Hidden Radiance

Roll up the car window.

Lu Minghui stepped on the gas, and the Ford drove out of the dark alley.

In the rearview mirror, the alleyway was deserted. He made three turns, changing speed at each one. At the third turn, he waited ten seconds, but no car lights came on behind him.

He slowed down as he passed the middle section of Avenue Joffre.

Across the street, under the third utility pole, a man squatted against the wall selling night newspapers. Next to the newspaper stand, an oil-paper umbrella was stuck in a tin bucket, its handle wrapped with a red ribbon.

The signal hasn't changed. The Military Intelligence Bureau's mailboxes are functioning normally tonight.

Lu Minghui gripped the steering wheel with his left hand and reached under the passenger seat with his right to pull out the oiled paper package. Inside were a deployment map, a troop rotation schedule, and a note: "Tonight at midnight, defenses will be at their weakest."

He didn't throw immediately.

A Japanese patrol car turned out from the opposite street corner, its two yellow lights flashing as it slowly rolled along Avenue Joffre. A Type 96 machine gun was mounted on the vehicle, its muzzle pointing upwards, and the soldier in the passenger seat was eating a rice ball.

Lu Minghui kept his speed unchanged, placed the oil paper package on his lap with his right hand, and turned the steering wheel slightly with his left hand, veering off the side of the newsstand.

The patrol car passed by him, less than two meters away.

The taillights disappeared into the rain.

He rolled down the car window, and the oil paper package slipped from his hand, landing precisely in a hidden compartment next to the tin bucket.

The car windows were rolled up, and the car resumed its speed.

11:50 AM. Outside Wu Sibao's secret room in the French Concession.

Lu Minghui parked his car in an alleyway two blocks away. He lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch.

It's exactly twelve o'clock.

At the end of the street where the dark hall was located, several black sedans, without their lights on, silently glided into the alley. The car doors opened, and a group of men in black overcoats jumped out, carrying Thompson submachine guns.

The one leading the group was Fu Yewen.

The secret telegram from the Military Intelligence Bureau sat on his desk all afternoon. The last line of the telegram shattered his reason: "At 7:00 AM tomorrow, the Mei Agency will send military police to search the aforementioned locations, and all supplies will be confiscated."

By the time he had finished making all the arrangements, it was already midnight.

Fu Yewen glanced at the dark alley, gritted his teeth, and made a gesture. His men kicked open the wooden door of the dark room and rushed in.

The courtyard was empty.

There isn't even a dog.

Fu Yewen's expression changed, and he was about to call for a retreat.

Suddenly, more than a dozen searchlights lit up on the surrounding rooftops, casting bright beams that pinned people to the ground in the courtyard.

"Bang!"

A gunshot rang out, and one of Fu Yewen's men fell to the ground.

Ono stood on the second-floor balcony, holding a Type 14 Nambu pistol in his hand.

"annihilate them all!"

The machine guns opened fire simultaneously. Shell casings clattered onto the tiles, and the brick wall was riddled with craters. Fu Yewen was tackled by his men and scrambled to hide behind a stone lion.

"Don't shoot! I'm Fu Yewen from Unit 76!"

The gunfire was too intense for anyone to hear.

Lu Minghui sat in the car and lowered the window by half an inch.

Gunshots came from two streets away, muffled, like someone smashing a wall in the distance.

Whether Fu Yewen lives or dies is unimportant. As long as he gets beaten up here, the feud between Li Shiqun and Nakajima will be established.

He glanced at his watch. 12:11.

The vault should be ready soon.

Outside the underground vault of the Mei Agency.

Gu Yunqiu sat in the bread cart. Gunshots could be faintly heard from the direction of the French Concession, intermittently.

"The French Concession has made a move. It's too quiet here at the vault," the subordinate said.

Gu Yunqiu didn't respond. The quieter the silence, the more complicated the situation seemed; at this point, she was almost certain that Lu Minghui had a problem.

She stared at the two sentries smoking at the entrance of the alley across the street. They weren't hers, nor were they part of Nakajima's regular staff. She had been trying to figure out where they came from since evening, but she couldn't.

Both sentries fell at the same time.

There were no gunshots.

Gu Yunqiu's grip on the gun tightened abruptly. "Something's up—"

The sound of engines drowned out the words. Three trucks smashed through the wooden fence at the street corner and rushed toward the vault door. The tarpaulins on the truck beds were ripped open, and dozens of masked men opened fire on the door with submachine guns.

The Kuomintang's suicide squad.

The Japanese guards at the vault returned fire. Heavy machine guns were set up, belts of ammunition rattling, and a barrage of firepower erupted.

Gu Yunqiu drew his gun. "Get out of the car! Encircle them from the east!"

The South Manchuria Railway agents launched their attack simultaneously from bread carts, alleyways, and third-floor windows. However, the Military Intelligence Bureau's suicide squads were heading straight for the main entrance of the vault, while the South Manchuria Railway agents were positioned on the sides and perimeter, with crossfire across an entire street in between.

Gu Yunqiu's men had barely peeked out of the alleyway when they were pushed back by stray bullets from the vault guards. The Japanese guards, unable to distinguish one from another, opened fire on anything that moved.

The South Manchuria Railway crews were kept out by their own firepower.

The suicide squads fought with a reckless style. Some carried explosives and pressed themselves directly against the outer wall of the vault.

boom--

The blast wave ripped windows and doors off half the street. A gaping hole was blown in the outer iron door of the vault.

The remnants of the suicide squad poured in through the gap.

When Gu Yunqiu led his men around to the main entrance from the side, there were already more than a dozen corpses lying haphazardly at the entrance of the vault, Japanese soldiers and Kuomintang agents mixed together.

