Chapter 44
Late spring, 1929.
During the Grain Rain period in Tianjin, the weather is still chilly despite the warming trend, with a sudden increase in the temperature difference between day and night. The southwest wind travels a long way from the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, blowing this riverside city lined with willows like a snowstorm.
That morning, dark clouds covered the sky above Tianjin Port. The clouds were like large, settled old gray felt blankets, pressing heavily on the sea. The April wind, carrying the smell of the sea and the lingering chill of winter, swept across the vast port area.
It looked like a dark cloud looming over the city, threatening to crush it. One dockworker thought this as the huge wooden crates stacked on the cargo ship were hoisted one by one onto barges and small boats using a crane.
"Hey, come give me a hand!" someone called out to him. "This is the last box of goods. There are some people on the uphill side in a bit. Go down and keep an eye on them."
"Isn't Qipo one of Long Er's men?" The dockworker sat at the stern of the boat, now having a moment to relax, and lit a cigarette. The smoke drifted backward around his finger.
"No, the boss is personally checking the goods at the dock, so Long Er and the others don't need them. They don't need to go into the warehouse. Besides, he didn't come today," the man said as he rowed the boat, sweat dripping onto the sampan with each stroke. He looked up at the sky and said, "The weather is bad for the boat to leave port today. This is probably the last trip."
"It's going to pour rain," his companion echoed as he rowed.
The barge docked. The dockworkers jumped off the sampan and took the crates from their companions. The crates were surprisingly light. What was inside didn't matter; he only knew that once this cargo was unloaded, he could go home and get a good night's sleep. He hadn't rested for a single moment since the previous evening.
Thank goodness, the sudden rainy weather lifted his spirits considerably.
He carried the wooden crate on his shoulder and walked forward. Not far away, a large truck was parked with its trunk open, and they were allowed to load the goods directly onto it.
A man in a black shirt stood beside the truck, directing the workers to unload the cargo. There were also two other men who looked like bodyguards, standing on either side of the back seat. The dockworker noticed that they were all holding guns.
"Sir," the man in the black shirt said after checking the goods, turning around to the front of the car and knocking on the passenger-side windshield.
"It's here, not a single box is missing," Lu Jin reported into the gradually rolling down car window.
The person inside opened the car door, got out, and planned to do a final check himself. The dockworker stood respectfully to the side, waiting for his boss to verify the documents. After the verification was complete, he would receive an invoice, which was the reward the employer would give to the dockworkers.
When the man in the trench coat walked up to him and stood by the trunk, checking the contents with his eyes, he looked up at the man, clicked his tongue inwardly, and was speechless.
"He's a foreigner, rich," he thought as the man stood before him. So tall, those clothes must be expensive, they seem to be all leather. A faint, peculiar scent wafted in the air beside him. He sniffed, his sense of smell, dulled by years of pickling seafood, identifying it as something like ebony—subtle, understated yet undeniably present. Suddenly, he felt a chill run down his spine, realizing a man could live like this. When the man turned to face him, he was utterly stunned by the man's appearance. He had never seen a face so clearly before. "...Boss, this...the goods are correct, right? Everything's here."
Why is foreigners' blood so different? Their features are so distinct, so deeply ingrained that their entire gaze is clear. He couldn't quite describe the feeling, only that being looked at by this man gave him an instinctive urge to shrink back. It seemed too strange, so he could only chuckle twice to cover it up. Suddenly remembering that the other man probably couldn't understand him, he nervously wiped his hands on his clothes and turned to the bodyguard in black beside him, "Is this...is this alright?"
"Give him the tickets." Tang Zefei closed the trunk and said to Lu Jin.
The dockworker looked incredulously at the man in the trench coat's back, almost unable to believe that he was hearing such foreign-sounding Chinese spoken by a foreigner.
"Sir," Lu Jin caught up with Tang Zefei, who was holding the car door and about to step inside, "What's wrong?"
"This invoice isn't right, it's two hundred," he said, fiddling with a piece of paper in his hand. "Isn't that too much?"
Tang Zefei took the bill from his hand, examined it closely, and frowned slightly. "Isn't this the one I gave you yesterday?"
“No,” Lu Jin said. “Sir, it must have been signed when you were at the bookstore that day.”
"The amount is the same, so let's give it to him, it's all the same." Tang Zefei waved his hand.
"Yes." Lu Jin returned, clutching the money.
Tang Zefei lowered her head and thought for a moment, feeling that something was not quite right.
Just then, he looked up, his eyes scanning the surroundings, and inadvertently glanced at the high platform of the tower by the dock.
Under the gloomy sky, he suddenly squinted, thinking that he must have seen someone there.
He thought it must be Yu Congyi.
The tower stands in the waters near the pier, half of it on the shallows beside the waterway. His car is parked near the pier's quay bridge, no more than a hundred meters away.
His eyesight had always been excellent; he could see right through a distance of only a hundred meters or so. He was certain he had spotted Yu Congyi!
