Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Two: The Informant

In a terrible dream, the government troops attacked, the Australians were defeated, and the chiefs were all dragged to the execution ground to be beheaded. Somehow, her whole family was there: her father, mother, brother, her younger brother who had died in infancy, and her grandparents who had passed away many years ago. They were all tied up with ropes and had execution warrants stuck in their backs. The ground was already a river of blood. She wanted to explain to the officials at the execution ground that her family were not (a derogatory term for the Time-Crossers), but just refugees who had been swept up in the events, but she couldn’t speak. Later, she wanted to escape. She was clearly not tied up, and no one was guarding her, but she couldn’t move her feet. She was so anxious that she cried out.

Similar dreams occurred several times. A few times, when she woke up from a nightmare, she made up her mind to drop out of school the next day, go back and tell her family to run away, far away from this place.

But during the day, she hesitated again: run away, where to? There was no paradise in this Ming Dynasty. Not to mention a paradise, it was not easy for a small person like her to find a place to live in peace. Lingao was not a paradise, but at least it allowed her whole family to live a peaceful life, with food to eat, clothes to wear, and a house to live in, and it gave them hope for the future. Did her family really want to go back to the wandering life of displacement and near-destruction?

What about rebellion? Lu Cheng thought, without the Australians, her family might have already died on the streets. She would probably have fallen into the hands of human traffickers and been sold somewhere to suffer. She made up her mind: even if it was rebellion, she would follow the chiefs, even if it meant death—at least she had lived a few good days now. If they could defeat the government troops, the future would be even better.

“The Australian chiefs saved our whole family. Even if it’s rebellion and beheading, we’ll follow them,” Lu Cheng sighed. “What else can we do?”

“I just don’t know if the chiefs can hold on,” Yao Yulan said. “My father moved our entire family’s belongings to Lingao. If the chiefs can’t defeat the government troops, our family will be completely finished.” Unlike the refugees who had suffered enough, Yao Yulan lacked the courage to burn her bridges.

“You have a family, and so do I,” Lu Cheng said. Suddenly, she remembered something. “The chiefs have such good firearms. The government troops will definitely not be able to defeat them.”

“And that big iron ship. The government troops can’t even defeat the pirates. They’ll have no chance against the Australians’ iron ship,” Yao Yulan seemed to be trying to cheer herself up. Suddenly, she sighed again. “It’s just that the chiefs have too few soldiers. If the government troops have a lot of people, I’m afraid they won’t be able to win.”

“It doesn’t matter if the Australians have few soldiers. Aren’t we all ‘soldiers’?” Ke Yun, who was sleeping in the bunk next to them, was awakened by their words. She was the youngest of them all, only seventeen, but she looked very thin and small. Ke Yun had never mentioned her family. Yao Yulan thought she was probably an orphan.

“We are also considered soldiers?” Yao Yulan said in surprise. “Women fighting in a war, aren’t the chiefs afraid of bad luck? Women are not allowed in the army.”

“They have female officials, so what’s a few female soldiers?” Ke Yun said softly. “Haven’t you seen them?”

“I have. A Chief Dong. She’s beautiful, but her frame is really big!” Yao Yulan gestured. “Her chest…” She pulled up her clothes to an exaggerated height. “This big!”

Several girls giggled, waking up the others. Women were always talkative, and one by one, they all joined the chat.

“Chief Dong is very powerful. I’ve seen her practice with a steel spear. I heard she also went to the countryside to kill bandits.”

“So fierce, is she from a family of traveling performers?”

“Nonsense, Chief Dong is very learned and manages many villages. She often comes to our village.”

“Isn’t it Chief Du who often goes to the villages? A tall female chief with long legs,” Lu Cheng remembered. This Chief Du was decisive in her actions, had her hair cut very short, and spoke only in “Newspeak” that was incomprehensible. However, the leaders in the village were all afraid of her.

“There are several of them,” Ke Yun said. “Besides, once we learn how to shoot, I’m not afraid of you, a small soldier, or even a great general in full armor. With the chiefs’ six-star repeating guns, anyone who comes will die.”

The so-called “six-star repeating gun” was actually a revolver. Among the large number of pistols purchased by the Transmigrator Group through the North American branch were many S&W 9mm revolvers. Many transmigrator members found this kind of pistol convenient to use—especially women, almost everyone had one.

“That’s for the chiefs. Will they give them to us?” Yao Yulan had been in Bairen Commune for more than half a year and knew that the things given to the natives, although dozens of times better than similar items in this time and space, were far inferior to what they used themselves. “Besides, even if they give them to us, I wouldn’t dare to go into battle with a gun. I’m scared when hundreds of soldiers in the army shout together during drills.”

“That’s right, I wouldn’t dare to go to the battlefield to fight and kill,” a girl echoed.

