The Good Companion (the short novel)

This short novel was about Sasaki Hideyoshi : the major of the army occupying Thailand during World War 2. He was also The friend of Thitiwat Thanakornchai , the protagonist in the novel ‘ For All Eternity’.  It took place when Hideyoshi was only 19 years old which meant Japan was in 1922 more or less but certainly during the Taisho era. He was now visiting an old and decrepit temple in countryside.              

Prelude

"Lo and behold ! You're the son of Ms. Hamari, aren't you ?"

The abbot was delighted that he remembered the young man's background now. The man standing humbly before him was probably the tallest one he had ever met with a charisma which was so unique compared with the youngsters around here.

Hideyoshi nodded and said,

"You're absolutely correct , Father. My mother used to live here since she was born and moved to another town with my grandparents  several years before getting married to my father. She always mesmerized me with how your serene temple had brought her mind the precious joy whenever she stepped past the threshold of its gate."

The old abbot laughed heartily.

" Yes , she was one of the daughters of Deisuke , the richest merchant in our village but his business had grown so large that only the small community like here couldn't contain his ambition. I can remember well how your mother looked like : she was a kind of naughty tomboyish girl who always hung around my temple with friskiness. I nonetheless appreciated how she could fight and intimidate my temple boys who were much bigger than her with incessant intrepidity. Unbelievable that the time has flied and now I'm staring at her flesh and blood who looks not different from her."

Hideyoshi awkwardly kept nodding while laying his hand on the back of his head.

"O , Father , I'm so flattered to death but must confess that I wish I had even a half of her courage and strong will. Ah.... do you think you can grant my wish mentioned just now ?"

The abbot chuckled.

" Why not ? Now that I see your whole picture so clearly like a crystal ball , but I wonder why the well-educated young man from the family rich enough to buy half of the lands in this village like you will humble yourself to live here : the lowly and poor temple ? Even for only months is beyond me ! "

Hideyoshi said,

" What a shame that my education or family doesn't help me navigate through my life crisis. Father, my family earnestly encourages me to study in the cadet school, but I think I want to wait until I see at least the clues to solve some riddle of my life which out of the blue descended on my restless mind. Don't worry because I will live here as your self-effacing worker who works diligently in your temple, but would you please keep my background as a secret ?"

Perhaps it was impossible for the old abbot to keep his promise thanks to his increasing dementia , the news of the new boy whose life was entirely different from the rural folks  spread like wildfire around the temple and the community. The young man thus became the target of irksome interrogations , especially from Brother Minato, almost a decade older than him , who kept pestering him with plenty of questions like police and suspect. Regarding the fact he was born and lived in this village which seemed like being frozen in time before the Meiji era , the monk was enthused to hear Hideyoshi gush about modern lives in the city : cars , electricity , movie theatres before his jaws would drop as if they were broken.

" Brother , don't get angry if I'll be straightforward with you : how come you're so keen on getting to know those modern things when you as a monk is supposed to rid yourself of the things inflaming your desires ? " , asked Hideyoshi one day after running out of patience.

Minato chuckled timidly.

"Young man , this shows that you don't know Buddhist monks in this country enough. My family's mired in abject poverty since I was born and the only way to survive was to become novice. I'll be frank with you at this moment that monk's robe and noble way of life were not capable of making me follow the Buddha's ways at all. On the contrary , they’re like a mask I have to put on every day and worse still, the way the folks in this village have pampered me like the abbot helps my craving thrive hideously , triggering the question on my own identity which can't go together with my mind. Hideyoshi , while saying a prayer in the ceremony , my mind wanders to something else like that gorgeous girl who was sitting modestly not far from me or the bustling monthly fair in our village."

Hideyoshi nodded.

"So, what's your plan in the future? Will you live like this for the rest of your life and have to endure the ceaseless frustrations and  self-conflicts?"

The monk shrugged.

"No, I've waited for a chance to be liberated and funny that I finally meet you ! You inspire me to break free or at least feel more enthusiastic about the new things in the future."

The young man was stupefied.

"You're implying that you're going to leave the monkhood and move to the city ? What about this temple and our old abbot? Your dereliction will be too immoral to condone !"

Minato said laughingly,

"Dummy , I'm not that selfish ! I don’t want to cause our abbot the problems , so I've been waiting for someone to replace me, and this is probably you again. Are you interested to enter the monkhood as you seem to immerse yourself in the world of spirituality and dharma ?"

Hideyoshi said,

" I can’t answer you right now, but may I know what kind of job you plan to do in the city ?"

The monk chuckled a bit.

"Businessman or owner of a little food shop as you know that I have an unrivalled skill of cooking. And what about you ? You used to fume that you're coerced by your family into the military school, but I guess you are too complex to hold gun and shoot enemies. "

The young man said,

" The pressure from my family is not that enormous , but if I tell you , don't be so surprised: I secretly harbour the ambition of being a pianist. Do you know that's the person who plays piano ?"

Minato looked puzzled.

"What's piano ? Is it the word of the white - the American ? What is it about ?"

Hideyoshi snickered.

" No , it's a musical instrument originated in Italy centuries ago which I've learned since I was a young boy. Brother, I think I can be both the soldier and the pianist simultaneously or after leaving the military , I might be the professional pianist. However , to be the military guy doesn't mean only shooting or killing but also creating the strategy to defeat or win over the enemies which partly bears a resemble to improvisations during playing piano. Both are art like cooking. "

The monk sighed deeply.

"Talking with you makes me feel like I'm placing my feet in the bottomless well ! Unbelievable for the extraordinary guy like you to enjoy something like sweeping the leaves at the temple. What's your ulterior purpose here ? I ask you for real !"

Hideyoshi said,

"You know my answer already : I just want to find some answer to my life as it can be called the soul-searching, Brother."

Minato raised his eyebrows.

" Alas ! I've been the monk here for more than a decade but still don't find any profound answers to my life except the reprimands by our abbot and how to parrot the Buddha's sutras [the Buddhist scriptures]. What a banal life ! Haha. I got to go now as it's time for the evening chant."

Hideyoshi was left to watch the garden in the twilight alone. The sound of the bell ringing from afar seemed to be perfectly in harmony with the crows cawing when they were returning to their nests. Actually , he didn't really know either why he chose to stay in this temple for months or perhaps he didn’t want to go the cadet school which would put the bridle on the freedom of his mind not the so-called soul-searching. But when the time went by , he began to find the faint clues from those tedious activities in this temple after waking up early : conveying water in buckets from the well and chopping the woods. Sweeping leaves falling from the trees especially bamboos was also his most favourite task when he saw their various colours like an abstract painting of the European artists. But not even once that he would read the books of dharma from the abbot's personal library as he had never aimed to be a monk but if someday he found the satori (enlightenment) by the nature around him , he might delightfully take place of Brother Minato and open them.

As days had replaced one another endlessly , the thoughts of his parents and his dear little sister grew increasingly intense. But Hideyoshi still restrained himself from going back to visit his house although he kept wondering why he had done this. He also had the weird imagination that the grand piano in his bedroom was anxiously waiting for him while he so strongly yearned to touch its keyboard or at least listen to the music of Bach or Mozart from the record player. However , one day during the raining in the afternoon , he heard the wistful song from the bamboo flute from somewhere , probably from the old man whose hut was not far from here and surrounded by the tall bamboo trees. Hideyoshi felt unexpectedly gratified , assuming that he might ultimately find the mysterious sound of the universe from that song not the classical music. In the calm nights the light from full ancient moon invaded his dark room , followed by the fireflies which lingered around him amidst the silence and the sound of his own heartbeats, helping his mind rest in blissfulness.

Hideyoshi also found the change of seasons around this temple like an exhibition of art. In the winter the snow covered the temple's and the pagoda's roofs like the large swaths of mushy cold cottons but in the autumn the leaves of the maple became so reddish , delicately blending with the green leaves of those tall bonsais and large bushes like the colourful tapestry near the red wooden gate of temple. And their falling leaves gently covered the roof of the chapel but some of them fell into the small stream in the garden and were gradually swept away while the small insects with long legs were tirelessly walking on them , unintentionally creating the tiny ripples in the stream. In the spring the temple was adorned by the blossoming Sakura trees with its pale pink flowers above the stone sidewalk to the chapel and the breezes shook them to move to and fro like a kabuki dance.

Hideyoshi was so ecstatic with this although he didn't know whether those beauties of nature would help him solve the riddle of his life and still wondered whether the monkhood would be the path. But when Minato told him that he was on the verge of leaving the monkhood because he could not resist the calling from the bottom of his heart anymore,  even the abbot could not stop him, the young man realized that robe and sutras were actually the great obstacles. Hideyoshi then decided to tell both monks that the temple had to wait for a new monk from the capital city while he was still the worker no matter how hard they would attempt to urge him to be ordained. He also planned to tell his family that he would live in this temple indefinitely at least to help the abbot and the temple boys despite knowing that his father would strongly disapprove of this , but his mother and sister would eventually understand and support him. The young man hoped that after this bickering ended , he would sometimes return to his home to visit his parents and merrily play the piano along with his sister who could play violin adeptly.

One day before Minato' s ceremony of leaving the monkhood, Hideyoshi was sent by the abbot to do errands in another town and had to spend the night there. Coming back in the morning ,  he found the boisterous crowd surrounding the monk dwellings and the bodies of the 2 monks lying still on the floor.The policeman told him that the abbot and Minato were killed with knife in cold blood last night and it was presumedly the robbery after the police found that their belongings had been mercilessly ransacked. Hideyoshi was extremely shocked and devastated to see that his beloved persons were gone , so his idyllic life in this temple was permanently shattered. At first he became a prime suspect and was detained but when the police learnt his family background , he was immediately released. Hideyoshi realized that it did not serve a purpose to live here and went back home with chagrin after the funeral of both monks.

………………………………………………..

Kenzo lay on the grass lawn with his legs crossed , watching a multitude of fireworks spread themselves sporadically for an hour above the cloudless sky in the night. He relished the countless bottles of sake which kept inebriating him while watching the joyous annual festival of the village from afar. The short and brawny 45- year-old guy was the former temple boy who left the temple to be the employee at a grocery but later was fired for his embezzlement and he became the annoying slacker and drunkard hanging out with the friends who were cut from the same cloth around the village or the temple.

" Unbelievable that it's such a spectacular view from here , the forlorn hill !"

Kenzo was startled , hurriedly getting up to see the face of the intruder which was quite clearly thanks to his little bonfire. The middle-aged man then breathed as a sign of relief before sitting down.

"Who's that ? Oh , Hideyoshi. It's been a while !"

The young man walked slowly toward him while the lamp on his hand helped Kenzo see that he was in western black attire and a samurai sword dangled near his right hip. Hideyoshi then sat on a large tree stump , laying both lamp and sword near his leg while a pair of black gloves he was wearing made him look more enigmatic.

Kenzo said,

"How come you know that I'm here or is it just an accident ? By the way, you finally moved on to study in the cadet school , didn't you ?"

Hideyoshi nodded proudly,

"Of course, I finally graduated and become the sub lieutenant , about to be stationed in Chōsen next month."

[Chōsen was Korea’s name in Japanese when it was under Japan’s rule during 1910-1945]

Kenzo smiled.

"I see ! You looked sturdier and tanner, and I guess you come here to visit your beloved village for the last time, but I wonder : why don't you join our folks in the village ? It’s so much fun down there ! "

Hideyoshi lit the cigarette to puff on and said while its smoke still lingered around his lips ,

"Kenzo, by the time I returned home several years ago, my mother was inconsolable to learn the death of our dear abbot and when the police failed to find the culprit, she hired a detective to investigate this double homicide, and his report finally shed light on who that murderer was but it’s humiliating that motherfucker is the cousin of the police chief , so he has lived until today with impunity ! "

The middle-aged man grimaced.

" Your detective told her that I'm that culprit , didn't they ? And now you're about to get revenge on this hill. What a crock of shit he fed your family ! "

Hideyoshi chuckled and threw the cigarette stub at Kenzo.

" Why should I believe the worthless piece of crap like you ? My detective is the best in the country, painstakingly and secretly collecting the evidence for weeks whereas you policeman cousin and his henchmen were busy drinking in restaurant. Both you and Minato had connived for years in the unforgiven crime : Minato had little by little stolen the antiques which the abbot had kept well in the room tightly locked and sold them to you and you sold them to the black market later. The detective then vividly reported what happened that night, but I really want to hear it from your very mouth now , so don't you dare lie ! I know everything even the fact that you love to always get drunk alone on this hill , especially after the fight with your wife like tonight."

Kenzo cast a glance at the sword.

"And after that , you're going to kill me ?"

Hideyoshi shook his head.

" That depends on you. If you confess , I will only take you to the police station , but if you still insist on your fucking innocence , your neck will taste how sharp my sword is!!"

Kenzo was reluctant for a while and then said,

"That night Minato called me to meet him at his dwelling , telling me that he would sell me the antiques for the last time as he had saved enough money for opening a food shop in the city after leaving the monkhood and would marry the girl in our village, Hisako, the plumpy girl who was quite coquettish , do you remember ? They also had illicitly slept together for a year. Funny that he used to assume that he was sleeping with a virgin and would be a good wife, haha! Can't tell how many men , including the monks, she had slept with before meeting this naive man. I also felt terrible for how much he had squandered money for her. That night I suddenly became greedy and was emboldened by knowing that you were away , so you would be suspicious the most.        I thus pretended to quarrel with Minato and fatally stabbed him before rummaging through his dwelling and voilà , a hefty sum of money in his chest including some jewellery !  But then the old abbot woke up and entered the room. Hideyoshi, I always revered him like a deity but suddenly was strangely reminded of the time when I was the temple boy and one day he severely punished me , thus I vengefully stabbed his stomach multiple times before he even knew what just happened. Please forgive me ! I still feel guilty and have been haunted by their faces in my dreams....urgh... there's not even a single night that I have the completely sound sleep."

Hideyoshi laughed aloud while clapping.

"Thank you , thank you , the naive Kenzo. I'll confess to you too that my detective was at his wits' end with your motive for killing the abbot. I slyly manage to exact the truth from you with this little lie. I also know your cousin's still the police chief , so everything is predictable if I send you to him : you will be detained for a few days before being released and this case will be disturbingly dragged on forever. You had constantly paid him dearly and blackmailed him , consequently do you still think I’ll honour my promise by not beheading you ? Come on, there’s no honour among thieves , right ? "

Kenzo tried to get up to flee, but he was too tipsy , so he almost tumbled to the ground. Hideyoshi darted to him with his sword before unsheathing it and flicking his wrist to cut through the neck of the middle-aged man with its blade. It was so swift that he didn’t even feel the thickness of the neck’s bone but still saw Kenzo’s head hurtle in the air and fall to the ground not far from his feet , while the blood kept gushing from his severed neck like a fountain.   

The young man stood emotionlessly to watch the headless body collapsing while wiping the blood on his sword with a napkin and kept it in its sheath. He then didn't know whether it was coincidental or not : another burst of firework was catapulted in the sky as if to congratulate him on being the first time murderer. Kenzo was gone and so was the old self of Hideyoshi who enjoyed the soul-searching from the beauties of the nature and the love for humanity like he had for those wretched villagers years ago. How could the murderer still be blessed by those lofty things ? Hideyoshi was shaken a bit but at last he came to terms with it - why should he now be guilty for killing such a depraved scum of the earth who had killed people before ?     

He finally found the answer to his life : Humans are innately wicked and have a proclivity for violence and destructions. It was the way of the world, and its avatars were killings and wars regardless of how much they looked cruel and senseless. He knew this murder would be just a little overture for the soldier like him whose heart was filled with vengefulness and hatred while abiding by an obligation to kill countless people in the wars. Japan became glorious when emerging as one of the winners in the great war which cost more than 20 million deaths, and this certainly would not be the last time.

Hideyoshi picked up a bottle of sake in Kenzo’s chest , sat down on the tree stump and teasingly proposed a toast to the corpse while waiting to watch another firework. It subsequently appeared so bright making him feel as if he were basking in the utmost glory.

                                                       1

The Empire of Japan's formidable armies invaded and occupied Manchuria , the northeastern part of China in 1931 before establishing the puppet state Manchukuo in 1932. Puyi , the last emperor of Qing dynasty and China, became the emperor of Manchukuo 3 years later.

Manchukuo 1940

It was ironic : despite being a large kingdom , Manchukuo never had its own airport and the one Hideyoshi's silver plane was now on the verge of landing was owned by Japan's Kwantung army , exhibited by a myriad of Japan's national and imperial army's flags alternately on the airport's fence and buildings which were noticeable even on the plane hovering from afar and the sunlight was not so strong now. The man as the plane's only passenger sporadically tried to shake his legs to alleviate his cramp caused by the arduous journey from Siberia , exacerbated by his tight military uniform.

The plane ground to a halt after smoothly landing on the runway. The Mongolian pilot briskly opened the door and cordially carried the large luggage to Hideyoshi , thanking him for being a good companion during such a long journey. The man smilingly nodded and slowly got off the plane to see at the end of the stair was the rotund man with moustache in lampshade type who looked powerful and astute in military uniform standing restlessly to welcome him while a young woman in kimono was beside him but with emotionless face like several soldiers standing behind.

After shaking hands , the middle-aged man gave him the heartfelt embrace like father and son but thanks to Hideyoshi's height , he had to stand on tiptoe while grabbing both his upper arms tightly. The vivacious conversation was followed by the middle-aged man's fulsome introduction of Hideyoshi to the young woman who seemed to be timid and reserved. The man and the woman politely bowed to one another before the soldier would come to carry the luggage for him to a large car parked outside the airport.

In the car Hideyoshi was amused that his colleagues in Germany and France , especially the Thai professor like Thitiwat, would be mesmerized to learn that now he was sitting right near one of the most notorious guys in the world: Kenji Doihara , the general who had played the vital roles in Japan's invasion of Manchuria and establishing Manchukuo and was proudly nicknamed the 'Lawrence of Manchuria' - a cheeky reference to the Lawrence of Arabia , the renowned British adventurer.

Along the bustling streets in Manchukuo's capital city , Changchun, in the late afternoon, Hideyoshi noticed that there were always the commercial buildings like restaurants , night clubs and even drug stores with the banners in Japanese. Manchukuo was the cunning way of Japan to occupy the large swath of China's land as everything was under its control politically and culturally and about 100,000 of the Japanese were urged by the government to move into this kingdom every year for a better life. The man also reminisced about the late Brother Minato : if he were still alive and managed to leave the monkhood , he might be one of those aspirant immigrants and he would meet him here asking him how dare he betrayed the abbot's trust by keeping stealing his antiques which tragically brought about his demise. Still , every now and then Hideyoshi had thought about him as he was still his affectionate big brother despite failing to be his respectable mentor while the faces of the old abbot and the other people in that dreamlike rural village had still haunted him.

And contrary to Hideyoshi's belief,  the Lawrence of Manchuria was some sort of a chatterbox , without knowing his background , one might have the impression that he was a sleek salesman not a suave general like the public always conjured up .The man later had to endure Doihara's flatteries of his mother as they were the longtime friends , arousing his suspicion that the middle-aged man must have had a crush on her. When his patience wore thin ,  Hideyoshi decided to cut to the chase and asked him about the mission assigned by Tokyo , perturbingly interrupting his work in Paris. The general was dumbfounded a bit and said,

"No one informs you about your mission here , Major ?"

Before Hideyoshi would say anything , their car ran past a building with the balcony displaying a spectacularly large picture of the guy with eyeglasses who was in ceremonial uniform with gold braid and epaulet while his chest was pinned by ridiculously numerous medals near the distinctly red sash which made him look like Emperor Hirohito, but he still looked lanky and mildly comical. Below the picture were the long sentences of Chinese language which Hideyoshi saw for the first time since arriving in Manchukuo.

Doihara said,

" I guess he's younger than you - several years at most."

Hideyoshi was speechless before nodding.

" Are you omniscient, sir ?  Of course , you're also the head of the intelligence of this country. Yes, Emperor Puyi was born in 1906 , but please don't expect more information about him as I quickly browsed through the Time Magazine about his life 2 days before and stumbled on the year of his birth. General, please tell me that his picture just appeared randomly and had nothing to do with me , right ?"

The general chortled.

" I'm afraid that your fear comes true as he's the true mission for you here , more than 5,000 miles from your beloved Paris , Hideyoshi. There's something ultimately confidential I'm about to tell you : Tokyo currently has a plan to invite Puyi to visit Japan once more, but this time is far more important than his first state visit in 1935, regarding the fact that he's scheduled to meet our emperor to tell the world that Manchukuo is an independent state. But almost 8 years of working with him , I  recently notice that Puyi has increasingly exhibited some sort of bizarre behaviours while the erratic words are more and more uttered from his careless mouth. Yet , I can understand him because he must endure the incessant psychological pressure from being our puppet ruler of this vast kingdom. What a pity that I was excluded from making decision about this , otherwise, Tokyo wouldn't send such a silly invitation ! And now we're encountering the irksome dilemma : cancelling Puyi's trip will certainly exasperate him which might derail our great plan in Manchukuo and its vicinity but letting him chatter with our emperor might lead to a chance to humiliate the latter if Puyi says something weird or even rebukes our military campaigns in China."

Hideyoshi blushed , knowing he was about to face the unprecedentedly uphill task in his life. Doihara seemed to fathom his reaction and said,

"I admire how you persevere to pester the higher-ups to send you to the battles in China but to no avail,  but now you're going to join the battle in this country : the battle of wits with Emperor Puyi"

Hideyoshi stammered with panic,

"Sir , I .... w .. want you to seriously reconsider this!  I urgh... know plenty of people , especially my colleagues in Chosen who are suitable for this mission much more than me and some of them can even speak Chinese fluently like the native speakers whereas I can't. Please give me a chance to use radio in the barrack and I'll call one of them or even a group to come here forthwith!"

The Lawrence of Manchuria shook his head.

"No ! You're unique : you're one of the most prestigious and well-read military officers I've ever met and everyone in Tokyo agrees , even Tojo. Don't grimace ! You inherited a great bravery and gut from your mother, and I tremendously admire this ! You were also one of a few students who got A in psychology and English concurrently in the history of this cadet school and have been the military diplomat in both Germany and France."

Seeing Hideyoshi waving his hands to protest, Doihara hastened to say,

"No no no , please try to understand what the battle of wits means! You just have to pay visit to Puyi regularly and converse with him while sometimes doing some activities together like riding bicycle- his favourite hobby or tennis (Hideyoshi then though about playing piano). But the part that needs your efforts the most is that you must observe and evaluate him like a psychologist  : you must delve into his preferences , dreams or ambitions,  attitudes toward everything like politics or even women and so on. Of course , you can communicate with him in English since he's fond of speaking it with foreigners. He might try to study you in return , outwit or even manipulate you , that 's what you must be extremely careful of. This schedule will last 2 or 3 weeks , depending on you before sending the results to me and Tokyo will be the one who makes the final decision : if he's considered a risk , we might procrastinate about the meeting with our emperor or even cancel it by lying to him that his majesty is ill or something else. He might hold a grudge, but we think it's better than letting something unsavoury befall our revered monarch. Don't jitter, you won't be our fall guy or receive any penalty if your mission's gone awry."

Hideyoshi was incredulous : would Doihara be so generous to take the blame for him ? But he assumed that even if Puyi amiably shook hands with Hirohito like they were the heads of 2 states with equal power and dignity , the West still derided that it was the risible show set up by the manipulative Japan. And would Puyi be so frustrated not to eventually meet his counterpart ?  Even he felt so , what would he do to harm the Japanese interests as he was just the powerless figurehead ? By instigating the uprisings ? That was irresistible for him to find out.

Their car finally arrived at the gate of military camp, thus the soldiers in the sentry box rushed to lift up the barrier gate. In front of the gate, Hideyoshi saw that the other soldiers were also blocking the pedestrians who were about to pass by. They were mostly the Han Chinese in modern dresses, but the most conspicuous one was a guy who was standing before his rickshaw with a white man as his passenger. He still had half of his hair shaved and a long queue and wore the traditional coolie dress which identified him as the Manchu. It was ironic that despite being the owner of this kingdom's name,  his race was now merely its minority and it was also wistful that his ancestors used to occupy this area before swallowing up all parts of China several centuries ago. All of them were excitedly gawking at Doihara's car which was probably the most luxurious vehicle they had ever seen in their life.

The car stopped at the headquarters building which was also Doihara's residence. Hideyoshi noticed that the general's taciturn daughter looked quite bored but had to follow what her father had dictated : she just followed them into the building without any words spilling from her tiny mouth. The valets in western suit obsequiously treated them like Doihora was the emperor. They had served them the cups of tea and the dishes of colourful Dango [the Japanese dumpling] when their masters sat on the sofas in the living room and after completing their tasks , they still stood solemnly nearby. Hideyoshi felt that the large electric fans hung from the ceiling sent the air to gently caress his skin.

Having gobbled up a piece of Dango to show his hunger , the Lawrence of Manchuria excused himself for a while to another room , leaving 2 of them alone but Hideyoshi did not know how to break the ice with the young woman , so he just kept looking around and watched the large picture of Emperor Hirohito on the wall above the Japanese words in red : Long Live The Emperor !. In the beginning Hirohito seemed to be like Puyi - the divine but powerless figurehead of Japan, but it was the open secret that he had the increasingly hidden power behind the government and the military. The more the hardliners in the government fostered his insane cult of personality , the more Hirohito became assertive and meddled in the country’s all policies in the crucial time like this.

