Red Mandarin Dress

through the humiliation mire for nothing.”
    “I understand,” Chen said, recalling a similar statement by Professor Xiang.
    “I think I mentioned Tofu Zhang.”
    “Yes, you did. Zhang hesitated and closed the door without going out to help.”
    “Before closing the door, he saw someone sneaking out of her room. Zhang thought it was Tian, but he wasn’t absolutely sure.”
    “Tian—the Mao Team member from the steel mill.”
    “Yes, the very Tian you wanted your partner to check.”
    “Did anyone ask Tian about that afternoon?”
    “According to Tian, he had planned to have a talk with her, but she appeared too disturbed, so he left,” Fan said. “But that didn’t hold water. Zhang saw him leaving after Mei’s accident, not before. In those years, however, who wanted to question the word of a Mao Team member? She died in an accident anyway. It was nobody’s fault.”
    “The district police station didn’t do anything about it?”
    “I was then about your age,” Fan said, taking a spoon of soup instead of responding directly. “I still wanted to do something as a cop. When I heard about the tragedy, I hurried over to the scene. There I took pictures, and I talked to some of her neighbors, including Zhang. According to another neighbor, two or three nights before, he heard something weird in her room. As an old proverb goes, there are a lot of troubles before a widow’s door—let alone such a black widow. No one reported it. I believed that it was worth investigating. It was no coincidence that Tian went in and out of her room. What’s more, if she thought to ask me for help, she could well have turned to Tian too. The poor woman was desperate, ready to do anything for her son. And Tian, unlike me, had the power to help.”
    “Yes, it was unusual for Tian to join that particular Mao Team at Mei’s school in the first place,” Chen said, “not to mention his then joining the investigation group in the neighborhood here.”
    “The release of the boy was sudden and suspicious. Also, I talked to a member of the neighborhood committee about it. It was Tian that had made the decision, though he hadn’t specified the release time. The boy was sick with a high fever, so she thought she might as well let him out that afternoon.”
    “That explains the boy’s reaction upon his return—you can imagine the scene he stumbled upon.”
    “Exactly. It was too much for him, and that’s why she ran after him like that. She knew what a shock it must have been. She forgot her nakedness, she slipped, and she fell.”
    “And that also explains why the son, who loved his mother so much, ran away without even looking back,” Chen said. “Indeed, all those details make sense.”
    “But it was a time when the police bureaus themselves were seen as a bourgeois institution. Red Guards and Worker Rebels alone had the real power. When I talked to my boss about an investigation, he brushed aside the idea.”
    “A question. Do you still have the pictures, Comrade Fan? The pictures of the death scene, I mean.”
    “Yes. I have them at home, but it may take a while to dig them out.”
    “I would really appreciate it if you could show them to me today.”
    “Wait a few minutes for me then.” Fan got up and strode out of the eatery.
    Chen was sitting alone at the table, waiting, when the waiter put the bill down. As he had guessed, the taxi money left in his pocket was more than enough for the meal. It cost less than seven Yuan each. For the amount spent in the nightclub last night, he could come here every morning for three months.
    In Dream of the Red Chamber , a young girl calculates that a crab dinner in the Grand View Garden costs more than a farmer’s food for a whole year. The same gap had appeared in today’s society.
    Chen rose to pay the bill at the counter. As he took the change, he cast another look at the couplet on the door. It was in bold calligraphy, a sharp contrast to the shabby appearance of the eatery. The horizontal comment—“True in your mouth”—seemed to be humorous, yet thought-provoking.
    “It’s not just about food,” the restaurant owner said with a smile. “The character ‘mouth’ carries an association of food, but of language as well. All the words come out of the mouth, true or false.”
    “Yes. The couplet reminds me of another one in the Dream of the Red Chamber, in a celestial palace—”
    “I know the one you are talking about, on the arch in the Illusion