NIS Agents Tearing Up the Japanese Empire - Chapter 42



Only Krnovel

Payday – 1

The interrogation continued until morning.

I kept pushing her, and she started spitting out some information. I don’t know if it was because Lubyanka didn’t give her any useful information or if she was just well-trained, but most of the information that came out of her mouth was things I already knew.

It seemed like there was nothing left to find if I kept digging.

As the morning sun rose, I returned to Lady Lucy with Miss Vanya.

Miss Vanya, who had been talking to me all night, had a tired look on her face, but she seemed relieved that she had survived.

“Vanya!”

“Madam···.”

“Where on earth have you been? I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

“I had a brief conversation with the teacher···.”

“All night long?”

“Somehow it happened···.”

She turned her head away, fearing that Lady Lucy might notice the interaction between her and me.

Then a smile appeared on Mrs. Lucy’s face and she hugged him silently.

“I see… You’re already that old.”

“Madam···?”

“When times are good… When times are good.”

Mrs. Lucy held Vanya tightly with her eyes closed, and I consciously got away from her.

‘I’ll contact you again later.’

‘Again···?’

‘This is China, not America or the Soviet Union. Don’t forget that, my friend.’

‘······.’

As I left the tent, leaving her behind as she spat out harsh curses with her eyes, there stood Tian Zhongwei (Jun Zhongyu), her eyes puffy and delicious like well-baked bread.

“Good morning, General.”

“······Good morning, teacher.”

“Is there anything you want me to do?”

Tian Zhongwei glared at me for a moment, then pulled his hat down low and avoided my gaze.

“The government there came looking for you, teacher.”

“You’re saying there’s someone from Shanghai?”

Someone came to see me.

I felt a little happy, but I was worried that something might have happened in Shanghai while I was away, so I hurriedly went to meet the guest.

******

“Oh, it’s been a while.”

“······Inspector Sasaki?”

“Yes… This is Sasaki.”

When I came here because they said someone from the provisional government was coming to see me, what was waiting for me was not Kim Won-bong’s Uiyoldan or Kim Gu’s provisional government police department, but Superintendent Sasaki from the Japanese Consulate General in Shanghai.

“What’s going on here?”

“That is···. A request for cooperation came in from the Shanghai Consulate General···.”

“Request for cooperation?”

Sasaki said this:

In fact, the Beiyang government, which did nothing in this incident, tried to somehow package this achievement as their own.

From their perspective, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai was an unauthorized illegal organization, so my current status is Japanese in name only.

So, I was planning to send a request for cooperation to the Japanese consulate, saying that one of their citizens had a problem and that they should take him in, and then hand me over to the Japanese and make me disappear from this matter.

“Huh, so at the latest, you sent the letter of cooperation sometime yesterday evening… So you ran all the way here in one day?”

“Ah, yes, well… It’s a matter of fact.”

“Hey···.”

Inspector Sasaki seemed to have noticed my involvement in this matter and moved quickly.

“Human greed is truly frightening. Isn’t that right, Inspector Sasaki?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Inspector Sasaki was very tense, like a new recruit who had just been transferred, and was focusing on my every move.

“So are you going to arrest me, Inspector Sasaki?”

“······Will you just surrender me?”

“I guess there will be some resistance.”

“I guess so.”

Inspector Sasaki took out all the handcuffs and pistols he had brought and placed them on the desk, as if to prove that he really had no intention of arresting me.

“Will the Japanese consul in Shanghai cause trouble?”

“Even if that consul keeps whining, if you just endure it for a little while, he’ll soon change into someone else.”

“Yeah, that’s a very good attitude.”

Sasaki watched me closely and slowly pushed the gun off the table.

“Beijing made the first move…”

Humans are greedy animals.

This hostage situation was on a larger scale.

The mainstream media of the Western powers that China fears the most were calling it the biggest hate crime against foreigners since the Boxer Rebellion.

