Cicada Moving

Chapter 836: Turning the Clouds (1)

Three hours after Gu Zhongya spoke, Gui Youguang came back from Hankou in a dusty state, carrying a suitcase with a pair of handcuffs locked between the handle of the suitcase and his wrist.

It is related to the clues about the spy leader in Qicheng. If the Japanese get the news, they are likely to **** it. Even on their own territory, they have to be careful.

He hurriedly walked into an office and saluted Zuo Zhong and Gu Qi, who had been waiting for a long time.

“Deputy Director, Section Chief, the physical evidence has been retrieved. No one except me has touched it, and the box has not left my sight for a second.”

 “Well, give it to me, you go and rest first.”

Leo Zuo, who was chatting quietly with Gucci on the sofa, nodded. He watched the bald man take off the handcuffs and leave. He stood up and went to the box to check it carefully. He made sure that the seal was intact and slowly pressed the button.

The box was opened with a click, and two kraft paper envelopes appeared inside. They were very ordinary in style and could be bought at any grocery store in Qicheng. There was no writing on the surface.

Zuo Zhong thought for a while and did not touch them. Instead, he called the technical room and asked the other party to send someone to check whether there were toxic substances on the letters to prevent the Japanese from creating a Trojan horse.

The longer you work in this business, the more serious your suspicion will become, but compared with safety, wasting a little time is nothing. Instead of regretting something if something happens, it is better to prepare in advance.

The technical staff did not dare to neglect after receiving the call from the deputy director. They hurriedly brought the equipment and conducted a rapid test using chemicals and test tubes, ruling out the possibility that the letter contained dangerous poisons.

 After the other party left, Zuo Zhong put on his gloves, opened a letter and read it.

The letter was very short, with only two lines. The content was the location and time of the meeting. It was printed on a Chinese character typewriter, which was consistent with what Gu Zhongya explained.

However, after reading for a long time, he didn't find any usable clues. The person who wrote the letter was a veteran, and the vocabulary he used was very ordinary, and he couldn't tell the regional characteristics or education level.

 Letter paper is a common glossy paper on the market. This kind of paper has one side smooth and one side rough, and its texture is relatively fragile. It is often used for single-sided printing or writing, and it is also untraceable.

 Fingerprints and other traces were not found through powder visualization. It was obviously carefully processed and could not be investigated from this aspect. The spy leader was indeed very cautious.

 Handing the letter to Gu Qi aside, Zuo Zhong opened the second letter and read it again. He found that it was no different from the first letter. The clues that he finally found seemed to be interrupted.

He couldn't help but frowned, should he really give up the pursuit? If the spy leader was not eliminated, the Japanese intelligence organization in Changcheng would soon revive and become even more difficult to deal with.

The Japanese are not stupid. They have learned from the experience and lessons of the arrest of Gu Zhongya's team and will act more and more low-key. It is almost impossible to discover the other party's flaws through platooning.

Zuo Zhong, who was somewhat unwilling to give up, lowered his head and looked at the letter paper. This time he changed his direction and focused on other than the words, focusing on observing the square typefaces one by one.

In 1912, Zhou Houkun, an engineer studying in the United States, invented the first Chinese typewriter. In 1919, Shu Zhendong of the Commercial Library developed the Shu style Chinese typewriter based on Zhou Houkun's typewriter.

This kind of machine changes the type template into movable type. The movable type type plate is connected to the pointing needle, and the indexing plate is in the front. When using it, one hand points the pointing needle to the character to be typed, and the other hand uses the joystick to output the characters.

It has both a backspace key and a space key. The parts also come with tweezers and extra movable type for users to modify the typeface according to their needs, which is very convenient.

With the use of mass production, Shushi typewriter quickly became the most important typing equipment in the Republic of China. It was equipped in many government offices, schools, companies, and factories.

But it also has disadvantages, that is, the quality of the typewriter's movable type is not good. Commonly used characters are easily worn out after long-term use, and sometimes the strokes are blurred or missed.

