Chinese-Australian novelist and blogger Yang Hengjun, now imprisoned in China after four years of torture and incessant interrogation, is the author of a trilogy of contemporary novels about both PRC Ministry of State Security spies and freelance “citizen spies” with plausible deniability but real links to the MSS.
There are other Chinese stories about Chinese hero spies, but they are usually set in the pre-1949 struggle between the Chinese Communist Party insurgents and the Nationalist Party-led Republic of China.
Fatal Weakness 致命弱点, the first volume of Yang Hengjun’s contemporary Chinese hero-spy trilogy, is translated below.
Yang Hengjun was convicted of espionage in 2022. His sentencing, like that of another Australian journalist Cheng Lei, also charged on questionable grounds, has been delayed several times and remains a sore point in Australia-PRC relations.
If the Chinese-language Wiki and some 2020 press reports are correct, Yang Hengjun worked for MSS for twelve years (1987-1999), and not just two years (1987-89) for the PRC Foreign Ministry.
This novel, then, written just a few years after he left MSS in 1999 and emigrated to Australia, would seem more interesting as literature-int! A wise writerly saying is “write about what you know”. While this may be difficult for writers about time travel or vampires, Yang may have used his MSS background to help write his novel. The novel is about intelligence freelancers, led by a former MSS agent with a strong, supposedly personal connection to the MSS Intelligence Bureau, doing spy stuff where the MSS fears to tread. Makes for drama like the many stories about genius private investigators who run circles around their local police force (like Sherlock Holmes?).
Briefly a diplomat or twelve years a PRC Ministry of State Security intelligence officer? If the latter, he would be a Chinese entry to the group of former intelligence officer-spy novelists — they seem to have had a bunch in England — Ian Fleming, David Cornwell aka John le Carré and Stella Remington (retired MI5 Director) to mention a few.
What can we learn about Chinese intelligence and China in general from this book? In addition to being a spy novel, it follows a cohort of classmates who graduated in International Relations from Peking University in 1987, Fifteen years ago, when I was still working at the U.S. State Department, a colleague at CIA asked me if this book could tell us something about Chinese intelligence that could make it worth translating. I looked it over and told him I didn’t think so. Was I right? Now that I have translated Fatal Weakness 致命弱点 – a book popular in the Chinese-speaking world and available in full text on many Chinese language websites — you can decide for yourself. I found 致命弱点 Fatal Weakness on the website of the Independent Chinese PEN Center.
If Yang Hengjun was with MSS, given his confinement and torture in the PRC reminds me of of the sayings about the Chinese Ministry of State Security mentioned in the book: “The Ministry of State Security os the kind of place where you go in standing up but only leave being carried out prostrate“. 国家安全部是个站着进去，趟着出来的地方
Press reports on Yang Hengjun’s detention, torture and possible MSS Career:
- Australian FM Wong ‘deeply troubled’ by ongoing delays for Australian jailed in China
- Detained Australians in China will have to wait longer to learn their fate
- Fears Australian writer Yang Hengjun could die in Chinese prison as medical condition worsens
- Yang Hengjun: China begins espionage trial of Australian writer
- DW (2020): A friend released Yang Hengjun’s private letter: I was a spy
- VOA (2020): Reuters: Australian writer Yang Hengjun was revealed for the first time and admitted to being a spy of the Ministry of State Security of China
- SBS (Australian gov’t funded 2020) Private letters show Yang Hengjun was a Chinese spy
I found many more reports in Chinese than in English about Yang Hengjun’s career a an MSS spy in Hong Kong and the U.S. The Guardian reported the story.
Guardian (2020) Yang Hengjun: friend says writer told him he was a Chinese spy for 10 years
Feng says Yang told them he was employed by the national security department in Hainan in 1989, and was posted as an undercover officer to Hong Kong in 1992 where he posed as a travel agent, and to the US in 1997 posing as a research fellow.
“I used to be a cadre of the Ministry of National Security. You suddenly kidnapped me; you should at least notify them,” Yang recounted telling the officers.
In another passage relayed by Feng, Yang said he told them: “Even if I am not working in the national security system, you and I know that what I was doing at the time is absolutely the top secret of the state … Note that this doesn’t involve my personal issues. I don’t care, but it may involve state secrets, It involves China-US relations. You have to contact the national security system. Why don’t you still? God, it’s on China’s land. What the hell are you doing?”
Yang apparently claimed he told the public security officers he was no longer a member of the MSS as his thinking had changed and he was now a pro-democracy blogger, but he had nothing to do with the Jasmine Revolution – the shortlived protests in Beijing of which he was accused of being involved.
Feng said Yang resigned from the MSS around 1999-00 to follow his wife and son to Australia and because he was “fed up” with the MSS. There he reinvented himself as an author of spy novels based on his and his colleagues’ experience, and as a pro-democracy blogger.
Guardian (2020) Yang Hengjun: friend says writer told him he was a Chinese spy for 10 years
English language Wikipedia article Yang Hengjun
Chinese-language Wikipedia article has much more detail and alleges that Yang was a Ministry of State Security agent for twelve years rather than a PRC Foreign Ministry employee for two years as his English language bio states. See Google Translate machine translation of the Wiki article 楊恒均 [Yang Hengjun]
Yang Hengjun was born in 1965 to a poor family in a small city in Hubei Province. During the Cultural Revolution, his father, who was a school principal, was criticized. In 1987, Yang graduated from university and publicly claimed to be working for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, but this was only a disguise; in reality, he worked for the Ministry of State Security. 1989, he was transferred from Beijing to Hainan Province. In 1997, shortly after Hong Kong’s return to China, Yang was transferred to the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., where he served as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank (most of the agency’s “senior fellows” are non-residents and unpaid), with the task of gathering intelligence on Hong Kong’s political transition. After 1999, he left the Department of National Security, and in 2000, he and his family moved to Australia and became Australian citizens. In 2006, he began writing essays and current commentaries on the Internet. Yang Hengjun worked for World Knowledge Press and has been the general manager and deputy editor-in-chief of the Sydney Times in Australia since March. His political blogs on Chinese social media sites made him famous, and by 2008 he was one of China’s most prominent online democracy advocates. He wanted to show the Chinese in Australia that they did not need to condemn the West in order to guarantee their attachment to a not well-defined “Chinese motherland”.
Translation of excerpt of Yang Hengjun bio on Chinese-language Wikipedia
Plot summary from the PRC Baidu online encyclopedia:
Fatal Weakness 致命弱点 a 260,000-word book in 26 chapters. After graduating from university and being assigned to work for the Ministry of State Security, Yang Wenfeng goes to Guangdong, where he encounters a series of unusual events: his old classmates at the State Security Bureau in Shanghai, the Guangdong Provincial Government Office, and the Jiuquan Missile Launch Base are one after another put on trial by the state security authorities for leaking secrets and espionage, and he himself is taken away by the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau. With the assistance of his former boss, Director Zhou of the Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of State Security, Yang realized that the U.S. CIA was taking advantage of these old classmates’ fatal weaknesses, such as greed for money and sex, to carry out intelligence infiltration activities in China. In order to protect his old classmates and to clear himself and his lover’s name, Yang seized the fatal weaknesses of the other intelligence agency and fought with his companions to penetrate the tiger’s den. However, Yang Wenfeng is not the only one who grasps the fatal weaknesses of the Chinese and American intelligence agencies. When a double agent with ulterior motives exploits the fatal weaknesses of the Chinese Ministry of National Security and the CIA to achieve his own goals, he seeks to turn the 2008 Beijing Olympics into a disgrace for the Chinese nation, pushing China and the United States into a full-scale confrontation and a worldwide blockade of China.
PRC Baidu online encyclopedia article on Fatal Weakness
My Chinese history teacher at Bowdoin College, John Langlois, told me that you can learn a lot about China by reading contemporary novels. In this age where contacts between the US and China have cut back sharply by mutual suspicion and the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps literature-intelligence will get more attention perhaps joining or rejoining the crowd of ints – humint, sigint etc. List of intelligence gathering disciplines! For Chinese bureaucracy, there is a genre of officialdom stories 官场文学 。
A recurring character in the book is Director Zhou, the head of the Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of State Security, who regularly provides spy truisms. The main character, Yang Wenfeng, worked for the MSS for two years, but left after two years, despite being highly respected in the MSS, to move his parents to the warmer weather of Guangzhou. Nevertheless, Yang feels compelled to return to the spy world as the mastermind of a freelance espionage operation, albeit somewhat coordinated with his old boss Zhou.
Most interesting to me were the many references to Chinese popular attitudes and criticisms of both China and the United States. Mixed in with the criticism of the United States is genuine admiration for the U.S. legal system and the intense pressure the U.S. government constantly feels from public opinion, which often makes it less willing to do immoral things than it might otherwise. Perhaps this is meant as a contrast to China, although authors have to tone down their criticism if they want to be published in China. Publishers probably feel even more pressure to self-censor than they did twenty years ago when this book was written. The villain in this story, along with his father, longs for the good old days of the Cultural Revolution (not violence necessarily but the air of leftist righteousness) before the policy of “opening and reform” took the Communist Party and China downhill. Reminds me of Gao Falin’s 2015 Radio France International interview: It’s Not that Old People are Getting bad, But that the Red Guards are Getting Old.
In this translation, I have added notes to some of the references. On some of the more obscure ones, or where the Chinese-language Wikipedia article was much more comprehensive than the English-language one, I used DeepL machine translation, captured it as a photo, and added it as an in-text note. Using Wikiedia is reactionary of me, I admit — Wikipedia in all languages has been bannd in China since 2019. Hunting down references, especially my extensive research and translation musings on Tang poetry while translating the sexiest chapter in the book (Chapter 18 if you can’t wait) — as expected in a spy novel — was one of the most enjoyable aspects of working on this translation.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (1)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 22, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Introduction
A cadaver processing factory on the outskirts of Qingdao, Shandong Province.
“Mr. Yang, thank you for your patronage. May I ask how you heard about our factory?” The receptionist asked Yang Wenfeng with a professional smile.
“I saw the human specimen exhibition that your German boss held in Hong Kong three years ago, which was visited by hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people.”
“Ah, I know about the exhibition in Hong Kong. Our boss made more than 10 million Hong Kong dollars from the tickets alone. But that is not his biggest profit from that exhibition.” The factory receptionist accompanied Yang Wenfeng on his tour and explained the exhibits. “Before coming to Hong Kong to hold the exhibition, someone told our German boss that the Chinese are particularly superstitious and have taboos about human corpses, but our boss did it anyway, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people visited the exhibition. Their interest in the specimens was far greater than that of Westerners. Our boss then decided to set up this cadaver processing factory in China. At present, our human body processing factory is the largest in the world, with 1,860 workers processing over 6,000 corpses every year -“
“Where do all the corpses come from?” Yang Wenfeng interrupted her.
“The bodies were all shipped from overseas.”
“Oh, so – is there one as tall as me?” Yang Wenfeng asked timidly.
The receptionist looked at Yang Wenfeng in surprise, then laughed and said, “Do you think all Germans are tall and big? In fact, many corpses are as long as you are. Because the corpse is soaked in drugs and shipped here, shipped after our technicians then use special drugs to treat them. So after a certain process, which in total take nine months to make human specimens. After that, the human specimen is already a quarter shorter than the body was when it was alive”.
Yang Wenfeng nodded as they passed the wall marked “Workshop” in blue Chinese and English. The woman explained: “This is where we open the containers of corpses shipped in from all over the world, mainly from Germany. We take out a frozen corpse, remove the internal organs, and then soak the corpse separately in a sealed medicine box. This drug formula was invented by our boss, just like the formula of Coca-Cola you drink every day, it is a trade secret.
The corpses are soaked here for six months, and then they are transported to the second workshop, called the air-drying workshop, mainly for embalming and air-drying treatment. After finishing here, no matter what the temperature, it will not deteriorate, and like the specialty dry-cured ham from Jinhua. Even if the corpse is displayed in a supermarket, it would not attract flies and insects.
The next process is the third workshop, where all the technicians have been trained by the boss himself for at least six months. Their job is to cut up the processed corpses and put them in different positions according to the customer’s wishes. Some seem to be jumping like they were playing ball. Some look like they are ready to run to the battlefield to fight, as long as you put a gun in their hands. Others assume the eighteen different positions of sexual intercourse. If they were displayed in a public library, you would think they could quietly tell a vast number of stories!
Finally, we use special technology to fix the corpse in these colorful poses. This technology is currently exclusive to our boss. Once the posture is fixed, no matter how strong you are, you cannot change it. Our human specimens also have a special feature: their human body muscles and facial expressions are meticulously reproduced, our manufactured human faces are vividly happy, angry, sad, and won’t change in fifty years.”
“Other factory workers have been laid off, but you are still hiring, it seems you are doing a good business.” Yang Wenfeng said and covered his nose.
“Our products are in short supply.” She couldn’t help but look proud as she said this. “At first it was only medical laboratories and medical universities that bought them for teaching purposes, then many institutions came to us to order them, and now even individuals like to buy back a cadaver specimen to display in their homes or offices as decoration…”
“Are all foreigners buying them?” Yang Wenfeng asked.
“Not so much. Now some Chinese organizations are also starting to buy from us. When our boss wanted to open his biggest factory in China, he looked at the potential of the Chinese market. At that time, this factory was mainly engaged in material (corpse) processing, and the product was mainly exported, I heard that we will also open a second and third branch in China soon, when the time comes to focus on domestic sales. Oh yes, Mr. Yang, would you like to buy a copy in what position?” The lady stared at the uncomfortable Yang Wenfeng and asked.
“I… I want to buy a body that sits and drives.”
“Interesting! Our customers are people who buy in all poses. I think Mr. Yang must be a car collector! Well, I think there is no problem, it will cost HK$50,000, but you will have to wait one year for delivery”
“No, I want it this week, and I can add an extra 20,000 yuan for an expedited fee.” Yang Wenfeng’s eyes looked somewhere else.
The lady thought for a few seconds, took out her computer memory, pretended to press it, and sighed with relief when she looked up, “You’re in luck, Mr. Yang, there happens to be a human specimen in a sitting position, as long as we work a little extra to lift both of his hands up. I think we can make a deal, you can go back to Guangzhou first after paying, and the product can be delivered in a few days.”
“Thank you!” After Yang Wenfeng finished, he was no longer interested in continuing the tour.
Chapter 1 Who am I?
I have lived here for over two years and have never heard anyone knock on my door with such patience. For more than two years, I can hardly remember anyone knocking on my door, except of course the landlord who collects the rent, that even if I pay the rent on time, he will come in from time to time to check the condition of the room for some reason.
The knock on the door sounded again, this time with more urgency. I snapped out of my stupor, estimating it to be after ten, judging by the fact that the sun’s rays were already shining from my feet to my butt. The trajectory of the summer sun’s rays shifted through my small one-room apartment. I remained motionless, squinting on my bed, trying to wait until someone outside lost patience or thought no one was in the room and gave up. But repeated knocks on the door made me give up first. I got up, took the large towel hanging on the chair next to the bed, wrapped it around my lower body, and walked to the door with my bare arms. When the door opened, the landlord was shoving a key into the hole with a shaky hand, as if he had tried several times. Before I had time to get angry, I saw two strange middle-aged men standing behind him, one tall and one short. The old landlord stepped aside, and the short, slightly fat one of them waved his ID card in front of me and said without waiting for me to react, “We are police officers. Your name is Yang Wenfeng, right?”
I nodded and took a good look at the fat cop. The fat cop had a tired face, and his t-shirt was so dirty that I couldn’t tell what color it was. His dark gray pants were wrinkled. His colleague, who was much taller and looked much thinner, stood there staring at me somberly.
“Change your clothes and come with us to the station to help with a case!”
I think, probably impatient from waiting outside, he should have been more polite and said, “Please come back to the station with us to assist on a case.”
I asked them to wait outside for a moment and I went in to change and came out. The two policemen looked at each other, and then the taller one swept his head over my shoulder into the room, probably seeing that I could not escape through the only window with a security net. I changed my clothes, deliberately making noises they could hear even if they were standing outside the door. I thought they would be nervous if they couldn’t hear a sound in the room, and if the police were nervous, I would be nervous.
Sitting in the back of the police car, no one talked on the way. When I arrived at the Guangzhou Huizhouqiao Public Security Bureau, I followed them up to the second floor. The fat policeman took me into a room that looked like a conference room, and the taller policeman went to the other side of the second floor. The fat policeman gestured for me to sit down and asked me if I smoked, I shook my head and he stopped talking. After about ten minutes, the taller policeman opened the door and came in, holding three paper cups and a bottle of mineral water, with a file under his arm, and they both sat down in front of me.
“You don’t seem surprised that you’re in and out of the Public Security Bureau a lot?” The fat man looked at me with a bizarre expression.
“I’ve come for a temporary residence permit and a temporary account before, but this is the first time I’ve come in your car like this.”
“Do you know why we called you?
“Didn’t you say you had a case you wanted me to help you with?”
“Right!” The fat cop was a little amused, “So do you know what the case is?”
I shook my head.
“Just say you know or you don’t know and in the future you will answer all our questions without shaking or nodding your head.” The tall policeman said seriously. He paused for a moment and pointed at the fat policeman as if remembering, “He is Section Chief Zhang, my surname is Li, and we are from the Homicide Section.” Before he could finish, Section Chief Zhang hastily added, “He is our Section Chief Li.
“Chief Zhang, Chief Li, how are you?” Now that I know their names, I feel the need to be a little more formal and polite, but I will not introduce myself, the word “homicide” makes me not so eager to talk. The slim Chief Lee’s face is angular, somewhat masculine, the beauty of the face with a pair of triangular eyes. The fat section chief Zhang’s body shape is a bit more unclear, the body has rolled round, there is nothing angular, plus a thick double chin, like looking like a public security fighter.
While I was watching them, the two of them winked at each other, and it seems they decided that Chief Zhang would preside over my interrogation.
Chief Zhang cleared his throat, “Do you know Xie Wanrong?”
I asked him to repeat the name “Xie Wanrong” that I seemed to have heard before, but after a quick search of my memory, I couldn’t match the name with any of the women I had left in my mind. I’m still pretending to remember seriously, in fact, there aren’t many women with names in my memory, most of the women’s faces that remain in my mind are those attractive women I’ve seen in movies and TV or on the streets of shopping malls, but I don’t have any names to attach to them. I don’t want the public security comrades to think that I didn’t think about their question before answering it. I also don’t want the Public Security comrades to think that I don’t have some information about women in my head as I approach forty. Finally, I said without regret, “I don’t know, or I can’t remember right now.
“Can you be sure? Think again.”
I pretended to think again. Then I shook my head and told them I was sure I didn’t know a woman by that name.
The two section chiefs looked at each other, and then stared at me at the same time, Zhang’s face was replaced with a slightly happy smile, even the gloomy and serious Li’s face also vaguely appeared a trace of a smile, “That’s good. Chief Li said, standing up and pacing around the room before sitting down again. Section Chief Zhang took a big sip of water, and I felt that her mood was just like the atmosphere in the room, obviously becoming more cheerful. I was a little confused, and when they sat down, I muttered, “I don’t know what you mean, what’s going on?”
“The thing is, we think we’re onto something with this case.”
“Is it because I don’t know this woman?”
“No, because you lied!” Chief Li interjected, “We don’t like it when suspects lie, but a cover-up lie can help us a lot.” He said as he pulled an enlarged photo from the case file and slowly slid it across the table. On the other side of the table, the blurred corners of the black and white photo gave me the impression that it was a picture of Rong’er lying in bed. She often poses in front of me in this provocative position, lying on the bed, half of her long black hair scattered on the pillow, the other half from her snow-white neck down to her full breasts, one pink leg slightly raised, the lower body wearing sexy thong panties to reveal but also to cover, this moment nine times out of ten I will be like a leak. These things appear in my mind like lightning, the photo has been positively placed in front of me, I immediately realized that this is the public security forensics officers shot the scene photos. Rong’er mouth tightly closed, but eyes wide open, my heart a tightening, immediately avoided the photo of empty eyes.
“Well, you knew her, didn’t you? This morning, her sisters found her dead like this.”
“It’s Rong’er! I know her, I saw her yesterday.” I didn’t want to look at the photo again, but I could be sure that the empty gaze was still looking at me. “
“But you just said that you don’t know her, I have to remind you that you lied!” Section Chief Li’s voice suddenly took on a majestic tone, “You lied about the least of your problems! That makes the problem better.”
Seeing that I was still silent, Zhang took the opportunity to set us straight: “To save everyone’s time, why don’t you tell us frankly what you had to do with Xie Wanrong’s death? Or you can tell us, did you kill Xie Wanrong?”
I forced myself to look at the photo in front of me again, Rong’er’s calm appearance made me believe that she was really dead, “Was it a murder? Or a suicide?”
“You should answer questions, not ask them.” Chief Zhang pretended to be angry, “We still have to wait for the final identification, but from the evidence known so far, it is believed that she was killed by someone. You see, even after she died, she was still posed like that, a person who commits suicide cannot be in such a provocative pose at the time of death, right? Can you answer the question now?”
“I can’t remember her name, I always called her Rong’er, she liked it when I called her that, and I liked it when I called her that.”
“Rong’er? So that’s it,” the two public security officers show disbelief and disappointment, “then tell us, how did she die? “
“Section Chief Li, Section Chief Zhang, you should be the ones to tell me how she died, I don’t know anything, really!” I said eagerly. Then I thought that knowing about Rong’er’s death here and now more or less eased my grief, because I had to face two public security officers who were used to death, and I had to be careful to defend myself, otherwise the news of Rong’er’s death would have made me cry.
In order to save everyone’s time, I told the public security, Rong’er is from western Hunan, I am from western Hubei, men and women who love each other back home like to call each other “Yangzi”, “Wan’er”, “Rong’er “. Especially for those of us who are away from home, this kind of call makes people feel affectionate. I think Xie Wanrong let me call her Rong’er probably has another meaning, she is particularly admires the character Huang Rong in Jin Yong‘s novels [Translator’s Note: The Legend of the Condor Heroes and The Return of the Condor Heroes] , she often said, if this life one can not find a hopelessly romantic person like Guo Jing with high martial arts skills but also passionately forever attached to his lover, then life has little meaning.
Zhang listened with some fascination, but Li showed some impatience. I think Zhang might have read Jin Yong’s novels, but Li was such a serious person that he probably did not read martial arts novels. I talked for about half an hour. Finally, Li could not help but interrupt me.
“I think, can’t we conclude from your words that Rong’er will feel that life is meaningless if she can’t find someone who truly loves him like that Guo what’s-his-name warrior, are you implying that she will commit suicide because of that?”
“I mean this, no, no, I did not mean to imply that she would commit suicide, whether she would commit suicide is up to Public Security to decide.” This is the first time since I came to the Bureau that I am suspicious of Chief Li, “Did I not also say that only if two people love each other can the woman be called Rong’er?”
“Do you love each other?” Chief Li looked at me for a while, and then swept the photo on the table. I felt very uncomfortable, I was thirty-seven, this photo of Rong’er was only twenty-two, and Rong’er would always be twenty-two, but I would have to get older every year.
“Such a love is not bad!” Chief Zhang, listening intently to my story, exclaimed, “Does she have a regular job?”
“She’s a prostitute, I don’t know if that counts as a regular job.” I said dryly.
A fascinated and yearning expression suddenly froze on the face of Zhang’s section chief, who immediately came to his senses: “We know what she was doing. This morning we checked her room, surprisingly, what people’s mailing address phone can not find, only yours. Your picture, address and clothes were stuffed in almost every drawer of hers. I think she must – love you?!”
The word “love” was strangely drawn out. I think he probably has trouble saying it. I understand that in Guangzhou, a metropolis where foreigners, migrant workers from the countryside, and female companions congregate, the word love is not often used.
“I think she may have fallen in love with me, and I also feel that I can’t do without her. I meant what I said, “I can tell you, don’t waste your time, I had nothing to do with her death. After I saw her yesterday, I went back to my own place for the night, you see, we live just a few blocks apart.” I paused for a moment to see that neither of them spoke, and continued, “Chief Li and Chief Zhang, what needs to be said has been said, can I go home now?”
The two of them told me to wait a little longer and went out, returning after about fifteen minutes. Section Chief Zhang said to me, “Today is a good start, and I hope we can continue to work together. Then he said that since I do not have a fixed work unit, the temporary account has also expired, if I leave, it will probably disappear like air without a trace, but I am the only key person they currently have involved in such a serious “murder case,” so he asked me in a consultative tone. “Can you stay here for a few days and let us get to the bottom of this before you go home?”
I stared at him in surprise, and with my understanding of the law, I was unable to speak for a moment. Section Chief Li probably saw this and then explained to me: “This is different from detention, just considering your special situation, I hope you will stay here to cooperate with us to solve the case. We have searched all of the deceased’s belongings, and so far, surprisingly, we have not found that she had anyone close to her. I think you also want to find the killer as soon as possible, right? During your stay here, all meals will be paid for by us. Although you are staying in the detention center, your room will be unlocked and we will explain to the guards that you can leave at any time if you wish. However, we hope you understand that if the deceased was murdered, you are indeed the prime suspect and the only clue we have at the moment to solve the case. So if you really want to leave, we’ll need someone to watch you around the clock. Look, our police force and resources are limited, as an ordinary citizen, should you not make a small contribution to our public security work and public safety in any way you can”.
I was stunned to hear that I had to contribute to public safety in this way. But I remembered a report I had just read that more than 500 public security officers die in the line of duty every year, and more than half of them die from fatigue. I know there are a few bad apples, but the vast majority of public security officers are dedicated to their duties. I nod my head.
Section Chief Zhang smiled gratefully and hurriedly said, “If you agree, we can sign an agreement and make a pledge.”
“Do I need a lawyer?” I asked, looking at her.
“What do you mean, we are not arresting you, why would you need a lawyer? Besides, didn’t you say you didn’t commit the crime of murder? Then why do you need a lawyer?”
I think they were very polite, but I already felt how serious this was. If I really want to leave, they can’t stop me, but they will quickly get an arrest warrant, and then all politeness will be gone, and I may even have a criminal record on my file. Although I didn’t know where the file on me was. No matter where you eat, live, and get on in life, it is best to cooperate with the local public security bureau. When I told them that I would cooperate, they calmed down.
“I think, Mr. Yang, you need a change of clothes or something. If you agree, I can stop by your house on my way home from work tonight and help you pack so you don’t have to make another trip, not to mention that our police cars are on duty.”
I silently handed him the key to my room, understanding their eagerness to solve the case. At the moment, everything is formalized in the Public Security Bureau, to get a “search warrant” to go through a day or two of formalities, so they take the opportunity to help me get clothes to my room to look around. Except for two or three off-color Hong Kong videotapes, my room had nothing untoward, so they let me search it.
But I did not expect my stay to last more than 20 days. A week later, when I lost patience and asked to leave, the two section chiefs had gathered enough evidence to formally arrest me. So I stayed in the same single room in the detention center again, only this time the door was securely locked from the outside.
The first week there was not much different from the one I spent in my small rented room. Since Rong’er’s autopsy had to be arranged, they couldn’t go deeper into the investigation until they had evidence of her murder. But Chief Li and Zhang took the time to come over every day and talk to me for an hour or two. The topic of our conversation remained the same throughout the week, revolving around the question, “Who am I? I told them how my excellent grades in Hubei Province had enabled me to pass the entrance examination for Peking University in 1983 and to study international politics. After graduation, I worked for a government department in Beijing. Later I did graduate work in New York in the political science department of Columbia University where I earned a master’s degree. Not long afterwards I quit my job in Beijing and came alone to Guangzhou. I did several different jobs in Guangzhou. These days I am just hanging out at home.
The two section chiefs kept their mouths shut most of the time, listening to my ramblings with rapt attention. Chief Zhang did not try to hide the longing and envy on his face when he heard about Peking University and Columbia University. I kept talking, and they listened endlessly, and soon they were talking from university to my own middle school and elementary school, and finally I had to tell them things like how they knew the five big words “Long Live Chairman Mao” for the first time in school, how they put on the red scarf of the Young Pioneers of China with an unusual excitement that I had never felt before. Countless times I wore my red scarf home from elementary school to middle school. I reported to the two section chiefs in great detail, such as my award certificates. The idea is that a week down the road, not only to let them know thoroughly who I am, but also must let them understand how pure I have always been as a person, I think it will certainly be beneficial to them to solve the case. They just have to be reasonable, they will understand a simple common sense: how can a person like me commit heinous murder?
I was so relaxed and full of memories of my past that I was often surprised that my past was so rich and moving. Even though my eyes were sore all the time, I never cried for a week, and twice Chief Zhang even comforted me like an elder: “Go ahead and cry if you want to, there are few people who don’t cry the first week here, you’ll feel better if you cry.
At the beginning of the second week, I was officially detained. Obviously, the introduction of “who I am” did not work, and people believe the public security evidence. Rong’er was autopsied, which gave me some comfort. A dead person should look dead. After she died, Rong’er remained in the same position as when she died. That made me feel bad.
On Monday morning, when Chief Zhang and Chief Li summoned me, Chief Zhang came in and told me the results of the autopsy in a straightforward manner. Although the autopsy showed that the deceased had taken the drugs that killed her, and there was no sign that she had been forced to swallow them, there are two indications that do not rule out the possibility of murder. The first is that the drug that caused the deceased’s death is an American product that is not available in China and is banned for sale in the United States. Since this drug causes instant death without causing any pain, it is recommended in the West by euthanasia advocates as the ideal suicide drug. It would have been very difficult for a prostitute like Rong’er to obtain such a drug. Besides, although they say that such drugs can make people “die without feeling anything,” these are the words of the living ah, and in the end, only God and the dead know whether or not the deceased has no feelings at the moment of death. Therefore, the coroner still cannot believe that the deceased could take drugs so calmly and pose so generously in a titillating manner, waiting for the coroner to take pictures. The results of the autopsy could not rule out the possibility that her body had been moved after her death.
While listening to Zhang, I noticed that Li was holding a thick book. When I looked at the title of the book, I did not break out in a cold sweat. As far as I know, the book is 500 pages thick, criminal psychology can be used for two purposes: one is to place it on my head and then hit it with a heavy object, which can make the head vibrate slightly, thus possibly making people lose control and tell everything they know. The blows do not leave any external traces, so it is in full compliance with the newly announced public security regulations that do not allow the abuse of suspects. However, given the fact that I graduated from Peking University and returned from studying in the United States with a likely overseas background, as well as the fact that a Hubei university student named Sun had just been abused and killed a Guangzhou detention center. That case aroused public outrage, I ruled out that use of the book at the time. But if he had used the book as a basis for interrogating me, the situation would not have been much better. The two section chiefs sat down, and I was secretly relieved when Chief Li took off his shoes and put the thick book on the floor, under my feet.
“Mr. Yang, last week you basically told us who you are, but in our experience, ninety percent of suspects introduce themselves like you did. So a week later, we’re still not sure who you are or who you really are. We thought, “Would you like to tell us who you really are after we ask you questions? Please answer every question honestly, you’ve spent time in the United States where they say that citizens only tell the truth to their godfathers and psychiatrists and lie or don’t talk to the police. But I must remind you that this is China, where citizens tell the truth to the police and the Party.
I hung my head, and for the next week there were accusations every day. Unlike the first week, I could no longer tell them who I was on my own terms; I had to answer their questions and rethink the answers to who I really was on their terms.
“You and Xie Wanrong don’t have a marriage license, she’s a prostitute, do you admit to patronizing prostitutes?” Section Chief Li looked at me, “Of course you don’t have a girlfriend, people always have to solve their physical problems, we understand that, but it’s illegal to visit prostitutes.”
I had to defend myself by saying that I didn’t go to Rong’er to solve a physical problem, but a psychological one. We met two years ago, and it was love at first sight, so to speak, but because she was a prostitute, and the kind of high-class prostitute who charged high prices in fancy cabarets, our relationship did not involve money or sex, and we did not have sex. She often made plans with me that she would stop selling herself when she made a large enough amount of money, so I decided to wait for that day –
“Wait, wait, what did you just say? You’re not telling us that you haven’t had sex yet, are you?” Section Chief Zhang was so surprised that he almost jumped up.
I said, good, if our definition of sexual relations and former U.S. President Clinton were similar, then I and Rong’er really did not have sexual relations.
The two of them could not believe their ears, I went on to explain that although I accepted Rong’er as a friend, I am an old curmudgeon, before she did not wash her hands, I always felt that her body was not clean. I also thought that every time she took off her pants, she could make more than a thousand RMB fast. My feelings were complicated, and my bottom did not follow the instructions.
“In that case, Mr. Yang, you have a prostitute girlfriend, but you haven’t had sex, how do you solve your physical problems?”
I had to explain in more detail: I am middle-aged, still wandering around, no fixed home and a fixed sex partner, in the sex life and eating the same, one is hungry and then satisfied, but also used to it. Me and Rong’er are not as bizarre and pure as you think, I think anyway, according to our plan, wait two more years, we can be together. First of all, there are a few days every month when it is not convenient for Rong’er to receive clients, so I will come to see her at night. At that time, she will put on all kinds of sexy clothes that I like, just like in the photos you took, according to my sexual fantasies to me to perform a variety of provocative positions, I will also get more satisfaction than ever. Of course, sometimes Ronger will use her mouth and hands to solve the problem for me, that’s all. You must look down on me, right, Public Security comrades?
During this second week, under the guidance of the two Public Security Bureau chiefs, I finally realized that I was not the same person who proudly wore the red scarf and proudly showed off my awards to my parents. It was as if I had really begun to know and overcome myself that week, and by the beginning of the third week I was standing naked in front of them, as if I had been stripped naked, and I not only believed that I was no longer pure, but I began to believe that it was quite possible for me to kill or have killed someone.
I spent the third week in a muddle of deep remorse and even deeper introspection, and I basically didn’t have a chance to talk that week. After the second week, the two public security comrades helped me realize “who I really am” and then followed me. I vaguely remember that they took turns berating me with one theme in mind: “Let us tell you who you are!”
I finally realized that the person who knows me best in this world is not me, but the two public security section chiefs, who know me better than I know myself. If last week I was stripped naked and stood there naked, this week it was my soul that was naked before their eyes. By the end of the week I knew more than ever who I was. At the end of each session, I was almost in a coma.
“Mr. Yang, did you kill Xie Wanrong?” Before the end of the day on Friday, Section Chief Zhang suddenly shouted, and then there was dead silence. I was obsessed, looking at Section Chief Zhang’s glowing red eyes one moment and then turning to Section Chief Li’s swollen triangular eyes the next, two pairs of eyes that could see more into my own than I could pity, not to mention that they were going home for the big weekend. I wanted to admit it, to end it all, but a vague awareness reminded me that if I admitted it, it would instead be the beginning of everything, not the end. So I said let me think about it for a weekend and I’ll be sure to tell you the truth on Monday.
All day Saturday I refused to eat. I told them I was not on a hunger strike, and since my consciousness was still confused, I thought hunger was the only thing that would keep me awake. At night I would lie on my board bed and try to cry. I used to hide in bed for a long time and cry, and the next day I was often refreshed. But this time I couldn’t bring myself to cry, and I was even more nervous that I hadn’t completely given up on myself, right?
When the lights went out, I lay there, closed my eyes, and opened my imagination. I thought of a picture I had seen many years ago of a war-torn African child kneeling beside his long-dead mother, and my heart was heavy. I thought of a person dying of AIDS who had to be isolated, prevented from saying goodbye to his loved ones through a thin glass window is even more unbearable than the separation itself; when I thought of this, my eyes felt moist, but I was not able to cry. Then, I thought of Sun Zhigang from my home province of Hubei in the public security detention center being kicked to death, My provincial comrade Sun was my age when I came to Guangzhou alone, and when I thought of Brother Sun being kicked around like a ball, and that he must still have a heart full of expectation like mine at that time, my tears finally flowed. Then I thought of myself lying alone on a hard bed in the Public Security Bureau detention center, not knowing what had happened, how the present would end, and what the future would be, and I finally cried. In a short time I had soaked my whole body with tears.
By Sunday afternoon I had regained my composure. Around four o’clock the guards came and called me, saying that someone wanted to take me out. Instead of being taken to the interrogation room, I followed them to a room marked “Director’s Office. Inside I saw my old boss, Director Zhou of the Ministry of State Security. He looked at me kindly, and I thought I would have cried again if I hadn’t almost dried up my tears last night.
I hastily said goodbye to Section Chief Li, Section Chief Zhang, and another person who was apparently the head of the Public Security Bureau or perhaps the head of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau,. I followed Director Zhou out of the Public Security Bureau where I had lived for three weeks.
“How did you know I was in detention?” I asked Director Zhou once we were both seated in the quiet and serene café of the five-star China Hotel.
“I followed the address you gave me to find your little apartment, only to find your mailbox stuffed with letters at the door, some of which fell to the floor, so I picked them up and read them, and they turned out to be bills.”
“Of course they’re all bills, no one would write to me, and besides, no one writes letters anymore.” I said woodenly.
“The problem is, I noticed that most of these bills have been expired for several days. Huh, I thought, how could our Xiao Yang let these electricity and water bills expire? Eighty percent of them are in trouble.” Director Zhou looked serious but did not finish, but he could not help laughing first. I couldn’t laugh, he must have noticed my expression and asked worriedly, “They didn’t torture you in the Public Security Bureau, did they?”
“No, now corporal punishment and severe torture to force a confession are not so popular.” I straightened up three weeks either sitting or lying down, was a little stiff back, said: “In fact, the comrades of public security does not like this case, but there is a lot of pressure on them to solve it from their superiors, plus most cases, if the suspect confesses early, early that not only can save the country’s expenses, but it can sometimes save a life. “
“They told me that you were in there for three weeks and that no matter what methods they used, you were unyielding. On the surface, you went along with their interrogations, but in reality, you cunningly frustrated their interrogations over and over again. They had to admit that you were the most difficult suspect they had come across in years, huh?” Director Zhou saw that I was frowning and saying nothing, and hardened his tone by asking me, “I’m asking, did they torture you or not?!”
“No, the law of our country does not allow the use of torture, and the comrades in public security know the law very well.”
“That’s good, that’s good.” Director Zhou put his heart down as he began to add sugar to his coffee, “So you didn’t confess to anything?”
“No, but I think I will confess soon, I can’t hold it any longer!” I took a sip of my pearl milk tea and felt a rush of relief. To be honest, while I was inside, I really missed this drink with some tough little sweet potatoes in the milk tea that has become fashionable in recent years.
“What do you want to confess?” Director Zhou almost spat out the coffee he had just put in his mouth, “So you’re going to confess that you killed that woman?”
“Maybe, but I didn’t kill her.”
“Oh, I did not expect that the interrogation skills of our Public Security would have improved so quickly over the years that we would be so close to getting you to confess.” Director Zhou smiled again, “That’s quite a compliment!”
“After ten days in there, I thought several times that I would confess because I no longer had any doubt that I could kill or had killed someone. Sometimes I even thought that even if I had not killed anyone, I not only had the motive to kill, but I could be a murderer from my heart to my bones. Now that I think about it, it’s a bit unbelievable, Director Zhou, what is this all about?”
Director Zhou gave me a deep look and shook his head, “Xiao Yang, the best interrogation techniques can surely make anyone confess as the interrogator intends, I mean confess to crimes you have committed or not committed at all.”
I opened my mouth wide in surprise and looked at Director Zhou’s kind face in confusion. I knew that in the early days of liberation, Director Zhou had been doing counter-espionage and counter-espionage reconnaissance for a while. Although I couldn’t even imagine what he looked like from his current appearance, my colleagues in the ministry had previously told me that Director Zhou was a master interrogator back then. Immediately after liberation, well-trained Taiwanese spies rode out the great storm in the Taiwan Strait and came ashore with great difficulty to infiltrate Beijing. But after they were caught sitting in front of then Section Chief Zhou for less than an hour, they confessed everything. Thinking about this, I sat down on the soft sofa and asked timidly: “Chief Zhou, are you saying that as long as you use the best interrogation techniques, you believe that everyone will confess? Even to crimes they did not commit?”
“Not bad, kid.” Director Zhou took a sip of coffee and his voice seemed a little low. “As long as people are human, they have weaknesses?
Weaknesses, when doing interrogations, as long as the suspect’s weaknesses are identified, everything can be solved.”
But Director Zhou’s expression obviously didn’t show the happiness of a “successful solution”. He finished this sentence, bowed his head, and continued to drink coffee. I also did not say anything to look back at Director Zhou, once again letting myself fall into the sofa. This was because in my mind, I was not fully convinced by Minister Zhou’s words, or rather, I had not fully digested them. For example, some people’s weaknesses are so deeply hidden that even they do not know that they have such weaknesses. And some people’s apparent weaknesses are not fatal. There are some people, like me, who have no desire to live their lives, just to get by, besides the fear of death, I do not know what other “fatal” weaknesses I have. There is another kind of people, they are not even afraid of death, even if you catch their fatal weaknesses, and what effect does that have on them?
The atmosphere was a bit dull for a while, and it was only after a while that Director Zhou raised his head and said softly, “Everyone has a weakness. I noticed that his eyes were a little moist from the coffee. I thought that he must have remembered his own experience during the Cultural Revolution, when, according to rumors in the ministry, the rebels had taken advantage of Director Zhou’s fatal weakness and killed a mother and son who were said to be only three years old at the time. I didn’t know the details, and I didn’t want Minister Zhou to think about it now, so I changed the subject.
“But if the suspect even confesses to a crime he didn’t commit, what does the interrogator get? How can the case be solved?”
“This is the greatest lesson of interrogation.” Director Zhou snapped out of his memories, “Seize the suspect’s fatal weakness, then use mental or physical torture methods, and finally let the suspect reach the point of near collapse. At this point, the suspect will break like a pot, pouring out everything he has done. Of course, in the vast majority of cases, in order to get early relief, they may even confess to what they did not do, and sometimes even add more details to make it sound worse.”
“Chief Zhou, I can’t believe you can call this the supreme science of interrogation?” I couldn’t hide my disbelief and displeasure.
“Hear me out. To reach this level requires a high level of learning about interrogation, especially in the case of no physical torture, the use of drugs such as anesthesia on the suspect, to reach this step, the interrogator must master two things, one is the suspect’s fatal weakness; second is to have some knowledge of psychology, you need to understand both. Getting the suspect to confess is only the first step. The second step is the real key to solving the case, that is, the interrogator must find out which of the suspect’s confessions are true and which are false.”
I somehow seem to understand, you know, there are all kinds of books in this world, but it seems that there is no book that teaches people how to extract a confession under torture!
“It must be clear to the interrogator at this point that the suspect’s confession is coerced and that there are truths and falsehoods. Since it is easy to distinguish between truth and falsehood when a person is about to break down, it is often easier for the interrogator to distinguish between truth and falsehood at this point than it is for the suspect to pretend to speak from the heart at the beginning of the interrogation. To take your example, if you really killed Rong’er, you would confess what poison she took, as well as the details of the crime, and Public Security can only get those details after a rigorous scientific autopsy. If your details and Public Security’s details match, then the possibility of your fabrication is one in a million. This means that you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt! But there is another situation, that is, you want to relieve the pressure early by telling a wild lie, for example, you told her to take sleeping pills, because ninety-five percent of suicides take sleeping pills. For example, you said you had sex with her, and so on, which the Public Security Bureau can check through the autopsy. However, neither telling the truth nor lying just before you collapse into unconsciousness can be intentional, because you cannot lie or tell the truth just before you collapse into unconsciousness. Therefore, only the most skilled interrogator can determine whether your confession is true when you are close to a mental breakdown.
“How mysterious!” I couldn’t help but exclaim.
“Of course, it is not at all appropriate to use this kind of interrogation in general criminal cases. I’m talking about espionage cases involving national security, or terrorist cases that seriously endanger people’s safety.” After a pause, Director Zhou shook his head with a serious expression. “It is a pity that many interrogators have mistakenly used this interrogation technique; they think that the job is done and they can deliver after getting the suspect’s confession when he was in a state of mental confusion, and they simply neglect to go to the second step. This results in an incalculable number of wrongful and false convictions based on coerced confessions.”
I said to myself, “I’ve lived almost forty years and still don’t know my own fatal weakness, or I would have avoided it. You see, I’m a cautious person who doesn’t even want my bills to be overdue, and you can actually tell from my bills that something has happened to me, but…”
“Xiao Yang, I didn’t know about your accident from the bill,” Director Zhou interrupted me gently, “I called you before I came, and then I called your parents’ house-“
“My parents?” I asked nervously, “They don’t know where I am either.”
“Yeah, they didn’t know where you were either, and they told me that you hadn’t visited or called them for two Sundays in a row, so I knew something was wrong.”
Thinking of my elderly parents, I was a little nervous, but in front of Director Zhou, I tried to play it cool. But I know in my heart that regardless of my inner tension and outward calm, to escape the sharp eyes of the secretary, I’m afraid it’s all in vain. The good thing is that the director of the week is like a parent to me. He is also the only person who called me Xiao Yang and made me feel warm and affectionate during this time when I was approaching forty, I did not have to hide anything from him.
“Xiao Yang, I’ll try to talk a little faster so you can hurry home.” Director Zhou said while staring at his coffee. The coffee had been added for the second time, and the twilight and fragrance rising from it filled the air. “You are my favorite young man, when you left the Ministry of State Security, I felt lost for a long time, but I respect young people, especially your choice. The salary of the unit is too low, and your parents are not suitable for the climate of Beijing, you came to Guangzhou to work on your own, I can not help you much, the good thing is that your salary is many times what it was in Beijing, I also feel relieved. It’s just that I could never let you go, and I think you would have made a very good intelligence officer.
I was a little moved and my eyes were a little moist. In these years since I came to Guangzhou to seek my fortune, my finances are better, but my psychology feels a bit unbalanced. Take Secretary Zhou’s words, these years I have never heard the bosses I work for praise me in the same way. Although they want to take advantage of my talents and are willing to raise my salary, they rarely praise me. I think it’s probably because they’re afraid I’ll get too proud, or they’re afraid the praise will make me realize my own value and ask for more money. Of course, there are some employees who are praised by the boss, but soon find another job and leave the company.
“Xiao Yang, I came to see you today, and secondly, there is a matter that I would like to see if you can help me with.” Director Zhou’s words were light and quick, but clear: “This is a tasking…”
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (2)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 23, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 2: Drug Scare
I said goodbye to Director Zhou. It was as if nothing had happened. Then, with my head held high, I walked to the front door of the hotel at a pace that is usually only seen in the lobbies of five-star hotels. As I looked through the mirror at the gleaming corridors of the hotel, I saw Director Zhou. He was still standing in the cafe, watching me closely as I left. I suddenly felt a little uneasy and confused. Director Zhou had already noticed me looking at my watch three times while I was drinking coffee after he mentioned calling my father. Although I would have liked to spend more time with Director Zhou, it was Sunday, almost dinner time, and I hadn’t been to my parents’ house in three weeks.
I quickly walked out of the hotel door, waved for a taxi, and before the car stopped, I couldn’t wait to open the door and jump in. I told the driver the address of my parents’ house and closed my eyes to rest, but my mind didn’t stop for a moment. On my first Sunday in the Public Security Bureau detention center, I wanted to call my parents. But I couldn’t imagine staying that long, and because I didn’t want to lie to my parents in front of the public security officers, and because I couldn’t leave them a phone number, I gave up. I didn’t call the next two Sundays either. I figured that since my parents had accepted the fact that I didn’t come home for dinner the first Sunday, there was no reason not to accept it the following Sundays. At least that’s what I thought at the time.
My father is a retired high school teacher and my mother is a retired doctor. My father will be seventy-seven this year, and my mother just celebrated her seventy-fifth birthday. In order for them to live happily in their old age, a few years ago I moved them from their hometown in Hubei Province to Guangzhou to live in a two-room apartment I bought on the south bank of the Pearl River. I myself moved to the new development zone in the north of the city, Huiqiao New Town. Since then, as long as there are no travel days, I go to my parents’ house for dinner every Sunday. Although my parents still do not understand a word of Cantonese, they only know a few streets and the boulevard near the Pearl River. They don’t know many people, but the climate here, the traffic, and compared to the old Hubei countryside with its cold winters and hot summers with dead still air, is more pleasant. My parents are often full of smiles. They always praise their son for his filial piety and ability.
In the end, however, the years were not forgiving. Even the comfortable environment, the good climate and the good mood cannot stop the attack of old age on my parents. What’s worse is that my parents, who were just enjoying a good time, are increasingly aware that their days are numbered. The sadness is getting to them more and more. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I’ve done the right thing by making my parents comfortable and happy in their old age, because at the same time I’ve strongly aroused their attachment to life. So naturally the fear of death was born in their hearts. But I couldn’t help it. I had to struggle for so many years before I could afford to take care of my parents.
The taxi stopped in front of the community, I had no change, took out fifty to the driver, said, “Keep the change,” ran three steps into the building and got into the elevator. In the time it took for the elevator to slowly rise to the tenth floor, I had thought about what to say. Just tell them that I was out of the country and due to the time difference and busy international lines, I could only call them between 6:00 and 7:00 pm. I knew they would probably be walking along the banks of the Pearl River at that time, so I could pretend to complain to them about why they weren’t answering my calls or putting a message device on the phone or something.
When my mother opened the door for me, I realized that the excuse I had thought of would not work. Mom looked at me with a smile on her face.
“Come in, come in.” Mom called at the top of her voice in a thick Hubei accent.
“The rice is just ready.” My father said evenly, and my father spoke in Mandarin. I thought it was a little strange, but when I entered the room, I understood that there was another person in the house, and she was helping my father cook in the kitchen. I was a little surprised because this was the first time such a situation had happened.
“Dad, Mom, how are you, I…”
“It’s good, it’s good.” Mom interrupted me and called out to the kitchen in a loud voice, “A-hua, come out for a moment, I’ll introduce you to my son.”
The woman named A-hua poked her head out of the kitchen, looked at me, panicked, grabbed the towel on the stove and randomly wiped her face. I think it’s a little funny that the face was still clean, this wipe is a little unclear.
Dad came out of the kitchen rubbing his hands together and introduced A-hua to me in Mandarin: “A-hua is the youth ambassador of Pan’s Nutritional Oral Solution, and we have been taking Pan’s Rejuvenating Nutritional Serum for more than two weeks under A-hua’s introduction. Look, how are we doing?”
My father struck a pose for me to judge, what can I say, this is not the first time. My father has been collecting nutritional products everywhere, from royal jelly to ginseng extract, they have tried almost everything. Each time, even if it upset my parents, I would pour cold water on them, but today they even brought home the salesman of the product, what do they call it, the “youth ambassador,” so of course I cannot say anything to their faces. Besides, in my mind, I was a bit lucky, because with the “guests” in, it seemed that my parents would not pursue why I had been missing for more than three weeks. And if they knew that I had been detained by the police for three weeks, I think my parents would collapse.
Probably mistaking my hesitation for serious comparison and reflection, my father became more energetic and my mother came up, “Doesn’t your father look much better? It’s only been a little over two weeks since he took it.”
My father did look good, but I knew that even plain water could make him glow immediately if I told him that what he was drinking could prolong his life or something. I agreed, nodding repeatedly, and then turned my attention to the Youth Ambassador, A-hua, who was waiting for the dishes at the table in a reserved manner, “Miss A-hua, your company is very famous, right?”
“Call me A-hua. Yes, our company uses the formula just developed in the United States to configure the DNA metabolism diet.” A-hua naively answered my question while arranging the dishes in her hands. She kept her head down, not daring to look me in the eye. I think she probably didn’t know that the old couple had a son who graduated from Peking University, or she wouldn’t have dared to come up. However, when I saw A-hua’s unnatural and hurried look, I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for her. Besides, the parents have only used it for two weeks, the loss is estimated to be no more than 500 yuan, after today, I will find the opportunity to persuade them not too late.
During the meal, my parents continued to talk about the effectiveness of the new nutrient solution, counting the number of celebrities who had taken the solution and were rejuvenated and aged well. A-hua remained silent, smiling from time to time and occasionally interjecting discreetly to correct my parents’ exaggerations. This behavior of A-hua can be described as generous and decent, not like a saleswoman that people can recognize at a glance. This piqued my interest, and I looked at her twice. Although she had not yet wiped her face clean, there was no denying that she was a very attractive young woman. In her early thirties with a high forehead and a full face. Her loose clothes can’t hide her exquisite body. Especially her bulging breasts. Whenever she bends down to fill her plate with her back to me, her round, well-defined buttocks make me lose my concentration. Several times. I hurriedly lowered my head and ate heavily, which I attributed to the fact that I had spent almost a month in detention.
During the meal, A-hua kept avoiding my gaze, but every time I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, my heart trembled slightly. Although her hair is a bit disheveled and her face is not very fresh, I can clearly feel from her body that she is like a siren calling out to me. Usually, I can ignore this kind of charm, but now she is sitting in front of me, and after being in detention for more than three weeks. A certain desire and longing made me decide not to pierce this saleswoman’s tricks for the time being. I expect to see her again when I return from the United States.
After dinner, when A-hua got up to say goodbye, I watched her go to the door and surprisingly thanked her even more: “A-hua, thank you for introducing the nutrition solution to my parents and taking care of them. I’m going on a business trip to the U.S. in the near future, and I hope you’ll take care of them more.”
A-hua looked back at me and her face blushed, which made me feel incredible. This woman must be in her thirties, her skin is still so white, and she blushed to hear a thank you from an unattractive man like me. But then I thought, maybe she saw my ulterior motive, that’s good. The thought flashed through my mind. Just the look in her eyes distracted me.
Dad was probably afraid that I would lecture him, A-hua just left, he could not wait to talk: “A-hua is a good girl. She worked in a state-owned factory in Changsha, Hunan Province, but after the factory was bought by a private party, she was fired and came to Guangzhou alone to work as a pyramid scheme worker. However, she is different from other people involved in pyramid schemes. She does not cheat people, but only sells products she believes in. When we met her in Liberation Park, she kindly introduced us to the company’s exhibition and sale. It was a big event, and the director of the Guangdong Provincial Health Department attended, and dozens of journalists came, all of whom were there to enjoy a free buffet and try the nutrition solution.”
Mom also rushed to add: “A-hua is a good person, afraid that we do not understand the instructions, do not know the dosage, she comes to our home every day for free. This daughter is filial and smart, and she is beautiful as a painting…”
My parents ran down the list of A-hua’s virtues, and I knew in my heart that almost every one of them was the standard virtues of a con artist who had recently appeared on the streets of Guangzhou. However, I silently calculated in my heart that my parents’ loss would not be more than two thousand dollars at most if I traveled for a month, which was still within the limit I could afford, so I decided to keep quiet and not poke at this trick.
As the plane taxied down the runway at Hong Kong Airport and slowly took off, my flight syndrome began to strike again. My hands gripped the handrails on both sides, my eyes were tightly closed, I clenched my teeth, and in no time my clothes were soaked with sweat. After about twenty minutes, I slowly opened my eyes after feeling the smoothness of the plane and saw that a man in the seat next to me still had a trace of sarcasm in the corner of his mouth. I couldn’t help it, I thought, if I had the chance to explain to him in the next twelve hours of travel, I would make sure he knew that I wasn’t afraid of death at all, and that flight phobia was a disease.
Even if it’s a stranger I meet while traveling, I don’t want to leave a bad impression on people. When I think of the days when I used to fly around a lot, this disease, which Westerners call flight phobia, just tortured me enough and made me lose my dignity in front of many foreign travelers. Later, after being introduced to it by a friend in the United States, I went to see a doctor to find out why. I hoped that there is some kind of sedative sleeping pills and other special drugs can make me board the plane after the mind as calm as water, or sleep. The doctor told me that flight phobia is a medical condition, but it is not something that they treat. Later, he suggested that I see a famous psychiatrist in New York.
The psychiatrist’s fee is charged by the minute, the standard and method of charging, and the escort services we have in Guangzhou charge the same way. Only the massage ladies rely on their small hands and other parts of their body to touch your whole body once, and finally, if the price is reasonable, will let you excrete your body’s filth to achieve physical and mental comfort. The psychiatrist, on the other hand, relies on words and his eyes to cleanse your soul bit by bit. Eventually, if he is successful, he will remove the darkness hidden deep within your soul and make you feel lighter. Of course, the psychiatrist in New York charges a lot more than the masseuse in Guangzhou, and besides, I had no medical history with him and needed the “full service” for the first time, that is, from the time I was born until I grew up.
Now that I look back, that feeling and what I felt at the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau are quite similar. I had to answer the psychologist’s deliberately slow questions as quickly as I could, without thinking, while glancing at the wall clock from time to time. My fears were justified when I received a bill showing that the three hours I spent in the psychiatrist’s office that day cost me an average of three dollars per minute. I remember that after answering dozens of questions about what I liked best as a child, what I hated, and what I hoped for, I made a solemn declaration to the doctor that I was not afraid to die. I told the psychiatrist that I had known for a long time that motorcycles were the most dangerous means of transportation in the world and that airplanes were the safest. I also told him that I ride a motorcycle to work every day, often speeding, sometimes even the police can not catch me, I just want to know, like me, a person who is not afraid of death, how to get on the plane will be deadly cold sweat?
The white psychiatrist with blue eyes put on and took off his glasses several times while I was testifying, as if he wanted to look at my heart through different lenses. Finally he said: “You say you have no desires, no private property, no savings in the bank, no woman in your life, no old grudges in your heart to settle, or no ambitious ideals to achieve, but that does not mean you are not afraid of death. When you say that you are not afraid of death, it only means that you have never had the opportunity to think seriously about death, because there are not many life and death scenarios in your life, instead, flying is the only time you think about death, because deep in your heart you feel that flying is the closest moment in your life to death, right?”
The psychiatrist’s conclusion slowly spat out of his mouth as if every word needed discretion, only to make me sweat, I was worried that his conclusion stretched too far, so that my food bill for the month was affected. And he must have misunderstood me and thought he was getting to the point, so he became more confident in his conclusions and more eloquent. He went on to admire my uncomfortable body, like sitting on a pin cushion, cold sweat, while leisurely profoundly dissecting my soul: “This shows that in fact you have an extreme fear of death deep inside. The reason this fear only manifests itself during the plane ride, shows that you are a person on a schedule. You not only plan your own life, but also in due course plan your own death. Thus you are particularly squeamish about accidental death, and an accident on a plane is the most unexpected of all accidental deaths. Another reason is that you are a very responsible person, at your age, you do not have free money and free time to travel around by plane, so every time you take a plane it is for the company on a business trip or to complete some task. This shows that you have a a subconsciousness unwillingness to fall to your death before completing the task – “
The psychiatrist talked a lot more, but I didn’t say anything, except that his conclusion was clear: I had a deep-seated fear of death in my soul. Then he turned to me and began to encourage me to face death bravely and to think about it. He said that only great people think about death. All beings in this world are confused and think that life dominates everything in this world, that death is only the end of a life in an instant, but it is not. Death is not only the end of all life, but also the beginning of all life, and from life to death, death dominates everything.
The doctor looked me patiently in the eye and said: “Think about it. It is because of the fear of extinction and total annihilation that human beings continue to be born. The infant life that has just begun is so fragile and delicate, and from birth to death, the whole process of life is full of struggling against hunger, disease, and disaster in order to escape death. Isn’t it also the result of the fear of death that human societies have formed nations and laws? Imagine if there were no threat of death, neither modern medicine nor today’s science and technology would have been born, nor would they have developed to the extent they have today.
Without the oppression of the shadow of death, man would be lazy and ignorant, no different from a pig, and would become more and more degraded, and even literature and philosophy would have been born from man’s thoughts about death. You can see this by remembering how the great philosophers of the past and present began to reveal the mystery of life to us by contemplating death”.
Probably seeing the expression on my face, which showed a certain inability to follow his thoughts, the doctor paused and sighed: “Let’s put it this way, let’s not go too far, let’s take you as an example.
He took a sip of coffee and asked me, “Tell me, what were you thinking about when you were in the air, sweating profusely with tension?”
I thought about it seriously, and at that time I still had a lot of thoughts, but the main ones were some of these questions: How did I die here? I still have a lot of books to read, a lot of things to do, half done or not even started, there are still a lot of friends I want to contact, but there is no time to contact, and there is also, when I left the house, I did not explain to my parents and brothers and sisters, you see, this is not enough? I can’t die!
“By the way, it’s this idea that you’re not ready to face death and that you can’t die that makes you afraid of it. It makes you think about it. I am sure that this is the only time you think about death. Now please tell me again, after you have gone through an ordeal in the air, where you have to live and die and be on the edge of your seat all the time. What do you think about when the plane unexpectedly arrives safely at the airport every time, that is, when you know that you are still alive?”
I thought about it again and told the doctor, “Every time the plane landed, I had the feeling of being reborn, like I was a new person, and the next day I would be busy making life plans and actively planning my future life. Of course, this kind of energy does not last long, and within a month or two I am back to my old self.
“I understand that.” The psychiatrist smiled, “You probably understand what I mean now, too, don’t you? It was your fear of death on the plane that made you think about the value of life, so you remembered your wasted life and the things you should have used it to accomplish, but were too late to do so, so it was as if you were a different person. Think about it again, if you could think about death from time to time without having to take a plane, your life would be more colorful and you would definitely achieve your current goals that you are still fantasizing about earlier, am I right?”
That was the only time I saw a psychiatrist, and now that I think about it, I still can’t fully accept the fact that deep down in my soul I was very afraid of death, and that this became the cause of my phobia of flying. Although the doctor’s explanation did not alleviate my fear of flying, I must admit that I benefited from the philosophical discourse on life and death in the doctor’s words.
I was relieved that the plane flew exceptionally smoothly over the darkness of the Pacific Ocean, and I took the opportunity to ask the passenger next to me to make way so that I could go to the restroom and start a conversation with him. I wasted no time in talking about the new discoveries in medicine, especially modern Western medicine, and how the fear of flying is more of an illness than a fear of death. He looked at me in amazement, pretending to understand and sympathize. But I still could not relax.
As we talked, I learned that he was in his early forties and already owned two processing plants in Dongguan and Shenzhen. A few years ago, he sent his wife and two children to the United States to settle in Los Angeles, after which he had to fly to the United States almost every month. This time, he says, he is moving to a bigger house. “The kids are almost 10 years old and they need their own space, not only their own bedroom, but also their own playroom, study room and activity room.” He shook his head as he told me, “The original six rooms are not enough to share, and this time I am determined to buy a larger mansion that will cost over two million dollars in Los Angeles.” Here he frowned, but then he looked as if he had figured it out again, “The good thing is that business is still going well, as long as the plan to open a third processing plant is postponed for a while.
I listened to his story with a smile on my face, but my heart was not at peace. I calculated how I could better save the small amount of subsidy Director Zhou gave me for this trip, and then I thought about what a two-million-dollar house would be like. Looking around at the front and back of the passengers, even though they flew economy class, they didn’t put on a front, but when I think of many people here and the two factory owners, they are really similar in their economic success, family, and home, I suddenly felt bitter that thinking about life and death matters is really quite boring.
I had this thought as the plane landed at Los Angeles International Airport. Although I know very well that forty percent of all airplane accidents happen when the plane is landing, this time I not only did not break out in a cold sweat, but I also got a full night’s sleep. I got off the plane in a good mood.
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, and yes, it was the smell of America that I inhaled. Just as each person has his or her own smell, each country has its own unique smell. If a person’s smell is concentrated mainly in his armpits, then a country’s smell is concentrated in its international airports. It’s not that the smell is particularly strong there, but you can definitely feel the difference when you first arrive and take your first steps into the country.
I deliberately slowed down to let this indescribable taste of America sink into my mind. During the twelve-hour flight, I did nothing but chat or think about some deep philosophies on my own, never letting my mind go idle at 25,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean. So at that moment when my body landed on this side of the world in the United States, my mind was still in China.
I needed the time between getting off the plane and the customs gates to at least get my brain used to the smell of the place, not to mention that I knew both Customs and Immigration would be more lenient on passengers caught in the middle. At the immigration office, the black immigration officer looked me over from head to toe and didn’t seem satisfied with my reason of “coming back to my alma mater and getting my diploma,” but after a few keystrokes, I got through. At the baggage claim, I picked up my small suitcase and went to customs, probably because I had been in the immigration office for so long, I was a little nervous.
“Please open your suitcase.” This time it was a Caucasian officer.
I opened the suitcase and the white officer went through it carefully with his white gloved hand. As he put his hand in, I suddenly noticed a different expression on his face, and then he took his hand out and looked at me with mock serenity. I noticed that his hand had touched the red button under the counter. Sure enough, two armed customs officers standing on either side of the aisle immediately approached sharply from the left and right. Probably because my two hands were in their line of sight, they just put their hands on their guns, but their expressions were grim. The travelers next to me were obviously even more nervous than I was, and when I was led into the small customs room, I caught a glimpse of the owner of the two factories who had just sat with me, staring at me in disbelief, and then showed an exaggerated expression of realization that had dawned on me once again.
In the small customs room, the other officers moved out of the way. The two armed customs officers stood a little behind me, and the one who opened my suitcase first joined another customs officer who looked more senior and experienced than him and began to take out my luggage one by one. I thought, “Fortunately, I will buy two or three new pairs of underwear to take with me on my business trips, otherwise I will be more embarrassed when foreigners look at the stains on my underwear than when they find out that I have drugs. As the two of them carefully unpacked the suitcase that had taken me an hour to pack, a man in a suit entered quietly. I was relieved to think that this must be the FBI’s resident airport representative.
At this time, I suddenly felt the left and right sides of the stocky man jerk before I noticed that one of the customs officers opening the box was using two fingers to slowly remove from the bottom of the box a clear plastic bag containing a white powder-like item. Then I noticed that the FBI also looked nervous, and the two armed guards to my left and right unconsciously moved a little closer to me.
“What is this?” The customs officer looked at me with sharp blue eyes while he picked up the knife lying next to him and gently poked through the plastic bag, poking a bit of it with the tip of the knife, then carefully lifting it up and sticking out his very thick tongue to lick it.
“Drugs! The purity is still high.” He dropped his hand and pretended to look relaxed, “Sir, I think-“
“Sir, I’d like to hear an explanation before you think about it.” I interrupted him nonchalantly, “This is laundry detergent, and it tastes like high-purity spiked heroin!”
The customs officer was stunned for a moment and looked to the suit next to him for help. The suit came over and tasted it too, apparently he couldn’t decide either. The suit and the two customs officers retreated into another small room next to me, and the two armed officers to my left and right gestured for me to sit down, and then sat down next to me to my left and right. I don’t know which of them emitted the smell that made me fidget.
After a few minutes, the three of them came out and one of them explained that more lab tests were needed. So the FBI and the other one took my detergent and left. The remaining senior customs officer pulled up a chair, sat across from me, and asked me a few simple questions. He was most interested in why I brought the laundry detergent, I said it was the same reason I brought a few boxes of instant noodles, for convenience and to save money. He then asked why I had changed the bag of detergent. I explained that Chinese detergent bags are not strong enough for business trips, so I put them in strong plastic bags, and besides, I can’t use a whole bag. Finally, he didn’t ask any more questions and walked away to attend to other matters, but the two customs officers to my left and right remained on guard duty.
It took a full forty minutes of tossing and turning before they let me leave after apologizing for the delay. As soon as I left the gate, I saw my old classmate Wang Xiaohai waiting for me from afar, standing on the yellow line of the restricted area with a look of disregard that touched me a little. I do not have many friends, but in foreign places, as long as there are old college classmates living there, I always contact them first. More than ten years after graduation, we all happen to be looking forward to meeting each other. This desire to see old classmates is usually strongest ten years after graduation. The reason is not hard to understand. Time flies, the years go by, you are surrounded by things, and you are changing unconsciously. You look in the mirror every day, but you can’t really tell the difference between you and you ten years ago, so you suddenly want to look up an old classmate.
After the meeting there are usually two situations, the old classmate is well maintained, the basic angles have not changed, so you say: “You’re still so young, no change at all, ah!” The other situation is that the old classmate you knew well has changed completely, so you say, “Oh, you’ve become much more mature! But no matter which of the above scenarios happens when you meet, what you are thinking about is how you look to your old classmates, whether you have changed or not.
The way Wang Xiaohai stood there at that moment gave me such an idea. He came to the United States in the early 90s of the last century, and then disappeared from our classmates’ correspondence for several years. Then he started contacting his classmates again after he supposedly got his green card. He was not tall, had a pair of eyes, and a polite appearance, but of course that was the impression he had in school more than a decade ago. Wang Xiaohai, who came up to me at that time, looked a little rough, and he looked like he was fifty years old. Maybe it is the airport light problem, I feel from which angle he is a little hunchbacked. We did not hug, two people shake hands while looking carefully at each other’s faces, we all saw the excitement and emotion in each other’s eyes, and then we all laughed heartily.
Sitting in the used Honda Accord Xiaohai just bought on the way home, Xiaohai told me his experience over the years, full of prison fleas, full of complaints, so I was particularly touched by this old classmate. Generally speaking, those who have left the country, especially to get a green card to get the identity of the reception of our old classmates out of the country are often forced to smile, everywhere to win a look. He complained all the way from the fact that he came out two years late and missed the “June 4th” green card, to the fact that he chose to major in politics, couldn’t find a job after graduation, and finally had to work in a restaurant. He finally got a green card by falsifying documents and saving some money, he discovered that he was already too old. When the time and the mood came to contact old classmates and old friends outside the country, he found that all his old friends and old classmates were better off than he was. That must have been very hard to bear. Then Xiaohai asked me seriously, “Has China’s domestic development really been so fast over the years? Are there really that many rich people? Doesn’t that number contradict the national statistics? He said that he had just bought a small apartment, paid 50,000 US dollars as a down payment, and another 250,000 to be paid over 20 years, so he really felt like going back to June in to see for himself. He was hoping that I, an old classmate, could help him answer this question.
I didn’t know how to answer, “Actually, you already have a car and a house, although the house only cost $50,000, but that’s not a small amount in China, not to mention that the old classmates and old friends you see here are all getting along quite well.
“Ha, you must be doing well too.” Xiao Hai laughed. “You’re not just here to get your diploma this time, are you? The only way to get the school to send it to you wouldn’t be to play with the lab coat and tailor it to the Laos Purpura Sanjun? “What mission, it’s not like you don’t know that I left the government work. I came this time is also a bit nostalgic, want to see “9/11″ after the New York is still not that way. I also want to see Guo Qingqing, and if I can also go to Washington to meet Liu Mingwei”.
“It’s strange, you and Guo Qingqing have been separated for so many years, all in New York when we don’t see each other, now it’s been several years since the separation, and you’ve come a long way to visit, it looks like you’re quite nostalgic.” Xiao Hai’s expression suddenly became a bit despondent. After driving for a while, he sighed and said, “Many of our old classmates are here. Haipeng has returned, you have returned, and out of our class of forty, there are only three of us left. Look at me and what I have done, and look at the science and technology majors: we have at least 20 people from each class in the United States. For some science majors in Peking University and Tsinghua University, if they have a reunion, there are many more in the U.S. than in China. Not like us. We have only a few people here. It’s all because we choose to study some bullshit politics and international relations, and we can’t use it at all after graduation.”
He paused for a moment and muttered, “Of course, it is not completely useless, it mainly depends on whether you are willing to forget everything you have learned before, I heard that Liu Mingwei did a good job in Washington.
Xiaohai’s new home was a two-hour drive from the airport. On the way, we laughed loudly and fell silent for a while, apparently we were all very relaxed when old schoolmates met. I pressed the audio switch in the car by hand, but there was no tape in the clip, which reminded me of the music tapes Xiaohai had asked me to bring from China. I opened the bag and took out the tapes as a gift to Xiaohai. Most of these tapes were powerful revolutionary and lyrical songs popular in China in the 1970s and 1980s, from the “Red Sun” series to “Song of the Grasslands,” from “On the Golden Mountain in Beijing” to “Turning Over the Slave and Bringing in the Slave. The latest disc is also a collection of campus songs that were popular on the Peking University campus in the late 1980s. I wanted to find a disk to plug in, so I looked for it there.
“You probably didn’t like those songs a long time ago, right?” Xiao Hai looked at me as if I couldn’t find anything good to listen to.
I said I didn’t care, I just thought the songs were all too old and almost impossible to find after college, but I also realized right away that I couldn’t name some of the newer songs after college.
“I don’t know why, but I just can’t get into the songs that are popular now.” Xiao Hai said, “But I can’t get tired of listening to songs from the old days of childhood and college.”
“When you say that, I feel the same way. Originally, I thought it was because I lost interest in songs and music after college. Now that I think about it, I can’t name a single popular song from the past ten years after college.
“I think the older generation of Chinese only hummed a few songs all their lives, and we had more back then, but look at it now, there are new songs and new people every day, and the pop charts are different every week.”
“Nowadays almost everybody has a pop song for every mood. You’re a little annoyed, so there’s ‘a little annoyed today’, you’re out of love, heck, there’s at least a few hundred songs that match your mood to make you feel like that song was written just for you. If you’re smug or you’ve had a few drinks, there are even more songs that describe you flying around and floating in the sky than there are snowflakes.
“So many pop songs are written to match your mood, which means they make you sadder when you’re sad and happier when you’re happy.” I nodded my head in agreement.
“That’s like the songs we had back then, although there wasn’t much variety, but every song you listened to made you hot and extremely active upwards.” Xiao Hai said excitedly.
I smiled and nodded, pulling out a random tape and putting it into the old stereo of my used car. I guess another advantage of an old school meeting is that no one thinks they’re out of date and out of style.
The rest of the time we spent enjoying the songs we all sang in college while talking and laughing out loud. The car drove down the highway to Wang Xiaohai’s house.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (3)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 23, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 3 God’s Scalpel
When I was a student at Columbia University in New York, I spent Sundays and holidays walking on almost every street in New York City. I thought it was the best way to get to know a city, and it was certainly very affordable. Later, whether I returned to Beijing or went to Guangzhou, I used the same method to get to know a city. At first, I felt a little tired and bored, but as I walked through the streets, my knowledge of the city deepened layer by layer. This process of moving from quantitative to qualitative was essentially complete by the time I broke in my third pair of sneakers. Although I have only lived in New York, Beijing, and Guangzhou for a few years each, I consider myself to know these cities no less than old Beijingers, old Guangzhou people, and New Yorkers.
The day after I arrived in New York, I took out Katherine’s address that Director Chow had given me, looked at it, then closed my eyes and tried to find out what the street looked like and who lived there. It was a small street that went behind the Brooklyn Bridge to the left and then for three blocks, the street was in the most concentrated area of blacks in the ghetto. When I walked through there, I was a little shaky, the street was lined with small apartments, no more than four stories, and it was almost difficult to see a window without a hole in it. If you weren’t careful, you could trip over almost anything. It could be garbage, a drunk, a drug addict, or even a dead person lying on the ground! And most of the time, even if you trip over it, you still have no way of knowing what it really is.
Apart from these unknown things, what I remembered most was the smell of death and the lifeless, dead fish-belly eyes of the people living on the streets. All this gave me a strong feeling of being in a foreign country. I have been to many cities in China, and I have also been to the so-called slums or places where migrant workers congregate. Although they are also full of garbage-some of them don’t know what “things” they have, and the houses are dilapidated or even just tin shacks-no matter the smell or the eyes of the people there, they didn’t make you feel like you were in a foreign country. and the eyes of the people gave you a sense of the hope that still existed for them.
A white woman in her thirties living alone in a small apartment on that street, I had no trouble imagining what kind of person and what kind of life that would be. After leaving the hotel, I found a taxi and when I gave the address of the street, the forty-something Afghan driver froze but did not start the car. I knew he didn’t want to go, so I repeated the address in standard New York English, and he reluctantly started the car. On the way, he complained in English that the only thing people could understand was that going to that area was a losing proposition every time. Often people don’t pay their fare, and worse, they get robbed. Even if you are lucky enough to get out of the area, your car will inevitably be smashed by beer bottles. Seeing how pathetic he sounded, I agreed to let him out of the car two blocks away and risk walking there myself.
Kesselring lived on the second floor of a small, dilapidated three-story apartment building. I found the door through a wooden staircase that probably would have fallen down if I had pushed harder. Probably because I had called earlier, I knocked only a few times before someone answered the door and asked: “Are you Yang from China?”
It was a plump white woman. I nodded at her as I smiled, and she laughed to herself as she let me in and said, “I can’t even laugh at my own face and body in the mirror, what’s so funny about you?”
I continued to smile politely.
I looked around the room, not too dirty, probably because there was not much furniture to furnish it. Katherine really fits my idea of the kind of white woman, but the good thing is not the kind of skin and bones of drug addicts or because of the heavy makeup every time the smile will rustle a layer of makeup prostitutes. She is the kind of top and bottom as thick as a German beer barrel, arms and my thighs not much less fat woman. Her chin is like an unfolded napkin hanging around her neck as she moves and swings.
“Yang, make yourself at home, just like at home, I don’t have any tea, how about a coke?”
“Yes, thank you!” I took out the present I had brought her from China and handed it to her, “A little present, I hope you like it.” Kesselring took the gift box and opened it happily. It was a Chinese silk Suzhou scarf that I had specially selected, and she eagerly wrapped it around her fat neck, and I was relieved to see that it was barely tight.
“Yang, am I fat?” She didn’t wait for me to answer before she smiled and said, “You don’t have to answer, I don’t want you to say, ‘There, no, you’re fine,’ while feeling funny in your heart. I’m actually quite overweight, I know.” She bent down with some difficulty and took out a yellowing album from under the coffee table in front of her, “Yang, these are all my past photos, feel free to open them.
I opened the portrait book and flipped through several pages in a row. I found that each page was a picture of the same slim blonde that I knew was the former Katherine, and I still pretended to look at the pictures to hide my embarrassment because I didn’t know what to say.
“Yang, this is the old me, when I used to leave a picture of myself every week, but I stopped after ‘9/11’ three years ago. I haven’t been photographed in three years, would you say I was pretty?”
Kesselring’s question was in the past tense, and I had to politely reply in the present tense, “You look good.”
“I think it was a good look at the time, even though I didn’t have much money at the time, but I would save money to rent in an upscale neighborhood in New York because I still had hope. That look in the photo was one of my two hopes, and the other was him. Now it’s all gone, but I figured it out, but what can I do?” Katherine sighed deeply. She stopped, looked at me carefully for a while and asked, “Jan, can you tell me what you look like in your country?”
I didn’t understand her question for a while and was a little confused how to answer. Katherine explained some more, I understood it and found it interesting, so I told her truthfully that my appearance is very common in China, I am of average height for a Chinese man – 5’10”. My eyes are not big and I don’t have double eyelids, but according to statistics, about two-thirds of Chinese men my age don’t have double eyelids. My face shape is also very common. In China, there are about 500 to 600 million people with a similar face shape. A shape that appears in Chinese literature is not a bad face. And my body is bony. Although I had my period of desperate training as a child, I could only eat meat once or twice a month. I’ve never been interested in bodybuilding.
After hearing my words, Katherine smiled and said cheerfully, “Then you’ll have to work twice as hard if you want to get ahead. She then added, “I don’t know about you in China, but from what I’ve seen on TV, all the leaders of your party and state in China seem to be very tall, averaging at least 1.75 meters, and almost every one of them has double eyelids, haha.
“But,” Katherine became a little more serious, “in America, we are absolutely judged by our looks. You only have to go to some high class places to know, the recent statistics also came out, the world’s top 500 large companies in charge of the executive level have a handsome look. Women are even more, a woman to succeed in the first important is not talent, but looks, so we Americans spend far more money on makeup and cosmetic surgery every year than the United States of America’s education costs. God supposedly made men equal, and the U.S. Constitution claims that all men are created equal, which is nonsense! My friend doesn’t believe this and says his job is to “finish the unfinished business of God and the U.S. Constitution.
I owed a yawn and sat up straight as Katherine finally got to the point. Though I had briefly told her on the phone why I was coming, this nearly two hundred pound fat woman had been in control of the subject ever since we met, and she mentioned that his name was Mike, her former employer and lover.
“Yang, can you tell me why you want to know this information?” Katherine suddenly stopped the conversation, and I think it probably occurred to her that she shouldn’t just divulge information about her clients.
“As I told you on the phone, I recently lost my job, my lover died, and I myself was arrested by the Chinese police and locked up in a police station for several weeks, and I suddenly felt so lost and meaningless. At that time I found that only some memories of the past could help me find the strength to regain my strength. You know, Guo Qingqing is my college classmate, and I do not know if I can call her my first love, although I have always loved her. I don’t know if she loves me. A few years after graduation and employment, we both came to New York to study together, but for various reasons we still could not get back together. After all this time, I suddenly want to find her, although I’m still not sure what I’ll do when I find her, but I think I can at least ask, “Have you loved me all these years?”
Before my words were finished, Katherine’s eyes were filled with tears as she mumbled and repeated, “Did you ever love me? Did you ever love me?” Her voice was touching and pleasant, and if it were not for her fat white face, I would have been reminded of those Chinese martial arts novels in which the chivalrous women with deep love sigh to the heavens, “What is love?” I think I need say no more. Sure enough, Katherine returned from a trip to the bathroom and sat down for two hours to tell me the following story.
Yang, although I am not very beautiful, but still not bad as you can see from the photo. Don’t look at the current me will understand. The main thing is that I am not stupid, do you know where the most handsome and accomplished men are? I’ll tell you, it’s the law building and the hospital, where there are young and handsome lawyers and doctors in training. To get in touch with lawyers, you have to find the opportunity to litigate, which is no fun, but doctors are different, I can use the excuse of not feeling well to get in touch with them. It was at Queens Hospital that I met Mike. He was handsome and career-minded, but because of his dedication to medical school and his contact with the elderly and patients, Mike was almost 30 and still single. I was attracted to him the first time I saw him. I had to pretend to be sick a lot to get in touch with him. You know he is a surgeon, pretending that I had some problem that needed a surgeon’s attention was unbearable, at that time I was racking my brains.
As a result of my taking the initiative, Mike and I soon became a couple. Then I realized that we weren’t very compatible. Not only was he handsome and dashing, but he had one of the most respected and highest-paid careers in America. And me? I was depressed for a while about my average looks and lack of a real career. Mike knew the reason and laughed all the time, and finally he told me that he hadn’t noticed my looks at all, that is, he had noticed them and didn’t care. I knew that if I married such a man, I would regret and be sad one day, but if I didn’t marry him, I would regret and be sad every day from then on. So we got married. After we got married, we often talked about people’s looks, and from a person’s looks, we talked about his career, success, and destiny. In the end, we had to admit that looks are more important than anything else in this world, and with beauty you can do twice as much, and with beauty you can even get married once and for all, I mean, you can find a good husband or wife. What I didn’t know at the time was that our frequent discussions had deeply affected Mike, and later he began to move from thinking deeply about the subject to acting on it. One day he hugged me on the couch and said.
“Honey, I want to quit my job and open my own practice and start a plastic surgery practice!”
I was so surprised that I almost jumped up, because you know that medicine is a noble and legitimate profession, but plastic surgery is socially accepted as a sideline. Mike explained to me that the main reason cosmetic surgery is not socially acceptable is because of stereotypes and religious constraints. In the East, it is generally believed that skin and hair are born from one’s parents and cannot be changed. In the West, the first subject of God’s creation of man is that God made you that way. Later, the West promoted freedom and democracy and made a declaration of independence that all people are born equal, which is not wrong. But both the wise men of the East, God and the Declaration of Independence are seemingly just, but they ignore the injustice that even the blind can see: a three-month-old baby already knows to smile more at a beautiful adult; handsome and beautiful children get more attention from teachers at school; the majority of successful women in this world rely on big breasts rather than brains. The list of examples goes on and on. Mike said the idea of opening a plastic surgery clinic came from his desire to finish the unfinished business of God and the U.S. Constitution!
