Tears of Blood and a Wordless Confession
The sliding door slammed open with a force that nearly ripped it from its hinges. Hu Yanzhen stood in the doorway, his figure framing the dusk light spilling in from the corridor. He looked like the embodiment of the barren land he had just left. Thinner than Lee Junshan remembered, his skin darker and burnt, as if the desert sun had baked away all the softness from him. His uniform was clean, but the rough stitching on his shoulders and a few small, patched holes told a story of battles that would never make it into the official reports.
His eyes, which usually sparkled with cheerful enthusiasm and arrogance, now seemed deeper, darker. Beneath them, there was a shadow of undisguised sadness, like a deep abyss where light could hardly penetrate. But above that sadness, there was a cold, hard glint of steel. They were the eyes of a man who had seen hell and returned, bringing a piece of hell with him.
His gaze locked on Lee Junshan. For a few seconds that felt like an eternity, the silence in the room grew heavy, filled with the static of unresolved hostility. Hu Yanzhen's jaw clenched. The false telegram—the accusation of treason designed to poison their minds—may have faded in the face of other evidence, but the wound was still there, itching and stinging. To Hu Yanzhen, who lived by a simple and absolute code of honor, such an accusation was the deepest stain.
Lee Junshan stared back, his face as calm as the surface of a deep lake. He showed no emotion, no apology, no defense. He simply waited, understanding that this was a storm they had to weather before they could move forward. He could see the battle raging behind Hu Yanzhen's eyes—a battle between the suspicions he had planted and his own instincts about a friend's character.
It was He Xiang who broke the deadlock. She rose from her chair with a graceful, serene movement. Her presence, always the balance between her friend's two extremes, felt more vital than ever.
"Yanzhen," she said, her voice soft but firm. "It's good to see you safe."
Hu Yanzhen's gaze shifted to He Xiang. The harshness in her eyes softened slightly, replaced by a brief, if genuine, flash of warmth. He and He Xiang had a different bond, one forged in the more carefree days of the academy.
"Xiang Xiang," he managed a small smile, though it didn't reach his eyes. "You look… fine." It was a simple statement, but it brought with it a sense of relief to see an old friend unharmed in a world full of danger.
"I'm sorry for what happened to your unit," He Xiang said, his voice full of genuine empathy.
The words were like arrows piercing Hu Yanzhen's shield. She looked away, staring at the bamboo garden outside the window. "They were good soldiers," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else. "The best."
The atmosphere in the room grew heavy again. The three rivers that had their source in the same fountain—the Eternal Flame Academy—had flowed through vastly different landscapes. One through corridors of power filled with intrigue, another through a wilderness filled with deceit, and a third through a desert filled with death. Now, all three rivers met in this room, their waters murky with mud, blood, and bitterness.
The sliding door opened again, more quietly this time. General Zhang entered, his commanding presence instantly changing the dynamics of the room. He was not alone. Behind him were two aides carrying several rolls of maps and a sealed box of documents.
"I am glad to see you all arrive safely," General Zhang said, his sharp eyes scanning the faces of the three young officers, assessing their mental state. "I know the journey has not been easy." He paused, looking directly at Hu Yanzhen. "We know about the ambush attempt at the Shaanxi station. That only reinforces the importance of this meeting."
Hu Yanzhen lifted his head, surprised. They knew. That meant General Zhang's intelligence network was far more extensive than he had thought. A little of his disbelief melted away, replaced by the understanding that he was now in the center of the real operation.
"No time for pleasantries," General Zhang continued, motioning for his aides to spread out a large map of China on the table. "Our enemy is not waiting. We need to synthesize what we know. Lee Junshan, you begin."
Lee Junshan stepped forward. With the calmness of a lecturer, he began to present his findings. Hu Yanzhen's arms were crossed, his expression still distant,
skeptical of the cold analysis of a staff officer far from the battlefield.
Lee Junshan did not speak of emotion or suspicion. He spoke of facts, figures, and patterns. Using a red pencil, he began to draw lines on the map, connecting seemingly unrelated dots with cold precision.
"It all started here," he said, pointing to Nanjing. "From a high-level information leak. Intelligence reports indicate an agent codenamed 'Sakura', who coordinated operations for Tokyo." A firm red line was drawn from Nanjing to Tokyo.
"Then there is Lieutenant General Oda, alias Wu Da. His track record as an instructor at the Eternal Flame gives him unprecedented access to our officer recruits. And his connections with certain officials, such as Colonel Lin Jiancheng, give him influence within the Ministry of Defense." A red circle was drawn around the Armament Academy and the Ministry building. Hu Yanzhen watched impassively, but Lee Junshan saw his jaw slacken slightly.
