The sky in the east is already turning pale, and the dawn is about to dispel the haze over Meixian.
The gate of the detective prison was locked, and there were only two guards left in the prison duty room, sitting facing the lights. Almost all the detectives on duty had been transferred to the gendarmerie. The nightmare under the night was over, and daybreak was about to come.
A guard dropped the wine glass in his hand and it fell limply onto the bench, so the guard opposite him put down his glass, walked around the table and kicked the guard twice, but seeing no response, he took off the key chain hanging on the wall and walked out of the duty room, first unlocked the prison gate, glanced at the detective team compound outside the iron fence, which was empty, and then turned and walked into the prison corridor.
He passed rows of fences and doors, and finally stopped outside the fence of a single cell. He looked inside, then fumbled for the key in his hand to unlock it.
There was a rattling sound of shackles, and the prisoners inside were awakened by the opening of the cell door.
"Captain Li! Don't panic! I'm Chouji!"
"You? This is..."
"There's no time to talk. Now is the only chance to rescue you. Follow me now!"
The guard walked a few steps towards the prisoner, squatted down and tried to open the prisoner's shackles.
"Are you crazy? Who told you to do this?"
"What do you think? Of course I'm your boss! I said I don't recognize you, but isn't your last name still Li?"
"My brother? He..." The prisoner was stunned for a moment, then his voice was mixed with excitement and excitement: "It's my own fault! It's my own fault!"
"Stop talking. Can you stand up? Here is the handcuffs key..."
"It's numb, give me a hand."
Ding Er tried to help the prisoner, but suddenly there was a sound of chains, and his neck was strangled by the other party's handcuffs. Then the two of them fell heavily, struggling desperately, tearing with gritted teeth, kicking aimlessly, rolling, twisting; unwillingly asking: "Why... why?"
The prisoner pulled the handcuffs and chains tighter and tighter: he gritted his teeth and whispered: "I don't know why. I really want to ask you why. But unfortunately I can't let you go!"
After another round of desperate kicking, guard Ding Er finally died, strangled by the prisoners with handcuffs.
The exhausted prisoner let go of the corpse and stood up. He was Li Youcai. He stared at the corpse of Ding Er in front of his feet, and then stared at the open cell door. After he had caught his breath, he dragged the corpse out of the cell, returned to the cell, closed the door again, locked it, and threw the key out of the gap in the door bars.
Everything is dark and still cold.
…
When the first ray of sunlight poured in through the window, the nurse inside the window could not help but squint her eyes and looked out. She had thin eyebrows, single eyelids, a small nose and thin lips. Although she was not outstanding, she had an innocent temperament. She looked a little tired and stared blankly at the morning outside the window, not knowing what she was thinking.
The door behind him opened, and another nurse in white walked in. She spoke in Japanese about being tired, looking forward to the end of overtime, and complained that the civilian wounded in the military police had less perseverance than the soldiers. Seeing that the colleague who was looking at the scenery by the window still didn't turn around to talk to him, she said, "Keiko, I heard that the person who came to see you was arrested. He was... from the detective team."
"Why?" She turned her head sharply, and her surprised reaction was beyond the other party's expectations.
"It seems to be... about the Eighth Route Army."
…
In the morning sunshine, the Meixian police force was in a mess. Three offices on the second floor of the main building were burned down, the windows were turned into black holes, and the outer wall facing the gate was riddled with bullet holes.
The gendarmerie on the other side of the wall was in better condition than the police force. There were signs of burning in several corners of the downstairs wall, but the combustible materials were limited, and those guys failed to start a big fire in a hurry last night. More than a dozen civilian gendarmes defended the main building and fought desperately. Although they could only be beaten by a few Nambu pistols by those rampant invaders, at least the office building was saved. The prison behind was also closed early after the incident because the duty officer responded promptly and was not broken into by the attackers.
But Captain Maeda's mood had dropped to the bottom. This was the most embarrassing time in his military career. He was huddled in the darkness of the office with a saber in his hand, and he almost committed seppuku.
He is still sitting in his office, with his saber on the table, he hasn't changed his clothes, he doesn't say anything, and he looks miserable.
Someone outside the office door shouted "Report", but Maeda didn't answer. Then someone knocked on the office door, but Maeda still didn't say anything.
The person waiting outside the door was a military police, not Maeda's assistant, because Maeda's assistant had died in the gunfire last night, so a military police was temporarily assigned to stand by outside Maeda's office. When he reported and knocked on the door, there was no response. The military police thought that his superior had cut again, so he just kicked the door hard and knocked it down. Then he stood stupidly under the door frame where dust was falling, looking at Maeda who was sitting quietly in the office, too embarrassed to know whether to go forward or backward.
"The door is not locked!" Maeda said with a cold face.
So the stupid gendarme hurriedly bent down and tried to straighten up the door that had fallen into the office.
"You don't need to fix it!"
The stupid military policeman shivered and let go of the door, which had just been raised a little, slammed down on the floor again with a loud bang, raising another wave of dust.
There was a gurgling sound in his Adam's apple, and Maeda seemed to be trying to swallow something: "What do you want to say?"
The military police stood at attention and looked up, thinking hard before answering, "Yoshida Trading Company was also attacked last night. It was set on fire afterwards. No one survived. In addition, someone came to see me."
