Kingsman Agent in Film and Television

After seeing Zhang Anping off, Xu Baichuan did not fall asleep.

Normally, people tend to be drowsy after drinking alcohol, but sometimes, alcohol can't affect a person's will—especially after deciding to do something extraordinary.

Xu Baichuan never actually considered betraying his country—he even once believed that betrayal should never happen to him.

Xu Baichuan was extremely disappointed when the civil war broke out.

Soldiers can indeed gain merit and glory in the flames of war, but for a country that has been ravaged, war only brings endless suffering.

On the European battlefield, the rolling torrents of steel and the smoke and craters created by artillery fire of hundreds of calibers sent chills down one's spine. The story of the fat man and the little boy, whose deaths were abruptly ended by the United States, further demonstrated to Xu Baichuan the terrifying power of modern weaponry.

As a Chinese person, a Chinese person with a five-thousand-year-old civilization that was only dethroned in the last hundred years, Xu Baichuan was filled with envy for the steel torrents on the European battlefield, the artillery fire that swept across the Pacific battlefield, and the atomic bomb that ended the war early.

Like many insightful people, he believed that at this time, the country should put away its weapons and let its horses graze freely, and then concentrate its national strength to emerge from the shadow of war, revitalize its industry, and catch up with its allies, rather than returning to a situation where it was helpless in the face of the great powers' demands.

However, just when the whole country was hoping to form a coalition government, the Nationalist government ultimately chose to engage in civil war!

Utterly disappointed, Xu Baichuan told himself:
After the civil war ends, the country can still develop. Two or three years won't be too far behind—we've already fallen behind for so many years, so what's a few more years?

But disappointment followed one after another.

The financial collapse, the Nationalist government's bottomless darkness, and the hopeless war situation caused Xu Baichuan's accumulated disappointment to finally turn into despair.

What ultimately broke him was the failure of the anti-corruption campaign and his multi-million dollar investment portfolio.

How difficult is the country's situation?

No—it should be said that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the crisis of national subjugation and racial extinction was imminent, but what were those in power doing?
They amassed enormous wealth—Zhang Anping said, "If the skin is gone, where will the hair attach?" But did those people ever care about that?
During the War of Resistance against Japan, the crisis of national subjugation and racial extinction was imminent!

As a result, US aid became a tool for them to seize profits.

Forty million US dollars was a life-saving fund that Zhang Anping secretly provided to his chief of staff at great risk. In the end, only a few hundred thousand US dollars were converted into supplies.

Now, anyone who isn't blind can see the hardships the country is facing, yet they are still recklessly seizing resources.

Is there any help?

Is there any hope?

In utter despair, watching the traffic police headquarters inevitably become corrupt, Xu Baichuan... finally made a decision.

Because he discovered hope, which could only be seen from that side—his trip to Nanjing was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

He made his decision, so he wanted to go with his brothers to seek the light.

But Zhang Anping's behavior made Xu Baichuan realize an undeniable fact:

Zhang Anping is a stubborn loyalist of the Party and the State. He is determined to rot along with the Party and the State, to be an incorruptible martyr, and to be buried with a corrupt regime that is not worth mentioning.

It wasn't that he didn't want to help his brother, it wasn't that he didn't want to lead Zhang Anping towards the light, but...

Zhang Anping has made his stance clear!

"Anping, I'm sorry."

After a long while, Xu Baichuan murmured in a daze.

He didn't want to see his old brothers in the Loyal Salvation Army die for this corrupt regime, and he didn't want to see the Loyal Salvation Army, to which he had poured all his heart and soul, eventually become as dirty and unsightly as the vast majority of the National Revolutionary Army.

That would be an insult to our fallen brothers and a devastation of their unwavering beliefs!

Between righteousness and loyalty, he... could only choose the former.

……

Perhaps because Xu Baichuan didn't want to sleep, someone knocked on his door.

Xu Baichuan went to open the door, and when he saw the figure standing outside, he showed a strange expression:

"Deputy Station Master Zheng, what a rare guest!"

Zheng Yaoxian, dressed in the uniform of a Nationalist general, stood outside his door.

Faced with Xu Baichuan's mocking tone, Zheng Yaoxian smiled slightly, then picked up the item in his hand and displayed it in front of Xu Baichuan.

A bag of... apples.

Xu Baichuan was stunned. His memory involuntarily returned to that dark, secret room—a person, at great risk, threw one bitten apple after another into the hole dug by the Luoyang shovel.

Those few apples became the key to his and another person's survival.

The one who risked throwing the apple was named Zhang Anping, and the one who shared the rotten apple with him was named... Zheng Yaoxian.

Xu Baichuan stepped aside and, as Zheng Yaoxian entered, "snatched" the bag from his hand, took out an apple, wiped it on Zheng Yaoxian's officer's uniform, and then took a big bite.