"Findings from the western border and Manchuria confirm that Oda is not just a recruiter. He is an active field operator." He took Hu Yanzhen's report on the "gift" and linked the Great Wall Trading Company in Nanjing to Liang Zhenhai's camp in the west. "A betrayal celebrated with French wine sent from the capital."
His presentation was cold, analytical, and damning. He laid out the logical framework of the puzzle, each line on the map a bar in the cage they had built around the enemy. Hu Yanzhen lowered his arms. The irrefutable logic began to penetrate his walls of anger and suspicion.
"He Xiang," General Zhang said.
He Xiang stepped to the table. He opened a leather briefcase and carefully pulled out a series of black-and-white photographs. He laid them out one by one on the map, like cards in a deadly game. If Lee Junshan's presentation was the skeleton, then He Xiang's evidence was the flesh—visual, tangible, and irrefutable.
"Northern Manchuria. Border with Soviet territory," he said, his voice clear and steady. The first photo showed a stack of crates. "Soviet weapons. Mosin-Nagant and DP-27. Not Japanese as we thought."
He put down the second photo. "Caucasian guard, speaking Russian. This suggests Soviet involvement, or at least Soviet suppliers."
Then he placed the final photo in the middle of the table. It was a close-up of Second Lieutenant Wang Deshan's smiling face. "And this is the traitor. Second Lieutenant Wang Deshan, from my garrison. He oversaw the operation. This proves that the Oda network has infiltrated the field officer level, using local corruption to facilitate their operations."
Hu Yanzhen's eyes were glued to Wang Deshan's photo. This was a betrayal he could understand in his gut—a soldier selling out his comrades. The smiling face seemed to mock every oath they had ever sworn.
Finally, it was Hu Yanzhen's turn. He didn't move to the table. He stood where he was, as if getting closer would make him relive the nightmare. His voice was low, quivering with suppressed emotion as he spoke.
"The Valley of Death," he began, and the name itself seemed to suck the warmth out of the room. "It was a perfect trap. Designed by someone who understood our strengths and weaknesses down to the smallest detail. Someone like Oda."
He described the ambush, not in tactical detail, but in painfully human detail. The ear-splitting sounds of explosions, the confusion, the pungent smell of gunpowder and blood, the screams of people whose names he knew, faces he saw every day. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket—Lieutenant Zhou's coded notes—and laid it on the table. The brownish bloodstains in the corners bore silent witness.
"Lieutenant Zhou discovered something before he died," he said, his voice almost breaking. "He left this for me. 'Inside N… Oda… Danger…' He tried to warn me."
He paused, took a deep breath, gathered the last of his composure. "And the warning came too late because we were sent there on official orders, passed through channels from Nanjing." His eyes met Lee Junshan's, and this time, there was no suspicion. Only bitter understanding. "A false telegram accusing you, Junshan… now I understand."
It was a confession. A wordless apology.
"It was part of their trap," Hu Yanzhen continued, her voice now hard with painful clarity. "To ensure that if I survived, I would come after you, not them. To divide us."
The silence that followed those words was different.
Lee Junshan nodded slightly, a small but meaningful gesture. He accepted the confession without words, sealing the wound between them not with the balm of apology but with the steel of common purpose. The three pieces of the puzzle—the analysis from Nanjing, the visual evidence from Manchuria, and the bloody testimony from the desert—were now spread out together on the table, forming a single and terrifying picture.
The three rivers had finally met, Hu Yanzhen's tears of blood had merged with the cold current of Lee Junshan's analysis and the flow of He Xiang's evidence, creating a new force.
__
Ghosts in the Palace
The silence that fell over the room after Hu Yanzhen's confession was heavy and sacred. The bloodstains on Lieutenant Zhou's notes looked like red eyes staring at them from the center of the map, the epicenter of a tragedy they now understood to be only one chapter in a larger epic of betrayal.
General Zhang was the first to move. His face, which had been a mask of granite as he listened, showed the first cracks of a cold, controlled rage. He stepped to the table, tracing his finger over the red lines that Lee Junshan had drawn, past the photos of He Xiang, and stopping right next to Hu Yanzhen's bloody notes.
"So this is the big picture," he said quietly, but his voice filled every corner of the room. "Oda is the snake in the field. Men like Lin Jiancheng and Wang Deshan are his fangs. They poison us from the borders to the heart of the capital." He paused, his sharp eyes boring into Lee Junshan. "And 'Sakura' is the ghost in the palace."
The three young officers stared at him. The code name had been mentioned, but now, uttered by the General, it carried a far more terrifying weight.
