cicada

Chapter 1419 The Big Secret

The agents of No. 76 had met many intelligence personnel from the Nationalist government and the underground Communist Party. After being captured, these people either resisted to the end or succumbed to torture and became traitors. But this was the first time they had seen a prisoner as arrogant as Gui Youguang.

The other party was whipped over a hundred times, but instead of crying out in pain or surrendering, he cursed them. He was truly courting death.

"Damn it, you're asking for it!"

One of the agents cursed, raising his steel whip high in his hand, ready to strike. However, Li Shiqun, who was supervising the execution, coughed lightly twice, interrupting the agent's actions.

"Alright, your little tricks won't scare Mr. Gui. He's just looking for death and deliberately trying to provoke us."

With a confident air, Li Shiqun took two steps, then lowered his head to look into Gui Youguang's eyes: "Am I right, Mr. Gui?"

"It seems you have a big secret, a secret so big that you'd be willing to risk your life to protect it."

He became more and more excited as he spoke, like a vicious dog that had seen a bone, his expression extremely ferocious.

Gui Youguang remained calm, letting out a soft snort, too lazy to pay any attention to this traitor.

Li Shiqun was not annoyed. The worst thing about interrogation is encountering a silent person. If the other party reacts, it proves that there is a possibility of turning them to defect. So he continued to persuade them to surrender.

“Mr. Gui, you are a veteran in this line of work. You should understand that resistance is pointless. Even if you say nothing, you will still die in the end and suffer for nothing.”

“How about we make a deal? I won’t ask you to say anything. You just need to write a confession urging Deputy Director Zuo to abandon the darkness and embrace the light, and then take a photo. You can choose any position you want, from No. 76 to the new government.”

At first glance, Li Shiqun's terms seem very generous, but there are only two options: surrender or surrender anytime. Once you choose to become a traitor, there is no turning back.

Gui Youguang naturally understood this principle, but he just thought Li Shiqun was talking nonsense. He looked up at the light bulb on the ceiling and silently became more vigilant.

Li Shiqun not only wanted to turn him against his own side, but also wanted to use his "defection" to strike at the deputy commander and give the deputy commander's political enemies in the mountain city a reason to attack him.

This is an opponent who is very good at manipulating politics and people's hearts. It's no wonder that Ding Mocun sought a transfer to Jinling when dealing with this kind of cunning old fox.

Seeing that Gui Youguang did not reply, Li Shiqun chuckled and said to his subordinates, "Some of you are newcomers to this field and do not know the details of this Mr. Gui, which is understandable. He is not simple."

The agents pricked up their ears, especially those from the canal gang. They really didn't know the prisoner's background. Li Shiqun smiled smugly and raised his hand to introduce him.

"Mr. Gui is the operations instructor of the entire Military Intelligence Bureau. Most of the Military Intelligence Bureau agents are his students. He has seen more torture scenes than you have eaten meals."

“Torture is useless against this kind of opponent. Let’s get straight to the main course. We must not let our counterparts in the mountain city look down on us.”

The interrogators, number 76, immediately got to work, pinning Gui Youguang to the electric chair. One of them grabbed a razor to shave his hair, while the others began setting up the electrodes.

A few minutes later, wires were attached to Gui Youguang's temples, arms, and ankles. Li Shiqun didn't waste any words and simply nodded to the technicians.

As the switch was pulled down, the transformer in the electric chair hummed due to overload. Gui Youguang's body jolted violently, his fingers straightened, his feet tensed, and the leather straps binding his hands and feet creaked as they were pulled.

The lights in the interrogation room flickered on and off. Li Shiqun stood under the light, lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and blew the smoke into the air.
-
Jinling.

A Japanese river gunboat slowly docked at the Shimonoseki pier, and Zuo Zhong led a group of his men ashore.

"Your Excellency, I wish you all the best."