However, the government forces that should have taken the lead in resolving this issue just stood by and watched until the matter was over and sorted things out, and the one who actually resolved the matter was the Joseon guy they had so ignored.

It was already a blow to their pride to be pushed back by Japan, but now even the Joseon bastards were trampling on their pride, so how could they not be angry?

That’s why the old people in Beijing must have thought like this.

‘He’s alone anyway, so why don’t we just deal with him and tell other countries that we took the initiative?’

So, they were trying to deal with me by borrowing the hand of the Japanese government, and by pretending to the Western powers that they had taken care of everything, they could gain some pride and somehow reduce the amount of compensation they had to pay to them.

“I’m just thinking about it…”

“Yes, yes?!”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything to you.”

“Ah, yes···.”

It’s not hard to understand their feelings.

I would have done the same thing.

But understanding them didn’t mean forgiving them.

“What are you going to do now···?”

“Why are you asking that, Inspector Sasaki?”

“······If a problem arises here, who do you think will take care of it?”

“First of all, I don’t think so.”

“I’m going.”

Sasaki was worried that I might do something crazy and cause diplomatic friction between the Japanese Empire and China.

“I hate to say this, but… whatever you do against the Chinese government is none of my business.”

“You know very well.”

“But if that causes problems for our government… then I have no choice but to intervene.”

“If you intervene, what are you sure you will do to me?”

“······I said I would only intervene, I didn’t say anything about what I could do to you, teacher.”

From Inspector Sasaki’s point of view, it would be crazy and shocking.

If I did something wrong, my superiors would immediately demand that I be arrested, but Inspector Sasaki didn’t have the ability to catch me.

And you know it best.

“So, I beg you like this.”

Sasaki knelt before me and begged.

“Please… Can’t you just let it go without doing anything? I will take responsibility for this matter and wrap it up properly within my means.”

“Heh heh···.”

When Inspector Sasaki acted so meanly, I felt a little shaken.

“I don’t like it.”

Oh, of course I was just shaken, I had no intention of listening to what he had to say.

Terrorists don’t negotiate.

Those guys have a bad habit of thinking that once they come forward to negotiate, they will continue to climb up the ranks.

“This time, we have to completely uproot it.”

“Oh my… Please….”

“Inspector Sasaki, your knees must be hurting. Don’t kneel down like that. Stand up.”

“Teacher… Please… If this really goes wrong, it won’t just be me who’s going to lose my head. Wouldn’t it be better for you, Teacher, if I stayed in Shanghai rather than having other guys from the mainland come and bother you?”

Inspector Sasaki now completely buried his head on the floor and begged me.

“Can you please just let it go for this one time, to spare this poor bastard?”

I almost cried when I saw Inspector Sasaki putting everything aside and trying to somehow protect his position.

“That won’t work.”

“ah.”

But he wasn’t wrong.

I also found it easier to work at the Japanese Consulate General in Shanghai with people I knew rather than people I didn’t know.

So, in return, I reached out to Inspector Sasaki.

“Inspector Sasaki.”

“yes···?”

“How long are you going to stay stuck in a remote place like Shanghai and bow down to a terrorist like me? Isn’t that a bit ridiculous?”

“······.”

“When I see it, our Inspector Sasaki seems like a very lucky person.”

“······.”

I took the gun out of my bosom.

Oh, to be exact, it’s a lighter.

That thing that scared Miss Vanya yesterday.

“From now on, I’ll give Inspector Sasaki a choice, and all you have to do is choose. How about that? Easy?”

“What choice do you want me to make…?”

He put the gun to Sasaki’s forehead.

Sasaki looked up at me with an expression on his face like he was about to be thrown into a coffin.

“Inspector Sasaki, I heard you’re still in contact with the Black Dragon Society?”

“That, that’s impossible… Hahaha… How could I have private contact with people like that?”

Sasaki had a peculiar habit that appeared whenever he lied, and one of them was that he couldn’t help but twist his fingers or keep his throat still like he was doing now.