Mike said that his study of human structure and dermatology is so deep that he not only knows that a person’s appearance can be completely changed with a scalpel, but he also knows that with the development of modern medicine, human cosmetic surgery will not have many side effects at all. He said, for example, do you remember how many places on your body you were injured and cut or even broke as a child, where now there are no side effects?
Mike totally convinced me. We agreed to do it. Since cosmetic surgery is not a medical facility, I took a crash course in nursing and was able to work as a nurse in the clinic, playing second fiddle. Mike had some savings over the years and we decided to open the clinic on the 69th floor of the main building of the World Trade Center. As far as I know, although there are several clinics in the two World Trade Center buildings, the plastic surgery clinic is the only one.
Within a few years of opening the plastic surgery office, the business became more and more prosperous. At that time, Mike mainly performed some traditional cosmetic surgeries, such as breast augmentation, liposuction, buttock augmentation, rib removal, rod lengthening, double eyelid surgery, double chin surgery, etc. Whenever I saw those women come in and go out with their heads held high, I was also tickled. Whenever I saw those women come in shyly and walk out with their heads held high, I was tickled, too. But every time I asked Mike if I needed to be taller or shorter, he smiled noncommittally and told me to be patient and wait. I also noticed that even though Mike no longer practiced medicine, he still studied surgery, skin, and body composition very diligently in his spare time from doing these general cosmetic procedures.
Finally, one day, I remember it was an August day four years ago, we had just arrived at the office to make the morning coffee when there was a gentle knock on the door. Pushing open the door, came in is an Oriental woman, about thirty years old, looks very clean and meticulous: melon face, small nose slightly curved, thin lips, although a single eyelid, but the eyes are large and black and white. I asked her to sit down, and she introduced herself and asked some questions about our plastic surgery clinic. She said her name is Guo Qingqing, or Guo Qingqing as you call her. As we talked, I got the impression that she was familiar with us and the New York plastic surgery scene, and had obviously done her homework. In the end, she said she wanted to talk to the head surgeon, Mike, directly. I said that was impossible, Mike’s surgery schedule was six months away, and he was too busy to do any surgery, so how could he have time to see clients directly? Just then, Mike happened to come out to ask about a customer’s appointment. He overheard part of our conversation and came over to ask this Ms. Guo what she wanted to talk about directly.
This Ms. Guo Qingqing knew that the opportunity had come, and she immediately made her request, saying that she wanted to change her body completely! She emphasized that radical means to bring every part of her body to the highest level from the ground up.
I hadn’t fully understood what this Ms. He Qingqing meant, and I was silent when I saw Mike’s shoulders twitching unconsciously several times, knowing that Mike would only have such physical movements when he was most excited. At this point, Guo Qingqing went on to say that money was not a problem and that she had just received a large amount of alimony.
“What about time?” Mike asked.
“What do you mean?”
“If you do what you want, in addition to money, there is the question of time. Because you will need at least two dozen major and minor surgeries, before and after recovery, it will take a year and a half under normal circumstances. In this year and a half, the vast majority of the time you need to be like a post-operative patient as bed rest”. Mike replied to Guo Qingqing, I was even more confused, such a so-called complete change of a person’s body cosmetic surgery is really unheard of. But the two of them had their question and answer conversation. Especially after hearing Mike’s unthinking answer, as if he had been waiting for Ms. Guo’s arrival, it made me think that Mike had opened the clinic just to wait for this day to come.
Of course, it soon dawned on me. Ever since Mike had quit his regular job as a doctor, he had indeed been waiting for this day. Never content with filling breasts, pumping fat, and removing wrinkles for women who want to hold their heads up high, he has been deeply immersed in the medical profession, waiting for the day when he can use his scalpel to completely change a person’s appearance! Of course, such an opportunity is too difficult to have; first of all, you have to find a rich person who is willing to pay nearly one million dollars to operate on his own body two dozen times, making more than a hundred incisions up and down; in addition, he also has to have one and a half years of free time; the most difficult thing is that he has to have superhuman patience to endure the constant pain. However, when Mike explained all this to Guo Qingqing, Guo Qingqing had a look of righteousness, which made me feel even more incredible. I winked at Mike repeatedly, hoping that he wouldn’t say yes to Ms. Guo in a fit of excitement, so Mike told Guo Qingqing to come back the next day.
That night, Mike was crazy and we had a lot of sex. Usually we don’t talk during sex, but this time Mike kissed me while stroking my body over and over again, and every time he touched a spot, he murmured like a dream about the size of my body and the most normal size of beautiful women in the world. Finally, when he came, he almost roared and told me that he could make every part of my body the most standard, sexy and beautiful in the world! Mike said that it was possible to completely change a person’s appearance, both in theory and in practice, but no one had ever tried it since the birth of the plastic surgery industry. He, Mike, would be the first! He said that since we had no money and no time, we couldn’t start with me, and now Guo Qingqing has taken the initiative to come, isn’t that right? Of course, he denied that he was using Guo Qingqing as an experiment first. Mike said that after he finished Guo Qingqing’s facelift in two years, he would start sculpting me. Mike said that he was excited again, so he turned around and held me under his body again, panting and saying, “Honey, wait and see, then I will make the Hollywood stars ashamed. He said, and then excitedly “puffed” “puffed” up. I finally agreed to Mike’s plan, after all, he always thinks of me no matter what he does. When Mike ejaculated for the second time and lay on top of me in exhaustion, I felt my bliss like my womb was bursting.
The next day, Guo Qingqing arrived on time and we all got along well. However, since the plan was unprecedented in both scope and medical skill, we had to do it in secret and could not sign a contract. We explained the situation to Guo Qingqing, she agreed, and things began to happen.
That day we immediately started to collect portraits and body information of Oriental stars on the Internet, which could take a while. In the end, Guo Qingqing had to decide for herself whether to choose Zhao Wei’s eyebrows, Gong Li’s ass and lips, or Ye Yuqing’s breasts and thin waist, because our knowledge of Oriental beauties was limited.
Then, in the operating room, Guo Qingqing stripped naked, walked back and forth for a minute, then lay there motionless, or swinging to the left or right, so that the computer could record everything she did. Then the three of us discussed together, and selected the most beautiful Oriental women’s buttocks, breasts, nose, eyebrows and so on, piece by piece dip paste to the computer in Guo Qingqing’s body. Finally, when we looked at Guo Qingqing’s body again, it really was an Oriental beauty that even women would be attracted to. However, when I looked at Guo Qingqing again, I felt uncomfortable because the beauty on the computer screen was no longer Guo Qingqing, but another person. I thought, are you willing to become a stranger for the sake of beauty? But this thought did not last long, because at that time both of them were so excited that they were breathing heavily and their faces were red, so I stopped myself from thinking. In retrospect, whether from your Eastern or our Western aesthetic point of view, Guo Qingqing’s original appearance is considered very beautiful. It’s just that the scene is a little blurry, and that was the last time I saw a body named Guo Qingqing.
The next day, a step-by-step cosmetic surgery began. Today, a knife cut the belly, remove fat, and a few days later to remove a rib, the waist in the average waist size of the world’s beauty. As she was removed three ribs before and after, later, her waist really seems to be “boneless”. When the wound healed a little, and began to repair in the calf, then the chest, shoulders, arms …… every day is bloody.
If things were just like this, it would be fine, but as Guo Qingqing disappeared day by day, another person made by Mike gradually formed, I found more and more places not right. If before Mike is dedicated to work, forgetting to eat and sleep, then he is now more and more involved in the new body, so he sleeps and eats restlessly. As long as a day does not see “Guo Qingqing”, he will be strangely irritable. This is not what scares me the most, but Guo Qingqing’s eyes. What can I say? You know, the eyes are the only thing that can’t be changed by plastic surgery, and they are also the window to a person’s soul. I have seen a lot of plastic surgeries, but no matter if you have a face lift, a breast augmentation, or a nose job, just look at her eyes and you will know that they have not changed.
But Guo Qingqing’s situation is completely different, day by day I found that her eyes were slowly changing, and in the end she was almost a different person. The more time we spent together, the more I noticed that her eyes were becoming strange. I was really scared because I thought that the body and the soul are inseparable, and what kind of body must have what kind of soul, right? But Mike had completely changed Guo Qingqing’s body, and of course, the soul inside had been subliminally changed as well. Worst of all, Mike seemed to be under the spell of this new soul. Later, Mike would often use the visual inspection as an excuse to make Guo Qingqing undress or sit or stand there. You know, after Mike’s scalpel carved at that time Guo Qingqing, wearing clothes has been dazzling, when you take off the clothes, her new white and delicate skin, that close to the perfect body proportions, and after a knife guide carved out of the pink face, even I can not help but want to hug, and no wonder Mike’s face appeared as intoxicated expression. Hey, what can you do? I prefer to think that Mike is obsessed with his own ingenious scalpel, not his own work.
While Guo Qingqing was becoming a different person, Mike was making me feel more and more strange. Those days let me really do not understand ah, I think, maybe we insult God his old man, after all, everyone is made by his old man. At that time, Mike was already a bit delirious, he often had some amazing statements, what he wanted to make all the sculptors in history become real history, because since you can sculpt on real people, who will sigh at the plaster statue? He also said he was going to make all the actresses in Hollywood ugly ducklings; and what with him finally fulfilling the Declaration of Independence and God’s mission of saying he couldn’t do it, it was he, Mike, who made the world truly and completely equal.
Three years ago, on the morning of September 11, I was supposed to go to the office first to make preparations, but because Guo Qingqing had a follow-up appointment that day, Mike went to the plastic surgery center early in the morning. He was like a man possessed, everything revolved around his masterpiece, Guo Qingqing. When the terrorists flew their plane into the World Trade Center that day, I was driving on 52nd Street in the morning rush hour. I heard the news and thought, “It’s over, Mike and Guo Qingqing are finished. Around noon, I got a call from Guo Qingqing, and I told her, “Mike is in the clinic!”
“Oops, his work isn’t finished yet, what am I going to do?!” That was Guo Qingqing’s only reaction to the news of Mike’s death.
“So is the job done or not?” I couldn’t resist interrupting Kesselring’s story, but I immediately felt it wasn’t quite right. Kesselring gave me a grumpy look and shrugged: “I’m not sure, because Mike did this plastic surgery a long time ago beyond what traditional and current medicine allows, and every day is a new exploration. I don’t know if it’s over or not, seeing the way Mike concentrates. One day he’s fixing something, the next day he’s cutting off a piece, and I’m scared. Mike has gone crazy, he not only wants to make people like God, he wants to make goddesses! Because Mike thought that I didn’t understand his work, we didn’t talk much about it.”
“What happened to Guo Qingqing after ‘9/11’?” I asked without regret. The protagonist of Catherine’s story was Mike, while the protagonist of the story I wanted to hear was Guo Qingqing.
“Then we spoke on the phone several times, but we only met once, and she wanted to get the records of the plastic surgery she had done at our clinic, and medical certificates and things like that.”
“You refused?”
“Why would I refuse? Because Guo Qingqing’s plastic surgery case was special, we were careful with her physical therapy records and only had the records in the clinic’s computer. Also, since Mike had to do research frequently, he had relevant information in his laptop, but both were buried in the rubble after ‘9/11’.
“There is no backup at other relevant institutions? For example-“
“As I told you, Mike’s practice of sculpting people as plaster statues would not be accepted by the formal medical and cosmetic community in the United States, so our entire process is confidential. Since the secrecy will cause damage to Guo Qingqing’s interests, such as health insurance or something can not be purchased, but this is done only with Guo Qingqing’s full understanding and signed consent.”
“Then you always have one or two pictures of a cosmetically altered Guo Qingqing, right?” I was still not ready to give up this last hope.
“No. Mike insisted that the photos of Guo Qingqing could not be leaked before the final work was completed, so there were many photos of the half-finished Guo Qingqing in Mike’s computer. Mike wanted to shock the whole world by releasing only two photos after the completion of the final work: Guo Qingqing before plastic surgery and Mike’s finished masterpiece.
Can you describe Guo Qingqing after plastic surgery?”
Kesselring stretched and looked at me with a funny expression, “I have no way to describe her, but if you see a woman in the future with eyebrows like your CCTV star and breasts and ass like a Hong Kong porn star, it could be Guo Qingqing. Remember, this is not your original Guo Qingqing. I am not just talking about her appearance, in her soul she is not your former Guo Qingqing!”
When I came out of Kesselring’s house, my legs were weak, and I always had this reaction when I heard ghost stories or scary things. I sat there without thinking about anything, looking at Manhattan as if I were back in college a few years ago. Back then, whenever I couldn’t calm down, I would go to Sun River in Manhattan and sit there and wait for the daylight to fade and the light to come out of each window of the skyscrapers one by one. I would think, “I wonder what kind of story, what kind of joy and sorrow will be in each window? With this thought, my mood calmed down like the river in front of me.
I got up and went to the nearest phone booth to call my parents and tell them I was going home. Then I called Liu Mingwei in Washington to tell him that I was not going to Washington. The news I received from my parents was hard to bear. It turned out that after I left, the Guangzhou Municipality Industry and Commerce Bureau and the Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau seized Pan’s enterprise, declaring that the Pan’s Nutritional Oral Liquid they produced did not have any of the efficacy they claimed, and that A-hua had gone into hiding and did not dare to see my parents.
On the one hand, I felt sorry for my parents, who understood that they had been deceived once again, and on the other hand, I was depressed that I would not be able to see A-hua when I returned. The age in my father’s voice, which was obvious on the phone, overwhelmed me. Next, Liu Mingwei received my call and excitedly counted me out loud on the phone, blaming me for not telling him in advance that I had arrived in the United States. Before I had time to explain, he had decided to drive from Washington to pick me up early the next morning.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (4)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 24, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 4 An Old School Friend in Washington
During his four years in college, Liu Mingwei was elected as the class president of our class for two consecutive years. This is a very difficult thing to do on a campus that has always promoted democracy, especially in an atmosphere where those of us who study politics have always secretly admired the West’s “turnover of personnel”. In fact many things that are not easy have become less difficult for Liu Mingwei. He and Wang Xiaohai and Tian Haipeng arrived in the United States at about the same time. Of the three, Tian Haipeng got his U.S. passport and returned to Guangzhou to become a “sea turtle” — a student who has returned home to China after graduate study abroad. Wang Xiaohai was in Los Angeles while running for his life, taking advantage of any job opportunity that came his way, Liu Mingwei joined the U.S. federal government and reportedly did not give up on our college major. Guo Qingqing and I later also went to the United States to study. Although I chose to continue my studies in the university, but I know in my heart how difficult it is to engage in work related to our profession in the United States.
Liu Mingwei was nearly six feet tall, had fine skin, and often had a smile on his face. He always made people feel comfortable. This made him stand out at the university. At that time, most of our classmates attributed Liu Mingwei’s temperament to the fact that his father was a vice-governor of Anhui Province. Now it seems that this is not quite true, because Liu Mingwei’s father retired in the early 1990s, while Liu Mingwei’s success is still going strong. The next morning, as I was dragging my luggage out of the hotel door, I saw a suit-clad, still handsome Liu Mingwei leaning against the Mercedes Benz motor home, looking at me and smiling.
“Old buddy Yang, I don’t even know how to greet you. Hahaha, I heard that the successful men in the country like our age, the greeting is no longer say ‘have you eaten’, but changed to ‘have you divorced’, because once a man is successful, he gets a divorce to marry a little beauty in her early twenties. Haha ……” Before he even approached me, Liu Mingwei had already started joking. He must have remembered that I am not married yet, so he changed the subject. He looked at me while opening his arms.
“Please, thank you. I know I’m old and don’t need to be reminded. But you still look so childlike and young.” I was so breathless from his hug that we all laughed uncontrollably. As always, the sight of Liu Mingwei made me feel much better. I pretended to fit in and got into his Mercedes E-320, which still smelled of new car and leather.
“Let’s leave here and have brunch at McDonald’s on the way, okay?”
“How have you been in the years since you came home?” There wasn’t much traffic leaving the city in the morning in New York, and half an hour later we were on Route 95.
“Working everywhere, not good and not bad, it doesn’t matter.” I said calmly. Liu Mingwei sighed and said regretfully, “I always thought that you were the most qualified to be an official in our country, but I didn’t expect you to quit and take your chances in the private sector.” I carefully remembered the word xiahai go to sea — “go to the private sector,” Liu Mingwei said: “A few years ago, I would have liked to go back, my father had an old colleague introduce me to the office of a chief in Beijing to become a staff assistant at the deputy department level. I thought about it for a while and turned it down. Soon after, I applied for an American passport. You see, now I can’t go back to my country as an official, it’s over!”
“I tell Wei, I should feel sorry for you, you would make a good official. I said this from the bottom of my heart.
Liu Mingwei wiped away his smile, shook his head, and sighed again, “Yang, you’re not telling me that even you are confused about the situation in our country, are you? Don’t you see that it is simply impossible for us to study politics and choose liberal arts to become officials in the current political climate of our country?”
I smiled and didn’t answer, wanting to hear many unique insights from Liu Mingwei.
“Over the years, it’s not as if you haven’t noticed that liberal arts students who study politics, philosophy, and history simply can’t make it in the civil service. Engineering and science students have risen to the top, and even the current Party and state leaders are graduates of Tsinghua or other universities who studied science and engineering. Many of our classmates are outstanding and are now almost 40 years old, and as far as I know, only Li Jun is a deputy director. But it is good. You know, many humanities graduates of Peking University in recent years have ended up in prison. Yang, do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“It’s because we who study art can’t control our own mouths! We like to discuss and talk about things, which is not in line with our political climate since the reform and opening up, especially since the 1990s. Since the nineties, our country has been advocating less discussion, don’t argue, keep your head down and devote yourself to economic construction. Concerns about ideology and political systems can be put aside. But we study liberal arts, we study politics, philosophy, literature, the essence is to argue in search of true knowledge, practice in search of truth. If we don’t argue, we become a pile of shit. What do you think about that?”
I nodded, I have always admired Liu Mingwei’s debating skills to the core. When I was in school, as long as Liu Mingwei was present, the truth would usually be on his side. The most amazing thing is that no matter what argument you choose, he can either convince or justify you on the spot, and you will be red in the face.
“I chose to leave China at that time and have not gone back since I had the opportunity. How do you people who have returned feel? I have heard that returnees are very welcome in China, but that seems to exclude those of us who studied Western politics, philosophy, and literature.”
“I think your decision is the right one. There is nothing wrong with not arguing or even thinking for us little people. Thinking is painful and arguing is dangerous. Since the state has thought of everything for us, they are so very thoughtful, why do we have to think hard and argue relentlessly at every turn? Not only do we make ourselves sulk all day long, but we also annoy the leaders who are always on top of things.” In between my words, Liu Mingwei turned his head several times to stare at me despite the danger of driving like this, probably trying to judge from my expression whether I was joking or not. I laughed and changed my serious expression and continued, “People who study science and engineering may be better able to govern the country, our country’s economic development has been quite crazy over the years. Doesn’t that make you Americans very nervous? I think people talk about the country as a machine, probably the leaders who study engineering and science know how to run that machine better than those of us who study literature.”
“You really think so?” Liu Mingwei gave me an oblique look, “The state may be a machine, but unfortunately people are not machines, and while machines don’t think, people do.”
I stopped talking as the Mercedes roared down the highway toward Washington, D.C., at 90 miles an hour. It was then that I remembered a conversation I had with Liu Mingwei in college more than a decade ago. We had this conversation when we were talking about childhood dreams and realistic ideals and fantasies of the people we would become and other things that we used to bring up in a serious debate in our college days.
“Every child has a dream, whether you want to grow up to fly an airplane or be an astronaut or be a general or a big official, everyone has one anyway,” He claimed.
I nod my head in agreement.
“When we get to elementary and middle school, we start to consciously adjust our dreams. At that time, teachers will ask you, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up? That question.”
We’ve all been asked that, of course.
“Teachers tell us that by going to college we are taking a big step toward our goals. So we went to college. After four years of college, even though we were in the ivory tower, we got some realistic knowledge from the books. I think less than a third of people still have those dreams when they graduate from college.
Personally, I think it’s probably less than that, which has to do with the fact that our ideals in middle school and elementary school are too far removed from reality.
“After entering society, a third of people who still secretly harbor dreams will, after five to ten years of realistic trials and tribulations, in nine out of ten cases, also abandon the ideals they themselves come to see as fantasies.”
I secretly wondered if I would be like that.
Although Liu Mingwei’s eyes did not rest on my face, his whole expression seemed to speak to a wider audience: “If someone is still clinging to a childhood dream ten years after graduating from college, he must be one of the few successful people whose dreams have come true.”
I didn’t really understand what he was saying at the time. I think he probably got it from some book, but those words have always stayed with me. As Liu Mingwei said, I myself am the one who secretly threw away my fantasies and devoted myself to real life a few years after graduating from college and working. I think that if there are people in our class who are still holding on to their dreams without losing them more than ten years after graduating from college, then Liu Mingwei must be one of them. I just don’t know what his dream was when he was young. Has his dream come true?
Looking at his long, white hands clutching the steering wheel of his Mercedes and his square face, I thought his dream could not have been realized in Washington. None of us who studied politics at that time would have imagined that we would emigrate to America to realize our ambitions. Of course, being a diplomat in the U.S. was a different matter. When I thought about this, for the first time I felt really sorry for my old classmate. Perhaps because I was afraid that he would see what I was thinking, I asked him, “You are doing well in Washington, not only in the government, but also in a Mercedes. Ming Wei, do you like America?”
“Do I like America?” He repeated. I knew that if I let Liu Mingwei answer this simple question, he could ramble on for an hour or two. I thought it was good that I wouldn’t have to open my mouth for the rest of the trip. I was just afraid that if he got too excited, he would often turn his head to look at me and jeopardize driving safety. I felt a slight headache, probably because I hadn’t quite gotten over the story I heard yesterday and the phone call from my parents, so I squinted.
Sure enough, Liu Mingwei started telling me about his “American dream”: “Do you like America? I really did not answer this question seriously. The social system of the United States is good, democratic freedom is guaranteed, and human rights violations generally do not happen to us, so I like the social system of the United States. Although the United States is not full of gold, as long as you are not lazy, you can always live. And if you have a good brain and hard-working legs, you can make money. I also like the United States in this regard. Even though people here lack some human sympathy, we respect each other like a guest. People I don’t know smile and nod. I’ve been here for more than ten years, and I don’t know if you believe it or not, but I’ve never seen a street fight. So from that point of view, I like America a lot. By the way, I also want to mention that you are very proud to be an American in the international arena. You might not be able to experience that without a U.S. passport, so I won’t explain. Of course, there are many more, how can I say, compared to every specific aspect of China, I like America better.
“But your question is asking me how I like America, and I have to tell you that I still like China a little bit more compared to America. Do you know what I mean?”
“When I first came to the United States, I was so impressed by the polite and courteous behavior of Americans. I thought that our country might be able to build highways and send people to the moon in ten or twenty years, but we could not learn the graceful and polite manners of others. Then I watched many court cases in which the American courts fought for the poor and against the government and big corporations, seeking justice for the victims and huge compensation. This, coupled with the fact that the U.S. government constantly protests internationally against governments that violate human rights, and vigorously protects illegal immigrants who are smuggled into the U.S. for various reasons, was a real eye-opener for me. This is so different from the image of U.S. imperialism that we saw in our Chinese textbooks and newspapers. But then, after I settled down a bit and slowly got used to life here, I suddenly remembered that just a few decades ago, the same American government and Americans not only discriminated against Chinese people, but Chinese people were forbidden to marry under American law. Can you imagine what made the white people who were so cruel a few decades ago suddenly become polite and courteous? Did they really change? The more I entered the American mainstream, the more I felt like an alien, did this feeling come out of nowhere? I think there must be something underneath the American superficially advocating equality for all people and freedom and democracy to make me feel this way.
“Moreover, compared with other Western powers, I still prefer the United States. In the past hundred years, China has been constantly ravaged by the Western powers in history, there is no doubt that the United States was the country that bullied China the least. Yet it is the same America that insists on supporting Taiwan’s independence! How can I put it?”
“Still, I think there is really no excuse for the U.S. government to go around promoting the American model of democracy. Other people’s democratic systems are better, aren’t they? The United States wants to promote its system to the world for the countries of Africa and Asia, like it does for China, right? The United States is the worst in this matter. I also always thought that the United States is selfless and has a true internationalist spirit to share the superior democratic system it enjoys with others. But wait, I remembered something else. Yang, what would you say is the greatest achievement of mankind in the twentieth century? By the way, one is the emergence of a democratic political system, and the other is the rapid development of science and technology. These two greatest achievements of mankind are represented by the United States, but the United States in promoting these two greatest achievements of mankind is the opposite, taking a very different attitude and approach.
In the case of science and technology, the name is intellectual property. They they keep 100% of science and technology secret from the third world, especially China. You can imagine that half the countries in the world are exhausting their human and material resources in research and development for science and technology that the United States mastered 20 years ago. Take China, for example, we invest tens of billions of dollars every year in researching technologies that the United States mastered 20 years ago.
For example, under the complete technology blockade and secrecy of the United States, we have invested a lot of human and financial resources in space development, while the Americans went to the moon more than 40 years ago, they are very proud, but they do not want other countries like China to go up, why? If going to the moon is the most important step for mankind to explore space, why can’t China do it? If the United States really wants the whole world to be better, it only needs to export some science and technology to China and the Third World. Do you realize how much that would contribute to the common development of the whole world? Yes, such a world would be a commonwealth, and the global village of common prosperity would not be far away. But have the Americans done it? China has sent astronauts into space, a technology that the United States had forty years ago. Yet they are still reluctant to share it. Given all this, how could I be persuaded not to doubt the motives and sincerity of the United States in promoting another outstanding achievement of mankind – the democratic system?”
“Believe me, Yang, I appreciate democracy and believe, as Chinese leaders claim, that sooner or later it will flourish in China. But until then, the democratic system is one that we will establish ourselves when the conditions are ripe. Later, I finally understood that the United States and the West are bent on appropriating the most advanced science and technology, while claiming that democratic and liberal institutions are the wealth of all mankind. In addition to the universal principles of human rights and individual freedom and democracy, the democratic system also includes the concepts of fair competition and free trade, but consider this: if the growth of science and technology is 20 years to half a century behind the West, what would be the consequences of implementing their so-called political democracy and free trade system?”
“Well, then the consequences would be severe. We would forever be reduced to an inferior, second-class people! We would forever be an object of enslavement and charity for those Westerners who have mastered advanced science and technology!”
“You see, Yang, I live with these complicated thoughts and feelings, how do you want me to answer your question?”
Although Liu Mingwei tried to keep his voice calm, his eyes never left the road in front of him. So for the rest of the trip, I lay comfortably in a large leather chair with a massage function from Mercedes-Benz, closing my eyes, listening and thinking at the same time. This way all the way down, it was as if I had seen Mingwe again when I was young, standing on the university forum. No change, no change at all, Liu Mingwei was still Liu Mingwei of our college days. I think he must still be carrying his childhood dream around with him. I have to admit that whether I agree with Mingwei or not, I will always love his unique way of expressing his views and his distinctive way of arguing. I have no idea where exactly this approach comes from, because in Liu Mingwei’s body, the characteristics of several generations above and below him are almost intertwined. Undoubtedly, he inherited a lot of good revolutionary traditions from his father, who was a high-ranking cadre; he could not escape the influence of our “Say No” generation’s education; of course, he was passionate, almost the same as today’s little “cynics;” at the same time, he has a weathered look, showing himself to be an all-knowing person, and very much like the former Red Guards who are slowly appearing in all walks of life.
When the Mercedes pulled up in front of his luxurious mansion in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, I don’t think Liu Mingwei’s generational traits will affect what he does in real life. After all, when it comes to making choices in real life, he obviously knows that a big, luxurious house in Washington’s aristocratic district, a fancy Mercedes Benz RV, is much more affordable than those ideas.
With Liu Mingwei’s lover on a business trip to Europe and his seven-year-old son at school, there is only one Mexican maid in the big, luxurious house. When I entered the house, a strong smell of coffee hit my nose. The interior of the house was even more luxurious, so I was a little overwhelmed, but I tried my best to pretend to be comfortable and keep my eyes from looking around. He first showed me the guest room where I would be staying tonight. Then we walked back to the living room together, and just as we sat down, the maid came down the hall pushing the tea cart.
“Yang, I have all kinds of tea here, some costing thousands of dollars a tael, would you like to try some?”
“You all drink tea? I thought we were having coffee, I smell coffee.”
“Haha, do you want coffee?”
“Of course not, I never like to drink that toy. Sometimes I just drink it like medicine when I feel life is bitter or when I don’t want to sleep.”
“What an old classmate, haha.” Liu Mingwei stood up happily, “I’ll tell you a secret, the coffee maker in my house is on 24 hours a day, but we never drink coffee. I just like the smell, so I want the house to always smell strong coffee, now even the bathroom of my house is emitting the smell of coffee, how about that? It’s very American, right? Some of my old American friends came to my house and praised me for being completely Americanized. Ha, but they do not know, for America, my feeling is like that coffee, smell in the nose pleasant, but drink in the mouth only bitter ah”.
Liu Mingwei had asked for a vacation from work while I was staying at his house. The two of us so immersed in the rich smell of coffee a cup of tea. From the first year of college to graduation, and talk about where each classmate after graduation. We talked about Miss Guan, who died of cancer, and we were silent. Talking about the last, the class of forty students is always missing four or five, still do not know where to go, no news, we again for them and for our own fate long sigh. Talk about the only couple in the class after graduating from college not only did not fly apart, and finally married old classmates, the two will smile.
“Do you know why there are very few examples of successful relationships among students in the same class in college, but once married, there are very few divorces?”
Knowing that Liu Mingwei always likes to elicit his own answers with questions, I smiled and shook my head.
“The reason why college classmates don’t get divorced after getting married is because they are afraid that they won’t be able to explain it to their old classmates at future reunions.”
We all couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I said, “Ming Wei, it’s not easy for you to use what you’ve learned and get a foothold in Washington. I have heard that you are also an expert on China that the State Department relies on.”
“Which State Department, which State Department?”
[Translator’s note: guówùyuàn 国务院 could refer to either the highest political organ of the PRC, the State Council, or the U.S. State Department. End of note]
Liu Mingwei looked at me in confusion.
“Of course it’s the U.S. State Department, you’re amazing!”
Liu Mingwei relaxed: “Actually, it’s nothing, I just know Chinese, often go online, see what Chinese people are talking about online, and then summarize the report to the bureaucrats at the U.S. State Department.
“That’s it? Sounds like overt intelligence gathering.”
“You’re wrong, old classmate.” Liu Mingwei also laughed. “The Americans think they understand China, but you only have to look at the pitifully few people in their main government departments who know Chinese to realize that they have been lying to themselves. In fact, how could we who study international relations not know that the United States has done almost nothing right on China? First, it helped the Kuomintang fight the Communists and lost all of China as a result. Then it pushed China into the arms of the Soviet Union, and then it did something to unite with China against the Soviet Union. Recently, one moment it wants peaceful development, the next it claims to be developing a strategic partnership, each time just more outrageous than the one before.”
“I’m really kind of jealous of you.” I said sincerely, “You must have a lot of friends and connections in Washington, right?”
“There aren’t many, and the relationship with Americans has always been like my relationship with coffee, superficial. Come on, I’ll take you to see my only good friend.” Liu Mingwei said to me as he stood up. Confused, I followed him into a room that looked like a study and was immediately attracted by the tens of thousands of books scattered around the room. I quickly scanned through them and found that they included almost dozens of categories such as politics, international relations, psychology, philosophy, and popular fiction. “This is the mentor I have been spending time with all these years.”
I recited the saying, “Inside books are golden treasure houses. A book has a face like jade.” with envy and emotion.
“Yes, I don’t know if you still like big bestsellers. I like them a lot now. My world is divided into the real world and the world of books. Once you enter the world of books, the real world seems dull and boring. The best peace of mind in the world is in the book, and the most luxurious pleasure is also in the book. Take xg love, to be honest, my best xg love enjoyment and high mockery are from the sex love books and newspapers. Ha, old school, do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Of course I do, who do you think you are?” I said laughing.
“Really.” Liu Mingwei got serious and took out a book, “Almost all the conspiracies and tricks that appear in the world now are those that appeared in history. Look, this is a novel by the best-selling American novelist Tom Clancy. In this novel, which was published ten years ago, he describes terrorists flying airplanes into the White House. But after 9/11 happened a few years ago, the top brass of the United States, from the White House to the State Department to the Congress to the CIA to the Defense Department, all found it almost unbelievable. I don’t think any of these idiots have read the novel. I wasn’t surprised, the world is like that, if you want to find a way to shock the world of crime, don’t trust your head, find the right book. The criminal genius in this world is always the learned intellectual.
“I don’t want to commit a crime, is there a book that teaches people how to be successful, how to get rich, or how to get beautiful women?”
Liu Mingwei also smiled, and then he stared at me and asked, “What do you mean when you just asked me if I have many friends in Washington? Is there something you want me to help you with?”
“I want to ask you or through a relationship to help me find someone.” I was a little hesitant, but I said it anyway, “Guo Qingqing.”
Liu Mingwei frowned, “Yangzi, you and our class flower Guo Qingqing thing always makes people think.”
Guo Qingqing was always the talk of the town. There were only eight girls in our class of forty, and Guo Qingqing was the one with the best body and the most dignified face.
“Ming Wei, do you know where Guo Qingqing is? I want to meet her.” I asked him.
“Is she missing? I haven’t heard from her in a long time, and we used to keep in touch by e-mail.” I noticed for the first time that Liu Mingwei’s eyes rolled in a slightly different way when he spoke, and I knew he wasn’t telling the truth, but unable to determine if he was lying, I was silent for a while. In college, Liu Mingwei also got along well with Guo Qingqing for a while, although it was extremely secret, but everything in college is an open secret.
“What happened during your time in New York is not very clear to me, but you man let a tragedy appear twice in one person, I think no one can stand it.” Ming-Wei Liu solemnly challenged me.
He was referring to the “kissing incident” that affected Guo Qingqing’s college graduation paper. In our junior year, in order to improve our foreign relations and English communication after entering the work force, the university specially arranged for students of our major to often go to the international student building, where international students from Europe and the United States lived at that time, and the international students from Europe and the United States would get together. In the process, some of the students would get hot and bothered with the foreign students, and some of them who were not strong-willed would make small mistakes in their lifestyle, selling foreign currency or taking advantage of small privileges they happened to enjoy.
Guo Qingqing was once caught by her classmates kissing an American youth, which was nothing in 1986 when bourgeois liberalization was very popular, and everyone laughed it off. However, on the eve of graduation in 1987, the political wind against bourgeois liberalization suddenly began to blow, and the allocation of graduation units was tight, so this “kissing incident” became controversial among the students. Since the “good units” assigned to our major at that time included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economic and Trade Affairs, and other ministries of the State Council, the “kissing incident” with a foreigner naturally had a great impact on Guo Qingqing’s assignment. In the end, she was unable to find a suitable job.
At the same time, I decided to break up with Guo Qingqing on the eve of my graduation because the kissing incident had damaged my self-esteem, and my classmates were gossiping about it. At that time, I was assigned to the Ministry of State Security. I was so proud of myself that I didn’t care about Guo Qingqing’s feelings. People say that without a job and without me, Guo Qingqing was depressed for a while and broke off contact with all her classmates. Later, when I went to New York to study, I happened to hear from Liu Mingwei that Guo Qingqing was also studying in New York, and we soon became a couple again. However, Guo Qingqing was no longer the Guo Qingqing of our college days. My pride was hurt again when I found out that she had intimate relationships with many American men while she was abroad. During that time, we fought almost every day, so much so that after a while we didn’t know why we were fighting. One of our daily goals seemed to be to make each other’s lives miserable. When she decided to marry her teacher, an American professor thirty years her senior, we both knew that she had won the battle of making each other uncomfortable for the time being. I left New York to return to China without even picking up my diploma.
But I don’t want to justify myself to Liu Mingwei; in fact, I was the one who was hurt the most both times. If there is a chance, I just want to tell Qingqing.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (5)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 24, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 5: The Sudden Epidemic of Corruption
After disembarking at Hong Kong International Airport and passing through immigration, I waited in the baggage area for about ten minutes before receiving my bags. I carefully placed them on the trolley, opened the combination lock, and without checking all the tags, I was already sure that my luggage had been searched by a professional agent on my departure from the United States. With a touch of uneasiness and annoyance, I made my way to the exit. As I approached the exit, I looked down and pretended to check the tags on my luggage as I hurried to avoid the line of dozens of unfamiliar faces greeting my friends and family. I heard someone call my name, but didn’t look up to see who it was, thinking I might be hallucinating. Suddenly a fat, bloated body jumped in front of me, blocking my path, and I realized that I had just heard someone call my name and that it was not my hallucination. I looked at him in surprise, “Tian Haipeng, how could it be such a coincidence?”
“Coincidence or not, I’m here to pick you up, buddy.” Tian Haipeng grabbed my luggage without a second thought and pulled me out by my shoulders.
“Pick me up specifically?”
“What, no? Old classmate, I’ve been looking for you so hard. Xiao Hai said you went to New York, but Guo Qingqing’s phone was always busy, so I finally found out from Liu Mingwei in Washington that you took this flight back to Hong Kong today. I drove from Guangzhou and waited here for two hours. You didn’t know I was coming to pick you up, so I was afraid I was going to miss you. I said, “Man, what year are you living in, can’t you bring a GSM cell phone?
“Me?” Look at Tian Haipeng look, probably something, but thinking that from Hong Kong to Guangzhou there are three hours to talk, I also smiled and answered him: “Nothing will find me, that is, you are also a dozen years a meeting ah, for this time you let me buy the global pass? I can’t afford it.”
Tian Haipeng put my luggage on his car parked outside the airport, I got into his “BMW” with Guangdong and Hong Kong license plates and drove to Guangzhou. Tian Haipeng is one of our classmates who went into the private sector and is a returnee. Although we are both in Guangzhou, we usually have very little contact with each other. I remember in the past two years, when there are foreign students in Guangzhou, we would get together for dinner to meet one or two of them face to face. But I knew he was successful because he drove a BMW with Guangdong and Hong Kong license plates. He was born with muscles and fat, the fattest in our class.
“You know, something happened to Li Jun!” He said as he accelerated after leaving the airport.
Li Jun is our classmate who was assigned to the Guangdong Provincial Government, he, Tian Haipeng and I were called the “Three Musketeers” by our old classmates, which probably means we are “chivalrous” and “hospitable”. As long as there are foreign students in Guangzhou, the three of us always cooperate with each other, money for money, a car for a car, a powerful force, a relationship, and strive to make every fellow student in Guangzhou can eat a good dinner, swim in the night scene on both sides of the Pearl River, or enjoy a night club without worries. Compared with our business trips to the mainland, we often bump into old classmates pushing three to four others in tow, either going to meetings or business trips, or pretending to be enthusiastic to bring us home for a “light meal”, the three of us are the “Three Musketeers” is really well deserved. Although Li Jun is the only officer in our class to be promoted to deputy director, he is a man of honor, not arrogant, cautious. I really couldn’t imagine what he could have done. I looked at Tian Haipeng suspiciously and wanted him to continue.
“Li Jun was arrested, it’s been a week, yesterday the case was officially dropped, it looks like this time is over.”
My heart immediately flashed back to my own arrest two months ago. Thinking about it, I think Haipeng might be overly nervous: “Don’t be so nervous, being arrested is not necessarily the end.”
“What do you mean, as a deputy director, would they arrest him without solid evidence? They think that people like you got caught by mistake!”
“Hey, what do you mean? How do you know about the last time I got caught?”
Haipeng probably tried to sneer, but only managed to make the fat on his face twitch a little, and sarcastically said to me, “I think everyone knows about it except you! Old classmate, this is the information age, I can’t believe there are still old fogeys like you!”
“Let’s not talk about me first, tell me how Li Jun got into trouble.
“Corruption and bribery and all that.” Haipeng said.
“No way?” I doubted it: “His position is only responsible for handling some documents, uploading and distributing, should belong to the government office of clean water ah. Besides, Li Jun doesn’t seem like the kind of person to be associated with economic corruption.”
“I’m not going to discuss this with you, Brainiac, or I’ll hate myself for having a classmate like you. Let me tell you, the rat has a rat’s trick, the snake has a snake’s way, all walks of life have their own unique corruption and bribery tricks. Besides, you still live in the past with your textbooks, you think you can tell good from bad at a glance! Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking to you about, now we need to think about how we can help him”.
“Do you have a lawyer? How can we help him?”
“That’s not our business, that’s your business. You guys are usually quirky and weird, but I know you have some ways, so maybe you can use them this time”.
“You’re not kidding.” I looked at him and said seriously, “What can I do? Have you forgotten that I was just locked up by someone for three weeks for no apparent reason?”
Tian Haipeng turned his head and looked at me: “I don’t know how to tell you, do you really not know that you have personal connections and supporters behind the scenes? Or are you deliberately pretending to be a man of mystery to your old classmates? I don’t understand how you can look like you don’t want to get by, but when you do something, you look serious. I know there are many people who respect you, especially some big officials or those old-timers. Sometimes I wonder if Yang Wenfeng was born with this kind of virtue, or if he deliberately pretends to be?”
“Have you come to a conclusion yet?” I asked him with a smile.
“Gee, maybe it’s really natural. You see, you have that personality both in school and in the work unit, teachers and leaders like you, but you never use it. When you were in school, if you had asked, your teachers would have assigned you to a place in Hong Kong, the Ministry of Commerce or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but you chose to go to that hellhole, the Ministry of State Security. After I went there, I heard that you were once again highly regarded and had been earmarked for training, but you casually decided to come to Guangzhou for the sake of the climate and your parents. You’re the first person I’ve seen who has stood up to the Ministry of State Security and really stood out. You can see how much the leaders like you. Hey, how can I put it? If I had your connections, I would be one of the top 50 richest people in China in less than 10 years.
“Oh, if you were really me, you wouldn’t think so.” I interrupted his tall tale, “Let’s talk about Li Jun, you visited him, how serious is it?”
“I didn’t see anything, if I was allowed to see him, would I still come to you?” He shouted, “Solitary confinement, no one is allowed to visit him.”
“It’s not that serious, is it? By law, you can visit a prison at any time as long as a guard is present.”
“Aiya, how do you know that he was secretly arrested by the Ministry of State Security?” Tian Haipeng said with a dejected look. If not for the seat belt, I would have almost jumped up.
After making several phone calls and tossing and turning for half a day, we finally entered the small room where Li Jun was kept in solitary confinement at night. Seeing that the old classmate’s appearance had not changed and that he seemed to be doing well, Tian Haipeng and I both breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s still good to have old classmates.” As soon as the skinny Li Jun saw us, he said half-jokingly, “It’s hard for me to die without someone to talk to.”
“Are you okay?” I did not know how to open the topic, so I had to ask dryly. Hai Peng took advantage of the corridor side of the guards not paying attention to the time, pulled out a small bottle of wine from the pants pocket, stuffed Li Jun. Li Jun took a look at the small bottle of export marks and two large hot gold letters “Maotai”, close to Haipeng’s ear and asked in a whisper, “is the real thing, right? Haipeng and I froze for a moment, and then we both smiled bitterly.
“The food here is not bad.” Li Jun stifled his laughter, “There is no discomfort in any aspect of life, but the loneliness and isolation here is unbearable.” He paused and continued, “I always thought I could stand loneliness and was proud of it from time to time, but after I came here, I realized what real loneliness is, and the good thing is that real loneliness can promote people’s thinking. Strangely enough, I have been in society for more than ten years after graduation, but it seems that my thoughts have always been stagnant, but after coming here for a short time, I have already become a philosopher and thinker. Before, when I was free outside, I had to be careful with my words to get promoted and get rich, and I consciously stopped thinking nonsense for a long time. Now it’s good that my body has lost its freedom, but my mind and spirit have been liberated, and I can think and speak freely without looking at people’s faces.
We scanned the place that so quickly produced philosophers and thinkers. A fixed bed, a concrete sink and flush toilet, three steps from the door to the bed, and three steps from the bed to the sink and toilet. I wouldn’t really think it was any different from my little room if it didn’t have a window.
“It’s really lonely to be locked up in a ghost room like this.” Tian Haipeng said as he looked around the room.
“Hey, being locked up in this room is not lonely per se, I’ve been enjoying the free air outside for almost forty years, and I don’t feel that freedom is valuable. And at that time I often thought that it must be nice to be alone with myself, to think about life, or to put aside mundane matters and seriously read some books. So when I first came in and was locked up here, I didn’t feel that it was unbearably lonely. For the first time he had pain in his eyes: “Loneliness is not whether you have someone to talk to, whether you have friends, loneliness is something in the heart. The first time I felt lonely was when I realized that I would probably be here for the rest of my life, with no future in sight, no light at all”.
“You’re too pessimistic.” I tried to comfort him.
“No need to comfort me, it’s good enough not to be sentenced to death. I confessed everything just to be spared the death penalty.” Li Jun said with a bitter smile.
The three of us were suddenly silent, loneliness and helplessness immediately enveloped this small room. I stood up and walked three steps to the sink, washed the soft foam cup of Li Jun’s mouthwash, then motioned for him to take out the bottle of Moutai wine that Tian Haipeng had smuggled in, unscrewed the lid and poured the wine into the cup, then put the empty bottle into my pocket. Li Jun gave me a grateful look, “Don’t worry, Yang, I won’t kill myself. He picked up his mouthwash cup, took a sip of wine, and began to tell us the story I had been unaware of all these years.
These days, being trapped in this small room in solitude, but let my thoughts clear a lot. The past scene reappeared in my mind like a movie, clear as day, as if I had just had a dream. I confessed everything, and in the end they said that they hoped that I, a student of a prestigious university and a famous writer in my home province, would write a decent, profound reflection on myself as a teaching tool and as my last useful thing for the Party and the people, in order to cooperate with the anti-corruption campaign.
You said that Hu Changqing from Jiangxi, Cheng Kejie from Beijing, Mu Xinsui from Northeast China, and Meng Qingping from Hubei wrote about their own degenerate experiences and profound reflections, and achieved a very good educational effect within the Party, and we in Guangdong can’t lag behind, right? The leaders above feel that although my level is not as good as some of them, but I am young and promising, and it is a famous university to study political science, they put great hope in my body, as if the first shot to fight corruption and promote integrity in Guangdong will be fired by me.
But I had to tell them that even though I confessed and admitted my guilt, I didn’t understand how I got to this point. It was like a dream, and although the scenario was clear, I was still confused about the cause and effect and how I somehow appeared in the dream and the seemingly logical outcome. Have you ever had a dream like that? One day in your dream, you were suddenly driven by a fear you couldn’t name, and you ran frantically forward. You run and run and run, running through the cemetery and jumping over a muddy ditch, and then you run headlong into a forest, yes, a forest! What the forest looks like varies from person to person. If you have seen a lot of horror movies, then there must be a certain movie that takes place in the forest. Or maybe the forest behind your village, but it looks terrible. Every tree is crooked in seven ways; it is as if it is reaching for you with its claws.
In the dream you cannot be afraid to fall down, you are still screaming as you run wildly, your subconscious probably knows that the fear behind you desperately trying to escape is actually your own shadow, but you cannot stop in the dream, all you can do is run and run. Suddenly, between the lightning and the fire, a tree trunk fell with a bang, right on your thigh, and you fell to the ground with a thud, and the moment you fell, your shadow disappeared, and the fear disappeared. You wake up from the dream, albeit in a cold sweat, but you immediately feel relieved, thankful that it was only a dream. Only then did you realize that the “trunk” that hit you was your wife’s thick leg pressing against your body.
Ha ha, my life is like that, ah. As soon as I joined the work, I worked hard and devotedly. As a result, I not only got promoted, but also made a small fortune. But one day, a pair of cold handcuffs appeared on my hands, and I realized that it was a dream. Haha, you two old classmates told me that in my dream, when I was running and running, I felt that there was always a trunk that would hold me down and end my terror, and that’s when my wife’s leg came over. You all read Sigmund Freud, think about it, if I knew that my wife’s leg would bump into me, would I still be running frantically in the dream? Real life is like that too, I was actually running very hard, but it was only when I heard the sound and felt the cold handcuffs “clicking” that I realized I was trembling. I was really waiting for this day. I really regret it. Even though I did nothing from the beginning, I was just waiting to hear that “click.
Don’t laugh, you two. Don’t think that I’m useless now that I’m a prisoner. You forget that a week ago I reached the highest level of the cadre of leaders among our forty classmates. Do you think it was easy to reach that level without any support? When I got this job, I didn’t know the director or the section chief. I was just a small member of the section trying to make a name for myself. You know, I work in the government secretary’s department, where you just deal with some documents, write some speeches or something, to make so little achievement as easy as possible. So I started from the diligence, instead of starting work at eight o’clock, I came in at seven o’clock. I opened the office windows every day, and the first thing I did was to take the lead in boiling water.
Most of our leaders are not college graduates, and there are a few college graduates among the workers, peasants and military trainees. Some of them rely on ambiguous relationships to get ahead, so I take special care not to reveal my college degree and always remind myself to try to forget what I learned in college. In this way, three years later, I not only did not sleep a day, but also did not dare to read a book for more than three years to improve my knowledge or confidence.
The good thing is that when you don’t treat yourself as special, people started to treat me as special. Soon the director fell in love with me as a hardworking, seemingly uneducated “college student” and often likes to take me with him. The old director is a cadre from the liberation era. He has had the opportunity to teach me by example, to share his experience with me, not once, but several times, dozens of times. You two should not think that it is easy to listen to an old man recount his boring experience over and over again, pretending to concentrate on the look of deep empathy each time, and each time finding new surprises and new themes from his same story to guide him in educating me. My life is not easy, my old classmate!
I waited and waited, and finally the old director retired and I was promoted to deputy director. At that time the director was one of those whose college education had been delayed by the suspension of university education during the Cultural Revolution. I think the generation gap in the office should be narrowed. It turned out that it had nothing to do with which generation, because the director had to teach by example. So I spent the next three or four years listening almost every week to the story of the education of the young people who were sent to the countryside and the Great Northern Wilderness. Every time the new director talked about how his hunger in the country led him to steal the farmer’s sweet potatoes to prove his theory that “everything tastes good when you are hungry,” I had to sneak to the market to buy back some sweet potatoes to eat raw.
Now that I am also the vice principal, I don’t have to listen to the principal’s story, and over the years many young people have come and become my subordinates. I think I should tell them something, but what should I tell them? As you know, when we were studying Marxist theory at the university, we used to listen to philosophy lectures by Friedrich Nietzsche. Later I remembered that we had fought against mental pollution several times, so I told the young people about this experience, but they turned around and muttered “stupid” and “sick.
When I heard their arguments, I was really confused. I had climbed all the way to this position, but for what? I remember when I first joined the staff, I was still very proud, but I did not want to express my ideals lest my old classmates make fun of me. Later, I narrowed down my ideals a lot, and I think that when I become an office manager, a bureau chief or a department head, I will be the one in the unit who pushes for reform to do a better job for the people and the Party. I think it was probably these high ideals that enabled me to remain humble and maintain my basic psychological equilibrium, and sometimes even to be very happy in our work. But it seemed that the higher I got, the more I forgot my original intention at the beginning, and that getting ahead was all I cared about.
It was the same with money. You know, I was late in making a significant amount of money. I focused on getting the job done. So you could say I was focused on getting ahead. We lived very frugally until our child was almost in his teens. One day, my junior high school student came home with an essay to write on the topic, “Is money everything? The child asked me what argument I should make, and I said without thinking, “Of course money is not everything, not only is it not everything, but money is also the source of much unhappiness and evil, even filth. The child was not happy to hear this. “Daddy, that’s not true, money can not only buy toys, but if there is extra, it can also be donated to the hungry children in Africa and North Korea. And Daddy, if money is dirty, then why does the U.S. dollar still have George Washington’s picture on it? Washington’s picture on it? Our yuan also has the heads of Chairman Mao, Zhu De, and Premier Zhou. Hey, you see, the child’s rebuttal, I really did not know how to respond. You know, the essence of our generation’s education is that we should despise money.
The children and I were talking to each other, but I didn’t realize that my wife was crying next to me. That night my wife hugged me and said what was in her heart: “Ah Jun, you don’t open your eyes and look around, aren’t all the other families richer than ours? You’re a deputy director, but when I went to the market to buy some fresh vegetables, I had to spend some time secretly calculating because I was afraid we wouldn’t have any money in the bank at the end of the month.
I’m not really “stupid,” but couldn’t I see that people around me were getting richer and richer? It’s just that our goals were different. I didn’t want to be an official for the people. But my wife is right. The next morning I stayed up all night to set a savings goal with my wife. I was more daring and set the goal at 200,000 yuan (RMB) because I know that even though we are a clean government, there are people looking for us to pull the strings. As long as you are careful, this goal is not difficult to achieve. At that time I secretly said to myself, “When we reach 200,000 yuan, my wife can go to the market to pick fresh vegetables whenever she wants. I will have no worries. Then I must do my best to do a good job and live up to the Party’s training and the people’s expectations.
It is true that there is nothing difficult in the world as long as one has the courage to set goals. In a short time, 200,000 RMB of extra money came into my hands. Although I lived in fear that year, it was worth it. I worked hard. I earn more than ten times my salary in extra money. Not only has it not affected my work, but my relationships have improved. The management and my colleagues trust me more. That day I told my happy wife about the realization of the plan, and I was moved to see her crying with happiness, and the whole family was in a happy atmosphere for the next month. A month later, my wife stopped taking out the account book to secretly admire it. The happy atmosphere gradually faded away. That day, behind my wife’s back, I set my next goal: 500,000! You know, nowadays, with inflation, the economy is also in the doldrums, both sides of our families have brothers and sisters who are unemployed and looking for new jobs, it is only human nature for me to plan early, and it is not too late for me to work hard when I have 500,000, I am still young after all, right?
I didn’t expect to reach the 500,000 goal in just seven months, and at the end of the seven months I was promoted to director, so I was really blessed. This double blessing forced me to be “bolder and faster” in setting the next goal. This time I set my goal at 1 million and also limited myself to reaching the goal within one and a half years. You both live in Guangzhou, Haipeng, you are already a multi-millionaire, you should know better than me, one million in Guangzhou can be nothing, right? The child will have to study abroad in a few years, so you don’t need 500,000? Yang, you have your ways, should you go and see how many section chiefs in Guangzhou do not have children studying abroad? Besides, my wife often takes my unit car to work. That’s not good. If Guangzhou Honda gets the next model year’s cars, I will have to buy her a car. If so, think about it, what worries do I have? I can definitely make full use of what I have learned and contribute to the country and its people.
Things didn’t go so well. I missed the 1 million yuan target by several months. But I am not intimidated by difficulties. When I set a goal, I made sure to separate long-term goals from immediate goals.
As I said, I got promoted, but later I forgot why I wanted to get promoted in the first place. It was the same with the 1 million yuan goal: I forgot why I wanted that much money in the first place. So my next goal was just numbers, 1.2 million, 1.4 million, 2 million, each time I promptly got over the joy of reaching the goal and focused on the next number. The fun at this point is no longer what the money can do. As long as I know I have money in the bank, I enjoy the number. Since then, promotion and wealth have become my goals in life.
Thinking about those days is really fucking ridiculous, the bank I had more than two million in savings, under the bed there are hundreds of thousands of spare cash, but I not only did not buy my wife a car, and I often remind my wife to buy food in the market must not show that we were rich. If there are colleagues of the unit’s family members present, try to buy something cheap, or deliberately choose these half-rotten green leaves, buy back we can secretly throw away. Then go to the suburbs and eat in a restaurant. Don’t laugh, I’m just used to being cautious, if it weren’t for what followed, I wouldn’t just be here, I’d have been promoted to director, and I can’t say that I’ll one day become a Party and state leader like Cheng Kejie. What are you laughing at? I have knowledge and culture, and I have the heart to work for the country and the people. Oh, forget it, don’t talk about it.
I am as obsessed with money as I am with being an official. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not money that hurts me, it’s me that hurts money. It would have been great if I had used money well to work and study after achieving my first, second, or third goal, so that my family would have no worries. But instead, I sneak my hard-earned money into the bank and stuff it under my bed. Of course, I reward myself when I have a large income, I bought a high-end suit and watch from Hong Kong, but I cannot wear it, sometimes late at night I toss and turn in bed, calculating how much money I really have. Actually, I knew it like the back of my hand, but I just wanted to enjoy the pleasure of calculating it over and over again. Sometimes, when I was too excited to stay in bed, I would sneak up, hide in the bathroom, put on my fancy suit and tie, put on my Rolex diamond gold watch, and pace back and forth in front of the mirror. I would wake up laughing in my dreams at night thinking about the strange, aristocratic, dashing guy I saw in the mirror.
Alas, if everything stopped there, how good it would be, but unfortunately, I unknowingly took promotion and wealth itself as the goal of life. At first, I risked corruption and bribery in order to have some savings so that I would not have to worry, and then I could achieve a career so that I could afford their lives. But then it slowly turned into disregarding my family, giving up my career, and even risking life and limb to get rich, but never thinking about what to do after I got rich. I deserved it because I turned making some extra money into a numbers game and my appetite got bigger and bigger. In the end, when I had more than two million, I suddenly came up with an idea, so to engage in this, when can become a millionaire ah? You know, our unit is after all the secretarial department, money is a long stream, people entrust you to do things, it is impossible not to pay attention to the benefits. So thousands and thousands of accumulation made me lose patience, especially I have been the Tang deputy director, little by little to take money from people’s hands is not decent. With this idea, my mood began to be bad. So since I became deputy director, I’ve been a little depressed, I really can’t think of any other point of power in my hands can be exchanged for money.
That is how it happened, they were undaunted, after contacting me directly a few times, they showed their cards: “Mr. Li, we know your plight, and we want to cooperate with you, but let’s say up front that if you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll leave immediately and never bother you again. But you also have to promise that even if you don’t cooperate with us, you can’t report us to your security agencies. But even if you betray us, we are not afraid, we all have foreign passports, the big deal is deportation, but your situation might not be so good.”
“Mr. Li, as long as you are willing to cooperate with us, money is not a problem. You just need to give us some copies of the documents you are dealing with, we are willing to pay 100,000 RMB per copy, regardless of quality and quantity, to buy them all. If our estimate is correct, the top secret documents in your hands will be sold for 5 million RMB per year. You are holding the world’s most expensive commodity, and you are worried about a small amount of money.
Their words surprised me, but I didn’t jump up and down; I said, “Go away. Then they left their phone number and left. They were true to their word and did not come back to me, I was the one who came to them later. They dropped $50,000 on me when we met again and said.
“Mr. Lee, take this and buy some copying and photography equipment.
I just started giving them copies of the documents one by one. I thought, if I am careful and work for two years, $10 million will be in my hand, and by then I will be…
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (6)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 25, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 6 The Best Classmates
Tian Haipeng drove me back. I did not want to say a word. Through the busy traffic road is about to Huijiao New Town, I suddenly changed my mind: “Turn the car around and take me to my parents’ house, they live in Zhujiang River South.”
He looked at me, and without saying a word, he made a hundred and eighty degree turn on Guang Hua Road. It was only when we were almost at my parents’ house that Tian Haipeng spoke: “You’re afraid to go back to your small room by yourself, aren’t you?”
I think he’s probably right, my heart has never been as heavy as it is today. I’m a spiritual Ah Q, and I’ve always believed that people don’t have to take on heavy burdens. Otherwise I would have to take everything as seriously as Tarzan does. But today I just don’t know how, I can’t relax.
As I stepped into the elevator, the thought of facing the worries of my parents’ newly disillusioned dream of prolonging their lives was the first thing that began to annoy me. I rang the doorbell, and soon a brisk footstep ran over to open the door. The door opened and I was surprised to see A-hua smiling flirtatiously at me. Her full, moist lips, the shallow swirls of wine on her face, her high, smooth nose, and her arched eyebrows had me momentarily speechless at the door.
Mom and Dad not only looked relaxed, they looked good. A-hua wore a long fabric skirt and a short-sleeved t-shirt today, full of spring energy. She seemed to be the master of the house in preparing dinner. When she came into the kitchen, my father told me that after Pan’s Nutritional Oral Liquid was confiscated because of the false propaganda, A-hua once hid and did not dare to see it. At that time, many consumers were looking for her as a nutritional ambassador for a week or two. A week ago, A-hua found the courage to come to the door and apologize to her parents, who immediately forgave her. A-hua also took out her savings to compensate her parents for their losses.
Father said that A-hua was also a victim, or at least one of the unknown masses, so he firmly refused. Finally, A-hua was so moved that she cried and asked my parents to let her stay at home for a while to serve them. My parents were a little embarrassed, so A-hua told the truth. She said that she had no place to live after the company closed down, and she was also afraid that her former customers would come to harass her at that time, so she was desperate and in a difficult situation. My parents once suggested that she go back home to Hunan, but A-hua even more excitedly claimed that it would be “chicken” and wouldn’t go back, and finally my parents took A-hua with them. “Anyway, there is still an empty room, and you usually do not come back to live. Dad said he thought so. Finally he whispered to me, “This child is a blessing from our past lives. She is not only competent and hardworking, but she often talks and walks with your mother and me, and she even plays mahjong, which people of our generation play! We have a very comfortable life.
My father was talking at intervals, and my heart was racing. I seemed to have heard stories like this before, and there are many such scams on the streets of Guangzhou. One by one, the scammers gain the trust of the lonely old people and eventually take away their life savings in a single pot. But such unpleasant speculations faded away as A-hua kept passing by. A-hua’s beauty was really out of proportion to her parents’ meager savings, and given the demand for beautiful women in Guangzhou and A-hua’s natural beauty, she had no need for such a deliberate ruse. As I ate, I noticed that the displeasure I felt at seeing Li Jun in the afternoon had largely dissipated.
A-hua doesn’t eat much, and I was surprised to find that her teeth are as white as a child’s first baby teeth. She often wrinkles her nose when she eats, and this look is so cute that it tickles my heart. I kept looking at her, she began to avoid me, but later, when I was doing the dishes, our eyes met a few times, her eyes mixed with charm, déjà vu, but the feeling of uncertainty, so I can not say what I like and want. I think this is not the feeling of love, right? I have not had that feeling for a long time, long enough to wonder if I ever had that feeling at all.
This time, after dinner, I didn’t get up and say I was leaving, and the four of us sat there watching TV and talking about everything. I looked at the clock and it was nine o’clock, and thinking that my parents would be resting, I reluctantly had to get up: “I have to go, the room has not been cleaned for a long time, I have to go back and clean it.”
Mom and Dad were casual about it, and A-hua embarrassedly said, “I’m so sorry for taking up your room.
I said it’s okay, I rarely sleep here. At this point, I suddenly realized that A-hua had been sleeping in my bed all this time, and my face burned, while almost at the same time, in my mind, I saw A-hua in a thin nightgown sleeping on the bed. If she stumbles on the bed, her huge breasts will surely crush themselves, and if she sleeps on her back, she won’t crush those two luscious tits, right? — I wonder if she likes to wear thong panties and have two fleshy white asses threaded through with a thin rope —
“Is that okay, I’ll go over there with you and help you clean the room, there must be a lot of dust.” A-hua said.
I stood there savoring the words, and my mother was the first to agree. I did my best to hide my inner excitement as I pretended to nod carelessly and relentlessly.
We barely spoke for an hour on the bus. I breathed greedily in her clothes, her hair, or the scent of her body. When the bus passed Zhujiangjiang Qiaotou Station, a group of people crowded around me and pushed me toward Ahua. It was the first time I had seen the car. We still did not say anything, A-hua is probably shy, as for me, one is to think that such an occasion is better than a sound, say what is impossible to pull us closer like now, in addition, I am also worried about eating a meal without brushing the mouth, there will be bad breath.
It was with trepidation and some impatience that I returned to my small room that I didn’t want to return to this afternoon. A-hua quickly began to clean up. One day she crawled on the floor and wiped it, her plump and fleshy buttocks bouncing as she moved; another day she stood on a chair and dusted the lamp, her two smooth legs under her skirt attracting my full attention; another day she scrubbed the bathtub with her buttocks in the air, her two tits hanging there as if they were not under a heavy load. In no time at all, she was sweating profusely, and I didn’t notice that after A-hua’s cleaning, the color of my whole room had changed and become brighter.
I sat a little stiffly, my legs cramped and sweating, but my thoughts were rolling in waves. I’ve seen a lot of pornographic videos and third-rate movies, and it’s no secret that as a bachelor I’ve created countless colorful sexual fantasies that I’m not comfortable talking about, but none of them are as good as the one I can’t help but feel in front of me. She was a real, mature woman, and her every move in the room was more overwhelming than any of my previous sexual fantasies. A flurry of impulses made me breathe faster, my body hot, I stood up, grabbed a piece of torn sock or something, also with her east rubbing, west touching. She gave me a grateful, flirtatious smile, I panicked, and our two hands touched.
Neither of us withdrew our hands, and for the next two hours, all parts of our bodies were dabbed together.
When the ear-piercing ringing woke me up, I suddenly thought that this ordinary phone ringing is really strange, when you are in a good mood or waiting for a lover’s phone to ring pleasantly, but when you are upset, especially when you have done something wrong, the phone ringing suddenly can scare the cowardly people to death. Thinking it was A-hua’s phone, I picked it up and heard Tian Haipeng’s voice: “Can you come to my house? Another classmate had an accident.
Hai Peng opened a club called “One Year Plan” in the busiest part of Nonglinxia Road in Dongshan District. At first, because his club is a combination of fitness, beauty, teaching, psychological counseling in one, in Guangzhou Business Administration Department registration problems, or Li Jun to take care of. He invited me several times after the establishment, but I never found the mood to visit.
This time, when I was in the United States, I thought I would visit Tian Haipeng when I came back to Guangzhou. I heard that he used to run a plastic surgery clinic, and I wanted to learn about plastic surgery. Now I heard him say that another student had an accident, I did not hesitate a moment, immediately “taxi” to the “One Year Plan”. I found the club according to the address he provided, the facade of the building was not large, just a small featureless sign. Entering the door, is a reception desk, behind the reception desk sat two uniformed ladies, probably Haipeng account, they know that I am a guest of Mr. Tian, and did not ask many questions, one of them full of professional smile on the face of the lady took me in. We walked through a fitness center, saw a lot of men and women jumping and dancing there; passed some small boxes, singing or laughing from the closed door; at the end, into their “One Year Plan” office. It was strange to me that so many people here looked like they were working, some looked like professionals, like doctors or teachers, through the large office, I was welcomed by Haipeng into his spacious and luxurious office.
“Do you remember Zhu Zhimin?” Haipeng asked impatiently before I could sit still.
“Of course I remember, but he was not assigned to work in Gansu?” I remember, but the memory is too distant, the face is somewhat blurred, after graduation and assignment I did not see him again, and almost did not hear from him.
“He works in at Jiuquan in Gansu Province, you should understand what kind of work it is, right?”
“He doesn’t know anything about technology, so of course he does translations of information and such, is there anything else he can do?”
“You don’t even know, I know even less.” Haipeng stood up, “Something happened to him too, I just got the news. He had tried to leave this unit and move to a coastal city, but since his work involved the research and development of the lunar exploration program, it wasn’t so easy to leave. Li Jun and I could not help him, but it is said that a few months ago someone took the initiative to find him, saying that he wanted to use his expertise in international knowledge and asked him to come to Shenzhen as the company’s vice president.
“Wouldn’t that be nice? He wants to come too.” I also stood up and took a closer look at his office as I said this. I noticed that one of his open drawers was stuffed with business cards, and I casually pulled out two of them, either the director of some office or the general manager of some group of companies, and I hastily put them back.
“He used his vacation to come to Shenzhen twice, the company did not see him, but the person who invited him was as enthusiastic as possible, but also spent several tens of thousands of dollars on him. Finally, in Zhu Zhimin’s repeated urging, this person said the company may have to delay the establishment of a period of time, but assured that this does not affect them now to hire Zhu Zhimin as vice president, but also said that this can help them to do some necessary pre-foundation preparatory work of the company. Poor old Zhu really thought he was a talent, so he happily went back and continued to work as a translator while secretly working as a vice president, and every month he was content to withdraw the company’s $5,000 start-up fee.
A few months later, Zhu Zhimin came to Shenzhen on a big weekend to meet the man and offered to quit his job in Jiuquan first and come to Shenzhen to prepare the company. The man listened anxiously and said, “You must not resign, if you resign, you will be ruined! Zhu Zhimin did not understand, the man explained that her company is a foreign multinational technology company research think tank, to Shenzhen to set up the company’s purpose is to study the development of China’s space science and technology at all times, and then after this research for the foreign parent company to write the “Science and Technology Trade Guide to China”, the multinational company valued Zhu Zhimin’s special work status. Finally, he praised Zhu Zhimin with a thumbs up: “Although you are in the northwest, in one of China’s economic backwaters, you are at the forefront of China’s science and technology development.
“What happened?” I asked anxiously.
“Fortunately, Zhu Zhimin’s vigilance is relatively high, he did not move at that time, went back to the base and reported to the leadership in time, as a result, the Ministry of State Security took measures, only then did not cause any serious consequences. Of course, Zhu Zhimin not only lost his job, but also received serious disciplinary action.
“I think so, although he took the initiative to report it, but as an important staff member of the base to receive secrets, he had dealings with the spy agencies outside the country behind the unit’s back, although he did not know, but the mistake has been made.”
“What’s going on, damn it, old classmates are in trouble. By the way, this doesn’t include the last time you were invited to the Public Security Bureau for three weeks.” Tian Haipeng said about me and frowned.
I was also deep in thought: “Can you be sure that nothing serious has happened to any of the forty students in our class?”
“I am sure that even though we have never had a reunion and not all of us are in contact with each other, almost all of our classmates have kept in touch with at least one or two old classmates. These contacts overlap all the time, so when something worth sharing happens, the news naturally spreads overnight. You are in contact with only a few classmates, and I am in contact with more, I think.
Tian Haipeng’s words sounded unintentional, but it didn’t sound good to me. Zhu Zhimin sounded a bit distant, not mentioning that he had just lost his job. But Li Jun, whom I met yesterday, is an old classmate I have always kept in touch with. Although he pretended to be relaxed when he told us about his criminal experience, I felt unusually hardhearted. That morning, I was confused as to which one of the former Li Jun and yesterday’s Li Jun was the real Li Jun, and which one was my old classmate Li Jun. I shared this confusing thought with Tian Haipeng, and he looked at me for a while before sighing helplessly.
“Yangzi, I have always felt that you are a strange person. You get the attention of the leaders everywhere, but you can’t do anything famous anywhere. Sometimes I think that your character and how you deal with people is an act, like the story Li Jun told yesterday, he had to pretend to be naive in front of some uneducated leaders to ask for advice on history, but also to eat raw potatoes first and then share the sweetness and taste with the leaders. But you, you probably do not have to pretend to make the leader happy. You were probably born that way. I don’t know what to say.
“I don’t understand what you mean, just make it clear.”
“There is only one Li Jun, our old classmate Li Jun! He hasn’t changed, he hasn’t changed, there is only one, but you always get stuck on your first impressions and insist on seeing two Li Juns, and you have to find the connection between the two Li Juns. This, as the newspapers often say, is the root of decadence. Bah!”
“So, Haipeng, I’d like to know,” I stared at him, “what kind of Tian Haipeng do I see now?”
“Look at you, look at you, there you go again.”
“No, I’m serious. I’ve been holding back inside, tell me your story.” I sat down again and retreated as if I wasn’t ready to go. I found that after Li Jun’s accident, I was eager to understand my old classmates, eager to care for them. Maybe Tian Haipeng has known everything about Li Jun for a long time, I really want to know about Haipeng. After graduating from college, he and I have some similar experiences, we both studied in the United States, and later both went to Guangzhou, but beyond that, what do I know about him? Today was the first time I went to his “One Year Plan” club, which has been open for several years.
Ian Haipeng looked at his watch and also pulled out a chair to sit across from me, and only then did I feel that he actually wanted to tell me his story, while I had never thought to listen before.
“Yangzi, you’re the one who said you wanted to hear my story, but don’t mind if I’m long-winded.” Haipeng started with a smile, but the smile was immediately replaced by a serious expression.
“I was relatively lucky to be assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after graduating from university. After reporting for work, I was assigned to a department again, specifically to do some translation and organize some information work. Sounds pretty boring, doesn’t it? But with the title of diplomat waiting for me, I was able to hang on. A year later, I think I did a sloppy job, but at the end of the year, both leaders and colleagues had made many comments about me. Mostly that I was too talkative, too argumentative, and politically immature. I took a breath of fresh air, calmed down, and decided that I had no future there. I resigned from the Foreign Ministry. Later, I worked in a foreign company in Beijing, the salary was very high, but soon I found that although my salary was much higher than the cadres of the state agencies, regardless of the comparisons and contrasts, I couldn’t feel a sense of commitment to the work. Your experience is similar to mine, do you feel the same way?”
“Yes, I do.” I nodded and said, “It was only after I left that I realized those old colleagues were living well, earning less than we did, but unfortunately living much better than we did.”
“Since we left, we’ll never know the real reason, period. If Li Jun’s affairs had not been exposed, we might never have guessed that he had made several million easily over the years and was still a successful official.” He continued, “Then I left Beijing, where the political atmosphere was too thick for me. I came to Guangzhou, which is a really good place. Tian Haipeng picked up a cup from the table and took a sip of water.
“I don’t know if there are any official statistics, the beginning of the tide towards the private sector until now, in the end, how many state agencies, state-owned enterprises, how many people went to the private sector, and how many were successful. I must say, if there is no background, no resources and relationships accumulated in the government agencies, going to the private sector is simply the same as jumping into business with no resources. Now I remembered that when I decided to go to the private sector, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of those old slippery colleagues looked at me the kind of look, clearly gave me a “you stupid idiot” look. Huh, people like us go to the private sector, but what can we do? Especially those of us who are full of ideological doctrines, moral concepts, but also have no support, no skills like the others. Later, however, I relied on the concept and earned my first bucket of gold.
“At the end of 1988, I rented a suite on the ground floor of a shop on the south bank of the Pearl River in Guangzhou and opened a beauty clinic. Because it was a beauty clinic, I did not need a license to practice medicine, but the four staff members I hired were the best specialists in surgery, gynecology and dermatology in mainland China. We mainly perform minor surgeries, such as double eyelid surgery and chin surgery. If there is a request for breast augmentation, we will also help and then contact the hospital’s operating rooms and doctors. We usually charge more for these procedures, but we share the profits with the hospital. The first year we were in business, we basically broke even.
The next year, I found a way to make money by chance at the beginning of the year. It was a girl who came to the clinic for help after an acquaintance introduced her. She graduated from junior high school five years ago to work in the south, and now she has saved some money and wants to go back to Hunan to get married, but she is worried because she has not been a virgin for a long time. When my doctor heard this, he smiled and said it was a piece of cake. So they put the girl on the operating table, and sure enough, it was just a little bit of kung fu to repair her hymen. After the operation, the girl was as shy as a virgin and thanked them over and over and left. Soon after, my friend brought three thousand dollars as a thank you, we did not accept, he also forced into my hand, and excitedly shouted, this three thousand dollars and you bring the girl’s happiness compared, is not a piece of cake?
“I decided on the spot that our clinic would specialize in hymen repair, and our clinic sign was changed to ‘Project Happiness’. We relied on referrals, put up advertisements in the streets and alleys, and distributed flyers in places where migrant workers were concentrated, and business immediately boomed. In the early nineties, for two years, you had to make an appointment three months in advance for a minor twenty-minute operation. At that time, we charged five thousand dollars for this simple operation, and if it was the second time, we charged only three thousand dollars, and if it was the third time, we charged only two thousand dollars”.
“Haipeng, wait,” I had to stop him, “what do you mean? The second time? Come again? What does that mean?”
“It’s like this,” Haipeng said without looking at me: “Although most of our happiness project is to help girls with broken hearts and broken hymens, almost half of the clients are those who work in the pornography industry. The pimps saw that some boomers and middle-aged people, when they were young, when they went to the countryside, or in tandem, most of them and with the women who are now their wives, had sex for the first time in the furrows of a field or in a train toilet. There they simply did not feel the pleasure of stabbing a virgin. Now that the hymen is broken, they want to get one or two virgins to make up for their own. The pimp then looks for some innocent-looking prostitutes to pretend to be virgins, and it is said that a deflowering can earn 8,000 to 10,000 yuan. You see, in addition to our operation fee, the head of the pimp and the prostitutes have to earn, and if you can repeatedly repair the hymen in our place, then the earnings will be even greater”.
“My goodness, what is this thing like? How can it be repaired over and over again?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Not even you are interested in this toy, are you? The first thing you need to do is get a good idea of what you’re doing. In fact, what repair, that is our polite words, some women have long been experienced, the bottom are black, but insist on repair, our doctors have to reluctantly for the difficult. Some really difficult, it is simply the place part of the cleft sewn up with invisible surgical thread, whether it was found by others, I do not know. I guess the john since the big money to buy this game, must also be confused, right?
“Fuck, these two years of business can be really good, I am also happy in my heart. Not to mention that there are half of the cases, we repair although the hymen, but actually bridging a broken heart and broken relationship ah.
Let me go on, in the nineties our economic development was getting better and better, the South is also getting more and more open, according to say, my business should also be getting better, but the “Happiness Project” business is deteriorating. The doctor told me that people are becoming more and more open and that people’s perceptions are beginning to change. I scoffed, “My husband does not make money from ‘perceptions’? Besides, how can China’s thousands of years of ideas about chastity change so quickly?
Although I have been working basically on a monthly basis for the past two years, I still hope that people will return to the past and start paying attention to the art of chastity again. Maybe I was smart, I studied politics after the political climate in China repeatedly projection, maybe soon to engage in anti-spiritual pollution campaign, then, against the bourgeois liberalization of the situation will be in my favor, girls will certainly once again cherish the virginity hymen as they now cherish their cell phone small decoration. I secretly thought, “Look, I’ve made my evil plans, I’ll let you people who are fucking wild everywhere line up to kowtow and burn incense and pray to Buddha, hum, when the time comes, I’ll raise my prices until your hearts are broken.
“I became complacent too soon, who can I blame? I can only blame myself for not keeping up with the times! At the beginning, I made almost a million dollars on one idea, but now I can’t keep up with the times, and by the time I realize it, my savings are already half a million dollars less. If it wasn’t for that day, I don’t even know if I would have gone bankrupt. It was a hot summer day and we were open for business as usual. I forgot to tell you that I had already fired three doctors, so only one came to work that day. Soon after we opened, a girl came to our door, and the doctor and I were very happy because we knew there had been no business for three days. I thought, “God has eyes, this month’s bills have been paid.
“After a while, they talked inside for about ten minutes, and the doctor came out of the inner room, and I asked him, a little anxiously, if I could do the operation right away. I had also fired the nurse because of the need to cut costs, but I could play the hand. The doctor did not answer immediately, but just looked at me comically. He pulled me aside and whispered that this girl was not here to have her hymen repaired. She was a senior at Zhongshan University and had found a boyfriend only six months ago. She loved him very much, and several times they had rendezvoused in the school grove, and when love came, her boyfriend wanted to enter her, but each time the girl refused because she was afraid. She said she is twenty-two years old, still a virgin, once the man she loves can not enter smoothly, and thus know that she is a virgin. She does not know what her boyfriend will think. If the man she loves thinks she is not wanted and despises herself, she will be finished and will not want to live anymore. So she sneaked in this time to ask if we could pierce her hymen painlessly, and she was willing to pay the same price for the hymen repair. The damn doctor’s eyes clearly showed a longing look when he talked about hymen piercing and five thousand fast money.
“I almost fainted! A bolt from the blue, a blow to the head, how could I not be awake?”
Tian Haipeng paused, as if he still felt the look of the clear sky at that time, took a sip of tea, and then told his story.
“I closed my shop that day. I walked around the house for a while, seeing the money getting less and less, but still unable to find a way to make money. You know, people like us just have ideas and ideas, but at that time I felt that my thinking was a little slow. So I decided to sell the family property, take out all the savings, and study in the United States. I thought that the United States of America, the country translated by Chinese people in past lives as “beautiful and profitable and very strong,” could definitely make me think like a spring. I stayed in the United States for seven years.
At the end of the last century, I was able to become a citizen of the United States, but I really had mixed feelings during that time. China does not recognize dual citizenship, so once I applied for American citizenship, we were legally no longer Chinese. It would be difficult for me to become Chinese again. I didn’t know how uncomfortable I felt, but when I think about it, we who are often out of the country with Chinese passports have to be checked for visas in almost every country. Sometimes we are subjected to almost insulting difficulties. Thinking left and right, I still cannot decide. The news from home was encouraging, from the central government to the local government, everyone mobilized to welcome returnees back to China to develop their businesses and help China modernize and build. So I returned to Guangzhou.
“Since I had a mixed degree in politics, international relations, and philosophy, when I registered, the government comrades politely told me to try my hand in the private sector. What people need is science and technology and modern management. As for politics and philosophy, we Chinese have been doing it for thousands of years, with all the intrigue and deception, we’re all familiar with it. Americans, when were you born? You see, a lot of recruiters heard that I went to the United States to study politics, that’s what they thought. So I tried to find private companies. Aren’t there advertisements in the newspapers all day long, what with hiring managers for $100,000 or $200,000 a year, and then adding up to $500,000 or even a million a year in job ads. Unfortunately, I’m not going to lie, I really went to every single one of them and almost ran out of my legs. As a result, people recruiting 500,000 annual salary is the condition that you can earn a million for him a year!
“Holy shit, if I can make a million a year, do I have to apply for your job that pays half a million a year?! I’ve started a few small businesses since then, but they’re all just breaking even. To make it easier to go back and forth, I went back to the U.S. and applied for a U.S. passport. I know that Liu Mingwei and I are the only two foreigners in our class.
“When I returned to Guangzhou, I had some new ideas in my head, but my pockets were empty, and the most urgent thing was to get some quick money as start-up capital. I searched a lot of the United States, Taiwan and Hong Kong to teach people to get rich books, hiding at home, day and night to carefully read and study these secret tricks to get rich. Just reading them left me dizzy and still confused. Then one day, I had a flash of light in my head, suddenly want to study the background of the authors who wrote these books. As a result, I was greatly rewarded. It turns out that these authors are afraid to disclose their own information, to be those who are still as poor as a rat, the word is semi-intellectuals!
There are also some really rich ones, for example, the most famous one is probably the one who wrote Poor Dad, Rich Dad. In his books, he often uses himself as an example to explain how his father educated his children, and as a result, he later became a multi-millionaire. But I’m back from the US, don’t I know that? There is nothing at all recorded in the author’s books about how he grew up with business acumen and how he would buy a house as an investment to make money. Instead, he wrote these books, as well as the world invited him to speak about how to get rich. Ha ha, I think I completely understand. I went to the Xinhua bookstore to look carefully, but I found a lot of really rich people’s books, such as the world’s richest man Bill Gates and Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing. But they are not a book of these tycoons is to teach people how to get rich, they just tell you how to behave.
“Next, I had a new idea that would probably allow me to get some seed money. I decided to write a book that would teach people how to get rich, and I’m going to write it as a returnee, with some of my own experiences rubbed in where appropriate. Of course, such a book is also meant to advise people to work hard to get rich, so the specific details of the book will probably not be pursued. If I meet a bookseller in a five-star hotel, there will be no problem. You see, this is the book, I still have a dozen copies, do you want to take one to read? At that time the book sold well, and I also held two book signings. It was at the second signing that I met my wife. Haha, interesting, I am the people and money, ah”.
