cobweb

Volume Two, Chapter Two of "Clash of Shadows"

The spring chill lingered, and the river wind, carrying fine rain, stung our faces, making them feel cold and damp. The Heihe Wharf was shrouded in a gray, misty fog, and the usual bustling voices and shouts seemed to have been drowned out by the rain, leaving only the dull thuds of loading and unloading goods and the occasional impatient shouts from the overseers.

Xiao Chen, dressed in a patched and rain-soaked old cotton-padded coat with a dirty cloth draped over his shoulders, mingled in the line of laborers waiting for work. He imitated the others, hunching his shoulders, tucking his hands into his sleeves, and stamping his feet to ward off the biting cold, while his eyes, like the most precise instruments, silently scanned the entire dock.

This was his third visit. The first time was to familiarize himself with the environment, and the second time he figured out the locations of several main warehouses and Japanese guard towers. Today, following the instructions of Gu Tieshan and Shen Lanjun, his target was the pattern—the pattern of the Japanese patrol changing shifts, and the pattern of the guard shift changes at the warehouses marked "Military Restricted Area."

The rain blurred his vision, but it also provided excellent cover. He noticed that at the two fixed sentries at the dock entrance, a five-man patrol would come every hour, exchanging a few words before continuing their patrol along the riverbank. Warehouse No. 3, the place supposedly storing "special supplies," was particularly heavily guarded. Two armed Japanese soldiers with fierce eyes always stood at the entrance, and every two hours, a four-man shift would come to relieve them, the handover process extremely rigid and meticulous.

"Damn it, this awful weather..." an old laborer muttered under his breath, rubbing his hands, which were red from the cold.

Xiao Chen nodded in agreement, but his gaze caught sight of a well-equipped group of Japanese soldiers in rubber-soled raincoats running out of a nearby barracks, replacing the sentries at the dock entrance. He silently noted the time in his mind.

Meanwhile, a hundred miles away, there is the "Jiangwan Wooden House".

Rain pattered against the thatched roof, making a rustling sound. Shen Lanjun sat in front of the radio, her brow furrowed. Establishing stable contact with Jiangbei (the Soviet Union) was far more difficult than she had imagined. She tried several pre-arranged frequencies and times, but received either jumbled radio interference or short, unintelligible signals. The other side was clearly extremely cautious.

Gu Tieshan wasn't inside. He was wearing a waterproof oilcloth raincoat and was setting up sentry posts and retreat routes with Geng Dashan in the woods behind the cabin. Rain dripped from the edge of the raincoat as he walked steadily on the slippery humus.

“Old Geng, look here.” Gu Tieshan stopped on a slope with a relatively open view and pointed to a path half-hidden by bushes below. “If the Japanese sneak up from here, we can set up a sentry here and detect them a moment in advance.”

Geng Dashan followed his finger and nodded admiringly, "Brother Gu, you have a sharp eye! I'd never noticed this place before." He paused, then asked curiously, "The way you set up these sentry posts is different from how we used to set traps when hunting. It's more like... more like the style of a regular army?"

Gu Tieshan paused slightly, as if something had been touched in his mind, and some blurry images flashed through his mind—muddy trenches, soldiers moving silently in the rainy night, passing orders with hand gestures... He shook his head to dispel those disjointed fragments and mumbled, "Hmm, I've heard people talk about it before."

Seeing that he didn't want to say more, Geng Dashan didn't press him further, but he felt even more convinced of this "Old Gu".

The two continued forward, checking the pre-arranged traps and hiding places. When they reached a dense forest near a stream, Gu Tieshan suddenly stopped and gestured for Geng Dashan to take cover. His sharp gaze locked onto a clump of bushes a few dozen paces ahead. Amidst the sound of rain, he seemed to hear an extremely faint, distinct frictional sound, unlike any other natural noise.

Geng Dashan held his breath and followed his gaze. He saw the bushes sway slightly, and a figure wearing an old gray cotton-padded jacket and carrying a hunting bow emerged. The figure looked around and then walked in the opposite direction from their wooden house.

"Is that Liu Laosi?" Geng Dashan asked in a low voice. "Does he also hunt for food in this area?"

Gu Tieshan remained silent, his gaze fixed on the hunter's retreating figure, his eyes icy. He noticed that the mud on the hunter's trousers and shoes was a slightly different color from the soil in this area, more like the red clay near Heihe Town downstream. Moreover, a true hunter wouldn't wander aimlessly along the edge of the forest in this rainy weather; it would be more like…patrolling?

“Something’s not right.” Gu Tieshan’s voice was very low. “He’s been following us for a while.”

Geng Dashan's expression changed: "Damn it, are they Japanese spies?"

“Uncertain.” Gu Tieshan’s gaze was sharp as a hawk. “But we can’t leave any hidden dangers. Uncle Dashan, you go around to the left and block his way to Heihe Town. I’ll follow from the right.”

Geng Dashan understood and immediately crouched down, using the trees as cover, and silently maneuvered to the left flank.

Gu Tieshan, like the most experienced hunter in the forest, disappeared into the shadows of the trees on the right in a few leaps and bounds, without making a sound. He even seemed to cleverly use the sound of raindrops to cover up his actions.

The hunter seemed oblivious, continuing to walk at a leisurely pace, occasionally stopping to pretend to examine the animal tracks on the ground.

Just as he reached a corner where the trees were particularly dense and his view was obstructed, a dark figure flashed out from behind a tree to his side like a ghost! A hand covered his mouth like an iron clamp, while the other arm tightly strangled his neck!

The hunter stared in terror, struggling desperately, but the strength of the man behind him was astonishing. He felt his neck about to be snapped, and the feeling of suffocation overwhelmed him instantly. He tried to reach for the hunting knife at his waist, but his wrist was precisely gripped, and a tremendous force came through, causing his joints to make a teeth-grinding cracking sound.

In just over ten seconds, his struggles grew weaker and weaker until he finally collapsed completely.

Gu Tieshan slowly released his grip, letting the corpse slump to the ground. He crouched down and quickly searched the body. Besides the hunting knife and bow and arrows, he found a small metal identification tag with Japanese writing on it, as well as a hand-drawn simple map marking several key terrain features and routes near "Jiangwan" in the body's inner pocket.

He was indeed a spy.

Gu Tieshan's eyes were cold. He put away the identity tag and map, dragged the corpse to a steep ravine frequented by wild animals, and pushed it down. The rain would quickly wash away most of the traces.

When he returned and met up with Geng Dashan, Geng Dashan looked at his calm, expressionless face and the almost negligible, freshly acquired, and quickly washed-away scent of blood on his body, and felt a chill run down his spine. This Brother Gu, who usually kept a low profile, was surprisingly clean, efficient, ruthless, and decisive when he took action.

"It's resolved," Gu Tieshan said, uttering only three words.

Geng Dashan nodded emphatically, without asking any further questions.

The rain continued to drizzle. At the Heihe Wharf, Xiao Chen noted down the time of the last patrol's shift change, then dragged his "tired" body away with the group of casual laborers. Inside the wooden cabin by the river, Shen Lanjun was still trying to call out, while Gu Tieshan and Geng Dashan, like two silent spider webs, began to firmly guard this nascent secret outpost.

The battles in the shadows are taking place quietly in every unknown corner.