"Our intelligence has been tracking whispers about 'Sakura' for months," General Zhang continued, his tone shifting to strategic analysis. "This agent never leaves a direct trail. No meetings, no intercepted radio transmissions. His communications are subtle, often through manipulated official orders or seemingly innocuous personnel recommendations. 'Sakura' is a mastermind, operating at the highest levels of our government, perhaps even within the Defense Minister's own circle."
The statement hung in the air, cold and piercing. The implications were shocking. The enemy was not just at the gates; he might already be sitting at the banquet table.
"How could official orders be manipulated in such a way?" Hu Yanzhen asked, his voice still hoarse but now sharp with a need to understand. His once personal anger had turned to strategic rage. "The orders for my unit went through three layers of verification. How could they all have missed such an obvious trap?"
"That is the genius of 'Sakura,'" Lee Junshan replied, his eyes fixed on the map. "The trap was not obvious to anyone who did not have all the pieces of the puzzle. To the command in Nanjing, it looked like a standard reconnaissance mission against a smuggling route. To the regional headquarters, it was a legitimate order from above. Only Oda, who designed the ambush, and 'Sakura,' who made sure the order reached you without a hitch, knew the full picture."
"And my garrison," He Xiang interrupted, his expression grim. "Our border guards should not be easily bribed. But with pressure from above, combined with the corruption that already exists… Oda's network could spread like a cancer. How many more officers like Wang Deshan are out there?"
The question needed no answer. It was a specter that would haunt them all. For the first time, they were no longer speaking as individuals reporting their findings, but as a unit devising a strategy. Grief and suspicion had been reforged by the heat of truth into a weapon.
"That is why we must act," General Zhang said, bringing their attention back together. "This information… this evidence… it can't stop here."
He walked over to the file box his aide had brought him and opened it. Inside were thick, sealed folders. "I didn't just sit there. These are reports of financial anomalies in several government departments, mysteriously diverted military supply lines, and unusual officer promotions—all leading back to the same shadow. Your evidence gives that shadow a face and a name."
He looked at the three of them, one by one. "Tonight, your job is to put all of this together. Put together a single, consolidated report. Lee Junshan, you will write the analytical framework. He Xiang, your evidence will be the main appendix. Yanzhen, your testimony… it will be the foreword and the afterword. It is the heart of this report. Make them feel what you feel."
The task was clear. This was no longer simply reporting facts, but building a case that could not be ignored, an argument so strong that it could penetrate the walls of bureaucracy and treachery.
After giving further instructions, General Zhang and his aides left, leaving the three friends alone in what now felt like their war camp. The silence that fell this time was different again.
It was a silence filled with work to be done, a brief lull before the storm.
He Xiang walked to a small cupboard in the corner and pulled out a teapot and three simple teacups. Wordlessly, she poured the still-warm tea, the gentle steam softening the tension in the air slightly. She handed one cup to Lee Junshan, and another to Hu Yanzhen.
Hu Yanzhen accepted the cups, their warmth seeping into her cold fingers. She looked at Lee Junshan, the doubts that had been bothering her for so long now needing to be resolved.
"Junshan," she said softly, her voice awkward. "About the telegram… about what I was thinking… I…"
Lee Junshan raised his hand, stopping her. He took a sip of his tea, his eyes meeting Hu Yanzhen over the rim of the cup. "You think like a betrayed soldier, Yanzhen," he said quietly. "They counted on that. They counted on your loyalty to your men to blind you. There is nothing to forgive."
She set her cup down. "The past is done. What matters is what we do tomorrow."
Hu Yanzhen looked at her friend, the weight of unspoken guilt lifted from her shoulders. She nodded, deep gratitude in her eyes. She raised her cup. "For Lieutenant Zhou," she said. "And for everyone else."
"For them," He Xiang whispered, raising her cup.
Lee Junshan raised his cup as well. "And for what is to come."
They clinked their cups together. The soft clang of ceramics was the only sound in the room—a wordless oath, a promise made by three rivers now flowing as one, ready to crash against the dam of betrayal that lay ahead.
___
The Night Before the Storm
Dawn had not yet broken, but in the room lit by oil lamps, there was no sign of sleep. The air was tense, heavy with the smell of paper, ink, and bitter, cold coffee. Under General Zhang's watchful eye, the three young officers had worked all night, turning a painful pile of reports, photographs, and testimonies into a coherent, deadly document.
The report now lay in the middle of the table, neatly bound, its title simple but weighty: "Joint Investigation Report on Oda Network and Internal Threats." It was more than a document; it was an indictment.
