Wuzhou is situated at the southernmost tip of the Penglai Empire. The Wuzhou River, which winds through the city, flows into the Laoxian River—the border with the Kongwu Empire.
It was already past noon by the time the two arrived in Wuzhou.
“We made it, barely,” Ryoko said, pointing ahead. “On the north bank of the Laoxian River is a crossing called Maliang Port. There is a boat-inn there called Hugyue Lou; that is our destination. We will rest at the Yuanshan Grand Hotel in the city until evening. Sleep well. At dusk, we cross the Wuzhou River and infiltrate Hugyue Lou.”
Wuzhou was a bustling city, lined with restaurants and tea houses. The forest of upturned, curved eaves looked like a mountain of needles. The vibrant colors of the glittering red lanterns were almost blinding.
The Yuanshan Grand Hotel was a five-story circular building. The two were shown to a twin suite on the top floor, which offered a panoramic view of the Wuzhou and Laoxian Rivers.
“Come and wake me here at five o’clock.”
“Eh? I’m not allowed to rest here too?”
Ryoko looked at him as if the answer were obvious. “Don’t worry. A room has been prepared for you as well. You have a little over three hours. Sleep deeply. Let the butler show you the way.”
Hiejima was led to a shared room facing the inner courtyard. “Courtyard” was a generous term; it was merely a place where laundry was hung. It was a cramped, suffocating room. It seemed that while the guests of honor occupied the outer rooms, their attendants were relegated to the inner courtyard.
Hiejima, exhausted from driving all night, lacked the energy to complain, let alone the will to change his clothes. He collapsed into the room among other men who were snoring loudly in the middle of the day. Both the bed and the futon were too short, barely reaching his shins. The pillow was made of ceramic—hard and useless—and the duvet was as flat as a pancake.
Still sleep-deprived, he went to Ryoko’s room at the appointed time. She had discarded her blouse and monpe and was wearing a green one-piece dress, looking like a typical town girl.
“Well? Do I look like a civilian?” she asked. “Now, wear this. I bought it for you. From this moment on, you are to act as my husband, or my lover, or something of the sort.”
She handed him a denim jacket and jeans—likely second-hand. Along with them was a T-shirt bearing the logo of the Yuanshan Grand Hotel; it was clearly a souvenir sold at the hotel’s gift shop.
“Did you go shopping while I was asleep? Or did you do this while you were snoring in the sidecar?”
“You idiot. Of course I slept. I couldn’t do my job without sleep. I have fellow operatives in Wuzhou; I simply had them buy these for you.”
“I see. And where exactly am I supposed to change?”
“Does it matter? Change wherever you like. Throw away those filthy clothes of yours. I’ll buy you more if you need them.”
Treating me like a servant, is she?
“These are government-issued. I cannot simply discard them or buy replacements on a whim.”
“Regardless, they interfere with the mission. Throw them away.”
Hiejima changed his clothes right in front of her, standing in his underwear for a moment. Ryoko didn’t show a hint of embarrassment; she simply watched him with her arms crossed.
Upon checking out of the Yuanshan Grand Hotel, they piled back into the Type 97—still painted in its monotonous khaki—and crossed the long stone bridge over the Wuzhou River. The railings were adorned with carvings of guardian lions and their cubs. Hiejima wondered if it was a bridge of some historical significance.
“Kyaa!” Ryoko shrieked. “The muddy water is splashing! Avoid the puddles and drive slowly!”
Even as she said this, the crowds were so thick that he had no choice but to drive through the puddles to move forward.
Ryoko took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. “Wuzhou is mud from end to end,” she grumbled.
They parked the bike in a back alley a short distance from Hugyue Lou. Ryoko took Hiejima’s arm, hiding her face beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat, and gave instructions to the doorman at the main entrance. A reservation had already been made.
“My face is too well-known. I will sit facing the wall; you sit with your back to the wall.”
The dishes arrived in quick succession: Dongpo pork, drunken crabs, and sweet and sour carp. Ryoko efficiently portioned the food onto small plates.
“Don’t eat,” she whispered sharply. “If you eat, you’ll get sleepy. Pretend to eat, but don’t actually swallow.”
