Chapter 113: A Gunshot to Send Him Off (3)

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Li Fengyi thought that made perfect sense. Even when his own small company hired someone, they would not place great hopes in the newcomer right away, saying, “I can see that you possess an extraordinary constitution. The task of saving the universe is now yours!” and then sending him off to undertake the monumental mission of destroying some organization.

“That is exactly what the Falcon Plan is like,” Jin Chunsheng summed up. “We know such a plan may exist, but we know absolutely nothing about it. The higher the classification of a plan like this, the greater the danger, and the longer its consequences tend to last. China today cannot afford to let the enemy carry out such a plan, so...”

“So we have to catch that falcon!” Li Fengyi agreed succinctly. Then, with unusual solemnity, he added, “We must find him, whether he is alive or undead.”

“Why does this feel so much like some divine revelation?” Sun Xiaoshan and Li Fengyi muttered together as they hid in a room at Home No. 5, Compound A, on North Hepingli Street, discussing the matter.

Li Fengyi said nothing. He held a pen in his right hand while covering that hand with his left, writing on a sheet of paper.

When he finished, he blocked the page with both hands and let Sun Xiaoshan read it one character at a time through the gaps between his fingers. Every so often he would wildly shift his hands, scrambling the order in which the words appeared.

At last, Sun Xiaoshan managed to piece together the message. It read:

“Can you find a way to detect any bugs or cameras?”

Sun Xiaoshan thought long and hard. After a while, without saying a word, he pulled Li Fengyi up to the roof of Compound A.

The rooftop had once been converted into a reservoir for collecting rainwater. Now that the tap-water supply had returned to normal, it was no longer very useful. But with so much rain in summer, more than half the roof was still covered in water, and everyone had turned it into a swimming pool.

The two men stripped off their clothes. Sun Xiaoshan even produced two combs and carefully combed Li Fengyi’s hair. They combed and combed until every trace of dandruff had been removed. Not even a fly could land there without taking a tumble. Their grave and meticulous expressions made the sentries watching them break out in gooseflesh.

When they had finished, they threw the combs far away. Then the two men went to the middle of the roof and sat in the water, using the roof’s waterproof eaves to block the surrounding view. Only then did they begin to speak.

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Sun Xiaoshan let out a long breath and said in a low voice, “Fifth Brother, something about this feels damn strange. What gives them the right? We finally manage to scrape together a little food, and that bastard Old Liu tricks us into going to war. We barely survive long enough to recover Beijing and Tianjin, and now someone wants to send us bird-catching. They’re setting us up, aren’t they?”

Li Fengyi looked at Sun Xiaoshan. Since the apocalypse began, the two brothers had raced from place to place together. Sun Xiaoshan had even acquired the nickname “the Steel-Pipe God.” He had changed from the fair, refined white-collar worker he once was into a man rough in appearance but shrewd to the core.

“Exactly. Suppose we risk our lives and finally get everything straightened out. Then, instead of some legitimate successor appearing—which would be fine, since they are all ordinary people and only want to live their lives—what if they kill the two of us first, simply to avoid awkwardness? Some big shot could pull a document out of some obscure corner, declare us traitors and usurpers, and have us both executed.”

Their eyes filled with deep apprehension. In the face of the machinery of the state, any individual was as small and helpless as a child.

“Keep your wits about you,” Li Fengyi urged in a low voice. “I also feel that this whole business is rather underhanded. Are the two of us suddenly blessed with the protagonists’ halo? It is far too absurd.”

“The army has to be brought under control. That would make things much easier,” Sun Xiaoshan suggested.

Li Fengyi pondered for a long while, then shook his head. “...We can’t control it. Don’t you know? The Party branch is established at the company level. There are regular Party-life meetings and all that.”

Li Fengyi remembered how, while stationed in Dongba, he had taken a fancy to Yang Xuelan, the attractive female commissioner dispatched there by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. He had also been feeling the itch of seven years of marriage and had wanted to have a little fun on the side. But before he could do anything, the Party-group life meeting exposed the matter. He spent several days conducting serious self-criticism, and in the end Commander Liu had to transfer Yang Xuelan far away before the affair finally came to an end. Although it had remained an internal Party secret and was never made public, Li Fengyi had abandoned the idea for good.

He and Sun Xiaoshan looked at each other. Indeed, this system was the one best suited to times of chaos—a system rigorously tested and perfected through years of war. Once operating properly, it was comprehensive and meticulous; nothing escaped observation or control. The system had loosened somewhat during the early years of reform and opening, but in the years before the apocalypse it had once again grown increasingly effective. The clearest example was the way corrupt officials were arrested: the more powerful they were, the more were caught; the more that were caught, the more powerful the next ones seemed to be; the more powerful they were, the more aggressively they were pursued...

The two brothers broke into a cold sweat.

Moreover, since the army’s founding, no other military force in the world had endured such a difficult history. Through arduous struggle, it had achieved glorious victories. Yet there had always been renegade generals, never a renegade army; no one had ever dragged away an organized unit and made it defect.

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The only question was whether some sword of Damocles still hung over them. If someone suddenly announced something one day, the resulting chaos could be catastrophic...

“Actually,” Li Fengyi said after turning the matter over in his mind, “neither of us is greedy for power or office. We are amateurs at this political business. Since the leadership changes every few years anyway, if some underworld big shot appears to claim the fruits of our labor, those willing to wait can let us finish our terms, after which we will step down and leave. Those unwilling to wait can simply let us turn into dung beetles pushing our little balls and roll away immediately. How does that sound?”

“Fine.” Sun Xiaoshan was an easygoing man. There was no way to retreat, so all they could do was persevere. “I doubt there will be any vicious internal struggle, either. Ever since Chairman Deng came to power, killing people has gone out of fashion... What a good man...”

“Hold fast to inner-Party democratic centralism. Compared with those people, the two of us are still unhatched eggs when it comes to politics. They have already become seasoned demons.” Thanks to China’s educational system, they had no practical experience, but their heads were crammed full of memorized terminology. Li Fengyi set the tone and said, “We have to use collective and institutional methods to dissolve political maneuvers. Otherwise, you and I are in danger.”

“We should give Li Qiang a warning, too.” Li Fengyi did not believe that someone who had gone straight from high school into a military academy, then joined the army and spent his entire life there, with virtually no experience in wider society, could possess much political intelligence.

“...Yes!”

After thinking it over, Sun Xiaoshan realized that the combined political intelligence of the three of them fell far short of even the most modest standard. There was truly no better solution than to gang up together rather than let some crafty old political fox take them on one at a time.

The three men had always gotten along well. Most of the time, Li Fengyi set the direction, Sun Xiaoshan prepared the tools and equipment, and Li Qiang went into battle. Out of brotherly loyalty alone, they could not let Li Qiang struggle alone in the treacherous political arena. It was not a place where ordinary people could survive.

Jin Chunsheng was brimming with confidence. The campaign to restore the Special Committee’s good name had been carried out beautifully!

According to the intelligence currently held by the Ministry of State Security, there were more than a hundred factions of every size across the country that had managed to establish some kind of influence. Although these factions could not be directly controlled, the Ministry of State Security had used various methods to keep many of them contained, ensuring that power remained in the hands of people loyal to the Party and the nation. After all, the organization best suited to times of chaos had not earned that reputation for nothing.

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