He Siming had actually been observing from the shadows. As soon as Ning Zhiheng approached, he saw him, then pretended to be nonchalant, looked up, and said with delight, "So it's Chairman Fujiwara! I didn't expect to meet you here. It's a pleasure!"
Ning Zhiheng smiled slightly and said softly, "But Mr. Takeshita, what a coincidence."
The two bowed slightly to formally greet each other, and He Siming said in a low voice, "President Fujiwara also likes reading?"
Ning Zhiheng nodded and replied in a low voice, "I have always loved reading books, and this library is my property."
He Siming feigned shock and quickly replied, "This is truly unexpected. I didn't know that this library was also owned by the Fujiwara Company."
Ning Zhiheng looked around and saw that there were still many readers reading nearby, so he invited, "Mr. Takeshita, we hit it off immediately. This is not the place to talk. Please come to my office for a chat."
He Siming immediately replied, "Hi, then I'll be bothering you!"
When the staff on duty saw that the president had met an old friend, they quickly stepped forward to lead the two into Ning Zhiheng's office and served them tea.
He Siming chuckled and said in a low voice, "This place is really nice. It's quiet and undisturbed, and we can meet openly and honestly, which makes exchanging information much more convenient."
Ning Zhiheng built the Nanwu Library primarily to cultivate a good relationship with Kuroki Yueyi, thus adding another layer of protection to his Japanese identity. Another reason was to establish a legitimate and reliable point of contact.
He said slowly, "This will serve as our regular contact point. We'll meet here once a week at nine o'clock on Monday and Friday to report intelligence. If there's an emergency, we'll contact each other directly as before."
“Okay, I understand!” He Siming replied.
Ning Zhiheng took out paper and pen and said, "We don't have much time, let's get started!"
He Siming immediately began to describe the appearances of Kitaoka Ryoko and Iwai Nosuke. He came prepared and described them in great detail, which saved Ning Zhiheng a lot of time in painting. Two hours later, the portrait was successfully completed.
Just as the two were about to leave, He Siming suddenly remembered something and said, "The day before yesterday, Kitaoka Ryoko called me over and said that I would be in full charge of the work of the Special Agent Investigation Department from now on. She said that I don't need to report on the work in the near future unless there are major incidents."
Ning Zhiheng asked, "It seems that your complaint to Taro Sagawa this time did have some effect; she's no longer targeting you."
He Siming frowned, somewhat unsure, and said, "It shouldn't be that bad. She's my direct superior. Even if there was a conflict, she wouldn't need to explain it to me again. The conversation was a bit rushed, just a few words. She seemed very busy. After I finished speaking, I left her office, and she followed closely behind. She seemed to be in a hurry. I always felt that she had important work to complete and didn't have time to attend to the work of the Investigation Department, so she temporarily handed it over to me."
Ning Zhiheng immediately became alert and quickly asked again, "She means that you will be in full charge of the Investigation Department's work in the near future?"
He Siming understood the implication and quickly realized that when Kitaoka Ryoko assigned the task, she did not say that she would hand over all the work of the Detective Division to him in the future, but only for a short period of time. In other words, Kitaoka Ryoko was busy during this period.
“She must have an important mission to complete soon!” He Siming said with certainty.
Ning Zhiheng was a little unsure. He Siming had mentioned before that Iwai nosuke, one of Kitaoka Ryoko's subordinates, had disappeared for a long time. Ning Zhiheng judged that he had gone to carry out some mission. Now that Kitaoka Ryoko had also taken action, would it pose a threat to his intelligence department? It seemed that he had to go back to the Tan Mansion immediately.
Ning Zhiheng rushed back to the concession the next day. The first thing he did upon returning to the Tan Mansion was to call Huo Yueze and Ji Hongyi over.
Ning Zhiheng took the two portraits, pointed to the two people in front of him, and explained them to Huo Yueze and Ji Hongyi in detail.
"These are two important figures from the Japanese Special Higher Police. One is Kitaoka Ryoko, the head of the intelligence group, who was transferred from the North China Special Higher Police headquarters a little over a month ago. The other is Iwai Nosuke, an agent of the Special Higher Police. His situation is very special. This person is the key figure in the arrest of Cui Guangqi, which led to the annihilation of the Shanghai intelligence station. He is extremely shrewd and capable. He disappeared from the Special Higher Police headquarters for about a month, presumably while carrying out some mission. I suspect that he may have infiltrated the French Concession and the International Settlement and is conducting some intelligence activities against our intelligence section. Therefore, you must search the concessions to see if you can find any trace of these two people."
The task assigned by Ning Zhiheng was extremely difficult because the population density in the concession at that time was too high, reaching hundreds of thousands. Finding the two people among so many people would be very difficult and would require a lot of manpower and time. Even though the intelligence department had a deep foundation and strong military in the concession, it was still not an easy task to do this.
Ji Hongyi spoke first, saying, "Leave this matter to me. Many of my intelligence team members are lurking in the gangs. They are well-informed and are the most suitable for finding people."
The intelligence department has many intelligence teams, each infiltrating various businesses, restaurants, dance halls, and other establishments operated by the intelligence department. In addition, Ji Hongyi himself is an important leader of the Jiangbei Gang. He also has a special gang group under his command. The members of this group are all survivors of the former Jiangzhe Special Operations Team Fifth Detachment, and they were also gang members introduced by Xu Yongchang. They have now risen to become leaders of various gangs within the Green Gang, and have many people under their command who gather information.
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