Secretary of the Provincial Disciplinary Committee, Qi Xiuying FOR YEARS, LIN Yongqing has been my only spiritual solace. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined he could disregard twenty years of feeling for the sake of an apartment, and speak to me on Peng Guoliang's behalf.

'Leave an out,' he said. 'Go easy on him.'

When I flatly refused his mad request, he betrayed his journalist's principles and his own conscience by writing internal reference articles, three of them, full of slander and calumny. Under the banner of 'reducing negative influences', he accused the investigation team of disregarding the larger picture of reform and opening up in Dongzhou, discounting Peng Guoliang's record of political achievements, and taking incorrect 'detention and interrogation' measures against him. Not only that, but he also aimed his spear at my son and me, saying that I was the force behind my son's real estate ventures, and that when my son became interested in a plot near the zoo, I personally made a phone call to Peng Guoliang asking him to grant that plot to my son. That land, so Lin wrote, was designated green s.p.a.ce, so Peng Guoliang staunchly refused my request. During that time, my son reportedly continued to nag Peng Guoliang, who would not compromise, and so I decided to make use of my authority to strike out in revenge.

My lungs were bursting with anger once I'd read all three articles. How could I have been so blind? That someone I'd regarded as a soul mate could be twisted beyond recognition by the prospect of personal gain was a torture to heart and mind.

I was also angry with the man who'd dragged Lin Yongqing down, someone named Xu Zhitai, the Vice-Head of Number Two Department, Combined Affairs in the Dongzhou Munic.i.p.al Government. He'd previously been a journalist at the Qingjiang Daily himself and was a petty man who took every opportunity to claw his way upward. Peng Guoliang was already in detention, yet Xu refused to climb down from the 'pirate ship'. Not only that, but he had also pulled Lin Yongqing on board with him.

Xu thought he could use the relationship between Lin Yongqing and me to overturn the case against Peng. Once Peng was restored to his rightful position, Xu would enjoy status as a benefactor in time of trouble, and could use his so-called loyalty to advance himself. It was sheer opportunism, a pitiful, petty move by a pitiful, petty man.

Unfortunately, it was a petty move that made things very difficult for us.

Zhang Peifen understood the importance of public opinion and she used the internal reference articles to support her efforts in Beijing. She beseeched retired leaders with connections in Zhongnanhai to 'seek justice' for Peng Guoliang. In fact, one of them, after reading the articles and at Zhang Peifen's urging, actually made a personal trip to Zhongnanhai to plead for Peng Guoliang's case, even calling the secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and interfering in the case.

Luckily the Qingjiang Party Committee is a principled group that listens to all sides of an issue and isn't easily fooled. The secretary came personally to talk to me, saying, 'Comrade Xiuying, I've seen the internal reference articles and the anonymous letters slandering you, and I think these people's methods are despicable. They have only one purpose in doing this, and that's to shake the Central Government's faith in the Qingjiang Party Committee and Disciplinary Committee and to keep the case from moving forward. But remember this: the Central Government and the Central Disciplinary Committee have faith in the Qingjiang committee and in you personally. It's precisely because you are unflagging in your duties that others wish you harm. I've looked into your son's situation and learned that he's a highly regarded university lecturer. He's never run a company at all. Comrade Xiuying, with the Provincial Party Committee and the people of Qingjiang at your back, you must persist in the prosecution of this case, no matter how Peng Guoliang tries to derail it.'

This was a tremendous support to me. What more could I say? All I could do was to use cold, hard facts to make the case against Peng Guoliang rock hard and airtight. You want to have this case overturned, do you Zhang Peifen? Not in this lifetime.

