This is a real case of being hoist with your own petard! I meant to use the The Civil Servant's Notebook to get rid of Liu Yihe, but instead Hu Zhanfa has handed him a victory. Now he gets to sit back and watch the show.

When I was considering secretaries, Hu Zhanfa had recommended Zhu Dawei but I didn't like the look of his shifty, ratty features. I thought they concealed a calculating mind. Sure enough, Hu Zhanfa has fallen right into the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d's trap.

The way I see it, Zhu Dawei must have acted on orders from Qi Xiuying, otherwise how would the copy have found its way into her hands so quickly? Or perhaps it was Liu Yihe, the old fox, who set a trap for me and made Zhu Dawei his snitch? Zhu Dawei stole the notebook and gave it to Liu Yihe, who pa.s.sed it to Qi Xiuying. That son of a b.i.t.c.h Liu!

My biggest headache right now, though, isn't actually the copy of the The Civil Servant's Notebook. It's Niu Yuexian.

My wife has turned a blind eye to my relationship with Yuexian all these years because she knows that I planted Yuexian in Hong Kong to act as a money launderer. Our family's money can be sent abroad thanks to Yuexian's services. Ever since I used part of the investment attraction prize money to start the company in Hong Kong, I've felt there's something a little strange about Yuexian. I didn't think much of it at the time. I a.s.sumed she was just annoyed about my gambling habit. How could I have guessed that the b.i.t.c.h was willing to forget our ten-year relationship for the sake of money. Now she's swept up all the money and fled Hong Kong. I haven't been able to get in touch with her for days.

No wonder she was so enthusiastic about urging me to start the company, imploring me to make her the CEO. Why not, I thought at the time. She herself belongs to me. I'm not surprised at the tricks Liu Yihe plays on me, but how could I expect the same from a woman I'd been sleeping with for ten years!?

The greatest danger now is the thirty million. If Qi Xiuying gets wind of it, I'll be obliged to blame it on Liu Yihe. He always hoped to gather all Dongzhou's best real estate together into a package and put it on the market in Hong Kong. I made many trips there to mediate this process, and that required money at every step. Setting up a company was only a pretence. It made it more convenient to make regular visits to Hong Kong. No matter what, we would need some flexible reserve funds. I actually discussed this with Liu Yihe, but he neither accepted nor rejected the idea. All he said was that he didn't need to hear about means or process, he just wanted to see results. In that case, I thought, I'll just do it my way. Either way, I'd made my report to Liu Yihe.

What Chen Shi and Wen Huajian once said to me was right, of course. The three of us made all those trips to Hong Kong for the sake of Dongzhou's foreign investment. We poured out all that blood, sweat and tears. It is only natural that we should be rewarded. What's wrong with that? Nothing bothers me as much as the current system where they make horses race but give them no hay to eat. If giving a horse hay to eat is corruption, then call me corrupt!

We're always so suspicious of the 'rule of man', as if the rule of law is a panacea for our ills, when in fact the main thing is the 'rule of corruption': helping the horse both to race and also to get a mouthful of hay. I know there's no point in saying all this, but it comes from the heart, and more importantly, it's what all civil servants are secretly thinking. Our expectations for our civil servants are far too high, far too grandiose. The pressure is far more than their flesh and blood bodies can withstand.

I, at any rate, cannot withstand it. Nor do I want to. Qi Xiuying, haven't you become addicted to bullying others? Bring it on then! Who deserves h.e.l.l more than I? But don't think I'll go easily. Most people in politics have their little ups and downs, but things have always gone right for me, so bring on the storm. I'll be d.a.m.ned if I can't weather it!

Though I am fairly sanguine about the whole thing, my wife is quite the opposite. Last night she didn't sleep a wink, just wiped away her tears all night long. I kept telling her, 'Don't you worry, I'm not made of mud. Even if I do get nabbed, I won't talk. They can't pry my lips open!'

My wife made a solemn pledge. 'If you do get nabbed, Guoliang, I'll get you out of there if it means my own life!'

That's my wife. People say that husband and wife are like two birds in the same forest: when disaster comes they fly in different directions. But my wife's attachment to me is more like that line from Zheng Xie's poem: 'Still standing strong and firm after many storms. No matter what direction the wind blows.'

