Chapter 2756: The Capital (Part 112)

Upon returning to his room, he immediately drafted a concise report based on the confession and transmitted it to Center by telegraph. The detailed confession record itself would be sent in its original form through the Foreign Intelligence Bureau's communication channels. In his report, he not only recommended making full use of Liu Sha but also proposed relocating him secretly to a safer location—Tianjin, perhaps—where they could thoroughly interrogate him about the Stone Elder group's operations.

"...This individual possesses deep knowledge of the Stone Elder group and served as the on-site organizer and commander of numerous anti-Kun operations. His intelligence value is considerable."

After finishing, he inquired whether any of the surveillance teams had new information. The answer came back: "Nothing yet."

At this point, it was undeniable that Yang Tianliang was one of the masterminds behind the kidnapping—a "secondary mastermind," certainly, but guilty nonetheless of an unpardonable offense against the personal safety of a Senator. That was one matter.

The second was this: according to Liu Sha's confession, the conflict between Yang Tianliang and Leng Ningyun had clearly reached an irreconcilable state. Whatever utility Yang Tianliang once possessed had vanished entirely. Worse, this failed kidnapping operation might well drive him toward even more aggressive conspiracies. The most appropriate course of action was to "eliminate him quietly."

However, to quietly eliminate Yang Tianliang, he still needed to consult with both Leng Ningyun and Center.

As for "Stone Elder" himself, whether to take action depended on subsequent developments. Both the Foreign Intelligence Bureau and the Political Security Bureau shared a consistent stance toward the Stone Elder group: cut the weeds and pull up the roots.

Though Wang Yehao was the nominal leader, in Xu Ke's estimation, the man was insignificant. The key figure was Zhou Lezhi.

Where exactly was he hiding now?

Wang Zhi entered the study and whispered a few words in Zhou Lezhi's ear. Zhou Lezhi started with surprise. "Are you certain?"

"Absolutely." Wang Zhi kept his voice low. "Xu Yong came to report in person."

"Send him in."

Xu Yong entered the room and stood silently to one side.

"Tell me everything about Tongzhou. Leave nothing out."

"Yes, sir!" Xu Yong responded. "This lowly one accompanied Uncle Liu to Tongzhou to investigate Second Uncle Liu..."

"Use proper names when reporting!" Zhou Lezhi reminded him sharply.

"Yes, sir! This lowly one accompanied Liu Zhao to Tongzhou to locate Liu Sha. We only managed to find his contact person. The contact didn't know his specific lodging either—only that they met daily at a teahouse called 'Hou Garden.'"

Liu Zhao and Xu Yong had made inquiries throughout Tongzhou but turned up nothing. They learned only that Liu Sha's last appearance had been more than ten days prior. It wasn't until they spoke with a familiar constable at the Tongzhou yamen that they discovered something had happened to Liu Sha.

"...The constable said Liu Sha had taken a woman from a musician household (yuehu) in Tongzhou as his concubine and purchased a residence for her. A few days ago, the procuress from the musician household reported to the authorities that her daughter Rui Jie hadn't returned home in some time. When she went to knock on the door, she found it unlocked, with a foul stench drifting out from within. The constables went inside to investigate and discovered a male corpse in the mansion. Bloodstains on the walls and floor indicated signs of a struggle. Liu Sha, Rui Jie, and an elderly couple who served as gatekeepers have all vanished."

"The male corpse—it wasn't Liu Sha?" Zhou Lezhi asked, visibly shaken.

"No, sir," Xu Yong said. "Fortunately, the case remains open, and the body was placed in a coffin and temporarily stored at the charitable estate (Yizhuang). Liu Zhao took this lowly one there to open the coffin and examine the remains. The dead man was Wang Liang!"

Now Zhou Lezhi was truly shocked. Wang Liang, like Liu Sha, had also been missing for many days. But no one had imagined these two were connected.

