Chapter 14

14

Once the idea of stealing the books took root in his mind, it refused to leave.

On the way back from the cultural salon, Wen Yan spent the whole ride turning over the feasibility of the idea.

Official channels were definitely out of the question. Since Zhang Yuanji refused to “lend” the books to the Japanese for an “exhibition,” Wen Yan’s plan to have his vice-mayor uncle step in under the guise of hosting an exhibition was completely unworkable. The old gentleman trusted neither the Japanese nor the Nationalist Government. In his position, he knew all too well the true character of this entire Republic of China regime.

Yet stealing the books demanded careful strategy. Shen Po was merely a playboy with no military clout behind him. Stealing books from the library on a massive scale was no simple task. Those volumes were the old master’s lifeblood; he only ever permitted one or two books to be borrowed at a time. Trying to smuggle them out through regular borrowing would be like trying to put out a burning cart of firewood with a cup of water.

“Do you know if anyone in the Shen family is on good terms with the Green Gang?”

Wen Yan sat in the back seat and asked the driver, Xiao Wu, out of the blue.

Xiao Wu startled so hard that his foot nearly slammed the gas pedal instead of the brake.

“Good heavens, Young Master! You must never ask that question at home! The master will beat you to death. The Shen family hates the Green Gang more than anything!”

Wen Yan: “…”

He remembered now. Shen Po’s second brother had been beaten to death by the Green Gang, a case that remained unresolved to this day. Even though the Green Gang had come to offer an apology and some powerful figure had mediated peace over drinks, Shen Po’s father had only let the matter drop out of deference to that big shot’s influence. Resentment still festered in his heart, making the words “Green Gang” a strict taboo within the Shen family.

Yet Wen Yan was out of ideas. The only organization he could think of capable of pulling off such a job with a high success rate was the Green Gang.

His head ached.

Wen Yan rubbed his temples. Could it be that I actually have to use Shen Po’s body to expand my connections and find a way to get in touch with the Green Gang?

The trickiest part was that he still didn’t know how long he could stay in Shen Po’s identity. If appearing during the day this time was just an exception, and he could only become Shen Po at night in the future, he wouldn’t even know where to begin making the effort!

Xiao Wu glanced in the rearview mirror and saw his Third Young Master looking miserable.

He assumed Shen Po had finally shown his true colors. The young master was never cut out for scholarship, yet he had insisted on attending some cultural salon. He had probably been mercilessly mocked.

“Young Master, I heard a place called Florence Ballroom recently opened near New World. They’re locked in fierce competition, neither side backing down. Would you like to check it out?”

Wen Yan replied casually, “Isn’t New World supposed to have powerful backing? If Florence Ballroom dares to challenge them, do they have connections too?”

Xiao Wu said, “I’m not sure about that, though New World’s backing isn’t anything insurmountable. People say the owner is a concubine of some municipal dignitary, and she has ties to the Green Gang. In a prime district where every inch of land is worth its weight in gold, Florence Ballroom must have some backing of its own to compete with them, right?”

Wen Yan had no interest in listening to tired, old ballroom songs, nor did he want any physical entanglements with taxi dancers. Whenever he thought of the countdown to the catastrophe at the end of the month, all desire vanished.

It was an imminent crisis, a Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

The refusal on the tip of his tongue abruptly halted.

Wen Yan said, “To Florence Ballroom.”

Forces capable of rivaling the Green Gang in Shanghai were few and far between. Wen Yan figured it couldn’t hurt to treat a dead horse as if it were alive and take a look.

On the way to Florence Ballroom, he had already fleshed out a rough plan, ready to throw his weight around and wreak havoc like the Monkey King in Heaven^[1].

In any case, Shen Po would be the one losing face. What did that have to do with Wen Yan?

The nation was on the brink of ruin; how much was Shen Po’s reputation worth anyway?

Hahaha! Wen Yan laughed three times in his heart, deciding to just smash the cracked pot and see what happened.

*

When Shen Po woke up, he was still somewhat dazed.

He couldn’t remember when he had passed out, nor how much time had elapsed.