The Japanese Anqing fleet commander stood beside the gangplank and quietly said goodbye, his attitude even more respectful than when he saw Tianhuang.

As the breadwinner of the entire Anqing Fleet, it's not surprising that the commander would lower himself so much in front of Zuo Zhong. If it weren't for the inappropriate occasion, he would have liked to kneel down on the spot.

Zuo Zhong nodded slightly, quickly walked past the other person, and led his men straight to the dock exit, where they soon met up with Wu Chunyang, who had come to greet them.

The group got into the car and drove towards the city. Zuo Chong asked with a dark face, "What exactly happened? Weren't you supposed to use traitors and Japanese to get rid of Li Shiqun? Why was Gui Youguang exposed?"

Sensing the dissatisfaction in his words, Wu Chunyang dared not delay and quickly explained, "Several students attempted to assassinate Li Shiqun. You Guang happened to be at the scene at the time. I will give you a detailed report on the situation once we get to the safe house."

This result was hard for Zuo Zhong to accept. His carefully prepared plan had not been ruined by the Japanese and traitors, but was instead destroyed by a group of students.

As the car passed by Hong Gongci in silence, Zuo Zhong looked out the window at the familiar streets, and his memories instantly returned to his days in Nanjing before the war. Unfortunately, the headquarters of the Military Intelligence Bureau had long been destroyed by Japanese bombing and turned into a pile of ruins.

After a while, Zuo Zhong suddenly ordered: "Notify the listening team to closely monitor the movements of No. 76, and report to Jinling immediately if they find anything."

"Yes."

A faint look of worry appeared on Wu Chunyang's face. Gui Youguang and he were always inseparable. Naturally, he was worried about his old partner's safety after Gui Youguang was arrested.
-
The interrogation room No. 76 was filled with smoke, including secondhand smoke from Li Shiqun and fumes from the high-temperature carbonization of the electrode contacts as an electric current passed through his body. The smell was extremely pungent.

Gui Youguang's forehead veins bulged, but he remained silent, clenching his teeth. Whenever he was about to faint, the agents from No. 76 would increase the electric current.

The traitors present knew that they were facing the most elite professional agents and could not afford to give them a chance to breathe.

After being tortured repeatedly for several hours, Gui Youguang's wrists and ankles were rubbed raw and bloody from the violent struggles.

"Stop." Li Shiqun called out to halt the execution and went to Gui Youguang again to persuade him to surrender.

“Mr. Gui, just confess. To be honest, we haven’t caught anyone else besides you. Even if you confess, it won’t affect the Military Intelligence Bureau at all. Why make things difficult for yourself?”

"In life, we can't just think about ideals or ideologies. Those things are all fake. The most important thing is to survive."

"Do you believe that if you die in our hands today, the Military Intelligence Bureau will at most hold a memorial service for you, and then you will become a stack of files in the archives, and no one will remember you?"

He spoke earnestly, his eyes fixed on Gui Youguang's face, trying to find a breakthrough, but Gui Youguang remained expressionless.

Enraged, Li Shiqun ordered an intensification of the torture, starting with the most basic tiger bench and pepper spray, and then moving on to the latest drug-based interrogation methods, determined to use every torture technique employed by the 76th Division.

From that day on, the interrogators at No. 76 worked in three shifts for a whole week, but they got nothing out of them.

During this time, Li Shiqun came several times. Looking at Gui Youguang, who was covered in blood, he felt even more chilled. Such an opponent was too terrifying.

But there's no turning back once the arrow is released; he could only suppress his fear and keep talking to Gui Youguang every day.

That day, when Li Shiqun once again talked about the theory of saving the country through curves, which even he himself did not believe, the bald man's expression finally changed.

Li Shiqun was overjoyed and raised his voice, attempting to completely break down Gui Youguang's psychological defenses.

“Mr. Gui, don’t be so stubborn. In terms of faith, the Northwest is more steadfast than your mountain city, but so what? There are still many underground party members who chose to abandon the darkness and join the new government.”

