Qiu Xiaolong: Enigma of China

“Yes?”

“But something doesn’t add up here, Chief Inspector Chen. Zhou had noodles around ten, so let’s assume he took the pills shortly after that. Call it ten thirty. Now, the time of death was estimated at around midnight, about an hour and a half later. With that amount of sedatives in his bloodstream, he should have been fast asleep at the time.”

“Perhaps he took the pills before the noodles?”

“Who would take sleeping pills before ordering room service? What if he had fallen asleep before the noodles were delivered? A more likely theory is that he took them after eating the noodles.”

“He still could have been unable to sleep, despite the pills-presuming he took them after eating the noodles.”

“But could he, after having taken the pills to try and sleep, suddenly have jumped up, discovered a rope somewhere in the room, made a noose, tied it tightly to the beam, and hanged himself?”

“No, one isn’t likely to find rope in a hotel room. On that point, you’re right,” Chen said. “But what other possible scenario do you suggest?”

“According to the hotel staff, Zhou didn’t appear depressed or in any way different that evening. The hotel menu is of a very high quality, and he didn’t seem to have lost any of his appetite. He had finished a large portion of Yangzhou fried rice with beef soup for dinner that night, and about three hours later, ordered a large bowl of noodles to be delivered to the room.”

Now something began to dawn on Chen. From the very beginning, he assumed that the Party authorities wanted Zhou’s death declared a suicide, which would be a plausible conclusion under the circumstances. For that, Chen hardly needed to do anything. The suggestion that a shuangguied official had been murdered would result in more headaches for the city government, yet that seemed to be the direction that Detective Wei was leaning. Publicly acknowledging that such a thing was possible could be seen as against the interests of the Party, which was probably why Jiang wouldn’t collaborate.

But Wei was a cop, so it was his duty to look into the possibility. And Chen was a cop too.

When Detective Wei left the office, Chen went over his notes for a long time before he decided to call Detective Yu.

Peiqin was home alone, hunched in front of the computer, reading a blog entry about toxic pork being sold in the markets. She tried not to worry about politics too much, but she was concerned about practical matters, minor yet relevant to her family.

The blog entry was entitled “The Pig Farmer Eats No Pork.” It revealed the shocking fact that most pigs were fed a so-called compound feed-in reality, it was an additive-laced feed, which included hormones to make the pigs grow faster, sleeping pills so they would sleep all day and gain weight faster, and arsenic to make them look pink and healthy. Among the various additives, one commonly used chemical compound was called lean meat essence: it consisted of ractopamine or clenbuterol, with which the farmers could both produce more lean meat and reduce the amount of feed. The pig farmers didn’t care about the consequences for the consumers. For their own use, however, they would keep one or two pigs raised on natural feed.

Knocking on the table in frustration, Peiqin wondered how reliable the information was. What she knew for a fact was that pork nowadays tasted different.

She had heard, however, that for high-ranking Party officials, there was a secret supply of pork and other meat raised on special organic farms. Such meat could be expensive, but it was all paid for by the government. It was beyond the reach of ordinary people like Peiqin and Yu.

It wasn’t only the toxic pork, Peiqin reflected, as she stood up to pour herself a cup of tea. The vegetables were sprayed with DDT, the fish raised in contaminated water, and even the tea leaves-at least some of them-were said to be painted green. She couldn’t help gazing suspiciously into the cup.

“What’s wrong with China?”

An article like that wasn’t going to appear in newspapers like Wenhui . In the official media, there was only the good and great news about China. The authorities wanted to present a picture of a harmonious society and didn’t permit any negative news or commentary. Like an increasing number of people, Peiqin felt she had no choice but to get more and more of her news online. In contrast to the official media, the Internet provided less-filtered information, though even it wasn’t free from government control.

Peiqin used the computer Qinqin left at home for her Web surfing. The campus computers ran much faster, and Qinqin studied there most of the time. He only checked e-mail or played games at home on the weekend, so Peiqin could use the computer as much as she liked during the week.

She heard voices and footsteps approaching the door. She rose and opened the door and saw, to her surprise, not just Yu but also Chen standing there.

“What wind has brought you over today, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“He was talking to me about a case,” Yu said, “involving Internet searches. I told him you’re a pro-”

“So here I am,” Chen said, holding high a bottle of Shaoxing rice wine. “A student’s gift to his teacher, a must in the Confucian tradition.”

“Don’t listen to him,” she said. “It’s dinnertime. You should have told me earlier.”

“I’m no stranger, Peiqin. That’s why I’ve come without giving you advance notice. We’ll just have whatever you’ve already prepared.”

“But there’s only one bowl of eight treasures hot sauce,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the table. “With Qinqin off at college, we sometimes have nothing but noodles with a spoonful of sauce on top.”

“The sauce isn’t bad,” Yu cut in, “fried with diced pork, dry tofu, peanuts, cucumber, shrimp, and whatnot-”

“So it’s called eight treasures,” Chen said with a grin. “I know. It’s a Shanghai specialty. Really delicious!”

“No, it won’t do for a distinguished guest like you. We can’t afford to lose face like that,” Peiqin said in mock dismay. “But have a cup of Dragon Well tea first and I’ll see what I can put together.”

In less than five minutes, Peiqin was able to put two cold dishes on the table: tofu mixed with chopped green onion and sesame oil, and sliced thousand-year egg in soy sauce with minced ginger.

“Something for your beer,” she said, putting a bottle of Qingdao and two cups on the table.

“Don’t go out of your way for me, Peiqin.”

“Let her have her way,” Yu said, opening the beer bottle with a pop.

She put the sauce of eight treasures into the microwave and a bunch of noodles into a pot of boiling water. While those cooked, she stir-fried several eggs into an omeletlike dish called super crabmeat and roe.

Chen helped himself to a spoonful of the omelet the moment it was placed on the table. “It tastes absolutely exquisite,” he declared. “You have to tell me the recipe.”

“It’s easy. You just need to separate the yolk from the white. Fry the white first, and then the yolk. Add a lot of minced ginger, Zhenjiang vinegar, and a generous pinch of sugar too.”

She ladled out the noodles, placed them into bowls, and poured the sauce on top of them.

“Laomian style,” she said before serving a soup of dried green cabbage.

“Wow, that’s the soup I’ve been missing.”

“The fresh cabbage was so cheap back in the early spring, I bought several baskets and dried it at home,” she said. She shook out several drops of sesame oil onto the greenish surface of the soup.

“When I was a child, my mother used to dry cabbage at home, too. She would boil the cabbage, then air dry it on a rope stretched across our small room.”