Qiu Xiaolong - Shanghai Redemption

“That’s true, but I’ve lost touch with him. He changes his phone number every two or three weeks. Given his position, he has to be really careful,” Chen said, then added, “Remember the Wenhui journalist at the temple? She introduced him to me. I think his name is Melong.”

He hadn’t contacted Melong for months, in spite of the crucial information he’d provided in one of Chen’s anticorruption investigations. But it was different asking for help when it’d been a chief inspector asking for it. Now, professional scruples aside, it wouldn’t be advisable to approach the hacker. Melong might be under surveillance, too.

“Of course I remember,” Peiqin said. “It meant a lot to us, first your presence with your journalist friend at the temple, and then the pictures that ran in the Wenhui Daily . Our relatives talked about it for days.” She added abruptly, “Lianping, that’s the name of the journalist. What has happened to her?”

“I haven’t seen her for a while. She’s a happy soon-to-be mother, I think. She gave me the then-current contact information for Melong, but I’m not sure it’s fair of me to involve him in this. He could get in trouble simply by talking to me.”

“I see,” Peiqin said. “Why don’t you give me Sima’s e-mail address?”

“You-”

There was another knock on the door.

She didn’t say any more as a waiter stepped in, holding a menu in his hand. “We can also serve breakfast in the room. Just check the items that you’d like.”

Neither of them was in the mood to pick and choose breakfast items, but they did, like typical Shanghainese, pointing at one item after another, discussing them until the waiter withdrew.

“Old Hunter has Jin’s e-mail address. Give me Sima’s.”

“So you are-”

“Don’t worry. I’m just an ordinary netizen. No one really pays attention to me. Oh, don’t you also have Shen’s?”

He hesitated, but he copied them onto a napkin.

“We often keep lists of customers’ e-mails,” she said with a knowing smile. “It helps our business.”

This wasn’t for her restaurant, he knew, shaking his head as the waiter came back with a tray.

“It’s not too bad,” Chen said, after taking a bite of a fried dough stick. He helped himself to a spoonful of the soy soup strewn with green onion and pepper oil.

“But you can never tell if the dough stick here is fried in gutter oil or not,” she said. “At least you don’t have to worry about that at my place.”

PEIQIN WOKE UP, CONSUMED with worry again.

In the dim light peeping through the curtain, she gazed at Yu, who snored lightly at irregular intervals, his forehead knitted.

Last night, Yu hadn’t come back until after eleven. It was too late for her to talk things over with him, and she wasn’t sure it was something she should discuss with him or not.

She got up, put on her slippers, and walked out into the kitchen. She poured water into a pot of cold leftover rice and turned on the gas.

Waiting for the water to boil, she tried to sort out her tangled thoughts.

Both Yu and Old Hunter had been trying their best to help Chen, each in his own way. But the water is too far away and the fire too close at hand . That was another saying from Old Hunter, whose proverbial way was infectious.

She wasn’t just worried about Chen, but about Yu too. The camaraderie between the two was no secret in the bureau. Sooner or later, Party Secretary Li would get rid of Yu too, in spite of his recent promotion to the squad head. Chen’s crisis was escalating, and any move on Yu’s part could lead to more trouble.

So what could she possibly do?

“What are you thinking, Peiqin?”

Yu walked over to the table in the kitchen area, yawning.

“Nothing,” she said, putting chopsticks on the table. “Breakfast is almost ready. It’s just cold rice reboiled in water. Sorry about that, Yu. The pickles are in the refrigerator. You can take them out.”

“Why are you sorry? I love pickled cucumber and fermented tofu. It’s perfect with reboiled rice,” he said. “What’s your plan for the day?”

“I have to go to the restaurant. Yesterday, after visiting Chen’s mother and delivering something to Old Hunter in Pudong, I didn’t make it back to the restaurant until three o’clock.”

It was an evasive answer, leaving something important out. Luckily, Yu appeared to be absent. He didn’t say much while washing down a second bowl of watery rice and then wiping his mouth with back of his hand. She refrained from discussing the vague ideas she had in mind for the day.

After Yu left home shortly after seven, Peiqin called in sick to the restaurant.

“But I’ll come in if I feel better this afternoon.”

She made herself a pot of strong tea and sat down in front of the computer. But less than fifteen minutes later, she stood up again. The idea she’d tried to put off came back.

What Chen needed wasn’t something she could find in an Internet search. The Internet might provide background information, but it failed to cut to the heart of the matter. He needed to know something more about those directly involved.

Had Chen anticipated the move she was likely to make? Had he mentioned Lianping in the karaoke room to suggest it? There was no point in speculating. He hadn’t said anything explicit about it. Nor had she.

But the only way that Chen would be able to protect himself would be by turning the tables on the people going after him. And it was the only way to protect Yu, too.

Draining up the bitter tea, she made up her mind.

After checking the subway route to the Wenhui office online, she set out.

Near the exit to the lane, a black cat jumped out of nowhere, hissing, its tail trembling like a live whip. It might be an ominous sign. She spit on the ground three times in spite of herself.

An hour and a half later, Peiqin left the Wenhui Office Building and headed for the subway entrance near Shanxi Road. In her hand, she had the new address of Melong the hacker, though Lianping wasn’t sure about his latest phone number.

She had but a fleeting impression of Lianping from years ago, thinking of her mainly as a potential girlfriend for the now former chief inspector. But as another proverb said, In this world, eight or nine times out of ten, things don’t work out the way one wishes.

Peiqin took the subway to Minghang, then grabbed a special bus, and finally took a taxi to a new subdivision in Nanhui. She was taken aback at the amount shown on the taxi meter. With a wry smile, she paid it and got out. It was a high-end villa complex, where people had their own cars.

The villa matching the address in her hand was a two-story with a red brick façade and a large backyard looking over a creek. Though located far from the center of the city, a standalone house like that would be worth at least three or four million yuan. Melong must have been very successful in his special field, if that was the only business in which he was involved.

A tall man opened the door at her persistent ringing of the doorbell. He was probably in his midthirties, with a receding hairline and deep-set eyes. Alert, he studied her carefully.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Melong. I’m Peiqin, a friend of Chen Cao’s.”

“A friend of Chen’s,” he said. He gave a hurried glance around before he moved to let her in. “Oh, come on in. I’m Melong.”

She followed him into a spacious high-ceilinged living room. It was simply furnished. To her surprise, she couldn’t see a single computer or monitor there. He motioned for her to sit on a black leather sofa.