You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 244 First Meeting in the East, Part Two (8k)

Yue Lai Heen in Chinatown has been open for twenty years.

The shop is small, with scattered seating on the first floor. A dark red synthetic carpet is laid out at the entrance, and a statue of Guan Gong is placed in the corner, with the incense ash in the incense burner piled high.

The second floor was divided into three private rooms with rather vulgar names: "Abundant Wealth," "Prosperous Fortune," and "A Bright Future."

Lu Henian sat in "Pengcheng Wanli".

The private room wasn't very big. There was a round table covered with a white disposable plastic tablecloth, and four things on the table: a pot of chrysanthemum tea, two upside-down porcelain cups, a laminated menu, and an ashtray.

He didn't order any food, nor did he pour any tea.

The old man sat in a chair against the wall, with his back to the wall and facing the door.

This has been his habit for decades. Whether in China or abroad, he always makes sure there is a solid wall behind him before sitting in any room.

He was wearing a dark gray jacket today, zipped up to his chest, revealing the collar of his white shirt underneath.

He wore black casual pants and soft-soled leather shoes, making him look like a small business owner who had come to Chinatown to buy goods, or an elderly overseas Chinese who had just come from a travel agency and was stopping by for lunch.

He raised his hand and glanced at his watch.

Eleven fifty-eight.

Outside the window is the main street of Chinatown, and the crowds were already quite dense on Saturday noon.

A truck loaded with lotus roots and watercress passed by downstairs. The driver honked the horn twice. Across the street, a roast meat shop hung freshly roasted char siu in its window, oil dripping down the hooks.

Lu Henian turned his gaze away, reached for the teapot, picked up a porcelain cup, and poured himself half a cup of chrysanthemum tea.

The tea was hot, and the steam rising from the spout dissipated quickly in the air-conditioned private room.

He put the cup down beside him and continued to wait.

At exactly twelve o'clock, footsteps were heard at the bottom of the stairs.

The wooden staircase is quite old; it creaks when you step on it.

The footsteps paused briefly in the second-floor corridor before heading towards the private room.

The door to the private room was pushed open from the outside.

The door opened only slightly, just enough for one person to squeeze in sideways.

The person who came in closed the door behind them with a light touch, and the lock clicked into place.

Lu Henian raised his head.

A very tall white man was standing at the door.

He was 1.88 meters tall with broad shoulders, wearing a gray waterproof windbreaker zipped up to his chin. He wasn't wearing a hat, but he was clutching a black baseball cap in his right hand. He was wearing a black protective mask that covered most of his face, leaving only his eyes visible.

Steel gray, extremely deep.

Lu Henian has assessed many potential assets face-to-face throughout his life, and he can remember the eyes of each of them.

Some people have shifty eyes, looking left and right but not daring to look at people. Some people have eyes that are too hard, like knives. Such people usually have too many things hidden in their hearts that they are afraid of being dug out. And some people have empty eyes. Such people are the most prone to breakdown.

These eyes are different.

It is calm, looking at you without probing or fawning.

Focused, but not tense, as if just waking up from a deep sleep or returning from a long journey.

A voice came from under the mask.

"RayFong, or Lyon."

The sound was muffled through the mask, but the words were enunciated very clearly.

Lu Henian stood up from his chair and extended his hand.

Leon reached out and shook his hand briefly, his grip firm. He quickly withdrew his hand, pulled out the chair opposite him, placed his baseball cap on the table, and sat down, still wearing his mask.

Leon glanced at the cup of chrysanthemum tea.

He placed his hand on the table, resting it on the edge of the plastic-sealed menu.

"Shall we order first?"

Lyon looked up from the menu, his voice coming from behind his mask casual, as if he really was there for lunch.

"OK."

Lu Henian reached for the cup; the chrysanthemum tea inside had gone cold. "You order."

Lyon flipped through two pages without even looking up.

"The owner of this shop is from Taishan."

Lyon continued flipping through the menu, his tone flat, as if he were talking to himself.

"The waiters have changed recently, and now these waiters probably can't even tell the difference between char siu and roast pork."

Lu Henian's eyebrows twitched slightly.

