically devouring his last vestiges of life; death was only a matter of time, and the process would be extremely painful.

"Your Majesty...Your Majesty!" Yoshida Shigeru wept uncontrollably, not from grief, but from a deep-seated fear. Empress Nagako's body still lay in the next room, the black blood from her mouth and nose a horrifying sight. The very core of the Imperial Family had been almost completely uprooted overnight! And the murderer, that demon who called himself "Kamen Rider Decade," had used poison gas stolen from the Americans to exact his revenge on the Emperor! This was practically Amaterasu's punishment of Japan!

The atmosphere at the Prime Minister's official residence was equally oppressive. Nobusuke Kishi, the notoriously tough Class A war criminal, lay on his sickbed, his face ashen, his chest heaving, barely breathing with the aid of an oxygen mask. Beside his bed, Finance Minister Eisaku Sato (Kishi's younger brother, the future Prime Minister), his voice trembling with sobs, cried out: "...Your Excellency...the treasury...is completely empty! Five hundred and ninety-six point two tons! Not a single gold brick is left! That was the last capital for the Empire's revival!"

Kishi Nobusuke's cloudy eyes twitched, and a hoarse sound came from his throat. Sato continued to sob, "Mitsubishi Heavy Industries reported that thirty-seven precision machine tools disappeared overnight from the core workshop! Key equipment was also removed from the production lines of Toyota and Honda! The Maritime Self-Defense Force... Yokosuka, Sasebo, Kure... all the warships at their bases were twisted into pretzels by an incomprehensible force! Repair... is impossible! The Empire... the backbone of the Empire... has been broken!"

Kishi Nobusuke's eyes widened suddenly, his body convulsing violently, and the electrocardiogram monitor emitted a piercing alarm! Doctors and nurses rushed in to try to save him. Sato Eisaku collapsed to the floor, utterly distraught. Economic collapse! Military annihilation! The Emperor was dying! That "Imperial Knight" had not only stolen Japan's present but also extinguished all its hopes for the future! What could they do besides beg their American daddy for a blood transfusion? But their American daddy... was barely able to save himself! A despair deeper than defeat, like an icy tide, engulfed everyone in the room.

North of the bay, the official residence. Its former grandeur and luxury have vanished, replaced by a gloomy and desolate atmosphere.

The eldest son, his eyes bloodshot, sat wearily by his father's sickbed. The once-powerful "Withered Seat" was now just a emaciated old man slumped in bed, his mouth crooked, drool dribbling uncontrollably, his cloudy eyes occasionally shifting, filled only with endless terror and bewilderment. The stroke had completely broken him, shattering his last dream of "retaking the mainland."

"Father..." The eldest son's voice was hoarse as he grasped the hand that had once signed countless orders but now trembled weakly. "The Bureau of Investigation and Statistics... is gone. Director Zhang and the others... all died for their country. The gold stored in Seven Star Mountain... and your most cherished calligraphy, paintings, and antiques... are all gone." With each sentence, the bald man's eyes twitched violently, and a mournful wail escaped his throat.

"The American advisory group... is finished too." The eldest son's voice carried a hint of barely perceptible resentment. "The planes they deployed at Taoyuan and Hsinchu airports, the warships in Kaohsiung Harbor... were all destroyed. That... that 'Devil Knight'... took everything he could carry, and what he couldn't take... he smashed into scrap metal." He thought of the huge crater several meters deep at the site of the former Bureau of Investigation and Statistics building, the wreckage and oil slicks floating on the surface of Kaohsiung Harbor, and the gruesome face of the head of the American advisory group. A chill ran through him.

What island chain hub? What springboard for a counterattack? Overnight, Taiwan became a spineless mess. Its military power vanished, its economic lifeline (gold reserves) severed, and its intelligence system uprooted. Besides humbly clinging to the US, begging for scraps, what capital did they have left to covet that vibrant mainland across the strait? The eldest son, looking at his unconscious father on the sickbed, felt for the first time so clearly that the fate of his family's dynasty seemed truly sealed. And all of this was simply because of a "Kamen Rider Decade" whose origins were unknown!

In the lake, at the West Flower Hall.

The atmosphere was in stark contrast to the gloomy mood on the other side of the Pacific and across the strait. Amidst the swirling smoke, several leaders sat together, passing around copies of some files that had just been urgently delivered by Li Keqin and a briefing on the "surprise of friendly nations" compiled by the intelligence department.

"Hahaha! Good! Well done!" A burly old marshal slammed his fist on the table, his voice booming so loud it rattled the windows. Pointing to the words "Hirohito critically ill," "Nobusuke Kishi hospitalized," "Bald-headed man suffers stroke," and "US military base mysteriously looted" on the briefing, he laughed until his beard trembled. "Retribution! This is the ultimate retribution! These bastards, always thinking about blockading us and causing sabotage, now look what happened! Their backyard is on fire, burning them down to nothing! Satisfying! Damn, that's satisfying!"

