Enigma of China(46)

“Yes. He’s known for one particular attribute: he holds fast to his own rules. There are things he will do, and things he won’t do. For instance, it’s said that he makes a point of protecting his sources—which in turn adds to the popularity of his site. Then again, one never really knows: according to some sources, Melong also has connections in the government, and that’s why he’s been able to run it his way all along.”

“What else?”

“What else?” she repeated, smiling, picking up a piece of beef in oyster sauce. “Like you, he’s a filial son.”

How did she know that about him?

An unexpected toast made by that aunt of Peiqin’s provided an excuse for Chen not to respond to Lianping’s comment.

“I want to thank you, Party Secretary Chen, and your beautiful journalist girlfriend. When the pictures appear in Wenhui, Peiqin’s parents will be so happy in the netherworld.”

He stood up in a hurry, cup in hand, but he didn’t know what to say in response, or whether it was even appropriate to make a toast back.

Peiqin smiled across the table apologetically. Yu scratched his head.

Lianping pulled out her cell phone again, looked something up, then picked up a pink napkin and scribbled something on it. She pushed it over to him as he sat down again awkwardly.

“Here’s Melong’s phone number. You may as well call him. You can tell him you’re my friend.”

“Thank you.”

The lunch came to an end, fortunately before someone else tried to make another toast.

Everyone walked across the street and back to the temple. Some carried boxes of food, and they didn’t forget to put the boxes in their cars before reentering the temple.

Instead of going back into the room where the service was held, they now gathered around a huge bronze burner in the courtyard. It was time for people to burn the sacrifices for the dead. They started putting into the fire the boxes of netherworld money, along with some other imitation sacrifices, including a vividly detailed paper mansion.

“Look at the address,” Lianping said, standing beside him.

“123 Binjiang Garden.”

“The most expensive subdivision in the city of Shanghai.”

“So the dead can enjoy the top luxuries in the netherworld, if not in this world. I don’t think that has a lot to do with Buddhism, the burning of symbolic sacrifices for the dead. Perhaps it has more to do with Confucianism.”

“There is something I don’t understand about Confucianism. Confucius said, ‘A gentleman doesn’t talk about ghosts or spirits,’ but at the same time, he urges people to offer sacrifices to their ancestors.”

“These days, we’re in an age of spiritual and ideological vacuum, and ours is a society with no religion to fall back on. For most people, nothing exists or matters but this present world. So this service, influenced as it is by the materialistic considerations of the here and now, provides a sort of cold comfort.”

So saying, he leaned toward the burner. Among the sacrifices being consumed in the roaring flame, he was astonished to see a carton of imitation cigarettes.

“What? 95 Supreme Majesty!”

“You know, there’s a new picture of cigarettes online,” she said, her face flushed with the heat.

“Another photo related to Zhou?”

“No. Not directly. It’s of some other Party officials in a conference room. For a conference, drinks and cigarettes on the dais are a given. The expensive ones are provided for free as a necessary government expense. In this new picture, however, the cigarettes have been taken out of the pack and placed on a small saucer. Why? So that people can’t recognize the top brands. The conference organizers must have been nervous about causing another scandal. But they were foolish. No smoker ever dumps their cigarettes out of the pack like that, so the cover-up effort only drew more attention to it. It resulted in another avalanche of sarcastic comments from netizens about the picture.”

She had a point. He himself would never have dumped the cigarettes out into a saucer, and he was no stranger to such things being provided at the government’s expense. Fortunately, she was changing the topic.

“By the way, I’ve just heard that there will be a new bronze Confucius statue erected soon in Tiananmen Square. I wonder whether people will burn incense there as well.”

“That’s impossible,” Chen said. “Think about the May Fourth movement, and Mao’s denunciation of Confucianism.”

“Nothing is impossible in today’s miraculous China. Remember the old saying? When one is seriously sick, one can’t afford to choose a doctor. But do you think resurrecting such an ancient idol will really solve the ideological crisis in our country?”