He knew that Yue Lai Xuan had changed its waiters before, but he himself had almost made the same mistake on his first visit, so he was still a little surprised that a white man could say it so casually.

Lu Henian didn't reply, but simply picked up his teacup and took a sip; the chrysanthemum flavor was very faint.

Lyon closed the menu, rested his elbow on the table, and glanced at Lu Henian through his mask.

"In the past, when I invited people to eat at Chinese restaurants, I would always check the state of the trash cans at the back door of the restaurant."

"If the trash cans in the back alley of a restaurant are full of American-style Chinese food boxes, it's probably just a way to fool foreigners. I wouldn't take anyone in to eat there."

"However, I've seen the kitchen waste in this back alley several times before. There are a lot of chicken bones, rotten vegetable leaves, and quite a few bottles of dark soy sauce, so it can't be bad."

Lu Henian sat in the chair against the wall and looked at him for a while. Then he picked up the teacup in front of him, slowly turned it around, and put it down again. When he looked up, his expression was very clean.

"You don't seem like you're here to eat."

"I'm used to it." Lyon glanced at the tea in front of Lu Henian. "Isn't what we do all about keeping watch?"

After he finished speaking, the mask moved slightly on his face. It was unclear whether the fabric was dented by his breath or if he chuckled under the mask.

Then Leon reached out and hooked the elastic band at the edge of the mask, pulled it down, and the mask slid off his face, revealing the lower half of his face.

Lu Henian saw a face that perfectly matched the police uniform photo in the file: rugged, clean-cut, with a little bit of bluish stubble on his chin, probably because he hadn't had time to shave that morning, or because it had grown back after he shaved it.

Lyon placed the mask next to his baseball cap and looked up at Lu Henian.

"What's your name?"

Lu Henian looked at him and slightly raised the corner of his mouth.

"As for the form of address."

He placed his hand on the table, tapping his index finger lightly twice on the tablecloth. "Just call me 'The Judge'."

Lyon raised an eyebrow.

"Judge."

He repeated those two words, "Such a prestigious title, can it determine my life or death?"

"I can't decide. You decide your own fate. I'm just here to chat."

Lu Henian shook his head.

"This code name was given to me by my superiors. I don't have any special features in my appearance, so people can't remember me. I'm the one who remembers people. This code name is also for the convenience of my work."

After hearing this, Lyon paused for a moment.

"OK."

He leaned back in his chair. "Then let's not stand on ceremony, Judge. Let's talk. What do you want to talk about?"

Lu Henian nodded, his posture unchanged, still the same as an old accountant looking at the ledgers, but he did not speak immediately.

Lu Henian first moved the ashtray in the middle of the table to the side to make the table surface between the two of them cleaner, then withdrew his hands and crossed them again in front of him.

"Let me tell you about your family's attitude first."

"Your family has seen your file."

"From the time you started in this industry until now, you've kept all the notes that needed to be kept and verified all the information that needed to be verified."

"The returned hard drive data has been verified. The actual analysis in the lab only took a few all-nighters. After the all-nighters ended, we started running simulations directly on the machine. The preliminary verification results show that the data is complete and the error is within a controllable range."

"The family's view is simple: what you've done has far exceeded the scope of an informant or undercover agent."

"You have transferred three high-value assets; the data is reliable, and the personnel are safe."

"The gray channels and community outposts you established in Seattle are currently operating normally, and no abnormalities have been found during external surveillance."

"In addition, the professors back home added a lot of adjectives to your assessment during their internal review, some of which I won't repeat here."

His tone remained steady until this point, when he paused slightly.

"The first thing I want to confirm with you is, how do you understand 'family'?"

After asking the question, he leaned back in his chair, his shoulders relaxing slightly, as if to tell Leon that he could answer the question slowly.

Leon was silent for a few seconds. Then he pulled his elbows off the table, clasped his hands together in front of him, and rubbed his thumbs together.

"Life is not valued over there."

Lyon raised his eyes and looked at Lu Henian.

"There are streetlights on the street, so you can go out at two o'clock in the morning."

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"Women dare to walk alone at night, children don't have to dodge stray bullets on their way home from school, and ambulances come because someone needs to be saved, not to collect a corpse and ask the family if their credit card limit is enough to pay for the stretcher."

