‘Great news! That surely calls for a celebration. How about dinner at the Apricot Blossom Pavilion? Of course, on the expenses of our special investigation team! We have the budget for it.’

  ‘Good idea, Chief Hou,’ Jin cut in before Chen could say anything. ‘Director Chen has told me that it’s one of his favorite restaurants in the city.’

  ‘We can continue our discussion over a meal in the restaurant. They should be able to arrange a private room for us. Not too many people are dining out these days.’

  ‘Let’s go, the three of us, when the evening spreads out against the sky,’ Chen said, unable to disengage himself from another poet’s vision. ‘But I think all our team members need to take a test.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Hou said, ‘but the hospital may have a problem with the supply of the test kits. I’ll talk to them again.’

  The Apricot Blossom Pavilion was worthy of its reputation among its gourmet customers.

  There were not many customers that evening, though. It was not difficult for a cozy private room with a large-screen TV and a karaoke machine to be arranged for the three VIP customers at short notice.

  Soon, all the chef’s specials were placed on the table, including beef in oyster sauce, transparent crystal shrimp, chicken in green onion oil, fried milk …

  It would have been a fantastic meal for two – without the third one sitting beside them, continuously projecting a sort of searchlight over them, Chen thought. Of course, Hou himself might not have wanted to play such a role.

  Chen chopsticked up a shrimp, transparently pinkish with clinging green tea leaves.

  ‘I’ve just had a message from the mayor,’ Hou started with an obliging smile. ‘He, too, knew about your work, and he wanted me to give his best regards to you. You’re still on convalescent leave, he emphasized.’

  ‘Yes, Director Chen has been working so hard,’ Jin said loyally.

  ‘The mayor said that an early, successful conclusion to the serial murder case will be a tremendous help for the social stability of Shanghai. Your work will be greatly appreciated.’

  ‘As I may not have told you,’ Chen responded with a slice of oyster sauce beef in his mouth, still as delicious and tender as he remembered, ‘in my childhood, I lived in a neighborhood not far from the hospital, and I accompanied my father there at his bedside for more than a week, in the so-called observation room – not even up to the standard of the emergency room, with fewer facilities and doctors – in his last days. He was there because he was classified as a Black intellectual, in light of Mao’s class-struggle theory. This was in the third or fourth year of the Cultural Revolution, I remember. I was young at the time, but not so young that I did not feel ashamed, even resentful, about my Black family background. Anyway, I think I failed to take really good care of him. So for me, the murder investigation in Renji is also like a personal effort for belated redemption.’

  ‘I am so sorry to hear about what happened to your father. The Cultural Revolution was a national disaster,’ Hou said. ‘Our Party has repeatedly admitted it. But back to what we were discussing in the hotel. What do you think of Xiao’s report? Violent disputes between patients and doctors have been on the rise in recent years. In the city of Shanghai, most hospitals have put more guards on patrol, in addition to their surveillance equipment.’

  Chen did not make an immediate response. The ever-increasing number of medical disputes had both social and political roots. While high-ranking Party officials enjoyed all the benefits and privileges for free, ordinary people had to make a hefty down payment just for admission to the hospital. In the light of Mao’s egalitarian theory, the doctors in China should have earned about the same as the workers, but in the age of the Internet, it was no secret that they made much more. Plus, with the best-known, experienced doctors in great demand, people were willing to push thick red envelopes into their hands to get superior treatment. Not to mention the ‘commission’ the doctors received from collaborating with pharmaceutical companies.

  ‘You are just like your friend Molong,’ Jin said to Chen. ‘Such a filial son.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Far from it. I’ve not seen my mother since the Chinese New Year. She had bad flu and forbade me to visit her for two weeks. Luckily, my Covid test turned out to be negative. Indeed, “How could the heart-shaped tip / of a tiny grass blade be able / to return the warm affection / from the spring that returns, year / after year …”’

  ‘Another poem of yours, Director Chen?’

