The Envoy from the Capital
The next day.
Three kilometers outside the market town stood an abandoned grain depot.
Su Qing arrived right on time, wearing those unsightly gloves on her hands.
There was only one person inside the depot.
He sat behind a table missing one leg, with a kerosene lamp placed before him.
The dim light illuminated only half his face.
He was in his early thirties, lean, with high cheekbones, thin lips, and an exceptionally sharp jawline.
His gaze held a dull, weary coldness, as if it had been worn down by something for a very long time.
Su Qing sat down across from him.
“Mr. Chen?”
“Mm.”
He looked at her, and kept looking for a long while.
Long enough that Su Qing’s right hand had already curled around the hilt of the dagger in her cotton-padded jacket pocket.
Then he spoke.
“You carry a scent.”
Su Qing’s heart skipped a beat.
The spiritual spring water.
“It’s faint, but I’ve smelled it before.” Mr. Chen’s voice shifted, from a calm statement to a trembling, suppressed tone.
“Twenty years ago, a woman wore that exact scent.”
He pulled a photograph from his breast pocket and set it on the table.
It was black-and-white, its corners worn thin, as if it had been touched countless times.
In the photo was a young woman.
She wore a floral cheongsam, her eyes crinkling with a smile, the outer corners lifting slightly upward.
When Su Qing saw the photo, her breath caught for half a second.
That face was nearly identical to hers.
Not “a little like.”
It was “if you dressed the woman in the photo in a gray cotton-padded jacket from the 1970s, she would be Su Qing herself.”
The kerosene flame flickered, sending shadows dancing across the walls.
Mr. Chen stared at Su Qing’s face, his eyes reddening in the dim light.
“She was my mother,” he said, his voice so hoarse it barely sounded like his own.
“She died twenty years ago. Just before she passed, she gave birth to a daughter.”
“The daughter was lost.”
“I’ve been looking for her for twenty years.”
His fingers pressed against the edge of the photo, knuckles turning white.
“Su Qing, do you have a red mole just below your collarbone?”
Su Qing did not answer.
She stared at the photograph, then at the flickering shadows cast by the lamp.
The rough stitching of her gloves dug into her palms.
The jade pendant beneath her collarbone grew warm again—just as it did every time a clue about her past surfaced.
Mr. Chen did not press her.
He only watched her, his gaze holding twenty years of exhaustion and a flicker of hope he dared not fully believe.
Su Qing stood up.
“I’ll answer that question another time.”
Mr. Chen’s fingers paused on the photo’s edge for a moment.
Then he nodded.
“I’ll wait.”
Three days later.
A black sedan pulled to a stop at the entrance of Xiangyang Production Brigade, drawing nearly the entire village out to watch.
It gleamed so darkly it seemed to absorb light, not a speck of dust on its body.
Military license plate—prefixed with the characters for “Capital.”
Village Chief Old Liu ran the fastest, hurrying over breathlessly, his legs trembling so badly he nearly stumbled.
A military vehicle from the capital? He’d never seen one in his life.
The onlookers whispered among themselves.
“Whose car is that? It’s magnificent!”
“Military plate! Starts with ‘Capital’! They’ve come all the way from the city!”
“Who are they here for? Surely not someone from our brigade?”
The door opened.
First out stepped a middle-aged man.
He was in his early forties, wearing a faded gray Zhongshan suit, with a face so unremarkable he would vanish in any crowd.
Yet his movements were sharp and precise; his feet touched the ground with perfect balance, as if rooted to the earth.
A soldier—retired, but the bearing never left him.
Then the rear door opened.
Su Qing was standing at the gate of the educated youth compound.
She saw the second man.
Around fifty, in a gray coat, with a five-pointed star badge pinned to his left cuff.
The man in gray.
The shadow that had lingered out of sight ever since her first day in Xiangyang.
The man in the Zhongshan suit walked over first, stopped, and studied her for three seconds.
Then his eyes reddened.
A tough, decisive man in his forties, visibly fighting back tears.
He quickly turned away and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Comrade Su Qing,” he said, his voice steadying as he gave a slight bow. “My name is Fang Zheng. I’ve come to see you on behalf of someone.”
“Who?”
Fang Zheng did not answer directly.
Instead, he pulled an envelope from his breast pocket and held it out with both hands.
It was made of kraft paper, sealed with a dark red wax stamp.
Two characters were etched into the wax: Junbai.
Su Qing took the envelope. The moment her fingers brushed the stamp, the jade pendant beneath her collarbone flared hot again.
She opened the letter right in front of Fang Zheng. The handwriting was bold and vigorous.
“Qing girl, greetings as if we were face to face.”
“I am your grandfather. I have been searching for you for twenty years.”
“Fang Zheng is the man I trust most. Old Chen is the one I sent to watch over you.”
“There are things I cannot write here. I will come myself, and then we will speak.”
Signed: Junbai.
Shen Henian had mentioned that name before.
His surname was Gu—a high-ranking figure in the Capital Military Region.
So senior that even Director Qin of the Political Department would not dare speak out of turn in his presence.
Su Qing lifted her gaze to the man in gray.
Old Chen stood five paces away, not moving closer.
He kept his distance, just as he had for the past two months.
This time, Su Qing saw his eyes clearly.
In those clouded, wind-scoured eyes, there were tears.
From the very first day she arrived in Xiangyang, he had been there.
Watching her head out to work, tend to patients, sell goods on the black market, fend off thugs in the alleyways.
Never daring to come near, never daring to acknowledge her.
Only standing guard from afar.
Su Qing walked over to him.
Old Chen’s lips parted, but no words came out.
Gaunt face, sunken eyes, hands crisscrossed with chilblains.
For two months he had huddled in corners through the northwestern winter, just to catch a glimpse of her.
“Uncle Chen.”
Old Chen’s whole body trembled.
“All these two months… thank you for your hard work.”
Old Chen’s tears spilled over, silent tracks tracing down his lined face.
“It’s no hardship.”
“Miss… you look just like her. Exactly like her.”
Su Qing felt her own eyes burn.
She said no more—she knew if she did, she would lose her composure.
Su Qing did not cry.
But today it was almost impossible.
She turned back, her voice steady once more.
“Uncle Fang,” she said, folding the letter and tucking it away. “When will my grandfather arrive?”
Fang Zheng blinked, surprised. She had called him “grandfather.”
No hesitation, no demand for proof.
It came as naturally as if she had called him that her whole life.
“The Commander… will be here in three days. His health is poor, so he cannot fly—he is traveling by train from the capital.”
“Three days,” Su Qing nodded.
Three days was enough time to take care of many things.
“Uncle Fang, I need your help with something before then.”
Fang Zheng straightened at once—a posture so perfectly military it could have come straight from a textbook.
“First: keep your and Old Chen’s identities secret for now. Stay at the brigade guesthouse, and tell people you’re inspecting cadres sent from the county.”
“Second.”
Su Qing’s gaze turned cold.
“Help me look up every prescription record Dr. Liu at the Military Region Health Center has handled over the past year.”
Fang Zheng’s brow twitched slightly.
“Especially… the medication records for Commander Lu Zhanye.”
Fang Zheng did not ask why.
He only gave one word.
“Understood.”