Courtyard House: Home Alone

Mitsui Bank's profits were nearly five times greater than those of Kingjoy Bank. Lin Yifan exited the underground vault and, with a thought, appeared on the rooftop of the adjacent Taiwan Bank building.

"Bank of Taiwan," a branch of the island nation's central bank in Shanghai. Unlike the previous two commercial banks, this branch is guarded by a detachment of military police, with layers upon layers of sentries, both overt and covert, and searchlights mounted on the roof that sweep the surrounding streets every thirty seconds.

As Lin Yifan appeared on the rooftop, five bullets from the stationary warehouse pierced the heads of two sentries and a Japanese machine gun crew.

He then charged down the stairs with astonishing speed and efficiency. He quickly cleared out the Japanese guards and entered the underground vault.

The Bank of Taiwan's underground vault is the deepest of all banks in Shanghai, with three levels. The first level stores legal tender and Japanese yen cash, the second level holds gold and foreign currency, and the third level contains confidential ledgers and special safe deposit boxes.

Lin Yifan swept through each floor, leaving nothing but barren land in his wake. On the third floor, he discovered a special secret room with a seal that read "Special Military Management" on the door.

The moment his spiritual power pierced through the door, his expression changed drastically. Inside were not gold or silver, nor cultural relics, but bundles of file folders and photographs. Next to them, a wooden crate held neatly stacked medicine bottles—labeled with words like "Vibrio cholerae" and "Typhoid Fever."

"Bacteriological warfare..." Lin Yifan gritted his teeth. These files detailed the bacteriological experiments conducted by the Japanese army in Shanghai, Nanjing, and other places. Even with his strong willpower, he couldn't bear to look at the scenes in those photos.

Without hesitation, he stored all the materials in his space. These pieces of evidence would one day be used in an international court to make the island nation pay for its crimes in blood.

Next came other Western banks such as HSBC and Citibank. Although these banks were guarded by fully armed soldiers, they probably never imagined that someone would steal from them, especially in such an unpredictable way.

Lin Yifan moved as if he were in an empty place. Under the coverage of his mental power, every hidden sentry and every patrol route had nowhere to hide.

He no longer went on a killing spree like he had with the island nation's banks. Instead, he deliberately left two or three seriously injured "lives" in each bank. Based on his physique and his altered Japanese voice, he was certain that those "lives" would unanimously identify the murderer as a Japanese.

Western bank vaults are more sophisticatedly constructed, some even equipped with state-of-the-art combination locks and alarm systems. But all of these are rendered useless in the face of Lin Yifan's spatial teleportation.

He appeared directly inside the vault and emptied the boxes of gold bars, silver dollars, and foreign currency.

In the underground vault of HSBC, he discovered more than a dozen boxes of antique paintings, calligraphy, jewelry, and jade artifacts.

"Take it back."

Lin Yifan stored the last gold brick in his spatial storage, saying, "One day, you'll all have to pay me back, interest included."

At 3:17 AM, Lin Yifan returned to his hotel room. The Bund was still brightly lit, as if nothing had happened. He sat cross-legged on the bed, his mind sinking into his spatial storage to take stock of the night's gains.

The island nation's three banks hold a total of over 80 tons of gold, and its banknotes are worth over 90 million US dollars, along with countless cultural relics and antiques.

The gains of Western banks were even more astonishing—HSBC alone had gold reserves of over fifty tons, and when combined with various securities and mortgage contracts, the total value was incalculable.

But this is not all.

Lin Yifan's thoughts lingered on the files about germ warfare. He took out a stack of photos and flipped through them in the dim light.

The first image shows a farmhouse on the outskirts of Shanghai, where a Japanese army medic in a white coat is injecting an unidentified liquid into bound civilians; the next image shows a prison in Nanjing, where rows of corpses are being pushed into an incinerator; and the next image…

He closed the photo and stared at it for a long time.

The sound of ship horns from the Huangpu River drifted in from outside the window, long and desolate. Lin Yifan reopened his eyes and carefully put away the files. This evidence would only be made public at the right time.

Now, he has more important things to do.

The thought unfolded once more, enveloping the entire city of Shanghai. The barracks on Yangshupu Road, the military police headquarters in Hongkou, the airport in Jiangwan... the details of the deployment of these military targets appeared one by one.

But Lin Yifan's gaze eventually settled on a warehouse area on the north bank of the Suzhou Creek—where the Japanese army was stockpiling strategic materials, cotton, steel, medicine, and ammunition, enough to equip two divisions.

"Since we're here," he said with a slight smile, "we can't leave empty-handed. It's been a while since we gave the supplies from our storage space to the Red Party; it's time to restock."

Thinking of this, he immediately had a thought, and when he reappeared, he was already in an ammunition depot, which was filled with the pungent smell of machine oil and saltpeter.

Lin Yifan's mental energy spread out like a tide, taking in the entire structure of the warehouse—this was the logistics supply station of the Japanese Third Division, covering an area about the size of two football fields, with more than thirty warehouses arranged in a triangular shape, and a heavily guarded command post in the center.

The warehouse he was in was filled with wooden crates, each marked with the words "Type 38 Rifle Ammunition." His mental energy penetrated the crate walls, revealing neatly stacked, golden bullets nestled among straw filling—a rough estimate put the number at least a million.

"Good stuff." Lin Yifan's lips curled up slightly, and with a few waves of his small hand, the entire warehouse was emptied. Those heavy wooden crates, along with the ammunition inside, vanished instantly as if swallowed by an invisible giant mouth.

Without pausing, he appeared in the adjacent warehouse in a flash. This was the storage area for hand grenades and grenade launcher shells, with boxes of Type 91 hand grenades gleaming with a cold metallic sheen under the explosion-proof lights. The next room contained mortar shells and mountain artillery ammunition, with Japanese warning labels on the boxes that read "Handle with care".

Lin Yifan swept through like locusts, leaving nothing but desolation in his wake. His spatial warehouse seemed like a bottomless abyss, never filling up no matter how many resources he poured in. A quick mental scan revealed that the newly acquired wealth, compared to tonight's harvest, had added a significant amount.

The fourth warehouse made him pause slightly. It didn't store weapons, but rather clothing and military boots—tens of thousands of brand-new Japanese winter uniforms, with fur linings, fine stitching, and labels that read "Made in Showa 13" on the boxes.

Lin Yifan sneered, "This batch of winter clothes is probably intended as 'comfort gifts' for the 'Imperial Army' at the front lines."

He accepted them all without hesitation. These supplies were much warmer for the Red Army than they would have been worn by the Japanese soldiers.

A cacophony of voices erupted from the central command post. Lin Yifan's mental energy penetrated the walls, revealing a lieutenant colonel roaring at a map, while several junior officers stood with their hands at their sides, cold sweat beading on their foreheads.

"...The allocation of supplies must be completed within a week!" The lieutenant colonel's saber clattered on the map. "Commander Matsui has arrived in Tianjin. The orders from headquarters are for us to provide full support to North China to ensure Commander Matsui's ironclad encirclement plan. Any delay will be punishable by seppuku!"