There was very little information written about X’s life in the subsequent years. In a nutshell, he seemed to have resigned himself to his fate. He was no longer a political trouble-maker—at least, not until something he’d done about a week ago had led to him being “disappeared” from Red Dust Lane.

  Chen pondered over the background information, lost in thought. He made himself a cup of strong black tea, adding half a spoon of sugar and half a spoon of cream. Of late, he tried to alternate coffee with black tea. He needed the caffeine to stimulate his thinking, but the coffee could upset his stomach.

  “I grow old … I grow old …” A familiar refrain came back, haunting, lingering like an irritating fly.

  A phone call came in from his office secretary, Jin. “Even though the pandemic is long over, there are some new Covid cases popping up again in the city of Shanghai. Don’t go out unless it’s absolutely necessary, Director Chen. If you need anything, I can come over immediately.”

  As always, he detected genuine concern in her voice. She made a point of calling him every day. With him still on convalescent leave, it made sense for her to make a daily report about office matters to him, even though they both knew that it was not necessary. The government documents that appeared on his office desk were less and less politically sensitive or significant with every passing day. Most of them were formalities. She could have easily taken care of all of them in the office by herself.

  In the expanding metropolitan city of Shanghai, the ever-developing subway system had turned into the main means of transportation for ordinary people. It was quick, reliable, but crowded.

  He recalled something Jin had once told him. In a subway train with passengers packed like sardines, she had finally managed to squeeze out of the car to the platform. It was a huge embarrassment for her to find that most of the buttons on her dress had burst off in the struggle.

  “You don’t have to come over, Jin. You need to take care of yourself too. Take a taxi if you find the subway train overcrowded. Our office still has a small budget for transportation.”

  “Come on. If I hail a taxi just two or three times, our office transportation budget will all be gone. But you really don’t have to worry about me.”

  Chen wondered whether he should tell her about his discussion with Old Hunter in the teahouse. He decided not to—not until absolutely necessary. Jin could turn out to be overprotective again.

  “If needs be, I could stay in your guest room,” Jin said. “As a Party cadre of your rank, you have three bedrooms, haven’t you, Director Chen?”

  It was not the first time that she had made this proposal to him, he remembered.

  Theoretically, there was no strict regulation regarding the scenario of a guest staying overnight with the host. But under the omnipotent CCP surveillance, the scene would inevitably appear in the surveillance monitor. He shuddered at the possibility.

  It was worse than in 1984, in which lovers could still sneak into a small, dingy hotel. But with the current state surveillance, they did not dare to do such things, not even at home.

  The thought suddenly evoked a scene he’d witnessed during the Cultural Revolution. He had been a young boy at the time. An actress was marched out onto the street, walking barefoot, wearing a wreath of worn-out shoes around her slender neck. From the comments of the other spectators who lined the street, he learned that the shoes signified she’d shamelessly slept with numerous men. It was a crushing humiliation for the once-popular actress.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Jin. Not nowadays. You know why I have to say so.”

  Chen’s memories of their spending the night together in the Yellow Mountains hotel two years ago still remained so vivid, with the mountains mantled in the unfurling soft clouds, then the clouds changing in the hot passionate rain …

  But that had been then, and this was now. Things in China changed so fast.

  And he was no longer a mighty chief inspector in the Shanghai Police Bureau.

  After finishing his phone call with Jin, Chen picked up the folder containing information about X again.

  He could not help reflecting on the abrupt, drastic turning point in X’s life, which had happened in 1989.

  But what had Chen himself been doing at the time?

  In the early summer of 1989, Chen had just checked into a hotel in Beijing for China’s Young Writers’ Conference—with top CCP leaders scheduled to receive them there.

  But after the sudden death of the former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang, a reformist of integrity and character, people poured out onto the streets in memory of him, and all the attendees of the conference were swiftly moved away overnight, to another fancier hotel in a faraway suburb of Beijing.

  For Chen, checking into the new hotel had felt like being on an all-inclusive vacation: devouring the best Peking duck, prepared in three ways; cutting the first raw beef steak he had ever tasted; drinking the greenest Maofeng tea; and enjoying the view of the tender tea leaves standing up in the cup miraculously, as if they were still growing in the high mountains.

  But the young writers were confined in the hotel all the time, with soldiers guarding the gate, and it did not take long for Chen to realize they were actually under a sort of house arrest. Those days, people did not have cell phones. Nor could they read any news or newspapers online. There was nothing but the Party newspapers available to those young writers in the hotel.

  However, he was surprised by an unannounced visit from a renowned literary critic, Liu Xiaobo. Even then, Liu had already been placed on the CCP government’s blacklist. Naturally, he was not invited to the conference. Chen had no idea as to how Liu could have sneaked into the guarded hotel. Nevertheless, while some of the other conference attendees avoided Liu like the plague, Chen had welcomed Liu and had a long talk with him.