“Inspector Sasaki, who was the person who came to the consulate a few days ago?”

“······Well. I don’t know because there are so many people coming and going to the consulate.”

“Really? Then do you know a guy named Mamoru Wataru?”

“······.”

“Inspector Sasaki, I don’t care if you clean the Black Dragon Society’s bottom or lick their asses until they’re shiny.”

Rather, that is something to welcome on my part.

The more Sasaki becomes involved with the Black Dragon Society, the easier it will be for him to access information from that side.

Anyway, our Inspector Sasaki can’t do anything to me.

Rather, in order to save my life, I had to be as comfortable as possible without going against my wishes.

Even if there is a problem right now, don’t you come running barefoot and beg them not to cause an accident?

So, it is more beneficial to me for Sasaki to have a close relationship with the Black Dragon Society.

“Didn’t the Black Dragon guys suffer a lot of damage when the shipping warehouse in Shanghai was blown up a while ago?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“This is too bad! Isn’t it?”

“······yes.”

Sasaki looked at me with a sullen face.

It’s probably a natural reaction to hear such words from the person who did the work.

“The Black Dragon Society has lost its source of funding… Don’t they need money right away?”

“Maybe so?”

The Black Dragon Society must be struggling financially right now.

It couldn’t be helped, not only was a huge amount of money lost in the Shanghai shipping warehouse incident the problem, but money had to be spent here and there to clean up the mess.

So, right now, we are struggling with financial difficulties and are in a situation where we cannot do anything.

“As far as I know, it’s already been five years since our Inspector Sasaki took over that position?”

“No, how about that···?”

“I’ve been working day and night for the Empire of Japan from afar, so isn’t it time for me to get promoted now?”

“yes···?”

I made Inspector Sasaki an offer he simply could not refuse.

“I heard that Cao Kun, the real power behind the Beiyang government, is running in the next presidential election of the Republic of China.”

“So?”

“I don’t know if you know this, but elections usually cost a lot of money.”

Even in modern Korea, there are countless instances of families being stripped of their wealth, as there are so many things to spend money on, even just in elections to choose a local mayor.

But in this day and age, a presidential election that would nominally encompass all of China would require a lot of money.

“In particular, this election seems to be one in which Cao Kun is throwing money around to oust Sun Yat-sen and become the president.”

As you might expect, bribery required a huge amount of money.

“And now you’re saying that some of Cao Kun’s campaign funds are in Tian Zhongwei’s hands?”

“······What do you want?”

“It’s nothing.”

He helped Inspector Sasaki up and brushed the dirt off his clothes.

And then he put a cigarette in his mouth.

“Let’s crack down on illegal campaign funding together.”

Join hands with Sasaki and strike the back of the Beiyang government’s head.

If things went well, they would be earning operating funds for the time being, and if things didn’t go well, they could blame the Japanese for the problem, so it was a win-win either way.

“······I am a public figure, so I cannot get involved in such illegal activities.”

“400 thousand won.”

“!!!”

400,000 won is a lot of money, enough to buy several buildings in Tokyo and live the rest of your life without worrying about money.

At least this much should be enough for me to completely forget my resentment about this incident.

“If things work out, I’ll take half, and Inspector Sasaki will get the other half.”

“Excuse me, is this true?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what our Inspector Sasaki will do with that money… but if we give it to the Black Dragon Society, wouldn’t they give us a pretty good position?”

Sasaki’s eyes shook wildly.

“I heard that he is sleeping in some bank in Shanghai…”

“······.”

“I just happened to have information about that bank in my hands?”

With great wealth, success, and even fame… Sasaki’s worries did not last long.

“What should I do?”

“First, get me out of here, if possible, quietly, as if nothing happened.”

The Beiyang government bastards in Beijing will later regret letting me go here.

They were destined to fall from the start, but now that they’re entangled with me, their destined fall will be even faster and more brutal.