My spy diary

Chapter 622 Divine Soldiers Descend from the Sky (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

On the outskirts of the mountain town, there was a small courtyard with two mud-brick houses and a low thatched hut.

Inside the house, Old Liu and his wife, Granny Huang, were fast asleep.

A knock on the door suddenly broke the silence of the night.

Old Mrs. Huang, who was sleeping beside the bed, woke up first. She sat up abruptly, listened carefully, and seeing that her husband was still fast asleep, she immediately pinched him:
"Pig? Wake up! Someone's knocking on the door!"

"What's wrong now? What are you doing making such a fuss in the middle of the night?" Old Liu muttered as he rolled over, only to be pinched again by Granny Huang, waking him up instantly. He was about to scold his wife when he heard a knock on the door and suddenly realized something was wrong:
"Who is it, in the middle of the night?"

"Who knows which of your cronies you are?" Old Mrs. Huang snorted coldly, lay down again, and angrily scolded, "Don't forget you promised me that if you dare to get drunk again, you can stay out of the house and go with whoever you want."

"It's just a little drink, not like we're going to a brothel, why are you in such a hurry?" Old Liu retorted sullenly, threw off the covers, rolled out of bed, put on his clothes, and shuffled towards the door in his slippers.

"Who?"

No one answered, but the knocking continued, sounding particularly crisp in the quiet night.

"Who is it? If you don't speak up, I'm going to start cursing!" Old Liu opened the door, grabbed the door-blocking stick, and looked suspiciously at the courtyard gate.

The knocking continued.

"Damn it, is this never going to end?" Old Liu couldn't hold back any longer. He cursed and grabbed the door-blocking stick, opened the gate, and as soon as he peeked out, a pistol was already pointed at his head. Old Liu was so frightened that his hands and feet went weak, and his hand holding the door-blocking stick trembled slightly.
"Hero, spare my life!"

"Can you read?" The gun's owner's voice was rough, yet it carried an undisguised ruthlessness that sent chills down one's spine.

"You know a few words?" Old Liu subconsciously responded, looking up but unable to see the other person's face clearly. Just as he was about to say something, he was interrupted by the owner of the pistol:
"That's good. Go back and take a good look! Remember, take good care of Xiaoduo and raise her to adulthood. If anything happens to her, my organization and I will not let you off the hook. We will hunt you down to the ends of the earth."

As he spoke, the man shoved a paper package into his arms, jabbed the gun hard into his head, shoved him until he stumbled, and then quickly turned and disappeared into the darkness.

Old Liu trembled all over and stumbled to his feet. He stood there stunned for a long time, panting heavily as he came to his senses. He looked around, but there was no one in sight.

"Damn, that scared me to death!" Old Liu spat out the words. Just as he finished speaking, there was a rustling sound in the darkness. He couldn't tell if it was a wild rabbit or a wild cat that suddenly darted past. Startled, he turned around and scurried into the yard.

Only after he closed the door tightly and bolted it did he gasp for breath, leaning on the bolt. Everything that had just happened felt like a dream. The person was like a ghost, coming and going quickly, and all of this filled him with fear from the bottom of his heart.

He trembled as he returned to the house, closed the door, and used a doorstop to brace it shut before collapsing into a slumped seat.

"What the hell?" Old Mrs. Huang was completely bewildered by his inexplicable actions. She jumped off the bed. "Old man, what's wrong with you?"

Old Liu was in a daze. Old Huang asked him several times before he came to his senses and shakily pulled out a paper packet from his pocket.

"what?"

Old Mrs. Huang, with her sharp eyes, snatched it away and impatiently opened it. What greeted her eyes were two gleaming gold bars. She froze, her face filled with disbelief, and bit one with her teeth, nearly jumping up in shock.
"It's true! We're rich! We're rich! Boss, where did you get this money?"

Old Liu was shocked. Just as he was about to say something, he heard a "thud" as something fell to the ground. Seeing that Granny Huang's gaze had shifted to the ground, he looked over as well. What he saw left him stunned: a bullet lay in the crater on the ground.

Old Mrs. Huang asked him in alarm, "Where did the bullet come from?"

"Don't speak!" Old Liu stood up tremblingly, sternly ordering her to shut up. Remembering what the man had just said, he snatched the paper package, held it up to the light of the bedside oil lamp, and rummaged through it. Sure enough, he found a crumpled note inside. He slowly unfolded it, and saw the words: "Don't flaunt your wealth. Keep it safe. The gold bars are for Xiao Duo's education and living expenses. If you dare to use them for anything else, your life will be in danger."

Old Mrs. Huang trembled at his shout, looking at her husband with his ever-changing expression in fear, not daring to utter a sound.

After a pause, she swallowed and asked:

"Honey, what does it say on it?"

Old Liu didn't say anything, but lit the note, then breathed a sigh of relief and plopped down on the edge of the bed.

Old Mrs. Huang stared at him suspiciously: "Speak up, what happened?"

Old Liu looked at him but didn't answer directly: "Treat Xiaoduo well from now on, like your own daughter, and send her to school in a few months."

