A Case of Two Cities

been a visitor to the building numerous times. That afternoon, as the soldier saluted to him at the entrance, he still felt a surge of pride, despite his misgivings at the bathhouse, and despite Yu’s warning at his home. The chief inspector, now an emperor’s special envoy with an imperial sword, caught a Confucian statement resurfacing in his mind: A woman is willing to make herself beautiful for the one who likes her, and a man is ready to lay down his life for the one who appreciates him.
     
    Dong’s office was rather an austere one. A short, stolid man in his late forties or early fifties, Dong rose to greet Chen with an air that bespoke awareness of his own position, and of Chen’s as well. Dressed in a well-ironed white shirt and black pants and wearing a pair of golden-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a scholar, and he surely spoke like one.
     
    “Welcome, Chief Inspector Chen. You are an unexpected visitor that lightens up this small office.”
     
    “Sorry for not having called you first, Director Dong. I had an earlier meeting in the building, so I thought I may as well drop in.”
     
    “You don’t have to explain. You are welcome here anytime,” Dong said. “Have a cup of tea. You like good tea, I know, particularly Dragon Well from Hangzhou, but I have something different here.”
     
    Dong put a little green ball into the cup, before pouring out an arch of water from a thermos bottle.
     
    “Thank you,” Chen said, surprised by Dong’s knowledge. The tea did look quite different. The ball was expanding into something like petals in the water, and a red berry glistened like the pistil in the center. Then he saw a tiny thread: the leaves must have been bound together with the berry inside. “An exquisite tea. How do you know about my tea preference?”
     
    “I still remember that essay in Wenhui Daily. I used to know that pretty reporter too, Wang Feng. She left for Japan. What a pity!”
     
    The article in question was a humorous one published a long while ago. No one would have paid much attention to it. What Chen remembered of the article at all was because of the reporter, the image of whose green skirt was still fresh in his mind.
     
    “You surely are well informed—”
     
    “Well, people know a lot about you, our poet chief inspector. Someone just told me about your hongyan zhiji, not only in Beijing, but in the United States too.”
     
    It came like a seemingly effortless blow delivered by a tai chi master: we know everything about you, so you ‘d better look out. Hongyan zhiji was a classical literary term meaning an attractive female friend who appreciates and understands you: not necessarily a girlfriend, but definitely with such a connotation—an archetypal dream for lonely, unappreciated scholars in ancient China. Tales about Chen and his friend Ling in Beijing might not be too surprising; Ling’s being an HCC—a high cadre’s child—certainly did not help. Representations of Chen as a political climber holding her hand actually impeded the development of their relationship. But the reference to his American hongyan zhiji was alarming. Chen had met Catherine Rohn, a U.S. Marshal in a joint investigation in Shanghai. They liked each other, but nothing really developed. In the Shanghai Police Bureau, no one had ever talked or joked about it, for such an affair would be politically sensitive for an emerging Party cadre like Chen. How could Dong have come up with all that?
     
    Unless Dong, too ; had made an exhaustive study of Chen. But the chief inspector had not made an appointment for his visit. He had planned to surprise Dong. Now Dong had more than surprised Chen.
     
    “Come, Director Dong. People exaggerate in their gossip.” Chen tried to lead the talk back his way. “We cannot—in our positions.”
     
    “You are right,” Dong said, nodding. “But in my position, I have to deal with all kinds of exaggerations. The problems for the state companies, for instance. The Party cadres harp on them all the time, in the hope that they can transform and be rid of the state ownership of their companies.”
     
    “Yes, your work is quite new,” Chen said, “in the historical transition from the state economy to the market economy.”
     
    “Are you working on an anticorruption case involving a state-run company, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?”
     
    “Yes, you are well-informed.”
     
    “I merely guessed. A detective doesn’t come to my office for