"it is good."

Lu Henian nodded, picked up the teapot and poured a cup of chrysanthemum tea for Leon. Only after the cup was pushed to Leon's side did he continue speaking.

"Then my family asked me to convey a basic message to you."

"You've been here for so long, and your family knows all about the dangers you've faced, the pressure you've endured, and the price you've paid."

"If you don't want to stay here anymore, if you don't want to fight gangs, wrestle with politicians, and deal with the media every day, you can just tell me right here, 'I don't want to do this anymore,' and I can immediately arrange things so you can go back quickly."

"Resettlement is not a problem. You can start over with your new identity or move to a different place. Just name your name."

He paused for a few seconds after saying that.

"But my family also asked me to tell you something else."

"If you can develop this business in Seattle, it will be of great significance to the country."

"You built the homeless community from scratch, you secured the base, and you negotiated the relationship with the mosque yourself."

"If you leave now, the construction workers and the mutton stalls that are working for you will all disappear on their own in a couple of days."

He looked at Lyon.

"So I'm here today not only to evaluate you, but also to seek your opinion."

"Whether you stay or leave is up to you."

"Do you know how long I've waited for this day?" Leon said calmly.

"From the first day I told the middleman to 'help me contact people back home,' I've been waiting every single day."

Lu Henian nodded slightly.

Lyon swallowed hard.

He lowered his eyes, his voice a little softer than before.

"I thought about a lot of things in the car. On the way from my residence to the parking lot two blocks away, I sat in the car for about ten minutes after turning off the engine. In the end, I still couldn't figure out what to do."

"Later, I slammed my hat on the steering wheel, cursed, and then got out of the car and walked over."

Lu Henian sighed and looked at Lyon.

"You just said that people can go out at 2 a.m. over there, and that ambulances aren't there to collect corpses, and kids don't have to dodge bullets when they get home from school."

"I've kept some of the adjectives the professor over there used to describe you, but this one-minute conversation tells me that you do seem to have actually been there."

"Okay, since you haven't figured it out yet, let me ask you a question first. You need to answer truthfully. Whether you stay in Seattle or go back, I need to get this question straight."

He placed his hands on the table, leaned forward slightly, and lowered his voice to a level that only two people could hear.

"Where did you get your Chinese from?"

The private room fell silent.

A Cantonese voice called out from downstairs, accompanied by the metallic clang of a spatula hitting the gas stove. Outside the window, a truck reversed into a parking space, its reversing alarm beeping for a moment before stopping.

Lyon did not answer immediately.

His right hand rested on the table, and he unconsciously clenched it.

He was thinking, and Lu Henian could tell that he was thinking, and he was thinking very seriously, not just making an expression before making up a lie.

Finally, Leon raised his eyes to look at Lu Henian, his gaze steady and unwavering.

"Judge, I'm telling you the truth."

"I can't explain it."

After he finished speaking, the corners of his mouth pursed down slightly, a very small movement, but Lu Henian noticed it.

Lyon's expression was unusually calm.

"If you ask me if I studied in the United States, I will tell you no. If you ask me where I studied, you won't believe me even if I tell you."

"I'm not going to lie to you and make up a Chinese teacher of unknown origin or a relative who grew up in Chinatown. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I can't even explain it myself."

"I didn't come from any training camp, nor am I one of those deep-sea moles sent by someone to lie in wait for twenty years to plot against me."

"I am—"

He paused, leaned back in his chair, rested his shoulder on the back of the chair, and lowered his head. "A purported cop from the Seattle West Precinct, and I've had enough of this place."

He loosened his fist, picked up his teacup, took a sip, and then put it down. "I know this answer will displease you."

"You can find me suspicious, you can continue to investigate me, you can keep me in Seattle for another two years to observe me, or you can even never contact me again after this meal."

"But I can't fool you with a flimsy lie."

Lu Henian looked at him without saying a word.

The silence lasted for about twenty seconds.

Lyon was waiting for the other party's reaction.

He knew that to the intelligence personnel, this statement was as good as saying nothing; the inability to explain it was the biggest point of suspicion, and suspicion was the most dangerous thing.

