Dahai continued unhurriedly, "This church may appear to be established by foreigners, but it"s really constructed by overseas Chinese. Father Dawu"s ancestors, to be exact. He studied abroad and got someone to change his nationality. His family hoped that he"d return and make a business out of this area, but they did not expect the arrival of the devils. They were rich back so they relied on their connections and property to build this church."
Father Dawu had the biggest house out of all the priests, and it was only in his house that I get a bed to myself.
"It was said that they were sending tips to the soldiers. They used the ident.i.ty of a priest to a.s.sist the Red Army in concealing theirs and also helped the poor when necessary," Dahai continued.
"That"s the history of the church?" I asked.
"What do you think an army needs the most during a war?" he returned a question.
"That"s a long list."
"The most important ones."
"Men? Money? Weapons?"
"Men are the most important, yes, but they have their weaknesses. They require food and ammunition which our people had been intercepting. Why else do you think did the war dragged on for eight years despite the devils" rich resources?"
"You"re saying that the Chinese tipped the people off whenever resources were being transported?"
He nodded. "All of this is thanks to Dawu"s grandfather. That man had been the one to slowly impart his knowledge about the telegraph to everyone. He was the reason why our five families even existed."
"That was the sequence of events?" I asked.
"Don"t interrupt," he snapped. "Even though our ancestors didn"t speak j.a.panese, they soon realized something. Telegraphs were the Americans" invention, so sending telegrams in Chinese and j.a.panese was much more troublesome. Sending a wrong number code will tweak the whole meaning of the message. The English language is made of letters so the numbers can be converted into the alphabet. One wrong number isn"t going to influence the overall message much.
"We knew that the secret code they used was in j.a.panglish so we converted the numbers into letters before figuring out the transliteration and identifying the registration location of the resources. This is funny, but when the devils invaded us and asked for the names of our land, they simply used them as they were in the telegram without any modification. Our ancestors zoomed into the location and had the resistance team lay an ambush. After multiple successes, the devils started raising their guard."
"What did they do?"
"The devils became more vigilant and their codes became increasingly enigmatic. Our ancestors then came up with an even more brilliant idea. They intercepted telegrams from the devil"s army and messed up its content. If they weren"t going to understand it, no one else should, too. This way, the devil"s interpreter group worked harder for nothing. The devils finally realized what was going on, so they sent their people in a wild search for our ancestors."
"This story is like straight out of a movie plot," I commented.
"There were no bells on the window, until the day that our ancestors were almost annihilated. If not for the two red soldiers who sacrificed themselves by luring the devils away, our ancestors never would"ve gotten the chance to escape with their weapons. This made them realize that the church wasn"t enough. They needed more cover and a secret measure," Dahai explained.
"Those bells?" I asked.
"Yes. There"s also a groove by the bed. In it is a 20-meter rope that would allow them to escape before the devils arrive."
He looked at me and I nodded impatiently, signaling to him that I was listening."
Father Dahai cleared his throat and continued, "Our ancestors" work grew bigger but they had only two telegraphs. The telegraphs were more precious than their own lives. Half a month after the last invasion, the devils came up to the attic again. We weren"t alone this time; the backup from the Red Army caught and imprisoned the seven devils in the attic."
"Hence the uniforms and flag? Didn"t the other devils suspect anything since seven of them went missing in the church?" I questioned.
"Things aren"t as strict as you"d think during the war period. The seven devils were locked in this small attic and became our secret to decoding the telegrams."
"They translated the messages for us?" I asked, puzzled.
"They revealed that the devils weren"t sending messages in English any longer. Despite all the methods they used, our ancestors couldn"t understand the translated messages. Once, they bought 50 syllables from a traitor at a high price to form the message. As they recited the content, that in September 1941 a group of long telegrams was received, our ancestors couldn"t be sure that they were reading it correctly. However, upon hearing them, the seven devils started laughing wildly and even banging the wall to force the cloth in their mouths out. Like fools, they started shouting "long live!"".
"Long live? Long live what?"
"Don"t you get it? The translated language had them screaming happily. What does that show? That they understood what our ancestors translated, isn"t it? Which means their interpretation was accurate. They made a copy and had another traitor read it out. The traitor was stunned and explained the rough meaning."
"So what"s the significance of the message?" I asked anxiously.
"Do you know what date it is in history? December 1941."
"No! Just tell me!"
"December 1941 was when the devils attacked Pearl Harbor. The message that our ancestors read aloud was the preparation plans for the attack."