Chapter Thirty-Four: The Towering Waves

Ning Zhiheng left the Interrogation Department and hurried back to the Operations Department. By the time he arrived, it was already past midnight. He noticed that the lights were still on in Wei Liangbi’s office. Since the issue of the sulfa drugs still needed to be reported and resolved, he knocked on the door and entered.

To his surprise, Shi Hong was also in Wei Liangbi’s office, and there were various files and items spread out on the desk. These were Huang Xiansheng’s personal files and belongings, which Wei Liangbi and Shi Hong were carefully examining, hoping to find something useful.

“How did the interrogation go?” Wei Liangbi immediately put down the files in his hands and asked urgently when he saw Ning Zhiheng return. The reason he’d stayed so late was to wait for news from Ning Zhiheng. If there was a breakthrough, this would be a major case, one that could bring considerable credit to them all.

“Huang Xiansheng talked. We’ve gained a great deal, and the details are shocking! That man deserves to be shot ten times over!” Ning Zhiheng said with particular emphasis, his voice grim. He handed over the interrogation record.

Wei Liangbi and Shi Hong’s eyes lit up at his words—this was excellent news.

“Eight hours, and you broke him! Well done, Zhiheng!” Wei Liangbi, thrilled, stepped forward and gripped Ning Zhiheng’s shoulders with both hands, shaking him vigorously.

“But the torture was too severe. The prisoner is running a high fever and can’t withstand any more. If we keep going, there might be more clues to uncover,” Ning Zhiheng said with a helpless expression, cursing, “The people in the Interrogation Department are too ruthless. They still refuse to use the sulfa injections for inflammation, and I doubt the prisoner will last much longer!”

Ning Zhiheng shifted the blame onto the Interrogation Department. After all, it was Jiang Wende and Zhang Ping who had carried out the torture—he hadn’t laid a finger on the prisoner himself.

Wei Liangbi grew anxious at once. The credit for the case was within reach, but if the prisoner died, all their efforts would be for nothing.

“Those idiots in the Interrogation Department ruin everything they touch. No matter—this matter is too important. We’ll pay for the medicine ourselves, and settle accounts with them later!” Wei Liangbi said through gritted teeth.

He turned to Shi Hong. “Go to the medical storage and get two sulfa injections for the Interrogation Department. Make sure you watch them administer it. I’ll call the storage now and finish the paperwork first thing in the morning. Hurry!”

Shi Hong knew the urgency and wasted no time heading out.

Meanwhile, Wei Liangbi picked up the phone to notify the relevant department. The Military Intelligence Bureau was a well-organized and strictly managed institution, with its own medical staff and pharmacy. There were personnel on night duty as well, so nothing would be delayed.

After finishing this matter, Wei Liangbi eagerly opened the interrogation record to read, signaling to Ning Zhiheng to review Huang Xiansheng’s materials as well—later, they would summarize their findings.

Ning Zhiheng opened the file and studied it closely. It was clean and corresponded with Huang Xiansheng’s confession. Understandable—if there were anything suspicious in the file, how could Huang have held his post as an operations staff officer in the Central Army undisturbed?

Huang truly did have a mother and older brother still living in his hometown of Linyi, Shandong. Could he really be Chinese? It didn’t seem plausible.

The file revealed no problems. Next, he began examining the items from Huang Xiansheng’s office, but found only some common office supplies.

That was expected—someone as cautious as Huang wouldn’t keep anything valuable in his office.

Not long after, Shi Hong returned. Seeing the two men still engrossed in their materials, he waited quietly to the side.

“Hong, was it smooth getting the files?” Ning Zhiheng asked.

He finished reading the reports, somewhat disappointed. There was little to see—anything out in the open was unlikely to be incriminating.

Seeing Shi Hong idle, he decided to ask about the process.

“It was smooth enough. No one gave me any trouble, but everyone kept their distance. I wanted to ask someone about Huang Xiansheng’s daily routines, but couldn’t find a soul—they acted like I was carrying the plague,” Shi Hong replied gruffly.

“That’s hardly surprising. To them, we in Military Intelligence are like the King of Hell, or judge and executioner, or devils! But that’s just as well. We want them to be afraid, to be terrified, so they don’t dare interfere. That’s both an advantage and a disadvantage,” Wei Liangbi interjected, having finally finished the interrogation record.

“Chief, do you have any instructions?” Ning Zhiheng asked, addressing Wei Liangbi formally in front of Shi Hong. He only called him “senior brother” when they were alone.

“We’ve caught a big fish, Zhiheng. Do you understand? If this interrogation record is released, it could cause an enormous storm!” Wei Liangbi stood, took the cup of tea Shi Hong handed him, and paced the room twice before speaking again.

“According to the content here, all the armaments, firepower allocations, personnel lists, and military deployments of the Eleventh Division have been completely leaked over the past few years—there’s nothing left secret. If war breaks out with Japan and we deploy the Eleventh Division, it would be a massacre,” he said gravely.