Lyon was aware of this, but he couldn't produce anything to prove the origin of his Chinese writing.

There's no point in talking about time travel unless it makes the other person doubt your mental state; keeping quiet is actually a sign of respect for each other's intelligence.

Therefore, he had no choice but to neither lie nor explain.

This might not be the best answer for intelligence personnel, but it's better than concocting a non-existent Chinese adoptive parent.

Lu Henian stared at the weak chrysanthemum tea in front of him for a while, then reached out and moved the cup to a different position. When he looked up, his gaze remained level with Lyon's.

"you----"

He had barely uttered a single word when Leon interrupted him.

"I have a question for you." Leon slightly lowered his fingers from the table, his voice flat. "Is things still the same over there?"

Lu Henian stopped.

He noticed a change in Lyon's expression.

The thin layer of vigilance and restraint that had been covering my eyes was pressed down, and what followed was something quieter.

"I used to have a house over there," Lyon said, his lips twitching slightly as he spoke, his voice soft and a little hoarse.

"It's a house that was allocated to my parents when they went down into the mine. It has two rooms and a south-facing balcony."

"When the water pipes freeze in winter, my dad will wrap them with an old cotton quilt and then wrap them with two layers of tape. The tape is not wrapped evenly, so when it thaws, a piece will fall off. He repairs it every year."

"There's an old man downstairs who sells breakfast. The pot he uses to cook tofu pudding has been there since I was in school, and it was still there when I last went back. The wall next to the pot was renovated later, but the old man is still there."

"In the summer evenings, the community square is full of people. The aunties who dance in the square can push their speakers in their strollers, and the old men who play chess use the drawer of their chessboards as ashtrays. One game of chess can be so loud that all the streetlights go out."

"The barbecue stalls are open until two or three in the morning. Lamb skewers are one yuan each, beef skewers are two yuan each, and chicken cartilage is three yuan each. Elementary school students can buy them with their pocket money after school, and the owner will sprinkle an extra handful of cumin."

After saying this, he pursed his lips, then looked up at Lu Henian.

There were a few faint blood vessels in the whites of Leon's eyes, just because he hadn't blinked much while he was talking.

He swallowed hard, lowered his gaze for half a second, and then looked up again.

The quietness pressed down in my eyes, only slightly blurred by the midday sunlight streaming through the windowpane.

Lu Henian stared into his eyes.

His professional instincts allowed him to quickly analyze and interpret these words.

A spy can memorize a period of life, but he can't memorize the emotions in these words.

The pot for boiling tofu pudding, the old cotton quilt wrapped in water pipes, the square dancing grandmas pushing strollers, the barbecue stalls sprinkling extra cumin—these seemingly trivial details cannot be fabricated in any study by reading books or writing materials.

This is the mark of having lived.

Moreover, when this person listed these things, his tone was calm, and there was a very thin glint in his eyes.

Lu Henian had seen this layer of light before.

Before coming to the United States, he had met an agent who had been working undercover in Laos for five years.

The day before the investigator returned to China, he chatted with him about his hometown in a small hotel by the river. He said that there was a pomegranate tree downstairs in his house, and every autumn when the pomegranates split open, his mother would pick them one by one with a basket.

The scout didn't cry when he said this, but his eyes looked like that.

This is the concept of home.

This kind of reaction is impossible for 100 different people in the United States.

Before coming to the United States, Lu Henian had been working in intelligence assessment for ten years.

He has sat face-to-face with Americans more than once; some were genuinely friendly, some later turned against him, and some were just putting on an act from beginning to end.

When these people talk about their hometown, they always use the words "hometown" and "grewup," and what they say is the kind of nostalgia for a materialistic childhood that white people are most adept at.

No one talks about a piece of land like that, and no one salivates when describing the prices of roadside barbecue stalls.

He reached out and placed the cup of weak chrysanthemum tea back on the tea tray, then looked up at Lyon again.

He rested his arms on the table, leaned forward slightly, and lowered his voice a little more than before.

"Don't get agitated," he said.

Leon pulled his gaze back from the window, his lips twitching, even his stubble trembling slightly, but he quickly suppressed it.

Lyon took a deep breath, and when he exhaled, he shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm fine, please continue."