I'll tell you the truth. Since entering politics, I haven't done right by my wife. Of all the people who once cl.u.s.tered around me, some of them have broken off relations, some have beaten a strategic retreat, some have saved their own skins, and some have taken pleasure in my defeats and kicked me when I was down. My wife must have suffered through every day of all this. Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

My wife couldn't stand to see me unhappy, and she held my head and cried. Crying would solve nothing, however, and after she'd cried for a while, I suddenly thought of Lin Yongqing. I wiped away her tears as I said, 'Peifen, if Qi Xiuying moves against me, you need to ask Xu Zhitai to put you in touch with a certain person. His name is Lin Yongqing. He's a journalist at the Qingjiang Daily, and he's got a special relationship with Qi Xiuying. Two things: get him to persuade Qi Xiuying to go easy on me, and also, work our old connections in the capital. Don't worry about expenses, just get them to put pressure on her from above. She's not made of iron.'

My wife listened earnestly, but was still worried. 'But what if this Qi Xiuying really has no humanity. What will we do?'

I sighed, 'Then, my darling, we'll just have to accept our fate!'

She ground her teeth. 'Who says I'll accept it? She may be made of iron, but is her son, too? If the son sinks into the mud, won't the mother follow?'

Who knew that when the chips were down my wife would remain even more resolute than me? That night she helped me go through all my vulnerabilities, all the c.h.i.n.ks in my armour, and come up with justifications and explanations for each one. Soon the sky was lightening, and when Huang Xiaoming, my new secretary, came to pick me up, my wife had still not slept. By that point my mood had reached its nadir, and I had no desire whatsoever to go to the office.

Still in her nightgown, my wife led Huang Xiaoming into the bedroom. He looked quite nonchalant but I could tell he already had an inkling of what was going on. If I got in trouble it would go hardest for Huang Xiaoming. It was his poor luck to follow the wrong person. If he'd followed Liu Yihe he would have been standing on his own two feet in a couple of years. Politics is cruel. People can't help a.s.suming that birds of a feather flock together, and if something really were to happen to me, I'm afraid that would be the end of this fellow's political career. But given how things were going, I didn't have much time to worry about him.

My wife called him over to my side and asked, 'Has your elder brother treated you well?'

Huang Xiaoming was evasive. 'What is there to say? What's going on?'

My wife sighed and said, 'I guess I'll have to tell you the truth, Xiaoming. Some petty people are out to get your elder brother, but I can promise you that whatever they say about him, he's completely innocent. You admit he's been good to you, right? Now is when he needs your support the most!'

After she'd said her part she wanted me to add something, but I was too lost and disoriented to know what to tell him, and could only pat his shoulder helplessly and say, 'Call Xiao Furen and ask him to buy a paper shredder for my office this morning.'

Huang Xiaoming nodded.

I waved a hand and said, 'Okay, wait for me downstairs. I'll just wash my face and we'll go to the office.'

Once he was gone my wife asked me anxiously, 'Can we rely on him?'

'When it comes to character,' I said solemnly, 'he's way ahead of Hu Zhanfa. Plus he hasn't been with me that long, he doesn't know so much. At the moment I'm more worried about Hu Zhanfa. Once I've gotten to the office, I'll find him and give him the necessary instructions.'

I usually move my bowels first thing, but I didn't have the slightest urge that morning. My gut was as empty as anything. Our nanny had prepared breakfast, but I didn't have the slightest appet.i.te. I washed my face, got dressed and went out without even tying my tie. The morning sun seemed to lack vitality. I staggered into the car. The most important thing to be done in the office today was to destroy all the doc.u.ments that needed destroying.

I worked in the office until noon, when the paper shredder was full. I heaved a sigh and moved slowly to the window. There were always so many people idling in the square below. Where did they come from? Some were discussing matters of love, others sang or made music, some played chess, and others were there to paint portraits for money. To my eye, the Munic.i.p.al Government office building was just like a golden imperial palace, and all the souls moving to and fro on the square before it were terracotta warriors.

Huang Xiaoming came in to call me to lunch at the cafeteria, but I told him I had no appet.i.te and didn't want to eat. I wanted a car to send me home. While Huang Xiaoming sent a text message to the driver, I opened the safe and pa.s.sed him a bundle that I'd earlier sealed with packing tape, telling him, 'This is some spending money I keep around, Xiaoming. keep it safe for me until I need it, all right? For G.o.d's sake, don't keep it in the office it won't be safe there. keep it in your home.'