Hiejima felt the situation was a form of torture. Ryoko was, upon closer inspection, quite beautiful, and he was surrounded by the fragrant aroma of a feast while fighting off a wave of drowsiness.
“You are to be my eyes. Look at this photo. This is Colonel Inagaki, a military surgeon.”
The photo looked like a formal studio portrait, almost like a matchmaking photo. Then she showed him another—a blurry, candid shot. He could tell it was a young woman, but her features were indistinct.
“And this woman calls herself Peng Cuilian, but she is a descendant of the Yarud royal house. Her real name is Tabuyan.
She should be sitting at the table in front of you.”
“The Yarud kingdom? I thought they were wiped out by the Mongol Empire ages ago.”
“I know not the truth of it, but apparently, for hundreds of years, descendants claiming to be of the Yarud royalty have survived in East Asia, waiting for an opportunity to secede from our empire.”
How anachronistic, Hiejima thought.
“There is a woman who fits the description. At the table below the stairs. She’s looking this way. Ah—a man has joined her. He has his back to us.”
“Observe them more closely, without being noticed.”
“The woman is young. More like a girl. She’s flirting with the man. Short hair, wearing a flashy purple floral cheongsam. The man is dressed entirely in black, wearing an overcoat. Long, straight hair parted in the middle, and he’s wearing sunglasses. He seems taciturn. He looks a bit younger than me, perhaps thirty.”
“Without a doubt, that is Peng Cuilian and Inagaki. Inagaki stole military secrets and deserted. Cuilian is to receive those secrets from him and deliver them to the Kongwu Empire, south of the Laoxian River. The Kongwu will then cross the river and raid our supply lines, granaries, and secret military factories. While our army is distracted by the Kongwu attack, the Yarud tribes in the north will rise up and pinch our empire in a pincer movement.”
“The Yarud? You mean those raiders who haunt the Yunnan region? They are an ancient minority? They want independence?
Surely they’re just outlaws banding together. What possible justification could they have?”
“A commoner like you wouldn’t know,” Ryoko said, her voice dropping. “But among the royalty, the Yarud still wield a certain… inscrutable, hidden influence.”
Hiejima remembered the raiders in Jiaolong Gorge who had called Ryoko Dajie.
“Don’t tell me you yourself have connections to the Yarud? To those continental ronin?”
“I know nothing of it. They simply admire me of their own accord. They are citizens of our empire, after all. At times, they are reliable allies. One might even call them my loyal subjects.”
“So, they act as your agents?”
“You may assume so.”
“In my line of work, I often clash with them, but they don’t seem to possess an army capable of maintaining a state or a social organization to govern one. Aren’t they just a weak local power?”
“That depends on the Kongwu Empire. Even if they are a weak tribe, the Kongwu hate us for taking the Lingnan and Lingbei provinces north of the Laoxian River. They are inciting the Yarud to reclaim lost territory. Peng Cuilian is the Yarud agent, and Inagaki is the fool deceived by that vixen. I will kill him. And Peng Cuilian with him.”
“Why would Inagaki betray our country?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re going to kill him without knowing why?”
“He must be killed before it is too late.”
“Why do you, a woman, insist on killing Inagaki yourself? Why not leave such a task to the special forces?”
Ryoko muttered impatiently, “Because Inagaki is my fiancé.”
“Huh?”
“Fine. It has nothing to do with the operation, but I’ll give them time to enjoy their last supper. To pass the time, I’ll tell you a story. Inagaki and I met at a field hospital. Two years ago, I became a Medical Second Lieutenant and began my intelligence work. I met Inagaki a year ago. He wooed me with silver-tongued promises, and I foolishly fell in love with him. I was prepared to renounce my royal status and become ‘Ryoko Inagaki.'”
So, when a princess marries a civilian, she takes a civilian name, Hiejima thought.
“However, Inagaki only approached me to steal secrets from my family’s vault. Peng Cuilian is, like me, an army nurse, but she too was a spy. Inagaki was the same. They both used their status as non-combatant medical personnel to carry out espionage. Inagaki and Peng Cuilian were exchanging captured spies under the guise of repatriating wounded soldiers. That is how the two of them became intimate. Inagaki used me to steal the secrets from the Takakibi vault, and he intends to defect to the Kongwu Empire to be with Peng Cuilian.”
