Courtyard House: Time Traveler Not Yet a Ghost

His thoughts drifted back to a few months earlier. That mysterious young man, who called himself "Mr. He," bought a pack of cigarettes at the grocery store, left a few silver dollars and a vague warning about "the Japanese checking citizen certificates," and then disappeared into the crowd. At the time, he thought he was just a kind-hearted patriotic youth, but now, thinking back… could it have been him?

Shopkeeper Luo shook his head vigorously, rejecting the guess. No, impossible. The level and timeliness of this intelligence far exceeded the capabilities of an ordinary patriot or even a seasoned intelligence officer. It was more like an invisible hand reaching directly into the Japanese command center, forcibly extracting combat orders that hadn't even been officially issued yet! This ability was simply inconceivable!

Wang Hongxia, an underground member of the Communist Party, was in charge of the student movement liaison point.

In a relatively quiet alley in the eastern part of Beiping (Beijing), there was a small stationery store. The store was not large, but it was filled with pencils, erasers, notebooks, and various kinds of paper. The owner was a young woman named Wang Hongxia, whose true identity was that of an underground member of the Communist Party responsible for contacting progressive students at several universities.

Besides this stationery store, Wang Hongxia's contact points include several "dead mailboxes" scattered throughout the city—they might be a crack in a dilapidated wall, a tree hole under an old tree, or the side of an inconspicuous trash can. These days, she's noticed that her dead mailboxes, which she uses to send messages, occasionally contain things that shouldn't be there.

Sometimes, it was a few clearly copied excerpts from "On Protracted War," printed on high-quality woodfree paper, the handwriting meticulously handwritten with a fountain pen. At a time when the Japanese puppet regime strictly prohibited the circulation of such books, these copies were undoubtedly torches in the darkness. Other times, it was a list detailing the names of faculty and staff from several universities in Beiping who secretly colluded with intelligence agencies, monitored the words and actions of progressive students, and betrayed their classmates, along with their commonly used methods of surveillance.

Most recently, a simple pencil diagram appeared in the dead mail box. The diagram showed the layout of the street diagonally opposite her stationery store contact point, and next to a new mark, it was noted in red pen: "The newly opened teahouse 'Mingxiangju' here is actually a spy surveillance post. The second table by the window on the third floor is a fixed observation position." Even more unbelievably, the back of the diagram detailed the shift change time, and that 3:00 PM to 3:15 PM every day was the window of opportunity when they kept internal handover records and were least vigilant.

Initially, Wang Hongxia was skeptical, but one time when a gay man visited, she deliberately chose that "blank time window" for him to quickly enter and exit, and sure enough, nothing happened. When she secretly observed the "Mingxiangju" restaurant, she noticed that different strange men frequently sat by the windows on the third floor, their eyes warily scanning the street. Thanks to these sudden "hints," she narrowly escaped fatal dangers several times in seemingly ordinary environments, protecting herself and her comrades. She was filled with gratitude, yet also troubled by a huge mystery: who exactly was this mysterious helper?

It's not just them.

Outside Baoding, a guerrilla unit, lacking medical supplies and worried about the wounded, unexpectedly received intelligence at their agreed rendezvous point. The intelligence pinpointed the exact time when a small Japanese warehouse, thirty miles away, would be most vulnerable – it was the warehouse manager's birthday, and most of the guards had been taken out drinking. Seizing the opportunity, the guerrillas launched a night raid and successfully captured a batch of urgently needed sulfonamides and penicillin.

Inside the British concession in Tianjin, a patriotic merchant risking his life to transport medicine and radio parts to the base area received an anonymous, unsigned letter as he was about to pass through customs. The letter contained a copy of an internal customs notice, warning him that within the next three days, the Japanese Special Higher Police would be conducting a joint operation with customs to crack down on the smuggling of "certain special medicines and radio accessories." The merchant was terrified and immediately halted his operation, avoiding a huge loss of both money and reputation, and even the potential exposure of his identity.

Even some local gentry who had previously wavered and hesitated under the pressure of the Japanese puppet regime would suddenly find, in a drawer of their study or in some hidden corner, a summary of a conversation in which high-ranking Japanese and puppet officials expressed their dissatisfaction with their "outward compliance but inward defiance" and planned to soon put them under pressure or even "financial assistance" (in reality, extortion). These records were often detailed, even containing the tone and catchphrases of the people involved. They terrified these gentry and also made them see the true face of the Japanese puppet regime, thus accelerating their pace of contacting and providing assistance to the anti-Japanese forces.

