Chapter 41: The Whereabouts of the Female Temp

With a “clang,” the door of No. 39 was opened. There weren’t many people here to begin with; only seven or eight people lived in a house that could accommodate 40. The sound of the door opening and closing was particularly loud. With the sound of the door, everyone in No. 39 looked up.

No. 39 was a barracks in the quarantine camp, and it was very special: the entire quarantine camp was surrounded by barbed wire, bamboo fences, and ditches, while No. 39, situated within it, was separately isolated by another bamboo fence. No. 39 and the adjacent No. 40 were “special barracks,” dedicated to quarantining outsiders placed on the “special list.” The people inside were a motley crew, including suspicious individuals suspected of being spies of various factions, monks and Taoist priests who had crossed the sea, and people kidnapped from the mainland… They all had a unified designation: “priority quarantine personnel pending investigation.” After they completed their 40-day quarantine period, they were directly transferred to the respective specialized departments. Most were handed over to the General Political Security Bureau, while others were sent to the Office of Religious Affairs, the Police Headquarters, or the Foreign Intelligence Bureau. Their place of detention would also be moved to the county yamen prison in Lingao County or the Political Security Bureau’s “study class.”

No. 39 was the female camp, and there were far fewer people inside than in the men’s camp, No. 40, next door. The seven or eight women, of different ages and appearances, all turned their gazes to the doorway.

“Li Yongxun, come out,” a middle-aged woman appeared at the door.

“Where is this place?” Li Yongxun walked to the door, the sunlight outside was dazzlingly bright. She staggered a few steps before she could stand firm. She had been knocked unconscious in Macau and woke up to find herself on a ship. No matter how she shouted and cried in the cabin, no one ever came out to answer her. Only a young girl brought her food twice a day, in the morning and evening.

Li Yongxun guessed that she might have been captured by the Australians. Filled with fear, and in order to understand the situation as quickly as possible, she resorted to her ultimate measure: a hunger strike.

She didn’t even touch the dry rations and water delivered in the morning.

“Tell your big boss to come and see me and explain things clearly! Otherwise, I will not eat anything!” Li Yongxun said with great righteousness, casually throwing out the plate with two hard, pale biscuits and a cup of water.

The girl who delivered the food silently picked up the things and left. Li Yongxun waited expectantly, but not a single person came for the entire day.

She had overestimated her determination for a hunger strike. After all, in the past, she had only refused meals; there were all kinds of snacks and tidbits everywhere, so she wouldn’t feel hungry even if she didn’t eat for a few days. Therefore, not eating was a piece of cake for Li Yongxun.

However, there were no snacks on the ship, nor were there any nannies or maids to secretly bring her food. Li Yongxun couldn’t last for even a day. In the evening, the girl brought dinner again.

“I won’t eat!” Li Yongxun summoned her last bit of courage and self-respect and shouted, “Take it away! No, leave the water!” Hunger was one thing, but the feeling of not drinking water for a day was too painful.

The girl obediently left the cup of water, took the food plate, and was about to leave.

“Wait!” Li Yongxun stopped her. “Tell the Australians! I am not an ordinary person! My father is in the Nanjing Jinyiwei—” She thought that her father was only a Total Flag, and if it weren’t for the name of the Jinyiwei, it was a hereditary official smaller than a sesame seed. It probably wasn’t enough to scare them, so she immediately changed her words: “…a Hundred-household!”

Apparently, the statement “my father is a Jinyiwei Hundred-household” had no effect. Li Yongxun’s eyes were blurry with hunger, and when breakfast was delivered the next day, her hunger strike was called off.

“Where are you taking me?” Li Yongxun asked pitifully, gnawing on the hard Grassland No. 5 ration.

“You’ll know when the time comes,” was all the girl said.

“Stop asking. You’ll know what you need to know.” The female guard responded to her question with the same words—Li Yongxun shivered. The other party’s expression was not stern, and there was even a hint of sympathy for the young girl in her eyes, but her tone was very cold.

Li Yongxun sighed helplessly. She already knew this was Lingao—she knew it when she saw the strange machines and the big iron ship when she disembarked. She had fallen into the hands of the Australians.

But why did the Australians capture her too? The person in the sedan chair was obviously Imperial Censor Gao. In that case, all her deductions were correct! Li Yongxun was very excited and extremely proud. She forgot that she had gone to Macau purely out of curiosity, and finding the clue about Imperial Censor Gao was a fluke—now all of this had become her own unique deduction.

However, Li Yongxun’s pride and excitement did not last long. She was sent to the quarantine camp. After suffering what she called a “great shame and humiliation”—a physical examination and a collective disinfecting bath—she was locked up in this large room full of bunk beds, living a tedious life of two meals of seafood congee a day. No one came to question her again. No matter what she asked, the women guarding this place never uttered a single useful word. As for the other women in Room 39, she couldn’t get any information from them either—like her, they had been sent here as soon as they landed.

