Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

mountains. ’”
    “How romantic of you! I’ll think about your invitation,” she said, suddenly aware of footsteps moving along the corridor and then coming to a stop outside her door. It might be one of her neighbors in the dorm, where young people, many of them single like her, would sometimes borrow sugar or salt from each other. “One of my neighbors might be at my door.”
    Dressed in the shorts and a white tank top she wore to bed, Shanshan stood up, still holding the phone, and moved to the door.
    “Think about it, Shanshan,” Chen said. “Come over this afternoon or evening, whenever you like. Also, if you happen to think of anything unusual that you noticed about your company—anything you hadn’t thought to mention before—call me.”
    They said their good-byes, and Shanshan hung up. Chen’s last line about calling him reminded her of something she’d heard in a popular police drama, she mused, before her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
    Opening it, she was surprised to see two strangers standing there. One was tall and stout, and another, short and thin. Both were dressed plainly yet were ferocious-looking, as if emerging out of Shanshan’s half-forgotten nightmare.
    The tall man flashed something like a police officer’s badge at her, then handed her a business card that identified him as Ji Lun of Internal Security.
    “Han Bing, my partner, is also from Internal Security,” Ji said, pointing to his companion. Neither made a move to enter her dorm room. Ji continued, “Our car is parked outside. Follow us.”
    She had no idea what Internal Security could possibly do to her, but the two men standing outside her door meant that she was in trouble, far more serious trouble than she could have imagined.
    “Can you wait there for one minute? Let me put something else on.”
    She closed the door and when it opened again, she was dressed in a short-sleeved white blouse, jeans, and sandals.
    They led her outside to a new black Lexus. She went without protest. Resisting would only make things worse, she supposed, as some of her neighbors were hanging around outside, watching while holding their breakfast in their hands.
    They drove in silence, the only sound an occasional screech of the tires on the stretch of gravel road before the car turned onto the main road. The inside of the car was wreathed in cigarette smoke, both men smoking heavily.
    It took them fifteen minutes to arrive at a towering hotel, somewhere close, though she had never been there before. It was a sprawling multistory building, squatting like a surrealistic monster over the lake.
    The two officers nodded at the people manning the front desk, and they took her directly to a grand suite on the top floor. Ji Lun motioned her to a gray chair in the living room, while he and his comrade seated themselves opposite her on a velvet sectional sofa.
    “You’d better come clean immediately, Shanshan,” Han Bing started.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Officer.”
    “Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you can get away with it. There’s no way, Shanshan,” Ji said. “Stop dreaming your spring-and-autumn dream. Jiang has already confessed. Spill everything now, or it will be too late for you.”
    “I parted with Jiang about half a year ago. Whatever he’s done since, I have no knowledge of.”
    “But you provided him with the industrial pollution data on the lake, which he still uses against the interests of the government. That’s something you can’t deny.”
    “That’s not a state secret. All the data was gathered from official publications. As for the pollution in the lake, all anyone needs to do is look at it for themselves.”
    “Not a state secret? The document you provided him was marked ‘inside information.’ We’ve already double-checked that. It is very much a state secret. There’s no mistaking it. ”
    It was like a recurring nightmare, except that it now was Internal Security, not Liu, who was accusing her of “giving away state secrets.” It was a deadly serious charge and even more so coming from Internal Security.
    “How am I supposed to have obtained secret documents? The ‘inside information’ stamp is just something routinely printed on the front cover of the newsletter. It only means that it’s the newsletter for company employees.”
    “Well, that’s your interpretation,” said Han.
    “That’s a serious crime in itself,” Ji went on wildly. “Has