TWENTY-FOUR

LIANPING WAS WAITING FOR Chen in an elegant private room at a high-end restaurant he had suggested. It seemed to her to be quite new. It was near the front entrance of Bund Park, and the window of the second-floor room overlooked a panorama of ships coming and going along the distant Wusongkou, the East China Sea.

Her mind was in a turmoil. So much had happened the last few days, and it was as if it had happened to somebody else. She thought back on all of it in disbelief.

But one thing proved that it really had happened—the dazzling diamond ring on her finger. Xiang had proposed, and she had accepted. He’d put the ring on her finger without waiting for a response. She hadn’t taken it off.

She didn’t know what to say to Chen, but she had to tell him about her decision. She owed it to him, and for that matter, she owed it to Xiang too.

On a fitful May breeze, a melody came wafting over from the big clock atop the Shanghai Custom Building. Her left eyelid twitched again. She must be stressed out, or perhaps it was just another omen. She remembered a superstition from back home in Anhui about twitching eyes.

Agreeing to marry Xiang wasn’t an easy decision for her. It was more like an opportunity she couldn’t afford to miss than something she really wanted. After all, she lived in materialistic times, having read and heard all the tabloid stories about pretty young girls hooking up with Big Bucks and living “happily ever after.”

Tapping her fingers on the table, she wished she could have lived in the world of the poems recited by Chen back in Shaoxing, but she had to face reality. Just the day before, her father had written to her about the problems his factory was facing with both a shrinking market and the rocketing price of commodities. She could no longer bring herself to ask him for help with her mortgage payments. The subdivision committee had just increased parking fees, but it was still difficult to find an open spot, so they suggested, as an alternative, that she buy a permanent spot for thirty thousand yuan. And gas prices kept going up too. The list went on and on.

Still, she had to achieve the Shanghai dream—not just for herself but for her family too. Xiang represented an opportunity she couldn’t let slip by, as her colleague Yaqing had repeatedly pointed out. Even though he was always busy and business-oriented, this could also bode well for his future. He was just like Chen in that he was overwhelmed by his work.

Looking back on it, she realized that the flirtation with Chen was perhaps the result of a vain, vulnerable moment. A connection to a high-profile Party cadre like Chen would be helpful to her as a journalist, and publishing his work in her section would also be to her credit. Add to this the fact that Xiang had vanished without telling her first or contacting her for days.

Then it developed further than she anticipated.

But now Xiang was back with an explanation for his behavior—a reasonable one—and with the surprise proposal, accompanied by a passionate speech as he slipped the ring onto her finger: “In Hong Kong, after finally signing the business deal, I realized that all the success in the world meant nothing without you.”

To be honest, she’d been waiting for Xiang to make a move. Xiang hadn’t done so earlier because his father had wanted him to make a different choice, one that made more business sense. Specifically, he wanted an alliance with another rich family in the city. Xiang finally made his own move, though, when she least expected it. She couldn’t afford not to accept.

So what explanation could she offer Chen?

It occurred to her that maybe neither of them had taken it too seriously, from the day they first met at the Writers’ Association. If there was a moment when something came close to developing between the two of them, it would have to be that afternoon in Shaoxing, with memories of the romantic poems and stories echoing around them in Shen Garden. It was also that afternoon, however, that she realized that nothing would ever develop between them. It wasn’t that he was first and foremost a policeman or that he was too much of an enigma for her; it was that he had disappointed her in the same way Xiang had, and he had done so even more dramatically than Xiang.

She reached into her bag and touched the book of translated poetry he’d given her. Somehow she’d brought it here with her. Looking out the window, she recalled some lines from the volume.

She leans against the window / looking out alone to the river, / to thousands of sails passing along— / none is the one she waits for. / The sun setting slant, / the water running silent into the distance, / her heart breaks at the sight / of the islet enclosed in white duckweed.

Except for the absence of white duckweed, it was the same scene, more than a thousand years later.

