Qiu Xiaolong - Shanghai Redemption

“How is he?” he asked as soon as she sat down. “I haven’t been in contact with him for quite a long while. It isn’t advisable for him to be seen with me. I understand.”

“He’s in big trouble.”

“What? Chief Inspector Chen-”

“He’s no longer a chief inspector.”

He jumped up. “I’ll be damned. I’ve heard nothing about it, it’s not anywhere on the Web.”

“I spoke with him yesterday and it isn’t just that he’s lost his position: things are getting worse. He mentioned you and Lianping in passing, but it was my own idea to make an unannounced visit today. By the way, I got your address from Lianping. She would have come with me, but she’s pregnant, so I talked her out of it.”

“You don’t have to explain. If Lianping gave you my address, you must be a very good friend of Chen’s. What happened to him? Tell me the whole story.”

“The trouble is that Chen doesn’t even know what’s really gotten him into so much trouble. So what I can tell you may not be that much.”

She proceeded to tell Melong what had happened to Chen, speaking as objectively as possible, yet withholding some of the specific details. She wanted to see his reaction before going any further.

He listened attentively, letting her talk without interruption except once-when he heard about someone breaking into Chen’s mother’s room, he cursed between clenched teeth.

“Now he’s dead meat!”

This seemed an odd comment, but Melong must have known that Chen was a devoted son.

After she finished her account, there was short spell of silence. Then Melong said simply, “So what can I do?”

“I’ve been trying to help. I’ve been searching the Internet for clues, but what I’ve found there is limited.”

“You’re a friend of Chen’s. He knows what I do-or I used to. So does Lianping. As well as a number of other people. But only a very few have any idea why I’ve moved out here.”

“Why have you, Melong?”

“It’s because of my mother. She’s sick. She had a cancer operation not too long ago. That night, while waiting outside the operating room, I thought about a lot of things. I’d made some money by licking blood off the knife edge, and she had worried herself sick about me. What an unfilial son I was! She’d brought me up single-handedly. So I swore to Buddha that I would change and give her nothing to worry about if she recovered.”

“How is she?”

“She’s in recovery. It was a successful operation, I suppose, but the doctor said that good air quality could be crucial to her continued health. At the same time, the city government offered to buy my Web forum for an incredible price.”

“Excuse me, Melong. I visited your Web forum about a week ago. It’s still there.”

“It’s not mine anymore. The government official who arranged to buy it promised to keep the original forum name, and to run it in a way similar to the original. So people might still read those posts there and have no idea that it’s now officially controlled. They hinted at the possible consequences if I refused to cooperate. It wasn’t the first time they had asked me out for ‘a cup of tea.’ So I sold the forum, and bought this house with the money. Since then, I’ve kept myself busy growing vegetables in the back garden.”

“Just like General Liu in Romance of the Three Kingdoms ,” Peiqin said, hit with a sense of déjà vu, “so people won’t pay attention to you anymore.”

“I’ve also washed my hands of the hacking business. Part of the deal.”

“So you don’t-” she said, unable to conceal the disappointment in her voice.

“True, I made a pledge to Buddha for my mother’s sake,” he said with a sudden light in his eyes. “But it’s different in the case of Chief Inspector Chen. Without his help, my mother wouldn’t have been admitted to the hospital. He got her into East China Hospital, the one for high-ranking cadres. And he also saw that the operation was done by the head of the hospital himself.”

“What are you saying?”

“Buddha will forgive me if I do it for my mother’s sake. She would want me to help if I told her about Chen’s trouble.”

“That’s a valid point, Melong.”

“So it’s crucial to find out who’s behind all this, and why. Right?”

“Exactly, but Chen’s hands are bound.”

“Does he have a list of people in mind?”

“Yes, he’s has an idea of who some of the people involved in this diabolical scheme are, and perhaps, through them, something more can be found.”

“Then give me their names and any information you have on them, particularly their e-mail addresses.”

Peiqin pulled out a small notebook and copied the names and e-mail addresses she had onto a page torn from it. “Here they are. I don’t know much more than you about these people, but they must be involved in one way or another. Whatever private information you can find out about them, Chen himself should be able to figure out the relevance.”

“Okay, I’m going to try to access their e-mail files, and I’ll put everything I can find on a flash drive for him. Does he have a laptop with him?”

“I think so, but it’s probably best for you to give the drive to me.”

“To you?”

“Yes, I work at a restaurant. No one pays any attention to a nobody like me, and even if the authorities are watching somebody like you, it’s nothing unusual if you step into an eatery for a bowl of noodles,” she said, with a self-deprecating smile. “That’s another reason I didn’t want Lianping to come out here with me.”

“I see. How is she?”

“She’s now a Big Buck’s wife and a soon-to-be mother,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t think Chen would want her implicated in any of this. Let me give you my cell number.”

“Fine, I’ll set up a new phone number for myself, one that’s exclusive between you and me. Oh, what’s the name of your restaurant?”

“Small Family. It’s a new one, on the corner of He’nan and Tianjin Roads. I work there from eight thirty to five thirty every day.”

“Oh yes, I remember you now. Your husband is his longtime partner.”

“Yes, he is. Detective Yu Guangming.”

“Great. I’m sure I’ll find my way to your place for a bowl of steaming hot noodles.”

DETECTIVE YU STARTED HIS day on a busy note.

It had begun with a routine phone call about a body discovered at a construction site in Fengxian. While there did happen to be an unsolved missing person case that the squad was working on, that didn’t necessarily mean that Yu had to go himself and check out the body. A couple of digital photos would be enough for an initial evaluation. He listened, barely catching all the details about the body: it had been found in nothing but boxers, in an advanced state of decay, with practically nothing to identify it with except for a tattoo on the lower belly, a blue dragon interwoven with someone’s name-

At the mention of the tattoo, Yu jumped back as if someone had cracked a knuckle on his forehead. After he took that detail in, Yu decided not to mention it to his young assistant but instead said, “Xiao Yang, let’s go and take a look.”

The description given to him over the phone reminded him of something he’d learned in a recent interview. It might be a long shot, but it wouldn’t hurt to follow up, especially since there were hardly any other steps for him to take in the case at that point.

So he found himself in a police department jeep, sitting beside Xiao Yang, who was excited to going to his first real crime scene. It was appropriate to Yu’s new position as head of the squad that he’d been assigned an assistant, but it had been arranged by Party Secretary Li.