Chapter 23: Making a Little Pocket Money

After parting ways with Little Ma, Li Haibo carefully navigated his way back home, remaining highly vigilant. He knew well that the use of firearms in tonight’s operation would likely trigger a dragnet by the Japanese and their puppet collaborators. His retreat had been hurried, leaving him no time for a thorough search.

Only now, in the quiet of his home, could he settle down to assess his gains. He had managed to grab a few pistols and a modest amount of cash. Little Ma’s submachine gun had been safely recovered, and Li had thoughtfully allowed him to keep the small pistol seized from Huang San for self-defense. He had instructed Little Ma to move immediately, and the latter had promised to hide out at a comrade’s place as soon as he reached home.

Reeking of the sewer and the acrid smoke of battle, Li couldn't wait to strip off his clothes. With a look of disgust, he tossed them into his personal infinite storage space like refuse, silently swearing that he would never take them out again and would avoid sewers at all costs unless absolutely necessary.

With his clothes disposed of, he began organizing the items in his infinite storage space. It was cluttered with "trash," including the corpses of several Japanese soldiers. The earliest ones had been picked up on the battlefield at Wanjialing; others were collected when he rescued Zhou Zhengguo and his group upon returning to Shanghai; and the latest were the lame manager of Mitsui Pharmaceuticals and the four Japanese bodyguards from the Beihai Foreign Goods Firm, whom he had dispatched with a screwdriver. To avoid attracting the attention of the Japanese military police, he had stashed them all away. He didn't intend to clean out this "trash"—the space was infinite, so he would let them stay there forever.

Additionally, he had collected stones, firewood, and thousands of tons of river water on his way back to Shanghai. While seemingly useless, in these turbulent times of scarcity, one never knew when such things might prove unexpectedly valuable. Household and office supplies from the Mitsui and Beihai firms also lay quietly in the space; while highly practical, they were too risky to use in the current climate and would have to wait.

The remaining items were treasures. The thousands of bolts of Western fabric seized from the Beihai firm represented a significant fortune, and the nearly two hundred old firearms captured from the Zhabei branch station were even more precious. Li already had a plan: he would select a few high-quality long and short guns for his own use and donate the rest to the guerrillas. There were also dozens of blank "good citizen" identification cards, which he could sell to Section Chief Liu of the Military Statistics Bureau for a tidy sum, along with some spare clothing and food.

Finally, his gaze fell upon two safes, one large and one small. The large one had a complex mechanism that would be difficult to breach. After a moment of thought, he decided to practice on the small safe he had taken from Huang San, hoping to gain insights into how to crack the larger one. He set to work immediately. Taking a deep breath, he placed his hand on the dial, activated his "super-hearing" ability, and focused intently on the sound of the mechanical tumblers, concentrating on deciphering the combination.

By the time the first light of dawn touched the sky, Li Haibo let out a soft sigh—it was finally open. The prolonged concentration left him feeling slightly dizzy, but his inner excitement quickly swept away the fatigue. With a heart full of trepidation and trembling fingers, he gently pulled the door open. He knew that whether he would be "eating meat or grass" tomorrow depended on this moment.

As the door slowly swung wide, the shimmer of gold and silver caught his eyes. He exhaled in relief, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. Inside were about fifty gold bars of various sizes, glowing alluringly in the morning light, accompanied by over a thousand silver dollars, which emitted a dignified, antique aura. There were also bundles of neatly stacked legal tender.

Li was satisfied with this haul. He knew that Huang San had only risen to power in Zhabei after defecting to the Japanese a year ago. For a Green Gang thug who had only been in such a position for a year, accumulating so much was no easy feat; the man was clearly a miser.

Before leaving the house that morning, Li pulled out a large stack of legal tender and pressed it into his mother’s hand. "The family is bigger now; we need to eat well. Make sure everyone is full, and from now on, we have meat every other day. Everyone is growing, and if they don't get enough nutrition, they won't grow tall."

His mother looked at the money, then at her son’s retreating back, muttering, "Meat every other day? Do you think we’re landlords? You get a little money and forget who you are. With that kind of money for meat, I might as well adopt another orphan!" Li heard her but paid it no mind.

Arriving at the alley entrance, he saw that Old Ma’s breakfast stall was empty. Shaking his head, he went to the stall across the way. "A-Du, serve up some pan-fried buns!"

"Coming right up, Brother Bo!"

...

Taking advantage of his patrol duties, Li slipped off to a teahouse to sleep for the morning. Meanwhile, Huang San’s home was in a state of chaos. When the gunshots rang out the night before, the Japanese patrols had heard them, but despite their best efforts, they arrived too late—the killer had already escaped.

The furious Japanese soldiers did not dare slacken their pace; they quickly sealed off the main thoroughfares and dispatched a large number of troops to conduct a carpet search of the surrounding area. However, in the pitch-black night, despite their best efforts, the soldiers found nothing and were forced to return empty-handed.

As dawn broke, the thorny case was handed over to the military police. Lieutenant Koizumi Muraichiro was once again in charge. He stood at the scene with a stern expression, brow furrowed, meticulously inspecting every detail.

Lieutenant Yamamoto Qianliu walked in and asked, "Koizumi-kun, how is the scene investigation coming along?"

Lieutenant Koizumi sighed helplessly. "The situation is far from ideal. The scene has been severely disturbed; there are messy footprints and signs of ransacking everywhere. It’s clear the bodies were moved, and many valuables in the house have vanished. I suspect the first imperial soldiers to arrive helped themselves. This makes the investigation incredibly difficult; finding useful clues is harder than climbing to heaven."

Lieutenant Yamamoto was left speechless, his face showing a look of resignation. Such things were nearly impossible to eradicate in the military. After all, the treatment of imperial soldiers was dismal, and their pay was pitifully low—a month’s wages could barely buy a single roasted chicken, and most soldiers saved what they could to send home to Japan. Consequently, missions were often their only chance to secure extra income.