At the same time, I couldn't help admiring Peng Guoliang's wife. Despite standing alone against the whole investigation team, she had used bribery to swiftly build a ma.s.sive 'rescue team' that reached from Dongzhou to Beijing, from the Party to the courts, from the media to universities. I had underestimated her abilities. Peng Guoliang had been incredibly arrogant at first, as if the Dongzhou Detention Centre was his own personal luxury spa, and I had him transferred to Changshan as a way of puncturing that arrogance. But after less than a month there, Zhang Peifen still managed to get a mole inside. She began her back dealings from the moment the investigation team was formed, paving her road with gold and making use of all her contacts, planning her attack and spreading lies and slander. Peng Guoliang was just as stubborn. He refused to confess, denying the case any breakthrough. If we were going to make progress we'd have to dissipate his dream of resisting the investigation and overturning the case, and the only way of doing that would be to cut off his and Zhang Peifen's communications. After a period of research and planning, the team decided to detain Zhang Peifen, Xu Zhitai and Lin Yongqing.

I didn't sleep the entire night before making the decision to detain Lin Yongqing. Who would have thought that twenty years of friendship and feeling would end like this? If it hadn't been for his silent support for me and my son after my husband pa.s.sed, I truly don't know how I would have made it. Recalling that time, my tears began to flow. The past is not smoke. They say I'm made of iron, but it's not that which makes me strong. It's that the law is blind. And this life-and-death struggle was growing steadily fiercer. The complexity of the case had long ago exceeded the bounds of imagination.

Wu Wenzhong was the opening which allowed us to detain Zhang Peifen. For quite some time the team had known Zhang Peifen had a mobile phone with a number ending in triple seven which she used to call another phone whose number ended in triple eight. The first eight digits of the two numbers were the same. Deng Hongchang guessed that something fishy was going on and reported the matter to me. I directed the team to look up which city the triple eight number was registered in, and they discovered that both were registered in Changshan. Deng Hongchang felt there had to be a connection between Peng Guoliang being held in Changshan and Zhang Peifen's regular calls. I asked him if we had any other clues, and he mentioned that the triple seven phone, besides making regular calls to the triple eight one, had also made a few calls to a landline in Changshan. I instructed the team to head to Changshan at once and lock down the owner of that phone, and was surprised to learn that it was this Wu Wenzhong, a first-level superintendent at the Changshan Detention Centre.

After Wu Wenzhong was detained, I directed the team to detain Zhang Peifen, Xu Zhitai and Lin Yongqing, an order that they carried out with alacrity. While searching a cabinet in Zhang Peifen's office, Shang Xiaoqiong discovered a package of original and photocopied letters reporting complaints against me and Liu Yihe to various government offices. Her plan was clear: she intended to muddy the waters and use sleight of hand to keep Peng Guoliang from the block.

The team also found a big notebook in Zhang Peifen's bag, which, in addition to a large quant.i.ty of phone numbers, also contained regular occurrences of the word 'his'. I especially arranged for Deng Hongchang and Shang Xiaoqiong to speak with Zhang Peifen about it, but she craftily replied that the notebook contained her jottings for a novel she was planning. She felt she'd led a rich life, one that could make for an interesting novel, and the notebook's contents were fictional details. Who would have guessed she could be even more stubborn than Peng Guoliang?

I was obliged to detail team members to work on cracking the contents of the notebook. Once they'd succeeded, our case suddenly became a lot clearer. The notebook was in fact a record of everything Zhang Peifen had done to overturn Peng Guoliang's case since he was taken in, including the names and relationships of the people she'd dragged into her plans. The 'his' which appeared so often in the notebook marked the directives which Peng Guoliang issued to Zhang Peifen from within the detention centre. The notebook was a Pandora's box for the Peng Guoliang case, which had so stubbornly refused to progress. It was also 'open sesame'.

Director of the Sixth Office of the Provincial Disciplinary Committee and Leader of the Special Investigation Team, Deng Hongchang ONCE ZHANG PEIFEN was detained and I informed Peng Guoliang of the fact, he seemed to realise that the situation was slipping beyond his control. In response, he adopted silence as a method of resistance. Though he was as recalcitrant as ever, the destruction of his contact network by the investigation team meant I could face him with a quieter heart. I knew that although he was outwardly calm, his inner world was in uproar. Years of investigative experience have taught me that anyone in detention goes through a three-stage process of resistance, inner struggle and then confession. Without a doubt, Peng Guoliang had entered stage two.

