"Sir, do you also enjoy reading movie magazines?"
"Just to pass the time."
"May I ask if you have the latest issue?"
"I’m sorry, this is from May, it’s already an old issue!"
"From May? What a coincidence, I just happened to miss that issue. Could you let me take a look?"
Qu Anni and a middle-aged man holding a movie magazine exchanged the code words, then sat down together.
While drinking tea, the man curiously looked around, covering his mouth with the teacup, and whispered, "Hello, Swan Goose comrade, I am Qing Feng."
"Hello, comrade Qing Feng, it must have been tough coming all this way, did everything go smoothly?"
"Not very smoothly. The devils imposed a strict blockade, but luckily local comrades helped. Time is pressing, I need to take a boat and leave tonight!"
"Here are two pieces of information. One is a summary and agreement details from last month’s Jinling meeting, and the other is about the Japanese plans to deploy bacteriological bombs in North China this winter."
Qu Anni kept her head down looking at the magazine, but her mouth slightly moved.
After saying what needed to be said, she pretended to finish reading the magazine, quickly placed a document envelope under it and pushed both towards the middle-aged man across her.
"Okay, I will convey this to headquarters as soon as possible!"
The middle-aged man, taking the opportunity, gathered both the magazine and the document envelope, placing them into his briefcase, locked it, finished his tea, and casually left the teahouse.
Qu Anni stayed in place, drank two more cups of tea, and waited a good quarter of an hour with no abnormalities before she stood up and left.
In a corner, He Tiantian adjusted her hat’s brim, relieved to see that the two had successfully met, and then confidently walked out of the teahouse.
Under He Tiantian’s protection, recently Qu Anni and Huo Miao had achieved significant success.
But, the power of individuals is too small, and they couldn’t stop the wheels of history.
The battlefront remained tense with heavy casualties; the devils and Hua Country were locked in a tough stalemate.
Everyone was enduring the pain of war, but the people of Hua Country suffered even more.
"... I just received orders from the higher-ups, and we need to gather more medicine!"
Upon receiving the telegram from headquarters, Qu Anni conveyed the message to Huo Miao, Shen Yan, and Aunt Liu.
"These days, with Little Qu’s help, our funds are not too scarcity, but medicines are hard to find!"
Aunt Liu expressed difficulty, "Especially sulfonamides, you can’t buy them even if you offer gold bars!"
The front lines and various armed forces lacked mostly sulfonamide anti-inflammatory drugs.
"We’ll try to find some by all means, every little bit counts."
Qu Anni was aware of the hardships, but the front-line and mountain forces were even more desperate.
One dose of sulfonamides was a human life.
Despite saying this, Qu Anni was even more aware of the difficulty in obtaining the medicine.
Back home, she tried to adjust her mood, managing to smile, but her eyes carried a hint of sorrow.
He Tiantian noticed it, and during dinner that evening, she tactfully probed.
As a result, Qu Anni asked casually, "Are there really a lot of things on the black market? Including contraband and smuggled goods? Like, oh what’s it called, sulfonamides?"
Qu Anni pretended not to understand, finally bringing up sulfonamides.
"You might find things like glass silk stockings, sulfonamides are a bit more troublesome!"
He Tiantian pretended to be disappointed and rubbed her chin, "I just managed a foreign trade company, aiming to sell goods. Cotton, milk powder, tobacco, all no problem, just lacking in medicines!"
"Oh my, Annie, you don’t know, the drugs are so expensive on the black market. Either you pay with gold or use US dollars, piles of real money, and still, you might not get them!"
"Such a pity, whoever has medicines could make a fortune!"
Successful in establishing strong connections with the Fujiwara Family, He Tiantian reduced outright extortion, embezzlement, and began direct industrial plunder.
She "acquired" a traitor’s trading company and started trading in the Occupied Area and the National Unity Zone.
Though termed as ’trading’, according to the devils’ regulations, it was smuggling.
Ordinary devils couldn’t engage in such activities.
But "Sugawara Haojie" was different; he had connections on high and knew how to share the profits.
He Tiantian directly involved Influence, Sugawara Ichiro, the Constitutional Army’s generals, and captains in her schemes.
Her newly acquired trading company, in less than a month, amassed a large fortune.
Several notable devils in Shanghai were kept well-fed by He Tiantian, turning a blind eye to her smuggling.
He Tiantian then supported a confidant to open a trading firm in Hong Kong, smuggling scarce foreign goods to the Mainland.
As He Tiantian planned to produce essential medicines like Penicillin, Qu Anni mentioned sulfonamides.
He Tiantian slammed the table, "I will find a way if we can’t find a source, then we’ll produce it ourselves. Once I have a stockpile of medicine, mountains of gold and silver will be nothing!"