The Mao Case

to play a role similar to the one he had at Xie Mansion.

    People attributed the success of
Cloud and Rain in Shanghai
to its subject matter, but nonetheless it bespoke of the author’s ingenuity. Chen had read the book, impressed by the subtle
     balance between the stated and the unstated in the text.
    At two or three minutes before one, the waitress led in a gray-haired man of medium build, with a deeply furrowed forehead
     and beady eyes, wearing a black T-shirt, white pants, and shiny dress shoes.
    “You must be Mr. Diao,” Chen said, rising from the table. “Yes, I’m Diao.”
    “Oh, it’s a great honor to meet you. I’m Chen. Your book,
Cloud and Rain in Shanghai
, is such a big bestseller.”
    “Thank you for your invitation to lunch. This is an imperial restaurant, really expensive, and I’ve only heard about it before.”
    “I was a student in Beijing years ago, and I would dream of coming here. So it’s for the sake of nostalgia as well.”
    “That’s not a bad reason,” Diao said with a grin, showing cigarette-stained teeth. “Don’t you remember a line by our great
     leader Chairman Mao? ‘Six hundred million people are all Sun and Yao, great emperors.’ Poetic hyperbole, to be sure, but Mao’s
     right about one thing. People are interested in being emperors, or being like emperors.”
    “You are absolutely right.”
    “It explains the popularity of the restaurant. People come not only for the food, but for the imperial association too. For
     a short moment, they can imagine themselves being an emperor.”
    That might have also been true for Shang — she might have enjoyed imagining herself as an emperor’s woman. Chen raised his cup,
     making no comment.
    The waitress approached and offered them a small platter of dainty, golden
ououtou
, steamed buns usually made of maize. The ones Chen remembered from his college years had been somber in color, hard to swallow.
     These looked very different.
    “It’s made from a special green bean,” the waitress said, reading his surprise. “Super delicious. The Empress Dowager’s favorite.”

    “Great, we’ll try that,” Chen said. “Recommend some other specials to us.”
    “For the private room, there is a minimum charge of one thousand yuan. You have to spend at least that amount anyway. So let
     me recommend an exquisite meal of light delicacies. All small dishes, about twenty of them — the Empress Dowager’s way. That
     was the minimum for one meal for her too. To begin with, the live fish from the Central South Sea steamed with tender ginger
     and green onion.”
    “That’s good,” Chen said. No one would miss the association between the Forbidden City and Central South Sea.
    “What else?” Diao asked for the first time.
    “The roast Beijing duck, of course.”
    “Duck from the palace?”
    “Genuine Beijing ducks. Specially fed, six to eight months old. Most restaurants now cook with an electric oven. We stick
     to the traditional wood-burning oven, and we use not just any firewood, but a special pine wood so the flavor penetrates deep
     into the texture of the meat. It was unique practice used only for the emperors,” she said with pride in her voice. “Oh, our
     chefs follow the tradition of blowing up the duck with their mouths and sewing up its ass before placing it into the oven.”
    “Wow, so much to learn about a duck,” Diao exclaimed.
    “We offer the celebrated five ways of eating a duck: crisp duck skin
     slices wrapped in pancake, duck meat slices fried with green garlic, duck feet immersed in wine, duck gizzard stir-fried with
     green vegetables, and duck soup, but the soup takes about two hours before it turns creamy white.”
    “That’s fine. I mean the soup,” Chen said. “Take your time with the soup. Bring up whatever specials you think are the restaurant’s
     best. Today, it is for a great writer.”
    “You overwhelm me with your generosity,” Diao said.
    “As a businessman, I’ve made a bunch of money, but so what? In a hundred
     years, will the money still be mine? Indeed, as our grand master Old Du said, literature alone lasts for thousands of autumns.
     It’s proper and right for a novice like me to buy a meal for a master like you.”

    Chen’s speech echoed one by Ouyang, a friend Chen had met in Guangzhou. An amateur poet yet a successful businessman, Ouyang
     had made a similar statement over a dim sum meal.
    As far as nonfiction was concerned, however, Chen was legitimately