“That bastard was just a regimental staff officer—how did he get so much critical intelligence?” Shi Hong’s face turned pale with fear. The consequences were dire—every commanding officer in the Eleventh Division could be implicated in such a disaster.

Wei Liangbi’s eyes turned cold and sinister. “It may be military secrets to us, but not to staff officers working directly with these matters. With access to correspondence and operational orders, anyone determined enough can piece together our secrets bit by bit. Add the bureaucratic incompetence and lack of security awareness among our officers, and this is what happens.”

He flipped to a section in the record and spat angrily, “A Whampoa graduate, a lieutenant colonel serving as a staff officer, had a few drinks and blurted out the artillery regiment’s deployment at a banquet. Is his head filled with nothing but dung?”

Wei Liangbi grew more agitated as he spoke, fury rising in his chest. With a shout, he hurled his teacup to the ground, splashing tea over Ning Zhiheng and Shi Hong’s shoes.

“Better late than never. Now that we know about the leak, we must report it at once—the higher-ups will have ways to remedy the situation. It’s not as hopeless as it seems,” Ning Zhiheng quickly tried to calm him.

“Unfortunately, things are even worse than we imagined!” Wei Liangbi closed his eyes in thought for a long moment before looking at Shi Hong. “You joined the Military Intelligence Bureau two years ago, didn’t you?”

Shi Hong was puzzled. Why would the chief ask about this out of the blue?

“Yes sir. I studied at the Wuhan branch for a year and a half, so I graduated early. I was first assigned to the Central Seventh Division, and half a year later—that is, at the end of 1933—I was transferred to Military Intelligence,” Shi Hong summarized. Of course Wei Liangbi already knew these facts; he spoke mainly for Ning Zhiheng’s benefit.

It turned out there were differences and ranks among Whampoa graduates as well. Those who studied and graduated from the main academy in Nanjing were direct-line, elite officers. The entry threshold was high, selection strict, and the course lasted two to three years. Ning Zhiheng had a two-year course but graduated early due to special circumstances. Shi Hong, on the other hand, had attended the Wuhan branch, which was a tier below—the entry threshold was lower, and courses lasted one to two years.

Outwardly, both could claim to be Whampoa graduates, but within the system, there were clear distinctions. Main academy graduates had advantages in resources, connections, and promotion rates in the army. This was one reason Shi Hong chose to follow his senior, Wei Liangbi—he was at an inherent disadvantage, and Wei was his direct superior.

“Do you remember a man named Kong Liangce?” Wei Liangbi continued.

“Kong Liangce? You mean the suspect from the intelligence leak two years ago? Wasn’t he already executed in secret? That’s right, he was also from the Eleventh Division,” Shi Hong finally recalled the name.

Ning Zhiheng was completely in the dark—he’d still been at the officers’ academy when the case occurred and had never heard of it. He looked at Wei Liangbi, who began to explain.

Two years before, there had been a major intelligence leak in the Eleventh Division. To prepare for the Shanghai Incident, the Eleventh Division had urgently drawn up a defense plan. One morning, the division’s chief of staff discovered that two pages of the plan, kept in his safe, were out of order.

The chief of staff was a meticulous man. He remembered clearly reviewing the plan before locking it away the day before—the pages could not have been misplaced. Realizing the gravity of the situation, he reported it immediately. Military Intelligence launched an investigation, but progress was slow. After screening all suspects, their suspicion finally settled on Kong Liangce, the logistics chief.

That night, only Kong had been working late in the office building. With such strict security, it was impossible for anyone else to have entered unnoticed. Kong was detained and soon confessed: he had used the pretext of overtime to stay in the building, opened the safe, and read the plan. In his haste, he put the pages back in the wrong order, which was noticed by the chief of staff.

Afterward, higher authorities ordered the matter handled quietly to avoid affecting morale. Military Intelligence carried out the execution, officially reporting that Kong was killed by bandits while out. Since he had only read—not stolen—the plans, there was no physical evidence. The matter was thus considered resolved.

“How could that be?” Ning Zhiheng was stunned.

He remembered clearly from Huang Xiansheng’s confession that one of the leaks came from this very incident. According to Huang’s words, after finishing work that night, he slipped back into the building through the sewer system. Familiar with the layout, he evaded the patrols and entered the chief of staff’s office, spending considerable time to open the safe. After using a miniature camera to photograph the documents, he realized he’d spent too long and dawn was approaching. In his haste, he put the pages back in the wrong order as he left the scene.

In his confession, Huang made no mention of what happened afterward. In his mind, the mission was accomplished, and the fate of someone like Kong Liangce was irrelevant. That’s why Ning Zhiheng had never heard of Kong before.

Ning Zhiheng knew well the cruel methods employed in the Interrogation Department—what confession couldn’t be forced out under such torture? Now it seemed clear: Kong Liangce had been used as a scapegoat by the investigators in Military Intelligence.