Siheyuan (traditional courtyard house): Starting with the Korean War, returning home to take charge

The setting sun cast a dark red hue onto the surface of the Irrawaddy River. Several dilapidated wooden boats were moored to the bank, swaying gently with the waves. The air was thick with the smells of diesel fuel and fish.

Yang Xiaobing stood on the dock, holding nothing in his hands. His straw hat was off, and Tanaka had washed half of it, revealing the scar on her face, which gleamed dark red in the setting sun.

After waiting for about ten minutes, a man in a light blue short-sleeved shirt emerged from behind a pile of old tires. He was in his forties, rather thin, and wore a baseball cap pulled low over his shoulders. He walked slowly, each step as if testing the ground for solidity.

He stopped when he was three meters away from Yang Xiaobing.

"Are you all alone?" he asked in Mandarin, his voice hoarse, as if something was stuck in his throat.

"Just me."

"Are you a police officer?"

"Yes."

The man took off his baseball cap. His hair was gray, with three deep forehead wrinkles, sunken eyes, and prominent cheekbones. He looked at Yang Xiaobing, and the corner of his mouth twitched, a smile that was neither quite a smile nor a smile.

"I've been waiting for you for three days. I just wanted to see if you had the guts to come."

"Chen Zhiyuan, you can't escape now." Yang Xiaobing took out his identification from his pocket.

Chen Zhiyuan didn't run. He placed his baseball cap on the wooden stake beside him and put his hands in his pockets.

"Is Pu Zheng dead?"

"He's dead."

"How did he die?"

Myocardial infarction.

Chen Zhiyuan lowered his head, staring at the ground. There was a dried diesel stain on the ground, shimmering with iridescent colors in the setting sun. The silence lasted for nearly half a minute. He raised his head, his eyes showing no fear, only something indescribable, like weariness or resignation.

"If you arrest me, how many years will I get in prison?"

"That's not an answer I can give."

Chen Zhiyuan nodded and pulled his hand out of his pocket. His movements were so slow that Yang Xiaobing could see the trajectory of each of his fingers.

Old Lu emerged from behind a coconut tree fifty meters away, holding handcuffs in his hand.

Chen Zhiyuan was not alarmed when he saw Lao Lu. He stretched out his hands, put them together, and pointed his wrists upwards, as if voluntarily requesting to be handcuffed.

Old Lu walked over and handcuffed Chen Zhiyuan's left wrist. Just as he was about to handcuff his right wrist, Chen Zhiyuan suddenly ducked and bit his shirt collar. The movement was swift, as fast as a snake.

Old Lu's expression changed. He grabbed Chen Zhiyuan's jaw with his left hand and forcefully pried it open. Chen Zhiyuan already had something in his mouth, wrapped in a thin membrane, one corner of which was bitten open by his teeth. Old Lu put his finger into Chen Zhiyuan's mouth to try to remove it, but Chen Zhiyuan bit his finger, and blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto the gray cement floor—one drop, two drops, three drops.

Yang Xiaobing punched Chen Zhiyuan in the temple. Chen Zhiyuan's body went limp, and his mouth opened. Old Lu pried the small piece of something out from under his tongue—a pill wrapped in plastic film, half-soaked in saliva, with a small tear in the film.

"Cyanide." Old Lu threw the pill on the ground and stomped on it. His right index finger was bitten open, the wound gaping open to reveal white subcutaneous tissue, blood gushing out. "If you put this stuff in your mouth and bite through the membrane, you'll die in ten seconds."

Chen Zhiyuan slumped to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He looked down at the crushed pill on the ground, his shoulders trembled, and a sound came from his throat, like he had choked on water, or perhaps he was laughing.

"You shouldn't have stopped me," he said softly.

Yang Xiaobing squatted down, staring into his eyes. "If you die, who will tell us where Lao Geda is?"

Chen Zhiyuan's laughter stopped.

A safe house in Yangon. Cement floor, gray walls, an iron window through which the golden roof of a pagoda can be seen. Sunlight filters through the gaps in the iron bars, casting long, thin shadows on the ground.

Chen Zhiyuan sat in the corner, handcuffed to a radiator pipe. His lips were chapped, with dark red scabs seeping from the cracks.

Yang Xiaobing sat opposite him, holding a copy of Pu Zheng's diary, and turned to the page with Chen Zhiyuan's name on it.

"Pu Zheng threw away the medicine," Yang Xiaobing said. "He didn't want to live anymore."

Chen Zhiyuan looked up, his eyes reddening. "He's afraid of pain. He's been afraid since he was little."

Silence. There was a gurgling sound of water flowing through the heating pipes.

"What do you want to know?" Chen Zhiyuan asked.

"Where is the eldest son?"

"Tell me first, did Pu Zheng feel pain when he died?"

Yang Xiaobing thought for a moment. "The doctor said he lost consciousness very quickly. He probably didn't feel any pain."

Chen Zhiyuan closed his eyes, then opened them again after a few seconds. "Old Geda's real name is Guan Baocheng, Pu Zheng's cousin. He escaped from Northeast China in 1983, first going to Mongolia, and then to Moscow. The KGB gave him a new identity—Viktor Petrovich Sokolov—and arranged for him to stay in a villa outside Moscow."

What happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

"The KGB has disbanded, and he may have gone to Eastern Europe. I don't know exactly where. He never trusted me, only Pu Zheng."

"Who provided the list of people Pu Zheng collaborated with the CIA?"

Chen Zhiyuan licked his lips. "Pu Zheng compiled it himself. During his years in Hong Kong, he collected information on hundreds of people through business dealings, social connections, and family associates. He gave the list to me, and I passed it on to the CIA liaison in Taipei—an American of Chinese descent named Robert Chen, who had been living in Virginia for a long time."

"Have you seen him?"

"I've met him three times. In Taipei, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. He's in his fifties, of mixed race, and speaks Mandarin and Cantonese."

Yang Xiaobing wrote down this information and closed his notebook.

"Among Pu Zheng's belongings was a diary," he said. "The last page read: 'If my eldest son is still alive, please tell him for me that I'm sorry.'"

Chen Zhiyuan lowered his head, staring at the ground. After a long while, he finally said, "He wronged too many people in his life."

Beijing. He Yuzhu's office.

On the table lay Pu Zheng's diary. A black hardcover notebook, turned to the last page. The handwriting was large and messy, as if written with all his might: "If the youngest son is still alive, please tell him for me, I'm sorry."

He Yuzhu stared at the line of text for a long time. The nib of his pen poked into the paper, and the ink smeared into a small black blot. He tore off the paper, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the trash can. Then he rewrote it—"Guan Baocheng, alias Viktor Petrovich Sokolov, may have fled to Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union."

After finishing writing, I put the paper in a folder and locked it in the drawer.

The moon was bright outside the window. He stood up, walked to the window, and drew back the curtains. Moonlight streamed in, falling on the desk and illuminating the cover of the black diary. There was a blue mark from a ballpoint pen on the cover, drawn at some unknown time.

The phone rang. Three rings, then it was disconnected. The special forces' emergency code.

He grabbed the receiver. Lin Jianguo's voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement and tension: "Director He, the vibration frequency of the wind tunnel model has changed again. And... we detected something on the model's surface that shouldn't be there."

"What?"

Lin Jianguo remained silent for three seconds.

"Microscopic traces of time dilation."

He Yuzhu gripped the receiver tightly, his fingers clenching until his knuckles turned white.