my wife is peeling an orange

  for a wealthy customer, wiping her

  hands on a jasmine-embroidered apron.

  “Having such a family restaurant,

  I need no more dreams.”

  I, too, start nodding

  in the poster, dutiful

  to the weather-beaten signboard—

  Small Family Restaurant.

  Washing possible recollections

  from a greasy mop, I’m ladling

  my fantasies out of the wok.

  Day after day after day,

  night after night after night

  life breathes as if in the little

  freedom through a not-too-tightly

  corked bottle, issuing silence …

  When he had finished reading the second memoir, the former chief inspector was lost in reveries for quite a long while.

  But Chen had come to a better understanding of why X had made the decision to stay on in China to work on the Marching Toward the Twenty-First Century series, and how he landed in trouble after the Tian’anmen crackdown in 1989.

  To a better understanding, too, of why Mei had offered such an incredibly high figure for the retainer fee.

  But Chen still failed to visualize X’s fall, step by step, into a life of poverty, working as a fortune teller in Red Dust Lane.

  Whatever the details of his fall were, however, X had paid the price for what he really believed in.

  Chen’s glance fell on several toy soldiers standing motionless on the bookshelf, shining in the late-afternoon sunlight that stumbled in through the white plastic blinds.

  He tried to recall the contents of his conversation with Four-eyed Zhang again, as if replaying a recording in his mind. He tapped on the stop sign a couple of times. There could have been something he had missed—something important for his present PI job. The former chief inspector knew he had no choice but to check, and double-check.

  DAY 4

  Morning

  “Thoughts on Traveling at Night”

  Du Fu (721–770)

  The breeze swaying the lanky weeds

  on the shore, a solitary boat

  moors deep in the night,

  its mast looking perilously high.

  All the stars appear as if

  suspended from an immense expanse,

  the moonlight keeps surging,

  rolling on the wide river.

  Alas, with only a pathetic name

  achieved by my writing,

  old, sick, I do not lament the loss

  of my position. Drifting, wandering,

  wondering where the destination is,

  a solitary sand-gull wings

  between the sky and the earth.

  “The Sunlight Burning Gold”

  Chen Cao

  The sunlight burning gold,

  we cannot collect the day

  from the ancient garden

  into an album of old.

  Let’s pick our play,

  or time will not pardon.

  When all is told,

  we cannot tell

  the question from the answer.

  Which is to hold

  us under a spell,

  the dance or the dancer?

  Sad it’s no longer sad,

  the heart hardened anew,

  not expecting pardon,

  but grateful, and glad

  to have been with you,

  the sunlight lost on the garden.

  Around nine o’clock in the morning, with a light knock on the door, Jin once again stepped lightly into Chen’s apartment. As before, she was carrying a container in a plastic bag.

  “I took a taxi today, Director Chen. My mother has just fried a lot of spring rolls stuffed with sliced pork and Chinese cabbage. She insisted on me carrying some rolls over to you. The snack was fried with fresh oil, not with the gutter oil from those black-hearted eateries. You don’t have to worry about it at all. Take one. They’re still hot and crisp.”

  The fried spring rolls, another of his favorite Shanghai snacks, looked golden and enticing in the dazzling morning light.

  He picked up one hot roll with his fingers, took a large bite, and exclaimed with great gusto, “It’s so delicious with sliced pork and sliced Chinese cabbage inside. That’s a typical Shanghai flavor. Say a thousand thanks to your mother for me, Jin.”

  Perhaps more surprisingly, the gift might have contained a subtle message that Jin’s mother approved of her frequent visits to his home.

  “No need to hurry like that. I’ve brought you a pair of chopsticks. She also wanted me to carry a tiny package of ginger-infused Zhenjiang vinegar for the spring rolls,” Jin said with a giggle.

  She could have had a showdown with her family. Eventually, her parents could have acquiesced to the relationship between Jin and her boss, in spite of their concerns regarding the age difference. More likely than not, it was because of her determined attitude.

  Or because of his crucial help to Jin’s father under the zero-Covid policy a couple of years ago?

  As before, Jin changed into the pair of slippers resting on the doormat. Instead of heading to the kitchen, however, she chose to sit beside him on the green section sofa in the living room.

  It was like the scene X had dreamed so much of—sitting with Mei on the green bench in Bund Park in their younger days. But the former chief inspector hastened to yank himself out of the rambling association.

  “I need to report to you in person about a lot of office work and materials today, Comrade Director Chen,” she said in an “office tone,” just like a hard-working secretary in the office.

  “I truly appreciate your help, Comrade Jin. I have made an appointment with my doctor for a regular checkup next week. Hopefully, he’ll soon allow me off convalescent leave.”

  “No need to hurry. You deserve a long, proper break. And I’ll keep reporting to you as always, you know.”

  “As in the ancient line, Jin, it’s so hard to pay back a favor from a beauty like you.”

  “Come on. Enough of your bogus compliments. Here is some of the material I need to explain to you in person.”

  “Yes, please go ahead,” Chen said.

