You Told Me to Be a Lazy Patrolman, but I Took Down the Special Service Agency

He pushed his only white-flour steamed bun into the arms of a child who was nearly starving to death.

In Shanghai in 1938, the bun was dazzlingly white, so white it hardly seemed real.

The child didn't take it. Hunched over, he clutched a hard piece of bread mottled with green mold. His gaze was fierce and lonely, like a wolf cub weaned too soon and forced to scavenge among the dead.

“Eat it. Throw that bread away. If you eat it, you won't live to see tomorrow.”

From that day on, the child had a new name: Su Yun.

From that day on, this most unremarkable patrolman began gathering sparks amid the ruins of Shanghai.

To the mute man with a severed hand, he taught him to hold a knife in his left hand.

To the newspaper boy who crawled through tunnels, he gave him a path to walk with his head held high.

To the girl who guarded her parents' bodies beside a mass grave, he took her home and gave her a bowl of hot porridge.

“At Ping'an Hall, you are people. If I have food, then you will have meat.”

Later, Fujita Jiro asked him, “Who are you, really?”

Gu Chen didn't answer.

He simply watched the children who had once been so lowly they seemed ground into the dust rise one by one and become blades aimed at the invaders.

He thought that was probably the answer.