Red Mandarin Dress

Rong might help too. Not necessarily in the aspect of three-accompanying girls—an aspect Peiqin didn’t want to envision yet.
    “Now that we are talking about it, Peiqin,” Rong said, “there might have been one thing—about Qiao, I mean. Three or four days before that fatal night, a customer came to Ming River, alone. He didn’t look like one who would require a girl, so I didn’t pay any attention to him. He contacted a waiter, requesting a girl’s company. Qiao went over to him. Nothing happened that evening.”
    “Can you give a description of that man?”
    “If I remember him at all, it’s because he didn’t look like those upstarts. A gentleman, I would say. Medium height. Oh, one more thing, perhaps. He wore a pair of amber-colored glasses. Not exactly sunglasses. Still, it’s rare for people to wear that kind of glasses in the winter.”
    “Did Qiao tell you anything afterward?”
    “No. She worked late. She had another old customer that night.”
    “Did she have a cell phone?”
    “No, not that I know of. Nor is there a phone at home. If I had to contact her for something, I called her neighbor on the third floor. Not too many people knew that number,” Rong said, rising with a smile. “I think it’s time for me to start preparing for the evening. I may put on a mandarin dress too. It’s hot.”

TWELVE
    EARLY IN THE MORNING , a pile of newspapers was special-delivered from the police bureau to Chen’s home, along with the latest case reports and tapes of Yu’s interviews.
    Instead of opening the collection of Song and Ming stories, as he had planned the night before, Chen started looking through the material prepared by Yu, wrapping himself in a robe and reclining against the headboard.
    There was a cup of tea on the table, left over from last night, cold, almost black. People are not supposed to drink last night’s tea. But he did.
    Shortly afterward, a second package was delivered to him. A package of books from the Shanghai Library, most of them on psychology.
    In his college years, Chen had dabbled in the subject—particularly in Freud and Jung—for literary criticism. To his relief, he found himself still responding to those psychological terms. Collective unconscious, for one, jumped out at him. There could have been something like a collective unconscious, he realized, behind the deconstructive turn in those love stories.
    Or behind the deconstructive message—if he could so term it—in the red mandarin dress case too?
    For many years after 1949, psychological problems had not been acknowledged in socialist China. People were supposed to have no problems, psychological or otherwise, as long as they followed the teachings of Chairman Mao. If they admitted to having trouble, they had to reform their minds through hard labor. Psychology was practically declared a bogus science. Psychoanalysis didn’t exist as a practice. Nor was it sensible for people to go to an analyst—if one was available at all—since talking about their problems could become evidence of serious “political crime.” In recent years, psychology had been gradually reintroduced and somewhat rehabilitated, but most people remained wary of it. Psychological problems still could easily turn into political problems.
    As a result, a psychological approach was considered unorthodox in the police bureau. Detective Yu, too, was full of reservations about it, believing that a psychological explanation might be helpful at the conclusion of a case, but not in the middle of the investigation.
    Chen started reading Yu’s reports in earnest.
    Yu had a hard time with Liao. Apart from the long rivalry between the two squads, Liao didn’t approve of Yu’s focus on Jasmine. Liao declared that the homicide squad had done everything possible in that direction. The killer was a nut, killing at random, and it would be a waste of time to look for a rational explanation.
    But in a go chess game, an experienced player is capable of instinctively grasping an opportunity on the chessboard. One small white or black piece, in a marginal position, hardly of any significance in itself, can contain the possibility of turning the table. Yu was good with his hunches on a go chessboard. And in his investigations too.
    After the first interview with Weng in the hotel, Yu had continued exploring along that direction. He checked Weng’s records elsewhere, including at the airport. There was nothing wrong with the entry date, but Yu