Espionage: You're tasked with spying, but you'll blow up the Special Higher Police?

157. Sacrifice

"Well......!"

"what?!"

Zhou Hongyi's fingers twitched slightly; he could feel that both Sasaki and Yosuke Saotome were paying attention to him.

Just as Zhou Hongyi was about to make a move, he saw that Qingxia was covered in a fine layer of sweat and was giving him a meaningful look.

At first glance, his eyes seemed to be filled with extreme anger, but only Zhou Hongyi understood the pleading deep within them.

Yes, Qingxia was pleading, begging him not to act impulsively, not to save her, otherwise everything she was doing would be in vain. Qingxia decided to sacrifice herself to clear Zhou Hongyi of suspicion. She took the transaction details and ledgers to create a false impression for the Japanese.

At that moment, Qingxia actually laughed. Clutching her bleeding abdomen, she looked at the people around her and said, "You all deserve to die... Heaven will punish you. Just you wait, my companions... They will storm in, and after they conquer Shanghai, they will grind you to dust... Except... except..."

She said "except for" twice but didn't finish the sentence. Perhaps only Zhou Hongyi knew that what Qingxia meant was that everyone except for the good younger brother, Boss Zhou, in front of him would die a horrible death.

Just then, Kondo roared, "Sasaki, cut open her stomach! I need to know what's written on the note she swallowed!"

Zhou Hongyi's eyes twitched slightly, while Sasaki revealed his yellow teeth and gently pushed open the scabbard of the long sword at his waist with his thumb.

A flash of light streaked across the sky, and Qingxia's cursing abruptly ceased. Slowly, her body went limp, and she collapsed, blood rapidly spreading across the ground. Yamamoto Goro, who had been waiting nearby, reached into Qingxia's abdomen with his bare hands and retrieved the note she had just swallowed.

"Sir, look!"

The Japanese soldier wiped the note clean. Although it was stained with a lot of blood, the general content was still legible.

"So... it turns out that this Qingxia is a high-level liaison officer of the Red Party hidden in Shanghai, codenamed 'Chang'e'. The other person she contacted is the legendary 'Sun Wukong' in the newspapers, whose codename was 'Four-Faced Buddha'? Their next assassination target is Sasuke-kun."

Kondo turned to Zhou Hongyi and noticed that the latter's expression seemed rather unwell. He shook the blood-stained note in his hand and said, "Sasuke-kun, now we can finally prove your innocence. This woman deliberately approached you to obtain information about the Sakura Trading Company's transport routes and use them to transport supplies to the guerrillas outside the city. This note also records how she poisoned the foie gras, how she killed Mr. Su, and how she escorted the weapons expert to safety. This information doesn't seem fake. We have reason to suspect that she was supposed to meet with her contact today to report to her superiors, but she was caught by our expert tracker, Hayakawa-kun. A great achievement!"

Hayakawa was another spy in Saotome's squad. He was the one who discovered Qingxia's suspicious behavior and brought her back to the Special Higher Police.

Looking at Qingxia, who had fallen to the ground lifeless, and the little girl who was crying loudly but whose neck had been snapped by Yamamoto, Zhou Hongyi felt a turbulent storm churning within him. His anger clashed with Qingxia's pleading eyes as she died, swaying back and forth between taking action and suppressing his emotions. Even his facial expressions began to crumble, and his muscles twitched involuntarily.

Yosuke Saotome, standing nearby, asked curiously, "Sasuke-kun, what's wrong with you?"

Zhou Hongyi gritted his teeth and squeezed out a sentence: "Damn it... I trusted her so much, and she actually dared to betray me? Thanks to Commander Kondo for taking action for me and intercepting this ledger. The contents of this book may not be of much use to me, but if it is used by someone with ulterior motives, it can easily lead to misunderstandings! Fortunately, fortunately, Saotome-kun's men caught this woman, otherwise... I would never be able to clear my name even if I jumped into the Yellow River."

Kondo wiped his hands with a handkerchief and said to the soldiers beside him, "Clean this place up, Sasuke-kun. It seems these rebels have their eyes on you again. You're in a very dangerous situation right now. Should I send some men to protect you closely?"

Zhou Hongyi, his face dark, waved his hand and said, "Commander Kondo, I appreciate your kindness, but I, Zhou Hongyi, am not so easily killed. They failed once, they failed twice, and the third time it's my turn to kill them. My hundreds of brothers in the Second Precinct are not just for show. Commander Kondo, rest assured, in order to root out these rebels, I am willing to risk my life. Anyway, if they want to kill me, then come on, I want to see if their life is tougher than mine."

"Good, Sasuke-kun has guts." Kondo praised, then secretly cast an inquiring glance at Saotome, who nodded very slightly. Only then did he say, "Someone, take Sasuke-kun home safely."

As Zhou Hongyi walked out of the Special Higher Science and Technology Institute, he noticed that it had suddenly started snowing. The snowflakes were becoming more and more numerous and dense. The first snow of the winter had begun without any warning.

Zhou Hongyi took a deep breath before slowly loosening his clenched fists. Immediately, blood dripped from his palms onto the ground. It turned out that in his attempt to restrain himself from striking, he had clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles had cracked and his fingernails had dug deep into his palms. Now that he had relaxed, blood had soaked his hands.

"Sister Qingxia, don't worry, I won't let your blood be shed in vain. They will all be buried with you, I swear."

The next day, the Japanese army displayed the corpses of "rebel elements" who had planned assassinations and sabotage in Shanghai on People's Square. However, all the corpses on display were actually those of the residents of Fengwei Lane. Of course, the one hanging at the very front was the blind man's mother, Qingxia.

"Mother—sister—I want revenge! I will kill all those damned Japanese devils! Let me go! Don't stop me!"

Inside the safe house, the blind man was acting like a madman, wanting to go out and fight the Japanese devils. Agui and Fusheng held him tightly, while Xiaobei stood in the corner with red eyes, and Zhou Hongyi sat in the back with a gloomy face and said nothing.

Suddenly, Ah Gui raised his hand and struck the blind man on the back of the neck, knocking him unconscious. He gasped for breath and said, "Brother, this matter cannot be left like this. Sister Qingxia is such a good person, and Xiao Nannan is still so young... How could these Japanese devils do such a thing? They are simply beasts!"

Zhou Hongyi was playing with a silver dollar in his hand, the coin rolling back and forth between his knuckles before being tightly clenched in his palm.

"Send the blind man out first. I've already contacted the guerrillas; let him lay low there for a while and get some experience. Of course, we must take revenge, not just on Sister Qingxia, but on every single person in Phoenix Tail Lane. I'll make them pay ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times the price...!"

Because the blind man was emotionally unstable, Zhou Hongyi had no choice but to contact the Communist Party and, through underground channels, send him out of Shanghai and temporarily place him under Captain Qiu's command. This was partly to avoid trouble, and partly to give the blind man some training so he could recover from the grief of losing his mother and sister as quickly as possible.