Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 20 The Street Office Has No Windows

Su Xinpei sat at his workstation for the entire morning, tidying up his desk meticulously. To the left of the keyboard were four documents awaiting review for the renewal of his minimum living allowance, each arranged in the order requested by Aunt He—application form, income certificate, copy of household registration book, and review comments from the previous quarter. To the right of the keyboard was a revised draft of the subdistrict office's year-end comprehensive management report. He had already proofread up to page five. The fourth line, "Cooperate with the Special Affairs Bureau to do a good job in calming the emotions of residents in abnormal areas," had been changed by Xiao Zhou from the administrative office to "Cooperate with relevant departments to do a good job in residents' safety publicity work." The wording was softer, the scope broader, making it more like a year-end summary. He read the revised draft again from beginning to end, and saw his name in the "Drafter" column on the last page. The strokes were neat, and it used the Song typeface, size four, which was required by the subdistrict office.

He closed the revised draft and put it in his to-do list. Then he took the business card from the back of the drawer.

With his eyes closed and only one eye still on, Ye Xinghe, from the Field Operations Squadron of the Ironthorn City Branch of the Southern Alliance Special Elephant Bureau, had the handwritten extension number on the back of the card crumpled from being pinched twice by his fingers. The handwriting remained clear. He placed the card in front of the keyboard, stared at it for a moment, then picked up the landline phone on the table and pressed speakerphone. The dial tone was very soft, like a tiny insect chirping softly in the receiver. He dialed the extension number.

After three rings, the other end answered: "Ye Xinghe."

"Team Leader Ye, this is Su Xinpei." He held the microphone between his ear and shoulder, his fingers unconsciously tapping the space bar on the keyboard. "I've thought about that business card. I'll take it."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a soft exhale, as if the other person had exhaled a puff of smoke into the distance near the receiver. "Tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM, in the conference room on the east side of the third floor of the Tieji branch. Bring your identification."

"it is good."

"Also," Ye Xinghe paused for a moment, "we've already retrieved your file. You don't need to report to the neighborhood office separately; we'll send a formal letter. Just be there on time tomorrow."

Su Xinpei hung up the phone. He put the receiver back on the landline, his finger lingering on it for a moment. His file had already been accessed—meaning that the Special Affairs Bureau had reviewed every document he had handled at the subdistrict office over the past few years, every system operation record, and every time he swiped his card at the archives. He didn't even know when his file had been accessed; it might have been a few days after the report from Beihe Agricultural Machinery Factory was submitted, or perhaps even earlier. He recalled the scene when Ye Xinghe first came to the subdistrict office, scanning the room before fixing his gaze on him—that person wasn't just looking around casually; he came with data to identify him.

He put the business card back in the innermost part of the drawer and closed it. Then he continued reviewing the applications for renewal of the minimum living allowance.

In the afternoon, Aunt He returned from a meeting in the district. She put her briefcase on the table and went to the break room to get water. Passing Su Xinpei's workstation, she glanced down at the low-income assistance renewal application he was processing. The applicant was a 73-year-old elderly person living alone in the old Beihe district, with zero monthly income and a blank space for dependents. Su Xinpei wrote "True, renewal recommended" in the review comments section and was signing it. Aunt He stood beside him watching him finish stamping the form, then suddenly said, "Your file access record was recently checked."

Su Xinpei paused for a moment. Aunt He didn't look at him; she spoke in a declarative tone, not an interrogative one. When she said "transferred," she wasn't asking for an explanation, but rather letting him know that she knew.

"It was arranged by the Special Affairs Bureau." Aunt He held the teacup with both hands, blowing on the tea leaves. "When they came to deliver the notice last time, they mentioned that you cooperated very promptly." She pronounced the word "cooperated" very calmly, neither praising nor worrying, as if she were talking about a routine matter of the neighborhood office. Then she took the cup and went into the inner room, pausing at the door without turning around: "Take care of yourself."

Su Xinpei watched Aunt He's figure disappear behind the inner room door. Aunt He had said this once a few months ago, when she asked him to organize the files of abnormal complaints. Now she said it again, in the exact same tone as last time—not asking for details, not inquiring about the reasons, but simply entrusting him with the word "appropriateness," like placing a signed document on his desk for him to handle the follow-up himself.

