In the days that followed, Ning Zhiheng put aside all his affairs and handed them over to Wang Shucheng. During his time in Hangzhou, Wang Shucheng worked diligently and did not dare to slack off in the slightest. He handled the work of the action group in an orderly manner, which greatly satisfied Ning Zhiheng. This freed him up and allowed him to squeeze out a lot of time to study Japanese with Yi Hua'an.
In order to improve their learning efficiency, Ning Zhiheng and Yi Huaan stayed together at all times, making the most of every available moment to study Japanese diligently.
The inability to speak Japanese has become the biggest obstacle hindering Ning Zhiheng's work as a special agent. If it weren't for his inability to speak Japanese, with his superhuman memory, he could have brought back at least several of those top-secret documents. If that had happened, who knows how much he could have gained!
Two days later, Wei Liangbi finally led his entire action team to Chongqing to carry out the mopping-up operation.
After seeing his senior brother Wei Liangbi off, Ning Zhiheng threw himself back into learning Japanese. Yi Hua'an also taught Ning Zhiheng wholeheartedly, and apart from eating and sleeping, they spent all their time studying Japanese together.
What surprised Yi Hua'an was Ning Zhiheng's amazing memory. He could memorize simple words with photographic accuracy, which saved a lot of time in memorization. Soon, he had finished teaching the commonly used words. In addition, with a lot of homophones, the written meaning was no longer a problem for Ning Zhiheng. He began to practice simple spoken language.
Ning Zhiheng's learning ability left Yi Hua'an speechless. The two of them spent almost all their time communicating in Japanese. At first, Ning Zhiheng needed to combine sentences one by one, but in less than twenty days, he was able to use hand gestures to help him have conversations in Japanese using everyday language.
However, spoken language has always been Ning Zhiheng's biggest obstacle in learning. The intonation and habits of Japanese people are very different from those of Chinese people. Ning Zhiheng put in a lot of effort, but he was still not very fluent and had obvious Chinese pronunciation habits, which was very discouraging for him.
But Yi Hua'an was even more discouraged. Looking at the worried Ning Zhiheng, he said with a wry smile in Japanese, "Team leader, it's already a miracle that you've learned to this level in just twenty days. You know, it took me more than a year to reach your current level, and my Japanese teacher praised me many times. As for practicing spoken language, it's really not something that can be solved by simply learning and memorizing. It requires a long period of correction and reaction memorization. It's best to have a suitable language environment so that your spoken language will improve faster."
Ning Zhiheng knew he had done his best in his studies, throwing himself into it wholeheartedly. He had hardly gone home these past few days, and sometimes he would fall asleep on the sofa in his office at night while memorizing vocabulary and grammar.
Because he knew that he didn't have much time left. He calculated that there were only twenty days left until the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, a date that would be defined as the beginning of the full-scale War of Resistance against Japan for a long time to come.
Afterwards, the fighting continued, and a long war began between China and Japan. As an agent of the Military Intelligence Investigation Department, he could imagine that he would hardly have such a peaceful life and time to study again. Fortunately, he had completed his basic studies, and with further intensive practice in the future, he should be able to meet his own requirements.
Ning Zhiheng smiled and comforted himself in broken Japanese, saying, "It seems I was too impatient. But I must not relax. I must meet the previous requirements, or I will pay a heavy price at the crucial moment."
As the two were talking, the office phone rang. Ning Zhiheng picked it up, and Zhao Ziliang's voice came from the other end.
"Zhiheng, the list of awards and promotions has been released. Come to me to collect the list and the award order."
"Yes, Section Chief, I'll be right there!" Ning Zhiheng quickly replied.
This commendation was given before going to Hangzhou for his meritorious service in capturing the snow mountain spy team and the Japanese investigation team. Ning Zhiheng submitted the case reports before leaving, and now so much time has passed that there should have been a result long ago, but for some reason, it has been delayed until now.
This time, the achievement was enormous, and Ning Zhiheng rewarded almost all of his subordinates, especially his close associates. If nothing unexpected happens, this will be another win-win situation.
Upon arriving at Zhao Ziliang's office, I saw Zhao Ziliang with a smile on his face, looking at the thick stack of commendation orders on his desk.
Seeing Ning Zhiheng enter, Zhao Ziliang pointed to the scene before him and said with some emotion, "In the past, arresting two spy teams and seizing radios and codebooks would have been a major achievement, with so many people receiving awards. At the very least, we would have held a celebration, a grand ceremony to award ranks, and made a big spectacle of it. But now, the section chief's perspective is different, and nobody takes it seriously anymore. They just let the department handle it themselves. It's really frustrating!"
Ning Zhiheng laughed and said to Zhao Ziliang, "Section Chief, there will be more of these things to do in the future, and the department will be too lazy to do those formalities. However, my subordinates are a bit disappointed. They were waiting to show off!"
At this point, Ning Zhiheng and Zhao Ziliang exchanged a smile. Zhao Ziliang then showed Ning Zhiheng more than half of the promotion documents and commendation orders and said, "Your Fourth Action Group has made the greatest contribution and has the most award recipients. Take these back and handle them yourselves. Huo Yueze, in particular, has been specially promoted from captain to major because of his outstanding performance and seniority. I will read out his promotion order and confer the rank. You can handle the others yourselves."
Huo Yueze is Ning Zhiheng's most senior action team leader, but he has been stuck at the rank of captain for many years and has not been promoted.
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
