“Hold on, Old Hunter. What do you mean that the neighborhood cops are busy with the new tax campaign?”

  “So-called Chinese socialism is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The CCP government desperately needs to grab money, by hook or by crook, to fill the bottomless black hole. Now they have been going all out, auditing people’s tax records for the last fifteen or even twenty years. This is done with help from the neighborhood cops, who can provide incriminating information if needed, so people have no choice but to pay back whatever ‘unpaid tax’ they owe. After all, the cops have the power to throw the people concerned into jail.”

  “The centre cannot hold …”

  “What do you mean, Director Chen?”

  “Just a line by W.B. Yeats.”

  “Your modernist poetry is way, way beyond me. But anyway, the neighborhood cop responsible for Red Dust Lane is away for the new tax campaign. With the majority of the lane residents having moved away, Yan alone is in charge of things both in and out of the lane. She may be able to provide you with the latest information.”

  “Yes, she might. I met her once or twice during the Covid pandemic. But I wonder whether I should approach her at the present moment.”

  “How about I make an attempt to approach her?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea either. Beating the bushes may startle out the snake. Let me do some thinking. Hopefully, I can find another way.”

  “Also, Mei has sent me some materials showing how popular the romance between General Cai and Little Fairy Phoenix is online right now.”

  “So she noticed that too. X was not the first one to tell the story, I’m sure of it. Nor did he post anything about it online.”

  “I understand. That’s a valid point.”

  “There may be something we have overlooked, Old Hunter.”

  “So what shall we do?”

  “We do what we can do at the moment. Perhaps we’ll be able to find another way. In the meantime, you should keep in close touch with Mei.”

  “Another way …” Chen kept murmuring to himself after the phone discussion with Old Hunter.

  He thought he might be able to find an alternative way to get the latest information about Yan, the head of the Red Dust Neighborhood Committee, but he was reluctant to do so. Even to think so.

  Not surprisingly, he found his mind wandering back to Molong, who had been an old, loyal friend for years.

  Molong was one of the top hackers in the city of Shanghai, doing secret jobs for the government as well as for private clients. More than once, he had helped the former chief inspector with his investigations. Chen knew that Molong could be trusted.

  It would probably be a piece of cake for Molong to hack into Yan’s email and WeChat accounts—

  But Chen still hesitated to ask the favor of Molong, even though he was quite sure Molong would be willing to help, whatever risks might be involved.

  Chen kept reminding himself that he could not, and should not, take Molong’s help for granted, especially at the moment, when the somber sky was woven with the evil black bats of surveillance cameras.

  It might have been a sort of ironic karma that, years earlier, Chen had managed to open the back door for Molong’s mother to get into the East China Hospital, a high-level hospital available only to the Party cadres at a certain rank, and to have the operation done for her by the best doctor there.

  As an extraordinarily filial son, Molong had since never said no to any of Chen’s requests. A highly experienced, skillful hacker, Molong had repaid him tremendously in several subsequent politically risky investigations.

  Things were so different now, however. Chen had been deprived of his once-powerful chief inspector position in the Shanghai Police Bureau. Indeed, he had to carry on as an incognito “PI” consultant for the moment. He told himself that he was in no position to shield Molong if anything went wrong in the course of the current investigation. As an old Chinese saying went, like a clay Buddha statue crossing the swift currents, Chen could hardly protect himself.

  For the same reason, Chen did not want Jin to become too deeply involved in this investigation, either. Because of their close relationship, he felt responsible for her. She’s young, still having a long way to go in her future, even though she’d declared that she was ready to stay with him in the same boat, in spite of the rough, unpredictable sea with mountains of waves …

  Nevertheless, he finally dialed Molong’s phone number.

  With the pale dusk stretching out against the gray sky, Molong’s response came back.

  “I have got something for you, Director Chen. In fact, quite a lot of things.”

  “That’s fantastic. You have made very fast progress. I know I can depend on you. Indeed, I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough, Molong.”

  “You don’t need to say that. But can you send your pretty young secretary Jin over to me? She knows me, as she sent a flower wreath on your behalf to my mother’s funeral during the Covid pandemic. You trust her entirely, I believe.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “It’s obvious that she is devoted to you. She simply adores you.” Then Molong added after a short pause, “The wind is blowing up a storm, as a character in a martial arts novel might say. Chief Inspector Chen, you cannot be too careful nowadays.”

  Chen got the message. He thought he knew why Molong preferred to meet with Jin instead of him. It made sense for Molong to be cautious. It wasn’t a good idea for Chen to be seen in the company of Molong either, but Molong had probably made the suggestion more for the sake of the trouble-besieged former chief inspector than for himself.

  Besides, Molong could have learned something about the conspiracies going on against Chen too. Molong had his ways of finding things out. In other words, it would be far from safe for the two of them to be seen together.

  “I’ll call Jin right now,” Chen said laconically.

  He was going to dial her number when he hesitated, choosing not to make the phone call.

  Because of the online search he had asked her to carry out, Jin would most likely come over to report her work to him early the next day. He concluded that it would be better for him to talk to her in person. It wasn’t safe for Chen to share sensitive details with her on the phone, even with his new SIM card.

