Chapter 41: Two Old Foxes

West of the prison, the small courtyard was dilapidated, with faded couplets and door gods pasted on the entrance.

Hong Zhiyou and Old Yu walked in; Liao Sanmin was shirtless, practicing a horse stance, exhaling and inhaling Qi with rapid thrusts of his hands.

After the drinking and merrymaking at the last dinner party, their relationship remained quite good on the surface.

"Officer Liao, practicing the Virgin Art?" Hong Zhiyou greeted him.

"How did you know?"

Liao Sanmin slowly circulated his Qi to conclude his practice.

"No, you're so handsome, are you planning to dedicate your youth to this stuff?" Hong Zhiyou expressed surprise.

"I am from Yunan."

"I learned a few tricks from a master at a temple when I was a kid, and later when I joined the army, I found the training very easy, so I kept the habit," Liao Sanmin said nonchalantly.

"So you're a high-level disciple of Shaolin; no wonder you can treat this colorful world as nothing."

"Not close to women—Secretary Hong should call you a Red Ticket."

Yu Zecheng said from the side.

"Look, Director Yu is just narrow-minded."

"Two brothers, I'm a Red Ticket, alright?" Hong Zhiyou spread his hands and laughed.

"If you were a Red Ticket, I'd arrest you right now to claim the reward," Liao Sanmin laughed.

This guy actually had two deep dimples; he looked incredibly radiant when he smiled.

Hong Zhiyou felt a little jealous for no reason.

"Old Liao, can I learn this skill of yours?" He straightened his expression and asked.

"You're the Artillery King of Jinhai, you probably can't practice this," Yu Zecheng teased, squinting his eyes.

"I can certainly practice it."

"If you want to learn, I can teach you right now," Liao Sanmin agreed readily.

"Really teaching?" Hong Zhiyou was quite surprised.

"Really teaching!"

Liao Sanmin didn't hesitate; he pulled Hong Zhiyou to stand in a stance and then taught him the method of breathing.

"No, it's too tiring."

Hong Zhiyou stood for two minutes, his waist aching severely.

"Practice more and it will be fine," Liao Sanmin said.

"Go inside, drink some tea."

He pulled a towel from a bamboo rack, draped it over his shoulder, and walked inside.

"Sanmin, you must have plenty of grease on your palms, why not take a wife?" Yu Zecheng looked around and asked.

"Not marrying."

"Women will only affect my inspiration for writing."

"Take a look, how is it?"

He raised his eyebrows and handed over a notebook.

On it was... poetry.

"The sky is dim and lightless, even the sun has died, migratory birds spread their wings and fly south with all their might..."

To be honest, it was a bit like shit.

"Director Yu, how is it?" Liao Sanmin asked expectantly.

"Oh, good poem, good poem." Yu Zecheng opened his mouth and nodded repeatedly in a perfunctory manner.

"Secretary Hong, what do you say?" He looked at Hong Zhiyou again.

"The sun died? I suspect you are alluding to the Blue Sky and White Sun, slandering the Generalissimo."

"Brother Sanmin, you are a Red Ticket!"

Hong Zhiyou said with feigned seriousness.

"You Juntong people have such dark minds!"

"Chen Bulei and Liu Yazi have written plenty about the sun, and the Generalissimo even shines alone on Mount Emei."

Liao Sanmin rolled his eyes at him.

"Wen Yiduo wrote it too!"

"Sun, oh sun, the sun that stabs my heart with pain."

"Driving away the wanderer's dream of returning home once again!"

Hong Zhiyou recited loudly.

"Adding another twelve hours of gut-wrenching sorrow!"

"Sun, oh sun, the sun burning like fire!"

Yu Zecheng and Liao Sanmin joined in simultaneously, their voices deep and powerful.

"You two rebels!" After finishing, Hong Zhiyou and Liao Sanmin pointed at each other.

"Can't help it, who told me to be friends with you two rebels."

"Then we can only rebel together, and face the sun together."

Yu Zecheng added perfectly.

"Haha!"

The three of them put their arms around each other's shoulders and laughed heartily.

Liao Sanmin did indeed like poetry.

But as an underground worker, he wouldn't be stupid enough to leave such obvious handwriting.

He was doing it intentionally, including the martial arts practice.

The reason was simple: Long Er had taken over the Boatmen's Gang.

Yu and Hong were Wu Jingzhong's trusted aides.

Especially Hong Zhiyou, who had a close friendship with the Americans and had also made contact with Yang Wenquan; he was currently at the height of his power.

If making friends at the dinner party and calling each other brothers was a form of speculation.

