Chickenhawk

“So, have you had some thoughts?”

Honestly, I couldn’t clearly explain even to myself why I stopped her. Isn’t it strange? It’s not like Zhou Lizhi is a virgin or the first woman I’ve seduced.

If she had tried to seduce Briar Churchill, although there’s no reason for her to do so, I could have at least explained my actions to myself. Churchill seemed to be the first woman to embrace me, so there could be a plausible reason for me to show possessiveness towards her.

Just as they say the first time is special for women, isn’t the woman who gave her first time to a man also special to him? Even though my body has stopped secreting testosterone, that kind of special feeling still remains in my mind.

But Zhou Lizhi is different. She’s basically a tyrant, a person who has many women under her, and although she sometimes shows a desperate side to me, she’s not someone who can be trusted romantically.

Right now, even she herself hasn’t said she’ll only look at me from now on. Of course, I haven’t said I’ll only look at her either. We’re both people who would throw flirtatious glances at other women given the chance, or not refuse flirtations that come our way. So the specialness towards her can only be much less. There’s no need to consider her special.

Yet I stopped her. It was almost an unconscious action rather than a conscious one.

“Well, I haven’t had any specific thoughts, but another issue that needs to be confirmed came to mind.”

For now, I didn’t want to hastily promise to sleep with Duey. I desperately racked my brains to think of more issues I should confirm from her in advance. There was just one more question that came to mind.

“Yes, I’ll decide whether to answer after hearing it, but go ahead and ask.”

“It’s about Chiang Kai-shek.”

“What about Chiang Kai-shek?”

“You mentioned blue flames and great desires, right? You said that since coming to this school, you’ve only seen such desire in me, Zhou, and Chen Yayuan. What about Chiang Kai-shek? Didn’t Chiang Kai-shek himself come to the entrance ceremony? We even shook hands.”

“That’s a good question, Platoon Leader.”

Catherine Duey smiled a complex smile.

“Chiang Kai-shek no longer has such passion. His great destiny might have already ended, or he might have lost his desire or ambition for other personal reasons. But when you look at his flame, you know. Chiang’s era is over. He has nothing more to achieve, and nothing left that he can achieve.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It means Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek is already a living corpse. It won’t take long for a living corpse to become a dead corpse.”

“…You mean because he’s gotten old, all his ambitions for what he wants to achieve while alive have disappeared?”

“Wrong. That’s not what I’m saying. What I mean is… his case is a special case. There are many people who can’t let go of their greed even as they grow old and die at the age of 100. Really many. Power holders who want to control even what happens to future generations according to their will. Old parents who want to control their children’s lives even in their dying moments. But Chiang Kai-shek has already let go of all that. I don’t know why.”

It didn’t seem like an issue to be taken lightly. I had evidence of circumstances contrary to her words.

The great purge of the Central Executive Committee. There was an incident where dozens of Kuomintang members, children of Kuomintang elders who were no different from founding contributors, were purged. They said it was clearly Chiang Kai-shek’s will because he was wide awake. But was the Chiang Kai-shek that Duey saw in a state where he no longer had anything he wanted to achieve while alive?

If that’s true, if the Generalissimo is a person who no longer has anything left he wants to do for this China, why would he need to strike down so many politically important figures at the end of his life? Even if he wanted to crush the country he built because he didn’t like it, he would need desire for that.

If he really has no desire, why? If he no longer has any political ambition to do something, why?

“So regarding this atomic bomb incident, I don’t think it was Chiang Kai-shek’s doing. Such a huge staged act necessarily needs a purpose to cause an event equivalent to war, but the Kuomintang’s Generalissimo doesn’t have the will to wage war now. So I thought it might be Russia’s doing, but…”

“Hasn’t it turned out to be the work of Qing restorationists in the end?”

“…It’s unknowable at present. Anyway, that’s all for my answer about the Chiang Kai-shek issue. Now I’d like to hear your answer.”

Damn it. What should I do?

