NOVEL NEXT Chapter 32 - A Target Suddenly Appears
Saturday, October 3rd. On a day when I had adapted to the female body to the point where I wondered if this wasn’t my original body, the very next day after hearing a shocking, or perhaps suspicious, confession from Zhou Lizhi.
I finally had time to take a walk alone in the school grounds. Usually, my roommate Churchill or Lieutenant Duey, who seemed to have a strange interest in me, often asked me to hang out with them, so I barely had time to walk alone while dealing with them appropriately. Isn’t it a kind of torture not to be able to walk leisurely in front of such a nice garden?
The garden inside the school, which seemed to be modeled after the Forbidden City in Beijing, had various strange statues, a large pond, and pavilions with colorful roof tiles placed here and there. Although it feels a bit busy with too many dragon decorations, it’s undoubtedly more splendid than any garden I’ve seen so far.
With few students but a wide garden, this place, which would be fantastic as a tourist attraction, was rarely crowded or noisy. It’s even strange to think that this is China with a population of 1.5 billion.
I have to admit that I was a bit tired. Last night, Briar Churchill said something surprising to me. Even I couldn’t hide my bewilderment, to the point where Churchill even felt sorry for me.
She asked me:
“By the way, Eun-young. Who on earth is Mayumi?”
“…Pardon?”
“Well, I won’t ask any more.”
She wouldn’t have said that just hearing my “Pardon?”. As always, Churchill, who was wandering around the living room wearing only a shower gown, saw my complexion change as soon as I heard that name and said she wouldn’t bring up that topic anymore.
I couldn’t just let that issue pass like that.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“Your sleep talk, commoner.”
Churchill said. I gritted my teeth inwardly. It’s nonsense. A spy should train their mind and body thoroughly to be able to deceive even in sleep talk. It’s nonsense that I would spontaneously utter the name of an ex-lover, and a Japanese name at that, while sleeping.
Can you imagine dating a Japanese person in this day and age? It’s nonsense. Churchill must have known that too, which is why she probably found my sleep talk strange.
And I don’t know what thoughts she might be having.
“Well, um… um…”
“An ex-lover’s name?”
“Ah, yes, well.”
Since it was obvious that denying it there would seem more suspicious, I affirmed Churchill’s words. The Maestro sat on the bed, lost in thought for a while, then let out a deep sigh.
“It must be a complicated story, right?”
“She was an anti-communist refugee. A woman who came to Korea all alone.”
That’s a lie. Mayumi was one of the secretaries of the General Secretary of the Japanese Soviet Republic. I met her not in Korea, but in Tokyo. I approached her using a Japanese alias instead of my real name Yoon Jae-won, and using fluent Japanese.
I was able to extract detailed information about a secret agreement between the Soviet Union and Japan from her. It was a massive secret deal where Russia would deploy 3 new nuclear missiles to Japan in exchange for the Japanese Navy handing over one battleship to the Soviet Far Eastern Fleet.
Because it was quite a big catch, I received a good evaluation from my superiors for succeeding in that operation.
And on the day I was supposed to return to the United States on Jefferson’s orders, she said to me like this:
“I knew.”
Mayumi wasn’t surprised when she heard my lie about having to go to Russia urgently. I thought it was because my lie to extract information from her, that is, the lie that I was a Communist Party official mediating business between Russia and Japan, had worked very well, but the reality was different.
Mayumi had said to me:
“But Kazuma, you weren’t Japanese from the beginning, were you?”
Unable to affirm or deny those words, I returned to America and learned that Mayumi had been executed by the hands of the Japanese government. She, a traitor to the people, was publicly executed through the electric chair, and it was perhaps a predetermined event from the moment she handed over all the confidential information to me.
So, I was indifferent. At least that’s what I believed about myself. Briar Churchill noticed that I was troubled for a while after hearing Mayumi’s name and gave me advice.