He placed the signed renewal documents for his minimum living allowance into the filing basket, then stood up and went to the archives. The archives were the same as when he last visited; the metal cabinets gleamed with a cold, bluish-gray light, the fluorescent tubes hummed, and the air was thick with the mixed smell of old paper and dehumidifier. He walked to the third row of metal cabinets, squatted down, and pulled open the bottom shelf, running his fingers over the numbers on the blue file boxes—NK-Last Year-001 to 047, forty-seven abnormal complaint files. He had compiled these files into a catalog and given them to Aunt He a few months ago. Now they lay quietly in their original places, a fresh layer of dust covering their surfaces. He pulled out one of the boxes, opened it, and turned to the first file—a resident of the Beihe old district complained of "hearing the sound of a heavy object being slowly dragged in the corridor at night." The signature column for this file still read "Unresolved." The second file, from an elderly person living alone, complained of "someone talking in their ear in the middle of the night," also had the signature column "Unresolved." The third, the fourth—he flipped through them one by one, each one exactly the same as when he last sorted them out, without updates, without follow-up annotations, without being reclassified or marked. The problems raised by these complainants had not been resolved, their names were still hanging in the file box, mixed in with complaints from last year, the year before, and the year before that, covered by layers of dust.

He closed the file box and put it back in its place. Then he stood up, took out the Special Meteorology Bureau's business card from his jacket pocket, and glanced at the handwritten extension number on the back. He now had a formal channel to directly access the Special Meteorology Bureau's non-classified external data interface—if he wanted, he could cross-reference the complete historical data of these unusual complaint files with the Special Meteorology Bureau's existing crack monitoring records. This meant that all reports lacking investigative conditions within the street office system could potentially receive a second review.

He gently closed the iron door of the filing cabinet, and the lock clicked shut.

On his way to Tiegutang that evening, he bought a roasted sweet potato at the entrance of North Alley. The old man selling sweet potatoes took the potato out of the oven, wrapped it in two layers of old newspaper, and the heat scalded Su Xinpei's palm through the newspaper. He peeled it open and took a bite, his tongue recoiling from the heat. In the alley, people were collecting quilts that had been drying in the sun; bamboo poles stretched out of the windows, and the sheets billowed like sails in the evening breeze. When he passed the bulk liquor shop at number 15, the owner was still sitting at the door, dozing off, with the strains of opera playing from the radio. North Alley was still North Alley; shoemakers were still repairing shoes, and people were still dozing off—nothing had changed. But he knew he had changed—he now had three identities: Xiao Su from the neighborhood committee, a disciple of Tiegutang, and an external consultant for the Special Affairs Bureau. Uncle Li's medical expenses for those on welfare hadn't been approved yet, the mediation of the dispute between Zhang's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law needed to be followed up, and the neighborhood's winter fire prevention inspection was about to begin—these were still his responsibilities. But he has to report to the conference room on the third floor of the Special Phenomenon Bureau's Ironthorn Branch at 2 PM tomorrow, as an advisor. He needs to process low-income assistance materials in the archives and compare the abnormal complaint curves from several months ago on the Special Phenomenon Bureau's intelligence terminal. The gap between these two things is as vast as the suspension bridge vertically hanging between Midtown and Underground Street, and he is the one who rides the suspension bridge back and forth every day.

Upon arriving at Tiegutang, Old Tie Tou was squatting in the corner repairing the sandbag that had been patched countless times. The radio was on; instead of storytelling tonight, it was a listener request program. The announcer read listener letters in an old-fashioned tone, then played an old song that Su Xinpei couldn't recall the name of. Wu Xiong wasn't there; only Old Tie Tou and the old elm tree were in the courtyard. Su Xinpei changed his shoes, hung his coat on an old nail, and carried out a basin of ice water and an infrared lamp from the storage room door. A thin layer of ice had formed on the surface of the water in the basin. He stepped in, and the moment the ice water reached his ankles, his calf muscles instinctively tightened. Then, the memory of his stance training automatically took over—his knees slightly bent, his center of gravity lowered, his breathing slowed, the cold was kept out of his skin, and the charcoal in his dantian glowed steadily. Half an hour later, he emerged from the ice water and sat in front of the infrared lamp. The lamplight made his back red, his skin turning from pale to flushed, and all his pores opened. The panel displayed the leather refining experience points, which he glanced at but didn't examine closely.

