Listening to this old man go on, I felt as though my spirit had been cleansed; my mind had never been so purified before. It was as though my mind had been encrusted with dust and grime and his words had served as a torrential flow of water scouring them away, allowing my tarnished mind to exhibit a new glow. I felt at ease, really quite happy! I listened attentively, and appreciated the subtle taste of his logic. I drank it in and became intoxicated. It seemed as though I had lost my train of thought; then at long last my eyes fell on the black and white stones on the Go board and I came to, finally asking, ‘Then how is it that you have come to be infatuated by Go?’
He shifted in his rattan chair. Then, in a tone of voice at once mocking and cheerful, he said, ‘I am just one of those with commonplace lives.’
‘No,’ I retorted, ‘You deciphered BLACK: how could you be common?’
His gaze became fixed, his body straightened up and the rattan chair creaked and moaned underneath him as if trying to ascertain whether his weight had increased or not. A moment of stillness passed between us and then he raised his eyes to look at me. In a serious tone he said, ‘Do you know how I deciphered BLACK?’
I shook my head thoughtfully.
‘Would you like to know?’
‘Of course,’ I replied.
‘Then I shall tell you. Rong Jinzhen helped me do it!’ It seemed as though he were calling out to him. ‘Ah, no, no, I should say it was Rong Jinzhen who deciphered BLACK: my fame is unwarranted.’
‘Rong Jinzhen. . ’ I was astonished. ‘Isn’t he. . didn’t something happen to him?’ I didn’t say that he had gone mad.
‘Yes, that’s right. Something did happen to him: he went mad.’ The old man continued, ‘But you’ll never guess: it was in the midst of this destruction, in his ruin, that I saw the hidden secret of BLACK.’
I felt my heart being cleaved in two. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ah. . that’s a long story!’ He exhaled leisurely, his gaze moved away from me, he became immersed in memories of times past. .
6
[Transcript of the interview with Yan Shi]
I don’t remember exactly when it was — perhaps 1969, or maybe 1970 — but in any case, it was winter when Rong Jinzhen lost his mind. Prior to this, he had served as our section chief and I was his immediate subordinate. It was a big department — we were at our peak: there must’ve been more than X number of people in our section. Now it is smaller, much smaller. There was also another section chief there at the time, a man by the name of Zheng. He’s still there; I have heard he is now the Director. He is also quite an astounding individual. He took several bullets in the leg, causing him to walk with a limp, but it never affected his rise up into the echelons of the elite. Rong Jinzhen was discovered by him; they had both studied mathematics at N University. Their relationship was good; it was said that there were even some family connections. Before him, there was another section chief, from the old National Central University; a student of some renown, who during the War of Resistance cracked many of the ciphers used by those Japs. After the revolution, he joined Unit 701 and continued to work on special assignments. Sadly, PURPLE drove him mad. All told, we were fortunate to have had these three section chiefs; they allowed us to achieve the most glorious results. And I do mean glorious, I’m not exaggerating at all. Of course, had Rong Jinzhen not lost his mind, I daresay we would have accomplished even more; but ah, well, with what happened. . you never know, do you? The most unexpected things happen sometimes.
Getting back to what I was saying, after Rong Jinzhen fell. . ill, it was decided that I would assume his responsibilities, which meant deciphering BLACK. That notebook, Rong Jinzhen’s notebook, was the most important piece of information we had, so naturally it came into my hands. That notebook — well, you don’t know it, but that notebook was in essence the receptacle for all of his thoughts, a repository for his ruminations on BLACK; it contained all his mature reflections on the cipher as well as all his wild and crazy speculations. As I pored over each word, each sentence, each page, I began to feel that every single word meant something; every word was important. It shook me to the core: each word had a special quality to it, exciting me, provoking me. I had never discovered that kind of ability within myself, but I could admire what he had written. What is more, the notebook told me that Rong Jinzhen had already completed ninetynine per cent of the work. All that was left was to take the last step.
That final step was related to everything that came before — namely finding the key to unlocking BLACK.
The concept behind a cryptographic key is this: say that BLACK was a house that needed to be burnt down, then the first thing you would need to do is to collect the necessary kindling, enough to start the fire. Well, the amount of kindling collected by Rong Jinzhen would put a mountain to shame: enough to cover the house from top to bottom. All that remained to do was start the fire. Finding a match was the key to cracking BLACK.
From examining the notebook, you could see that Rong Jinzhen had set off down the path to finding this key a year before. This means that the other ninety-nine per cent had only taken Rong Jinzhen two years to complete, but that he couldn’t take that final last step. That to me was strange. Whatever way you look at it, if it took him two years to complete ninety-nine per cent of the work, then it didn’t matter how difficult that last one per cent might be, he shouldn’t have needed to waste a year trying to figure it out and then still not get it. This was just too strange.
Something else was also odd, but I’m not sure whether you can understand it or not. BLACK was a high-level cipher and we had spent years working on cracking it, but without making any progress. It was as though a sane person had borrowed the words of a madman to speak. In three years, there was not a single mistake to work with; not a drop of water had escaped. In the history of cryptography, this is an extremely rare phenomenon. Rong Jinzhen had already discussed this issue with me, believing that this was exceptionally odd. Over and over again he had raised doubts about BLACK, even suggesting that perhaps it had been plagiarized from an earlier cipher created by some agency or other. After all, once used, a cipher will invariably be modified, improved upon; this is the only way to reach perfection. Otherwise, the person creating it must be a god, possessing a genius far beyond what we can imagine.
These two strange phenomena were also the two main problems that we were forced to deal with. Looking at the notebook, I could see that Rong Jinzhen had thought extensively, profoundly, rigorously upon these two problems. The notebook brought me once more into contact with Rong Jinzhen’s spirit, in contact with his majesty: a thing so beautiful that it was frightening. When I first came into possession of his notebook, I thought that I would stand upon his shoulders and use all my energies to push forward on the path laid out in it. But once I entered into it, I realized that there was no way that I could march in tandem with such genius; even the slightest contact with such a soul shook me violently — attacked me!
His mind was trying to take me over.
At any moment, it would swallow me whole!
You could say that that notebook was Rong Jinzhen. I was drawing closer to him (though the medium of the notebook); I was being pushed towards him; I began to feel more and more his formidableness, his profundity, his wonder. Simultaneously, I began to feel my own weaknesses, my own insignificance — it was as though I was shrivelling up. In those days, poring over every word and sentence in the notebook, I began to realize, to comprehend, just how unique and special Rong Jinzhen was; how much talent he possessed. I began to see how crazy and bizarre his thinking was, how crafty and incisive he was. He was sharp, keen; he possessed a vigorousness about him that threatened; he was ferocious. All this implied a certain nastiness about him, an evil that lurked deep inside, ready to consume you at a moment’s notice. As I read through the notebook, it was as if I were reading about all of mankind: creation and murder were lumped together in large numbers; yet, ultimately, everything had a peculiar sort of beauty about it, revealing man’s remarkable intellect and passion.