“I’m so glad to meet you, Chief Inspector Chen. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I’m glad to meet you, too, Lieutenant Sheng. You’re here on special detachment from Beijing, I hear.”
“Oh, there’s nothing special about it. If anything, I think I was sent because of the computer science classes I took at night school.”
“That can be important these days.”
“You’re a capable and experienced police officer, so there’s no point in beating around the bush,” Sheng said. “I was sent here because of the Zhou case, but I’m to focus on a different aspect. You know how all this trouble started. It was that search-the human-flesh search engine-which started on that Web forum. These witch hunts have become an Internet mass movement, and they are getting out of control. They are tearing the image of our Party and government to shreds. The bloggers and forum users-those so-called netizens-will use any and every excuse, no matter how flimsy, including a pack of high-priced cigarettes, to vent their frustration and fury against the Party authorities. If it keeps on like this, the stability of our socialist country will be destroyed.”
Chen listened without responding immediately. It was always easy to talk about motives, no matter what sort of investigation it was, and as far as Internal Security was concerned, the motive behind the Internet pile-on in the Zhou case was obvious.
Jiang, who was in charge of the team from the city government, seemed to be inclined toward the same conclusion. Sheng should have talked to Jiang instead.
“So what are you going to do?” Chen said, choosing to avoid a confrontation for the moment.
“We are going to nail the troublemaker who first sent the picture of the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty to the Web forum. As for Zhou, whatever he might have done, he has already been punished to the fullest.”
“Tracing the photo shouldn’t be too difficult for you. There are many Internet experts working for the government, and they should be able to trace it back to the source.”
“It’s not that easy. We’ve traced it only as far as the Web forum on which it was originally posted. The moderator claims that he received the picture from an anonymous sender.”
“I’m not a computer expert,” Chen said, determined to play dumb, “but isn’t it possible to trace the IP address back to the computer that sent it?”
“Well, it was sent from a computer at an Internet café-a place called Flying Horse-and done in such a devious way that despite the new regulations, we’ve hit a dead end. We have reason to believe it was a premeditated attack.”
Chen didn’t know what new regulations Sheng was talking about, other than the new requirement to show ID at the cafés. It wasn’t news that the government was continually tightening its control over the Internet. That was one of the jobs of Internal Security.
“I see. So, the sender took precautions. I suppose that’s not surprising, since the controversy about governmental controls of the Internet has been going on a while,” Chen said cautiously.
“But think about what happened after the original photo was posted. There were so many pictures and posts that popped up almost immediately. That was like a blitz. Everything had been orchestrated.”
There was no arguing with Internal Security, so Chen didn’t try.
“So let’s help each other, Chief Inspector Chen. If I find anything useful in your investigation, I’ll let you know immediately.”
“And vice versa, of course,” Chen said, though he wasn’t so sure about that. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Sheng was trying to sound him out. But that was a game two could play.
For the moment, the meeting was unfolding with no tangible animosity between them, even though it was by no means a meeting between allies. Each had his own agenda-one that was undisclosed and unknown to the other.
From the tall window of the hotel room, which had a balcony overlooking Shanxi Road, Chen thought he glimpsed a corner of the other hotel across the street. The traffic appeared once again to be stuck in a terrible snarl.
“Have there been any new developments in your investigation, Chief Inspector Chen?” Sheng said, finally coming to the point.
“Well, it’s much like the proverb, ‘A blind man is riding a blind horse toward a fathomless lake in a dark night,’” Chen said vaguely.
“Come on. You’re a celebrated poet, always full of poetic hyperbole.”
But he wasn’t. The metaphor he recited wasn’t applicable just to him but to the others involved in the case as well. The proverb had come to him last night as he lay sleepless in a Shaoxing hotel room, staring at the shifting patterns of shadows across the ceiling.
He had thought of it again in the morning, after reading the e-mail from Comrade Zhao.
Sheng lit a cigarette for Chen, and then one for himself. Waving the match out casually, he changed the topic. “How was your trip to Shaoxing?”
“Oh, it was for a literature festival. Shaoxing is the hometown of Lu Xun,” Chen said, immediately on high alert. “Internal Security truly is well informed.”
“Please don’t take that the wrong way. I just happened to be talking to your Party Secretary Li yesterday and he mentioned your trip.”
That was possible. Still, it came as no relief to Chen. Li had been informing Internal Security of every move he’d been making.
“The festival is simply an excuse for a group of writers to go sightseeing and feasting. The Shaoxing wine there is really superb. I finished off a small urn of it and got so drunk that Bi Liangpei, the chairman of Shaoxing Writers’ Association, had to help me all the way back to the hotel.”
That was mostly true. Bi had walked him back to the hotel, but Chen hadn’t been that drunk. He remembered trying to find Lianping amidst the chirping of small insects in the hotel garden in the dark, which somehow reminded him of the earlier scene in Shen Garden. She wasn’t registered at the hotel. He wondered whether she’d taken the night train back to Shanghai.
“I wish I could have been there,” Sheng said, setting a cup of instant coffee down on the coffee table. “I was here, doing nothing but working through a list of the people who posted about Zhou online and posted evidence of his corruption. However, the pictures they posted of Zhou’s cars and houses were all real. There’s no way to accuse them of slandering him, and I have to admit it’s understandable why they targeted him. Since such a large number of people were posting and protesting about Zhou, it’s out of the question for the government to punish them all. Some of them were simply following the crowd.”
Sheng abruptly seemed to be singing a different tune.
“So…” Chen echoed noncommittally, waiting for Sheng to continue.
“The sender of the first e-mail, however, is a devious troublemaker. There’s no question about it. The human-flesh search was coordinated with the subsequent barrage of online posts, which were too sudden and overwhelming for Zhou or anybody to properly respond. It was devastating to the image of our Party.”
“With corruption rampant among our officials,” Chen said, “that kind of Internet attack probably won’t stop anytime soon.”
“You’re right about that. A brand-new Internet star specializing in human-flesh searches popped up recently, though I don’t think he’ll be a real problem.”
“An Internet-search star?”
“Yes. And such stars have fans of their own. Once they have developed a huge following, they may demand Web sites pay them to post their blogs,” Sheng said, shaking his head. “As for this new star, he’s surnamed Ouyang. His special skill is determining the brand of watch an official is wearing in news photos, and then posting the photos online with the brand and price of the watch listed underneath.”
“Expensive watches, I bet.”
“Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Tudor, Tissot… you name it,” Sheng said with unconcealed irritation. “He recently caused a huge uproar with a post containing more than twenty pictures of Party cadres wearing those luxury brands. He didn’t even have to comment on it. In a single day, it was posted and reposted on numerous Web sites, triggering another wave of crowd-sourced searches with more than a hundred thousand responses.”