Yu Congyi stood on the open-air platform at the top of the tower, in what Tang Zefei perceived as a near-kneeling position. When he saw the other person making eye contact with him, he wasn't sure if Yu Congyi smiled—it was too far away; even the person was hard to see clearly, let alone an indistinct expression on their face! However, looking at the shadow, with that figure and that outline, he was almost certain that it was the other person.
Yu Congyi was holding something in his hand, like a pole, black and straight. Tang Zefei stared blankly at him until Yu Congyi raised it.
Tang Zefei believed that it might be a Hanyang rifle. Yu Congyi steadily picked it up, rested his left elbow on his knee, and placed the rifle in front of his chest.
Yu Congyi waved to him.
Until the very last moment, Tang Zefei showed no intention of dodging. He was almost frozen in place, as if he had been immobilized. When the gun's scope clearly pointed at him, he felt his limbs stiffen. It was as if all the blood in his body was flowing in the opposite direction at that moment. Then, the gunshot rang out.
The expected impact did not penetrate his body. Tang Zefei was shoved backward by a strong force, rolled several times, and after a deafening explosion, a large spray of blood appeared before his eyes.
Lu Jin fell in front of him, a hole ripped in his chest. He lay on his back on the ground, his wrists scraped raw and bloody from the sudden, forceful shove. At the same time, the panicked screams of the crowd began to rise, and the entire dock instantly became like a pot of boiling oil, indescribably chaotic.
Tang Zefei's vision went blank. When he looked down, he saw dark red, warm blood flowing slowly down Lu Jin's side like a stream, soaking the left sleeve of his black shirt and pooling at his feet.
"Young Master...be careful..." Lu Jin raised his hand as if to say something, but he could no longer move. His expression froze on the confused scene, and he closed his eyes.
Lu Jin had no idea what Tang Zefei was looking at.
As his gaze followed the other person's line of sight to the tower not far away, he didn't even have time to see who was on the tower. However, his instincts compelled him to run towards Tang Zefei at lightning speed, because he saw it: the person kneeling on the tower had raised a gun, one eye fixed on the scope—his target was the young master!
There's no time to think about it anymore, don't think about anything else, the young master can't possibly die here.
He pounced on him.
…
After carrying Lu Jin's body away, Tang Zefei squatted alone on the beach, his face deathly pale. A metallic clanging sound kept echoing in his ears, and his breathing became so rapid that he felt as if he was about to suffocate.
Yu Congyi killed Lu Jin.
No, was that Yu Congyi? Yes, that was indeed Yu Congyi. He wasn't mistaken. If Lu Jin hadn't blocked him, he would be the one lying on the ground now. Yu Congyi originally wanted to kill him.
Does Yu Congyi want to kill me?
At this time, Tang Zefei had only been back in Tianjin from Shanghai for a few days. The reason he went to Shanghai was to evade the warrant issued for his escape from the military police detention center. Six months earlier, due to changes in the extradition procedures in the British Concession and the failure to find Zhan Yuewei's body, the evidence against Tang Zefei for a serious crime was insufficient, rendering the warrant almost invalid. At that time, Tang Zefei almost immediately wanted to return to Tianjin. However, his mother, who had moved to Shanghai with him, fell ill, and because of this, he temporarily put aside his plans to return. Merrick's mental state was consistently worrying. Coupled with the fear and anxiety of dying alone that Tang Zefei's imprisonment had left in Merrick's heart, she developed depression, spending her days crying or sitting silently by the window. Tang Zefei suffered from severe headaches and consulted a doctor for his mother. Two months later, her condition improved somewhat, but the doctor determined that the illness was incurable. Although she appeared better now, the doctor predicted that the symptoms would inevitably recur. Since treatment was the same no matter where he sought it, Tang Zefei didn't think the doctors in Shanghai were significantly better than those in Tianjin. Just then, a friend from Tianjin who was doing business with him came to visit, telling him about the situation of the Chamber of Commerce in the British Concession of Tianjin. After seeing his guest off, Tang Zefei, determined to return to Tianjin, had a long talk with his mother that lasted all night. The mother and son shared their thoughts, and soon after, Tang Zefei returned to Tianjin.
Tang Zefei always felt that his roots lay there, not just in business. A person deeply etched in his mind was Tianjin. In the months leading up to his departure from Tianjin a year prior, Tang Zefei often thought of Yu Congyi. Lu Jin's sudden prison break that day was not part of his plan. Before that, he had even thought he would spend his life in prison.
A year is neither a long nor a short time.
When he thought of Yu Congyi, he even suspected that the other might hate him for leaving without saying goodbye. Unfortunately, given what Yu Congyi and his mother had done, he believed this wasn't the only thing Yu Congyi might hate. Tang Zefei would then start thinking back to the year they first met. Back in the church primary school, when she had just met that older brother. The friendship of youth was precious, yet sadly fleeting. They had been separated for over a decade in their youth, and their reunion had only lasted half a year. Why was the vicissitudes of life so repulsive, pushing their relationship to its current tangled and contradictory state?
Tang Zefei recalled a Chinese painting once gifted to him, a work by Ni Zan of the Yuan Dynasty. It depicted mountains and rivers, but he had only a superficial understanding of its brushwork and artistic conception. He only remembered that the person who gave him the painting had specifically emphasized the "blank space"—a restraint, leeway, and a space for compromise and reflection. If a year could be left as blank space, how wonderful that would be?