I’m certain that if I ask specifically about the Chen Yayuan issue, she won’t answer. But what I really want to hear about is that desire, or ambition, that Chen Yayuan supposedly held. As the person involved in the unprecedented incident of murder within Huangpu, yet strangely glossed over and ambiguously passed over, I have an obligation to collect as much information as possible about this strange woman, no matter how trivial.

In fact, Duey might know almost nothing about Chen Yayuan. She might just be bluffing to draw out what she wants from me.

But… the possibility that she might give some clue is not one that can be disregarded either.

I wanted to consult someone and decide on this issue. The person I most want to consult with right now is Operative Marilyn Jefferson, but there’s no way to contact Jefferson now. Zhou and Briar are naturally excluded. Then the person I can talk to is…

Should I go find Katerfeld again? It seems like I’m going to her too often for having agreed not to talk until the end of October, but it seems I should go to Rebecca Katerfeld again and decide whether to cooperate with Duey on this issue.

For now, I need to stall for time and postpone the answer.

“If we were to do it, where?”

“Hmm…? Where, you say?”

“Well, you have a roommate, and I have a roommate. Bri and I share a room, and although Zhou has a private room…”

“Ah, I see. That’s the issue.”

Catherine Duey clapped her hands and nodded, perhaps thinking I had completely made up my mind to accept.

“I suppose it would be outside. Like in a park. If we continue our exchange from the park pavilion that time, near the lake might be good too.”

“Huh?”

I involuntarily let out a surprised sound at the completely unexpected answer. It’s not that I don’t have experience outdoors, but since becoming a woman’s body, I haven’t had any yet.

Moreover, even that experience I do have was in a remote Belarusian village where there was little chance of being caught by people, and even if caught, it didn’t matter much… The situation here at this school now is completely different. I feel somewhat reluctant.

“There’s no other way, is there? If you prefer a place with a roof, let’s borrow the audiovisual room in the library. How about that?”

“You… it seems your experience isn’t that abundant after all…?”

“It’s not just not abundant, it’s non-existent.”

“For someone without experience, your ideas are quite extreme…”

“It’s not like I’m talking recklessly about war because I’ve killed before, right?”

“Are you self-evaluating as a chickenhawk?”

“I can kill well when the real thing comes. I’m confident about that. So, I’m saying this issue will be the same.”

Does it work like that?

Anyway, it’s perplexing but rather fortunate. I’ve gained an appropriate excuse to pretend to accept her proposal and then back out. I can just say that outdoor play is a bit embarrassing, so I need to think about it more.

“Well, that, that’s something I’ll need to think about more. Even if it’s the library’s audiovisual room, it seems we’re not allowed to lock the door as we please, and sound doesn’t seem to be completely blocked from the outside, and, well, in the case of other places, they’re even less enclosed…”

“Hmm…”

“Ah, and also, depending on the position, without the thickness of a bed mattress, it can be quite painful in some cases, so this issue needs some consideration…”

“It seems like you have someone you need to consult with?”

I closed my mouth at Duey’s sharp guess. Catherine Duey turned away from me and walked away, swaying her hips. This time, it was in the direction of our student dormitory, not the faculty dormitory.

“Then think about it some more. I’ll give you until this weekend. If you can’t decide by then, I’ll go to Zhou Lizhi and try to seduce her. Well, there’s no guarantee that Major Zhou will fall for it, but isn’t it worth a try?”

Zhou Lizhi seemed to have her own beliefs about embracing women, but…

Honestly, if a woman as sleek as Catherine Duey sets her mind to seduce her… Zhou Lizhi wouldn’t refuse… no, it doesn’t seem like she could refuse. She just hadn’t made the first move, but she’s not in such a high position that she needs to kick away a meal that comes crawling in, and she’s not a woman with a high risk of getting burned by eating it.

…If she targets and seduces her, Zhou will fall for it. It seems I need to reach a conclusion on this issue quickly.