Lee Junshan, with the precision of a surgeon, led them through the final exercise. "They will attack our credibility," he said, pacing in front of the map now covered in lines and notes. "They will ask how a staff officer in Nanjing, a garrison commander in Manchuria, and a captain from the western desert could have pieced together this picture when the entire intelligence apparatus had failed. We must emphasize that it was precisely because we were at different points that we were able to see the pattern."
"And if they question my testimony?" Hu Yanzhen asked, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep. "If they call it the emotional outburst of a traumatized soldier?"
"That is why your testimony is supported by Lieutenant Zhou's notes and the General's intelligence reports," He Xiang replied calmly, pointing to the appendix. "Your emotions are the truth, Yanzhen. But we also have cold facts to back them up. We attack them with our hearts and minds."
General Zhang, who had been observing silently from the corner of the room, nodded in agreement. "You are ready. Remember, present as one. Show that you are not just representing yourselves, but a united front."
Just as he finished speaking, an aide came rushing in, his face tense. He handed the General a small envelope. It was no ordinary military message; It was thin rice paper folded in a certain way. General Zhang unfolded it carefully. His sharp eyes scanned the lines of concise brush characters.
The three officers watched the subtle change in the General's face. The muscles in his jaw tensed. For a few seconds, the only sound was the rustle of paper as he folded it back up.
"What is it, General?" Lee Junshan asked, feeling a chill run down his spine.
General Zhang did not answer immediately. He walked to the window, staring out into the fading darkness. "A message from one of my best agents in Nanjing," he said quietly. "He is very close to the inner circle of the Ministry."
He turned, his eyes boring into them with a new, alarming intensity. "The message contains only six words: 'Shadows follow the rising moon.'"
A silence fell over the room. It was coded language, poetic yet chilling.
"The rising moon…" He Xiang whispered. "Our meeting."
"And the shadows that follow," Lee Junshan continued, his mind racing. "Someone knows. 'Sakura' knows we're coming. This meeting… may have been compromised."
The paranoia, once a whisper in their minds, now screamed. Were they walking straight into a bigger trap? Was the Minister of Defense himself, the man who was supposed to be their savior, part of the conspiracy? Or was he just a pawn, surrounded by wolves he didn't realize he was in?
"This changes everything," He Xiang said firmly. "We can't give up all our evidence. If this meeting is a trap, we'll be handing over our entire investigation—and our lives—to the enemy. We have to hold back the most important pieces, perhaps the identity of the 'Sakura' we suspect."
"No!" Hu Yanzhen retorted, her pent-up anger flaring to life. She slammed her palms on the table, sending the teacups vibrating. "We've lost too much to play it safe now! We must go all out. Show them everything we've got! Let those traitors know that we know who they are. If we must die, let us die dragging them into the light!"
Amidst the heated debate, Lee Junshan remained silent, his eyes closed as if considering countless scenarios. Finally, he opened them, and his gaze was clear.
"Both are right," he said, his voice calming the storm between his two friends. "He Xiang is right, the risks are too great to act rashly. But Yanzhen is also right, we cannot retreat now. Retreating would mean letting Lieutenant Zhou and your men die in vain."
He walked back to the table. "So, we're not changing what we're presenting. We're changing how we're presenting it. We're going to present the full report as planned. But we're also going to have a contingency plan. General, you must have a copy of all of this in a safe place. If the three of us don't get out of that meeting, this report must go to the Grand Marshal immediately, through the entire chain of command."
It was a terrible gamble, an admission that they might not survive the day.
General Zhang looked at Lee Junshan with deep appreciation. "It will be done," he said firmly. "I will guard it with my life."
The night turned to a cold, gray morning. There was nothing more to say. They changed into their best parade uniforms, every button fastened, every crease smoothed. It was not out of vanity, but as a final sign of respect for the oath they had taken and the men who had fallen.
As they walked down the silent marble corridors of the Ministry of Defense, the thump of their boots echoed like heartbeats. Each portrait of a past hero hung on the wall as if watching over them, silent witnesses to the struggles of their generation.
At the end of the corridor, two towering mahogany doors stood guard, flanked by stiff guards of honor. They were the doors to the office of the Minister of Defense. Doors to hope or doom.
An aide opened one of the doors for them. Beyond it lay a vast room, with large windows overlooking the capital's square. A man with his back to them stood staring out the window.
Lee Junshan, He Xiang, and Hu Yanzhen paused in the doorway. They exchanged one last look—a look that carried the weight of the desert, the border, and the corridors of power. A look that said they were three rivers that were now one inseparable force.
Then, with a collective sigh, they stepped inside, leaving the world they knew behind and entering the heart of the storm. Their real war had only just begun.
***