Chapter 81: Shove That Pot Of Shit Back First
Goto Kenji suppressed his ninja rage, placed the gun-cleaning cloth on the table, “Liu Sang, you sit too.”
“Thank you, Officer Goto.” Liu Huai slightly bowed in thanks, then sat down neither humbly nor arrogantly.
Goto Kenji swept his gaze over both their faces. Actually, in his heart, he still trusted Lin Yuanjiang more. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have agreed to let Liu Huai hand over the Communist Party underground party member that he had worked so hard to capture.
Unfortunately, Lin Yuanjiang was simply a good-for-nothing!
The merit was delivered right into his hands, yet he still let it fly away!
Lin Yuanjiang felt his hair stand on end from being stared at. He hadn’t expected such a thing to happen either. What should have been a sure thing had such a flaw.
He was extremely uneasy inside. That damn Liu Huai definitely wouldn’t miss the chance to kick him while he was down!
“Lin Sang.”
Lin Yuanjiang’s heart skipped a beat, “Here.”
“Back then, you said that as long as the person was handed over to you, you could dig out more people. I believed you. Now, where is the person?!” Goto Kenji’s face showed no particular expression, but anyone could hear the anger in his tone.
“Officer Goto, this…” Lin Yuanjiang’s heart jolted, and he hurriedly explained: “It’s all because the Communist Party is too cunning. They notified them to hold a meeting, but it was actually deliberate!”
“Someone must have failed in confidentiality work, letting them get the news early. This time, the Communist Party underground party was there to find the traitor inside. We fell for it!”
Lin Yuanjiang knew he couldn’t just take the beating passively. The best way was to strike first.
Before Liu Huai could make a move, he first flung a pot of shit over.
Liu Huai’s face changed immediately. He cursed inwardly at the damn lack of martial virtue and hurriedly defended himself:
“Officer Goto, he’s purely slandering me!! I got the news that this wasn’t any meeting at all, just a talk!”
“They wanted to screen for the traitor inside, and Sun Zhongfu wasn’t even on the list!”
“If Section Chief Lin hadn’t taken it upon himself to bring Sun Zhongfu there and let the underground party discover it, we might have actually hooked a big fish this time!”
Seeing Liu Huai push the responsibility back, Lin Yuanjiang felt a bit awkward because what Liu Huai said was all true. But so what?
Precisely because it was true, he hated it even more. Knowing the truth was the sharpest knife, right?
“This incident might also be related to Kuomintang special agents.” Goto Kenji had no interest in their scheming and instead revealed another piece of news.
“Lin Yuanjiang’s subordinate action group leader was beaten to death on the street. They used a German assault rifle. The dirt eight roads couldn’t possibly have such firearms.”
At this point, his face darkened, and he boomed: “You do intelligence work. Such powerful firearms appeared right under your noses in Beiping. What the hell have you been doing!!”
Bang~
He slapped the table with a palm, startling both of them. He roared in anger: “If you can’t do the job, I can relieve you of your positions right now!”
“With such a huge lapse in work, are you waiting for the enemy to assemble a company of rifle assault teams to storm the consulate before you realize how big a lapse there is in your work?!!”
“This…” The two trembled in fear. They wanted to ask what an assault rifle was, but seeing Goto Kenji’s face, they didn’t dare speak.
They were speechless inside. It was just one rifle. What was there to make such a fuss about?
Even an assault rifle—even a company of them—what then? Would they dare show their faces?
Were the Gendarmerie Headquarters’ heavy machine guns and light machine guns decorations?
“Hai, it’s our work negligence. We’ll strictly investigate when we get back!”
“I’ll give you three days. If you can’t track down the firearms, then get the hell out!!”
“Hai, hai” The two nodded desperately like tail-wagging dogs begging for mercy.
Downstairs.
“Drive!” Lin Yuanjiang stormed into the car. He thought Goto Kenji was making a fuss to deliberately warn him, and the culprit was that bastard Liu Huai!
Tonight, they had completely torn faces.
“Bro, calm down. I just got the news that old Liu was killed by some assault rifle tonight. Tsk, bro, you didn’t see it—that scene was brutal. I heard it’s even more powerful than a submachine gun. What kind of gun is that? I’ve never seen it.”
“Hm?” Lin Yuanjiang, in his rage, couldn’t care less about some damn gun and cursed: “Who cares what damn gun it is? Drive, go back first!”
As a traitor, their biggest weapon was their brain, and their biggest backer was the little devils. But tonight, he faintly felt that Goto Kenji wanted to make him take the blame.
Though he didn’t know what blame yet, no black pot was a good pot, right?
Track down the firearms in three days? Where was he supposed to investigate?
Whether Kuomintang special agents or Communist Party underground party, they hid better than mice. Without cards in hand or even a clue, how could he investigate a damn thing!
For over a month straight, countless little devils had been assassinated. They said they’d track the culprits, but they hadn’t found shit.
They just knew to pressure him here. If they had the skills, they should investigate it themselves!
Damn it!
Don’t think I don’t know—Sang Liuji, that dog-like thing, is scraping together supplies from Xinmin Society, Maintenance Association, and other pro-Japanese factions everywhere. It’s all backed by you little devils!