  “Quite a number of housing projects were proceeding at full speed before the Covid pandemic. Including the Red Dust Lane redevelopment you’re so familiar with.”

  “You are right about that. So, what did you find out about the proposed Red Dust Lane redevelopment project in your online research for me?”

  “Because of the strict lockdown and zero-Covid policy, China’s economy suffered disastrous losses. Particularly in the housing market. China’s number-one developer, Henyuan, who’d taken out incredibly huge loans when all was smooth sailing, stretching themselves to the limit, now had no choice but to declare bankruptcy.

  “The Red Dust redevelopment project also screeched to a sudden halt. A large number of the lane’s residents had already moved out, using their relocation compensation to buy new apartments in the faraway suburbs of Shanghai, but with the unexpected housing market crisis, property values are shrinking dramatically. A Japanese co-developer recently pulled out of its investment. The few lane residents remaining don’t want to jump into a falling market.”

  That confirmed what Chen had learned from Zhang in the Old Half Place restaurant.

  “There’s little wonder about it, Jin. For decades, ordinary people in China believed that the state-controlled housing market would keep rising and rising non-stop, and that it would never crash.”

  “As it seems to them, the best way to keep some of their value is to remain in the lane. Because of its extraordinary location, their properties would not lose value so drastically.

  “And for Red Dust Lane itself, I would just like to mention another thing. Gossip online says that Yan, the head of the lane’s neighborhood committee, is finding herself in an existential crisis. Once the lane is gone, its committee and its cadres will disappear too. So Yan and her colleagues have to prove their value by making numerous reports to the higher authorities. This may not be unrelated to the problems I have just mentioned.”

  Jin could be so perceptive. Chen nodded without comment.

  “Anyway, the evening talk of the lane had to be terminated as a result of ‘discussing government policy irresponsibly.’ I also found a post about someone in the lane who attended the lane’s last evening talk and was recently disappeared, but the post mentioned it in just one sentence. It didn’t even share the man’s name.”

  “Thank you so much, Jin.”

  She then stood up, kicked off her slippers, and turned to the kitchen. “I’ll sweep the floor, and then cook a couple of dishes. I’ve just learned two or three new recipes online. You’re a well-known gourmet critic, so I’m looking forward to your opinion.”

  Chen found himself suddenly tongue-tied, gazing at her retreating supple figure, at her bare heels shining pinkish in the afternoon light.

  “But hold on, Jin. I’m sorry to say that I have something else urgent for you this morning.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You remember Molong?”

  “Yes, I do. I remember him well. His mother died of Covid. And you asked me to send a flower wreath to the funeral home on your behalf. It was about two years ago, right?”

  “Yes, here is Molong’s updated contact information. Go and see him today. He will give you something confidential.”

  Jin came back from Molong about three hours later with a package in her hand.

  It contained two parts. One part consisted of Molong’s analysis of the situation. And the other part was a recording of audio information Molong had obtained through hacking.

  Jin took a pair of wireless earbuds and silently put them in Chen’s ears. Her soft fingers lingered on his ears.

  Pressing a key, Chen started listening as she headed into the kitchen.

  The sound from the earbuds was so clear while blocking out the noises from the kitchen, where Jin was starting to fry something in a large wok. He thought he could already smell a delicious smell.

  Molong’s analysis of the dire situation facing the Red Dust Neighborhood Committee, as well as Yan, proved to be generally sound.

  But some of the detailed information Jin had carried back for him more than startled Chen. Again, it reminded him of the beginning of Yeats’s “The Second Coming,” one of Chen’s favorite poems. He had translated the poem into Chinese, which so vividly applied to present-day China.

  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.

  It was particularly poignant at this moment in Red Dust Lane. Then the tape rolled on to a WeChat recording of what appeared to be a private talk between Yan and her daughter, nicknamed Tiny Sparrow, concerning the last Red Dust Evening Talk as well as X.

  Tiny Sparrow: “Why have you been so busy over the last few days, Mom?”

  Yan: “It’s a long, complicated story. For one thing, it’s more and more difficult for young people like you to get a job nowadays. Luckily, I am still able to let you share some of the system benefits thanks to my position. But the disappearance of the lane is just a matter of time. Once the lane is gone, so is the neighborhood committee, and then, like you, I too shall be out of a job. Things would be really hard for our family.”

  Tiny Sparrow: “But what can we possibly do? The economy is collapsing before our very eyes.”

  Yan: “Do you know anything about X, the fortune teller in our lane?”

  Tiny Sparrow: “The bookworm with a streaming banner reading ‘Red Dust Fortune Telling,’ who works in front of the lane?”

  Yan: “That’s him. But he has been much more than a bookworm. In 1989, X participated in the student movement protesting against our Party government. He was very active at the time. He condemned our Party government as fascists for the bloodshed in Tian’anmen Square. He declared so in an interview with the foreign press. Needless to say, he was subsequently fired from his job as a professor at the university, deprived of the three-bedroom apartment assigned to him there, and demoted all the way to half a wing room in our lane. But he never really repented. True, he’s fired from school, but he did not have to choose the fortune-telling profession.”

  Tiny Sparrow: “That’s strange indeed.”