“The list of intelligence team members is as follows: Yao Li, Hankou Police Station Third Bureau..."

Turn on the desk lamp, put the letter paper under the light, and use a magnifying glass to carefully observe each word.

Suddenly, his movements stopped, his head suddenly came closer to the letter, a hint of surprise flashed in his eyes, he patted the tabletop with his hand, and said something slightly excited.

 “Finally caught you!”

 Gu Qi, who was studying the first letter but found nothing, was delighted. He raised his head and asked, "Deputy Director, did you find anything?"

“Well, you will understand if you look at the word “three” in this letter.” Zuo Zhong did not explain, and handed the letter out with his backhand for Gu Qi to read by himself.

 “Three words?”

Gu Qi took the letter with confusion and looked at it attentively. Sure enough, he found a problem. The right end of the bottom horizontal line of the word "三" seemed to be printed unclearly. You really couldn't find it unless you looked carefully.

As a veteran intelligence officer, he immediately understood the reason and made a suggestion: "Deputy Director, we must collect documents from various agencies and commercial institutions in Qicheng as soon as possible and compare the "three" characters in them one by one.

 Finding a typewriter that can print out the same traces is equivalent to finding the location of the spy leader. It will not be difficult to arrest him. I will lead people to do the analysis and complete the comparison as quickly as possible without delaying the task. "

"kindness…"

Zuo Zhong slowly regained his composure. He paced back and forth in the room and thought for a long time. After analyzing various situations, he finally made a decision.

“Okay, I’ll leave this job to you. Keep it confidential and don’t alert the target. Documents can be collected in the name of waste collection.

In order to make money, the general affairs departments of various agencies are very diligent in this regard. Regardless of whether the documents are kept confidential or not, they are eager to sell them all.

 The scope of the documents starts from the westward movement of the national government to Qicheng. All military and political agencies must not be missed, and the documents of schools at all levels must also be paid attention to. "

 “Understood, I’ll make arrangements now.”

 Gu Qi replied confidently and trotted out of the office. He was not active in making contributions and had brain problems. He couldn't take action, so he should work more on intelligence.

Zuo Zhong looked at Lao Gu's back, crossed his arms and pondered for a while, then picked up the microphone and said to the other person: "Let Gui Youguang, Wu Chunyang, and Shen Dongxin come over to see me, yes, immediately."

Not long after, the three people who received the order came together, and the door was immediately closed. Ten minutes later, the three people went out together, each driving a group of people and leaving the office.

 The Secret Service has been searching everywhere these days, with frequent personnel and vehicle movements, so their actions did not alarm anyone and were treated as an ordinary operation. Behind a window in the office building, Zuo Zhong rubbed his chin and stared outside the building. After an unknown amount of time, a smile suddenly appeared on his face, and he turned and disappeared in front of the window.

 Time flies so fast, three days have passed in the blink of an eye.

With a clear direction of investigation, Gu Qi also worked hard. It only took 24 hours to collect all the samples of documents and printed materials, and summoned all the agents who had nothing to do to compare.

This is not an easy task. There are hundreds of agencies that have moved west to Changcheng. Almost every department has a typewriter, and Party officials have to issue written materials even if they fart.

 So there were thousands of various documents that needed to be checked. Including other printouts, dozens of staff members checked around the clock for two days and only read less than half of them.

 But luck is really hard to say. Among this small number of documents, the agents successively discovered four documents that met the screening criteria.

—The word "三" on these materials is the same as the word "三" in the letter Gu Zhongya received. The bottom line is blurred, with varying degrees of severity.

 The specific sources are:

 The first picture comes from the office of a legislative Wei member named Sun Jisan in the Legislative Separation Yuan.

 The second product introduction brochure is from a company called Sanren.

 The third picture is from the Third War Zone Office in Jiacheng.

 The fourth picture is from a school publication of Changcheng No. 3 Primary School.

After receiving the report, Gu Qi met with Zuo Zhong and made a report, asking for instructions on whether to carry out secret investigations on these four locations to find out the Japanese spy leaders hiding inside.