After finishing his skin-refining training, he carried the basin of ice water to the corner and emptied it, then unplugged the infrared lamp, wound up the wires, and put it back in the storage room. He then stood back in the center of the courtyard, assumed the opening stance, and performed the eighteen-hand boxing form from beginning to end. He performed the form slowly, ensuring each movement was executed flawlessly. In the opening stance, the palm heel felt slightly warm at the end of the push-out motion; in the closing stance, the energy naturally sank into the dantian (lower abdomen) acupoint. After finishing, he sat on a bench wiping his sweat. Old Iron Head stood up from his rattan chair, carrying a water bottle, and came over.

"You made a phone call this afternoon."

This wasn't a question. Su Xinpei nodded: "I accept. I'll report for duty tomorrow."

Old Tie Tou took a sip of his drink, placed the flask on the bench, and sat down next to him. The old song on the radio had finished, and the announcer began reading another listener's letter, his voice hoarse, like a cassette tape that had been left out for too long and was losing its magnetic dust.

"Now that you've become an advisor to the Special Elephant Bureau, your schedule will be much tighter. You can't reduce your stance training, you can't reduce your boxing form, and you must complete at least one round of skin-refining training every day. The access to information the Special Elephant Bureau has given you can be a knife if you use it well, and a rope if you use it poorly—binding yourself and others. I have only one requirement: no matter what you see over there, come to this courtyard every night to practice your stance training. You can work overtime on cases, but you can't miss your stance training. Your stance training is your foundation; without it, no matter how thick your three layers of armor are, they won't hold up."

Su Xinpei nodded. He knew that the "three shells" Old Tie Tou mentioned referred to Golden Skin and Jade Network, Water and Fire Immortal Robe, and Mercury Blood and Silver Marrow—he had already mastered one of the four great training methods of the old martial arts, was currently refining the second, and the third was still waiting for him in the distance. The three shells needed to be supported by the same foundation; once the foundation loosened, the shells would crumble layer by layer from the inside out.

Old Ironhead stood up, walked to the corner, reattached the repaired sandbag, and patted the canvas. "Bring a briefing from the Special Meteorological Bureau on crack monitoring when you come tomorrow night. I need to see their latest frequency data." With that, he went inside. The radio was still on, and the announcer was still reading a letter.

Su Xinpei sat on the bench, looking at the roses in the yard. Wu Xiong had brought the roses back from a flower stall at the entrance of the market last month, planting them in a broken enamel pot. Surprisingly, they had survived and even produced several buds. The moonlight shone on the petals, making them a deep, almost blackish red. He thought of the clivia on Aunt He's windowsill, wondering if anyone had watered it that night.

It was almost eleven o'clock when Su Xinpei got back to his apartment. After showering, he put his clothes in the washing machine, sat on the edge of the bed, and opened his notepad. The notepad was almost empty; the kraft paper cover was worn and frayed, and the spine had a tear, which he had repaired twice with transparent tape. He turned to a new page and began writing his summary for the day.

1. Received an external consultant from the Special Affairs Bureau. Reporting for duty tomorrow at 2 PM. The files have been reviewed; Aunt He was aware of this and did not inquire further. 2. Street office work proceeded as usual: four low-income assistance renewals were completed, the attachments to the comprehensive management report were revised, and the "abnormal incident" category has been changed to "safety work." 3. Forty-seven abnormal complaints in the old archives still lack follow-up annotations. Data comparison can now be initiated through the Special Affairs Bureau. 4. Training: One round of skin tempering and quenching, half an hour of standing meditation, and one round of boxing stances. Ice crystals formed in the ice water basin, and the mark on my left ribcage itched slightly once during standing meditation; the itching subsided after rinsing with hot water. 5. Tomorrow's plan: Mediation of the Zhang family's mother-in-law/daughter-in-law dispute in the morning, organizing the fire prevention inspection form at noon, reporting to the Special Affairs Bureau at 2 PM, and two rounds of standing meditation and skin tempering in the evening. The master needs a crack monitoring report.

He closed the notepad and turned off the light. He lay in the darkness for a while, unable to fall asleep. He heard the sound of a light rail train passing by outside the window, rumbling past and then disappearing. He remembered tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock—the conference room on the east side of the third floor, his credentials, files, new permissions—he would officially step into that world. Not as an anonymous whistleblower, not as a file clerk, but as an external consultant. His reports would no longer be hidden behind the words "Beihe Subdistrict Office." He would have to sign his name. He turned over, feeling a slight warmth three fingers below his navel. The stake was still there. He closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.