Lu Henian looked into his eyes, but didn't reply immediately. He just sat there quietly for a few seconds.

Then he took Lyon's teacup, refilled it, and handed it back to Lyon.

"To be honest, my question was a bit awkward."

Lu Henian paused for a moment, then said, "What you said sounds unbelievable, but I don't think you're lying."

"I did not lie."

Lyon took the teacup, took a sip, and put it down. His voice lowered. "I can't explain it, because it really can't be explained."

I won't make a judgment on you just because I can't explain it.

Lu Henian spoke very gently, "I will remember everything you said."

Leon was silent for a moment, then rubbed the corner of his eye with his fingers and put his hand down.

"Where was I?" Leon's voice regained its composure.

"The house. The one we were allocated." Lu Henian nodded. "Two rooms, with a south-facing balcony. The water pipes froze in the winter."

Leon paused for a moment, then his lips twitched slightly.

"Yes," he said. "Two rooms, with a south-facing balcony."

He paused for a moment, then leaned his shoulders back in the chair.

"I wasn't just talking about the past; I was asking you, is it still like that over there now?"

"Are the barbecue stalls still open? Is the pot for cooking tofu pudding still there? Are there still so many people in the small square?"

He asked the question in a flat tone.

Lu Henian lowered his eyes.

"The barbecue stand is still open."

He paused for a moment, "But you should be more in the north. My area is different from yours. Lamb skewers are three yuan there, beef skewers are four yuan, and chicken cartilage is five yuan."

"The pot used to cook tofu pudding, there used to be one where I lived, but I don't know if it's still there now. I only remember that the last time I saw it, the bottom of the pot was so thick that you couldn't even see the original iron color anymore."

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"The people in the square are still there."

"water pipe----"

He paused for a moment after saying this, then sighed softly.

"I really don't know that, but the water pipes at my wife's family's place freeze every year."

Leon leaned his head back in his chair, his chin slightly raised, and as he exhaled, his chest dropped, as if he had finally let go of something that had been on his mind for a long time.

His eyes were a little redder than before.

The fine blood vessels on the whites of my eyes have spread outwards a little, just a ring.

Leon blinked hard, then lowered his hand and placed it back on the table.

He finally spoke, "Damn it."

Lu Henian did not delve deeper into this topic, but he had already mentally reordered all the things he had just observed.

This person's emotions are genuine; you can't fake them to this extent, nor can you fake such details.

Lu Henian leaned back in his chair, took a cigarette out of his pocket with his right hand, quietly placed it between two fingers, and then looked up at Lyon.

"As I said before, the professors there added a lot of adjectives to your internal assessment. Although I have reservations about some of them, I also have my own professional judgment."

Leon leaned back in his chair, looking at the unlit cigarette Lu Henian held between his fingers.

His eyes were still slightly red, but his lips had returned to their usual shape.

"Judge, please hear me out."

"I don't actually care whether you believe me or not."

"I've worked here for so long, arrested people, killed people, and seen countless files. I know what my own file looks like over there."

"He looks like a foreigner, his origins are suspicious, his files have gaps, and he has no record of leaving the country, yet he speaks fluent Chinese."

He counted on his fingers, one by one, "How could these reports not be seen by the decision-makers? If I were you, I would also be more careful."

He finished picking at his fingers, then tapped the table with the back of his fingers and looked up at Lu Henian.

"I know that in intelligence work, one cannot make judgments about people based on emotions, but one can rely on time to test them. If six months is not enough, then a year; if a year is not enough, then two years."

He placed his hands on the table, interlacing his fingers. "I'm not afraid to wait, because I have nowhere else to go."

What am I afraid of?

Lyon looked up at Lu Henian and said, "What I'm afraid of is that you'll think this guy is too useful. You'll give him a position in the documents, but you'll always keep in mind that those who are not of our kind will surely have different intentions."

"I can fight, I can recruit people, I can deliver things back. If you want someone to continue working here, no problem, I used to do these things too."

"But I'm afraid you only see me as a card that can be played and held back, not as one of your own."

He paused after saying that, then looked down at his hands.

"My face looks a little different from yours now."