  ‘No, it’s a poem Men Jiao wrote for his mother in the Tang dynasty. And it has just reminded me of something. The barbeque buns from this restaurant are my mother’s favorite, too.’

  The previous day, he had left home in a hurry. Except for the box of swallow nest, the food he had bought in the Apricot Blossom Pavilion – the buns and dumplings – would no longer be fresh. They probably had already gone bad.

  ‘So, I have to ask another favor of you, Jin.’

  ‘At your service, Director Chen.’

  ‘My mother’s nursing home has been hit hard during the pandemic. So she lives alone at our old home instead. She likes the barbeque buns here. Can you arrange to have some purchased and delivered to her tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Excellent idea,’ Hou cut in. ‘We can order bamboo steamers of the barbeque buns and have them delivered to her tonight.’

  ‘She goes to bed quite early,’ Chen said, glancing at the clock on his phone.

  ‘There may be another epicurean reason for delivery tomorrow morning,’ Jin joined in jokingly. ‘According to our gourmet Director Chen, you have to have the buns fresh, hot from the steamers. It makes a huge difference to the taste. Still hot, soft, juicy as you bite in.’

  Back in his room, Chen found that sleep was the furthest thing from his mind.

  He took out the memory stick Jin had secretly placed into his hand at the restaurant and inserted it into his laptop. She must have done it after the meeting. Then he put in his earbuds.

  In the file on the memory stick, Molong was talking. Having hacked into the hospital system, he’d produced a fairly clear timeline of events in connection with the Covid situation. At first, hardly any diagnosed Covid cases were reported or mentioned in the official media. A small number of people were tested in the hospital, but only one or two came out positive – and then proved to be false positive.

  It nonetheless caused a wave of fury in the city. Shortly afterward, the uproar subsided as the talk about the false positives could also be seen as being ‘negative energy.’ Any discussion had to be blocked and deleted. Those who reposted or liked the online posts were punished or silenced.

  By the time the first victim of the serial murder case fell, the Covid outbreak could no longer be covered up. Already a large number of patients had been reported as being diagnosed with Covid. Then the second victim, a young nurse surnamed Huang, died at the same time as the hospital was being deluged with a surge of new patients, in spite of the government regulations.

  By the time the body of the third victim turned up in the temporary hospital parking lot, the Covid disaster was getting out of control.

  Reading it again in the lamplight, he thought of a Buddhist saying: Even one peck of a bird, or a single sip, can be predetermined by fate.

  But is there karma in the darkness?

  Day 3

  Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

  Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

  The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

  The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

  The best lack all conviction, while the worst

  Are full of passionate intensity.

  – William Yeats

  Leaving the Yellow Crane Pavilion,

  you set out to the east,

  to Yangzhou, the mist covering

  the water, the flowers making

  a blaze of March colors

  against a single sail

  fading into the blue, distant skies …

  Only waves of the Yangtze River

  come in sight, rolling toward the horizon.

  – Li Bai

  An urgent governmental notice to the Big Whites, Neighborhood Committees, and Neighborhood Cops: ‘Hurry outside. Unlock the doors which are locked up with nails, wires, steel bars, and iron sheets. Do the job as quickly as possible. Not a minute to lose.’

  Why? A woman in her early sixties committed suicide last night, jumping down from the twelfth floor. It was because she had been locked up, alone, inside her room for weeks, the door tightly secured with an iron sheet outside. She was not Covid positive, but someone else in that apartment building was termed ‘possibly a close contact,’ so all doors there were locked up one way or another.

  Her daughter, staying at the next unit, locked inside with a similar iron sheet secured outside the door, being unable to see her mother, worrying sick about the old woman, heard the loud sound from her mother’s window, shouted hysterically into the phone to her neighbors and to the Big Whites patrolling around undisturbed: ‘Mother jumped down.’

