Chapter Twenty: When Lovers Become a Thing of the Past

  Chen Qi and Mei Zhizuo have been a couple for donkey's years, even if they once made vows to the sea and mountains, they have long since withered away like seaweed in the passage of time, and their love has crumbled like stone under the relentless march of day and night.

  Although the relationship has become a thing of the past, Michiko is not willing to give up. She came all the way to this unfamiliar country, not for the Greater East Asia War, but to find her first love, Kawachi Ichirō.

  Every time it's late at night and people are quiet, Yoshiko naturally thinks of Kawaki, to the point where she can't sleep well with a restless mind. She thought, this must be what they mean by "a thread of connection remains".

  That night, she left with a great disappointment after arguing with Kawaki, and came to the white birch forest by the training ground alone, holding her head in tears. It's not anyone else's fault, it's all her own doing.

  Two years ago, Yoshiko was at the Manchurian Japanese military club when she called her longed-for Kawaki Ichirō. The familiar voice shattered her tear glands and tears gushed out. However, Kawaki mistakenly took her for an old lover from Mt. Fuji, causing Yoshiko's temper to flare up instantly, and she hung up the phone in a huff.

  "Miss, don't be angry. A beautiful woman like you getting angry would make this great club lose its luster." A suave man chimed in opportunely.

  "Leave me alone?" Meiko retorted, turning her face away.

  "This club is not just a little dull, it's downright deserted." The man was still staring at the egg with only a crack in it, like a fly.

  "Mei Chizuko stared at him and said, 'I don't know what you're talking about, sir.'"

  The man said with joy: "Miss, think about it, is the sky still the sky without the sun, moon, stars and clouds? Is the land still the land without mountains, rivers, strange flowers and exotic grasses?"

  Mizuko looked at him and shook her head in confusion.

  "There's no lady as beautiful as an immortal goddess, would anyone still come to this club? The man's beady eyes rolled over her body and he said: 'Even if I came in a luxurious sedan chair, I wouldn't have come.'"

  Mitsuko became interested in this person, and her empty heart seemed to have been filled. A man and a woman who had never met before were brought together like this, cooking wine and discussing life. The man's elegant demeanor, as well as his conversation that seemed to know everything under the sun, gave Mitsuko a feeling of regret for not having met him sooner.

  Meizhi got drunk and became more sorrowful, completely intoxicated and unconscious. The next day when she woke up, the man who had been gazing at her with deep feelings last night was lying beside her.

  Meizhi is after all a woman in her 30s, so she didn't cry like a young girl would. It's just like water that has been drunk by someone else - it still tastes like water.

  This man satisfied Moe's physical desires, and she was developed by the other party as a subordinate, becoming a member of the Manzhouli Teikoku Kōka. The man's constant brainwashing made her like this special profession, and she became a high-ranking spy.

  During the Xi'an Incident, Mei Zhi Zi was ordered by the Tianjin Special Agency to stop the Communist-Kuomintang cooperation in the espionage war. She successfully uncovered the International Anti-War League's spy agency using comfort women as a ploy and carried out an assassination plot against Itagaki Seishirō. As a result, she was summoned by the head of the agency, Tōyama Eisuke.

  On the evening of July 6, when Moe saw Kawahara, her heart skipped a beat. However, she quickly calmed down. Her two-year career as a special agent had made her exceptionally calm. Therefore, when entering the room with Shinjuku Jun in pairs, although Kawahara's miserable face made her uncomfortable for a while, this feeling soon passed. What to do with Shinjuku Jun was done, and it was considered that the person lying next door was not his first love, but a corpse of an unrelated Japanese person.

  In order to launch a surprise attack on Shanxi, the Japanese 5th Division's 21st Brigade's logistics unit, led by Lieutenant Colonel Shinjiro Niizuma, secretly transported a large quantity of weapons to Datong ahead of time. Protecting Niizuma's unit was an important task assigned to Mei Zhizi. Therefore, she had to stay close to Niizuma at all times, eating and sleeping in the same place. Compared to the heavy responsibility of defending Mount Tai, her romantic feelings for Kawahara were as light as a feather.

  On July 7th, the big boss personally came to Shanxi Datong to deploy another major task, giving Mei Zhizi the opportunity to recruit Sichuan cavalry.

  After accepting this task, Moe thought that from now on she could be with Kawara forever and tears of joy flowed. Therefore, when Kawara was undergoing a special interrogation, she was praying silently for him: "Please hold on for me, Kawara!"

  Kawara successfully passed this level, and Mochizuki's heart that had been hanging in her throat finally fell. However, the big boss assigned Mochizuki a task to continue testing Kawara, and she was to personally organize and implement it.

  Every time Kawaki passes through a checkpoint, Moe is worried to death, fearing that he will not be able to withstand the execution and worrying that the police chief will cripple him. Therefore, when Kawaki suffers from the torture of the security bureau, Moe is like an oil drum on her back that cannot be thrown away, seeing her loved one struggling in the fire, but can only swallow her teeth and avoid adding fuel to the fire.

  When it was his turn to test himself on the Kawa Horse, Mieko had hinted at him, but he couldn't even distinguish his own overdone voice.

  Even if Kawaki's sense of hearing is numb, what about his sense of smell? A woman who had been with him through thick and thin, sleeping together under the same roof for so long, yet he treated her as if she were the woman from Fujiyama?! This was really unbearable for Michiko!

  After the test was over, Moe's active attack on Kawaki was a probe of an unfaithful man and also a way to express his inner discontent.

  It was someone who reminded himself that the best way to avenge an unfaithful man is to use the pleasure of men and women to defeat each other. First, provoke his desire for war, and when he is eager to launch a fierce attack, suddenly withdraw his target of attack. This is called using poison to attack poison.

  That night, Yoshiko's initial intention was to carry out the plan in this way. Unexpectedly, Kawachi's war desire did not rise, and he himself was unable to retreat, just when he was eager for a big battle, he was unable to raise his gun to fight back, causing him to suffer both physically and mentally.

  Although Yoshiko calmly left Kawachi, as soon as she came out of her hut, she covered her mouth and rushed to the white birch forest. As soon as she entered the forest, she burst into tears with a "wow".

  Not as Chuanqi thought, Meizhi left her own fragrant bed and went to the side of Hongya Huangya Jizhichu's body to spray fragrance.

  For several nights in a row, Moejiko was like a crow nesting in the white birch forest, and had a taste of the attack of the flower-footed mosquitoes that were circling in the forest like bombers. However, camping outdoors is really nothing for a high-level agent, it's just one of the training courses for Crow Team.

  That night, Michiko couldn't stay still any longer. After hesitating again and again, she finally decided to leave the birch forest when the bright moon on her head was moving westward. The moonlight was so good that the birch forest was a patchwork of light and shadow.