After this raging outburst, Rong Jinzhen felt as though the freezing rain were burning him, and his blood began to gurgle and flow forth, making him realize the rain too was gushing. As this thought flashed in his mind, he soon felt that his entire body was streaming forth, becoming one with the sky and the earth, drop by drop melting into them, like air together with cloud, like dream together with fantasy. It was then that he heard once more that faint, indiscernible voice from somewhere beyond. It was as if this most pitiable sound issued forth from his lost notebook, in the dirt and the mud, miserable and desperate, appearing and disappearing, intermittently crying out: ‘Rong Jinzhen, listen. . the rainwater is surging, turning the ground into a bubbling mass. . even though the water may have carried your notebook away, it might also carry it back to you. . back to you. . after everything that has happened, why can’t this also happen. . even though the water may have carried your notebook away, it might also carry it back to you. . back to you. . back to you. . back to you. . ’
This was the final strange thought Rong Jinzhen had.
It was an eerie and evil night.
Outside the window the sound of the rain was indomitable, unceasing.
7
This part of the story will make people feel both inspired and sorrowful. It is inspiring because Rong Jinzhen’s notebook will finally be found, sorrowful because Rong Jinzhen will disappear without a trace. Taken altogether, this outcome is what Rong Jinzhen spoke about: God gives us happiness and also suffering; God reveals everything to us.
Rong Jinzhen disappeared the very same evening of the torrential downpour. No one really knew exactly when he stepped out of his room, whether it was early or late in the night, during the rainstorm or after. But everyone knew that he wouldn’t return — like a bird that forever leaves its mother’s nest, or like a circling star forever torn from its orbit.
Rong Jinzhen’s disappearance caused the case to become more complicated and confused. One person suggested that perhaps his disappearance was the next stage in the case of the missing notebook, that the operation was a two-step procedure. The identity of the thief now became more mysterious and sinister. However, more people believed that Rong Jinzhen’s disappearance was due to his lack of hope, his inability to withstand the fear and pain of what had happened. Everyone knew that ciphers were Rong Jinzhen’s life, and that meant that his notebook was too. Now hope of finding his notebook was slowly but surely fading — even if it were located, it would most likely be nothing more than a water-soaked ink smudge. There was no way that he could take a lighter view of what had happened; suicide no longer seemed impossible.
What happened afterwards seemed to confirm everyone’s misgivings. One afternoon, along the eastern side of the river that made its way through B City, close to an oil refinery, a leather shoe was picked up. Vasili identified it immediately as belonging to Rong Jinzhen because of its stretched mouth, caused by all the recent rushing about in search of the notebook.
It was at this time that Vasili began to believe that their efforts to find Rong Jinzhen would in truth result in nothing. Dejected, he couldn’t help but feel that they would never find the notebook either. Perhaps all that they would find would be Rong Jinzhen’s corpse floating down a muddy torrent.
If things turned out this way, Vasili conjectured, then it would have been better had he taken Rong Jinzhen home at the beginning. The whole situation seemed to be hanging over his head like an evil sword of Damocles.
‘Fuck it all!’ Holding Rong Jinzhen’s dirtied shoe in his hand, he couldn’t help but violently fling it as far away as possible, as if he were attempting to do away with all of the bad luck that had hung over these past days.
This all transpired on the ninth day of the investigation. No information had come to light about the missing notebook, which couldn’t help but make people lose heart; the shadow of despair began to entrench itself in peoples’ minds, growing and expanding, consuming all hope. Because of this, Headquarters agreed with the investigators and decided to publicize what had happened instead of keeping it a secret.
The following day, in the morning edition of the B City Daily, a lost property notice was printed and widely circulated. The person in search of the missing item was identified as a scientist, the notebook that had been lost contained information on certain new technological innovations the nation had been working on.
We should say that carrying out this sort of action was exceptionally risky due to the fact that the thief could, upon learning of this public search, either hide the notebook away or destroy it, causing the investigators’ work to reach an impasse. However, contrary to expectations, that evening at precisely 22:03, the telephone hotline at the special investigative team’s office rang. Three hands immediately reached out to grab the phone, but Vasili, being exceptionally nimble, took hold of it first: ‘Hello, this is the Offices of the Special Investigative Division, please state your information.’
‘. . ’
‘Hello, hello, is anyone there? Please speak.’
‘Ah, ah, ah. . ’
The telephone went dead.
Crestfallen, Vasili returned the receiver to its base, feeling as though he had been making a mountain out of a molehill. A minute later the telephone rang again.
Yet again Vasili grabbed the receiver first. When he said hello, he immediately heard a hurried and agitated voice issuing from the phone: ‘The note. . notebook. . is in a letterbox. . ’
‘A letterbox? Where? Hello, what letterbox?’
‘Ah, ah, ah. . ’
Again the phone went dead.
This vile thief; this pathetic and yet somehow adorable little thief. Because the thief was so terribly flustered, as you can imagine, he was unable to finish telling them exactly which letterbox the notebook was in. But no matter, this was enough, quite enough. B City only possessed a few hundred letterboxes, and what did this matter? Luck had finally arrived, for in the first letterbox Vasili opened he discovered –
Under the starlight, the notebook exuded a blue serene glow, a deep quiet that made you a little afraid. But that quiet was perfect, inspiring, like a frozen ocean beginning to thaw, like an ever-sovaluable sapphire.
The notebook was completely unscathed, save for a few pages torn out of the back. An official at Headquarters couldn’t help but humorously remark over the phone: ‘Perhaps that thief used them to wipe his dirty arse.’
Later, another senior official at Headquarters, upon hearing this, furthered the image: ‘If you ever find that little prick, give him some toilet paper, you have that at Unit 701, no?’
But no one was ever assigned the task of finding the thief.
Because, after all, he wasn’t a traitor.
And because Rong Jinzhen had not yet been found.
The next day, in the B City Daily’s main edition, a missing person’s report was printed. It was for Rong Jinzhen:
Rong Jinzhen, male, thirty-seven years of age, 1.65 metres tall, thin stature, pale skin. He was last seen wearing a pair of brown nearsighted spectacles, a blue-green Sun Yat-sen jacket and light grey trousers. His breast pocket held a fountain pen (imported). Around his wrist was a Zhongshan watch. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and English, loves to play chess, his movements are always slow and exact, and it is possible that he is missing one shoe.
On the first day after the missing person’s report, there was no news; the same for the second day.
On the third day, the G Provincial Daily also printed the missing person’s report; there was still no news on that day.