“Why don’t you go out for a walk? That’s what I do when I can’t come up with musical inspiration.”
“Does a genius like you ever have times when musical inspiration doesn’t come?”
“No. That’s why I rarely go for walks.”
“An Englishwoman who doesn’t take walks or have tea time. It’s clear that blood from another country, not English, flows in your veins.”
“I wonder if that’s something to say to a noble lady. Don’t try to brush it off with jokes, go out for a bit. I’m saying this sincerely. And one more piece of advice, don’t get too close to that Chinese instructor. The Weapon Master’s ability is dangerous. That superpower can find your weakness at any moment. It’s the best ability for a counterintelligence agent. They say a powerful Weapon Master can even directly pierce the heart of the best spy.”
That wouldn’t be very good for me.
When all my thoughts that I tried to pass off as jokes were exposed, I had no choice but to follow Churchill’s advice and take a walk in the school garden. Once I came out, I felt her words were right.
I needed some time to walk alone. I sat on the bench of an unnecessarily ornate pavilion in front of the pond and rested quietly, looking at the surface of the water.
Feeling bored that there were no ripples on the water’s surface, I thoughtlessly picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it towards the pond.
With a plop sound, circular ripples spread across the water’s surface.
“Be careful. The fish in the pond might get hurt.”
At that moment, I heard someone speaking to me from behind. It was clear Mandarin. Judging by the voice I hadn’t heard before, thinking it was a Chinese student, I jumped up from my seat and turned around.
I was slightly surprised to see the face of the person who spoke to me.
She was the person I was supposed to ‘monitor’. But someone I had never properly met, unable to catch even a single opportunity.
It was Chen Yayuan, the second-year student who had contacted the U.S. government claiming to ‘have information that could cause a second world war’.
Although I had shown considerable bewilderment in front of Zhou Lizhi and a disheveled appearance in front of Churchill, I couldn’t show such surprise over just this. Reminding myself several times that I was supposed to not know her name, I said to her:
“Are there fish in this pond?”
“No. But from your answer, it’s clear that you didn’t confirm that fact. In that case, you should have acted more carefully. Right?”
She seemed like a friendly person. Long dark brown hair. This Chinese woman with slightly cloudy gray eyes naturally came up to the pavilion and sat across from me.
“You must be an exchange student?”
“Yes, I’m a freshman who just entered this year.”
“I’m Chen Yayuan. A second-year student.”
“I’m Shin Eun-young.”
I shook hands lightly with the hand she extended. I couldn’t yet guess whether she was genuinely just friendly or if she had come to find me because she knew something about me.
“You’re from Korea.”
“Yes, that’s right. I heard it’s been a while since there was a Korean exchange student.”
“Well, the international situation is a bit like that these days. But well, don’t you think it’ll soon return to normal? In an era where the red storm is growing day by day, it would be good to get along well with each other.”
Chen Yayuan suddenly brought up a heavy topic. I shrugged my shoulders and let her words pass.
“Still, I entered with a recommendation letter from the Generalissimo.”
“That’s right.”
Chen Yayuan nodded too. And then she asked a question that made my body shiver, almost abruptly:
“Do you perhaps have anything you need to say to me?”
Stay calm, Shin Eun-young. My mission is to judge whether this woman named Chen Yayuan is trustworthy. That is, whether it’s worth it for the U.S. government to contact her. There’s nothing to gain by revealing that I’m a CIA agent now.
“Um… would it be okay if I asked for advice about school life?”
“Hmm, well, is that so. No, don’t worry about it. I’m looking for someone. Among this year’s new students.”
“…Did an acquaintance happen to enroll? Or an acquaintance of an acquaintance…?”
“Let’s leave it at that, for now. An acquaintance asked me to find someone they know, so I’m asking people who seem like they might be the one. I’ve found one person, but the other person, I still don’t know who…”
It’s a strange story. One that can’t be ignored, but also can’t be probed into, such a strange story.