I greedily chewed on the fruit in my mouth, but it still didn't taste the same as before.

Zheng Yaoxian watched intently until Xu Baichuan swallowed all the fruit in his mouth before he spoke:

"Something doesn't taste right?"

"Perhaps it's because he missed that one bite."

Xu Baichuan threw the bag of apples onto the sofa and sneered, "You're too ashamed to mention him."

From Xu Baichuan's perspective, Zhang Anping did not wrong Zheng Yaoxian; on the contrary, Zheng Yaoxian deliberately distanced himself from Zhang Anping and eventually became his political opponent.

Zheng Yaoxian smiled and said with amusement:
"Each each other."

Xu Baichuan angrily said:

Don't try to compare me to you!

Zheng Yaoxian laughed heartily:
"You feel guilty!"

Xu Baichuan simply ignored him and said to himself, "The wine is finished—if you want to drink, you can drink by yourself. There's still a lot of leftover food, enough for you."

Zheng Yaoxian magically produced a bottle of wine from his pocket.

"I have."

"I'm drunk."

"Don't you want to drink with me?"

"Asking questions knowingly!"

Xu Baichuan once tried to salvage the brotherhood of the Shanghai Iron Triangle, but failed, and harbored a great deal of resentment towards Zheng Yaoxian.

Zheng Yaoxian didn't take it seriously. He unscrewed the bottle cap, took the two wine cups in front of him, poured half a cup into one of the cups, swirled it around to rinse it with wine, and finally poured the wine out, saying leisurely:

“You see, there’s never a drop left in your wine cup, but there isn’t.”

Xu Baichuan immediately perked up, because the wine cup that Zheng Yaoxian had just washed with wine belonged to Zhang Anping.

He tilted his head to look at Zheng Yaoxian, very curious about what Zheng Yaoxian was up to.

Zheng Yaoxian poured the wine into two small cups: "Want one?"

Without clinking glasses, Xu Baichuan downed his drink in one gulp, then continued to look at Zheng Yaoxian, waiting for Zheng Yaoxian's "medicine."

“I received a strange message before – someone ordered that a supervisory group be secretly formed in the traffic police headquarters.”

Zheng Yaoxian looked at Xu Baichuan with a half-smile: "If it was Mao who did it, I wouldn't be surprised! If it was me or Tang Zong who did it, I wouldn't be surprised either, but it was him!" "That's what puzzles me."

As Zheng Yaoxian poured out the "medicine" from the gourd, Xu Baichuan's heart skipped a beat.

I... I made it too obvious. Zhang Anping's vigilance is too high!
Faced with the "medicine" that Zheng Yaoxian had poured out, Xu Baichuan sighed and said:
“In the past, the Zhongjiu Army plundered so much of the people’s property in a year that it was not enough to fill two hands. I am ashamed of it.”

"Now, it's almost 100 in three months."

This explains why "he" established a secret inspection team within the traffic police corps.

Unexpectedly, this answer made Zheng Yaoxian chuckle, and then he burst into laughter.

"Old Xu, if I didn't have a bunch of evidence that you let me off the hook, I almost would have believed you."

Xu Baichuan felt a chill run through his body, but he was, after all, a veteran spy—back when Dai Chunfeng went to the Shanghai docks to pick up Zhang Anping, he and Zheng Yaoxian were his two henchmen, so how could he be easily "tricked" by Zheng Yaoxian's words? Therefore, he sneered and said:
"So you're saying I'm a communist sympathizer?"

Zheng Yaoxian shook his head: "No—because I know you don't. As for sympathy, that has never been a problem for you."

Xu Baichuan stared intently at Zheng Yaoxian, his gaze then falling on the bag of apples. An unbelievable thought surfaced, but he quickly dismissed it—how could this be!

"What brings you here? Have you been looking for me for so long?" Xu Baichuan sneered, "I have a feeling you came with a knife!"

Zheng Yaoxian leaned out, took an apple out of the bag, took a bite, and tossed it to Xu Baichuan:

"Try it and see if it tastes like it used to."

Xu Baichuan looked at the apple that Zheng Yaoxian had taken a bite out of. The thought he had just banished stubbornly returned. He slowly took a bite but did not make any response.

Zheng Yaoxian should be the one to say it!

Zheng Yaoxian abruptly said:

"Liu Xinjie is my comrade."

Xu Baichuan's gaze sharpened suddenly. Surprised?
Do not!
not at all!
As the head of the traffic police corps, Liu Xinjie knew whether or not he was a Communist. He couldn't be sure during the War of Resistance against Japan, but the performance of the traffic police corps during the civil war gave him a very clear idea.

Apart from those generals who knew the situation well, most generals unconsciously regarded the traffic police brigade as a guerrilla force, so the traffic police brigade played the role of protecting logistics, defense, and dealing with guerrillas.