Doihara returned to the room in Yukata and looked a little disappointed to see both man and woman sitting quietly although he had told them to chum up with one another.

Hideyoshi said,

" Sir, I come to terms that this mission is impossible for me to decline thanks to the Tokyo's high anticipation , and my decision would without doubt affect the future of my career."

Doihara burst out laughing and clapped.

" That's my boy ! Hideyoshi, it's the ultimate virtue to sacrifice anything for our country and that's not necessary to only fire rifle or throw grenade.  I want to say that since meeting you in your youth , I have an unshakable hunch that your fate is destined for greatness , so your mother must be immensely proud of you. But before you’ll meet him ... "

The middle-aged man raised his right hand before the valet would dart to bring the papers and a thick book to him.

" Half of the valets in Puyi’s palace are our spies and have observed his life for years now before writing this report but that's not enough because they've never heard Puyi speak about politics or some serious stuffs except silly complaints. Or even they sometimes overhear them , I don't believe that they would fully understand like you would as their wisdom was shallow like a river during drought because they are Chinese , ha ha. By the way, these papers and this book as his biography written by the respected writer will be your guideline to deal with him , so read it within several days before going to his palace. "

Hideyoshi sighed deeply again.

"Sir, do you think he will know about this ?"

Doihara said,

"I don't know , I don’t know ! We told him about your arrival and some part of your background several weeks ago and he looked so thrilled to have a distinguished foreigner like you as his companion. I guess he might have some doubt but I'm certain your amicability and profound intelligence will win him over. Hideyoshi , Puyi is so lonely : a poor bird in a gilded cage although he’s surrounded by loads of people in this colossal palace. Let me count : his valets , secretaries , chauffeurs,  members of his cabinet who are Chinese and most of all, his wife , Empress Wanrong. Yes , she greatly loathes the Japanese , especially me , ha ha, since we without fail monitor her every move. She's attempted several times to escape from Manchukuo  , still she achieves nothing but her chagrin because we're hell-bent on keeping her as a prisoner !  No wonder the relationship between her and Puyi has quickly deteriorated : they don’t make love anymore.”

Hideyoshi felt melancholic that the upper echelons in the government ,especially Doihara, were really the psychopaths who without qualms manipulated people just for their power and personal gains and how pathetic that he was lured into being their pawn via this sycophancy he had to face since arriving here. His utmost desire now was to join the battle somewhere : running amidst the hails of bullets from the enemy would make him feel comfortable than this. The man was later fed up with the Machiavellian general who would probably prattle unstoppably until tomorrow morning if he were allowed to , so he bluntly said that he was totally worn out and ask where his dwelling was.

Doihara smiled while his valets were beginning to move.

" Your luggage's still in my car , isn't it ? My man will take it to your house not far from here, Hideyoshi. You're quite young and have a lot of energy while it's still the evening , so I believe you should go to relish the colour of the night in this vibrant Changchun and my daughter is ready to be your wonderful guide, right , Tominaga?"

Both guys stared at Tominaga who still said nothing but nodded subserviently to her father

2

Strangely , a hodgepodge of nightmares which Hideyoshi had blissfully shunned for months turned to haunt him once more this night. In that harrowing dream , he found himself patrolling along with the fellow soldiers on some big and open grass lawn and he remembered that this forest was in Korea. The Japanese troops out of the blue were stunned by the fierce attacks by the enemies from their both sides, merely assumed to be the Korean rebels thanks to the sudden murkiness of everything around them like a night. But the rifles they had fired became unbelievably inutile , resulting in the close combat. Hideyoshi swiftly unsheathed his samurai sword to behead one of the enemies but was stupefied that the head of his victim was still hovering in the air and laughing and he eventually recognized that it belonged to Kenzo , the very first guy he killed almost 2 decades ago. The man went berserk , running like hell into a decrepit hut but when opening the paper sliding door , he saw the body of his younger sister dangling from the ceiling:  she had hanged herself.

Screaming aloud, the man woke up and found himself drenched in sweat on the bed in the strong sunlight of the morning and he breathed a sigh of relief that he was now in Manchukuo not Korea. The door was barely knocked before Doihara's valet would barge into the opulent room to ask whether he was alright and received only his smile as the answer. The breakfast was served in the dining room of the house of Doihara who was away for an undisclosed trip in the north of Manchukuo as the de facto head of this puppet state. Behind the steam of hot coffee Hideyoshi sat alone skimming through the papers on the table but his mind went astray as he gloomily thought about his sister who killed herself with a lousy piece of rope only a few months after he started working in France. The motive for her suicide could not be officially pinpointed : the police assumed that she felt too distressed from the hard study for the examination to university or some of her friends claimed that she had a crush on one of her fellow students but was mercilessly rejected by him.

Hideyoshi was devastated and considered rushing back to Japan but the enormous pile of work on his desk held him back .He also easily yielded to this excuse , perhaps deep down inside he was too weak to see his sister's lifeless body. He began to be obsessed with the Buddhist belief that her death was the karma from killing Kenzo and kept blaming himself. He should have urged his parents to use connection to put pressure on the authorities in Tokyo to purge Kenzo's cousin who was the corrupt inspector before patiently nailing Kenzo with the law , and without the senseless killing that night ,  his sister would be still alive today. After all,  the man was certain that the goddamn ghost of Kenzo now was deriding him from the hell below. He suddenly questioned his own belief triggered by the murder that night : were humans innately violent ? Or would he always find peaceful and creative ways to tackle the issue he was facing , so violence was merely an illusionary whim?  [That was the reason why he easily agreed with Thitiwat's argument that night in Thailand because he was always a sceptic.]

The man finally gathered his wits and read the report about the routines of Puyi each day. He admired that it was well written although all the writers were Chinese, but it later turned out to be quite monotonous and fastidious. Hideyoshi put it down on the table to prevent another yawn and grabbed the biography book about Puyi instead. This guy was the former Xuantong Emperor whose reign was put to an end by the 1911 revolution or the Xinhai Revolution which shook the world by transforming China into republic. The writer of the book mentioned that Puyi was so insecure and whimsical, and this could be analysed from his upbringing that he was designated by Empress Dowager Cixi (พระนางซูสีไทเฮา) as the emperor of Qing dynasty when he was only 2 years old.

Being taken away from his family to live in the sprawling Forbidden City made him feel so lonely while the only person in the world whom he could emotionally rely on was Wang Lianshou , his wet nurse. But tragically, when he was 9 years old , his guardian decided that the young emperor should be more mature, so Lianshou was dismissed from the palace for good, causing his overwhelming sorrow. But Puyi had still been unconditionally served by the group of eunuchs , the castrated men who had been servants in the courts of Chinese emperors for centuries. Their acquiescence during his coming of age helped develop some of his dark side like sadism when Puyi was capable of wantonly forcing or punishing them to do anything like eating dirt on the pretext of testing his loyalty - what a creepy guy !

But in spite of being pampered by such a lavish lifestyle , Puyi found himself like a prisoner in the large, beautiful prison where he could not leave at all even to attend the funeral of his own mother which made him descend into melancholy and probably depression. But his life seemed to be tremendously enlivened by Reginald Johnston , the Scottish Sinologist , who was hired to teach him all sciences at the Forbidden City for years and became his worthy mentor and companion.

Hideyoishi’s reading was interrupted by the same valet walking into the room and teasing him that he almost didn't eat anything but sipped coffee. He told him that someone was waiting on the phone. The man thought that it was Doihara or the headquarters in Japan but was a bit startled to hear the high-pitched voice on the other side of the phone - Tominaga.

"Hellooo , how was your sleep last night ? I just call to cheer you up and say that please hang in there and brace yourself for meeting the emperor. I know it's quite a hard work since he's a difficult man. Sweetie- pie , hope to see you again and this time you must paint the town red with me. Miss you and good byeee!"

It was like the novel 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' but only the protagonist was female. Last night he found that she was the person who had driven the convertible car for him to tour around the city and made his jaws drop with her dazzling western and fashionable dress like it was straight from one of the catwalks in Paris. He was also over and over again amazed by her sass and spunkiness which was diametrically opposite to her former self in Kimono during their first meeting. Did Doihara know about this ?

Tominaga also went to pick up 2 of her female friends who were all cut from the same cloth- the cohort of socialites , in other words,  crazy party girls who gave him the most nerve-racking ride in his life down the streets in the shimmering neon-soaked Changchun full of cars and crowds who never failed to stare at them in amazement. The policemen always unashamedly bowed to them before letting them go although the speed of their car was faster than the limit as they were the spoiled brats from the affluent Japanese families. The man then had to endure the endless babbles and wild laughter from those girls while everyone in the car was engulfed by the smoke from their cigarettes making Hideyoshi tearfully cough because he did not smoke anymore. Still, the man found himself the focus of their attention and teasing from time to time and he could not help feeling that one of them sneakily made a pass at him. After the dinner at a fancy restaurant , they badgered him into visiting a night club together, but Hideyoshi tenaciously declined and managed to go to bed at around midnight. Tominaga's disgruntlement was finally allayed by his promise to meet her again as soon as he became accustomed to Puyi.

Hideyoshi wondered why Doihara really wanted him and her to develop intimacy, and she enthusiastically opened that door for him.

.......................................................................

The Imperial Palace of Manchukuo elegantly possessed the eclectic style of western and Chinese architecture  , reflecting the builder's aim to partly appease the emperor's nostalgia of his living in the Forbidden city but the subtle trace of Japanese style among them still reflected who the boss was and squandered a hefty sum of money on building it. At the gate Hideyoshi and Doihara's aide-de-camp in military suit encountered the guards who were also the Manchurians, but they had not so secretly pledged allegiance to Doihara. They were searched due to a protocol albeit perfunctorily and Hideyoshi was amused that they were even allowed by those guards to keep the pistols , so he could easily shoot the emperor if he suddenly became insane or were the hired assassin. They then walked into the large compound of the palace , hearing the sounds of repeated pounding of hammers and electric drills not far from here and found Puyi with brown-tinted glasses standing on the balcony of the palace watching them quietly. This took Hideyoshi's breath away : despite being Japanese, he had heard about Puyi’s life since he was still young and wondered why the child even younger than him could be the Lord of 10,000 Years , the supreme ruler of all Chinese , and now that emperor was there in the flesh. Puyi greeted them by waving a hand after receiving the polite bow and told them to wait for him there.

"Look , who has Doihara brought to me here ? "

The lanky man in the neat emerald, green suit smilingly said when standing before the 2 guests. Hideyoshi noticed that several valets in western suit were also standing behind him and kept bowing their heads humbly to receive his orders at any minute. Doihara's aide-de-camp nodded politely.

"Your Majesty , General Doihara wants me to convey his heartfelt apology for not coming here today and hopes Major Sasaki Hideyoshi would be your good company several weeks from now on."

"Only several weeks ?" He looked a bit disappointed and turned to Hideyoshi.

" From the sketchy biography of yours given by Doihara, you're about 5 years older than me , Major ?"

Hideyoshi nodded.

"That's correct, Your Majesty. Math never lies."

"Marvelous ! You've more life experience than me as the senior and also the tough soldier who had fought in Korea , so I hope you will henceforth guide and enlighten me as long as you are here like my Scottish tutor. Come and see this ! "

Puyi then led them to walk on stone walkway to the garden reminding Hideyoshi of the one in the Forbidden City which he saw from the pictures taken by the Japanese soldiers during their occupation of Beijing in 1937.

" 和平 (hé píng)," Puyi suddenly blurted out - the overture to Hideyoshi's new knowledge that the emperor liked to speak English sometimes mixing with Chinese words. He always bragged that he could speak English fluently as he was the brilliant student of Mr. Johnston, but he also wanted to show his Chinese root to foreigners although he was the Manchu. Hideyoshi consequently knew the reason why Doihara chose him who had the scant knowledge of Chinese : the Lawrence of Manchuria had previously told Puyi that Hideyoshi could not speak Chinese at all , so it was a trick to lure the emperor into speaking something -probably on the tip of his tongue which would manifest his thoughts still unknown to the Japanese and those would be memorized by the valets who were also Doihara's spies. After all , Hideyoshi had to deceitfully keep asking him series of questions.

- What a freaking bloody genius !  Hideyoshi furiously thought about his boss.

The emperor said,

"In Chinese it means peace or harmony which is a complex word and so important to the Chinese society which is so vast and diverse. But for me , it's the word for complementing this garden which could unfailingly make me feel greatly at ease. Major , I wonder:  does the imperial garden of the Japanese emperor look like this ? "

Hideyoshi thought about the temple he used to live in briefly 2 decades ago and said,

"I have no idea , Your Majesty , since the commoners like me are not allowed to visit there but the places which might equally impress you is a type of gardens in Japan's Buddhist temples nationwide which is called Zen garden. It's however meticulously built in its own way and challenges us with various dhamma puzzles , testing how far our minds could delve into profundity of Buddha's teachings. But it is a mind-blowing fact that the Zen doctrine of Buddhism was an import from China hundreds of years ago."

Puyi smilingly clapped.

"极好的 (jí hǎo de) ! Doihara chooses the right companion for me ! Your English is impeccable,  far better than any Japanese I know. Thank you for telling me that , so I will reset my schedule to travel in the temple with such an interesting garden after visiting your emperor in Tokyo." [That Chinese word means ‘excellent’].

Both Doihara’s aide-de-camp and Hideyoshi quickly exchanged glances before starting the lively conversation with the emperor while they were rambling in the garden and the lieutenant became like the third wheel,  prudently observing Puyi who preferred to keep asking Hideyoshi.

" Major, I guess you've already been here for days , so do you have a chance to enjoy a nightlife in Changchun?"

After Hideyoshi's reply, the emperor asked,

"And who's your 向导 (xiàngdǎo) ?"

Hideyoshi happened to know that it meant 'guide' but wondered why he looked so eager to know. He thus pretended to clumsily ask him what the word meant and said,

"It's General Doihara's daughter, Ms. Tominaga,  Your Majesty."

Puyi laughed unstoppably for minutes, unsettling Hideyoshi , so the man cast a glance at Doihara's aide-de-camp as if to ask ,

"Whom the heck does your boss bring me into ?"

"Ms. Tominaga always exudes happy-go-lucky feeling and blesses you with her incessantly positive vibes like an eternal fountain of youthfulness. We're the good friends indeed after all these years,"

said Puyi meekly while gradually plucking the dead leaves from the peony tree beside him to demonstrate how he was caring for his garden. When finishing , he simply raised his hand and his valet rushed to wipe some dirt from it with the handkerchief. Hideyo wondered what in the daily routine this guy could do by himself.

"Major , next time you should treat her with utmost tenderness and affection as she's so unique , probably impossible to find in your lifetime. By the way, I'm impressed with you and want to say that you're unique just like her. Let's call it a day now as I have to join the cabinet meeting this morning."

No sooner had the emperor begun to walk on the stone walkway to his office building than the Japanese politely bowed. He was followed by the busy valets who were holding the umbrella , carrying the suitcase and helping him cool off with a big fan at the same time while they were moving which looked comically weird while the gardeners nearby dressed like the Manchu in the past were also bowing to the emperor too. Hideyoshi reminisced about the good old days of Qing dynasty : Puyi's predecessors always went everywhere in the confines of palace or its vicinity by sitting on the palanquins , carried by the strong guys and followed by the long queue of their entourage which looked like a long snake to flaunt their power and status although it was boring and caused a great discomfort for everyone. But even after China became republic , its ever-changing governments allowed Puyi to live in the Forbidden City and retain his traditional way of life like this until an anti-monarchical warlord expelled him and his entourage from the Forbidden City in 1924. And here in Manchukuo the trace of such a ridiculous tradition was still seen – perhaps still the ploy of the Japanese to please Puyi.

In the car which was running away from the imperial palace , both soldiers sank into silence and Doihara's aide-de-camp - quite older than Hideyoshi- seemed to be curious as to what he was thinking before saying,

“ Many years ago, the Manchukuo’s high society was dazzled by the arrival of General Doihara’s beautiful daughter. Major , Ms. Tominaga was then a few Japanese women who graduated from a prestigious university in America and became like the modern princess of Manchukuo , the kingdom her father built. She was later introduced to Puyi and even though he still had the 2 wives , he hooked up with her before the couple would become the talk of the town for a long time , fuelling the rumour that Doihara wanted to make his daughter Puyi’s wife and the first Japanese to be the empress of foreign country which was a boon for both Puyi and him. But for some unknown reason the couple became estranged and separated at last. I therefore want you to investigate this as I have been doubting it so much for a long time.”

Hideyoshi raised his eyebrows.

“Lieutenant , I wonder why you think I should get involved with this , so you're making my mission increasingly burdensome which I will never condone….but how much would you pay me for this ? 2 barrels of beer in the pub ?”

They resounded the car with laughter.   

3

A night club in Changchun , Manchukuo , 10 : 35 PM

"Major, what's your opinion about the effects from our protracted war in China ,especially the enormous budget to help build Manchukuo, on the Japan's economy in the long run ? Would it result in the recession or any kind ? "

The young woman with the American nickname  'Debbie' asked him with disturbing smirk. Hideyoshi became suddenly dumbfounded as he did not know much about economics and had never expected to meet such a question from such a woman whom he saw keeping talking gibberish since they met about several days ago.  He now realized that those 3 party girls had unexpectedly a dual personality : they could discuss the serious stuffs like this for hours on the table even though they had behaved and talked foolishly in that fast car.

The other woman in their group with the nickname 'Nancy' (her real name was Himari) interrupted,

"Debbie , why do you ask such a difficult question as if he were an economist or a professor ? He's just a soldier ! "

Hudeyoshi flushed with the feeling that he was being subtly denigrated, but Tominaga rushed to save his face.

" Hide-kun , don't be harassed by such an impertinence. You know that she knows the answer already, but she likes to test or tease you, which is her ugly haughtiness , this annoying bitch ! She graduated with economics degree from Boston University ! "

Debbie (her real name was Emi) laughed maniacally with the thick smoke around her heavy upper lips and began to ask him once more with the manner like the beast ready to strike its unprepared prey. Hideyoshi thought about that night when he taunted and outwitted Kenzo and this karma came back to him tonight.

" Don't mind me , Major , since I'm merely the annoying bitch like Tanya (Tominaga) just said. But it will enlighten me tremendously if you tell me about your opinion about Emperor Hirohito and his role in this war. I suppose that you will be capable of saying something that's not in the mainstream which makes me yawn out of boredom."

Now everyone on the table sent shivers down his spine with their intense stare. Hideyoshi felt awkward : he knew how to reply to her such an audacious question, but it would be too risky when he was the soldier who was obliged to strictly adhere to the norm : unquestionably worshipping the emperor like the divine being and sacrificing life for him and the country. Criticizing the emperor a bit in front of the persons like these would not only humiliate him but also jeopardize his career.

Hideyoshi said,

" Please accept my deep apology, ma'am. As a professional soldier , I must restrain myself from answering regardless of what my personal conviction is. "

Debbie sneered.

"This means you probably don't share the same idea about him as other soldiers and everyone else in this country , correct ? C'mon , let's be honest ! There're plenty of people nationwide even the emperor's brother now strongly dissenting from the country's war policy in China engineered by him which has swallowed up the staggering number of our young men's lives while women as their wives and mothers are bearing the brunt since they are seriously lacking their breadwinners. But it's so pathetic that their grievances are bitterly silenced by our fascist government. Don't preposterously claim that the war would make our country great again or walk the glorious path like in the worthless heap of propaganda in media. I strongly believe there isn't a chance in hell for it to do that. On the contrary , I'm ashamed to be Japanese today : don't you guys ever know about the atrocities by the cruel Japanese troops in Nanjing 3 years ago leading to more than 100,000 deaths of Chinese ? Of course , most of you don't , thanks to the government's strict censorship. Why does the civilized country like us become such an abhorrent monster ?  Why do our valiant soldiers become the bloodthirsty murderers? Above all, it's not such a secret that the emperor masterminds or at least gives the green light to this war. The divine being , my ass ! He and his family are just humans like us ! He's in fact the scheming human who utterly cares about power but is too cowardice to openly get involved in the politics ! Believe me the tons of blood are and will be on his hands !"

Now even her friends were stupefied to hear that, knowing it was the daredevil opinion. If they were in Japan , they would doubtlessly be arrested for violating the Lèse-majesté law which the radical rightists had been aggrandizing so they could exploit for their own power. And Hideyoshi could land them in trouble as well by notifying the authorities here in Manchukuo, but it would be too complicated when it inevitably involved Doihara and the fathers of 2 other girls who were the high-ranking government official and the wealthy businessman and also the radical rightists too.  Foremostly , he did not mean to jeopardize them when they had been nice to him, especially Tominaga who always flirted with him. But the man thought that it was hypocritical for Emi (Debbie) as she could relish the exhilarating life even above the law in Manchukuo thanks to the war. They were still young , aged 25 or 26 and mostly lived in an ivory tower.

Tominaga looked around and felt relieved that the music from the Jazz band quite far from them was loud enough to prevent the customers in this club from hearing such a blasphemous conversation. Doihara's daughter however hastily changed the topic.

"Hide-kun , I heard that you once had a German girlfriend when you worked in Berlin , right ? Please tell me about her. Is she beautiful or attractive like Asian women ?

Hideyoshi was speechless again. He wondered what he had been doing here since his sole mission was to rummage through Puyi's mind and instantly finish it , so he would either fly back to France or join any battles in China. He nonetheless realized that he was exploited by Doihara to entertain his daughter who was spoiled like a princess, so he began to ask himself : what he would get from this ? Being her lover and then the future son-in-law of one of the most powerful generals in Japan would mean the great advance of his career ,  but this would eclipse his own competence to do it by himself- the meritocracy he always extolled.

The picture of the plumpy white girl giggling and walking across the greenery field full of Edelweiss flowers in Bavaria where they used to travel together popped up on his mind. He said,

" Yes, she was really a nice pretty girl who worked in the drug store where I'm the regular customer. She told me the reason we clicked : I was more polite and affectionate than the German guys she ever met although I was a soldier, and my German language was mediocre. During the date we were very much in love (he then noticed that Tominaga was paying much heed to him) but we had to endure racism there as the Germany's racial tolerance astonishingly dwindled due to the rise of the Nazis. Even though our countries are the loose alliance , I'm still the narrow-eyed Asian - perhaps not much superior to Jews. One day while I and Clara , her name , were going somewhere , we stumbled on the gang of men who bullied us and I nearly punched one of them in the face but fortunately , my Thai friend who was the university lecturer, Thitiwat, came to our rescue. Clara was always by my side through thick and thin but tragically, after I had moved to Paris , she married someone else. It however was funny that Thitiwat who had always teased me about this was rumoured to fall head over heels with a German woman who was the daughter of the illustrious general of German armed forces. I kept laughing my ass off for months in Paris - being healed from the broken heart."

Everybody laughed aloud and Nancy said,

" Aha, sorry to hear your tragic love and... Thai,  the people of Siam. Debbie, yesterday , we had an argument about what the small countries like Siam and its neighbouring Indochina look like. We hope someday we'll travel there as they must be so exotic full of exciting things like herds of elephants roaming and grazing near the ancient Theravada Buddhist temples."

Hideyoshi said,

"I'm afraid that your plan might not be realized , Ms. Nancy (he laughed a bit while saying this).  it is an open secret that Japan has little by little expanded the military operations while also increasing the political pressure southward from China. At the same time our government keeps entertaining the governments of those countries in this area [the Southeast Asia- this name was not popular until the cold war or many years later] that cooperation with us will eventually liberate them from the Western imperialists. For Siam , despite proudly claiming that it's never been colonized , its government attempted to chum up with us like the comrades-in-arms since Siam's new ruling clique is much in awe of the rapid advancement of Japan's technologies and military. We might have this small country as a so-called alliance at first but it's certain that we will at last manifest ourselves as the new predator who will subjugate it and all Asian countries in the future war like the voracious European countries used to."

Debbie became furious again and pounded on the table , violently shaking the expensive dishes of food and bottles of champagne before her.

"Like I think ! Our darn government would never limit the war in only China. They want to rule the world ! But I believe it will be the stupid way straight to the bottomless abyss for us. For heaven's sake , don't they ever think about the powerful country like the US ?"

Everyone except Debbie was quite petrified when some of the boisterous people at the near tables stopped talking and began to glance at them. Hideyoshi was relieved that not a single soldier in uniform of Kwangtung army who always roamed the city at night was seen in sight but he still wondered even if they could hear exactly what the conversation on this table was, what could they do when the daughter of the real emperor of this kingdom and their supreme commander was here? The man however felt the searing heat running around his face as he was a cog in the machine of the armies and his frankness unwittingly led Debbie to snub him. He should have said like the government's relentless propaganda, but it would run contrary to what he deep down inside believed and worse of all , it would make the women with liberal mind on this table look down on him. He however did not hold a grudge against her at all.

Everyone was then in total silence before the only man on this table would turn to Tominaga.

" Tominaga-sama. I heard that you used to date Emperor Puyi before , so I would like to know what's the reason for both of you to break up. But you can avoid answering me if you feel that my question's too intrusive or your story is too confidential."