  All the conference attendees had to stay in the hotel until after the bloody crackdown in Tian’anmen Square had taken place in that eventful year. It was only then that Chen and the Shanghai delegation were sent back home. A welcome ceremony was held at Hongqiao Airport in recognition of their standing firm, in line with the Party government. Journalists swarmed there, their cameras continually flashing. Several teenage Red Scarves held flowers out to them. Chen felt inexplicably ashamed, but like the others, he did not protest.

  Chen could easily see how X’s actions during those days had subsequently turned him into a nameless fortune teller.

  The former chief inspector was seized with an inexplicable urge.

  From one perspective, X had done what Chen himself should have done.

  Now it was time for the former chief inspector to do something for his own redemption.

  Chen dialed Old Hunter again. “Tell Mei I would like to meet with her. Arrange a meeting as soon as possible, and then I’ll decide whether to take the case or not.”

  “I’ll tell her immediately. Thank you so much, Director Chen.”

  In less than fifteen minutes, Old Hunter called back.

  “Mei would like to meet you at the Starbucks café in the New World. Nine o’clock tomorrow morning. She is so looking forward to meeting you, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  DAY 2

  Morning

  “River Snow”

  Liu Zongyuan (773–819)

  Not a single bird visible

  in hundreds of mountains,

  nor any footprint discernible

  on thousands of trails,

  only a solitary boat,

  a bamboo-capped-and-clad old man

  alone, fishing,

  the snow

  on the cold river.

  “The Lunar Lumberjack”

  Chen Cao

  Under the cold eye of the earth,

  I remain an absurdity,

  hacking like one possessed,

  chopping days, chopping nights,

  hewing millions of years,

  again oh again oh again—

  yellow leaves piling like the pages

  of history higher and higher,

  wood-crumbs filling my nostrils

  till I can barely breathe.

  Cringing at the inevitable,

  gasping the insubstantial

  lunar air, the gash

  seems always on the verge

  of a final cry, so like

  my own as the steadily

  bending tree springs back up,

  refreshed as ever, glaring,

  its acrid crumbs still burning

  my nostrils and my lungs

  while the supercilious stars

  regard me from afar.

  Yet I raise the ax once more

  hacking desire, hacking despair,

  a dark, passionate torrent pouring

  from my beard onto the sand, for it’s only

  in this too-familiar clamor,

  I am aware I exist, wielding

  my ax against the absurd,

  belonging to a legend

  that does not belong to me.

  According to an ancient Chinese legend, Wu Gang was condemned to chop down a tree on the moon. As the tree could never be really felled, he had to labor at the task unceasingly.

  Next morning, Chen stepped into the Starbucks café earlier than the scheduled time. He wanted to take a good look around the café, and as it was a bit chilly, he thought he could do with buying a large cup of hot coffee for himself first. He had not been to that café for quite a long while. Smelling the familiar coffee scent, he found the ambience of the café subtly changed, as if having lost itself in a melancholy reflection. Even the people there had changed too, appearing inexplicably moody. Instead of talking on their phones in high spirits, most of them were sitting there in silence.

  After he’d bought his coffee and sat down, he became aware of a man sitting beside him. The man was possibly in his early thirties, and he was reclining in a cushioned chair with a computer open on the table in front of him. But he wasn’t working on the computer, nor was he drinking coffee; he was simply sitting there, completely idle.

  It reminded Chen of something he had recently learned. Quite a number of white-collar workers, having been laid off in the economic downturn, chose to spend their days like that in cafés. Chen’s neighbor in the café was perhaps one of them. He would pretend to be still working in the office as before, but instead go to the café to drink a cup of coffee—and possibly eat a bagel—staying there until six in the evening, before going back home as if he’d just finished a day’s work as usual, kissing his wife and baby, hoping against hope that he could land another job the next day.

  Around nine, Chen saw a middle-aged woman stepping light-footedly into the café. She came to an abrupt stop when she caught sight of him from a distance, a bit hesitant, before moving over to his table. Mei was no longer young, possibly in her mid-fifties or early sixties, but was still graceful, wearing a long, gray cashmere sweater designed like a French trench coat. She smiled at him in a way that was redolent of a shy young girl.

  “Director Chen?”

  “Yes. You are—”

  “I’m Mei. I’ve often seen your picture in the newspapers. And read about your achievements. It’s such an honor for me to meet with you today, Director Chen. Indeed, who in this world of red dust does not know you?”

  She turned out not to be one of those uneducated upstarts. The rhetorical question in her pleasantries sounded like a subtle allusion to a Tang dynasty poem titled “Farewell to Dongda,” written by General Gao Shi, one of the few Tang poets who’d had a successful political career. That could have been one of the reasons that Chinese people were still reading his poems today.

  Yellow clouds keep stretching, thousands

  and thousands of miles long.

  The sun appears somber, sullen.

  The wind hits hard at the wild geese,

  swirling snowflakes upon snowflakes.

  Don’t worry that you will fail

  to meet with any friends

  on the road rolling out ahead.

  Indeed, who does not know you

  in this world of red dust?

  “You flatter me, General Manager Mei. It is an honor for me to meet with you, Shanghai’s Number-One Developer. Indeed, who in the world of red dust does not know you?”

  “Just call me Mei, Director Chen. Now that we have exchanged compliments, we may sit down to talk about business over a cup of coffee.”