She couldn’t shake off the feeling that Chen might have approached her with an ulterior motive, though in her high-strung state of mind, she could be imagining things.

A waiter approached her with a pot of tea and interrupted the train of her thought. The service here was excellent. She had researched the restaurant online. It was obscenely expensive, yet perhaps that fact appealed to upstarts eager for a taste of elite status. Sipping at the tea, she looked out the window at the park.

It wasn’t much of a park, and it looked even more crowded with the recent additions, such as the concrete monument that looked like the logo of Three-Lance underwear, the fashionable new cafés and bars, and the array of other architectural add-ons along the bank. She had never understood why the Shanghainese made such a big deal of the park, but she’d heard it was a place special to Chen.

Beyond the park, petrels glided over the waves, their wings flashing in the gray light, as if flying out of a fast-fading dream. The dividing line between Huangpu River and Suzhou River became less visible.

It was then that Chen stepped into the room, smiling. To her surprise, he was wearing a light gray Mao jacket. He had never dressed so formally in her presence.

“Sorry I’m late. The meeting with the city government took longer than expected. I had no time to change.”

“No wonder you’re wearing a Mao jacket. That’s very politically correct, but there’s no need to change, Chen. Mao jackets are also fashionable now: even Hollywood stars vie to wear one at the Oscars. It fits well with this upscale, high-priced restaurant.”

“The food is not bad here,” he said, “and it’s on the Bund. You’re paying for the view.”

“To be exact, you pay to have your elite status confirmed, and for the satisfaction of knowing you can afford it.”

“Well said, Lianping. For me, it’s really more for the view of the Bund in the background. My favorite place in the city.”

“It’s your feng shui corner,” she said, still hesitant about broaching the subject of her decision, though it wasn’t fair, she knew, to put it off any longer. “Tell me more about it.”

“In the early seventies, I used to practice tai chi with some friends in the park. Then I switched my major to English studies. Because of that, I was able to enter the college after the end of the Cultural Revolution with a high score in English. But as the proverb states, in eight or nine times out of ten, things in this world don’t work out as one plans. Upon graduation, I was assigned to the police bureau, as you know,” he said, taking a sip of tea. “But I still come back here from time to time, to recharge myself with the memories of those years. You may laugh at me for being sentimental, but here, on the very site where this restaurant now stands, for no less than three years I used to sit on a green bench almost every morning.”

“It’s the special feng shui of Bund Park for a rising star, where the water is constantly slapping against the memories of a forever youthful dream.”

“Now you’re being sarcastic, Lianping. It’s more like the fragments of the past that I’ve been using to shore up the present.”

“Now you’re being poetic,” she said in spite of herself.

“In those years, I never dreamed of being a cop, but now it’s too late for me to switch to another profession. It’s not the same for you—for you the world is still so young and various,” he said, changing the topic. “Well, let me tell you something about this restaurant. It doesn’t really reflect the history of Bund Park, but Mr. Gu, the owner of the restaurant, insists on doing it his way.”

“Mr. Gu of the New World Group?”

“Yes. Considering the history of the park, this should be a Western-style restaurant, one that is full of nostalgic flavor. However, Gu wouldn’t think of it. He wanted to serve Chinese cuisine to Chinese customers. This may just be his way of showing his patriotism.”

“It’s also a gesture of political correctness. There was the legendary sign outside the park, back in the twenties, that read ‘No Chinese or dogs.’ Of course, some scholars claim that the sign never existed, that it was a story made up by the Party authorities after 1949.”

“Well, the line between truth and fiction is always being constructed and deconstructed by the people in power. Whether or not Gu believes in the authenticity of the sign, I don’t know, but the controversy about it has helped the business. The restaurant is very expensive, which is symbolic of China’s new wealth. Of course, it is open to Westerners, too, as long as they are willing to pay the prices. In fact, I’ve heard that quite a number of Western businessmen make a point of inviting their Chinese partners to dine here.”