The 3 women looked at one another before roaring with laughter. Tominaga said,

"No no no ! Don't look so serious , my darling. I'm more than willing to tell you if this can help your mission here which is so importantttt ! Don't be so surprised that Mr. Puyi even joined our nightly activity here by disguising himself as a commoner boldly assisted by 3 of us - such a fun adventure ! I believe he used to sit on the very chair you're sitting on right now while his bodyguards were turning the city upside down to find him. He was quite a funny kind of guy even though he was then a bit eccentric like laughing without proper reason , but that was still tolerable for me. I sometimes almost wetted my pants with laughter after imagining myself being his wife and becoming the empress of this kingdom. He was ill-tempered , hard to deal with many times,  so would I had to endure violence from his wraths when he got drunk? Nah, but the main reason why we went separate ways was ..."

She suddenly paused and seemed to change her mind.

" I now think that you'd better find out that reason by yourself. I'm afraid that I’ll spoil the plot of this extremely interesting film and I'm so glad to be only its enthusiastic audience."

Hideyoshi almost yelled out but managed to keep disappointment inside his calm face as he was on the verge of finding one of the best clues to Puyi's real personality which would help his mission. He wondered why Doihara seemed to ignore it from his own daughter , or she deliberately concealed it to irritate him like a headstrong child? He did not know. He also stared at her friends who just kept grinning , showing that they would never spill the beans either. The man thought that everyone's façade in Manchukuo was nice and easy (except Debbie sometimes) , but they seemed to hide something which would always cause his unease or even lead to his downfall?

Hideyoshi however chuckled to see a white man from the table on the left make a pass at Nancy but when receiving her cold look , he wryly smiled and kept talking with his friends. He was probably the Russian who had fled the persecutions from the Stalin's ruthless regime in the USSR. Manchukuo was the good sanctuary for a great number of foreigners who were apolitical and besotted by hedonism, after all.

The attention of the revellers in this night club was suddenly greatly attracted by the overture from the jazz band which was increasingly deafening before the guy in Chinese woman's traditional attire - the drag queen - would hold a big fan and strut on the stage to sing the lively songs in Chinese along with the jazz band which sometimes imitated the sounds of the Chinese traditional music . The 4 or 5 dancers in funny costumes like tiger or monkey darted out of the curtain to join him and sometimes pretended to act clumsily and quarrel with one another, bringing the house down but there was only one of the audience who did not even smile - Hideyoshi who felt unbearably dizzy. He truly hated every popular show or song in this night club or elsewhere in the world which was so shallow and crappy although everyone here was so elated to watch them , including those 3 women who stopped doing everything and began to be captivated by it. He right now yearned to listen to opera and his most coveted place to go was an opera house in Europe and watch Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

Tominaga seemed to notice him.

"What's wrong , Hide-kun? You look so distraught."

Hideyoshi chuckled a bit to gloss over his mood.

"Nothing's serious. I just want to get some fresh air at the rooftop deck now (he was afraid that if he said, 'outside the club', she might be wary that he was trying to escape) . Go on enjoying yourself and I'll be back soon."

The young woman still gave him the worried look which seemed to be comically over the top , but he was certain that she was falling for him.

She said,

"Do you know where the rooftop deck is , sweetie-pie?  This club is extremely large and dark like a maze , so you might get lost."

The man gently brushed aside her offer to accompany him although he was impressed and felt that he was unwittingly drawn to her. He walked past the group of the inebriated Japanese youngsters both male and female in tuxedo and night gown who giggled and chased one another upstairs where was the large casino. Hideyoshi then changed his way to the toilet where he only intended to find fresh water to wash his face but got lost and at the forlorn corner to the little stairwell he found a door ajar with the light on. Out of curiosity , he opened it and found a couple of dark-skinned man and woman engaging in the passionate kiss while their bodies precariously lied on the piano and the sexy woman’s evening gown was partly removed. The woman was bewildered to find his arrival and unleashed herself from the man’s tight embrace before both of them would try to adjust their dresses in a frenzy. The man had profusely apologized to them while successfully holding back his laughter before the couple simply nodded and hastily left.

The lonely grand piano caught Hideyoshi's eyes like the magnet to lure him into sitting on its chair.  He surveyed its every nook and cranny before pressing its keyboard and had the epiphany that it was his true joy after the days in this sin city. His first playing was not impressive at all as his skill at piano was rusty , so he had practiced it briefly before focusing on the song that he used to play so much when he was young : Mozart's Violin Sonata K.301. But all of a sudden , he realized that he had persistently played it as a duo with his little sister who was a wunderkind of violin but now he would never do that with her again forever. He felt the heat running around his face and rushing toward his heart which was pained indescribably but his fingers were still cavorting on the keyboard. It was so terrible to find the tears gradually rolling through his cheeks and dropping on his fingers and then the keyboard. The suffering from his thought of his sister was immeasurable and he would trade anything in the world with even a chance to play piano with her again. The man then feared that the depression was going to plunge him into madness , so he turned to play the song of the guy whose life suffered more than his.

Hideyoshi suddenly had a hunch that someone was watching him from behind and immediately stopped playing before turning around. The Japanese girl in chef uniform was there staring at him and became startled , so she bowed down over and over again , nearly dropping the tray with the plastic boxes in her arms. He did not know how exactly her face looked like when she was wearing a large toque blanche (chef hat) and both of her cheeks were covered with several charcoal stains.

She spluttered a bit,

"Sir, I'm so..... sorry to have interrup..ted you. I  just passed by outside and got too carried away by such a melodious and fabulous song ... Hmm..which I've never heard in my life."

Hideyoshi smiled gently , so she became more relaxed and asked even though her body was still shaking ,

" What's the name of the song you just played , sir ? And who's the artist ?"

The man said,

" It's a Nocturne of Frédéric Chopin, the renowned Polish music composer. What a tragedy that he died of tuberculosis in Paris at not more than 40 !  But this happened almost 100 years ago."

The girl nodded again for the answer, but he thought she didn't know about Chopin at all. Before anyone of them would say anything , Taminaga rushed into the room while the girl became more and more humble like she knew who the newcomer was.

"Hide-kun ! I've been searching all over the place for you ! What are you doing here ? Let's get back to our table as the show you dislike is finished now and I guarantee that the new one will in a heartbeat dazzle you. C'monnn, " beseeched she and forcefully grabbed his arm.

Hideyoshi smiled as a farewell to the girl who was standing absolutely still and stooped like she was a crooked tree. She smiled back gently and kept bowing down until they left the room but from now on he always wondered why that silly hat did not fall off from her head and why her smile still lingered on his mind.

4

After repeated meetings with Puyi , Hideyoshi could not resist the urge to compare the emperor to the winding river which was quite treacherous. At first the guy in his early 30s was like Tominaga described ' a funny kind of guy' with a weird sense of humour but inside those eyes beneath the comical eyeglasses, the major could see his dark side and Puyi barely bothered to conceal this. Each day when going back to the house in the army camp in the afternoon , Hideyoshi had to write the reports in case that the valets as Doihara's spies failed to follow up something and read the psychology books in English which were quite rare in the main and only library of Changchun *. He however came to terms that perhaps he could use only of his hunches and common knowledge.

[* Thanks to my negligence , this city's name during the Japan's occupation was changed to be Xinjing , so please accept my apology. But I really like its former name 'Changchun' and will still use it anyhow.]

Every day , the man noted , when he went to that palace , the emperor would welcome him cordially and talk to him vivaciously like the long lost friends who happened to bump into one another on the street. But when barely an hour passed , Puyi would begin to ceaselessly complain something trifling about his daily life , sounding like he was asking for more from the Japanese government through Hideyoshi which made him feel awkward .The Chinese words were uttered as usual to interrupt their conversation making it not smooth like it should have been and when Hideyoshi once in a while looked bemused , the emperor would always smirk like he was a master. The man thought that it was quite a silly childish action but did not say or show any gestures to offend the emperor , therefore Puyi did not know that his companion's admirable composure was hiding the simmering agitation.

And when Hideyoshi turned to the topics of politics , the emperor nimbly spoke like he had already prepared for a long time. He avoided criticizing the Japan's military operations in the past like the Mukden incident which marked the beginning of Japan's invasion of China in 1931 with the brazen accusation , the horrifying massacre by the Japanese armies in Nanjing 3 years ago , including the Japan's mistreatments of the Chinese in Manchukuo even now like the emperor was turning a blind eye on it. Hideyoshi however assumed it was not enough to conclude that it was safe to let him meet Emperor Hirohito especially when Puyi started to brag that Manchukuo was an independent state like the UK or the US and he was its head of state who had the absolute power over all the country's affairs whereas Doihara was merely either a precious friend or a brilliant advisor. Hideyoshi wondered whether this was just to use him to listen to his ultimate desire or this stemmed from his delusion , so the man had to delve into the books, but the answer was still murky like a muddy pound in the emperor's garden.

Puyi several times astounded Hideyoshi by transforming him into the interviewee with a flurry of questions like he seriously wanted to know what the major was like and never failed to flatter him profusely, but he considered it the emperor's tactic to distract or dominate him. The emperor also asked him about his life in Korea and admired his bravery during the battles against the Korean rebels which perplexed Hideyoshi thanks to the historical fact that once the Korean peninsula used to be a tributary state of China – the pride of Puyi's ancestors but was plundered by Japan since 1910. The major thought it would be sensible not to mention how the Japanese ruthlessly exploited and oppressed the Korean people in the name of colonizer , fomenting the relentless uprisings.

One day Puyi asked him why he was not married yet at this age forcing him to reiterate his narration about his German girlfriend before the 3 women that night.

The emperor burst into laughter and said,

"女人一个样 (nǚrén yī ge yàng)"  [women are all the same !]

Puyi then asked Hideyoshi about Tominaka and received merely the embellished version of her nightly activities. But the emperor sneered and said something about her which was utterly different from that day:

" Drinking , prattling and playing like a brat who never knows what the future looks like. Brother (not Major anymore) , the handsome guy like you must be the object of her suffocating infatuation or even from her irreverent friends , Nancy or Debbie ! Have they ever flirted with you?"

Hideyoshi was a little shocked but chuckled and shook his head.

" Not at all , Your Majesty. I'm totally not their types. They are some kind of girls with liberal and self-independent mind whereas I'm strait-lace with sexism. And after this mission , I'm scheduled to leave here without further ado. At first I wanted to go back to Paris but the embassy there informed me that France is now facing the invasion by Nazi German , so Japan is the first choice."

The man then saw a glint of disappointment in his eyes. The emperor said,

"It's not the time for your departure yet , Brother. I'll talk to Doihara to prolong your stay here for more weeks ! "

Hideyoshi's bold imagination abruptly appeared  : he furiously stood up and yelled out ,

" But I want to get the hell out of here now !!!!"

Fortunately , he could stop this outburst and hid it behind his wry smile and he out of the blue wanted to ask Puyi the reason of his breakup with Tominaka but presumed that the emperor might have an impression that he was too inquisitive , sowing his mistrust in him. It was also imperative for the major not to tell him about those young women's blasphemous conversations and unrestrained gossip about him that night.

When the conversation became too tepid or met the dead end  , the emperor asked the Japanese major to play chess together, but the latter did not know how to , they therefore rambled around the palace instead to meet the people there like Puyi was flaunting his Japanese companion. And Hideyoshi eventually met Wang Lianshou , Puyi's wetnurse whom he cherished so much that after ascending to the throne of Manchukuo emperor, he endeavoured to find her and brought her to live with him in this palace. The 50something woman still looked quite youthful and welcomed Hideyoshi with friendliness despite the barrier of language. They held hands of one another firmly and her warm smile made him understand why Puyi always praised her as 'my butterfly'. Hideyoshi however imagined : what would she react to him if she happened to know that the Japanese troops like him had slaughtered millions of her compatriots after all these years and how many in the future ?

On the way to a beautiful pavilion on the hill , Puyi seemed to change their route even though Hideyoshi showed his keenness to sightsee it and the emperor adamantly declined to let him know why. A valet whispered to Hideyoshi when Puyi went to pick up the letters in his office briefly that it belonged to Empress Wanrong who was psychologically deteriorating thanks to her distress and serious addiction to opium. The emperor probably feared that her anti-Japanese feeling would tarnish his prestige if Hideyoshi were spat or slapped in the face by his nearly deranged empress. Hideyoshi also found that Doihara had not told him the exact number of Puyi's wives. The emperor also had the 2 concubines : Consort Shu who daringly divorced him in 1931 (perhaps for the first time in the Chinese history) and Tan Yuling who was still with him in this palace but her hostility toward the Japanese was not much different from of the empress. Hideyoshi thought it would be extremely helpful if he could conduct the interviews with those 2 women against all odds.

That day was so indelible on Hideyoshi's memory : in the hall of the palace Hideyoshi found Puyi wildly drunk for the first time even though it was only in the late morning. The emperor was unable to pass the tax law after his cabinet (also as the parliament) consisting of the Japanese generals of Kwangtung army and the Chinese technocrats who were the lackeys of the Japanese fiercely disapproved of it. With his bruised ego, Puyi's face was reddish as he walked to and fro and babbled with expletives in both English and Chinese. He told Hideyoshi that he wondered why those members in his cabinet had attempted to thwart his plan which was beneficial to his people and country , so he should teach them who the boss was in the next days. The man pretended to help him contemplate the real cause of his shame which would involve Doihara who was the real mastermind behind the revolt of the cabinet and patiently waited for the emperor to lash out at the general and then the Japanese government. But the emperor still did not take the bait.

One of his valets humbly walked to serve them some tea but tripped over and accidentally dropped the ceramic kettle on the carpet disturbing anyone with the grating sound of its breaking. Puyi became extremely enraged and pushed him to lie on the floor before violently beating him with his fists and feet without pause. The emperor yelled out and his face became baleful like he was possessed by a demon while the other valets were gradually walking to only watch them in horror - probably the first time they saw this. Hideyoshi thought that it was too far after seeing the valet scream with pains and the blood splash from his nose and mouth , so he promptly grabbed one of Puyi's arms and calmed him down. The emperor surprisingly relented and became lethargic like his whole energy all at once evaporated. Hideyoshi wasted no time in ordering the other valets to take the victim to hospital and later told the only one left in the room to carry Puyi ,now utterly dizzy, to take a rest in his bedroom and saw that the emperor was desperately trying to hold out his hands to him, but he stepped away , thinking that full-grown men should not touch each other much – what a weirdo !

In spite of sympathy for that injured guy, Hideyoshi was over the moon that his mission would be finished today and rushed to write the report.  Now he pulled no punches in labelling Puyi :

誇大妄想狂 (kodai mōsō kyō)  - the person with delusions of grandeur

暴力的な人 (bōryokuteki na hito) - the violent person

腹黒い人 (haraguroi hito) - the calculating and malevolent person

The conclusion : Tokyo MUST cancel Puyi's visit to Japan indefinitely.

Having written the long sentences to support his analysis, Hideyoshi smilingly kept the report in the kraft paper envelope and sent it to Doihara's attaché in the headquarters for the initial assessment. But the general was in the important conference, so he had to wait but he hurriedly went back to his house , spending barely 10 minutes packing his luggage . With only the greenlight from Doihara who could influence the decision of the government , the plane was ready to take him back to Japan at any time. He hoped that the general would not be too serious to make him his son-in-law as Tominaga had too many choices of the guys , some of them were even better than him.

Hideyoshi dozed off on the bed before being awakened by the valet an hour later. On the phone , it was Tominaga who emotionally asked him whether he was ready to meet her. He was surprised to see how she was determined to wrest him into her arms although he told her a week ago that he needed a short peaceful break as he had to strenuously concentrate on Puyi. He bluntly said that he could not any longer spend the endless nightlife with her : drinking , smoking and dancing like tomorrow never came (while speaking, Hideyoshi thought about the lyric of the song 'Sophisticated Lady' of Duke Ellington , the famous US Jazz composer, released in 1932) which had quickly drained out all his energy as he was a devout early bird.

Beyond even his wild imagination , the young woman tolerated his snub and gladly promised that she would dramatically reduce her prodigal lifestyle and do everything like he requested. In spite of distrust, Hideyoshi thought if she became the good girl , he might often invite her to his house in Tokyo to develop their intimacy, but he did not tell her that he was ready to leave Changchun this evening. Their conversation ended with his promise that he would join her and her friends at that night club tonight but that was a lie.

Someone knocked on the house's door and Doihara's aide-de-camp was standing with a long face , saying ,

" Major, the general said that he really appreciates such an elaborate report from you, but Emperor Puyi an hour ago made a phone call to badger him into prolonging your stay here indefinitely and promised that he will yield to every decision the cabinet makes. The general was totally on cloud nine , so you have to unpack your luggage you're holding. Want some help from the valet ? Nah , don't make a face like it's the end of the world ! "

...................................................

The same night club that night

Now Hideyoshi turned to smoke again after a long break which confirmed his belief that he could completely kick this awful habit. But the despair of being stranded here without the exact date of leaving (or escaping) made him find the solace from it again. Tominaga seemed to learn his fate but pretended to comfort him while hiding her utmost delight inside that beautiful face. Hideyoshi thought about calling his parents for help, but it was such a disgrace for the mature man like him or perhaps Doihara had apprised them of his fate already , so he was probably destined to tie the knot with the general's daughter and had to endure her restless sass for years here. He then wondered how long their marriage would last and whether he should be proud of being quickly promoted to the higher rank in military.

Tonight, the beautiful socialites were joined by their 2 friends who were also the sons of the wealthy families of Japan. The girls’ profound conversation which used to impress Hideyoshi turned out to be only the drivels due to those guys' shallowness and Hideyoshi became the misfit of their group who was just quietly observing their conversations. Those guys however showed respect to Hideyoshi as the soldier since they themselves used the privilege to avoid the conscriptions but their eyes kept implicitly taunting him that he was Tominaga's 'toy boy' , but older than her. They merrily drank , ate and danced to numerous songs in various styles like the tango and the foxtrot. Tominaga pestered Hideyoshi to dance with her, but he steadfastly refused for fear that he might end up being a laughingstock due to his poor skill at dancing. She thus danced with the other man and the way they had been dancing was so adroit and magnificent like the professionals. Everyone on the floor stopped dancing to applaud and hurrah to them in admiration. Hideyoshi joined this but had the premonition that it was probably like their marriage in the future.

The show as the next program tonight was still stupid as usual, but the same drag queen wore Kimono and sang in Japanese along with the dancers who got dressed like Ninja and Samurai wielding the fake swords sometimes pretending to fight one another,  leading to the endless roars of laughter from the audience. Hideyoshi began to believe that the karma from killing Kenzo (or many Korean rebels) was so hell-bent on tormenting him until now. The man's patience suddenly vanished into thin air, and he used the same alibi to leave the table but was surprised that Tominaga did not hold him back , perhaps she knew where he was headed to. Arriving at that room with the piano , he was frustrated that it was tightly locked and when he tried to contact the employees around there , they said that there was a strict order from their boss to keep that room from being defiled by the obnoxious guests. He blushed angrily but then laughed when thinking about that couple whose foreplay was tragically interrupted by him. He returned to watch the silly show and tried to chuckle a few times even though he wanted to throw the shoe at the stage the whole time.

2:00 AM

The night club was closed but the crowds of the customers were still gathering and prattling outside like they still yearned to linger here forever while some of them were gradually leaving in various makes of cars , causing the annoying chaotic scene around the parking lots . Hideyoshi excused himself to everyone to smoke alone quite far from them, but he could not resist watching the spectacular scenery of Changchun from the terrace. He suddenly heard the voice from behind. The girl in chef uniform - without her comical hat- was standing there to smile at him while her face without the black stains stunned him with its prettiness.

"Sir , nice to meet you again, " said she after bowing down.

Hideyoshi laughingly told her not to be so polite since Japan's feudal system was abolished during the Meiji Restoration – more than 70 years ago and now everyone was equal, but she insisted that she was merely a chef assistant barely making ends meet while he was the son of the wealthy family and the boyfriend of Manchukuo's princess. He complimented her that she was well-informed, but she told him that she could not avoid the gossip news about him which became the limelight for everyone in the city (probably Puyi was the only one who missed it). The man was not certain whether he should be proud of this.

Hideyoshi , moreover, learned that she and her friend who was a waitress were on their way to go back home by bus which was parked not far from here. Their brief conversation ended when her friend showed up , telling her to hurry up since their bus was about to leave. She still gawked at him , enlivening him enormously with sincerity and warmth inside those eyes - the very first time since he arrived in this sin city , and when the girl bowed down once more, he felt something strange -  the desire to tell her that he wanted to accompany her everywhere she was going until dawn or the day after tomorrow, but he was afraid that she might deem it the sexual harassment. He at last bowed down to her too , baffling her before her friend would drag her away.

2:30 AM

That running large convertible car was occupied by the lively young men and women who were still entertaining themselves with endless bottles of alcohols , puns , dirty jokes , gossips or even games. They were so mean to ignore the other passenger : the nearly middle-aged man who was sitting quietly alone like he was in another car , even the woman who professed her love for him seemed to be like the stranger. He absent-mindedly watched the almost empty and quite dark streets including the looming buildings in the city and suddenly heard the music from somewhere , probably from the radio in the car, lingering miraculously through the loud machine and orgy around him. It was a slow jazz filled with melancholic sweetness helping him conjure up a scene in slow motion on his mind, but it was so clear that he could not tell whether it was reality or imagination. The girl in chef uniform was sitting quietly on the running bus , contrary to her friend who enjoyed chattering away , not giving a damn whether she was listening or not while the passengers around them , also the Japanese workers in that night club, were either sleeping with exhaustion or talking to one another. The girl then slowly looked his way and beamed a little as if she were greeting him.

Despite the doubt about why in the world the bus still turned on the light , with those beautiful bright eyes, the man thought that perhaps being trapped in this sin city seemed not to put him in the complete predicament after all. 

5

"I'm so glad that you don't harbour resentment against me at all for holding you up from leaving like this , Brother. I want you and still have so many topics of conversations to talk with like today it's about Carl von Cr....Clausewitz, the military theorist or something like this or I can teach you some teaching of 儒家 (Rújiā) in return,"   [the Chinese word meant Confucianism]

Puyi smilingly told Hideyoshi.

The man nodded and pretended to smile back as he did not know what repercussions would follow if he showed his genuine feelings like frustration or anger. Or at least this composure was probably from his gratitude for the emperor's cordiality for more than a month of their meetings although he had not enjoyed it much.

Hideyoshi said,

" It won't be such a big deal , Your Majesty. I guess I can wait when thinking about the situation here that you desperately need someone to talk to .... "

He was about to say, “ because you’re lonely in the crowd.” but thought it was too negative , so he paused and said,

"But I need to adjust my schedule a bit , as the senior military officer, I'm assigned a new duty as the instructor for the soldiers of Kwantung army. I therefore ask for your forgiveness that from now on I'll meet you .... ah... much less than before. It's so urgent because many of the military instructors are unexpectedly dispatched to Japan at the same time as there's some serious shortage in the military schools around my country."

It was a brazen lie again as he himself asked Doihara to do this and the general immediately agreed as he was afraid that Hideyoshi might have a nervous breakdown or do something rash which was not beneficial to his further stratagem (if there was left). Puyi caused his discomfort again by saying angrily,

" 哼！(Hēng) ! Why has Doihara done this since we have already an agreement ? I feel like I'm already bamboozled ! " [the Chinese word meant ugh !]

Hideyoshi blushed , knowing that the general used him to curtail the emperor's power and now Puyi did not have much to bargain with the Japanese , being almost the complete puppet ruler of this kingdom.

The man was then curious as to why Puyi exerted himself so much to keep him here even at the expense of his executive power. The emperor’s emotional acting or speaking including the way he looked at him from time to time also crept him out. He bade farewell to the emperor by simply bowing down and left without awaiting his reaction. He heard some yelling behind but pretended not to hear it while chuckling a little. On the way to the gate of the palace , Hideyoshi noticed that a group of people was standing beside the pound. The women in French maid outfit were surrounding a woman while one of them was holding an umbrella for her - the 30something Chinese woman in western casual dress who was quite pretty but lean and had sunken cheeks and quite raccoon eyes. He guessed that she was Empress Wanrong who was advised by the doctor to frequently go outside of her building for some fresh air. She was now relishing feeding a shoal of fish under the dense lotus which was so picturesque and suddenly stared at him like she was expecting to see him. A lady-in-waiting was told to usher him to her.

The ill woman laughed maniacally and said,

"With the face and the body like this , no wonder His Majesty is obsessed with you , Soldier ! That darn Doihara is so sharp-sighted to send you here as his companion , to seduce him and to completely get the Japanese' s claws into him."

