Qiu Xiaolong - When Red is Black

“In misfortune, there is a fortune; in fortune, there is a misfortune. That’s exactly what Laozi said in Tao Te Ching thousands of years ago,” Old Liang commented. “How true it is, even today, even for Lei in our lane.”

“Someone with a new girlfriend and a fresh business plan,” Yu said, interrupting Old Liang’s narrative, “is unlikely to have murdered a neighbor.”

Old Liang argued, “But he needs money more than ever for business expansion. Where can he get capital? Judging by his tax return, Lei hardly breaks even.”

“Oh, his tax form. Have you talked to him about that?”

“Yes, I have. He denied having anything to do with the murder, of course, but he offered no explanation about where he plans to get capital for expansion.”

“What about his alibi?”

“Lei starts the coal stove fires around five thirty every morning. Several people recall seeing him at work at the stoves that morning.”

“So his alibi is solid.”

“Still, I don’t think we can rule him out. He could have dashed back home for a minute or two. No one would have noticed. He keeps most of his supplies in the courtyard, or in his room, so he often goes back and forth.”

“It’s possible,” Yu said. “Still, I think he must be grateful for Yin’s help. Her comment changed the course of his life.”

“Gratitude from such a man? No, no way.” Old Liang shook his head vigorously. “In fact, there’s something else about him. Of all her neighbors, Lei alone has entered Yin’s room a couple of times to deliver lunch boxes. Heaven alone knows what he might have noticed there.”

“You have a point, Old Liang. I’ll talk to him,” Yu said. “Now, the next one?”

“As for the next one, his name is Cai. Not exactly a resident here, at least not registered as a resident. So you see, we have not excluded other possibilities.”

“Okay, but why have you picked him out?”

“It’s another long story.” Old Liang lit a cigarette for Yu, and then another for himself. “Cai is Xiuzhen’s husband. She and her mother, Lindi, and her brother Zhengming live in a room at the end of the north wing. When Cai and Xiuzhen got married, he ran one of the few private hotels in Jinan District and talked a lot about buying a high-class apartment.”

“So he was a Mr. Big Bucks,” Yu said.

“Perhaps, at the time. Xiuzhen was then only nineteen years old. Most people believed that she had made the right choice, even though Cai was eighteen years older, and had served several years in prison for gambling. On their honeymoon, they stayed in a suite in the hotel because he was registered at home with his mother in the slums in the Yangpu District. Cai did not have time to look for a new apartment, Xiuzhen explained to her neighbors.

“But things with him were not as rose-colored as he had described them, she soon found out. The hotel business was in terrible shape, running into debt, and she was already pregnant. The rice is cooked, nothing that is done can be undone. When her baby was born, the prospect of moving into a nice apartment totally disappeared. Not long afterward, the hotel went out of business.

“His slum home is in an area designated for a new housing project, where most the buildings had already been torn down. A few families have refused to move out unless their demands are met, and they are still there. They are called ‘nail’ families, in the sense that they have to be forcefully pulled out, like nails. The district government has made it hard for those nails to stay there, cutting off their water or electricity from time to time, and when that happens, Cai comes to stay with Xiuzhen in Treasure Garden Lane.”

“That’s a different love story,” Yu said, anxious to bring Old Liang to the point. “So what does Cai do now?”

“Nothing. In the summer, he makes money as a cricket fighter. A cricket gambler, to be more exact, betting on the cricket fights. People say he has triad ties, which must help him greatly in this kind of business. For the rest of the year, heaven alone knows what he is really up to. He does not appear to be unemployed, like his brother-in-law Zhengming, who loiters about all day in the lane. As for Xiuzhen, still a young, pretty girl, she is like a fresh flower growing on top of a dung heap.”

“You can say that again,” Yu said, wondering at the appropriateness of the ancient proverb, for manure would be nutritious to a flower. “Does Cai gamble on crickets in the lane?”

“No, he does not fight crickets in the neighborhood. To make a living out of this, he has to mix with those nouveau-riches who will bet thousands of Yuan on a tiny cricket,” Old Liang said. “Once a Mr. Big Bucks, always a Mr. Big Bucks. People believe he still earns more than most of the others in the lane.”

“What about Zhengming?”

“He is good for nothing. He has not worked at any real job since high school. I don’t know how he manages to muddle along. Now he actually has a live-in girlfriend, and she doesn’t work either.’’

“Does he depend on his mother?”

“Yes. I cannot make out these young people. The world is really going to the dogs.” Old Liang added “But we don’t have to worry about him. He broke a leg ten days ago, and can hardly move out of the attic.”

“Then what about Cai-apart from his history?”

“History is like a mirror, capable of showing what a man really is. Once a criminal, always a criminal.”

“That is another quote from Chairman Mao,” Yu observed in a matter-of-fact way.

“Cai says he was not here that morning, but with his mother in that ‘nail’ room. That’s just what he says, of course.”

“Yes, we will check on that.”

But he was not so sure whether the interview of either of these two suspects would lead to anything. When Old Liang left to pursue background checks, Yu decided to do something different. He made a telephone call to Qiao Ming, the ex-dean of the cadre school, upon whom Yin had spat at the memorial service.

Peiqin and he had discussed the possibility that Qiao might have had a motive to murder Yin. In view of the autobiographical nature of the novel, even though Yin had named no names, many people might have been nervous or indignant. Wan, the upstairs neighbor, was only one example. Those who had been at the cadre school must have been panic-stricken. Furthermore, no one could predict whether Yin might produce a second book, containing even more embarrassing realistic details. Anything was possible.

“Don’t believe anything you read in Death of a Chinese Professor,” Qiao began. “It’s a pack of lies.”

“Death of a Chinese Professor is a novel, I understand. But I’m working on a homicide case, Comrade Qiao, so I have to investigate every possible aspect.”

“Comrade Detective Yu, I know why you want to talk to me, but let me make one point first. With respect to what happened during the Cultural Revolution, we must have a historical perspective. No one was a fortune-teller, capable of foretelling all the changes in the future. At that time, we simply believed in Chairman Mao!”

“Yes, everyone believed in Chairman Mao, I have no question about that, Comrade Qiao.”

“The book makes a selling point of the persecution they suffered in the cadre school. Now, that was no place for people to fall in love-not at the time. The top priority was, according to Chairman Mao, for people to reform themselves there. Because of that phone call from Beijing about Mao’s poems, the cadre school actually made a point of allowing Yang books and dictionaries. That was a real privilege at the time. Someone reported he was writing a book, and we did not even try to interfere at first. You see, for Yang, those years were not totally wasted.”