It was actually fifty thousand US dollars that I had prepared for the Old Leader. When I'd visited him over the Spring Festival, he'd indicated that he'd like a small expense account to hold a nationwide seminar on health and therapy for retired cadres, to be held in Hong Kong. It had taken me no small effort to prepare the cash for him, but when I brought it to him he wouldn't accept it, saying that the retired cadres themselves had put together the cash and he had everything he needed. I couldn't force him to take it, so I brought it back and had kept it in my safe ever since. Now it had become a time bomb. I couldn't put it in the bank and it was too dangerous to keep in the office, so my only choice was to give it to Huang Xiaoming for safekeeping. If I made it through this calamity, I swore I'd take the money to the casino and enjoy a good round of gambling. Huang Xiaoming stuffed the package into his doc.u.ment folder without saying anything. In silence we locked the door and left the office.

I was in a hurry to go home and talk to Wen Huajian and Chen Shi about the incentive reward money we'd received. At the door to my house I told Huang Xiaoming to have them come to my place immediately, and went upstairs.

Around half an hour later Wen Huajian and Chen Shi arrived, looking like orphaned sons of a fallen family. Seeing their fl.u.s.tered, panicked faces and the state of mind they were in, there was little point in swearing some kind of blood pact between us. It would be hard enough for us to keep from attacking each other. I instructed Wen Huajian to find Robert as quickly as possible so that we could each give to him the money we'd kept for ourselves. Both their faces went pale. They told me they'd gambled that money away long ago, and it would be difficult to produce a sum like that on a moment's notice. I told them sternly that they were to give the money to Robert before nightfall, then handed to Wen Huajian the hundred thousand I'd prepared in advance. Seeing I meant business, they took the money and left with no hesitation.

After they were gone, I dropped to the sofa in exhaustion and fell asleep.

The Government Square THE FAMOUS LOCAL writer Huang Xiaoguang once wrote a fantasy short story called 'The Government Square' in which he turned me into a mirror that, beneath the daily sun, reflected all of Dongzhou City. In the story, three students from the art academy come to the square every day to paint portraits for pa.s.sers-by. While they were idle, they drew scenes of the Munic.i.p.al Government office building next to the square. One student often portrayed it as a castle, another turned it into a mountain in a nature scene, and the third generally drew it as a temple. Onlookers praised each of the students, saying the castle, mountain and particularly the temple somehow all looked very like the government office building, but what they didn't know is that I am a magic mirror. The three students' drawings really are of the government office building, but within my reflection their drawings have become twisted. When the sun saw that my magic reflections were stealing her limelight, she used her brightest rays to crack me with heat, and I shattered into countless fragments. The government building the three students had been painting regained its true appearance. Huang Xiaoguang was trying to use me to tell people that what appears in the mirror is not necessarily the truth. The truth is often staring at us from the other side of the mirror.

Actually, I am not only a mirror. I'm also a thick book. Specifically, I am a single page out of The Book of Sand. I may only be a single page from a book, but I am extraordinarily important. I am neither the first page nor the last page The Book of Sand has neither a first nor last page but though I am only one of its pages, my contents are infinite. I represent history: the history of Dongzhou, naturally. The history of Dongzhou is but a single leaf in the great forest of human history. Of course 'the best place to hide a leaf is in a forest', but I'm actually only one part of one page. Each page of The Book of Sand is printed with a mask, and I am that mask. I represent Dongzhou as its 'coat of arms'.

When each new incarnation of the Munic.i.p.al Government decides to rebuild me, however, they don't realise that I am a page, that they should protect me the way a library protects its rare collection. They build me neither as a mask nor as a coat of arms, but as a Tower of Babel, exactly the sort that was set down in Kafka's 'The City Coat of Arms'. 'The essential thing in the whole business is the idea of building a tower that will reach to heaven. In comparison with that idea everything else is secondary. The idea, once seized in its magnitude, can never vanish again; so long as there are men on the earth there will be also the irresistible desire to complete the building.' And: 'There would be some sense in doing that only if it were likely that the tower could be completed in one generation. But that is beyond all hope. It is far more likely that the next generation with their perfected knowledge will find the work of their predecessors bad, and tear down what has been built so as to begin anew.'

