Qi Si

"Sir, believe me, I really didn't help the Japanese harm you. I only came over yesterday afternoon, tidied up the house, and went home early. I truly don't know when the Japanese came and installed these things."

Looking at the listening devices removed from the telephone, Auntie Li stood helplessly to one side, explaining herself to Wang Yan, who sat on the sofa with a dark expression, one leg crossed over the other as he smoked.

"Auntie Li, I know you and your husband are honest, decent people. You wouldn't lie. Look at how hard you've been pinching your hand—your thigh's nearly bruised, isn't it?" Wang Yan shook his head. "Let me guess. Did the Japanese arrest your son? Did they say he was with the Red Party, an anti-Japanese activist, and tell you that if you cooperated with them, they'd spare his life and keep him from suffering?"

College students at that time were generally progressive intellectuals and proper patriotic youths. They had always been the main group the Red Party sought to win over. As a result, many university students had taken part in various propaganda activities and become peripheral members of the Red Party. They would gradually develop into active members, and only then would someone introduce them into the Party and bring them into the ranks of those resisting Japan and saving the nation.

That was why the Japanese could hardly be bothered with those scatterbrained college students. Most of them were merely peripheral members and knew no useful intelligence at all. Every day, they did little more than produce anti-Japanese pamphlets promoting Red Party ideology, pulling people aside everywhere to lecture them. The Japanese usually did not bother with them much, only occasionally arresting a batch or two, roughing them up, and scaring them. Their