These intelligence reports, falling from the sky, were like a warm current quietly arriving in the dead of winter, melting the ice and snow and bringing life; they were also like a beacon appearing from nowhere in the pitch-black night, illuminating the path forward. They appeared in the places where the anti-Japanese forces in North China needed them most, striking the enemy's vitals precisely in various forms and through various channels.

Their styles varied: some were written on the back of cheap cigarette packs, the handwriting messy yet clear; some were printed in code on ordinary letter paper that could be found everywhere, easily overlooked when mixed in with garbage; some were simply a few simple messages, passed on by mischievous children playing in the street or bewildered old beggars begging on the roadside, in childish or hoarse voices. When asked who told them to say it, they would only shake their heads blankly or point in a direction that was long since deserted.

This intelligence doesn't seem to be the result of a vast, tightly-knit intelligence network operating, analyzing, and transmitting information layer by layer. It's more like a... a "ghost" with countless eyes and ears, capable of simultaneously discerning every core secret of the Japanese puppet regime in North China and even predicting their next move, sowing seeds of information at will.

The Japanese puppet regime was not unaware of the anomaly.

Beiping, North China Area Army Headquarters. This building, converted from a former Qing Dynasty prince's mansion, is filled with a tense atmosphere, as if a storm is brewing. In the spacious conference room, the charcoal brazier burns brightly, but there is no warmth in the air, only the strong smell of tobacco and an invisible anger.

Lieutenant General Yukio Kasahara, commander of the North China Area Army, a short, stout Japanese soldier with a mustache, stood before a huge map of North China, his face ashen. He slammed his baton down on the map, striking the area marked "Pingxi" with a sharp "crack."

"Baka! Useless! A bunch of useless trash!" he roared, spittle flying everywhere. "Three consecutive 'mopping-up' operations have ended in failure! Before our troops even deployed, the Eighth Route Army guerrillas seemed to have received advance notice, either disappearing without a trace or setting up ambushes on our routes! And last week, the military police's meticulously planned arrest operation saw the target vanish into thin air half an hour before we could act! Our operations were practically conducted in broad daylight, completely transparent!"

Kasahara Yukio whirled around, his sharp gaze sweeping over the assembled staff officers and heads of the Special Higher Police and Military Police. Everyone fell silent, heads bowed, avoiding his eye contact. "There's definitely a mole! And a very high-ranking one! Extremely high!" he roared, each word dripping with rage. "Investigate! Investigate thoroughly! From headquarters to every division, regiment, and even the lowest ranks—no suspicious person can be overlooked! Dig three feet into the ground, find this mole!"

Deep in the French Concession of Tianjin, a three-story building covered in ivy stood. Lead-gray clouds hung low in the sky, squeezing the winter sun into thin, cold rays that pierced the dusty blinds, casting dappled shadows on the floor. The fireplace had long since died down, leaving only wisps of smoke carrying the acrid smell of burning coals, mingling with the bitter almond-scented perfume of a woman, creating a suffocatingly oppressive atmosphere.

Yoshiko Kawashima was curled up in the velvet sofa, wrapped in a dark purple mink coat. Her pale fingers gripped several thin sheets of telegram paper, the tips turning bluish-white from the pressure, leaving deep creases on the yellowed pages. Her cheeks remained bloodless, only the red veins spreading under her eyes like spiderwebs made her narrow, almond-shaped eyes appear even more sinister. As her fingertips traced the words "All personnel of the Third Intelligence Station are out of contact," her nails unconsciously scraped against the oak table, making a harsh, tapping sound, like an accompaniment to some invisible countdown.

"This isn't standard practice," she suddenly said, her voice hoarse as if it had been sanded. The cries of a candy vendor drifted in from outside the window, muffled by the thick glass, sounding as if from another world. She slammed the telegram onto the coffee table, the bone china cup clattering, brown liquid spilling over the rim and staining the off-white tablecloth with an unsightly sheen. "The leak was too fast...it was like it had wings." She suddenly remembered the coded telegram from last night about the armory's relocation; the ink was barely dry when it exploded, even the model of the new pocket watch worn by the security team leader was precisely intercepted.

