Qiu Xiaolong - Shanghai Redemption

Chen had no idea what kind of man qualified as a blue dragon or whether or not, according to Chinese mythology, such a tattoo could make one a blue dragon.

“I was more than touched. For someone like me, what more could I possibly ask? I moved in with him that night, and I swore to be a good wife. After our wedding, Liang signed over a large number of his company shares to me. He loved to bring me around, to all his dinners and social parties, so I thought I should try to help him. If anything, I’d learned how to talk to men. Needless to say, his business associates knew nothing about my past, and they congratulated him on his choice of a wife. Coincidence or not, his business then picked up dramatically. According to him, it was because of the combined luck of the blue dragon and the white tiger. After that, he put me in charge of public relations for his company, though I didn’t have to go to the office every day.

“The job required me to meet with more of his business associates and connections, some of whom turned out to be really powerful. You know what networking means in today’s business world, don’t you? It means drinking, partying, karaoke, and whatnot. Liang trusted me, and I was anxious to be really helpful to him, not simply washing his feet in the bedroom. Some of the people at those parties were high-ranking officials, and that included Lai, who had just been appointed the Shanghai Party secretary. I knew how important these associations could be to Liang’s business. Believe it or not, it’s much easier for a young woman to cultivate connections. Some of them proved to be so useful that Liang declared the expansion of his business was all to my credit. I knew better as I got deeper into his company’s PR work. Still, I drew a line for myself. Associates of Liang’s, the ones for whom three-accompanying girls are easily available, knew not to push too far with me. They all knew that I was out of bounds, and they knew they might have business to do with Liang in the future. Lai was the exception. One evening, after three cups in a private club room, Lai put his hand on my shoulder, caressing, though only for a short moment. I thought he might have simply had a drop too much to drink.

“There’s an old saying: ‘No boat can enjoy smooth sailing all year round.’ Liang’s company got into trouble during the nationwide economic crises. Liang quickly transferred more of his properties to my name, but he was heading for an irrecoverable disaster, unless he could get a huge order from the city government. So I thought of Lai, and contacted him. Lai invited me to his office. That evening he was alone there, looking beat, with documents piled high on the large desk, but he offered to help. Out of gratitude, I told him I had learned how to do massage. And I did a good job that night, I think. It’s not difficult to imagine what happened next. But you have to understand-I had to help Liang, no matter the cost.”

“It’s understandable,” Chen said. “As in the Confucian classic, ‘He treats me as the most special one in the whole country, and I have to pay back to him accordingly.’”

“Thank you for saying that, Chief Inspector Chen. But to be honest, I was also flattered by the attention from a powerful man like Lai. It didn’t take too long, between this and that, for Lai to tell me that, despite all the glories in the political world, he wasn’t happy at home. Kai was an ambitious, greedy, and vain woman from another high-ranking official family. Because of his position in the city government, he had to make her resign from her law firm, a decision she deeply resented. And her suspicion that he was being unfaithful had further derailed the marriage. Kai was said to have started having affairs of her own, and at home she cared only about their son, Xixi, who was now studying abroad. At one point, Lai said to me that they were staying married only out of political convenience. But I knew he would never leave Kai, whether the story about his family life was true or not. And that was fine with me. I would never leave Liang, and Lai knew that too.

“Oh, there’s another coincidence about the superstitious idea of a white tiger. Lai also declared himself to be a blue dragon, for he actually believes that I could bring him luck-”

“Hold on. What made Lai a blue dragon?”

“He’s ambitious, always has his eye on the top. When he was still a little child, he told me, his father had a well-known fortune-teller examine him. The fortune-teller predicted that Lai would have a chance at the throne…”

“And in the fortune-teller’s jargon, an emperor is a dragon,” Chen said, shaking his head. It was hard to believe that a Politburo member would have chosen to believe in fortune-tellers.

“Damn the dragon.” She reached up and crumbled the golden dragon embroidery on the front of her robe. “He chose this robe for me and for that very reason. And the dragon-embroidered slippers too,” she said, kicking them off in disgust.

“Except for that first time, I never asked anything of Lai again,” she went on. “That’s perhaps why he told me that he felt so stress-free with me. In the meantime, Liang continued to get large orders from the city government, but not just because of me. Liang’s company paid a large sum to engage the Kai’s law firm as its legal representative. As for the thing between me and Lai, Liang may have somehow guessed, but he never said a word about it. If anything, he seemed to be more secretive about his business. But he trusted me as before. He managed to obtain a green card for me and transferred a substantial amount to a foreign bank account under my name. When I asked him why, he said that one could never tell what would happen next in China. About six months ago, there was a sum wired from my account to someone in the States. It was his money and Liang could use it however he liked. Still, he explained to me that this sum was going to Lai’s son Xixi in the name of a scholarship foundation. Going from a prestigious private high school to a prestigious private university, the cost for Xixi’s schooling and expenses was more than a hundred thousand US dollars a year. I checked the transaction later and the money was indeed wired to this scholarship foundation.

“Things went on like that until the scandal about the high-speed train equipment broke on the Internet. Liang was worried sick. He got the order through his connection with Kai. He’d mentioned to me that more than half of the profit went into that so-called scholarship account. One or two days before Liang’s disappearance, I called Lai, who promised that it would work out all right for Liang. If Lai really wanted to help, he could have. But instead, Liang disappeared. I didn’t know what had happened. If he’d left on his own, Liang would have discussed it with me first. And he couldn’t he have slipped out of the country on his own. While he’d obtained a green card for me, he didn’t get one for himself, saying that as a Party official, he would get into trouble if he did that. After I heard nothing from him for several days, I suspected serious trouble. So I contacted Lai again, and like before, he promised me nothing would happen to Liang.

“The last two times that I begged Lai, I knew something wasn’t right, so I recorded our conversation. Not for myself, but for Liang.

“Then Detective Yu came to me with the pictures of Liang’s corpse. I think you know the rest only too well. I’m not saying that Liang conducted his business properly, but he wasn’t alone in today’s society. It was just his luck. And my luck too. When all is said and done, I did Liang terribly wrong. He cared for me so much, but what have I done for him? If I hadn’t slept with Lai, Liang might have lost his company, but not his life.”

“You don’t have to say that, Wei.”