Hideyoshi thought every sentence she was speaking was so creepy especially her word 'seduce' which should have been the word between man and woman. Wanrong then stopped and coughed up some red liquid which looked like blood before her lady-in-waiting would dart to wipe it off with handkerchief. She later moved her body with feebleness toward him and said emotionally with trembling voice ,

" Look what your country has done to us ! Millions of Chinese are now addicted to that debilitating opium and become sick like me. And with the poor public health facilities , I suppose this is planned to wreak havoc on our kingdom beginning with genocide , right?  Your government's also now opening the door for a million of Japanese like you to move here and usurp everything that belongs to us -everything that our ancestors had cherished and fought for with their life. So horrifying that His Majesty has also played a part in this! "

She then bellowed,

"Rest assured that before this body will cease to exist some fucking day , I will spend every single day cursing you and everyone in your country to rot in hell for all eternity....Up yours ! "

Hideyoshi was furious but realized that her words about the Japanese's plan to leech off Manchukuo did not deviate from the truth at all. He managed to calm down , nodded and started to walk away. She however rushed to grab his right arm and said to him with vicious smile,

"I know you have some serious doubt and cringed at every word I just said about my husband and you , haha. Major , listen :  I happen to know that you love opera , right ? Check King Ludwig and Richard Wagner and you'll understand everything !!"

Returning to his house, Hideyoshi began to contemplate what Wanrong said to him. Although he loved opera , he did not know much about its history , contrary to Thitiwat who had written several books about Beethoven and other music composers , including Richard Wagner but unfortunately he left his friend's book in Japan [and it was tragic that google or Chat GPT was still not invented until about 60 or 80 years later]. But the fate still smiled upon him when he found a decrepit book about opera in English on the shelf in the only library of Changchun and ....

' King Ludwig 2 of Bavaria , the former kingdom of Germany, was notoriously homosexual .The effeminate young king was tremendously enamoured and obsessed with Richard Wagner, the great opera composer, to the extent that he had financially supported Wagner without limit such as paying off his enormous debts, giving him the hefty salaries and a luxury home, so the maestro could finish his masterpiece, The Ring of the Nibelung. Throughout their relationship as patron and artist, Ludwig and Wagner had exchanged about 600 letters abounding with the intensely passionate and romantic expressions.'

Hideyoshi was astounded.

- but Puyi still had wives !

So, he grabbed the report made by Puyi's valets out of his satchel and browsed through the pages he had not read yet and they seemed to be more revealing than the biography book. On one page the writer said ' Puyi 's desire for women has run out like the waterless fountain and he apparently lacks the affections toward any of his wives' and ...... another paragraph said that 'one day he attempts to make advance toward a young valet and considers him as his male concubine' - what the fuck !

Now it dawned on him that all Doihara had prattled incessantly to him the first day of his arrival was merely a barefaced lie. The Japanese authorities had known everything about Puyi all along and already decided whether he was supposed to meet Emperor Hirohito. But Doihara planned to use Hideyoshi as a bait to seduce Puyi who was the closeted gay while using his daughter to distract him at the same time. What a bloody genius that old scumbag was !

"Up yours, Doihara !!"

roared Hideyoshi and furiously stomped his feet on the wooden floor although he was still sitting , without paying heed to everyone in the library who was all staring at him.

......................................

In that dim-lit lecture room Hideyoshi felt like he was virtually interrogated. Those soldiers before him were enthusiastic to attend his class and listen to every word in his lecture in amazement. They were all young, and many were almost inexperienced in combats. The major was bombarded with the questions like they wondered why the hardened soldier like him became the attaché instead.

" I back then still considered wars as my passion like our fellow soldiers but once was injured seriously in a battle in Fuzan * , cheating death and I was indefatigably begged by my family to run the family business instead. But I adamantly declined and found the way to be please both my family and my desire with the career of military attaché , hoping someday I'll return to battles and fight along with my peers again." [Fuzan - Busan , Korean city in the Japanese language]

One soldier raised his hand and said,

"Your story's praiseworthy indeed ! I heard that you're the son of the wealthiest families in Japan but sacrifices your comfortable life for this country. By the way, I can't even imagine that you once used to live in the same place as those filthy barbarians like people of Chōsen. I think it was much better for you to leave such a horrid place , sir."

The soldiers in the hall applauded loudly but Hideyoshi thought that those Koreans were humans just like them and the Japanese had been for long brainwashed by the doctrine of racial superiority which was the pseudoscience propagated by the government as a pretext to invade and colonize Korea , Taiwan and China.  A staggering number of female Koreans and Chinese were forced or lured by the Japanese army into being their comfort women (sex slaves) and males were coerced into working as the slave labours. Perhaps this barrack and all the facilities of Japanese government in Manchukuo were built by them and it was so heart-wrenching that Innumerable workers from both countries had been dying from starvation and exhaustion until now. No wonder those Korean rebels were ready to sacrifice their life for independence , not even with a flinch to the Japanese death squads who were aiming their rifles to them.

Another soldier said,

"Sir , I think diplomacy is absolutely different from military as the first always attempts to find the best of peaceful solutions - the dovish. But I used to hear long time ago that humans are innately violent , so could diplomacy be just a subterfuge of humans to hide their aggressions and outmanoeuvre their enemies ?

Hideyoshi nodded.

" This is also my presumption which has been justified by numerous circumstances especially when regimes decide to do so , but this idea is still flawed. While working as the attaché in Europe , I was exposed to the opposing idea which also sounded reasonable like pacifism. They think human nature is fundamentally peace-loving and prefer diplomacy to war. From the past until today numerous wars have been really prevented , de-escalated or even ended by diplomacy before the conflicting parties can shake hands with genuine friendship in the end. In their point of view , all of you should be grateful for those diplomats who manage to save your life from the senseless wars .”

The same soldier interrupted,

"Sir, are you going to imply that this war to liberate all Asia from the dominations of the West is senseless?"

Hideyoshi felts a little dizzy , scolding himself for saying such a thing when those words were probably deemed anti-war which was currently illegal in Japan or even here.

He thus said,

" Don’t get me wrong ! I'm just offering you a different idea for the discussions with freedom of thinking which is quite rare in the military. Even though it looks so lofty , diplomacy still has the shortcomings : negotiations as the important tool of the diplomats probably look like frivolous chit-chats which need too much time and patience and are many times full of lies and betrayals. Besides, like I just say , if the leaders think the war is inevitable or determine to start the war ,  diplomacy only delays or even complicates the war.”

He paused and made his voice more solemn.

“ I come to think that human nature whether aggressive or peaceful should be only the boring talks between the philosophers who live in an ivory tower or the persons who like to hear only the words from themselves (the soldiers laughed) . But in my opinion, nation is the ultimate reality for us thus , our war in China or elsewhere in the future has the noble purpose : elevating our nation to one of the greatest nations in the world which diplomacy alone can't bestow upon us. As the nation once mercilessly pushed around by China and the West *, it’s time for us to leave those centuries of humiliation behind. And we the soldiers are ready to shed our blood and sacrifice our life for that and ultimately, for the glory of our revered emperor ! "

Everybody in the hall applauded and cheered loudly like the good soldiers who had the good reasons to be the killing machines in battles although Hideyoshi knew he was inciting them with the militaristic and nationalistic ideas that he did not fully believe in , especially when thinking about the words of Debbie that night and kept this kind of hypocrisy to himself. He did not know how many Japanese were facing this conundrum like him. But while the man was walking past those soldiers to leave the hall , they excitedly vied for his autographs like he was a superstar.

* [China during the Yuan Dynasty used to launch the invasions of Japan in the 13th century but failed and the US forced Japan to open ports to American trade via the gunboat diplomacy during mid-19th century.]

In the afternoon, Hideyoshi found the new amusement like playing Judo with the young soldiers and practicing shooting rifle made him feel like coming home although the last time he shot was at the chest of the guy who was the leader of a rebel group in Korea. A valet was sent by Puyi to come for him and asked why he had not visited the emperor for a week. He just shrugged and said that he was still busy , knowing that Doihara would not pressurize him any longer because the Lawrence of Manchuria had already got what he wanted. He out of the blue had the big goosebumps - what would be like if Puyi visited him by himself and begged on his knees to do something so creepy like living with him in the palace while they were being watched by those soldiers ?

The headline of all of the newspapers in Manchukuo in the future would probably be like:

' Japanese Soldier Gone Berserk and Punches Emperor Puyi's Face in Army Camp.'

But the person who came for Hideyoshi at his house and literally begged on her knees to implore him to be with her again was Tominaga who felt that he abandoned her. This happened after he had heard a rumour about her whirlwind romance with a new guy which tragically ended so soon and now she could not find someone else. The man pitied himself for standing in middle of the 2 lonely and hopeless persons like a thug of war and all at once had the satori (the enlightenment) that he could use Tominaga as a pretext to shun Puyi who had not previously known about their relationship , Doihara probably intended to deter him from this. Hideyoshi assumed that she might even help him flee Manchukuo as his fiancée although she used to tell him that she was bored with living in Japan. He comforted himself that this was not a deception , but a retribution as she caused the serious problem by not disclosing to him about this kind of Puyi’s nature resulting in their breakup in the first place.

Hideyoshi eventually decided to be ostentatiously reconciled with her even though he could not help imagining suffering the endless hedonism with her and her friends day in and day out . He remembered that she used to promise him to gradually stop this kind of life but recently learnt from one of her friends that she had done this countless times to her father. Her recalcitrance was notorious among the socialites in Changchun , full of rebellious sons and daughters of the wealthy or the powerful fathers.

To beguile her , Hideyoshi laid his hands on both Tominaga's shoulders for the first time and said,

" Sweetie-pie, don't worry, I'll never abandon you again. To confess , I feel guilty of having done that without much care and hurt you terribly for a long time. We from now on will be an inseparable couple until the world stops spinning."

The young woman tearfully smiled and embraced him. Both kissed sweetly while he was titillated to feel her tongue wriggling in his mouth including the warmth from her soft body. Suddenly, the man heard the surprising sound of applause and cheers from her friends who had just hid themselves behind the bushes like this was a peep show. They urged him to go with them to a new restaurant which was just opened today. In his imagination he told them that he had to give a lecture to the soldiers in class until the late night and his schedule on tomorrow was still tight. But in reality he had to gladly go with them , drinking countless bottles of beer and wine but he still sobered thanks to the practices since he was a youngster. But he could not control his desire when Tominaga's naughty hands kept fondling his chest and below while she was nestling her body against him for a long time in the dark corner of a little pub.

Hideyoshi woke up In the middle of the night and saw Tominaga sleeping beside on the bed. Here was her opulent bedroom and she lived in the house separate from her domineering father. The man stared at the mirror ,wondering whose image before him was. He had lied over and over again until he began to get confused about who he really was. Instead of being the gallant soldier who clung to the truth like an indispensable part of his body, he became the pathological liar just to save himself from the people around him. How could he do anything else when he was too concerned about the future of his career ?  He was dead tired , toying with the idea of quitting this job and became the sleazy businessman like his family's anticipation but the tireless pursuit of money might make him feel like being trapped like this or even worse. He reminisced out of the blue about his life in that temple almost 2 decades ago and longed to have a time machine like in the novel by Jules Verne. 

                                         6

When the sunlight touched the morning dews , Hideyoshi decided to go back to the military base. And while walking near the stadium in the late morning, he saw the chubby middle-aged man in white T-shirt and military pants walk erratically and sometimes wave his hands randomly on the field not far from him. The major suddenly knew that he was getting drunk while still on duty and this was seriously violating the army's discipline which could land him in jail for a week or more. Hideyoshi ,nonetheless, realized that he himself was just the guest who was ready to leave here ASAP , so he aimed to let this slide , but that sergeant suddenly collapsed while a hip flask from his hand flew off to the ground. The major attempted to lift him up and carry him with difficulty to the wooden building nearby while cringing a bit at the body which was strongly reeking of alcohol.

Another guy in sergeant uniform all of a sudden walked by and stared at them before bursting into laughter and shouted

" What a pathetic Old Koji  ! "

He then politely introduced himself to Hideyoshi that he was the drunken man’s fellow before carrying him instead. He told the major that he would take him to the bookstore where his child was working in - much nearer than his house. Hideyoshi was about to go away but some hunch descended on his mind.

" Are you OK that I will accompany you to that bookstore ? Quite strange that there's a place like this in the military base."

The sergeant chortled.

" I’ll be glad if you come , sir. Yes , even I myself think that it’s bizarre. The bookstore belongs to a colonel who has the strange idea that books are important to our army more than rifles or Katana [Japanese sword] . I think it sounds awesome but can’t calculate how many books we have to hit or throw at the enemies so we can achieve the victory in each battle.”

Both roared with laughter, but Hideyoshi appreciated how profound that colonel’s idea was. Books provided human beings the precious knowledge and insights which could earn them the victories even without a single war. The major , however, felt baffled to see that guy who was much shorter than him could carry the unconscious fat man adroitly and did not even pant a bit.

Hideyoshi said,

"I think this is not the first time he gets drunk during working hours, and you carry him , right , Sergeant ? So , why isn't he punished or ordered to treat his alcoholism yet ?"

The sergeant was mute like he did not want to reply but then said meekly,

"Perhaps Sergeant Koji has worked here for a long long time and everyone even his superiors don’t dare mess with him out of respect , sir. On top of that , he's about to retire in the coming months."

As a bookworm , Hideyoshi was not impressed to find that in this sin city the bookstores were quite elusive as they were sometimes tucked away in the ramshackle dirty alleys, but his destination was conspicuous. It was a one-story wooden building situated not far from the club for military officers where Doihara’s aide-de- camp used to take him to for some drinks in the nights but funny that he had never noticed it.

The employee of the store exclaimed but not so loudly and ran out of the shop to see them. Hideyoshi realized that the hunch just descending on his mind was probably a part of heaven's plan when that employee was the girl in chef uniform whose appearance each time made his heart flutter. Now she was in Yukata which made her far more attractive, and her sleek hair was gracefully tied up to flaunt her pretty face and doe eyes. She rushed in panic to help the sergeant carry the old man while profusely showing gratitude to him. Her father was taken to the room behind the shop before both of them would come out and the sergeant directed his hand toward Hideyoshi to let her know that he was also her father’s helper. The girl was perplexed to see him and thanked him profusely too.   

The middle-aged man smilingly bade farewell to both of them before leaving. Hideyoshi walked slowly toward the girl who was standing with a stoop , clasping her hands in front and smiling to him. He felt like being helplessly drawn to her like she was the mystic magnet.

“Sir, thank you so much for helping my old father and fancy meeting you here. I think I’m not mistaken that this is the 3rd time we meet , correct ?”

The girl said gently with the smile which Hideyoshi thought was the most captivating he had ever seen since arriving in Manchukuo.

He said,

“ You bet ! The 2nd time we met was at that night club a few weeks ago but it’s beyond even my wild imagination that you’re here just not more than 1 kilometre from my house and I guess your house is not far from here too , right ?”

She said,

“ Yes , sir and I know that already because the gossip news across the city once mentioned roughly where your lodging is. Still , many times I wonder whether I will come across you again - either here or at that nightclub. Many nights when I see your… girlfriend and her friends hang around without you at the parking lot after the nightclub ’s closed, I wonder what’s wrong with you or if you’ve already gone somewhere else."

He felt so delighted that he was always on her mind and wanted to say that Tominaga was only his so-called girlfriend or at least not like the public impression , but he instead politely beseeched the girl to help him tour around the bookstore. He said he loved books at least to touch and browse through them although it was his bad habit that he would always buy loads of books just to leave them undisturbed on the shelves for months or years. The girl giggled and when was asked about her name and life , she said it was ‘Natsumi’ 夏美 which meant summer, and her hometown was Nara , the beautiful ancient city,  but thanks to her mother’s death years ago , she had to drop out of high school to flee the poverty to live with her father here. Her daily routine amazed Hideyoshi :  beginning with working with the bookstore between late morning and 4 o’clock in the afternoon before returning home to do the house chores and take care of her father while preparing to work at that nightclub again – what a working girl !

And when Natsumi adeptly introduced several books from a huge pile to him.  Actually , he had already known almost all about them but just wanted to hear her voice and gawked at her face.

“You’re only 21 but why do you know so many things ? "

Hideyoshi exclaimed and she gave him a bashful smile and nodded.

“Perhaps I’m also a bookworm although I’m not so erudite like you. I always spend the lonely afternoon -since not many customers visit my store - reading and reading , sir. By the way , some privates who visited the store said that they're impressed with your lectures which are profound but lively, and it’s my immense honour to be talking to you face to face like this.”

Hideyoshi wondered whether those guys had ever attempted to hit on her or one of them even was her boyfriend and this would break his heart but with his skill of inquiry , he learnt that she had no one and unwittingly breathed a sigh of relief. The major heard her giggling as if she knew about this.

Unexpectedly , the girl asked him a strange question which nobody ever asked him.

“Sir , I don’t know whether this is polite or not , but may I ask : what’s the most impressive experience in your life ?”

The man wanted to say straightforwardly that talking to her like this was his one- of- a kind pleasant experience but then changed his mind.

“Natsumi, do you believe that I once longed so much to be a monk when I was a teenager ?”

She was mystified.     

“Really ? The man from the wealthy family like you ? Can’t imagine that !”

He chuckled.

“I used to spend some time as the worker at an old temple in the countryside quite far from Tokyo. The people there – the abbot , the senior monk and the temple boys who were much younger than me - were utterly cordial , but I enjoyed immensely the natural sceneries around it – the idyllic 4 seasons which evoked endless imaginations and life contemplations.”

The girl seemed to reminisce about something.

“Please wait !"

She rushed to grab a book from the shelf tucked away behind all shelves. It was about Zen Buddhism and its art with the beautiful pictures of paintings and the natural landscapes , though it was a shame that they were all black and white. He noticed that while opening page by page on the table , she looked genuinely exhilarated.

The girl said,

“When I was young , my mother and grandmother always took me to the temple in the village to attend the religious ceremonies. It was not ceremonies that overwhelmed me but the temple’s scenery just like you , sir. I always spent an ample time walking and taking care of the beautiful flowers near the chapel. Even though our temples and villages were not the same one , I’m certain that they bore a resemblance to one another.”

She then pointed her finger at the picture

“ Look at the cherry blossom in the spring ! Can you imagine its petals falling and drifting in the wind ? I was once electrified to see that – so wonderful ! And here’s the picture of lovely pound in the garden ! ”

Before Hideyoshi would say anything , Natsumi said like she was reading poem,

古池や蛙飛び込む水の音

ふるいけやかわずとびこむみずのおと

Old pond

frog leaps in

water's sound

The man was so thrilled that he almost stammered,

“It’s haiku from B…Basho * isn’t it ? And you’re citing it ….without the book ! How smart girl you are !”

[* haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan and Matsuo Bashō was the most renowned poet of haiku who lived during the 17th century.]

She smiled coyly.

“Sir, I’m so flattered ! I’m not so lofty as I simply fall in love with this kind of poem because my grandmother always taught me when I was young and it always soothes me whenever I face the problems – the peace of mind which looks so worthy to me."

Hideyoshi said,

きらめきが

風に砕かれ

凍る月

Glittering flakes:

The wind is breaking

Frozen moonlight.

Natsumi giggled while closing her mouth with the hand.

“Sir, you know Basho too ! Would you please forgive me if I ask why you became the soldier instead of the monk ?”

Hideyoshi was dumbfounded as Kenzo’s severed head hovering in the air popped up on his mind. He said,

“Ah …. That I can’t tell you exactly what befell me but let me tell you this way : Eventually, I decided not to be the monk but the temple’s humble worker whose ultimate aim was the soul-searching. But one day a bad guy harmed my beloved ones, and I took revenge on him so violently to the extent that I could not walk the same path again. I back then thought that humans were prone to be violent and becoming the soldier would possibly give me the answer to life.”

The girl seemed to be utterly immersing herself in his story and asked gently,

“And have you found that , sir ?”

Hideyoshi reminisced about a sizzling summer day in Korea when he and his men were ordered to reinforce another unit at the village nearby. But when arriving there , Hideyoshi was horrified to see the piles of the bloody corpses of Korean villagers – men , women , old people and even babies - on the ground near the burning huts . He stared at the unit commander who was standing before those corpses like he was relishing his masterpiece. That guy was quite convivial and had a good sense of humour which never failed to crack up every colleague whenever they were in the party. Hideyoshi knew that he wanted to show off this to the fellows in another unit but now he was displaying his true colours – the mass murderer in the guise of soldier !

The man said quietly like he was muttering to himself.

“There’s nothing in wars , Natsumi. The persons I had worked with weren’t human anymore but the evils roaming the earth - the evils who assumed they were the angels by parroting such lofty ideas like the grandeur of nation and ruler while painstakingly depriving the innocent of their lives and soon I found myself swallowed by them and became the evil too.”

Natsumi noticed that the conversation began to be too serious and immediately changed the topic.

“Sir, your piano performance that night was marvellous indeed ! I could feel the heart and soul manifested from your song even though I didn’t know it at all, but it got me spellbound like I was in the reverie.  By the way, you told me that its composer was the Polish who lived a century ago , right ?”

Hideyoshi said,

“ You’ve a good memory ! What a pity that you missed my first song which was played while I was thinking about my sister who killed herself long time ago and she used to play violin while I was playing piano as a duo. It’s such a warm memory but it’s bitter and painful like your soul has been gnawed at the same time.”

Natsumi looked saddened.

“I’m so sorry to hear that. She must have been quite young at the time of her passing.”

The man felt that he was about to dissolve into tears.

“ Thank you ……. She was then only 2 or 3 years  younger than you. And your eyes and your voice remind me of her as they’re so divine. I always say a prayer to the deities (if happened to really exist) that someday she will be brought back to me and today I’m so grateful for them that she’s here within you !”

The girl blushed.

“ I don’t think I deserve this kind of praise , sir. Your little sister must dwell in heaven by now as she was a good and gentle person. But how come you said that you become the devil when I can feel that your soul’s so delicate and exalted ?”

Hideyoshi smiled and promptly changed the topic. He was ecstatic to hear that but wondered whether she would change her mind when they became more familiar to one another.

The more their conversation went on , the more the major felt strange. It was like several centuries that he had desperately tried to find a kindred spirit  ,  even Clara was not his answer,  but he finally found this girl who was 17 years younger than him and whose family background was utterly different from his. And now she was looking right into his soul , contrary to everyone in this city who had behaved like they were daydreaming all the time about themselves and treated him like a colourful toy. He did not dare call it her precociousness, but she looked more mature even more than Tominaga and her friends. She’s the one !

The major heard the voice of the old sergeant from behind. Koji just woke up and walked to interrupt their conversation while yawning with the open mouth. Natsumi told him about the whole story, but the old man complimented the major in the way which sounded like Hideyoshi alone had carried him here. The old man bowed his head over and over again to show his gratitude while Hideyoshi amusingly thought the best way for him was to wake up much later like another day or the next month !!

After the farewell , the major walked slowly back to his house and turned around from time to time to see Natsumi and her father stand and nod to him. He smiled at her, and she returned to him with the one implying how she deeply admired him or more. Hideyoshi calculated the time of their conversation was 2 hours 24 minutes and 53 seconds which was quite a short period , a little more than the time of his lectures to the soldiers in class but it was the priceless one inebriating him with its tensity and passion which he felt with that girl . It was the first time in his life , even a year with Clara could not contend with. This night he was supposed to come back to Tominaga, but he chose to sleep at his house instead , so he could have a sweet dream about Natsumi all night.

From now on Hideyoshi became a total scoundrel when he was with a woman but was enamoured with another. He always used the pretext of lecturing the soldiers at the main building but sneaked to that bookstore to have a long, intoxicating conversation with Natsumi but when there were the customers around , the major would act like an employee himself and introduced the books to them, making her smile from ear to ear. Sometimes she would make the delectable Onigiri or Yakitori for him as his pay and kept watching him eat it with contentment. The girl told him that she successfully became the assistant chef by learning to cook by herself and persevered with practicing until she was accepted into the kitchen of that nightclub which was full of male chefs and assistants – the male-dominated sector indeed.

And Hideyoshi now realized he was facing another dilemma : if he managed to flee Manchukuo , he would never meet Natsumi again which was unbearable for him , but if he stayed here, he had to deal with Tominaga and Emperor Puyi. Doihara’s aide-de-camp one day told him that the emperor had thrown a tantrum in front of the general by accusing Hideyoshi of being a fraudster [the modern word is ‘Romance scammer’] supported by the nefarious Japanese government and went back on his early promise. He furiously opined that there was no written document confirming that he would give up all power to those pro-Japanese upper echelons and Doihara was absolutely surprised as he always thought that Puyi was a pushover. Hideyoshi told Doihara’s aide-de-camp about all Puyi’s story  as he believed that the lieutenant did not know about this scheme of Doihara and asked for his pay as 2 barrels of beer. Both laughed but the major wondered why the general did not blackmail the emperor in the first place. The lieutenant , however, did not know this and could not tell him how Doihara would solve this crisis either. Hideyoshi chuckled and then laughed aloud.

The same night club

Tonight, the group of party girls welcomed an American friend who just flew straight from New York city. The guy named Richard Cunningfort , the writer, was surprised to learn that Hideyoshi used to spend some months in this city and Washington DC and highly was absorbed in the American culture , especially the Jazz apart from classical music, and also knew the American politics well. When the conversation became about the world politics , everyone on the table hoped for the de-escalation of tension between 2 countries when President Franklin D. Roosevelt threatened to freeze all Japanese assets in the US which would immediately cripple Japan's ability to conduct trade in the hope of stopping Japanese military aggression and expansion in Asia. Richard then asked Hideyoshi about his opinion.

The major said,

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t work, Mr. Cunningfort , even if the president really does like the threat. The Japanese government knows so well via its intelligence that there’re abundant natural resources like oils and rubbers in the countries below China [Southeast Asia] like Siam , Malaysia and Brunei which can compensate for a series of American boycotts. There’s a high possibility of invasions of those countries by the Japanese army and the war between the Japan and the US is seemingly inevitable this year or probably the next year at most.