I listened to Tian Haipeng’s story with some fascination, because unlike my own life, which was always uneventful, Haipeng’s life could be described as high drama. I learned that he later ran Guangzhou’s first “One Year Plan” club, providing psychological counseling, bodybuilding counseling, and study and training guidance. For the past four years, every time I met Haipeng, he gave me a new and different feeling. From bicycle jackets and straw hats to BMWs and big diamonds and Rolex watches, it is clear that this “One Year Plan” is more profitable than the “Happiness Project”. I didn’t know what this “One Year Plan” was, so I asked him, hoping he would explain it to me. He calmly started again with the idea and the idea.
“An idea, an idea, just an idea. We are selective in accepting members into this club, currently if you want to apply to join our club as normal, it is estimated that you will have to wait for more than a year. Of course, I’ve been thinking about expanding lately.
“Let’s start with why it’s called ‘One Year Plan’. Originally, I started this club with the goal of enrolling members for no more than one year. During that year, we help members achieve what they have always dreamed of, but have never been able to do for various reasons. Since the people we have helped often refuse to leave after one year, and some of them ask for help with other things, the current membership of the club is longer than one year. But we still use one year as our signature. How can we explain this? Let’s use you as an example.
“Use me as an example?” I jumped up from the couch and looked at Haipeng in disbelief.
“You can find me, or if you are not well known in Guangzhou, our club salesmen will look for you. These salesmen of ours must have at least the education of a specialist in the psychology department of a university. We will give you a brief introduction about the club’s purpose and situation. We have helped many educated people to spend a year realizing one or two of their heart’s desires. So, Yangzi, can you tell me what your wish is?”
“I don’t have any wishes. Maybe I want a lot of things, but some of them are unrealistic and some of them are easily achievable.
“We do not consider fantasies that are out of touch with reality, or about the desire for love between a man and a woman. Besides these, there must be some goals that you have thought about and tried to achieve in your past life, and even some that you have tried to achieve many times, and they are still hanging around to this day, tempting you and tormenting you from time to time. Think about it, Yangzi, and be honest with me.
“Well, I’ll tell you, you probably know some of them from college. One wish is that I always want to learn Japanese, and I won’t tell you why I want to learn Japanese here. Another wish is that I want to build up my muscles.
“Haha, I already knew that ah, just did not know that the two college years of the desire to follow you now like a shadow.” Tian Haipeng laughed happily, “You’re already 37 years old, if you don’t come to my ‘one-year plan’ to solve these two desires, I’m afraid you’ll have to take them to the grave.
I don’t find that funny at all. The two goals of learning another foreign language and building up my body muscles have been revisited and introduced as top goals at the beginning of every new year since I started college. Although I have never been able to achieve them, I have never given up on them. I really want to see how this fat old classmate in front of me can help me achieve these two wishes.
“First, tell me, have you been to the gym?”
“Of course I have, many times.”
“Then tell me, what’s the longest you’ve been going at least four times a week in a row?”
“Three months.” I said.
“Well, not bad. Let me tell you a statistic, anyone, even a small yakuza or a big fat woman, as long as he or she goes to the gym at least four days a week for a year and does forty-five minutes of basic fitness movements, then after a year he or she will have very visible muscles on his or her body, which means that he or she already has a basically fit body. The same statistic also shows that 100% of people who can stick to it for a year can continue to do so. These two statistics are encouraging, right, and slow, before that there is another statistic, that is, in the annual gym among the people, adhere to one month of fifty percent, adhere to three months of ten percent, adhere to six months of the remaining six percent, about only about two percent of people can adhere to the fitness year”.
“Who are these people?”
“These are the people who, every time you go to the gym, are bulging with muscles that make you envious as they lift weights and carry dumbbells one by one. These are also the rare people who walk on the beach and make girls look at them sideways.”
“I see. But does this have anything to do with your ‘One Year Plan’?”
“One of the things we do at the club is we get people to join the club and then we push them to do a year of fitness. Let’s put it this way: Why is it that you can go to work for years, rain or shine, at a boring job, even one that pays very little, but in the last ten years or so you have often backed away from changing your body and making yourself stand out in the fitness world? Because no one is pushing you, because you can go or not!
“In our club, after signing a contract with a member, we use all the means at our disposal to force him or her, softly and gently, to complete a year’s worth of courses. Strangely enough, the dreams of many people in this world can often be realized in just one year.
“Don’t believe me? Take your Japanese learning again, just with your memory and knowledge, you have no problem memorizing ten Japanese words a day that are so similar to Chinese characters, right?”
I admit that there is no problem with ten Japanese words. I once set a record in college for memorizing 70 English words in one day.
“It doesn’t take an hour for an average person of normal intelligence to memorize ten words a day. That’s three thousand six hundred words a year. As you probably know, almost all languages in the world can be spoken fluently after mastering three thousand six hundred words. We Chinese probably only need about three thousand words. Now I would like to ask you, buddy, after more than ten years have passed, you must have studied Japanese for more than three hundred and sixty hours cumulatively, but do you speak Japanese now?
I am a little ashamed that Tian Haipeng’s theory is actually commonplace, and I know it.
“Yang, you may say that there is no time. Let me tell you that when you exercise, it is best for your brain to think about other things, so that you can reduce fatigue and pain, and unconsciously build up your muscles. In your case it would be very good to do this. You can spend forty minutes to an hour a day doing fitness exercises while reciting these ten Japanese words. In a year, you’ll have muscles and a mouth full of Japanese. How about that?”
I had been longing for a muscular body and a mouth full of Japanese, but today, with the enlightenment of my old classmates, it seemed that I had never been so close to that goal. I muttered, “How can I train and memorize words at the same time, I haven’t tried it yet.
“You just sign a contract with us and we will arrange everything. Our club has the best psychologists, pathologists, special teachers in China, as well as fitness trainers and, of course, over a hundred beautiful models. We develop programs according to each person. For example, for a miser, we might take the approach of asking him to mortgage his property to us. If he abides by our contract for the next year, the property will be returned to him after one year; but if he quits in the middle of the process for no reason, then the property belongs to us. Most of you were very nervous at first, afraid that the property would not be available. Here I can tell you that we don’t want their property at all. In the past there were more than 100 mortgages and we did not confiscate any of them. Last year there were six cases of mortgages, and two of them actually gave us their houses after their contracts with the One Year Plan ended. The other four doubled their donations to us and all six are still with the club.
“Of course, as I said, it varies from person to person. For you, buddy, we have a different approach. I think the trainer we will assign to you during your daily training will be a teenage model we brought from Japan. If she will wear the policy allows, your body can withstand as much as possible to expose the bikini fitness clothing to practice with you. This time you can use the Japanese vocabulary written on the note on the thighs, breasts, buttocks of the Japanese lady easy to see and remember. You can also write the words directly on the lady’s body according to your choice, and for memorization, you can also write them on yourself. Of course, there are many more fun ways to learn. For example, you can use the lady as a recorder, if you forget the pronunciation of a word, just click on the note and the Japanese girl will tell you the most common pronunciation.
“Our escorts here are completely different from the three escorts popular in Guangzhou nowadays. Our escorts are based on science. Men’s hormone secretion will increase when there is a beautiful woman present, and this is the most original and best way to stimulate men to use their work and muscle prominence.”
I listened to Haipeng’s introduction with fascination, imagining how I would torture my limbs and try to remember Japanese words in that situation. To be honest, I first wanted to learn Japanese because I watched Japanese TV dramas, especially those starring Momoe Yamaguchi, and fantasized about being with Japanese women. Japanese women are gentle and lovely, but most of them are too stupid, so there are few pretty girls in Japan who can speak English or Chinese. That is why learning Japanese once became one of my life’s pursuits. Later, when I went to Japan on a business trip, I found that Japanese culture has its mysterious upward part, and there are a lot of books, most of which are not translated, and there are a lot of pornographic books and magazines especially for my appetite, so I have more reasons to learn Japanese. When Tian Haipeng said this, I suspected that he had long known what I had in mind and was a little embarrassed.
I said, “If what you say is true, and Japanese models and more companies, how much money must be made?
Tian Haipeng smiled and said: “Money is not a problem, we are currently very well financed. You probably do not know that the source of our funds is not only by our fees, we currently charge for new members is basically a “loss-making operation”. You know the cost of hiring a Japanese lady, this lady has to twist around with you for one hour a day, but also play the role of a live recorder TV, which in itself costs almost a year of your salary. If we charge like that, who else will come? If all the big money can come by then, then it will defeat the purpose of my running ‘a year of planning’ to help ordinary people. Still, we have made over ten million dollars over the years. You want to know, right? Well, I’ll tell you: Didn’t I tell you earlier that some members actually donate hundreds of thousands of dollars of their homes to us after one year, and do you know why?
“Because this year’s harvest has made him deserving or made him feel that he could deserve several such houses. Here’s the deal, I’ll take your example. If you come, I will charge you only eighty percent of the cost. With a body like yours, it wouldn’t be bad, and you’re fluent in Japanese, and you just came back from studying in the U.S. Can you tell me how many Chinese people in all of Guangzhou are fluent in English and Japanese?”
Tian Haipeng stared at me for a while before slowly saying, “There isn’t one!”
“Not one!” He added categorically, “Not a single Chinese resident in Guangzhou can claim to be fluent in Chinese, English and Japanese. Some newspapers talk about how many languages someone knows, but that’s bullshit! It is very difficult to master a language, and nearly 80 percent of Chinese students who return from overseas to start their own businesses have not even crossed the foreign language barrier. Some of them can’t even communicate fluently with foreigners in their home countries. You should believe me when I say that I have a basis for my statement, which is a no. Okay, back to our topic. A year from now, you’ll know two foreign languages, and under Miss Japan’s inspector, you’ll not only be generally good at them, but proficient. How much development potential do you have?
Japanese Honda was looking for agents as well as manager and assistant manager level personnel in China, and since many of Honda’s production lines are designed in the U.S., the only requirement for their recruitment was that the Chinese person applying had to be bilingual in English and Japanese. Do you know what their annual salary is? From half a million to a million and a half! You also get stock if you do a good job. Unfortunately, none of the people they’ve hired so far have lived up to that standard. Think about it, you are here with us after one year. That’s why many members have been very active in donating to us since then.
I couldn’t imagine how I would get a job that would pay one and a half million dollars a year later, but learning Japanese and being able to stretch and kick in front of Japanese girls every day filled me with longing, and it wasn’t until Tian Haipeng said out loud, “My story is over,” that I came to my senses.
I complimented him from the bottom of my heart: “I really think you are remarkable. You do everything from nothing, and everything you do to get rich is based on the ideas that pop up in your head, unlike others who sell stolen land, scholarships, and even their conscience. You are really great, although not yet a tycoon, but you make money even is very impressive. Old classmate, I’ve seen a lot today, if I had the chance, I’d really like to write a book about how you make money.”
Tian Haipeng sat there with his mouth open and smiled at me. Although my admiration is sincere from the heart, but from Tian Haipeng’s body after sweeping a glance, I suddenly thought, this “One Year Plan” boss himself was born fat with a bloated body, how could he not choose a one-year set of tickets for himself to lose weight? But I did not say it, I think this is where his story fails. I’ll mention it to him in the future. Today, I’m going to talk about it and give him some compliments.
“Haipeng, I think you are the only one among your classmates who has succeeded.
“That’s not true, I’ve made a few dollars, but I feel like I’m out of practice. I always had a vague ideal in my heart, and I can’t say exactly what it is. But it’s not making money. By the way, I also have successful old school students in mind.” His bloated body shifted in his chair, “My idol, so to speak.”
“Who?” I asked curiously.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (7)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 25, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 7 Hero of the Heart
“Try it again.” A-hua said quietly, “Let me do it this time.”
So I lay still and closed my eyes slightly, trying to get the blood flowing faster with my imagination. Whenever I had a problem like this, I would close my eyes and concentrate my will on undressing a colleague or a saleswoman at the corner store, and then I would get hard. This method works well, and the women in my dreams always let me show off my manhood. But today my imagination seems to have dried up. I quickly found out the reason, because the dream has come true. The naked woman in front of me is burying my ass between my thighs, A-hua has surpassed my usual dream of a sexy woman. At the same time, for some reason, as soon as I closed my eyes, there was a strange feeling that made me uncomfortable, as if someone else in the room was staring at us, a feeling that forced me to open my eyes suddenly several times and also spoiled my mood.
A-hua’s hair tickled my thighs on both sides, I gently tucked her hair up and saw that A-hua was looking up at me with flirtatious eyes half open and half closed, saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth and dripping onto the roots of my thighs. I said painfully, “Forget it, next time.
Obediently, A-hua slid up and ran her tongue from the small of my back all the way up to my neck. Finally, her two soft, sensual lips stopped at my ear and said softly, “Anyway, I’m here, my whole thing is yours, and you can come in whenever you want.” A-hua’s voice did not have a bit of sultry, warm breath from my earlobe lightning to the bottom, I just want to try, and subsided, I was a little discouraged. This was the second time I couldn’t get in with A-hua, only the first time that day on the floor, I not only got in hard, but okay a few times. I don’t know what the problem is. A-hua is without a doubt the woman of my dreams. Her every move, a smile, will make me uncontrollable, sometimes surprisingly, I disregard the opportunity to physically seem to react. But when she undressed and tenderly pressed against me, I could not enter. I want to embrace her even as if to enter the most wonderful realm, the heart of high mockery iterations, but the following can not rise, is their own impotence?
As I stroked her up and down, I said, “Let me put my hand in there and make you comfortable.”
“No, no.” She clamped her legs together, “I’m comfortable just being with you.” She climbed on top of me, her lips pressed against mine, and said softly, “You’re already inside me.
I know, but I still want to be inside her. I don’t know what happened, how this could happen to me, at this time, in this place. I have seen many famous stars filming se videos, and I have visited those Greek-French sculptured beauties in the Louvre in France. But the woman in front of me was undoubtedly the most beautiful and sexy woman I had ever seen. And I couldn’t make her happy like I did the last time, twisting and turning on the floor while she joyfully resisted me, panting.
A-hua slipped off me and leaned against me with her back to me. I turned on my side and held her, my butt right against her slightly wet and soft groin. “We can talk, and you just leave it there, and if I feel it getting restless, I’ll push it in. You leave it alone, okay?”
I buried my face in A-hua’s hair and pressed my breasts against her alabaster back. My hands went around and over her breasts, rubbing them.
“It’s normal, just don’t worry too much and you’ll be fine soon.” A-hua reassured me.
“But it’s not normal for me and I don’t know why.” Although I said that, I vaguely felt that my impotence was related to the special feeling I had on those two occasions when I closed my eyes, a feeling I had never felt before. Even though A-hua and I were the only ones in the room, and the doors and windows were tightly closed, whenever I wanted to go in, especially when I closed my eyes, I immediately felt as if there was another presence in the room, as if there was an invisible person in the room who immediately softened me.
“You’re not like the old Hemingway, are you? He had a lifetime of love affairs, and every time he found a woman, he thought he had found his beloved other half. Until the last time, in his old age, he finally met his last recorded lover, but he was impotent and never succeeded. Later he committed suicide.” A-hua suddenly stopped, “Bah, bah, bah, how can I say this, you are still young.” I laughed softly and rubbed her hard. A-hua grabbed my hand with hers and murmured in a shaky voice, “Don’t touch that.” I tried to move and she pressed her ass against me and I felt more wetness there. I stopped, not wanting to be too “cruel” to her. She winked at me gratefully.
“Wenfeng, have you been feeling nervous lately? I can feel it, you don’t even have time to go to your parents’ house and you look sad when you do.”
“Yes,” I sighed, “a classmate of mine had an accident and… hey, never mind. Anyway, I feel so guilty.”
“Why? Did you cause it?” A-hua asked incredulously.
“I didn’t cause it, but I always feel responsible. One of them is in Guangzhou and we see each other often. I feel that if I hadn’t been indifferent to people all day, I would have seen the problem earlier, so I could have helped him. But I usually didn’t think anything would happen to them, and I always thought they were having a much better time than I was. I said before and after. It was good that Ava seemed to be very perceptive and heard what I was trying to say. She comforted me by taking my right thumb in her mouth and sucking it for fun.
“There’s something so strange and amazing.” After a while, A-hua suddenly said, “Everyone has problems.
“Everyone has problems, what’s so strange about that? I don’t know if A-hua thinks this thing is magic.
“It is unbelievable when you think about some of the things that have happened. We might be worried about a house, and if we lost it and tens of thousands of dollars in savings overnight, we’d just be devastated. But if you look at the news in Hong Kong, there are often tycoons who commit suicide because they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars of family money. They are not destitute when they commit suicide, but they often have millions or tens of millions of dollars left. Don’t you think that’s strange? If you think about it, Chinese farmers have the highest suicide rate, over 180,000 of them commit suicide every year, over ninety percent of them because of money, and the average amount of money that makes them commit suicide is only about five hundred dollars. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
I understood what A-hua meant, I just didn’t know how to respond. I took a deep breath of A-hua’s scent into my body. That strange feeling of my impotence came back.
“Wenfeng, you and I both have problems. Your problems might be that you feel unsuccessful or something, but in my mind, you are the most successful, educated and attractive man in the world?”
When I heard this, I bowed slightly, but only slightly.
“Tell me, Wenfeng. You are the most successful of your classmates, right?” She turned her face back to me and kissed my chin.
I laughed softly, “What? How do people keep score?”
“Don’t say that.” A-hua turned her head to pout and sealed my mouth: “You did it in the state unit, and also as leadership training. Later, for the sake of your parents, you broke into Guangzhou all by yourself without any connections. Now you have not only settled your parents, but also have a house, a job, and your own status.
I couldn’t help but laugh: “A-hua, when you say that I’m successful, that I have this and that, don’t forget this little petite lady I’m holding in my arms. Only you make me feel like the most successful man in the world right now.”
A-hua giggled happily, and the two pieces of ass shook together. The momentum of my butt was a little off, and A-hua felt it, she leaned in tighter, and I felt her deliberately clinging there. But ten minutes passed and my undeniable thing returned to its sagging virtue.
“A-hua, you haven’t told me what happened to your former husband? Is he still in Hunan? Do you still love her?”
A-hua’s body stopped squirming, and after a moment of silence, she asked me slyly, “Do you really want to hear about it?” I said, “Yes, I want to know more about you.”
A-hua paused for a moment and spoke slowly in a soft voice, “It was my first love, we fell in love when we were in high school. I don’t know how to express how much I loved him back then. Let’s put it this way, he is my whole world, he occupies my whole heart, in addition to him, everything outside, my work, life, friends, etc., as if they were secondary, all for him. Later I felt that I was born and lived for him.
“That’s called first love, and everyone thinks it is.” I interrupted him.
“We have been in love since we were in high school together. In those days, there was not much pleasure in sex, but no matter what position he was in, as soon as his body touched me, I felt like an electric shock and a warm current ran through me. In those years, I felt like I was living in honey. I wanted to leave my hometown to study in the provincial capital, but I gave up for him. We got married when I was twenty-one. At that time we were inseparable, so happy that I don’t know how many times we made love until dawn.
A-hua’s voice was soft and wavering, seemingly lost in memories. It was hard to feel, but there was some reaction down there.
Those sweet days lasted for ten years. Then I began to realize that in addition to love, in addition to sex, we have work, there is life, but also to earn money, but also – our passion gradually faded, but I still love him. Until one day I dragged my tired body home from work and opened the door to find him and our hairdresser downstairs making love in a position we’d never tried before, in a passionate love embrace.”
A-hua paused for a moment and continued talking to herself: “I was so angry that I turned around and moved back to my parents’ house. I thought, well, no matter how I cannot forgive him, I want to make him feel guilty for the rest of his life, I want him to kneel on the ground and beg me for forgiveness. But I was wrong, and then it wasn’t him on his knees, it was me.”
My hands moved to A-hua’s breasts and caressed them comfortingly. “The next day he didn’t even call, I was a little worried, but my anger didn’t go away. On the third night, he still hadn’t heard a word, so I thought if he could come and apologize and pick me up within a week, I wouldn’t punish him for getting down on his knees and admitting his mistake. As a result, week after week passed and not only did he not come to pick me up, he didn’t even call me. I became angry and anxious. Another week passed. By the end of the month, not only had I completely forgiven him, but I missed him and longed for him in my heart. I thought that if he came over now, I would fall on his shoulder and cry a lot. But nothing happened. In the fifth week, I packed my things and went back. But I found that the locks on the door had been changed, and I had trouble knocking on the door, but the person who answered the door was the hairdresser who had just come of age! So they were living together.
“I found him and choked back my anger to ask him where he was going. Instead, he just said indifferently, ‘Let’s get a divorce. I asked him why? He looked at me in surprise and said, ‘Why what? Divorce means we don’t want to be together anymore, or I’m happier with someone else. Is there a reason? Wenfeng, listen, is it really that simple?”
I kissed A-hua’s shoulder and didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer either.
“I was pretty strong back then. I thought, “It’s going to rain, my mother is getting married, so let’s do it. But when I got back, I immediately collapsed. I called him and asked him why exactly? Without waiting for his answer, I cried like a man in tears. The next morning I went to the street and waited for him, then I cried and asked him to explain. He stammered, and the more he explained, the worse it got. Two days later I didn’t let him explain. I called him and told him I was going to kill myself and asked him to come and get the body. I put on his favorite silk underwear and dressed up to await his arrival. As soon as he walked in, I fell to my knees. I said, “For the sake of our past love, give me another chance.
He pushed me away indifferently and said coldly, “Give me a chance instead! Then I took off my clothes one by one and ended up kneeling naked in front of him again. I said, “Whatever the barber can do, I am willing to do. I said, as long as you do not leave me, I can be your sex slave, every day when you are sleeping, I will kneel next to your bed to help you sleep well, I can hold you all night. If you want, you can stay inside me all night. In the future, at home, I can serve you without clothes, like a bitch. I said, as long as you want me for life, don’t divorce me, come back every day, let me watch you sleep, you only go to the hairdresser now and then, I won’t blame you, I’m willing to be your sex slave, I – ah -“
A-hua’s voice trembled, unable to speak. I penetrated her deeply and she immediately became aroused. A-hua’s story kept me going for more than an hour. Eventually, A-hua couldn’t help but turn her grunts into howls.
After we reached the climax for the third time, A-hua kissed me and cowered shyly on my chest, “You are so good, you overwhelm me. You’re the biggest hero in my heart, you melt A-hua.
I was happily out of breath and very dizzy.
“Now you’re not only the most successful among your classmates, you’re probably the most powerful.”
I smiled and said, “In A-hua’s mind, I am the most successful.”
“No, I want you to be the most successful in my mind and the most successful among your classmates.”
“You’re greedy.” I scratched A-hua’s nose. Then I sighed and said, “Actually, what is the standard of success? Didn’t you say that many of us here might think that making a million dollars is the most successful thing in life? But in Hong Kong there are many people who commit suicide because they only have one million dollars. For example, my former classmates, I always thought that Tian Haipeng was the most successful-“
“Is there anyone richer than Tian Haipeng?” A-hua raised his head and interrupted me.
I was stunned for a moment and tried to remember when I told A-hua about Tian Haipeng. I couldn’t remember. I said, “Tian Haipeng may be the richest of our classmates, but I don’t think that makes him the most successful. I think Tian Haipeng’s way of making money is a success in itself, which I will tell you about later.
A-hua nodded as if he understood and stroked my chest gently, “I didn’t think my Wenfeng would worship people.”
“You misunderstand. When I say he’s successful, it doesn’t mean I worship him. In fact, he doesn’t even worship himself, so how can I worship him? Tian Haipeng told me two days ago that there are more successful people than him among our classmates.
“Oops. Who could that be?” A-hua asked out of breath in surprise. I suddenly laughed and scratched her nose again. “You, like you know our classmates.”
A-hua made no sound. After that, we just lay there while I told her the story Tian Haipeng told me that day about the most successful classmate in his mind.
When Tian Haipeng told me that the most successful classmate in his mind was Li Jianguo, I was so surprised that I couldn’t close my mouth.
Li Jianguo is a classmate from Jiangxi in our class. Because of his short stature and Jiangxi accent, we all like to call him Little Jiangxi. When Haipeng mentioned him, I still couldn’t see him as the most successful classmate. I tried my best to imagine how much ten years could change a person, but the results of my imagination were disappointing. No matter how I imagined today’s most successful classmate, Jiangxi’s image remained the same as it was ten years ago: a short body, a pair of very nearsighted black-rimmed glasses with several rings on his face, and silence.
Haipeng told me that Li Jianguo was assigned to work in the economic and trade sector in Jiangxi, a position he was originally reluctant to take. The reason was that, like most of us political science students, he wanted to go into the political sector. Especially when Li Jianguo reported that he should go to the trade department in charge of the import and export of jeans after the department was once emotionally depressed. However, the self-cultivated Li Jianguo quickly adjusted his thinking. He began to feel comfortable in his new job.
But the work did not make him feel comfortable. At that time, the Commerce Import and Export Department controlled export licenses, especially for the textile and garment industry. Our country’s garment and textile exports to Europe and the United States have to go through the provincial and municipal trade departments, which are equipped with permits. And exports bring foreign exchange, but also tax rebates, so the permit has become synonymous with extra money.
At the beginning of China’s reform and opening up, the first group of people who got rich basically relied on the privilege of getting permits, and then the permits were stolen and sold for huge profits. These people became China’s first generation of profiteers. The subsidy system was supposed to be good. The cost of manufactured goods in our country is low, and the textile industry is highly competitive, so if we do not use the approval to control exports, there will often be competition among ourselves, competing on price. Some may also produce inferior products to reduce costs, which will ultimately damage the image of China’s manufacturing industry in the international arena.
However, because the approval process could yield huge profits, and because there was no strict system for allocating approvals, it was completely dependent on the preferences of the leaders in charge, and so could be changed on a word from them. This naturally led to corruption. Li Jianguo, who was politically aware and a student of international relations, saw the problem within a year of arriving at the unit. The naive Li Jianguo went so far as to write a letter to the vice-governor in charge of commerce at the time, sharply pointing out the irrationality of the system and the causes of corruption. After the letter was sent out like a stone sinking into the sea, there was no response, but Li Jianguo’s bitter days were coming. Less than two months after the letter was sent, Li Jianguo was replaced with a position in charge of the collection and distribution work of the Economic and Trade Commission, that is, the work of the gatekeeper. Some leaders also said that college students should receive a multifaceted education, so they should start from the bottom.
Li Jianguo worked there for two years and felt very relieved. He used his time to read many novels and study. Until one day, there are two trading company bosses drove the first part of Jiangxi Nanchang at that time, “Rolls-Royce” to the Economic and Trade Commission to pick up the leaders to dinner, Li Jianguo only found out then know that was the son of the vice-governor to whom he had written his letter.
Li Jianguo knew the reason, but he was also angry. For the next two years, Li Jianguo remained motionless as his gatekeeper, while secretly collecting factual evidence of subsidy corruption. He may have started out with the intention of making things right in Jiangxi and doing justice to himself, but he dug deeper and deeper and began a secret nationwide investigation. The results of his investigation were later sent directly to the central government; we don’t know exactly what was in the report, but it is said to have played a major role in the abolition of the subsidy system.
“He’s amazing, all on his own.” A-hua, listening intently, sighed heartily.
Not bad, considering that he was just a doorman for a local trade department, it was not easy to conduct an investigation into corruption in the trade sector nationwide. His report contained some hard facts. For example, he told the central government, although he could not provide concrete evidence, that in the 1980s and early 1990s there were 24 directors and deputy directors in charge of approvals in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of the State Council, and now there are twenty family members with five million in family assets, six of whom were sent directly to the United States, where their wives gave birth, so that their children would be U.S. citizens, in order to evade China’s family planning regulations, but also to pave the way for the children’s future in the United States.
He also pointed out that the department and section-level cadres in charge of economic and trade departments in Guangdong, Fujian, and other open coastal provinces have basically gone into the private sector, setting up import and export companies with an average starting capital of 10 million RMB! They raised this capital by stealing and selling licenses in the course of their work. Li Jianguo made a detailed analysis of the economic situation of the officials who were then in charge of the foreign trade departments of each province. Even though the central government might later think that the involvement was too broad, they couldn’t arrest them all, right? So these things would remain unresolved.
Li Jianguo’s life in Jiangxi was not easy. The corrupt officials who had lost their licenses and had their sources of profit cut off saw Li Jianguo as a thorn in their side. They found ways to insult and even beat him, to isolate him in his work unit, and to punish him in the allocation of housing. As a result, he could not even find a wife.
“Poor little Jiangxi, he must have been so sad then.” A-hua said sympathetically as he sat up.
“Things are not what you think.” I told A-hua what Tian Haipeng had told me. Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo himself said that the more corrupt officials hated him, bullied him, and tortured him, the happier he was because he made it impossible for those corrupt officials to use systemic corruption to embezzle the people’s money. So not only did he not feel bad, he was secretly happy.
A few years passed. Those corrupt officials seemed to have finally forgotten about Li Jianguo. No one came to harass him, the work unit no longer bullied him, and even a leader not only got along with Little Jiangxi, but promoted him to section chief. It is said that Li Jianguo should be happy, find a wife, and live a normal life.
“What’s wrong?” A-hua asked worriedly as she stood up and shook her two plump tits, which seemed unaffected by Earth’s gravity.
Nothing happened, I went on to say that it was Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo who became suspicious, he was after all our old classmate, he is especially sharp. So he took a closer look. Even observed investigations, not long after, he found the problem. Even though the original permit was no longer valid, the corrupt officials did not stop. No, corrupt officials in almost all walks of life developed their own characteristics of corruption methods. The most important is infrastructure, highway repair, there were developments in the name of land grants.
So the venerable Li Jianguo once again made an intensive investigation. His results were nothing special. For example, the Chinese people do not know that every kilometer of highway construction benefits one or two corrupt officials. Every time a government building is built, dozens of relatives of officials, big and small, get a windfall. Wholesale land deals, of course, bring in even more. Li Jianguo was very serious, so he spent two years to get another report on these situations. This time, he himself felt bad, because the previous report only covered officials in the economic and trade sectors, while this time it covered almost all government departments. Soon after the report went up, Hu Changqing, the vice governor of Jiangxi Province, was arrested and sentenced to death on charges of corruption. The shot that killed Vice Governor Hu Changqing was almost as important as the first shot fired in the Nanchang Uprising more than 80 years ago. Ever since then, our Party has shot several corrupt cadres above the vice provincial level every year.
Wow, so the person who exposed that big embezzler is actually your classmate, that’s amazing!” A-hua was excited.
Whether Hu Changqing was actually exposed by Li Jianguo, I cannot say, because since graduation, Tian Haipeng has never seen Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo. At that time, I was also quite surprised, because I did not see, these deeds are heard from where? Tian Haipeng laughed at my backwardness, he said, now we all use e-mail contact, where there is still time to meet? He said, “Nowadays, we all use e-mail to contact each other. Haipeng said that exposing corrupt officials like Hu Changqing made Li Jianguo famous in the central government. Comrades in the Ministry of State Security noticed that Li Jianguo could produce such a thorough investigation and research report on his own, which was greatly appreciated. At that time, Li Jianguo again had an accident in Jiangxi, some of the corrupt officials bribed villains to beat Li Jianguo so badly that he became bedridden. The local public security bureau even falsely accused Li Jianguo of being “one of the troublemakers,” and Little Jiangxi was dismissed from the unit. When the Ministry of State Security learned of the situation, it secretly sent senior cadres from the personnel department to conduct a secret investigation into Li Jianguo’s situation.
“Didn’t Li always want an agency like the Ministry of State Security?” A-hua blurted out.
“How do you know that?” I stared at A-hua strangely.
“My guess is not good enough?” A-hua smiled and said, “Didn’t you say from the beginning that Li Jianguo didn’t like the economic and trade sector and preferred the political sector? I don’t think there is a more political department than the Ministry of State Security.”
I said, “All right, when Li Jianguo graduated from college, he wanted to join the Ministry of State Security to defend the country by contributing his own intelligence, but because of his thin body and high myopia, he was unable to do what he wanted. He did not expect to prove his real ability to the leaders of the Ministry of State Security, but the leaders of the Ministry of State Security decided to recruit Li Jianguo into their staff. After the people went to Jiangxi, they secretly inspected for two days and rushed to the hospital to look for Li Jianguo, but as a result, Li Jianguo had already sneaked out of the hospital.
“Ah!” A-hua’s mouth opened wide, “Something can’t have happened, can it? Did he become a victim -“
This time, I also laughed, “You fool, what we know is that Li Jianguo personally told us via e-mail, if he died, how would we know these things?”
“Such a good opportunity came and he disappeared, oops, what a pity!” A-hua said regretfully.
“You are not in a hurry, heroic people always have their own development path, of course, not what we can think of for ordinary people. Do you know what Li Jianguo has done?”
“I don’t know, just say it quickly, it’s killing me.” A-hua shouted.
“You know, Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo grew up frail and sickly, so although he was ambitious, he often fought against injustice and exposed corrupt officials, but he was physically inferior to others. So in those days in Jiangxi, he was beaten up by hooligans and punks from time to time, often with a bruised nose. That day, Li Jianguo ran out of the hospital, either other, is determined to go to the deep mountains to strengthen his body and study martial arts”.
“Good legend ah, did not expect your classmates to be so powerful, but not all people can cultivate themselves. We have a lot of people who ran to the deep mountains to practice, the result after years on the mountain not only thin bones, but also live to become an old man.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” I interrupted Ah Hua unhappily: “The hero is not the same place is the opportunity Ah. This Li Jianguo entered the deep mountains soon after he met the old martial arts master Feng Qingyang.”
“Feng Qingyang? That’s a familiar name, isn’t that the martial arts elder in Jin Yong’s novels?” A-hua stared at me in confusion.
“Don’t interrupt me. Li Jianguo said this to Tian Haipeng, and Tian Haipeng said this to me, could I be wrong? Anyway, probably all the old timers in the martial arts world are more or less the same name, right? That old man Feng Qingyang, although he kept himself hidden from the world, despised corrupt officials like Hu Changqing. This official surnamed Hu not only embezzled the people’s blood and sweat, but also kept several mistresses. The most disgraceful thing to old man Feng Qingyang’s elders was that this person surnamed Hu was not filial to their parents. He embezzled so much money, but always left her parents at home to live a hard life. When Feng Qingyang learned that this highly myopic, weak, so stunted that he looked as if he would die at any moment hero who had exposed Hu Changqing at any time will die, the middle-aged man is to expose Hu Changqing’s hero,Feng Qingyang very much wanted to meet him. a great sense of hatred to meet. Next, according to Li Jianguo, “Feng Qingyang used a recently developed method to teach Gongfu quickly and passed it on to Li Jianguo.
“Two months later, Li Jianguo came down from the mountain. The poor people from the Ministry of State Security had to wait for two months because they could not go back to deliver the order. As soon as they saw Li Jianguo’s radiant face, they were busy explaining their intentions and immediately wanted Li Jianguo to join the Ministry of State Security team. Guess what Li Jianguo said?”
A dazed A-hua shook her head.
“He said, ‘Wait a minute! Give me a week, no, two days will be enough, and then I’ll go with you. Guess what he wants those two days for? This Li Jianguo is not a bad classmate of ours. He knows the law and will defend the reputation of the Ministry of State Security. He wants to get even with the bastards who bullied him before he becomes a law enforcement officer himself! Haha, he doesn’t want to bring shame to our law enforcement team by fighting after he becomes an agent of the Ministry of State Security. You see, Li Jianguo’s thinking is out of the ordinary, and we can’t help but be convinced.”
“As a result, in two days, Little Jiangxi almost made the Nanchang thugs bleed from their heads one by one. It is said that Jiangxi’s triad society also collapsed from then on, never to rise again.”
I looked smugly at Ahua’s increasingly confused expression: “Later, the little Jiangxi Li Jianguo left Jiangxi to work in the Ministry of State Security in Beijing.”
“That’s not your colleague.” A-hua asked casually.
I was stunned: “What, do you even know that I used to work in the Ministry of State Security?”
A-hua was stunned for a moment and came back to me before answering, “Your father told me.
By the way, I had forgotten that my father had long considered A-hua a member of the family.
“Have there been any more sagas born after Li Jianguo’s arrival at the Ministry of State Security?” Awa asked again.
“No. No, Tian Haipeng said he didn’t know. Li Jianguo has not talked about himself since he arrived at the Ministry of State Security. It’s work discipline, I guess. People in the Ministry of State Security are unsung heroes, and it’s possible that not everyone will see each other for a lifetime, even if they all work in the Ministry of State Security.
“What a pity, because to be a hero, but then to be nameless, is really very meaningless.” Ahua said quietly with regret.
“Oh yes, Tian Haipeng also told me that about a year ago, Li Jianguo told him via email that he was being sent abroad, and he vaguely hinted that it was a highly classified, absolutely dangerous mission related to our country’s moon landing program, and that he might not be able to return for ten or eight years, or possibly even for the rest of his life. So his letter ended with both a ‘farewell’ and a ‘goodbye forever’, and Haipeng was in tears.
“So touching!”
“A-hwa, look, this classmate of mine is successful, right?”
“It was a success.”
“From the beginning to the end, there was no mention of Li Jianguo having a penny, nor was there any mention of him being an official, but after Tian Haipeng told his story, I immediately thought that Li was the most successful of our classmates. You see, that’s the kind of people we are. We all like money and status, but in our bones we still worship heroes, like warriors, we like to do justice to the lone warrior. I think like the programs in computers, our generation has long been programmed in our minds to think this way.”
A-hua gently stroked my head, as if to recognize my programming. After a while, she gently asked, “Wenfeng, can you tell me whether you would be happy or unhappy, or whether you would be jealous if your classmate was very successful?
I didn’t expect A-hua to ask such a profound question. I thought there was no reason not to be happy about my classmates’ success, but even an unmotivated person like me could not help but feel a touch of jealousy when hearing about my classmates’ success. I thought about it for a while and decided to answer her in a different way.
“When I heard Li’s story, I was sincerely happy for him. His success was not based on money or status, but on his own conscience and ability to work for the country and the people. I have no reason to envy him, in fact, I secretly look up to him as a role model, and while I am proud of him, I encourage myself to learn more or less what he has to learn, and if I can’t learn anything, I will learn his spirit.
“Haha, what an interesting answer. And how do you feel about the success of your classmates who have become officials and rich?” A-hua asked persistently.
I thought about it again before answering her: “After the Li Jun incident, I have a feeling that I will be nervous when I see my classmates who have become big officials and rich in the future. In a system like China’s, to become a big official, you often have to bend over backwards to get to the top, and then find ways to be corrupt after you get there. So I am afraid that behind every successful classmate I see, there is a sordid story”.
“It’s not that serious, haha. Is success the mother of failure?” A-hua couldn’t stop laughing, and as she laughed, she explained her theory: “Actually, flies don’t bite seamless eggs. You can’t spoil a pot of soup just because of a fly. By the way, how did your classmate get into trouble? It’s the one named Li Jun.”
“He embezzled…”
“Is that an accident? Who is not a little corrupt, eh? In China, the officials are not corrupt is not normal, the people want to be corrupt are not corrupt. You see so many years, I do not know how many corrupt officials, but never out of the second Jiao Yulu”. Ahua said in disbelief.
“No, he was caught by others as a scapegoat for corruption, and as a result, he betrayed state secrets and committed a capital crime!”
Ahua stopped talking.
In fact, I was disturbed by the accident of two consecutive classmates and the death of Rong’er, I was involved myself. And the investigation in the United States not only produced no results, but also generated more questions. I suddenly felt distracted. I thought that something must have gone wrong, and that the problem was probably among our classmates. If my suspicion was right, then something else was happening to my classmates.
I jumped up from the bed in a sudden panic and almost threw A-hua, who was lying half on my chest, under the bed. A-hua looked at me accusingly, but I couldn’t explain to her. If there’s a traitor in J among our classmates, isn’t the life of Xiao Jiangxi Li Jianguo, who is currently being sent abroad on a secret mission by the Ministry of State Security, in danger at any time?
“A-hwa, I’m sorry, I have no way to explain to you. I have to go to Beijing tomorrow.”
A-hua stopped talking. That night I decided to get rid of my fear and anxiety by having sex until dawn.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (8)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 26, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 8 Fatal weakness
On the phone, I insisted that I needed to report to Beijing in person. Director Zhou on the other end of the line was silent for a while, then agreed. I think he probably picked up something in my tone. I was a little sorry because I knew Director Zhou was very busy, but I had to see him. The suspicion in my mind was getting bigger and bigger, making me breathless and restless.
Director Zhou’s driver, Xiao Wang, came to the airport to pick me up. After the car turned onto Chang’an Street, he moved to the middle lane and started accelerating toward Tiananmen Square. At this point I already guessed that I would be enjoying the “jacuzzi” at the Beijing Hotel for the next two nights. Sure enough, after the car stopped at the entrance of the Beijing Hotel, Wang handed me a good hotel room key, winked at me and said with a smile, “Zhou specifically explained to open a luxury room with a jacuzzi, you enjoy it, I will contact you.
I also smiled heartily, a heart of relief and warmth. Director Zhou is such a leader who will use his own special hospitality to make the traveler returning from a journey or his long-time subordinates feel warm. He knew that I would only be in Beijing for two days, so of course I would not burden their expenses. He also knew that I would choose cheaper hotels wherever I went on business trips, so he gave me a luxury room in a six-star hotel. And every time, he can’t forget to emphasize the role of the Jacuzzi. At first I thought it was funny, at my age I still use a jacuzzi? Director Zhou does not know that the Beijing massage girls were cheaper and more useful?
Later, the driver Xiao Wang said to me with a smile: “Secretary Zhou is hoping that you will not find a massage girl, only deliberately every time to emphasize the jacuzzi.” I did not feel like laughing when I heard that, and I thought Director Zhou was cute. After all, there is a saying that “In Beijing, if you swing a bamboo pole, there will certainly be several bureau-level cadres under its arc”. 在北京一竹竿扫过去，倒下一片都是局级干部 Being a director is not easy. At the beginning, they make secret evaluations of themselves. The fierce competition for jobs within the work unit and a certain understanding of the situation were among the reasons why I left the Ministry of State Security and entered the private sector. Although not as a director, I do not lack research on directors.
It was after ten o’clock that night when Director Zhou arrived at the hotel in a hurry. We made coffee in the room and talked over drinks.
“Director Zhou, before I make a formal report, I would like to ask you a question. I’ve been thinking about it since you mentioned it last time.”
When I saw Director Zhou looking at me cheerfully, I continued, “You said that everyone has a fatal weakness. That sounds very reasonable. Your previous job was to use the enemy’s weaknesses to make them succumb and reveal the secrets in their minds. I think your current counterintelligence work should be less about exploiting people’s fatal weaknesses. But my question is, does everyone have a fatal weakness?”
Director Zhou nodded, “It is true that a person has strengths and weaknesses, and some of them are fatal. You have read philosophy books; I don’t base my conclusions on books. Perhaps in reality, and even in the academic world, they no longer emphasize the fatal weaknesses of human beings. But as someone who is engaged in our work, we must clearly understand that human beings have fatal flaws, otherwise we cannot do our work. In counterintelligence work, we must interrogate captured suspects according to their weaknesses. In intelligence work, it is equally important to exploit human weaknesses for our purposes!
“I understand, but I just think that when someone puts their life on the line, even if you can find their fatal weakness, what’s the point? How can that weakness kill them? What if he doesn’t want to live at all?”
“Xiao Yang, your example is a bit extreme, because being human means being afraid of death. However, I have to admit that your question is very important. Because in a civilized and legalistic society, you can’t just threaten people with death at every turn. For example, when you interrogate a prisoner today, you can’t just threaten him with death if he doesn’t tell the truth. Everyone knows the law, so such threats are useless. So I would say that your way of thinking has merit, but that does not mean that people who are not afraid of death do not have a fatal weakness.” I knew there was business to discuss today, but I was very unconvinced. I raised my voice and said, “Then can you explain the martyr Zhang Zhixin to me?
If you are a rebel, a murderer, or Mao Yuanxin, what can you do to bring her to her knees?”
Director Zhou looked at me in amazement. Zhang Zhixin has always been the hero I admire most in my heart. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Zhixin saw that the Gang of Four was a scourge to the country and the people, and she was a woman who defied power and spoke out. She she was arrested by the Cultural Revolution’s rebel faction in the northeast, where she was from, and forced to repent and bow down. The rebels and the “Gang of Four” minions in the northeast took the most cruel and abusive measures against Zhang Zhixin in human history.
However, the martyr Zhang Zhixin never stopped denouncing the Gang of Four for a moment, until she was beaten to death. In the end, the rebel faction, unable to bring her to her knees, sentenced her to death. Fearing that Zhang Zhixin would shout slogans like “Down with the Gang of Four” during the execution, the rebels went so far as to slit the weak woman’s throat and insert a metal tube to keep her alive. The rebels’ idea was that as long as Zhang Zhixin was unable to scream during the public execution, and as long as she showed even a hint of fear on her face, their role of “educating the people” would be fulfilled. However, according to the later recollections of the rebels who participated in the execution, although Zhang Zhixin was unable to cry out and her life was sustained by a steel pipe, her eyes always radiated an indomitable light. I know all of Zhang Zhixin’s deeds, some of which I obtained by using the privilege of the Ministry of State Security to access the archives. I remember Zhang Zhixin’s birthday and silently drink to her every year on that day. She is a hero who has never faded from my mind over the years. I used her example to challenge Director Zhou.
Director Zhou said: “Yang, you must have forgotten that during the Cultural Revolution I was squatting in a barn in the Northeast. Not far from where Zhang Zhixin was martyred. I know all about her, she is a hero in my heart. I sometimes think that if we had more Chinese like Zhang Zhixin, would the Japanese have been able to ravage our country for eight years? Would the few of the ‘Gang of Four’ still be able to wreak havoc in our sacred homeland for a decade?”
“Such a person would have no fatal weakness. Otherwise, why couldn’t the rebels bring them to their knees when they were about to dissect them alive?”
“Yang, like I said, we have to believe in our profession that a human being has a fatal weakness. Otherwise, we will face many problems, we would be discouraged and discouraged, and then look for excuses for ourselves. There is no mountain that cannot be climbed, no position that cannot be attacked, and no opponent without a fatal weakness. Although it is not appropriate to use the martyr Zhang Zhixin as an example here, I will say a few words to help you understand.
“There were others like Zhang Zhixin, who died a martyr’s death, and is a great hero to our Ministry of State Security team and even more to our Party. You have heard of Marshal He Long of the “two kitchen knives rebellion of 1916“, and Marshal Peng Dehuai. Peng, who both put themselves at the front of the battle line in war, putting their lives on the line. And then take the State President Liu Shaoqi, before Liberation in 1949 the long-standing leader of our Party’s underground work, all three were at Anyuan surrounded by the enemy around. Do you dare to say that any of them feared death?”
I sincerely nodded my head in agreement, of course they were not afraid to die, there are countless revolutionary martyrs that we cannot even name now, who threw their heads and bones and spilled their blood for the ideal of righteousness.
“You should know the reason why they are not afraid to die, right? By the way, it is to have a higher ideal, the belief that the Communist Party will lead the whole Chinese people to overthrow the Three Great Mountains of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism, with the conviction that the final victory must belong to the Communist Party of China, which represents the whole Chinese people. Under the domination of such lofty ideals, they regarded their own lives as less important.
“How can I explain this to you? This is undoubtedly their common virtue. But in many cases this strength is also their fatal weakness. Let me put it this way: Liu Shaoqi dedicated his life to the communist cause, and was he afraid of death? Can you imagine how he would react if someone tortured him with the threat of death, and finally destroyed him physically? Of course, he would laugh it off and be in high spirits, just like the martyr Zhang Zhixin.
“But the situation later on was not like that at all. PRC State Chairman Liu Shaoqi was almost completely exhausted in the last period of his life. He begged to see Chairman Mao several times, just to see him in person. He even wrote a review in tears, but Chairman Mao did not even read it. In the end, the President of the Republic died a miserable death, and it is said that his body was hastily rolled up in a broken bamboo mat. If you think about it, he and the martyr Zhang Zhixin are both heroes willing to die, so why should one die a miserable death and the other a tragic one, and how could the results be so different? When you think about it, you can also associate it with the many people who bent over backwards or even framed others during the Cultural Revolution. There were others who could not stand the torture and committed suicide, and of course there were more cases of the older generation of revolutionaries who even repented. Think about it, they all went through the years of the war, the shooting, the hanging of their heads from the waistbands of their trousers during the revolution, were they afraid of death? Of course not. But in all those ideological campaigns and during the Cultural Revolution, how could a group of ignorant Red Guards and a few shameless rebels make them cry out in pain that life is worse than death, and even write confessions and surrender?
Director Zhou had made it very clear, and with a little thought, it dawned on me. I said excitedly, “I understand. The fatal weakness of these people was their strength. This means that these people were not afraid of death and are willing to sacrifice their lives for the noble ideals of the state and the people. Liu Shaoqi finally broke down almost completely because he suddenly found that the people did not need him, the Party had expelled him, and most importantly, Chairman Mao had abandoned him. He was suddenly plunged into a hellish despair, a despair more terrible than death, because he had dedicated himself to a doctrine for which he was willing to die without regret. But now they found themselves unexpectedly wronged by the people and the Party. If they were to die, it would be a death without that devotion supporting their will. They would simply die. So they are suddenly afraid of dying, afraid that the matter has not been clearly explained.”
“You could say that. But one thing to note is that the people did not abandon him, and the Party did not abandon him. It’s just that our politics developed abnormally after liberation, with a great cult of the individual. As a result, even those who should have been sober became confused. They thought that Chairman Mao represented the Party, the people, and the communist cause to which they had devoted their hearts and lives. So when Chairman Mao wanted to purge someone, the spiritual pillar of the person being purged immediately collapsed. This made Chairman Mao invincible during the Cultural Revolution. If only one general had been able to distinguish Chairman Mao from the communist cause, the future of the Chinese people, the situation would have been completely different. But so many people were persecuted and killed during the Cultural Revolution. Almost all of them died first spiritually and then physically. I hate to say it, but I have to say that of all the so-called heroes who died during the Cultural Revolution, only Zhang Zhixin made me feel that she had no regrets about dying.
“I see.” I said with understanding, “If I were a rebel, I could have easily brought Zhang Zhixin to her knees back then.”
“Tell me about it.” Director Zhou looked at me admiringly.
“When Zhang Zhixin shouted the slogan ‘Down with the Gang of Four, Destroy the Reactionaries,’ it was because she was convinced in her heart that she was defending Chairman Mao and the future of the Chinese people. In other words, it was clear in her mind that the Gang of Four would fall, Chairman Mao would win, and the people would prevail. The reason for Zhang Zhixin’s faith was that she looked far ahead and knew that history would one day judge the murderers who tried her. But either there is also the following reason, or it is because she is too far away from Beijing and the top level to see clearly. Let’s imagine that if he knew that Chairman Mao was the backstage supporter of the Gang of Four, he might have given in and asked her to make a self-criticism like those central leaders. So my approach would be that the rebel faction would falsely spread the word to Zhang Zhixin herself that it was Chairman Mao himself who had sentenced her to death, and then she would never be able to raise her voice again. She would be so afraid of dying that she would beg the rebel faction not to kill her. Then she would have done everything possible to express her heartfelt devotion to the Party and Chairman Mao.
Director Zhou stared at me for a while, not speaking, so I asked: “Director Zhou, I have been thinking about it these days, but I cannot always remember. You say I am full of flaws, but what exactly is my fatal weakness?”
Director Zhou’s expression relaxed again: “You will find out for yourself one day. I say,” Director Zhou looked at his watch, “you didn’t fly all the way to Beijing to talk to me about such philosophical matters!
I put my curiosity aside and began to talk about the main thing I had come to say today.
I gave a brief account of my trip to the United States. At the end I said, “Going through customs went very smoothly and no irregularities were found. But when I came out of the Hong Kong airport, I found that my luggage had been searched by professionals when I left the United States.”
“How did this happen?” Director Zhou frowned. “It means that your actions in the United States have attracted the attention of the relevant parties, or that you have come into contact with someone the FBI is already watching. By the way, what method did you use to find out that there was no difference when you entered the United States?”
I told Director Zhou about the laundry detergent incident, and he listened while laughing. After I finished, he still couldn’t stop laughing, “Yang, I tell you ah, there are always some of these dirty ideas, convenient to use, fancy. I really admire you. The detergent incident, hahaha, well, if you were already targeted when you entered the United States, then your luggage must have been checked already when you arrived at the airport. That way, when you go through customs, no FBI will come back to make a fuss about the laundry detergent in your luggage. Even if you’re under FBI surveillance, they won’t make a fuss if you’re bringing real drugs into the U.S., let alone if you’re carrying laundry detergent. That’s a great move on your part. In general, the hardest thing to determine is whether or not you are being watched as you enter a country or region. If you are not careful, all the relatives and friends you meet will be implicated. By the way, Yang, do you know when you were targeted?”
“I didn’t notice. It looked like a master was after me. But on the way to New York, I did the right work again, and I didn’t find the tail either. It looks like it might be in the back.”
Director Zhou nodded his head. I said, “I did not do well on this mission, I tried my best, and Director Zhou immediately interrupted me, “Yang, you did a good job on the mission. This mission would have been difficult due to the limited information we had access to, not to mention the fact that you were doing me a favor, right?”
I nodded my head and liked how Director Zhou mixed the task with the help. He lets me know when I feel relaxed and when I feel dignified.
After the debriefing, it was already twelve o’clock. I looked at Director Zhou as if he was about to get up and leave, and I decided to get to the point.
“Director Zhou, I came to Beijing for other reasons.”
“I know, or you wouldn’t have rushed to Beijing.” Director Zhou nodded, “Can you talk a little faster? I have a meeting early tomorrow.”
“I’ll try, but without your cooperation and support, I’m afraid it will be difficult for me to be fast.” I winked at Director Zhou. Director Zhou looked at me in confusion and lit a cigarette.
“I know that your work is strictly confidential. I also know that I am no longer on the national security front. But today I would really like to get your advice.”
Director Zhou didn’t move a muscle, puffing earnestly on his cigarette. “Is it very sensitive?” He was silent for a moment before asking, “You always know the rules, I see no need to remind you. You start with an easier one and talk about it. Be sure to stop in ten minutes.”
“Good.” I stood up, walked over to the bed, sat down, turned on the bedside lamp next to me, and then turned off the floor lamp next to the chair where Chief Zhou was sitting. This way, I was in the light and Chief Zhou was sitting in the dark, and with the smoke he was exhaling, soon I could only see his blurry angles, and I thought he could see me clearly. “Director Zhou, you know about my relationship with Guo Qingqing. You asked me to investigate Guo Qingqing’s situation in the United States, especially her movements after her plastic surgery. I know the work discipline, so no matter how curious I was, I held back from investigating, but you know it was very difficult for me. But Director Zhou, since you already knew about my relationship with Guo Qingqing, you still entrusted me with such a task, which shows your trust in me. I am very grateful.
“Guo Qingqing’s appearance after plastic surgery, identity documents, etc. Although I did not investigate the same, it was you who directly assigned me to investigate, which makes me worry. I still have feelings for Guo Qingqing, so my first request is, “Will you tell me what happened?”
I didn’t even look at the smoke and continued in one breath: “After I came back from the United States, I thought it was over, but I found out that two of my classmates had gotten into trouble, both around the time I was imprisoned. One of them had already been imprisoned for revealing state secrets, and the other was involved in national security and violating secrecy regulations. The more I think about these three things, the more I feel that something is not right, it should not be a coincidence, right? You know, our class of forty students who entered the university in the mid-1980s began to experience the chaos of being him by radically different ideologies and philosophical theories one after another in school.
After graduation, we experienced a period of rapid economic growth rarely seen in human history. The three good opportunities to get rich in the reform and opening up: some of our classmates were involved in the theft and sale of documents, land grabbing and embezzlement of state assets. But as far as I know, none of our classmates ever got into trouble. However, in just a few months, two students fell, one a criminal and the other in a bad light. So my second question is, is there any connection between this and you asking me to investigate my classmate Guo Qingqing? Are you aware of this connection? Or did you just hear about it today?
“The following is my most important speculation, but also my biggest worry, which is mainly due to my two classmates above thinking about the accident at the same time. Director Zhou, as you know, our Peking University, like some other major universities, has some majors that are almost fixed to deliver talents to certain important government agencies before the graduates find their own way to them. In particular, the Department of International Politics at Peking University was proposed by Premier Zhou in the mid-seventies. At that time, Renmin University of China and Fudan University were among the universities that joined Peking University in establishing departments of international politics. Premier Zhou asked the university to train its own international relations talents according to the international situation at that time, especially from the perspective of our country’s increasingly frequent international interactions.
Almost all of the international relations graduates trained by our department from the 1970s to the end of the 1990s were employed by the state, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy and Trade, the Ministry of State Security, and military academies, to name a few. Take my classmates as an example. Nearly 30 of us 40 graduates have been assigned to work in important Party and government organs, and I can be even more specific and serious, if you take the Ministry of State Security, almost every important coastal province has my classmates in the Ministry of State Security subordinate bureaux. They are professionally competent and at least proficient in a foreign language talents. After more than ten years of work, most of them have become young and talented cadres. However when two of my classmates ran into trouble one after the other, I suddenly had a strange feeling that our classmates had run into similar trouble or would run into similar trouble! If we don’t find out the cause and stop it in time, serious problems may spread like an epidemic.
I just kept talking to myself, but I couldn’t resist looking into the darkness, where the smoke obviously didn’t catch on, and Principal Zhou was obviously so captivated by my words that he forgot to smoke. I bowed my head, lowered my voice, and said clearly, “I suspect that the CIA has finally made a breakthrough after so many years of not being able to work in China. Although our country, especially your Ministry of State Security, is very strict about secrecy, we have forgotten that there are no secrets among students: what unit you are assigned to, what specific work you do, how well you do it, as well as your promotion, family situation, etc. . These things are not secrets among students. If that is not enough, what is even more deadly is that the old classmates almost all know each other’s character, strengths and weaknesses, preferences. Imagine if foreign intelligence agencies used this to make a breakthrough. The situation is serious. Although foreign intelligence and counterintelligence agencies also recruit college students, they do not do so within such a narrow group as in our country.
“Director Zhou, didn’t you say that everyone has a fatal weakness, it just depends on whether you find that weakness? For a mature adult or a stranger, you may not be able to catch his or her Achilles’ heel, but for our high school graduation to university, eating, sleeping and studying together for several years, you will get to know their fatal weakness. We all know each other well. If you are vain, every classmate knows; If you have too many hormones and are horny, we live in a dormitory, sleep on bunk beds, if a classmate masturbates in his bed at night, we all know, but we never talk about it. If one of our classmates understood not only the psychology but also the weaknesses of his old classmate and if he were to be supported by the CIA, what then would be the consequences?”
I deliberately paused for a moment and said in an aggravated tone: “Minister Zhou, my analysis of the incidents involving the two students in Guangdong and the Jiuquan accident clearly shows that their own fatal weaknesses were clearly grasped by others. How can people see their fatal weakness so clearly? I think if they are not relatives and friends, the rest are us old classmates. If this speculation is correct, then we should be worried about the big, domestic, not to mention, as far as I know, our class also sent to work abroad. For example, Li Jianguo was secretly sent abroad to work on my top secret work related to space research, he may be in a life-threatening situation at any moment, you must bring him home as soon as possible.”
“Ten minutes are up.” Director Zhou’s voice came out of the smoke, trying his best to stay calm. I stopped but did not move. It was only when I felt the smoke dissipate and Chief Zhou stand up that I turned my head. There was still a friendly face in front of me, and I sighed. I understood Director Zhou’s caution. I was no longer a Ministry agent and the question I had just asked was really sensitive. We took the approach that I was in the light and he was in the dark. Not once did he interrupt or pick up the conversation while I was speaking.
You know, for experienced intelligence officers, observing facial expressions can provide almost vital information. For example, if I could have observed Director Zhou’s facial expressions and body language just then, then those ten minutes of speculative testimony would have revealed a lot to me. I could counter “speculate” from the frequency of his throat clearings, heart rate, eye blinks, and body movements again. If the top intelligence chief in Beijing reacted to every detail of my ten minutes of speculation. If this really happened, state secrets could be seriously undermined and national security would definitely be compromised. So for me, a loving father like Director Zhou, knowing that I wanted to raise sensitive issues, asked me to “follow the rules. The natural result is that I spoke at length for ten minutes, but did not get any reaction. There remained in front of me the same kind face.
“Yang,” Director Zhou said in a tired voice, “I have always trusted you, you also have a good mind, but when it comes to work, the confidentiality system must be implemented without compromise. There cannot be the slightest personal feelings involved. That I trust you is one thing, whether we act in accordance with the rules of confidentiality is another. I have carefully written down what you have just said in order to facilitate further cooperation with you in our work. I have here in mind where the scope of appropriate disclosure of the situation will not cause harm. I hope you can open your minds and often ask more questions about why things are the way they are.
Director Zhou continued, “We received top secret information from Washington that a woman named Guo Qingqing had been sent back to China by the CIA. This was no big deal, after all, did our friends in Washington, the CIA, not enthusiastically send us spies every year? Their job is to mess with our intelligence, isn’t it? Besides, we have a counterintelligence agency, so shouldn’t we just wait for the person they send to take the bait? But since the information they provided is our more important link, we cannot take it lightly. Later, after checking, the information was true. However, we ran into a problem. Before the CIA sent people over, most of us could find out their identities or physical characteristics, but we had nothing on this Guo Qingqing.
We later found out that Guo Qingqing was a former international relations graduate of Peking University in China, and after further study in the United States, she married a professor and obtained a green card. She divorced around 2000, after which she found a plastic surgeon named Mike in New York to give her a facelift, and after a year of surgical experience, she was almost completely transformed and rejuvenated. But at that time the “9/11 incident” happened, and the plastic surgeon Mike was in the building at that time and unfortunately died. Therefore, all the information about Guo Qingqing’s plastic surgery was completely destroyed in that disaster. Guo Qingqing discovered the problem when she applied for American citizenship. Because she had become a completely different person, without the doctor’s certificate, the United States simply could not recognize her as the original Guo Qingqing.
“But when you get a green card in the U.S., don’t you have to have your fingerprints taken?” I interrupted to ask.
“To put it bluntly, this Guo Qingqing was even said to have had her fingers cut to have ten long fingers, and as a result her fingerprints were damaged, so the FBI did not identify her at all. Guo Qingqing was very nervous at that time because she needed to have her identity verified not only to keep her American citizenship. She also wanted to keep the real estate she had acquired during her divorce, and so on. It is said that she was very anxious at that time and was looking for someone to help her. But in the U.S. we talk about the rule of law and democracy, so what’s the point of asking people for help? We don’t have a full picture of what happened later. I don’t know if she found the CIA or the CIA found her, but in any case they made an exchange: the CIA solved her identity problem, and she probably promised to do something for the CIA. The only information we received at that time was that Guo Qingqing had been sent back to the mainland.
“But, Director Zhou, if I remember correctly, even if a woman named Guo Qingqing was sent into the mainland by the CIA, what’s the big deal? That’s what the CIA does anyway, they have to send some spies over more or less every year, otherwise how are they going to spend their tens of billions of dollars?” I said unconcerned.
“Having said that, we cannot ignore the importance of the source of the information this time. In addition, most of the spies sent into mainland China by the CIA in the past were American diplomats, businessmen or scholars, and even if they occasionally sent in some people of Chinese descent, most of them obtained the relevant information in passing as scholars, and most of them already known to us. As you probably know, many of the agents sent by the CIA are almost always under our surveillance and control as soon as they come into our territory. Sometimes we want them to really understand China in order to make the U.S. less hegemonic, so we let their agents collect more ‘intelligence’ on China, and you know that there are anti-Chinese people in the U.S. who spend all day on this.
We have claimed and publicly defended ourselves against their accusations many times, but unfortunately they won’t believe us. So, we let their spies collect some intelligence. As you know, we are generally not nervous about the spies sent by the CIA, and sometimes we even ‘deliberately’ help them when they collect erroneous information.
However, this time seems to be different. Let’s get back to Guo Qingqing, this time the CIA even sent over disguised spies, the situation is a bit unusual. In fact, this kind of thing was only used during the Cold War when the U.S. and the Soviet Union confronted each other. Although currently Sino-American relations are problematic, but the general direction is still moving towards a healthy relationship. What is the purpose of the United States in suddenly dispatching such a deep cover spy against us this time? We are taking it very seriously.”
Director Zhou paused for a moment: “Combined with your analysis of speculation, I think the problem is more serious than previously thought. But since it is pure speculation, even if it is correct, what can we do? Your classmates are not only scattered all over the place, they are not only in the National Security Department, and even if they are in the National Security Department, we can’t just tell them all about it because we might alarm the snake. This matter still looks a bit difficult.
I was glad that Director Zhou agreed with my analysis. But maybe they had already understood the situation, and Director Zhou was just following my words. I suddenly remembered Tian Haipeng’s conversation about wanting to meet with his classmates, and excitedly stood up, “So, Principal Zhou, there!”
“Tell me about it.”
“The thing is, it’s been more than ten years since we graduated, and our classmates have basically never had a reunion. I can contact some classmates in Guangzhou to plan a reunion. That way, everyone will get together.
“It is good to get everything together. I can send some experts to work with you undercover, and we can also do some eavesdropping. I think with your talent, you can find out some basics to see which students are different and which are too normal, good idea! Yang, I can privately provide you with some funds for party activities.”
“No need, old chief.” I smiled, “I have a classmate who has made a fortune in the past two years, and he is trying to spend some money to contact his old classmates. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good, let’s do it. By the way, Yang, what did you just say about your classmate Li Jianguo being sent abroad by the Ministry of State Security, how did you know about that?”
“Geez, Director Zhou, you don’t really think there are secrets between old classmates, do you? Didn’t we talk about this topic all night?”
“You misunderstood. I ask, how did you know about this? If he told you, then you should have his phone number or address, right?”
“Of course he told us. But our generation is all connected by email.” I chuckled as I remembered Tian Haipeng’s words.
“Then can you give me his email number?” Director Zhou looked at me, “You wouldn’t even trust me, would you?”
I wrote Director Zhou the e-mail address that Tian Haipeng gave me and that they had been in contact with.
Then, with Director Zhou’s approval, I immediately dialed Tian Haipeng’s phone number. I told Haipeng on the phone that I wanted to organize a class reunion with him, and immediately there were excited voices on the other end of the phone. I hung up the phone and was also very excited. But when I looked back, Principal Zhou was leaning back on the sofa and had fallen asleep.
I know that such actions are commonplace for Director Zhou. I took out the blanket and gently covered the old man with it.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (9)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 26, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 9 Who Do You Think You Are?
I used to go to the station a lot. I like the feeling of being at the station, wandering around without a destination, but full of longing. I suggested to Tian Haipeng, who was in charge of preparing for the reunion, that I should be in charge of picking up all the students who came to Guangzhou by train. The arrival times of the trains were unpredictable. They were often late, so I figured I would have to spend the whole Saturday at the Guangzhou train station. However, I was surprised to find that I was so excited the night before that I couldn’t sleep.
As a child, the train station in my hometown made a big impression on me. My father would take me with him every time he went to a meeting at the county seat. At that time, my only wish was to go to the station to play. My father would be the last one out of the meeting room after the meeting was over, pat me on the shoulder as I waited outside the meeting room, take my little hand, and walk to the train station in the north of the small town. I jumped and jumped all the way, my heart “pounding” with the sound of the approaching air horn. My father was silent the whole way. When I arrived at the station, I loved to run around the platform, chasing each locomotive and dancing with excitement. If I could stay longer, there would be passenger trains coming and going from north to south through the small town station. Then I’d stand to the side and gesture for the train to stop, just like the station agent. I
f I was lucky enough to get on a slow train, the train would stop really slowly with my gestures. I would suddenly become quiet, staring nervously at each window, and the unfamiliar faces inside made me feel very insecure. As I watched, I thought, “Who are all these people, where are they coming from and where are they going? Will I meet any of them in the future? Or will a stranger suddenly say to me many, many years from now, “Were you the kid on the platform?” As I thought about this, the train slowly pulled out of the station. I waved goodbye to the strange faces at every window on the train, but no one saw me. I knew the train would soon arrive at the next station, where there must be other children waiting on the platform to see the train, and I was the only one on that platform. I always felt like crying then. My father, who was curled up in a corner of the platform, would come over, tap me on the shoulder, take my little hand, and father and son would walk away in silence.
It was not until much later that I learned that my father was in town for meetings, and almost every time it was a criticism and self-criticism struggle session. And my father was one of the main characters in the criticism meetings. My father’s father, my grandfather, had been a landowner with 17 acres of land. My father had been a teacher in the commune high school since Liberation. He was the target of almost every campaign in those years. But it is said that my father, whether he was a landlord exploiting the peasantry, a rightist or a stinking old man, was able to cooperate with the rebel group or the government and make a deep self-criticism. This also helped to educate the people with facts and insight to recognize such a bad person as himself.
Because of my father’s deep self-criticism, even the local government officials or the rebel faction often had an inner world revealed to them that they were not aware of. Therefore, at every important county criticism meeting in those years, they demanded that my father be further criticized. In the end my father had to speak on behalf of the landlord class, the rightists or the Stinking Old Ninth-landlords, [rich peasants, anti-revolutionaries, bad influences, rightists, traitors, spies, capitalist roaders and (ninth) intellectuals]. When my father got excited during his self-denunciations, he would slap his own ears and take the lead in chanting revolutionary slogans to defeat himself. It is said that because my father was did very well in compromising and betraying his class, He never lost his job as a teacher, and my brother and sister were able to graduate from high school — and I could often go to the city to see the trains.
At that time, I knew nothing, nor could I have known that my young mind was filled with such a magical train station, which was enough to keep me dreaming throughout my childhood. When I was seventeen, I took my first train ride. That day, my father carried my suitcase all the way to the train. Oh, I thought excitedly, I finally made it to this side of the window. As the train moved slowly, I looked out the window for the first time in my life and saw my father on the platform, still trotting along with the train, waving to me, sweat or tears on his face. My father’s excitement was just like the one I used to feel when I saw the distant train leaving the platform.
After fourteen hours, I arrived at Beijing station. I couldn’t close my eyes for a minute, remembering the names of every city I passed, searching for every platform I passed. At night, I thought about every town and village that passed the train. I wanted to find boys like me on the platform, and I imagined what kind of people lived in the villages that passed by. Today I finally sat on the train and looked out. I’ve never gotten over it. I’ve seen the inside and the outside, but stations and trains are still mysterious and attractive to me.
My longing, my uncertainty, my hope, my melancholy are all connected to the station.
I didn’t sleep well that night, but I was able to go straight to Guangzhou Railway Station on Saturday morning with high spirits. The first group of students to arrive in the morning included three from Shanghai. Deng Kehai from the Secrecy Department of the Shanghai Municipal Committee, Cai Fenfen from the Shanghai branch of China Travel Service, and Chen Weijia, the director of the Pudong Development Zone. Before the train arrived at the station, I couldn’t sit still, so I got up and walked around the square. The Guangzhou railway station and my memory of the small town railway station are completely different, not to mention the lack of trains in a small town.
Seeing a silent and lifeless electric train can’t compare with the memory of the heart-pounding rumble of the behemoth. However, out of nostalgia for the small train station in my hometown, I used to like to go to the train station in Beijing, and later, after I came to Guangzhou, to the train station there. Especially after I came to Guangzhou, the train station full of a huge anonymous influx of migrants soon gave me a different kind of strange feeling. Those groups of people crowded in the square and the waiting room made me feel like I was seeing my past self. But from the way the migrants looked at me, I knew that I was not the same person anymore. I am well dressed, smooth skinned, sometimes with my head held high, sometimes with my head bowed in contemplation, I know that I can be considered an outlier in this group of rural migrants. I don’t see this as vanity, but rather as pride in my efforts and motivation to create a better future for myself.
It was only when my pockets were cut twice by thieves at the train station that I went there less often. But I really don’t want to go to the station anymore “to remember the good old days in the midst of my current worries. One of my motivations for going to the station was to see how public security checked migrants for their “three certificates”-temporary household registration certificate, temporary residence certificate, and temporary employment certificate-and how they treated people who didn’t have them. When I saw how public security ordered migrant workers around, and then detained and stuffed into a big truck those who lacked any of the three certificates. When I saw those big trucks driving away, I thought it was very unfair. I was walking slowly in the square when a public security officer came up to me.
“Stand still! I want to check the ‘three certificates’!” He waved his hand at me.
I looked back and there was no one else, just me. I pointed to my nose in disbelief and asked, “Me?
“If not you, who else?” The security officer was impatient.
“You’re not wrong, are you?” I unconsciously looked at myself and smiled, a smile that migrant workers do not know how to give to public security officers: “I do not like to carry documents, there are too many thieves here.”
“Then you are ‘three no’s’, you can get on that truck over there, come on, pay attention to what I am telling you.”
I was stunned for a moment. THe Public Security officers looked so conscientious. They couldn’t make a mistake. Could I really look so much like the migrants getting off the train? Haven’t I already been completely transformed? Don’t I stand out from the crowd? Later, after I managed to leave the station, I stopped in front of a glass-fronted building to take a closer look at myself. What I saw was a dry, dark-skinned, listless, dusty, middle-aged man. I broke into a cold sweat. I really did not know what the difference was between the man on the glass wall and the migrant workers I saw at the train station. Then I finally realized that although I had tried to change, I had never really changed. I, Yang Wenfeng, am still a migrant worker who left his hometown to work and wander! –I have not been to the station since then.
The train from Shanghai slowly pulled into the station, and I couldn’t help but follow the stream of other pickups toward the gates. I was worried that I wouldn’t recognize the three of them, but when they appeared, I knew my fears were unnecessary. All three of them were Shanghainese, from the big city, and unlike me, I had changed almost unconsciously since I left the small train station in my hometown at the age of 17 (although I recently realized that nothing had really changed). Shanghai students are different, they always look the same, as often as they open their mouths “ala Shanghai people”, full of confidence and pride.
The three of them stood in the station square, I really feel that they are what is called “cranes”, in their poor judgment, the public security will not check them for their “three certificates”.
As old classmates reunited after a long time, we hugged each other wordlessly in a group. Chen Weijia from Pudong Development Zone dazzled me with his brand-name clothes, and from time to time Katya’s gold-plated glasses shone in the sun so that I dared not look straight, all this is naturally associated with the glorious achievements of Pudong Development Zone. In our class, she was always called “Shanghai Baby” – the small and beautiful Cai Fenfen has been working in a travel agency to collect tips to live. We had had some concern about whether our old classmates could manage the expensive living expenses in Shanghai. When we met, we saw that our worries had been unnecessary. I immediately calculated that the value of the cosmetics Miss Cai applied to her face and neck these days at least equaled my total living expenses. The radiant Miss Cai looked just as good as she had in college over a decade ago! Such a high level of beauty care makes me think of the superb craftsmanship of Egyptian mummies.
Although Deng Kehai, who works in the secrecy department, is only a deputy director, he is the most official of all our classmates. His executive suit still can’t hide his slightly bulging belly, and when he saw me, he moved to shake my hand like a foreign guest, but I hugged him. “You’re rich and famous!” I said jokingly, Chen Weijia immediately picked up and pointed at Deng Kehai’s small belly and said enviously: “Your units have a lot of easy prey, if it were another unit, with that small belly, he must be at least a director.” I listened to pretend to be surprised to look at Deng Kehai, Cai also spoke next: “You mustn’t underestimate this little belly, you’ll never guess how much shark fin soup, bird’s nest soup, abalone soup, and how many mountains of seafood went into making it, and how many days and months it took!
We all laughed, Deng Kehai’s face was a little red, he organized his suit while deflecting everyone’s joke: “I still like to take the train, although the train ticket is more expensive, but there is a bathroom in the senior package box, that makes the overnight trip very comfortable.
I nodded, I have never sat in such a first class box, it is said that only one or two departures between Shanghai to Beijing and Shanghai to Guangzhou to hang such a special package box, there are some with one room, there are others with two rooms. The two rooms can close the door to make love, in the rumble of the train making love must be very fascinating.
“Unfortunately, why don’t you bring your sister-in-law?” I said jokingly.
A shadow flashed across Deng Kehai’s face. They had no large luggage, so I specifically told them to keep an eye on their bags, and then we squeezed together toward the taxi stand. The stream of migrants carrying large bags bumped the four of us several times, so by the time we got to the taxi stand, Miss Cai was already sweating, her thick powdered face washed with sweat as if it were a pedestrian crosswalk.
As he got into the cab, Deputy Director Deng Kehai frowned and complained, “What’s wrong with your Guangzhou is that a good train station is being ruined by this stream of migrant workers.”
“Isn’t that what happened in Shanghai?” I asked.
“You probably have not been to Shanghai for a long time, Shanghai is very good place to live now. We have controls on the flow of migrant workers coming in. The Shanghai Municipal Government has had to spend a lot of money on it, but if you go to our train station square and take a look, you will see that it is clean. You won’t find that stream of migrant workers and beggars. And look at your Guangzhou railway station – ah, the roadside is the same! There are unkempt migrants everywhere. How can your Guangzhou hope to compete with Shanghai?”
I suddenly felt a little angry. I just looked out the window at the stream of migrant workers, sighed, and said, “There’s nothing we can do in Guangzhou. This is their country too.
It is not uncommon in the history of Peking University for 27 students to gather around two large tables in the banquet hall of the Garden Hotel. In the nearly 100-year history of Peking University, there may not have been a reunion that brought all the classmates together. There are always people who die young or disappear inexplicably less than two years after graduation. There are the ones who study science and go abroad for graduate studies, while those who studied the liberal arts usually end up in prison within a year. At the start of our meeting, we were not completely relaxed, especially two female students who had taken the time to put on makeup. Some directors still can’t get used to the idea of having a party without the leader setting the time and theme beforehand. After Tian Haipeng announced the theme of the reunion, the atmosphere gradually warmed up.
Tian Haipeng said there were 40 students in our class. One died of illness. We lost touch with four of them, and the rest were either unable to come or were busy with the economic construction in the northwest and could not come. A total of 27 students came to Guangzhou. These 27 students work in the government sector, the highest position was section chief, the lowest is also the deputy department level. Among those in the corporate world, the highest position was chairman, the lowest was deputy general manager. There were also self-employed people who were not necessarily less capable than those at the top, but more capable than those at the bottom. In order to get together and speak freely, no one can lose control of himself and put on a big show. The theme of today’s reunion is: Who do you think you are?
Everyone was laughing and the atmosphere was unusually relaxed. After four years of college, the winners and losers seemed to have been announced by their assignments to various work units. However, after ten years, things seemed to have changed. Wang Qiliu, who had the best grades in college, now had a tense relationship with his editor-in-chief at the newspaper. As a result, the hair on his head has become so thin that he could count the number of hairs. And in our graduating class, a teacher called Xia Haoqiang a failure. Now he drove a Mercedes-Benz sedan and looked full of youth and vigor. It is said that the only thing he is worried about now is how to keep several mistresses from showing up at the same time in the same five-star hotel.
Tian Haipeng also commented on Li Jun being sentenced to life imprisonment, which made most of the students feel worse than hearing the news that a classmate had died of illness. Because of Li Jun, the classmates were no longer interested in talking about who was doing better or worse financially. What they talked about most were the classmates they had not heard from or had lost touch with. I myself listened with open ears to traces of Guo Qingqing from all sides. When Tian Haipeng mentioned Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo, everyone’s expression suddenly became serious, their voices were kept as low as possible, and the expressions of admiration and longing in their eyes were revealed in their conversations.
After the banquet, we chatted in the banquet hall, there are four or five small rooms next to the banquet hall, like a network chat room, good classmates, or want to talk about some “invisible” past students can go in groups to chat. Evening has been arranged by Tian Haipeng a layer of hotel rooms to entertain everyone, although Tian Haipeng has also long claimed to pay for all travel reunion expenses through “One Year Plan”, but the students are laughing at it. We all know, to attend the reunion, who does not hold back their desire to show off some? Not to mention the reimbursement of travel expenses, is to file their own reimbursement of travel expenses and ask for the swollen face fat to agree. Besides, all the students here, who does not have some way to get reimbursed? So Tian Haipeng’s voice is broken, but no one is willing to go to him to get their travel expenses reimbursed.
Everyone was laughing and having a good time, and after twelve o’clock the atmosphere still hadn’t cooled down. I was drifting a bit because I’d had a few sips of wine, so I took advantage of everyone’s inattention and went into one of the smallest bathrooms. I just want to close the door to rest for a while, Deng Kehai pushed the door in, although his official faction and arrogance is very uncomfortable for me, but in school we had a good relationship. Besides, we all graduated into a similar confidential unit. I waited for him to come in and close the door, he didn’t look at me, trembling and surprisingly holding a half glass of wine in his hand, which he obviously wanted to add to the several glasses he had already put away.
“I say, if you can’t drink, don’t try to be a hero, why bother to compete with the gang from the north, where you are their rival?” Seeing his somewhat delirious look, I couldn’t help but count him out.
“Alas, you still know how to take care of me, I’m drunk today.”
“Bullshit! You probably missed your chance to be promoted to the rank of director and are just drinking your sorrows away, right? If that’s the case, you’ve got the wrong person, I’ve been a civilian for a long time.”
Deng Kehai stared at me with reddened eyes, suddenly tilted his head and drank all the white wine in the cup, throwing the cup on the carpet, “Damn, Yangzi, I really envy you, common people, it’s really good, sometimes I want to be common people, but I have no way out ah”.
I suddenly realized something, the most official classmate in the class like at that time like a deflated balloon. I sat close to him with concern, “Old classmate, can you tell me what’s going on and see how I can help?”
“You?” He stared at me with red eyes, “What help can you be? Only you can help yourself in this world, and if it comes to the point where you can’t help yourself, how can others help you?”
I didn’t know how to comfort him and was speechless for a while. After a moment of silence he said: “I have no one to talk to, over the years I have insulted too many friends, alienated too many classmates. Hey, it’s all my fault. But…”
He paused and lowered his voice and said, “Yang, you are still the most trustworthy person for me. I really want to tell you, but – alas, you know, if I tell you, although I just want to hear the opinion of my old classmates, it might end up involving you, how could I bear it. if that happened?”
“If you think I can give you advice, just sue me, I won’t let myself get involved, old classmates still don’t know some of my abilities?” I patted his shoulder comfortingly.
Deng Kehai lowered his head for a while without saying anything, I thought he was sleeping, suddenly he raised his head and scared me, “I’ll tell you what, I’m being blackmailed!”
He tried to continue, but it made me nervous for a moment. I gestured for him to stop talking, which he did, and five minutes later we went to a corner of the smoking room outside the banquet hall and sat down. Since Director Zhou did not tell me their plan of action, I guessed that the places where our classmates met were bugged. Given Deng Kehai’s status as the head of the State Secrets Agency, he was being blackmailed. The situation could be serious. So I was reluctant to let Director Zhou’s people listen in on our conversation before I could find out the situation, which would probably ruin the old classmate. Fortunately, Deng Kehai was also very experienced and did not ask many questions. The two of us sat in a corner, and although we could faintly hear the chatter of our classmates, there was a wall separating the two of us from the banquet hall.
I’m being blackmailed.”
