Perhaps she was reading too much into it. In today’s market, a scroll by a celebrated calligrapher could be invaluable regardless of its contents. It also served to show the refined taste of the owner, young or not. She took another look at the poem. There was a date in the Chinese lunar calendar, which she failed to decipher. She would have to check it in a reference book from the library.

She moved into the bedroom, which, too, was exceptionally large, with a couple of walk-in closets and a master bathroom. The furniture, however, was a stark contrast to that of the living room. Simple, practically plain. What struck her as peculiar was the large wooden bed. It was larger than a king-size, and possibly custom-made. Now, why a young single girl needed such a bed, Peiqin couldn’t guess. There was also a custom-made bookshelf built into the plain wooden headboard. In fact, about a third of the bed was littered with books. Leaning to straighten the pillows, she touched the bed. No mattress, only a solid hard board – a wooden-board mattress under the sheets.

Above the headboard hung a large picture of Mao, gazing down from above. It was an unusual bedroom decoration. The picture frame looked like it was solid gold, which it couldn’t be, but it was very heavy nonetheless. The picture faced a large mirror on the opposite wall, which was not that lucky in terms of feng shui, for the people in bed. Standing beside the bed was a cabinetlike bookshelf, with pictures of Jiao on the top, almost level with the picture of Mao.

There were two closets, one large, one small, facing the bed. She opened the doors. There were clothing and painting supplies in them. But Peiqin didn’t see anything surprising.

She proceeded into the adjoining room, which looked like a study. On the large mahogany desk there was an album lying beside a miniature bronze statue of Mao. For a study, it was impressive: custom-made mahogany bookshelves stood tall and majestic against three walls. On the shelves were a considerable number of books about Mao, some of which Peiqin had never seen in bookstores. Jiao had done an incredible job collecting so many of them. There was also a section of history books, some of them thread-bound, cloth-covered editions, presumably meant to look impressive. At the bottom of one bookshelf there was a pile of fashion magazines, incongruous with the history books above.

The kitchen, full of modern stainless appliances, was the only place Peiqin didn’t find anything associated with Mao. She stood on her tiptoes and looked into the cabinet. There was nothing there but a couple of recipe books, one of which she had at home too.

She decided to go and do the shopping, so she took off the apron and folded it neatly on the kitchen table. On the first day, a maid’s responsibility came first. Later on, if she had time, she could check around again.

So she set out with the shopping list. It was an intriguing one. Fat pork, Wuchang fish, bitter melon, green and red pepper, and some seasonal vegetables. The security guard recognized her this time and smiled.

The neighborhood food market turned out to be quite different from what she was accustomed to: granite-floored, white-tile-covered counters displaying vegetables in plastic wrappers and meat in plastic packaging. She walked around for a while before locating several huge glass cages with live fish swimming inside. As with other counters there, there was a sign declaring “No bargaining.”

“A large Wuchang fish,” she said to a ruddy-complexioned sales-woman in a white uniform and purple rubber shoes.

Peiqin didn’t have to bargain, not with the sum given by Jiao, but she asked for a receipt. In response to her non-bargaining attitude, the saleswoman ladled out the swimming fish and handed it to her with a handful of green onion for free.

Peiqin bought everything on the list, choosing some other special sauce and seasonings for the night. According to Yu and Old Hunter, Jiao seldom if ever invited people home. Yet, for a slender girl like her, it appeared to be a huge dinner with a lot of calories and fat. The fat pork braised in red sauce, in particular, once popular in the early sixties for the starved, ill-nourished Chinese people, was practically unimaginable for fashionable diet-conscious girls.

Back in the kitchen, she started preparing. The live fish kept struggling and jumping while she scaled it on the board. As she put it into the steamer, the fish twitched one more time, its tail cutting her finger. The cut wasn’t deep, but it tingled. She arranged the fish on a willow-patterned platter along with ginger and scallion and set it in a steamer on the kitchen table. Jiao needed only to turn on the fire upon her return. Peiqin rinsed the rice and put it into an electric rice pot. She finally started working on the pork. It was easy, but took time. She was no restaurant chef but she was a capable cook, and wanted to impress on her first day.

Taking off her apron again, she made a cup of tea for herself, choosing a European tea bag she hadn’t seen before. She sat on a folding chair close to the table. Breathing into the hot tea, she found the taste not nearly as good as the Dragon Well tea at home. Perhaps the tea bag caused the difference. She like watching leisurely the unfolding of the tea leaves in the cup, green, tender, musing.

She had helped with police work before, because of her husband or Chief Inspector Chen, or because of the people involved.

But this time, it was different.

She felt drawn to the case because of something personal, yet far more than personal.

Peiqin had been a straight-A student in elementary school, wearing the Red Scarf of a proud Young Pioneer, dreaming of a rosy future in the golden sunlight of socialist China. Everything changed overnight, however, with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. Her father’s “historical problem” cast a shadow over the whole family. Youthful dreams shattered, she came to terms with the realities – toiling and moiling as an educated youth in Yunnan, plowing barefoot in the rice paddy, plodding through the muddy trails, day in and day out… and ten years later, coming back to the city, working at a tingzijian restaurant office with wok fumes and kitchen noises erupting from downstairs, and squeezing into a single room without a kitchen or bathroom, with Yu and Qinqin eking out whatever was available… She had been too busy, sometimes working two jobs, to be maudlin about her life. And she had kept telling herself that she was a lucky one – a good husband and a wonderful son, what else could she really expect? At a recent class reunion, Yu and she were actually voted the luckiest couple – both had stable jobs, a room they called their own, and a son studying hard for college. After all, the Cultural Revolution had been a national disaster, not just for her family but for millions and millions of Chinese people.

Occasionally, she still couldn’t help wondering what life would have been like without the Cultural Revolution.

The cut on her finger stung again.

Who was responsible for it?

Mao.

The government didn’t want people to talk about it, tried to avoid the topic or to shift the blame to the Gang of Four. As for Mao, it was said that he had made a well-meant mistake, which was nothing compared to the great contributions he’d made to China.

Perhaps she was in no position to judge Mao, not historically, but what about personally, from the perspective of one whose life had been so affected by those political movements under Mao?

Her personal factors aside, there was no forgiving Mao for what she had just learned from Old Hunter – for what Mao had done to Kaihui.

As a young girl, she had read Mao’s poem to Kaihui, cherishing it as a moving revolutionary love poem. She had also read an earlier one on parting with Kaihui, even more sentimental and touching in her imagination.