A sudden gust of cold wind slipped in through the window cracks, lifting a corner of the curtains. Kawashima Yoshiko shivered violently; the stench of blood from the underground chamber of Dongxing Tower seemed to surge in with the cold wind—a damp, musty smell mingled with the warm scent of blood, the rustling of the man's black cloak sweeping across the floor, those eyes colder than ice, and the blood-red banner fluttering in the candlelight. She instinctively pressed her left chest; the wound there seemed to throb again, as if countless tiny needles were burrowing through her flesh. It was a hidden wound inflicted by shards of the shattered jade pendant, but now it ached as if her chest had just been ripped open.

"It was him...it must be that man." She gritted her teeth, her canines digging deep into her lower lip, tasting a faint metallic flavor of blood. The grandfather clock on the mahogany bookshelf suddenly struck, its tinkling echoing in the empty living room, making her temples throb. "He never intended to kill me," she suddenly chuckled softly, a laugh as sharp as an owl's cry, "He wanted to turn me into a puppet, to watch me tear down my own kingdom!"

The bronze incense burner on the coffee table suddenly tipped over, scattering ashes all over the surface. Kawashima Yoshiko stared at the grayish-white powder, suddenly feeling as if she were the lingering incense in the burner, trapped and slowly burning inside a furnace called despair. She abruptly stood up, her mink coat slipping off her shoulders to reveal a pale silk cheongsam underneath. The red plum blossoms embroidered on the collar stood out against her pale skin, appearing as red as congealed blood. She walked to the window and drew back the heavy curtains. The gloomy sky was brewing a heavy snowfall, the leaden clouds so low they seemed within reach.

"Hide?" She gazed at the row of leafless sycamore trees across the street, their bare branches trembling like leaves in the cold wind. "How much longer can I hide?"

Deep within Nanluoguxiang in Beiping, a courtyard house with a "Room for Rent" sign is filled with the faint scent of sandalwood. New peach blossom paper is pasted on the window paper of the east wing, filtering the afternoon sunlight into a warm golden hue. He Damin sits cross-legged on a futon, a bowl of steaming almond tea on a low table before him, wisps of white steam forming a hazy halo before his eyes. His complexion has long since regained its rosy hue, his lips a healthy pink, only the occasional furrow between his brows betraying the intense calculations taking place deep within his soul.

Countless tiny points of light swirled around him, like fireflies dancing in a summer night. These were intelligence nodes from all over North China: the rhythm of the apothecary's abacus, the frequency of the rickshaw driver's bell, the direction of the flowers in the hair of the courtesan... all seemingly unrelated details transformed into data streams flowing into his spiritual sea. When he finished processing the seventy-third intelligence report, he gently exhaled a breath of stale air, the white mist condensing into a brief vortex in the air. His soul essence, tempered under continuous high pressure, became increasingly solid, and the soul network in his sea of ​​consciousness extended outwards like a spider web, each node shimmering with a faint light.

"Kawashima Yoshiko..." He tapped his fingertip, and the image of that small building in Tianjin appeared before his eyes. The woman was standing by the window, lost in thought, a trace of barely perceptible incense ash on the collar of her moon-white cheongsam. He could even "see" the shape of the coffee stains left in her teacup, and "hear" the subtle sound of the clock's gears turning. When all the enemy's actions became transparent data streams, her hiding became like a child's game of hide-and-seek.

The cries of vendors selling candied hawthorns drifted from outside the courtyard wall, mingling with the crackling sound of snowflakes swirling in the north wind and pounding against the windowpane. He Damin looked out the window; a thin layer of frost had already accumulated on the bare branches of the jujube tree. He picked up his almond tea and drank it down in one gulp; the warm liquid slid down his throat, leaving a faint sweet fragrance. The intelligence network in his mind was still operating at high speed, countless pieces of information flowing like trickles into a great river, along the soul connections to all parts of North China—the anti-Japanese base areas received the precise coordinates of the armory, the underground communication stations obtained the physical characteristics of their spies, and even the remittance slips from a puppet army squad leader secretly sending money to his mother were intercepted.

The first snowflake finally drifted down, melting into tiny watermarks on the window paper. He Damin gently exhaled, watching the white mist condense into ice flowers on the glass.