Zuo Zhong had no objection and issued a warrant on the spot to approve his request, allowing him to mobilize some intelligence personnel to participate in the mission and screen out Japanese spies.

 For a time, the spies were mobilized in full force to conduct all-round surveillance on the four suspicious targets, and a large net was slowly rolled out in Jiacheng.

 Early the next morning.

The staff of the Changchengguo Party Headquarters started a new day of work, including Zuo Zhong’s partner Lao K, the underground, separatist, and party lurker, and Xu Weiming, the deputy director of the Organization Department of the Jinling Party Headquarters, was no exception.

Since moving westward, the party offices of the two places have been working together. Hundreds of people are huddled in the same building to handle their official duties. The originally solemn office building seems a bit chaotic.

 He ​​walked out of the large office shared by several division chiefs with a report in hand and walked through the chaotic stairs toward the top floor. His eyes occasionally glanced at the various schedules posted on the wall.

“At nine o’clock in the morning on January ~, together with the fire brigade and the police station, we will conduct an air defense drill.”

  “On ~month~, cooperate with the military police department to conduct inspections of passengers and vehicles entering and leaving the city.”

 …

He quickly wrote down the useful information, and walked slowly outside an office and knocked on the door. Hearing someone say "Please come in," he opened the door and walked into the house.

There were only two people sitting in the room, one was the secretary-general of the Jinling Party Headquarters, and the other one he didn't recognize but looked familiar to him. He should be a staff member of the local Party Headquarters.

This is normal. There are hundreds of people in the two party branches. Even if he is an agent, it is impossible to remember everyone in a short time, not to mention that there is no need.

Those of them from Jinling will continue to move to mountain cities once the war situation worsens. It is useless to have a good relationship with the people in Jiacheng. Sooner or later, the two sides will part ways.

 “Comptroller, this is the report you requested.”

Handing the document over with both hands, Xu Weiming smiled and nodded to the stranger as a greeting.

The other party's body was separated and motionless, and he nodded slightly. Looking at this style, he obviously had some status, at least similar to the official title of Secretary-General of the Jinling Party Department, otherwise he would not behave so arrogantly.

“Weiming, come, let me introduce to you. This is Supervisor Guo Binguo of the Changcheng Party Department. He is also an old classmate and friend of mine. He previously worked in party affairs in various southern provinces.

 Last time we met, he had something to do, and you were busy with work, so you happened to miss it. Now that we meet here, we are destined. We might as well communicate more in the future. Having more friends is always a good thing. "

 Jinling Party Secretary put the document aside, introduced the two of them with a smile, then looked at Guo Bin, pointed at Xu Weiming and said.

“This is my deputy director of the Organization Department, Xu Weiming, who came from the Party Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. During his work, he was interviewed and praised by Mr. Chen many times.

He is a loyal, honest and capable person. He is a rare helper. As you mentioned, I am going to leave it to him to carry out anti-red education in universities, middle schools and primary schools. "

"good."

 Guo Bin looked sideways at Xu Weiming, his expression finally no longer so serious, he whispered two words with a strong Zhejiang accent, then looked at his watch and said goodbye.

The Secretary-General of the Jinling Party Headquarters quickly stood up and sent him to the door. The two exchanged a few words. Guo Bin took the initiative to shake hands and said goodbye and walked away. His actions were crisp and neat, without any sloppiness.

Xu Weiming, who was standing beside him, quietly squinted his eyes. For some reason, he always felt that this person was a little dangerous, as if he saw a poisonous snake ready to attack.

 Could this person be an intelligence officer of the party affairs system? Why haven't I heard of this name before? It seemed necessary to find Qiu Chan to get to know him. A thought flashed in his mind.

not far away.

 Guo Bin returned to his office. A few minutes after he sat down, a staff member walked in outside the door and placed the letter he had just received in the morning on the table.

He waved his hand to signal the other party to go out first, picked up the letter cutter and opened a letter. He took out the letter and glanced at it casually, and his pupils shrank instantly.

 (End of this chapter)