“It’s always like that,” Shi Qiang said with a laugh. His laugh, which had seemed crude and silly the first time Luo Ji heard it, felt full of wisdom now, and it soothed him. “But you’ve been clear enough.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll go on, then. She… but what am I saying? No matter what I say, I can’t express what she’s like in my heart.” He grew irritated, and seemed to want to tear out his heart to show to Shi Qiang.
Shi Qiang calmed him with a wave. “Forget it. Just talk about what happens when the two of you are together. The more detailed the better.”
Luo Ji’s eyes widened in amazement. “How did you know about the two of us?”
Shi Qiang laughed again. Then he looked around. “There wouldn’t happen to be any cigars in this place, would there?”
“Yes, there are!” Luo Ji grabbed an elegant wooden box from the mantel, took out a thick Davidoff, and used an even more elegant guillotine-style cigar cutter to slice off the end. Then he passed it to Shi Qiang, and lit it for him with a cedar strip specially designed for cigars.
Shi Qiang took a puff and nodded his head, pleased. “Go on.”
Luo Ji overcame his earlier language barrier and grew garrulous. He described how she had come alive for the first time in the library, how she appeared in his classroom during lecture, how the two of them had met in front of the imaginary fireplace in his dormitory, the beauty of the firelight shining onto her face through the bottle of wine like the eyes of twilight. He recalled with pleasure their road trip, describing every last detaiclass="underline" the fields after the snow, the town and village under the blue sky, the mountains like old villagers basking in the sun, and the evening and bonfire at the foot of the mountain….
After he finished, Shi Qiang stubbed out his cigar. “Well, that’s about enough. I’ll guess a few things about the girl, and you see if I’m right.”
“Great!”
“Education: She’s got at least a bachelor’s, but less than a doctorate.”
Luo Ji nodded. “Yes, yes. She’s knowledgeable, but not to the point where it calcifies her. It only makes her more sensitive to life and to the world.”
“She was probably born into a highly educated family and lived a life that wasn’t too rich but more affluent than most families. Growing up she enjoyed her parents’ love, but she had little contact with the community, particularly the lower rungs of society.”
“Right, absolutely right! She never told me about her family circumstances, or actually anything about herself, but I think that ought to be the case.”
“Now, if any of the following speculations are wrong, let me know. She likes to wear—how would you put it—simple, elegant clothing, a little plainer than other women her age.” Luo Ji nodded dumbly, over and over. “But there’s always something white, like a shirt or a collar, that contrasts sharply with the dark colors of the rest of the outfit.”
“Da Shi, you’re…” Luo Ji said, admiration in his eyes, as he watched Shi Qiang speak.
Brushing him aside, Shi Qiang went on, “Finally, she’s not tall, one hundred and sixty centimeters or so, and her body is… well, I guess you could say slender, as if a gust of wind could blow her away, so she doesn’t seem so short…. I can come up with more, of course. Not far off, is it?”
Luo Ji was ready to fall on his knees before Shi Qiang. “Da Shi, I throw myself on the ground before you. You’re the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes!”
Shi Qiang stood up. “Now I’ll sketch her on the computer.”
That night, he brought the computer to Luo Ji. When the woman’s portrait appeared onscreen, Luo Ji stared, not moving a muscle, like he had been struck by a curse. Shi Qiang had evidently expected this, and retrieved another cigar from the mantel, clipped it with the guillotine, lit it, and began to smoke. When he had taken a few puffs, he came back to find Luo Ji still staring at the screen.
“Tell me what’s off and I’ll adjust it for you.”
With difficulty, Luo Ji tore his gaze from the screen, stood up, and walked to the window, where he watched the moonlight shining on the distant snow peak. He murmured, dreamlike, “Nothing.”
“I thought so,” Shi Qiang said, and closed the computer.
Still gazing into the distance, Luo Ji uttered a phrase that others had used to evaluate Shi Qiang: “Da Shi, you’re a devil.”
Shi Qiang sat down on the sofa, exhausted. “There’s nothing supernatural about it. We’re both men.”
Luo Ji turned to him. “But every man’s dream lover is quite different!”
“Dream lovers are basically the same for men of a certain type.”
“Still, getting it so close should be impossible!”
“Remember, you told me a lot of stuff.”
Luo Ji walked over to the computer and opened it up again. “Send me a copy.” Then, as Shi Qiang worked on copying the image, he asked, “Can you find her?”
“All I can say now is that it’s quite likely. But I can’t rule out not finding her.”
“What?” Luo Ji’s hands stopped their movements and he turned to look at Shi Qiang in astonishment.
“With this sort of thing, how can you guarantee one hundred percent success?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. The total opposite, in fact. I thought you would say that it’s practically impossible, but you wouldn’t rule out a random, one-ten-thousandth of a percent chance of finding her. And if you had said that, I’d have been satisfied.” He turned back to the picture on the screen, and murmured again, “Can such a person really exist in the world?”
Shi Qiang smiled scornfully. “Dr. Luo, how many people have you seen?”
“Not as many as you, of course, but I know that there’s no perfect person in the world, much less a perfect woman.”
“Like you said earlier, I’m often able to find a particular individual out of tens of thousands, and I can tell you from the experience of most of my life that there are all kinds of people out there. All kinds, my boy. Perfect people, perfect women. You just haven’t met them.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say that.”
“It’s because someone who’s perfect in your mind isn’t necessarily perfect in the minds of others. This girl of your dreams—to me, she’s got obvious, well, imperfections. So there’s a good chance of finding her.”
“But directors can search for an ideal actor out of tens of thousands of people and not find them in the end.”
“Those directors can’t match our professional search capabilities. We’re not just looking at tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands or millions of people. The tools and techniques we use are more sophisticated than any director’s. The computers at the police analysis center, say, can find a match out of upwards of a hundred million faces in just half a day…. The only catch is that this is beyond the scope of my duties, so I’ll need to report to the higher authorities first. If they approve and assign the task to me, then of course I’ll do my best.”
“Tell them that it’s an important part of the Wallfacer Project and must be taken seriously.”
Shi Qiang chuckled opaquely and then took his leave.
“What? The PDC needs to find him… ?” Kent groped for the Chinese term. “A dream lover? The guy’s been indulged too much. I’m sorry. I can’t pass along your request.”
“Then you are in violation of the Wallfacer Project principle: No matter how incomprehensible a Wallfacer’s order is, it must be reported and executed. Any veto belongs to the PDC.”