She looked at the menu and the prices, which were shocking, even after Chen’s warning.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chen said. “We don’t have to order a lot, and Gu won’t charge me those prices. I just wanted a quiet place to talk to you.”

She had no idea what he wanted to talk to her about, and she was debating with herself whether she should say something first. She had rehearsed a speech, but she hadn’t worked up the confidence to deliver it.

“So, do you know a lot of Big Bucks, Chen?”

“Not a lot, but in today’s society, even a cop can hardly accomplish anything without connections.”

“Do you know Xiang Buqun of Purple City Group?”

“Xiang Buqun—isn’t he the head of a large property group? I think I met him at the opening ceremony of the New World Project. Maybe on some other occasions as well. Why do you ask?”

“I want to talk to you,” she said with difficulty, “about something I might not have told you. I’ve been seeing Xiang Haiping, Xiang Buqun’s son, for quite a while. Last month he went to Shenzhen on business, but now he’s back, and he’s proposed to me.”

“Xiang Haiping, the successor to the group?”

“Possibly the successor,” she said in a low voice. She couldn’t look him in the eye, but she caught sight of something indecipherable in his expression. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the reaction she’d anticipated.

Before either of them could say anything further, Gu burst into the room. He was wearing a pair of rimless glasses, a light-colored wool suit, and a scarlet silk tie. A dapper man, though short in stature, he looked expansive.

“It’s the first time you’ve come here, Chief Inspector Chen. I’m honored to have you here,” he said, his glance taking Lianping in with unconcealed approval. “And Lianping is here with you today. I’m really honored to have both of you here.”

She’d met Gu at some business conferences, though they were barely nodding acquaintances. As the chairman of the New World Group, Gu kept a low profile and had declined her request for an interview.

“We needed a quiet place, so I thought of you,” Chen said. “But you’ll have to treat me as you would an ordinary customer, Mr. Gu.”

“How can you say that, Chief Inspector Chen? You’ve finally accepted the invitation to my restaurant that I extended a long time ago. No, there’s no way I can allow you to back out. Besides, you don’t want me to lose face in front of a beauty like Lianping?”

“So you’re buddies,” she observed, not knowing what else to say.

“Let me tell you something about him, Lianping,” Gu said with a serious air. “Do you know how New World became so successful?”

It was obvious that Gu was in no hurry to leave them alone, and she felt somehow relieved. It might be just as well that there was another person with them in the private room doing the talking. She had already said what she had to say.

“How?” she asked.

“It was all due to a crucial loan made at the very beginning of New World, which was possible only because of Chen’s superb translation of the business plan for the project. That translation was so difficult. A lot of the business terms didn’t even exist in the Chinese language then. The translation had to convey the meaning textually as well as contextually. When the American venture capitalist read the business plan in English and learned that it had been translated by a high-ranking Shanghai police officer, he was so impressed that he immediately approved the loan.”

The American might not have been impressed by Chen’s command of English so much as he was by Gu’s connection to “a high-ranking Shanghai police officer.” For this sort of shikumen redevelopment project, right in the center of the city, official connections might have been the most crucial factor for it to succeed. The American probably knew that as well as she did.

“I begged him to help with the translation,” Gu went on. “I even mentioned a bonus in the event the loan was approved. Naturally, I had to keep my word, but he wouldn’t listen. When New World went public, I had no choice but to invest the bonus I’d promised in the shares of the IPO for him. It wasn’t a large bonus, just about ten thousand shares.”

She did a quick calculation in her mind. As a finance journalist, she happened to be familiar with the stock. After repeated stock splits, at least four or five of them by now, and at the present share price of over eighty yuan, that could add up to a sizable fortune.

But why was Gu telling her all this? It seemed so unlike the shrewd businessman she’d known him to be. Then she realized what was happening. Gu must have assumed he knew what was going on: a prominent Party cadre had brought a young girl to a private room in a fancy restaurant. So what could Gu do to help Chen out in this imagined romantic scenario? He was trying to make Chen seem even more of a catch, if possible, in her eyes—not only a rising Party official with a great future, but a Big Buck too.