  Yan: “More likely than not, it’s his way of making a protest in public. But your grandma was serving as the head of the Red Dust Neighborhood Committee at the time, and I did not know a lot of details. By the time I inherited her position, X seemed to have established a small client base. He did not make too much trouble in the neighborhood, so we just let him be. That is, until the last Red Dust Evening Talk held in memory of Old Root, about ten days ago.”

  Tiny Sparrow: “I happened to be stepping out of the lane that evening, and noticed a group of elderly people sitting there. But I don’t think I spotted the fortune teller in the group.”

  Yan: “X might not have arrived by then, but he was definitely sitting in the audience that evening. It’s weird that he had never participated in the evening talk before. That evening, however, he was the storyteller or the keynote speaker there. With political stability so emphasized and reemphasized by our Party government, I crouched behind the public trash bin and listened for a short while. It sounded like he was telling a romantic story from the beginning of the last century—that of General Cai and Little Phoenix Fairy. I listened for quite a while, but I didn’t catch anything politically sensitive, so I left.”

  Tiny Sparrow: “What happened then?”

  Yan: “Back home, I failed to fall asleep. Fragments I had overheard there began to come together in my mind. Some of the things X repeatedly mentioned in his talk were the emperor, the change of the constitution, the monarchy dynasty, and its relevancy to today’s China.”

  Tiny Sparrow: “I’m lost, Mom. After all, the story he told happened such a long time ago!”

  Yan: “You’re still so young. The Cultural Revolution started with the criticism of a new Beijing opera titled Hai Rui Lost His Official Position Because He Criticized the Emperor. That story happened in the late Ming dynasty. Some black intellectuals attacked Chairman Mao through devious, sinister allusion. It was commonly known as the prelude of the Cultural Revolution. The same could have been said about the romantic story as narrated by X.”

  Tiny Sparrow: “But X was not the first one to tell the story, Mom. I read it online—more than a month ago, I remember.”

  Yan: “With X’s historical problem in 1989, we can safely assume that he was retelling the story full of sinister intentions at this critical juncture. Afterward, I spoke with some of the audience at the evening talk. Sure enough, this further strengthened my suspicions.

  “In 2018, our Party had a grand convention, in which the CCP constitution was changed, including the abolition of the term limit for the supreme Party leader. This was said to be a decision made to guarantee the smooth continuation of China’s development into a super-powerful country. Nothing wrong with that. Not at all. Things have been changing dramatically all over the world, and China needs to have a wise, strong leader to keep our policy consistent. Some intellectuals stood up against the change, and they were silenced. Needless to say, it’s not for us to irresponsibly discuss the decisions made at the very top.

  “Some of the audience I interviewed afterward in the lane told me that while listening to X’s story in the evening talk, they were aware of its relevance to China’s politics today.

  “So I had no choice but to make a report to the highest authorities. I am a loyal Party member. It’s my responsibility …”

  Chen took in a sharp breath toward the end of Yan’s talk with her daughter. It sounded like a whistle made by someone about to enter the deep woods on a pitch-dark night, as if trying to embolden himself.

  Yan was perhaps a nobody. But such nobodies were numerous in China. There were at least ninety million CCP Party members. Not to mention the brainwashed former Red Guards and the present Little Red Guards, as well as some others equally brainwashed. They simply identified themselves with the Party system, without doing any independent thinking, content with the material benefits and personal values they took for granted from their total identification with the CCP system.

  Chen took out a cigarette, but he thought better of it when he heard the clinking of the pots and pans in the kitchen. Jin was still busy working there. She did not like his smoking.

  So he went on listening to the other recordings on Jin’s phone, forgetting about the flow of time.

  Chen then began reading an email Yan had sent to her Party boss concerning the last evening talk.

  Dear Party Secretary Kang:

  I am writing to you today to report a serious political case happening in our Red Dust Lane. Xiaohui, nicknamed X, a resident of the lane since 1989, when he landed himself in big political trouble because he condemned our Party government vehemently as fascist during the summer of that year. So he was fired from his professor position at Shanghai University, and deprived of the three-bedroom apartment that had been state-assigned to him. Thanks to our Party’s generous policy, he was assigned half a wing room adjoining a shikumen courtyard in the lane.

  Instead of finding a decent job for himself, however, X set up a fortune-telling stall near the lane entrance. It was commonly believed that he chose to do so as a deliberate, open protest against our great and glorious Party. The neighborhood committee checked into his business license. It was issued in the name of “Studies of Book of Changes: The Tradition Daoist Oracles.” So at the time, we decided just to keep an eye on him at a distance. We also learned that he was translating Western philosophy on the side, but that appeared to be no big deal since it could pass censorship and get published in China.

  Around ten years ago, X seemed to have established a small yet solid client base. Curious to say, most of his clients turned out to be rich middle-aged ladies, driving luxurious cars, and bringing fresh flowers as well. Still, that’s none of our business. He did not mix much with his neighbors in the lane, so we did not worry too much about it. It was not until about ten days ago that the monstrous, evil gray wolf finally revealed its long, hairy tail.