  Big Brother is watching.

  After he’d spoken to Molong, Chen finally picked up the second memoir Mei had handed him at the Starbucks café.

  “The Same River: Part II”

  By Xiaohui

  It was an early spring evening in 1988, and I had just participated in a conference of cultural studies at the Peace Hotel.

  The luxurious hotel stood majestic, as always, at the beginning of East Nanjing Road adjoining the Bund. The hotel had just changed its policy of exclusively serving international tourists. Inside, I’d noticed a small picture of Victor Sassoon, the original owner of the hotel. Sassoon was no longer regarded as an evil, vampire-like capitalist, fattening himself on the blood of the Chinese people. I thought it could be another sign of unprecedented reform.

  Stepping out of the hotel, I headed toward Bund Park. It was quite close. Sometimes, I found I could think better while walking alone, particularly along the Huangpu River. This turned out to be a crucial decision for me.

  The Bund appeared so vibrantly alive that evening, with lovers sitting on concrete benches or leaning against each other by the bank. In China’s reform under Comrade Deng Xiaoping, romantic love was no longer seen as politically incorrect. Little wonder it was called “the bank of lovers.”

  The river, though still polluted, seemed to be exhibiting some signs of improvement. Across the water, shimmering with ever-changing neon light patterns in English and Chinese, the Pudong area, east of the river, presented an impressive number of new skyscrapers popping up miraculously on the former farmland.

  I walked into Bund Park through its wrought-iron front gate, then strolled across a small square toward a green-painted bench under a willow tree. It was my usual seat during those earlier years. On the back of the bench was a slogan carved out, I guessed, during the Cultural Revolution: “Long Live the Proletarian Dictatorship!” The bench had been repainted several times, though the engraved message still showed through the lapse of time.

  But like everything else in the city, Bund Park too had been changing. It was now free to the public. I did not have to buy a monthly park pass. Nor were there any worker patrollers prowling around in a state of high vigilance, wearing red armbands. Two pairs of young lovers were sharing a green park bench with one another, seemingly undisturbed. They appeared to be at the center of their respective worlds.

  So had I changed—from a “waiting-for-recovery youth,” out of school, no job, quitting tai chi practice to learn English by myself in the morning, to a young emerging scholar in the unprecedented reform after the ending of the Cultural Revolution.

  But I did not linger around the bench, which had been once so familiar to me.

  On the cool April breeze, a light melody came wafting over from the big clock atop the Shanghai Customs Building. It was a different one: light, lambent, totally unlike the familiar tune I’d heard during the Cultural Revolution, “The East Is Red.” At the time, it was a “politically red song” in praise of Chairman Mao, a song all the Chinese people had to sing in a sort of political ritual.

  All was changed, like in the lines penned by Li Yu, who was a highly qualified poet but also a highly disqualified emperor in ancient China:

  The flowers fall, the water flows, the spring vanishes,

  and it’s a totally changed world.

  But history could change back and forth, I reflected. As in a movie I had seen, a mad man in the park was beating a brass gong so energetically as he shouted, white foam gathering around his mouth, “The great Cultural Revolution has staged a comeback!”

  No one could take things for granted in China.

  I had recently received two extraordinary offers.

  One of them had just been made to me in the Peace Hotel. The offer was that I serve as editor-in-chief of a series of cultural research books—Marching Toward the Twenty-First Century. In the hotel’s somber Old Jazz Bar, which appeared peaceful, quaint, with no performance going on for the moment, an influential publisher surnamed Ruan had told me, sipping at his coffee, that I would not have to work as a full-time editor in the publishing house if I accepted. My responsibilities would consist of selecting the topics, studying the proposals, and making the final decisions. In the meantime, I could still teach my philosophy class at Shanghai University.

  The other offer I’d been made was a prestigious American fellowship for a visiting scholar. I could do my research for one year in the United States, at whichever university appealed to me. All the expenses would be covered by the generous fellowship. If I accepted, however, it meant I’d have to be away from China for at least a year. Such a prospect meant ruling out my taking charge of the series of cultural research books.

  Breathing in the familiar tang from the Huangpu River, I found myself growing more inclined to accept the fellowship. It would be a great opportunity for me to continue my studies abroad. Back in those days when I’d studied English in Bund Park, such a thing had been an unimaginable dream.

  Lighting a cigarette, strolling along the bank, I looked up to the starry sky above, before I let my glance fall on the neon lights reflecting on the somber waves. My mind kept playing back fragments of the earlier discussion I’d had in the Peace Hotel.

  “These books will exercise their influence not only in this century,” Ruan said in the shadow of an antique lamp in the hotel café, “but in the next century as well. That’s why we want to call the series Marching Toward the Twenty-First Century. China is facing a crossroads right now, as we all know. You are the very man for the job, Professor Xiaohui.”

  In the mid-1980s, in spite of the momentum of economic reform, political reform had remained an empty promise in the Party newspapers. To push the reform forward, young intellectuals like myself believed we had to find the problems at the very root of China’s long, long culture, while others wanted to introduce the latest Western ideas into China. A series of cultural, social, philosophical studies might meet both these needs. But I hadn’t responded immediately to Ruan in the hotel bar.