  The panic-stricken Big Whites let out the daughter, who grasped hold of her mother’s body, lying in pools of blood on the flowerbed outside. Other residents in the building turned on the lights, hoping it might help a little when the ambulance came, but it did not arrive until an hour later. By then her body was already frozen like an icy stick, still wearing a black face mask. The ambulance was delayed because of the numerous regulations that are part of the zero-Covid policy.

  Alas, years ago, Comrade Den Xiaoping pushed open China’s door to usher in economic reform, but nowadays a pig-headed man has locked up every door in China in a nightmare.

  – The Wuhan File

  Jin stood with Chen in front of the hotel gate, each grasping a hot fried dough stick, eating and chatting on the street.

  It was still early morning, the gray, smoggy sky stretching out against the horizon. The snow had stopped during the night, but a few flakes could still be seen swirling up in the fitful wind. A small black bird was hopping ominously around as if unexpectedly waking from an evil nightmare.

  ‘It’s not easy for the two of us to stay alone. It reminds me of The Waste Land, Jin, though I cannot recall the exact words.’

  ‘You are being possessed by Eliot, Chen!’

  ‘But aren’t we walking in the waste land in today’s China? It’s something about feeling shadowed and surveilled all the time. About a third one always walking beside you. When you count, however, there are only you and I staying together, holding hands or fried dough sticks.’

  Taking another bite with a bitter smile, Jin began reporting to Chen about the latest developments of the case, particularly about the new feedback from Molong.

  ‘Molong has got enough from the hospital computer system. He’ll be able to prove that the people there have been trying to cover things up from the beginning. A lot of inside info had been deleted or blocked, but he’s confident of recovering it. He wants me to assure you about that. And he declared emphatically that’s exactly what he himself wants to do.’

  ‘That’s very capable of you, Jin, so efficient.’

  ‘He also got in touch with your friend Pang in Wuhan. He told me that it’s an honor that you thought of him for the project, which is something like a redeeming project for him, too.’

  ‘An impossibly filial son, that Molong, but I think I understand him.’ He went on with a more serious air, ‘Well, translation of classic Chinese poetry takes time. It’s not that urgent. There’s another translation project, however, which is far more urgent at the moment. The Wuhan File, penned by my friend Pang. It’s like a day-to-day report of the suffering of the people of Wuhan in the time of Covid.’

  ‘The Wuhan File?’ Jin asked.

  ‘I think I have to tell you some things from the beginning, Jin. Remember the day you came to my apartment, I mentioned something I was reading, and you mentioned that I should write about life during Covid? It’s a workable idea, but I did not have the time or the experience to start such a project. That’s what my friend Pang has been doing, however, in The Wuhan File. As I said, it’s a day-to-day report of what has been happening to the Wuhan people. First-hand, at close range.

  ‘Pang posted some pieces from the file online. The CCP hounds immediately succeeded in ferreting them out, bringing tons of pressure to bear upon him. It’s out of the question for him to have it published here in China, needless to say, with the government propaganda going all out to portray the lockdowns and the zero-Covid policy as an eloquent demonstration of the superiority of the CCP system. Pang hinted to me a couple of times regarding the feasibility of translating it into English – earlier in the day you came to my apartment.’

  ‘But that’s a very sensitive subject,’ Jin said worriedly. ‘Definitely too sensitive and dangerous at the moment. Investigation takes a lot of energy. For that matter, translation, too. No point throwing yourself in right now. When you’re run down, you can be even more vulnerable to the virus. And if the translation is traced to you, the Little Red Guards will attack like mad dogs and condemn it as an unforgivable anti-China betrayal, simply burying you under their angry saliva.’

  She had an obvious practical sharpness that Chen lacked, and she seemed also to have a vivid knowledge of the state surveillance and suppression mechanisms at the basic level. In some ways, she was far more acute than he, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda.

  ‘It’s more than just keeping people frightened!’ Jin said.

  ‘I’m no historian,’ Chen replied. ‘But what’s happening in Wuhan, in China, should not be blocked or deleted. I think Esphur Foster once said, “We are nothing without our history.” If I cannot do anything directly about the pandemic, at least I should try to do something for the people of Wuhan with my pen.’