Then their current wine-and-meat friendship had already blossomed and borne fruit, becoming a behemoth in Jinhai.

There was no reason for Liao Sanmin not to manage it well.

But he knew very well that Hong and Yu were cunning; since they were associating, it was inevitable that they would reveal flaws if they spent too much time together.

Therefore, Liao Sanmin chose to take the initiative to break the boundaries.

What was interesting was.

Hong Zhiyou and Yu Zecheng recited Wen Yiduo's poem.

This seemed like a joke.

But in reality, it was a tacit understanding reached by the three: regardless of red or blue, only discussing friendship, only seeking fame and fortune.

Liao Sanmin knew even more deeply that this tacit understanding was achieved by Hong Zhiyou.

Yu Zecheng was gloomy and hard to see through.

Only a "villain" like Hong Zhiyou could bring taboos to the table and dissect them clearly amidst laughter.

Yu Zecheng also breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.

The mistake in the car today had already made him feel lingering fear.

When he saw the "bomb" Liao Sanmin threw out, he was almost paralyzed.

Fortunately, Hong Zhiyou resolved it.

"Two old foxes..."

Hong Zhiyou had a headache.

The two Red Tickets were more cunning than foxes, each better at setting traps than the other; only he was witty enough to handle it.

Otherwise, this bit of wine-and-meat friendship would have fallen apart on the spot.

"Rip!"

Liao Sanmin tore off the paper and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing it in a few bites.

"Sanmin, you this..." Yu Zecheng was somewhat astonished.

"Old Yu, Brother Hong."

"Jokes are jokes, but being a Red Ticket costs heads."

"Eighteen were mentioned today."

"They were caught during the Japanese Special Higher Police period; before the surrender, the Old Man had already sent representatives for secret talks."

"All left for the Party-State."

Liao Sanmin drank some tea and took the initiative to leak information.

"Oh, the Special Higher Police period? That must have been very valuable, right?" Yu Zecheng raised his chin and asked with feigned surprise.

"Valuable my ass."

"They were squeezed dry long ago, and the Jinhai underground organization has already changed blood several times."

"Otherwise, why would they be executed?"

Liao Sanmin said.

As he spoke, he felt he had a better grasp of the situation.

This information was not hard to obtain; it seemed Old Yu was not as highly regarded by Wu Jingzhong as Secretary Hong was.

At the same time, Old Yu's response to the poem and his unintentional probing suggested he was very interested in news about the Red Tickets.

Could he be...

Yu Zecheng was also scrutinizing Liao Sanmin.

From showing the anti-government poem to casually leaking important secrets, was Liao Sanmin testing him?

Or was he himself a Red Ticket?

Or perhaps, he wanted to conduct business involving Red Tickets.

"Sigh!

"Kill away; you kill me, I kill you. Who cares who kills whom? It doesn't stop me from making money anyway.

"Let's go, let's go watch the execution."

Hong Zhiyou really couldn't stand the two of them "groping each other," so he made a snide remark and stood up to walk outside.

They arrived at the execution ground.

Against one side of the wall, over a dozen people were tied up and standing in a row.

Among them were the wife and daughter of Liu Wensheng.

There was no Internationale.

There were no impassioned cries of "Comrades, keep up the struggle."

After years of inhuman torture, the bodies of these fighters had long been hollowed out by illness; they were gaunt and withered, like paper cutouts that could be blown away by the wind.

The only thing that remained unchanged was:

Their eyes, which still held a light.

"Fire!" Warden Song waved his large hand, which was covered in a white glove.

Rat-tat-tat!

The machine gun swept wildly.

Those people soon fell into a pool of blood.

Liao Sanmin looked up at the sky, as if searching for that migratory bird.

Yu Zecheng stared without blinking, appearing very calm.

Hong Zhiyou knew their hearts were bleeding.

Their blood was burning.

There was nothing more painful than watching comrades die before one's eyes while being unable to do anything about it.

They could do nothing.

They could do nothing at all.

They could only turn their grief into strength and continue to forge ahead.

"Sigh!"

Hong Zhiyou stared at the wife and daughter of Liu Wensheng, sighing silently in his heart.

Heroes suffer.

Beauties meet tragic ends.

Life is fleeting and will eventually scatter with the wind, waiting only for the mountains to be covered in red.

He feigned boredom and waved his hand:

"What a pity, a pair of beautiful flowers!

"Let's go, my two brothers.

"Let's go eat!"

"Fine, you're buying," Yu Zecheng said with a smile.

Liu Xiong, standing to the side, secretly withdrew his gaze from the two, a cold sneer appearing at the corner of his mouth as he turned and left.

(End of chapter)