“How did you find out?”
“There were love letters in Inagaki’s desk drawer. The kind of letters that make one’s face flush.”
For a spy, leaving love letters with an enemy agent in a place where his fiancée could find them seems sloppy, Hiejima thought. Something feels off.
“‘I will wait at Hugyue Lou. —Cuilian.’ It said. For some reason, they always used this place for their trysts. I received word from a spy in Wuzhou that Inagaki entered the city yesterday, and Cuilian arrived at Maliang Port. After doing all this, there’s no way Inagaki would stay in Penglai. He intends to be sheltered in Kongwu. In short, it was all orchestrated by Cuilian. There is no greater insult to a princess of Penglai. I cannot be satisfied until I kill Inagaki
with my own hands.”
“And how do you intend to do that?”
“I wonder. Perhaps I’ll appear suddenly before him, and while he’s shaken, I’ll put a lead bullet right between his eyes.”
“And this woman, Peng Cuilian—who is she? A female bandit leader?”
“Perhaps.”
“And what will you do with her?”
“I haven’t thought that far. Perhaps I’ll punish her a bit and make her spill everything.”
“There are two of them, and two of us. Whether you capture or kill them, aren’t we too understaffed?”
“There is no need for that concern. I am not acting alone in this. I believe I told you. They are already rats in a trap.
There is no escape.”
A waiter came to clear the plates from the table where the man and woman sat; their meal was over. In their place, coffee and cake were served. The man produced a paper bag. It looked like a gift for a lover, but what the woman pulled from the bag was a thick book, resembling a dictionary.
“The man gave her a book. A thick book with a reddish-brown cover.”
Ryoko looked back. “The Sishu Jizhu—the Collected Commentaries on the Four Books. That is the codebook. Irrefutable evidence of treason.”
Ryoko marched toward Inagaki. Instinctively, Peng Cuilian shoved the book into her bodice, leapt onto the table behind her, and vaulted over the staircase railing like an acrobat. She sprinted up to the second floor, moving like a performer from a Shanghai circus.
A stunned Inagaki turned around just as Ryoko extended her arm to press a gun against him.
“Stop. Calm down.”
A single gunshot rang through the restaurant, sending the patrons into a panic. Inagaki twisted Ryoko’s wrist upward, and the gun flew from her hand, clattering onto the floor.
“Tabuyan!” Ryoko screamed, pinned down by Inagaki.
Inagaki pursued Cuilian, but she kicked off the roof tiles of a window and dove into the river, escaping. A tugboat, moving with a speed that belied its worn appearance, sped away down the Laoxian River. Cuilian was likely on board. Ahead of it lay a Kongwu Empire gunboat.
Authorities quickly swarmed the area, and everyone present was detained.
“How could this happen… the secrets have fallen into enemy hands. And I failed to kill you,” Ryoko wept tears of frustration.
Inagaki smiled and whispered into her ear:
“The secrets I took from the Takakibi vault were false information. Your father, the Prince of Takakibi, knew this of course, but he didn’t tell you. He fully expected there to be spies within the Takakibi house. He figured that if you were genuinely distraught, it would better deceive the enemy. I didn’t want to involve you in this, which is why I put sugar in your gasoline. I didn’t expect you to actually make it here. Peng Cuilian likely had her doubts about me, but
thanks to your ‘masterful performance,’ she is now completely convinced. I didn’t have to risk a real defection to Kongwu.
The Kongwu will likely believe my information and push north across the Laoxian River. Our army will feign a retreat. The strategic points they attack are merely decoys. We will surround and annihilate them. The Yarud will also rise in the north, but without coordination with the Kongwu, they will be crushed. Our empire will rid itself of threats from both north and south simultaneously.
To achieve this, the enemy had to believe that the secrets I held were real—that I was so blinded by my love for Peng Cuilian that I would betray my fiancée and defect. I walked a dangerous line this time. I’m sorry for putting you through so much.”
“You idiot.”
Ryoko could no longer find words; she simply buried her face in Inagaki’s chest.
Hiejima, watching this romantic squabble, found the whole thing absurd. He walked back to the bike parked in the alley and, still wearing his jeans and Yuanshan Grand Hotel T-shirt, rode away from Maliang Port alone.