  ‘I understand you, Chen.’

  ‘Yes, it’s up to me to exert myself for the serial murder case, though I cannot help wondering what role I am really here to play. The Party government simply wants to politicize the investigation, and the pandemic as well. I cannot see any point in playing into their hands.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain to me how difficult things are for you, Director Chen,’ Jin said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘For so many years, I’ve been playing the role of being a cop, so I have become the role. And now the role is playing me, whether I like it or not. From the perspective of a cop, if the serial murderer carries on taking more lives, the people of Shanghai will plunge into a collective panic. In the final analysis, though, solving a vicious murder case is not the same thing as striving to maintain stability under the CCP. More and more people are coming to the realization that loving your country does not mean that you have to support whatever the government does. Particularly not supporting the maintenance of political stability as advocated by the CCP.’

  ‘I’ve read that a well-known scholar “being whored” – note the passive voice here – was thrown into jail,’ Jin said. ‘No one believes it. It’s just because he was making such a passionate argument advocating for democracy in China. Before he started his prison sentence, he had to face the humiliation of pleading guilty on CCTV. But he really loves China!’

  ‘Yes, the country and the government are two different entities.’

  ‘You can say that again, Chen. Not to mention that it’s a government without legitimacy, but with the net of state surveillance increasingly tightening its grip. Remember the drone flying over your hotel window in the Yellow Mountains? Yes, the Party government authorities are now using drones for mass surveillance.’

  ‘I listened to your recording of Gu’s story. Good job, Jin. He made it clear that he’s pinned on the wall like a small insect, incapable of wriggling any longer. You contact Gu and ask him if he could send his family in the US – preferably through Molong – some extracts from The Wuhan File. Of course, I have to translate some sample pages first.’ He paused before resuming in a low voice, ‘The project could be hugely risky. If you choose to back out, Jin, I’ll understand.’

  ‘How can you say that, Director Chen? Besides, I’ve already mentioned the possibility to Mr Gu, though not in detail.’

  She turned around and pressed herself against him briefly. Her supple body seemed to be infusing part of its youth and vigor into his. And idealistic passion, too.

  ‘You did that? You truly have the makings of a good detective, Jin.’ He added, as an afterthought, ‘I’m getting old. Nothing really matters for me. You’re still so young, so capable, with a future full of great expectations.’

  ‘I don’t see any great expectations when the world may end the next day. And I’m already in this with you, up to my neck. How can I possibly back out? The Wuhan File is a worthy project. Count me in. I do not have a good grasp of English like you, but I may be qualified to be your little secretary. I believe I can run all these errands for you.’

  ‘Well, there’s one thing for you to do, Jin. Contact Pang and tell him that from now on he may directly contact you instead of me. Molong has already forwarded the rest of Pang’s files safely to me.’

  ‘Molong is so efficient!’

  ‘Has Mr Gu contacted you again?’

  ‘Yes. He has also asked me if there is anything specific he could do for you right now.’

  ‘Well, ask Mr Gu to contact Molong, too. Let Molong make sure that all Gu’s emails and messages are securely encrypted. And another question you may ask him—’

  Chen stopped abruptly as Hou emerged out of the hotel, sniffing vigorously, alert to the delicious smell from the hot, fresh deep-fried dough sticks in their hands, like a well-experienced hound.

  ‘You two are up so early,’ Hou said.

  ‘Director Chen had a sudden, irresistible craving for street food,’ Jin replied. ‘As his little secretary, how can I possibly say no to my epicurean boss?’

  ‘I tried the app Jin downloaded for me. Sure enough, I discovered a nearby fried doughstick stall that’s still in business. Truly convenient,’ Chen said. ‘The hotel breakfast is excellent, but for a change, I dragged her out to the fried doughstick stall instead. I’m not disappointed; it’s as tasty as before.’