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Enigma of China(57)

By:Qiu Xiaolong


He decided not to visit his mother right now. Instead, he stepped into a small Internet café across the street. Like in the one near the concert hall in Pudong, it had a plastic sign marked Registration on the front desk. This time, he produced his ID without being asked.

Perching on the chair in front of his assigned computer, he had a free cup of tea, which tasted like it had been rebrewed, and then started looking through his e-mail. The first batch of material had already come in from Jiang, including several photos. The photos were of Fang when she was still in her twenties. They showed a handsome, spirited girl, and there was nothing that suggested she was or would become a little secretary. He glanced through some of the background information, but there was nothing really new or useful, either. It might take him hours to sort through everything.

His cell phone rang. Caller ID showed that it was Lianping, so he picked up. After exchanging greetings, Chen asked, “What’s up?”

“I’m going to the Shaoxing Literature Festival tomorrow.”

“That’s nice—have you ever been there?”

“No, this will be my first time. It’s only one hour outside of Shanghai, and the sponsor is providing me a ‘journalist’s package.’ It includes a ticket to tour Lu Xun’s residence, meal coupons, and if I stay over, accommodations at a four-star hotel.”

“What a nice package!”

“I mentioned your name to the sponsor and they would love to invite you to come and speak. Everything would be covered, and it would also include a handsome speaker’s fee.”

“Thank you, Lianping. I might not have the time to attend the festival or to give a speech, but I’ll think about it.”

“Please do. If you decide you can come, I’ll put you in touch with the organizers. I’ll be there, you know.”

After hanging up, he thought about it. For a brief moment, he felt drawn to the city of Shaoxing, if only for the chance to take a short vacation there. Oh, a “vacation” is the draw, is it? he joked with himself—surely not the one who invited you? He tried to mock himself out of thinking about a possibly romantic vacation. Shaoxing was a city with a long cultural history, he reflected. It was known for its association with many celebrated men of letters, and particularly with Lu Xun, a modern Chinese writer whom Chen passionately admired.

With the investigation in the state it was, however, he didn’t think he could spare the time for the trip. So he started to settle back into the various files about Fang when another call came in, this time from Melong.

“I have something for you, Chief Inspector Chen. Where are you?”

“I’m on Yunnan Road.”

“Ah, you’re on the gourmet street. It’s quite close to me. How about I meet you there in ten minutes? I have something to show you.”

“That’s good. I’ll wait here for you,” he said, looking across the street at a restaurant on the corner near Ninghai Road. “I’ll be at the Four Seas Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles.”

Chen left the Internet café and walked over to the noodle restaurant. To his surprise, it wasn’t crowded. He sat down at a corner table. He had hardly finished looking through the menu when Melong stepped in with a large envelope in his hand.

“This is one of the few places around here that hasn’t really changed,” Melong said, sitting down opposite. “An excellent choice.”

But even this noodle place had changed some, the service fancier and the menu more varied than Chen remembered. The waiter put down on the table more than a dozen tiny saucers of fresh toppings, including thin-sliced pork, beef, lamb, fish, shrimp, and vegetables, before bringing over two large bowls of noodles immersed in steaming hot soup covered with a thin layer of oil. They were supposed to immerse the toppings in the soup, then wait for a minute or two before eating. They were the same cross-bridge noodles Zhou had had for his last meal.

The moment the waiter stepped away Melong pushed the envelope across the table to Chen.

It contained a bunch of pictures of Zhou and Fang in the office, the two touching and kissing each other there. One picture showed Zhou sitting on the desk with his trousers half removed, and her kneeling in front of him on the carpet, naked to her waist, her hair cascading down over her bare back. Then there were several more explicit ones showing the two of them in bed, totally naked, engaged in the entangling ecstasy of rolling cloud and rain. The pictures were of low quality, and most of them were rather blurry.

“Where did you get these?”

“You know a thing or two about my work, don’t you? These photos were found on Dang’s computer.”