This same point of view can be found in Borges' The Book of Sand as well: 'If s.p.a.ce is infinite, we may be at any point in s.p.a.ce. If time is infinite, we may be at any point in time.' A point cannot be infinitely big, only infinitely small. Thus, so long as a tower is a point, it can never reach heaven. Strictly speaking, humanity is one component of a point, but even so, some people believe that this 'point' is 'heaven'; they can't understand that a 'point' is only a grain of sand. And books, like sand, possess neither beginning nor end.

Just as Kafka wrote in 'The City Coat of Arms', each time the city government changes they decide to build me anew. In the past ten years alone, three separate sculptures have stood at my centre. The first was a sceptre with a roc, a sunbird that was a totem of the ancients five thousand years ago. This bird is recorded in Chuang-tzu: 'In the darkness of the Northern Ocean there is a fish named K'un. The K'un is so big that no one knows how many thousands of tricents its body extends. After it metamorphoses into a bird, its name becomes P'eng. The P'eng is so huge that no one knows how many thousands of tricents its back stretches. Rousing itself to flight, its wings are like clouds suspended in the sky.'

Isn't this simply another form of the Tower of Babel? Soaring ninety thousand li and yet to heaven. Isn't that simply a 'point'? Of course I understood that this government simply wanted to display the spirit of the roc and leviathan, but what does that mean exactly? Chuangtzu's original meaning was distance, naturally, that what the people truly needed was distant journeying. But how could they do that if you stuck a sceptre into my kidneys? Soon after came another change of government, and this one felt that the sunbird, the totem of the ancients, smacked of feudalist superst.i.tion, and could not represent the spiritual vigour of the Dongzhou people who had undergone the baptism of reform and opening up. So they tore down the sunbird and put up a sculpture in the shape of an enormous thumb. They said it was modelled on the thumb of the mayor at the time. It was supposed to symbolise the self-reliant spirit of the Dongzhou people, but it somehow smacked of autocracy, and the people weren't having it. They felt it symbolised nothing but the boasting, self-congratulatory spirit of the actual mayor, a monument to himself.

The next government naturally couldn't abide a monument to the previous mayor, so they got together and decided to rebuild me altogether. The thumb, like the sunbird, was consigned to the dump, and soon it was a huabiao, a traditional ornamental column exactly like the ones in Tian'anmen Square, that adorned my kidneys. The symbolic significance of a huabiao is enormous, descended as it is from the wooden pillars that emperors erected at crossroads and important causeways as early as the age of Yao and Shun. According to a Han Dynasty philosophical treatise, those pillars were 'a tool of Shun's slander', 'words fair and foul were recorded in the wood of the huabiao'. What that meant was that the ma.s.ses could write what they actually thought of their kings and emperors on the wood of these columns called huabiao. The columns were crested with a carving of an auspicious animal, a carnivorous beast both like and unlike a dog, called a hou. The pair of hou atop the huabiao at the back of Tian'anmen are facing north, towards the Forbidden City, indicating a hope that the emperor would not sequester himself within his palace, but come forth and know his people, and so they are said to be 'awaiting the Prince's emergence'. The hou atop the huabiao in front of Tian'anmen face south, meaning that the emperor should not stay too long away from home, and are said to be 'awaiting the Prince's return'.

After the huabiao was erected at my centre, however, harsh criticism of the mayor at the time began to be heard, saying he was ambitious and had his sights set on Beijing. At any rate, it is the hope of everyone in politics to make it to Beijing, and the successive government accepted the significance of the huabiao and refrained from wasting more money and labour on razing and building, building and razing.

I am often dressed in new clothes of a very unique sort. Huang Xiaoguang praised me for it in his story, saying that I am a mirror, an opera, a face, a painting, an essay, a corral, a gathering, a political victory, a kaleidoscope, a stage, a brand name tag, a seal, a coin, a well, an 'Aleph' . . . But in the end, I am still a heavy book, one page out of The Book of Sand.