“You just said it.” I lowered my voice, pretending to be calm, and said weakly.
“The one blackmailing me could be a foreign intelligence agency, maybe even the CIA!”
My heart jumped into my throat, but I still tried my best to hide my inner nervousness.
“They don’t reveal their identity to protect themselves. That way, whether they succeed or fail, it won’t become a scandal!”
“It’s possible.” I nodded.
“But on my side, there is no choice and no way out.”
“Why is that?” I pondered in disbelief, “If they think you have no way back but to give in, they won’t hide their identity, it’s basic common sense, there is no precedent for spy agencies hiding their identity to engage in blackmail.”
“Your words may be right.” Deng Kehai bowed his head, “Maybe it’s just that I was desperate myself, and they held my wife and children hostage in America to get me to work for them.”
“When did this happen?” I asked hastily.
“Two months ago, they gave me three months to think about it or else…”
“Oh my God!” I stood up excitedly, “Did you report back then?”
“No!”
It’s over, I thought to myself, something like this can only be understood if it is reported to a superior no more than two hours after the fact. Now that two months have passed, no matter what he did, he has already committed a serious mistake. No, he has already committed a serious crime under the State Secrets Act.
“How can you be so confused, old school?” I shouted in anger.
“I’m not confused at all, Yang! You just heard that you could have reported me right after the meeting, because if you didn’t, you committed a crime as well. You’re not really an ordinary citizen, old classmate, am I right?”
I looked into his bloodshot eyes and really wanted to give him a hard slap. He had indeed pushed me to the brink of a crime, but it was nothing compared to his situation. He himself, as an officer in a highly classified unit of the state, did not immediately report when he knew that he had contacted foreign intelligence personnel, which is a crime in itself.
“Yangzi, listen to me, don’t think I don’t know the seriousness of the situation, I just don’t know what to do. They have all the information about my wife and children outside, and they know everything about the financial status of our property. I think it was my wife’s recent application for American citizenship that caught their attention.
“It won’t be like that.” I interrupted him, “Kehai, you should know that the CIA has never used such extortionate methods of intelligence work against China, especially not using Chinese on American soil as a bargaining chip for extortion. Your wife is already a U.S. green card holder, your children were born in the U.S., and both are U.S. citizens. Do you really think that the CIA would use your wife and children and your financial situation as a bargaining chip to blackmail you? This is unbelievable! You are scared to death, why don’t you have any judgment? Americans pride themselves on freedom and democracy and the highest human rights. If the CIA blackmails you with the unclear situation of your wife’s belongings in the United States, then once you go public, it will not be you who will be attacked in the United States, but the CIA itself! The U.S. Congress and the people and certain Chinese groups, the Asian community, will not let the CIA off the hook. You’re not telling me that you don’t even know this simple truth, are you?”
“Do you really think, old classmate, that I am doing this for nothing?” Deng Kehai also got a little excited, “How could I not know about this situation? But isn’t this the reason why they refuse to say that they are the CIA? Besides, how can I fight them in America? If my wife comes out and accuses them, where will I find them? What if they claim they are just a private intelligence agency or even a human rights group or something, what do we do? Also, most importantly, have you thought about, once this thing goes public, I-hey!”
That’s the key to the whole thing! I finally got it. I asked, “Your wife hasn’t committed any crime, has she?”
“Not at all.”
“So you have a big problem paying for her to go out and get settled? Does your work unit know that she is going to settle in America? Tell me all about it.”
“My wife went out when I was a section leader. At that time, I just wanted her to have more children there, and I want to raise two more children. I told the director at the time, and since I was only a section leader, I didn’t need approval from the top. I have no influence in this matter. As for the living expenses of my wife and children over there over the years, I basically earned it the hard way. In the beginning, I speculated in some stocks. Later, I got some overseas guests to invest. People gave me some gratuities. As for embezzling public funds or whatever, I have never done that. You know we have no public funds to embezzle?”
“So what do you have to be afraid of?
“What is there to be afraid of? Old schoolmate, you don’t live on the moon, do you? It’s easy to talk. We have a house in the United States, and savings, although the total is not much, only more than four million RMB. But you know our system, although there are many loopholes, but there is also a lot of rigidity. How can I explain the origin of this 4 million RMB? After the incident, I still have to account for the source of that money, how can I explain it clearly? Which director does not have hundreds of thousands of millions of RMB in savings? But which one of them can really account for the source of each and every bit of that money?”
He saw me looking at him in surprise, waved his hand, and said, “Don’t look at me like that, it’s one thing to say it’s not clear, and it’s another thing to be corrupt. For example, our country has a clear rule that state cadres like me cannot speculate in stocks, but I did, and people can put a cap on you based on this article. In addition, I used my classmates to introduce foreign investors to Shanghai, to receive some benefit fees, it is only natural, but if you consider the nature of my work, this is undoubtedly bribery ah. Oh, do I have to explain…”
“No need, old classmate.” I fell into contemplation.
“You threatened me then, and I thought, if I report it immediately, then I will have to explain my situation, and then, with no backstage for me, I would be completely finished. If I don’t report it, I’ll drag it out for a while, superficially, and then find my own way to leave China and reunite with my wife in the United States-“
“How dare you have such an idea! If the CIA beat you up, would they let you off the hook? They wouldn’t even give you a visa, instead forcing you to take top secret documents in exchange for a visa!”
“Unfortunately, it’s all over for Mer anyway,” a sudden blush came to Deng Kehai’s face, “maybe I’ll just promise them to do it for a while and find a way to get out in the future. They said that I would be helping the cause of democracy in China by being able to give them some of the documents, and that the United States, after all, was helping us with democracy…”
“Shut up, shut up!!!” I almost gave him an ear brace, “If you want to contribute to China’s democracy, then you can chant slogans now, and I, as an old classmate, promise to secretly escort you safely out of the country! But don’t confuse stealing and selling state secrets and spying for foreigners with the cause of Chinese democracy! Selling state secrets and contributing to the cause of Chinese democracy are two completely different things! I am really angry about your stupid idea.
“I’m sorry, my brain is a complete mess right now, whatever weird ideas have been running through it for the past two months.” Deng Kehai tapped his head with his fingertips. Suddenly, he gestured for me to be quiet, closed his own eyes, and then took two deep breaths, “Come out, behind the wall!”
I didn’t know who he was talking to and was confused when Tian Haipeng came out from behind the wall with a smile, “Oh, why are you two hiding here? You’re a spy, you have a dog’s nose, you can smell me from so far away?”
I was about to laugh when I suddenly remembered something in my heart. It was then that I heard Deng Kehai say with pride: “As long as we have been together in the old school, you can change your hairstyle, put on a suit, and even grow a beard, but your taste and magnetic field will never change. You can wear disguises or change your face, open your eyes, I may not recognize you, but close your eyes, I can definitely feel you.
The three of them laughed out loud in unison. I was the first to stop laughing because I suddenly knew why I was impotent.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (10)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 27, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 10 The Truth
After two o’clock in the morning, even the always busy Huan Shi Dong Road calms down. The few prostitutes swinging around in front of the hotel are probably either on their fourth or fifth round of business tonight, or they look really sketchy. But the unimpressive prostitutes often have good moves, some are willing to do perverted things that other prostitutes are not willing to do. In the old days I would have stepped forward and teased them about their best tricks or the perverted acts they were willing to do for an extra ten bucks, but today I was not in the mood at all. I staggered over to the International Building and stopped at a phone booth.
When I found a dollar coin in my pants pocket, I felt a twinge of joy in my heart, the joy of revenge. I thought about the phone ringing at two o’clock in the middle of the night, waking her from her sleep and picking up the phone, which emitted a hollow echo as if from a ghostly world. In her heart of horror, fully awake from sleep, the phone suddenly emitted a low, ghostly voice as if from hell: I am Rong’er.
I scoffed in my heart, shoved the coin into the hole with my trembling hands, and dialed my home phone number. One tone, two tones, my hand shaking so much.
“Hello, Wenfeng!” Only two tones, the phone was picked up, inside came A-hua’s light voice: “Wenfeng, why are you not back yet, I was worried sick, do you want me to pick you up?”
It was useless! This woman was not only not sleeping, she was also worried and waiting for me. I hadn’t had time to fake that hellish voice and she had already judged it to be me. I was so ashamed, in fact, my phone number is not I call, who else will call? No one knows my phone number, and even if they did, no one would call me at this time. I picked up the microphone and didn’t know what to do for a while.
“Wenfeng, what’s wrong? Say something, don’t make me worry, I miss you!” A-hua’s voice was so soft that I almost gave up.
“I-“
“Wenfeng, you’re not drunk, are you? In that case, stay at the hotel and I’ll pick you up, okay?”
“I’m not drunk, I’ve never been so sober as today! I–“
“Wenfeng, why are you stuttering, what’s wrong?” A-hua’s worried voice came from the other side of the phone.
“I, I–” I suddenly made up my mind and immediately changed my accent and said, “I know why I’m impotent! Really!”
The other side of the phone was silent for a few seconds. Then A-hua’s soft voice rang in my ears again, “Wenfeng, what’s wrong with you? I don’t care if you’re impotent, you know I’m ready to follow you, do you still care?”
“Yes, I care.” I said, “Will you cooperate with me tonight? I want you to know the cause of my impotence.”
“I would do anything for you, come back!” A-hua sighed softly.
“Okay, let me ask you, what are you wearing now?”
“I’m waiting for you under the covers, I’m not wearing anything.”
“Good!” I thought for a few seconds, “You’re going to take a shower now.”
“I just washed it.”
“No, we have to wash again, inside and out!” I ordered firmly, “and then no make-up, absolutely original, you know! And don’t wear anything, no, you wait – okay, in the second closet where I keep my underwear, in the middle of my shorts, there is a pair of silk women’s thong panties, you put them on, and nothing else. Wrap yourself in a blanket and wait for me in bed after you shower, okay?”
“I know.” A-hua was so excited that her voice shook a little, “Come back soon, I’m going to get wet!”
“Don’t get wet! If it gets wet, go and wash it again. I don’t want you to get wet at all until I come back!!!”
When I said this, I immediately hung up the phone heavily. When I turned around, I saw a prostitute standing next to a phone booth, one step away from me, staring at me greedily, almost drooling, and smiling disgustedly at me, “You’re so perverted!”
I took out the key, inserted it carefully into the hole in the door, turned the lock and gently pushed the door open, “Don’t say a word, do you hear me, I said not a sound!” When I heard the sound of turning around from the bed, I shouted the order and turned off the light in the room with my hand.
“Turn on the little light above the bed!” I ordered. When A-hua turned on the bedside lamp, I emphasized again and sternly ordered, “From now on, only on my command, no sound! Now turn the bedside lamp down to the darkest setting.”
The room immediately went dark. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, “Peel the blanket off your body like a dumpling and…”
I paused for a moment and took another deep breath, “Get off the floor!”
I heard A-hua get off the bed and felt the sound of her kneeling down and supporting herself on the floor with her palms. I tried to calm myself, controlling my growing lower body and breathing to recognize the smell and feel of the air. The blood flowing from my head to my butt helped me keep my head clear.
“Put your feet and hands on the ground, lift your butt, and slowly crawl over here!” I said, fighting the image of her in her thong panties, her two plump tits bouncing, drooling from the corners of her mouth, crawling over like a bitch. I concentrated on my nose and felt everything.
Crawling over felt just right and I winced all over. But when she stopped at my feet, I almost lost control from the excitement.
“Don’t you know what to do, little bitch?”
My eyes remained closed as I waited for her to pull my pants down with soft and hot, wet little trembling hands, the smell of my own bottom disorienting me for a moment, long before she had taken the thing into her mouth without hesitation.
“Take me to bed!” I could hear the trembling in my own voice. She strained her mouth to slowly pull me towards the bed, my eyes still closed. By the time I reached the bed, my dick had risen so high that she couldn’t get down. I picked her up with shaking hands and threw her roughly onto the bed.
“Get down! Show me your slutty ass!” I closed my eyes and groped with my hands. Her smooth ass bucked and I could feel a layer of sweat already seeping out of it. When I felt the thin little string at her groin, I found it was all wet and I felt down the strap and felt the little thin band of the thong disappear into her secret flesh. I pulled the strap up roughly, hung it over her fleshy ass, and thrust hard.
She held back her excitement but still let out a moan of pleasure. Even though she was already a wet mess, she still held me down and I had no doubt who I was making out with.
“I didn’t expect you to still be so tight, your American professor probably has more than enough heart, Guo Qingqing!”
Guo Qingqing shuddered violently, and her bottom contracted violently, almost pinching mine. I grabbed both sides of her buttocks firmly to control her shaking, then shoveled violently.
Guo Qingqing soon stopped resisting. I still have my eyes closed, for the thousandth time, I am now making love to my old lover, my old classmate Guo Qingqing! The only sound in the air was the sultry sound of body friction and Guo Qingqing’s soft sobs mixed with excitement and aggression.
I pulled out, Guo Qingqing immediately felt like losing a spine through her body, limping and limping on the bed.
“You know everything?” She asked in a whisper while crying.
“I don’t know anything yet!!!” I opened my eyes but did not look directly at Guo Qingqing, I was confused, “I now know why I am impotent. When I made love to beautiful A-hua, as soon as I closed my eyes, I found another presence in the room, precisely because that presence was actually Guo Qingqing, so I subconsciously felt that I was betraying, or making love in front of others, I naturally could not get hard. Until last night’s reunion, Deng Kehai told me that when you can’t see clearly, close your eyes and you can feel, it dawned on me. Just now I came back to close my eyes, and you are not allowed to talk, so from the beginning I felt that there is only one presence in this room, and that presence is Guo Qingqing! When I closed my eyes, I could not feel A-hua at all!”
“I always knew I was making love to you, all the time! I love you! I have always loved you!” Guo Qingqing whimpered.
“You love me? Do you mean A-hua or Guo Qingqing?” I forced myself to hold back my anger. I knew that I had lost A-hua forever, and I could never get Guo Qingqing back. I also lost Rong’er, who brought me joy when I was most disillusioned, and all because of this person in front of me, this woman in front of me, who I don’t even know who she is!
“I will leave aside for now that you worked as a lackey for the CIA, betrayed your classmates, and sold your soul. Tell me, why did you kill someone? Why did you kill Rong’er?” The anger in my voice gradually grew, and if she wasn’t still in tears, I would have grabbed her by the hair and glared at her viciously as I asked.
Guo Qingqing suddenly stopped crying and raised her head, arguing in horror, “I didn’t kill Rong’er!”
“You’re still immature, all because I was confused, I should have thought of it, only you and Rong’er in this world know that I like girls who wear thong panties. After Rong’er’s death, you were also dressed in thong panties, posing like that, clearly wanting to make me suffer. You are the only person in this world who not only knows that I like thong panties, but also the one who wants to make me suffer the most, aren’t you?”
“No, it’s not!” She shook her head desperately, tears in her eyes again, “I always wanted to make you happy, but I don’t know why I wanted to make you unhappy as soon as I was with you. Then I decided to change completely and had a facelift. I thought I could forget that I was a college student, Guo Qingqing, and that I was a lover who had been in love with you for more than ten years. I turned myself into A-hua, I really want to turn myself into uneducated, just to serve you for the rest of my life, that even if I am willing to be a sex slave. But…”
“Don’t change the subject! Can that be a reason to turn into a murderer?”
“I really didn’t kill Rong’er! She committed suicide. I found her, we talked, and we were all hungry, so I went to get something to eat, and when I came back, she had already killed herself.”
“Bullshit!” I pushed away Guo Qingqing, who jumped at me for an explanation. But then I remembered the forensic identification, they also determined that Rong’er was a suicide, although someone had moved her body after the suicide, but I still could not believe it, how could the strong Rong’er commit suicide? We had planned that when we had enough money, Rong’er would clean her body and we would get married and start a new life.
“She won’t kill herself!” My eyes were a little moist. Today, after all these years, I suddenly feel that in my heart, the one who needs my love the most is Rong’er.
“If she killed herself, it must have been because of something you said to her. Tell me, what did you talk about?”
“When I arrived in Guangzhou, I found you, but I didn’t dare to see you right away, so I followed you and tried to approach you slowly. That’s when I discovered Rong’er’s existence, so I changed my mind and approached Rong’er first.”
“What method did you use to get to her?” I asked.
“Your Rong’er is a prostitute,” Guo Qingqing said with a sneer as she dried the tears on her face, “There are probably a dozen ways to get close to her. Of course, the easiest way is to buy her. But out of respect for you, I didn’t do that. That day when I saw you staying up late, I waited downstairs. As soon as you left, I went up and knocked on Ronger’s door. I just wanted to ask her to find out something about your recent situation, I wasn’t there to provoke, and believe me, I have changed, as well as my appearance, I have changed completely. Back then, when we were together, whoever looked at another person of the opposite sex more than once could have caused a week-long cold war between the two of us. I regret thinking about it now, so when I knocked on Rong’er’s door, I really just wanted to have a good talk with her. I even thought that we could become good sisters, since she was just a prostitute anyway, so I really didn’t need to be jealous. But when Rong’er answered the door, I suddenly felt jealous because Rong’er probably thought you were back and rushed over to open the door.
“When the door opened, I was stunned, it was like looking at myself in the mirror. Her body, skin, and face were so similar to mine before, even the shape and color of her nipples were exactly the same as mine! I must have looked as stunned as if I had seen a ghost when I saw myself before plastic surgery. I suddenly thought, you are looking for Rong’er because you cannot forget me, then why did I still have plastic surgery? I was overwhelmed and looked down from her naked torso, and oh my God! She was wearing thong panties, the same ones you made me wear all day when we were together! How do you think I would have felt?”
“I don’t know how you feel, but you can’t kill people.”
“Didn’t I tell you? I didn’t kill anyone! You…”
“Go on!” I cut her off, forbidding her to argue.
“She let me in, I told her I was your classmate. I just did not tell her about our relationship. But I didn’t expect your Rong’er to hear that we were classmates, and the words juar opened up. She said how much she loved you and that everything she was doing now was in preparation for your future. She said that in this life she lived for you and could die for you. She just kept talking from her to you and from you to her, not noticing my increasingly somber face.
“I felt out of breath, so I interrupted her. I said, “Would you like to hear our story? She asked innocently, “Who are we? Is it you and your lover? Has he come yet? Where is he? I said, “We are me and Yang Wenfeng. She looked at me suspiciously, didn’t say anything and just nodded her head. So I told her the story of the two of us. “
“The story of the two of us is like an old love movie, full of joy and sorrow, scattered across several countries and two continents. What exactly did you tell her?” I said sadly.
“What I told her was the best part of our story and the only part that I still remember. I told Rong’er in detail, from the first time you clumsily broke my virginity in the school grove, to the time you got down on your knees and swore to love me to the ends of the earth, to how we fantasized about a bright future in America.”
“Is that all?” I asked afterwards.
When Guo Qingqing saw my stern look, she stammered, lowered her head, and continued to tell me what happened that night. After telling Rong’er the story, Guo Qingqing suddenly changed the subject and told Rong’er that I was still in love with her all the time. She said, “Look, Yang Wenfeng chose you because you used to look like me – if I’m not mistaken, he also made you wear the tiny triangle panties I used to wear, and he used that position when you made love, right? At this point, Rong’er suddenly interrupted her and said, “We didn’t have sex. When Guo Qingqing heard this, her heart became even more agitated and she continued to sting Rong’er, “He didn’t sleep with you because he was afraid to apologize to me, don’t you understand? He just treats you like my shadow. What you married ah planning the future, are lying to you! Wen Feng is a traditional and rigid guy, I used to look at other men, he ignored me for a week, such a person will marry a whore like you?”
“When I saw your Rong’er’s face turning dark, I was so happy in my heart, I’ve got my revenge, that’s what I thought at that time. But you see, I do things to the extreme. If I want to make people happy, I want to make them reach the ultimate happiness. If I want to make people unhappy, I have to make them go to hell. I did not stop, I even told her later that Wen Feng knew I would come back, and today is the day he asked me to tell you that your role is over, I am back, and I am ten times more beautiful than before -“
“You are too cruel!” I gritted my teeth and said, “Rong’er was lonely and miserable, though not as educated as you, but her self-respect and self-love were no less than yours. For such a girl to make a living by selling her flesh is pitiful enough. These days, the joy she brings me is something I have not had for many years, and my promise to marry her has gradually become the pillar of her life. Do you think your words did not kill her? And I’m telling you now, your words are still all lies! I tell you, I was willing to marry Rong’er, really!” As I said this, I couldn’t help but shed tears again.
“You’re finished, right?” I said with hatred.
“I didn’t know that a prostitute could be so stubborn, otherwise I would have said less.” Guo Qingqing’s voice trembled a little, not without regret, “I said so much, but she just looked gloomy and didn’t defend herself or cry, which made me even more impatient. Then I started laughing at her profession, making up stories about how much you despise prostitutes, and often mocking Rong’er in front of me through letters or phone calls, and that’s when Rong’er started shedding tears. Seeing her tears made me feel happy. I thought that if I made one more effort, I could make her die for you completely. So I told her that Wenfeng was complaining that there was no way to get rid of you right now, and jokingly said, “It would be great if you died by accident or committed suicide!
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and punched Guo Qingqing in the face. She stared at me with wide eyes and stopped shedding tears instead.
“And what about the suicide pills, what’s that all about?”
“I told Rong’er that I spent over a million dollars to make myself look like a fairy for Wenfeng, and if I still don’t get Wenfeng when I come back this time, I will kill myself! You see, the medicine is all bought.” I said while taking out the medicine, showing a victorious stance to Rong’er and smiling, “But I can’t use it now, Wenfeng will always be mine. When I finished, I threw the medicine bottle into the trash can in the corner. Later, we talked more, and she mainly told me how your health was at that time, what you should take care of, and what you should eat more of. She told me, “I’m counting on you to take care of Wenfeng in the future. While we were talking, Rong’er said that her stomach was a little Russian, and she asked me to go down to the kiosk to buy her some food, so I agreed.
“And you’re going down? Wait.” I asked incredulously, “What’s that bottle of medicine you have? Is it cold medicine? Or is it birth control?”
“It’s the latest euthanasia poison developed in America! I bought it at a high price.”
“You really carry a bottle of suicide pills? Why?” I was even more confused.
“Didn’t I say that?” Guo Qingqing said coldly, “If I can’t catch you, I’ll use it to kill myself!”
“You…” I couldn’t speak, my hands and feet grew cold, and the world seemed to be in complete chaos.
“You shouldn’t think I’m lying.” Guo Qingqing’s expression suddenly became a little cold, “I went down to buy something, and it took less than ten minutes to go there and back, but I didn’t expect Rong’er to find the poison in the trash can and take it all down. By the time I got back to the room, she was already dead.”
A suffocating silence, the air filled with grief and anger, unbearable. After a while, Guo Qingqing continued: “I was so remorseful that I didn’t think I had become a murderer. But when I thought about it, I began to hate you. So I set up the crime scene and took away her room correspondence contact address and other things, leaving only all the clues that would allow the police to track you down!”
“You are so evil! Do you want to kill me too?”
“No, I just want to make it difficult for you for a while. With your background and connections, killing a prostitute isn’t even close to a prison sentence. Isn’t it?”
“You’re full of shit!!!”
“I’m bullshitting you? You know it in your heart.” Guo Qingqing said quietly, “Rong’er, the connection to you was broken, so I had to think of another way to contact you. I knew that your parents were in Guangzhou, so I planned to meet them by chance in the park. They are very kind old people, and I like them very much.
“You are taking advantage of their kindness! Don’t make excuses for yourself.” I said indignantly.
“You’re the most dutiful son I’ve ever seen, don’t you think? You live half your own life for them, don’t you? So the best and most acceptable way to reach you is through your parents. The first time I met you at your parents’ house, I was nervous and excited. I was relieved that you didn’t recognize me, but then I was a little lost. I had been by your side for so many years, remembering every word you said when you hugged me, what with liking my scent, liking my winks, and so on. But when I appeared in front of you again, not only did you not feel it, but you took every opportunity to peek at A-hua’s nipples and ass cleavage.”
“An old school friend, you’ve certainly been well trained! You approached my parents and took the approach that made me the least suspicious. You took advantage of my parents’ desire to live a few more years and confused me by using a scam that I could see at a glance. Because from my side, since I found out that you were here to cheat, I naturally did not suspect you of a larger conspiracy,” he said painfully. I said painfully, but in my heart, I couldn’t help but applaud Guo Qingqing or the CIA’s trickery. I said, “I don’t even know what to call you now, A-hua? Or Guo Qingqing? Does A-hua even exist?”
“I am A-hua! Of course she exists.” She sat up from the bed, still naked.
“So that story you told me about A-hua and her husband, what was it all about?”
“Those are the things I imagined happened to A-hua. But those lovemaking scenes are what I always imagined the two of us doing when we were together. Do you believe me? All these years, when I made love to anyone, no matter who I made love to, I never opened my eyes, but I always imagined that the person who entered my body and pressed against me was you. Besides, what happened to A-hua is not exactly what you sympathize with? Isn’t A-hwa’s perverted sexual experience what you secretly fantasize about? You’ve always had a slight sexual perversion, don’t you know that?”
“Don’t say that!” I felt a splitting headache and held my head, trying to think the whole thing through, but my brain was a mess like mush, so I decided to give up.
“Whether you are Guo Qingqing or A-hua, I think the feud between us should be over. You rest for a while, and tomorrow it’s time to explain to the other. The matter between us is written off from now on.”
Guo Qingqing looked at me in confusion, shook her head, and asked quietly, “What do you mean by that?”
“What do what mean?” I said impatiently, “Don’t pretend to be confused. Didn’t you say that I, Yang Wenfeng, am not an ordinary person?”
“Wenfeng, I really don’t understand what you’re talking about?” Guo Qingqing leaned forward, the sweat and mixed fluids on her body were already dry and cold as a snake. I unconsciously avoided her leaning towards me.
“Tomorrow, I’ll hand you over to the Guangzhou State Security Bureau. If you want to play dumb, go there and play dumb again.”
“Turn me in to the State Security Bureau? Why?” Guo Qingqing asked innocently, and I suddenly had a heart attack. I stared into her eyes and suddenly reached out to grab her neck and pinched the sides of her throat with two fingers. Guo Qingqing was obviously scared: “What are you doing?” I said, “Don’t move, I have to ask you something and you have to tell me the truth. After feeling her heartbeat, I waited for two minutes, then stared at her and asked her word for word: “Guo Qingqing, you work for the CIA, right? Count to twenty and answer yes or no!”
Her eyes showed confusion and it took her twenty seconds to answer, “No!
I asked again, “Did you frame our old classmate Li Jun? Answer yes or no!”
“No! No!!! NO!!!” This time she replied quickly and firmly.
I squeezed the aorta next to Guo Qingqing’s neck with one hand, and pressed her heart with the other hand to feel her heartbeat, and silently calculated for two minutes, and after about calculating her pulse and the speed of her heartbeat, I let go of my hand. Suddenly, I was no longer so confident.
Guo Qingqing surely knew that I was using the most direct and effective lie detector test. When we were together, I used this method to torture her. The first thing is to look at the website. I would ask her, “Were you thinking of someone else when you slept with me? Were you thinking of other perverted acts? When I knew she was not lying, I would still claim that she was lying so that I could ridicule and insult her. I perversely enjoyed the psychological satisfaction of having her tearfully defend herself and admit her mistakes in front of me, only to be punished by me like a little X slave. At that time, Guo Qingqing did not doubt the scientific nature of my polygraph test, nor did she doubt that I, the polygrapher, was lying, nor did she doubt that I was using this opportunity to torture her while enjoying myself through perversion.
“I really don’t understand what you just said. Wenfeng, tell me, okay?”
I sighed, shook my head and said, “You should have told me honestly what happened to you after your facelift.”
“What’s going on? There’s a lot going on, what do you want to hear?”
“Tell me how you got your passport. How did you become an American citizen? Tell me if you had any contact with any branch of the U.S. government and what happened to that contact!”
After wrapping herself in a blanket and thinking about it, Guo Qingqing began to tell the story of her plastic surgery. All the information about her plastic surgery was lost during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and when she wanted to become a naturalized citizen and leave the country, she found that there was a problem. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would not accept her application and would not recognize her former Chinese passport. Not only was her face completely changed, but her fingerprints were also damaged. Guo Qingqing did not expect such a serious problem. If she had been in China, she could have asked her classmates and friends to help her make connections and get in through the back door. But this was the United States, her husband had died, and her husband’s family did not recognize her. In this situation, Guo Qingqing also contacted our classmates in the U.S., including Liu Mingwei and Xiaohai, but they all felt helpless to do anything. When Guo Qingqing was at her wit’s end, someone from the U.S. government contacted her to find out more about the situation. After a month, Guo Qingqing’s status was clarified. When she became a citizen, she was told that she could choose any name. Guo Qingqing chose a foreign name. “That’s all.” Guo Qingqing spoke at length for more than an hour. I listened more carefully and concentrated on watching her facial expressions, eye movements, and body language as she spoke. In the end, I had to conclude that Guo Qingqing was not lying. If it were another person, I might be arbitrary in making such a conclusion, but with my relationship with Guo Qingqing and my knowledge of her, my judgment should be infallible.
More confused, I asked, “Think about it, who knows about your plastic surgery and naturalization for a passport?”
When Guo Qingqing saw my serious expression, she also got scared. She thought carefully and counted on her fingers: “Plastic surgeon Mike, but he is dead. The clinic nurse Katherine, two immigration officials, our old classmates Wang Xiaohai in Los Angeles and Liu Mingwei in Washington, D.C., and later the two American officials who were looking for me.”
“Did the two officials say what department they were from?”
“No.” Guo Qingqing shook her head.
“That would be the Central Intelligence Agency. When people from the US government agency do something, they have to inform the other party of their agency first. Besides, they met with you and helped you out surprisingly quickly, and as far as I know, they didn’t even go to Sister Katherine to confirm it. I think that’s proof enough that they didn’t disbelieve you, but wanted to see if they could use you. Now the question is, if they’re not going to use you, why are they so enthusiastic about helping you? What I find most curious is why your situation has come back into the hands of our Ministry of State Security. Even stranger, what exactly is your connection to our two or three classmates who had accidents almost at the same time?”
“What are you talking about? Why can’t I understand a word of it?” Guo Qingqing worriedly touched my head, and the cold hand suddenly brought me back from my self-talking contemplation.
“By the way, you just seemed to say that two or three of our classmates had accidents, who else, isn’t it just Li Jun?”
“Oh, yeah? Did I say that?” I said in reply. I must have been thinking about Deng Kehai at the time, and now that I think about it, things have become more complicated and serious. The point is that all these questions point the finger directly at Guo Qingqing.
In the current situation, as long as Guo Qingqing fell into the hands of the Ministry of State Security, there would be a thousand questions to try to answer. I was instinctively worried.
“Qingqing, I believe you, but this matter is very complicated and may involve a huge conspiracy, and you are undoubtedly already involved in it. I–” I suddenly stopped and noticed the tears on Guo Qingqing’s face, but they were mixed with a happy smile.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m happy!” She moved closer to me and pressed her face to my chest, “You call me Qingqing, just like before.”
I reached out my hand to push her away, but it was a little hard to bear, so I sighed and put my hand gently on her hair. I continued to say: “Forget it, your current situation is very dangerous. I haven’t checked it yet, but even if you don’t have any problems, even if the Ministry of State Security clears you in the end, the domestic legal process could take years. If you don’t want to spend a year or two in custody being interrogated by the best criminal interrogation experts in the world, you better get your act together now, and I’ll get you ready to leave here first thing in the morning. Use email to find me in the future.”
“Then how long will it take?” Guo Qingqing asked anxiously.
I said, “Perhaps, until things are clear, you need to hide somewhere so as not to be exposed. You have been framed by someone with a plan, the purpose of framing you is to deal with me, the second is to divert the attention of the Ministry of State Security, the purpose of diverting attention is to cover up his continuing crime. So this elaborate frame-up will not be easy to pierce, which means it will be difficult to clear you of the crime for a while. I hope to find out the truth as soon as possible. But you know that sometimes the truth may never come out. In that case, you will have to hide for the rest of your life. But I will do everything I can!”
The words had not yet fallen when I heard the footsteps of two people walking briskly in the hallway. I looked at the alarm clock on the table and it was only 5:30 in the morning! I immediately understood, so I hugged Qingqing who was shrinking in my arms, kissed her on the cheek and said, “It’s already too late!
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (11)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 27, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 11 A Matter of Life and Death
“When the handcuffs clicked, I suddenly remembered the sound Li Jun told me about that signaled the end of his freedom. Although I felt a little uncomfortable, I still acted as if nothing had happened. The two of them pinned me in the middle and deliberately put their clothes on my handcuffed hands before escorting me downstairs.
When I arrived at the secret guesthouse of the State Security Department on Nonglinxia Road, I was put into a double room. Before the officers closed the door, there was some disagreement among them. One said to take off my handcuffs and forget it, but the other obviously disagreed. So they called a certain leader and said to me, “We have to wait for the people from Beijing before we decide whether to take off your handcuffs. Then the two policemen I had punched in the nose slammed the door shut with a bang.
I looked strangely at the handcuffs on my hands, I was no stranger to this game, I used to play with them in my hands when I first joined the Ministry of State Security. We sometimes competed to see who could open them in the shortest time with a wire. Since the lock cores of the handcuffs were not refined, the fastest I could manage was 58 seconds. At that time, due to strict gun control, we were not allowed to carry guns when not on duty, so we made it a point to hang a handcuff from our back belts after work and deliberately bend over to show it to passing girls, which became the most common way for us young agents to show off.
Later, I also used to follow a demonstration on a sex video, using handcuffs to tie up my girlfriend and play a big game of making love. The first time I saw the video, I had to go to my office to complain, and she accused me of having sex with her and being “injured at work”. I’ve recently heard that the various props in the Western and Japanese perverted X-rated love games, a female handcuffs with soft animal fur inlaid in the inner circle are the most popular. I think that the West, which is concerned about human rights, will sooner or later introduce such handcuffs into its judicial system.
Today is the first time I changed my perspective to observe the handcuffs. If I used to observe the handcuffs from outside the “circle”, today I observed the handcuffs from inside the “circle”. I came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t that much fun.
The reception is quiet, I want to get up and move around, but because both hands are handcuffed, I feel both kicking and stretching or bending my neck are increasingly awkward, this unnatural feeling is I have never had before. Soon this discomfort turned into impatience, this impatience from the wrists to the whole body, and quickly spread to my brain. Eventually, I became irritated.
It seems like years have passed, and I even feel that wrinkles have appeared on my forehead. The restlessness and anxiety were accompanied by a slight fear. I did not feel this a few months ago when I was detained by the Public Security Bureau for three weeks. Of course, the Public Security Bureau did not handcuff me that time. Although I lost my freedom for three weeks, my hands and feet were still free, and my mind was also free. Now, my hands had been handcuffed together for only three hours, but those little handcuffs seemed not only to have penetrated into the marrow of my bones, but also to have held my mind in a death grip. I suddenly knew the meaning of fear.
When Secretary Zhou’s voice sounded in the corridor, I was greatly relieved. I pushed the door open in the director’s face, which was as gloomy as Beijing’s winter. He didn’t look at me, sat down on his butt and slammed a file on the coffee table. One of the policemen who came in with him helped me unlock the handcuffs and then retreated from the room with another policeman and other comrades from the local security bureau.
With just the two of us left in the room, I was a little more daring and touched my red and swollen wrist and sarcastically greeted Director Zhou.
Director Zhou hummed from his nostrils and raised his eyes to glare at me fiercely, “Yang Wenfeng ah, Yang Wenfeng! What do you want me to say about you? Beating up policemen, grabbing their guns, and forcing them for more than two hours, who do you think you are? If you hadn’t shouted that you were an agent of the Ministry of State Security in the heat of the moment, they would have shot you. Huh! People are afraid of the mouse, show mercy, do you really think you can do two dances like that, and then overpower the police? People are afraid that you are on a mission, so they hesitated a little, only then you got the upper hand. What came over you? The Ministry of State Security? What kind of Ministry of State Security agent are you? As long as I tell them now that you have nothing to do with National Security at all, then with your ‘heroic rescue’ this morning, you should be sentenced to at least fifteen years!”
I shuddered a little at the thought of how it felt to be handcuffed just now, “Director Zhou, I had no choice, I-“
“What no choice? Tricking the police into the room, confiscating the weapons, forcing the police, and then letting Guo Qingqing leave gracefully, is that no way? This is against the law! I’ll give you a chance, tell me the name on Guo Qingqing’s passport or her photo right now, and if you notify the customs and intercept it now, your crime will be less serious. Otherwise, you won’t get away with it.”
“I don’t know the name of the passport she used, I didn’t ask, and I really don’t have a photo.”
“You? Hmph!” Director Zhou was so angry that he couldn’t say anything.
I deliberately looked at my watch, and Director Zhou understood and sighed. From Guangzhou to Shenzhen is just over an hour, Guo Qingqing should have crossed the Luohu Bridge a few hours ago to reach Hong Kong.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Director Zhou said painfully, with a look of hatred that made me feel both sad and funny.
“Director Zhou, listen to my explanation.” I tried to calm down and carefully explained, “I have clearly found out that Guo Qingqing was not the cause of our classmate’s accident, but strangely enough, she happened to be involved. In my opinion, her involvement may have been contrived or framed, possibly against me. Because our classmates knew about my relationship with her. But in the current lack of evidence, no one would believe my conclusion, but all the evidence points directly to Guo Qingqing. Besides, just when you got the information that Guo Qingqing was a spy and sent me to investigate, something happened to our classmates. On the surface, this seems to be caused by Guo Qingqing, but it can also be speculated that the guy used Guo Qingqing as a bait to attract our attention and energy while facilitating his own crime. If we caught Guo Qingqing at this time, we would have walked right into the enemy’s trap, and that would have scared the snake -“
“What’s the point of scaring the grass, the snake in the grass? Won’t we think about it? If she’s not a spy, we’ll clear her name and let her go.”
“Director Zhou, you and I both know, when have we ever caught a spy suspect who was quickly released? And when have we ever publicly admitted that we caught the wrong person and released people? With the current confusion over the incident, the possibility of Guo Qingqing being released without charge is almost zero. You are not unaware of the efficiency of our case handling, are you?”
“The efficiency of our case handling? Yang, you must have forgotten that our efficiency in handling cases is the highest! It is the efficiency of the United States in handling cases that is low, often dragging out a case for years.”
“Yes, both the U.S. and China are slow in handling cases, but the Americans practice the presumption of innocence until the suspect is tried. But we always identify the suspect as a criminal before the trial. In this very different situation, hesitation has a different effect!” I nonchalantly interrupted Director Zhou, “Besides, I am not the political and legal cadre I once was. If I were still in the political and legal department, I would have no reason not to think that we are efficient. But I am now an ordinary Chinese citizen, and Director Zhou, you should know how much confidence an ordinary Chinese citizen currently has in our political and legal system!
“Nonsense! What are you talking about? You’re becoming more and more reckless! Besides, does that excuse you from arming the police and releasing spy suspects?”
“Of course not, but she was targeted by you because of me, and I helped you investigate her. It was my duty to prevent her from being arrested and falsely convicted. Hey, you even bugged my room! Huh! Didn’t we cooperate? You don’t keep your word!”
“That’s funny!” Director Zhou patted the case file, “We agreed to do a certain amount of eavesdropping and investigation on your class, what made you think you should be expelled?”
“You…” I was so angry that I stuttered for a moment.
“You are also a classmate of Li Jun, and you are also a classmate who once had the status of a professional agent and studied in the U.S. Tell me instead, on what basis can I exclude you from investigating your classmates?”
“I-” I was speechless.
“I what? How many times have I told you that the security of the country comes first, but when it comes to national security, absolutely no personal feelings can be brought in. Look at you, you are full of feelings all over the place. Deng Kehai, a classmate of yours in the Shanghai Intelligence Unit, came to you for a heart-to-heart talk and told you his secret while he was drunk, which was the main purpose of the reunion you and I discussed. But you knew there was a bug in the room, you led him to a far corner of the corridor to talk, weren’t you talking about something secret? Are you going to be a shield for your old classmate again? You have to give me a good explanation sometime. Otherwise, I’ll have you arrested again, put in a small room, handcuffed, and have your parents come and take you back!”
Secretary Zhou said here, the corners of his mouth suddenly showing a happy smile. I broke out in a cold sweat, the thought of pinning my life’s hope on my nearly eighty-year-old father to visit me in prison nearly broke my spirit.
“If you don’t cooperate, I will!” Director Zhou’s tone hardened, this time with a face that no longer hid his smugness. “I’m telling you right now, the key to this matter is Guo Qingqing, as long as we don’t catch her, we can’t let the matter come to light; as long as we don’t catch her, you Yang Wenfeng are guilty. I urge you to cooperate with us and bring Guo Qingqing back.”
“Director Zhou, listen to me, through this reunion, I found that the problem is much more complicated and serious than what we predicted last time, you must immediately notify the overseas staff, as if my classmate Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo-“
“Slow down.” Director Zhou interrupted me with a wave of his hand and a surprising sneer on his face as he exaggeratedly pulled out a small slip of paper from the file on the coffee table and handed it to me, “Read it yourself, this is the email ip and usage of Li Jianguo that you gave me.”
I looked dumbfounded, “But you can’t ignore other situations just because of this. If we don’t take emergency measures, I think the number of students in trouble will increase, and you need to take action.”
“Take what action? Yang, have you been reading too many spy novels since you left MSS? Our Ministry of National Security is mainly focused on defending national security. Even the so-called intelligence gathering is mostly based on open source research, a few use human intelligence, and most still use technical intelligence. Our intelligence is basically defensive in nature, we do not advocate offensive, nor do we advocate the practice of sending and recruiting citizens of other countries to work for us. We are essentially a military force. How do you expect us to act when your classmate’s accident is so bizarre and something we have never seen before? Guo Qingqing was inextricably linked to the case, but you let her go, and now you’re blaming us. Huh! Are you becoming more impetuous and naive?”
I looked at the note in my hand and had mixed feelings. Director Zhou was right, I decided to keep my head down and not argue. It looked like I had no way out, and unless I found out the truth, Guo Qingqing would have to hide everywhere, I’d be suspected, and my classmates would probably get into trouble one by one. But Director Zhou was right, under the current circumstances, the Ministry of State Security could only target Guo Qingqing and do nothing else. It seemed that I was the only one who could take action to clear my name, free Guo Qingqing, and stop that evil man from framing my old classmates. I had to…
I looked up just in time to see Director Zhou’s meaningful gaze.
With a smile on his lips, Principal Zhou stared at me and let out a long sigh, “You go back, I will look for you if anything comes up. If you find anything or have any new ideas, just call and tell me. But let’s be clear, before I come looking for you, before I give you a clear explanation of your mission, whatever you do, it has nothing to do with the Ministry of State Security. If you ever pretend to be an agent of the Ministry of State Security again, the police outside will not spare you, and I will not forgive you, do you hear me? You go, remember to hold your head up when you go out, don’t look down, where is the look of a state security agent?”
I had no place to go except my parents’ house. The smell of Guo Qingqing or A-hua still lingered in my small room, and perhaps that smell will never be completely eliminated. The atmosphere in my parents’ house didn’t comfort me at all either. My mother had always planned and prepared three meals a day as a life event, and her greatest joy was watching my father and I devour our carefully prepared meals. I wanted to help my mother cook today, but my father, who was sitting there, gently patted the chair next to him and gestured for me to sit down. I hesitated for a moment and sat down next to my father.
“A-hua is gone?”
I nodded my head and my father sighed. I didn’t know why my father was sighing, but I immediately noticed that my father often started with a sigh when he wanted to talk to me in depth. In high school, my father often began with a sigh and then went on to tell me in detail that if I didn’t have the energy to study hard, I would just “die. Since I do not know how to farm and no production team is willing to accept me, according to the national policy, I can only take over my father’s or mother’s class when they retire. My father is a teacher, I did not study hard, there is no way I could replace him. My mother is the township midwife, “maybe you can replace your mother as an obstetrician and gynecologist,” think about facing Zhang all your life. I couldn’t help but tremble at the thought of having to spend my life standing in front of open, bloody thighs and ripping out little, blood-soaked lives. I
Because of this fear, I studied hard and got into the Department of International Politics at Peking University with honors. But after my father put me on the train to the north, I remember that father and son talked less and less, and on several occasions they broke down in disagreement. It was then that I began to learn to see the world through my own eyes, a process in which I had to remove a little of my father’s influence from myself. Before that, I thought my father was not only the kindest and greatest, but also the bravest and most trustworthy. Back then, as long as I held my father’s hand, I was fearless, no matter how lonely, dark, or scary the place was. My father always said nothing and held my hand, trembling a little, but I had no worries. But as I grew older, I felt that my father’s hand was trembling with fear, and I remembered more about how my father had bowed his head and confessed his guilt during the Cultural Revolution, and was at the mercy of others. With a hero like Zhang Zhixin living forever in my heart, I had stopped talking to my father about the confusing problems of life. Now, when my father suddenly asked about A-hua, accompanied by a sigh, I just sat quietly and listened to the clatter of bottles and glasses coming from the kitchen.
“Your mother said that A-hua always had to go and that the girl was just too good to be true.” Father said.
I laughed bitterly. Then I heard my mother in the kitchen humming a little song from half a century ago.
“But I told your mother, your problem isn’t that people aren’t real,” my father paused, “your problem is that you don’t want to get married at all.”
“I have nothing to fear.” I said. My father sighed again, I was a little annoyed and a little angry, I asked my father again, “I really have nothing to be afraid of, but you were afraid, can you tell me why you were so afraid then?”
“When?”
“It was during the Cultural Revolution. At that time, you were always the first to confess, and you always let the rebels whip you. I always thought that if you said I was afraid of something, it would be inherited from you.”
My father lowered his head as if he didn’t want to remember, but after a moment of silence, he raised his head. I saw my father’s clouded eyes and my heart tightened. At this point, my father spoke slowly.
“In fact, I was young until you were born, when I thought about death? Let alone the fear of death. You were born in 1965, the year the Cultural Revolution began. Although I had been involved in all the previous movements, my political instincts made me feel that the Cultural Revolution was unprecedented. Your mother and I were forced to live apart: she was a barefoot doctor who lived in the commune health center and had to travel a lot, so your brothers and sister lived with me at school. At that time, your sister was eight years old and your brother was five. I was often bullied by the rebels because of my bad background and because being a teacher was a sin in itself. I thought about the options I had at that time, such as joining a faction in the fiery struggle of the Cultural Revolution.
In our small place, I was one of the few intellectuals who had read the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, and probably one of the few who really understood the spirit of the Cultural Revolution.
As long as I chose the right faction, I could still make a big difference. First, I would have to beat people up, even kill them. Even if I can avoid killing people with sticks, my pen will definitely kill people; another result is that if the rebel faction I choose loses, then I might be killed by others. I don’t mind myself, but if I am killed or imprisoned, what will happen to you two brothers and sisters? So I decided to stay neutral and not join any faction. It seems easy to say now, but back then it was not allowed to be neutral. So one day the rebel faction won. They dragged me in to criticize me. The next day the rebel faction took over the school, and they put me on the stage to criticize me. Sometimes they tortured me by making me kneel on a washboard, and sometimes they made me kneel on broken glass. I don’t know how many times I secretly said to myself, “I’m going to die with all of you, I’m bigger than them, I have no problem killing one of them, and I’ll even be ahead of the game if I can strangle one more.
I listened in awe as my father spoke, stretching out his thin, bony hand and making a gesture to pinch the rebel’s neck, watching as my father’s sagging skin began to tighten.
“Back then, every time I was arrested by the rebel faction for criticism, I didn’t know if I could come back safely at night. Every time I went out, I called your sister and told her that if daddy did not come back at night, you would take your brothers and go to your mother’s house to ask for food in the morning. I wrote a note and put it in each of your pockets, asking good people to help, to show the children the way, and to give them a mouthful of food. Your sister looked very sensible and put the note away, but you, then three years old, did not take the note I put in your pocket seriously, neither did you take it out to blow your nose, nor did you wet it -“.
Speaking of which, the wrinkles on my father’s face expanded and he smiled, a smile that brought tears to his eyes. My mother was still talking to herself in the kitchen, and I felt a pang of sadness in my heart.
“I am an understanding person, I know I cannot die, if I die, what will happen to my children? I have seen many intellectuals like me who, in order to uphold their principles, their communist ideals and their beliefs, or because they could not control their temper, contradicted the rebels and offended the Red Guards, and were either killed or mutilated; when they died, they killed themselves, their eyes closed, and their suffering was over, but what about their children? The children of parents who were imprisoned or subjected to inhuman torture were also bullied in school, some of them could not stand it and even committed suicide, and those who survived were basically deprived of their right to education. It’s not that I didn’t see this harsh reality. If I have any ideal left, it is you children, who are not only my ideal, but also my hope, my everything.
I thought about my father’s words carefully, and it turned out that my father also had an ideal, but his ideal was me.
“Let me do whatever I want as long as I can raise my child in peace! That was my resolution at that time. Throughout the Cultural Revolution, I did not hit back or scold anyone. When I was asked to confess my sins, I bowed my head, and when I was asked to reflect, I wrote a review. At the most dangerous time, I was afraid that the rebels would lose their patience, so I had to ask your sister to take you with her to sit in the front row of the meeting hall and watch me being criticized on the stage with my head bowed and a sign. When they saw your sister sitting there with you, who was only three years old, they avoided the seriousness and did not kick me in the liver and spleen, but only scratched my ears and hit me on the waist like a punching bag. But you know, although I was beaten dizzy, and sometimes full of blood, but I just glance out of the corner of my eye to the three of you brothers on the stage, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand up, let them continue to fight, your father was because of you guys to get over again and again. I knew in my heart that if I didn’t make it, my children and my ideals would be finished. Now, look, you two brothers and your sister are not only in school, but also have good jobs.
My father smiled triumphantly, but my heart was heavy. I pretended to rub my eyes to hold back the tears, it turned out that my father, who was so afraid of death in my mind, was actually the bravest father in the world.
“It’s just that for so many years I’ve been afraid of this and that, and as a result, fear itself has almost become a habit and even my character.” Father said cheerfully, “Your mother even criticized me last time, saying, ‘Look at you, an old man, you’ve been afraid of the East and the West all your life, you’re used to being afraid. The last time I went home to Hubei, I saw a disabled man surnamed Zhu. He was the most extreme member of the rebel faction during the Cultural Revolution. Later he was crippled by other members of the rebel faction. Now I have heard that the factory where he was released from prison has also closed down, and his sons are not successful. They often come to ask him for money. His life is very difficult, and recently he said that he had to apply for a begging permit to travel around to earn a living, because his crippled leg will attract some sympathy. Seeing such a person made me afraid.
My father laughed like a child. I knew the meal was almost ready when I heard my mother muttering to herself from the kitchen.
She said, “Old Yang, you old fool, what are you afraid of? Then it dawned on me, yes, my children are all grown up and living well, I have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Dad,” I asked curiously, “even though we are your vision, has your vision come true?”
My father looked at me in disbelief, then laughed, “It has come true, it’s that day, yes, July 23, 1983, the day the commune delivered your college acceptance letter. I was cooking when the sound of gongs and drums came, getting louder and louder, but I couldn’t hear it, I could only hear my heart beating. First a young man ran over and shouted, “Teacher Yang, the commune sends you good news, your Little Yang has been admitted to Beijing University. I took a moment to calm down and thought, “I’d better turn off the stove first. If I forget to turn it off, the food will be ruined. Later, I got tough with myself and made three poached eggs! My favorite meal.
I also remember the day my father fried two extra eggs for me, and his trembling hands and excitement as he handed me the eggs with chopsticks. Although I don’t know why, I don’t want to remember these things, but deep in my heart, everything I do in the future is mainly for my father, and it has become an important goal in my life not to disappoint him, to make him happy again, and to give him a happy old age.
This time, I suddenly remembered the conversation with Director Zhou about the fatal weakness, and how Director Zhou repeatedly talked about my fatal weakness with a mysteriously smug look. Director Zhou “threatened” me that if I screwed up again, he would have my father personally take me back. I kind of understand, Zhou has always known my heart’s greatest fear: to let my father be disappointed, to let my father’s hopes be dashed. This is the last thing I want to see happen.
It is the only way to threaten me, the only way to force me to control myself. If the Public Security Bureau had interrogated me using my father as a threat, for example, that if I did not confess they would tell my father that I was a murderer or that I and the prostitute were about to get married or something, there would have been an 80% chance that I would have confessed to anything right away. When I think of that, I secretly laugh at myself.
“Father, since your ideal was realized when I got my college acceptance letter, I really hope that you will have your own happiness in the future and stop putting your children first…”
My father suddenly became a bit depressed and muttered, “My ideals have all been realized. Your mother and I are now people without ideals. With no ideals and no hope, we are actually not afraid of death. We just want to enjoy this calm and happy old age a little longer.
“I understand!” I interrupted my father, I wanted to say “I understand,” but it came out as “I understand,” in fact, this is not the first time my father has told me his story today, but perhaps even psychologists do not know what goes on in the mind of a child who has seen his father criticized since he was a child.
The psychology of a child who has seen his father criticized and how it affects him as an adult is not clear. I think it was the subconscious knowledge of how much sacrifice and humiliation my father made for the sake of his children that made me a little afraid of getting married and having children when I grew up. I didn’t know if I could protect my children the way my father did. Although the fanaticism of my father’s time and the rebellion are history and no longer a public nuisance, the world is still full of dangers, not to mention nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, SARS, AIDS, bird flu, these are enough to be a parent’s worries, plus unemployment, school failure, violence, I can barely survive, but I really have no confidence in how to raise the child well. Maybe this is what my father said, I am not married because I am afraid. You can surpass your own father in knowledge, understanding, position, and all other things, but in one thing you can never compare with your father, that is, in your own knowledge, you cannot surpass your father.
What shocked me even more was that my father’s love for me and the sacrifices he made for us children had become so ingrained in me that my current love for my parents became the goal of my life. I do everything not to hurt my parents and everything to make them proud of me. But this also makes me cautious in my life and work, not daring to take risks, because any “failure” on my part would be a fatal blow to an old man in his seventies.
“Our ideals — the ideals of your mother and I — are you and your siblings. You are our dreams, and now that you’re all grown up and have your own lives and ideals, if you want to fight for your ideals, that’s up to you. Just as we would have done anything for you back then, we understand that you will do the same for your ideals and dreams. You are no longer our dreams, your mother and I no longer have dreams, we just want to live a few more years, so go and do what you have to do. But if you can, would it be possible to bring A-hua back to us, your mother and I both like her and want you to be together. Let’s call it our dying wish!”
While my father seemed to be talking to himself, I carefully remembered every word. I thought, “Yes, my parents are happy to have achieved their goals. Maybe it’s time for me to go my own way, realize my own ideals, and clear the name of A-hua, that is, Guo Qingqing, of any wrongdoing.
I started to make big plans in my mind.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (12)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 28, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 12 – Breaking into the FBI
“We have to do it ourselves!”
Tian Haipeng looked at me with an incredulous expression. It took me more than an hour to describe the events before and afterwards. Haipeng should understand. Our classmates have had one accident after another. This is no coincidence. Director Zhou of the Ministry of State Security agrees. The problem is that Director Zhou has made it clear that there is nothing they can do. I think they will just want to wait to see what happens our classmates one-by-one. Then they will look at the incidents one-by-one when the time comes. I couldn’t stand by and watch that happen so I found Tian Haipeng and asked for his help to carry out my plan.
“We have to do it ourselves!” I said again in an angry tone.
Hai Peng looked at me with a puzzled expression and pointed his finger at me and then at himself, “You mean us? You mean you and me?”
I nodded my head.
“Do you represent the Ministry of State Security?” He asked with a sudden gleam of excitement in his eyes.
“No,” I shook my head, “I have no connection with the Ministry of State Security.”
“So what do we have to do ourselves?” Tian Haipeng frowned in disappointment.
I downed the pearl milk tea in my cup and said calmly, “We need to start investigating these complicated espionage cases ourselves to see if something went wrong among our classmates, we need to find the culprits and save as many old classmates as possible. At the same time, we are objectively contributing to the defense of our country’s security!”
Haipeng’s eyes were round and his mouth remained open as he listened.
“Do you understand?” I asked.
“No, no, I understand perfectly,” Haipeng said, “I just need time to digest it.”
In less than a minute, the expression on Haipeng’s face changed in many ways, and the expression that finally remained on his face was one of excitement mixed with anticipation. I thought, this is a good thing.
“Haipeng,” I said, “don’t think I don’t know you, your goal in life doesn’t seem to be to start a ‘One Year Plan’, does it?”
“Yes, yes, I only opened the One-Year Plan to check whether my ideas and thoughts were correct, and it turned out that my point of view was correct, and it has not been interesting for a long time. I always wanted to do something exciting and thrilling, preferably secret agent work. It’s great that you recruited me as an agent! I can do this agent work without any money, and I can even pay back-“
I interrupted him: “I have to correct one thing, I’m not recruiting you as an agent, how can I recruit you when I’m not even an agent myself? I’m just working with you to do something that agents do, so get that straight. As for funding, I would welcome it.
Haipeng was so excited that he stood up and walked around the office, almost jumping around. He danced around while talking to himself, “I knew the day would come when someone would come to me and say, ‘You should stop making this stinking money, you should do great things with us. You see, now it has come, I just did not expect that person to be an old classmate of yours, ah, hahahahaha”.
“Shall we start right away?” Haipeng suddenly stopped, came over to me, and mysteriously whispered in my ear.
“Yes!”
“Shall we split up? Split up and find the old classmates, warn them of the danger they’re in, and better yet, point out their fatal weaknesses and tell them to take careful precautions…”
“What are you talking about?” I glared at him, “If things were as simple as you say, wouldn’t Director Zhou and I have done it at our last reunion, and wouldn’t we have had to wait for you to make a fuss?”
Hai Peng deflated like a rubber ball, he just withered away. I patted him on the shoulder and explained: “Okay, someone is using our classmates’ weaknesses or handles as bait to pressure and blackmail them. They are pulling our classmates down. But we can’t just find our old classmates and tell them to curb their weaknesses and not leave handles for others to manipulate them. Because a person’s Achilles’ heel is not something that can be put away, otherwise it would not be a fatal weakness. These weaknesses are not new either. For example, if your classmate is greedy, he didn’t just start greedy today, he’s been looking for ways to get a little advantage since he started working, and after he became an official, he naturally turned to corruption and bribery.
So what can you say if you find them now? Tell them not to be corrupt and to take no bribes? I think the handles of our classmates may already be in the hands of the CIA. So, things are not just as simple as warning our classmates. We must investigate more deeply to find out what went wrong, which classmate betrayed his old classmates and betrayed the country. To find this person and get rid of him!” Of course what I did not tell Tian Haipeng was that I wanted to know how the CIA could think of such a good way to conduct intelligence warfare against our country. In my heart, I did not believe that a bunch of white CIA people could know so much about the situation inside China and plan such a poisonous strategy. So the immediate motive that prompted my involvement in the incident was undoubtedly to clear Guo Qingqing’s name, defend myself, and save my fellow classmates, while the larger goal was to destroy the intelligence warfare that the CIA was using against me in this way.
Tian Haipeng listened to the dense beads of sweat on his head, and only after a while, nodded admiringly: “I understand, Yangzi, it turns out that we have to play the real thing this time, but also to play the big one. I also finally understand, although you claim to have no relationship with the Ministry of State Security, but you are working in accordance with the Ministry of State Security methods in handling the case. Good, good, I will follow your lead.”
I don’t deny it, in fact Tian Haipeng’s words are half right, that is, I am indeed working on the case according to my professional training, but it has nothing to do with the Ministry of State Security. I am not very sure about my plan, and much of it I don’t know myself so far. So I will have to take one step at a time. Moreover, I have been very dissatisfied with the conservative approach of the Ministry of State Security. The United States and some neighboring countries are carrying out a lot of intelligence activities against us. The United States also uses their advanced reconnaissance technology to fly reconnaissance aircraft along our coastline to conduct surveillance.
Our national intelligence agencies have been cautious — avoiding incidents and making sure that our Chinese intelligence personnel are not caught in compromising circumstances has become their ultimate mission. They have completely lost sight of the role of an intelligence organization. I think that this time, if I am to succeed, I must take a more proactive and aggressive approach than that of our Chinese intelligence activities. If I succeeded, I not only will have protected my classmates, but also contributed to our Chinese national security. Of course, if my plan fails, it would only be my personal failure, because it was something that I had completely screwed up all by myself.
“Thank you for your trust in me, Yang!” Tian Haipeng suddenly grabbed my hand gratefully: “You first sought my cooperation among all our classmates, which means you trust me! I remember when I was in school, my teachers and classmates said I had serious bourgeois liberal ideas. After working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the leaders also disliked me for being argumentative, talkative and immature in my thinking. Some colleagues also accused me of being heavily influenced by the West and not being patriotic enough. They suggested that I should resign from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It seems that you know me well enough to know that I am loyal and will never change my mind, ha-“
“I’m not trusting you,” I said coldly, “I’m just trusting you with the money!”
The smile froze on Tian Haipeng’s face, “What does that mean, Yangzi?”
I said, “In the history of the CIA, the money spent on buying an overseas spy has not exceeded $2 million up to now. In the past two years, the CIA and the British MI5, in order to keep track of the development of the democratic situation in Hong Kong, as well as to dream of continuing to control Hong Kong, had allocated huge sums of money to buy our central authorities in Hong Kong, including senior staff of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government. It was said that the money bought was always limited to about one million dollars. According to my initial projections, your assets are well over $2 million. Given your current status as an individual and the fact that you do not have access to classified material, it is unlikely that the CIA would be able to come up with $2 million to buy you. So that means that you are the only one of our classmates who cannot be bought by the CIA so far, right?”
The expression on Tian Haipeng’s face was embarrassed, but he had to nod his head repeatedly. At this point I remembered the words of Director Zhou, so I imitated his old man’s tone and put on a serious face, saying, “Haipeng, as soon as it comes to national security and the struggle against espionage, we must put personal relationships, feelings and personal trust in second place, do you understand?”
Tian Haipeng’s expression when he looked at me was suddenly full of admiration and respect. After a while, he came back to his senses and asked without regret, “Is that the only reason why you sought me out?”
“No, the main reason I’m looking for you is not because you won’t be bought off!”
Tian Haipeng’s face let out a glow and looked at me expectantly.
“You are one of the few people in our class who has American citizenship and an American passport, and you are the only one who can complete my mission because you are an American!”
Haipeng face some confusion, I lowered my voice but clearly said word for word: “I need you to find a way to get into the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to do undercover work!”
I even gave Haipeng two cups of hot boiled water with sugar, he slowly recovered from the near shock condition.
“Where am I?” He looked around in an exaggerated manner.
“I haven’t sent you to the FBI yet,” I said with a smile, “the way you’re looking, you’ll have to be put in diapers before I send you in to fight, otherwise you’ll be scared shitless, old classmate.”
“I’m not afraid, you misunderstood.” He sat up, “I’m over shocked and over excited! Man, that was so exciting! No one in our Ministry of State Security probably ever planned to infiltrate the FBI, and I didn’t think the two of us would just settle down here while drinking pearl milk tea. I’m not suddenly being brought by magic into a Tom Clancy spy novel, am I?”
“You didn’t get into his novel, but our plan, if executed well, will be even better than his spy novel! Do you remember when Clancy wrote in his novel that there were terrorists flying fighter jets toward the White House? Yes, that’s the one! At the time, people thought his imagination was too outrageous, but a few years later on September 11 when four civilian planes full of innocent passengers crashed into the World Trade Center and the Department of Defense respectively, people found that reality was far more incredible than fiction! You just said that the Ministry of State Security didn’t even do that, and I can tell you for sure, good, as far as I know, all our intelligence agencies in Beijing are quite conservative. They may have tried to buy an FBI agent or two, but sending their own people to infiltrate the FBI has probably never been discussed.”
[Translator’s note: See Wikipedia article List of Chinese spy cases in the United States of America End note]
I paused for a moment and continued: “Of course, we must admit that as a great country, it is not so easy to implement such an insidious plan to penetrate the core organs of other countries. In the past, the United States and the Soviet Union often did this, which is why there were many espionage scandals. Our country has always been a polite nation, very conscious of its international influence, and has always been very careful about offensive intelligence – espionage. Unfortunately, however, our intelligence agencies in Beijing have not been rewarded with the goodwill of countries that hate China and preach the Chinese threat theory. A typical example is the U.S. counterintelligence agencies, which, for political reasons, are always trying to catch a few Chinese spies lurking in the U.S. to support their promotion of the China threat doctrine. After repeatedly failing to get what they wanted, some Americans with ulterior motives claimed on television, in Congress, and in the newspapers that every foreign student and traveler from Communist China could be a spy. Pretty funny, isn’t it?
“Just because Beijing can’t do something doesn’t mean we can’t. That’s why I’ve just repeatedly stressed to you that I have nothing to do with the Ministry of State Security or any other intelligence agency in Beijing. It is because there is no relationship whatsoever that we can let go and go big on our own. If we fail, we can take responsibility ourselves and come clean. At that time, those in the West who see China as a threat will definitely not be able to use a few of our “quirky” amateur spies as an excuse to attack China. At the same time, if we make it public that the U.S. is using some kind of despicable blackmail against our classmates, then our actions will be personal acts of courage, and U.S. law will let us off much more lightly than it would convict us of espionage.”
“Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! Oops.” Tian Haipeng interrupted me exaggeratedly, “Yang Wenfeng, I didn’t expect you to be so far-sighted, I really admire my old classmates to the core. Okay, I’ll be loyal and join the FBI. I’ll work for our country, no, I’ll work for you!”
“Don’t get too excited yet.” I gestured at him, “You must realize that we are not just trying to achieve our personal ideals in this operation, we are taking this action to save our classmates, so we must follow the spy guide to the letter.”
“A spy guide? Where can I buy it? How come I never saw it, quickly get me a copy.”
I pointed to my head, “Here it is. There is no such book, and once written, it’s not a guide to spying, it’s a guide to catching spies.”
“I get it!” Tian Haipeng said carefully. After a while, he suddenly looked at me innocently as if he remembered something: “By the way, I didn’t ask how to get in?”
“Ha, you went to find that old Wu Gong master Feng Qingyang to teach you.
“Ha, you went to find to that old wu gong master Feng Qingyang to teach you the martial arts, and then fight your way in” I said first laughed, Haipeng then also laughed out loud. When he finished laughing, I had already spread out several American Chinese newspaper briefings in front of him.
“This is a want ad from the three largest circulation Chinese newspapers in the U.S., World Journal, Sing Tao Daily and Los Angeles Daily News, two months ago.”
“The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation recruitment of Chinese agents notice!” Tian Haipeng’s eyes opened wide, “recruitment conditions, U.S. citizens, Chinese or overseas Chinese, must be fluent in Chinese, aspiring to U.S. national security work -, you do not say, I meet all the conditions, only thR my aspiration to work on U.S. national security is different from their interpretation. My aspiration with regard to their national security is to…”
“Good, not only do you meet all of them, but you are a rare talent. This recruitment is the largest Chinese recruitment campaign in the history of the FBI. The CIA had a similar recruitment two years ago, but on a much smaller scale. The recruitment is a four-step process: first, a preliminary selection of resumes to fill out the form by mail, and then a re-selection three months later; the re-selection is the start of the secret external investigation; the third step is the interview; and finally, the interview qualified to participate in a series of tests, including polygraph. Now there are two months before the recruitment deadline.”
“So will we act immediately?” Tian Haipeng acted as if he was about to stand up and go into battle.
“I’m not finished yet.” I gestured at him, “Your qualifications are so good that I can’t really see how many more of the Chinese Americans would be better qualified than you. However, they certainly won’t recruit you as an agent!”
“Why?” Haipeng asked, somewhat disappointed and confused.
“Because they don’t recruit FBI agents!” I said in a firm tone.
“Oh, Yang, I said my IQ for making money is still very high, but when it comes to this spy fight ah, international politics ah, I’m not really up to it. ah, I don’t want you to have me going around in circles trying to get at things indirectly. This is the largest recruitment of Chinese agents in the history of the FBI, and then you tell me they are not recruiting agents?
“You listen to me carefully.” In order for the future cooperation to go smoothly, I had to be patient and open up to Haipeng. So I spent about half an hour explaining in detail the difference between an agent and an informant, analyzing the practices of the FBI and CIA in recruiting agents and finding informants, and also telling him about the deep-rooted racial discrimination in the United States.
The United States, a national melting pot of democracy and freedom and equality for all, is indeed outstanding compared to other countries in the world, but this does not mean that the United States is free of racial discrimination. Take the Chinese, for example, for centuries they have achieved great economic success through their hard work in this part of America, but politically and socially it is an undeniable fact that white Americans discriminate against the Chinese. Chinese families, when they had some economic power, also began to pay attention to their children’s education and encouraged their children to integrate into the American mainstream society. In the last century, especially in the last fifty years, the Chinese have made great achievements in the field of science and technology in the United States, and now they are actively moving into politics, which is normal in a society that boasts of free competition, especially in those years when China was a poor and backward third world country, and the mainstream society in the United States did not worry about China.
However, since China’s reform and opening up, its economy has been growing rapidly. Along with it, China’s political, military, and international status have also become increasingly powerful. While white Westerners and the Japanese, who have never considered themselves Asian, have gone from despising the Sick Man of East Asia to being afraid of him. They lost no time in creating a China threat theory. Along with the Chinese threat theory comes discrimination against Chinese in the United States. Like the case of Wen Ho Lee, a small case of carelessness, but the FBI publicized it widely as a Chinese spy case. They made a fuss about it for a year or two, almost to the point where Wen Ho Lee was acquitted and released. This is rare in the history of U.S. courts, because generally in espionage cases a lot of evidence has to be gathered before charges are brought. In the case of Wen Ho Lee, the FBI deviated significantly from this norm. Although the FBI and the U.S. authorities made a high-profile apology to Wen Ho Lee afterward, good ethnic Chinese are no longer persecuted, as even the loyal and honest Wen Ho Lee lamented afterward: “This happened in the United States, or else I would have spent time in jail!” What we did not expect, however, was that the Lee Wen Ho case was a frame-up from beginning to end, specially designed by the lily-white U.S. elites.
The massive influx of Chinese into the U.S. high-tech industry has made the white rulers of the U.S. and the FBI very unhappy. They believe that China is getting stronger and stronger, and that the ethnic Chinese will never be able to put aside the call of their bloodlines that connect them to China. The only thing the U.S. can do to contain China’s strength is not military, not trade, but to impose strict scientific and technological restrictions on China! If some of these ethnic Chinese people are sympathetic to Beijing and smuggle scientific and technological achievements from the United States back to China, then the current forty-year gap between China and the United States may shrink to ten or twenty years, allowing China to catch up with the United States and surpass Britain.
This is exactly the result the Americans do not want to see. So, how to stop the Chinese in science and technology in order to help China has become an unspoken imperative for the top brass of the U.S. FBI. However, because the United States prides itself on freedom and fairness being deeply rooted in the hearts of the American people, a McCarthy-era style show trial is obviously impossible. So the search for a Chinese spy among Chinese scientists has become a political task for the FBI. Over the years they have been looking for them, but they just can’t find them. It doesn’t matter. Although they made some mistakes in their investigation of Lee Wen Ho, he was a scapegoat, so the question of whether he was a spy for Beijing is not so important.
The FBI is sending a message to the Chinese scientific elite in the United States that if you are Chinese, you have to be extra careful! Wen Ho Lee’s white colleague made the same mistake as he did (copying computer data) and got away with it, but the Chinese Wen Ho Lee was labeled a spy beforehand and imprisoned for over a year. Second, the FBI also used the Wen Ho Lee case to tell those Chinese who are extremely active in learning science and technology not to enter the sensitive sectors of the United States. They are not welcome there. Of course, if ethnic Chinese don’t go into those fields, the descendants of white people will go into those fields. The benefits of the one-two punch of the Wen Ho Lee case far outweighed the loss to the FBI of having to apologize for its apparent failure.
I told Haipeng about this for a reason. If, in the midst of espionage and international struggle, he still naively thinks that Americans treat all ethnic groups equally, hope for a peaceful world, and want China to be strong and prosperous, then he will never be able to accomplish anything. I went on to talk about the scam of the FBI recruiting Chinese agents.
The CIA had also openly recruited agents for the Chinese in previous years, but because of the top-secret nature of the CIA, the results of the recruitment naturally became top-secret as well. Unfortunately, there are no absolute secrets in the world. As far as I know from concrete information, the CIA eventually recruited some second- and third-generation Chinese symbolically for its peripheral organizations (such as research institutes and companies set up to finance its activities), but there were no real Chinese agents. At first I thought this was because the U.S. authorities wanted people to think that the government agencies did not discriminate and practiced racial diversity, so they did some window dressing, advertising, and superficial initiatives. Later, however, I learned from sources that things were not as simple as we thought. It turned out that the CIA’s recruitment of agents was a sham. What they were looking for were informants.
Whether it is the CIA or the FBI, agents and informants are two completely different concepts. The so-called agents are the intelligence officers who work in the CIA and the FBI, agents are part of the government staff. But informants, also known as spies in the CIA, are just special personnel who work within the FBI and the CIA, developed to work outside the government agencies to provide information or intelligence to the FBI and the CIA. They have their own jobs, but they are not regular employees of the U.S. government. Special agents are real government officials, informants are just sniffer dogs being used.
Because of China’s power, both the FBI and the CIA have shifted their main targets (intelligence and counterintelligence) from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and are slowly opening their eyes to the Chinese dragon. While these two agencies, which have been dominated by the white mainstream society, absolutely distrust ethnic Chinese and overseas Chinese and refuse to recruit them into their organizations, although they desperately need Chinese to assist them in obtaining relevant information and intelligence. Recruiting informants has thus become their main task in the last century, from the 1990s to the present.
Chinese social circles are relatively insular. Chinese do not interact much with whites, and Chinese have to hide their past relationships in the US. This has made it difficult for both the CIA and the FBI to recruit Chinese informants. Moreover, unlike agents, informants are not honorable federal employees, but despised spies and traitors. This makes it impossible for the CIA and FBI to recruit them.
It was not until a China expert at the CIA suggested a broad outreach for informants in the name of recruiting agents that the two agencies made progress in solving this problem. It turns out that while Chinese people are definitely not willing to be informants with the reputation of being traitorous sniffer dogs, most Chinese Americans are willing to serve as agents for important federal agencies such as the CIA or the FBI. Therefore, when these job advertisements were posted, they received many responses from Chinese people. Hoping to enter the federal government, they wrote their detailed resumes and specialties to the secret mailboxes set up by these two agencies. The CIA and the FBI were overwhelmed when they received these self-references and resumes from the Chinese elite.
Think about it, the United States does not keep dossiers on all its citizens, and many Chinese are very secretive about their own experiences, especially those who immigrated from mainland China. Many are reluctant to tell others about their work and circle of friends in the country, but if you want to apply for a federal job, of course, you have to write about the experience in detail. In this way, the two agencies can slowly find and select from a large number of applicants to see who has a high-level network in China, who has connections in the Chinese community in the United States, and so on. Instead of joining the federal government as a special agent, these people are contacted months or even a year later, when they have completely forgotten that they applied for a special agent job. Suddenly, they are approached by someone who kindly says, “Do you want to do your duty as an American citizen? Do something for us!”
I told the whole story calmly, but listened as Haipeng looked stunned and finally turned red in the face. I stopped: “You see, the FBI’s big advertisement to recruit Chinese agents is just a scam! If you don’t believe me, just wait and see what happens at the end of this FBI recruitment farce. Of course, in addition to counterintelligence, there are drug enforcement units, major crime units, etc. within the FBI. That’s not what I’m talking about here.”
“I’m not applying for a job in the Drug Enforcement Division or the Major Crimes Division, am I? I’m not a fan of knives and guns, and I’m afraid of dead bodies.”
“You’re going into counterintelligence!” I said categorically.
Tian Haipeng sighed and shook his head: “But according to what you said, there is no way for me to join the thing, ah, you are not going to force me to join as an informer, are you?”
“Ha, of course not. Another difference between informants and agents is that informants don’t have access to any FBI secrets. Instead, they have to give information to the FBI. But agents are different, they work for the FBI and have access not only to specific cases, but also to top secret documents!”
“But I can’t get in! Because they don’t recruit agents at all!” Tian Haipeng shrugged helplessly.
“Of course, there are special exceptions.” I said, “You, for example, they have to recruit!”
“Really?” Tian Haipeng said noncommittally, “My conditions may be good, but there is no way to make the FBI look at me differently.”
“Ha, you have a very good deal and the capital to make the FBI want you.” I didn’t wait for Tian Haipeng to open his mouth to ask a question and continued, “Because you know the most important top secrets of the Chinese Ministry of State Security! And you will give them to the FBI for free as a condition of your employment.”
“What? You’re asking me to give up state secrets? Besides, I don’t know any bullshit top secrets about the Ministry of State Security!” Haipeng’s expression tightened.
“Of course you can’t remember any, because I haven’t told you any yet.” I said with a smile, trying to lighten things up. “Actually, the United States knows quite a few Chinese secrets because they cast a very wide net in what they collect as Chinese intelligence. So the information I’m giving you here is information they definitely don’t have, and that way they’ll look at you differently.”
Tian Haipeng was so nervous that beads of sweat poured out of his forehead, “Dude, you’re not really playing, are you? I know you know a lot about the top secret arts of the Ministry of State Security, but if you really let me reveal them to the FBI, won’t we first have to commit the crime of betraying our country and revealing secrets about espionage?”
When I heard Haipeng say this, I was secretly happy in my heart. However, I deliberately said with a serious expression, “You can’t trap a wolf if you’re not willing to sacrifice your child’s life. Don’t be a mother-in-law. Listen to everything I have to say.
My expression became more fierce: “Haipeng, are you willing to do this?”
“I am generally willing.” The beads of sweat on Haipeng’s head actually dripped down as he nodded his head. He wiped off the sweat, took a deep breath, and carefully asked, “Can you tell me what information I have to give to the FBI first?”
“Yes.” I stood up and said, “All you have to do is tell them that you are a special agent sent to the United States by the Ministry of State Security to conduct espionage activities, and that our old classmate Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo is lurking in what part of the United States.”
“Boom!” a loud sound, poor Tian Haipeng fainted from shock for the second time today.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (13)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 28, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 13 Virtual Agent
The one-hour flight took me from Guangzhou to Nanchang. The one-hour flight was like time travel, taking me back to the China I remembered from twenty years ago. Ganzhong County, which is two hours by bus from Nanchang, even more–it seemed to take me back to the days before liberation in 1949, because everything was so picturesque and unchanged. Although Jiangxi has a population of tens of millions, but those years, according to my impression, in addition to what my textbook had to say about the “August 1” Nanchang Uprising, where the first shot of the Chinese revolution was fired. Not long ago I saw a newspaper about an anti-corruption initiative and the execution of the corrupt Hu Changqing. Thoughts of my old classmate Li Jianguo, also from Jiangzi Province, still remind me that it is a big province.
After getting out of the car and going straight to the telecom office, I found the person in charge and waved my reconnaissance card, which had expired several years ago, with a serious expression and made a request. The person in charge, who was about fifty years old, seemed to understand my request, and he immediately called in two experts. For the next twenty minutes, the three of them, with a serious attitude toward national security work, were busy.
“I found it, Comrade Yang!” The person in charge handed me a registration form, “At the time, we didn’t think that class enemies would use the Internet to subvert state power and spread political rumors. Otherwise, we would have been more strict in our censorship.”
“Class enemies can’t be detected by prior investigation.” I tried desperately to hold back my laughter and said seriously, “They are very well hidden! Besides, I must remind you that it is no longer fashionable to speak of class enemies; we all say ‘hostile elements at home and abroad.
“That too.” He was obviously a little disappointed, “Why doesn’t the country just consider shutting down this Internet and forget about it, I think this Internet is also causing a lot of trouble for your national security work, isn’t it?”
“That wouldn’t work.” I said categorically, seeing a complicated expression on his face, I couldn’t resist saying more: “Do you know how to get a snake out of a hole?”
“That I don’t know!” The person in charge, his face a mass of wrinkles, blushed read with surprise. “Isn’t a big noise and a hundred flowers the way to lure the snake out of the hole? I just didn’t know that this Internet is also used to lure the snake out of its hole. It looks like there’s going to be a another political movement again, right?” He asked, cautiously, and staring at me with anticipation.
I didn’t want to disappoint him, after all, how would he ever get the chance to get involved in a political movement! You just grab something for yourself before you retire and leave it at that. Since I had already gotten the address I wanted, I didn’t want to tease him any further. I looked serious and indicated that our conversation was over, evaded his questions, said “goodbye” and left without looking back.
I followed the address on the application form and walked down Bay Avenue for four blocks, then turned at Shuguang Road and walked another three minutes to the street where the Internet cafes are concentrated. At this time, the neon lights of Internet cafes have been faintly flashing, 72 is a so-called “Silk Road” Internet cafe, 80 “Net in Love” with a sexy beauty billboard hinting at sex. After seeing the “Window of the World” sign, I stopped, checked the number on the door, and entered.
The Internet cafe was small, with only three rows of computers and a young man sitting behind the counter chatting on the computer. I was a little hesitant and didn’t know what to do, but the young man kept chatting and didn’t stop to greet me, so I had a chance to look at the heads and faces of the people “working hard” in front of the computers. Most of them were young people in their late teens and early twenties, so when my eyes turned to a computer desk in the left corner, I immediately recognized my old classmate, now middle-aged.
“Hey, hey, pay the deposit first!” The young man behind the desk finally saw me.
“Oh no,” I pointed my finger in Li’s direction, “I’m looking for an old friend!”
“You’re looking for Zhang Feng, so go ahead.” The young man continued his conversation.
I walked over to Li Jianguo and was about to pat him on the shoulder when he looked up, and we both just stared at each other for a while. The only thing that hasn’t changed about Jianguo is the white plastic-framed glasses on his face that most opticians no longer sell. He is not only old, but also a bit unpresentable. His forehead is bald, and the hair on the back of his head is sparse and random. His skin was pale and dry from lack of exercise, the color of stale and dry white bread. His small eyes, peering through the thick lenses of his glasses like a snake, stared at me for a while before speaking: “You want me? He stammered as he scanned behind me and the doorway, “You’re not here to arrest me, are you?”
I laughed bitterly and patted him on the head, “What did you do that was so bad? Why should I arrest you? Besides, I’m a migrant myself, so what right do I have to arrest you?”
“Wait a minute, let me give an account and we’ll go!” He was a little happy, turned on his computer and started typing, I noticed the fast food combo on the computer next to him and a bottle of mineral water that I knew had been used many times. Not long after, he finished typing, got up, took my hand and walked out. He may be weak, but it could also be that he just sat in front of the computer for too long, Li Jianguo’s steps were unsteady. I helped him several times. When he got out of the Internet cafe, he seemed uncomfortable. He looked around for a while and then looked at me.
“Yangzi, you really scared me, and I thought you had come to arrest me.”
I pretended to be angry and shook him, “You too, old classmate, am I that heartless? If I had to arrest you, I would have hid and let my men arrest you.
We both laughed out loud. Little Jiangxi had probably stayed in the Internet cafe for too long. First came a smile then tears flowed down from his eyes like pearl tears flowing down, “In over ten years, or the first time to see an old classmate.” He removed his glasses with his sleeve wiped the tears, after two hands clutching my hand. My deepest impression of Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo from school was his always slightly tightened brow and silent look of contemplation. That seems not much changed.
