Infiltrating the Superhuman Training Girls’ School of the Republic of China!

Originally, I had planned to walk around the school more before breakfast, but after encountering Zhou, I returned to the dormitory. Churchill greeted me cheerfully, seeing that I had returned earlier than expected.

“What? You’re back early? Weren’t you going to meet someone for a meal?”

“Let’s eat together, Briar.”

I said, moving towards the kitchen. Churchill shrugged.

“Breakfast? I was planning to skip it unless something special came up.”

“Do you not eat breakfast when I’m not around?”

“You’re talking as if you usually prepare it. Even when you’re here, you eat alone more often than not, commoner.”

That’s true. Living as roommates, I’ve seen Briar Churchill skip breakfast very often. But she was originally someone with irregular eating patterns, and she would even skip lunch during class breaks to go out alone and do strange things, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

She wasn’t deliberately refusing to eat with others like Barbara Tikhonov. If there was an opportunity to eat together and she was in a good mood, it was common for her to rush over and sit across from someone.

“I’ll do it. I’m somewhat interested in this English breakfast thing.”

“Huh? Isn’t that too heavy? Let’s just take out some bread and eat.”

“Sometimes I wonder which of you and Lieutenant Duey is French and which is British.”

“What does that matter? What wind has suddenly blown your way?”

I responded half-heartedly to Churchill’s words while pouring oil into the frying pan. Catherine Duey had talked about eating face-to-face as if it were as significant as sexual intercourse, or in fact, almost like a preliminary stage to sexual intercourse.

Of course, it can’t be stated so definitively. But it wasn’t a completely meaningless observation either. Honestly, until I was dispatched to China, I had rarely sat down to eat with anyone for purposes other than infiltration missions.

Even this moment could be considered part of an infiltration mission, but even if it was part of a mission, I had hardly ever thought about wanting to eat with someone.

I just felt that way.

The thought of wanting to sit down and eat with someone who wasn’t hostile to me, who might even like me. So I fried bacon, eggs, baked beans, and other items, placed them on a plate, and handed it to Churchill. Churchill grumbled that she preferred lighter breakfasts but didn’t refuse the plate I offered.

“Did something really happen?”

“Are you actually worried about me, miss?”

“Did you suddenly need money?”

“Why is the conversation going in that direction?”

“Well, when you suddenly act like you’re taking care of my household, it seems like you might be interested in that marriage proposal I mentioned before?”

“Pardon?”

“You didn’t seem interested at all then, but the only reason for you to suddenly get closer would be money issues, right? Well, you’ve thought well. I have a lot of money. Not my family, just me personally. Want to borrow some?”

“No.”

“Then just take it?”

“That’s fine too. But that’s not what this is about.”

“Hahaha!”

Briar Churchill laughed loudly, pressing down on the bacon with her fork.

“Alright, alright.”

“From my perspective, it seems like you don’t understand at all…”

“You’re not the type to get straight to the point? Because it looks cheap to state your business directly. You were planning to proceed slowly, throwing out bait, but you got flustered when I hit the nail on the head right away?”

I didn’t even feel like bothering to refute. I said to her:

“If I asked to borrow money, how much could you give?”

“A million. No more than that.”

“A million yuan?”

“A million pounds. Have you ever seen me use Chinese units here?”

Quite generous.

“Ah, that’s lending, and for just giving, up to 10,000?”

“But I really don’t need it. What is there to spend money on inside this school? When I was in college, I might have borrowed money for tuition if there was somewhere to borrow from, but I already dropped out in Seoul. And tuition is waived at Huangpu.”

“Actually, rather than tuition being waived, it’s more that the government of the country sending you for study abroad supports it, but whatever.”

“Then I wonder if the Soviet Union also paid China to send a student?”

At my words, Churchill frowned slightly and tilted her head. She swallowed a fried egg in one bite, wiped her mouth, and said:

“They probably did. But for such a trivial reason?”

“Right? It seems like there must be some deeper reason. Especially since she’s a Soviet army colonel.”