"who?"
"Takeda Keiko."
…
It was almost noon when Captain Zhao of the detective team hurried into the gendarmerie. He was surprised to see the door of Maeda's office. The door was lying on the floor with clear footprints. A gendarmerie stood solemnly outside the door, looking straight ahead as if nothing existed.
Captain Zhao hesitated, not knowing whether he should shout out the report first or let the military police convey it. He stretched his head to peek into the office and found that Maeda behind the desk had raised his eyelids and nodded slightly at him. So Captain Zhao hurried in, took off his hat a few steps away from the desk, and stood still.
A minute passed and Maeda didn't say anything. He continued to bury his head in the office. The only sound in the office was the sound of Maeda turning pages from time to time.
Five minutes passed and Maeda still didn't look up. Captain Zhao didn't dare to say a word. He had no choice but to take a closer look at the desk. Wow, there was a whole pile of materials that Maeda was looking through. They looked familiar. He took another look and realized that it was Li Youcai's confession!
Ten minutes passed and the situation hadn't changed at all, but Captain Zhao was sweating profusely on his forehead. He didn't know why he felt weak all over. Although he firmly believed that Li Youcai's case would never be overturned, the atmosphere was a bit weird. He couldn't see through Captain Maeda, as this lady's temper was too unpredictable.
Fifteen minutes later, Maeda closed the last page, finally straightened his body in the chair, and stared at Captain Zhao expressionlessly. After a while, he spoke again: "You did a good job on the case. Was it hard?"
"It should be. It should be."
"Motive. What is the motive?"
"Hmm? Motive? What is motive?"
"Why did he collaborate with the enemy?"
"Uh..." Captain Zhao was speechless. He hadn't really thought about this question carefully. Now that Maeda asked, he had to answer it. Is he after money? Li Youcai, a gambler, has no money and is in debt. Besides, the independent regiment is also very poor and it is difficult to establish. Is he after sex? Does he need sex? He has the most. Is he blackmailed? But he is already a lonely man with no relatives. His uncle doesn't love him and his grandmother doesn't love him. Is he patriotic? It's purely voluntary? Captain Zhao would vomit if he used this reason.
Maeda suddenly smiled, without any emotion: "You Chinese people say that a dog will always eat shit, right?"
Captain Zhao stared blankly and didn't dare to respond, which made him still a little confused.
"He is. It seems you don't understand him at all."
Captain Zhao finally breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Maeda was not talking about himself, but he still didn't understand what it meant.
"However, your contribution is still not small. You solved a major case." After saying this, Maeda opened the drawer, took out a file bag, and threw it on the floor in front of Captain Zhao's feet: "Take a look."
Confused Captain Zhao picked it up, carefully opened it, and took out the document. The label caught his eye: Meixian Top Secret File No. 31, Sheep Head Project…
"This... I... can't..."
"It doesn't matter. Look. Thanks to your efforts, this has become waste paper."
With a "click", the document fell to the ground and Captain Zhao lost his balance. Only then did he understand Maeda's expressionless face, and behind it was a raging flame of endless anger.
"But... there's something about him..."
Maeda stood up, put his hands behind his back, and slowly walked to the window. He watched several military policemen cleaning up the traces of last night's destruction in the yard downstairs, and continued calmly: "Actually, I don't care about this case, because I am the owner of this place. Do you understand?"
"I understand! I understand! I understand!"
"Very good." Maeda turned around: "Pass me the knife."
Hand over a knife? This was something Captain Zhao couldn't understand at all. His legs couldn't move a single step just now, and now he had no reaction at all. Sweat was pouring down his face, and his mind was blank.
Suddenly there was the sound of a knife being unsheathed in the office, followed by screams, and then the sound of the knife slashing into flesh, followed by the second, third, and fourth knives...
The gendarme outside the door still stood motionless, his back was soaked and cold sweat was running down his temples. He knew he was safe.
…
East of Xinglong Town, two miles outside the concentration camp, in the wilderness, next to a deep pit next to a small forest, there was an animal-drawn cart parked.
The two puppet soldiers cursed and reluctantly lifted the corpses from the car and threw them into the deserted pit one by one, without noticing that there were fewer corpses in the pit than yesterday.
After unloading the bodies, their mood improved and they whipped the animals hard. This was the last trip.
The car gradually faded away into the wilderness. Two figures stood up in the grove. Their clothes were so muddy that it was almost impossible to tell. One of them was holding a shovel, and the other was holding a pickaxe. They left the woods and walked to the edge of the pit.
"You heard them talking, right? This is the last trip. Do you know any of them?"
The man with the shovel had a scar on his face. He went down the pit in silence, wading through the bloody mud. In the midst of the stench, he looked through the bodies that had just been thrown away, carefully checking every one. In the end, he only dragged up one of the bodies and smiled with relief, tiredly: "No."
"So this one is from the third company?"
He nodded: "It should be, he looks familiar. After burying him, I can leave with peace of mind."
So the two of them lifted the body together and staggered into the woods.
"Brother Ma Liang, do you think I can still be an Eighth Route Army soldier?"
"No one remembers you. No matter what your name is."
…