“What do you mean?”

“Someone came to me long before you. A writer, at least he introduced himself as one.” Peng put a large piece of pot-stewed beef into his mouth. “I was naïve enough to tell him everything, and he didn’t even buy me a bottle of beer. Only a couple of cigarettes – Red Pagoda Mountains. Such a cheap brand. He wrote the book, sold millions of copies, and I got nothing.”

“Have you read the book?”

“I’m just a rascal in the book, I’ve heard.”

The writer, presumably the author of Cloud and Rain in Shanghai, might have portrayed Peng in a negative light in contrast to Qian, a romanticized and glamorized heroine.

“Listen, Peng, I don’t really have to listen to your story. I can read the book. So how about a hundred yuan for a couple of questions?” Yu said, producing his wallet, imagining Chen’s move under the circumstances. Chen, however, had funds available to him as a chief inspector, which Yu did not.

“Five hundred yuan.” Peng helped himself to a large spoonful of the Guizhou hot fish soup, slurping, smacking his lips.

“Let me tell you something.” Yu banged the table with the bottom of the beer bottle. “You were following Jiao, and taking money from her the other day. It was a tip from a cop friend of mine, and I stopped him from taking action against you. After all, you’re a victim of the Cultural Revolution.”

It was a long shot. Peng might have blackmailed her. But even if he hadn’t, his history was such that it wouldn’t be too difficult for the police to get him in trouble.

“Those damned cops. They came to me about a month ago, treating me like shit. Naturally, they got nothing,” Peng said in a dramatic way, stretching out his arms, snatching the hundred-yuan bill from Yu. “Jiao’s my step-daughter, isn’t she? She has so much it’s only fair for me to share a little bit of it.”

“So Qian must have left something behind?”

“A treasure trove – that’s a matter of course. What was her mother? A queen in the movie world. How many rich and powerful men had she slept with?”

“But the Red Guards must have ransacked her home and taken the valuables away.”

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve done some serious thinking – I’m not a brainless rice pot. At that time, the local Red Guards didn’t rush to her house like with some other families. She could have hidden her riches away.”

The idea of treasure must have been mind-boggling for Peng, given the little he made at those odd jobs. The scenario was possible, but would it have taken Internal Security, and Chief Inspector Chen too, to launch such an investigation?

“I called the writer,” Peng went on. “He gave me no money, and no money to her either, he said. So she must have Shang’s hoard.”

“Jiao was as poor as you until about a year ago. If Shang had left something behind, Jiao would have sold it much earlier.”

“Shang must have left something, I know.”

“How?”

“You’re a clever man,” Peng said with a mysterious air, poking out the steamed carp’s eye and rolling it on his tongue. “Shang danced with Mao, who came from the Forbidden City, with the treasury of the ancient dynasties at his disposal.”

“That’s just your imagination, Peng.”

“No. I’ve done my research. Only recently has the antique market become so hot. Two or three years ago, there was no way to find a buyer for the stuff from the Forbidden City. Not at a good price anyway. This explains why she suddenly became rich about a year ago. Besides, I can tell you something that will prove it,” Peng added, trying to pick up a soy-sauce-stewed pig tail with his chopsticks. “But you have asked your question, and I have given my answer.”

“Really?” Yu produced his wallet again, in which there was about two hundred yuan left. “That’s all I have here. One hundred more. And I have to pay for the meal. Tell me how you can prove it.”

“You’ll have your money’s worth, Mr. Journalist,” Peng said, pocketing the bill while taking another big draught of beer. “I’ve been shadowing Jiao for quite a while. As I suspected, she has been selling the antiques – piece by piece. No one could have afforded the whole set. So one day I followed her to the Joy Gate.”

“Joy Gate?” It was a dance hall where Shang had once shone like the moon, as Peiqin had told him. Then he remembered another case with a sudden ache in his heart. Not too long ago, one of his colleagues had been murdered there while he was stationed outside. “That’s nothing too suspicious, I think.”

“But the way she went there was. She kept looking over her shoulder, like she was worried that she was being followed. Then she slipped into a hair salon and, instead of having her hair done, she left through the back door, putting on a pair of sunglasses before she emerged out of a side lane. I happened to be buying a pack of cigarettes nearby, so I didn’t lose sight of her. To follow her into the Joy Gate, I spent all the money in my pocket for an entrance ticket. Sure enough, she was there, dancing with a tall, robust man who had a round face like a full moon.”

“Do you mean that she’s a ‘dancing girl’?”

“No, I don’t think so. Those dancing girls don’t make a lot of money. And that was the only time I saw her go there. Most of the time, she goes to Xie Mansion. There are dancing parties there every week.”

“So the man is someone she knows from Xie Mansion?”

“That I don’t know. I will never be admitted there and I know better than to try. But that same evening, I think I saw him at her place.”

“You tailed her from the dance hall back to her home?”

“No, not exactly. She danced only a couple of dances and then she left. I was curious, so I followed her out. She hailed a taxi and I squeezed into a bus. It took me much longer to get to her apartment complex. There’s no way I could get in, of course, so I walked around, hoping to confront her if she came out. Then looking up, I saw someone standing by the window of her room – the man from the dance hall. For a short moment, she was leaning against him, in a most intimate manner.”

“When was this?”

“About a couple of months ago.”

That was before Chen’s investigation started, possibly before Internal Security’s too, Yu reflected. Apparently, no one had been seen at her place since.

“Anything after that?”

“The light went out and I saw nothing more.”

“That could have been a neighbor of hers.”

“It was the man she had danced with, I’m positive. That round-moon-like face of his was unmistakable. I followed her for several more days, but without ever seeing him again. I wasn’t able to watch her all the time. I had to work, carrying frozen pigs on my back at the food market. Then I was fired and yesterday I confronted her.”

“What did you say to her?”

“When I told her that I’d seen the man in her room, all the blood went out of her face. She kept saying it was none of my business. I told her I’d been fired and that she could help me a little. So she took the money from her purse, about two hundred and fifty. She said she’d call the police if I ever tried to approach her again.”

“Are you going to contact her again?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet, but there must be something going on between Jiao and the man. He must have given the money to her.”

“Hold on, Peng. How did she get her money – from the man as a lover or as a buyer?”

“Perhaps both, but who cares? It’s just like the old saying: If she weren’t a thief, she wouldn’t feel guilty or ner vous. She wouldn’t have given me the money for nothing.”

“But that’s blackmail. If she reported it to the police, you could get into big trouble.”

“I’m a dead pig. What difference would it make throwing me into a cauldron of boiling water?” Peng said, crunching the last sweet and sour rib and wiping his fingers on the paper napkin. “What I did in those years is nothing today. Go to any high school, and you can see so many students billing and cooing on campus, behind the trees and in the bushes. But I went to jail for many years for that.”