Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

the investigation, it wouldn’t hurt, he thought, for him to take a look. “I’ve heard about the company. About its success at the expense of the environment, with the lake water and food around here being badly contaminated. ”
    That enquiry, suggested by his talk with Shanshan, could also be seen as being in line with Comrade Secretary Zhao’s instructions. It was time for Chen to start paying attention to the problem. Still, he thought he had better not ask too many questions at this stage, or he could raise unnecessary alarm.
    “Well, it is said that some people are getting sick by drinking the water or eating the fish, but nothing is really proven,” Huang said, scratching his head. “I don’t think it’s something relevant to the murder. There are many factories like Liu’s here. Wuxi has been developing rapidly, and as Comrade Deng Xiaoping put it, ‘Development is the one and only truth.’”
    It wasn’t up to Chief Inspector Chen, coming from Shanghai, to debate economic development in Wuxi. And he wasn’t an environmental expert like Shanshan.
    “Oh, another thing, Huang,” he said, on the spur of the moment. “Someone I know here has been getting threatening calls. Can you check on it for me?”
    “What’s his name and number?”
    “Her name is Shanshan, and here is her number.” He copied her number onto a scrap of paper and handed it to Huang.
    “Shanshan?”
    Chen thought he caught a fleeting hint of surprise in Huang’s expression. “Do you know her?”
    “No, I don’t. You know her well?” Huang asked.
    “No, I met her yesterday.”
    “I’ll check it out for you, Chief,” Huang said, glancing at his watch as he stood up. “I think I have to go back to the team. It’s almost five.”
    “Thank you so much, Huang. Call me when you learn anything new.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “Send me some information about the case.”
    He watched Huang’s retreating figure disappear into the crowd, which began to thin out with the approaching dusk. Chen remained sitting there, brooding, and staring into his empty cup of tea.
    After several minutes, he looked up at the bronze turtle statue, which must have overheard—if endowed with supernatural powers as in those folk tales—just another tale of human tragedy. But the brown turtle remained squatting, meditating, impervious to human suffering. What kind of a man was Liu? Chen hadn’t even seen a picture of him, but Liu might have come here himself, sitting, sipping at his own tea, and staring at the turtle statue.
    Chen swept his gaze over to the tilted eave of a multistory wooden tower silhouetted against the evening spreading in the distance. The time-and-weather-worn tower suddenly appeared melancholy. He was struck with a sense of déjà vu—possibly from recollecting more lines by Su Shi, his favorite poet from the Song dynasty.
    It is nothing but a dream, / for the past, for the present. / Whoever wakes out of the dream? / There is only a never-ending cycle / of old joy, and new grief. / Someday, someone else, / in view of the tower at night, / may sigh deeply for me .

FIVE
    THE CENTER WAS A nice place, after all.
    Chen took a walk around early Tuesday morning and began to get a better sense of the layout. The location spoke volumes for the center. Originally a huge lakeside area of the park, it had been converted into the Cadre Recreation Center for the benefit of veteran cadres, so they could enjoy the lake in peace and quiet without having to mix with the noisy tourist crowd.
    There were several others like him walking around at a leisurely pace. Every one of them must have led a quite different life somewhere else, in a provincial town or in a large city, each powerful and privileged in their respective ways. In the blue-and-white-striped pajamas of the center, however, they appeared anonymous for the moment.
    Even here, though, there was a sort of recognizable hierarchy. In the two gray multistory buildings near the entrance, the rooms were probably like those in a hotel; though still quite nice, each of them boasting a small balcony, they were probably not for very high-ranking cadres. In contrast, there was another building close to the center of the complex, and the size of the balconies indicated much larger rooms inside. Looking up, Chen saw a white-haired man step out onto a balcony on the third floor, stretch, and nod at him. Chen nodded back and moved on.
    Soon, he saw a teahouse built in the