These past few days I've been studying the records of my clashes with him. The scene of our first encounter is still fresh before my eyes.

He began singing his own praises as soon as he opened his mouth, a common trick among those in detention. He said, 'I've never claimed to be spotless, but I am absolutely not a corrupt official. I have examined my own conscience, and found that I am a public servant with integrity, dedication and political skill. In terms of foreign investment alone, I pulled in more than thirty billion for the people of Dongzhou. I have not let down the Blackwater River which bore me and raised me.'

'So your visits to the casino in Macau were to attract foreign investment as well?' I asked him pointedly.

'All my trips to Macau were solely for the purpose of attracting foreign investment,' he insisted. 'I went to the casino for pleasure, because the work of negotiations was so tense. It was purely for relaxation; never took a trip solely to gamble.'

'Do you mean to say that using the investment attraction reward money to set up a private company was also in the interest of foreign investment?' I tightened the noose.

'That was entirely part of government policy preparation for H shares going on the market,' he said craftily. 'I made my report to Liu Yihe about this matter. It was done with his approval, for the purpose of attracting more funds for Dongzhou.'

'Do you mean to say that your higher-ups have wronged you?' I asked mockingly.

'At any rate I've never done anything criminal. If my superiors won't let me serve my people then it's not my loss, it's the people's loss,' he said, arrogant as ever.

'Wen Huajian, Chen Shi and Hu Zhanfa have all come clean, Peng. Why won't you see the light? If you didn't have suspicious financial dealings, would the Provincial Party Committee and Disciplinary Committee have set up a special investigation team for you?'

'Deng Hongchang, was Jesus guilty of a crime? Yet he was nailed upon the cross all the same. I'm sitting here today for no other reason than that my political opponents have seen fit to put me here.'

That's Peng Guoliang's att.i.tude. Since he's been detained, we've crossed swords countless times, and each time he has been thunderous in his self-defence and supercilious in his att.i.tude. Added to this is Zhang Peifen, who at Peng's direction leveraged the connections they'd painstakingly cultivated over the years to make a nuisance of herself. On the one hand, she enticed some unprincipled officials into corruption, and on the other, she spent vast sums on bribes and destroying criminal evidence, impeding the investigation at every turn.

If the decision hadn't been made to take timely action against Zhang Peifen, the investigation team would likely have been further stymied.

I should mention that since the investigation team was established, it has worked under highly secretive circ.u.mstances, but after we detained Zhang Peifen and went through her notebook, we found she'd written down each team member's mobile phone number, home and office numbers, as well as some details of the investigation. She'd even recorded testimony from people who'd co-operated with the investigation. The enormous energy of Peng Guoliang and Zhang Peifen is far beyond anything I expected. The two of them are almost lunatic in their desperation to overturn the case.

The first time I crossed swords with Zhang Peifen I took a lesson from my first meeting with Peng Guoliang and held tightly to the issue of her and Peng Guoliang's false confessions. At first she blew a smokescreen of stories, hoping to distract me, but I stuck to the question of false confessions until the holes in her stories became painfully evident and finally fell apart.

Shang Xiaoqiong was particularly adept at using other cases to ill.u.s.trate Zhang's situation, and she described two wives of two corrupt officials, one who co-operated with the investigation and got off without criminal charges, and another who was obstructionist and went to jail. These stories had a powerful effect on Zhang Peifen. She began to move from the resistance stage to that of inner struggle.

On the thirtieth day of the New Year, Zhang Peifen suddenly made a request. She said this was Peng Guoliang's zodiac year and she wanted the investigation team to buy red underwear for her husband. I braved the snow to visit several stores, and at last found some red underwear in a box that read 'Zodiac Year'. That satisfied Zhang Peifen. When I handed them to Peng Guoliang, he was quite moved.