We found a small restaurant, sat down, ordered some small dishes, and asked for a bottle of local soju. The waiter brought the wine and poured it for us. We picked up our glasses and both of us wanted to say something, but we ended up toasting in silence. After the wine was refilled, we suddenly looked at each other, not knowing what to say. I was trying to figure out how to speak when Xiao Jiangxi spoke first.
“I thought you’d find me -“
“How have you been all these years?” I asked worriedly.
“Just look at me.” He measured himself shyly.
“What are those things?” I lowered my head and took a sip of wine, “The same things you told Tian Haipeng and the others.”
“Ugh, you wouldn’t believe it, would you?! I didn’t think it would still reach your ears.” Li Jianguo also tasted a mouthful of wine alone, a bitter smile in his confused eyes, “I graduated determined to get into the Ministry of State Security, but there is no place for me. The assignment was also delayed, and then I had to go back to the Jiangxi Economic and Trade Commission.”
“You probably don’t know that the Economic and Trade Commission is not mentioned in the same breath as the Ministry of Security among current college students. The Economic and Trade Commission has a lot of opportunities to skim profits, while the Ministry of State Security is a career for life.” I reminded him.
“I know, you still have to remind me. But I just couldn’t bring myself to work there. After I arrived at the Economic and Trade Commission, I was assigned to the Denim Products Export Division of the Textile Industry Bureau. You think I don’t know that 80% of the world’s denim is produced in China, and that denim exports are controlled by denim export indicator printers! But, hey, it’s all my fault for being young and exuberant, and I got discouraged on my first day of work. That day, the old section chief called me into the section chief’s office, smiled at me and said, “Oh, the newly assigned college students, or studying international politics, must have an international perspective, right? Well, let me test you, compare our products produced for the United States and Australia, what is the difference between women’s jeans?
“I think Australia used to be a British colony, and now it belongs to the British Commonwealth, so it stayed close to Britain. Then Britain’s power gradually declined and it withdrew from Asia. Instead, the United States became as strong as ever, so the snobbish Australians gradually moved closer to the United States again, forming the current Australian policy. Especially in its policy toward Asian countries, Australian policy often wavers between Britain and the United States. In a sense, they found a middle ground for our country to adopt a policy toward the United Kingdom and the United States. So – gee, this seems to have nothing to do with jeans. So I calmed my mind and remembered that the only knowledge we had learned in our four years of international politics textbooks at university was about prevention and control of goods. I said that we are wrapped in textiles at birth and we are wrapped in shrouds until we die, textiles are probably the most important thing in our lives. The impact of textiles on international relations is now becoming more and more apparent.
Strategic textiles are said to be the most important, high-tech war clothing, bulletproof clothing, stealth camouflage clothing are being secretly developed in various countries. Sooner or later, this will affect the international landscape, just like the atomic bomb. Of course, as far as human life is concerned, high-tech textiles will also change our lives, I heard that the upcoming intelligent bras, massage since the azure panties, etc. – When the section chief heard that, unhappy, he interrupted me and said, what are you talking about way out there in the sky, I do not understand you. Then he told me the answer, it turns out that Australian women’s buttocks are particularly curved, curved for no reason, only from the waist there suddenly extended backwards, so the same size of women’s jeans exported to Australia almost to use one or two more square meters of cloth. Although American women are fat, they are basically bucket-shaped, the upper and lower generally thick, not like Australian women’s buttocks rise so abruptly. Section Chief while speaking proudly told me that this month, he will give me samples so that I can try them for myself”.
Li Jianguo took a big sip of wine and continued to speak.
“I was so disappointed that day, I couldn’t just spend the rest of my life studying the butts of American and Australian women, could I? Now that I think about it, that’s what made me decide to leave the Economic and Trade Commission for good. With that kind of thought, it was almost impossible for me to go back to work in peace. Then there was always a conflict with the leaders, they didn’t trust me. Within two years I found that I was excluded from their circle. You know what circle I’m talking about, don’t you? I think every unit has a circle where you can turn power into money, and once you are excluded from the circle, you are out of luck. I thought that since I was excluded from the circle, there was no benefit to staying, so I resigned. Soon after that I came across Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s speech on his southern tour. I was excited and wanted to go to the south.
After the hot food came up, Li Jianguo and ate and chatted.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money at that time, so I had to return to this small county in my hometown. I really didn’t expect that so many years would pass in a flash, and if you hadn’t suddenly appeared in front of me, I would have thought that it would only be a moment.”
“You’ve probably been in heaven for a while, we’ve been on earth for more than ten years.” I said, “Jianguo, how have you lived all these years?”
“How can I put it? Let’s put it this way: over the years I’ve lived in two worlds.”
“Two worlds?” I stopped my chopsticks to look at him.
“Yes, two worlds. One is the real world, the world in front of you, you have seen it all, almost nothing to say. If I have to say something, it’s as simple as getting up every day, going to the bathroom, eating, you don’t have any money, so you go looking for some small jobs to do. I worked in a company for a while, but it didn’t go anywhere, so I gave it up. I have always been ambitious, I once wanted to organize a democratic party so that I could start spreading democracy from the grassroots, but you need money to organize a party. I know how to form a party and spread democracy, but I don’t know how to make money. If I could make some money, I would really like to leave this place. I want to do something different, I want to leave home, but I don’t have a family yet. This is the reality of my life, unlike you, who flew from Beijing to the United States, and from the United States to Guangzhou…”
“It’s all a matter of luck.” I shook my head humbly, “The other world you’re talking about…”
“It’s the virtual world of the Internet!” Xiao Jiangxi said here, his eyes suddenly glowing and his voice becoming loud. “I entered the world of the Internet in the mid-1990s. It was love at first sight. I’m sorry it came too late for me. The first day, I entered a Yahoo chat room in a daze. There were a lot of people chatting. Everyone was using pseudonyms. I was just hesitant when someone came to talk to me, and without a few words, she was attracted to me. I’m not sure if I’m a real person, but if I’m chatting, we’re not bad. The other party is a girl in her twenties, who is at a loss for youth and excitement | emotions, I wanted to help her. Soon she was convinced, she said she liked me and wanted to know what I looked like, which made it difficult for me, you know, since I know how to look in the mirror, I know that my characteristics are definitely not good looks.
After thinking about it for a while that day, I told her a lie. Since then, she has been waiting for me online every day, and I have been talking to her about love whenever I can, and before I knew it, we went from falling in love to living together on the Internet, and finally, we both decided to have a child. This is the story of when I first started surfing the Internet, and then I was completely fascinated by the online world. Compared with the real world, the online world is unreal, but it makes you happy, you do not have to force yourself to obey the world everywhere, if you are not happy, you turn off the computer or just change to another corner to play. Even later, when you are familiar with the rules of the network world, you can create your own network world. In this world you are your own master. Soon I began to live in the network world, of course, my current activities in the network world have long been about more than love. In this world, I make friends, discuss the great theory, call for social justice, expose corruption and bribery, and so on, so this world is not only more colorful compared to the real world. To say what I think about it would take days and days”.
Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo got excited and waved to the waiter to add a few more dishes to our order. Seeing the old classmate wolfing down his food, I could tell that there were apparently no restaurants in the network world.
“By the way, when I went in to look for you just now, that Internet cafe attendant called you something, Chang Feng-“
“Oh, that just means Long Wind. It’s one of the names I use in the online world.”
“Have you even changed your name in this world?” I asked curiously.
“Of course I had to change my name, how can you use Li Jianguo? As soon as I heard Li Jianguo, I remembered the sudden abrupt curve in the buttocks of Australian women, and, haha, the name Changfeng is different, depending on your mood, you can imagine it any way you want. When you are in a tender mood, you can imagine the Long Wind as a gentle wind blowing through a lover’s heart; when you encounter injustice on the road, you can also imagine the Long Wind as a sharp sword cutting through the injustice of the world. When you…”
“Come on, tell us about your life in this world.”
“I have lived a very full life in this world. I have many friends in the north and south, and many confidants who, when lonely, can not only comfort each other, but sometimes even make love on the net. In real life, no one looks at me like this, but on the net, I am the most popular Prince Charming. Recently, I met a Guangdong netizen, we are in love, her name is Xiaoxian, and she is very cute.
I was stunned to hear this.
“When you just came in, I was discussing with a friend on the Internet whether China needs democracy or not. The friend said that China doesn’t need American-style democracy, and he said, “Does the fact that China has democracy make America better for us? I told him that democracy is not American, just as the dollar currently represents wealth, but we don’t have it as a reserve currency just because it is American. I also told him that if democracy is not good for China, we are determined not to have it, but if it is good for China, we must implement it. It has nothing to do with whether the U.S. is going to change its attitude toward China or not.”
“That’s right, old classmate.” I agreed, “I didn’t think the Internet could be used not only for romance, but also for spreading democratic ideas.”
“Haha,” Li danced with joy, “I’ve done a lot in this world over the years, and after Sun Zhigang was killed in Guangzhou, we mobilized our friends on the Internet to sign a petition calling for the abolition of unreasonable regulations, and…”
As I listened to Li Jianguo tell one thing after another, my mood unconsciously changed. I knew that the Internet had become a very powerful tool for expressing public opinion, but I didn’t know that my old classmate Jiangxi Li Jianguo Jr. was an important citizen and leader in this world.
“Yang, are you listening?” Little Jiangxi stopped and asked me.
I nod my head.
“The last time we classmates contacted each other, Tian Haipeng asked me to talk about their situation. My arguments with netizens on the netizen forum were in full swing. I was in the mood to tell him that I resigned because of the story of the Australian woman’s abrupt unexplained curve of the buttocks and no other reason, so I casually got involved in online life to show him something. I don’t think I lied to him.”
He picked up the last piece of fatty meat and said: “I just tell Haipeng about my life in the virtual world life as if it were the real world. Online, I am very often an agent, not only one with a very real sense of justice, but also a particularly defiant one. Many netizens told me about their local or work unit corruption, I wrote down the cases one by one, and when I received more reports about a particular situation, I anonymously shared them with the relevant departments. This really helped the disciplinary inspection departments in their investigations and in handling some disciplinary cases”.
He swallowed the fat and asked me, “Yang, you look down on me especially, right?”
I shook my head sincerely, “What are you talking about? Actually, I live in two worlds, and it was you who reminded me of that.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, even though I often go online and admire some of the celebrities who have recently appeared on the Internet and have their own heroes, the other world I’m talking about is not the Internet world, but my own fantasy world. This world is certainly more virtual than you in the network world, because it only exists in my head, ha ha. I think at first I entered the Ministry of State Security as I had hoped, but as a result it is not to look at the documents, read the newspaper, and listen to the elderly sisters of the work unit complaining every day about the price of food, oil, and salt, and the price of their own children’s studies, etc., Alas! Compared to you, the network agent, my real-life agents are more boring and much less capable. Soon after that, I began to create in my mind another world of agents who belong only to themselves. I remember walking through Tiananmen Square every night after work with my coat collar up and my hands in my pockets, walking toward the market at the pace of the secret agents I had seen in the movies, while I imagined myself walking outside the walls of the KGB office building on Moscow’s Red Square, occasionally glancing back warily, imagining some old lady walking behind me as a KGB stalker who had come to assassinate me…”.
This time it was Li Jianguo’s turn to be stunned, and I waved my hand in embarrassment, “Look, just because this fantasy world is too perfect and simply beautiful, I can no longer work in the security department, no, I have resigned.”
“Pity, pity.” Li Jianguo sighed, “But I do not regret living in a virtual world at all. These years, although often hungry, but the heart is especially full. Sometimes I hate this real society because I have to work to earn money to fill my stomach, but it’s not always enough. Not only do I hate this society, but I also hate my worldly belly that is not filled. Sometimes I can’t wait to crack the computer screen, drill into it and follow the wires to swim in the world of the Internet.
“In this world, I am the Long Wind Warrior, when I see injustice, I draw my sword to help; in this world, ugly things like corruption are exposed. In that world, everyone is equal, free, and easy. In this world, everything is decided by the netizens, which is democracy, right? In this world, looks don’t matter, imagination is more important than anything else, I have a group of loyal followers and many confidants -“
It’s time to check out, I motioned for the waiter to be lighter, I just didn’t want to interrupt Li Jianguo’s last fantasy. I regretted my plan for a moment, wondering if I could bear to drag Jiangxi Li back into the real world, and such a cruel real world at that. I had a feeling that Li Jianguo would fall into the network world, so I came to him, one is to pull him back to reality, the second is to use his foundation laid in the network world, but I did not expect this guy to be so happily trapped in the network world and not want to get out. The reality is that although he is so down and out, he is alone, but he is on the Internet and has so many confidants. As I was leaving, I reminded him: “Since you have so many girlfriends and you are so famous, why don’t you meet two girls and let the lovers be together? Platonic love is not good for the body.”
Li Jianguo lifted his head, looked at me in surprise and said, “Old classmate, you don’t read the newspaper, do you? Internet romance is the thing that causes the most love tragedies these days. The situation is not to mention the inbreeding, the old and young upside down commonly exists, is the robbery of rape also often happens. I will not be so confused, I feel the network world of spiritual enjoyment, I will not confuse the network world and the real world, pulling people out of this world is unrealistic. You see, if people know that I am the righteous warrior, the Jade Tree Breeze Long Wind, could I still turn around and leave?
That night, after arriving at Li Jianguo’s “home,” I thought I had come to the right place, it was the “home” that made me determined to pull Li Jianguo back from the online world. Li Jianguo’s so-called home, and the suburbs of Guangzhou migrant workers and garbage collectors temporary huts are no different. It gave me a feeling of endless desolation. It was almost as if someone lived in the house. I couldn’t hold back my tears. I thought, his home is many times worse than the place I’d let him go. So I reluctantly found a place to sit down and began to tell him about our classmate’s accident, my analysis with Director Zhou of the Ministry of State Security, and my own plans and the role he would play.
Li Jianguo listened quietly, although his face a look of insensitivity, did not show the rich expression of Tian Haipeng, but from the trajectory of his two hands moving, I can see that his heart is not calm at all. Sure enough, when I was almost finished, beads of sweat actually seeped out of his head. “Yang, I now know why I am not interested in any profession. I have been waiting for this day. My ideal profession is to be a spy!”
“First of all, let me remind you,” I interrupted him coldly to calm him down, “Spying is not a profession, spying is selling your country or even your soul for money or for those who are climbing the ladder of power. False information serves the rulers of professional spies. A good spy must understand that spying is not a profession, spying is an ideal! Only those who have this ideal in their hearts can excel in their mission and fulfill their mission. They can engage in any profession that is suitable to hide their identity. I talked for a while, and Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo calmed down, and after a while he ate and asked.
“Do you think I’m up to the task? Yangzi.”
“I don’t know,” I had to tell the truth, “we have no choice. Because you have let all your classmates know through the Internet that you are an agent of the Ministry of State Security, which means that if there is a traitor among our classmates, he will also identify you as an agent of the Ministry of State Security, so you are the only one who is qualified for the job.”
“Did I just become an agent? I always feel a bit mysterious, Yang, I can do nothing ah, I mean, in the real world, I am a bit low, I have a lot of ideals and aspirations, but in reality, I have done nothing and will not do anything ah!”
“But you can lie, can’t you?”
He was stunned for a moment, then smiled embarrassed, “That’s true. There’s no one in my generation who can’t lie, even though I studied art and politics for a long time. I can’t figure out what is a lie and what is the truth-“
“That’s enough,” I said firmly, standing up and patting him on the shoulder, “in our line of work, if you can lie, you’re good to go.”
With all the arrangements made, I returned to Guangzhou the next day. I was distracted and restless all day. In the afternoon I decided to go to Shenzhen to make the final arrangements. I rushed in my car from Shenzhen back to Guangzhou at night, and along the Dongguan section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway I hit the guardrail and lost control, bouncing off the guardrail three times until I finally hit a concrete pillar on the side of the road, causing an explosion.
I thought of Li Jianguo all the way, even though I had asked my friend in Fujian to arrange for a stowaway, but I was really worried whether his body could withstand more than a month at sea. As for Li Jianguo, I originally thought that I had gone to rescue him from the virtual world of the Internet so that he could be a real agent, that I was doing him a great service. Li Jianguo’s body was extremely weak. If he does not come back soon to breathe the fresh air of the real world, I am afraid that he will become like the newspaper reports of those young people on the Internet who vomit blood, sometimes even fainting and dying. Li Jianguo’s attitude also made me happy, he cheered, his pale face from time to time due to excitement. Just as I was about to say goodbye to Li Jianguo at the airport after my trip to Jiangxi, he took me aside and said quietly: “Yang, thank you for trusting me. But please don’t look down on my past life, I have used many aliases on the Internet, but there is one alias that belongs only to me, let me tell you about it.
With that, he took out a pen and grabbed my hand and wrote a name on my palm, I looked at it and could hardly believe my eyes, “You are the…”
He raised the pen to his mouth to make a small sound, then nodded, “Yang, after the mission is completed, if I can still come back alive, you must come and get me ah!”
I turned my head towards the boarding gate, my eyes immediately moistened and my brain became confused again. Although I do not go online much, but also have their own network of the most admired hero, I admire that hero is full of courage, a talented person and a visionary. He goes online to fight against evil and corruption, to fight for justice for the little people, for justice in the nation. This person is almost the perfect hero in my heart. I know there is no such person, but I still take him as the hero of my heart. I never thought that this person was my old classmate Li Jianguo, who used the most secret pseudonym. I used to read all his articles published on the Internet for the sake of justice, and I was convinced that he must be a hero who could jump over ramparts and attack fortresses, and who could write as well as fight. I imagined him surrounded by a group of Chinese heroes like me, worshipping and following him! Little did I know that this man was my old classmate, the same Li Jianguo whom I was now about to personally send to the most secret and cruel spy interrogation room in the United States.
I think this was the main reason why I couldn’t concentrate on driving that day, but certainly not the only reason for my accident. According to what I heard later, many of my classmates and colleagues used my accident to strongly condemn corruption in the field of highway transportation. They argued that the corruption in highway transportation was indeed very serious. However, because it had been hidden behind such beautiful fronts as paving roads for the people and opening roads to attract capital, the central government had not paid attention to it until now. At that time, I had an accident on China’s best expressway, the Guangsheng Expressway, and the news appeared in the newspapers as news, and people began to pay attention to what happened to this best expressway for the first time. This expressway, which was built with a lot of government funds, has undergone eight major repairs in ten years. The total expenditure has exceeded that of the world’s best strategic highway from Washington to New York in the United States. Although this highway is a disaster, 80 percent of the leaders who have anything to do with it have embezzled huge sums of money to send their children to Western countries to study and immigrate. This section of highway that killed me also made 47 highway contractors multi-millionaires before and after…
Public Security and the coroner pronounced my death on the spot. They did not need to do an autopsy because my body was completely charred. Many of my classmates and colleagues found it unbelievable and even more tearful when they saw the charred body of Yang Wenfeng, still posing as if he were driving a car, with both hands flatly outstretched. The news of my death soon appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of the front page of every major newspaper in Guangzhou.
Yang Wenfeng’s death caused great sorrow among his classmates. Later news reports confirmed that Miss Cai, who had not yet married, cried tears upon hearing the news — the first time in more than a decade that she had washed her makeup powder in front of people. The accidental death of Yang Wenfeng made Deng Kehai realize the impermanence of life, and he finally decided to turn himself in to the Ministry of State Security and received a lighter sentence. Tian Haipeng, an old classmate in the U.S., later heard the news while he was training at the FBI training center in the U.S. He could not return home, so he sent a special telegram to express his condolences – Director Zhou personally came to Guangzhou and went to the home of Yang Wenfeng’s parents to condole with my two elderly parents. When Director Zhou left half an hour later, the neighbors insisted on coming out to say goodbye to the two septuagenarians, even though they could see traces of tears on their faces, and held Director Zhou’s hand, saying, “We understand: We fully understand, our child also talked to us some time ago, our child is very understanding and looks at life and death very openly.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (14)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 29, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 14: The Last Supper
Hefei, Anhui.
“Just like a peasant!” Yin Erqiang slammed the menu onto the stove, then raised his voice and shouted, “I said bring both menus here, what are you doing?” After the chef left, Yin Erqiang couldn’t help but mutter in a low voice, “What a peasant!”
It had been six years since he came to the city, and Erqiang had first distanced himself from the peasant look in his clothes. Then he tried to speak and act differently from peasants. In the past two years, Erqiang has been forced to imitate the expression, temperament, and psychology of urban people more closely by observing his surroundings with extraordinary care. Today, it can be said that Er Qiang could have reprimanded those insensitive and ineffective but ignorant and kind-hearted subordinates “like a peasant” without any shadow, but for some reason, reprimanding is reprimanding when the phrase “like a peasant” is used. When reprimanding someone, the voice is always not raised high, so as not to seem unjustified. To be honest, the criticism of “like a peasant” and “just like a peasant” that has become popular among city dwellers lately is actually more benevolent than critical.
- First of all, the whole country recognizes that farmers are the most simple, lovely and honest, so even if they are ignorant and ineffective, it is not all their own fault.
- Secondly, the criticism of people “like a peasant” itself shows how much goodwill you really have. You say you care and love the peasants but are always attacking them with sarcastic words, Just like so many years, no matter from the central to local, the interests of peasants are always hanging on everyone’s lips, indicating that the interests of more than 900 million peasants have not been ignored.
Of course, deeper thinking, when the leader scolded “you peasants” itself is for you to do a bad job to find an excuse, you hear, as long as a naive smile on everything is fine. This situation and another situation is somewhat similar, for example, our country’s rapid economic development, the urban people’s living standards are changing rapidly, civil servants’ salaries are rising, but we have no way to abolish all the unreasonable regulations and laws (such as hukou restrictions, detention and repatriation, etc.), the implementation of more political democracy, because we have nine hundred million peasants ah! It’s like those Chinese diplomats you see on
Chinese diplomats who are often seen on television wearing suits costing thousands of dollars and questioning the stunned foreign authorities: Do you know how low the income of Chinese farmers is? Of course foreigners don’t, because many of China’s rural areas are off-limits to them. And the number 900 million is hardly something concrete in the history of mankind, Chinese urbanites sarcastically say to foreigners: You don’t understand the reality of China!
So China’s economy continues to grow at a high rate, the urbanites continue to feel comfortable being the “first to get rich,” and 100 million peasant children flock to the cities to start their careers in the migrant stream. Rural girls in good condition can become second wives or work as prostitutes, nannies, or whatever. City people proudly claim that since 1999, this 100 million peasant migrant stream has become the largest source of economic income for Chinese farmers! In other words, this 100 million wandering, poorly clothed and poorly fed migrant worker stream has become the driving force that feeds 900 million peasants! In other words, it is the leftovers from the city that feed the 900 million peasants!
Of course, Yin Erqiang did not think that deeply. He remembered where he came from, but since he had gone to the city and found a decent job, he was no longer a peasant. In China, the peasants are a special and strange class, although there are 900 million of them, but they are almost silent, as if they do not exist sometimes. On television, those who call attention to the peasants are either well-dressed CPPCC members or people’s deputies in suits, but none of them are real peasants.
It was urban writers, not peasants, who wrote the heartbreaking Survey of China’s Peasants [Note: translated into English with the title Will the Boat Sink the Water?:The Life of China’s Peasants ] , and it was township cadres, largely outside the mainstream of the peasantry, who wrote letters to the premier complaining about their plight. There are a lot of good people in the peasant ranks, but they are good because they are no longer peasants, they are now urban people far from the countryside. When rural parents beat gongs and drums to send their sons and daughters off to college, they were happy that the sons and daughters of college students who had gone away would never return. Most of the rich farmers advertised in the newspapers are also former farmers who have long since migrated to the cities to start their businesses. So the peasants have been the instrument for overthrowing tyranny since ancient times, the main force for resisting foreign humiliation, and the main cause of Chinese characteristics, but they themselves are silent and in many cases negligible.
Yin Erqiang, who works as a cook and is in charge of food management at the largest prison in the provincial capital, no longer considers himself a farmer. Six years ago, Wang Zhongyu, then secretary of the district Party committee in his hometown, decided to build a secondary highway through the village where Erqiang’s family lived. With this money, the three brothers moved to the city. One brother went to Wenzhou, spent all his money to be smuggled to France; another brother broke into the big city in Hainan, spent all the money, in exchange for a syphilis. He himself came to the provincial city of Hefei, asking for help right and left, and finally found the former district Party secretary Wang Zhongyu, who had become a vice-governor in Anhui Province. He used up all the money to get relatively stable contract work.
During those first two years of work, Yin Erqiang embodied the good qualities of the peasantry, head down to work, less talk, more work, soon from the provincial prison assistant cook to the main cook, and then from the main cook to become a formal contract worker, became the second in charge of the prison kitchen, responsible for many tasks other than procurement. Of course, procurement is not his job, it is a big job full of opportunities to make money on the side. Don’t think that Yin Erqiang is honest, but he is actually more resourceful than the townspeople. If someone is responsible for the purchase of more than six hundred every time he prisoner food, in less than two years they can build a three-story house in their hometown. Erqiang on the surface every time he saw he was envious of others. But as a cook for less than a year, Erqiang found the advantages of the city, all walks of life can make extra money, depending on how flexible your mind is. Take cooking for death row inmates, our country has a humanitarian policy, death row inmates can order their own food before execution. Of course, most of the death row inmates had fallen into a state of madness, slurred speech, or words with a crying voice, and cannot be reasonable about ordering food. So Erqiang made two menus for the last dinner and breakfast for death row inmates, following the example of a chef in the United States who specializes in cooking for death row inmates that he had seen in the newspaper.
Not long ago, the American death row chef also wrote a best-selling book called “Death Menu”, examples of what death row inmates like to eat and wrote his own unique dish names, such as what “poison needle tomato soup”, “brain sauce ribs noodles”, “death hamburger” and also “hanged marinated chicken neck”, “electro-roasted live squab pigeon “gunpowder sandwich”, “death hamburger” and also “hangman’s brine chicken neck”, “electric roast live squab| pigeon “and so on.
Erqiang also created some recipes right away. Their names were very beautiful, such as what “Chang’e run to the moon ramen”, “Cowherd girl three fresh fried rice”, “Romeo and Juliet pizza”. Although Erqiang’s menu and the American death row chef’s menu are both reminiscent of death, one is cruel and the other is poignant, which fully demonstrates the simplicity of Chinese peasant Yin Erqiang and the new “fetishism” spirit of injecting humanism into Chinese characteristics. This shows the simplicity of Chinese peasant Yin Erqiang and the new “fetishism” spirit of injecting humanism into Chinese characteristics.
Erqiang’s achievements are not our subject here. As I mentioned earlier, Erqiang has been a chef for less than a year and has found profit in the last dinner of death row inmates. It turned out that the families of death row inmates would try to see Erqiang before the last meal. They would cry and beg Erqiang to make the food more delicious, and eventually they would also give Erqiang some money. Erqiang could not refuse them before accepting them, to be honest, he hesitated whether to take the family’s money or not. Erqiang will cook the last meal delicious. But what can be done, these death row families seem to be only in the case of Erqiang to accept the red envelope of cash to believe in Erqiang. Erqiang felt very helpless, for the first time vaguely feel the complexity and sadness of the city people. Tips are usually several dozen RMB. Just think how many prisoners are shot every month in the largest prison in Anhui Province. You know that Erqiang’s economic conditions were not ordinary.
Sometimes when he met with some family members, they would give Erqiang a small packet of powder and ask him to mix it into the last meal, explaining that it was a painkilling powder so that the prisoners would not feel any pain when they were executed. Some family members also said it was a sedative to make the prisoner be executed when the form of self-control. When they give the powder will also be extra stuffed to the second strong a lot of tips, get extra tips of the second strong no suspicion, but later, when he saw a prisoner who ate this powder was executed live, became suspicious. It turned out that the prisoner was afraid of death, but that day after eating the last meal until the execution of the time, he not only laughing, dancing, and sometimes also aspirational, quite a kind of death as the spirit of the return, so that the Erqing was puzzled. Only later learned from some city colleagues, the original death row inmates family members gave to Erqiang to be mixed into the meal as not a painkiller or sedative, but a high concentration of the drug Koloyin. After eating Koloyin, the prisoners begin to experience hallucinations. Although what hallucinations Erqiang did not know, but probably Koloyin gave them the feeling that they were going to heaven.
Since then, Erqianq shows his concern when mixing the powder given by the family, always reducing the amount to half. He was afraid that if the prisoner behaved too strangely before the execution, it would arouse suspicion. Although China does not play the human rights game as bizarrely as the United States, the power of death row inmates before execution is now often under scrutiny. It is said that death row inmates in the United States have to undergo a thorough physical examination before execution, and if they are found to have health problems, such as a bad heart or something, the execution has to be postponed until the death row inmate is cured by hospital doctors and specialists, and then he is killed humanely.
“It’s fucking evil!” Yin Erqiang leaked this peasant comment while studying the death row menu brought by his men. China is not going to abolish the death penalty any time soon, and Yin Erqiang has mixed feelings about it: on the one hand, his hatred of crime, and on the other, his sympathy for the executed prisoners. Neither, of course, affects the benefits Erqiang derives from the Last Supper. Erqiang knew the discipline of his work and would never reveal to his relatives or friends in the countryside how many prisoners were to be executed in a month. He often reprimanded people in the countryside, saying that this was a “state secret” and not to ask questions that should not be asked! But close friends still noticed that whenever a prisoner was executed, Er Qiang would go to the bank and sometimes could not hide his excitement.
However, Yin Erqiang, who is now studying the death row menu and preparing the last supper for the prisoners to be executed early tomorrow morning, has no excitement on his face, instead, even his peasant henchman who has just been scolded can see that there is a faint sadness on Erqiang’s face.
Today’s Last Supper is for Vice Governor Wang Zhongyu, who will be executed by lethal injection first thing in the morning!
When you drink water, do not forget the people who pollute the well! Yin Erqiang, a peasant by birth, knew these simple truths. If it weren’t for Wang Zhongyu’s courageous reform as regional secretary, who led the people, built roads and bridges, and expropriated his family’s fields and houses, he wouldn’t have left his hometown and become a successful person. It is said that he later got a job by bribing Vice Governor Wang, but didn’t he get back much more money than he invested in that bribe? He couldn’t understand how Vice Governor Wang could go from being a peasant to being a vice governor. After all, he had done a lot of good things. But once the justice system exposed his corruption, neither Party discipline nor state law could stand for it. Yin Erqiang also felt that his gratitude was excessive. The embezzlement of 10 million RMB, including millions from unknown sources: With his peasant background, Vice Governor Wang Zhongyu must have understood what that kind of money would mean for the development of relatively backward rural Anhui Province. How many peasant lives has all this corruption cost?
It’s one thing to be disgusted by Vice Governor Wang’s crime, and it’s another thing to sympathize with his impending execution tomorrow. Yin Erqiang picked up the “Death Menu” and walked with heavy steps to the single cell of Death Row.
The expressionless prison guard helped Erqiang open the first iron door and led Erqiang to another iron door. When he arrived, a prison guard took out another key and quickly opened the lock. Erqiang waited patiently. A strange thought occurred to him. When he had visited the vice-governor to give him money to buy a job, it was hard to get in to see him; is it not any easier now?
After entering the small single room, Yin Erqiang saw at a glance that the Vice Governor’s death row inmate, Wang Zhongyu, had tears streaming down his face. It was obvious that he had been crying — his entire face was soaked in tears, almost deformed. Wang Zhongyu raised his bloodshot eyes to stare at Erqiang, who signaled for the guards to leave. The guards left, Wang Zhongyu, as if drowning people see straw, immediately jumped up to grab Erqiang’s hand, excitedly lowering his voice, “I knew they would send you, tell me they sent you!”
Erqiang did not know what he was talking about and did not think twice.
“Tell me, they sent you here!” Wang Zhongyu looked so eager that he was about to cry again, “I know they are wrong, I have been wronged, this is the greatest injustice since the founding of the Republic, a product of the power struggle. I have served the revolution and the people. Someone is out to get me. I am falsely accused. They sent you, right? Am I right? But I don’t deserve to die because I have no backers in Beijing, and if I were executed for embezzling that amount of money, many provinces would have no vice-governors.
Wang Zhongyu cried out again. Erqiang understood that Wang Zhongyu thought he had been sent from above, like in the movie, to appear just before the prisoner was tied to the execution ground to be suddenly rehabilitated. Erqiang sat down in shock. The menu in his hand fell to the ground.
“What is this?” Wang Zhongyu hurriedly picked it up, when he saw the beautifully crafted, rich dishes, illustrated as if the city’s only five-star hotel menu “Death Menu”, finally understood, sat down, breathlessly said: “History will prove everything, history will clear my name! History will exonerate me!”
Wang Zhongyu’s last ray of hope was Erqiang. This disappointment also made Erqiang want to cry. is also the second strong broken, which makes the second strong heart hard to cry. Wang Zhongyu was sentenced to death by the Provincial High People’s Court the day before, after he saw the people crying and shouting about injustice. Erqiang’s strong heart could not understand. History may prove that Wang’s sentencing was the result of a power struggle. History may even record that the sentence was excessive. History may not forget that the relevant local journals praised Vice Governor Wang for the good things he did. But history will never find Vice Governor Wang Zhongyu innocent. This is because he, Vice Governor Wang, embezzled 10 million in bribes, embezzled the money of Anhui Province, the poorest province in China, where the peasants suffer the most, so he is not innocent at all!
Yin Erqiang originally wanted to ask Vice Governor Wang if he still recognized him. He also wanted to use this opportunity to express his gratitude to the Vice Governor, but when he saw Wang Zhongyu’s confused look, he decided against it. He simply picked up the death menu that Wang Zhongyu had dropped and carefully handed it to Wang Zhongyu.
“Vice Governor Wang, do you see what you want to eat? I’ll make it properly for you, I’ll cook it myself!”
Wang Zhongyu probably heard the free man in front of him call himself “Vice Governor Wang”, a glimmer of hope and gratitude suddenly appeared in his eyes, but it faded immediately after he saw the death menu. His eyes immediately filled with despair. He pushed the menu away and said, still in a sobbing voice, “I can’t eat…”
“It’s better to eat a little.” Erqiang looked at Wang Zhongyu sincerely, he wanted to say, “Eat full so that you can go on the road,” but he thought it was not right, so he changed his mouth and wanted to say, “Not eating is not good for your health,” but the words also found that it was not right, so he said nothing and froze there. Wang Zhongyu probably thought that this is the procedure, must be ordered not to embarrass the chef, he looked at Yin Erqiang, with a crying voice, said: “You take care of it, my stomach is not good.”
“Then I will make you three dishes and a soup, and add some stomach medicine to the soup, okay?” Yin Erqiang sincerely suggested.
Wang Zhongyu nodded and let out a long sigh, “For the revolutionary work, more than ten years as a day for a long time in the hotel outside drinking and eating to engage in socializing, I cannot return home, and as a result, my stomach is ruined. But, ah,” Wang Zhongyu spoke here to stop the topic, staring at Yin Erqiang said: “You’ve been in the city for five or six years, right?”
Yin Erqiang suddenly tears almost flowed out, Wang Vice Governor still remember me, he thought silently in his heart, while pretending to organize the death menu, desperately trying to control his emotions, for a while before lifting his head, “six years”.
“I’ve been away from the countryside for decades.” Wang Zhongyu turned his face to the toilet in the corner and said to himself, “If I hadn’t come out, how good it would have been to be a peasant in peace!”
Erqiang felt a cold chill. He wanted to thank Vice Governor Wang, but the thought vanished without a trace. It was replaced by an inexplicable feeling of loss and anger. Had it not been for the pitiful expression on the Vice Governor’s face, Erqiang would have punched him. Wang Zhongyu, you ate and drank for decades and had several mistresses. You say that you had a good life as a peasant when you started out, but do you know what a peasant’s life is like?
But for ordinary Yin Erqiang, this was only a momentary outburst of anger; when he thought of Vice Governor Wang being tied to his bed at dawn tomorrow, with poisoned needles prepared for his execution, Erqiang’s heart immediately softened. But he didn’t want to stay there. Erqiang packed up the menu and prepared to leave. At this point, Wang Zhongyu almost cried again, probably because he knew that this was the only person he would see who cared about him before he died. “What’s your name?” Wang Zhongyu asked, trembling.
“Erqiang,” Yin Erqiang hesitated because according to a legend in the countryside, if the dead keep calling your name before they die, they will turn into ghosts and come back to haunt you after their death. But that was only a peasant saying, and Yin Erqiang was no longer a peasant, so he added, “My name is Yin Erqiang.
“Erqiang, can you help me with something?” Wang Zhongyu pretended to stand up and whispered to Yin Erqiang, “This note has my daughter’s phone number on it, please call her and tell her that daddy misses her very much and tell her to study hard in the U.S. and never come back…” Wang Zhongyu saw Erqiang take the note and quickly put it in the menu with a look of gratitude and tears. Although Erqiang knew that if the Vice Governor was so grateful at a glance, he was like a bureau chief or something, but seeing the grateful eyes of the now oppressed Vice Governor Wang, he was still a little touched. He looked at Wang Zhongyu and nodded, just wanting to go, when Wang Zhongyu spoke again: “If possible, please find Vice Governor Liu. He retired a long time ago, go to the People’s Park Elderly Activity Center to find him, please tell his old man that I’m sending him my regrets…”
Wang Zhongyu did not finish his speech, tears came out like a flood that opened the floodgates. Luckily, Yin Erqiang turned away, or else Wang Zhongyu’s tears and snot would have splashed on him. After the prison guards closed the iron door, the sound of Wang Zhongyu’s crying came from behind him, and Erqiang left the second door without looking back, thinking as he went that his heart was really upset. Vice Governor Wang decided to join the party in the first place. Now that he has a look of greed and fear of death, how can he know to cry his way into virtue? Besides, you are more than fifty years old, and although most of the money embezzled from the state has been recovered, you still sent your daughter to the United States to study. Unfortunately, your daughter is so old, you still have several mistresses, you spend every day in a hotel, but call it your work. Be satisfied that you have lived this long, and people who live this long should also be satisfied. The time has come to die, so you should die satisfied!
“Really!” Yin Erqiang returned to the kitchen, still struggling with his thoughts, trying to decide whether or not to mix Vice Governor Wang’s last meal with high-grade Kokaying? This would allow Vice Governor Wang to maintain his dignity and not be scared shitless as he goes to his death, shamefully not at all like a Communist Party member?
Hoover Building, FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C., USA.
Chris, the Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, pulled out the document again, scanned it, and pressed a yellow button on his desk. When the secretary walked in, Chris instructed her to invite Louis, the head of the Chinese Division, to come in. Not long after the secretary left, Louis knocked on the door and came in.
Chris and Louis are both tall men of Irish descent, both elite men under the age of fifty. Over the years, the two have come into more contact with each other as counterintelligence work with China has come to the forefront of the agenda. In the FBI, the China Counterintelligence Unit was originally the smallest organization, but in recent years it has grown and surprisingly become the largest group in the Counterintelligence Division, and Louis’ status has risen. Now he came to the deputy director’s office to ask for a report on his work, usually he did not wait for the deputy director to wave, he could sit down and talk first, something that normally only the head of the Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Group did.
Chris handed the document to Louis: “Where did this document come from?”
“From a wiretap.” Louis took the file, looked at it, and explained, “A long distance call from China, nothing new. But this is one of the few vice governors the Chinese government has executed for corruption, so we are taking this incident more seriously and keeping an eye out to gather intelligence on this matter. I think the Chinese government is really determined to stop official corruption-“
“That’s useless!” Chris interrupted Louie, “Who was in charge of translating this phone tap?”
Louis said it was a new reruit who had just returned from studying in Taiwan, adding, “An Irishman too, the boy is a hard worker.
I didn’t think Chris cared whether it was Irish or not, so a little impatiently I took the document back and said, “Look, what’s wrong with this translation? Why does it sound so awkward? Who the hell is talking to the daughter of the executed vice-governor? Can’t you hear it?” Chris looked at the document and read, “Father misses you, so please make sure you don’t come back right away- what does it say? It sounds confusing to me.”
Louis came over, and the English, as translated from the Chinese above, gave the impression of confusion, and he blinked apologetically, not without regret, and said, “Chinese characters are like their dishes, so varied that one cannot understand them.
Obviously dissatisfied with this excuse, Chris slammed the document down on the table: “My God, the 1.3 billion Chinese across the ocean are hot to replace the United States as the world’s leader in a few decades, and you guys are tasked with the mission of the entire American nation to deal with the Chinese Communist agents, you guys aren’t telling me that you can’t even figure out the square letters now, right? “
Chris almost spilled his coffee on the table. Louis stopped talking, he knew it was better to listen this time, Chris is an expert on China himself, since he asked the question, he should already have the answer in his head. “Did you know that in 2008 the Chinese economy will probably become the second largest economy in the world? Not only is China’s population growing by the millions, but what’s even more frightening is that the population is spreading by the millions around the world – everyone talks about the Yellow Peril, but do you know how many different forms of the Yellow Peril there are? The Chinese language is one of them. The Chinese people mechanically hold on to their old ways without really understanding them. They still use their old script, even though it should have been discarded long ago. However, as their country becomes more powerful with more and more Chinese people, Chinese may even become the world’s number one language. So let’s not talk about catching Chinese spies for now, wouldn’t it be nice to solve the problem of the Chinese language first?”
“I have repeatedly stressed the need to use Chinese people boldly and Chinese Americans boldly. The Chinese have a saying that ‘rule the barbarians with the barbarians’, we should use it the other way around and call it ‘rule the Chinese with the Chinese’, otherwise we will not be able to move an inch.” After a pause, the deputy director softened his tone, “I know that Chinese people are very complicated, but isn’t it just because Chinese people are complicated that China is complicated, and so we need to use ethnic Chinese people to do our work?”
After a while, he remembered as if to say, “By the way, how is David, who was recently transferred to you from the Drug Enforcement Agency? Has he moved up to the top yet?”
“He just got here, I think we should see how he does for a while before-“
“Okay, okay, Louis, when did you become so cautious? Did the Chen Wenying case two years ago scare you? That David was transferred to your China Division after helping us solve a major Chinese espionage case while he was in the Narcotics Division. Besides, he’s been with the Narcotics Division for over a year now, doesn’t that count as an inspection? Yes, call him in now, I want him to translate this conversation in person.”
Louis left and returned to Chris’s office about twenty minutes later, holding the tape of the phone tap, followed by David Tian. Slightly chubby, the skin on his face showing that he had just undergone a drastic weight loss, David Tian stood anxiously and did not sit down with Louis. Only after Chris beckoned him did he gently place half of his still somewhat fat buttocks on the edge of the couch.
The tape was inserted into the digital machine and began to play. One minute of the three-minute conversation consisted of a girl crying and a man sighing at length, and the other was full of exclamations and interruptions. After the conversation ended, it was played again at David Tian’s request. This time the machine simply stopped and David Tian began the translation. Chris listened while comparing the translation to the original document, and after David Tian finished translating, he had nodded several times, and Louis next to him had a reassuring expression on his face.
“According to my analysis from the tone of the call and the emotional language of their call,” David Tian looked at Deputy Director Chris who nodded repeatedly, becoming bold and taking the initiative to speak his mind without waiting for orders, “I think the two people who called did not know each other. Since the shot deputy governor, Wang Zhongyu, could not have asked someone from the outside to help him call overseas, I think the caller who identified himself as Erqiang probably works in a prison. The reason why Wang Zhongyu did not let his daughter come back is that he transferred some of his money overseas and kept it with his daughter. According to Chinese law, those who cause economic losses that can be fully repaid are generally not sentenced to death. Extrapolating from this, the executed vice governor, Wang Zhongyu, must have caused irreparable damage to this country-“.
The two senior ethnic Irish officials listened quietly, glancing at each other from time to time, apparently more than satisfied with the Chinese policeman in front of them, who was under forty.
After a while, Chris handed the document to Louis, the head of the China section, who understood that it was his job to rewrite it according to David Tian’s analysis. As the two of them were about to leave the room, Chris stopped them: “I don’t see how this document will be of much use to us, but is it possible to send a copy to the CIA?
Louis agreed. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, two long-dead agencies, the CIA and the FBI, had begun sharing information. Louis knew that the CIA had used corrupt Chinese officials as a major source of intelligence. Like that vice-governor Wang Zhongyu who was executed now, his daughter was studying in the U.S. If that vice-governor knew that he was in trouble and escaped early, he would definitely choose to run to the U.S.. When the time comes to stay in the United States so as not to be sent back to China to be tried and killed, they will usually use their knowledge of the Chinese situation to tell the whole story. My God, a Chinese vice governor knows enough to make the CIA’s Chinese intelligence experts grab millions of dollars in intelligence funding! Louie thought jealously.
“Let David Tian go and deal with them, let such young people get more familiar with the situation, what do you think?” Chris said.
Louis said he had just such an intention. Chris looked at Louis, knowing that he had decided to start with David Tian, he said nothing more and waved his hand, gesturing for them to leave.
David Tian, the Chinese-American agent whose Chinese name was Tian Haipeng, did not move on the surface, but inside he was jumping for joy: not only was he going to work in the China section of the FBI, but he was also going to be responsible for communicating with the CIA to exchange information on China issues, which came much sooner than originally planned!
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (15)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 29, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 15 CIA Spy School
Yin Erqiang got himself into the frame of mind to leave the prison and go to Hefei City People’s Park to complete Vice Governor Wang Zhongyu’s second deathbed wish more than two months after Vice Governor Wang himself set out on the road to the Yellow Springs. It was to see another vice governor. Erqiang could not figure out how they could be so different, two flavors, two situations, simply coming from two different worlds. Erqiang stood a corner of the park dedicated to the elderly activities center. Erqiang asked people in a group of elderly people for the retired Vice Governor. Finally one old made pointed a stone bench where people were playing chess and shouted, “Old Liu, someone is looking for you.”
It turned out that this old man Liu was the former vice-governor Liu, who had been retired for many years. People are different, until the day before Wang Zhongyu was shot, Erqiang still trembled in front of him and called him Vice Governor Wang, but the Vice Governor Liu in front of him was simply called Old Liu by the old people. Erqiang walked over and sat down next to the stone bench and introduced himself. Liu just grunted and continued playing chess, Erqiang had to sit and watch.
After the chess game, Erqiang hurriedly asked Vice Governor Liu to sit on the side to talk, but Liu shouted, “What are the few words that can’t be said here? After that, he played a second game of chess, treating him as if he were transparent. When Erqiang looked at his watch, he simply told Vice Governor Liu what Wang Zhongyu had asked him to do before his execution, and Vice Governor Liu did not stop playing chess, but he made several bad moves.
After listening, Vice Governor Liu simply said, “I understand. Then he stopped talking, but the old people next to him booed for a long time until Erqiang left the elderly activity center. Then the old people returned to their normal daily activities. Erqiang sighed in relief and relaxed. Peasant Yin Erqiang had finally fulfilled Vice Governor Wang Zhongyu’s dying wish. Although his pace was faster, it was much easier. At this time, a figure from the side quickly approached him. Erqiang dodged but was almost knocked down.
“Have you grown eyes?” Erqiang scolded the stranger as he rubbed his arm, which was injured from the blow.
The shadow did not apologize or get out of the way. Erqiang looked at the man, who was in his thirties or forties, dressed in a suit with no expression on his face. Erqiang wanted to avoid him, so he rushed back to cook, at which point the man spoke: “Your name is Yin Erqiang?”
Erqiang looked at that shadow that had like a sudden bolt of lightning almost knocked him over. It didn’t speak and didn’t nod. Erqiang is now a city man and city people city people can use the expressions on their face to talk. Erqiang used his face to make that kind of expression that city people make when they are surprised and don’t know what is going on. One thing that really surprised Erqiang when he moved to the city was the great variety of facial expressions they had. The facial expressions of country people are a blend of sweat and yellow earth — they are all very much alike not like richness of the city. Even harder to understand was that the facial expression of city people did not necessarily reflect their true feelings. Therefore although Erqiang had just about made himself into a city person, when among city people he often felt like he had entered a masquerade ball, He couldn’t tell who was who.
The shadow who could say Erqiang’s name delicately took out a small book from his suit pocket and shook it slyly. The small book passed in front of the Erqiang’s eyes, opened for a moment, then closed again. Erqiang noticed that is was some kind of police badge.
“I’m from the Ministry of State Security, can I talk to you for a moment?”
Yin Erqiang later remembered why the shadow that day looked so familiar. He was just like an FBI agent in an American movie. Erqiang followed the shadow to sit on a bench at the edge of the park.
“What’s wrong? What’s the problem with me?” For the first time, Erqiang was actually in contact with agents of the Ministry of State Security. It was impossible to say that he was nervous; they were all spy catchers, and this was too far from Yin Erqiang’s world. The biggest prison in Hefei hadn’t held any spies for years.
“I’m just trying to get some information from you.” The shadow man said.
Yin Erqiang looked at his watch and was a bit impatient. The Shadow Man must have noticed this as well, because as if to remind him, he said: “Do you know that it is illegal to deliver messages for dead prisoners? Besides, you called abroad for him. I think that if there is a clue, it is possible for you to turn yourself over to an official civilian policeman. Do you realize how serious a mistake you have made?”
Cold sweat suddenly appeared on Erqiang’s head, and his face turned waxy yellow. He stammered: “Comrade, I really do not know how serious it is, I just want to repay the kindness…”
“Forget it, this is something you know wrong on the line, I think we will not pursue it. I came here today to ask you about Vice Governor Liu’s situation.”
“Vice Governor Liu?”
“Yes. It’s the retired Vice Governor Liu you just delivered the message to.” The shadow man’s eyes looked in the direction of the Senior Activity Center at this time. “You have been working in Hefei for several years, you should know something about Vice Governor Liu, especially the relationship between Vice Governor Liu and Wang Zhongyu.”
“These things, ah, actually everyone knows.” At this point, a trace of suspicion appeared in Erqiang’s mind, is his record something that everyone knows? Would they need State Security agents to investigate? Or an agent wearing such a fancy suit? But the suspicion came and went in a flash.
For the next ten minutes Erqiang answered the shadow’s questions. Erqiang told the story of the two vice-governors he knew. It turned out that Wang Zhongyu was not at all lazy in his work. In fact, he had already started embezzling and taking a second wife before he became vice-governor. In fact, he had been mentioned in the provincial work before, and his work was excellent. At that time, one of the heads of the province, Vice Governor Liu, appreciated the young and promising Wang Zhongyu, and soon after Vice Governor Liu’s best recommendation, after the organization’s inspection, Wang Zhongyu replaced the retired Vice Governor Liu. But after Wang Zhongyu was promoted to vice governor, he gradually became more and more distant from retired vice governor Liu. The good thing is that this Vice Governor Liu is also a cheerful person. When he finally retired, he quickly settled in and mingled with other old people in the people’s park, playing cards, chess, and chatting happily every day. Originally, both should be peaceful, but three years ago, Vice Governor Liu’s heart disease suddenly recurred, and emergency medical treatment saved his life for the time being. The doctor said that Vice Governor Liu would not live long unless he received a heart transplant.
Heart transplantation is a high-risk operation, and although it has been successful in China, given Vice Governor Liu’s relatively old age, experts recommend that he be transferred to Hong Kong or a Western country for the operation, where it would have a greater chance of success. Here’s the problem. The cheapest way is to go to Hong Kong for surgical treatment, but the minimum cost is 600,000 RMB. Since heart replacement surgery is not an ordinary medical procedure, the risks and costs are very high, so even though Vice Governor Liu is at the level of a vice governor, the National Health Insurance Administration cannot afford the cost. If special approval is needed, the vice governor in charge must write a report, the provincial party committee standing committee meeting to discuss and approve. The vice governor in charge at that time was Wang Zhongyu. Vice Governor Liu contacted Wang Zhongyu and asked Vice Governor Wang Zhongyu to write a report. The thing is, who knows that Wang Zhongyu was promoted by Vice Governor Liu–of course he would try very hard to help.
But Wang Zhongyu refused, saying in public that he was not heartless, but at present the peasants in Anhui Province were not covered by the national medical insurance and social insurance. In addition, hundreds of thousands of laid-off workers are not receiving unemployment benefits, and their social security payments are in arrears because there is no money. Although Vice Governor Liu has the highest medical insurance in the province, heart replacement surgery is not covered, and 600,000 RMB is astronomical for a poor province. I do not know how many small children of Anhui farmers who would otherwise have died from poverty and malnutrition can be saved with that amount of money. At that time, Wang Zhongyu said the situation of peasant children and his own inability to open the door for the promotion of their own vice governor Liu, his voice choked several times, I heard that a young female reporter who had just graduated at that time was moved to cry.
The shadow nodded repeatedly, encouraging Yin Erqiang to keep talking.
Vice Governor Liu heard the message Wang Zhongyu wanted him to receive but naturally didn’t have anything to say about it. When the unfortunate old man, after his life of dedication when he had served with rigorous honesty, went home to gather up his savings and took out all their savings, plus money he could borrow or otherwise scrape together, it came to less than 200,000 RMB. Moreover he had spent some savings in his early year to send his son to study in the United States. Vice Governor Liu seemed to have given up when his son returned from the United States.
Shadow interjected and asked, “His son’s name is Liu Mingwei?”
Erqiang said, yes, it seems to be the name. His son went to see Vice Governor Wang, asked about the situation, glared hard at Wang Zhongyu, and left without looking back. Some people say that his son, who works for the U.S. government and is highly paid, wrote a check to his father and came back to repay his father for paying for his study. Others say that Liu Mingwei, who works for the U.S. government, knew that Wang Zhongyu had a daughter studying in the U.S. and had bought a mansion with cash in Los Angeles during her studies. Liu Mingwei later reminded Wang Zhongyu, that Wang Zhongyu almost scared out of his wits. He immediately secretly funded out of his own pocket for Vice Governor Liu to go to Hong Kong for heart transplant surgery. So it is said that after recovering in Hong Kong, Vice Governor Liu pointed to his heart and jokingly said, “My heart is clouded!
Erqiang thought it was funny, so he laughed at first. The shadow gave him a thoughtful look, he felt strange, why is he here to investigate these things? Thinking like that, the shadow spoke: “Is there any other explanation?”
Erqiang thought for a moment and nodded, “There is another one, I heard from someone in the government department that this son is quite remarkable and knows someone in Beijing. He glared at Wang Zhongyu a few times before leaving in a huff. He walked out of the government building and stood there, taking out an American cell phone and dialing a number. The doorman at the government building later said the call was made to the 01 area code for Beijing. With that phone call,” Erqiang said, sounding puzzled, “everything was done! Vice Governor Liu was later flown to Hong Kong on a special plane for an operation. You say this son Liu Mingwei is really good, who does he know in which work units?”
Seeing Shadow’s pensive look, Erqiang also stopped and felt that something needed to be thought about, almost simultaneously, they both thought of the words “Ministry of State Security”.
Shadow was Liu Mingwei’s old classmate. He knew that his father was his biggest supporter, their ancestors for eight generations finally culminated in such a vice governor. And Wang Zhongyu could not possibly pay for Liu Mingwei’s vice-governor treatment out of his own pocket: the more corrupt an official is, the more petty he is in this regard. The most important factor is that Liu Mingwei’s salary was not low, but I heard that the money he borrowed while studying abroad has just been paid off, there is no way he could have gotten that much money to treat his father. What about that special plane? Liu Mingwei’s phone call could only have gone to one place: he must have called someone in the Ministry of State Security with this thought, here, Shadow broke out in a cold sweat –
Yin Erqiang also suddenly thought of the “Ministry of State Security”, but he thought, “What is the need for agents of the Ministry of State Security to inquire about these claims? Doesn’t Anhui have a public security department? Besides, wasn’t Vice Governor Liu playing chess there? Why not go to him directly? –Thinking about this, Yin Erqiang felt that he should take another look at the person’s papers, but when he looked up after making up his mind, he realized that the shadow man had already disappeared without leaving a trace.
A High Tech Park in Virginia, USA.
Although this technology park was already ten years old, some areas are still under construction, but the road is very smooth. David Tian always slows down after turning his car into the park, admiring the new four- or five-story office buildings or high-tech factories, as well as the construction scaffolding on the vacant lots, which more or less remind him of China, where he has not been back for several years. In the 1980s and 1990s, when Tian Haipeng started his business in Guangzhou, there were construction sites and scaffolding everywhere – it was a thriving scene. Later, when he came to the United States, he was amazed at how neat and tidy everything was in the United States, but he also felt that something was missing. Not long ago, I was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency to teach an intelligence analysis training course in China twice a month, so he went to the Science and Technology Park and almost immediately fell in love with the environment and my feelings here.
The Sherman Kent School of Intelligence Analysis is the first comprehensive intelligence analysis training center of the Central Intelligence Agency, established in May 2003. David Tian looked out of the car window and could already see the five-story building, which appeared to be no different on the outside from the building next to it, with the exterior walls still having the color of a new building and the teal glass immaculate. However, the cost of this building is 20 times the cost of the building next to it, with a total cost of $300 million.
After two turns, David Tian was already at the garage door, he stopped the car, took out his magnetic card, gently scratched it on the door post, and then waited for the automatic door to open with ease. In less than thirty seconds, the door slowly opened, David Tian gently stepped on the accelerator, and the car slid into the garage. A normal person would have thrown up if he wasn’t enjoying himself. In those thirty seconds, David Tian’s pulse, body temperature, scent, resume, and other profile information appeared on at least three computer screens that were being watched. This is the most heavily guarded place in the world, the entire building is made of special materials, only the outer wall hides sixty-three of the most sophisticated cameras, in addition to countless body temperature detection, dangerous object and chemical gas detection devices.
The Kent School of Intelligence and Analysis is located on the second floor of this building, and David Tian entered the elevator and pressed the number 2. He knew that this press, fingerprint analysis to further confirm his identity. He remembered that he was quite nervous when he came here before, when he was stuck in the elevator for ten minutes, because his fingertips trembled when he pressed the elevator, which made the fingerprint reading problematic. David Tian was transferred to the FBI’s China Division last year after he became responsible for liaison with the CIA, and later he often played tug-of-war with the CIA’s intelligence analysis experts. It was often like chickens arguing with ducks — as if they had no common language. Of course, they often argued until they were red in the face. But at the time of these arguments, one man, Fran Barker, a CIA intelligence analyst, took notice of him.
After Fran later became the first director of the Kent School of Intelligence and Analysis, he invited David Tian to be a special guest teacher for the Intelligence School’s Chinese Intelligence Analysis course. David Tian was thrilled to secretly report the news back to China, and from then on, his old classmates often secretly passed some “teaching materials” to David Tian. This made him unique in the Kent School of Intelligence and Analysis, and he soon established himself there. The China Intelligence Analysis Course was offered only once every two years for six months, during which David Tian came to the school twice a month. His course was mostly a seminar filled with examples of successful and unsuccessful intelligence analysis of China in the history of the CIA.
As the elevator doors opened, David Tian straightened his collar and stepped out of the elevator with ease. Today did not see a few security guards, but he knew that this could not mean anything, the walls around you are everywhere cameras, everywhere is the liquid, body temperature and other high-tech detectors, in the corridor here accidentally fart, in the first floor security room in front of the computer screen will be several big nose chemical odor analysis experts there to analyze the composition and data in your farts.
The CIA staff basically consists of three parts. One part is what you see on the TV screen in Washington all day long, including the director and a group of executive officers. They are in and out of the White House, advising the president, and then they appear at congressional hearings, and of course the most common occasions are when they go around trying to increase intelligence funding. These people are in charge of the CIA, in charge of the CIA and the White House, communication and contact with Congress. They are in the news a lot, but unfortunately for them, no news is good news. When they are in the news, it usually means where there is a mistake.
Another group of people are called agents, intelligence officers, or spies. There are probably thousands of them, and the exact number is probably unclear even to the director of the CIA, because some of them are probably dead people who are “invented” to get money. These spies are all over the place, so to speak, but you can never see them on television. The only way to see them is in the movies, but that’s mostly what the Hollywood movies have portrayed. Some of these people belong to the official CIA establishment, while others are spies that they, the official establishment, have bought and developed all over the world. Their job is to eat up $30 billion a year in intelligence funding while governments, organizations, and individuals in all corners of the world collect information on behavior, state of mind, etc., and funnel it back to the CIA’s Virginia headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Of course, of what these profligate spies send back from around the world, probably more than 80 percent of the intelligence is garbage. They don’t worry about that, because the money they spend means they always have to send something back. The task of separating the raw material of intelligence from the tons of information from the garbage and the essence is the work of the third kind of person.
The CIA Kent School of Intelligence and Analysis trains this third type of person. They are called intelligence analysis specialists. They are generally not involved in planning and organizing intelligence-gathering activities around the world, they cannot embezzle intelligence funds, and of course they can only live on a meager salary. If they want to become a team leader, deputy director, or even the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, it is also difficult for them to rise to the top. They do not have the opportunity to be on TV news, much less the kind of role favored by directors of Hollywood movies. They are buried for long periods of time with reams of information to read. For the sake of secrecy, they must work independently.
Because they spend their days reading and working alone, most analysts end up with hemorrhoids and bad breath after a few years. That is why the CIA has them take training courses every two years. When you try to teach these people in class, they have this habit of slouching around with their coffee, arguing back and forth, it is a real pain – you feel like strangling them!
Yet it is just those people who write the most expensive and lowest circulation newspaper in the world – The President’s Daily Brief…..
The class of eleven men and ten women settled in. In addition to the school’s regular teachers, who focus on basic education, the school regularly invites guest lecturers from all over the Washington, DC area, including think tankers from the Heritage Foundation, the Atlantic Council, etc. David Tian was excited about the opportunity – and Yang Wenfeng had planned it that way. Getting into the CIA directly is difficult, but getting into the FBI first and then moving to the CIA was much easier, especially in the post-9/11 environment.
But David Tian knew that they were one of the most influential and perhaps the most powerful groups in Washington. They produce the most expensive “newspaper” in the world, the Daily Presidential Briefing, which is read daily by the twelve most powerful people in the United States, including the President, the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Vice President. Only 31 copies of The President’s Daily Briefing are printed each day, each brief averaging seven pages and no more than three pages of attachments, including photographs, but each copy costs an average of $3.2 million!
David was now standing among them, lily-white white people. The good thing is that these white people are either a little hunchbacked or have uneven body development due to sitting in the office for a long time. This makes David Tian, who is currently successfully losing weight, feel more comfortable.
“Last time we talked about different sources of intelligence coming out of China and a nuanced approach to intelligence analysis for intelligence coming from those different sources.” Knowing that he would probably have to wait until the sun went west before he could speak, David Tian cleared his throat and began to address the two dozen Chinese intelligence analysts. “Let’s start here by reviewing the highlights of our last lecture. Now that we have entered the information age, our intelligence agencies and intelligence personnel are piling piles of documents, reports, and all kinds of information, news, and other raw materials on our desks every day. So it’s not a matter of worrying about a lack of information and sources, it’s a matter of worrying about too much information. Our task is to sort out which is the information we need and which is the real information.
Eleven men and ten women gradually settled down. In addition to a permanent faculty for basic training, many subjects are taught or discussions led by elite Washington experts from all walks of life, hired on an ad hoc basis. Among the most invited are various Washington think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the American Enterprise Institute, the Atlantic Council, etc. David Tian was invited for a reason, which was also planned by Yang Wenfeng from the very beginning. When Tian Haipeng had some doubts about joining the FBI instead of the CIA, Yang Wenfeng told him that under the current circumstances it was impossible to join the CIA undercover.
A half-baked Chinese immigrant like Tian Haipeng would have no place there. Even if he got into the FBI, Tian Haipeng also betrayed Little Jiangxi. He then sat on the bench for over a year before being reinstated. Once in the FBI, approaching the CIA is relatively easy, because since the “9/11” terrorist incident, the two agencies have strengthened their communication and intelligence exchange. In the process of contacting the CIA, Tian Haipeng was not confident for a long time. Each time he memorized the “arguments” and “views” that were secretly given to him, and then boldly argued for contacts with CIA personnel. Soon his “arguments” were taken seriously and he was invited to present them. Now, although he still relies mainly on the “textbooks” he received from the other side, he often begins to interject his own opinions, after all, he also studied international politics and international relations. Tian Haipeng likes his job more and more.
“Let’s go over it again, and then we’ll have a discussion, and I’d like you to bring some examples to discuss. Of course, please don’t take examples that are too sensitive.” David spoke calmly on the surface, but not from the heart; these intelligence analysts in front of him knew more about China than any agent or spy. David Tian liked the school’s teaching method of using real-life examples of failures and successes as the main axis of instruction; he could get a lot of what he wanted out of it. Although both the principal and he had previously stressed to the students that they should not analyze recent examples, these analysts, who had worked alone for so long and were so lonely, would not miss this opportunity to show their omniscience.
“I will ask the questions first, and everyone is free to answer without raising their hands.” David Tian said, “Let’s start with the most voluminous source of information – the various documents.”
“I’ll do the talking.” A fat white man standing in the middle put down his coffee; Davidian remembered him as a doctor who read Chinese well but spoke poorly. “Various documents from China are by far our greatest source of information. These documents are obtained in a variety of ways, from bribing Chinese Communist officials, to being automatically delivered to our doorstep, to being obtained by technical means, and of course, being purchased from intermediaries. The most important feature of these documents is that they are reliable, but I think we all know that there are indeed too many documents in this country, and they are marked top secret at every turn, so that at one point our intelligence officers had to say to people inside the Chinese government who wanted to sell documents, “Brother, you have too many people selling documents, and the number of documents you have is too high for people to be suspicious. Be suspicious, lower your prices.'”
Everyone laughed, and Dr. Fat was very proud: “I’m going to tell you a joke that’s not a joke, because there are too many documents in mainland China, and more and more people are contacting us to sell them, so some of us in the office are wondering if the Beijing government is playing a trick on us. Maybe their government is secretly printing documents for sale after they discovered that they can sell them for tens of thousands of dollars with a few lines of Chinese characters and the words Top Secret. Have you not noticed that the Chinese government makes more money printing documents than it does printing money?”
“Go on.” David Tian reminded the fat doctor, not wanting his class to be overwhelmed with jokes and humor.
“As Mr. Tian said last time, there are also traps in analyzing the intelligence of these documents, the most important one is that although these documents are marked top secret and classified, many of them are just official flashy propaganda and hopes that do not reflect the reality of China at all, and some of them do not even represent the Chinese leaders; these documents become freaks in their kind of system. Reporting such documents to the president would be a big mistake.”
“Not bad!” David Tian agreed with the fat doctor, and after waiting for a few others to add a few points, he said, “The document as intelligence has a reliable side, after all, it is black and white, even if the Chinese government often mouths the truth, but falsehoods are engaged in for a long time, but also from time to time some real information will leak out. I still think the documents will be important as a source of information in the future. The problem now is that a lot of important decisions do not necessarily result in documents, or important documents are given to an extremely small number of people and are simply not available. So our second source of information to summarize is information that is compiled from oral communications from Chinese officials or other people. Who’s going to talk about it?
The female intelligence analyst sitting in the front row leaned over and said, “We’re getting more and more of this kind of information because of the increased personnel exchanges between the U.S. and China, but I always find it confusing, I find the Chinese very untrustworthy.”
There was another burst of laughter, David Tian laughed too, and in a particularly natural way. He cleared his throat, everyone heard it, the laughter gradually subsided, “If what they say is true, then we can just print it out and report it, why do we need intelligence analysts?”
The female intelligence analyst blushed and continued, “I really think the Chinese are particularly complex, and it’s not as if we at the CIA didn’t learn our lesson some years ago. When the Cold War had just ended, we turned our attention to China, and that regime was repressing dissidents to the point of insanity. When we at the CIA saw Chinese people opposing the Chinese government, we rushed to get a package of money to fund them, but in a flash, maybe the very next day, these Chinese people who were full of anger at the corruption of the Chinese government and demanding democracy were buying nice cars and houses with our money. What a disappointment.”
“Many of the Chinese informants we are currently using are economically questionable, what the Chinese government calls corrupt criminals.” Another stoic man said, “But they always deliberately distort some facts to confuse us.”
“That’s a problem.” David Tian said, “In fact, of all the various sources of intelligence, human intelligence is the least trusted. Intelligence officers on the front lines or behind enemy lines always have a tendency to exaggerate the facts, and for them that may be tied to funding. For example, an escaped Chinese embezzler will portray the Chinese government as a very bad example, so they can be taken more seriously and get more funding, while appearing to be right. But that’s the main reason we intelligence analysts are needed, isn’t it?”
“Let me add something to that.” The stoic intelligence analyst said. “Although technical intelligence from the NSA and the Pentagon is becoming more and more important, and they get forty-five percent of all intelligence, we get only 20 percent of our intelligence from secret human intelligence alone (the rest is open intelligence analysis), and we have all suffered from disinformation, but let us not forget that human intelligence is still the most important, and our failures are also mainly in human intelligence.”
“Well said!” David Tian raised his voice, “We have sophisticated spy satellites and the most advanced electronic eavesdropping equipment, no country in this world can hide from our eyes and ears when they want to move their troops. Through technical intelligence, we can learn within minutes what some people are doing and what kind of weapons they have in all corners of the world. Specifically with regard to China, we know almost every type of weapon they have, and through analysis and comparison, we also know that the weapons they have now are far behind what Taiwan has, let alone compared to what we have in the United States. So who can tell me, given that, what do we need secret human intelligence for?”
After a moment of cross-talk, an old intelligence analyst in his fifties spoke up, “It’s true that we know about the Chinese weapons, but we’re not entirely sure what’s going on in the minds of those who control them.”
“Very good!” David Tian slapped the table, in fact, David himself had known that the people in front of him were the elite of the intelligence community, hidden dragons and crouching tigers. Being a teacher here does not mean that you are erudite or know more than the students, but rather that you are specialized in a certain field. David Tian looked at the old man with admiration, his eyes fixed on the blue nameplate on his chest, “What you say is very thought-provoking. Allow me to borrow some of it. With China, we know that all the weapons they have are at least twenty-five years behind the United States, a fact that intelligence from satellite photos and electronic eavesdropping technology tells us every day. So can we not conclude from this information that even if we, the United States, support Taiwan’s declaration of independence, the government of mainland China must keep its mouth shut and not dare to engage in military adventures? Because any reasonable person knows that using the weapons that the United States had twenty-five years ago to fight the United States and Taiwan is like hitting a rock with an egg.
After a pause and a sip of coffee, David Tian added: “I think you know better than I do that such a conclusion would be fatal, because the brains that hold the weapons in China that are twenty-five years behind us do not work like our brains. In mainland China, when it comes to national dignity and national sovereignty, they believe that no toy can overcome their heads! They still preach from time to time, “With a little rice and a rifle, we’ll defeat the American empire and Chiang,” so I think the gentleman who just spoke was very good. As an intelligence analyst, can we set a motto like this: not only to know what weapons they have in their pockets, but also to understand how they want to use that weapon in their heads! To know what weapons people have that can rely on metal detectors, because to know what people are thinking in their heads, it is not a matter of taking an EEG, it requires human intelligence.”
David Tian stopped and took a sip of coffee, not looking at the stage, but apparently the students below were once again attracted to the teacher. Subconsciously, David Tian felt a great admiration for Yang Wenfeng. How did he come up with this trick to make me speak like a real intelligence analysis expert? He looked at the time and thought, it’s time to change the subject, it’s time for me to learn something from you. He said, “We were taken aback by the success of the Indian nuclear tests in 1998, when in fact we would not have been taken aback if only we had developed a major-level soldier in the Indian military as an intelligence officer, not to mention the ‘9/11’ terrorist incident here. We thought that terrorists hiding in rat holes with a few broken assault rifles were not enough to worry about. Apparently, we forgot that their most profitable weapon was their fanatical minds. Then there’s our obsession with weapons in Iraq. So who here can cite our intelligence successes and failures on China over the years to illustrate the importance of human intelligence analysis?”
As soon as the question came up, David Tian noticed that almost every student’s mouth was eager to spit something out. I’ll have to digest this slowly! David Tian thought, sitting down comfortably and crossing his feet on the desk.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (16)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 30, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 16: Pornographic Spies
In a lovers’ hotel in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, the man is half lying on the bed and the woman, with her back to the bed, is struggling to turn both hands inside out to fasten the hooks of her bra, which took several tries to fasten. The woman said quietly, “If it was like it was before, you would have come over to help me.”
“I’m a little tired.” The man on the bed had weariness in his voice.
“Tired?” The woman deliberately looked surprised, “How can you be tired today?” The woman pulled the thong panties stained with the man’s semen from her thighs, “I haven’t seen you in two years, I thought you’d be more aroused, but – ugh, you don’t feel it at all.”
“Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I’ve made love-“
“Made love?” The woman turned her head to interrupt the man on the bed, “We never had sex, we called it sex aquatic! I like sex, I like the way you’re full of animal excitement, pounding me, pinching me, squeezing me, filling me. The fact is, you’re going to get a lot more than a few of these. “
“Qingqing,” the man on the bed leaned over slightly, “I think I still love you, I just can’t make love that passionately anymore.”
Guo Qingqing crumpled up the torn thong panties into a ball, stuffed it between her legs and rubbed it, “Even though I’ve been in hiding for the past two years, I haven’t forgotten you for a moment. But recently, I began to seriously think, you say, if the two of us are not so quarrelsome, tormenting each other, can the two of us still maintain the relationship for so long?”
The man did not answer, so Guo Qingqing continued, “If we were like ordinary lovers who got married after graduating from college, what would it be like now?
The man still did not answer. The man is thinking, indeed, so many years and still it is hard to be apart from Guo Qingqing, it was a desperate feeling — we are sad when we are together and sad when we are apart. I don’t know how much energy we waste on this. If we had gotten married when we graduated from college, we would be together now, whether we were divorced or still married. Maybe there really isn’t a problem. No matter what, things would be like they are now. But when the man thought about that, he stopped. He remembered why the woman had come today.
“Qingqing, I think it’s time to end our relationship like this once and for all!”
“I agree!” Guo Qingqing’s voice clearly showed her displeasure, and after throwing her thong panties into the trash can, she picked up a pair of lace panties from the floor and lifted her right leg to put them on.
“Qingqing, don’t play around, I’m serious.” The man supported his head with his hand and turned to the side, “When I used to make love to you, no, even if you say sexually, I did it while fantasizing about your sordid affair. Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine that you are having sex with others, or that I am forcing you to drink, so that the fantasy makes me particularly excited and emotional, unusually excited. But today I wanted to be normal, so I was very gentle, holding you, entering while thinking, this is the Qingqing I have loved for more than ten years. But…”
The man sighed, “But I can’t muster up any energy, I think we should really end this!
The woman tucked in her other leg and pulled up her lace panties. The woman heard the man’s words and stopped, as if lost in thought, her bulging nipples seemingly ready to burst through her bra.
The man spoke again: “I’ve been thinking, it is this mutual torture, this perverse sexual wilderness, that keeps our relationship going for so long with undiminished enthusiasm. But this is not the issue, and I would like to ask you to come with me, just to make it clear.
The woman turned around, walked back to the bed, sat down, and spoke only after a while: “I know it’s hard sometimes. Remember when you were impotent, I used to try to tell you about my slutty affairs with others so that you would get hard? Sometimes I had to make up stories to get you back on your feet, which was quick at the time and a little hard on the heart afterwards.” The woman reached out and stroked the man’s hair, “I have also thought about changing our relationship completely, although the sex after every big fight was especially exciting, the cost was too high. So I want to end our relationship today.”
“Good!” There was determination in the man’s voice, “That’s it, because I’ve also been getting busier and busier lately, and I really can’t be distracted anymore.”
“I know.” The woman said gently, “Although you have gained more muscles on your body, your face full of fatigue cannot escape my eyes. Thank you, you worked hard to clear my name. And put several of our classmates in danger.”
“Clearing one’s name was only one reason; the accidents of our classmates were others. But the truth is that since I left the Ministry of State Security, I’ve felt that I’ve lost my way in life. Ever since I came up with the action plan, I seem to have rediscovered my way in life,” the man said emotionally. The man said with emotion.
“I know, you are a born secret agent. By the way, there’s one thing I don’t understand… Since you made the action plan and the whole operation is already underway, but why did you keep silent and leave the operation center far away?” The woman asked confused.
“Since I was the one who made the plan and directed the whole operation, I had to leave the operation center. Otherwise, if something happens, I won’t be able to understand the situation or remedy it. As for the action plan, the man’s voice has clearly regained its calm and confidence.
“Then why are you pretending to be dead again?”
“Because,” said the man on the bed, “the man who made you the target of the trap actually wanted something to happen to me, which means he’s afraid of me. So if I don’t die, he won’t reveal it. Besides, some of them are very close to me, so if I don’t die, people can easily find the connections between us.”
“I love your confidence!” The woman said, “Whether you completely clear my name or not, I feel good. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in hiding, and now you are the only one who can do me justice and clear my name. I don’t know if I can help you, but I don’t think I can stay away. Besides, we are old classmates.”
“I really need manpower, Beijing is only willing to give me extremely limited cooperation, but nothing in terms of personnel. All I can do is use everyone I sent out.” The man said sullenly.
“Then you can make me part of your team as well. Anyway, now that we’re not lovers, wouldn’t it be convenient to fuck? Besides, my face is not exposed now, only you know my face. I can still move around.”
“That’s true. But what can you do?” The man asked with a slight frown.
“Don’t you know me yet?” Guo Qingqing said petulantly.
“Unfortunately,” the man sighed softly, “Just because you know too much, you don’t know what you are capable of!”
“You know, women and men are just the opposite, men can turn love into motivation, so men with love can be full of energy, going forward; women are just the opposite, women full of love tend to just look cute and helpless. They don’t want to do anything, they just don’t want to do anything. However, if a woman does not have the burden of love, she can do anything.” Guo Qingqing said as if making a speech, and the man stared at her thoughtfully. “Do you know what the two oldest professions in the world are? Prostitutes and spies! Only women are allowed to participate in these two ancient professions.”
“What exactly are you trying to say? Do you already have an idea?” The man interrupted Guo Qingqing.
“I want to…” Guo Qingqing stopped at the end of her sentence and hesitated a bit. The man pushed his body a little higher and looked at her with encouragement, Guo Qingqing finally said quickly as if she had made up her mind.
“I want to be a sex spy!”
“I’m serious!” Guo Qingqing was already fully dressed and sitting on the chair by the window. “Don’t think I’m talking nonsense to stimulate your x-lust!”
The man on the bed seemed to be shocked and did not move for a while, watching as Guo Qingqing finished her sentence and then calmly put on the light blue suit piece by piece.
“Don’t think that only you men can be politicians, conspirators, and spies, I always wanted to be a spy too. When I read picture books as a child, I most envied those female Nationalist spies in full uniforms with red lipstick. Why do you think I want to study international relations and international politics?”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with being a spy,” the man chimed in, “but why do you want to be a porn spy?”
“Sex spies are exciting. Besides, porn spies are all beautiful women, so I fit the bill, right? I can’t waste my million dollars! You know, almost all the famous beauties in Chinese history are famous for being porn spies.” The woman said with interest.
The man grunted, Guo Qingqing ignored, and then spoke like a family of beautiful spies in Chinese history: “Do you know that there are four beautiful women in Chinese history? It is Xi Shi, Diao Chan, Wang Zhaojun and Yang Yuhan. This Yang Yuhuan was so beautiful that she even attracted birds and animals, but she brought disaster to the people and the country. During the Cultural Revolution, she would have been accused of being a secret agent. The other three were secret agents sent specifically to develop their identities. They are all pornographic spies who use their beauty to confuse the enemy in order to gain information for their masters. Xi Shi’s incomparably beautiful face was offered by King Goujian to King Fucha of Wu/ She enchanted him to the point that he became indifferent to state affairs even as a rebellion was brewing. She played a major role in the resurrection of Goujian. Diao Chan was a professional spy, and she did a better job than Xi Shi. She used her beauty to make Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu’s father and son kill each other, and by Lu Bu’s hand, she removed her political enemy Dong Zhuo for her godfather -“
“You want to be famous before you go spying?” The man asked, confused.
“Not really, I just find it exciting. But then again, who doesn’t want to be famous? But for a woman to be famous is not easy ah. The four beauties were born at the right time — in chaotic times. Now we are living in a peaceful and prosperous world, to be famous where so easy ah. Look at how out of Guangzhou came Mu Zimei . To become famous, she to put people’s genitals into her mouth how the feeling are written out in great detail. She got famous but the limelight soon faded; men got a little tired of it. The men don’t care how you feel, they want to see the real thing! So immediately appeared the Bamboo Shadow Green Pupil I heard of female graduate students, and people’s teachers, in order to be famous would go in front of a camera to take off clothes and pants? Hum, but I heard that the men’s enthusiasm for thatonly lasted a week or two. You see, it’s not easy for women to become famous! I think it’s not long before women want to make men more interested, for a longer time, they have to be like Japanese women, with their asses in front of the camera, shitting and peeing for men to see -“
“Well, the more you talk like that, the more you go too far-“
“Are you cocked up again?” Guo Qingqing asked playfully.
“No!” The man said, sitting up from the bed, while dressing and said in a bad mood: “Now I have two brothers, one deep in the tiger’s cave and another trapped in a dilemma. What do you think I am?!”
“That’s what I like about you, working with a straight face. Listen to me, let me join your team, as a pornographic spy!” Guo Qingqing’s voice was eager, and her two big watery eyes stared eagerly at the man.
“Qingqing, there is no such thing as a sex spy anywhere.” The man began to put on his pants. “The former Soviet Union had a swallow school, supposedly specializing in training sex spies. However most of the stories about those sex spies were made up by Western intelligence agencies, newspapers and media and literature before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Do you really think there were so many sexy affairs in the spy struggle? Otherwise, so many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more facts would have been revealed, but where have you seen them?
After the end of the Cold War, the Soviet KGB was disbanded and many of the inside stories were supposed to be revealed, but haven’t you noticed how the stories about the KGB that circulated during the Cold War are slowly disappearing? Do you know why? The reason is simple: many of the stories about the former Soviet KGB were fabricated by the intelligence services of Western countries. Besides, apart from the former Soviet Union, there aren’t many countries in the world that explicitly use pornography as a means of espionage. In our country, from the Special Branch to the current Ministry of State Security, it is clearly stated that sex should not be used as a means of gathering intelligence. Of course, most of what people currently call sex spies refer to those female spies who have sex with others at work, and then these stories are spiced up by the media. How can I arrange for you to be some kind of sex spy, now that you’ve suddenly had the idea of being one?
agencies” by Prof. Saša MIJALKOVIĆ, PhD
Academy of Criminalistic and Police Studies, Belgrade
“So that’s it,” Guo Qingqing looked rather disappointed, “that’s disappointing.”
“But maybe -” This time, it was the man’s turn to stop talking.
“But what, come on.” Guo Qingqing urged.
“You know that my current plan is only for a few of us and has nothing to do with the state. Originally, it was to find out which of our classmates was a traitor and which one was plotting for the CIA to frame them. But after the work was done, it turned out to be more and more related to national security. For example, the Beijing Olympics were getting closer and closer. I found out from outside sources that something big might happen around the Olympics, even involving international terrorist organizations and individuals! Now the situation is that I have outside sources, including in the United States, but I can’t get cooperation from domestic agencies and individuals. Director Zhou of the Ministry of State Security has blocked almost all my sources on the grounds of secrecy. So I can’t get to know my enemy. So lately I have been thinking that I need to establish an inside line in Beijing, and I need regular and reliable access to important secrets. Although it is very easy to buy one or two officials in Beijing, it is not possible to get access to top secret information about the Olympics without a high level of access. And a high level would take some time and a lot of money, which I can’t afford right now. Besides, I’m not very mobile at the moment, and since Director Zhou can find me, he can send someone to follow me at any time. So I thought maybe you could come in handy!!!”