“Cut it out, Gu. Don’t talk about business in the company of a finance journalist. Someday, she might write about my shady dealings with Big Bucks like you,” Chen said with a laugh. “For the record, I never agreed to any such bonus. For that translation, which was only about twenty pages in all, you paid me more than I could have made for translating twenty books. That was more than enough.”

“No. It was far from enough for such a successful project,” Gu insisted, waving his hand emphatically. He turned his attention to Lianping. “In today’s society, an incorruptible police officer is almost an endangered species. I admire him not for his position, but for all the things he’s done for the country. An ordinary businessman like me has to consider himself extremely lucky to have a friend like Chief Inspector Chen.”

“If I write a biography of Chen someday,” she said with a smile, “I’ll definitely include that part, Mr. Gu.”

“Please do, Lianping. You would be a fantastic biographer, providing all the intimate details. So let me share one more thing I’ve just learned about our chief inspector. His mother was in the hospital last month.”

“East China.”

“Yes. It’s a special yet expensive hospital. A number of the nutritional supplements necessary for her recovery are pricey and aren’t covered by medical insurance. They cost way too much for a cop like him to afford, so I left a gift card for her at the hospital. For once, the gift card wasn’t returned to me but instead it was cashed. The store manager contacted me to verify the name of the woman who cashed it in. It wasn’t his mother, but the widow of Chen’s colleague. So what could I say?”

“Come now. You’re painting a portrait of me as some kind of selfless model Communist, like Comrade Lei Feng. It was a gift card of such a large sum, my mother wanted me to give it back to you,” Chen said. “Detective Wei died in an accident last week, and his family needed help badly. So, on the spur of the moment, I gave your gift card to his inconsolable widow. It was your good deed, not mine. Good deeds will not go unrewarded, as my mother always says.”

Chen hadn’t told Lianping anything about it, but once he mentioned Wei’s widow, she remembered the incident.

“His mother is a wonderful woman,” Gu said. “You’ve met her, haven’t you?”

“No, I only met Chief Inspector Chen a couple of weeks ago.”

“For a woman of her age, she embodies Buddhist enlightenment. She believes in karma, and so do I,” Gu said, changing the subject unexpectedly. “Indeed, karma is seen everywhere in the world of red dust.”

“Yes?” she asked. The abrupt turn in the conversation mystified her.

“This morning I ran into Old Xiang of the Purple City Group, which is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. He was hitting me up for an emergency loan. Only a few people know anything about it right now, so don’t write about it in your newspaper, Lianping. But did you know how the Purple City got its start? By selling fake medicine.”

Then it dawned on her. As a well-connected businessman, Gu might have heard something about Xiang and her. It wasn’t the sort of information she’d expect Gu to share, but with Chen hovering in the background, she understood what Gu was doing. Did Chen realize the purpose of Gu’s revelation? Probably. It wasn’t as if the chief inspector needed that kind of help, but Gu must have seen it as another opportunity to do a favor for Chen.

She was then seized by a sense of foreboding. Xiang might not have told her everything. His marriage proposal had come out of the blue. She now wondered about it. Could his family’s troubled business be the reason why he rushed to propose? Once their company filed for bankruptcy, Xiang knew he’d never be able to win her hand.

If this was the case, she should try to learn more from Gu. Gu, however, was already bowing out of the room.

“Sorry, I’m always garrulous when I’m around Chen. I just let myself get carried away. I have to go to a business meeting now, so I’ll leave the two of you alone. Would you like me to send up any special dishes?”

“I have only one request, Gu,” Chen said. “Don’t have a waitress hover outside or check on us frequently.”

“Of course. How about I have some appetizers brought in first, along with a bottle of French champagne? Then, whenever you’re ready, let the waitress know. She won’t do anything until you signal her.”

“That’s fantastic. Thank you for everything.”