This incident had a considerable effect on me. The idea of the humane prosecution of cases has long hovered in my mind. To someone like Peng Guoliang, who once commanded the wind and the rain, nothing was more unbearable than being shut out in the cold. If I were to show respect for his character and consideration for his condition, perhaps it might ease his misgivings and wariness towards me. After I braved the snow to buy him underwear, I saw a real difference in his att.i.tude.

From that point on, every time Peng Guoliang and I crossed swords, I didn't address him by his full name, but showed my respect for him by calling him 'Old Peng'. Knowing his biggest worry in life was his son, who was born with severe gastroptosis and about whom he fretted constantly, I arranged for a few phone calls between them. He was also a heavy smoker, so I bought him cigarettes with my own money. We even chatted a bit together about family and life, and I gradually worked in some stories to ill.u.s.trate the law. Deprived of his external supports, Peng Guoliang's spiritual defences began to crumble.

When we met two days ago, he suddenly asked me, 'Director Deng, is the Central Government determined to have my head?'

I didn't miss my opportunity. 'Given the quant.i.ties of money you've embezzled and the bribes you've made and accepted, according to national criminal law, you could be given a limited sentence, a life sentence or possibly even the death sentence. Why so uncertain? It will depend on the specific circ.u.mstances and the severity of the consequences. There was a report in the Qingjiang Daily today about a Vice-Mayor of Xizhou who accepted vast bribes and was given a suspended death sentence. Based on the amount of bribes he accepted, he should have been executed on the spot, but because he confessed and showed good behaviour and also returned the bribes, he was allowed to keep his neck.'

Peng Guoliang was silent for a while, then finally worked up the courage to ask, 'If I come clean first, is there a chance they'll go easy on me?'

Apparently my 'brink of death' strategy was having its effect. I slowly pressed my advantage. 'Your case will have a major influence on society. In the end, exactly how it turns out will depend on you.'

The floodgates were finally starting to open. He realised he could make things easier for himself by dropping a few hints. And so by fits and starts he spoke, sometimes restraining himself, sometimes letting go, as if we were trying to squeeze toothpaste out of him. The story of his criminal behaviour emerged as silk is spun from the silkworm coc.o.o.n, bit by bit.

While Peng began to come clean, Zhang Peifen steadfastly clung to the story the two of them had worked out between them. One day, Shang Xiaoqiong reported a new development. Since Peng's case broke, his son had become the subject of scorn in his school and he was refusing to go to cla.s.ses. I felt this was quite a serious situation and reported it to Qi Xiuying immediately. She went to Liu Yihe in person to discuss how to get the child back into school. After I'd told Peng Guoliang about this, he seemed quite shaken. Tears in his eyes, he asked for pen and paper and wrote Zhang Peifen a letter that came from the heart.

'Peifen, my dearest, dearest wife. In deepest remorse I come before you to repent. My wife, I am not worthy of being your husband, nor of being father to our son. I could kneel before you now and never rise again, but still it would not erase the harm I have done to the two of you. Since the case against me began, I have not looked to myself as the cause of my own difficulties, instead blaming heaven and earth. I have failed to take correct stock of the situation and to co-operate with the investigation, instead demanding your help in obstructing and attacking it, until at last I brought us to our current predicament, hurting you and our son, and so many of our friends. Most unforgivable is the damage I've done to the image of the Party and the Government. At this point I have no choice but to face reality, abandon delusions and actively co-operate with the investigation. If I can work to earn the forgiveness of the authorities, I may win myself some leniency.'

Once Peng Guoliang had finished the letter and handed it over, he made a complete confession.

After I gave the letter to Zhang Peifen, she spoke in a trembling voice, as if to herself. 'More than a year, all that money, all those people . . . Who knew we'd end up exactly where we started? Guoliang, I've let you down!'

She put her hands to her face and began to weep in despair. People talked about the deep commitment between the two of them, and I could hear it in the sound of her weeping. She knew perfectly well that once her husband started to talk, the two of them might not meet again in this world.

Zhang Peifen's family had a strong political background, but she had none of the little princess's manner. Peng Guoliang had once boasted to me, 'After Peifen and I were married, she would wait up for me at home, no matter how late I got off work, with a midnight meal ready. Particularly in the winter, no matter how late I was, she would get up and pour a steaming hot foot bath for me, and after I'd soaked my feet, she would warm them against her bosom.'