This inevitably led to a battle with the People's Liberation Army—Xu Baichuan knew very well what kind of background any deviation from the performance during the War of Resistance!

Liu Xinjie, leading a brigade, couldn't wipe out a mere guerrilla force—does he even need to think about his identity?
Zheng Yaoxian ignored Xu Baichuan's feigned sharp gaze and continued speaking:
"Old Tan has just joined our organization. He probably knew about Liu Xinjie's identity back in the early days of the civil war, but he pretended not to see it until the financial package incident was fully exposed, and he finally made a decision."

"Old Li (Li Xingyu) joined our organization as soon as the civil war broke out."

Zheng Yaoxian was saying one name after another—it seemed rather abrupt, didn't it?

In fact, these comrades were all keenly aware that Xu Baichuan must have realized their identities and reported their suspicions.

As Zheng Yaoxian uttered one name after another, Xu Baichuan's previously absurd ideas gradually became more certain.

But he still didn't dare to believe it easily.

How could Zheng Yaoxian be a hidden undercover agent?

How could he be a hidden undercover agent?

"By the way, General Mi Gu greatly admires you, Lao Xu—he says you are one of the few patriotic generals in the National Revolutionary Army who understands the greater good and is deeply grateful for your kindness in never betraying him!"

The Zhongjiu Army once joined forces with the New Fourth Army to pull off a major heist, seizing a large amount of Japanese military equipment. The Japanese army was furious and mobilized a large force to encircle and suppress them. However, the Southern Anhui Incident broke out at that time, and Dai Chunfeng flew to the front line and ordered the Zhongjiu Army to stab the New Fourth Army in the back.

Xu Baichuan deliberately delayed the process, giving the New Fourth Army time to regroup.

Xu Baichuan still couldn't believe Zheng Yaoxian's words.

Zheng Yaoxian naturally understood Xu Baichuan's caution and persistence, and he said quietly:

"Old Xu, do you know why? Ever since the investment package scandal was exposed, our work has become much easier. You should know better than me why!"

"As for why I met with you—it's because Zhang Anping secretly ordered the establishment of an inspection team within the Traffic Police Corps, which made me feel that the time was ripe."

Anping, I'm sorry, I plagiarized your words.

Xu Baichuan paused, then repeated, "Is the time... ripe?"

"Yes—because you've completely lost hope in the Party-state, haven't you?"

When Zheng Yaoxian uttered the words of utter despair, Xu Baichuan could no longer contain his excitement.

Perhaps Zheng Yaoxian is trying to bluff me, but that doesn't matter!
The important thing is that someone saw their own despair!
When did you join them?

Zheng Yaoxian paused for a moment: "It always has been."

Staring at Zheng Yaoxian in astonishment, Xu Baichuan couldn't believe that Zheng Yaoxian had always been like this.

He asked tentatively, "Katyusha?"

Zheng Yaoxian smiled slightly:
"Have you ever considered that Katyusha isn't actually a single person's code name, but rather... a collective name for a group of people?"

"Patriotic businessman, warrior lurking in the heart of the enemy, patriot yearning for hope..."

Katyusha used to be Zhang Anping's code name, but later, this code name belonged to many more people!

Upon hearing this, Xu Baichuan gave a strange laugh:

"You're Katyusha? How ridiculous! Anping investigated for so long, and he never expected that you, who went from brother to rival, would be the person he was looking for!"

"Surprised?" Zheng Yaoxian shook his head. "Old Xu, we used to be solitary travelers, but now... we're not a minority anymore. You should understand that better!"

These words were very ordinary, but to Xu Baichuan, they were the final, irrefutable confirmation of Zheng Yaoxian's identity.

He wasn't a true underground party member; he couldn't understand, much less say, those words!

Xu Baichuan sighed softly upon hearing this:
"Yes, I understand that even better."

“The Party-state always disappoints its loyal followers time and time again. When disappointment turns into despair, it loses one supporter, while you gain one more comrade.”

Zheng Yaoxian, however, corrected:

"It's us!"

Xu Baichuan took a deep breath:

"It's...us!"

At this moment, he acknowledged Zheng Yaoxian's identity and his own feelings.

"Old Xu, we're fighting side by side again! Want a bite?"

Instead of hugging his brother, Zheng Yaoxian took out another apple, took a bite, and handed it to Xu Baichuan.

Xu Baichuan took it and swallowed a mouthful without hesitation.

Zheng Yaoxian asked with a smile:

"How does it taste?"

Xu Baichuan nodded emphatically: "It has that flavor!"

Zheng Yaoxian laughed, but his eyes were fixed on the bag of apples—the apples were given to him by Zhang Anping.

How could it possibly taste any different from the original? (End of Chapter)