[At that time the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor of the US in December 1941 was not even conceived of yet].”

While everyone on the table was dumbfounded, Hideyoshi thought about Natsumi. If World War 2 really broke out in the future and the world dwellers were all going to perish , he would be contented to spend the last hours with her. He toyed with the idea of making a surprise visit at her kitchen but feared that it would embarrass her. And what was she doing now ? In his imagination the girl was probably extremely busy preparing and cooking food. The large hectic kitchen was full of the boisterous talks between the workers who kept moving all the time , the unbearable heat from the raging fire around the pans on the stoves and the colourful materials prepared for cooking scattering around the tables with the pungent smell. The nightclub was going to be closed now and the show of tonight had made his life less miserable when that wizened drag queen and his troupe were replaced by the magic show. Above all, he was glad that he would meet Natsumi while she was going to get on the bus.

2.00 AM

Hideyoshi stood alone near the dim-lit walkway beside the parking lot but then a group of his friends sneaked up on him from behind. Even though he looked suspicious, Debbie said laughingly,

“Major, Mr. Cunningfort is dying to know whether you and Tanya are really a sweet couple of lovers, and you should get rid of this silly doubt by showing him right now !”

Hideyoshi was stunned and before he would do anything , Tominaga took a quick step to get close to him , grabbing his face for a long and passionate French kiss while the people around them were clapping and cheering unconcerned by the other late-night revellers nearby who were all staring at them. The kiss had finished before Hideyoshi could pull himself together and looked right at the crowd of workers walking in a hurry to the bus. Natsumi was there, nodding to him a little but with the sulky face and shook her head after she had turned away. The girl quietly disappeared in the dark with her waitress friend.

7

The same nightclub , 2 nights later

All the staff in the kitchen were utterly surprised , totally stopping doing their duties and staring at Hideyoshi. The aging chef was still holding the ladle above the steamy soup in the pot and gasping in astonishment to see such a guy who did not fit this dirty and crowded kitchen at all and the way he was majestically holding a large colourful bouquet to stand before Assistant Chef Natsumi even astounded them. But a young lad was impertinent enough to whistle loudly, and the brouhahas ensued.

Hideyoshi firstly thought about kneeling down on one knee in front of Natsumi but feared that the girl would deem it excessively sensational and it was also a gesture of proposal whereas he wanted just her to stop getting mad at him. The major had lately been like a cat on a hot thin roof , visiting Natsumi at the bookstore countless times but only met the colonel's wife, the store owner,  who said that the girl was on leave to take care of her ill father , which he assumed was an alibi. Hideyoshi also feared that if he visited her at her house , the father who admired him blindly would coerce her into reconciling with him even though she was not ready , exacerbating their relationship. He therefore resorted to the peer pressure at her workplace which was still a risk but it was a strategy. The girl did not dare humiliate him by bluntly rejecting him as doing so with the guy in suit who looked so determined would make her look so cruel to her colleagues. But Natsumi was headstrong , so this plan might backfire, and he must accept his fate in stride.

The girl was more dumbfounded than anybody  , flushing and dropping the knife on the chopping board while she was standing still opposite to him. The major said nothing but slowly proffered her the bouquet and everyone said aloud repeatedly in unison " Yes , Yes , Yes !!!" like he was proposing her. Natsumi still did not receive the bouquet, making Hideyoshi feel aghast but when looking into her eyes,  he knew the answer. A female chef whose patience had already run out grunted and forcefully grabbed the girl's hand to receive those colourful flowers while Natsumi did not resist at all. The kitchen then resounded with hurrahs and laughter like some sort of rare entertainment for them during busy monotonous work , full of smoke and strong smells of various food with a little fresh air in the cramped room almost suffocating them to death 6 or 7 hours a day.

Several hours later Hideyoshi also succeeded in wooing Natsumi to go with him in the car he borrowed from Doihara's aide-de-camp before she would get on the bus to go home. The major felt that the lieutenant was his good friend regardless of the fact that the latter secretly carried a vendetta against his ill-tempered and pedantic boss who kept pushing him around. No wonder the middle-aged guy tried to sabotage Doihara at every chance he had by helping Hideyoshi even to the extent that he hardly imagined.

The girl was reluctant but then caved in to his pestering, also persuaded by her waitress friend who also waved her hand to him before separating from them. He was relieved that Natsumi still kept his bouquet with her although she hid it inside the large tote bag not to make her the object of ridicule.  Hideyoshi's car was pulled over on the quite dark spot which overlooked the spectacular view of Changchun at night. Natsumi told him that she did not resent him at all when it was widely accepted about who his real girlfriend was and wondered why he assumed too much about her so-called fragile state of mind when he and she were just the friends. The major was stunned a bit and told her bluntly that regardless of what she thought about him , he did not deem her only a friend but someone with special relationship which he won’t let that embarrassing type of kiss from Manchukuo’s princess turn into an utter shambles. But Natsumi scoffed and said that he was quite a cunning womanizer. He finally told everything about his ordeal.

" I'm just a pawn in the political game between General Doihara and Emperor Puyi,"

He said and expected to see her flummoxing , but she was still emotionless, or she probably did not understand what the word ' pawn' meant as she was still young ?

Natsumai said in quivering voice,

"And I'm just a pawn in the amorous game between you and Ms. Tominaga , right ?"

Hideyoshi was startled,

"Ms. Assistant Chef, we need to clarify the word 'pawn' first ! If you're my pawn , it means you will be disposed of when you can't no longer serve my purpose and all these experiences we had previously shared together will be nothing but my top-notch performance and you're my prey. Please rest assured that you greatly help me escape those domineering and narcissistic people. You're a serene sanctuary for my soul while I'm doing my time in this sin city. Natsumi-chan,  for me , you're the good companion,  my best companion I've ever found here and probably in my entire life and anything between you and me is real , ultimately real , including my feelings or my affections for you. The consequence of such an infidelity is only for me to incur."

In spite of darkness ,  he believed that he saw her blushing and the girl muttered like her voice was from afar.

" You're so sweet ! Sir , I'm terribly scared of you about this, and I'm now confused , incapable of telling the difference between truth and lies from your mouth !  I try to understand what the real political scheme drives you to be romantically involved with such a girl who is much higher than me and who perfectly suits you. And that's because Emperor Puyi feels attracted to you , really ?  I'm still at my wits' end but how can I do anything else , when you're like holding me captive like this ? Major, every now and then my conviction , ludicrous as it seems , tells me that we're destined for each other. Do you remember the night we first met ? It was unbelievable that I as the employee of this nightclub for years and have a good sense of direction , would be lost while returning back from the storage room and strayed to that room with the piano which was very far from my way.  I then heard your music and at first intended to listen to it for a while but something , perhaps that song's mellifluousness captured my soul and forced me to walk into that room as if I were its puppet."

Hideyoshi grinned.

" I too believe it's our destiny to meet one another at last , especially when I had a clear vision of you one night on that bus and you were then so gorgeous though you looked sweaty and so tired. It was like a revelation or maybe the connection of our minds, not a delusion at all. Now I want you to believe in me : all I've done are straight from my heart : the sincerity which is burning like the eternal fire."

Natsumi grimaced childishly. Hideyoshi knew that it was just her pretension and cute , so he slowly grabbed her right hand without her resistance and stared into her eyes and it looked like both of them were hypnotizing one another. He slowly inclined his head to kiss her, but she turned away and merely rested her head on his shoulder instead. He could hear her breathing and smell the fragrance from her soft hair while both were watching the nocturnal view. The major believed that they could sit in the position like this all night or forever and when 10 minutes had passed he smiled seeing her doze off like a child and felt that the weather around them was increasingly freezing.  He quietly took off his overcoat and spread it to cover her like a blanket.

The Changchun theatre , 2 nights later

The film was not available tonight when the show from Austria replaced it for days as a token of good will from the Austrians despite being under the Nazi regime. Although Emperor Puyi himself presided over its premiere along with all dignitaries in Manchukuo,  in the second night the people did not attend the show much as the weather was quite cold and that show was not in their taste at all.  But if someone became the audience tonight and had a keen eye , they would probably see a tall guy with sunglasses , pork pie hat holding hands with a girl in quite shabby overcoat- contrary to his, hastily get out of the Taxi. They at the incredible speed bought the tickets and laughingly rushed into the theatre like it was a game.

Despite its levity, it was from Hideyoshi's seriousness that he was not supposed to be seen by anyone in the world ,especially the press, realizing that his face was so familiar to the public - the future son-in-law of Doihara. Doihara's aide-de-camp also recently told him that the reason Emperor Puyi became furious and reneged on his promise to Doihara was that he saw the pictures of Tominaga and Hideyoshi snuggling and the latter kissing the first in the park. They did not know who sent those to the emperor, but it was revealed much later that Puyi secretly had his own men who were used to spy on the Japanese. The emperor vindicated himself that he was neither naive nor foolish. The major was aware that everything in this kingdom was like a calm river but down below were the fatal whirlpools.

Tonight Hideyoshi , moreover, lied to Tominaga that he was ordered to join the military drill tonight even though she had shown the frustration that he did not honour his promise to stick together all the time. Was this adultery ?  He did not know since he did not still get married to her yet, but it was certainly the infidelity like he said to Natsumi. He however managed to comfort his troubled conscience with the opinion that he had killed a lot of people in battles and that was the grave sin , so why did he worry about just this kind of vice ? Suddenly, he strongly desired to yell out like a declaration to everyone here that now he was with the woman he truly loved, but he did not know what would happen next - cowardly like always. The major then was amused to see Natsumi trembling with excitement and keeping looking around all the time as it was the sumptuous place where she just used to pass by on the tram numerous times. It was such a brand new experience for the poor young woman who did not have enough time and money to watch films or other types of entertainment and then Natsumi was quite shocked to learn that their tickets were unbearably expensive as it was for the seats in the box which was the secluded part of the theatre.

In the box the girl grumbled that the brochure for the show tonight was in the foreign languages : English and German and handed it to Hideyoshi , but he said even before reading it ,

"This music for the show tonight was written by one of the most renowned music composers of the world - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , the Viennese who lived about 2 centuries ago. He used to be a child prodigy who could play piano at the age of 3 and compose the first piece of music when he was only 5. But he died tragically in his mid-30s leaving about several hundred pieces of music to the world. And the one we're going to watch was one of his greatest operas - The Marriage of Figaro."

Natsumi was astounded.

"Sir, why are you so well-read ? It’s like you told me about the guy named Chopin that night."

He chuckled.

" I know quite a lot about classical music, but it is ironic that I liked to watch operas tremendously by visiting the opera theatres almost every weekend in Germany but didn’t know much about its history. Reading a book in Changchun Library while searching for the priceless information like I told you however helped me a lot about this. By the way , I think It’s like the auspice that I've longed to watch this masterpiece for ages, and it out of the blue arrives at the unlikely place like Changchun while I'm with you , so it's without doubt a blessing from heaven."

"How sweet you are again !"

She giggled while caressing his cheek. Hideyoshi was amazed at how fast she had treated him in intimacy but how could he do anything when he loved her just the way she was ? And it was now ironic that the major should have been engrossed in the opera like his longtime desire, but he kept watching Natsumi instead. Contrary to Tominaga , Natsumi wore the thin makeup and not at all while she was working in the kitchen , but she was still irresistibly pretty.  He slowly fondled her white neck and sometimes kissed her cheeks which were already rosy from the cold weather , so it became redder from shyness. There were many times the girl laughed uncontrollably at the opera although she couldn't understand it much since its lyrics and dialogues were all in Italian. Hideyoshi nonetheless had already briefed her on its synopsis, and it was the comic opera with many slapsticks.

The synopsis of the opera : the philandering count tried to seduce Susanna, one of his servants, who was going to marry Figaro , the count's another servant. As a sharp-witted guy , Figaro planned to prevent his boss from doing this in collaboration with the count's jealous wife. But something unexpected happened, so the opera became extremely hilarious.

Once Hideyoshi squeezed Natsumi's soft hand with empathy when the girl told him that this was the second kind of play she had ever seen in her life , and the first one was dengaku (田楽) performed by villagers during rice planting season in her hometown. While the opera was on the verge of ending with all the singers on the stage joining the tear-jerking impressive chorus , Natsumi smilingly stared into Hideyoshi's eyes while embracing his arm tightly like showing the gratitude for giving her the wonderful night - the first and only night she was on leave from that nightclub in years. They at last found the rapture in each other's eyes and arms and kissed sweetly not caring about the applause from the audience below them for the opera singers.

.................................................................

The couple making Hideyoshi a surprise visit at his house in the early morning even before he woke up was his uncle and his wife flying straight from Tokyo. Regarding that they were not much older than Hideyoshi , they became like his older brother and sister or mentors who understood him so well , so whenever Hideyoshi had some problems with his parents , both husband and wife would step up as the good intermediaries and gave them the good advice. And now they were quite surprised why he had not been sleeping at Tominaga’s house like the sweet couple of lovers. The news about their romance and courtship had reached Japan for a long time already. The major wondered why his mother who had recently called him several times did not say a word about it.

" I had to join the army's night drills for 5 consecutive nights , Uncle and Auntie. Besides , it's still inappropriate for a man and a woman to stay together when they're not married yet."

He admired himself for finding the excuse quickly despite his drowsiness, but his dishevelled hair amused the couple.

His auntie , Asumi , said,

" We're in the new Japan now. Are you still worried about this kind of thing which we should let it wither away with those bygone eras ?"

She then rushed past the house's door to grab his broad shoulder and loosely embraced him.

"Look at your nephew , Naoyuki ! He's now quite lean , thinner than the last time we met. You must have strenuously thrown yourself into your job, Hide. But I feel sorry for you as you had been in Europe for long but was ordered to languish in this backward and dirty country full of barbaric people of Shinas*, crawling around like cockroaches and the food here must be so awful , I guess."

[*derogatory name for China]

Hideyoshi gave them the wry smile and said,

"What brings both of you here ?"

Kaito laughed.

"Must I have something ,so I can visit you , my dear nephew? You are so mean not to write me even a single letter lately !"

When his nephew sincerely apologized , he went on,

"That's alright,  I'm just teasing you, haha!  Your mother told us to see how you have been and tell you to be ready for the party tonight at Doihara's private ranch which I guess was quite far from here."

The major raised his eyebrows.

"Party ? What party tonight?"

His uncle pointed his finger at him and moved it around.

"You must wear your handsome uniform as General Doihara whom I talked to via telephone last night and other top brass of Kwangtung army will join this party to gush about how consequential our conglomerate is to the economy of this kingdom and the army. Still, there's another important topic which is utterly confidential ,but I must warn you : brace yourself with thrill for something so important."

His wife laughingly interrupted.

"Don't make your face like that , Major. They won't bring you to the scaffold for execution !"

Hideyoshi pretended to grin and desperately beseeched his uncle and his wife who was giggling to give him the answer but found only the silence while their mysterious eyes and smiles were so sparkling that it caused his panic.

…………………………………….

Doihara’s ranch was the compelling evidence showing how the high-ranking government officials of the modern Japan ,especially in the military, could abuse their powers and ranks in this de facto colony for their own benefits. It was such a vast greenery area replete with the sprawling modern facilities and the stables to house the best horse breeds ever found in either China or Japan. The party was outdoor as if the general wanted to flaunt his wealth to the guests like Hideyoshi’s uncle and his wife,  including the Manchukuo's  government’s upper-echelons (except Puyi and his Chinese ministers) and military brass. It was humiliatingly ironic that the guests here were all the Japanese entertaining themselves in the place that actually belonged to the Manchu or the Chinese who were merely the humble waiters walking around the party with the trays of drinks. Although fortunately, this party did not have the sign like ' No dogs and Chinese allowed' like some foreign concessions in China , the Chinese rebels , fuelled by nationalism,  had incessantly sprung up in Manchukuo and its vicinity even though Doihara ruthlessly suppressed them with all kinds of violence.

The major thought that if he begged his uncle who was the CEO of the powerful conglomerate to negotiate with the general and in a heartbeat he would be sent back to Japan or elsewhere although Tominaga resisted , but he was too ashamed to do so because he would be like a crybaby and even now he could not do anything while obsessing over Natsumi and their future together. He toyed with the idea about asking her to go back to Japan together, but she had to stay with her father, and he could barely imagine what would happen when his family learned about what path his heart was walking , with the poor assistant chef who did not even finish studying in high school like her ? If this were several months ago, he never imagined that his life would be like the soap opera popular among the bored and lonely housewives.

This evening Tominaga’s sprightly group of friends were in the limelight of this party as usual. They were cheerfully boisterous as they were thrilled to see the beautiful horses running around their stable and busied being shot by the hired photographers with those creatures. They however seemed to know what would happen tonight by trying to stay away from Tominaga who kept holding Hideyoshi’s arm and walked around the party to chatter with the guests to show off her ownership of him , but she did not even bother to cast a glance at her boyfriend who was extremely bored and absent-minded , thinking about someone else. The major then was delighted after greeting Doihara’s aide-de-camp who joined this party with his wife and 2 sons. He envied the middle-aged man so much , wondering why other people's life seemed to be far less complicated than his ? Hideyoshi then heard some guests murmur that he and Tominaga were like a match made in heaven and attempted so hard not to roar with laughter but it was from anger.

General Doihara also walked around the party like his daughter - inebriated a bit- and declared to the guests that he was proud to present the food this evening, which was mainly barbecues like kebabs and sausages , cooked by the chefs hired from the best nightclub in the kingdom after it was closed only tonight by his order. Tominaga said that it was her advice as the scrumptiousness of its foods was indelible on her tongue. Hideyoshi was startled when hearing the nightclub’s name and glanced at those chefs who were busying grilling barbeques at the secluded section not far from him. And Natsumi was there among her colleagues ; she had recently been promoted to the chef.

8

10 minutes later , Hideyoshi was barely patient to excuse himself from the table where resounded with Tominaga and her friends' vibrant gossips and laughter. He said that he would bring some dishes from those chefs by himself, so the busy young woman simply nodded , not knowing that her boyfriend was lying to meet another woman right under her nose.  After mustering the courage to stand near the open air makeshift kitchen where the chefs were working at , the major could not help reminiscing about the book of a renowned Japanese philosopher narrating where the 2 worlds collided : the merry rich guests and the toiling poor workers like heaven and hell. But his goddess was there busy grilling barbecues -sweaty and extremely busy in her white suit but with several charcoal stains as usual.

Some chefs remembered him before their eyes and gestures would exhibit that they were in awe of him even more than that night thanks to his elegant military suit. The middle-aged chef nudged Natsumi to turn around but she surprised him with her little lukewarm smile before carrying on with her duty like he was a random guy. The major was upset but assumed that perhaps it was her defence mechanism : this party reminded her that he was absolutely out of her league and who his real girlfriend was. Hideyoshi therefore decided that he should not any longer embarrass her and vice versa by quietly receiving the 2 dishes of sausages from a chef and left after glancing at her shortly.

The table taken by Doihara and Hideyoshi's uncle and aunt was in the party's limelight. Doihara all the time chattered so loud like he was deliberately talking to all the guests in the party, and they always listened to him attentively and sometimes laughed at his jokes, except Tominaga and her friends who kept prattling like a flock of birds returning to nests. Her father thus attempted to shoosh them from time to time like he was dealing with the naughty children- so hilarious. But Hideyoshi was so perturbed by the boisterous general and understood why his aide-de-camp despised him so much. The major still wanted so badly to settle old score with this scheming old man and now at least in his imagination : he smashed a bottle against the general's head but in reality he just pretended to listen to him or begrudgingly smiled at his dirty jokes.

Despite being drunk , Doihara still incessantly curried favour with Hideyoshi's uncle who was quite younger than him. It was apparent that the general had the plan to woo his family's conglomerate to replace the companies which had been exploiting some natural resources of Manchukuo and it was known among the circle in Kwantung army that those companies declined the Lawrence of Manchukuo’s demand of increasing kickback. And Naoyuki seemed to show another side as a sleazy businessman - Hideyoshi had rarely seen - by playing along with the old man. If their negotiation succeeded , the CEO was promised that his companies would get the license to extend the surveys and excavations to the vast land in the north of Manchukuo which was shunned by other companies due to its cruel wilderness. Doihara proposed that the labourers would be all Chinese on a pretext of providing them jobs, but Hideyoshi knew that more than half of them would certainly die of diseases and other dangers in the jungle as the general could not risk being criticized for bringing his compatriots to die on foreign soil. Naoyuki agreed by opining that the Chinese were merely subhuman but it meant the conglomerate would pay less for those Chinese's salary and welfare which was almost tantamount to slave labour or even led to a series of massacres by nature. The general smiled as this implied that he at last would have the new patron who was more generous with kickback.

The major eventually gave up his previous belief that telling his family about Doihara's shameless exploitation of him would help him escape from here and he even doubted whether his family had been complicit in this all along for the mutual benefits.  Suddenly , Tominaga sitting not far from her father loudly asked him the question nobody had ever conceived of:

"Father , isn't this the systematic robbery of the Chinese ?  Those natural resources belong to them since the times of their ancestors and who are we to do that ?”

Everybody fell into awkward silence. Hideyoshi quietly chuckled as he knew that the person who had urged her to do this was Debbie. Doihara was dumbfounded a bit before saying bluntly,

"O , my beloved daughter. Thank you for such a gutsy question. You've just lived here not long enough to understand what China really is. Have you ever travelled or stepped outside Manchukuo ? Here's the land of the illiterate barbaric people , full of civil wars and strife. If we didn't get a hold of those natural resources , they would still fall into the wrong hands like the greedy warlords or bandits not the ordinary Chinese. It was beyond the doubt that we’ve done this for them and look how prosperous and developed Manchukuo is !  Think again : in the future with the emperor as our great helmsman , if we become one of the most affluent and mightiest countries in the world like those European countries we shall be like the brightest torch for our Asian fellows and liberate them from the Western imperialists. I can guarantee that this is the most profitable investment in the human history !  Someday the Chinese and other races would look at us with grateful tears and in haste recant the wrong beliefs that we're the ruthless invader and usurper. In a nutshell, our activities here are not robberies for sure!”

Naoyuki was the first one who loudly applauded while smiling from ear to ear, followed by his wife and everyone in the party until this became thunderous, ensued by several whistles. Hideyoshi observed the Chinese waiters who he wondered whether could fully comprehend what Doihara was talking about. They were just standing still and looked nonchalant like the professionals , but even if they understood Japanese well , did they have a chance to vent their grievance since even uttering a slight criticism of Japan would make them dragged into the scaffold for execution?  He moreover realized that the war was showing its hideous face : beneath the facade of the lofty ideologies like nationalism and militarism lied the irresistible benefits from crimes. In Germany the businessmen wholeheartedly supported Hitler to eradicate Jews , so they could plunder their money and properties after those Jews had been forced en masse to suffer in the concentration camps.

The general thought that was not enough and went on,

“Tomi-chan , you and your friends graduated from the US , didn't you ?  The US is a real villain as a large fraction of its wealth is from colonizing and exploiting many countries in Central and Latin America. Have you ever gone out in the street holding placards to protest its predatory foreign policies ? I really loathe how self-righteous President Roosevelt is when he has denounced our military campaigns in Asia."

Tominaga appeared to show her disagreement to her father and so did Debbie, but the 2 women immediately shut their mouths when drowned out by the laughter and the applause from the guests who agreed with Doihara that the United States was one of the most hypocritical nations on earth. Hideyoshi should have joined this bickering since he knew the US so well , but he let that slip out of his mind as he thought about Natsumi, wondering what she was doing right now apart from cooking as his seat was far from the makeshift kitchen. He hoped that she would have some time to rest.

Naoyuki said to Doihara when their conversation became more private,

"Your answer-turned- speech is utterly impressive indeed , General!  I want to arrest all the anti-war or the so-called pacifist bastards and force them into one room to listen to your awesome speaking like this all day. I thus have no doubt that they will repent and appreciate what the military has actually contributed to our country for many decades or even centuries. By the way,  I firstly supposed that Emperor Puyi was invited to join us here tonight and would be more than glad to talk with him about our business in this kingdom."

Doihara frowned.

"There's no need to do so, Naoyuki-san. He's some sort of rubbish figurehead now as everything is under our control. I’m at this moment the Japanese emperor of all people here except that I don't go through the coronation ceremony yet."

Naoyuki laughed.

"When the time of your ceremony comes , don't forget to invite me, Your Majesty, haha. Can’t imagine you wearing the new attire as the Manchukuo’s emperor and standing in the solemn ritual which has the peculiar style. Well,  I also heard that our government would invite Puyi to meet our emperor in Tokyo , right ?  And is it completely safe for their meeting ? Some rumours have swirled that he's eccentric and unstable."

Doihara nodded.

" Of course. The schedule of their meeting will approximately be at the end of June or the beginning of July this year. And some hearsay you just said is true. We too are afraid that Puyi's troublesome personality or ideas might disturb His Majesty. But we then learn that the Manchukuo emperor is currently made mellow and docile by our brilliant psychological tactics all the time he's lived in that palace - the one built by our money. Still,  without the ingenious investigation by your nephew , Major Sasaki Hideyoshi , such a satisfying result would never be revealed."