Looking at this woman who was mad to save her husband and thinking of all that Peng had done, I couldn't help wondering, what kind of love is this? The two of them had pushed each other into the abyss. Especially Peng Guoliang, who had kept Niu Yuexian and impregnated Ou Beibei, all behind his wife's back. Was he thinking of how she'd warmed his feet then? Only when faced with death did his conscience reawaken!

This stage of the investigation was finally complete, and my superiors allowed me a few days' rest. After my vacation, when I'd just returned to work, Secretary Qi called me into her office and told me to arrange for a Qingjiang Daily reporter to visit the Changshan Detention Centre and interview Peng Guoliang. To my surprise, the journalist turned out to be Huang Xiaoguang, the elder brother of Huang Xiaoming, Peng Guoliang's secretary.

I knew that Huang Xiaoguang was a well-known author, and I asked him with befitting humility, 'What evil do you think we are inheriting and perpetuating in this case?'

He replied scornfully, 'Officials First.'

Author and Senior Reporter at the Qingjiang Daily, Huang Xiaoguang 'XIAOGUANG, WHAT'S THE opposite of darkness?'

That was the first thing Peng Guoliang asked me.

I knew he liked to smoke soft pack Zhonghua cigarettes. Most of Peng Guoliang's material needs were satisfied in the Changshan Detention Centre, but the rules stipulated that those under detention could not smoke, although Peng Guoliang could ask for a smoke when he happened to be in an interrogation or a meeting. Before I came, my brother told me to buy him a pack, and I figured these Zhonghua cigarettes might be the last luxury he would enjoy in this life. According to my brother, he'd needed a quick hand and eye to light Peng Guoliang's cigarettes for him. Peng never struck his own light.

I figured Peng Guoliang would be on his way within a few days, and before I visited him I interviewed Qi Xiuying, Secretary of the Provincial Disciplinary Committee, and made a point of asking how Peng was likely to be executed. The answer was lethal injection, a little more humane than a bullet.

How could I answer that kind of question from a condemned man?

To stall him, I lit his cigarette as my brother would have, saying, 'All I know is that light is something akin to darkness.'

Peng Guoliang laughed despairingly. 'To someone about to die, the opposite of darkness is darkness. Thank you for visiting me, Xiaoguang, and giving me the dignity of a cigarette before I die.'

I didn't want to spend the interview going over every detail of Peng Guoliang's crimes, and I didn't want to gloat over a dastardly criminal brought low. I knew that he had become a condemned man practically overnight, and a host of imponderable questions must be crowding his soul. What might those questions be? That's what I really wanted. That was most valuable. To treat him with scorn, or kick him while he was down, or revel in his misfortune? If I treated him that way, he would tell me nothing. Allowing him his dignity was my only choice.

We often say that life is worthless. Since Peng Guoliang was about to use his worthless life to redeem his own crime, he would shortly be without crime. In that sense we were equals, and this seemed to be real humanity. What is it we're all struggling for? Many people believe it's power, position, glory, wealth, but in truth these things are all adjunct to dignity. It is dignity that is most important to us in life. How could Peng Guoliang, who would shortly lose his life, have any dignity? But I would give it to him. He would see a thread of light in the darkness. There was no need for him to believe that the opposite of darkness was also darkness.

I admit that Peng Guoliang's fate was a tragic one, but no one seemed aware of the greater tragedy; that under the present system, anyone who reached Peng Guoliang's status was liable to follow Peng Guoliang's fate. What right did we have to look down our noses at him? Was it true that the opposite of darkness was darkness? That those who ostensibly stood on the side of light were equally dark? That the only difference was that they had not yet been exposed? If so, then the 'light' was truly horrible. Perhaps it was the 'light' that had pushed Peng Guoliang's world view into the abyss.

