Qiu Xiaolong - Don't cry Tai lake

The center was a nice place, after all.

Chen took a walk around early Tuesday morning and began to get a better sense of the layout. The location spoke volumes for the center. Originally a huge lakeside area of the park, it had been converted into the Cadre Recreation Center for the benefit of veteran cadres, so they could enjoy the lake in peace and quiet without having to mix with the noisy tourist crowd.

There were several others like him walking around at a leisurely pace. Every one of them must have led a quite different life somewhere else, in a provincial town or in a large city, each powerful and privileged in their respective ways. In the blue-and-white-striped pajamas of the center, however, they appeared anonymous for the moment.

Even here, though, there was a sort of recognizable hierarchy. In the two gray multistory buildings near the entrance, the rooms were probably like those in a hotel; though still quite nice, each of them boasting a small balcony, they were probably not for very high-ranking cadres. In contrast, there was another building close to the center of the complex, and the size of the balconies indicated much larger rooms inside. Looking up, Chen saw a white-haired man step out onto a balcony on the third floor, stretch, and nod at him. Chen nodded back and moved on.

Soon, he saw a teahouse built in the traditional architectural style. It was much like the one he had seen in the park, but it stood embosomed in green foliage on the top of a raised plateau, adjacent to a modern-style building. From the distance, he could see several elderly people sitting outside by the white stone balustrade, drinking tea, talking, and cracking watermelon seeds.

It might be a good place, he reflected, for him to sit and study the initial report Sergeant Huang had faxed him that morning. The chief inspector was still debating as to whether he should get actively involved in the investigation.

He was surprised at the sight of a waterproof escalator stretching up the hill, leading directly to the teahouse. It wasn’t so much the technology of the escalator that surprised him but the fact that it was installed on the slope in the first place. Anyone who couldn’t walk up the flight of stone steps nearby could easily use the elevator inside the building next to it.

He turned away and walked to the clinic attached to the center instead. According to the brochure, the clinic provided convenient medical checkups for high-ranking cadres. Chen didn’t think there was anything wrong with him, but since he was there, he decided to see a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.

Chen’s experience at the clinic proved to be quite different from that at a Shanghai hospital, where he usually had to wait a long time, standing in line, going through a lot of paperwork. Here, the nurses were practically waiting on him, not to mention that there was so much advanced equipment-all imported here for those high-ranking cadres.

The doctor felt Chen’s pulse, examined his tongue, took his blood pressure, and gave his diagnosis in a jumble of professional jargon spoken in a strong Anhui accent:

“You have worked too hard, burning up the yin in your system. Consequently both the qi and blood are at a low ebb, and the yang is insubstantially high. Quite a lot is out of balance, but nothing is precisely wrong, just a little of everything.” He dashed off a prescription and added thoughtfully, “You’re still single, aren’t you?”

Chen thought he knew what the doctor was driving at. According to traditional Chinese medical theory, people achieve the yin-yang balance through marriage. For a man of his age, continuous celibacy wouldn’t be healthy. The old doctor in Wuxi could be an ideal ally, Chen thought with a sense of amusement, for his mother in Shanghai, who worried and complained about his failure to settle down.

The prescription specified that the medicine be brewed fresh every day and then taken while still hot. The pharmacist at the clinic said that it was no problem to fill the prescription; Director Qiao had given specific instructions to provide whatever Chen needed.

Leaving the clinic, Chen continued walking instead of going back to his villa. He wasn’t entirely comfortable getting special treatment under the assumption that he was a high-ranking cadre. He’d noticed that some of the old people were looking at him with curiosity. It wasn’t likely that they recognized him. Still, at his age, he was quite conspicuous in this place.

Cutting across a small clearing with hardly any people around, he found himself walking up a flight of stone steps. He ended up at the back of the center, where he discovered a trail that wound down the hill. He followed the path, which was dotted with nameless flowers, and after a couple of turns it took him to a wire fence that separated the center from the lake, with a deserted road between the two.

He perched on a rock close to the foot of the hill and pulled out the fax. There didn’t seem to be anything really new or different from what Huang had already told him. After reading it a couple of times, he pondered what he could possibly do while still staying in the background. He didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to visit the crime scene or to interview any possible suspects. Still, something like an informal talk with people not being targeted by the local police might not be a problem. Perhaps a visit to Mrs. Liu. He didn’t see anything exactly suspicious about her. He was just a little bit curious about her decision to travel to Shanghai right after learning that her husband wouldn’t be back home that night. At the very least, she’d be able to tell him something about Liu.

Of course, another possible source of information would be Shanshan. For that interview, he’d better not reveal that he was a cop. He took out his cell phone, yet didn’t dial it. Deep down, he felt uneasy about not telling her he was a chief inspector, but he reassured himself that he was doing it for a good reason. And he wondered if the threating calls she had been getting had anything to do with the case.

He underlined several lines in the fax. There were some other points possibly worth looking into further. The timing of the murder, for one, and he scribbled a couple of words in the margin of the fax, though he was not sure about it.

Then to his surprise, he felt rather tired, and he rubbed his eyes. It was still quite early in the day. He couldn’t tell if the doctor’s diagnosis had had a psychosomatic effect on him.

He looked up, shaking his head. A little further to the north, he noticed a fence door had been left unlatched, which was probably unnoticeable from outside. Someone could have stepped out, having forgotten to lock the door behind them. He stood up to peer about, believing he must be close to the tourist area called Frost-Covered Goshawk Islet on his map.

As he started making his way back, a quietness unexpectedly enveloped him. He thought of several Tang dynasty lines: Only the sound / of a tiny pine nut / is heard dropping here / in the secluded hills … / There, a solitary one, / you must lie awake, thinking .

He tried to ridicule himself out of the mood. The Tang poem was about a night scene in the hills. Besides, who could be the “solitary one”?

Shortly after he got back to his villa, a young nurse appeared with freshly brewed medicine in a small thermos bottle.

“You’d better drink it quickly,” she said with a sweet smile. “A hot fresh dose could make a huge difference. There will be another dose delivered here in the afternoon.”

Afterward, he was rinsing the bitter herbal taste out of his mouth when a phone call came in from Director Qiao.

“You have to have lunch with us today, Chief Inspector Chen.”