The reason no one realises I'm a book is that those in power still don't understand that a city is actually a library. There's no need for us to build Towers of Babel, because the library is higher than those towers. Each civil servant is actually a librarian, and each urban resident is a book. There's a superst.i.tious term, 'Man of the Book', though actually it's not superst.i.tious at all. People are books by nature. They say life is a book. But no one is able to see their own nature clearly and they continue to rack their brains for arguments that they are regular people and not 'Men of the Book'. So what's the argument? It's that they are not 'Men of the Book' but 'Men of Things', and they offer involved explanations of why they are so.

'Men of Things' 'felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure', and so 'abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways,' but they don't know that the 'Library is a sphere whose exact centre is any one of its hexagons and whose circ.u.mference is inaccessible.'

'These pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors, proffered dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways'. As a result some of them were pushed over the stairs. Their grave would be the fathomless air. 'My body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite.' Others went mad. In the hallway there is a mirror that, in its limited way, faithfully duplicates the unlimited nature of the world. This is the natural home of the 'The Man of Things', the way a grain of sand belongs in the desert. This can't be compared to the return of a drop of water to the ocean, because a drop of seawater can reflect the brilliance of the sun, while a grain of sand cannot.

That is the teaching of The Book of Sand. I think The Book of Sand is the sum of all other books, and for that reason I am only part of the contents of one single page within it. Each day I lay stretched before the Munic.i.p.al Government building, serving the people of Dongzhou, unflagging and uncomplaining, like the most dedicated of civil servants.

There's one civil servant in particular who crosses me twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. That's Song Daoming, the Mayor's secretary. He lives on my east side, very close to the government building, and so he walks to and from work every day along my central axis.

He seemed to have something serious on his mind when he went to work this morning: his head was down and he was lost in thought. As he walked, a mouse suddenly scampered out from behind the huabiao and ran past his foot, giving him a turn. Not stopping to wonder how a mouse could live at the foot of the huabiao, he gave outraged chase. The crafty mouse took two turns around an enormous flowerbed and then dashed into a hole and disappeared. A huge, ancient pine stood in the centre of the flowerbed they said it had been transplanted from nearby an emperor's tomb and next to it stood an old gentleman out for a stroll, his hands behind his back, looking up at the tree. 'Originally there are three points of view we might have on an old pine: practical, scientific and aesthetic. What a shame we've only been left with one.'

Curious, Song Daoming asked him, 'Which point of view is that, old sir?'

The old man gave him a glance and said, 'Don't you think this old pine looks like a Tower of Babel?' So saying, he shook his head and left.

Song Daoming looked up at the towering old pine, the glare of the sun dizzying him.

Secretary to Mayor Liu Yihe, Song Daoming MAYOR LIU SHOULD have hosted the dinner for the Minister of Finance at Beautiful World himself, but he asked me to call Peng Guoliang and pa.s.s the job to him. I'd just put the phone down when someone knocked at the door. I did a double take when I opened it because there were six people standing outside. I knew only one of them, Shang Xiaoqiong, from the Janitorial Brigade. But today she didn't look like a cleaning girl. There was something heroic in her mien. First through the door was a bald, middle-aged man.

'Are you Secretary Song? I'm Deng Hongchang, Director of the Sixth Office of the Provincial Disciplinary Committee. I'm looking for Mayor Liu.' I ushered them into Mayor Liu's office, and once they were inside Shang Xiaoqiong closed the door behind them, shutting me outside.

Shang Xiaoqiong was actually with the Disciplinary Committee! So why had she been working in the Janitorial Brigade all this time? The sudden appearance of all these unexpected guests made my heart leap to my throat. Intuition told me that earthquakes would be felt in the Dongzhou Government that evening. I even had a guess as to who they were after, and understood why Mayor Liu was not treating the Minister of Finance personally.

It was past eight p.m. The six of them had been in Mayor Liu's office for more than two hours. The Munic.i.p.al Government building was empty. I'd heard of detention but had never seen it in effect. Only two sorts of people had that experience. First were those who worked in the Disciplinary Committee and thus were responsible for detaining others. Second were those who had been detained, who generally didn't come back to tell the tale. After they were detained, they were mostly delivered directly into the mechanisms of the law. Once that happened to a civil servant, or a politician, you can imagine his fate.

My office was silent. I knew that the six of them must be reporting their proposed plan of action to Mayor Liu. I had no idea what they were planning, but one thing was for sure: Mayor Liu was going through unbearable suffering.

