Chapter 38: Making Contact

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At Zhoushan Park, Zhao Xuan had no need for a disguise this time. After all, he was out on assignment.

Indeed, according to the wanted-person notice published in the newspaper, the new contact would be waiting at Zhoushan Park at this hour.

After activating Scan Mode, Zhao Xuan swept his gaze around the area. He found no other agents watching him, and he also pinpointed the new contact’s location.

(Zheng Quan, male, twenty-eight years old, citizen of the Dragon Nation, elite Military Statistics Bureau agent, codename “Master Niu,” outstanding driving skills, impeccable marksmanship...)

Judging from the scan results, Master Niu truly lived up to his name.

The contact’s signal was simple: sit on a bench beside the artificial lake in Zhoushan Park, read that day’s issue of the Shenbao, wear a black suit, and carry a Parker fountain pen in the breast pocket.

Although Scan Mode meant he did not need to match every detail one by one, Zhao Xuan still confirmed these characteristics before approaching. He passed the man seated on the bench and stopped beside the artificial lake.

“It is one fourteen. In two minutes, a flock of white-headed bulbuls will fly over Zhoushan Lake.”

The moment Zhao Xuan finished speaking, Master Niu raised his head. A delighted smile curled across his lips.

He rose, took the newspaper, and walked forward. Gazing at Zhoushan Lake, he said, “I think it should be six minutes from now. And it will not be white-headed bulbuls, but egrets.”

“Hello, Little Tiger.”

“How should I address you?”

“Master Niu.”

Zheng Quan replied with a smile and stopped beside the lake. Zhao Xuan, meanwhile, went over to sit on the bench. By the time he sat down, a slip of paper had already appeared in his hand.

The two men stood and sat one behind the other, less than a meter apart.

“The slip contains the location of the dead drop, emergency contact procedures, and the method of making contact. From this moment onward, I am your sole-line contact.”

Zhao Xuan glanced at the slip. After Edith scanned and archived its contents, he took out a cigarette and set fire to the paper with it.

“What about Tigress?”

Standing ahead of him, Master Niu gazed across the lake and said in the same calm voice, “Her identity has been exposed. She is certain to be recalled.”

“Also, Director Shen has ordered you to obtain a piece of intelligence that only you could acquire.”

“Intelligence that only I could obtain?”

“Exactly. Judging from your previous performance, there was a great deal of intelligence you should not have been able to obtain, yet you acquired it anyway. So Director Shen needs one more such piece of intelligence in order to carry out the next plan.”

“What plan?”

“My clearance is insufficient to know.”

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(What exactly is Director Shen planning this time? He is actually sending Little Tiger to do something like this.)

Hearing Zheng Quan’s thoughts, Zhao Xuan said nothing further, which amounted to an agreement. Zheng Quan continued,

“By the way, the Magic City Station has been rebuilt. I now serve under its command. If possible, the station chief hopes you can provide Zhou Mei’s movements.”

“Elimination? Does the station chief know my identity?”

“Mm. That man deserves to die.”

“He knows your codename, but not your identity. You can rest assured of that.”

(Well, this also counts as a test of Little Tiger. Director Shen’s concerns are not unfounded. The intelligence Little Tiger has obtained several times was simply astonishing. Suspicion is only natural.)

(Still, if Little Tiger can help the Magic City Station eliminate Zhou Mei, it will count as passing Mountain City’s test.)

Zhao Xuan was speechless.

So he had actually done wrong by obtaining intelligence?

Because the information had been so difficult to acquire, Mountain City had begun to suspect him...

Zhao Xuan tossed away the cigarette butt and crushed it beneath his shoe, then helplessly blew out a ring of smoke.

Looking at the matter from another angle, he felt that testing him was indeed reasonable.

After all, Dao Yan’s relationship with Ding Moqun was there for everyone to see. The Purge Plan was information even Dao Yan could not obtain, yet Zhao Xuan had somehow gotten hold of it.

If he had been sitting in Director Dai’s position, he would have suspected that the agents at the front had defected and joined forces with Ding Moqun to stage a deception.

Thus, Zhao Xuan did not take this test to heart. All he had to do was provide them with Zhou Mei’s whereabouts. It was not as though they were asking him to carry out the assassination himself.

What concerned Zhao Xuan now, instead, was the fact that Zheng Quan served under the Magic City Station, and that the new station chief knew Master Niu was his sole-line contact.

Even Mountain City had traitors. Could the newly rebuilt Magic City Station have one as well?

Moreover, the station chief knew that Master Niu was his sole-line contact. If the station chief were to defect...

Well, the possibility was small, but it was not nonexistent.

“Master Niu, can the new station chief be trusted?”

The corner of Zheng Quan’s mouth twitched sharply. Little Tiger was worried that the newly rebuilt Magic City Station might be unreliable.

“Rest easy. The station chief knows only your codename and that I am your sole-line contact.”

“Other than the station chief, no one else knows about this.”

“Perhaps if I give you a name, you will have no more doubts. Chen Chuyin.”

Zhao Xuan drew a slow breath.

It was Chen Chuyin!

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If it was him, then defection was impossible.

Chen Chuyin was upright and incorruptible to a fault. But in the Party-State, how could a man with such qualities survive?

Most importantly, in Year Thirty-One, Chen Chuyin had killed a Japanese prince in Ice City.

The Japanese wanted nothing more than to flay him alive and drink his blood. If he defected, he would simply be courting death.

And why, despite the immense service he had rendered, was Chen Chuyin still working under Shen Xing? Because he had offended too many people. He refused to follow the crowd or compromise his principles, and had therefore remained under Shen Xing’s command all this time.

Character determined one’s fate, especially in an era like this.

So, throughout the entire Military Statistics Bureau, anyone might defect—but Chen Chuyin absolutely would not.

“All right. But we still need to be careful.”

“Also, what is the situation with Zhou Dahe and his daughter?”

At this, Master Niu walked toward a stone-paved path nearby. As he left, he tossed back a final sentence:

“I do not know. That is an operation belonging to another line. It has nothing to do with us.”

“Do not worry. I value my life more than anyone. And as for the emergency contact method, use it only if absolutely necessary.”

Watching Zheng Quan’s departing figure, Zhao Xuan leaned back against the bench and fell into deep thought.

Tigress was being transferred away. That much was certain.

Come to think of it, their meeting at the flower shop should have been their final one. What happened afterward should never have occurred.

Yet Zhao Xuan still could not understand what Zhou Dahe’s situation truly was.

He and his daughter had definitely not been members of the Military Statistics Bureau before. That much was certain.

So when had Zhou Dahe joined the organization?

Had Li Mingzhu recruited him?

And why had he chosen to meet his death?

Aside from increasing the risk of exposing himself, Zhao Xuan could see no meaning in such an act.

These questions hung before him in a tangled mass, leaving him deeply uneasy.

What troubled him most was that he had learned nothing about the matter from Zheng Quan’s thoughts. Even after Zhao Xuan deliberately guided the conversation, Zheng Quan’s revealed thoughts contained no answers.

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