“Have you read about the case of Xing Xing?”

“Yes, I have been following its development.”

Lei came out too, with concern on his face and a glass of wine in his hand. He might have overheard something in connection with the name of Zhao Yan, and he handed over the wine without speaking a word. Chen took it, and he raised the phone as a gesture of apology before Lei moved back in.

“Xing has caused a huge loss to our national economy, and great damage to our political image. Having fled to the United States, he continues making no end of trouble there.”

Chen did not know anything about Xing’s activities abroad. There seemed to be quite a lot about Xing in the newspapers. People could be cynical about believing what they read, but when it came to brazen corruption cases involving senior officials, most readers seemed willing to suspend their usual skepticism. But little was written about Xing’s flight and afterward.

“Our committee is determined to push the investigation to the end. Anyone involved, no matter how high his position, will be punished. As our premier has pointed out, corruption can be a cancer of our body politic. It is an issue concerning the future of our Party, and our country too.”

“Yes, we have to deal a crushing blow to those rotten elements in our Party,” Chen said, echoing. “A crushing blow.”

“It’s more easily said than done, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. We kept a close watch over Xing, but he got away with his family. How? It still beats me.”

“Possibly through his connections-” Chen stopped, not completing the sentence: at the top.

“Now he is dragging China through the mire, presenting himself as a victim of a power struggle, and making false accusations against the Chinese government. We have to do something about it.”

“How, Comrade Zhao?”

“All the information will be delivered to you. You are in charge of the investigation in Shanghai.”

“What am I supposed to do in Shanghai?” Chen said. “Xing is in the States.”

“Xing got away, but not those connected with him. Dig three feet into the ground if need be. You are fully authorized by the committee to take any necessary action. You are a qinchai dacheng-Emperor’s Special Envoy with an Imperial Sword, so to speak. In an emergency, you are empowered to search and arrest without reporting to anyone-without warrant.”

Chen did not like the term Emperor’s Special Envoy, with its feudalistic connotation. In a Beijing opera, Chen had seen such a powerful figure with a shining sword in his hand. It was a high title, but it indicated an assignment involving people even higher up.

“But what about my work in the bureau, Comrade Zhao?”

“I’ll talk to your Party Secretary Li. It’s a case directly under the committee.”

Afterward, Chen did not want to go back in. He was not in the mood to return to the hall, where the girl might not have finished her job. There was still some wine left sparkling in the cup.

A short poem by Wang Han, an eighth-century Tang dynasty poet, came to mind:

The poem carried a disturbing premonition. Chen was not a superstitious man, but why his sudden recollection of those lines? Surely Chief Inspector Chen looked like anything but such a general, standing in the corridor with a white towel wrapped about his shoulders.

Across the corridor, the door of the private room opened silently. A massage girl walked out, barefoot, much prettier than those in the hall room, her slender fingers tying up the string of her scarlet silk bralike dudou at her back, her hair tousled, her face flushing like a dream.

CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN PL ANNED to stay at home the following morning, reading the material about Xing. The initial part had been delivered to him in five bulging folders the previous night. There was also a special one-page document, a statement on the letterhead of the Party Discipline Committee.

“Comrade Chen Cao, of the Shanghai Police Bureau, is hereby authorized by the Party Discipline Committee to take whatever action necessary for the investigation. Full cooperation with his work is expected at all government levels in the Party’s interest.”

There was not only a red seal of the committee imprinted underneath the statement but also the signature of Comrade Zhao. It was not just a gesture, it could serve like the imperial sword in ancient history: execute before reporting to the emperor.

He started studying the file on Xing. Secret surveillance of Xing must have been going on for a long time. Some of the reports were quite detailed, covering the length of several months. Chen had to get a general picture before making a move.

He took only one short break. Around nine-thirty, he went out to a hawking street-corner peddler and bought a small bag of fried buns with minced pork and shrimp stuffing. The hot buns tasted delicious, and he devoured them one by one over the dossier. As he was picking up the last bun, he got a call from Detective Yu.

“You’re not coming to the bureau today, boss?”

“No. What’s up?”

“You have a special assignment, I guess?”

“Yes. Did Party Secretary Li tell you anything?”

“No. How about meeting you at your place around noon?”

“Great. Come for lunch.”

“Don’t worry about lunch.” Yu added, “Go on with your work. See you soon.”

Yu didn’t explain the occasion for his visit. The timing concerned the chief inspector. He wasn’t supposed to talk about his new work with any of his colleagues. But for Yu, his longtime partner and friend, also the one in practical charge of the special case squad, he had to make an exception.

So the last bun was left there untouched, stuck to the paper, cold, greasy, flaccid, and dispirited. It was almost like his changed mood, as he went on reading the file about Xing.

In the early eighties, Xing had served as the Party Secretary of Huayuan County, Fujian Province. It was then a backward agricultural area consisting of four or five poor People’s Communes. For the year-long labor, farmers there made less than a hundred yuan. Xing got caught up in the early waves of the economic reform, setting up several commune factories. Those nonstate business entities enjoyed tax breaks as well as other competitive edges in the new market. Their success soon changed the local economic landscape. Xing became a national model Party cadre in “leading the people on the way to wealth and prosperity.” Instead of accepting promotions, he insisted on working as the number-one boss in the county.

As the reform gained further momentum, those companies became private-his companies. His business rocketed up, reaching out into large cities. Like many other upstarts, Xing could not help showing off. If “it is glorious to get rich,” as Comrade Deng Xiaoping said, few appeared more magnificent than Xing. He paraded through Fuzhou in a bulletproof Red Flag allegedly manufactured for Chairman Mao. For his family, he built mansions after the fashion of the Grand View Garden. In a visit to his elementary school, he handed a bunch of hundred-yuan bills to a poor old janitor, like a modern-day Robin Hood. Eventually, his excesses caught the attention of some people in Beijing.