Suddenly the door opened and he emerged from his office with beetled brows. His expression severe, he gestured to me and said, 'Come in, Daoming, Director Deng wants to have a word with you.'

Perplexed, I followed him inside. I couldn't guess what the office of the Provincial Disciplinary Committee wanted with a mere mayor's secretary. Deng Hongchang stood up from the sofa, took my hand and drew me down to sit next to him. He spoke earnestly: 'Comrade Daoming, the Disciplinary Committee has conclusive proof that Peng Guoliang, Wen Huajian, Chen Shi and Hu Zhanfa have been gambling abroad, embezzling money and accepting bribes. The Committee has established a special investigation team for this case, and we've decided to detain the four of them tonight. We're also asking for Huang Xiaoming's co-operation in the investigation. As leader of the investigation team, I'm asking for your help. Please call each of them and tell them Mayor Liu has something urgent to discuss, that they should come to his office as soon as possible. If they ask what he wants to discuss just say that you're not sure. At any rate, do whatever is necessary to get them to take the bait. Also, tell them different times. We want them to arrive one at a time.'

I knew the Disciplinary Committee didn't go around nabbing people like police officers do. I always wondered how they got their detainees. Now I knew. They were going to dangle bait in front of them. I knew a few commanders on the munic.i.p.al police force and we'd often drink together. They called this kind of thing 'fishing'. So the Disciplinary Committee people wanted me to be their fisherman.

I thought they should have taken action against Mayor Peng and his crew long ago. They were nothing more than termites gnawing at the foundations of government, termites that should have been exterminated long ago. I only felt regret about Huang Xiaoming. I couldn't believe he was really one of them. But seeing how serious Deng Hongchang and his team were, I could only ask, 'Who should I call first?'

He thought for a moment and said, 'Call Wen Huajian first, then Chen Shi and Hu Zhanfa. Peng Guoliang is at a dinner with the Minister of Finance. I think by the time the first three arrive, the dinner will be over. Lastly call Huang Xiaoming. According to our intelligence he's asked for time off for family business and didn't accompany Peng Guoliang.'

Mayor Liu hadn't said a word the whole time and I knew his feelings must be even more complicated than mine. Suddenly his red telephone rang, the one for direct communications between provincial-level leaders. Mayor Liu picked it up and said, 'h.e.l.lo Comrade Xiuying!' He handed the phone to Deng Hongchang.

After a few minutes Deng Hongchang put the phone down and said gravely, 'Comrade Xiuying has indicated that we must allow for no sympathy towards the corrupt. Comrade Daoming, please begin.'

I nodded solemnly and returned to my office, my head spinning. I knew what the results of these calls would be. They say that when you pull up a carrot you get a fistful of mud. If these people were locked up, how many more would suffer along with them? And if word got out that I had done this 'fishing', what would it do to my reputation?

I really didn't want to be the 'fisherman'. I was neither on the Disciplinary Committee nor was I a corrupt official. But I kept my resentment to myself and didn't say anything. I thought of all the craven tricks Peng Guoliang and Hu Zhanfa had played against Mayor Liu.

The bait was on the hook and I had no choice but to cast it into the water. I dialled Wen Huajian's number.

Wen didn't question my reason for calling. He said he would come over immediately. It sounded like he was driving. Sure enough, once he'd parked his Audi in the government compound he forgot to lock it. As he stepped into Mayor Liu's office, an armed policeman came in after him, carrying a leather case. The policeman told me the Audi downstairs was unlocked and he'd noticed the case on the back seat. Afraid it might be stolen, he'd brought it up with him. After the policeman had put the case on my desk, he gave me a salute and left. I took a good look at the case and noticed it had a combination lock. I couldn't get it open, so I brought it into Mayor Liu's office.

There was no one there so I went through to his personal conference room, where Deng Hongchang was solemnly stating, 'Wen Huajian, beginning this moment you are under detention, and will be required to answer our questions at an appointed time and place.'

Wen Huajian's face paled and sweat appeared on his forehead when he saw me come in with the leather case. I put it on the tea table and explained where it had come from.

Deng Hongchang thundered, 'Wen Huajian, what's in this case?'