The common thought that Churchill and I had was about financial transactions between the two countries. That is, we suspected that some kind of money deal disguised as Barbara Tikhonov’s tuition fee might have been made between the two governments. The League of Nations’ anti-communist barrier seems solid, but in reality, it’s a continuous series of fierce surveillance and covert struggles between each other.

Especially the United States, which is farthest from the Soviet Union and has the lowest risk of direct invasion, frets daily about the possibility of the European Union and the Republic of China, which share borders with the Soviet Union, starting secret trade with the Soviet Union behind their back.

While Chiang Kai-shek, who has never taken a submissive stance towards the Soviet Union, is one thing, it seems that Eastern European countries are seriously considering improving relations with Russia in the face of the growing Soviet threat following the annexation of Finland ten years ago.

But that might also be because I can only view the situation from the American perspective. Other countries might be worried that the United States, which is physically farthest from Russia except for Alaska, might attempt diplomatic contact with Russia behind their backs.

“Even though Europe and the United States must know about the Russian officer studying abroad in China now, it seems quieter than expected. I thought there would be immediate international condemnation. Even though Huangpu is closed off, there’s no way they still don’t know about the existence of a Russian colonel operating so openly here.”

Although I haven’t received any contact from the CIA. Still, the U.S. isn’t stupid, and it’s unlikely they haven’t collected information about Tikhonov even though it’s been a month since the start of the school year. That’s how the CIA operates. An organization where even internal operatives can’t assert what the organization is actually doing. Still, as something of an insider, I had some idea why the U.S. wasn’t pouring out international condemnation towards China, but I pretended not to know and brought it up to Churchill.

The White House is currently refraining from hasty diplomatic provocation on the topic of what’s happening at Huangpu because of the ‘Chen Yayuan issue’. The U.S. government is taking Chen Yayuan’s warning about a ‘Second World War’ seriously.

They probably don’t want to rashly publicize the Huangpu issue, which could lead to unknown results.

“Who knows, all the newspapers coming into this school might be censored.”

“You’re not just communicating with the outside world through newspapers, are you? I rarely receive letters because I don’t have any significant connections outside, but Briar, I’ve seen you receive letters occasionally.”

“Hmm, yeah, that’s right. Family nagging. Did you do anything weird, did you make friends, did you do anything weird to your friends. It’s one of those three.”

“I guess I should say you’ve done all of them. It’s fortunate that at least one of the three is positive news.”

“What? That I did something weird to a friend?”

“Obviously, that you made friends.”

Briar Churchill grinned at my words.

“That’s right. Reading the letters, it seems the EU hasn’t taken any special stance towards China. More than anything, there’s no warning or mention about Tikhonov in the letters. There’s just a lot about Shradha Bhatt. Because the Indian independence talk is in full swing in the British Parliament, they say not to provoke hastily, or not to do anything that might hinder keeping post-independence India as a friendly nation to Britain.”

“So is India going to become independent?”

“It’s bound to, isn’t it? The myth of the British Empire is over. No, it should have ended long ago. The Soviet Union grabbed us by the collar and made us unable to let go of things we should have let go. While the foolish French are struggling in North Africa, we sold Canada to the Americans. That’s how business should be done.”

“Americans like buying land with money.”

“They also like meddling with other countries’ maps as they please. There seems to be an interesting story going around. There’s talk that America is trying to arrange the integration of Austria and Germany.”

I paused the knife I was holding for a moment and looked at Churchill.

Her words are true. In fact, the United States is mediating unification between the Austrian and German governments. But it’s still at a highly confidential preliminary stage…

Well, I guess people who would notice have already noticed.

“I think it’s rather too late. It probably would have been appropriate to unify around the 1930s.”

“Germany is America’s vassal state. Just like Korea is China’s vassal state.”

So that’s too blunt to say in front of a Korean. But since she’s a woman who openly calls Indians colonials in front of them, there’s no need to point it out.

“Excessive vassalization invites opposition from the opposition party. I hope America has thought it through well.”