The Lawrence of Manchukuo said while casting a glance at Hideyoshi who was talking to one of Tominaga's friends at the near table. But the major could hear what Doihara was speaking and was baffled by what a pathological liar the old codger was. Suddenly , he quietly laughed at himself when realizing that he was not much different from him.

Asumi interrupted.

" He's a smart boy and we're proud of him so much ! We never regret pulling him out of battles in that backward peninsula as he deserves the brighter future than that."

Naoyuki nodded in agreement and said,

" By the way , my business partner in Tokyo told me that we're going to change the government soon. Is it possible ?"

Doihara said,

" You’re so well-informed , sir. This means you keep everything abreast all the time. Prime minister [Mitsumasa] Yonai keeps agitating the establishment by being so pro-Western and he proves himself to be the defeatist who unashamedly avoids confronting America and I feel satisfied that he's under enormous pressure and will resign soon. The next PM will show that our aggressive lobbying in parliament at last pays off  : Prince Fumimaro Konoe. He will return to make Japan great again , belligerent and ready to conquer those vainglorious white guys. We then shall be able to escalate our military campaigns in Indochina and its vicinity without impediments. I hope our emperor will be glad about this news as well.”

Naoyuki gulped down the wine in his cup and said,

"You know the prince so well , don't you ? I hope someday you will introduce me to him , but  I want to know beforehand about his intimate details like whether he feels free to chum up with the businessman like me or what he likes to do in his free time. Does he like collecting cars or is his wife the jewellery fancier ?"

Doihara nodded.

" Not a problem at all , Naoyuki-san ! Have I ever failed you ? And there's an intriguing information I would like to share with you here : under his leadership our country will get much closer to Germany and Italy and the inevitable alliance pact between them soon will transpire. Is it amazing that together 3 of the fascist countries will defeat and take over the world in the future ?"

Naoyuki said,

"Can't wait for the days like that ! It will be like we're slicing the big colourful cake and guess with thrill who would have the largest share or the most delicious parts. But I really want to see that half of the world will hoist the Japanese flags on the top of their house and decorate their living room's wall with the pictures of our emperor and empress and isn’t it fun that the first language their children must learn is Japanese ?"

They both burst into laughter. A general and his family just arrived at the party and were noisily welcomed by Doihara who then introduced him to Naoyuki and his wife. It looked like that those generals were cut from the same cloth: corrupt and hungry for power. The connections with the rich would guarantee their wealth and well- being especially after they had retired from army. They might be invited to be the members of executive boards of various companies although they did not know much about business.

Debbie said loudly to her friends.

" Why are they so deluded that the world will be theirs soon ?  They seem to underestimate the United States !"

Tominaga nudged Hideyoshi.

"Can you give us the opinion about this , Hide-kun ?"

Hideyoshi said,

"I think they are just exaggerating due to inebriation and overconfidence. In fact,.... "

Hideyoshi was about to give the long lecture like he always did but thought that he might be like his girlfriend's performance monkey to her friends who had recently arrived from Japan and just met him today. He thus stopped and said jokingly that he had to spend more than an hour answering this and they should follow him to the lecture room in the military base one day. Debbie giggled , teasing that the major was frightened by the old people at the table nearby. But Tominaga scoffed while caressing Hideyoshi's hand and boasted to her friends that her boyfriend knew so well about timing as he was so suave and magnificent as a soldier at the same time. He pursed his lips a little as he was fed up with her mindless sycophancy which was not different from self-praise.

Doihara suddenly stood up and used the fork to repeatedly clink against his glass of wine to draw attention from everyone.

"Everyone please listen , this party is held to welcome Naoyuki- san , the CEO of Koei conglomerate and his wife, and also to celebrate our decade-long beautiful relationship , especially with his older sister,  Ms. Yuki  [Hideyoshi’s mother] , the dearest friend of mine since our childhood. This will also mark the new era for the great Koei Conglomerate to work in Manchukuo as our new partner -  the innovative developer- to make this kingdom richer and far more prosperous in the coming days."

The party attendees had applauded loudly before Doihara raised his hand and said ,

" Tomi-chan and Hideyoshi,  stand up ! Right now !"

Hideyoshi was shocked and panicked when knowing what would happen to him. He nonetheless was mercilessly pulled up by his girlfriend.

The general said proudly,

"Look at both of them !  Are they a match made in heaven?"

Incredibly , the guests had yelled out in unison " Yes !!"  before the brouhahas would erupt among them especially Tominaga's friends.  Doihara said arrogantly like the emperor was heralding the greatness of his kingdom.

" As the proud father, I've admiringly observed what marvellous lovers they have been after all these months and asked myself : which couple on earth would be better and sweeter than my adorable daughter and this young man , the hero who had bravely led his men in the fierce battles in Chosen ? The answer is no ! And with the consent of Major Hideyoshi's uncle who represents his mother today , I hereby proudly announce their engagement to the world ! (loud applause from everyone). You must not forget that its date will be the 14th of June , and their wedding ceremony will be held 2 months later in this very ranch. Please wait for its exact date since my shaman is still searching for the auspicious one. But I somehow believe they will make a great couple with an eternal love bestowing upon me the lovely grandchildren !”

Now Asumi was the first one who clapped and followed by everyone who also hurrahed and enthusiastically rose up when Doihara told them to propose a toast. After that, a group of friends rushed to tearfully embrace Tominaga and congratulate both of them,  but Hideyoshi felt dizzy , tottered a bit and still desperately looked for Natsumi at the makeshift kitchen but the spotlights dazzled his vision.

……………………………………………………..

Hideyoshi now realized how hurtful when being penetrated by the cold stare from the person he loved the most - probably more terrible than being shot by several bullets like he was in Korea. He went to visit the girl at the bookstore the next day and she was there treating him like he was invisible. The major did not resort to the tactic of bouquet as he was afraid that she would mercilessly throw it away, and he did not know how to find the proper excuse for himself either. Would he audaciously say that he was more than ready to abandon everything and take her to the farthest side of the world? Even if he bit the bullet and said so , Natsumi might think that he was lying and say that she still had to take care of her alcoholic father.

Hideyoshi also found out the more he tried to plead for reconciliation from her, the more she became estranged. It was so inutile like he was trying to quench his thirst with sea water.  He went through the restless days , trying to do everything just to see even her wee smile or hear some words from her mouth but to no avail. He returned to be like a cat on a hot tin roof again but this time the roof was much hotter and tormented him , disrupting his sleep and everything. The karma had hit the scoundrel like him instantly and very hard.

He finally went to Natisumi’s nightclub in broad daylight to ask for the address of the middle-aged chef who was standing close to Natsumi the night at Doihara's ranch. At that woman’s house he asked her about Natsumi's reaction when the general announced his engagement. The woman told him that despite being always reserved, Natsumi was visibly distraught and tottered a bit just like him, but she was quick enough to keep her composure. And while they were on the bus back from Doihara’s ranch , Natsumi told her that it was all her fault for this problem and she did not want to be his mistress , so she would end everything.  Hideyoshi felt the hot blood running around his face and told her not to tell the girl about his inquiry and offered her a hefty sum of money, but she declined and advised him to find the answer from the bottom of his heart.

That afternoon Hideyoshi went back to Tominaga’s house and found her along with the maids arranging a heap of their engagement invitation cards on the table. Still sitting on the chair , she smilingly opened her arms , so he hugged and kissed her lips softly like a couple of future fiancé and fiancée but that was not from his true feelings at all. The young woman told him that a unit of soldiers was ordered by her father to send them to all dignitaries in Changchun including other cities and showed a card.

“ Darling , can you guess whom this card will be sent to ?”

9

A hunch struck him.

“ I think I know whom ….um …. to Emperor Puyi and his family ?”

She giggled.

“ Fantastic ! I’m proud to be the fiancée of the smart guy like you. It’s the duty of my father’s poor aide-de-camp to give it to him at the palace, and I wonder whether he will show up at our ceremony. But I keep my finger crossed that he won’t as you know his unpredictable quirkiness  well , so even a single gaffe from him would make the guests gasp and humiliate us – the catastrophe for our ceremony.”

Hideyoshi felt vexed, thinking that Puyi was the head of the state and they should honour him by inviting him in person but even the card she was holding was not any different from the others on the table. This implied that both Doihara and his daughter disdained him which made him look down on both of them too and began to feel sorry for Puyi.

The major told the young woman that he would invite the emperor at the palace by himself for the sake of old friendship and asked whether she would join him, but she merely sardonically smiled and wished him the best of luck.

Meeting Puyi again at his palace , Hideyoshi was flabbergasted when the emperor greeted him cordially like he had never held a grudge against him at all. The major had initially planned : suppose Puyi refused to meet him or threw a tantrum before him , he would  leave the card with the guards at the palace’s gate – the best he could do. The emperor gladly received it and said that he was not certain whether he could attend the ceremony due to his tight schedule but congratulated him,  wishing it would be the good start of his family life with Tominaga whether in Manchukuo or Japan. Both men kept talking with much fun like the meeting of the long-lost friend

Hideyoshi said ,

"Your Majesty  , I'm so sorry to have suddenly broken promise with you , that is to abandon you ....."

At first he wanted to say ..." when you needed me badly" but thought it was creepy , so he changed his mind.

"...in the time like this. I realize that you're actually the good companion of mine who had unfailingly enlightened me with the profound philosophy and ideas I rarely met or always overlooked. But fate did not smile upon us when we were caught in the political maelstrom."

Puyi smiled.

“I'm flattered to hear that, and my opinion is the same as yours. Well, I’m so relieved that the woman like Ms. Tominaga who's like a wild horse is finally to be bridled by the cool guy like you."

Hideyoshi shook his head.

"Your Majesty, I really appreciate how optimistic you are but fear that I have to adjust so much to live with her. I was reminded of your words many months ago that she had such a ...... which I'll say here joie de vivre that’s supposed to make me happy but always makes my head spin as well."

Puyi chuckled. He all the time spoke English fluently, surprising Hideyoshi when not a single Chinese word appeared like his habit. Maybe the major was about to witness some sort of confession , not included in Puyi’s biography he had previously read. He was excited.

“ Don't be so modest! I know you can do it because she loves you so much and in the future I believe she'll make a good wife and mother of your children [but in Hideyoshi’s mind popped up Natsumi’s face]. And please accept my apology in case you heard my accusation that you’re the fraudster. I had an afterthought that the guy like you who treats everyone with sincerity has been used by Doihara like anyone else around him. Even if he didn’t send you ,he would still try to do something to curtail my power, but it was at that time diminishing regardless. And despite my wraths, I still admire you and always reminisce about the good time we had spent together but what a shame that an unexpected mishap keeps us apart. I understand that ! Look at me : I’m the emperor who has endured various tragedies all his life. I was deprived of my mother and wetnurse since I was very young and have incessantly the frustrating life surrounded by the greedy eunuchs and the sly wives who’ve never shown me the genuine affections I’ve craved but cared only about their status and money and that takes a toll on my mind. Don't look at me like a monster when I beat that boy up ! Even without your intervention , I intended not to hurt him much and later I wholeheartedly apologized to him , paid the generous compensation to him and his family and sent him to work in the Ministry of Interior Affairs instead. And I'll never hurt anyone with such a violent outburst again."

Hideyoshi chucked to see how the emperor was trying to justify himself like a good politician. The major looked around and saw the valets who were the spies standing nearby. They were so emotionless that he wondered whether they would really understand how Puyi's feelings were although they knew English well. He was also dismayed that he had betrayed their friendship by being the spy for Doihara, but Puyi seemed not to mind this anymore.

The emperor said,

“My Brother, I’ve been imprisoned in the invisible jail.  When I was young , I really yearned to leave the forbidden city and live a free life like a bird. I spent hours and hours looking at the gate of my palace and really wanted to run away through it , but the gate was always closed before me. Is there more bitterness that when my real mother died , I didn’t even have a chance to attend her funeral ? I protested and cried so hard, but it was to bang my head against the brick wall. She died from swallowing a large lump of opium , Brother , she committed suicide thanks to the pressure of a bigshot in my palace. I longed so much to embrace her even though her body would be cold and lifeless. As I had told you before : although we were apart since I was young , I still miss her dearly until today.”

Hideyoshi flushed when thinking about his own younger sister.

Puyi said in a quivering voice ,

“I realize that our family became the victim of that old bitch (Empress Dowager Cixi) who just used me to retain this moribund empire which is now humiliatingly refuted. I also imagined myself not being designated by her as the emperor that night [when he was barely 3 years old] , so what would befall me now ? I might be just a humble prince or civil servant , enjoying the easy life with the warm family ! Funny that one fine day when I was fed up with those of her entourage and eunuchs who had been stealing everything from the Forbidden City little by little , I implored the warlord’s army to drive them away . And it was like a revenge as that old bitch must have tossed and turned in her grave with wraths, haha. And when I myself was kicked out of my palace one day , I was listless and desperate although I’m still rich from selling the inheritance from my great ancestors who had certainly looked at me from heaven with abhorrence. In Tientsin I lived like the English gentleman under the name ‘ Mr. Henry Puyi’ but it was such a worthless life.”

Puyi then waved his hands like he was acting.

“Drinking , dancing , singing and socializing with the people like the socialites and the warlord  who pretentiously admired me and my family but deep down inside they had seen us like the exotic animals in the zoo which would help them earn money and fame. This continued day in and days out until one of my wives even dared divorce me and she succeeded ! For the first time in the Chinese history. I every now and then watched closely the former king of England , Edward [the 8th], who had previously abdicated to marry the American widow and was amused that our lifestyle was the same – pointless and boring. I didn’t want to be like him anymore. I wanted so badly to gain my glory back and decided to live as the emperor once more even though it meant a collaboration with the Japanese. My sin must be so grave when I did this despite being aware that it was one of their plans to swallow up my country. And the time proves that I’m trapped here again , trapped in my own illusion that someday I’ll have the real power like my predecessors. I at last realize that I’ll never walk through that  ‘gate’ of my prison to the outside world perhaps for the rest of my life !”

Puyi laughed wryly like he was deriding his own fate.

“And how pathetic that the Japanese assume that a handshake with Emperor Hirohito next month would make me feel over the moon ! But I know they’ve fed me this illusion like an idiot !  Just only to help them lure the world to think that Manchukuo is the independent country which I’m so sure that only the retarded will believe and now do you believe that I don’t want to go to Japan any longer, but Doihara forced me to do that. After all, rest assured that whether Japan and its alliance will conquer the world or be humiliatingly defeated in this ever-escalating war, my name will posthumously be remembered by the world as the traitor or the mindless puppet for the enemy. Anyway , you once told me that men don’t exist after they die , in other words,  afterlife is nothing but the bullshit from the religions , didn’t you ? Perhaps my ancestors have not watched me like I said, and I don’t even have to repent for what I’ve done after my death, that’s so reassuring !”

The emperor then changed his tone.

“But meeting you cheers me up in this crazy world , nah ,  don’t get me wrong  ! I respect you like the big brother I’ve never had – the brother figure , regardless of what you believe me to be.”

Hideyoshi simply smilingly nodded ; he did not want the conversation to get him involved in much , but the emperor gained his sympathy for confessing his wretchedness under the veneer of the world celebrity. Or this was some kind of treacherous narrative to embellish himself , full of lies and self-pity ? Or he was merely a pitiful patient who had to take the pills 3 times after meals and found the solace from the foreigner like him? Only the emperor himself knew this. But Hideyoshi became ashamed to realize that he himself had some emotional problems from Natsumi as well. He wondered whether real reason for this visit was to listen to someone who suffered more than him just to make him feel better like he thought of Chopin that night.

The major talked to the emperor for a while before bidding farewell.

Puyi said

“ This’ll be the last time we meet in person , right ? But I'm so happy that you will always think of me as the good companion or in Chinese  良伴 (liáng bàn).”

The emperor shook his hand and opened his arms widely but the major looked reluctant. Puyi thus chortled and pulled him toward him for a tight embrace albeit shortly like teasing. He said,

“ You smile but you're gloomy inside , I know that. I’ve an intuition that you’re desperately in love with someone else. Follow your heart , Brother ! I always respect you like a mentor but now you have to take me as an example to break the jail -  the invisible wall surrounding you , otherwise you’ll regret for the rest of your life like me. Good luck ! ”

Puyi’s life after this

Puyi was the emperor of Manchukuo until August 1945. His downfall was from the fortunes of war when Stalin declared war on Japan 3 days after the US had dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Red Army of the USSR swiftly invaded Manchukuo and defeated the Japan's Kwangtung army. Puyi was captured while trying to escape by plane and kept as a prisoner. In 1950 he was returned to China under the communist regime as a present from the Soviet government to Chairman Mao Zedong. Puyi was later imprisoned in a re-education camp for 10 years before being pardoned and released to live as a humble gardener in Beijing [like his dream]. He was however a poster child for the Communist Party as a transition to new era of China where everybody was equal. China’s last emperor died in 1967 during the peak of the cultural revolution.   

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Doihara wanted Hideyoshi to have the permanent job here in the Kwangtung army as the worthless PR officer since he became like a celebrity in Manchukuo although the major wanted to go back to Japan after the wedding and Tominaga seemed to agree with him. He thought that now it was unbearable to live near Natsumi. He also feared so much that during his engagement or wedding ceremony or both , Tominaga would hire the same team of chefs, including Natsumi. To see her beautiful face filled with coldness even from a far or even knowing that she was in the kitchen during his ceremony would make him feel like being whipped by a large cane over and over again.

Nonetheless , the major found the solace from being the visiting lecturer for the army like the previous months, and he can continue to do that if the future his father-in-law decided that this job was a part of the PR (for Buddha’s sake !). This morning the lecture room was extraordinarily lively as if there were a melee among the soldiers who were attending his class. The news travelled fast as they knew that soon the country would have the new prime minister who was hawkish and would push Japan into the orbit of alliance with the fascist countries like Germany and Italy like Doihara had mentioned to Naoyuki at the table. There were the pros and cons in their discussions even before Hideyoshi would arrive. They then urged him to give them the lecture about this and were so thrilled to learn that the major had the direct experience about its development.

When Hideyoshi was still an attaché in Berlin years ago , there was then the perseverance of the previous Japanese governments to find the friends who were friendly with its aggressive militarism and expansionism. Germany was inevitably the one *, leading to the Anti-Comintern Pact between 2 countries In 1936. Hideyoshi himself joined the committee which had worked so hard for a week to prepare the ceremony for the delegations of Germany and Japan to sign this treaty in Berlin and its formal purpose was to counter the influence of the Communist International or Comintern, but its ulterior motive was the USSR. This pact included a secret protocol for cooperation if Stalin recklessly ordered his army to attack them.

[* In February 1933 Japan was condemned by the League of Nations , the predecessor of the United Nations, after it had invaded Manchuria and established Manchukuo. Japan finally withdrew from this organization a month later as a protest. The major powers at that time like the UK and France also joined the condemnation but hesitated to boycott Japan whereas Germany and Italy obviously sympathized with Japan.]

A soldier said that some of their superiors who apprised them of this news boasted that the holy alliance with those 2 countries would help Japan conquer the whole Asia. But Hideyoshi said, 

“ What will happen if we become the alliance with Germany and Italy in the future ?  Regarding that the war is too complicated and volatile , it’s extremely risky for anyone -even they’re the good military strategists-  to presume the victory as the United States is the main factor.  About our possible clash with the US in the future , it’s widely accepted that the US military’s capacity of both technologies and industries is far superior to Japan, but if Roosevelt declares war on Germany and Italy like many of us expect,  it has to allocate the modern armaments and manpower to help its allies in Europe. If those 2 countries can beat the US which is quite hard to imagine , so I’d rather say ...undermine its military strength , we’ll have a chance to drive the US away from Asia which someone might say 'victory'. But we’ll inevitably face resistances from many countries which governments are under control or faithful to the Western masters. Plenty of nationalist groups like in Burma and Indonesia might seem to buy into our promise to liberate their countries but there’s no guarantee that they will cooperate with us permanently if they happen to be disillusioned someday (because we're never sincere all along). Some of them might eventually switch their side to the West - more burdensome to our army. And we might get bogged down in the war even though it might be temporary , it's not good for us much in such a crucial time like this.”

Hideyoshi paused and pointed at the map of North Asia near him with a pointer. The communist USSR painted in red not far from Manchuria looked utterly menacing.

“ And another factor is the Red Army of the USSR. As we know that in 1939 Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, but it’s Hitler’s tactical manoeuvre to buy time or help Germany fight in Europe without intervention of the Soviet Union. But what will happen if this pact is ended and the war between Germany and the USSR breaks out and becomes prolonged ? Germany and Italy will never have enough armaments and manpower to fight the US and its alliance from the other side. And this will severely affect us in the Asia’s war theatre too. And don’t forget , what will also happen if the USSR declares war on Japan as well since we’re the neighbours ? Our troops here will be the first to learn how formidable Stalin’s sons are before our motherland. To be straightforward , even though those Russians don’t strike us , the result of the war in the future might not be like Tokyo or anyone appreciates. Don’t take it seriously as it’s only my imagination : our cities might be decimated by the almighty warplanes and bombs of our enemies while more than a million of our people might perish unless we change the course of war now which is almost impossible ,especially when the new government comes.”

[In 1945 it was heart-wrenching that half of the soldiers in this lecture room were killed by the Red Army.]

Hideyoshi decided to tell them about what was on his mind although it could be interpreted as the anti-war message, but he was certain that those young men would not snitch on him as they were also sceptical like him in spite of being heavily brainwashed by the government’s propaganda. The soldiers fell into silence and then loudly chattered, and some disagreed with him before giving everyone other explanations which were swiftly questioned and contradicted by him and their other fellows. It was such a daredevil lecture although it was short of criticizing the establishment in the totalitarian country ruled by the fascism in Japanese style *. Hideyoshi thought that to be soldier did not mean to be mindless killing machine. But if the soldiers kept being sceptical about everything , would they still obey the orders from their superiors which were against their newfound conviction ? That was a heck of question ! The class ended and everyone left the room after pestering Hideyoshi to deliver the lecture like this again next week. The major stood alone near the podium. He gradually put the papers in his satchel , lighting a cigarette and puffing on it – an award for the today lecture which risked landing him in jail.

He suddenly felt that someone entered the room and watched him from a far .

[* The emperor was absolutely divine and ultimate source of all authority, and the Japanese was superior to any races.. etc)

10

Hideyoshi wondered whether this was the blessing or the curse when the woman whom he had been waiting for all his life was standing there- only several steps from him. Natsumi was in the same beautiful yukata while working at the bookstore and it had inflamed his yearning for her all along,  but now she was regrettably treating him like they were returning to be the strangers. The girl was standing humbly and bowing her head , quite lowly until he could not see her gorgeous face much. They were now unexpectedly caught in the awkward silence in the room which used to be boisterous only half an hour ago.

While the major was standing in a daze , the young woman said emotionlessly and too formally which disturbed him much,

" Sir, I'm so sorry that I'm disturbing your relaxing time after class. My father would like to see you right now at my house. Please accept his deep apology for such a bold request as he becomes too ill even to move a bit from the bed. But his business is extremely important , so he said."

Some questions swirled around his mind :  did she actually want to see him and was this an alibi ? Or how had she been ?  He was dead worried about her health and everything but did not have a chance or a gut to ask her after that night. He noticed that the daily toil made her almost neglect her neat appearance or was it from her angst about him ? But he knew that she would be piqued by such a curiosity and he would feel the same by her impassivity in return. He thus merely agreed with the request not even asking why her father was so desperate to see him. He guessed the frail old man wanted him to do him a favour.

They had walked slowly from the building through the little garden which should delight them with its beautiful idyllic view but much to his chagrin,  the major noticed that the girl tried to keep her distance from him like he was so repulsive. He thought that it was far better that she would not come to him like this , just allowing him to keep her in his tormented memory for all eternity.  He then reflected on some of his convictions and found they were comically self-contradictory : he always told his friends , including Puyi, that he never believed in afterlife but why did he believe in destiny that he and Natsumi were meant for each other ? Or their conversation about it in the car that night was just folie à deux and their meeting was just coincidental ?

But one thing Hideyoshi was so certain  : he had been intoxicated by the love for Natsumi and could not suppress it anymore. He felt his eyes moistening and rushed to embrace her tightly from behind. The girl stopped but he did not even dare turn her body around to confront her since he was too fearful of seeing what feeling her face was showing. The girl still did not move although she could have turned around and slapped him in the face. He could feel her trembling body which he doubted whether showed her fury or suppression of her desire for him.

After struggling with a big lump in his throat , the major managed to say the extremely touching words - the first time in his life,  never even to Clara.

"Natisumi-chan, 愛してる  ( I love you) !!!"

He supposed crazily that if she turned around and said she loved him too , he would abandon everything and run away with her after her father died. Although everything before him like the wedding anticipated by the whole dignitaries of Manchukuo and the glorious future of his career would metaphorically dissolve into the useless dirt , he did not care anymore.

But Natsumi only said,

"Let go of me ! Someone will see us. "

Although her voice was so soft like she was far away, the major easily caved in to her demand and nodded like he was apologizing to her. He was nonetheless relieved that she did not snub him at all and neither grimace nor sneer was on her face like a woman who was just violated. Was Natsumi still in love with him ?