“Does it have something to do with sex spies?” Guo Qingqing asked with a face full of dissatisfaction. “From what you say, it sounds like you want me to spy on the Chinese government?”
“I want to gather information about the Chinese government, but it is not to be used against the Chinese government, I need to know my enemy -“
“Come on, as long as I can be a sex spy, I don’t care who I have to deal with!” Guo Qingqing looked like she was going out of her way.
“Don’t even think about being a sex spy,” the man stood up resolutely, “but there is another job that might suit you.”
“What kind of job?” Guo Qingqing asked impatiently.
“Go be someone’s mistress!” The man lowered his voice and squeezed out the words in a harsh voice.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (17)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 30, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 17: Reasoning
A motel in Northwest Washington near the Maryland border.
“I can’t believe you’re smoking.” David Tian, pushing the door open, shouted in surprise at the person surrounded by smoke.
The person reclining on the sofa under the window, almost completely enveloped in smoke, heard David Tian’s voice, the figure nodded, waved hello, and then the man, choking on his own exhaled smoke, coughed.
“You can get lung cancer, smoking is dangerous to your health, smoking can be fatal…” David Tian sat down on a small couch next to him. “Man, I know you’re under a lot of pressure to think and you started smoking, but you still have to take care of your body!”
“Thanks, but I don’t smoke to help me think, I use nicotine to numb my nerves that prevent me from thinking properly.” The smoker said.
“Oh my God, what are you talking about? You let smoking nicotine ruin your normal thinking?”
“Exactly! Our action has begun, and now the most frightening thing is to think normally, which will make us look ahead and be afraid, which will eventually lead to failure. We have already begun to act, there is no going back, we can only go forward. If my mind is particularly active at this time, it would be dangerous for everyone. I think it is more important for the whole operation to continue than for me to have lung cancer alone. The smoker finished, then choked on his own exhaled smoke and coughed. “For people who are addicted to smoking, smoking makes them think, but for me, a non-smoker, smoking is like knocking me out. Of course, if I need to think positively, I’ll quit, don’t worry. By the way, you’ve lost about a dozen pounds, right?”
“Twenty-two pounds to be exact.” David Tian proudly puffed out his chest.
“Strange, your ‘One Year Plan’ has made many people’s dreams come true, and I’ve started training and practicing, but you can’t lose weight, so how come you lost weight so quickly after coming to America?”
“I think it’s because my ‘One-Year Plan,’ while motivating others, did not appeal to me. It was not until I came here and became a senior counterintelligence agent with the FBI that I found the motivation to lose weight. I love my job at the FBI, and I lost weight for it.
“I know,” Smoker said, his voice a little raspy. “I know, and that’s why I took the risk to see you. I can see you enjoy your job too much.”
“But-” David Tian tried to argue and was stopped by a wave of the smoker’s hand.
“We don’t have much time, so let’s get straight to the point. I think everything is going very well since you joined the FBI. I don’t doubt that something will go wrong with you, but there are some ideological clues you need to be reminded of. You may think it’s ridiculous for me to mention ideological issues now, and it’s true that in real life this word is only associated with communist education, but we are in a special job now, and our ideology is the most important thing.
I have told you before that spying is not just a profession, and that working as a spy should be more like an ideal. Some people who work as spies gradually indulge in thrilling activities and whimsical fantasies. In doing so, they gradually abandon the ambition that led them to choose the profession in the first place. Such spies may be able to carry out some of the tasks assigned to them, but in a complex environment, they often tend to lose themselves. Therefore, our intelligence work and the intelligence work of other countries in the world pay great attention to ideological and political education. Only then can do out of the mud and not stained, to be like the Northeast of the great white radish – white skin and red heart!”
The smoker took a drag on his cigarette and continued, “I should tell you up front that you’re doing a great job, especially the information you’ve gotten from talking to CIA intelligence analysts, and it’s so important that I’m not worried about your work. However, I can see from the questions you asked in passing when you recently sent back the intelligence that your thinking has wavered. I don’t think this is the result of deliberate brainwashing by the FBI or the CIA. However, now that you’ve worked in the field for a long time, and your contacts include people, information, intelligence, etc. It’s unlikely that you would want to be uninfluenced in any way. Although I also have some work to do and some questions to ask you, this can all be done through secret communication. For this ideological and political work, we must meet, so I flew over to risk a meeting with you.
“What was the question you just referred to that I sent back to you -“
“I was referring to the incident you mentioned in passing when you sent back important information that you asked me to investigate in China.”
Hearing this, David Tian’s face twitched and the Smoker noticed his expression. David Tian shifted his hips and raised his voice slightly, “I am alone, but I feel like I am deep inside the tiger right now, risking my life. Shouldn’t I have the right to know what the government of the country I work for is doing?! For example, under the pretext that stability is paramount and that the 2008 Olympic Games should run smoothly, the government has taken the outrageous step of removing some of the brain cells of dissidents? How else can I work in peace?”
“Don’t get excited,” the Smoke Man interrupted David Tian with a cold expression. “Today is for me to tell you the results of my investigation and give you a satisfactory answer. At the beginning, due to time constraints, we were unable to communicate in detail and rushed for you to infiltrate the most sensitive departments in the United States. I should tell you, old classmate, perhaps your international knowledge and social experience are richer than mine, but the department where you now work every day is the most confusing place in the world. You usually come into contact with either the CIA or the NSA, and over time you think, oh, I’m the person who knows the most secrets in the world and the person who knows the most truth in the world. So you start to disconnect from the real world. You think that the real world is all lies, and you come to believe that only what you see and hear in the CIA and the FBI is the truth. After a short time, you even begin to disconnect from yourself, forgetting how we all rely on our own eyes to understand society, rely on our own feelings of happiness and pain to distinguish between good and evil, rely on our own minds to distinguish between good and evil.
“Yes, in many areas you are coming into contact with more and more truths and facts, but at the same time you are unconsciously moving away from more and more truths and facts. Eventually, you can’t properly judge whether or not what you’re coming into contact with is actually fact and truth.
“I saw the questions in the intelligence report that you reported back and realized that you must have been both bitter and angry at the time when you saw this intelligence from the CIA. You must have thought, oh my God, is this the country and the government I risked my life for? It’s understandable, because when I saw your report, I was also very shocked, even though in my gut I didn’t think this could happen in our country, but your source was the CIA, and isn’t that the most efficient and effective place in the world for uncovering the truth and uncovering privacy? It is also the best spy agency in the world and the envy of all those who do our work.
“Out of an abundance of caution and in order to give you an explanation, I conducted a thorough investigation into the matter. First, I interviewed a medical authority in Beijing, the same old man who was so bold and outspoken when SARS broke out in China a few years ago. I politely asked if medicine had advanced to the point where it could operate on the brain to change people’s thoughts and behavior. Dr. Jiang perked up when he heard this and said, “Of course, do you know what the most mysterious toy in the world is? Then he pointed to his own head and said, “It’s our brain! We humans already know astronomy, geography, and now the ship not only to the moon, and will soon migrate to Mars – truly omnipotent human ah. Unfortunately, when I asked Dr. Jiang what was so unfortunate, he said: Humans seem to know everything about things outside the body, but they are confused about their own body, especially the brain, which runs our human society. Our brains allow us to gain knowledge, to explore the outside world, to distinguish ourselves from animals, to think, and to act. The kind of brain makes the kind of person, the kind of person makes the kind of society, right? But what do we know about the brain?
“Jiang Dafu was very interested, so I listened patiently. It took a while for his old man to turn from the world of science back to my question. The answer to your question, he said, was yes, except that we had not done enough. Then Dr. Jiang told me that the hospital in our country that has done the most research in this field and has been conducting clinical trials for a long time is the Guangdong Sanjiu Brain Hospital.
“I hurriedly said goodbye to Dr. Jiang and secretly took the last flight back to Guangzhou that day. After some makeup and document preparation, I met with the hospital’s president and party secretary in the afternoon of the next day. He gave me a detailed description of the hospital’s research and clinical trials. The thing is, this technology is being researched abroad and its main purpose is to find a treatment for people with brain problems. For example, by removing a certain part of the brain tissue, people with neurological disorders can be brought back to normal; by removing a part of the brain of victims of violence or rape, they can completely forget the unpleasant past, and so on.
But this research is progressing very slowly, the reason being that humans have very limited knowledge about their own brains, and the biggest limitation comes from the impossibility of using living people for experiments. If you cut open the brain, you will find that the game is more complex than the entire universe, you cut off a little something, maybe you cut off a decade of memory. Or maybe you accidentally touch some invisible particle brain cells, the result may be that you touch and release the person’s propensity for violence. Of course, there is another reason why human brain research has been slow, and that is that the West has always believed that people are made by God, and that it is God’s will to make them the way they are, and that it is unethical to make them change their ways by removing some of their functional cells.
“Then the President and Party Secretary of the hospital went on to say that based on the results of foreign scientific research, our country has also conducted independent research, and Guangdong Sanjiu Brain Hospital can be considered the sole leader of the wind and horse flea in this field. In the course of the study, brain experts conducted EEGs on drug addicts in Guangdong’s drug rehabilitation centers, and the results made historic progress in the study. The experts found that there was severe alienation in the upper part of the hindbrain of severe drug addicts. Since this alienated part was extremely small and far away from important brain cells and brain tissue, it was still in an area that was relatively easy to remove, so the experts began to venture into the idea of whether it was possible to remove this small part of alienated brain cells and return these drug addicted patients to normal.
The experts began experimenting with drug-addicted monkeys, and the EEG of the addicted monkeys showed the same symptoms. The experts then used surgery to remove this abnormal part of the monkey’s brain from the response, and the monkeys were no longer interested in taking drugs the next day. The clinical trial began in late 2003 when drug addicts who were in pain and could not get clean no matter what volunteered to have their brains removed to help them get back to normal. Since the brain tissue that reflects the abnormal part is at the back of the brain case. The procedure is quite simple and works like this: under electromagnetic positioning, the doctor drills a small hole of about one centimeter in diameter in the patient’s brain case, sticks special electrodes and radio frequency equipment along the hole, and rubs cellular particles at the “pathological reward center” of the brain at a frequency of 400,000 to two million hertz, causing the cellular particles to rub together and generate heat, using the high temperature of 70 to 75 degrees Celsius to sever the connection between brain cells and eventually free the patient from drug addiction.
“This scientific approach is of course referred to in layman’s terms as ‘removing part of the brain’ – the first time the hospital did this trial it was so successful that the patients had a drop in IQ for one to two months after the operation, but two months later they were back to where they were before. The first study was very successful. The benefits of the surgery are clear for all to see, as many patients who were unable to kick their addiction were no longer dependent on drugs the day after the surgery. In China alone, there are more than one million serious drug addicts, and this scientific method can be their savior. But according to government regulations, even though this medical procedure has been repeatedly proven to be safe and reliable, patients undergoing the procedure must all sign their consent while completely sober, and have two relatives who are fully aware of the procedure sign it at the same time, before the hospital can proceed.
“The dean and the party secretary also told me that the public report on this news was the Sing Tao Daily in Hong Kong around the beginning of 2004. I then asked the dean if we had similar operations in our country to help people change their thinking patterns, or anything other than saving drug addicts by ‘removing’ brain cells. The dean replied in the negative, saying that there were only four or five hospitals in the country that had this equipment, and it was unlikely that there were more hospitals that could do it. In addition, drug addiction has an unusually pronounced effect on the human brain, and other undesirable behaviors, such as violence, do not have a pronounced effect on the human brain, so there is no possibility of treating them with the current method. But he does not exclude that in the future, when human understanding of the brain is further strengthened, we will be able to punch holes in the head at will, and then cut out our unpleasant memories, eliminate our bad habits, or increase the degree of our desire for good things, so that people can be motivated to strive for -“.
“So there’s nothing to it, this is the method to bring politically reactionary people into line?” David Tian eagerly interrupted to ask.
Smoker coughed and stopped, then stared at David Tian: “The director also told me that after the news was published in Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily, the hospital received many phone calls, mostly from relatives of drug users, but also from other people or organizations. For example, a human rights organization in the United States called, concerned about the legality and scientific validity of what we were doing, which we could understand, and invited them to send someone to the hospital so that we could explain it to them on the spot. But some time after the Sing Tao Daily report, we discovered the problem, which was that some tabloids in Hong Kong reported fabricated news that because the Olympics were approaching, the central government was afraid that some people would cause trouble, so they were locked up and sent to a hospital in Guangzhou for brain removal surgery to “restore” them to docile “normal people. These newspapers didn’t mention this hospital, so of course we didn’t have to step in to clarify, but then some human rights groups called and were less polite, openly questioning why we would do such a horrible thing, which we just found baffling.
“I didn’t expect you to hear this lie from the CIA either, and as if the evidence was overwhelming, don’t you find it funny? classmate!”
David Tian squirmed uncomfortably and did not speak. At that moment, the smoke man spoke again.
“This is the news you reported to me that made me sit up and take notice the most, so I specifically went to investigate it in detail, hoping that my conclusion would remove the doubts in your mind. You know that I am no longer a member of the national government, and there is no need to keep secrets for them, especially secrets like this, so you should trust me.
“As for some of the other things you read from the CIA about ‘the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party,’ etc., I can answer that for you right now. CIA intelligence says: China is a prison state, with thousands of people in prison, and the country with the most executions. But listen to me, thousands of criminals is clearly not an exaggeration, but a small number for a country of 1.3 billion people. The truth is that the United States is the number one country in the world in terms of people in prison, according to the average population, and it is the country that deserves to be in prison! It is true that China, like the United States, has not abolished the death penalty, and it is true that China has the highest number of executions in terms of absolute population. But a study of the specifics of executions shows that executions in China are carried out quite carefully, with almost 90 percent of those found guilty of killing someone, the other 10 percent having caused significant damage to the country and its people, including people guilty of major corruption. China has not executed a single dissident or political ideologue over the years, but that does not include those who have tried to subvert the government or the state and caused damage.
You also point out that the U.S. accuses Chinese prison inmates of serious human rights violations, as evidenced by the fact that they live “worse than dogs” with extremely poor food and are not served meat every day. There are also more serious allegations of so-called Chinese prison labor products. The U.S. government and some human rights organizations, backed by intelligence gathered by the CIA, accuse the Chinese government of forcing prison inmates to work without paying them for their labor and exporting these labor products to Western countries. I think, Haipeng, since you left China not long ago, I’ll make this short. American human rights organizations had their eyes on Chinese prisons in the 1980s based on CIA information, and the Chinese government at that time actively cooperated with the American authorities and some human rights organizations by supporting the people they sent to visit Chinese prisons, not excluding, of course, that the prisons we offered them to visit at that time were in relatively good condition. These Americans found that the prisoners were being served only one meal a day with meat, so they made a fuss about it, thinking that the prisoners were not getting enough food. They protested to the Chinese government and asked for donations to the prisons to improve the food for the prisoners. This request was denied on the spot by the Chinese authorities. I think, Haipeng, just think about it and you will understand why. China has over 150 million poor people, most of whom could not afford to eat a single meal of meat each week, but our American masters used human rights as an excuse to demand that the Chinese government provide three meals a day for criminals in prison. “
Smoker took a few hard puffs and David Tian took the opportunity to whisper, “The result would be that many farmers living below the poverty line would be scrambling to ask permission to move into the prison.”
As if he had not heard, Smoker exhaled and continued: “We have to admit that although there are poor people in the United States, most people there lead relatively prosperous lives. The statistics of the last few years said that the average annual cost of an American dog is three hundred and twenty-five dollars, which means that the standard of living of American dogs is higher than the standard of living of the vast majority of people in the Third World. So when they claim in the newspaper that “Chinese prisoners live less well than dogs,” they are stating part of the truth, but how you interpret that truth is a matter of your perception.
“Haipeng, I wonder if you can draw your own conclusions about the forced labor of prison inmates?”
David Tian raised his head, flapped his fingers and said, “China’s current unemployed population plus the remaining rural working population is about two hundred million, the urban unemployed population alone is more than twenty-four million, if prison inmates work as the Americans say, then our prison gates may have a queue of people looking for jobs. “
David Tian said he did not feel like laughing, but Smoker did not laugh. “Haipeng, relatively speaking, the United States has the most free and open press in the world. However, a few years ago, the media was surprisingly often used to slander China. There were over a hundred articles about MSS intelligence gathering that slandered China. Among them, some people openly accused Chinese students in the U.S. media, saying that “every one of them is on an intelligence mission” and sent by the Ministry of State Security. However, since there is freedom of the press in the United States, the publicly published rumors were not terrible because overseas Chinese and international students also refuted them, and later these media reportedly made a public apology and retracted their rumors.”
“But,” Smoker’s voice dropped significantly, “if the CIA and other agencies are also distorting and creating rumors in this way, then the problem is serious. First of all, if these accusations are made under the cover of absolute secrecy, no one will refute them. Second, the CIA’s information is used by the U.S. authorities to formulate policies toward China. Their absurd conclusions, drawn from nothing or from looking at China from an American point of view, will to a large extent lead to repeated ups and downs in Sino-American relations. Of course, there are more serious problems, but that is not what we will discuss today.
“Haipeng, I hope my coming here today to explain this to you can make you understand my pain.”
“I understand, man. You have good intentions and I really appreciate that.” David Tian said as he wiped the beads of sweat from his head. At this point, the smoke man continued: “Maybe you think it’s nothing, you know it’s a mistake, just change it. However, if people think and act on the facts that they believe to be true, and if I do not come over in time to explain to you that you are beginning to believe that all this information is true, then your thoughts and behavior will unconsciously change direction.
“There will be serious consequences?”
“Good,” Smoker coughed, “the result will be that you will no longer feel worthy to work for this country and this government, and then you will resign or gradually alienate yourself from me, which is a better result; more serious would be that you will simply become a traitor and betray our country, our government and our people. The saddest thing is that not only would you not think of yourself as a traitor if you did that, but you would think of yourself as a lone hero saving the Chinese nation and promoting democracy and human rights!”
“I won’t do that.” David Tian muttered this repeatedly, as if to himself, as he continued to wipe the cold sweat from his head.
“That is why I came over here to explain this matter clearly to you. In fact, I can’t blame you, as I said before, before you come out, we should sit down and communicate properly for a period of time, using the jargon of the spy world is called dispatch training. You should know that although you entered what can be called the world’s most know the truth, the most capable of discovering the truth of the FBI and the CIA, but you should always understand in your heart, there is also the world’s most black and white or even inverted black and white place， These intelligence and counterintelligence bureau are also the most capable “manufacture-the-truth” agencies. “
“I understand! I really understand, after reading so many top secret information collected by China over the years, I really gradually got a little suspicious, but after this little reminder from you, it dawned on me. It looks like it’s really a different kind of work, it’s different from a professional point of view. I admire that!”
“Don’t flatter yourself!” Smoker’s voice came out relaxed, “The work you’re doing now is unprecedented, I haven’t done it myself, I’m just talking on paper. You are the real thing. Well, Haipeng, what you say reassures me. All these years I haven’t been able to talk to you directly, I’ve always been worried. You know, an undercover agent turning traitor, a spy turning double agent, these things are common in all countries, if it happens to you, I will be upset for the rest of my life. You know we did it to save our old classmates in the first place, and I can’t let my negligence get you killed.”
“Don’t worry, I was just confused for a moment. By the way, how far have we gotten with our work? I’ve asked you many times, but you never talk about it.”
“Never talked about it, and still can’t talk about it!”
“Do you still have your heart in your mouth and are you afraid that I will defect?” David asked Tian with a smile.
“No, it’s because of work discipline. Although we are not real agents of the state, we are completely in accordance with the regular practice, you just need to do your part on the line.”
David Tian nodded as Smoker continued: “These two years, we’ve basically been deployed, the old classmates have not had any more accidents. The silence feels a little strange, as if there is no sound, but we expect to hear thunder. The Beijing Olympics are getting closer and closer, and I’m worried that something will happen. I want to carry out our original plan at the same time, we also for ourselves to add some burden, you see how?”
“I’m begging you!” David Tian’s excitement was overwhelming.
Then the two men sat closer to each other, and David Tian was coughing from the smoke that enveloped him. The two men exchanged words for about half an hour, when the mission was deployed, David Tian came out of the smoke, his face a little heavy, straightened his clothes, picked up his backpack from the floor, said goodbye to the smoker, and headed for the door.
David Tian walked to the door, looked back, wanted to say something, but finally said: “Thank you for giving me this opportunity. You do not know how much I like my current job, I like being a spy; not only is it exciting and thrilling, but it also makes me feel close to the motherland, it gives me a special sense of accomplishment – “
Before David Tian could finish, the man on the couch interrupted him with a long sigh, and the smoke reached out a hand and beckoned David Tian to turn around and sit down again. After a minute or two of silence, the smoker said, “Haipeng, promise me that after this is over, you will do what you have to do, forget about the spy agency and all that, okay?
David Tian pondered noncommittally.
Smokey said: “Our class grew up in the era of learning from heroes and being heroes, so either they want to be great men or spies, most of them can’t stand loneliness. In fact, if an ordinary person is not better? Your One Year Plan is creative. In the spirit of your One-Year Plan, I am strengthening my body and learning martial arts.
“There is nothing wrong with learning from heroes and being a hero, but I think there are many things wrong with our heroes and elites. China has never lacked heroes, China is a country of heroes, but if you look at China’s history and reality, you have to admit that the disasters of the Chinese nation are also mainly caused by heroes and heroines. Often heroes and heroines cause trouble, and then other heroes and heroines go to solve the problem, and then they call on the whole country to worship the heroes. In fact, the Chinese people are hardworking and wise, and they have lived quietly in this country for thousands of years. Without these heroes and heroines, the people would have a more peaceful life and social development would be smoother -“
Smoker paused, then said: “Every country and nation has its own heroes, but no country is like China, where heroes are indispensable and so prone to hero worship. You are in the United States, you should know that the United States also has heroes, but whenever the United States has a hero, both society and the media start criticizing the heroes until they finally become ordinary people again. But in China, the opposite is true. With our heroes, both the state and the media began to desperately cover up the shortcomings of the heroes. The heroes were turned into supermen or gods. The result is that the people of the country become very small compared to the heroes, and the people lack confidence in themselves and fall into despair. As a result, our nation is always desperately waiting for some special heroes to appear.
“I have gone too far, I hope you will return to China after this mission. As for you having to give up your U.S. citizenship and passport afterwards, don’t be sorry, with your money, you can become an investment immigration to Canada or Australia. These are also western countries and have a lower crime rate than the USA. You can immigrate there with your wife to live and work in peace and happiness. Anyway, I hope you will forget everything now and go back to normal, and I hope you will still adapt to the life of ordinary people, otherwise I will blame myself!” The smoker finished waving. David Tian stood up again to get ready to say goodbye, the smoking man saw him move slightly hesitantly, looked up and asked, “What else do you have to do, Ba?”
“Yes.” David Tian immediately continued, “How long will Little Jiangxi be able to hold out?”
David Tian betrayed Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo and was accepted and rehired by the FBI. Whether he liked it or not, and whether he liked the work of the FBI or not, once Little Jiangxi confessed, he too was exposed. This point is clear to both Smoker and David Tian, but as the chief planner of the operation, Smoker does not mention it, and David Tian naturally does not want to mention it.
“Time is a little tight,” the Smoke Man said in a low voice, “but I’m confident that Little Jiangxi can hold out until we get to the bottom of this before she confesses.”
“That’s good.” David Tian said, but his face did not show a reassuring look. “But after I joined the FBI, I realized that the United States talks about human rights, democracy and freedom, but when it comes to their national security and spy agents or terrorists are involved, they are unforgiving. I was worried that with Jiangxi’s physical condition and lack of previous special training, would he be able to hold out? He has been secretly imprisoned for several years now-“
“I know, I know!” Smoker’s voice trembled a bit, obviously moved by emotion. “At first, I myself had some doubts about whether he could be competent, but after so many years, not only is he doing well in the FBI, but he is also becoming more and more appreciated. This shows that he is doing everything according to my plan.”
“He’s really something, but I’m still worried. The FBI has 18 techniques to make a prisoner talk, if it’s a common crime, they wouldn’t dare use them, but Little Jiangxi was arrested secretly, so far secretly, in this case they can completely use national security as a reason to detain him for interrogation indefinitely. How can he stand to be held in solitary confinement for so many years, and probably interrogated with questions every day?” David Tian sounded pained and intolerant.
“I have confidence in him.” Smoke man raised his voice, out of the smoke past reaching out and patting David Tian’s shoulder:
- “First, since Little Jiangxi can sit in front of a computer screen for seven or eight years and live a colorful life, said his rich imagination, is the kind of person who can live on fantasy for the rest of his life, which may be the main reason why he was secretly held in solitary confinement for so many years while frustrating the FBI;.
- Secondly, because Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo has been living his own lies for a long time, playing the role of an agent of the Ministry of State Security himself, for a long time, in his subconscious, he himself does not know what is true and what is not. In this case, he is very likely to make the FBI’s polygraph malfunction. Even if he can’t stand the loneliness, or is under the effect of drugs, if he confesses that he is actually not a real agent sent by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the FBI will not necessarily believe him.
The FBI has still not released him, which means that they are also confused about Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo. This is the reason why I chose Little Jiangxi at that time, he is the kind of person who can be discovered by not looking. In addition, according to the single line of contact, small pieces of divided intelligence work guidelines, although you know Xiao Jiangxi’s situation, but he does not know until now that you betrayed him, even if he can not top now and all confessed, we still have time to complete the work and successfully extract you”.
“That means I can’t go undercover with the FBI for the rest of my life.” David Tian muttered unhappily as he left.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (18)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 31, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 18 Happy Second Wives
Vice Mayor Huang Meiyi excused his driver, claiming that he had forgotten to approve some documents, and returned to his office. He was relieved to see that Secretary Xiao Liu’s seat was empty and his desk was neat and tidy. After carefully entering his office, he first sat down on the big leather chair and looked around. The table needs to be cleaned, and the curtains need to be checked to see if they are closed tightly. Oh yes, wine! The deputy mayor bent down and took the XO wine out of the cupboard with some hesitation: do I have to take the aphrodisiac Viagra imported from the United States today?
He himself had relied on real talent to rise to this position today. Huang Meiyi relied on his good calligraphy and his talent for adapting Tang poetry to the needs of modern revolutionary poetry. This had brought him all the way up from deputy section chief. The deputy mayor shuddered at the thought and sighed, this beautiful woman he found so attractive, ah!
A month ago, Vice Mayor Huang had met a woman named “Qingqing” at a cocktail party. When he was alone with her that night, the poetic Vice Mayor Huang had changed his name to her “Dear Lady”. The Dear Lady was really a natural beauty, she should have been more than thirty years old, but all over she had the body of a demon and was so beautiful, this is the first time the fifty-five-year-old Vice Mayor Huang knew a woman who could be described as both demonic and beautiful. Vice Mayor Huang’s popularity and reputation in official circles were good. He was not particularly corrupt, at most he would sometimes help out friends with some small thing that did not harm the interests of the state or the implementation of national policies. Although he sometimes engaged in clandestine affairs and even visited prostitutes, the high-minded vice mayor believes that today’s Chinese prostitutes and second wives have beauty but nothing else. If there really is such a thing as a dear one who is not only beautiful, but also blessed with all talents and personality, then my goodness, I’m willing to open my wallet as long as she’s willing to open her thighs!
So Vice Mayor Huang has been insisting not to develop a mistress, not to adopt a second wife. Of course, the idea is that day and kiss before going to bed, to be exact, is to the next day two people get up again after a night of wild lovemaking and sexy phoenix cloud and rain. What happened that day?
The woman kept to herself for one night, so Vice Mayor Huang did not feel tired when he got up. After sitting up in bed, Vice Mayor Huang stared at the jade body lying next to him on the sheets he hadn’t used the night before, and felt that he was excited, but his body couldn’t handle it. Just as he hesitated, the lady turned over in the bed. She flirtatiously looked at Vice Mayor Huang’s naked body. Huang stretched out his two snow-white legs and twisted two strands of her pubic hair. He raised his hand to the lady’s eyes just to get a little laugh of embarrassed modesty from her.
What Vice Mayor Huang did not expect is that the woman, after a soft smile, fluently recited a “we hear the sounds of the night rain and the wind, but what do we know of the flower blossoms that fall” from the Tang poem, so Vice Mayor Huang’s felt a sudden shock as if electrocuted. Vice Mayor Huang stretched out his trembling hand to stick the hair back to the white thighs of the kiss, smoothly grabbed the two pink legs of the beauty, apart to see that last night’s soulful place, but also off the cuff chanting a “At daybreak look where it’s wet and red —
the flowers will be heavy in Brocade City.”. The beautiful woman did not twist away, so open still and Huang stroked her moist pubic hair while she shyly panted slightly softly chanting in gratitude “The flowery path has not been swept by any passing guest yet today the luxuriant gate opens for you.”
Vice Mayor Huang suddenly sighed “Fear not that no-one on the road ahead knows you; how could it be that anyone under Heaven who does not recognize a gentleman? He had not imagined when he participated in ideological campaigns by copying ancient Tang poetry to express the revolutionary sentiment, cringing and obsequiously following the Cultural Revolution rebel faction waving the flag chanting poetry, that this would win him appreciation that got him all all the way up from a small section chief became the vice mayor. He felt keenly “a high position is lonely” but now he was in bed with a soulmate! Vice Mayor Huang mood brought him back to those years that he burned with passion when he wore the Red Guard armband. He forced himself to be calm as he stared at the woman’s lower body. With a slight trembling in his voice he recited “A good rain knows its appointed time, right in spring it brings things to life.” as a tribute to the woman’s “luxurious gate is now opens for you“. The beautiful woman apparently also grew aroused, reached over to Vice Mayor Huang’s slumping, dejected staff of life, then murmuring “Riding the wind diving into the night, moistening softness without a sound” and then “With the spring comes a violent evening rainstorm, alone on raging waters drifts a boat crossing, no man within” to hint that the lovemaking of the previous evening was not enough and wants to come back that evening.
The vice mayor, after all older, although with a lustful heart, his nether region could not keep up. Moreover probably hearing sensitive words like “fine” and “urgent” from the dear lady, felt that he need to remind the dear lady that he had indeed been very brave and vigorous the previous evening. Therefore he murmurred “Do not laugh at me, lying drunk in the sand. It has long been true that of those who set out on military expeditions, few return.”
This poem not only let the intimate partner understand their last night they had sex clouds and rain several times yet implies that they are a senior official with a different status, as if in the Tang Dynasty, he the deputy mayor is probably equivalent to the battlefield general it. The intimate partner is really a delicate and clever beauty, the hand just gently and patiently stroking Vice Mayor of Huang that “laughing into the lotus flower, pretending to be shy and not coming out” of the penis, and Vice Mayor Huang was starting to get a bit aroused just listening to that soft voice, panting, saying “Long frustrated that when Spring comes I have no suitable place to return; I do not know from whence I came.”
While stroking this dear beauty and he got into position. Vice Mayor Huang gulped. He does not like women with a lot of public hair, those who might be described as “bamboo paths leading to a secluded space, a Zen room dense with flowers and trees.” . The good thing is that the beauty in front of you has sparse pubic hair, which can be described as “a riot of blooms gradually enchants the eye; grass so shallow that horse’s hooves can leave no impression.” Plus last night after the sexy rain and clouds and did not clear up, in the eyes of Vice Mayor Huang, actually “Peach blossoms and flowing water quietly disappear; there is another Heaven and Earth beyond the ken of men”. So he immediately stuck out his gun and mounted his horse, thrusting at random but could not enter the gateway. He did not expect that that dear beauty I did not expect that dear beauty, breathing in but not always able to exhale, breathlessly could still get out this verse a few words at a time: “Peach blossoms flow down with the stream at day’s end yet where is the cave in that clear stream?”
The blood in Vice Mayor Huang’s head slowly rushed downwards but can also understand that the dear one through this poem to express a lewd idea, that is her flower is very moist but that darned Vice Mayor Huang has not found the he darned vice mayor Huang has not found the mouth of the cave.
Vice Mayor Huang while trying to suppress his excitement, afraid of softening before he can get on the horse, still is making wild thrusts and still can’t get in. So with a hint of complaint he said, “The door is locked deeply with no way in: I suspect thousands of peach blossoms block the way”.
The dear girl still panting, while throwing a winks at Vice Mayor Huang, said gently, “Why need the Qiang flute play a dirge? Even the spring breeze cannot pass the Jade Gate.“
The first time he heard these popular poems, Vice Mayor Huang recalled the excitement of the Red Guards in the crowded train when he was physically on top of a female Red Guard, and then too he was determined to stay firm and upright down below. As expected, not long after, Vice Mayor Huang has “that is, from the Ba Gorge through the Wu Gorge, will go down Xiangyang to Luoyang“. The vice mayor feels his penis is particularly long, He used a combination of deep and shallow strokes, and within two strokes he had his crotch kissing “Reluctant to part, butterflies play, constantly dancing, Free and unrestrained lovely orioles cry“. Then the room fills with “The sound of birds and burbling springs everywhere”. In order to prolong the pleasure and enjoy the woman’s delicate appearance, Vice Mayor Huang continued to force himself to think of Tang poems, so “a cluster of wild peach blossoms open, how to choose between lovely deep red lovely light red?” and “Pray ask the east flowing stream:
Compared with the lingering memories, Which one lasts longer of the two?” lines appeared. The first thing you need to do is to ask yourself if you want to be a good friend. No, Vice Mayor Huang warned himself, soon “a river of spring water flowing to the east”. So he immediately closed his eyes and tried to get the charming figure of the dear girl out of his mind, but the panting of the little beauty of the dear one still had the effect of “this song belongs in heaven, only rarely can it be heard on this earth” and can be heard a few times on earth” in Vice Mayor Huang’s ears. About less than six minutes, Vice Mayor Huang finally could not bear to “fly straight down three thousand feet“.
Although this is not the first time he looked back, but each time has is a different new feeling. Vice Mayor Huang put the wine away and decided not to use the aphrodisiac “Viagra” again. Vice Mayor Huang is reluctant to admit from the heart that the dear lady is his second wife. He feels that the correct term should be love. He never felt this way before. He is secretly glad that he finally at the age of fifty-five found a confidante. Otherwise with time flying by, if he does not take this to a higher level.
In just five years he must retire. Once retired, what will his opportunities be? The dear beauty may not even want to look at him, right? These days he also did the thought struggle, and even secretly compared his relationship with the dear lady with the relationship between those big corrupt officials and their mistresses. Although each time he thought of it, he secretly broke out in a cold sweat, In the end he consoled himself with the thought that after all, his relationship with this dear lady was much better. As for the wife at home, that is not a problem, rank has it privileges, it isn’t like the folklore that “Don’t touch their basic salary, get tobacco and alcohol as gifts, and really don’t need a wife -” not to mention the wife is already old. Alas, it really makes people sigh, a snap of the fingers, and the wife has become an old woman.
The sound of high heels came down the corridor. Vice Mayor Huang immediately clamped his legs together. Hearing the sound of the dear lady’s heels, Vice Mayor Huang immediately thought of a little comfort, the dear lady is not greedy for money and power or to sleep with him. She has shown she likes Vice Mayor Huang for not being lustful, not greedy for money and for being talented. From the perspective of the vice mayor, she is not at all a greedy beauty ah, that day if not after a night of sexy rain and clouds that two people awake in the morning chanting Tang poetry amidst lovemaking. The vice mayor cannot do without the dear lady. But now it’s different, a month down the road, vice mayor Huang has been unable to leave the kiss. The woman who claims to have come from Hunan to work is unbelievably beautiful and talented, and every time they make love either chanting poetry or singing, she also likes to dress up as a variety of characters for Vice Mayor Huang to enjoy. Last week she suddenly dressed as a nurse and went to the hotel booked by Vice Mayor Huang, the result is that in less than three hours, he underwent the pretty woman “nurse” twice “comprehensive physical examination” of Vice Mayor Huang including four emissions. “55 years old,” Vice Mayor Huang smiled and said to himself, “I did not think I was old yet so strong ah!”
Today the dear lady asked to come to the office of Vice Mayor Huang to make love! At first Vice Mayor Huang was a little hesitant, especially thinking of the vice governor of Hubei Province, Meng Qingping, who was sentenced a few years ago. Meng saw that the female secretary of the company doing business was pretty and so raped her in his office. But Vice Mayor Huang immediately forced himself not to think that way. His own relationship with the dear lady is not at all like that. The thought of the dear lady dressed as a female nurse excited him. Vice Mayor Huang couldn’t make himself stop. In fact, he had a thief’s heart but not a thief’s courage. When he time heard thatVice Governor Meng Qingping had pulled off a woman’s clothes on his desk, while holding a pen to approve documents andwhile entering the woman, did that not get him secretly excited? Who cares, he had contributed to the revolution for half a lifetime, the old saying “Compare and pick flowers as they bloom; do not delay until only bare branches remain” ah! So, after work today, I went back to the office, quietly waiting for the dear lady dressed as a civil servant to ask for instructions, and then — “Ha ha, I will grab her and push her onto the desk, rip off her suit, and then without foreplay, go in hard! –“
The result is “deep into the clouds also stained clothes”, the crotch of the pants suddenly wet piece. At this juncture, the sound of high heels was replaced by a knock on the door.
“So soon you have news for me so quickly?” The man deep in the train coffee shop booth couldn’t wait to ask when he saw Guo Qingqing sitting down.
“Of course, without a doubt.” A beaming Guo Qingqing said proudly, “Who do you think I am?”
“I know who you are!” The man muttered, “I was just afraid that your had forgotten who you are. Well, first tell me, where did you get the information?”
“From Vice Mayor Huang!”
“Oops,” the man moved, “how did you get on so quickly? That Vice Mayor Huang is said to have hopes of going to the next level, to the central government after the Olympics. You’re good!”
“Thanks for the compliment.” The woman’s voice was a little playful. “He is really good, there is nothing on him, and no obvious weaknesses, I also studied him for several days, because he is responsible for the main security work of the Olympic Games ah, exactly the person you need ah. The good thing is that I finally found his fatal weakness -“
“He’s greedy for money?” The man asked.
“Greedy or not, I do not know, but even if greed for money is his weakness, I can not help it, since he is only average as a with his level of the average level of corrupt officials, I just give him the benefit of one million dollars of plastic surgery, I’m afraid that people don’t appreciate it. You see people Wang Baosen, Chen Xitong -“
“That must be horny!” The man said.
“Of course men are horny, that’s not a great weakness. Besides, Vice Mayor Huang is 55 years old, I don’t know how many people in TV stations and actor schools would be willing to sleep with him. Even thought he is horny I can’t really can’t manage it either.” Guo Qingqing said, deliberately making a wintry expression.
“Then I can’t think of anything else you can get your hands on.”
“You are underestimating me. I charmed him by both talent and sex haha.”
“Qingqing, keep your voice down.” The man shrugged, “Tell me the circumstances under which you got the information?”
“Oh, you really want to hear it?” The woman looked a little surprised.
“What do I really want to hear? How do I know if this is a trap if I don’t know how the information came to be? Cut the crap.”
Guo Qingqing picked up the cup in front of her, took a sip of pearl milk tea and began to tell how she got three important pieces of information that day.
That day I entered the mayor’s office dressed as a civil servant lady, said “hello mayor” and then stood there in a dignified manner ready to take orders. You see, like this, when I carried a small bag on my shoulder, the arm also deliberately folder. Vice Mayor Huang was sitting on his big leather chair with a mixed expression of wretchedness and regret. I thought, “What’s going on, didn’t we agree? I slowly walked over, and when I reached his luxurious desk, I bent down and respectfully sent the “documents” over. I was wearing a suit but I didn’t have a bra, so when I bent over, my two tits popped out.
Although Vice Mayor Huang’s face is a little flushed, but the response seems to be a little sluggish. So I obediently sat on the desk and leaned my body towards him, when I was about to approach him, I found his expression embarrassed quickly put his legs together, hum, but still I caught a glimpse of his crotch with a wet mark, oops, this nasty old guy, even before I came in he couldn’t stop himself from ejaculating into his pants! You don’t know how annoyed I was, probably because of too much spending and drinking. Now he was already short of seminal fluid, but also heroic. The last time in order to make him feel good, I had to haphazardly rub some lubricant on my hands and body and pretend it was his seminal fluid. As a result, he really thought he had recovered from his old age. This time I could not easily convince him to come in the office once, but he could not help himself. It seems to cost me some words again.
I yelled petulantly, “Husband Mayor, you must be fooling around with female secretaries or ladies under your command again, no, I won’t do it!”
“There’s no lady,” he waved his hand, “I’m busy as hell.”
“What’s the favor?” I pursued relentlessly while undressing on the mayor’s desk.
“Look at the documents, approve the documents ah.” Vice Mayor Huang spread out his hands, two eyes on my hands undoing buttons.
“Oops,” I stopped preparing to take off my panties and deliberately yelled angrily, “So the love rival who stole my husband is actually those bullshit papers, where are they? Let me find them.” I started to look around, but the desk was clean and tidy, where are the papers?
“Where are they?”
“What where are they?” Vice Mayor Huang looked at my hand on my trunks with some confusion.
“Those documents!”
It dawned on Vice Mayor Huang what this was about. He smiled, “It’s all in the safe, so of course they can’t be outside. Besides, aren’t we going to play on the table?”
When I heard that my heart nearly went cold. Then I pouted my little mouth, turned my back on him and muttered in a low voice: “Where is this like the office, the table is clean, hum, if you had left some scrap of paper or those documents out on the table, that would make me feel like I am playing with the mayor of the day to day, I do. Hmph!”
The reason I say this is that I have just scanned the room, where there is no waste paper. Besides, I must have achieved a special effect when I turned around on purpose in anger, and you know that the most attractive part of me is my bare back to my buttocks. Remember how wehen we argued, I used o bare my back and buttocks turned to you, you couldn’t continue. I think that Vice Mayor Huang is hornier than you. How could he hold out?Sure enough, in less than two minutes, he walked towards the safe and took out a bunch of documents from it and put them haphazardly on the big table.
I ripped off my panties, rolled onto the table and deliberately pulled those documents viciously under my ass, all the while looking at Vice Mayor Huang said: “Humph, today we have to let these take up your time and keep my ‘love rival’ in my ass under the eyes of the two of us to see the fun! “
“Qingqing,” the man trapped in the train car seat interrupted Guo Qingqing’s sonorous report with a tongue-dry voice: “I know, can you just tell me what you saw in the file? Please don’t tell me about those other details of yours.”
Do you think I want to describe it? Not what you want to hear? But to tell you the contents of the file, I’d have to start slowly with what was going on. I heard that the Soviet sex spies would turn off the camera switch and automatically take pictures as soon as they entered. But I don’t play that game, I have to rely on my brain to remember so many documents. I had to look at them during sex and selectively write down what you told me to do. Do you think I have the ability to never forget? I rely on the situational memory method to remember, so if I don’t remember the scene, then you don’t get the contents of the document! Now may I continue, OK? Just think of it as a work report.
I stripped naked. I could see that even though Deputy Mayor Huang was a little upset, he didn’t stop making a fuss and didn’t take off his pants. I thought about it and realized that since he had just ejaculated, he might not be able to at the moment. But if I can’t get him to come all the way down on me, I won’t get a chance to look at those documents spread out on the table. When I thought of that, I put myself in the mindset of being ready to die for the cause, haha. I just sat there on the desk facing Vice Mayor Huang sitting on the table, rubbing my butt on the documents while opening and closing my legs. His eyes were staring right at me. Whenever he reached for me, I would turn away and say coquettishly, “I won’t do it. You are so attached to these document lovers of yours that you have completely forgotten your dear lady. For forgetting your dear lady, I will punish you today.
Vice Mayor Huang stood up from the leather chair, hugged me while kissing my face and stammered, “How are you going to punish me?”
I said, “I’ll punish you by making you want me, kiss me, from top to bottom, kissing me everywhere.
Vice Mayor Huang obviously wanted me to punish him in this way, so his mouth let go of my tongue and slowly slid downward. When he kissed my breasts, I turned my head sideways and flipped through the documents by hand, even looked at a few, all about stuff like ah fighting corruption, ah party building, really nothing of value. But then I pulled out from under my buttocks and looked at the title and remembered that you wanted me to get something like that. While Mayor Huang was holding my two nipples and put his head in the middle, I let him enjoy a little longer, so gently chanting “two shores of the green hills relative out, a piece of the sun side of the sail to”,
I know so a chant, Vice Mayor Huang I know that if you do this, Vice Mayor Huang will stay between my two breasts for a while longer, so that you can experience the poetry of the “Green hills facing on opposite shores, a solitary boat sails by the setting sun” and took the opportunity to read a document. The document reports the conclusion of experts from the Academy of Social Sciences, that after studying open and secret intelligence, that China’s peaceful rise over the years is unstoppable and has caused various repercussions internationally. Although the U.S. mainstream believes that it must deal with China in two ways at once, one of cooperation instead of confrontation, and the other of peaceful evolution. But over the years, as China’s excessively rapid development has exceeded U.S. expectations, the U.S. hawks have become stronger. The hawks push the China threat theory in a vain attempt to influence the American public and mainstream U.S. society to adopt a policy of containment against China. The report argues that at present, for the hawks, have no hot issue that they can use to attack China. The report recommends that our Party and government must not give these hawks a chance to that they can take advantage of –
I think I had memorized that one pretty well, so I reached out to look through the other documents, but Vice Mayor Huang was still nibbling between my two breasts. I felt that was a little inconvenient. In order to let him quickly move downwards, I chanted again: “From both sides of the gorge come incessant howling of gibbons and monkeys, My skiff white water cleaves leaving behind thousands of mountain peaks.” That one is pretty spirtual too. Vice Mayor Huang’s mouth began to move down towards my belly, so I lay down some, and grabbed several documents near the table. I found one that was important. I saw that it was marked as information from the Ministry of State Security and as a secret document. That document discusses Olympic Games-related security work, stating what you want to know about the many risk factors that the Ministry of State Security has addressed thus far, I saw there were seven. Then I wanted to look at them one by one, but it was very a little bit beyond my reach. If only I had laid flat a little bit more. By then, Vice Mayor Huang’s mouth has moved to the “the grass on the plain” position, so in order to get him to move his head a little lower, and unable at the moment to think of a suitable line from Tang poetry, in my rush I recited old man Mao Zedong’s “Above the secluded mystic Fairy Cave (where Nature speaks) – Endless awe-inspiring views atop the precipitous peaks. “, Vice Mayor Huang heard the great man’s poetry, shivered, his mouth quickly slipping between my legs. I could then remember the seven in detail. First, –
It took about three minutes for me to finish writing them all down. When I put the document down, I thought that was enough for today, but when I looked back, I saw the most important document, the one you specifically asked me to pay attention to. But now I’m lying on the table and the document is next to my head, so I can’t just pick it up and hold it up to read it. What could I do? I was so anxious that beads of sweat erupted from my body. By this time, Vice Mayor Huang had almost finished punishing himself, only to hear the sound of “the peach blossom pool a thousand feet deep” –
It looks like this is the only way, oops, now that I think about it, my face is still red. I gently pushed away Vice Mayor Huang’s head, turned around on the floor, changed to a lying position, supported my limbs on the table, and shoved my big white ass into Vice Mayor Huang’s face. I don’t even want to talk about it. At that time, Vice Mayor Huang only froze for five seconds, but for me it was like five long years! I don’t know what Vice Mayor Huang will do to my big white ass, and I don’t know what Vice Mayor Huang will think. The good thing is that in five seconds, the vice mayor has done countless reports, told countless axioms of the mouth did not hesitate to add up, so I shivered, a numb rustling, sour, warm feeling from there quickly spread throughout my body, I was almost paralyzed. But thinking of the mission you gave me, I held on and used the moment his tongue entered me to deliberately twist my body in a rolling motion so that I could turn to read the top secret documents.
According to this Ministry of State Security intelligence document, hardliners in the U.S. government believe that after years of failure to stop China’s peaceful rise and repeated failures to promote peaceful development, only extreme measures can succeed. They are now secretly negotiating to use software bombs, economic sabotage, or more serious means against China, as they did against the former Soviet Union. They claim that China must not be allowed to use its hosting of the 2008 Olympics to declare to the world that it has completed its peaceful rise. Some even suggest that a way must be found to make these Olympics a disgrace in the history of the games, a disgrace from which China will never be able to recover….
Oops, at that time, although looking at such important information, but the burst of relaxed tension coming from behind finally made me unable to resist humming loudly. Vice Mayor Huang heard my moan and looked up at me from behind my buttock. , I was so nervous that I was afraid he would find out I was reading the document. In order to finish reading the document, I had to find a Tang poem immediately to delay him. So I grunted and intermittently chanted, “It is not that I love only chrysanthemums, it is just that after the chrysanthemum blooms there are no other flowers.“
They claim that the Olympics are important as a milestone in China’s peaceful rise and that the United States cannot afford to let the Chinese Communist Party make a splash at these Olympics. The U.S. must intervene in the Olympics for the long-term interests of the U.S. and the global free world, and leave China in tatters.
Vice Mayor Huang was deeply encouraged by my Tang poetry. He tried hard to stick his tongue inside me, oops –
“Great, the Third Document is so important!” The man in the carriage seat had a dark face and suddenly said grimly, “Can you confirm that the document is from the Ministry of National Security?”
“Of course I can!” Guo Qingqing’s face was red and she replied a little shyly.
“Do you remember the first sentence at the beginning of the document?”
Guo Qingqing thought for a moment before saying, “Remember, it seems to be ‘According to our overseas sources…'”
“Got it.” The man looked thoughtful. “Qingqing, thank you, well done. I wasn’t trying to get irrelevant information, but I simply couldn’t know the whole picture due to the secrecy system, but now I’m relieved to know that the Ministry of State Security has received this information, otherwise our country would be in danger. I suspect that the person who framed us is planning an even bigger conspiracy, and I can’t stop there. Qingqing, thank you!”
“What are you talking about? I asked for it myself! Besides, only you can clear my name.” Guo Qingqing said.
“I think it’s better for you to stay by Vice Mayor Huang’s side.” After a while, the man said quietly, “Qingqing, I’m sorry that I had to let you go as a second wife for the sake of work, you don’t blame me, do you?”
“Hahahaha -” Guo Qingqing first laughed, and then said seriously: “You ah, what can you afford, sorry, to tell you the truth, at first one is to help you, in fact, is not for my own sake; besides, I also did not expect to be so happy as a second wife. I thought that after the mission is over, I would like to continue being a second wife.”
“You really like that Deputy Mayor Huang?”
“What the hell, he’s almost retired, how could I like him? I mean, in the future, I would like to continue being someone’s second wife, preferably after a while.”
The man stared at the stunned and surprised Guo Qingqing, and it took him a while to stammer out a few words, “You’re not kidding, right? So exaggerated!”
Guo Qingqing calmed down. She could not see the joking and exaggerated expression on his face. She continued in a serious tone and said: “I am serious, when Vice Mayor Huang licked my back with his mouth, I felt really drunk, now I still seem to feel it there. Before, as an educated woman, I looked down on uneducated girls who are really too ignorant. But now that I think about it, being a second wife really has a happy side. Why should I want to be a grandmother?
“Take the two of us, we’ve been fighting for so many years, but the last time we had sex we were at least full of excitement. If we had really gotten together in the first place, guess how long it would have taken you to stop kissing me passionately, not to mention having a baby. I think maybe a year or two! Then you look around at our relatives and friends, old classmates, their marriages have long since lost their excitement. Is there still love there, or are they still together because of the economy or because it is difficult to separate from their children? Also, you have lived in Guangzhou for so many years.
Are you aware that among the men who are a little more successful, along with their little stinking money, most of them are involved in sex? Their poor wives at home, while congratulating themselves that “my husband is different, he doesn’t play around outside,” look at their husbands every day in fear. Does their husband’s decent face just come out of the middle of their wife’s thighs? Look, that’s how it is. Why can’t I use the beauty I bought for a million dollars to let people keep me a few times? Being a second wife is a great feeling. You don’t have to worry about the daily needs of the family. You don’t have to worry about your children studying abroad to get a good job. Every day, your husband worships you as an ancestor who drives out the cold and brings in the warmth. Every day this man treats you as an ancestor who drives out the cold and brings in the warmth. If one day I’m not happy or tired, I’ll pack up my bank book, pack up the gold and silver jewelry, say goodbye, and leave.
“Besides, once you’ve seen the sea, you don’t care about rivers. I have been separated from an excellent man like you for more than ten years. How much pain have we suffered and how much joy have we had? How could I ever fall in love again? Besides, if a man has endured pain, especially if he has not experienced the agony of family life, how can you call him a good man? But you can’t expect me to find a little man and “torture” him slowly, waiting for him to mature, can you? So, yes, I think those who have suffered more than ten or twenty years of family life will find it especially tasty to take a man who has matured under the torment of his wife as their own lover. How can I tell you? Don’t think I’m deliberately provoking you. In fact, the feeling of being a second wife is like being in love all the time–“
“Stop it, I understand!” The man’s voice sounded almost like tears. The two of them just sat there for a while, and the man said, “You go first, don’t let anyone see!”
Guo Qingqing reluctantly stood up, looked back at the man she had shared a booth with many times, and leisurely walked out of the cafe. The man paid the bill, sat there in silence for a while, and then checked his pants by the light of the dim candle. The moisture at his crotch was almost dry, the crotch that had just been wet from a piece was basically dry. Seeing this, he sneaked away.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (19)
Authoreditor
OCTOBER 31, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 19 Keeping Secrets
When he left the Ministry of State Security compound in Xiyuan, Director Zhou, like other people’s policemen, got out and greeted the gatekeeper, then got back on his bicycle and pedaled away. The road was shared by cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, so Director Zhou was extra cautious. After only about four minutes, he entered University Road leading to Beijing University, where the road was wide open and cars, bicycles, and pedestrians were in their own lanes. Director Zhou soon joined a river of bicycles and pedaled briskly. In fact, even if you don’t want to go fast, it’s impossible. One after another, one after another, the bicycles have basically the same speed, so if you don’t have a certain level of skill, it’s best not to just roll into the rapids of bicycles, otherwise you’ll have dozens of bicycles crashing behind you if you don’t brake a little.
Director Zhou has been riding bicycles all his life, and his skills are naturally top-notch. In the 1960s, when bicycles were still luxury goods, Secretary Zhou had one as a national security fighter, and later in those decades, whether he was a section chief, deputy director, director, or vice-director, he insisted on riding a bicycle to and from work. After he became the director of an office, he still rode a bicycle to and from work and was “reported” to the ministry office by the security guard. The minister knew about it, so he had to pretend to drive to and from work twice. Then he claimed that his health was not good and his back hurt, so he got back on his precious bicycle. The good thing is that the house is not far from the West Garden, and the security office is willing to turn a blind eye. But the leaders of the security office privately explained to the young people who commute to and from work on the same road. They tried to synchronize their commutes with the director’s, riding their bicycles in a row in front of the old director.
Secretary Zhou took the few minutes to and from work as exercise, but also as a good opportunity to change the environment to think about the problem. He knows that being in the West Park is already as far away from the real world as the Pacific Ocean, and if, in addition, the commute to and from work again in a small car, it is equivalent to complete isolation, what is called, creating a “self-imposed reality”! Riding for about ten minutes, working up a big sweat — he felt that there is no giving in to old age. When he was young, riding that short distance felt like he was just getting started. Director Zhou smiled faintly. At that moment, he suddenly felt a gentle tap on his shoulder, it was probably some inexperienced young rider who was a bit clumsy and reached for support, Secretary Zhou thought. Suddenly, he heard someone say in his ear: “Minister Zhou, it’s me, Yang Wenfeng!”
Director Zhou wanted to laugh, but he stopped himself. At this point, the voice said again, “Turn out two intersections ahead.
Two intersections ahead, is it too late? You know that you have to be very skilled to get in and out of the bike stream. Sometimes you have to prepare ten minutes in advance, because basically everyone rides in a straight line, so you can’t just leave whenever you want. At this point, the voice suddenly turned to the right rear of Director Zhou, the cyclist used a special gesture to make the cyclist behind him brake. At that moment, Yang Wenfeng reached out with his left hand and grabbed the handlebars of Director Zhou’s bicycle, and the two bicycles merged and quickly turned at a fork in the road.
Director Zhou broke out in a cold sweat and tried to stop, but Yang Wenfeng grabbed the handlebars and the two bikes continued to glide down the switchbacks. In no time, they were off the main road and out of sight. They stopped in front of a small cafe. Yang Wenfeng locked the two bikes together and the two of them entered the cafe.
Director Zhou had a funny expression on his face, just sat down and spoke: “I said, Yang Wenfeng, you are not really dead, why are you so mysterious? Just like a secret agent! Ha ha!”
Yang Wenfeng moved his body in the chair, gestured, called the waiter over, first ordered the coffee that Director Zhou likes and his favorite pearl milk tea, and then said seriously: “I was originally a secret agent, so I have to be like a secret agent, ah, this is required by the state.”
Director Zhou cheerfully looked at Yang Wenfeng and said with a smile, “Oh, I still don’t know when the secret agent still has to get in shape ah, good for you Yang…”
“Because you never want to get in shape!” Yang Wenfeng said with a straight face.
Director Zhou froze for a moment, so Yang Wenfeng spoke again, “Director Zhou, as the head of an agency, you are probably in charge of hundreds of thousands of agents, but you just casually ride around on your bicycle?”
“Don’t play blind, what does this have to do with me riding a bike?” Director Zhou said.
“Big deal. If I were your supervisor’s overseas agent and came back to see you riding your bike home after so casually exiting your office building, then I would at least have thoughts about whether it was worth putting my life in your hands when there are at least six turns or more remote locations on this road where you could be kidnapped in less than a minute and made to disappear into any of the adjacent quadrangles before any help could arrive! “
“Don’t be ridiculous, Yang, is it that serious?!”
“Right! However, you probably don’t know that when you ride your bike to and from work every day, there are always two or three boys from your bureau following you not far behind you, and they are secretly protecting you.”
“Really?” Director Zhou almost spit out the coffee in his mouth. Since Yang Wenfeng himself used to be a “young man” in the bureau, Director Zhou obviously knew that this was true, and he sighed and said, “It seems that I have to take a small car to and from work, so as not to make these young men suffer. Alas!”
“Yang,” after a while, when Director Zhou spoke, there was deep emotion in his voice. “You know all about your father’s death, I sent someone to make arrangements, your father knew you did great things and left very calm, even happy-“
Yang Wenfeng listened silently, nodding from time to time, his eyes red, as if he would cry at any time.
“The old man is also old, and since your mother died two years ago, your father is a little lonely, but he is relieved to think of you doing great things for your ideals-“
Yang Wenfeng’s tears finally fell into the pearl milk tea, Yang Wenfeng lowered his head and silently drank. Director Zhou spoke while comforting him. After a while, he raised his head, his voice a little hoarse said: “My parents are old, I always have to go somewhere. These years I have not been able to serve them and be at their side. Alas, now is ‘the tree wants to quiet but the wind does not stop, the son wants to raise but the parents are not there’, I have a million regrets and pain. Director Zhou, you know that a large part of my life I have lived for them.”
“I understand, I knew it the first time. Yang, I hope one day you will forgive me.” After Director Zhou finished, both of them were silent. Yang Wenfeng did not know at that time what Chief Zhou’s words about hoping to forgive himself one day were aimed at. After a while, it was Director Zhou who spoke first and moved on to the main topic of today’s meeting.
“Yang, how is the investigation of the matter progressing?”
Yang Wenfeng wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and quickly returned to his normal state as he said, “Everything is in order, I just need you to finally give me some confirmation and I can tell you the results.”
“Oh, confirmation? What kind of confirmation?” Director Zhou looked at Yang Wenfeng in surprise.
“This-” Yang Wenfeng paused for a moment and tried to lower his voice, “You must tell me clearly which of our classmates are still your people, except for those who are openly assigned to work in the Ministry of State Security? Are you sending my classmates to the United States?”
Director Zhou heard a soft sigh, shaking his head for a while before saying softly: “That’s impossible, just impossible. Besides, I have already secretly isolated all of your classmates close to confidential information. Thus so far, your classmates also have had no more accidents, so you can also temporarily stop your investigation and shift your focus a little. And you know, I will not tell you any thing that’s top secret. Confidentiality is the first principle of our work!”
Director Zhou’s later words were slightly aggravated, and Yang Wenfeng’s face slowly changed as he listened, saying in a strong tone, “Then, I’ll end the investigation, withdraw Tian Haipeng immediately, and force them to release Li Jianguo!”
“Wait, Yang, now is not the time, you must let them hold on for a while longer. The Olympics are coming up, and we found some problems-“
“What do those questions have to do with us? Director Zhou, don’t forget that they weren’t dispatched by your Ministry of State Security, and I’m not a cadre of the Ministry of State Security! We risked our lives to clear our names and to find out the defectors who betrayed our classmates, and now since our classmates are no longer in trouble and Guo Qingqing has been rehabilitated, there is no reason for me to keep our classmates in tiger’s cave. If you talk about principles, then I’ll talk about principles too! Besides, I just read an American newspaper — didn’t they claim that your Ministry of National Security has opened more than 3,000 companies in the United States? Couldn’t all be companies of Party Princelings that are doing business under the guise of the Ministry of State Security, right?”
Director Zhou laughed bitterly and shook his hand, “Let’s not talk about that, let’s not talk about that. Now is really the time to need your contribution, Yang, you used your extreme methods to send your classmates directly into the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. I myself am not that clever. but But do you know why you succeeded? “
Yang Wenfeng shook his head angrily, with a look of love and care, and turned his head to survey the other customers in the cafe.
“The real reason you did what the Ministry of State Security could not do is precisely because you are not with the Ministry of State Security. Do you know how many Party and State leaders would have had to approve it if we in the Ministry of State Security had been allowed to do the daring dispatch you did at the time to infiltrate the FBI in the United States? China is a responsible power, and although it has intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies like every other home in the world, it has been extremely careful about sending in people to infiltrate the government agencies of other countries, or to buy their government agency staff for my use with money. China is arguably the most cautious country in the world. Sometimes it is true, as you sarcastically put it, that our ministry is the only one in the world that makes ‘not getting caught’ the ‘top priority’ of intelligence work. Such a guiding philosophy has certainly tied our hands, but on the other hand, our country has earned the trust of many countries in the world, hasn’t it?
“What can I say when you were bold enough to make a dispatch decision like that? If it had gone through me, I would probably still be in some leader’s office waiting for a meeting to discuss it. Even if I had shown a little enthusiasm at that time, you all might have failed by now. I showed indifference precisely to make it clear to each of you that you are not agents of the Ministry of State Security and that your actions have nothing to do with the Ministry of State Security.
Now I can tell you why I did this, because only let you know that you have no relationship with the Ministry of State Security, you can work up to boldly let go, can give full play to their talents, improvise, do not have to think about the image of the country and thus always have to ask for instructions to go. Another advantage is that you know in your heart that you are not the Ministry of State Security, so you are not very afraid, because even if caught, you are only personal behavior, the United States would have a difficult time figuring out how to sentence you to imprisonment as spies. You can even say then that it is to expose the U.S. intelligence agencies to make use Chinese Americans to go back to do the work on their classmates – so you will have the support of U.S. public opinion and they will be unable to do anything about it. Because of this, you are assured that you are bold and not shying away. And of course there is the most important point, and the difficulty that our National Security Department cannot overcome at the moment.”
Director Zhou paused and asked, “Do you know why Tian Haipeng can pass the FBI’s annual polygraph examination every time?”
“Because he wasn’t dispatched by overseas intelligence agencies at all, of course he can pass!” Yang Wenfeng was fascinated by Director Zhou’s words and turned back to listen carefully to Director Zhou’s speech.
“That’s right!” Director Zhou tapped his hand on the table, “The staff of the CIA and FBI, as well as the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense Intelligence and other intelligence departments have to undergo regular polygraph examinations every year, this polygraph machine and the topics we have during the investigation, and currently they are constantly improving, and this machine is almost ninety-eight percent accurate! Although there are still inaccuracies, but you know what? This machine may wrongly accuse the person being tested, but it will never let a real spy go! This lie detector is currently the most difficult for us to overcome. We have been working on the machine and their lie detector problem for years, yet we still don’t have the confidence to beat it. That is, if you had gotten even a slight hint from me that you were supported by me in the first place, then Tian Haipeng would have been discovered by the FBI from the lie detector, kicked out or even arrested, do you think you could have waited so long?”
“Is this the reason why you have been unable to successfully penetrate the sensitive departments of the United States so far?” Yang Wenfeng had a little sneer at the corner of his mouth, then he pretended to have a sudden realization and said, “So, I turned out to be in your grasp all along, and you were using us?”
Director Zhou just smiled and said kindly, “Your words are so hard to hear, I’m just have always been concerned about you guys.”
“My God,” Yang Wenfeng deliberately shouted, “you actually knew early on that Guo Qingqing was innocent, you also knew early on that we were wrongly accused, but you deliberately did not say anything and let the police arrest us. You know my character, you calculated that I would take illegal action against the police to let Guo Qingqing go, you probably also explained the police not to shoot me on the spot. It turned out that all this was in your hands, and your purpose was to inspire me to have to take action, and it was a personal action.”
“Yang,” Director Zhou looked kindly at Yang Wenfeng, “do you know how hard it is to find a talent like you now? How can I let you go-“
“But I don’t have any obligation to cooperate with you now, ah, my classmates are not in trouble anymore, and of course being isolated from your access to secrets means their political careers are finished. But Tian Haipeng is a U.S. passport holder, I just need a letter now, he will become a real FBI agent, and no longer a personal undercover agent sent by me.” Yang Wenfeng deliberately emphasized the word “personal” and looked at Director Zhou with a mischievous expression.
Director Zhou was still laughing as if there was something funny, waiting for Yang Wenfeng to finish before pointing at him and saying, “Yang, unfortunately I know you too well, hahahaha.”
“Ah, you know me?” Yang Wenfeng stood up excitedly, “Then you can tell me that I really don’t know your trickery and don’t know that you are using me?”
“Haha,” Director Zhou couldn’t help but laugh out loud, “of course I know you understand my trickery, you know it very well in your heart, both of us are like actors on the stage, both know the other is acting. So you can not penetrate the United States yourself, because you know that in your heart. But the people you send into America don’t understand as well as you do. Ha ha.”
Yang Wenfeng sat down in dismay, looking at the super secret agent in front of him who could be described as old and cunning, strongly suppressed the admiration he felt in his heart and said ruthlessly.
“No, I need you to trade me secrets, and I must know definitively whether my old classmate in Washington, Liu Mingwei, was sent out by you, or developed later, or whether he came to the door voluntarily?”
“Confidentiality is our first principle! I don’t want to repeat it. You are not a State Security Warrior now, and even if you were to return to State Security now, you are not of sufficient rank to know the secrets of these dispatches. Principles are not changed by individuals.” Director Zhou stopped smiling and said with finality.
“Director Zhou, principles are dead, people are alive! How come you still don’t know how to be flexible by this time?” Although Yang Wenfeng knew that he could not change Director Zhou no matter what he said today, he still refused to give up trying.
“Good, the principle is dead, people are alive, but in our line of work, if we get into the habit of only relying on their own heads to make subjective judgments, then the person may be die! Director Zhou’s said authoritatively.
Yang Wenfeng had decided to give up, but thinking of the hard work and pain after the implementation of these years of action, thinking of how Guo Qingqing has been afraid of hiding, thinking of Little Jiangxi now still do not know what kind of torture he is being subject to, he felt in hear anxiety, impatience and powerlessness. When he saw the calm, authoritative look in Director Zhou’s eyes, any urge to persist faded. He caught this last sentence of Director Zhou, suddenly remembered the legend of the Ministry, so deliberately and carelessly muttered: “Director Zhou,during the Cultural Revolution because you insisted on the principle of confidentiality you got someone killed… -“
Yang Wenfeng had to stop, Zhou’s face suddenly pale as paper, the cup in his hand “touch” fell to the ground.
Yang Wenfeng insisted sending him to the hospital, but Director Zhou shook his head and said in a weak, breathless voice, “It’s the old problem, I’ll go home and lie down for a while.”
The cab took the two men to Zhou’s home, Yang Wenfeng half-backed half-supported the Secretary Zhou got up to the second floor. Zhou’s lover opened the door at first glance to see Yang Wenfeng standing at the door, her expression was as if he were a ghost, Yang Wenfeng knew that Zhou also kept his lover a secret, so he explained in a few words. Secretary Zhou’s lover is not so nervous about the Secretary, skillfully take a wet towel on his head, and then with boiled water brewed a packet of white sugar for Secretary Zhou to drink.
“The old problem, the doctor said it was low blood sugar.” Director Zhou’s lover is also surnamed Zhou, Yang Wenfeng called her Auntie Zhou, Auntie Zhou said when she returned to the living room after settling Director Zhou down in his bedchamber.
The three-bedroom, two-room house is simply furnished. After her son got married and had his own home, Auntie Zhou retired a few years ago and cleaned up the house.
“He’ll just lie down for a while, don’t worry.” Aunt Zhou probably saw an anxious expression on Yang Wenfeng’s face, so she comforted him and said. “Old Zhou is 62 years old, should have retired two years ago, but the leadership above refused to let him go, saying that the department is special, at critical moments the age limit can be relaxed. I think old Zhou may be one of the few incumbent directors in the country over 60 years old.”
“Director Zhou will retire after the Olympic Games. In the late stage of the Cultural Revolution, the work of the Ministry of State Security basically stopped, as a result, the current succession is somewhat green and yellow, the current business bureaux are stepping up to train the generation that are now 30 to 40 years old to take over.” Yang Wenfeng said at the end of the voice went down, he remembered that the Ministry Party Committee to train the deputy director ready to take over the class of Secretary Zhou almost the same age as his own, is a graduate of the Department of International Politics of Fudan University in Shanghai who later received a master’s degree in the Institute of International Relations, Yang Wenfeng could not help himself from feeling a little jealous.
“He just can’t starve with this disease, plus he can’t have too many mood swings.” Aunt Zhou said.
“Oh.” Yang Wenfeng understood as if he had gotten an answer.
Auntie Zhou’s dinner was ready, so he left Yang Wenfeng to eat. During the meal, Yang Wenfeng talked about the situation of the illness of Director Zhou, he said while observing the expression of Auntie Zhou, you know, Auntie Zhou to Yang Wenfeng is not to talk about anything. But for so many years about Director Zhou in the Cultural Revolution because of adherence to the “principle of confidentiality” caused his family to die, but he never mentioned a word about it. Yang Wenfeng lost his patience for side conversations today, and after he finished, he asked Auntie Zhou directly what rumors were circulating in the Ministry.
Auntie Zhou sighed, put down her chopsticks, walked gently to the bedroom door, carefully closed the door, and sat back down, no longer in the mood to pick up the chopsticks again. Looking at Yang Wenfeng, who was like her own son in front of him, Auntie Zhou sighed deeply again and said, “Let me tell you a story.”
As soon as the Cultural Revolution began, Premier Zhou Enlai preempted the need for re-education, using the need for labor reform as an excuse to the Investigation Department of the Party Central Committee (the predecessor of the Ministry of State Security Intelligence Bureau) cadres were sent to Hebei, Anhui, Liaoning three May 7th Cadre Schools for labor training, so the entire Cultural Revolution, although the Department of Investigation of intelligence cadres were busy in the cadre schools to write reviews, self-criticism, and even “expose and criticize” each other. However, a few of these fell into the hands of the [Cultural Revolution] rebel faction. Naturally, the rebels were not interested in these agents who had been shipped to the countryside for reformation at the beginning of the movement, and their targets were those in power in the cities who were still standing in their way. So the entire Cultural Revolution, the cadres of the Investigation Department were kept basically intact to preserve the strength.
The far-sighted Premier Zhou did this then for two reasons:
- First, maintain the Party’s intelligence force, not subject to damage and disruption by the “Gang of Four”. This was also recognized by the entire Party;
- Second, was clear the way for several people, that is, Premier Zhou was worried about the investigation of the Department of intelligence cadres in the campaign was used, so take advantage of the first let them go to Labor reform, away from the center of the controversies about right and wrong.
As you know, at the CPC Central Committee Investigation Department concentrated from the 1920’s and 1930’s special intelligence cadres and all the elite of the Chinese intelligence community. If they were become involved in the fierce Cultural Revolution ideological movements, if someone were hot-headed, or if in the course of the struggle can not stand the pressure t and leak secrets, then the consequences would be quite serious. Anyone who knows the history of the Chinese Communist Party knows well that since the beginning of the Special Branch, China’s intelligence community has been in the hands of Premier Zhou. This intelligence community has not only achieved much in the struggle against imperialism, feudal warlords, the Kuomintang, Japan and the United States, but they also know everything about the internal struggles of the Communist Party.
If the rebel faction were to use them to expose some secrets concerning the old cadres, then the Cultural Revolution would have caused far more damage than what people today realize that it did. In general, although the Investigation Department also had such scum as Kang Sheng, but not at all the Soviet Union when the use of “Cheka” intelligence organization to kill people, the situation. Of course, Premier Zhou did so, there is a bigger fear, that is, the fear of these intelligence cadres in the campaign can not stand the shock, leaked state secrets. From the establishment of the Special Branch to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party’s intelligence community developed agents by both “dispatching agents” and “extracting agent”, with the total number of agents scattered almost all over the world, no less than hundreds or even thousands. These people helped New China break out of its international isolation, promote the development of science and technology in China. The names of those “unsung heroes” were known to the intelligence cadres leading the Investigation Department. Any leaks of their names would not only affect them but also the development of the entire Chinese nation.
Zhou Yushu (later Director Zhou) was still very young. everyone called him a dusty scholar, but he was already the backbone of the Department of Investigation intelligence. Because he came from the right background, was young and strong, at that time he was not sent to the May 7th Cadre School. Some of the old intelligence cadres also hoped that the Ministry would hold onto a person like Zhou.
In early 1968, the rebel faction in Beijing seized a young woman, the mother of a three-year-old son, in Xicheng District. The rebels found out that the young mother’s history was unclear and she was supposed to be dragged out to fight with them, but during the struggle, the masses were so excited that more and more materials were uncovered. Not long before, the young woman had received a letter from Taiwan that had been forwarded from Hong Kong. Now the rebels found out that the young woman’s husband had smuggled himself into Taiwan with some companions three years before and “fled to freedom”.
Now the rebels had found a treasure, and the suffering of mother and son began. For three days of the criticism of the handsome young woman and her son they were tortured into almost inhuman shape. It if were not for her three-year old son, the young woman would have committed suicide. The young woman could not stand the torture and gave more information about her history. It turned out that the young woman’s husband’s father was originally a senior officer of the Kuomintang. When they made a hasty retreat to Taiwan, they did not take their son out with them. Only only later did the son take advantage of the chaos shortly after the start of the Cultural Revolution to successfully smuggle himself to Taiwan. There he met his father and soon joined the Kuomintang. This was taken as a very serious matter. That husband did write once, saying fondly that he would try to find a way to take mother and son out for a family reunion through Hong Kong when the situation on the mainland had settled down a bit. But each time the letter from Taiwan came, it was forwarded through a government official named Zhou Yushu.
The mad rebels tortured the young woman even more. One day, the young woman couldn’t take it anymore, and before she finally collapsed, she offered to help the rebels find Zhou Yushu to explain. The young woman said that at that time, her husband often communicated with the government’s Zhou Yushu before smuggling himself across the border, and the young woman was not sure of her husband’s relationship with Zhou Yushu. But she thought that since the government officials and her husband often met, then perhaps her husband was not as reactionary as the rebels say.
The head of the rebel faction found out that Zhou Yushu was a secret intelligence cadre of the CCP’s Central Investigation Department, according to the phone number provided by the young woman. Not daring to make a move, he brought Zhou over from Xiyuan and asked Zhou Yushu in front of hundreds of people whether he knew the young woman’s husband and whether he could prove that he was not a Kuomintang agent in Taiwan. Zhou Yushu stood woodenly by the side of the trial stage, looking at the hundreds of fish-eyed masses under the stage at one moment and then at the fierce and evil rebels at another, but always avoiding the young woman with the pleading look in her eyes.
About a while later, after the rebels pushed several times, Zhou Yushu gritted his teeth and said, “I don’t know her husband at all! He still did not dare to look at the desperate young woman. The rebel faction was enraged and felt deceived by the young woman, so they beat and kicked her. The poor young woman knew she had lost her last straw and was so desperate that she forgot to cry out in pain. The rebel faction took one look and thought that the beating was not hard enough, so they tortured the young woman even more.
Zhou Yushu desperately ran all the way back to the Investigation Department headquarters. He would immediately write a report to the leadership, but the leadership in the court, where is a day and a half can get a response? That night, the ruthless rebels took the young woman away. The young woman hanged herself at six o’clock in the morning. She died miserable, praying to God and the rebels to spare her three-year-old child.
“What happened to the boy?” Yang Wenfeng asked with a heavy heart. He remembered that he was the same age as the young woman’s child back then, and his father was also criticized.
With tears in her eyes, Aunt Zhou said with a sad expression: “The child’s mother’s relatives are in Sichuan, the father’s relatives are in Taiwan, the child has no relatives to adopt, placed in the neighborhood, it is said that soon he could not be found, until now do not know whether dead or alive. I think he probably died in the chaos of those years -“
Aunt Zhou’s tears finally could not help but flow out like a broken pearl, and Yang Wenfeng hurriedly handed her tissues.
“This is the story of how your Uncle Zhou’s secrecy got people killed!” Auntie Zhou said Uncle Zhou instead of Director Zhou, perhaps because she wanted Yang Wenfeng to feel the human side of Director Zhou. Yang Wenfeng did not notice and eagerly asked, “And then?”
“Later,” Aunt Zhou glanced at the bedroom door, apparently afraid that Director Zhou had heard, and then tried to calm down and said: “After the establishment of the Ministry of State Security in the eighties, your uncle Zhou only had the opportunity to meet with that young woman’s husband overseas. After the meeting, in which the two had not spoken to one another, that husband suddenly and angrily reached out his hand to vigorously smack your uncle Zhou on his ears, The corner of your uncle Zhou’s mouth was bleeding, but your uncle Zhou not only did not say anything but instead kneeled down before in front of this husband. After beating Zhou, the husband cried. He cried for three whole hours which Zhou kneeled before him the entire time. – “
“In fact, your uncle Zhou has been living in pain since the day the young woman committed suicide. No matter what people outside say, it can not reach our ears, but at that time, even the comrades in the Ministry have looked down on your uncle Zhou, saying that in order to protect himself, the relationship with the young woman’s husband, low character – of course, the good thing is that the leaders of the Ministry understand, at that time, the young woman’s husband cried while shouting “Zhou Yushu, you you you you -, between me and my wife and son, you do not know who to protect? Soft women and innocent three-year-old children, ah, are you hard-hearted? Is secrecy all you care about? Are you…'”
“Auntie Zhou,” Yang Wenfeng continued, fearing that Auntie Zhou was getting too upset: “That husband was really a good man. He blamed Zhou for not admitting that the Central Investigation Department had secretly sent him to Taiwan on an intelligence mission. If First Uncle Zhou had revealed the top secret, the young woman’s innocence and life would not have been saved, and according to our Party’s regulations, she could have enjoyed the treatment of a martyr’s family. Of course, if it turned out that the young woman’s husband was an intelligence officer of the Investigation Bureau, under the political situation in Taiwan at that time, the young woman’s husband could be executed as a “communist” or “communist spy” without trial. So Uncle Zhou decided to protect her husband as an intelligence agent at the expense of the intelligence agent’s wife and children?”
“Things are not that simple!” Aunt Zhou interrupted, “Your Uncle Zhou should not only protect the young woman’s husband when he was sent with six comrades, but if only the six comrades, your Uncle Zhou still will not necessarily choose to sacrifice the young woman, the young woman and child after all, ah, men should have the courage to do things, righteousness. Your Uncle Zhou when he was young and your character are somewhat similar, chivalrous, to help the weak – but then the choice is not at all between husband and wife, or between the weak girl and the six intelligence officers ah.
“Yang, you may already know something about this. Between its founding in 1949 and the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, our country made some achievements in economic construction and development. When the Investigation Department was very energetic, it planned to send intelligence cadres overseas and to foreign countries. After the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, with the support of Premier Zhou Enlai and a group of veteran generals, this work did not stop. The effort to send intelligence cadres abroad is a long-term task. By the time the Cultural Revolution began, the cadres to be sent had been identified and given the necessary training.
Once the Cultural Revolution began, China soon fell into chaos, but at the Investigation Department a group of outstanding veteran cadres and veteran leaders, including Comrade Ling Yun 凌云 and Vice Minister Xiong Xianghui 熊向辉 spent a long time fighting in the heart of the enemy. They had the instincts to foresee where the chaos was heading. At their urging, the Investigation Department of the Party Central Committee decided to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Cultural Revolution. Many people were being smuggled across the Taiwan Strait to Taiwan and smuggled into Hong Kong. So they identified excellent intelligence officers who could be dispatched in this way. At that time, people who were smuggled out by Taiwan and the West often as “anti-Communist justice” could be reused once out, and in Taiwan they could soon join the National Army and even sensitive departments like the Military Intelligence Bureau. The arrivals in Hong Kong were also very popular with Western countries. The British Hong Kong authorities arranged for them to obtain passports and visas to enter Western countries. Those who stayed in Hong Kong could also get the double benefit of secret funding from the British Hong Kong authorities and from this side. Many of them soon became wealthy in Hong Kong and now play a role there.
The more Yang Wenfeng listened, the more convinced he became, and he nodded repeatedly.
“Yang, if your uncle Zhou had the choice of protecting the young woman and the child, or protecting the comrades who were sent out with the young woman’s husband, I think your uncle Zhou would have protected the young woman and the child. But at that time, the Investigation Department had used almost the same method as that of sending the young woman’s husband to send more than 100 excellent intelligence officers to Taiwan and Hong Kong in a short period of time! If the young woman’s husband had been arrested, the whole operation of our country’s overseas intelligence network would have been exposed. Not only would it have cost the lives of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of excellent intelligence officers, but the entire Party and state intelligence work would have been irreparably destroyed. “
“I understand, Aunt Zhou.” Yang Wenfeng said in a small voice with a slight tremor.
“You, Yang, don’t mention any secrets in front of Uncle Zhou in the future, do you want to upset him?” Aunt Zhou said with a smile as she wiped away her tears, “I will force him to retire after the Olympics in a few months.”
“By the way,” Yang Wenfeng, who was also in a cheerful mood, suddenly remembered and asked without thinking, “Has that young woman’s husband forgiven Uncle Zhou?”
Auntie Zhou looked carefully at the bedroom door again and said with a small smile, “He forgave him a long time ago. You think that since the husband was a lieutenant colonel officer of the Kuomintang at that time, if he had not forgiven him at all, would he have risked going overseas to secretly meet with your uncle Zhou ah? But people have lost their wives and have not seen a son, the depth of that pain is something few like that lieutenant colonel and your uncle Zhou have experienced. That lieutenant colonel retired as a general, and he never married after that. At present, the intelligence network of Taiwan’s military intelligence system that he laid the foundation for is still the main source of intelligence that we rely on. It plays an irreplaceable role in the struggle for Taiwan’s reunification with the motherland and against Taiwan independence.
Aunt Zhou suddenly paused, and they both smiled heartily. At that time, Director Zhou gently opened the door of the room and slowly walked out. He looked much better, just a little tired.