If he could pray to the Father—no, he should pray to Neptune, the god of desire—he wanted those things to never have happened. Even if they had, he didn't want to know. But even if he wanted to cover his ears, the Holy Spirit would probably remove his hands.
If he were to ask the gods and immortals of the East for help, would they only be able to shake their heads and sigh, saying that fate is hard to defy?
Tang Zefei realized that after meeting Yu Congyi, he had become increasingly insecure. To put it bluntly, he wasn't confident he would leave any mark on Yu Congyi's heart, not even with the negative emotion of hatred. He had no idea what Yu Congyi was thinking, how Yu Congyi had perceived him, or so it had been. Tang Zefei couldn't figure it out, and he knew that overthinking was pointless; anything could happen, and he was used to doing only what he wanted, even if it was futile. So, after pondering the matter for a while, he let it go. How could an ordinary person possibly understand someone else's feelings?
But setting aside these complicated thoughts, standing behind the glass of the French windows at night, gazing at the starry night sky over Shanghai after the lights were turned off, he still wanted to pray. He sincerely hoped that two of the stars were the eyes of Neptune, the god of the sea. He prayed to the heavens and made a wish, desperately hoping that when he returned, he would still remember him. Neptune, bless him. He was willing to go to the Trevi Fountain in Rome again, this time he wanted to toss two coins into it. He hoped that when he saw Yu Congyi again, the other would still clearly remember the burning warmth of his heart when he embraced him. He believed that for a fleeting moment, his heart had already drawn close to Yu's.
…
Tang Zefei looked up, but the figure on the tower had already vanished. The moment they saw Lu Jin fall to the ground, the person on the tower lowered their gun and turned to leave without a trace.
Tang Zefei knew that Yu Congyi might never have forgiven him. He had tried to find traces of the other's past, to find even the slightest shadow of his former self. However, he failed. From various people who might have known him, he heard almost identical descriptions of Yu Congyi—calm, sullen, ruthless, and devoid of human emotion. No, he thought, Yu Congyi wasn't like that. Something must have changed him, so he continued his relentless search, asking around and inquiring. He definitely wanted to know. For a time, the servants were very puzzled by their young master's actions, because they had been asked to travel all the way from Shanghai to Tianjin just to find someone's insignificant past? At that time, they only hoped that their young master hadn't gone mad with greed.
Through tireless, natural efforts, Tang Zefei finally learned a part of Yu Congyi's past—pieced together from the accounts of various people who had contact with Yu Congyi. He learned that Yu Congyi's so-called younger brother was a businessman named Jiang Fengming, who had connections in both the legitimate and criminal worlds. They were not related by blood, and by following the clues, Tang Zefei discovered Yu Congyi's connection to the Jiang family, merchants in the British Concession. Jiang Fengming was the second generation of the Jiang family. Jiang Fengming's father, Jiang Yiqun, was a powerful figure in the British Concession's criminal organization; even Tang Zefei had heard of him. He knew that Yu Congyi had lost both parents at a young age and had been taken in and raised by Jiang Yiqun. Jiang Fengming hadn't even been born yet at that time. The relationship between Jiang Yiqun and Yu Congyi is not something that can be explained in a few words. To outsiders, it seems that Jiang Yiqun's cultivation of Yu Congyi involved both cunning and exploitation—attending a church school as a child and then sending him to a military academy later—half of which was to pave the way for his biological son, Jiang Fengming, who was nine years younger than Yu Congyi. The fact is, after Jiang Yiqun passed away, all of the Jiang family's assets fell into Jiang Fengming's hands and have remained so to this day, with Yu Congyi almost never involved. Yu Congyi always appeared by Jiang Fengming's side as a bodyguard or close protector, though nominally powerless, he still assisted him. To the Jiang family, he seemed to have an inexhaustible debt to repay… He also took the opportunity to clarify the enigmatic Jiang Jiejie, whom Yu Congyi had mentioned. Jiang Jiejie was actually Jiang Yiqun's younger sister, almost ten years younger than him, who had married Yang Xiang of the French Concession a few years prior. Yu Congyi was in love with his aunt, who was not related by blood and had married young. No one knows for sure who Yu Congyi truly loved, but Tang Zefei immediately accepted this in her heart after learning Jiang Jiejie's identity. While there's no reason to be jealous of a dead person, Tang Zefei couldn't help but feel a pang of melancholy while pondering this matter…
However, what he saw was only what most people saw, and a small, superficial part of the answers he sought to the questions. The other part, understood only by a very few—perhaps only by Jiang and Yu themselves—was the deeply contradictory dual identity Yu Congyi had held for years as an assassin and a sergeant major in the military police headquarters, the long-standing struggle of switching between two completely unrelated roles, a struggle that was utterly exhausting and maddening—and the root of this madness was ultimately something only Yu Congyi himself could truly understand. He didn't know when the ice beneath his feet would completely collapse and shatter, and the bottomless black water would surge forth, engulfing him entirely, until everything vanished.
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