They went on walking like nothing happened and Hideyoshi was not surprised to see how decrepit Natsumi's house was as he had sometimes snuck to watch it without her knowing. It extremely bore a resemblance to the surrounding houses which belonged to other sergeants and the lieutenants , so a stranger could get lost easily without a guidance. Comparing with Doihara's house, it was like the king's castle and the paupers' huts.

Koji was lying still under the blanket in the bedroom and when learning his arrival , the old man opened his eyes and tried to get up but to no avail. The major saw his swollen arms and knew that the blanket helped cover his horrifying swollen stomach and legs - the fatal cirrhosis. Natsumi helped her father sit on the bed with difficulty. The old man groaned but looked enlivened to see him and began to mumble , so Hideyoshi had to tilt his head toward him.

" O , Major Hideyoshi, I'm so glad to see you again. Please sit down and accept my apology that I can’t bring myself to see you at your office or somewhere as ..... you must know so well that my end is near."

Natsumi exclaimed but not loudly and struggled not to cry while Hideyoshi frowned and said,

"Sergeant, please don't say so ! You might be assuming your illness too much , so I urge you to go back to the hospital. Even though it doesn’t mean the full recovery, at least it's still better than lying here."

Koji sneered.

" I really appreciate your reassurance but it doesn't alter the fact that even the best doctor in the world can't help me at this hour. Look at me : I've drowned my sorrows for years despite knowing what will befall me at the end. Don't you want to know what's behind my tragedy ?"

Hideyoshi was perplexed that the reason the sergeant wanted to meet him might be more complicated than he had thought. He touched the old man's arm and nodded. Koji looked delighted and said,

" You're so handsome and perfect and the promising future's waiting for you as the son-in-law of the most powerful man in Manchukuo. It's my ultimate desire before I go to disillusion you about General Doihara and the dreadful roles of our military in the country that never really belongs to us. As an erudite guy , you must know thoroughly that we've exploited everything in this kingdom to the fullest. We've oppressed its people and killed them ruthlessly while ostentatiously showing that we've supported it as an independent country since it was invaded 8 years ago. Am I speaking correctly ? And you must have joined plenty of military operations and known every part of the Kwangtung army , but do you know about Unit 731 ?"

Hideyoshi shook his head. Koji then told his daughter to go invite several of their neighbours to come here and when she was gone , he continued his story.

"Aha ! It's so secretive that even you don't know its existence !  This unit authorized by Doihara was established about 3 or 4 years ago under the misleading name : The Epidemic Prevention and ....... Water .... er ..  Pu [Purification] Department ... something like this . It is situated in the Ping fang district of Harbin , not far from here , have you ever been there ?  One day the unit sent its men to ask for the volunteers from our army thanks to its shortage of personnel and I thought that it was the better way to serve my country than doing the monotonous job in this army base. Did the name of the unit indicate the missions for a well-being of the public of Manchukuo ?  Nah , on the contrary !  When I was there , I began to learn how sinister and inhuman it was  , Major , as the unit's actual purpose was the research and the testing of biological and chemical weapons through utterly sadistic human experiments. I was the one who helped the military police arrest the random Chinese on the streets and in their houses after we had accused them of being the members of the resistance groups or the hardened criminals but I knew that those people were just the innocent people :  farmers , merchants , or even a beggar who was armless , you name it ! We then were ordered to cram them into the cells of the large prison in the compound of the unit and pretended to tell them to wait for interrogations but in reality they would be picked up to the laboratories like the guinea pigs one by one."

Koji coughed a little,  so Hideyoshi brought the glass of water on the table to him. He sipped the water and went on.

" When we consider the Chinese as the subhuman , there was no doubt that the condition of their living would be so appalling which details I won't delve into now. Sir, those inmates did not have names but numbers imposed by us like they were the pigs in the slaughterhouse. They were ordered not to talk to one another - even a word might lead them to be severely punished and many times they were being beaten to death by the demonic guards and I was forced to do that too. Shame on me ! One day I and my friends were ordered to drag several women into a laboratory and help the scientists conduct the experiment when their assistants were absent. I can swear on my father's grave that it was such a gut-wrenching experience which would never vanish from my mind. Those women were injected with some fatal disease so the military scientists could test the body's reactions to it. Oh , my goodness !"

He swore loudly and violently coughed so he had to pause for a while. Hideyoshi helped him lie on the bed again. Koji hastened to say,

" Their bodies quickly turned out to be red and violet and the large rashes had incessantly spread across their skins followed by the disgusting blood and pus within just an hour while those women were pitifully squealing and writhing on the floor. Even though I used to pass many fierce battles , I was so dizzy and nauseous that I could barely stand. Major , I told myself that I was a soldier not a cold-blooded murderer like these scums in white gown who were just nonchalantly observing and recording the increasing suffering of those women. But it was so lucky that they died only minutes after that and an hour later I saw the men in strange plastic suit [Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)] with stretchers came to collect their corpses which I later knew that to be disposed by simply throwing them into the crematoriums , no funerals or coffins like animals. In the battle fields even the corpses of our enemies were treated with respect more than this !  I felt sorry for them and every inmate there as they were humans just like us and also the beloved parents or children of some people who were terribly missing them ."

He tried to raise his hand and said,

" It was my unfortune that I was promoted to the laboratory assistant and days in, days out I had to witness the horrible deaths of those Chinese via the unimaginably cruel experiments which had gradually plunged me into insanity. Finally , I broke down and asked to be transferred back to this military camp. Before I left , the unit's director whose baleful eyes I still remembered until today ,  General Ishii, threatened me not to spill the beans about everything there, otherwise he and Doihara would make my life which also meant Natsumi's in a living hell. I was extremely frightened since  I numerous times had seen him do terrible things to the prisoners even surpassing those scientists. Major, when I returned here , I found myself like the broken furniture , irreparable from the trauma and have nightmares every night until now. Innumerable bottles of whiskey became my friend,  my sanctuary.  My superiors incredibly condoned my erratic behaviours which most of the time meant violating the army’s principle since they seemed to know about my ordeal there.  Or it might be Ishii and Doihara's order to keep me stay with this stigma for years. Who would believe in the existence of this hellish unit from the old drunkard like me ?  Sir, in my opinion the people like Doihara and Ishii should be burnt in hell forever for their extremely dastardly acts. I can't wait for the days of their downfall and envy you since you still have a time to do that ! After all, I know that the decent people like you will never stand by his side even though you're like his son."

Hideyoishi almost cracked up as Koji did not know how vengeful he was against that old codger. But about General Ishii ?  Hideyoshi felt that this name vaguely rang the bell. Recollecting for a while , he quickly had the satori that that his full name was Shirō Ishii and this guy was one of the generals who joined the party at Doihara's ranch that night. He had the striking appearance : wearing the moustache and the beard under the thick eyeglasses like a nerdy professor and prattling about the modern medical science as if to boast that he graduated from the prestigious medical school. Ishii also shook Hideyoshi's hand and congratulated him on the coming engagement- such a nice guy. But that was the heartless monster in disguise !

When Koji saw the abhorrence across Hideyoshi's pale face , he chuckled a bit like he was being satisfied to see that his words overwhelmed Doihara's future son-in-law. He later groaned with pain and shook but still had the energy left to speak.

" Major, there's one thing I want to beseech you , sir."

Hideyoshi was not certain what his intention was , so he was just in silence. At that time Natsumi walked into the room , followed by several women, the wives of the sergeants who were still working at the office at this hour. They had a few words with the patient and touched his body to cheer him up before stepping aside when Koji told his daughter to get close to him . And suddenly the old man did the thing which the major never even imagined : grabbing his hand and Natsumi's to attach one another. Natsumi screamed to show her agitation but her father seemed adamant ,  grabbing her hand even more firmly.

He said to Hideyoshi,

" Major , when I die , Natsumi will be left alone in this world. Her mother passed away long time ago and I can't trust those relatives in Japan who are selfish and deceitful. You're going to be the married man but please take care of her like she's your little sister or your mistress, will you ? But I prefer the second one. I know you love her so much as I observed how eagerly you had visited her bookstore and the way you always kept staring at her showed your deep affection. I'm very impressed and would compliment that you're the most trustworthy guy on earth."

He paused and said more solemnly,

"Can you promise me to ‘take care of’ her after I die ?"

The major was dumbfounded and looked around to see those housewives who were also gaping but he finally nodded. The old man smilingly said thank you and caressed his daughter's wet cheek , saying a few words to her before closing his eyes permanently. He passed away so peacefully - good for him. Hideyoshi used to see many people die of the same disease far more agonizingly than this. Natsumi burst into tears and rushed to embrace her father's lifeless body before the women would try to comfort the girl and then they all left the room to inform their husbands and prepare the funeral like the good neighbours. Natsumi suddenly rushed to embrace Hideyoshi while still crying her eyes out and this meant she still loved him and saw him as a shelter from this storm. The major felt over the moon and hugged her tightly , trying to wipe away her tears with his fingers. Now he became like her father or , as Koji's wish , her future husband with the big age gap but he was also the man who was going to engage and marry another woman. What a confusing relationship !

Koji’s funeral was quite simple since Natsumi and her good neighbours were not far from penniless and Hideyoshi inevitably became the main sponsor. The major had unfailingly helped the people carry out the ceremony service while lying to Tominaga that he had to participate in the military activities without meeting her for days.  Several monks were invited to chant for a few days while there were not many guests apart from the neighbours. Hideyoshi could feel the curiosity from the people around him. It even discomforted him when a sergeant frankly told him that they considered him the prince of Manchukuo who should not have been here - among the poor people in the army camp and it implied that they did not want him to date Natsumi. He however learnt afterwards that sergeant always wanted the girl to marry his son.

Only 2 of Natsumi’s colleagues from the nightclub came : her waitress friend and the middle-aged chef who whispered to him that they would seal their lips about relationship between him and Natsmui but they had to leave early since they had the task at a party far away from here. There was only one superior of Koji attending the funeral , the young lieutenant , who knew Hideyoshi well and was surprised to see him here. The major told him that the old man was his acquaintance whom he respected tremendously but almost 10 minutes later when Natsumi walked past them and tripped over something on the floor , Hideyoshi darted to grab her so firmly like the lovers in arms. He heard that guy exclaiming.

A few people showed up when the old man’s corpse was sent to the crematorium of the nearby temple which was newly built for the community of the Japanese in Manchukuo. Hideyoshi had stood close to and supported Natsumi who wore the black dress and carried the large photo of Koji while inconsolably crying all the time. Before separation , the 37-year-old woman  , the closest neighbour of Natsumi’s family, shook the major’s hand firmly with the mysterious smile.

Hideyoshi did not know how far in Manchukuo the gossips about him here would spread but realized that he eventually became the pawn for Koji who became merely the ashes in the box now. If his relationship with Natsumi caused the big scandal , he would unwittingly avenge the sergeant who had extremely held a grudge against his future father-in-law. The major then sinisterly smiled as it was his strong desire too but could not help imagining : if Tominaga knew this and came here to throw a fit like slapping Natsumi in the face (the latter was quite smaller than the first) , what would he do ? Having been utterly disquieted , he also contemplated his previous plan of eloping with her and leaving everything behind but suddenly held that thought. The major then jeered at himself : why could the guy like him who had valiantly led the soldiers in numerous battles became like the skittish cat stuck in the tree in the love life ? This was mainly from caring too much about his own career - the selfish man !

After the funeral , Hideyoshi helped Natsumi tidy up her house which looked like they were now a couple. The girl carried the big box from the storeroom to him and said,

“Sir, my father’s belongings are in this box and he had told me over and over again for more than a year to burn them all after his passing but I have a hunch that I should not follow his order and bring it to you. I don’t still even open it yet , so would you do that for me ?”

Hideyoshi left the box on the floor to hug her and kiss her soft forehead as if to say that he appreciated how she trusted him. The girl closed her eyes while hugging him back for a while before leaving to prepare the dinner for them. He watched her back adoringly and looked at the box which was sealed tightly , wondering what it contained. Inside the major found the little cross , the woman’s comb and small ornaments, probably belonging to his late wife. And he stumbled on a mysterious diary with the black cover and wrapped tightly with the rope.

11

Hideyoshi felt relieved that the diary did not contain the ancient incantation which cursed the intruder to horrible death. But beginning to read it , he reminisced about the maxim ' Look can be deceiving'. The major had initially thought that the old man's intelligence was mundane like of his fellows let alone of the drunkard but when hearing the confession before his death , he changed his mind and this diary meticulously written completely refuted his surmise. Koji described his daily work in this army camp like a leftist intellectual (who had been relentlessly purged by the fascist government in Japan up to now as they were protesting the war) , lashing out at his superiors who were corrupt while pretending to be highly disciplinary or preach the lofty ideologies and the innocent rank-and- file were ruthlessly exploited.The Lawrence of Manchukuo was the first to be mentioned.

The diary also did not shy away from criticizing the government and shockingly the emperor for starting the war , shattering the myth that every Japanese soldier unquestionably worshiped Hirohito like the divine being. It included the way the army had handled the Chinese in Manchukuo , especially the resistance group - savagely and mercilessly- with the aim to pulverize their bones to ashes although their purpose of fighting was merely to take back the things the Japanese had greedily usurped. The major then thought about his own operations in Korea , perhaps both of them were not much different.

The latter part of the diary sensationally narrated his arduous experience in Unit 731and some blood-curdling details of what those Chinese inmates had been experiencing.The major found that Koji’s words on his deathbed were just a tiny fraction.

...In the prison, apart from being cramped , without beds and blankets, the prisoners had to sleep on the cold, rough concrete during the cruel winter and without toilets, the prisoners had to endure the smell of their own feces and urine scattering around them. They also had been fed by the terrible food - a dish of coarse boiled rice with salt once a day which barely helped them survive. The female prisoners also had to constantly face the sexual abuses by the guards but many times the male inmates were forced to do that to the women too , which I had attempted to intervene in but failed. I was however warned by the authorities that I was seriously violating the rule of this unit as the women were supposed to be impregnated  , so they would be the subjects for the specific experiments.  It was like hell on earth here which I would never expect to see before while the culprits proudly claimed that they were so civilized and prestigious....

The other sadistic experiments apart from Koji's verbal confession gave Hideyoshi the goosebumps. The scientists had vivisected the prisoners alive , without anesthetic and the prisoners had to endure the enormous pains for hours before their death on the pool of their blood. The prisoners were also forced to stand in the snow for a long time to test how human skin reacted to a freezing temperature and some disease like frostbite. The test ended when they were dead which took about 4 or 5 hours. And sometimes even though their pulses were still beating , Shirō Ishii's henchmen would use the sticks to violently hit their frozen limbs, and they were broken like tree's branches but with the viscous blood gushing from the big wounds. Their pitiful screams in the face of creeping death could not even be uttered because the snow had already gnawed their larynx....

Hideyoshi felt nauseous and immediately closed the diary ; he still wanted to relish the dinner with Natsumi.  He commended the sergeant for being the only sane officer among the psychopaths , but his flaw was the cowardness which made those horrendous scenes haunt his conscience until his death. Still , how could he do anything else when only of his objection or protest could have led him to the harsh punishments ?

Their simple dinner was under the candlelight. Natsumi told him that she had to move out of the army camp at the end of the month but had nowhere to go. Her waitress friend lived with her boyfriend which would cause the great discomfort if her stay with them lasted more than a few days. Hideyoshi was about to use the chopsticks to pick up the piece of grilled fish but lay them down and proposed that he would find her the house for rent and take care of everything. The girl grinned for the first time since her father passed away and squeezed his hand to show her gratitude.

" What will you do next , Natsumi-chan ? Will you still work at that nightclub ? And the bookstore ? " , asked him.

The girl shook her head.

"Sir, I'm not sure.  So peculiar that after his death , I feel that every place in this kingdom is like a stranger to me. Without my father, I'm at a loss. I don't know whom I'll throw myself into such a hard work for."

Hideyoshi squeezed her soft hand back and wanted to ask, " What about 'us' ? Do you ever think about me ?" but he thought it would be too serious , so he said,

" Do you want to go back to Japan ?"

The girl nodded.

"Maybe. My aunt is now living in Tokyo. Yes , my father denounced her like you had heard but I think he misunderstood her after their big quarrel almost a decade ago. She's actually a good woman , a great mother who's devoted her life to her family and she loves me too. "

Hideyoshi left Natsumi for his house without clarifying their status. He had hoped that Natsumi would ask him to spend the night at her house but she did not , so he quietly left. Some questions swirled on his mind :  had she just cunningly used their relationship which was still ambiguous for her survival ? Would she change her mind to be his mistress ?  But it was certain that leaving for Japan meant the end of their relationship even if it was against her father's will. After all , he could change the course of their life by doing this with her which would probably cost him astronomically as his family might disown him. Hideyoshi was disoriented but believed that every problem had solution and everything would be much clearer when he woke up in the morning.

That night the macabre nightmare, however, ruined his peaceful slumber. It was still about Kenzo holding his severed head on that creepy dark hill and vivaciously waving his hand at him (he began to get accustomed to his apparition and felt like he was the old buddy) . The place in his nightmare then turned into the Korean countryside where the rebels who were arrested were chained en masse to undergo the interrogations abounding with the violent tortures by the Japanese. As the leader of the team, it was always Hideyoshi's obligation to order his men to do so to prevent their army from being ambushed or sabotaged by the rebels in the future. Some prisoners were defiant , cursing and even spitting his subordinates in the face , so beating them until they became unconscious , permanently disabled or dead seemed to be like the normal Japanese soldiers would do.

Despite being unable to deny his wrongdoings , Hideyoshi did not feel much disturbed when he had never done this with his own hands .... wait ...the new scene popped up in his dream : in the interrogation room,  with utmost furor , he grabbed a prisoner's head to plunge into the water inside the tank. The Korean struggled so hard : his hands and his emaciated body moved against his hand violently , so the water splattered on Hideyoshi's demonic face and eventually that man stopped struggling. The major all of a sudden found himself in white gown and slowly slicing a prisoner's flesh on the iron bed somewhere full of equipment and that was the laboratory of Unit 731! He then unwittingly stared at the mirror nearby and found that he wore comical eyeglasses and had moustache and beard. Now he became General Ishii!

The major screamed while struggling to wake up and found his body profuse with sweat. He was still in the death of the night but could not go back to sleep. The tear was in his eyes as he found himself so hypocritical: he felt sorry for those Chinese prisoners while practicing torture of the Korean prisoners of war. Wars turned humans into monsters while they still thought they were saints - what a world !

The diary also made him raise the question : whether we could wage wars without committing crimes ? Or actually crimes were necessarily intertwined with wars as a way to demoralize and bend enemy's wills which would help soldiers achieve victory faster than adhering to the norm ?  Some sage said that this world was actually cold and barren, devoid of any inherent values like law or religions . They were merely man-made to reassure humans that this world had meanings and was secure to them. Victors were not only the strongest but were capable of doing anything whether it was against those values on the road to victory whereas the weakling would crumble to core of their soul after being fed with the illusion of the beautiful world.

Even the Westerners always urged soldiers to spare civilians and treat prisoners of war with kindness based on the Christian teaching but they had mercilessly done those to the Chinese civilians during the Battle of Peking in 1900 : looting, killing and raping as the retaliation to the boxer rebellion*. They were only the holier-than-thou race.

[* In 1899 the group of the Chinese who had practiced the martial art attacked and killed many foreigners thanks to their anti-Westernism and anti-imperialism.]

If this idea sounded reasonable, it meant Unit 731 was permissible as it would enhance the ability of the Japanese army to surpass the enemies at least with the most advanced biological warfare on earth even though they had to destroy numerous lives. Hideyoshi wanted to end his guilt , so he warned himself that he was once a brave soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army who received the medal from Hideki Tojo and should stop being chickenhearted from now on. In the future he would share the glory with those cold-hearted bastards.

Hideyoshi then thought about the last page of Koji’s diary . He turned on the lamp near his bed to read the short sentences which were poorly scribbled again :

剣を振るう者は、いつかその剣が自分自身の首を斬ることを知らない。

Those wielding swords never know

when their swords shall turn around to cut their own heads.

The major suddenly heard the footsteps near his house. He quickly turned off the light and drew the pistol from the table's drawer. Someone knocked on the door and that was Natsumi who then asked him to come in. She apologized and said that she could not shut her eyes at all because the atmosphere in her house was so eerie, not because of her father’s ghost but her memory of him which kept haunting her. It was so good that she would come back to work at the nightclub the next night so she would be far away from that house. He asked her why she had passed the soldier at the sentry box near his house so easily , she told him that the guy was dozing off. He chuckled and told her to sleep on his bed while he would sleep on the sofa, but she insisted on doing that instead. The result of negotiation was that they both lay on the bed together. Still several hours before the first sunlight would touch the earth , amidst the darkness and the awkward silence , the major heard his heart beat so fast with excitement and thought Natsumi's beat at the same speed.   

Hideyoshi moved his head to stare at Natsumi who was turning her back to him. He knew that she was still awake and gradually wrapped his arm around her. The girl hugged his arm in return , making him feel bold , so he softly turned her body toward him and saw those gorgeous eyes staring at him wildly. He lay on her body and passionately kissed her , thrusting his tongue and wriggling it in her mouth while she appeared to be overwhelmed with the inflamed desire although their kiss was not the first time. He then nuzzled her white neck with his lips back and forth and began to undress her but suddenly she resisted and moved her blouse back to its proper place. Hideyoshi was willing to stop, knowing that she was still in the mourning period and they were not the married couple at all. They turned back to sleep in the same position while he was still embracing her and kept talking about many things but tragically, their future together was still not discussed about.

Someone knocked on the door , waking him up in the late morning to see that Natsumi had already long gone. The valet stood in front of the door smiling at him like he knew what had happened last night which was easily noticed from the crumpled bed sheet and the girl’s fragrance was still lingering in the room. The valet frankly said that it was ordinary for the man like him to take another woman to have an entertainment in this room since Tominaga' s irascibility and impulsiveness easily ruined men’s desire. And his lips were gladly sealed about this. Hideyoshi laughingly thanked that guy , saying that he had wholeheartedly agreed. He wondered whether there were the genuine admirers of Doihara and his daughter or just the sycophants ?

Before the major would walk out of the room to have breakfast in the kitchen, he thought about the short sentences in the dairy , wondering why he obsessed over it. Would it be the hint of something so important ? Or was it just the ranting of someone who resented the Japanese establishment too much ? Some hunch struck Hideyoshi again , so he rushed to rummage through Koji’s box over and over again. A black and white picture fell to the floor : Koji was standing with a guy who was probably Chinese. He doubted why the sergeant had done that as the law forbade the Japanese and the Chinese to socialize with the severe penalty. That Chinese guy however looked familiar, but he still could not remember who he was and finally kept the picture in his pocket.

During breakfast Tominaga called him and chided him for not meeting her for days. He scoffed , saying that she had to come to terms that he was introverted and loved the privacy dearly and tragically it would be completely gone thanks to their marriage and the arrival of their child. She should therefore let him enjoy it now albeit briefly. Their conversation turned out to be increasingly heated before he would end it bluntly and hang up the phone. He then thought about Natsumi : she would never dare raise her voice at him like this , that was the reason why he loved her so much. Perhaps he was so chauvinistic that he could not bear seeing women challenging him. But now he could not find Natsumi at her house or bookstore and then remembered her words that today she would go to talk with her boss at the nightclub about her future here. Her boss who was the old lady seemed to like her and admire the style of her cooking so much , making her envied by many of her colleagues who were all older than her. It thus made her more reluctant to return to Japan.

Hideyoshi hastily left the house for fear that Tominaga would come here to continue their fight. It was obviously predictable that whether they would stay here or go back to Japan, their marriage would end up like riding on the bumpy road. And the worst case scenario was that another guy would probably cuckold him ensued by a bitter divorce which would cause much infamy in Japan. The major rambled around the park and relished its serenity while the birds were chirping in the trees which leafy branches were protecting them from the strong sunlight. He sat on the bench, snatching the  picture out of the pocket and tried to remember that guy’s identity but still to no avail. He then saw the 2 cats on the tree hiss and intimidate one another - so annoying. The black one then struck the tabby cat with its paw so violently that the latter which was slightly smaller almost fell out of the tree. He shooed them away but then was enlightened that Chinese guy was the valet who was beaten horribly by Puyi in the palace that day!!

Hideyoshi without hesitation contacted the young lieutenant who had attended Koji’s funeral and worked in the Ministry of Interior Affairs and learnt that this Chinese man whose named was Zhiyuan really worked there as Puyi had claimed. But that guy seemed to be such a lazy enployee who always left for somewhere without leave but the ministry let this slide as they wanted to please Puyi. The major then asked the lieutenant for Zhiyuan’s address but that guy’s house was on the outskirts quite far from here, so he had to borrow the car from Doihara’s aide-de camp again. At first, he planned to confront that guy and straightforwardly ask him but there was something fishy when a car was parked in front of his ramshackle house.  The major stopped his car and parked it behind the utility pole and had waited for about half an hour until he saw Zhiyuan step out of his house with several guys who dressed like the members of Chinese Triad. They chattered, laughed and embraced one another before those guys would leave.