Outside the barracks were three neatly dressed kūnzéi rebels in matching short jackets, with leather belts around their waists and another one slung across their chests. Blue cloth strips were sewn onto their shoulders, with some strange patterns. Small blue cloth patches were also sewn on their collars. The leader was the young girl who had brought her food on the ship. She wore the same clothes as the male kūnzéi rebels, but her lower body was paired with a dark blue pleated skirt—Li Yongxun’s eyes widened: the skirt did not even cover her instep, but only went past her knees, revealing the white cotton stockings that tightly wrapped her calves underneath.

“Shameless,” Li Yongxun muttered to herself. Even so, she still felt a bit envious. The woman in front of her was clearly holding an official position among the kūnzéi rebels, which was much better than her, an imposter who used someone else’s waist token to bluff.

“One priority quarantine personnel pending investigation, Li Yongxun!” The female guard handed a paper folder to Ke Yun. Ke Yun opened it, looked at it, and then checked the bamboo tag hanging around her neck.

“Identity verified!” Ke Yun said, then signed the handover form. “Take her away!”

“Where are you taking me?” Li Yongxun asked loudly, but no one answered her. A kūnzéi rebel took out a black hood and put it directly over her head. The feeling of darkness and suffocation instantly injected immense fear into her heart. She felt someone push her, and she was taken away.

An immense sense of fear enveloped her entire body. Li Yongxun had been in and out of the Ming Dynasty’s violent institutions since she was a child and knew very well the fate of those who fell into the hands of such institutions—regardless of guilt or innocence, even imperial relatives, if there was no intervention from high-level officials, even an immortal would have to shed a layer of skin. The fate of female prisoners was even more terrifying: they would be repeatedly humiliated and raped. She herself had interrogated female prisoners—she knew the horror of it. Thinking that all kinds of terrible experiences were about to befall her, a strong urge to urinate rose uncontrollably from her lower abdomen.

Originally, she had thought that the Australians would not dare to do anything to her, but what she had seen and heard after arriving in Lingao made it clear to her—Lingao was already “like an enemy state,” not the territory of the Ming Dynasty at all. Her fake identity as a Jinyiwei would probably not work—not only would it not work, but she might even be treated as a spy and “severely tortured” or directly killed.

Li Yongxun was taken onto a two-wheeled Dongfeng carriage. After about ten minutes, she was taken into a building belonging to the Political Security Bureau. Here, she was briefly interrogated. It was nothing more than name, age, family background, and the like. Her relationship with Lin Ming was also questioned. Li Yongxun told them everything, including how she had found Imperial Censor Gao’s whereabouts and other matters in Macau. She didn’t dare to hide anything. Although this room was clean and had nothing but a table and chairs, there was no guarantee that there wasn’t a fully equipped torture chamber next door. A wise woman does not fight when the odds are against her.

After the interrogation, Zhou Dongtian, who was in charge of the interrogation, instructed that Li Yongxun be temporarily detained in the Political Security Bureau’s study class. He then immediately transferred the materials to the Foreign Intelligence Bureau—the person was captured by them, so how to deal with her would be decided by Jiang Shan and Li Yan.

“Not much to her,” Zhou Dongtian said. “Just an ordinary girl. She found Imperial Censor Gao purely by accident.”

“She’s not from the Jinyiwei?” Li Yan asked.

Zhou Dongtian smiled, “Let’s say she’s a temp worker. After all, her cousin-in-law did get her someone else’s token to bluff people. Anyway, the practice of yamen using off-the-books temporary workers has existed in all ages.”

“The Jinyiwei hasn’t targeted us?”

“Maybe they have,” Zhou Dongtian said. “But, in my personal opinion, at least the local Jinyiwei is not very efficient. According to Li Yongxun’s confession, the Jinyiwei trial Hundred-household responsible for investigating the disappearance of Imperial Censor Gao followed them to Macau purely by chance.”

“Do you believe what she said?” Li Yan was not very confident. “Shouldn’t we show her some films like ‘NIGHT24’ or ‘Spider’?” Showing various S&M films to the interrogated was now an effective interrogation method of the transmigrator group’s dictatorship organs. The imagination of the 21st-century sex/entertainment industry was endless.

“No need,” Zhou Dongtian said indifferently. “If she can deceive me with her body language, then she is a master spy of this era.”

“Alright.” Li Yan picked up Li Yongxun’s file. “What should we do with her?”

“If she were ugly, we could just get rid of her,” Zhou Dongtian said. “Or send her to Fu Youdi’s place as a laborer. But I see you guys don’t seem to have the heart to do it.” He said with a mysterious smile.

“That’s not true,” Li Yan quickly defended himself. “No matter what, she is still a dangerous element.”

“Dangerous element? Absolutely not,” Zhou Dongtian shook his head and said. “She’s just an ordinary girl who likes to show off and is overly curious—just like the girls in the 21st century. However, now that she’s here, it’s not up to her—some things are not to be played with.”