Last night, most of those arrested were Japanese!
So the question became: these people who were taken in were of all sorts—some were high-born, some merchants, some scholars, some ordinary civilians who had come to Japan to make a living.
Aside from being Japanese,
there was little that connected them.
That puzzled everyone. And soon, new intelligence came to light—
the order to make the arrests came from Su Ning.
“Really?”
“Absolutely true. Go out and ask anyone—last night, it wasn’t just the soldiers outside the city who were grabbing people. City hall staff, Big Boss Su’s men on the streets—it was a dragnet. Anyone who tried to run, didn’t get away.”
“But… why?”
“Word is—and I’m only repeating what I heard—the Japanese once crossed her in some way. Maybe she remembered it in the middle of the night, got upset, and took action.”
“Oh, that’s way too petty. For some old, moldy grudge like that, she stirred up a whole commotion and rounded up this many people?”
The affair was simply too big to be hushed up, and before long, all of Beiping was buzzing with talk.
Heads were shaken wherever you went.
“Those poor souls.”
In their view, whatever the reason, however deeply that one Japanese had offended Su Ning, it didn’t justify taking it out on so many Japanese people.
Even an emperor only exterminated nine generations of a family!
In this matter, Su Ning was plainly in the wrong—it was absurd. If she’d arrested Chinese people, that might have been one thing, but Japanese nationals after all had a special status.
So,
someone soon went to see Chen Huaiqian, fuming about the matter, slamming their fist on the table:
“This is laughable. Are you the mayor appointed by the government, or just a dog kept on Su Ning’s money? How could you do a thing like this!”
Such stabbing words.
But Chen Huaiqian, facing the accusation, showed no trace of shame or humiliation. His face was calm.
He replied, still gentle as a spring breeze:
“I’m standing right here in front of you. Whether I’m a man or a dog—isn’t that plain to see?”
When the visitor stared back in disbelief,
as if unable to accept that such words had left his mouth, Chen Huaiqian smiled. The man before him was, in effect, an elder of his, so he could be sure this visit on behalf of the detained Japanese came not from hidden ill intent—
but because the old man had once studied in Japan.
The logic of the day: “Learn from the barbarians to control the barbarians.” Studying in Europe or America was fine, but the costs were steep and the distance far. Japan, by contrast, was close by, cheaper, and still offered an advanced education.
Above all,
the two cultures shared one root, and the faces were equally Asian, which fostered a certain sense of kinship.
A flicker of mockery passed through Chen Huaiqian’s eyes.
“Besides, I don’t think I did anything wrong in this matter…”
“What do you mean, nothing wrong?”
The elder broke in, his hair fairly bursting with rage:
“You—you’re stubborn as a mule! Japan and we are neighbors separated by a ribbon of water. Now you, on the say-so of a single Su Ning, go round up innocent Japanese people. What will the international community say? What happens to China’s image?”
Then, with a sigh, he added:
“I know you’re in a difficult position. Su Ning, to be the uncrowned queen of Beiping, has thrown her weight around everywhere. But there are some lines that must not be crossed.”
“Today, for a private grudge, she willfully sweeps up innocent people.”
“Tomorrow, she may be killing people in the street. Desire grows by the step. So you have to nip it in the bud before the bad shoots appear.”
“Do you understand?”
He looked sincerely at Chen Huaiqian.
Chen Huaiqian frowned, apparently disapproving: “That’s going too far. I think you hold a bias against Miss Su.”
He paused, then added: “And if Miss Su really did kill someone in the street, I’m sure she would have her reasons for it.”
The elder: …
He let out a laugh of fury and pointed at Chen Huaiqian:
“Bias? If it were just me alone, fine, call it bias. But when every single person thinks so, is that still bias? Right now it’s me standing here pleading with you—before long, Nanjing might send a direct order down to curse you out. Can Su Ning protect you then?”
Mid-sentence, he remembered the incident of Su Ning brazenly offending the Nanjing government and walking away utterly unscathed.
His throat caught.
Well… maybe. Maybe she really could.
His momentum ebbed by half, and he shifted to a more earnest tone:
“Regardless, Su Ning is only a rich merchant. How can she compare to a nation? If she wants to go mad, that’s her affair. But you’re a whole and healthy man—why throw yourself into that mess?”
He snorted again:
“If she were going after the people who actually crossed her, no one would say anything no matter how viciously she struck back. But she picks on innocents—that only draws mockery.”
“Innocents.”
Chen Huaiqian repeated those two words, his gaze turning cold.
“These people are hardly innocent.”
From the very beginning, when the fertilizer factory site was being chosen and the land purchased, the Japanese had exposed their greedy ambitions. But when he reported it upward, nothing came of it.
Fearing he’d tip them off,
he could only keep quiet watch.
And all that watching paid off in being able to sweep them up all at once just now—he’d deliberately left a few behind as bait. And sure, if you insisted on calling someone here “innocent,” there were a few—all of the wealthy and well-connected sort.
But what could you do? They were Japanese.
That identity itself was the original sin.
And if anyone was truly innocent, wasn’t it the common folk in the northeast right now, engulfed in the flames of war?
“Miss Su isn’t lashing out for no reason, either.”
Over here, the elder didn’t grasp his meaning and took it wrongly. After some thought: Su Ning was arrogant and domineering, sure, but she wasn’t a madwoman who offended people at random. So—
“Ah, I see. Is she short of money?”
Chen Huaiqian blinked: …????
Who’s short of money?
The elder believed he’d hit the nail on the head:
“It must be so. No matter how deep the pockets are, they thin with reckless spending. Su Ning supports so many people under her command, controls so much territory, and she took a hit on the penicillin deal without making the big profit. It stands to reason the money ran dry for the moment.”
So she just cooked up a pretext,
and went after the Japanese.
One: Beiping was her own turf.
Two: the Japanese were foreigners, so pushing back against them was less of a hassle. As for her international reputation—would she ever care about that?
Abroad, her name already stank to high heaven!
What sort of nonsense was this?
Chen Huaiqian gave a deprecating shake of the head.
“That’s not it at all.”
Before the elder could press him further, he paused briefly, then laid out the whole truth, point by point.
A long while later.
“Is this true?”
“It came on suddenly, but with the speed news travels, word will be out in a day or two at most.”
“Goddamn Japanese bastards!”
The elder gnashed his teeth, rose to his feet, and exhausted every foul word in his vocabulary. Then, aflame with fury, he said: “Good arrests! Right to arrest them—they should lock up every last one!”
Then, awkwardly: “This time, I’ve wronged the innocent.”
Adversity is the test of a true man. A glance at the moment of crisis told you what someone was really made of. Moving as fast as she did to step up and seize the Japanese—forget how she acts the rest of the time—Su Ning can be said to have kept her larger integrity intact.
He couldn’t believe he’d assumed she was in it for the money. Outrageous.
At that thought, he hastily reminded Chen Huaiqian to be sure and confiscate the seized Japanese’s property.
“Oh, no need to worry about that.”
“The money and anything else of value are already all with Miss Su. Not a single thing was missed.”
