The Gotland Deception

Chapter Six: Patriotic Movement

A greasy ceiling fan spun above the table, its cracked blades stirring the heavy air just enough to keep the cigarette smoke from settling. The walls were yellowed with age, the door sealed tight. In the adjacent kitchen, cleavers pounded pork cartilage in rhythm with a local radio station piping out soft revolutionary ballads from the ’60s.

Cuī Zemin waited in silence. The man known in intelligence circles as The Ghost sat with his arms folded, his porcelain teacup untouched. He wasn’t here for comfort.

The door creaked open.

Two men stepped in, wiping the rain off their sleeves. Hao Lei went straight for the seat across from Cuī, his coat still damp. Gao Rong took the corner seat, spine straight, eyes sharp.

Neither of them spoke first.

Cuī broke the silence.

“You’ve cultivated your orchard well,” he said quietly, voice like sand over smooth stone. “Now it’s time to harvest.”

Gao gave a curt nod. “We’ve been pruning carefully.”

Cuī slid a thin red envelope across the table. It wasn’t fat. It didn’t need to be.

“The operation is simple,” he continued. “February twelfth, coordinated gatherings across Kinmen and Matsu. I want government buildings, city halls — places with camera angles and emotional resonance.”

Hao’s left eyebrow rose. “No ferry insertions? No ‘volunteers’ from Fujian?”

Cuī allowed himself the faintest smile. “Unnecessary. You already have the population. You helped build it.”

And they had.

Over the last decade, as infrastructure had expanded — housing towers, vocational campuses, and ferry terminals — thousands of new residents had settled across the islands. Subsidized mortgages, priority hiring programs, cultural “reconnection” grants — each application had been quietly vetted by the MSS or their provincial affiliates. Slowly, Kinmen and Matsu became less Taiwanese frontier and more mainland forward extension.

Instead of an invasion, they had slowly taken over through demographic shaping.

“Half the apartment blocks south of Chenggong Road are full of pro-reunification families,” Hao muttered. “We used to count rooftops. Now it’s doorways.”

“And they vote,” Gao added. “They sit on local councils. Run clinics. Teach.”

Cuī leaned forward. “You’ve normalized loyalty. That’s harder to reverse than fear.”

The Ghost pulled a flash drive from his coat pocket and placed it on the table. “This contains the media starter pack: sample slogans, optimized hashtags, and visual assets. Tie them to ‘youth-led’ imagery. Highlight the abandonment narrative. You know the arc.”

Gao nodded. “We’ve been pushing it already. ‘Taipei left us to rot.’ ‘Kinmen has no voice.’ It’s sticky.”

“And the students?”

“More fervent than we expected,” Hao said. “A few took red envelopes. Most came through the forums. Line groups, Signal chains, subreddits. They found each other.”

“Who seeded those networks?” Cuī asked calmly.

Gao answered without hesitation. “We did. Three years ago.”

Cuī nodded once. The timing was sound.

“The youth will march first,” he said. “Let them scream betrayal. Let them drape themselves in nostalgia for something they never lived through. Our job is not to control them — it’s to guide the flood once it breaks.”

Hao took the envelope, sliding it inside his coat. “So, what happens if Taipei overreacts?”

“Then they lose the frame. A truncheon on a protester’s face is worth more than ten manifestos.”

“And if they don’t respond?”

Cuī looked him dead in the eye. “They will.”

The Ghost stood then, adjusting his coat. “One last thing,” he said, his voice low. “Phase two — should it come — is already in place. No need for ferries or fatigues. The house is built. The keys are simply waiting to be turned.”

And with that, he vanished into the winter rain, leaving the room as quiet as it had been before he entered.

Hao stared at the flash drive.

Gao reached for the tea and finally took a sip.

“Time to set the match,” he said.

The plaza had become a furnace.

What had begun as coordinated chants and student-led speeches was dissolving — now chants overlapped, flags tore in the wind, and young men were shoving the police line. Thin-lipped conscripts, barely older than the protesters themselves, gripped plastic shields with whitening knuckles.

Above the crowd, on the second-floor balcony of a tea shop, Gao Rong watched it unravel in real time.

“Too soon,” he muttered.

Hao Lei stood beside him, sweat darkening his collar. “I know that kid — front row, black hoodie. He was in the dorm chat six weeks ago asking about ferry discounts. Now he’s screaming for blood.”

Down below, a protester launched a paint balloon. It splattered across a police visor, triggering a surge. Three students rushed forward, slamming into the shield line. A baton swung. Once, twice, and a girl went down, screaming.

Gao’s burner phone buzzed.

“PLA cell’s breaking cover. Civilian gear discarded. Beach axis open. Kinmen command element en route.”

The second message read, “Engage ROE breach. Justify military intervention.”

Gao looked up. “They’re coming. It’s now.”

Across the plaza, an unmarked white box truck screeched to a halt just off Zhongzheng Road. Four men spilled out, dressed like aid workers. Their posture gave them away. Each had squared shoulders, close-cut hair, and the unmistakable gait of a man trained to kill quickly. Each wore a red armband that read “People’s Relief Front.”

One carried a duffel. Another unzipped it, revealing wrapped metal pipes and riot shields stenciled with Chinese characters. They moved fast — blending into the crowd, passing out gear. Within minutes, ten protesters were suddenly armored. And armed.

A makeshift formation advanced on the outer police flank, swinging pipes at plastic riot shields. One ROC conscript went down hard, helmet cracking on the curb. Another tripped under a tangle of limbs. His sidearm was visible — exposed.

A protester lunged for it.

Gunshots cracked.

The crowd screamed, splintering like shattered glass. Two people hit the pavement — one protester, one police officer.

That was the ignition.

Behind the crowd, PLA special operations cells posing as humanitarian volunteers dropped their disguises and moved — tactically, surgically — into alleyways and rooftops. Some fired blank rounds. Others used rubber bullets. The point wasn’t to kill.

It was to make it all look out of control — to give Beijing a reason to “restore order.”

Hao swore, ducking as a whizzing canister exploded against a nearby pillar, releasing gray smoke. He yanked Gao by the sleeve. “We’ve got to go. Right now.”

Gao nodded, stuffing the monocular into his bag. “We’ll slip past the old market road. Meet extraction at the harbor.”

They advanced quickly — keeping low, avoiding cameras. But the tea shop owner burst out the side door and pointed at them, screaming, “You! I saw you — filming the crowd! You’re agitators!”

From across the alley, a local militia officer — recently recruited from a PRC-friendly security agency — whistled and shouted, “Hey! Stop!”

Gao broke into a sprint. Hao hesitated.

“Go!” Gao barked. “I’ll shake him!”

But Hao turned the wrong corner — straight into two PLA-affiliated militia in plainclothes. They grabbed him hard, forcing him against the wall.

“Name!” one barked. “Who sent you?”

He stayed silent.

A fist slammed into his gut. He went down hard.

Gao didn’t look back. He heard the scuffle, the shouts, but he couldn’t afford to stop. The plaza was collapsing into a war zone, and phase two was well underway.

By the time Gao reached the harbor and slipped into the tide of evacuees posing as ferry-bound tourists, he’d ditched his phone and jacket. His face was soaked with sweat, his eyes cold.

Above the city, smoke was rising. Sirens wailed

Hao would be among the dozens detained that afternoon, likely listed as “an unknown instigator,” unnamed in official press releases. He would be a ghost, just like the ones who trained him.

Gao would report the arrest up the chain, along with his final message to Cuī Zemin: “Storm achieved. Narrative fracture complete. MSS element compromised. Phase two continues.”

And then he boarded the ferry for Xiamen, leaving Kinmen behind in flames.