Courtyard House: Home Alone

Lin Yifan raised an eyebrow. The appearance of the words "Iron Wall Encirclement" made him realize that the mastermind behind the Nanjing Massacre had been sent to China by the Japanese headquarters again. It seemed that he was preparing to blockade Beiping and force Beiping to surrender without a fight.

Once you've come to China, don't even think about leaving.

Without alerting the people in command post, he turned his attention to a detached building deep within the warehouse area. That was where security was tightest, with a three-meter-high wall, watchtowers at each of the four corners, and searchlights sweeping the courtyard every ten seconds.

Lin Yifan's pupils suddenly contracted as his mental energy pierced through the thick iron gate.

Hundreds of sealed iron drums were neatly stacked in the warehouse, each marked with the number "Special Fuel". However, when mental energy penetrated the drum walls, it revealed that they contained a viscous, pale yellow liquid—mustard gas.

"Fine, very well." Lin Yifan's voice was as cold as ice. "It seems the lesson from Tianjin wasn't enough. Since you like it, then you can only enjoy these things yourselves."

He stored the gas canisters in a corner of his space, and for safety, he sealed that corner off.

Having done all this, he turned and disappeared into the night, rushing towards his last target.

Jiangwan Airport was the largest Japanese air base in Shanghai. At this moment, more than thirty Type 96 land-based attack aircraft were neatly lined up on the tarmac, and more than a dozen fighter planes were undergoing maintenance in the hangars along the edge of the runway.

Lin Yifan's mental energy covered the entire area, allowing him to grasp the routes of every sentry post and every patrol team. The airport's defenses were much tighter than those of the warehouse area, with layers of barbed wire, searchlights, and anti-aircraft machine gun positions, but these were practically useless to him.

He appeared directly inside the oil depot. Dozens of giant oil storage tanks were arranged in rows underground, with pipes crisscrossing like the blood vessels of a giant.

He first shut off all the valves with his mind, and then began the entire relocation...

Next to the fuel depot was an ammunition depot, storing aerial bombs and machine gun ammunition. He showed no mercy either; tons of deadly weapons vanished into thin air.

Finally, he arrived at the control tower at the edge of the tarmac. A dim light shone through the glass windows at the top of the tower, where a duty officer and two Japanese sergeants were dozing off into the radio. Lin Yifan woke them up and took them back to their hometown.

Then came the two-story dormitory for pilots and ground crew. Lin Yifan kept appearing in each dormitory, while simultaneously releasing bullets from his spatial storage, reaping the lives of the sleeping Japanese pilots and ground crew.

These are all non-renewable resources. The Japanese were not slow at building airplanes, but training a qualified pilot was not so easy.

After completing these tasks, he set his sights on the hangar at the end of the runway. Inside the hangar, a dozen Type 96 carrier-based fighter jets were undergoing final assembly and testing.

The machine guns under the wings were not yet installed, and the cockpit canopy was open, revealing sophisticated instrument panels. These brand-new fighter jets were reinforcements recently transported from the mainland.

Lin Yifan used his mental power to envelop the aircraft, including all the parts, spare parts, and airborne weapons next to them. With a thought, all the aircraft, parts, tools, etc. in the dozen or so hangars and warehouses disappeared.

Meanwhile, more than ten brand-new Type 96 fighter jets appeared in his space. At this moment, the east was already turning a pale white. Lin Yifan teleported to the thirty-six aircraft neatly lined up beside the runway and stored them into his space.

He glanced one last time at the dimly lit battlefield, then, on a whim, returned to his hotel room on the Bund.

Outside the window, ships on the Huangpu River are sounding their horns, signaling the start of a new day. In this city, some will be furious to discover their vaults have been robbed, while others will wake up in shock at an empty airport. But they will never guess that all of this was the work of a "seven-year-old child."

Lin Yifan sat cross-legged on the bed, his mind sinking into the spatial warehouse. After a night of ransacking, the supplies inside were piled up like mountains: more than 130 tons of gold, various currencies equivalent to more than 300 million US dollars, and countless cultural relics, antiques, weapons, ammunition, and strategic materials.

But what he cared about most was that stack of germ warfare files.

The shouts of a newspaper boy could be heard outside the window.

"Next," he took a bite of his fried dough stick, his gaze fixed on the north, "it's time to add fuel to the fire for those devils in Shanghai."

After having breakfast, he lay down on the bed and went to sleep.

Lin Yifan slept until 3 p.m. After a quick wash at the hotel, he went out and hired a rickshaw to head straight to the North Station. He needed to check the earliest train tickets to Tianjin.

Because Beiping is currently under the control of the "Ghost," trains departing from Shanghai can only go as far as Tianjin. He has no choice but to go to Tianjin first and then find a way back to Beiping.

As soon as the rickshaw left the alley, the newsboy's enthusiastic shouts could be heard: "Extra! Extra! Look, extra! Look, the 'ghost' has appeared in Shanghai! Extra! Extra! Overnight, eight banks on the Bund were robbed clean, suspected to be the work of the 'ghost'."

"Breaking news! Breaking news! Check out this breaking news! Jiangwan Airport has been attacked, more than forty planes have disappeared, and all pilots have been killed."

Lin Yifan's lips curled slightly upward, but he didn't reveal much emotion. The rickshaw driver, a man in his fifties, couldn't help but turn around and say, "Young master, listen to this world! Even 'ghosts' have come to Shanghai. How are we supposed to make a living?"

"Yeah," Lin Yifan echoed in his childish voice, "I heard 'Ghost' specializes in killing Japanese soldiers, maybe it's a good thing."

The driver quickly lowered his voice: "Young master, be careful what you say. There are Japanese spies all over the streets." As he spoke, he quickened his pace.

The North Station was bustling with people, and long queues formed at the ticket windows. Lin Yifan told the driver to wait at the street corner while he squeezed to the notice board to check the train schedules. There were two trains a day on the Jinpu Railway, the earliest departing at 6:00 AM the next morning, taking 36 hours to reach Tianjin.

He was planning his itinerary when he suddenly felt someone approaching from behind.

"Little friend, are you here to look at train tickets all by yourself?"

Lin Yifan turned around and saw a young man wearing a plaid suit and a baseball cap standing behind him.

So he nodded: "Yes, I want to go to Tianjin, preferably the one tomorrow morning."

"Oh dear! Tickets to Tianjin are hard to come by these days! But we still have a way to get one, do you want it?" the man in the suit leaned closer and asked.

Lin Yifan looked up and sized up the man in the suit who had suddenly struck up a conversation. The man was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a heavy Shanghai accent, a shrewd smile on his lips, and a folded train ticket between his right index and middle fingers, swaying gently in the air.

"Who are you?" Lin Yifan asked in a slightly childish Shanghainese accent, but subtly took a half step back to distance himself from the stranger.

The man in the suit looked around and lowered his voice, saying, "We work for the railway, specializing in helping passengers in need. A first-class seat for six o'clock tomorrow morning, normally twelve dollars, but you can get it for fifteen dollars right away."

"Too expensive." Lin Yifan shook his head and turned to leave.

"Hey, young master, don't be in such a hurry!"