The sky was just beginning to lighten into a murky twilight. The air carried the damp scent of grass and earth, along with the hurried, bustling clamor of people coming and going.

“He’s awake, he’s awake! Teacher Wen is awake!”

“Teacher Wen is all right!”

“I told you he was just starved!”

“Hurry, carry him over to that tent! Are there any beds?”

“Yes, yes! The volunteers just brought in a few makeshift cots!”

Everyone spoke at once, making Shen Po’s head spin even more.

Even so, he finally grasped one key fact: he had been pulled out from beneath the ruins.

Surviving was naturally a blessing, but remembering the student who had been listening to music with him before he passed out, Shen Po instinctively grabbed the arm of a nearby rescue worker.

“The class monitor… The class monitor… My student, he’s still down there…”

“He was pulled out before you! He’s in that tent too, you’ll see him once we get there. Don’t worry, Teacher Wen!”

Understanding what he meant, the rescuer gave Shen Po a reassuring answer.

This wasn’t the epicenter, but the damage was still severe. Right after the disaster struck, rescue teams from neighboring counties and cities rushed over, followed by volunteers who were even closer, hailing from the adjacent town. Since these were civilian volunteer groups formed on the fly, their response had been slightly slower than the official teams.

Still, it was already much faster than Shen Po had imagined.

An hour later, after undergoing a preliminary examination that confirmed some superficial wounds and a dislocation with no life-threatening danger, he was temporarily settled in the relief station. Because many more severely injured victims needed to be rushed out for emergency surgery, someone in Shen Po’s condition could wait.

As beds quickly ran short, Shen Po gave up his own cot and sat nearby clutching a cup of hot water, staring blankly into space.

He finally understood the general situation.

While he had still been languishing in despair beneath the rubble, the rescue teams had already arrived, steadily pulling out the lightly buried survivors. Only the class monitor’s house, situated on lower ground right against the mountainside, had been hit by the earthquake alongside a mudslide. Consequently, the boy’s family, along with Shen Po who had come over for dinner, were buried quite deeply, complicating the rescue efforts. Rescuers had dug through the night before finally unearthing them.

Tragically, however, the class monitor’s grandparents had died on the spot from severe injuries. His mother had been rushed to the city for surgery. The class monitor himself had suffered broken ribs and leg fractures and also needed to be transferred to the city hospital, but the road leading to the city was currently blocked by rockslides from collapsed slopes, and crews were working around the clock on emergency repairs.

Shen Po’s dislocated arm was quickly set back into place. For the superficial cuts and scrapes, a tetanus shot was all he needed. Compared to the others, his injuries were negligible; he had become one of the lucky ones in this batch.

But what left Shen Po stunned was not that he was unharmed, but what lay right in front of him.

“Where did these… instant noodles come from?” he asked a young man beside him.

Besides instant noodles, there were bottles of mineral water and sausages.

The young man was from the village and attended middle school in the county. Having just returned home for break, he had the misfortune of getting caught in the earthquake. His injuries were a bit worse than Shen Po’s, with a fractured arm, but among the crowd of victims, he was not considered severely injured either.

“The town government sent them over, and the troops did too!”

Wen Yan had quite a reputation in the village, so although the young man thought it was a silly question, he still answered.

Shen Po frowned. “With so much piled up here without anyone watching it, aren’t they afraid people will loot it?”

The young man said, “…Who would loot this?”

Shen Po could tell from the young man’s tone that he had asked an utterly foolish question. But in his understanding, natural disasters were rampant across the Republic of China, leaving behind countless victims. Even in a place like Shanghai, if someone went to the slums to hand out provisions, the poor, who were not even disaster victims, would swarm forward and snatch up every last bit.

Yet here in this mountainous area, which clearly was not wealthy, supplies were piled out in the open, and no one came to take advantage.

It was not that nobody came at all, but they only came in ones and twos. At most, they would take a bowl of noodles and head to the hot water station to add water. Most of them were rescue workers exhausted from labor; virtually none of the villagers came to take anything.

Could it be that everyone here only looked poor, but was actually quite wealthy?

By the time broad daylight arrived, not only did Shen Po fail to get an answer to his confusion, he grew even more astonished.