Wen Huajian hemmed and hawed, and wouldn't say. Deng Hongchang threw Shang Xiaoqiong a glance and she ambled over to the case, inspected it for a moment, and popped it open with ease. The moment she lifted the lid we were all flabbergasted. The case was filled with neatly wrapped stacks of dollars, ten stacks of 20,000 dollars each, in crisp new bills.

Wen Huajian's legs gave out from under him and he collapsed in a chair. Two burly guards hoisted him up and out of the conference room. Deng Hongchang and Liu Yihe exchanged a crackling glance, then Mayor Liu motioned to me and I returned to my office to call Chen Shi.

Sitting in front of my desk, I felt that the Munic.i.p.al Government office building had turned into a giant mousetrap. I made the calls, and Chen Shi and Hu Zhanfa came scampering inside, according to plan.

It was time for the most crucial call. I couldn't help feeling a little nervous, but I calmed myself and dialled Mayor Peng's mobile phone. He had just finished his meal with the Minister of Finance and was in his Audi on his way home. When he took my call he seemed a bit cautious and ventured to ask, 'What exactly does Mayor Liu want to talk to me about, Daoming?'

I chuckled, feigning calm, and answered, 'I really have no idea, Mayor Peng. He just said it's important.' I tried to speak in a tone that conveyed how important it was for Mayor Liu to have Mayor Peng's opinion, without giving him the sense that anything was out of the ordinary. He was obviously aware of the possibility that he might be in trouble, but he was willing to take his chances and agreed to come.

Around fifteen minutes later he came in, looking exhausted and bedraggled. As he stepped through the door he asked, 'Where's Mayor Liu?'

I led him through Mayor Liu's office and into the conference room. When Mayor Liu saw him come in he stood up, looking as though a burden were being lifted from him, and said, 'Guoliang, allow me to introduce you to Comrade Deng Hongchang, Director of the Sixth Office of the Provincial Disciplinary Committee. Director Deng will introduce the others.'

Deng Hongchang didn't even stand but only said, with a dark expression, 'You must know why we're all here, Peng Guoliang. I guess I don't have to tell you about Party discipline or national laws. At any rate, both discipline and law are without pity for the individual. You are now under detention. Is there anything you'd like to say?'

Still tipsy from dinner, Peng Guoliang spoke disdainfully. 'Liu Yihe, I have shed my heart's blood and broken my bones for the sake of Dongzhou. This Deng might not know that, but you? Look at you, attacking others and exacting revenge in the name of counter-corruption!'

This clearly struck home with Liu Yihe. He had long been aware of the problems with Peng Guoliang and he had warned him more than once that he was straying perilously close to the edge. But Peng Guoliang had seen it as mere jealousy and personal attack. Now things had come to a head. Liu spoke with pain. 'Peng Guoliang, look into your heart and ask yourself what is right and what is wrong. You've thrown away thousands in public money at the gambling tables. Is that me exacting revenge?'

Peng Guoliang huffed, 'That is base slander, Liu Yihe! Deng Hongchang, Comrade Xiuying understands me. I want to make a call to her.'

Deng Hongchang surged to his feet and raised an arm. 'No need!You will see her at the appointed time. Secretary Qi is currently appreciating the gambling skills you displayed at the Casino Lisboa in Macau.'

Peng Guoliang asked, 'What do you mean by that?'

Deng Hongchang laughed scornfully, 'Your little performance at the casino was recorded by the Public Security Bureau. Are you going to hold out until the bitter end?'

Peng Guoliang's face went white. Deng Hongchang motioned to two guards. Peng hung his head and left the conference room. Huang Xiaoming arrived soon after that, and after the six people from the Disciplinary Committee had shaken hands with Mayor Liu and me, they and Huang Xiaoming left the room together.

I couldn't help going to the window. More than twenty cars appeared below it. The convoy left the compound in a long, snaking line. The neon lights of the munic.i.p.al square burned like spirit lamps, and I suddenly recalled something that Huang Xiaoming once said to me: 'Depravity is nothing more than our ignorance of heaven.'

Number Two Department, Junior Department-Level Researcher, Ou Beibei w.a.n.g CHAOQUAN LEFT with nothing. He left our apartment to me, and while it wasn't big, loneliness made it feel like a whole empty world. It had been a long time since anyone had touched me. The son of a b.i.t.c.h who had ruined my marriage didn't lack for women, and after the abortion I didn't have the slightest contact with him. That irresponsible b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't even have the most basic 's.e.xual morality'. I cursed him to the lowest level of h.e.l.l.