The opening of the Three Character Cla.s.sic reads, 'Man at birth is good by nature.' I've never believed that to be true, but neither do I believe that we are evil by nature. What I think is, 'Man at birth tends towards the good'. Someone like Peng Guoliang couldn't have been born a rotten apple, so how did he get that way? That was the crux of the question.

In order to find the answer, I lit another cigarette for him, and asked him respectfully, 'So what do you think light is?'

He drew in a greedy lungful of smoke and said, 'Light is the present system and the most maddening of political symbols. I was once a worshipper and a follower of the light, and later became both a beneficiary and a creator of the light. Now I am being sacrificed to the light. To tell you the truth, in my "Reflections on my Crimes" I said I'd been influenced by the money worship of capitalism, and let my world view, life principles and values begin to slide. All that was actually bulls.h.i.t. What does that have to do with their capitalism? Our system long ago got in the habit of blaming everything on the capitalists. My world view, life principles and values were actually twisted by the light. It was too bright, it dazzled my eyes, and that's how I lost my way. Not only did the light dazzle me, but it also seared my soul. You might think that the light is great, but that's because we are in different positions. If you were standing where I stand, you would see that the n.o.ble light illuminates the most despicable filth. But I see that filth as a part of the light, or the very light itself. In fact, that filth is fragments of the darkness that is hidden within the light. Only now have I come to understand that light is but another disguise of the darkness.'

I'd once thought that only a very few people could have real insight into the complex nature of light, and that those people must have pa.s.sed through some torturous purgatory of the soul. Though I didn't agree with Peng Guoliang's point of view, one thing was for sure: though his body was still on earth, his soul was already suffering the tortures of h.e.l.l. From the moment I learned that he would be given the death penalty I had been asking myself: could such severe punishment really halt corruption and crime? If so, then why was the Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, with his cruel methods of skinning and drawing tendons, unable to halt the depredations of corrupt officials? Our existing backward system provides no answers. A backward system could turn any normal person into a rat, and that is probably the key reason that Peng Guoliang felt he was a sacrificial victim of the system. I couldn't imagine how someone on the brink of death could be so horrified by the light. Could that thing that would come so suddenly actually be a disaster in disguise?

'If you're a sacrifice to the light, then what is Liu Yihe?' I asked tentatively.

'Someone who understands the darkness. That's what I admire most about him,' he answered in a heartfelt voice.

My brother had told me long ago that in the political arena Peng Guoliang had always seen Liu Yihe as his opponent. The two of them had started together, but from then on Liu had always been a step ahead, and Peng resented him for that. I was surprised that at this stage Peng could speak of Liu with admiration.

'What is it you admire about him?' I asked.

He answered directly, 'He knows that, to a certain extent, light is even darker than darkness. Light cannot be illuminated by light, and it is meaningless without darkness. I learned it too late, only after I was given my death sentence. Now it's too late for everything; I can only descend into the eternal darkness of h.e.l.l, and remember the light.'

He seemed to relish the thought of darkness. I wanted to know more about his idea of h.e.l.l, and asked, 'In your opinion, what is h.e.l.l? And what is heaven?'

Peng tossed his cigarette b.u.t.t on the floor and stamped it out with his foot, then spoke scornfully. 'Don't believe there's really any such thing as heaven or h.e.l.l. That's all utopian thinking. Don't worry about whether I'll actually go to h.e.l.l when I die. That's just a trick to frighten people. They say you go out like a light. Death is death. Death is oblivion.' He held out his hand for another cigarette.

I thought there was something bitter about his despair, and asked, 'Do you have any regrets?'

He was silent for a long time before answering painfully, 'Leaving me alive, leaving me to repent for my sins in jail, letting the years wash my soul, serving as an example to others; wouldn't that be more meaningful to society than exterminating my body? Have you heard of any developed Western countries wresting life from their citizens for the crime of corruption and bribe-taking? Expecting the death penalty to awe officials out of their corrupt ways is a laughable fallacy.