Old Mrs. Huang looked suspicious and pressed on with the previous question, asking:
"What exactly happened? Li Yishan came knocking? He's not him."

"It's not him, it's his organization." After calming down, Lao Liu pondered the man's words carefully, as if he had realized something.

"What organization?"

"I suspect it's this." Old Liu made a figure-eight gesture.

"What? Eighth Route Army? You're saying Li Yishan is a member of the Eighth Route Army?" Granny Huang was shocked by his words.

"pretty close."

Old Liu fell into deep thought—just now, that person had explicitly mentioned the organization.

Seeing that her husband remained silent for a long time, Granny Huang asked anxiously again:
"Then, what do we do now? What exactly are they trying to do?"

Seeing that he couldn't refuse, Old Liu told him the truth about what had just happened, adding, "They entrusted Xiaoduo to us, asking us to raise her. If we dared to disobey their orders, they would hunt us down."

Huang Pozi's lips trembled slightly.

Suddenly, the gold bar, which had felt so heavy just moments before, felt hot to the touch. Staring blankly, she said, almost hysterically:

"What do we do now? Should we report to the authorities and flee? Let's pack our things now."

Old Liu said irritably, "Long hair, short brains! Report to the authorities? Secretly colluding with the Eighth Route Army is a capital offense. You know what kind of bastards those black dogs are. How will you explain yourself then? Escape? Where can you escape to? I heard there are Eighth Route Army guerrillas nearby. They're all in cahoots."

Old Mrs. Huang was in despair. She collapsed to the ground and burst into tears.

"All you do is cry and cry! You've startled the neighbors, how are you going to explain that?"

Old Liu scolded her a couple of times, but seeing her haggard face, and knowing she was still his wife, he couldn't bear to frighten her any further. So he picked up the bullets from the ground and put them away with the gold bars, pretending to be relaxed as he said:

"That's fate. We're just ordinary people, powerless against the powerful. We'll do what they say, and take it one step at a time." He looked outside and took a quilt from the wardrobe.
"Pack up and go to sleep. I'm going to check on Xiaoduo."

A few years later, Liu Xiaoduo was admitted to the National Academy of Fine Arts with excellent grades. This was an art college established in 38 by the merger of the pre-war National Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and the National Beiping Academy of Fine Arts. It was the largest and most influential art college at that time.

After graduation, she changed her name back to Li Xiaoduo and started working at the Shanghai Police Bureau, actively contributing to the reconstruction of the newly established People's Republic of China. In her spare time, Li Xiaoduo would always draw, or rather, sketch, based on the image her father had told her of her benefactor.

She drew sketch after sketch, and took advantage of the opportunity to travel all over the country while handling cases, searching everywhere for her benefactor's whereabouts, but to no avail.

His identity and his fate remain a mystery.

But Xiaoduo knew that his benefactor must be somewhere, and must still be alive.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Dai Chunfeng and his adjutant Jia, hiding behind a car, heard the sudden bursts of gunfire from the opposite side, their expressions changing drastically.

"General Dai, you go first. I'll organize a counterattack and cover you." Zhao Shanhe, the guard company commander, had a livid face and gritted his teeth. He raised his pistol and fired a burst at the hillside.

Faced with life and death, Dai Chunfeng showed no courtesy to Zhao Shanhe behind him. Without thinking, he walked to the other side of the road under the cover of his bodyguards Cao Jihua and He Qiyi. After taking a few steps, he suddenly seemed to sense something and looked up at the hillside opposite.

The Japanese special agents lying in ambush on the opposite hillside seemed to sense Dai Chunfeng's direct gaze and instinctively pulled the trigger.

"bang bang bang"

Dai Chunfeng fired a shot, then immediately lay down on the ground and rolled behind the car.

"Bang bang bang!" A dense barrage of bullets followed like a shadow, crashing onto the ground like hailstones, sparks flying everywhere.

Deputy Jia became anxious. While ordering Cao Jihua and He Qiyi to fight back, he rushed over and pulled Dai Chunfeng up, but Dai Chunfeng pulled him back instead.

"Bang!" Dai Chunfeng suddenly raised his pistol and fired a shot at the opposite hillside. A Japanese soldier, who had just raised his head, was caught off guard and shot in the eye by Dai Chunfeng. He screamed and fell to the ground.

"Haposu!" the Japanese soldiers roared and opened fire. Cao Jihua and He Qiyi, one shot in the leg and the other in the stomach, immediately collapsed to their knees.

Amidst the dense gunfire, Deputy Officer Jia swiftly tackled Dai Chunfeng to the ground, then grabbed him and rolled him down the slope of the road to a spot where they could take cover from the bullets.

A gunshot rang out, and a rock next to Dai Chunfeng's head shattered, the shards stinging his face. He said, pale-faced:

"Damn it, Zhang Yi was right."

Cao Jihua and He Qiyi, who had already taken cover behind the car, struggled to fire back at the Japanese soldiers on the opposite hillside.

Blood was still seeping from Cao Jihua's leg. He fired two more shots towards the opposite hillside before running out of ammunition. He pulled out a magazine from his waist and was about to reload when he was shot in the shoulder again.