According to the Stone Elder group's protocols, the attendants who ran errands for Master Wang and the personnel bearing the "Stone" designation maintained no lateral contact with each other. Except for those living within the Wang mansion itself, none knew the others' lodgings.

As one of Wang Yehao's trusted aides, Wang Liang certainly knew all the important figures in the Stone Elder group—yet he had never violated this rule. How then had he come to die in Liu Sha's outside residence?

A hundred thousand questions flashed through Zhou Lezhi's mind, but not a single one could he answer. He had to ask:

"How did he die?"

"Stabbed to death. The constable said the method was brutal—not the work of an ordinary person."

"Do you know who did it?"

"Liu Zhao investigated in Tongzhou for several days without finding any leads. However—" Xu Yong hesitated. "Liu Zhao mentioned that quite a few suspicious outsiders have appeared in Tongzhou recently. This lowly one estimates that nine times out of ten, it was the work of Kun agents."

"Very well. You may go." Zhou Lezhi said. "Don't meet with Liu Zhao again for the time being. If there's anything to communicate, use the dead drop. And don't come here either."

After sending Xu Yong away, Zhou Lezhi gave Wang Zhi a single instruction: Move house.

If the Kun had personnel stationed in Tongzhou, then Xu Yong and Liu Zhao's inquiries about Liu Sha certainly couldn't have gone unnoticed. When the Kun followed the trail, he would find himself captured without hope of resistance.

This time, he resolved to sever all direct human contact with the Stone Elder group. From now on, all communication would go through dead drops.

How Wang Liang had come to die in Liu Sha's outside residence remained a mystery, but Liu Sha's disappearance pointed to one possibility: he had fallen into the hands of the Kun.

The Kun had ample means of prying open Liu Sha's mouth. Once he talked, many of the Stone Elder group's secrets would be exposed to daylight. The name Zhou Lezhi would inevitably become the Kun's most wanted target.

This kind of "honor" was terrifying. Zhou Lezhi understood all too well what price the Kun were willing to pay to eliminate their enemies.

Direct confrontation was impossible; the only option was to hide.

No matter how brazen the Kun became, they couldn't openly conduct searches and arrests in the Capital. The Capital had the highest concentration of officials anywhere and networks of informants woven densely throughout. As long as his hiding place remained secret, concealment was the safest strategy.

This time, he relocated to a courtyard near the Wanping County Yamen, close to the Imperial City wall, and settled in quietly.

Not long after establishing himself there, Zhou Lezhi composed a letter and dispatched Wang Zhi to deliver it to the dead drop.

If Liu Sha had been captured, the entire Stone Elder group was in danger. Wang Yehao was a high official of the Imperial Court, so the Kun might still exercise some restraint where he was concerned—but anyone in the Stone Elder group known to Liu Sha would likely fear for their lives. Zhou Lezhi had to warn them all to take individual precautions. For the next month or two, it would be best to avoid any contact whatsoever.

His second directive was to activate every connection within the Imperial Court: agents in the Jinyiwei, the Eastern Depot, the Five Cities Wardens Office, and the various yamen of Shuntian, Daxing, and Wanping. They needed to mount strict patrols and inspections throughout the Capital, applying pressure on the Kun to force them to curtail their activities or withdraw from the city entirely.

If they couldn't even guarantee their personal safety in the Capital, they might as well disband immediately.

Having addressed these matters, Zhou Lezhi sat by the window in silent reflection, reviewing the failure of the kidnapping operation. He traced the entire process back and forth, pondering which link had gone wrong.

In this operation, he had truly "exhausted every stratagem" and anticipated everything before and after. Detention and ransom collection had been handled by two separate groups, with considerable effort devoted to misdirection. Yet the Kun had still found a breakthrough and snatched the captive from the West Garden without warning!

To act so swiftly, so precisely, so ruthlessly—they must have had an intelligence source. But where?

Zhou Lezhi couldn't help but suspect Liu Sha.