'If you want to talk regrets, I have done wrong by your brother. He shouldn't have lowered himself to be my secretary. If at some point in the future our mayors and governors are not appointed by their higher-ups but are instead voted into office by a democratic election, that will be Xiaoming's time to shine. But I'm afraid he's never going to be able to compete under the present system.'

While he had regrets regarding my brother, he clearly didn't know that he'd actually ruined his career in politics. A leader and a secretary rise and fall together. People can't help but think that birds of a feather flock together. In the old society, the illumination of the light proclaimed its complete possession of body and soul, and once you were cast out of the light into shadow, that meant you'd entered a darkness as complete as the abyss. My brother was bound to continue on the Wheel of Life, otherwise he would never get a chance to be reborn. Rationalism, particularly the present utilitarianism, had already enshrined the teachings of the light as truth, but it had also obscured a basic fact: that the source of light was precisely the darkness of human nature.

'My brother is going to resign,' I told him. 'After things went wrong for you, he feels tortured and unhappy. If he stays in politics he'd just have to go on the way he was before, which seems to him no better than waiting for death. I won't lie to you, it was my idea that he quit. He has to pa.s.s through death to be reborn.'

Peng Guoliang clearly felt guilty at hearing this news, and he spoke with deep regret. 'I had thought he hadn't been with me for too long, that he might not be dragged into it. I didn't think . . . Does he know what he'll do next?'

I pinched out the cigarette in my hand and said heavily, 'I think the lessons of this experience will last him the rest of his life. Given his talents, if he turned to writing fiction he could be as good as or better than me.'

He sighed. 'Your brother was born for politics. What a shame! But being a writer would be good too. He could tell my story, as a warning to others. It might be a way to put all this behind him as well.'

A glint of light had appeared in his otherwise dull gaze. I lit one more cigarette for him and he inhaled greedily as if, instead of simply smoking, he were using the dim spark of the cigarette to unite himself with the darkness. He already knew that black was the colour of existence. It was only a pity that he'd learned it too late.

Newly Promoted Vice-Director of the Munic.i.p.al Government, Yang Hengda PENG GUOLIANG'S CASE shocked all of Dongzhou, but what shocked me most was that while he was in Macau gambling, he was videotaped by public security units beside a group of terrorists, and the one doing the videotaping was Ou Beibei's ex-husband w.a.n.g Chaoquan. It was simply unbelievable!

The simpering yes-man of the Foreign Investment Bureau had transformed himself into the Deputy Chief of the Anti-Terrorism Unit of the Provincial Public Security Bureau. It was the sort of thing you only see in movies or read about in books. He became a legend in no time. Some said he never missed with a pistol, others that he could take on a dozen opponents at once, and was able to vanish or skip lightly over rooftops. In a nutsh.e.l.l, the little director-level researcher had suddenly become an invincible hero.

No one was more shocked than Ou Beibei, now his ex-wife. This vain and pitiful woman, who had so longed for honour that she'd fallen into the arms of Peng Guoliang and Zhao Zhong, had come up empty-handed. Life was simply too cruel. The combination of Peng Guoliang's fall and w.a.n.g Chaoquan's rise came as a terrible blow to her, and also made her a major laughing stock. Though she gritted her teeth and bore it all in silence, I could tell she deeply regretted hurting w.a.n.g Chaoquan and driving him away.

What I learned from this was if you want to avoid living a life that's merely a rough outline, you need to use the first half of your life to rehea.r.s.e, and the second half to perform. Though living this way has its costs, it is worth it. At the very least, you will not complain like Tomas in The Unbearable Lightness of Being: 'If we have only one life, we might as well not have lived at all.'

If Ou Beibei could see her past as a rehearsal, draw the appropriate lessons and throw herself into the second half of her life, I was confident she'd be able to turn the rough outline into a full plan.

In order to ease her suffering as best I could, I used my birthday as an excuse to treat the whole office to dinner. During the meal Xu Zhitai spoke out in defence of Peng Guoliang. Ou Beibei, uncharacteristically, put up an argument, saying Peng Guoliang was a stinking heap of dog s.h.i.t. Their argument raged viciously, but I didn't interject. What I found quite shocking was that Zhu Dawei very obviously stood with Ou Beibei, nearly goading Xu Zhitai into real anger.

