"Yimeng Society? What do they do?" Zhu Shiqing pressed.
The unluckiest of them, the fellow whose thigh Fang Wenjian had stabbed, was lying on the ground whimpering and clutching his wound. One of his "good brothers" beside him answered:
"Our Yimeng Society is one of the top gangs in Beiping. Usually we punish evil and promote good, rob the rich to help the poor, and support the state to bring peace to the people."
These shameless words poured into Zhu Shiqing's left ear, only to spill right out of his right.
Back in Nanjing, he had indeed heard of Du Yuesheng's Green Gang in Shanghai, but among the societies and brotherhoods of the Republic of China, precious few actually contributed anything to society or the nation. To Zhu Shiqing's ears:
Punishing evil and promoting good = bullying the weak and fearing the strong;
Robbing the rich to help the poor = fawning on the rich and powerful;
Supporting the state and bringing peace to the people = profiteering and racketeering.
"Who told you to follow us? What does your Yimeng Society have to do with the railway station?"
"Well..."
"What, looking for another knife wound?"
Seeing them hesitate, Fang Wenjian raised his blade with a threatening glare. That made them behave, and they hastened to spill everything.
"Our president, Lu Hong, is sworn brothers with the deputy director of the Beiping Police Bureau. Usually, he also has some working arrangements with the railway station. To scrape together a living, we work as patrolmen around the station. Tonight we heard a commotion inside, spotted you two braves running, and the four of us tailed you the whole way."
Zhu Shiqing listened for a moment and caught an interesting detail. Seizing the opening, he asked, "You mean most of the police in this city are members of that society of yours too?"
"You could say that..."
At that, Zhu Shiqing let out a sigh, chalking up yet another black mark against this damned society. Underworld or officialdom—say whatever you liked, they were cut from the exact same cloth. The only difference was that the official path had government sanction while the underworld had the underworld's blessing, nothing more.
"Do you know what's loaded on the train?"
"A bunch of people Stationmaster Lin is smuggling out."
"What else?"
"We really don't know anything else."
"How much do you police get for helping ship these people out of the city?"
"Not much. One silver dollar for every ten heads."
"Where is your president, Lu Hong?"
"President Lu rarely shows his face. We usually take orders straight from the deputy director."
"What's the deputy director's name?"
"Mi Yonghua."
With the questioning finished, Zhu Shiqing had pieced together the gist of the affair. Looking at the four men before him, it was hard to consider them professional underworld hitmen. For one thing, their faces lacked the ruthless air; the moment they encountered any real force, they went soft. At most, they were street hustlers holding down two jobs.
"Get lost," Zhu Shiqing said coldly. "If you get the chance, pass word to Deputy Director Mi: don't waste his time on the two of us, or next time we won't let you leave."
The four knew full well they had run into tough customers. Judging by what Fang Wenjian had just shown them, sticking around any longer might cost them their lives. Hearing those words, they scrambled to turn around, three of them propping up the wounded one as they fled in panic.
Before dawn, Mi Yonghua was preparing to gather men to take Zhu Shiqing out, only to receive word that the scouts shadowing them had been utterly neutralized. When he learned Zhu Shiqing had already visited the army headquarters, he was struck with both rage and panic.
Seeing matters come to this pass, Lin Hongwen reasoned, "Now that we've lost their trail, eliminating them in a city as vast as Beiping on short notice won't be easy. For now, self-preservation must come first."
"What should we do, Old Lin? You've always handled matters at the station. You tell me—I'll leave it entirely in your hands." Mi Yonghua adopted a deferential tone, seemingly having long forgotten how he had shouted and pointed his finger at Lin Hongwen earlier in the night.
Having drifted through officialdom for many years, Lin Hongwen immediately mapped out a foolproof escape plan. He leaned in close to Mi Yonghua's ear and whispered for a moment. Mi Yonghua nodded repeatedly, but at last pursed his lips and lamented, "It's just a shame that a fortune was right before our eyes, and now we've lost our grip on it!"
...
Early the next morning, Beiping West Station.
Even in a time of war, the streets and alleys of Beiping retained the vibrant pulse of daily life; the bustle of the city had not diminished in the slightest. Zhu Shiqing and Fang Wenjian sat drinking millet porridge at a stall, from which a diagonal glance gave them a clear view of the entrance to West Station.
Just as yesterday, a crowd of people still milled about the entrance, desperate to buy tickets and leave.
"Shiqing, they aren't stupid. They didn't try to force the goods out," Fang Wenjian said after staring at the station entrance for a long while, cradling his earthenware bowl in one hand.
They had kept watch nearly until daybreak without hearing any commotion from the station; it seemed the gang had halted their operation.
Zhu Shiqing nodded and said with conviction, "With that much cargo, they won't have time to move it away. You keep watch here in a bit, and I'll make another trip to headquarters to catch them red-handed with the goods!"
Just as the two finished filling their bellies and Zhu Shiqing prepared to head back to headquarters, a sudden uproar broke out in front of West Station.
Following the noise, they looked over to see a large mob wielding clubs and sticks, shirts open or stripped to the waist, marching aggressively toward the station entrance with menacing scowls.
"Wang Lei, get the hell out here! Wang Lei, get the hell out here! Wang Lei, get the hell out here!"
The shouts erupted from the crowd like a burst of fury. Agitated and aggressive, the mob charged right up to the station front, leaving the bystanders who had been clustered there completely stunned and speechless.
The oncoming railway police hurriedly drew their batons and stepped forward to block them, and a full-scale clash instantly erupted. Looking like common thugs and hooligans, the mob struck anyone in their path and smashed whatever was in sight, quickly drawing a crowd of passersby who jostled for a look.
"Damn, what's going on?" Fang Wenjian's eyes went wide. Only yesterday he had remarked that Beiping folk were all cultured and polite; how had such a spectacle broken out today?
Falling in with the stream of onlookers, Zhu Shiqing moved up to a corner about fifty meters outside the station to observe. The brawl was still going on.
Before long, Lin Hongwen, the West Station master, came trotting down the street from the distance, trailed by several railway policemen.
"I am Lin Hongwen! I am Lin Hongwen, the master of this station! If you have any grievances, speak to me first—do not damage government property!" Lin Hongwen stood bravely before the crowd with an air of righteous responsibility, spreading his arms wide to hold them back.
Surprisingly, the frantic mob actually halted. One pointed at Lin Hongwen and snarled, "Lin Hongwen, is it? Hand Wang Lei over right now! He took our money and left us for dead! He swindled every last one of us!"
The surroundings fell quiet, and because the two spoke in loud voices, nearly all the watching commoners could hear them clearly.
"Brother, Wang Lei was the police captain on duty last night, and he didn't report today. If something happened, you can tell me," Lin Hongwen said, rubbing his hands together with an accommodating smile. Then he turned his head to the railway policeman beside him. "Hurry and bring Deputy Director Mi here!"
The junior patrolman ran off to carry out the order, and the burly leader of the mob gave his account:
"Wang Lei told us a while back that as long as we paid him, he could smuggle us brothers out of Beiping in freight cars. He said he was in charge of night security at the station and could help ship our property out too.
"The brothers believed him and gave him a pile of money. We were supposed to set out last night, but who knows what went wrong—he forcibly threw us off the train! When we demanded our money back, he refused to pay! Now we couldn't leave, and we sank our entire life savings into it! You tell us! What are we supposed to do?"
Not far off, Zhu Shiqing, who had caught every single word, stood pressed among the crowd and murmured as if to himself:
"The thief cries thief."
Chapter 65