Another leader put down the file in his hand—a list of CIA agents operating along the southeastern coast. He took off his glasses and wiped away tears of laughter. "Look at this! Look at this! The Americans are really good at intelligence work. They even have their eyes on Old Wang, the candied hawthorn seller at the end of our alley! What a pity! They planned everything, but they didn't expect their own backyard to be targeted by 'Knights'! Now look what they've done, wipe them all out! Saved us so much effort!"

"It's more than just saving effort!" another leader chimed in, pointing to another document. "Look at this! This was dug out of the Japanese Special Higher Police's files! How many spies do they have in Northeast and North China? And how many spies has the Japanese Secret Service sent over the years! Now it's all worthless! That 'Kamen Rider Decade' thing is practically a huge New Year's gift to us!"

Hearty laughter echoed through the ancient hall. For so many years, facing imperialist blockade, enemy infiltration, and countless difficulties in economic construction, they had worked tirelessly, treading on thin ice. Now, a mysterious force, with overwhelming force, swept away the enemy's core stronghold, severely crippling their vitality and directly strangling countless deadly threats! This was not merely a release of pent-up anger, but also a purchase of invaluable breathing room and development time for the newly established China, which was in dire need of rebuilding!

"This is called 'Decade Knight'... but what exactly is its origin?" After a brief pause in the laughter, a leader asked thoughtfully.

"No matter where he comes from," the burly old general said with piercing eyes and unwavering resolve, "he's on our side! He did what we wanted to do but couldn't do for the time being! That's enough! Imperialism has never given up its desire to destroy us, but as long as we seize this opportunity, work hard, and develop and strengthen ourselves... one day, we will be able to completely extinguish those wolves and tigers' ambitions through our own strength!"

Upon hearing this, everyone's expressions turned solemn, their eyes filled with determination and hope. Laughter rang out again, this time brimming with high morale and boundless anticipation for the future.

Hongxing Steel Rolling Mill in Beijing.

Night had fallen, and the daytime hustle and bustle had long since dissipated. In a corner of Workshop Three, a dim incandescent bulb was the only source of light, casting Wang Huanbo's long, thin shadow. He sat on the base of a discarded machine tool, his back to the light, wearing work clothes stained with oil.

Moonlight, meagerly filtering through the tall, dusty skylight, fell upon his outstretched palm. There lay several cards. The cards were neither gold nor jade, their edges shimmering with a barely perceptible dark light. On one card, a knight in magenta, white, and black armor embossed itself, its strange and powerful design unmistakably that of Kamen Rider Decade! In the lower right corner, a dark red mark, like a bead of congealed blood, gleamed sharply in the moonlight.

Wang Huanbo's fingertips, calloused from the touch, slowly and meticulously traced the edge of the Imperial Knight card, brushing against the dark red dot. His movements were as gentle as polishing a rare treasure, yet imbued with an indescribable focus. The icy touch from his fingertips contrasted strangely with the violent power contained deep within the card, a power capable of tearing apart time and space.

The workshop was quiet, save for the occasional dripping of water from a distant pipe and his own almost inaudible breathing. The air was thick with the distinctive factory smell of machine oil, rust, and coolant. He smelled only of sweat and machine oil, without a trace of gunpowder or blood.

He turned his head slightly, his gaze fixed on the window. In the pitch-black night, it seemed as if he could see through the vast distances to the burning wreckage of ships in the Pacific Ocean, the twisted steel graveyard in Tokyo Bay, the frail figure paralyzed on a hospital bed across the strait, and the chaotic scene in the white palace on the other side of the ocean.

There was no excitement, no pride, not even a ripple of emotion. His deep eyes were as calm as an ancient well. Was he concealing his achievements? No, to him, the storm of revenge that swept across three sides, those earth-shattering acts that shook the world, seemed merely to have accomplished something… necessary. Like a master craftsman fixing a broken machine, like him wiping the last trace of dirt from a card.

He picked up the oil-stained wrench from beside his feet, weighed it in his hand, and felt the cold, heavy metal. Then, he stood up and walked to an old, creaking punch press in the corner. The clanging of the wrench against the gears rang out crisply in the empty workshop, a rhythmic and steady sound, carrying a worker's down-to-earth strength, quickly drowning out the howling wind outside the window.

The moonlight remained cold and clear, flowing silently over his focused figure as he worked. The blood-stained Kamen Rider card had been hidden away, vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed. Only the clanging of the wrench echoed far, far away in the still of the night.