  “At a time like this,” Ruan concluded, “we have to think about more than ourselves. If we do not push the current reforms forward, the Cultural Revolution may stage a comeback. It’s a possibility we cannot afford to ignore …”

  The sound of a siren, sweeping over from the river, pierced through my memory of the discussion in the Peace Hotel. I shook my head in spite of myself.

  Walking further down along the bank, I slowed my steps at the sight of a swarthy sailor coiling the hawsers for the ferry. A group of passengers were already waiting impatiently on the dock in the somber dusk, and the still-ringing siren sounded more urgent in the approaching night.

  To my left, Zhongshan Road stretched on, with its long vista of magnificent buildings. Those buildings, which had once housed large Western businesses in the early part of the century, then the important Communist Party institutions after 1949, were now welcoming back some of the original Western companies. It was said to be an effort to enhance the Bund’s status in this brave new world.

  For some reason, I thought of a patriotic lesson I had learned in a middle school history textbook. A young female scholar had recently proven that no one had put up a sign declaring “Chinese and dogs not allowed.” It was nothing but an ideological fabrication.

  I nearly bumped into a young girl who was scampering over like a moth fluttering, blindly, towards a young man waving his hand at a turn of the bank. She was wearing a long red jacket like a trench coat. I was vaguely reminded of someone I’d seen years earlier, but the remembrance came and went as in a Tang dynasty line I liked: “Only it was already getting elusive, even there and then.”

  For the Marching Toward the Twenty-First Century series, I decided I might as well include a book on the history of Bund Park, highlighting how it had changed against the colonial and post-colonial backgrounds, and in the Cultural Revolution too, with those true or false interpretations of its history. New historicist studies sometimes started with a concrete anecdote—for any books in their school, I thought that a vignette of my English studies in the park during the Cultural Revolution years would work fantastically. Exhilaration, in association with these thoughts, quickened my steps.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to dispel my conflicted thoughts as if I were engaged in a battle fought in the dark. I told myself that I had to concentrate on the decision that was facing me. Time and tide did not wait.

  As I was exiting the park, I found myself turning north and crossing the bridge instead of returning home. I was in no hurry to go back to the new apartment that Shanghai University had recently assigned me through the state housing program.

  Soon, I was lost in a maze of winding streets—one covered in cobblestone, the next looking like a narrow alley. I was now entering Hongkou District, I could tell, though still not too far from the park. It took longer than I expected to reorient myself. I kept on wandering as the moonlight faded behind the drifting night cloud. French poplar trees cast strange shadows in the area.

  Another poem by Su Shi, a Song dynasty poet, came flashing out of the blue into my mind as I turned into another quaint cobbled street—“No Self for Me to Claim.”

  Drinking late, in

  and out of an inebriated doze,

  I did not come back home

  until after midnight.

  The servant boy slept in, snoring

  like thunder. I knocked,

  and knocked, without success.

  Shut out of the door, I stand,

  leaning on my cane,

  listening to the sound

  of the grand river

  Long, long I lament

  there is no self for me to claim.

  When can I ever forget

  about all the cares of the world?

  The night deep, the wind still,

  no ripples visible on the river.

  Oh, I could sail away

  in a small sampan,

  wandering along the rivers and seas

  for the rest of my life!

  Emerging out of the cobblestone street, I became aware that it was beginning to drizzle. Almost immediately, I was surprised at the sight of a tiny restaurant tucked in the corner of a cozy street. A white wooden sign dangled beneath a lit red lantern, declaring in bold brush-pen calligraphy, “Small Family.”

  Perhaps it was one of the privately run restaurants, something new in the city at the beginning of China’s economic reform.

  The rain was light but unpleasant. I decided to step into Small Family. As I entered, I combed my slightly wet hair with my fingers, rubbing my shoes on the doormat.

  The restaurant was apparently converted from a residential room of a shikumen house, with an attached courtyard. It was cozy and comfortable, though it only had four or five rough wooden tables inside. There appeared to be a large stove, as well as some shelves, out in the courtyard.

  A handsome young woman was sitting near the far end of the room, reading a magazine in the soft light at a white makeshift counter, behind which a white-painted partition wall concealed the kitchen and her family’s living area.

  She rose upon my entrance, walked light-footedly over, and led me to a table by the window.

  So she was the owner, the waitress, and possibly the chef all in one—and a hostess as well. She was wearing soft-heeled slippers, and a white apron embroidered with hyacinth blossoms.

  I took a glance at the handwritten menu she handed over to me. There seemed to be an interesting variety of home-style cooking, including cold dishes like tofu mixed in sesame oil, diced thousand-year egg, smoked fish head, and pig ear jelly—all inexpensive, yet most likely delicious.

  “There’s no knowing which direction the wind is blowing … no knowing …” Fragments of a popular song came over from a cassette player, its lyrics based on a poem by Xu Zhimo. In my college years, I had once dreamed of having a career as a poet like Xu.