Xu Zhitai spoke indignantly. 'Don't forget that we all once stood in Mayor Peng's camp, and we served him for many years. If even we kick him now that he's gone, we'll just become a joke to others. Ou Beibei, heaven gave us our faces, and we can't go making ourselves a new one, can we?'

This last shot deeply wounded Ou Beibei's pride. He was essentially calling her shameless. When w.a.n.g Chaoquan had been at the Foreign Investment Bureau, he and Xu Zhitai got along well, and Xu Zhitai was clearly speaking on his behalf. When she heard that, Ou Beibei rushed out of the restaurant as if she'd gone mad. Xu Zhitai hadn't expected that and was struck dumb. In the ensuing silence, Zhu Dawei quietly said to me, 'Sir, you should go and talk to her, make sure nothing happens.' I hurried out.

A fine rain was drifting through the night. Ou Beibei was running for all she was worth. I ran after her, finally catching her by the arm. 'Beibei, it was all just talk, don't take it seriously.' She fought to free herself; she wasn't listening. I could think of nothing to do but to press her against me and say, 'Beibei, I know how much you hurt. It's just me here now. Go ahead and cry; you'll feel better.' To my surprise, she held me tightly and really did begin to sob.

It was time for me to talk to the Old Leader again. I had learned from Song Daoming that the Director of the Munic.i.p.al Research Office had reached retirement age and Mayor Liu was considering Li Yumin, Vice-Director of the Munic.i.p.al Government, for the post. This would mean Li's position would be vacated, a heaven-sent opportunity!

What I hate most about visiting the Old Leader is that every single time, we have to talk about the urine cure. I drank my own urine for the entire five years I acted as his secretary, until my very eyeb.a.l.l.s were yellow, and I hoped that once I left him I would never have to drink it again.

While I was with the Old Leader, I might have been sincere and a.s.siduous in recording my thoughts on the urine cure, but actually I was thoroughly revolted by this 'cure' that I saw as nothing more than a joke. But since my resumption of the cure at my wife's insistence did lead to the resumption of my manhood, I've started to feel better about it, though I am still only half convinced. I'm not actually sure if it's the result of the urine cure or my fantasising about Ou Beibei during lovemaking. I hate having the lights on too brightly during lovemaking. Whenever I look down and see it's my wife I am embracing and not Ou Beibei, I end up once more with a 'limp riding crop'.

I spent two whole days rethinking my conclusions about the philosophical implications of the urine cure, and once I felt I'd done enough reviewing, I bounded off one evening, full of enthusiasm, to the Old Leader's house in Shady Nook. The Old Leader was in his study, bent over his desk and writing something. I drew closer and found he was annotating the text of the work on the urine cure that I'd auth.o.r.ed, as earnestly as though it were a government proclamation.

When he saw me he took off his spectacles, praised my work on the urine cure tract and asked, 'Hengda, have you come to any new realisations about the urine cure recently?'

The review I'd done paid off, and I rattled off my prepared answer. 'I know you'll criticise me, but since I went to the Munic.i.p.al Government, the pace of work has left me without a sc.r.a.p of time to record my experiments with the urine cure. But in terms of progressing with the cure itself, I haven't slackened in the slightest. These days in particular, I've been especially moved by seeing how much progress you're making in promoting the urine cure throughout the province, including giving away your opus on the cure for free to people in your hometown. I have complete faith that, under your care, the people of this province will soon set about building a host of urine cure spas. Sir, you are truly spreading the good word about the urine cure, relieving poverty and difficulty, creating happiness for the people; all good deeds indeed!'

Seeing my confidence in the future of the urine cure in the province, the Old Leader said happily, 'I've been in good health since I retired and I've got some pep left. It's only right that I do a little something for the good of the people. It's been a while since you thought to drop in on me, Hengda. Is there something you need from an old man? Peng Guoliang's case must have had some repercussions for you . . . Tell me, what are you planning?'