"Follow me! Go inside!"

As soon as she stepped into the gap, two military trucks drove up from the other end of the street.

Helmet, military police armband, Type 38 rifle.

A squad of soldiers dressed in Japanese military police uniforms jumped off the vehicle. The leading officer raised his sword and shouted in Japanese, "Reinforcements! Surround the rioters!"

The captain of the Kuomintang suicide squad inside the vault gritted his teeth upon hearing the Japanese shouts outside.

"withdraw!"

The remnants of the Military Intelligence Bureau took turns providing cover as they withdrew through the ventilation opening at the back door of the vault and escaped into the alleyway.

Gu Yunqiu stood up from behind the cover.

She watched the military police line up and run towards her; their collar insignia, armbands, and leggings were all tied correctly. But—they were all new, and something was very wrong.

She opened her mouth as if to shout—

The leading officer had already walked up to her.

The butt of the rifle came crashing down, hitting him squarely in the back of the neck.

It's black in front of you.

As she fell, the leading officer turned around and shouted sternly at the South Manchuria Railway men: "The rioters escaped through the back door! You—encircle them through the east alley! Squad Three, blockade! The rest of you, pursue!"

The commands were fluent, the Japanese was fluent, and the tone carried the usual irritability of a military police officer.

The South Manchuria Railway agents were without a commander. The nearest squad leader subconsciously glanced at the unconscious Gu Yunqiu on the ground, and then at the rank insignia on the collar of the officer in front of him—one rank higher than Gu Yunqiu.

I hesitated for two seconds.

"Execute!" the officer shouted again, pointing towards the alley to the east. He then ordered his men to take away the unconscious Gu Yunqiu.

The South Manchuria Railway personnel dispersed, guns in hand, and rushed into the alley on the east side to pursue the remnants of the Military Intelligence Bureau.

The position at the entrance to the vault was empty.

The fake military police poured into the breach like an assembly line.

The French Concession.

Lu Minghui sat in the car. He finished his cigarette and didn't light a second one.

The gunfire had stopped for a while. 12:48.

According to the plan, Lao Zhao's men should have completed the move and evacuated the vault before 1 a.m. After 1 a.m., the second-line reinforcements from the Mei Agency would arrive.

They were given a maximum of twenty minutes to move the items. Twenty boxes, each weighing seventy or eighty pounds, would be carried onto the truck by a group of twenty-odd people working in an assembly line. Whether they had enough time depended on how wide the breach was.

He opened his pocket watch, and the second hand ticked away.

12:51.

Sporadic gunshots rang out in the distance—from the direction of the alley to the east. The South Manchuria Railway Company was chasing the remnants of the Military Intelligence Bureau. Every second these gunshots rang out meant another second of vulnerability at the vault.

12:56. The gunfire stopped. Rain pounded on the car roof, thick and heavy, drowning out all distant sounds. Lu Minghui's right hand rested on the car door handle, his thumb rubbing back and forth on the metal ridge.

12:59.

Engine sound.

It came from far away, from the direction of the Meiji government office. Two trucks, diesel engines, revving very high.

It is accelerating.

At 1:02, the sound of the engine faded into the distance as it turned onto the highway leading to the suburbs.

As Lu Minghui listened to the engine sound disappear into the rain, he released his fingers from the steering wheel. His left thumb rubbed against the leather cover of the steering wheel twice; his fingertip was wet.

I started the car, drove around two streets, and returned to the back gate of No. 76. I took the key out, put it in my pocket, got out of the car, and walked back to the French Concession.

Two o'clock in the morning.

A secret room in the French Concession. The gunfire stopped.

Ono led his men to clean up the battlefield. Of the twenty men Fu Yewen brought, twelve were dead. He himself was shot in the thigh and was held down in the mud by two military police.

"Ono-kun! It's a misunderstanding! I'm Fu Yewen! Director of the Confidential Affairs Department!" Fu Yewen was trembling with pain.

Ono walked over and shone the flashlight on his face.

"Fu Yewen? What was your reason for leading your men to launch a strong attack on the Imperial Army's defense zone?"

"A coded telegram... I intercepted a coded telegram from the Military Intelligence Bureau saying that gold is hidden here... The telegram says that the Mei Agency will be conducting a raid early tomorrow morning, and the Military Intelligence Bureau will attack here at noon. I'm afraid we won't have enough time..."

Ono slapped him across the face.

"The gold is in the Mei Agency's vault! You've been used as a pawn!"

Another slap landed.

"Since you intercepted the coded telegram, why didn't you report it!"

Lu Minghui, holding a black umbrella, walked over through the puddles.

"Captain Ono, thank you for your hard work."

Ono's expression softened slightly upon seeing him. "Minghui-kun, this Fu Yewen said he came because he received a secret telegram from the Military Intelligence Bureau. Where did he get the telegram?"

"The Confidential Affairs Division handles a large number of classified telegrams every day." Lu Minghui's gaze fell on Fu Yewen. "Director Fu is the head of the Confidential Affairs Division. He has access to more things than anyone else in the 76th Division."

Fu Yewen's eyes widened.

"Lu Minghui! It was you who sent me the coded telegram! You had Gu Yunqiu pass it on to me!"

"Secretary Gu gave you a telegram that needs to be filed," Lu Minghui said calmly. "Secretary Gu gives you many coded telegrams every day. Which one are you referring to?"

Fu Yewen's lips trembled, unable to speak. The coded telegram was genuine. The archiving process was also genuine. But he hadn't archived it; he had brought men to steal it.