Chen contacted Zhu Wei, a reporter covering the real estate market for Wenhui Daily. When Chen explained his interest in learning about the properties purchased in Shanghai by city officials, Zhu sounded eager to cooperate. Zhu had already considered writing about the topic, but his boss had vetoed the idea.
“Do you know anything about the house purchased by Dong?” Chen said.
“Anything about Dong? He paid for the house all in cash without applying for a mortgage,” Zhu said. “Are you investigating something?”
“Oh no, I’m just curious. Someone told me that the property in that area is an incredible bargain, like Dong’s house there. I have been looking for an apartment for my mother.”
“It’s time for someone to touch these rotten Party cadres, Chief Inspector Chen. Have you seen those TV episodes of Judge Bao?”
“I read the Song dynasty stories long ago.”
“Have you thought about his popularity in the present-day China?” Zhu went on without waiting for an answer. “People have their hope in an incorruptible official like Judge Bao.”
“That’s true,” Chen said. He refrained from saying that the popularity of Judge Bao came from his being so exceptional, so unrealistic, simply substitutive of people’s collective fantasy.
In the afternoon, Chen set out to Dong’s office, which was in the Shanghai City Government Building located in the People’s Square.
Chen had been a visitor to the building numerous times. That afternoon, as the soldier saluted to him at the entrance, he still felt a surge of pride, despite his misgivings at the bathhouse, and despite Yu’s warning at his home. The chief inspector, now an emperor’s special envoy with an imperial sword, caught a Confucian statement resurfacing in his mind: A woman is willing to make herself beautiful for the one who likes her, and a man is ready to lay down his life for the one who appreciates him.
Dong’s office was rather an austere one. A short, stolid man in his late forties or early fifties, Dong rose to greet Chen with an air that bespoke awareness of his own position, and of Chen’s as well. Dressed in a well-ironed white shirt and black pants and wearing a pair of golden-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a scholar, and he surely spoke like one.
“Welcome, Chief Inspector Chen. You are an unexpected visitor that lightens up this small office.”
“Sorry for not having called you first, Director Dong. I had an earlier meeting in the building, so I thought I may as well drop in.”
“You don’t have to explain. You are welcome here anytime,” Dong said. “Have a cup of tea. You like good tea, I know, particularly Dragon Well from Hangzhou, but I have something different here.”
Dong put a little green ball into the cup, before pouring out an arch of water from a thermos bottle.
“Thank you,” Chen said, surprised by Dong’s knowledge. The tea did look quite different. The ball was expanding into something like petals in the water, and a red berry glistened like the pistil in the center. Then he saw a tiny thread: the leaves must have been bound together with the berry inside. “An exquisite tea. How do you know about my tea preference?”
“I still remember that essay in Wenhui Daily. I used to know that pretty reporter too, Wang Feng. She left for Japan. What a pity!”
The article in question was a humorous one published a long while ago. No one would have paid much attention to it. What Chen remembered of the article at all was because of the reporter, the image of whose green skirt was still fresh in his mind.
“You surely are well informed-”
“Well, people know a lot about you, our poet chief inspector. Someone just told me about your hongyan zhiji, not only in Beijing, but in the United States too.”
It came like a seemingly effortless blow delivered by a tai chi master: we know everything about you, so you ‘d better look out. Hongyan zhiji was a classical literary term meaning an attractive female friend who appreciates and understands you: not necessarily a girlfriend, but definitely with such a connotation-an archetypal dream for lonely, unappreciated scholars in ancient China. Tales about Chen and his friend Ling in Beijing might not be too surprising; Ling’s being an HCC-a high cadre’s child-certainly did not help. Representations of Chen as a political climber holding her hand actually impeded the development of their relationship. But the reference to his American hongyan zhiji was alarming. Chen had met Catherine Rohn, a U.S. Marshal in a joint investigation in Shanghai. They liked each other, but nothing really developed. In the Shanghai Police Bureau, no one had ever talked or joked about it, for such an affair would be politically sensitive for an emerging Party cadre like Chen. How could Dong have come up with all that?
Unless Dong, too; had made an exhaustive study of Chen. But the chief inspector had not made an appointment for his visit. He had planned to surprise Dong. Now Dong had more than surprised Chen.
“Come, Director Dong. People exaggerate in their gossip.” Chen tried to lead the talk back his way. “We cannot-in our positions.”
“You are right,” Dong said, nodding. “But in my position, I have to deal with all kinds of exaggerations. The problems for the state companies, for instance. The Party cadres harp on them all the time, in the hope that they can transform and be rid of the state ownership of their companies.”
“Yes, your work is quite new,” Chen said, “in the historical transition from the state economy to the market economy.”
“Are you working on an anticorruption case involving a state-run company, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?”
“Yes, you are well-informed.”
“I merely guessed. A detective doesn’t come to my office for nothing.” Dong made a pause before going on. “About the corruption in today’s society, I have been doing a lot of thinking too. China has made a ‘great achievement’ in the last ten years. An achievement Western economists cannot explain. But have you ever considered its possible relation to corruption?”
“What do you mean, Director Dong?”
“Corruption may have facilitated our economic development in a large way. It’s a paradox, isn’t it?”
“I have not studied the issue. You are an authority on the new economic development.”
“Well, I have just read about it in an essay,” Dong said, pulling out an English magazine from the shelf, which covered one side of the room. There were titles Chen had never seen before. Several bookmarks stuck out of pages, as if showing the owner’s knowledge. “According to the author, China ’s success has been associated with an epidemic of corruption among local officials in charge of the economy. Why? The transformation of Party cadres from unproductive political entrepreneurs to productive economic entrepreneurs. But what pushed those cadres over the edge? A contradiction between the socialist system and the capitalist practice. The time-honored communist propaganda about Party members being selfless public servants of the people excludes explicit incentives and rewards for those cadres. Their incomes are still fixed and unrelated to their performance. Is that really fair? So some Party cadres see corruption as a sort of compensation, like in Western economies. That makes our fight against corruption much harder…”