"Among these people, there are many who hold higher positions and have higher status than you. As your senior, I advise you not to think that being afraid of death is something shameful."

As expected of a veteran agent trained at Oriental University and the Red Russian Special Police School, Li Shiqun's ability to manipulate people is truly remarkable. In just a few words, he made surrendering and becoming a traitor sound as natural as eating and drinking.

Normal people feel guilty when they do bad things; conversely, if they don't feel ashamed, they will have no bottom line when they do bad things.

Gui Youguang cracked his neck and glanced at the junior agents present, seemingly hesitant about something. Li Shiqun decisively dismissed all his men, leaving only the two of them in the interrogation room.

Among the departing crowd, Tong Suo glanced at Gui Youguang out of the corner of his eye, his mood somewhat somber, having prepared for the worst.

After everyone left, Li Shiqun pointed to the surrounding walls and assured them, "Alright, say what you have to say. I swear on my life, there are no recording devices here."

Upon hearing this, Gui Youguang sneered and grinned sarcastically, "Director Li, do you think I would believe you? If you want my cooperation, fine, but let's find an open space."

Li Shiqun frowned. He knew the other side's intention in doing this. If the Japanese lost in the end, as long as there was no clear recording, the other side could claim that they had not surrendered.

After careful consideration, Li Shiqun nodded: "Alright, let's go to the lawn in front of the building. Mr. Gui, I'm warning you, don't try anything funny. You only get one chance."

After saying that, he summoned a junior agent to put the heaviest handcuffs and shackles on Gui Youguang, and the group left the underground interrogation room and came to the surface.

It was midday, and the sunlight was a bit dazzling. As Gui Youguang stepped out of the gate, he raised his hand to shield his eyes, glancing discreetly at the other side of the road.

In an office upstairs, Tong Suo sat upright in a chair, facing the door, with a loaded Browning pistol resting on his knees.

In the worst-case scenario, he would have to take as many traitors from the 76th Division as his scapegoats before he died, as a way of avenging the compatriots who died at his hands.

Downstairs, Gui Youguang and Li Shiqun walked to the center of the lawn and saw that the nearest spy was more than ten meters away. Only then did the two begin to talk.

"Mr. Gui, you can speak now. I hope the information you provide is valuable, otherwise things will get complicated," Li Shiqun threatened with a forced smile.

Gui Youguang seemed not to hear him. He lifted the iron chain connecting the handcuffs with both hands, took a greedy breath of air, and then turned to ask a question.

"Director Li, have you ever wondered why the Military Intelligence Bureau's operations against the Japanese have never failed?"

"Of course I've thought about it!"

Li Shiqun blurted out that someone who had been in this business for so many years was definitely not stupid. He probed, "There are moles among the Japanese, and these moles hold very high positions."

“Not bad.” Gui Youguang turned around, facing the road, and slowly said, “Most of the intelligence on Japan obtained by the Military Intelligence Bureau was leaked by this person. I wonder if this piece of intelligence is valuable?”

A surge of excitement rushed to Li Shiqun's head. As soon as Gui Youguang finished speaking, he couldn't wait to ask the crucial question: the mole's name and position.

If he could uncover the mole in the Military Intelligence Bureau, his position in the new government would be secure, and even if Zhou Fushui and others opposed him, the Japanese would support him.

Just as Li Shiqun was lost in thought, Gui Youguang whispered a name, which startled Deputy Director Li so much that he froze on the spot and stammered a question.

"You, you say it again, who is the mole?"

It wasn't that he was making a fuss; it was just that what the other person said was too astonishing—how could that person be a mole?

Seeing that he didn't believe him, Gui Youguang covered his mouth with his hand, put on a mysterious look, and repeated what he had just said: "The mole of the Military Intelligence Bureau is Gangcun, the captain of the Nanjing Military Police."