Now pulling this on me again!
This is thinking we’ve been fattened up, so time for one big score?!
No, can’t surrender like this. Find a way out first. Even if he couldn’t get by in the special agent agency, there’d still be a retreat.
“Captain Cao, it’s been a while.”
This time, Xu Jin’ge didn’t disguise himself and smiled warmly with cupped hands.
Cao Weida sized him up and laughed: “Director Xu, you’ve got some courage, boldly showing up in front of me like this. Not afraid I’ll get ideas and grab you?”
“If you wanted to grab me, you would’ve done it long ago. Why wait till now?” Xu Jin’ge’s smile didn’t change. He knew Cao Weida was just joking.
“Captain Cao, I’m here this time, first to deliver last time’s reward, and second, to give you some news. Our boss is very satisfied with last time’s intelligence and greatly values a resistance hero like you.”
“So, with special approval, we intend to enlist you as non-staff personnel of our Military Statistics Bureau, code name Jingzhe.”
Cao Weida was stunned and hurriedly waved to stop him: “Wait, who agreed to become your non-staff personnel? Does your Military Statistics Bureau always act so domineering?!”
Xu Jin’ge looked slightly embarrassed and thought, isn’t that right? Boss Dai is even more domineering than you think. “Little bro, big bro has no choice. I wanted to help cover for you, but the higher-ups sent someone!”
“Didn’t I tell you last time? Just find the special agents’ hideout, and the higher-ups would handle the rest, then…”
He guiltily glanced at Cao Weida before continuing: “You know, where there are people, there’s jianghu. Our Beiping Military Statistics Bureau Station isn’t up to me alone, and with a higher rank crushing the lower one…”
“So you sold me out?” Cao Weida laughed in anger. This was too much of a rip-off!
Xu Jin’ge was even more embarrassed and hurriedly said: “Joining our Military Statistics Bureau isn’t bad at all. Think about it—after the little devils surrender, the future world won’t be ours, the Kuomintang’s?”
“Right now, you’re living comfortably as Captain Cao, but you have to think about after the War of Resistance victory, right?”
“With the Military Statistics Bureau’s protection, you’d be an anti-Japanese hero!”
“…” Cao Weida seemed swayed, looking hesitant. Seeing this, Xu Jin’ge relaxed inside.
Swayed is good, swayed is good!
He had a good impression of Cao Weida. More importantly, he knew Cao Weida was an ambitious young man.
He might be a bit afraid of death, but just for the fact that he thought to help Chinese people and Military Statistics Bureau people escape the little devils’ clutches, that was enough to make him pleased.
“Little bro, big bro won’t harm you. We won’t even require you to carry out missions. You’re just non-staff personnel. As long as you provide some help within your ability when we need it, and we’ve found you a powerful backer for the future—this deal is a steal.”
Cao Weida rolled his eyes inwardly. Saying “won’t harm you” usually wasn’t reliable.
With this protection now, it was indeed convenient, and he could strut around for the next few years. But what about the next few decades?
Putting on this skin was easy, but taking it off again would be hard.
Still, there were gains and losses. The Military Statistics Bureau’s style was always very aggressive. If he outright refused, he feared that turtle son Dai Li would bear a grudge and remember him, and then he’d be finished.
He sighed, “Brother Xu, you’ve really given me a tough problem.”
“This is a major matter. Give me two days to consider.” He didn’t agree right away. His ultimate goal was still to build good relations with the Communist Party.
To be safe, he should first tip off the Communist Party side about this to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings between the two sides.
“Sure, no problem.” Xu Jin’ge breathed a sigh of relief. As long as there wasn’t an immediate refusal, there was a good chance to pull Cao Weida in.
He thought highly of Cao Weida. Twice he’d found people in a short time. Whether skill or luck, he felt Cao Weida had potential to cultivate.
“Think this over first, but big bro still suggests you agree… Never mind, let’s drop this for now.” He pushed over ten gold bars:
“This is your reward, a total of ten gold bars.”
Before he finished speaking, Cao Weida frowned and interrupted: “Wait, Xu Jin’ge, weren’t we talking about fifteen gold bars?”
Last time it started at ten gold bars, but Cao Weida thought it was too few and asked for five more, and they agreed.
But now, there were only ten gold bars. Where were the other five?
Swallowed?
Xu Jin’ge’s expression was a bit unnatural, and he stammered: “Well, bro, you don’t know. This is our internal unwritten rule called skimming. Everyone who handles it has to hold some back. You getting sixty percent is already special approval—not many dare to skim.”
“Like our directorate—twenty thousand silver dollars allocated from above, and I’m thanking heaven if I get ten thousand in hand.”
“Fine, I haven’t even joined you yet, and you give me this surprise right off the bat.” Cao Weida laughed in real anger, thinking, no wonder they got crushed by the Communist Party later—damn, if the roots inside are rotten, what good tree can you expect?
“I, Cao Weida, have gotten this far not by being clueless. I know human relationships and social etiquette too, but your human relationships and social etiquette—isn’t the cost a bit too high? Aren’t some people afraid of getting burned by holding it too hot and burning themselves?”