I sat naked on my bed. The mirror on my wardrobe reflected my beautiful body. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which Chaoquan had always loved to touch, stood between my naked shoulders. Each time we were about to make love, he would bury his angular face between them, seeking my nipples like a small newborn dog that hadn't yet opened its eyes. My nipples were like a pair of cherries, pink and delicate, and Chaoquan would look at them as if they were rubies. He sucked at them greedily, nuzzling them like a pig at the trough, and when he'd had his fill he would thrust at me over and over, the two of us grappling like wrestlers as we rolled on the bed, sometimes onto the floor. Those were our happiest moments, but I could never understand how a man who was so virile never managed to make me pregnant. At first we had blamed each other, but later Chaoquan secretly went to the hospital, and in the end he hung his head before me since the problem lay with him.

At the time I simply couldn't accept the fact. How could my man's s.e.m.e.n contain no sperm? I went online to research causes and discovered something terrible: the Y chromosome possessed by men is unable to repair damage caused to it by genetic mutation, and is gradually de-evolving as mankind develops. Calculations of the rate of the Y chromosome's gradual disappearance indicate that the male gender will almost certainly go extinct. Scientists believe that the earliest version of humans was female, and males were only a by-product of female genetic mutation. In theory, men are simply mutated females. Therefore, the earth will become a 'woman's kingdom' in the future. Scientists are learning to make 'artificial sperm' from women's bone marrow, and once they've succeeded, women will be able to reproduce as.e.xually. But since the sperm created from women's bone marrow cells all lack the Y chromosome, their offspring will all be women.

When I read that report I felt very strange. Chaoquan was without a doubt a forerunner of this future de-evolved man. Scientists claimed that over the past fifty years the average sperm count has experienced a steep decline of twenty per cent. The result of Chaoquan's hospital test was a declaration that there could be no crystallisation of our love. How much I longed for a child! If we had one I would dedicate myself to my family. I wouldn't think for a moment of straying. But in the end, I lost husband, chast.i.ty and honour.

I approached the mirror, examining my snow-white skin and lushly furred crotch, and felt a sudden revulsion for this body in which I'd once taken so much pride. It seemed horrid to me; I had lost not only my soul but also my confidence. It vanished along with the newly conceived life that the doctor removed from my belly with his steel forceps. Before all that, I'd wanted to embrace the entire world.

There are only two kinds of people: those who weave nets and those who cast themselves into them. There is no third kind. While I was thinking that I had escaped the net, perhaps I was simply waiting for another net to leap into. Occasionally I would ask myself why people wanted to cast themselves into a net. Because of depravity?

Depravity fills us with a kind of despicable pleasure. But thinking it over carefully, I decided it was because of fear fear of death. From the moment of birth we are closely tailed by the angel of death, drawing nearer and nearer, telling us that there is no escape. And so we build a labyrinth in our imagination and seek to lose ourselves, telling ourselves that the labyrinth is heaven when in fact it is a net, or even a grave. Put this way, depravity seems to be an ignorance of heaven, but it isn't. Depravity comes mostly from raging desire.

People use dreams as wings. We come into the world tainted by original sin, and none of us can escape the vast web of heaven. We are all punished. The punishment only differs in degree. What determines that degree? The strength of our desire.

My desires are nothing compared to those of Peng Guoliang, and thus fate would naturally administer a lighter punishment to me than to him. But what was beyond my comprehension was that fate had so far only punished me and had yet to raise a hand to the mighty Peng Guoliang. Did even fate fear the strong and bully the weak? Impossible! Faced with powerful villainy, fate had to nurse its strength before it struck. I had the sense that fate's strength was growing by the day. Never mind that Peng Guoliang seemed to command the wind and rains. He was no more than a john who had been drained dry by a prost.i.tute, his face sunken and sallow, tottering on his feet. I'd once p.r.o.nounced a curse: anyone who harmed me would die a horrible death! I could already smell a change in the weather, and it gave me a nameless pleasure. For some reason, that nameless pleasure made me think of Chaoquan.