“I’m a little hungry.” Director Zhou said, looking kindly at his long-time companion and Yang Wenfeng.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (20)
Authoreditor
NOVEMBER 1, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 20: Chinese Spies in America
Four years earlier, Chris, then head of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division’s China Section, personally sat down at the FBI’s Houston Field Office and directed a manhunt code-named “Operation Last Strike. The operation involved a total of sixty-two smart and capable FBI agents and lasted forty-nine hours and thirty-two minutes from start to capture of the suspect. During that time, Chris slept less than two hours, and when he heard the code word “touchdown” over the intercom, he breathed a long sigh of relief. With sweaty hands, he grabbed the confidential red internal phone and reached the FBI director who had been waiting for the call. He later learned that his call had put the FBI director in a difficult position because it was 3:00 a.m. The FBI director wondered if he should immediately wake up the sleeping President of the United States so that he could share in the joy of capturing the first spy sent by the Chinese Ministry of State Security.
Today, four years later, the prey of Operation Last Strike, the only Chinese Ministry of State Security spy captured since the founding of the Communist Party in 1949, Jianguo Li, codenamed “Little Jiangxi,” still laughs and jokes with his interrogators while praising the taste of American coffee. Li, code-named “Xiao Jiangxi,” was still in his element, praising the taste of American coffee and laughing with the FBI experts interrogating him.
On the other side of the one-way mirror, FBI Assistant Director Chris looked thoughtfully at Li Jianguo in the small room with both hands on his cheeks. Louis, the current head of counterintelligence in China, and Chris, like the blond-haired, blue-eyed Irishman, stood by, patiently accompanying their boss for half an hour without saying a word.
Four years ago, when the Chinese spy code-named “Xiao Jiangxi” was brought to Chris, Chris could hardly believe his eyes. In those years, China’s economy had boomed, people’s lives had begun to improve for twenty years, but the Chinese spy before him had suffered from malnutrition during his childhood because of the Cultural Revolution. Now that he had sworn allegiance to the Chinese Communist intelligence, he should be looking for some revenge, right? The United States is a rich country where you can buy valuable information only after interrogation, but food in the United States is very cheap, especially the junk food that makes you grow fat in a few months.
But the Chinese Ministry of State Security spy obviously suffers from malnutrition syndrome, coupled with not having seen the sun for a while — it showed on his green and yellow colors in his complexion. Chris had two questions: First, is the Chinese Ministry of State Security so tightly funded? Or are they really that strict in requiring their intelligence officers to work hard and scrimp and save? If the latter is the case, that is really terrible! However, this guy has been “lurking” in the United States for many years. Has he really dug a hole in the ground to “lurk” in, as the word suggests? Otherwise, his face looks like it has not seen the sun for 800 years!
Those doubts just flew by and never came back in four years. But four years later today, when he looked at Little Jiangxi sitting over there through the one-way mirror, the two doubts suddenly flashed through Chris’s mind again, God, in four years, this Chinese spy has really changed a lot ah!
Four years ago, two tall FBI agents placed young Jiangxi, who looked like he had just been dragged out of a cave, on a stool across from Chris, his face pale and bloodless, his skin and bones trembling, his crotch wet with dirt, his mouth half open and gasping for air, his body so weak that he would die if he fell. Chris had to instruct the two agents to stand closer in case the Chinese spy could not sit still and fell on the spot. Out of professional habit, Chris did not take the half-dead Chinese Ministry of State Security spy in front of him lightly, and he tried to play it cool by holding back his excitement. On May 6, 2004, according to a reliable source, the Chinese Ministry of State Security had already assigned its most important “asset” to lurk near Houston. The target of the infiltrated agents was allegedly related to Chinese space and Mars exploration. The FBI took the information very seriously and went all in, with Chris leaving his work interrogating the al-Qaeda terrorists to personally lead “Operation Last Strike” in Houston.
During a search of the trailer at Nebula Park, a homeless encampment in North Houston, the suspect, Li Jianguo, was found hiding under a table in a filthy car trunk, and it took the FBI agents a great deal of effort to pull out the Chinese spy, who was shivering and wetting his pants. According to one of the agents later recalled, the spy shivering like a child refused to get out from under the table, but when the agents pulled him out, the Chinese face suddenly flashed an imperceptible expression, the expression seems to appear a religious story, as if a Buddhist suddenly realized the fruit of longtime personal cultivation kind of expression, and as if at the crucifixion of Jesus, he remained calm with an expression deep in meaning.
Chris experienced the most exciting time since he started his own counter-intelligence work om China. 1999 saw the indictment of Wen Ho Lee, a U.S. citizen working for China as a nuclear weapons scientist; in 2003, Chen Wenying, a longtime Chinese double agent, or one might add Chinese se spy, who provided top secret FBI information to China’s Ministry of State Security in Los Angeles, was caught; shortly thereafter, Ms. Gao Zhan, a U.S. permanent resident who channeled sensitive technology for China Ms. Gao Zhan, a permanent U.S. resident masquerading as a democracy fighter, was sentenced to six months in prison. [Translator’s note: See the Wikipedia article: List of Chinese spy cases in the United States of America ] Not enough, by the way, they are all ethnic Chinese or overseas Chinese — but some white people in the U.S. and even blond-haired, blue-eyed Irish people may have been used or even bought by the Chinese Ministry of State Security and came to resemble those big white carrots in the winter in northeast China — “white skin, red heart”. The FBI duly introduced a new product of Chinese espionage: the white Ronald Montaperto, a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency informant for China, was fired from the Defense Intelligence Agency in early 2004 and formally placed under covert FBI investigation. Chris thought, the American people should wake up now, the Chinese Ministry of National Security in the United States to develop spies is pervasive and all-pervasive.
But neither the public, nor the media, nor the White House, nor Congress were satisfied, and soon a question was circulating in Washington.
The question reached the president and the FBI: Is the Chinese Ministry of State Security really that good? They have trained so many Americans or permanent residents of the United States to be spies for China, but how come they have not caught a single spy sent to the United States by the Ministry of State Security since 1949? If they don’t send spies to the U.S., who paid for the development of those spies? How were they developed? Were they all invited to China for development, or were they just contacted by phone?
Hahahahahaha, Chris couldn’t help but laugh out loud in his heart with excitement, “Now I’ll give you the answer, my director and Mr. President!” He said in his heart. At the same time, he also glanced at the Chinese Ministry of State Security, which had secretly sent Xiao Jiangxi to the United States to carry out spy development work in front of him, just arrested Xiao Jiangxi, as if he was afraid that this guy heard his heart laughing and talking to himself.
However, in between glances, he found a strange phenomenon, he was just scared little Jiangxi at the beginning. Now, he was still trembling, but he had obviously calmed down inside. Chris was watching through the little triangular eyes of little Jiangxi. This man is not easy! We have to strike while the iron is hot and interrogate him now, not let him get over it! Chris thought.
“Mr. Lee, we will now secretly arrest you for espionage! According to the National Security Act published after ‘9/11’, we have the right to secretly detain you until the matter is resolved, even indefinitely!” Chris raised his tone, even though he knew it probably wouldn’t take more than a week or two to get a confession out of the man before him. What a shame, wouldn’t that be fun?
Little Jiangxi had calmed down, only that damned malnourished hand was still trembling there, always drawing Chris’ attention and making it impossible for him to concentrate. God, this guy’s not a super veteran, is he? He didn’t keep shaking that hand on purpose to distract me, did he? However, it is useless, according to the conclusive evidence provided by the Chinese David Tian, who is already an FBI agent, and according to the forensics on the Internet, any denial by Little Jiangxi is already meaningless.
“Mr. Lee, I am not inviting you to argue with me about whether you are a spy or not, so please listen to me carefully, because this issue is no longer an issue. We are arresting you today under U.S. national security laws for espionage that threatens U.S. national security and seriously harms U.S. national interests. You don’t have to deny that you are a Chinese Communist spy, because we already have hard evidence. Now it is time for you to tell us what kind of espionage you did. In the end, we will tell you whether to sentence you to death or life imprisonment!”
When he spoke later, Chris unconsciously raised his tone because he was suddenly a little annoyed. How could the Chinese Communist spy who had just wet his pants in front of him become so calm and organized in the blink of an eye? Just a moment ago, he could look into his heart through those triangular eyes, and now those little triangular eyes were like a sharp knife forcing him to look away, as if they were piercing his own heart!
The one called Little Jiangxi started to use broken English to defend himself, Chris had to interrupt him often, forget it, open the door.
“Li Jianguo, you’re no ordinary stowaway, and you’ve been in the U.S. for less than a few weeks. We’ve been looking for the fake documents you’ve been using all over the U.S. for years. Also, if you smuggled yourself into the U.S. just a few weeks ago, haha, then it must have been your shadow who bought those pornographic videotapes in Washington a few years ago. By the way, before we arrested you, you burned a lot of paper, I think it was probably code books or information that you didn’t have time to deliver…”
The small-eyed Chinese man answered Chris’s questions and taunts with a carefree look, answering them like a rote book. Chris thought at the time that the Chinese spy in front of him had either a fantastically high IQ or a very low one, but definitely not an ordinary person. He seemed a little interesting.
“Li Jianguo, let’s not waste any time. In 2001, two years after the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia and two years before the successful return of China’s first manned spacecraft to Earth, he was secretly sent to the United States by the Ministry of State Security. He entered the U.S. and wandered aimlessly, recently lurking near the U.S. space city of Houston with the goal of getting close to more than 300 Chinese scientists at NASA (the space agency) to obtain scientific and technical information for China’s exploration of space and Mars -“.
Watching little Jiangxi through the one-way mirror, his mouth slightly agape, seemed comical to Chris. He evasively admitted that he was a student, not a farmer, but flatly denied the accusation that he was a spy for the Ministry of State Security. Chris knew that many spies confessed within twenty-four hours of their arrest. The longer the delay, the harder it is to get the confession, Chris pointed out.
“Gee Mr. Li, I wonder if I should sober you up a bit, you are now dealing with the most technologically advanced and spy-intensive FBI in the world, please do not underestimate our capabilities and overestimate our good intentions. We know that you are a Chinese spy. We have the proof. We have all the records of your communications on the Internet; you probably forget that when you use the Internet to contact your friends, classmates, and relatives, we can see all of that. The Internet was originally invented by our US intelligence agencies. You don’t know that, do you?”
Chris stopped when he saw Little Jiangxi’s head droop. He thought that even though he hadn’t forced him to admit it himself today, he had obviously given in mentally. Chris decided to call it a day.
What Chris did not expect was that this interrogation break would last for three months. During those three months in secret detention, when Little Jiangxi wasn’t protesting that he wasn’t used to hamburgers, he was complaining that the coffee tasted like bitter water, or he was suddenly falling down, passing out, and even going on hunger strike in protest. Little Jiangxi’s abnormal behavior and weak body forced Chris to postpone the interrogation several times. Of course, Chris also had his own ideas at the time, because if Little Jiangxi’s case were to be made public, his current image of extreme malnutrition would attract the sympathy of the American people. The American people might even wonder how such a person could be a Chinese Communist agent. A Chinese agent would have to be at least as stubborn as Lai Changxing, who ran away to Canada. Three months later, Little Jiangxi was finally getting used to American food, and slowly drinking coffee after asking the guards to add two extra packets of white sugar. Chris looked at the rosy-cheeked Jiangxi and thought, “It’s time to get this interrogation over with before Christmas!
It was Chris’s second official interrogation of a spy sent by the Ministry of State Security, codenamed “Xiao Jiangxi”, who had been brought into the interrogation room by the guards before Chris entered the room. Chris carefully placed the coffee on the table and made a few humorous exaggerated movements as he glanced out of the corner of his eye to see Xiao Jiangxi watching him with interest, his face even showing an occasional smile of understanding.
“Hello, Mr. Li.” Chief Chris extended his hand to Jiangxi and shook it like an old Chinese friend. When he saw Jiangxi’s mouth open slightly several times, he knew the young man was eager to talk, so he opened the door again. Looks like he can have a comfortable Christmas.
“Mr. Li, I think you understand that we will not secretly arrest you for espionage without sufficient evidence. Today, I think you can give an account of your problem. We at the FBI can say that we know all about the activities of Chinese spies in the United States, and as you know, we have had quite a harvest in recent years. However, your case is unique and I’d like to hear…”
Chris did not expect Jiangxi to be so eager, Chris’ voice had not yet fallen, he was talking about his “Chinese spies in the United States” of strange talk. During this time has been smiling, but also from time to time to check on the interrogation process by looking at some of the video camera footage.
Little Jiangxi was not proficient in American English, so after hearing the accusations, he breathed a long sigh of relief. He was still smiling at Chris as if a naughty student had played a prank and was still waiting for the teacher to praise him for being clever too.
Chris was very disappointed, but Jiangxi’s methodical analysis, insightful explanations, and clear examples were proof that Chris and his colleagues had caught the most mysterious spy the People’s Republic of China has ever sent to the United States! Of course, in the hands of the FBI, a spy confession is only a matter of time.
It’s a shame that Chris is not as relaxed and happy this Christmas as he had expected.
Four years ago, after months of bumpy sailing in the Pacific Ocean, Li, with a little life left in him, finally set foot on the land Columbus discovered hundreds of years ago. Not wanting the Americans to know how long he had been “lurking” here, he avoided entering the country with a fake passport because the United States collects fingerprints of incoming travelers to prevent terrorist attacks. After successfully landing in the U.S. clandestinely, Yang gave him several sets of identification documents and “proof” that he had been living in different parts of the country for the past several years. After that, Yang Wenfeng just indifferently said, “Time is very short, old classmate, it’s up to you!
After saying that, Yang Wenfeng walked away without looking back. Xiao Jiangxi took a Greyhound bus to the northern suburbs of Houston, where he bought a trailer for $800 that probably wouldn’t last more than a few weeks, but he would only have those few weeks of free time. Of course, free time is not necessarily free. He has to spend those weeks practicing his rusty spoken English. He also had to memorize the various sets of confessions that Yang Wenfeng had prepared for him. Most importantly, he had to adjust his own mentality so that people could “feel” that he was an uncompromising Chinese spy. Li Jianguo, who had a rich inner world and was good at imagination, was sometimes enveloped in a melancholy atmosphere, sometimes infected with pessimism, and sometimes caught in a state of confusion between dreams and reality during those weeks.
At two o’clock that morning, the whole parking lot seemed to be lit by the midday sun, bright and shiny. Cautioning himself to “calm down, calm down, calm down,” Jiangxi organized his clothes, took a box of matches from his pocket, struck one, lit the pile of draft paper he had been preparing for several days, and watched the flames rise as he said softly in English: “Showtime” (the show began). But when the roar of “freeze” rose and fell, and the four sides of the trunk house and the roof of the car were suddenly torn apart by the helicopter, Xiao Jiangxi’s instinct made him quickly dive under the table in the trunk of the car. Hiding under the table, Xiao Jiangxi was trembling, he did not know when he wet his pants, and even for a moment, Little Jiangxi felt some regret.
But that was just a moment, for the next four years, Jiangxi was never afraid and never felt regret. But at that time, he was scared enough. Little Jiangxi like a child hiding under the table, refused to come out, want to hide more than a moment, even if a moment, but finally was pulled out by the FBI agents. Trembling, Little Jiangxi came out after accidentally looking at an agent’s eyes full of contempt. At that moment, Little Jiangxi suddenly understood his role: “I am not a bum, now I am Little Jiangxi, I am the best spy in China!” So in a flash, Jiangxi completed the process of changing from an ordinary Chinese citizen to one of the world’s best spies. Remember what Yang Wenfeng said earlier, that the director of the Ministry of State Security, Zhou, had told him that the process of changing from an ordinary person to a spy would take a lifetime, but for some people it would only take five to ten years. Most people will never be able to change!
Although instinct still gave Little Jiangxi heart palpitations, his trembling body could not stop, but he already knew that he could put on a show. Especially when he sat in front of the head of the FBI’s China section called Chris, his heart “thump”, ah, how this person and Yang Wenfeng seemed exactly the same! He also noticed that although the white man seemed calm on the surface, every now and then when he reached out for coffee, his hand would shake slightly. In addition to the sweat, his breathing was also irregular. Ha ha, Li Jianguo’s heart laughed, so I get you so excited ah, it looks like I really haven’t lived up to your expectations!
The conversation has begun, and damn it, the shudder of fear still won’t stop. Well, just shake, let the Americans look at you and joke, or make an accompaniment to it with my next words. for my next words.
“Sir, you are mistaken and I think this is a serious misunderstanding. I can’t hire a lawyer? Well, I didn’t want to hire a lawyer. I haven’t committed any crime, so why should I hire a lawyer? Besides, I don’t have any money.
The tall, handsome interrogator opened his mouth, and after a few sentences of you and me, Li Jianguo’s tensed nerves began to relax, and then they were almost relaxed to the point of being a mess. He wanted to smile, but he knew that smiling was worse than crying and would be misunderstood. My goodness, why is this Yang Wenfeng so sharp? He must have learned a lot of tricks in just a few years at the Ministry of State Security in Beijing. I didn’t expect that the interrogator’s attitude, tone of voice, and even the questions he asked and the content of his speech were all similar to what Yang Wenfeng had suspected.
Now, Li thinks, I just have to recite my lines slowly like an actor, it’s so easy!
Sir, you are really wrong! I am a stowaway, I just smuggled myself into the US a few weeks ago. I was an ordinary farmer in China, I couldn’t find a job, so every time I went to a big Chinese city, I was called a migrant worker by the city people, and I had to pay corrupt government officials to get a temporary residence permit – you see, as a Chinese, I’m so pathetic, I have to get a temporary residence permit in my own country as well. Then I came to Fujian and met a migrant like me who said to me, “Brother, let’s smuggle ourselves to America, where freedom and democracy originated, where you don’t need a temporary residence permit, where you can get a permanent residence permit once you set foot on the land, where there is gold everywhere! So I spent all my savings and smuggled myself into the United States. I didn’t expect you to treat me like a Chinese spy. How can you welcome people who come to you like that? But I don’t care, as long as you let me stay here, even if you make me admit to being a Chinese spy!
Although Li Jianguo wrote down the dialog Yang Wenfeng had designed, Yang Wenfeng was worried that the dialog he had designed was not enough to fight a long war. However, this first interrogation, Li Jianguo found that the old classmate Yang Wenfeng had been overthinking, he Li Jianguo has begun to play his own game!
Chris couldn’t help himself and took out Li’s secret file, which clearly showed Li’s university degree, the process of joining the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the subsequent secret dispatch to the United States and its purpose. Li Jianguo in the process of listening to the face gave a burst of red and a burst of white, of course, this is done for them to see, it is expected that they later have to analyze the videotape down. To be honest, for the long time lying without blinking Li Jianguo, how to do expression deception is not easy. For example, how to make yourself listen to such a resume appears as if people caught the handle of the embarrassed expression is not ordinary people can do it. Yang told him, “Just listen and think, “Oh my God, what a wonderful resume I made up myself, I’m such a liar! This way your face will be red on one side and white on the other. This color change will be translated in the eyes of the FBI as Aha, we got you!
When Jiangxi heard Chris read his resume, he laughed bitterly in embarrassment and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, I just lied, but I didn’t mean to. I called myself a Chinese farmer just to win your sympathy. In China, farmers are the most pitiful people. I just want to stay in the United States, I am indeed a college student, there is nothing wrong with that, but what about joining the Ministry of State Security, ah, being sent to the United States, ah, all these, I am confused.
At that moment, Chris interrupted Little Jiangxi. After listening to Chris talk about the Internet, Xiao Jiangxi felt funny in his heart, but on the surface, he looked dejected. He lowered his head and thought, “Forget it today, my pants are still wet, I want to take a shower first. Sure enough, when Chris saw that Xiao Jiangxi did not look up, he finished the first interrogation.
Then Xiao Jiangxi was taken to the small room that was later closed off for four years. It was a small villa, a total of six rooms upstairs and downstairs, Little Jiangxi’s room on the second floor, windows and balconies are available, but they are all caught by the steel mesh, the room has a toilet and shower facilities. Little Jiangxi entered the room, could not help but sneer, look at the equipment and environment here, if a small county in her hometown of Jiangxi, one would have to beat at least an office manager to live here. If a section chief wanted to live in such a good house, he would have to be corrupt for many years to afford it.
According to the plan, Jiangxi began to “not adjust”. He began to vomit, he was uncomfortable with the water, and finally he began to protest the poor food, threatening that he would die anyway if he was not well, so he might as well bite his own tongue. The FBI guards laughed and said, “Don’t talk nonsense, your Chinese ancestors were the best at bragging. How can a person bite his tongue and kill himself? Suicide is not very easy? Haha – The laughter suddenly stopped as Little Jiangxi “flopped” head first onto the floor, with blood coming out of the corner of his mouth. The FBI guards were stunned. They called for an ambulance while considering what to do after they were fired from the FBI.
This used up three months, originally if you want to play, you can still play, but Xiao Jiangxi was lonely, all day face to face with those idiotic guards was too much, thought he would go out of his mind. So he suddenly recovered. Soon, highly intelligent inquisitors began to accuse him.
It was almost Christmas, and this would be Little Jiangxi’s first Christmas in the United States. The scariest thing about solitary confinement is losing the concept of time; when that happens, everything is out of control. Yang Wenfeng taught him many ways to calculate time, including Christmas. When Christmas is near, no matter how unsmiling Westerners are, they will show it in different ways on different occasions. Indeed, Xiao Jiangxi felt a strong Christmas atmosphere from the wooden and expressionless guards. He thought he would not be arraigned before Christmas, so when Chris appeared in the interrogation room, Xiao Jiangxi was a little excited and immediately put a smile on his face.
Probably, Chris thinks that getting people like Little Jiangxi to confess is not easy, so he seemed relaxed. He did not know that this secretly hurt Little Jiangxi’s self-esteem. When Chris had not finished, Little Jiangxi said, “Let me confess! You say I’m a Chinese spy, you secretly arrest me, and I’ve been in jail for over three months. You make me eat your hamburgers and pizzas, don’t let me read Chinese newspapers, don’t let me call back to China – do you know what you’re doing is a crime? I’m just an ordinary Chinese man who wanted freedom and democracy in the United States and risked my life to come here to join you. So please bear with me and listen to my analysis, and before I do, I must say that if you don’t let me finish, I will shut my mouth and not answer any more of your questions.
Jiangxi made a zipper motion with his hand over his mouth, looked at the slightly surprised Chris, and spoke. While speaking, he would occasionally remember that he was being videotaped, so he often took care to adjust his posture for the best photogenic effect.
China’s economic development over the years faster, scientific and technological progress, more participation in international affairs, more frequent concern for their own territory of Taiwan. you in the United States are afraid. Either you spread some theory of the Chinese threat or you talk about the yellow scourge. In my opinion, this is just looking for trouble and even plain mediocrity! Take the game of catching Chinese spies. There are spy agencies in every country, let alone a big country like China, just like there are prostitutes in every country. I heard that the total number of prostitutes in China has reached more than 6 million this year, by the way, do you have statistics in the United States? Can you tell me personally how many prostitutes you have? Probably not as many as in our country. Okay, I won’t go too far, I’ll come back to the point.
Although I am a layman, if I tell you that the Chinese Ministry of State Security does not engage in sending spies and developing spies to the United States, you will not believe it, or maybe you will even laugh at it. Just like you in the United States, do you not engage in intelligence gathering about China, sending spies, bribing Chinese officials to provide you with information about the Chinese party, government, and military? Of course you do! I think both you spy catchers and international illiterates like me, who study international relations, need to take a correct stand, that is, to look at the issue of sending spies and developing spies on the ground correctly, to acknowledge it, to face it, to face it, and, frankly, not to make it so mysterious.
The question is, what should we do if we all know that there are spies? I think we should catch the spy, arrest the spy, and then release the incriminating evidence to show the world and make people more vigilant, right? You must agree, because that’s what you’re doing. The problem is that you don’t have the ability to catch Chinese spies, but your spy catching agencies cost the American taxpayers so much money every year, so what do you do? There is a Chinese idiom Lànyúchōngshù 滥竽充数 [Translator’s Note: the incompetent masquerading as the competent], and I’ll explain it briefly here, it means –
Catching Chinese spies can be used to disrupt the relationship that overseas Chinese have with China. It can be used to curb China’s momentum, unleash a wave of measures to isolate China in the international community, and strengthen American hardliners and thus benefit some politicians in Washington. But you can’t catch the spies, so you pretend to have achievements that you don’t have, as I explained above, there are indicators that you are engaging in this kind of indiscriminate behavior. I don’t need to repeat myself, do I? Well, I’m going to break them down for you today.
What is it that the United States fears most about China? Fear that China is undemocratic? Fear that China will invade the United States? Or is it fear of unrest in China? –Neither! The United States is most afraid that China’s scientific and technological development is so fast that you in the West, especially the United States, will lose your technological advantage! You can check it out. Sorry, you’re not a political person, but hopefully it won’t waste too many brain cells for you to remember.
Although the U.S. often righteously condemns China’s political system as authoritarian and politically corrupt, you all just pay lip service. You talk about it to cope with international pressure and domestic complaints in the U.S. After that, your leaders no longer smile as sweetly as they used to when they meet our party and state leaders. But behind all this, you in the United States have never compromised on the transfer of science and technology to help China develop and improve its backward productivity. You are more than twenty years ahead of China in science and technology, and you are still doing your best to close the gap.
But the Chinese are not to be trifled with. They are catching up, which is hard, but not everyone is happy. When the first Chinese satellite was tested in 1965, your American Time magazine published an article with what you consider the most classic satirical text: “My God, the Chinese used a bicycle pump to get the satellite into the sky! This text made the Chinese secret service at the time, the Investigation Department, nervous, because they thought they had leaked secrets somewhere. After all, it was the Chinese who, under difficult conditions and in the most primitive way, used a special bicycle pump to pump a little liquid material into the rocket’s compression tank!
Now, the Chinese are still trudging along the road of scientific and technological development, one step at a time. But you probably think that white people are much smarter, so you don’t believe that the Chinese can progress so fast, right? So whenever there are rocket launches and satellites in China, especially when the Chinese start to explore space again, which is now almost completely monopolized by you Americans. You can’t sit still, and the media often comes out and says, “The Chinese are stealing our American technology again. The people are certainly being deceived into believing such falsehoods, even by your White House and Congress. So they all asked your FBI to arrest the two Chinese who stole the technology, and you panicked. Do I have to tell you what happened next?
You arrested a poor Taiwanese immigrant, a loyal citizen of the United States, Wen Ho Lee! This man was honest enough to be deceived by the FBI long after his arrest, not to go to a lawyer, and to take the initiative to cooperate with you. Don’t you think, if Wen Ho Lee was really a spy for China, would our Ministry of State Security have been so stupid? They would have told him to find the best lawyer by now, haha.
They imprisoned Wen Ho Lee for more than a year and charged him with forty-nine crimes, including espionage and leaking secrets. After more than a year, old Lee was supposedly acquitted and your FBI Director and the President apologized. Although Wen Ho Lee was released, he is permanently unemployed because no one dares to hire him. but the nature of the loyal old Lee came out to lament: or “The United States is a good country! If I had been wrongly accused in another country, could I have been exonerated?
Mr. Chris, don’t ever tell me that this is just a little mistake your FBI made. Espionage is not a small crime, and I don’t need to remind you that in the history of the United States you never missed a single Soviet spy. And why not? Because catching spies is not a game, catching spies must be based on conclusive evidence. You have to follow the evidence for a long time, but also prove that the suspect sold information, had links with foreign spy agencies, harmed U.S. national interests and national security, etc. So your FBI, with the exception of engaging in political persecution in the 1950s and 1960s, your work on catching spies has been very careful, right?
However, you just happened to be on duty at that sensitive time when the Chinese were desperately developing science and technology, desperately researching space technology, and had Wen Ho Lee arrested, and not sentenced, but first convicted, and a delay of more than a year, why? Do I have to break it? Because it was a conspiracy by your FBI at the behest of American politicians from the very beginning! You knew from the beginning that Wen Ho Lee was not a spy and did not leak secrets, but you needed such a scapegoat, you needed to make an example of Wen Ho Lee, an outstanding Chinese scientist! Whether Wen Ho Lee is guilty or not does not matter. Even if he is later proven innocent, your goal has been achieved. Because you have used the case of Wen Ho Lee to warn all scientists of Chinese descent in words that every Chinese can understand: Wen Ho Lee was innocent, but he could still be imprisoned by the FBI for a year — see if that intimidates them.
Your FBI must have detailed files on the Chinese situation; you surely know that after the Wen Ho Lee incident, many Chinese scientists voluntarily left or were forced to leave sensitive departments. But as you know, Chinese children study hard and learn well. When they grow up, they mostly avoid politics and choose to work in scientific and technological fields. They have made great contributions to the development of science and technology in the United States. Do you remember that when your Mars probe was launched, some American newspapers reported that there were more than 300 Chinese working hard on this high-tech project? Many Chinese newspapers wanted to report the story and TV stations wanted to show the footage, but they were so upset and afraid of getting overseas Chinese into trouble that they just stopped reporting it. The result is that your Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has come back to the fore screaming something like: “How strange that the Chinese are afraid to report on the good work the Chinese are doing on Mars exploration.
Sadly, isn’t that what your arrest of Wen Ho Lee did?
The great impact you had by arresting Wen Ho Lee made you excited. So you started making other plans. This time the target should be the overseas Chinese, preferably those extremely active overseas Chinese leaders. But there are so many overseas Chinese leaders, and they all keep themselves clean, so you can’t get any. You can’t just forget about it, can you? You also have to find a target among the overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese to make an example of. The one you found was a double agent, Katrina Leung aka Chen Wenying. The fact that Ms. Chen worked for your FBI, and also for her own compatriots and former country, and also engaged in some espionage activities, can be described as loyal to the United States. The reason why you even use this kind of people who have been working for you for 20 years is because you lack better targets. Anyway, you can use the Chen Wenying case to achieve the same goal, that is, no matter how much you contribute to the United States, even if you still have a little attachment to China, the FBI will not let you go.
These two spy cases were not concluded, but that is no problem, the White House will not blame you for incompetence, on the contrary, your director will be secretly praised because you achieved the purpose. What happened to these two Chinese was typical, one was a scientist who contributed his knowledge to your missile technology business, and the other was even more outrageous, as she was a loyal informant who gave her soul and body to you. But after these two incidents, there seems to be a beauty in them, what is it?
That is, over the years, the Chinese have bided their time, kept a fairly low profile, and buried their heads in the sand, taoguang yanghui 韬光养晦 gaining not only the recognition of overseas Chinese, but also the sympathy and respect of many foreigners of conscience, including white people.
Your fabulous FBI of course knows this situation, so you play your little conspiracy again, and as a result, not long ago, you deliberately revealed that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Ma Lund leaked information to the Chinese government, so you fired him. This is strange, as a senior China research expert in the Defense Intelligence Agency, if he leaked secrets to the Chinese government, which is a very serious espionage crime, how can you just fire and pull down? It is obvious to the discerning eye that this is another trick to make an example of the monkey! You guys never get tired of playing this game, as long as it is spying or leaking secrets, when it comes to China, why is it so funny and strange? It all started with a bang, but in the end it was all over.
Let me tell you why. It starts with sensationalism because it is about shaping public opinion. If you didn’t make a big deal at the beginning, when the people’s lawyers made their case, you would have nothing. So in order to shape public opinion, the government deliberately leaks information to make the suspects stink —- a stink used to educate the American people.
My own case can prove that my theory is correct by presenting disproving evidence. Why did you continue to secretly arrest and imprison me without creating public opinion? Because you believe that I am a real spy and that I will make a full confession sooner or later, so there is no need to create public opinion first.
Once the evidence is gathered, you will make it public! I just wanted a change of scenery, I wanted to come to the U.S. to get a green card and not just a “temporary residence” card. You used over 60 agents to arrest me. That scared the hell out of me. You must think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, right? If the fact that I am a spy is exposed, then all the Chinese spies you have caught over the years are like a big plate of Chinese food, a menu with all the different kinds, hahaha –
Little Jiangxi looked at Chris who was sweating slightly on his forehead, he couldn’t say how pleased he was. In fact, as long as you can adjust your mind, you can sit in the most secluded prison in the world and talk to the most cunning interrogators — it’s really not that different from sitting at your computer and chatting with all kinds of people. The point is to stay calm, control the chat topic, brag when you brag, and when it comes time to be honest, never, ever, ever want to be honest!
Chris left with a serious expression on his face. Little Jiangxi knew that this guy would change his strategy. Little Jiangxi was a little scared and a little excited. He was ready for the steady stream of interrogations to come. But he was very confident.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (21)
Authoreditor
NOVEMBER 1, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 21: The Spy-catcher
Chris looked through the one-sided mirror,. His gaze was fixed on the Ministry of National Security codenamed “Xiao Jiangxi” Li Jianguo. Litlle Jiangxi just saw there, his thoughts wandering. Standing next to Louis looked at his watch, it has been two hours.
After that first Christmas, Chris called in FBI China experts and interrogation experts, to discuss the way forward. They decided to follow established procedures, first the simple one and then the difficult ones, starting from the guidance on the use of psychological interrogation techniques, and finally to the drugs and neurostimulation methods and mental torture methods. Of course, Chris himself definitely do not think that Jiangxi could insist on enjoying the full range of the FBI’s 18 techniques. At the meeting Chris also vainly engaged in self-criticism, sying that they had been gullible, missed the best interrogation opportunities, allowed the criminal in custody to adjust their mindset, so far did had not confessed.
Once the meeting was over, agents and interrogation experts from the entire China Section of the FBI were busy. The primary interrogation, which was mostly offensive, was led by Louis, the most promising Irishman in the China Section.
Chris and Louis are so similar in appearance and temperament that when little Jiangxi saw Louis, he thought it was Chris who had changed his outfit during the Christmas holidays.
Louis does not have the same self-confidence as Chris, nor, of course, does he have Chris’s friendly and easy-going nature.
“Mr. Li, let’s be casual, shall we?” Louie said as he relaxed, in fact, the opposite Little Jiangxi looked more casual than Louie no matter which angle he looked from.
“You are a spy, and I am the one who catches spies. You might say that I must have a bias and prejudice against spies, right? Not really, I have many friends in the CIA myself, and before they were in charge, they were all spies too, and some of them were stationed in China for a long time. You know about the American Flying Tigers in China during the war against Japan? One of the pilots was my uncle. He retired from the Flying Tigers and joined the Central Intelligence Agency, where he remained anonymous until his retirement. This work is very mysterious.
“My view of spies is that, like all professions in the world, they are not good or bad in themselves, just as if you were a soldier, you would train, fight and kill. But it’s not the same if you’re a soldier for Saddam, the tyrant of Iraq, and if you’re an American soldier, there’s a difference between good and evil, and so it is with spies. From the information we have about you, Mr. Li, and from the further understanding we have gained after spending time together during this period, I can conclude that Mr. Li definitely did not work as a spy for the Chinese government for money, nor would you have done it because you wanted to be famous. I think you must have joined the spy business because of your ideals, am I right?”
Louis was greatly encouraged by the way Little Jiangxi began to focus.
“Just as spy itself is a neutral word, what a spy does is actually neutral, and whatever means you use to accomplish a spy mission is understandable, because that’s what you have to do as a spy. The question is, for whom are you spying? You study international relations, and you should know that the general trend in the world is toward a democratic and free Western political system, and that the Communist system basically died with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of course, your Chinese Communist Party still insists that it is promoting a socialist system, but that is still not a de facto socialist system that we can discuss. Now I must tell you, Mr. Li, that your decision to spy for this regime is clearly on the wrong side of history! As you know, when two armies fight, whether evil or good wins, the soldiers are not morally condemned for simply choosing a profession. But being a spy is different. Being a spy is not only choosing a rare profession, but also choosing an ideal, and since it is an ideal that is chosen, one must take moral responsibility. Mr. Li, sooner or later China will choose democratic politics, just as Russia has now replaced the former Soviet Union. But if you look back and see what happened to the KGB in the Soviet Union, the Russian people still talk about them with gnashing of teeth, and their place in history is associated only with shame. But can you say that so many of the best young Soviets of that time did not join the KGB with good intentions? What a pity, what a pity!
“Mr. Li, I don’t think I need to make it too clear that you are definitely a reasonable person. Not only will you not be forgiven by the freedom and democracy loving Western people of the world for spying for the Chinese government now, but the people of China, the people you think you are serving now, will sooner or later spit on you as a spy in the service of a dictatorship!”
Louis slowed down the last words a bit, one word at a time, and raised the tone of his voice. After saying that, he deliberately lowered his head to drink coffee, he knew that if you want to observe Little Jiangxi’s reaction, you do not have to stare into his face, then you will not get any reaction, anyway, the room from at least three angles mounted on the camera lens. Louis deliberately gave Little Jiangxi a little time, he drank the coffee with a taste. When he looked up from the cup, Jiangxi was still looking thoughtful. Well, Louis thought, the biggest problem with spies working for the centralized power is that they never think independently, and if they ever start to think, they are not far from a complete breakdown of their mental defenses.
Little Jiangxi is indeed thinking, but he is thinking about something else. He regrets that he did not go online to tell Xiaoxian himself that he had gone on a mission and might not be able to return for three or two years. Although he had not met Xiaoxian, he had fallen deeply in love with the girl with that name. Of course, he did not fall in love with Xiao Jiangxi, but with the Changfeng warrior. When he left China, Xiao Jiangxi once wanted to let Yang Wenfeng impersonate Changfeng so that he could continue to surround himself with his beloved woman, after all, the network is merciless, who knows. If she cannot see Changfeng, maybe Xiao Qian will turn around and fall into the arms of who knows who. However, after thinking about it, Li Jianguo still did not trust Yang Wenfeng. He didn’t think that Yang Wenfeng would have the wonderful pen needed to comfort Xiaoxian. Alas, let’s leave it to the will of Heaven! It will also help him in prison, as he will have more thoughts, more fantasies, and more expectations to fill his days!
“You need to understand the reasoning, so I won’t go into it.” Louis continued, “It’s not that you haven’t seen for years that human rights are especially valued in our American system of freedom and democracy, if you’ve been lurking in the United States. I believe you when you say you were smuggled in. The Chinese people you smuggled in with you could not live freely and fairly in the big cities of your own country. But as soon as they set foot on American soil, they are free, and with hard work, they will have a good life one day, right? But if you look at your country, the lower class of people, including those eight or nine hundred million peasants, if you want to live a good life, can you really get there by working hard? Now that you are in the United States, whether you are an American citizen or not, whether you are a spy or not, you enjoy certain human rights. As long as you, Mr. Li, quickly and thoroughly explain the problem, we will let you stay in the United States and enjoy true democracy and freedom. In fact, we are all very concerned about you, and the director saw the pictures of you at the time of your arrest and noticed that you were suffering from malnutrition, so he held a meeting and decided on the spot that you should be allowed to recover physically first-“
Although Little Jiangxi was thinking about his own business at the same time, he still heard him clearly. He knew that although this was a necessary procedure in the interrogation, but Louis did not tell lies, here in solitary confinement, whether from the food or sanitary conditions, exposure to fresh air, are much better than he used to be in the small county of Jiangxi, just no freedom. Of course, Jiangxi does not care too much about freedom, how many years in the past he had freedom, but this freedom is like air, except that you live, no practical value at all. After so many years, if Louis suddenly told him, “You’re free! Little Jiangxi will be at a loss because he does not know how to use this freedom.
Little Jiangxi looked at Louis with some gratitude and thought, “This man is really dedicated to his duty, he convinced Little Jiangxi from theory and emotion, which are probably the first two of Yang Wenfeng’s “Reasoning, Emotion, and Granting Benefits”. So he patiently waited for the following “granting of benefits”. Sure enough, Louis spoke again.
“The Bureau is especially concerned about you because we know that you have no one to turn to in the United States, and that the funds allocated to you by the Ministry of State Security were probably embezzled when they sent you over. When we saw you, a real agent of the Ministry of State Security, living in poverty, we all felt sorry for you. As you probably know, according to the information we have, your Ministry of State Security has set up more than 3,000 companies in the United States. Most of them are owned by the children of senior cadres of the Chinese Communist Party who came to live abroad and set up companies in the name of the Ministry of State Security to make money. To tell you the truth, whether they are really for the sake of China’s national security, they all cooperate with us very well. But look, you are a real spy, but you are malnourished. This is really sad. But on the other hand, if you are willing to cooperate with all of us and expose the people previously sent by the Ministry of State Security, the people you yourself have developed over the years, and what you have done by lurking in the United States over the years, we can reward you by sending you some money to help you settle down in the United States. The $300,000 is just the basic figure, there is no upper limit; it mainly depends on the usefulness of the information you provide and how many Chinese Ministry of State Security spies you have lurking in the United States…”
Jiangxi suddenly thought, “If I could get 300,000 U.S. dollars, take it back to Jiangxi Province and exchange it on the black market. Then we could really make some changes and realize the great ideals of our country. The world is a strange place. Many heroes and heroines have to wash dishes because they have no money to buy basic necessities. Some spend their youth in vain because they have no way to finance their activities. If they had the money they needed, they could have worked for the good of the people and the country.
Jiangxi also thought, “It is so strange that many people have money, but they only know how to spend it on eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling? Maybe the problem is money: no money when you are ambitious, when you spend it on selfish pursuits. It is so depressing. Hey, Little Jiangxi sighed in his heart, if I had more than two million yuan, ha ha, I would not have to worry about life, I could focus on doing great things. This thought, Xiao Jiangxi did not feel a smile, and stuck out his tongue to lick the lips. This action was the right move in Louis’ eyes. An almost imperceptible smile appeared on Louis’ face.
That was the end of the interrogation for that day. Three days later, when Louis came and asked Jiangxi if he was willing to confess, Jiangxi looked at Louis like he was crazy, and Louis suddenly realized that he had wasted his time again.
As a result, Xiao Jiangxi suddenly fell into a state of mental confusion that lasted for over two months. During those two months, Louis did not come to see him, and the guards’ faces became more and more ugly. Xiao Jiangxi knew that the stage of “thinking, feeling, and benefiting” had passed, and the difficult test was about to begin. Xiao Jiangxi has been in for many months, when Yang Wenfeng speculated that the irresistible interrogation is about to begin, he must fight for “leniency” before then, but also take the opportunity to give the FBI a few more different versions of the confession, or if he falls into a coma or crazy state, he may reveal the only version…
That morning, after he woke up, Xiao Jiangxi calmly told the guards sitting on the sofa in the hallway: “You go inform your superiors, I want to confess to get leniency!”
Because Jiangxi insisted on confessing a small part of each day and stammering, sometimes bursting into tears and sometimes suddenly fainting, it was three months and five days after Jiangxi asked for leniency that Louis compiled a 200-page record of the interrogation and handed it to Chris with trembling hands.
Chris tried to remain calm in front of his men, and as Louis turned to leave, Chris said carelessly, “Louis, there is something I want you to know, but this news ends with you. I am being promoted to Deputy Director of the FBI next month, in charge of all spy catching. The position of the Counterintelligence Division’s China Section will be vacant, I have recommended you to the Director, do a good job!”
Although Chris already knew the main circumstances of the interrogation, he couldn’t stop reading the two hundred pages of the interrogation transcript once he started, and read it for two whole hours. “Great!” He rubbed his eyes and sighed, “Too good to be true.
It is indeed unbelievable that according to Little Jiangxi’s testimony, he had been in hiding in the United States for four years. During those four years, he cooperated with almost all the secret activities and plans of the Ministry of State Security in the United States, including how to steal the machines and drawings of the United States down to locomotive engines and up to the Mars rover, how to plan spying and lobbying activities in Washington, including helping Chinese businessmen to enter the White House to sleep and shake hands with the president for photos, and of course planning a series of lobbying activities in the U.S. Congress. As for sending spies, it is even more frightening.
According to Jiangxi’s confession, China not only sends every foreign student who goes to the U.S. on an intelligence mission, but also reaches out to neighboring countries and makes the foreign students there serve the Chinese Ministry of State Security as well. So to date, there are probably hundreds of thousands of agents in China’s service, but of course some of them are deliberately playing the role of democracy fighters in order to stay hidden for a long time and confuse the enemy. Jiangxi also mentioned in detail how he assisted the Ministry of State Security in buying Chinese newspapers in the U.S. to occupy the field of public opinion, to carry out threats and sabotage, and to bribe Chinese and overseas Chinese.
Most interesting to Chris were some of Jiangxi’s clandestine activities, such as his role as a representative of the Ministry of State Security in Los Angeles with a Chinese Communist sexting spy code-named “Living Room Girl,” and his role as a State Security agent who transferred more than $2 million into the United States over four years, mainly to help the Chinese government’s preferred presidential candidate run for office. He even mentioned the top goals of the Ministry of State Security, such as trying to develop one or two U.S. presidents as agents of the Ministry of State Security by about 2020 –
Gee, Chris had to admit that he had underestimated Little Jiangxi, Last time he was almost cheated by this guy. Of course, he also has doubts, such as bringing more than two million dollars as a political contribution, but he still hiding in the broken car trunk like a dog in a hole in Houston, so clean and honest Chinese people are not only Jiao Yulu 焦裕禄? For example, Xiao Jiangxi reported that he was a special agent of the Ministry of State Security, under the supervision of Yang Wenfeng, and mentioned that the Ministry of State Security had brainwashed him into thinking that he was not a special agent of the Ministry of State Security – Chris was confused!
A cold sweat broke out on Chris’s head as Jiangxi’s 200-page transcript confirmed almost every suspicion the U.S. has had for the past two decades about Chinese government espionage in the United States. Moreover, Little Jiangxi’s confession is additional evidence that the China threat theory propagated by the U.S. media over the past decade is real. While giving an account of his espionage, Jiangxi also ruthlessly revealed many little-known facts about China. Chris excitedly thought that in a few months, after the FBI had made the necessary checks, they would take action to arrest him and publish Little Jiangxi’s account and revelations in the media. By then, this will be an unprecedented event in the history of world espionage, he Chris would naturally be the world’s best spy catcher!
It was not too difficult to confirm Little Jiangxi’s testimony, after all, almost all the events and facts were more or less reported by the U.S. media. For example, some newspapers reported that Chinese spies were rampant in the U.S. At first, everyone thought it was fake news, and at that time even the FBI did not find it credible, but now it was confirmed by the Chinese Ministry of State Security Special Agent Little Jiangxi himself. So the FBI agent approached a newspaper reporter who reported the news at the time: “Dear Mr. Reporter, do you remember your bold report two years ago about the omnipresence of Chinese spies in the United States?”
The reporter was nervous and thought, “Oh my God, here we go again, didn’t I already admit I was wrong? Why is this coming up again?
“Mr. Reporter, I came to tell you that we thank you! Although your information was misunderstood and objected to by the Chinese community at the time, after two years of painstaking forensic work, we — the Chinese Section of the FBI Counterintelligence Intelligence Unit — have now officially confirmed that your information was very accurate, and we respect your sources and hope that you will continue to publish similar information in the future to educate the American people –“.
The editor watched the FBI agents leave, he could not help but wonder, fuck, two years ago, because he ate chili for dinner in Chinatown and got constipated, he had suddenly come to hate the Chinese people. So he made up this Chinese spies everywhere news. He really did not expect that the FBI idiots would actually help me to confirm that this story was true. Hahahahahahahaha…
After the official appointments of Chris and Louis’ high promotions came down, the two men congratulated each other over drinks in the office,. Then both mentioned their doubts about Little Jiangxi’s confession. Two months after Christmas, Little Jiangxi’s confession to dozens of felony espionage offenses none of which could be confirmed with the exception of the newspaper reporter vouching for an excellent source who could not be revealed. Moreover Little Jiangxi’s own testimony appeared in three or four versions. In one, he said that the Ministry of State Security thought well of him after he captured Hu Changqing in Jiangxi. Then he said he was sent by his old classmate Yang Wenfeng, Deputy Director of the Ministry of State Security, and that he was a fake Chinese spy. Reliable sources confirmed that Yang Wenfeng had once studied in the United States, was no longer a Ministry of State Security intelligence officer, and that Guangdong Province newspapers reported that Yang Wenfeng had died in an early 2004 car accident.
Chris and Louis visited Little Jiangxi together and found that the guy was living fast and healthy. Since he confessed and got out such a 200-page treasure, the FBI did not treat him badly. He was given good food and wine every day. Of course, this was mainly to show the American people, when the public trial came, what the Chinese secret service that consumed so much of their tax money looked like. If even a tenth of Xiao Jiangxi’s confession was proven, he would be sentenced to death. Of course, if the Chinese government were willing to intervene and properly release one or two American spies held in Chinese prisons, the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment.
“We found certain problems with your confession, some of which we could not confirm. I also want to know today, are you an agent of the Ministry of State Security Security Department or not?” Chris asked openly.
“Have you tried your best?” Little Jiangxi said in a reproachful tone.
“I think we did our best!” Louie said.
“I don’t think so.” Jiangxi was now very fluent in American English, and some of the colloquialisms were Americanized. “For example, in the confession, I confessed to receiving a lot of intelligence sketches and money from the Chinese Ministry of State Security under various park benches – today is February 10, and I’ll tell you something when you come back to interrogate me on the afternoon of March 5, because I need to think about it.”
On the afternoon of March 5, Chris and Louis obediently went back to Jiangxi’s “villa,” they could not disobey Jiangxi now, they were too involved. Little Jiangxi saw them coming, very happy look. After chatting for a while, Xiao Jiangxi suddenly looked at the clock on the wall and said mysteriously: “You two are very good to me, so in order to redeem myself, I will now reveal some important top secret information to you. I know how the Chinese Ministry of State Security in Washington leaks the most important information. Of course, I don’t know if they’ve changed their ways now, but you can try.”
Chris and Louis both tensed in unison and pricked up their ears to listen.
“Tonight, there will be an important package under the third bench from the left along the east side of the Washington Memorial Park, and if you hurry now, you might still be able to catch the person who put the package there or picked it up -“
Xiao Jiangxi’s words have not finished, Chris has put the Washington headquarters on the phone. In about three minutes, three planes took off at the same time from the helipad at FBI Headquarters in Washington, one of which took Chris and Louis back to Headquarters, and when they arrived, the agents on the other two planes delivered the packages they had retrieved from under the park bench. Although it was after hours, the entire FBI building was suddenly tense and cheerful, as if it were a holiday. This scenario had only happened during the Cold War, and now that it was back, every FBI agent was excited. “Chinese state security spies are openly sharing information in our nation’s capital, the Washington National Memorial Park,” the news seemed to grow wings and fly from one agent’s excited mouth to another’s trembling ears.
After chemical and ballistic experts had ruled it out as dangerous, the package arrived in the hands of Chris, the Deputy Director. He opened it slowly and carefully, as if he were pulling open a classmate’s underwear for the first time in high school decades ago.
The package contained a letter, along with a stack of U.S. dollars and a Chinese book from China. “Typical of the Chinese Ministry of State Security to set up a mission!” Louis was so excited that his voice trembled a little, and Chris gave him a white look: “Everyone knows that the Chinese Ministry of State Security usually gives overseas packages that include funds, work requirements, and a book to strengthen political ideological education. The book was actually called The Need to Strengthen Political Thought Education Work in the New Era, and there was a whole thousand dollars in it.
Chris opened the letter, a few short lines in the eyes: “Thank you for the information provided, especially the President’s internal speech, as well as the FBI’s recent intelligence activities have received high-level attention, in addition to sending the Mars Rover drawings have been forwarded to the Space Tianshen Tenth General Command, we are especially grateful for. Everyone, please take care of your health and keep up the good work. Our most important friend, Little Jiangxi, has been missing for two years, please continue to search for him. This man has a lecherous nature, if you can find out about the brothels he frequents, the prostitutes there may have some information. Please also gather information about the recent secret meetings between the U.S. Department of Defense and Taiwan, please accept the $1,000 funding first, and we’ll send the rest next time. Please don’t forget to improve your training when you have time.”
All doubts had disappeared, Little Jiangxi really was an important spy of the Ministry of State Security, probably their number one spy! He had been imprisoned for two years, but he still remembered how and where the important Chinese spy was delivered to Washington. That can’t be easy! Unfortunately, the spy who dropped or received the package was not caught because the FBI was too excited. It seems that it was wrong to doubt that Xiao Jiangxi was a real spy some time ago. The FBI must go all out to confirm the 200-page confession and interrogate Little Jiangxi more thoroughly. The matter must not be made public until the news is out. It seems that Beijing does not yet know that anything has happened to Xiao Jiangxi.
Little Jiangxi has long been discussing with Yang Wenfeng the possibility of slipping a package under a bench in Washington from time to time, lest the FBI poke a hole in his lies and acquit him. And the fact that Yang Wenfeng is quite pleased with his performance, and because Tian Haipeng has been given more and more sensitive assignments after he betrayed Little Jiangxi. So Yang Wenfeng gritted his teeth. It was hard to put a thousand dollars in the package. This caused him heartache for many days. In addition, Yang Wenfeng also thought about Little Jiangxi’s difficulties, because his single room is equipped with many camera lenses, and he is not allowed to turn off the light at night. So it is very difficult to get access. Considering that Little Jiangxi hadn’t had a sex life for four years and couldn’t even masturbate, Yang Wenfeng deliberately mentioned in the letter that the FBI had discovered that Little Jiangxi’s fatal weakness was sex. Only much later did Little Jingxi find out why the FBI, after intercepting the package, repeatedly tried to use sexual temptation in their interrogation process. They gave him pornographic videos to watch and left a pretty blonde woman with him for three hours. But when little Jiangxi saw that the woman used masturbation to satisfy herself, he always refused to take off his pants.
Several more months passed, and Jiangxi’s confessions were reviewed one by one by dozens of FBI agents. All this proved was that he was making it all up. Chris and Louis went crazy! It turned out that this Little Jiangxi’s confession almost the last two decades of U.S. spying on China’s intelligence activities are “confessed” out, his account of almost all the original according to the Westerners, slightly different, he was like a magician, inserted himself into each incident, as if he was omnipresent, as if he were the chief of the U.S. intelligence section of China’s Ministry of State Security. If Chris hadn’t been so dazed and excited, he wouldn’t have been able to see this. Unfortunately, he can see it now, but it’s already Little Jiangxi’s third Christmas in prison.
“Use more severe interrogation immediately and call me all senior interrogation experts!” Chris could no longer trust his own department, and he was going to turn to other departments. And, he got through to the CIA about the situation, because he knew that the CIA used many Chinese as agents, and they were particularly resourceful; after all, to deal with the Chinese, the best thing to do was to use the Chinese themselves.
Soon, the conclusions coming from the CIA experts left Chris hanging his head in dismay.
After Jiangxi was caught, the FBI has missed opportunity after opportunity. At first glance, it was thought to be a mistake, but in fact, it was not. CIA experts believe that it was all planned by Jiangxi. For two years, the FBI has hardly ever used extreme methods to interrogate Jiangxi because he himself has been leading the FBI by the nose. After the FBI used persuasive methods, Jiangxi immediately asked for leniency when he felt he was about to be tortured and had to reveal the truth. From his confession, we can see that he seized the FBI’s psychological desire to catch Chinese spies and confirmed almost all the “spy intelligence suspicions” that the U.S. media and hardliners had accused China of over the years, keeping the FBI busy trying to verify his reports. The CIA concluded that Jiangxi was not only a Chinese spy, but also a senior spy who knew psychology and studied the ways of espionage! As for why he played the FBI in this way, it was most likely to stall for time. But as to why he stalled, they could not know.
The CIA experts also made a point that shocked Chris, they said that the 200-page report was actually magic. No matter what means the FBI will use in the future, will not be able to get any useful information from Little Jiangxi’s mouth, because Little Jiangxi has used his own confession report to “contaminate” anything he says in the future. He will say everything. For example, Little Jiangxi said in his confession that he was a senior spy sent by the Ministry of State Security, but the Ministry of State Security brainwashed him to say that he was a fake spy sent by Yang Wenfeng, or a voluntary spy smuggled in, etc. In the future, even if he is in a coma and says any kind of information about his identity, the experts will not know whether it is was from before or after brainwashing —
Chris and Louis got head-splitting headaches. The lie detector test had been routine for Little Jiangxi for two years. However no matter what Little Jiangxi said, lie detector test results proved that he was not lying. This made the FBI technical department personnel for the first time have doubts about this little machine that the U.S. secrecy agencies rely upon. Some experts suggested that we have been studying this lie detector machine since the beginning, according to the physical condition of white people, blood pressure, nervous system, etc. to do the test, so the machine may not be suitable for yellow or colored people. Another expert said, I’m afraid that the Chinese are born to lie! Just look at their newspapers: why do they lie every day? The newspaper editor and readers know that they are lying, but everyone is like “if the face is not red, the heat does not leap” while the operating principle of the lie detector is “if the face is red, the heart will leap” — a basic fact of human nature!
Little Jiangxi was very fond of lie detectors. In fact, he uses very simple methods to defeat this little machine that spies all over the world are afraid of. For example, when he denied that he was a spy, he really did not think that he was a spy, because Yang Wenfeng had clearly explained that it was a personal action, a personal adventure to save his old classmates, and a spy must be a person who works for the state to buy and sell information for the organization, so Little Jiangxi categorically said in response to questions, “I am not a spy!” The polygraph results proved that he was not lying. Later, when he admitted that he was a spy, he thought, “Oh my God, of course I’m a spy, I’m doing this to stop the CIA from infiltrating China with intelligence agents. I’m doing something for the Ministry of State Security, the only difference is that I’m not being paid by the state – so when he said he was a spy, the polygraph believed him.
Everything that followed was as the CIA expected, whether it was the use of overnight sleep deprivation, the eventual use of narcotics combined with “time-elimination” confinement, and finally the practical use of the world’s most powerful “empty brain” equipment (note: the most advanced equipment used by the United States and the Soviet Union to interrogate spies). The equipment resembles a coffin in which a variety of electronic devices are installed. The interrogation takes place with the subject lying flat in the coffin, covered. The interrogated person lies in the dark for twelve hours. Then, using the electronic equipment and small holes, psychedelic chemicals are introduced into the coffin. Within ten minutes, the prisoner manifests psychedelic symptoms. However, the prisoner does not notice the electronic equipment or the drugs, and I think that the psychedelic symptoms are caused by lying for a long time.
Half an hour later, the prisoner will be further anesthetized, while the coffin inside the coffin, the prisoner sees boundless blue sky and white clouds, making the prisoner feel that his body is floating in the clouds. Soon the prisoner manifests symptoms of irritation, loses the concept of time. Subjectively, three minutes of floating seems like years. The prisoner may even feel that his bones have grown and his skin has developed age spots. At this point, the prisoner’s mind will have visions of his life, especially as a child and adolescent. The prisoner will float extremely lonely, looking around, hoping to find someone to talk to. At this time there will be voices ringing, mostly asking the prisoner about the topics of his childhood and youth, including ideals and ambitions and what not, and the prisoner will answer one after another, but he cannot see the other sender in the clouds. The prisoner is so desperate to find out who is asking the questions that the questioner would slowly lead the prisoner to answer these sensitive questions. Since the prisoner has lost the concept of time and even thinks he is about to die, and because the prisoner wants to talk to someone, he will answer every question truthfully. (This machine, owned by both the Soviet Union and the United States, is the most accurate truth telling machine in the world).
Although Little Jiangxi unconsciously answered the expert’s questions, his answers were surprisingly not exactly the same each time, and the interrogation naturally turned out to be useless. The expert explained that Jiangxi is a very rich spiritual world, probably lives a dual or even multiple personality, or he lives in a virtual world where dreams and reality are not separated, so each time he was unconscious after being unconscious, subconsciously confused about what he really is? Sometimes he said he was a special agent of the Ministry of State Security, sometimes he said he was just someone who wanted to be a special agent of the Ministry of State Security, and sometimes he even revealed that his name was not Li Jianguo at all, but Chang Feng or something. The expert finally came to the conclusion that interrogating such a suspect would only reveal the truth about him when he was sober. Of course, he must be willing to tell you that unless you find a way to force him to reveal the truth when he is awake, such as overcoming his fatal weakness.
Chris shook his head, since with more and more attention being paid to human rights now, the FBI and the CIA’s highest level of interrogation relies on anesthesia, coma means plus psychological torture, etc., these methods obviously do not work on Little Jiangxi. In fact, the world’s best torture method is physical torture, but this has been absolutely banned in the United States, not to mention that even if you use physical torture methods in private is illegal, but anything with physical torture The evidence obtained by the method of physical torture will be invalidated once it is brought to court, even if it is the crime of espionage. In such a case, the judge will often release the suspect immediately, which would mean that they had really outwitted themselves.
The fifth Christmas came and went. It was only a few months before the opening of the Olympic Games in China. Chris stood behind the on-way mirror, looking unusually tired – after all, it had been almost three hours since he had stood there. Unfortunately, I really don’t know how to deal with the little Jiangxi in front of me. He has been living here for more than four years, and surprisingly, he is getting more and more used to it, and now he not only likes hamburgers, but he can also drink coffee without sugar and milk, several cups a day. His physical condition is also much stronger than it was four years ago, although it is impossible to grow taller, but he has become much wider on the horizontal axis. He talked and laughed with the guards and FBI agents who came to interrogate him or ask him for information, offering many insightful opinions. Except that the last time he told Chris that he himself couldn’t figure out if he was a spy from China or not, he said, “You FBI decide, I can’t figure it out anyway, you decide what I am, I am what I am, OK? ” It made people laugh and cry. Chris had hardly confirmed a single act of espionage by Little Jiangxi. Today, he came here specifically because an expert report found that Xiao Jiangxi’s situation has been different lately, he often falls into deep thought when others are not paying attention.
Chris and Louis rushed over together and stood quietly behind the one-way mirror to watch. Both were reluctant to admit that this one and only spy in history, sent to the United States by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, was an impostor, but what could be done? Little Jiangxi had been used to educate the FBI almost from top to bottom, the knowledge that he confessed had been used by the media and politicians to spread the Chinese threat, Chinese spies and all. It was true, he was involved and forced the entire FBI to investigate. When the FBI investigation found out that his confessions were lies, the people in the FBI were very embarrassed.
My God, was Little Jiangxi sent by the Chinese government on purpose to make the FBI investigate those rumors? You know, the kind of rumors that no one will bother to try to confirm, but when those rumors come from the mouth of Little Jiangxi, then they become important. Not to confirm what everyone assumes to be true, but immediately go to investigate in detail to verify, found them to be false. And for them, no the media and not the one politicians to exonerate the Chinese government of false accusations? Gee, haven’t we spent a lot of dollars working for the Chinese government these past four years?
As Chris thought about it, it had been three hours since he had stood behind the one-way mirror.
Xiao Jiangxi had enjoyed it very much. It had been a very rich and happy life for four years. Of course, the following two years of interrogation gave him the feeling of an out-of-body experience. But once he got used to it, it didn’t bother him. Later, he adjusted his way of thinking, you want to be confused, confused answers also make them confused, you want to see in them every time that disappointed and confused look. Little Jiangxi knew that even if he was confused, he would continue to lie. For someone like Little Jiangxi, who has almost always lived in the virtual world of computer networks since graduation, the truth may not be anything remarkable. If you are willing to close your eyes and turn a blind eye, then the truth simply does not exist. Not everyone has to live truthfully, not everyone has to live in a less-than-ideal or even cruel reality.
But after Christmas 2007, Jiangxi began to feel uneasy. As promised, he should have left by now. Had something gone wrong?
Yang Wenfeng’s method of forcing the FBI to release Xiao Jiangxi after the mission was completed would not be a problem. According to the plan, after the mission is completed, Yang Wenfeng will use a letter that was copied before Xiao Jiangxi was released.
In the letter, Little Jiangxi wrote As an ordinary Chinese, I feel very distressed to see the American media and politicians slandering the Chinese people and government all day long. For the sake of Sino-American relations, to clear the name of the Chinese people, to save American taxpayers’ money, and of course to confirm the FBI’s incompetence in catching spies, I decided to conduct an experiment together with my classmate Yang Wenfeng. This experiment will prove that the American media and politicians, under the influence of Cold War consciousness, racial hatred, and anti-China ideology, have been slandering the Chinese government and people and making Chinese spies and the Chinese threat everywhere in the past decade or two. The FBI will voluntarily spend American money in this experiment to investigate all the accusations and false accusations against the Chinese government and people that have been made so loudly in the American media in recent years. At the same time, we will use this experiment to accuse the FBI of arbitrarily holding the poor Chinese citizen Little Jiangxi in secret detention as a spy for four years in order to slander China and go along with the Chinese Communist threat theory clamored for by Washington politicians, and use all means to force Little Jiangxi to admit that he was a spy sent by the Chinese Ministry of State Security.
The letter contained a detailed plan of Yang Wenfeng and Xiao Jiangxi, in particular, all the contents of Xiao Jiangxi’s account after his arrest were written down in advance. This letter was written five years ago, then sealed in an express envelope, passed once in the United States domestic, has not been opened, there are stamps postmarked as proof. This letter will be wrapped in a large envelope mailed to the FBI, of course, there is a sentence in the letter: such a letter we have prepared a total of five, the same five years ago after the seal has not been opened.
The letter will remind that if the FBI does not release Xiao Jiangxi Li within twenty-four hours of receiving the letter, then the U.S. Congress and the world’s major news media will receive a copy. Of course, the FBI could not release Jiangxi after receiving the letter because he was no longer a Chinese spy. His prank was planned five years ago, and his prison confessions were written while reading American newspapers in the past. The five years of solitary confinement of Jiangxi, the FBI spent almost more than three million dollars. How much more money was spent on investigating his identity as an agent is even harder to calculate. But the FBI can’t indict Little Jiangxi, or even charge him with mischief, because Jiangxi was captured by sixty-two FBI agents. After he was captured, Jiangxi claimed in his first interrogation that the FBI had arrested the wrong person, and he persisted for almost a year, so it can’t be said that he was playing the FBI at all, but the FBI didn’t trust him and played him.
But why did it not happen now? The Olympic Games are about to open, and Yang Wenfeng promised in advance to give Little Jiangxi a ticket to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games as compensation.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (22)
Authoreditor
NOVEMBER 3, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 22 – The goal — The Beijing Olympics
That day, in the room adjacent to the interrogation room, where he had watched Little Jiangxi through a one-way glass for three hours, Chris said to Louis, who was showing signs of fatigue: “Find an excuse to release him in due time.”
Louis was shaken and asked quietly and eagerly, “Did we catch the wrong one? Isn’t he a Chinese spy?”
Chris didn’t answer right away, and only after both men were in the car did he say, as if to himself, “We didn’t get the wrong guy, he’s the best spy I’ve ever seen!”
Said Chris leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and fell into deep thought. Louis had no idea what Chris had been thinking for three hours. Seeing that Chris did not speak, he did not ask. The car headed for Washington.
After holding out for more than four years, Chris decided it was better to give up. What Chris had felt about Little Jiangxi: first excitement, then seeing the urine stains on the pants immediately after feeling contempt, to being alert, to feeling helpless, to feeling disappointment, to feeling hatred, etc., Chris had gone through almost every kind of feeling there is in these four years. Just today, for those three hours, Chris’ heart felt respect for Little Jiangxi for the first time.
As the assistant director of the FBI in charge of catching Chinese spies, Chris is probably the American who has had the most contact with Chinese spies, especially those who collect political information, and Chris has had the most contact with three categories.
The first is the kind of red hat merchants who relied on the Ministry of State Security for the sake of their political and economic interests. Most of them are princelings with deep pockets who cheat Chinese taxes and smuggle, rob, and sell drugs, oppress good people, and are willing to do all kinds of bad things in China, to set up companies overseas, especially in the United States, immigrants transfer their embezzled property from China and find the Ministry of State Security as a backer, such people are estimated to have set up thousands of companies before and after in the United States. T
hese people don’t even know the word “intelligence” in English, but they put on a face of “national security” and “absolute secrecy” when Chinese domestic inspection authorities ask about their companies and assets. Chris has no particular ill will toward these people, and in fact their presence is necessary from both the FBI and CIA perspectives. The CIA is well aware of their misdeeds, so there is no need to “pay anti-Chinese writers to spread anti-Chinese rhetoric on the Internet,” as the Internet has invented, as long as they are able to destroy the Chinese government’s image among the Chinese people by exposing one or two corrupt princelings at the right time. As for the FBI, the existence of thousands of “Chinese Ministry of State Security” companies not only allows them to increase their annual counterintelligence funding, but also allows them to find a scapegoat or two in the event of chaos.
When he thought of this, Chris suddenly thought of the last time he flew to Canada to interrogate China’s largest fugitive businessman Lai Changxing. When the outside world have predicted that in the case of the dog jumping over the wall, Lai Changxing will certainly reveal more of the Ministry of State Security insider, Chris laughed bitterly, those stinking businessmen bought the corrupt officials of the Chinese Ministry of Security. All they want to do is to oppress Chinese people and rob them blind! They have no idea what national security means and even less what it means to participate in actual national security operations.
The second type of Chinese spies contacted are those experts and scholars who act as spies in order to get some funding. They are in the hands of the FBI and are actually completely harmless to the United States. In fact, because of the frequent misunderstandings between China and the United States, both countries more or less expect each other to have spies lurking in their own countries. These are experts and scholars from China, as well as some Chinese scholars in the United States, although some extremists are not excluded, but they are generally more impartial, they will make an impartial analysis of what they have heard and seen in the United States. These are the people Chris focuses on, especially when serious incidents or conflicts occur between the U.S. and China, the information these people report back to Beijing often directly affects the Chinese government’s decision-making, so they are crucial to the U.S.-China relationship. The FBI has a good understanding of the communications between these individuals and Beijing, and from the information they report back to Beijing and their analysis, it is possible to infer Beijing’s general reaction to events and conflicts.
Another category is the overt intelligence gatherers, including embassies. Currently, for countries around the world, there is almost four times as much open source intelligence gathered from open government media, such as newspapers and the Internet, as there is secret intelligence, and the FBI certainly cannot ignore Chinese spies collecting and analyzing such information for the Chinese government. In fact, as an open government, the U.S. government has become less and less secretive and less and less valuable. Take U.S. policy toward China, a policy that has essentially had continuity since President Nixon, with ups and downs, but quickly returning to normal. So if you want to study U.S. policy toward China, all you have to do is collect all the public materials and study them carefully, and you can basically get the general picture. But the problem is that the Chinese government, like the U.S. government, has a pathological preference for secretly collected information, and on obvious issues they generally do not believe the facts obtained from the vast amount of public material, but instead believe the “secret plans” that the spies have come up with.
This was the biggest headache for Chris, because he didn’t know exactly who was secretly feeding Beijing “secret plans” and “secret operations” that sometimes even the Americans didn’t know about. He had originally thought that Little Jiangxi was such a spy agent, but – but…
Little Jiangxi had been in Chris’s hands for four years. He seems to be unorganized, completely controlled by the FBI, sometimes he goes along with the FBI’s request to confess for a short time, then he refuses again. Today, however, Chris found that this man is actually very simple. He had planned every step of the way to fool the FBI. Over the past four years, he not only confessed his identity as a spy, but also described all the Beijing espionage accusations made by Washington over the years as his own involvement in directing them. As a result, the FBI voluntarily spent a lot of money to confirm each of these espionage allegations against China and the China threat theory. In the end, it all turned out to be gossip. This little man from Jiangxi set the record straight for his country, and at the same time taught the FBI a lesson, and of course taught the anti-China hawks in Washington a lesson without mercy.
Chris thought about this with a complex smile on his face. At that time, the car parked in the parking lot of the Executive Building next to the White House, and Chris entered the building. A meeting chaired by the President’s security advisor was being held here today to discuss security measures for the Beijing Olympics.
The only alternate in the expanded national security meeting of sixteen people was Chris, who sat next to the FBI director. The meeting was at the request of the Director of Central Intelligence to provide counter-terrorism defenses for the 2008 Beijing Olympics in two months. Chris heard the voice of the Director of Central Intelligence.
“The difference between this Olympics and the Athens Olympics four years ago is that the Chinese are not listening to our advice at all, they are determined to make this the biggest and most glorious and successful Olympics in the history of the Olympics. And they say they have the ability to do that, and they will absolutely not allow foreign powers to come in and help.”
“They are very sensitive to foreign powers, even if they help, they will refuse.” Someone interjected.
“We at the State Department have intervened many times,” the Under Secretary in charge explained on behalf of the Secretary of State, “and our original intention was for them to do what the Greek government did and make the 2008 Olympics as small as possible, but before we could finish our sentence they got irritated and accused us of interfering in their internal affairs and trying to prevent the peaceful rise of China-“
“My God, are they using the Olympics as a symbol of the peaceful rise of the Chinese nation?” One official exclaimed, laughing.
“Well,” the CIA director said seriously, “the Chinese are staging this Olympics precisely as the greatest event in China’s history and as a sign of the peaceful rise of the Chinese nation, so when we at the State Department couldn’t convince them to scale it down, we offered to cooperate fully with their security efforts-“
“And the result?” Someone interrupted insensitively.
“That turned out to be worse to the Chinese than interfering in their internal affairs, it was a violation of sovereignty! We got another merciless lecture from them. They also ridiculed the incompetence of our security, which they said they could do themselves for the Olympics.
“I think the Chinese are capable of defending the Olympics.” Chris spoke after receiving the director’s tacit approval. Although he had Xiao Jiangxi Li Jianguo in mind, he said it for another reason. He said, “The Chinese have the best security in the world, and they could even clear out the entire city of Beijing during the Olympics if they wanted to. Besides, would terrorists really dare to choose China as a place to strike? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not finished, I’m not saying that the terrorists will attack us in Beijing.” When the CIA director saw his opponent, who was much lower in rank than himself, come out and deny his opinion, he said with a cold expression, “We have definite intelligence that there is terrorist activity against American athletes and delegations at this Olympics, but this terrorist activity is not being planned by the few terrorist organizations that are currently within our crackdown. The current intelligence is targeting some Communist Party hardliners associated with the Chinese government, radical factions, the military, etc. The people organizing this anti-American campaign are probably a group of people in their 40s who advocated saying “no” to the United States more than a decade ago. These people are currently in an awkward position in China, hating the U.S. while believing that the only way they can get ahead is by starting a fight between the U.S. and China. Oh, and my analysis was also done for us by our most talented spy in the CIA, because he is the generation of Chinese in their forties…”
Chris’ first reaction was that this information was again something that these idiots at the CIA had made up in a haphazard manner in order to increase intelligence funding and travel funds. But the director of the CIA was so far above him that he held back from refuting it and just pretended he didn’t understand and asked, “Didn’t the Chinese government find out about the conspiracy? If they had discovered it, it would have been easy to stop it. After all, you don’t have to worry about being prosecuted by lawyers when you lock someone up in that country, right? Besides, if they don’t have the information, we can still give them the information and make them aware of it!”
“That’s the problem!” The Director of Central Intelligence stood up excitedly, “Since our intelligence sources are extremely reliable, we dare not take it lightly. But China is both unwilling to reduce the size of the Olympics and refuses to involve our security teams in the overall security of the Games, so we had to risk exposing our intelligence sources by diverting this information to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.”
The intelligence director sat down, flipped through the files on the table, and pretended to be calm: “When we asked them to reduce the size of the Olympics, we were ridiculed by the Chinese for interfering in their internal affairs and being jealous of their peaceful rise; when we asked them to let us intervene in the security of the Olympics, they refused, saying that we had invaded their sovereignty; and now we are kindly telling them that the Olympics may become a target for terrorist activity. And now we have kindly told them that the Olympics could be a target for terrorist activities, and unfortunately our officials are lucky that they didn’t get slapped by their officials. They’re screaming, “It’s a conspiracy, it’s a conspiracy! It’s a conspiracy to stop China from having the Olympics, a conspiracy to put all the blame on China when things go wrong…”
“Oh my God, they’re like that! I think we should just use security as a reason not to go to the Olympics.”
“You’re crazy!” For the first time, the President’s security advisor interjected, though in a tone that was anything but light, “You’re asking Americans to boycott the first Olympics hosted by the Chinese? You must be crazy, then the Chinese would have Americans as their number one enemy for at least a century.”
Chris wanted to laugh, he felt that the National Security Advisor was being a little hyperbolic, but not wrong.
The Director of Central Intelligence spoke again, “Although we have confidence in our intelligence sources, we cannot boycott the Olympics hosted by China because of one or two pieces of information. The Olympics must be attended and security must be tightened because the Chinese won’t let us participate, so our meeting today is to study how to secretly defend the U.S. team attending the Olympics!
Secretly defend the Olympics! Only then did Chris understand the purpose of the meeting and why only he, the Congressman, had been specially invited to this high-level meeting. It turned out that the White House security meeting held by the President had decided that while they were trying to get the Chinese government to provide more slots for U.S. security personnel to enter China, the FBI and CIA would join forces and take a secret approach to sending a large number of intelligence and counter-terrorism personnel into China to improvise and defend the U.S. team as well as the entire Olympics. Such a deployment could be justified on the grounds that security personnel were on vacation, traveling, or attending the Olympics. The CIA made a point of encouraging some Chinese nationals with ties to these two U.S. agencies to return to China in the name of visiting family and friends.
Chris thought this was the best plan under the circumstances. Although these officers could not carry weapons and equipment, they would be very useful with their expertise and training if they were all scattered around Beijing, especially around the Olympic Village. Chris thought he could have at least a hundred of these agents willing to go on “vacation” to Beijing for a “sightseeing tour”. Of course, David Tian has to go, the man seems to have little affection for China, never heard him say he wanted to go back to China to see it.
At this point, the director of the FBI reported on recent terrorist activities in the United States, in which he mentioned that the deadly infectious disease laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta had been broken into and many deadly viruses and bacteria destroyed, with some of the AIDS virus and the SARS virus stolen. This was tentatively attributed to a theft ring. The director said the country had been deployed to prevent these thieves from selling the SARS virus in their possession. Although the SARS virus has now mutated, the SARS virus lost in Atlanta was part of the earlier variety when the U.S. government asked the Chinese government to provide samples of these viruses in order to research ways to combat them, but unfortunately this virus is still the most potent and mysterious virus in the world today.
Beijing Xiyuan, Ministerial Conference Room on the third floor of the Ministry of State Security headquarters.
“The tree is longing, but the wind will not stop blowing!” The Minister of National Security said in a calm voice, “Instead of hiding our capabilities and biding our time, we a【taoguang yanghui] and aim for a peaceful rise, but that seems to have been wishful thinking. Comrades may wish to recall and reflect on this and see which of our good intentions, our wishes, have ever received a fair response from the international anti-China forces? Not only has the China threat theory never abated, it has intensified over the years. The kind of pressure our Party is under is clear to all comrades present. We have tried our best to suppress anti-Japanese rhetoric at home in order to develop economic and trade contacts and good-neighborly relations at the cost of being called traitors by our own citizens, but the Japanese have used the anti-terrorism issue over the years to gradually abolish their own peace constitution with the support of the United States.
As for the United States, what we can ignore, we will ignore, because in the future it will be China and the United States as the two great powers that will determine the future of the world and the world economy. We cannot get emotional about this. However, the hard-line anti-China faction in Washington, D.C., treats China like a three-year-old child to be bullied. They are always harsh and scold us at every turn. Take the pressure our Party is under at home and abroad. Now, neither Western nor American experts and scholars have a better solution for China’s economic development, so we will continue on our current path. Isn’t this the inevitable result of reform, with laid-off workers and peasants migrating to the cities in search of work? Will we return to the pot-luck diet of 30 years ago? We Communists are the ones who have led China out of poverty, step by step, in the face of these accusations and trials. Some reactionaries are shouting that the Communist Party should resign. I say that the historical mission of the Communist Party has not yet been completed! When we have completed our historical mission, both the people and future history will have a fair evaluation of the Communist Party!
Sitting around the minister, the forty-eight deputy ministers of the Ministry of State Security in Beijing, the directors and deputy directors of the various bureaus, all listened attentively to the minister’s speech. They knew that the minister was relaxed and rarely spoke such big words in meetings, so the opening remarks at the beginning of today’s meeting made them all feel that this was very serious.
“Although we are tolerant and keep a low profile, we also have our principles. That is, there is a limit to our tolerance. We will never give up on our principles! The most important thing is that we have our own development plan, our own century-long plan. We will not change the policies and goals we have set for anyone, any group or any country. To make this Olympic Games a great success and one of the most successful Olympic Games in the history of the Olympic Games is now our declared goal. Some people say that the Chinese want to use the Olympics to rise peacefully, but that is only half true. They say that the Chinese are using the Olympics to tell the world that the Chinese people are peace-loving and to show the world that the Chinese are capable of organizing the international Olympics themselves – but we Chinese don’t need to use the Olympics to rise peacefully, we have always risen! Those who say that the Chinese people are using the Olympics to rise up peacefully have an ulterior motive.
The minister paused for a drink of water. It is hard for outsiders to imagine that the high-level meeting of this most secretive Chinese government agency is actually the most open and active of all the high-level meetings of all the government agencies. Normally, everyone is always saying something at these meetings, but today, with the opening of the Olympic Games just over a month away, everyone is in a somewhat somber mood.
“The two reports on the Olympic Games attracted the attention of the leading comrades of the central government. I also attended the just concluded Politburo meeting, where the General Secretary personally asked us to do everything without fail. But in our line of work, we all know that the so-called foolproof action is simply not to act, so my heart is quite heavy. Now, please ask Director Zhou of the Intelligence Bureau to give a brief briefing on these two pieces of information.
Director Zhou, who is much more qualified than the minister, said nothing polite and began to review the information.
While we have been gathering information on the security aspects of the Olympics, this is a very important information provided by our intelligence agents who are embedded in the U.S. government. The intelligence says that the U.S. government has discovered that international terrorists and U.S. extremists are infiltrating China and preparing to sabotage the Olympics. This, of course, makes no sense. If these terrorists and extremists really want to cause trouble in Beijing, they will have to weigh their options. But the same intelligence also revealed the recent rise of anti-China hardliners in the U.S. government, who accuse the U.S. government of allowing China to rise as a result of its appeasement policy over the years.
They also accused the U.S. government of failing to support Hong Kong’s democratic camp more strongly in its democratic elections and of singing in unison with the Chinese government on Taiwan to contain Taiwan’s independence. They said that Taiwan’s just completed democratic elections in 2004 and 2008 were rigged by the Chinese Communist Party to divide Taiwan and create chaos. Now it appears that the U.S. attempt to use Hong Kong and Taiwan as an experiment in democracy to show mainland China has completely failed. Hardliners are demanding that the U.S. government work directly with mainland China. They say that the Olympics offer a unique opportunity because the Chinese, who value symbolic events above all else, will lose prestige and increase popular discontent with the Chinese government if it hosts an utterly failed Olympics, which they claim is the only opportunity for the United States to extend democratic freedoms to China….
Director Zhou paused for a moment, took a sip of the coffee he had brought, and continued.
These hardline anti-Chinese factions have threatened the U.S. government that once China hosts the most successful Olympics in its history, it will not only be a symbolic event over the heads of the Chinese people, but the Communist government will also enjoy great prestige both domestically and internationally. Based on the current situation in the Taiwan Strait, the greatest possibility is that the Chinese government will use this international prestige and the unification of the people at home to seize the opportunity to reclaim Taiwan – in direct confrontation with the United States – by
“We received such information three months ago, and it was later confirmed.” Director Zhou took his eyes off the papers on his desk and looked up and around, “Strangely enough, shortly after we received this information, the U.S. State Department asked our government through diplomatic channels to consider reducing the size of the Olympics by one-third and to cancel some of the celebrations!”