  She was about to seat herself opposite him at the table when he hesitated. The café appeared to be quiet all of a sudden. This could turn out to be a long and serious talk between them, and that with sensitive content.

  “How about us sitting and talking outside?” he asked abruptly.

  “That sounds like a good idea. Let me order you another cup of coffee, and then we’ll move outside.”

  Outside, they seated themselves at a green-painted table, sheltered under a multicolored umbrella with a Budweiser logo.

  She started speaking, opening the door to the view of the mountains, getting straight to the point like an experienced businesswoman—which she was.

  “As the agency has told you, Director Chen, my old friend X was disappeared all of a sudden from his home in Red Dust Lane. I got the information from the lane as soon as it happened. I’ve been worrying about him for years, so I’ve kept an eye on him from afar. No one exactly knows the reason, but judging from his past, he may be in serious political trouble. Maybe the agency has also told you, Director Chen, that I made up my mind to hire them the moment they mentioned they might be able to enlist your help. I must find out why my friend X has been vanished—what crime he has supposedly committed to offend the Party—and clear his name. I have heard such a lot about you. If anyone could make a difference to my case, it’s you—no question about it. So I paid them a retainer fee there and then.”

  “It’s a very generous sum—I mean the retainer fee you have offered to the agency. They told me about it. One of my former colleagues, a retired cop nicknamed Old Hunter, is an advisor working at the agency. He has helped me so much in the past that I could hardly say no to him when he asked me to meet you. As a matter of fact, though, they accepted the money without having discussed it with me first. If I take the case, I have to make it clear that it must be a pro bono job for me, whatever sum you may have paid the agency.”

  “But how could that possibly be, Director Chen?”

  “I’m still a government official. Receiving such a large sum of money on the side could cause me difficulties. But, more importantly, I’m here because the man you want to help is someone who got into trouble because of the Tian’anmen crackdown in 1989. I admire his integrity and courage. So please tell me more about him, Mei. And about his relationship to you as well—after all, you have offered to pay an incredibly generous fee to help him.”

  “I’m glad to hear that you have such a high opinion of him. I appreciate it. It takes a lot of integrity and courage for a man in your position to say so. About X, and about my relationship with him, I can only tell you about the limited contact we’ve had. In fact, there’s hardly any relationship between us to talk of. All these years, we’ve met just twenty—possibly thirty—times or so, mostly in those long-ago days in Bund Park during the Cultural Revolution—

  “Then two other times elsewhere.”

  “In Bund Park during the Cultural Revolution!” Chen exclaimed in spite of himself. Scenes of himself studying English in Bund Park during the Cultural Revolution came crowding into his mind. “Sorry for my interruption, Mei. Please go on.”

  “We saw each other regularly in the park, but we never spoke to each other. I then saw him again in 1988, when he was an emerging young professor at Shanghai University, and I had just opened a restaurant named Small Family. We spoke for the first time and came to learn each other’s names during that accidental meeting. Then he disappeared from my life again. Around ten years ago—more than two decades after that meeting—I met him once again by chance in front of Red Dust Lane, and this time he did not even recognize me.”

  “This is sounding more and more intriguing to me, Mei,” Chen commented contemplatively, taking a large gulp of his lukewarm coffee. Then he added, as if as an afterthought, “Perhaps for a number of reasons that still remain vague even to myself.”

  “It’s a long story, Director Chen, full of events caused by unbalanced Yin and Yang. Suffice to say, he has more than once impacted the course of my life without me knowing it. And I could go so far as to say that without him, I would not have become the woman I am today. I don’t know how and where to start. A lot of things have happened in the background. I have done some thinking before coming to meet you today.

  “As I may have said, we first met in those days of the Cultural Revolution. We happened to both be studying English in Bund Park, but we never spoke to one another while we were there. I sat on one green bench while I was studying, and he on another. In those days, it was utterly unimaginable that we might have sat together on the same bench.”

  “That I surely understand, Mei. Even in the eight model theatrical works performed during the course of the Cultural Revolution to promote Mao Zedong’s ideology, love was an untouchable leitmotif.”

  “You are right. For myself and X, though, there was hardly anything romantic about our meetings in the Bund Park days. Not at all. At least, I was unaware of his feelings. I did not discover them until years later, when he bumped into me at my small family restaurant, and we recognized each other. He told me then that his name was Xiaohui, and he said to me in earnest that I had been his inspiration all these years. However, we lost touch again after that single meeting. I once tried to contact him at his university, and a stern voice at the other end of the line demanded that I tell him my name and where I work. It sounded just as if I’d been caught up in a serious police investigation. I had no choice but to hang up the phone in haste.

  “It was not until ten years or so ago that we met again. This time, we almost failed to recognize each other—at least, that was the case on my side. He was now a down-and-out fortune teller, plying his trade in front of Red Dust Lane. But believe it or not, what he said to me there saved my business. Perhaps it’s just like something he quoted when he was talking with me: ‘The Way that can be traveled is not the ordinary Way. The name that can be named is not the ordinary name.’