A cloud of blood rose up, and Cao Jihua staggered from the blow, dropping his pistol. He frantically grabbed at the ground, but to no avail; bullets flew everywhere, and he couldn't find an opening.

He Qiyi wasn't in much better shape either; he had also been shot in the arm and was lying on the ground, clutching his stomach, weak and powerless.

At the same time, veins bulged on the forehead of Zhao Shanhe, the guard company commander. As he raised his rifle and swept it horizontally, he gritted his teeth and shouted:

"Fire cover, take cover, open fire, return fire!"

Caught off guard and stunned, the soldiers were in a panic, running around like headless flies, firing their guns haphazardly.

Bang bang bang!
A barrage of bullets came flying, piercing Zhao Shanhe's chest. He stared in disbelief at the bloody hole in his chest, gritted his teeth, and raised his gun.

Before he could pull the trigger, the Japanese soldiers on the hillside opened fire in a hail of bullets, instantly riddling him with holes.

Then, after a command to "Xiu Liudan" was given, a chorus of sounds rang out as people pulled the pins on grenades. Dozens of grenades then rained down like hailstones, followed by a series of deafening explosions and screams of agony.

Dai Chunfeng and his adjutant Jia hid under the broken cliff on the hillside, listening to the violent explosions nearby. They both knew what this meant.

Dai Chunfeng's face was deathly pale. He examined his pistol and said grimly:
"When I read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms before, I always thought that Guan Yu lost Jingzhou because of his arrogance and conceit, which made Wu Xia Ameng famous in one battle. Only today do I realize what it means to be blinded by one's own interests. Damn it, neglecting the greater good can kill people. I regret not listening to Zhang Yi's advice."

The more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt, and he burst out cursing, "It's all Tong Xiang's fault for saying that everything is safe and sound. And Jiang Shaomo, who gave false military intelligence, is no good either. Mao Qiwu too, if he had known about Xie Tou's capture earlier, it wouldn't be just today, it would be much worse."

Dai Chunfeng was heartbroken and filled with regret. Just as he was getting into a tirade, he suddenly saw Deputy Officer Jia point his gun to the side and ask warily in a low voice:

"Who?"

"It's me!" As soon as the words were spoken, a figure came running over, tumbling and crawling.

It's Director Gong.

Director Gong was sitting in another car. As a scholar, he rarely traveled like this. The car bumped along as if he were jumping off a cliff, his stomach churned, and his internal organs felt like they had shifted. He drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by the gunshot. Terrified, he cried out to heaven and earth in vain, completely lost and confused, running around like a headless fly.

"You're a piece of trash too!" Dai Chunfeng glared at him irritably. Hearing sporadic gunshots, he cautiously peeked out and saw rustling sounds coming from the hillside. Several dark figures slid down ropes to the bottom of the road. They were holding guns, their military boots pounding the ground, and they were approaching their hiding place step by step.

Dai Chunfeng's eyes were bloodshot and looked quite frightening. He picked up his pistol and said through gritted teeth:

"I've thought about my fate. If I don't die at the hands of the Communists, I'll die at the hands of the Chairman sooner or later. But I never imagined that I would fall into the hands of the Japanese and be so pathetic!"

Hearing this, Director Gong and Deputy Officer Jia exchanged bewildered glances. Director Gong was puzzled, but Deputy Officer Jia seemed to have figured something out. He and Dai Chunfeng were very close, like oil and water, and sometimes, when the night was quiet and everyone was alone, Boss Dai would confide in him, saying that when he read about the killings of favored ministers by emperors throughout history in the *Records of the Grand Historian* and the *Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government*, he felt a pang of fear and unease whenever he read about it.

He felt a chill run down his spine when he read about Zhou Xing and Lai Junchen, two notorious spies during the Wu Tang period, who had worked tirelessly for Wu Zetian's rule but were ultimately killed by her because they knew too many of her secrets. This is why he worriedly said, "If I don't die at the hands of the Red Party, I will die at the hands of the Chairman sooner or later."

Lieutenant Jia thought to himself, "My boss, Mr. Dai, why are you saying all this now? Let's think about how to escape." Just as he was about to speak, he saw Dai Chunfeng change his magazine and say without looking up:

"Keep one bullet for yourself, and use the rest. We must never become prisoners of the Japanese invaders."

Hearing Dai Chunfeng say this, Deputy Officer Jia panicked. He twitched his ears, got up, and looked around as if he wanted to run away.

Seeing his expression, Dai Chunfeng sneered inwardly and pointed the gun at him without any mercy.

Suddenly, Lieutenant Jia pointed to the side of the road:
Listen carefully, what's that sound?

Dai Chunfeng was startled, held his breath and pricked up his ears. He heard a sharp, buzzing roar, with a whooshing sound that seemed to tear the air at the end, like a wild beast running across the road.

The next moment, a motorcycle descended from the sky like an arrow, its two submachine guns spitting fire as they fired in both directions, instantly taking down a group of Japanese soldiers.

Lieutenant Jia's eyes gleamed: "Mr. Dai, it's like a miracle!"

(End of this chapter)