Hideyoshi was disappointed that he could not understand even a single Chinese word from them but decided to sneak into the house through the back door and he was surprised that apart from the decrepit sofa,  the house was quite empty like it was just a place for some shady activity. But a large picture of Mao Zedong, the leader of the Communist Party, on the wall might imply something. Zhiyuan entered the house and looked bewildered before trying to leave although he remembered Hideyoshi well. But the major drew the pistol to force him to sit on the chair before thanking his dream last night as it helped him remember how to interrogate Zhiyuan although that guy could seemingly resist him well like he had been trained for a long time.

Suddenly, Hideyoshi told him to be grateful for his help that time which saved him from being killed by Puyi. Although it was the crazy way to do so, it became incredibly successful as Zhiyuan eventually burst into tears and told him that he was a member of the secret society formed by the Chinese patriots who lived quietly in Manchukuo as the obedient citizens but secretly assisted the rebel groups. And the reason he entered this society was the vengefulness against Puyi who ruined his life. When asked why he knew Koji like in the picture, the guy said that the sergeant was also a member of this society – the only Japanese and the person who had contributed tremendously to them for a long time. Hideyoshi was shocked and now realized why the Kwangtung army had faced the formidable resistance from the rebels in the countryside, leading to the unnecessary deaths of Japanese soldiers. Koji was the traitor! This was the way that the old man could exact the revenge on his own army. From the Japanese perspective, it was downright wrong - the treason, but from someone who dissented from the dastardly roles of the Japanese army in China for decades, Koji would certainly receive the kudos.

Hideyoshi at last wanted to know what this society was up to now, but Puyi’s former valet said that he did not know either since he was not the upper echelon and just received the order to do something trifling like espionages in some of government offices but Hideyoshi shook his head in disbelief. and intended to bring Zhiyuan to the headquarters of the army for further interrogations but thought about Natsumi. There was no way that she knew about her father’s clandestine activities, otherwise she would not bring that box to him. But if this became publicly known, she would be branded as the traitor’s daughter which would make her the outcast in this country forever.

While standing undecided, Hideyoshi found something hitting the back of his head.

12

Becoming conscious from the fresh cold water poured on his head , Hideyoshi found himself lying in a dingy concrete room. A large group of men was standing around him and looking so amused to see him chained like a captured animal. They were all Chinese and dressed in triad style like the guys who just left Zhiyuan's house and , of course , they were standing here too. Puyi's former valet stood behind them and still looked cowardly although his peers were deciding the course of Hideyoshi's life in this room.

The middle-aged guy standing in front of them as the leader laughed aloud and spoke English fluently :

"Major Sasaki Hideyoshi. Don't know why you had poked your nose into our business here. Are you the government's spy?  But I've heard a lot about you and seen your pictures in all newspapers in Manchukuo like the hugely popular actor or crooner although you're just a lucky guy about to be the son-in-law of the most powerful man in this kingdom (sadly which would never happen). Still, it's such an honor of mine to see you in the flesh and chain you like a beaten bear."

His henchmen all burst into laughter. They probably understood at least some English words like 'bear'. The leader said,

" It'll also be without etiquette that I haven't properly introduced myself and my comrades yet. We're the underground society supported by the Chinese Communist Party and the triad who has collaborated with Kuomintang of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek - the United Front (KMT–CCP Alliance). But I consider myself Chairman Mao's fighter because I worship his ideology : human equality which looks like an impossible dream for the backward society with the remnants of feudalism like China. Your country , the imperialist , crazy about the so-called divine person like the emperor, uses his name to have pillaged , raped and all sorts of things to our motherland for years. It’s so saddening that all depravity of your army can't be all uttered in just one hour here and the intention to harm every Japanese on this land is never diminished on my vexed mind but becomes stronger every day. Yes , you’re right !  All the mysterious murders of the Japanese in Manchukuo are our decent jobs , but I don't think that's enough. More blood of the Japanese will be shed for sure !! And after this goddam war,  all Chinese will be liberated and live with prosperity and equality whereas all the Japanese will be burnt in hell ! Do you already find the proper place for yourself ? "

Hideyoshi tried to struggle but to no avail. He however laughingly said,

" I feel sorry for you and all the Chinese but amazed at how grandiose your daydream is. I wonder why you guys have bought into the visions of such ruthless and narcissistic guys like Mao and his guerilla friends. Or let me say that you’re downright gullible , correct ? I’m just a loyal soldier of the imperial army of Japan , so what should I do then ? "

That guy nodded.

" Major , you're just the foreigner who has never known Chairman Mao well enough while you still think that you're smart , how pathetic you are ! You can do like Mr. Koji , our precious friend, who had helped us tremendously. Without him , we would never inflict such damage to your army and civilians like in the past, and what a shame that he left us unfinished like this ! But it’s my insight that you prefer to die than to serve us like him , right ? Or we can extort your future father-in-law for a huge ransom which he would hesitate to pay , but that’s not a problem !  We are now financially supported by our generous Russian friends who has surreptitiously planned to thwart your country's greediness. It's hilarious although your country is not in the state of war with the USSR , Stalin has never trusted Japan as he thinks that all of you are so treacherous."

Hideyoshi interrupted.

"And can you tell me what kind of fate is lying before me ? "

He chuckled.

'And what will happen to you ?  We'll doubtlessly kill you but don't tell you how. Say a prayer it will not be a kind of torture with the excruciating pains to the degree that you wish you would never be born , haha. But before it's your turn , we want you to wait and witness something extremely important about to happen soon to this kingdom. Rest assured that the fucking jap like you will gasp in astonishment !"

Hideyoshi smiled and spat at that guy. The leader of the underground society smiled too and punched him in the face several times until the blood gushed from his mouth. The major lied still on the floor like he was fainting and when the leader tilted his head to watch him more closely , the major swiftly rose up a bit to headbutt him in the face. The blood splashed from the guy's nose as he tottered backward. His henchmen rushed to beat Hideyoshi up until he really became unconscious.

Hideyoshi was locked up in the narrow jail cell and the guards who kept watching him felt perplexed that the major had done nothing except sitting cross-legged on the floor and closing his eyes like meditation. He also did not bother to talk to them even with a single word, which made him even more mysterious and when the hours had passed , they felt more disoriented when he refused to eat the meals like he had the special power. They wondered whether he was feigning this composure to scare them until they unwittingly helped him escape like a hypnosis. Or was he just a gallant soldier who was practicing his mind in a samurai way to brace for death?

A guard who also spoke English so well heard Hideyoshi groan and say meekly,

" Ow.. ow .. young man,  I have a serious pain in my stomach and numbness is spreading around my body. But I'm now feeling like it’s going to burst into pieces , so please help me....."

The young man attempted to ignore him but when his cry for help was too disturbingly repeated ,  his patience was running out. He ran to open the hatch on the door and say furiously,

" Sorry , can't fucking help you anything ! You're planning to trick me into entering the cell and assault me , aren’t you ? I wasn't born yesterday, Japanese Bastard!! I used to be a university student before."

All of a sudden , the iron door miraculously darted toward him after being kicked forcefully from the inside until its hinges were torn apart. The poor man was hit by the heavy door and lied on the floor while it was still on his body so he could not move any part of his body except his head.  Hideyoshi stood above him while tearing the chains around his wrists like they were soft rags.

The major chillingly smiled.

"I know that ! I know that !  knucklehead. I just teased you as I had so badly desired that door to crush you , so you can feel more pain ! Was it you who stomped on my stomach yesterday ? Ouch , that really hurt!"

The underground society members heard the noise and rushed from the other room. A guy pointed the pistol at Hideyoshi and pulled the trigger, but the major threw a piece of the chain at it, making the bullet go another way. Hideyoshi swiftly jumped to kick his chest with his right foot until that man lied still on the floor. The major picked up the pistol on the floor while his fellows were flabbergasted as they merely had the swords and the iron batons. He thought it would be disgraceful to shoot them but suddenly saw the samurai sword (katana) lying magnificently in the showcase not far from him. It must have belonged to a Japanese soldier who was kidnapped and killed by this society. He threw the pistol away and grabbed it. Unsheathed, its blade looked very shimmering and sharp which frightened those men who then scattered to attack him reluctantly but it was like Hideyoshi was dancing with that sword which became a new part of his body mercilessly shredding those men’s flesh and limbs with its blade. The last guy was killed in an exceptional way : he was vertically cut in half and both parts of his body fell to the ground covered in the pool of blood of his own and the other fellows who were lying lifeless beside him.   

The trauma from being beaten up yesterday and claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces like in the jail cell) forced Hideyoshi to pull himself together by meditation and manage to wake up the special power deep inside his mind [like Surakiat in ‘The Limpid Sky’]. Now he felt connected to his former self in the night he killed Kenzo.

Hideyoshi walked toward the guard whose body was still beneath the iron door and said,

“ My fellow , just tell me what the plan of your gang is and what they are doing right now and I will simply walk away. In a few hours someone will certainly come to help you and your body won’t be permanently paralyzed. I can guarantee that ! ”

The guard looked furious and spat at his feet, but the saliva did not go that far.

“Not a chance in hell , Bastard ! I know you’re lying , so kill me now , stab me now ! I’m ready to die for my country.”

Hideyoshi chuckled and pointed the sword at his eyes.

“ How brave you are ! Yes , I’m lying but now I have a new idea : I will gouge both of your eyes out and let you die slowly here or even if you survive, you’ll end up as a blind beggar on the streets for the rest for your life. Japan might be defeated at the end of this war and your communist party might prevail in the civil war against Kuomintang party. Your society might also be awarded handsomely by the new  government , but will any of them eventually care about you ? Knucklehead.”

The guard finally dissolved into tears, imploring him to spare his eyes. He admitted that his group now was on the way to attack Puyi’s palace which was also Manchukuo’s parliament. This morning there was the opening ceremony of parliament and everyone utterly important , including Puyi and Doihara, were gathering there. The plan of assassination had been developed many years ago but the society was afraid that only their manpower would never be enough to bring success to their operation. But fate smiled upon them  , after the long negotiation between Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin , the Russians finally agreed to provide them with a special kind of explosives which was much more powerful than dynamites. The truck was scheduled to ram into the palace and tear everyone and everything into pieces the minute Puyi was about to make a speech and now the explosives were on the back of the truck bolting toward the palace.

Hideyoshi looked at the clock on the wall : it was 9.21 AM , more than half an hour before the ceremony would begin. He did not even have time to change his white shirt which was all red from blood and in panic looked around for the telephone but the young man said that it was not available here. He thanked him before rushing out of the building and finding the car borrowed from Doihara’s aide-de-camp parked there unscathed. The major smiled and drove at insane speed to the palace and fortunately , he could remember the direction from here.

While driving , his mind began to venture on the opposite way : why would he make haste to save the lives of such diabolical figures like Doihara and his generals and also Puyi who just wanted to be back to be emperor at the expense of innumerable lives of the Chinese ? Did he know about Unit 731 and its abominable cruelty there ?

Hideyoshi had deep down inside felt sorry for the millions of the innocent Chinese who died and endured the extremely sadistic tortures and now this was a great chance to avenge them ! The world would be better off without those mass murderers in that palace built with their blood money. He just pretended not to reach there on time or went back to his house to wash his body , drink beer and relaxedly wait for the good news.  He speculated that the members of the society , including its leader, would certainly succeed in this daredevil operation but they would lose their life too thanks to the fierce resistance from the guards of the palace and probably their own bombs on the truck. Everyone would at last perish , including that young man lying under the iron door as nobody would be at his rescue. No one even their ghosts would step out to tell the world that Hideyoshi had been kidnapped and learned this assassination beforehand. And he would fulfil the late Koji's prophecy like his short sentences at the end of his diary: the persons like Doihara and his generals who were behind the mass killings were killed too.

And ultimately, Hideyoshi would not any longer meet the pressure to be engaged to Tominaga who was too grieving for her father's death. And he could urge Natsumi to go back to Japan with him before building the family together somewhere far away from Tokyo. Finally, his family which greatly cared about him as the only child after his sister’s passing would begrudgingly let this poor woman be a part of them -a happy ending!

He slowed down his car a bit, but another thought interrupted : could he live with the indelible guilt until his dying breath? No matter how he disagreed with what everyone , especially Doihara , had done to this country , he was obliged to do his duty as a brave and sacrificing soldier who protected his compatriots. And Puyi also had been so good to him , so this was the only way that he would pay him back. Hideyoshi at last decided to go to the palace to thwart that plan. On the way , he found the Japanese soldiers near a food stall and stopped the car to tell them to inform the headquarters right away.

The truck was tucked away behind a building not far from Puyi’s palace while its engine was still running. Hideyoshi knew that it was waiting for the signal from the leader whom he could not see right now and Puyi’s former valet as an informant was certainly with him. The major pulled over near another building and thought it would be so monotonous like the old action movies that he would carefully sneak into that truck. He walked to stand on the proper spot and threw the sword through the truck’s window glass, and it incredibly stabbed the driver in the neck before the man sitting near him would scream. The society members who were standing by the truck rushed to see the scene and walked around in a daze. Hideyoshi darted to ruthlessly snap the neck of the nearest guy who was standing unaware of his presence before grabbing the rifle from him and calmly walked to shoot the society members in cold blood one after another like he was picking the flowers in the serene garden. The Chinese were all dead but the major still heard the commotion and the engine at the left side of the palace and was shocked that there was still another truck! It was beginning to run toward the palace before the designated time when the leader noticed that there was something seriously wrong with this truck. The palace guards were alerted and shot the truck from a far but could not stop it.

Throwing the rifle away, Hideyoshi climbed up into the truck , kicked the corpse away and drove the truck to catch up with the other one. Before the collision between the 2 vehicles, the major quickly jumped away with the sword and ran away as fast as he could. The deafening explosion was so powerful that it in a heartbeat destroyed several buildings in the compound of Puyi’s palace, but the main building or the parliament was intact. Without the obstruction from Hideyoshi , it would be razed to the ground as well.

Amidst the smouldering remains of buildings, the group of society members with weapons ran towards the main building and exchanged gunfire with the guards who had survived the bomb and stood before the gate. The attackers were later assailed by the sword from Hideyoshi who adroitly exploited the thick smoke around them in guerilla style. Despite wielding the powerful submachine guns, the men one by one fell to the ground by the bloody blade moving so beautifully in the smoke like the little bolts of lightning. Hideyoshi's fight was almost flawed as the last member was about to shoot him from behind but the major managed to turn himself around and send the sword to impale his forehead. All the guards recognized him and showed him their heartfelt gratitude since without his heroism, they would all die too. But the leader and Zhiyuan were nowhere to be seen.

The unit of soldiers also arrived there before being ushered by Hideyoshi into the main building.  In the great hall, the chairs were scattered in disarray. Not far from them were the 2 bodies lying down on the floor while the members of legislative assembly and Puyi’s cabinet, were cowardly huddled together along the corners and the wall. It was hilarious to see the top brass of the Kwangtung army , the supposedly brave generals, trembling unrestrainedly. Doihara’s aide-de-camp was standing among them and showed the great elation to see Hideyoshi. Near the podium on the stage, the leader and Zhiyuan were separately wrapping their arms around the necks of Doihara and Puyi from behind and directing the pistols at their faces. At first , they had shot both men on the spot, but the guards dashed to shield them with their bodies , so they held them as the hostages instead. Now the attackers bitterly learnt that their laborious operation was almost in total ruins thanks to the unexpected hero like Hideyoshi.

Hideyoshi extended his hand to them.

“ Sir, don’t do anything stupid ! Just lower your weapons and let them go!”

The leader yelled out while being on the verge of pulling the trigger,

“ You're free at last ! Incredible !  But no ! I know that you are parroting what everyone should say. Following your order means I eventually surrender and sign my own death warrant. But killing these 2 scums of the earth will almost accomplish our mission.”

Hideyoshi calmly said,

“Please spare my future father-in-law ! Look at him : he is so scared that that he's shitting his pants right now.”

The leader chuckled , glancing at Doihara but then was stupefied that he did not see Hideyoshi anymore as the major had swiftly jumped so high in the air above him and beheaded him even before he would blink his eyes. The leader did not even have a chance to learn that just now he had been intentionally distracted by his killer. Hideyoshi successfully landed on the floor despite tottering a bit and looked around to see his work. The underground society leader became the headless corpse while the blood was gushing from his neck like a fountain making the Lawrence of Manchukuo scream in utter horror after his face was bathed in blood. Hideyoshi almost burst out laughing.

It was Doihara’s aide-de-camp who successfully jumped to wrest the pistol from Zhiyuan and catch him. The guy cried his eyes out like a child while being handcuffed by the soldiers amidst the tumult but Puyi raised his hand to everyone so he could speak to his former valet.

“Zhiyuan, I know that my crime against you that day is absolutely unforgivable, but you can be sure that in my life , not a single day goes by that I won’t be consumed by the guilt. I know you’re melancholic and depressed. Your trauma drove you to have done something stupid like this , right ?  Please forgive me ! I will try in my power to lobby the government to commute your sentence !

Hideyoshi felt that those gentle words were straight from his heart and thought that Puyi was one of the most complicated guys in the world. Zhiyuan tearfully nodded and left with the soldiers. But tragically , Puyi did not have the actual power to do so as a week later the patriotic and vengeful Zhiyuan was executed.

Hideyoshi became in the kingdom’s limelight again as the great hero who had saved all the elites of Manchukuo from being blown to smithereens. Everyone admired and spoke highly of him and all the radios and the newspapers adroitly used the flowery language to flatter Hideyoshi like this was the propaganda. He had thus been tirelessly chased by the cohort of reporters, so he confined himself to only the army base where the soldiers successfully prevented them from entering. He also shunned meeting everyone for a while, claiming that he wanted to cure his trauma with isolation but actually it was his ruse to spend time with only Natsumi. The girl darted to his house to embrace and cry in his arms after she had been extremely worried about his unexplainable disappearance for more than 2 days. She then complimented on his heroism and congratulated him before telling him that the nightclub owner promoted her to the head chef, which meant her salary would be enormously raised and provided her with the luxury house and furniture to live in as long as she worked there. And with the unexpected open arms of her colleagues , she felt that Manchukuo returned to be the same for her.

Hideyoshi however became saddened and said,

“Natsumi-chan , I have a plan about us. Do you want to know this ?”   

Natsumi looked curious.

“Of course, what’s that , sir ?”

Hideyoshi said,

“I want you to leave for Japan with me.”

The girl looked reluctant and walked around like she was making the toughest decision in her life which greatly disturbed him.

He said,

“Natsumi-chan, the day after tomorrow, there will be the medal ceremony for me at the palace, and I hope that you’ll be there as my personal guest and give me the answer I ask today!”

The girl was terrified.

“Me ?  The girl like me  ? I’m just nobody who survives on a hand-to-mouth basis.  Even only talking and hugging you , the prince who’s perfect in everything and now the country’s hero , is like a dream or a blessing from heaven. I don’t deserve you at all, sir !"

Hideyoshi blushed and asked the question haunting his thought for a long time.

“ Do you ever love me ?”

Natsumi was dumbfounded, staring at Hideyoshi briefly before simply leaving

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………                             

                   Manchukuo's national stadium

The enthusiastic crowds who were holding the Japan's national flags boisterously thronged along the main walkway into the gigantic national stadium which was built several years ago to flaunt the grandeur of Manchukuo. Initially , Hideyoshi's medal ceremony would take place at Puyi's palace but it was still too messy and could not accommodate the large crowds who had successfully pressured the authorities into letting them attend this great ceremony and this was also Doihara's idea that it would tremendously help boost nationalism and his cult of personality as the father-in-law of the national hero who had long taken him under his wing among the Japanese expats. But this looked awkwardly peculiar as they were also considered the citizens of the supposedly independent country whereas the Chinese were not allowed to attend this ceremony (if they wanted to).

Natsumi walked excitedly alone among them. She had to spend half of her saving buying the new dress which still looked much modest comparing with the people around her who mostly were the middle-class, let alone the dignitaries from all the places in this kingdom. The people eventually had to pass the checkpoints and the guards fully armed thanks to the ultimate security precaution. Doihara's aide-de-camp was standing there and smiled to see Natsumi while she recognized him as he used to visit her bookstore from time to time. The lieutenant suddenly amazed her by grabbing her arm to skip the line and easily walk through a checkpoint to the seats of the dignitaries and he told her to take the only vacant one like it was intentionally reserved for her. The old man nearby who was a member of Puyi's cabinet asked Doihara's aide-de-camp who she was but the middle-aged man curtly answered that she was just Hideyoshi's friend.

Natsumi was then immensely thrilled that she was sitting not far from Tominaga and her friends who were chattering and irritatingly fanning themselves with the brochures since the sunlight in this morning was so strong despite a large canopy above the stadium. Tominaga wondered who Natsumi was but was too arrogant to ask her , only occasionally giving the girl the side-eye. The girl guessed that not far from them was also Hideyoshi's family : his parents , uncle and aunt who kept their composure well. The middle-aged woman , probably Hideyoshi's mother, was vivaciously talking with Doihara which proved the latter's claim to public that they had been the good friends since childhood. Emperor Puyi was sitting quietly, exuding the lonely-in-the crowd vibe.

Suddenly , the music from the loudspeakers around the stadium resounded as an overture to the ceremony and it was the real overture of Richard Wagner's opera 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg' requested by Hideyoshi himself followed by the cheerful announcement from some old man to introduce the ceremony. The major magnificently walked out of the gate toward the chairmen of the ceremony , Puyi and Doihara , who were standing before the large flags of Japan and Manchukuo. He was in the white military uniform with the sword - used to kill the underground society members- dangling above his right hip, making him look like the knight or one of the greatest samurais in the Japanese history. The crowds in the stadium fanatically applauded and cheered while waving the flags unstoppably. Plenty of people threw a myriad of confetti in the air which made the ceremony more colorful but what a shame that firecrackers and fireworks were banned for security reason.

Hideyoshi gained such an enormous admiration from the public that Emperor Hirohito himself told the prime minister that someday he would grant the major an audience at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

Hideyoshi all of a sudden let his usher go alone by stopping before the dignitaries who were giving him the perplexed look. Tominaga almost stood up with great delight assuming that her future fiancé was stopping by to greet her but he walked right past her and her friends to Natsumi who gasped in astonishment.

The major extended his hand to her.

"Natsumi-chan, are you ready to walk with me ?"

The girl hesitated briefly before smilingly taking his hand. Both seemed to ignore how Doihara's daughter obviously showed her agitation and started to walk toward the centre of ceremony amidst the sudden silence of the awkward crowds. Hideyoshi stopped before Puyi and lowered his head. The emperor anxiously glanced at the shaking Doihara whose face was reddened before agreeing to hang the medal around Hideyoshi's neck. But the major promptly took it off and put it around Natsumi's instead.

He turned around and yelled out to the crowds via microphone,

"Sir, it's my utmost pleasure that this ceremony would be held to honour Ms. Natsumi Ishikawa too. Without this woman and her late father who had fought for humanity (he did not say 'the Japanese') , I would never find the clue to the underground society. Please applaud her ! The real heroine ! "

A few of them did what Hideyoshi demanded so the applause was pitifully faint. The couple of heroes bowed to Puyi and Doihara without seeing what the latter was reacting. They also did this to Hideyoshi's family who were so petrified while his mother stood up and was about to say something to him but restrained herself. The couple then started to walk toward the exit while the crowds were still frozen as if this were the miraculous mass hypnosis. Not even a single attendee dared whistle or shout loudly. Puyi was the first one who realized something and kept laughing and clapping loudly like a madman. Hideyoshi finally tore down the wall around him and found the freedom the emperor himself had desperately craved for a long time and suggested to him that day.

Passing Doihara's aide-de-camp , they were told that he had prepared the car outside and the plane to Japan was waiting for them at the airport with the pilots obeying only his order and the police officers along the streets were under his command too, so they should not be worried that Doihara or anyone would call the authorities to stop them. Hideyoshi and Natsumi thus gently bowed to him as a token of gratitude and the middle-aged man smilingly bowed back and wished them the best of luck . After they left, the lieutenant looked at the stage and burst out laughing to see Doihara collapsing on the floor before the people would busily vie to help him which looked hilarious.  He was now avenged, probably to the extent beyond his imagination. What a worthy investment !

The girl said while walking hand in hand firmly with Hideyoshi,

" Can we just stop by at my house to pick up my things ?"

Hideyoshi shook his head.

"It's not necessary !  I can buy everything for you when we arrive in Tokyo."

Along the exit the guards clapped so loudly and bowed to both of them with a gratitude for being saved by Hideyoshi during that attack at the palace. And they without further ado rushed to form a long line to prevent the reporters from following the couple. While smoothly leaving for the airport , from afar they saw the frenzied crowd at the gate attempt to follow their car but to no avail , not even a single car was allowed by the guards to leave.

Natsumi broke the long silence.

"Sir , and ....why are you so confident that I'll come today ? "

Hideyoshi smilingly said,

" I know that , Natumi-chan ! I know from the moment we first met in that very room with the piano. We're destined for each other for all eternity although I formerly hadn't believed in this kind of stuff. And even though you looked exceedingly reluctant that day and didn't say you love me , I know that it was just your pretension."

She sneered and pinched him.

"Hmph! Look who's bragging !  I'm afraid that if I hadn't come today , somebody would be crying like a baby while walking to get the medal right now!"

The major laughed aloud and kissed her forehead.

"No ! Not a chance , as long as you're my forever soulmate , the good companion." 

The End