“What do you know,” Yang Cao, who was sleeping in the bunk below Ke Yun, also woke up. She had been silent all this time, but now she chimed in. “The chiefs want us to do the work of the Australian Jinyiwei and Dongchang.”

“Jinyiwei, what is Dongchang?” Most of the girls didn’t know what this was, but Yao Yulan and Lu Cheng knew, and their faces immediately changed.

The Jinyiwei had branches in the local areas, but the Dongchang mainly operated in the capital, and it was rare to see traces of Dongchang agents in the local areas. But since Wei Zhongxian came to power during the Tianqi era, even some remote places had seen “people in bright clothes and on spirited horses speaking the capital’s dialect.” The name of the Dongchang had also spread beyond the capital and throughout the country.

“So they want us to be female agents?” Yao Yulan’s “face turned pale with fright.”

“What is an agent?”

“It’s the court’s spies,” Yang Cao said. “They specialize in investigating the rights and wrongs of officials and commoners. With a warrant from the Ministry of Justice, they can arrest people, interrogate them, or kill them directly.”

“So powerful!” The girls immediately gasped.

“Do we have to kill people too?” Yao Yulan was almost scared to death—she wanted to be a “cadre,” but she had no intention of fighting and killing.

At this moment, footsteps were heard in the corridor, and everyone fell silent at the same time—chatting at night without rest was a serious mistake.

Early the next morning, during the chaotic breakfast time at the Fangcaodi Education Park’s No. 1 cafeteria, Ke Yun quietly slipped away. A few minutes later, she appeared in a small windowless room behind the cafeteria. This was one of the “safe houses” set up by the General Political Security Bureau in the Fangcaodi Education Park. This kind of room was often set up in a building complex, and only those who knew the way could find it. The people from the General Political Security Bureau would meet with their spies here, listen to reports, and issue instructions.

Wu Mu was waiting for her in the room. Ke Yun was actually the “ten-person group” that Wu Mu had planted in the girls’ squad. Ke Yun was trained to specialize in “internal control.” This fifteen-year-old orphan, who was actually fifteen, was rescued from a pile of dead bodies in a public cemetery in Nanhai County by the Guangzhou Station. Now she had become a seasoned informant who would not blink an eye at betraying anyone.

She reported to Wu Mu on the ideological trends of the girls’ squad and whether there were any serious violations of discipline. Wu Mu listened very carefully. In fact, Ke Yun’s Mandarin was not bad. Her dialect was a complete disguise.

In her report, she focused on the recent ideological wavering of the girls’ squad, especially Yao Yulan. Ke Yun’s evaluation of her was very low. She believed that this person had seen some of the world, was eloquent, and had invisibly dominated the public opinion in the girls’ squad.

“Yao Yulan’s position is not firm, and she often spreads wavering remarks,” Ke Yun said. Then she listed many of the things Yao Yulan had said. Because the cultural level of most of the native personnel was too low, they could not write very appropriate reports. When Ran Yao was training the members of the ten-person group, he focused on training their ability to repeat language, directly repeating the words of the monitored objects.

Wu Mu took notes on the key points of her report. He did not ask questions during the whole process, but waited until she had finished speaking before speaking, so as not to interrupt her presentation. Then she reported on Yang Cao’s suspicious points—her age was older, and she said she was an actress, but she had never been heard singing. Moreover, she actually knew something about the government’s secret service organizations like the Dongchang and the Jinyiwei—she even knew that the dispatched personnel were called “agents.”

Wu Mu was not interested in Yao Yulan’s matter. Whether she was asked to drop out of school directly or to continue to be observed for a period of time was not a big deal. But Yang Cao’s matter was special—could this woman be a spy?

Wu Mu decided to check this person’s file after he went back.

“Lu Cheng often has nightmares at night,” Ke Yun continued her report. “She often wakes up with a start. She never says what dreams she has, but once I heard her say in her sleep: ‘…was coerced to come.’ I think her position is wavering.”

The so-called “being coerced” was nothing more than saying that she was not working for the Australians voluntarily, but was forced to. In this way, Lu Cheng’s confidence in the Transmigrator Group was very poor, and she believed that sooner or later they would be wiped out by the government troops—otherwise she would not have such a dream.

Then she reported on the ideological situation of several other people and gave her own evaluation of each of them. While listening, Wu Mu took notes and secretly admired Ran Yao: without the foundation he had laid, he really didn’t know how to do this work. The training of personnel alone was a great achievement.

“You did a good job,” Wu Mu nodded and gave his praise. Ke Yun immediately stood up, “Thank you, chief.”

“Sit down. You continue to monitor them, with a focus on Yang Cao,” Wu Mu gave her instructions. “Who she has the most contact with, what she says, where she often goes, all must be reported.”

“Understood.”

“As for Yao Yulan’s wavering tendency, you should pay attention to eliminating her bad influence at any time,” Wu Mu said. “You must give everyone confidence.”