Lu Henian put the cigarette back on the table, then placed his hands flat on the table, his fingers slightly spread and then closed.

"I understand your concerns," Lu Henian said.

He slowly nodded, then raised his eyes and said, "Leon, your code name on your file is 'Returning Goose.' Geese migrate south for the winter and north because they have their homes there."

"I don't know who suggested this code name, who made the decision, or who stamped the file cover when headquarters decided on it."

But I can guess.

"If it's just a useful tool, there's no need to call it 'Returning Goose.' Call it 'Sword,' 'Nail,' anything will do."

"As for the doubts surrounding you, I will take care of them when I get back."

"Your feelings are genuine, your Chinese is vibrant, and your contributions are such that anyone who tries to question you will have to think twice before they can bring you down."

"So, doubts are doubts, but they won't stop you from going back."

Leon's fingers tightened slightly on the table, then relaxed, his fingertips lingering on the rim of the teacup for a moment before he picked it up, but then put it back without drinking from it.

Are you sure?

"I'm sure, and that's exactly what the higher-ups mean," Lu Henian said.

"I've been a judge for twenty years and have seen too many people. Before coming here today, I looked at the list of suspicious points in your file. After you came here, I asked you about the source of your Chinese text, and your answer was that you would not explain it. I will write this into the evaluation report."

He finished the last sip of tea in his cup, put the cup down, and said, "The doubts are there, I can't hide them from you, nor can I make decisions for you, but the conclusion of the evaluation is what I wrote."

Leon looked at him for a moment, then moved the teacup slightly to the side, exhaled a long breath, as if it had been stuck in his lungs ever since Alex relayed the message to him at the police station early this morning.

Lu Henian continued speaking.

"Do you remember what I said at the beginning? If you tell me today that you want to go back, I will arrange for someone to take you away, and prepare to let you fake your death to escape, even if you can't explain your origin in Chinese."

"So, do you want to go back?"

"I want to," Lyon said.

"That----"

"But not now," Lyon interrupted Lu Henian.

Lu Henian paused for a moment, then looked up at Lyon.

"You just said the country needs me, right?"

He said, lifting his gaze from his hands to look at Lu Henian, "Since the country needs me, I will continue to stay here."

"I still have work to finish here."

"If I leave now, all that work on psychedelic cats and mosques will have been for nothing."

"But if I stay in Seattle, this gray neighborhood can continue to be developed."

"Based on this, I can continue sending people eastward."

His right hand was placed on the table, his five fingers slightly spread.

"Once this base is established, it can become a sustainable filter, eliminating the need to scavenge engineers from the junkyard every time."

"The registration system is already underway. Some people are doing background checks on me, and others are conducting background investigations on me."

"As long as it operates stably, it can filter out useful data every once in a while."

"Regarding medical matters, Thomas is still at St. Jude Church. If there are any more seriously injured people, he can provide first aid there. Also, you still haven't given me the *Collection*."

He pulled his hand back, clenched it into a fist, and placed it on his knee.

"I can take much more with me if I stay here than if I go back now."

He paused, then added a sentence.

"We've already waited this long, what's another three or five years?"

Lu Henian stared at Lyon for a long time.

"When you were reminiscing about your home just now, I guessed you probably wouldn't go back now, but I could only be sure after listening to the whole thing."

"In that case, you must remember the code name 'Returning Goose.' No matter how far you fly, you will always have a nest."

After saying that, he pulled a business card-sized piece of paper wrapped in oil paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. It only had a phone number on it.

"This is an emergency mailbox and should only be used as a last resort."

"Go to any public phone, insert coins, dial this number, it will ring three times and hang up. Dial it again, and the second time it connects, you can say whatever you want."

"After the call is disconnected again, the number will be automatically removed from the switch's temporary routing table, as if it had never existed."

"Public phone billing records will be overwritten by the system the next day. We leave no paper traces; after you write it down, burn this card."

He pushed the card face down toward Lyon.

Leon took it, examined it between his fingers, then put it in the inside pocket of his jacket and zipped it up.

"There's one more thing. The person you sent away asked me to pass on a message to you. He told us to tell you that you completed your mission exceptionally well, and they are waiting for your triumphant return in the East."