Both logic and intuition pointed to him as the most likely culprit. Moreover, Zhou Lezhi knew that Liu Sha's request to Master Wang the previous year had been rejected—he likely harbored resentment. And now it had come to light that he had secretly taken a woman in Tongzhou.

Zhou Lezhi understood very well what keeping a woman cost, and Liu Sha had concealed this from everyone in the Stone Elder group. Clearly, he had already developed outside ambitions by then.

However, at this point, whether the traitor was Liu Sha no longer mattered. The critical task now was to reverse the court situation as quickly as possible and bring the peace negotiations to fruition.

Originally, he and Master Wang had operated in the shadows, and with Wen Tiren at least, they had secured a kind of tacit approval for the peace talks. Master Wang had also secretly reached out to the pro-peace faction through his connections. But not long ago, Zhou Lezhi had discovered a massive variable: the Restoration Society (Fu She).

Zhang Pu, head of the Restoration Society, was currently working behind the scenes to bring about Zhou Yanru's return to power. According to Zhou Lezhi's "prophecy," Zhou Yanru's return wasn't supposed to happen for another four years. What caught him completely off guard was that Zhang Pu advocated suppressing the Kun! Not only the Two Zhangs of Loudong within the Society, but many of its members shared this view, believing the Kun had become a festering wound in the heart of the Imperial Court that had to be excised immediately.

Now Zhou Lezhi found himself at a loss. The "Heavenly Book" had mentioned Zhou Yanru's return and the Restoration Society's role in facilitating it—but nothing about their stance toward the Kun.

According to the intelligence they had gathered, several prominent figures in the Restoration Society actually maintained connections with the Kun. The Merchants' Navigation Company on the Tianjin route was jointly operated by Shen Tingyang and the real Kun operative Zhao Yingong in Hangzhou. Even Zhang Pu himself had engaged in contact and dealings with the Kun.

Originally, Zhou Lezhi had assumed that even if the gentlemen of the Restoration Society might be reluctant to support peace negotiations with the Kun, they wouldn't be eager to suppress them either. The current situation had exceeded all his expectations.

Given the Restoration Society's profound antipathy toward the Kun, how could he possibly persuade the Two Zhangs of Loudong?

Though Zhou Yanru wouldn't enter the Grand Secretariat for another four years, once Wen Tiren left office, even his remaining partisans in the Grand Secretariat would have to proceed with caution. With the Restoration Society's current momentum, Grand Secretaries Liu Yuliang, Xue Guoguan, and the others might not dare oppose the prevailing court opinion. If that happened, all his careful groundwork for peace negotiations within the Imperial Court would come to nothing!

He had few options remaining: either persuade the Restoration Society to abandon their anti-Kun stance, or fully support Wen Tiren in weathering the immediate crisis and preserving his position as Senior Grand Secretary.

As for persuading Zhang Pu—that Master of Heaven (Tongtian Jiaozhu)—Zhou Lezhi admitted he lacked the ability. And even if he somehow succeeded, he might still fail to convince the broader membership of the Restoration Society.

As for protecting Wen Tiren, the Heavenly Book had given him some knowledge of how the man's downfall would begin and end. It was still early in the year. If he could persuade Wen Tiren to let Qian Qianyi go and refrain from making an issue of the Zhang Hanru affair, avoiding dismissal might still be possible.

The problem was that Wen Tiren had always been insidious and cunning—gaining his trust would prove difficult. Furthermore, although Wen Tiren's dismissal stemmed from Emperor Chongzhen's suspicion that he "harbored factional loyalties" due to his insistence on framing Qian Qianyi, the Emperor had already grown dissatisfied with Wen Tiren. This affair was merely the trigger. Even if Wen Tiren dodged the blow on the first of the month, he might not escape the one on the fifteenth.

It seemed that despite possessing the Heavenly Book and having received his master's teachings, he remained a complete novice when it came to the art of being an official. This matter would still require Master Wang's judgment.