“As we all know,” the minister interjected at this point to analyze, “the so-called 2004 Centennial Olympics held four years ago in Athens, Greece, were repeatedly scaled down at the behest of the United States. In addition, eight anti-missile missiles, including U.S. ‘Patriot’ missiles, were deployed outside the main Olympic venue, two U.S. aircraft carriers were on standby in the Mediterranean, and Athens was filled with the FBI and CIA showing off their skills. The poor games in Athens ended up like an American parade ground, the Americans put on a full show. Of course, there were two serious terrorist incidents against Americans at the end. The Chinese Olympics should never be run the way the Americans want!
The minister nodded to Director Zhou, who continued.
The Americans ostensibly asked us to scale down the Olympics for security reasons. However, combined with the intelligence we have received, the facts speak for themselves: they are afraid of the peaceful rise of the Chinese through the Olympics, right!
The atmosphere in the room was light-hearted, and some comrades couldn’t help but laugh.
“Our government has sternly refused the U.S. government’s request with ulterior motives!” Director Zhou raised his voice, “Then they pulled another stunt and said they wanted to be jointly responsible for defending the Olympics, especially the Olympic events and stadiums where American athletes were participating. This is even more outrageous, the U.S. president visited China, and we reluctantly agreed to them sending armed agents to China, and now they want to send armed personnel to China in large numbers, what a fantasy they have created for themselves”.
The directors can’t help but laugh when they hear this, and the room is full of laughter. After a while, the Minister motioned for everyone to be quiet and then nodded to Minister Zhou, who took out a copy of the material placed on the table below and said as he read it.
“Just recently, we received another intelligence report that the United States, having been denied both requests, had gone so far as to decide to secretly send agents into China to covertly protect American athletes and the sports in which they have players. Since the information was received a month after they began their mission, we estimated that a large number of FBI and CIA spies had already entered China. Since they applied for visas for reasons such as tourism, visiting the Olympics, and business trips, we are currently unable to cancel their visas or even locate them. According to what the embassy has reported back, they have received at least three hundred more visas this month, excluding the Olympics-“
“Haha, haha,” the director of the Counter Intelligence Bureau couldn’t help but laugh out loud, “Why don’t we take this opportunity to arrest them all, that’s a lot of fun, who let them throw themselves into the net?”
Everyone was also amused by his words, and the Minister saw that Secretary Zhou had put away the documents and continued the conversation by saying
“The fact that these FBI and CIA people can’t bring weapons in, we’re not worried about that, not to mention that if they’re just going into China to covertly protect their country’s athletes, there’s nothing wrong with that, so we’re not going to dwell on that. My first question is, what kind of person or organization is trying to sabotage the Olympics in China?”
The bureau chiefs began to discuss. Some suggested that Taiwan independence activists were the most likely culprits. Others mentioned cults and qigong organizations that have been suppressed by the Chinese government in recent years. Overseas democrats could not be ruled out. Others mentioned laid-off domestic workers, Xinjiang independence activists, Tibetan independence activists, and so on, for a total of more than 20 groups.
Seeing that the debate was almost over, the minister added, “My second question is, why did they want to disrupt the Olympics? Would they make such a decision?”
After the question was asked in this way, the discussion started again and it turned out that when asked why they wanted to disrupt the Olympics, at least ten of the twenty groups in front of them were immediately excluded from the list.
At this point, the minister looked at the group from the stage with a smile, and the directors had a little information in mind. Sure enough, after the murmurs died down, the minister raised his voice and asked his third question, “Do these people and groups have the ability to disrupt the Olympics?
As soon as the questions were asked, these elite Chinese intelligence and spy catchers immediately fell silent as they understood the connotations of the minister’s three questions. When the first question mentioned what groups and individuals were out to get the Chinese government, there were at least two dozen such groups at home and abroad. But not all of these groups are motivated or willing to do such outrageous damage. For example, overseas democrats in exile and some religious groups, the Tibetan government in exile, etc. are not likely to sabotage the Olympics against the Chinese government; they are all very reasonable groups demanding their rights and calling for the realization of democracy in a responsible manner.
Therefore, the two dozen targets were narrowed down to less than ten after the second question was asked. Then, after this third question was asked by the minister, “What ability do these people have to disrupt the Olympics?” If you think about it, you will find that China’s party, government, and military are fully committed to running and protecting the Olympic Games. All of the organizations and individuals mentioned above are simply incapable of causing fatal damage to the Olympics. And things like dropping two bombs in downtown Beijing, while possible, cannot be said to cause major damage to the Olympics.
Several battle-hardened veteran directors suddenly frowned at the thought, and some of them wondered, “Could it be…”
At this point, the minister spoke again, and everyone immediately calmed down, “But the United States is not confused at all, so why would they be hostile? There are two possibilities: they know there is sabotage, or they know who is sabotaging! And they themselves believe that this saboteur has the ability to achieve the purpose of disrupting the Chinese Olympic Games. But they don’t want to stop it, they just want to protect their own athletes. Why is that? Because since the success of the Olympics is interpreted by them as a symbol of China’s peaceful rise, the Americans are not obligated to help the Chinese rise peacefully, right? — There’s another possibility, albeit a small one, with more serious consequences, and that is that extremists are mixed in with the so-called shadow protection agents in the United States who have secretly infiltrated China to take over the Chinese Olympics.
After the minister stopped, there was an unusual amount of calm, knowing that if such a situation were to occur, the consequences would be unimaginable. They certainly have the ability to deal a fatal blow to the Olympic Games. This blow is likely to cause irreparable regret and loss to the Chinese nation. What is more, some sophisticated intelligence officers have thought in their minds that the Sino-American relations have been developed in vain over the years and may return to what they were twenty years ago in an instant.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (23)
Authoreditor
NOVEMBER 3, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 23 The Double Agent
“I’m here, Auntie Zhou!” Yang Wenfeng shouted as he walked in the door and walked past Auntie Zhou’s shoulder to look around the room.
Auntie Zhou happily took Yang Wenfeng’s hand and pulled him into the living room. Director Zhou, who was sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper, did not move, just raised his eyes from the aging mirror to look at Yang Wenfeng. Auntie Zhou saw Director Zhou’s appearance, pretended to be angry, grabbed the newspaper out of Director Zhou’s hand and said, “Let me tell you, ever since Yang Wenfeng knew that you were not feeling well, he has called several times to come and greet you. When he heard that you were at home, he rushed over. Look at your appearance, and think about your way of being a leader. You are retiring in two months!”
Director Zhou took off his glasses and said with a deliberately mocking expression, “Do you think he really came to visit me because of my illness? Hmph, he wants to know what he shouldn’t know.”
Then Director Zhou stared at Yang Wenfeng again and said, “You’re not going to die, are you?”
Yang Wenfeng playfully looked at Director Zhou, who also had to sigh. Auntie Zhou looked at the two of them, one old and one young, smiled and went into the kitchen to cook.
“Thanks for the information you got from Tian Haipeng, how is Tian?” Director Zhou asked when there were only two people left.
“Everything went well, Haipeng took the opportunity to come back for the Olympics this time to disappear to the mainland and not return to the United States. After the Olympics, we will release Li Jianguo.” Yang Wenfeng paused, “Is there any result from your ministry’s meeting?”
“There are results, but it’s nothing you need to know!”
“I know, Director Zhou. In fact, I have sources, and I can see all the documents you sent to the ministerial and provincial levels. It’s just that your ministry’s documents are more top secret and more useful than I can know.”
“Xiao Yang,” Director Zhou’s tone was somewhat stern, “you must be careful not to play with fire! No matter what noble purpose you have in mind, stealing state secrets by illegal means is a crime! Don’t ever say you have sources in front of me again, I don’t want to know, you are responsible for what you do! Besides, your work should be finished by now.”
“No, I’m a little worried.” Yang Wenfeng stubbornly interrupted Director Zhou, “I need to talk to you, just a few days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, if I do not speak my mind, if something happens, I will regret it for the rest of my life, and by then your mood will not be any better!”
Director Zhou put down the glasses he was holding in his hand, Yang Wenfeng’s heart was firm as he knew that he could officially start talking. Yang Wenfeng said in a deep voice.
“Director Zhou, I know that your ministry has recently received several important top secret intelligence reports about hardliners in the U.S. and the U.S. government’s analysis of China’s rise through the Olympics, and predictions that some China-hating individuals and groups will sabotage the Olympics and thus prevent the rise of the Chinese nation. I also know that some of your information directly implies that the U.S. is behind the sabotage of the Olympics, and that it is the U.S. that has been restless in recent years because it sees China growing stronger. I don’t know if the source of this information is reliable – I’m sure you at least think it is – but I bet no one in the country would have the slightest doubt about the content of the information alone, would they? I don’t want to go into the reasons for this, just to give a few examples.
If I tell you that Tibet wants to be independent and is supported by the United States, I think almost all of you, from the Politburo down to the border guards, will nod your heads and say yes, right? But you also know that historically the relationship between Tibet and China is not that close. Do you really think that if it were not for the United States, there would be no Tibetan rebellion or independence in Tibet? And as for Taiwan, the nation is almost 100% convinced that the United States is secretly planning Taiwan’s independence, but we forget that Taiwan and China have gone back and forth between being united and being divided for the past 400 years, when most Americans did not know that Taiwan existed. The United States of America is not the only country that has declared independence over the years. Examples do not need to be cited, I would like to say is that on the intelligence front, the collection of early warning intelligence itself is to predict disaster, but “smell the roses and look for coffins everywhere” approach is also harmful to people ah.
“Recently, when Western scholars reflected on the history of the Cold War, some scholars suggested that the Cold War was a complete misunderstanding, and that the misunderstanding was caused by the CIA and the KGB, which were the most popular in the United States and the Soviet Union. Although this is a bit of an exaggeration, if we study it carefully, we will find that it is not without reason. The U.S. and the Soviet Union made many decisions based on secret information from the intelligence services of both countries, and now declassified archives have shown that much of the information was deliberately exaggerating the capabilities and intentions of the other side. For example, after President Kennedy took office, the CIA provided him with information that there was a huge “missile gap” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, pointing out that the Soviet Union was developing missiles in quantity and quality far beyond that of the U.S. This information astonished both the American people and the president, who then scrambled to produce missiles and expand their military preparations for war.
The U.S. approach was then passed back to Moscow by the KGB, and as expected, the Soviet Union also began a massive expansion of its military preparations. After that, both countries basically could not stop, and eventually the Soviet Union because of the country’s strength, but was dragged down – if the intelligence services of the two countries so intentionally or unintentionally wrong, overestimating each other’s ability to have the day of truth, then deliberately confused or overestimated each other’s hostility will never be confirmed. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were at war during the Cold War, and both the U.S. and the Soviet Union believed that the other side was ready to kill them. By the time the Cold War ended almost twenty years ago, the Cold War, when the secret archives of the two countries began to be gradually declassified, but historians and Cold War experts were surprised to find that the two countries did not actually have any active plans and schemes to attack each other! It turns out that the entire fifty years of national policy they developed to defend each other during the Cold War was based on some serious misunderstandings. So where did these misunderstandings come from?
“It was the CIA and the KGB, the intelligence agencies of the United States and the Soviet Union at the time. I don’t want to discuss their motives, but one thing we can’t help but see is that the most powerful, most prestigious, most money-making agencies in the world at the time of the Cold War were the U.S. and Soviet intelligence agencies! Intelligence agencies are supposed to provide intelligence information for decision makers to make decisions, and in today’s society, intelligence agencies should be absolutely independent of decision making agencies, but at that time in the Cold War, you will find that the CIA and KGB almost relied on their own “intelligence” to influence the world situation. A typical example is what we often see in the movies, when a politician or a soldier does not believe something about the other side — then a CIA or KGB intelligence officer will say with panache: we have information to show – the result is that everyone has to shut up. The source of most of this information is the mutineers on the other side, who, in order to get money and attention, make up hearsay and even wanton exaggerations, and the people in the intelligence agencies, of course, believe it selectively in their own interest.”
“Yang, are you asking us not to trust the information we get from the United States?” Director Zhou interrupted Yang Wenfeng with interest.
“Director Zhou, that is not what I meant, nor do I dare to say it. I understand that as an intelligence officer you have to make the worst possible assumptions, but I want to tell you that Chinese intelligence should never follow in the footsteps of the Soviet KGB and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Both of these intelligence agencies are very good at intelligence gathering, which we can’t hope to match, but they both have serious problems with intelligence analysis.
“The entire Soviet intelligence community, including the KGB, was the best in the world at intelligence gathering, and in operations ranging from assassination to the use of sex as an espionage tool, they were second to none. However, their entire intelligence service had no intelligence analysis department, let alone intelligence analysts. After receiving the original intelligence, intelligence officers reported directly to the Soviet Politburo as long as they felt “politically correct,” i.e., sufficiently anti-American at the time. As a result, the original intelligence was used to lead the Soviet Politburo leaders, who were closed-minded at the time, by the nose. So if the information was inaccurate or even false, the Soviet decision was naturally wrong. The U.S. president, who had been an actor, came up with the inscrutable Strategic Defense Initiative “Star Wars” plan as if it were a play, but the plan was only on paper and the Americans themselves did not understand or believe in its feasibility. However, the original material was sent to the table of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and as a result they insisted that the nation tighten its belt again to develop weapons against the non-existent ‘Star Wars’, and this was the problem of the Soviet intelligence! By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, their nuclear weapons could have blown up the planet dozens of times over, yet the people had no bread to eat! Because the rulers of the Soviet Union were convinced that the United States would soon come over and destroy the Soviet Union, thinking like that, they found no use for bread at all, so they might as well spend a lot of money making weapons of death!
“The U.S. intelligence community has its own problems, again with intelligence analysis. Unlike the Soviet Union, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has placed more emphasis on intelligence analysis from the beginning, making sure to analyze the raw intelligence it obtains and then add comments before reporting it to the White House. But perhaps too much emphasis was placed on intelligence analysis, and the CIA left this part of the job to politicians and part-time academics, rather than to specialized intelligence analysis experts. The CIA did not establish a professional intelligence analysis school until 2003, when it began to value professional intelligence analysts.
Before that, their raw intelligence was escalated from the intelligence community to the executive heads of the agency, who were appointed politicians, and of course some intelligence was shared to be analyzed by outside experts and scholars. Unfortunately, almost all of the experts and scholars in the United States are funded and controlled by special interest groups. What is the downside? It is that politicians, according to political needs, arbitrarily interpret the connotation of intelligence, according to whether it is good or bad for their personal interests, relying on their personal political views to decide what intelligence to send to the White House, and suppress intelligence that they do not like. The results are self-explanatory. When U.S. President George W. Bush wanted to fight Iraq, the CIA officials knew full well that half of the intelligence they received at the time could be said to insist that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the other half was negative, but politicians in order to satisfy the president’s preferences, so the president’s favorite sentiment was passed along.
“Director Zhou, I know that we have a group of excellent intelligence analysis experts in our country’s intelligence agencies, although I am not sure whether their eyes are open enough and their knowledge is rich enough. One of the major shortcomings of our intelligence mechanism is that we still do not trust people who have returned from studying or working in the West to join our intelligence agencies. So the intelligence analysts of our ministry are really the best people trained by our own country, but this is a fatal weakness for intelligence analysts! Since they are analyzing foreign intelligence, they will not have a correct understanding unless they have first-hand experience of the target country.
“Director Zhou, you are an old-timer in the intelligence field, I should not have bragged like that in front of an expert. But I beg your forgiveness, I will be your intelligence analyst today. I have lived and studied in the United States, and I have some opinions about the information you have received this time, and I will not spit them out. As you know, in the past we were very afraid of American spiritual pollution, and several campaigns were launched to clean up the country with great fanfare. This campaign extended from the political realm to the spiritual realm and into the realm of sexual life. My feeling from my time in the United States is that these people don’t know what we are doing. In fact, Americans are still evolving from monkeys to human beings when our Chinese ancestors invented the art of lovemaking, the eighteen positions of lovemaking and if they want to talk about pollution, well they polluted us first….””
“Yang, you’re off topic again!” Director Zhou reminded, stifling his laughter with a frown.
“OK, I won’t go off topic again. I’ll return to the few pieces of intelligence you have gotten. From what I know about the Americans, they are wary of a strong China, but would never use extremists to disrupt the Olympics to achieve the goal of containing China’s peaceful rise. There are many people in the U.S. government, especially in the intelligence community, who hate China and see it as the biggest threat for the next 50 years, but there are things they will never do, not because they are afraid of China, but because they are afraid of history and their own people! As for you asking me again why I came to this conclusion, I have no way to explain, I can only tell you that I have lived in that country and I know the people of that country.
Although the policies of the United States are apparently manipulated by politicians, they are ultimately decided by the American people. Remember you used to be very concerned about the question of whether the US would send troops if China fought Taiwan? I also heard that the Ministry of State Security sent many scholars and experts to try to figure this out. You are however looking in the wrong place. Since the Vietnam War, some big wars especially those involving China, any U.S. president has to look at public opinion polls. Currently Americans simply do not support the US government getting involved in a war with China, and no president has the guts to use some domestic law ‘Taiwan Relations Act‘ as an excuse to start a war with China. The U.S. decision to fight little Iraq was made by public opinion polls, not by any president’s whim at all. If less than 50 percent of the public had agreed to fight Iraq, the president would not have sent troops. Likewise, any sensible politician would never dare to get involved in a plot to destroy the Olympics in China. That is common sense in the United States but so hard to understand in China.”
“Yang,” said Director Zhou calmly, “you are rambling and long-winded, but I think I have caught your main point. And I have to tell you that I understand very well, but you also have to understand that as an intelligence service, it is our responsibility to report our worries and not our happiness. Like you said about the CIA, they do deliberately exaggerate the power and motives of their adversaries for funding and to gain an important place at the table. This is a common problem throughout history, but they are not responsible for these exaggerations and mistakes. But there was only one 9/11 incident that they ignored, and as a result the CIA was censured from almost all sides and nearly reorganized by Congress. In fact, before ‘9/11’, the CIA had also obtained traces of this attack, only this time the CIA did not ‘exaggerate’ the information obtained. OK, now back to our intelligence. I certainly hope your analysis is right, and I’m even more reluctant to believe that the intelligence is true. If the US really wants to use sabotage of the Olympics to stop the peaceful rise of the Chinese nation, that would be a disaster for the world. Because admit it or not, the current world economic landscape has begun to be jointly determined by China and the United States! However, as the Director of Intelligence, Yang, how can I fall back on such information and rely entirely on your analysis and my desire to decide? Besides, you just kept saying that we misunderstood the Americans, so are the Americans misunderstanding us as well? If the Americans are not as sensible as you analyze, if they act in a way that is incomprehensible while misunderstanding us, then are we not making a fatal mistake!”
Yang Wenfeng’s face was unusually serious, and after thinking about it, he opened his mouth and said.
“Director Zhou, I was just about to make that point. You make a very good point. In fact, even if one side — the U.S. or the Soviet Union in the Cold War — realized that the intelligence services were up to no good, the situation would still be unchangeable, because the other side is still misunderstanding you and still containing you globally. You can’t help even if you unilaterally stop the arms race.
“The main purpose of my visit today is not to analyze the intelligence you have received, but to talk about the intelligence we have received from the United States, some of which I have already told you about, all of which was reported back by Tian Haipeng. The intelligence declares that the Chinese are going to use the Olympics to rise peacefully, and in this peaceful rise, Chinese hardliners are going to use the opportunity to strike at the United States and that the target is the American delegation to the Olympics. The intelligence also says that the Chinese government is likely to acquiesce to these terrorist activities, and that they will not have to step in, but simply give the green light to ultra-nationalists or turn a blind eye to foreign terrorists to achieve their goals. Of course, U.S. intelligence also believes it is possible that China is sabotaging U.S. Olympic athletes in order to gain more Olympic gold medals -“
“Hahahahaha,” Director Zhou couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s ridiculous! These Americans! We’ve given them explanations through diplomatic channels, they just look at us in amazement, as if-“
“As if your explanations have convinced them even more of the accuracy of those information they have, right?” Yang Wenfeng asked with a smile.
Director Zhou nodded, Yang Wenfeng sighed and continued: “This is the reality, what we thought was particularly ridiculous, the Americans believed in, and what we now believe to be true intelligence, may likewise be laughed off by them. The Americans can’t think through the simple fact that the Chinese, even if they use the Olympics as a symbol of their peaceful rise, would never resort to despicable means to compete for a gold medal on their own soil! Besides, when did the Chinese government ever want to undermine America’s international standing in the world? But the Americans not only believe in it, but also attach great importance to it. They have already held an expanded national security meeting chaired by the national security advisor to set up the work. Tian Haipeng was secretly dispatched as a plainclothesman. Together with him there are no less than 300 senior intelligence officers and.senior agents of the CIA and FBI in all. We can’t get hold of their list; some of them are not holding U.S. passports.”
“The American intelligence agencies have also been intentionally and unintentionally misrepresenting the situation in China. Sometimes I worry that if we are not sensible, the two countries may move toward confrontation as planned by some conspirators.” Director Zhou said with deep eyes, “If China and the United States move toward confrontation, it will do a hundred harms to both governments, and both peoples. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has been deliberately confusing some concepts in its analysis of China recently. For example, they have applied China’s past overreaching slogans such as liberating the whole world during the Cultural Revolution to their current analysis of China, arguing that China is going to expand sooner or later. As if this were not enough, they project China’s national power twenty years in the future from its present rate of economic development (which of course cannot be sustained), so that they analyze China using three different concepts of time: past motives, present speed, and future power, and come up with a behemoth of a monster – a superpower with a fast-growing economy calling for the defeat of American imperialism!!!”
“Hahahahaha -” this time Yang Wenfeng also could not help but laugh, while laughing, “Such an analysis is really brilliant. This analysis makes even me believe that China is a threat ah. Haha–“
“Yang Wenfeng,” Director Zhou suddenly serious, “you talk so much, it’s time to get to the point, you do not think I do not know you well, you want to ask me anything, just ask.”
Yang Wenfeng was stunned, his heart secretly admired Director Zhou’s vision. He then looked at the clock on the wall and began to speak of his analysis:.
“Director Zhou, now I am not the only one who understands the situation on both sides, you are also counted as one, so it will be easier for you to understand when I talk about it.
“At the critical moment of the Olympic Games, both the Chinese and American intelligence agencies received such sensitive information at the same time. The intelligence received by the U.S. says that China wants to use the Olympics to fight the U.S. and seize the opportunity to rise peacefully, while the intelligence received by China says that the U.S. wants to use extremists and terrorists to sabotage the Olympics and undermine China’s peaceful rise.
These pieces of information are very similar! Is it just a coincidence? From the analysis we have just done, it is easy to see that the information obtained by both the Ministry of National Security and the CIA was appropriately tailored to the intelligence needs of both countries and the mindset of some people in both countries. As a result, the intelligence agencies of both powers quickly believed in the content of the intelligence, and neither dared to take it lightly. But again, through the analysis I have just given, we can say that the intelligence received by the two countries cannot both be true because they contradict each other!
The people who provided the information saw that it was absolutely impossible for the intelligence agencies of China and the United States to communicate and understand each other, let alone exchange information with each other. Looking at the content of the intelligence received by the two countries, although the meanings are completely opposite, the tone and events are basically the same, for example, the Olympic Games, sabotage, peaceful rise, and other such theme words appear repeatedly in the intelligence of both countries. I can understand that one of the two countries would receive false information, but what is the likelihood of receiving false information with the same content at the same time? So I can say that the spy who provided the information to the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the CIA was the same person! And from the importance that the intelligence agencies of both countries attach to this information, and the tight-lipped nature of the source, I can tell that the person who provided the information is considered an important spy by both sides, so this person must be a double agent!”
Director Zhou’s hand twitched, which did not escape Yang Wenfeng’s eyes.
“Director Zhou!” Yang Wenfeng deliberately did not look into Director Zhou’s eyes, “Only you know the name of this double agent, can you tell me?”
Director Zhou’s eyes clearly showed fear and pain, Yang Wenfeng’s heart felt some sadness, he knew that for intelligence chiefs, there is no greater pain than to find out that their spies are double agents. There are many intelligence chiefs in history who would rather deny it than admit that their spies are double agents. If Yang Wenfeng guessed correctly that the spy was trusted by Director Zhou, then if he admitted that he was a double agent, all the information he had provided in the past would be neutralized, and some of it would even be deliberately “fed” to our country. When Yang Wenfeng thought about this, he also felt very heavy in his heart, worried about whether the soon-to-be-retired Director Zhou could withstand this blow.
“Director Zhou,” Yang Wenfeng whispered, “this double agent cannot be an American because Americans cannot really understand the Chinese psyche. But it can be judged that this person is living in America again, because America is an open society, and Chinese people can understand Americans more easily than Americans can understand Chinese. So this double agent we are talking about would be a Chinese in America! He is extremely smart and has also slowly discovered from his usual intelligence to both sides that China and the U.S. actually have no real sources of intelligence in each other’s intelligence agencies, so this time he dares to provide fake intelligence. This can be seen from the order in which he gave the information, for example, he just gave the U.S. information, and when the U.S. was about to ask the Chinese government to scale down the Olympics, he immediately gave the Chinese government information that the U.S. wanted to use counter-terrorism to ask China to scale down the Olympics, but the real purpose was to contain China. This feeds false information to both sides to fuel the fire and lead both countries by the nose!
“It’s just a pity that this double agent didn’t expect me to exist as a person! To find out why my classmates were getting into trouble one by one, I was the only person who could clearly see that the intelligence agencies of both sides were receiving important information! On this side, of course, because of your trust and cooperation, it didn’t take me long to see the double agent’s trickery!”
“But, Yang,” Director Zhou reluctantly supported himself, “according to your analysis, why would this double agent risk providing such information at the same time, since he is valued by both China and the United States? Even if he didn’t know about your existence, he still took a certain risk, didn’t he? What is his motive? What’s in it for him?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know now, I think maybe because of some recent event, he is not as highly regarded as he used to be, and thus he is the heart of this plan. Of course, there may be more complicated reasons, but I firmly believe that to find out this person’s motives, you must analyze the person to find his fatal weakness. Then you will know why he did what he did. This is exactly what you taught me. So please stop insisting on secrecy and tell me the name of the person who gave you this information and the basics about him!”
Saying this, Yang Wenfeng found for the first time that Director Zhou’s expression was so clear, and Yang Wenfeng was secretly surprised that Director Zhou was the oldest agent who could hide his expression! After a while, Director Zhou spoke: “Yang Wenfeng, the person who gave me this information is currently the most important and deepest intelligence agent in our ministry, and his name and information are classified as top state secrets. Do you know what this means? It means that in your capacity as an ordinary person, if I tell you his name now, from this moment on, as long as he is still working for us, you will lose your freedom forever! If you disobey and try to leave the controlled area or the country, any military police can shoot you first without asking permission! All your analysis makes sense, but it’s still analysis, and I’m not telling you his name partly for your sake, and I’d hate to see you lose your freedom for the rest of your life because of it, let alone leave the country. Besides, under the rules of Top Secret Extraordinaire, if I retired, any time a chief thought you might not be able to keep this Top Secret, he would have the power to sentence you to life in prison without going through any court!!!”
Yang Wenfeng shivered and stopped speaking. The two of them were silent for a while, then Yang Wenfeng got up and said he didn’t want to eat and had to go back. Before leaving, Yang Wenfeng stopped, turned around, looked at Director Zhou carefully, and said word for word: “Director Zhou, I have actually found out clearly that the person who framed my classmate was my old classmate Liu – Ming – Wei in Washington!
Director Zhou suddenly trembled and almost fell, Yang Wenfeng saw everything in his eyes, but did not go over to help, immediately turned his head, said goodbye to Aunt Zhou who came out of the kitchen with a loud voice, opened the door and left on his own.
Anhui Hefei International Airport.
Elder Liu looked around. He was amused to find that he was the oldest among this crowd waiting for the airport pickup. Before, he never stood in this area, there was always someone to pick him up or he was picking up some VIP, like the director from Beijing or some provincial leader. Those times he had always waited in the VIP room. are people to pick up their own, is to happen to have their own need to pick up people, are also the head of Beijing, or leaders of other provinces, so all to the VIP area to sit there and so on. Today he had some to pick up his some Liu Weiming, who was returning home via a connecting flight in Hong Kong.
Not many international flights land in Hefei. Liu Mingwei was sitting in business class, so soon after the plane landed, the elder Liu saw his tall, handsome son pushing his luggage out. Elder Liu was a little surprised, how could his son bring so much luggage? It seemed like he was moving back home.
Father and son have not seen each other for years. Elder Liu carefully looked at his son, who was a little embarrassed. Elder Liu led his son to the taxi stand and waited for a car, Liu Mingwei was a bit surprised and asked why there was no car. Elder Liu sighed and said that the driver was going through a hard time, he had had this driver since before he was Vice Governor, and had come with him when he moved to another position. When he retires, the driver is ready to go with him. Then he had a lot of food and drink, and his wife lost her job, so now the driver doesn’t get enough to eat. Sometimes he lets the driver use the car for his own business. “In fact,” the elder Liu said, “he’s going on a long-distance trip now, even though he’s able to pay for the gasoline.”
Liu Mingwei couldn’t help but laugh. After the two of them got into the taxi, Liu Mingwei said, “Dad, you’re always surprising people, there are other ways to make a side business, how can you let your own driver make a long-distance run? Besides, he can make some money that way ah?”
Elder Liu looked at his son affectionately and smiled as well: “Dad doesn’t have the kid’s big brain. Tell me, are you doing well in America?”
“Fine, I just miss you guys and home and China!” Liu Mingwei said as he looked out the window.
“You kids talk a good game and are really so patriotic?” When Elder Liu saw that his son didn’t answer, his son continued, “It seems that you have inherited Dad’s bloodline, ah, ha ha.”
Elder Liu’s head stopped laughing, sighed, and said softly, “Unfortunately, we live in this country every day, no matter whether we love it or not. You fell in love abroad. But you must not move back here. Just stay abroad and live a good life there.
These words touched Liu Mingwei’s wound, and he looked at his father, “Dad, I really regret going abroad. Otherwise, I could have made a name for myself here.”
“You have to,” the elder Liu interrupted his son, shaking his head in disagreement: “With your young man’s drive and intelligence, of course I know you would have made a name for yourself, maybe even become a higher official than your father. But it is also very dangerous, ah, I have promoted several highly motivated, talented, and very smart cadres who got into trouble. Only someone like your father can stay out of trouble. But let’s not talk about it.
Both of them stopped talking as the taxi sped along the airport highway. A picture of Chairman Mao was hanging on the rearview mirror at the front of the taxi, which piqued Liu Mingwei’s interest. He asked the driver, “Do you like Chairman Mao?”
In fact, the driver is only a little over thirty, he knew that Liu Mingwei was wondering when he smiled shyly and said, “I can’t say, I use it to exorcise evil spirits!”
This is heard in the ears of the old Liu head and caused some emotions: “Oh, Chairman Mao certainly could exorcise evil, if this old man came back now, many crooks and evil spirits would be expelled in one day.”
Liu Mingwei smiled, patted his father’s lacquer cover with his hand, and reassured his father: “Society is changing, there is no way to go back on many things, just some changes are really not very good, that is all.”
“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it!” elder Liu shot him a helpless look, “Now there is a lot of energy. The whole society is just society is money money money! Power is directly equated with money. There are few officials who are not corrupt now, depending on whether you have a patron, depending on whether you take care of everyone if you are corrupt. The people are gnashing their teeth at the cadres almost everywhere, but I’ve been wondering why nothing has happened yet.”
Liu Mingwei smiled again, comforted: “Father, you just ignore all this, you are happy to live.”
“Unfortunately,” old Liu Head sighed, “your father has been a revolutionary all his life. I was a Party member before I retired, how can I not be a Party member now? I do not care about our Party, no way! However, a few years ago, when the country was hit by SARS-“
“Dad, here you go again.” Liu Mingwei did not smile, reaching into the bag he was carrying, felt that the bottle of mineral water was still there, “Dad, you talked about it several times on the phone.”
“Oh, is that so?” Elder Liu sighed, as if he had immediately forgotten his son’s memory, and continued, “The SARS period made me feel like I was back in the old fighting days. After the outbreak of the deadly atypical pneumonia, the whole nation responded to the Party’s call, and at that time our Party suddenly regained a vitality that had never been seen since the beginning of reform and opening up. At that time our workers, under the leadership of the Party, built the world’s largest hospital for infectious diseases in only seven days. The corrupt officials forgot about corruption during that time, and the people voluntarily rallied around the Party – unfortunately, those were the best days I have seen since I retired. After SARS ended, I turned on the television every day to watch it, and I also recorded the gala held by CCTV to defeat SARS, and I often looked back at it. People talked about it like they hadn’t since the old days when they praised Chairman Mao. Later, the whole literary world sang with a false and pretentious voice of decadence —“
“Dad,” Liu Mingwei said, “stop it, let’s talk about something happy.”
“Happy? How can I be happy?” Old Liu sighed, “After that SARS, every winter, either in Guangdong, Beijing or Anhui, there are always one or two places where SARS cases are reported, and every time the SARS rumors appear, there is tension up and down, and all the people are on the same page, and that is when I am most relaxed and happy!”
“Forget it, no more. I’m glad you’re back!” After a while, Senior Liu wiped the corners of his eyes with his hand, looked at his son who was in deep thought, and said, “How long are you staying?”
“I’ll be in Beijing tomorrow for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games!” Liu Mingwei said. After saying that, he leaned back in his chair and said nothing more. The taxi continued to race forward.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (24)
Authoreditor
NOVEMBER 4, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 24: Solving the Case
Half an hour before the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in China, the streets of Beijing were empty of pedestrians. At that moment, a white, unmarked Guangzhou Honda with red and blue police lights whistled through the empty streets. The car, which was racing against all the cars heading to the main Olympic venue, finally stopped at the entrance of the Beijing Library. The library doorman was curious because almost all the library patrons had disappeared, and the librarians were all sitting in front of the television to watch the live broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. The doorman wanted to stop the car, but when he saw the red sign behind the windshield that said “State Security Police,” he quickly opened the gate. As the driver passed through the gate, he asked the guard for directions to the Day and Night Reading Room in the Second Reading Area, then stepped on the gas and drove in.
After getting out of the car, Director Zhou trotted all the way to the second reading room, where the reading room staff led him through a long corridor. The Day and Night Reading Room is a new reading room in the Beijing Library, open twenty-four hours a day for experts and scholars who need it and often suffer from insomnia. The librarian at the door saw Director Zhou approaching and, knowing that the strange man had called him, greeted him and said, “This man has been here for two days and two nights and has gone through more than six hundred books – you are here to take him away, aren’t you?”
Director Zhou nodded, and the administrator’s face showed a happy smile, thinking, “If you hurry to take this madman away now, I’ll still have time to go to the audio-visual room to watch the opening ceremony.
The day and night reading room was empty, the two rows of tables against the corner of the pile of books more than a person high, Secretary Zhou walked toward the two piles of books. Yang Wenfeng looked up from the pile of books, and Director Zhou was startled to see a face that had not slept for two days and two nights.
“What the hell are you doing?” Director Zhou sounded a little desperate and reproachful, “You told me on the phone to come over right away, do you know that this is the first time since I became director that I have used the siren on my car to speed through the streets of Beijing? Do you want me to take you to the hospital? What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m solving the case!” Yang Wenfeng said with an ugly smile on his face, gesturing for Director Zhou to sit down. The librarian standing at the door saw them sitting down, the smile on her face disappeared, she frowned, walked over to her seat, picked up a small radio and turned it on to listen.
“Did you solve the case? Solve what case? Did you just sit here and solve the case?” Director Zhou was full of disdain, “Do you know that the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will start in about twenty minutes?”
“I know!” Yang said, “So even though I haven’t figured it out yet, I had to call you in case I figured it out and needed to take your police car to stop an earth-shattering terrorist event…”
Director Zhou was slightly surprised, but said outwardly, “You dare to call the intelligence director of the Chinese Ministry of State Security to your command before you’ve figured it out?”
Yang Wenfeng ignored Director Zhou’s sarcasm and said, “I almost figured it out several times in the past two days, but then I suddenly ran out of water. I’m too tired, my brain isn’t enough anymore, and now my head hurts again, I want you to come over and think with me…”
Secretary Zhou sighed softly and stopped talking, he wanted Yang Wenfeng to follow his own thoughts as soon as possible to pour out of his head, he knew that it couldn’t be rushed at this time. Sure enough, Yang Wenfeng adjusted his sitting posture and did not look at Secretary Zhou, his voice soft as if he was talking to himself to talk away.
“Director Zhou, when my classmate Li Jun and others were taken down by the CIA one by one, I already knew that there was a traitor among my classmates. Although I suspected some of my classmates at that time, from the beginning I suspected Liu Mingwei in Washington as the prime suspect because you had also received information about Guo Qingqing’s case, but the information you received later turned out to be false and a deliberate attempt to divert our attention from the case. The person who provided the information at that time probably did not think that Guo Qingqing was still in love with me, so I quickly found out that the whole thing was a trap set by a double agent.
Since you refused to tell me who gave you the information about Guo Qingqing, I took a detour. That classmate of mine was smart enough to use his knowledge of his old classmates and exploit their fatal weaknesses to trick them into committing misdeeds, thus bringing down several important state officials. However, he overlooked the fact that I am also one of his classmates, and I also understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of my classmates. I am the one who uses his own method to defeat him. In order to solve the case, I visited the parents of a number of old classmates at the same time, but also carefully analyzed the fatal weaknesses of each classmate. I found out that Li Jun’s accident and other former classmates who got into trouble were those who had done particularly well after graduation, who had attained some rank as government officials and some power. Is it possible that this traitorous classmate is not only working for the Central Intelligence Agency, but is also motivated by a little jealousy? When you think about it, Liu Mingwei is almost the only candidate. He knew about Guo Qingqing’s plastic surgery, was also connected to a mysterious unit in Beijing, and was by far the classmate who had the most reason to be jealous of Li Jun and the others.
“Liu Mingwei was one of the best students in our class, he was eloquent, clear thinking, tall and handsome. Most of all he had a father who was the vice governor of Anhui Province at that time, all of which made him stand out in the international relations department of our Peking University. After graduating from college, we all went our separate ways. We almost unanimously predicted that Liu Mingwei would be the most promising in our class. But then, in a surprising development, Liu Mingwei, with the support of his father, went to the United States to study. At that time, our country did not accept “returnees”, so Liu Mingwei stayed in Washington, D.C., after graduation, and found a decent job in the U.S. State Department with his talent. But after a few years, he found that no matter how talented and hardworking he was, it was almost impossible for him to be employed and promoted at the U.S. Department of State, one of the most bureaucratic agencies in the world.
At the same time, he looked back at his domestic classmates, Li Jun and others are already deputy directors, and other classmates have basically risen to the level of director and deputy director. Perhaps their official positions were not that high, but when Liu Mingwei returned home and found that although these official positions were not high, his old classmates had lots of money and had acquired a fine style, Liu Mingwei’s self-esteem was greatly hurt. In addition, Liu Mingwei’s father also retired from the post of vice-governor to the end. Liu Mingwei’s father, according to my investigation, is a very clean and honest official, not achieved as a vice governor. Minister Zhou, you know better than me that when such an official retires, his awareness of the cruel realities of society and his sensitivity to snobbery are much stronger than those of ordinary citizens. These factors combined to make Liu Mingwei dissatisfied with the domestic reality, so he began to take advantage of the fatal weakness of those successful old classmates to bring them down, which can be considered revenge. Of course, as for those old classmates, I have to admit, should also be responsible. After all, an unbroken egg does not attract flies. Later, when we discovered his plan and increased our precautions, the CIA had to put a stop to his proposal and took no further action.
“Analyze again why he wanted to be a double agent. Liu Mingwei was the most ambitious person in our class. His overriding ambition was definitely not to be a small, nameless spy, but on Liu Mingwei’s path of development, he made a fatal mistake! He went abroad to study international relations and politics at his own expense, originally thinking that by studying advanced American social sciences, he could return to this country and make a great career in the future. You have seen that whether it is Taiwan or other third world countries and regions, when the economy has developed to a certain extent and almost all the people in power are clear, the students will want to come back from studying in the United States.
Unfortunately, this time he misjudged the situation, and with the current situation of our country, in the next fifty years the foreign students who study liberal arts will not be employed at all, and even if they are employed, they will only be used to put up a facade. When Liu Mingwei discovered this problem, it was already too late. So he just did what my classmate Tian Haipeng did — he got U.S. citizenship. That means he will never be able to realize his political aspirations in China in his lifetime, right? Liu Mingwei was influenced by his father and loves China very much. In other words, he can’t let go of China in his heart. The only and best way is to join the Ministry of State Security and serve the country to the best of his ability. You know better than me that many overseas Chinese can’t let go of China in their hearts, and…”
Director Zhou gestured to Yang Wenfeng to continue, no irrelevant details, Yang Wenfeng continued to speak.
“He was not willing to be mediocre, but wanted to be taken seriously before he volunteered to work for you, for the same reason he worked for the CIA. Not only me, but almost all of my classmates would not believe that Liu Mingwei was willing to be a minor player at the U.S. State Department. But surprisingly, he worked there for many years, and the reasons are self-explanatory.
“You know, the so-called double agents never admit to themselves that they are double agents. A double agent is like a whore who is in the arms of two men at the same time, and all she is trying to do is make both men feel that she loves only one of them. In the history of espionage, because double agents know their enemy, they can often successfully maneuver between the two sides, making each side treat them like babies! Almost all Chinese in the United States are reluctant to act as informants for U.S. intelligence agencies, and Chinese like Liu Mingwei who know their enemy are rare, and his going to work for the CIA as an informant was naturally welcomed. In this way, although Liu Mingwei is only a minor official in the U.S. State Department, he actually has a much more important position in the United States. At the same time, he has gone to work for you. This makes him feel better and feel that both sides can’t do without him, and he sometimes even drifts into the belief that he is in control of Sino-American relations!
“In analyzing Liu Mingwei’s character, I found that Liu Mingwei is actually the most unsuitable person to be a spy. Because being a spy is a noble ideal, no matter who you are spying for, once you decide to be a spy, then you have to be anonymous forever for the sake of your ideal, you have to be willing to live a lonely life, a life of obscurity, until death you live in a lonely world. The world’s most exciting espionage stories, the most exciting intelligence battles are forever taken to the grave by the best spies. But can Liu Mingwei do it? He is a man who is not willing to be lonely and wants to do something big and exciting, so how can he be a spy?”
Secretary Zhou nodded heartily, Yang paid no attention, still talking to himself about his two days and two nights of thinking.
“Another analysis that startled me was that Liu Mingwei did not see being a spy as an ideal, but as a means, a means to his own ends! Director Zhou, as a veteran director of the Intelligence Bureau, tell me what happens when a person uses being a spy as a means to an end, as a means to his own ends?”
Director Zhou sighed heavily: “We are not afraid of greed for money and sex when examining spies, but afraid of his ambition to act as a spy as a step on the ladder, as a means to achieve their own ends. If that happens, the lighter they go around wooing and cheating, seeking their own interests and capital, the heavier they provide false information to mislead the party and state policy decisions. And of course there are more serious case of even betraying the state -“
“That’s right! Director Zhou.” Yang Wenfeng nodded with a grave expression, “In a normal system, the head of intelligence cannot have great power. Under our system, the head of the intelligence department reaches the end when he becomes the deputy minister. So compared to other departments our national security department has the least chance of promotion. Of course there are abnormal cases, such as the KGB chief in the former Soviet Union and Kang Sheng during the Cultural Revolution, both of which resulted in great disasters for the two countries. “
Yang Wenfeng stopped and pinched his temples with his fingers, and did not speak for a while. At that time, Director Zhou said, “Yang, I also know that Liu Mingwei has problems, but he has sent back some very useful information. Besides, after you gave me such a long analysis, what exactly is Liu Mingwei’s motive for providing such fake information this time?”
Rubbing his temples, Yang Wenfeng said, “The reason he sent you a lot of good information is because he knows his enemy and knows himself. He is very good at catering to your mindset. Remember the guy who was a double agent for the mainland and Taiwan a few years ago? He sent out two fake intelligence reports on the same day. The intelligence report to Beijing said that the Taiwanese military would conduct a secret operation in the sea east of Taiwan at 38 degrees north latitude on a certain date; the intelligence report to Taiwan mysteriously said that the Chinese military would conduct an important secret operation in the sea east of Taiwan at 38 degrees north latitude on a certain date. As a result, both the mainland and Taiwanese militaries were very nervous, and on a certain day in a certain month, the two militaries sent secret naval ships to that area at the same time to lurk and scout. Of course, the naval forces of both the mainland and Taiwan discovered the deception of the other side, and as a result the double agent received a double award from both the mainland and Taiwan.
Speaking of which, Yang Wenfeng had a happy smile on his face for the first time. But after a short smile, he immediately turned serious again and said.
“The first thing that came to my mind was that this time Liu Mingwei was leaking information to both China and the United States in order to get some kind of attention. You know that Liu has been highly valued since he became a double agent, but a few years ago he began to use the fatal weakness of his classmates to trap them, and was discovered by us in time to take protective measures. Although Liu Mingwei could not know this, as a sensitive spy, he must have felt it. Director Zhou, after our classmate’s accident, you must not have employed Liu Mingwei so much, right? At the same time, the CIA never acted again after using Liu Mingwei’s trick successfully twice, and they naturally began not to take Liu Mingwei seriously. All this made Liu Mingwei feel.
He had to do something to redeem himself in the eyes of the Chinese and American intelligence services. So he presented both the CIA and the Chinese Ministry of State Security with earth-shattering early warning information about a plot to destroy the Beijing Olympics. Of course, neither you nor the CIA gave Liu Mingwei the same importance as before, but neither of your agencies dared to take this information lightly. Isn’t that right? You don’t know that the United States secretly sent over 300 agents to China for the first time, and estimated the total cost at over $300 million. Not to mention our country, which has made the Olympics look easy on the surface, but is so nervous inside that it’s pulling the strings. Now that the entire city of Beijing has been cleared out, and it cost nearly one hundred million yuan just to transfer 600,000 ‘trustworthy’ ‘masses’ from all over the country to the capital, it is clear that this Liu Mingwei is really powerful.
“In this way,” said the angry Director Zhou, “this Liu Mingwei is jealous of his classmates, so he takes revenge on society to draw the attention of the intelligence services of both countries-!”
“These thoughts were enough to drive him over the edge! He never got rid of the shadow of his father, who was promoted when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing, and has always been fond of that era. In a way, Liu Mingwei is one-sided in his belief that things are not as good as they used to be. Especially since Liu Mingwei, who loves to debate, is very dissatisfied with today’s Chinese society, which is obsessed with money. Besides, there isn’t a spy agent who doesn’t miss the days of the Cold War standoff.
“But to report false information just for this purpose makes work hard and wasting money?!” Director Zhou said.
“Makin people work hard and was wasting money is nothing!” Yang Wenfeng suddenly stood up and scared Director Zhou. Director Zhou immediately asked nervously, “Is there something else going to happen?”
“Good, if my speculation is correct, the shocking destruction will happen soon!”
“Are you saying that Liu Mingwei does know that someone is trying to sabotage the Olympics and that his information is true?” Director Zhou asked tremulously.
“Yes, and no! Let’s reason from Liu Mingwei’s character. He is a very smart man, if he wants to get the attention of the intelligence agencies of both countries, then he can tell Beijing “the United States is making a new plan to transform China through peaceful evolution,”, and at the same time, he can tell Washington “Beijing is getting ready to dominate Asia”.
If so, both countries would certainly take him seriously, but of course no one would be able to prove the truth of this information in the short term. But telling both countries that the Olympics are being sabotaged by the other side is another story. This kind of early warning information is more important than strategic information, so he gets your attention again. But think about it, if he reported false information, then the Olympics passed safely and nothing happened, then within two months, both Chinese and American intelligence agencies will verify this costly and even confrontational information, and then it will not be a question of whether Liu Mingwei is important or not, but whether both countries still trust him. I think it is impossible for Liu Mingwei not to know the consequences of reporting such false information, let alone make this fatal mistake!”
“Oh my God!” Director Zhou almost screamed, his usual restraint gone, “What the hell is going on?”
“Listen to me, the fact is that our Olympic Games have been secured very successfully.” Yang Wenfeng tried his best to control his voice, “What was the so-called news that someone is trying to sabotage the Olympic Games in China? Both China and the United States heard it from Liu Mingwei. I wondered, how could Liu Mingwei have such a source of information? He’s just making it up as he goes along! So my conclusion is: Liu Mingwei could not have gotten hold of the shockingly destructive actions of any other person or terrorist organization, much less information that both the Chinese and American intelligence agencies could not get hold of!”
“But, Yang, I’m confused, didn’t you just say there must be shocking destruction? Is the information he gave true or false?”
Still standing there, his body shaking a little, Yang Wenfeng said word for word, “Of course the information he provided was fake, but he will make it real! Because the protagonist of this amazing sabotage is Liu Mingwei himself!”
Beads of sweat poured from Director Zhou’s forehead as he struggled to think, and at the same time, he felt that he was indeed getting old and it was time to retire. At this point, he could only hear the sound of his heart beating in his ears and Yang Wenfeng’s voice, which seemed to be speaking very far away.
“Director Zhou, since Liu Mingwei wants to return China to the era of international isolation and Sino-US confrontation, and since he wants to become a hero on both sides of the Iron Curtain that both China and the US can rely on. Can he achieve his goal by reporting such false information that can be easily refuted? Of course not! So I began to suspect that what Liu Mingwei said about sabotaging the Olympics might be true. But we had analyzed it long ago and ruled out the possibility that any organization or individual in the world would want to sabotage the Olympics.
When I thought about it, I broke out in a cold sweat. It turned out that I had overlooked a trick that intelligence agencies and spies often use: to reveal themselves in order to take credit. Liu Mingwei himself is ready to sabotage the Olympic Games, and then he reported the above information to China and the United States, deliberately saying that the two countries want to sabotage each other. In this way, once Liu Mingwei sabotages the Olympic Games, not only will he prove that his intelligence is correct, and China and the United States will move toward a serious confrontation, China will once again be faced with a Western effort led by the United States to isolate it. Liu Mingwei’s goal has been achieved! With this analysis, the problem is solved.
“But what ability does he have to sabotage the Olympics?” Even though the room temperature under the air conditioner was only 20 degrees Celsius, beads of sweat still sprouted on Director Zhou’s forehead, flowing down his face to the corners of his mouth, and he felt a hint of saltiness.
“This is exactly the case I want to solve!” Yang Wenfeng said, “Everyone has the ability to sabotage the Olympics, the question is to what extent. I know that he has been secretly entertained by you as a VIP this time, and has already left for the Olympic Opening Ceremony tonight. The Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games is the focal point of the entire Games, with over two hundred countries participating, and is the most concentrated celebration of people and countries in the world, so if he’s going to cause trouble, it will be at the Opening Ceremony. Even though I haven’t figured out what he’s going to do yet, I still had to invite you because I’m afraid that if I think about it and then call you to come when it’s too late!
“But as you know, not to mention Liu Mingwei, even if the world’s most evil terrorist organizations, it would be difficult to disrupt the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in China. In fact, it is difficult for them to even enter China, and even if they get in, they may be skinned for inspection, and they definitely will not be able to attend the Olympic opening ceremony. But Liu Mingwei is a civil servant, what can he do? Setting off explosions at the Olympic Opening Ceremony? Impossible, because VIPs also have to go through the inspection door. Set himself on fire in protest? It doesn’t make much sense either, plain clothes will drag his body out in twenty seconds, stand up and shout slogans, let alone talk about sabotage, by the way, the sabotage Liu Mingwei is supposed to carry out should not be able to hurt himself. He is the kind of person who wants to be a hero and is most afraid of death, so the way forward is not possible. Besides, he can’t expose himself, otherwise it would be meaningless even if he became the beneficiary of his own sabotage. When I thought about it, I found myself in a strange circle. What strange circle? Because I was thinking about Liu Mingwei as if he were a common criminal or a common terrorist.”
Yang Wenfeng looked at Director Zhou and saw that he was still holding on, so he continued: “Liu Mingwei is not a common criminal. He is not trying to make a splash at the Olympics to expand his influence or anything like that, he has a much bigger goal. He wants to use this destruction to change the status quo of all of China, to stop the peaceful rise of China, to provoke a confrontation between China and the United States, to bring the world back to the Cold War. He wants to do this because it is the only way he can make a name for himself, even become a historical figure like the many legendary spy heroes during the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Didn’t he clearly state that there was a super sabotage campaign to stop China’s peaceful rise by sabotaging the Olympics!
“Director Zhou, I missed that statement at the time. Do you think that just by sabotaging the Olympic Games with two bombs and a little protest, you can stop the peaceful rise of China and block the advance of the Chinese nation? Perhaps only Americans would be so naive to think that Liu Mingwei, who knows China like the back of his hand, would never be so naive. We Chinese like to engage in symbolism, but it is one thing to engage in it or not, and it is quite another to influence the future of our country. Of course we must do a good job with the Olympics, but even if something goes wrong with the Olympics, the Chinese nation will continue to develop and advance, and China will rise peacefully and step by step. This trend is inexorable and irreversible!
“But I’ve always felt that something was wrong, disrupting the Olympics to stop China from rising peacefully doesn’t make sense! Liu Mingwei couldn’t be confused! I only blame myself for overlooking this important detail by assuming it was a fake intelligence report at the beginning, and now I look back and break out in a cold sweat, it’s clearly written in the intelligence report that ‘sabotage will stop China’s peaceful rise’ – my God, what a terrible sabotage that would be! You know, Director Zhou, the Chinese people are strong, even if you terrorists really get to release nuclear or chemical weapons in Beijing, even if the countless Chinese people are sacrificed, can it really stop the peaceful rise of China? Can it stop the development of the Chinese nation? Absolutely not!”
“Yang,” Director Zhou interrupted, controlling himself, “could it be that the sabotage planned by Liu Mingwei is more serious than dropping an atomic bomb on China? By him alone, Liu Mingwei?”
“Well, Director Zhou, I am afraid that this is the case, both in terms of people’s lives and property, and in terms of political and economic development, much more serious than a nuclear weapon exploding on Chinese soil! Not to mention that Liu Mingwei wants a confrontation between China and the United States, wants the United States and the world to come and isolate China and return it to the extreme leftist era in which his father lived. How can the confrontation and isolation of China take place when the atomic bomb explodes on Chinese soil, which will only provoke the people of the world to sympathize with China?”
“Then what method can he use?” Director Zhou now has an expression on his face as if he is listening to a ghost story that is happening to him.
“That’s what I’ve been sitting here thinking about for the last two days! I found these books because I remember the last time I was in Washington, D.C., Liu Mingwei told me that everything in the world can be found in books, not just beautiful faces and treasure houses of gold. You can also find all the crimes of genius, crimes that changed history, etc. in books. Just like after the US ‘9/11’ incident, many people thought Bin Laden was a genius, but in fact the novelist Tom Clancy depicted a similar plot in his novel many years ago. Another example is Taiwan four years ago
The day before the presidential campaign vote in Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian was only slightly injured, but Chinese history changed forever. The shooting was carried out by a gambler who saw a book called “The Assassination of Chen Shui-bian” in a bookstore and made a clay gun after the model.”
Director Zhou then swept the books off the table, from Dr. Crandall’s Sherlock Holmes Mysteries to the James Bond series, almost all of them espionage, crime, and horror books from around the world. Of course, as the director of the Intelligence Bureau, Zhou hasn’t read any of these books. If he had the time to read them, he would not have the time to be the director of the Ministry of State Security’s Intelligence Bureau. .
“Director Zhou, we are not dealing with common criminals. An ordinary criminal cannot sabotage the Olympic Stadium, which is so well guarded, let alone use any kind of sabotage and affect the fate of the Chinese nation. We are dealing with the most sophisticated criminals in the world. But I have to say that the most sophisticated criminals in the world couldn’t have come up with a genius crime on their own. I don’t know if you realize that all the most evil, clever, and terrible crimes in the world are not invented by the criminals themselves. In terms of criminal consciousness and criminal modus operandi, I can say this: intellectuals are always ahead of criminals! Just look through the criminal archives and world spy stories, and all the modus operandi can be found in the history of the world or the history of world literature!”
“These days,” Yang Wenfeng pointed to the two stacks of books in front of him, “I have quickly browsed through them to find all the horrible episodes of crimes committed in collective settings, and I have recorded all the crimes in the books one by one, and I have summarized more than sixty kinds, These include staging explosions, releasing biochemical weapons and deadly viruses, blowing up the reservoirs that could flood the site of the reservoir, hijacking the plane for impact, organizing protests to cause bloody clashes, assassinating the host or important guests from various countries, and so on.
Now, Director Zhou, please consider the actual situation in China and take a good look back at what ups and downs and sufferings our country has gone through since the founding of the country, especially since the reform and opening up, and what has changed or almost changed the destiny of our nation? I don’t want to argue with you about anything, but one thing is for sure: Liu Mingwei couldn’t mobilize anyone to protest in Tiananmen Square! Natural disasters are also terrible, but Liu Mingwei will not call upon the wind and rain! As I said earlier, any other form of sabotage, such as bombings, suicides, and other extreme activities that would make a fool of the Chinese authorities, could at best disrupt the Olympics on a small scale, but would not achieve the goal of changing China’s destiny! There is another point that must be considered in our argument, which is that Liu Mingwei wants to be famous in order to get the attention of China and the United States, so he will never use the method of exposing himself or letting himself be sacrificed in sabotage, so to speak, we can also say that he is afraid of death. So those methods of self-immolation and human bombs can be ruled out.
“Let me think about it.” Director Zhou said while thinking, “The method you mentioned above is terrible, but it can’t stop the peaceful rise of the Chinese nation, let alone change the destiny of the Chinese nation. If we are talking about changing the destiny of the nation, let me think about it.
- The three years of natural disasters not only starved China to death, but the hearts and minds of the Chinese nation were forever damaged. Yet that disaster was caused by natural and man-made disasters together, and there is no way it can be repeated now!
- The Cultural Revolution of course changed the Chinese nation forever, and almost plunged our nation into the tragedy of the end of the world, but this could only be started by Chairman Mao and the Gang of Four together, not one without the other.
- An economic crisis may cause social unrest and political crisis, but with the current strong economic momentum in China, even if Bill Gates and Soros were to plot together, it would not b enough. T
- here is the deep consideration that we have not yet not fully accepted the terms of the WTO admission thus far and have not allowed the RMB to be fully freely convertible. there is another can not be left out, is
- War in the Taiwan Strait, but the DPP has stepped down, Ma Ying-jeou has just entered the presidential palace, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait for the time being peace and quiet.
- Dropping chemical weapons on the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is possible, but the entire city of Beijing is within the detectable range of extremely advanced nuclear and chemical weapons. Besides, even if they really succeeded in creating explosions and poisoning at the Olympic Games, it would only provoke the whole world and the Chinese people to make common cause, not to mention the peaceful rise of the Chinese nation.
- By the way, there is one thing I almost forgot, six years ago, our country and nation experienced a few months of shock. At that time a deadly disease called ‘SARS‘ quietly appeared in China and later spread rapidly to several foreign countries, as a result the whole world was nervous and some people jumped out and called for the quarantine of China, when the Chinese nation was really at a dangerous juncture. If at the Olympics -“
Director Zhou suddenly stopped, Yang Wenfeng also trembled, their eyes locked together, both of them seeing the unprecedented panic in each other’s eyes!
Yang Wenfeng pointed to the two sheets of paper full of small letters in front of him and said with a trembling voice, “In my summary, the thirty-fourth ranked method of destruction. In this novel, the terrorists spread the bacteria at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, because it was the place with the highest concentration of human races in the world, and as a result, the people who attended the opening ceremony took the bacteria to more than 200 countries around the world in just a few days. The terrorists then took the antidote as blackmail and ended up controlling the world. This is a science fiction novel, written in suspense, and again, I don’t think such a bacteria exists now, but then you suddenly mention the ‘SARS’ disease–“
“Bacteria are biochemical weapons, and we can successfully test for them, but if we replace the bacteria with the ‘SARS’ virus, then it is invisible and tasteless. When the opening ceremony is over, the dignitaries, spectators and athletes will all fly back to their countries at the end of the competition, and the ‘SARS’ virus has an onset cycle of three to fifteen days. Oh my God, this is how this deadly ‘SARS’ virus will spread all over the world! It’s terrifying,” Director Zhou said anxiously.
“What is even more frightening is that ‘SARS’ itself originated in China, and it only took a few countries to spread ‘SARS’ in 2003 to make a hundred countries around the world nervous. If this happens during the Olympic Games, the world will not hesitate to unanimously isolate and blockade China, and the Chinese nation will be at the most dangerous juncture in terms of life and property, economic development and international status in many ways! Yang Wenfeng continued to analyze.
“Where can I get the ‘SARS’ virus?” Director Zhou was already a bit alarmed.
“You can get it anywhere! The SARS virus was transported to many countries back then so that scientists from all countries could work together to find a cure, but none of them found one. To study the SARS virus, scientists from many countries cultured the virus in solid and liquid dipsticks that could be carried around the world in a mineral water bottle through any security checkpoint and could not be detected at all by biochemical weapons detectors. In addition, the laboratories where the SARS virus was kept over the years did not have special security guards, including the SARS Institute in Guangzhou, China, where security guards were only hired from among ordinary migrant workers, and doctors were not checked in and out, and journalists from some Hong Kong weeklies used to visit easily. Some reporters from some Hong Kong weeklies used to sneak in and take a lot of pictures, which were also published in the weeklies. In addition, I also remembered that Tian Haipeng mentioned that the infectious disease laboratory in Atlanta, USA was broken into by thieves a few months ago, and among the viruses suspected of being stolen was the SARS virus, the deadly virus we call “SARS…. “
Director Zhou stood up shakily, grabbed Yang Wenfeng’s hand, and said in an almost sobbing voice, “If you are holding me up, carrying me, or dragging me, get in the car right now!”
The car sped toward the main venue of the Olympic Games. The Minister of State Security, who received the call from Director Zhou, activated the national emergency mechanism on his own, without having time to consult the Politburo, and at the same time ordered that all vehicles on the roads from the Beijing Library to the main venue of the Olympic Games, including the convoy of the head of the Party Political Bureau, must stop on both sides of the road to allow an unmarked white Guangzhou Honda minivan to pass unimpeded.
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was ten minutes away. In the VIP seats, Liu Mingwei sighed with relief as he loosened his grip on the bottle of mineral water. He pretended to enjoy the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games as much as the rest of the audience, two eyes glancing around. Ten minutes after the opening, no one should be in the bathroom, he thought. At this point, he was nervous, but nervous with a touch of excitement. The Olympic Opening Ceremony of the first half hour of the show will make the lights throughout the venue on and off, which he had inquired about, must be in the first half hour of the action. But at this time everyone is sitting watching the show, he got up to go to the toilet will not be suspected? Don’t be suspicious, he mentally reassured himself. When he looked up, he shivered as if he had really seen a ghost, because he felt as if he had just seen the ghost of a dead person flicker by the entrance of the VIP seats. He forced himself to calm down, calm down, calm down! This is slowly coming back to consciousness, after he felt himself funny, he forced a smile, really suspicious of the dark ghost!
No, we need to act immediately! With this in mind, Liu Mingwei stood up, grabbed the bottle of mineral water, and catapulted out of his seat towards the corridor. Fortunately, no one was paying attention to him, all eyes were on the large stadium, the opening ceremony was indeed too wonderful!
The wonderful moment begins today! Today will also be the opening ceremony of my most wonderful life! Thinking this, Liu Mingwei walked towards the toilet. As he passed one or two people who were obviously plainclothes, Liu Mingwei deliberately twisted the cap of the mineral water bottle as if he wanted to drink water, and the plainclothes smiled at him.
Calm down! Calm down!!! Calm down again!!! Liu Mingwei gently pushed open the toilet door, stopped in front of the mirror and pretended to straighten his clothes, no one was there, good! he thought. Then he noticed that his shoelaces were loose, so he bent down and took the opportunity to sweep the floor of the four small rooms from underneath, good, no one there either! Liu Mingwei breathed a sigh of relief and was ready to take out the prepared transparent gloves and miniature transparent mask from his pocket. Suddenly, he smiled, he actually forgot to close the door! No, this door is supposed to close automatically, how come I did not hear the sound of it closing? That’s when he looked up – and saw the hell!
“Yang, Yang, Yang Wenfeng, you, are you a human or a ghost?” Liu Mingwei couldn’t come to his senses for a moment and stammered out the question.
I stood there with my eyes fixed on the bottle of mineral water in his hand as the toilet door gently closed behind me. Riding on his panic, I surveyed the toilet, okay, if he opened the lid of the bottle, I think it should be possible to seal this high quality toilet. I have some pain in my heart, then both Liu Mingwei and I must be sealed inside, he is holding in his hand is enhanced “SARS” virus, is not before the mutation, if exposed to such a virus, will certainly die!
“Yang Wenfeng, aren’t you dead?” Liu Mingwei looked at me with forced calm.
“Can a dead man stand up and talk? Old classmate!” I forced myself to remain calm, and it looked like the bottle cap hadn’t been opened yet, and my heart calmed down a bit. I’m not so afraid of death anymore, but when I think of all my friends and relatives who won’t be able to come to my bed to say goodbye if I get “SARS,” when I think of the familiar eyes that will silently say goodbye to me through the thick glass with tears, when I think of the lips of my relatives on the other side of the glass closing and closing lovingly, but I can’t hear anything, I have a feeling of more pain than death. I think if I choose, I will choose to die in a fight with bruises. I am not afraid of dying, but Liu Mingwei is afraid of dying, so I will win today.
If Liu Mingwei were brave, he would have won, because he could have opened that bottle of SARS virus before entering the opening ceremony venue and let himself be infected with the virus first, so that he could have made the whole world suffer by just turning around a few times in the opening ceremony venue; or he could have opened that bottle directly in the venue, but Liu Mingwei, who was afraid of death, did not surprise me, he went to the toilet first and prepared to protect himself first before he did so, not only giving me time, but also giving me the confidence to win!
I coldly stared at the bottle in Liu Mingwei’s hand and coldly said, “Have you ever seen a dead person stand up and talk?”
“Ha, I should have thought of that.” He held back his panic and let a cold smile appear at the corners of his mouth, “The Ministry of State Security is a place where you go in standing up and come out lying down.” It turns out that you, Yang Wenfeng, never left the Ministry of State Security!”
I didn’t say anything, still looking at him coldly.
“You know everything?” He asked coldly.
I nodded, my eyes still fixed on his hands, he was a head taller and lankier than me.
“You want to stop me? Yang Wenfeng?”
I nodded. It was four steps from me to him, and four steps from him to me.
“With you?” His mouth was filled with mockery.
“Just me!” I said coldly as I gritted my teeth and forced a yawn back into my stomach. Although I had never beaten him in college, I had never found a reason to beat him then either.
“Since you don’t work for the Ministry of National Security and don’t even have a job now, I’d like to know what authority you have and who you represent to stop me?” The sneer at the corner of his mouth grew even wider.
I couldn’t help but yawn, remembering a line from the movie, and said coldly, “Then I represent the people!”
His hand with the bottle twitched, I took half a step forward, he immediately stopped twitching in horror, and I stayed at that three and a half step distance. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and found fear in his eyes, so my fear faded a little. “You shouldn’t have framed our classmate, Li Jun is now in jail for life!”
“Huh, I framed him?” Liu Mingwei’s face showed contempt, “He embezzled and bribed millions of the state and people’s property, shouldn’t he be punished?”
I do not move or speak, I know that no matter what I say, I cannot tell Liu Mingwei, but I still stare at him deadly, at any time to maintain a posture that can be rushed in an instant.
“Yang,” he suddenly changed his tone, sending a chill down my spine. “Yang, listen to me–“
“You can talk, but you can’t move.” I tried to act as indifferent as I had just been, but I thought about our time together, the happy chatter and occasional hearty laugh we all had on the way to Washington when he drove to New York to pick me up.
“Yang,” his tone was softer, “this country is no longer in good shape, this country needs stimulation, it needs to be revived! Look around you, corruption and depravity are everywhere, wine and flesh rot at the Vermillion Gate, the bones of the frozen to death lie in the streets! The people have no faith, everywhere men steal and women prostitute themselves! Think about the ambition we had in school. Can you bear to let our country go on like this? I often wondered what I could do to change this country. Now I’ve finally figured it out. This country needs disaster, the people need unity, the Party needs to return to the days of hard struggle, and we need an environment to show our stuff. Yang, you and I, we can do something big together!”
“You mean let the ‘SARS’ virus spread from China to the world, and then the world will come together to condemn and sanction China?” I tried my best to suppress the anger in my voice.
“Yang, it’s not like that, you don’t fully understand. There’s no harm in the whole world catching SARS. Let them all die together! But China has many people, dying is good for us, and if Europe and the United States die, then their economies can’t develop, and then we in China will export not only cheap goods, but also people. Do not be afraid of death, Chairman Mao said a long time ago, we are not afraid of a nuclear war, we are not afraid of hundreds of millions of people dying, a few hundred million dead, we still have several hundred million, but if the United States dies a hundred million, they are all finished! Let me put it this way, do you understand? Only death can bring about the rebirth of the Chinese nation! Nor are we afraid of the world’s sanctions against us. In Chairman Mao’s time, did the world not impose sanctions on us? But the Chinese people are living a full life, self-reliance, food and clothing, how nostalgic ah. Although we were young, didn’t we all grow up with the Red Book in our hands in those exciting years? We need China to revive, we need the Party to revive, we need the people to revive!
My hand trembled slightly, and my cold gaze remained fixed on his hand, filled with an indescribable aura of disgust and violence that strengthened my confidence in victory.
“Yang, I always had an ideal, you probably don’t know that, right?” He looked at me with increasing tenderness, his face full of longing.
I gave a cold “oh” and shook my head, but my eyes didn’t relax for a moment.
“My ideal is that one day, at the critical moment when the motherland is in danger, when the Chinese nation has reached the most dangerous juncture, I, Liu Mingwei, a yellow-skinned, black-eyed, ordinary Chinese, will stand up for myself and risk being called a thousand sinners, and raise my arms to save China from the fire! Yang, don’t think I don’t know you, but you have always had such an ideal in your heart, right? When I was in college, I secretly noticed you, and whenever I heard the national anthem, “The Chinese nation has reached the moment of its greatest peril,” I found you covered with goosebumps, and sometimes I found the corners of your eyes moist….
Thanks to Liu Mingwei, not only is reason always on his side, but he also saw through me in college. But this time, he didn’t see through me. I said coldly, “Liu Mingwei, yes, who among us, especially those of my generation who went to college to study politics, is not full of ambition? If you entered university to save China as your life’s mission, you are embarrassed to say, because many students take saving the world as their responsibility! Mingwei, you have golden eyes, I have always hidden a fantasy in my heart: one day, one moment, the Chinese nation suddenly came to a critical point, and I will save our nation by sacrificing myself, I will come forward without hesitation – as a result, I will die gloriously. Of course, this does not affect my imagination, and when the people know the truth, they will weep, and some will hold my image for the national parade -“
“You see, old classmate, we are no different ah!” Liu Mingwei looked at me affectionately with some excitement, “Now we are faced with a choice, we can eat, shit and pee like an ordinary person every day while waiting for that opportunity to come, of course you know that opportunity will never come. But today we have another choice, we can create that opportunity! So old school, let’s create that opportunity for our own ideals! Together, let’s shock the world with the ‘SARS’ virus, let’s awaken the nation, let’s make the Party a clean and honest Party again, admired and loved by the people, and let’s…”
“Stop it! Liu Mingwei!” I don’t know if he was trying to act out because he was too excited, or if he was deliberately taking advantage of my concentration on listening. His two hands closed a little more, and I regained my composure and unconsciously took another half step forward. It was now three steps from me to him and three steps from him to me. I said coldly, “Yes, we both have the ideal of wanting to be heroes, but we differ in that I fantasize about being a hero by sacrificing myself to save the people, while you fantasize about sacrificing the people to make you a hero! I’d rather enjoy my ideal in fantasy than do such a harmful thing with you! I will not endanger the Chinese nation for the sake of my own ideals! But I warn you, Liu Mingwei, if you move once more, my chance to realize my ideal will come!”
A trace of desperation flashed across Liu Mingwei’s eyes, followed by deep hatred, as he gritted his teeth and said, “I wasn’t expecting this, our chances came at the same time, so your ideal is to prevent my ideal from being realized! Good! But I want to know, why do you want to stop me? Do you think you can defeat me?”
I scoffed and said, “I didn’t think I could beat you, but today I have to!”
“Oh,” he looked at me in astonishment, “unless you’ve studied martial arts.”
“That’s right!” I said with double indifference.
“From whom did you learn martial arts?” He was a bit confused, but I knew that he had never been confused before, especially in a critical situation like this.
“Feng Qingyang!” I said in a loud voice.
“Who is Feng Qingyang?” This time, he seemed really confused, “Who is he? Where is he?”
I pointed to my chest and coldly said, “In my heart!”
I never found out whether his hand moved first or my foot lifted first, only that the distance between us was zero when his other hand approached the cap of the mineral water bottle.
I rushed too hard and my whole body crashed into him, but the tall Liu Mingwei only moved back a small step, but his hand that was close to the bottle cap had to separate and separate again, and then that hand stopped above my head and clenched into a huge angry fist, and I was weak, but instinctively raised my limp slap when I saw Liu Mingwei’s eyes suddenly show the contempt of a victor as that fist came down on my face. My limp palm was halfway up when I suddenly poked at the pair of eyes that had just shown contempt, and when the fist hit the bridge of my nose, my two fingers also found the pair of eyes that I despised, and then I only heard a wail–
I used this underhanded trick I learned from Feng Qingyang’s heart to get rid of my old classmate Liu Mingwei, whose head was full of noble ideals, but whose heart was determined to do an evil deed.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (25)
Authoreditor
NOVEMBER 4, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness, Spy Novels
Chapter 25 – Corruption is Everywhere
After five years away, I had to hold back tears when I returned to the small apartment where my parents lived before they died. My sister could not help but feel a mixture of sadness and joy when she saw me come back from the dead, and she told me some of the circumstances before my parents died. It turned out that Director Zhou had “kept a secret” from my parents, and when I was “killed” in a car accident five years ago and went into hiding, Director Zhou told me that he had clearly explained this to my parents.
Director Zhou was actually quite ruthless — he told my parents that I had died in a car accident. He only comforted them by saying that I had died a worthy death. Later, after my father’s death, Director Zhou told me that my father was in a calm mood when he died because he knew that I was anonymous as an unsung hero. This was something Director Zhou told me to make my heart feel better.
The reality was that my parents, who regarded me as their only hope and pillar of life, were strong on the surface when they learned that I had died in the line of duty. Inwardly, however, they fell into an abyss of pain. Two years after my “death,” my mother developed Alzheimer’s disease. It flared up more often than usual. Each time she had an attack, she insisted that I was still alive and just away on business, so she often reassured my father, who was in a state of longing and despair, “He never died, your son will be back!” My father was not as lucky as my mother; he lived in constant waking pain and despair. He finally died in 2007, the year before the Beijing Olympics. But my sister told me that my father was actually at peace when he died. She said that my father, who had lost his son and his partner, became unusually strong just before he died. Not only did he no longer fear death, but he often whispered and mumbled: What am I doing here when they are all gone? He said to my sister: Although your brother could do great things, he wasn’t very good at taking care of himself; your mother is gone, but she has dementia. I’m afraid that even if she showed up, she wouldn’t recognize her son. So it is best that I leave now. t
My sister said that my father was not only calm and fearless at the time of his death, but also suddenly had a look of longing on his face.
That was the only relief I had and I was grateful for it. I decided that I would stay in that small apartment by the Pearl River until the smell of my parents had disappeared from that small apartment, until my heavy heart was lightened, and until I could go out again. So I refused Director Zhou’s invitation to return to Beijing to his face and asked him why he kept lying to me about my parents.
Director Zhou helplessly shook his head and sighed: “Yang, the success of your entire operation and even the lives of some students depend on your secrecy, can I put this burden on your parents’ shoulders? They are nearly eighty years old with no training, how can they keep your fake death a secret for so long? From your side, if you are told the real situation, you must not be able to bear to let your parents suffer the pain of “loss” in their later years and contact them, as a result, your whereabouts will be revealed, and eventually even affect the whole plan of action. Yang, in our line of work, for the sake of secrecy, for the sake of national security, we sometimes have to endure loved ones not understanding, and even make loved ones suffer, for the sake of doing something important!”
I didn’t want to hear any more, so I turned around and left. For me, nothing can replace the love I have for my parents. They are the ones who endured humiliation under difficult circumstances, worked hard to raise me, and saved money to pay for my education. They were the ones who taught me how to love with their love, and from the time I was born, I have always had the most precious possession that any parent in the world can give to their children: love! Now that my parents are gone, the most precious legacy they have left me is also this love. I think I have to pass on that love, whether I do great things or become an ordinary person.
I decided to settle down in Guangzhou, and then to get married, have a child, so that I could pass along the love I got from my parents to my children. I went to the “Southern Weekend” to publish a position wanted ad. Then I went to “Youth Generation” to publish a lonely hearts ad. These two tasks accomplished, I was relieved, I went to the Huan Shi Dong Road Garden Hotel that area for a long time to take a walk. When I passed by the pedestrian bridge in front of the hotel, I suddenly saw Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo. He was wearing a wrinkled suit today, holding a large bouquet of red roses in his hand, standing in the middle of the bridge in a very stylish way. He turned around and saw me too, and his mouth opened wide in surprise.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m walking here, what are you doing here again?” I asked him back.
He smiled coyly, looked at the bouquet of flowers on his chest, and said, “I’m on a date!”
I can’t help but “ah” a, deliberately some exaggeration to take a good look at him for a while, or the Little Jiangxi Li Jianguo, although well-nourished, and even looked a little rich.
After completing his mission, Li returned to China from the FBI’s most secret detention facility and almost simultaneously fell into a state of extreme anxiety and depression. Beijing was concerned that he had been imprisoned for a long time and was not used to the “air of freedom” after his sudden release. Director Zhou arranged for the best psychiatrists and nurses, but to no avail. Finally, I had to fly to Beijing, and that night we talked for more than three hours, and he revealed to me the cause of his illness.
In the beginning, little Jiangxi not only did not succumb to the secret detention, but was so courageous that the people at the FBI admired him. Finally, according to our plan, Jiangxi was acquitted and released. That day Louis, a senior FBI official, brought two of his men to the room where Jiangxi had lived for several years. Jiangxi had already guessed their intention and waited for them with a mocking and victorious expression on his face. Sure enough, Louis simply announced the acquittal order to him in a loser’s voice, and after Xiao Jiangxi signed it, Louis followed the procedure and asked, “Mr. Li, do you have any more questions?
At that time, Li Jianguo did not want to say another word to them, but the joy of victory made him unable to resist, and he asked, “Sir, I am deeply impressed by your FBI’s skill in using various means to interrogate me over the past few years, but my Li Jianguo spiritual world is quite rich, so your psychology-based interrogation does not work on me at all. Any of your interrogation methods that try to enter my spiritual world and dismantle me will get lost in my spiritual world, which is even bigger and more boundless than the Internet. But now I might as well tell you that I actually have a fatal weakness, that is, compared to the rich spiritual world, my physical body has a very limited ability to endure pain, and physical pain will make me suffer.
Even though I know that you cannot threaten me with death and force me to submit, physical torture will make me give up all my efforts the first time. The question I want to ask you now is, why don’t you find out this fatal weakness of mine? Then prescribe the right medicine for me, such as sitting on a tiger bench, pouring pepper water on me, or beating me with a whip, as you used to do with the Kuomintang at the Sino-American Intelligence Cooperation Institute in Chongqing. To be honest, if that had been the case, I probably would have been overwhelmed at the beginning and would have told you the only version of what you didn’t know before, and so how could I have been with you for four or five years?
Xiao Jiangxi finished, smugly staring at Louis, Louis somewhat hung his head, thought for a while before sighing, deliberately incomprehensible look rhetorical question: “I don’t understand, and there is no personal animosity between us, why would I risk committing a crime to whip or torture you?”
Xiao Jiangxi reminded him, “If I had confessed earlier, wouldn’t you have fulfilled your sacred mission of maintaining national security and protecting national interests?”
Louis thought for a while and muttered, “If the law enforcement agencies of a country have the power to torture people like you, can force you to sit on a tiger bench, pour pepper water on you, and whip you at will to get information, Mr. Lee, do you think that the interests and security of this country are still worth defending? Do you think this mission can still be called sacred?”
Poor little Jiangxi was stunned, as if he couldn’t understand. On the plane home he thought about it and didn’t say a word. On his return, he began to wonder why he had been in prison all these years, and whether he was a winner or a loser. The worst part was that he had lived in isolation and secret detention for five years, completely unaware of the progress our country had made in human rights over the years, so he was still full of the sensational stories he had heard so often about the torture of prisoners in Chinese prisons – a few years earlier.
As I listened, I knew that this old classmate had not only fallen for it, but was taking the bull by the horns. I told him that it was really the greatest revenge of Louis, who had failed completely, against Little Jiangxi. I finally convinced him that our country had made progress in human rights over the years and that the legal system was improving. I also assured him, with the integrity of an old school friend, that although there were some places where individual public security officers still used torture against suspects in their eagerness for quick results, the country had made clear legal provisions to limit the power of the police. Little Jiangxi let out a long sigh as the worries in his mind gradually faded away.
“Hey, Yang, what are you looking at? Have you seen enough?” Li Jianguo’s voice pulled me back from my brief memory.
“Excuse me, is yours here yet?” I asked him as I looked around.
“Not yet, but I don’t know, I don’t know her.” Xiao Jiangxi had confidence in her face, “I came here early, I need to see what’s around.”
“Why did you choose this overpass? You know, this overpass connects the five-star Garden Hotel to the four-star Baiyun Hotel, and there are a lot of prostitutes hanging around on the bridge. Besides, if you want to go to a cafe or eat after a date, you can only go to a star hotel, so your choice is a bit problematic, right?” I said snidely.
“I’ve thought about that.” Little Jiangxi narrowed his already small triangular eyes, “Look, if I stand in this position, no matter which side of the bridge you come from, you can see me with tall buildings as a background. Since I’m standing on the flyover, the position of my buttocks reaches the fourth floor of the hotel, doesn’t this picture make you feel that I’m tall? As for the prostitutes, I have also researched that dating in places where prostitutes hang out in droves. Not only is this erotic and allows lovers to get to sex faster, but it also puts pressure on these arrogant women. Those prostitutes use too much powder! It’s like they’ve just come back from a flour mill. Looking at them more closely, I see that they possess only a very limited form of beauty. When girlfriends see such people are going to be prostitutes, but I love only them, we have a much greater chance of deepening our relatioship in the future. “
I could not help but laugh out loud, it seems that Little Jiangxi in prison by self-learning to understand the wonders of psychology. But when I looked at him again, I noticed that his suit and tie seemed very old, and I asked, “Why don’t you buy some new clothes? Where did you spend your bonus?”
I’m talking about the compensation and reward of 100,000 RMB that Director Zhou gave us in total after the whole operation was over. Since Tian Haipeng didn’t ask for it, I gave the whole 100,000 yuan to Little Jiangxi. Little Jiangxi knew what I was talking about, smiled shyly, and whispered, “I used the money to get a facelift.
I was amazed, carefully measuring Little Jiangxi’s face, tiny triangular eyes, twice the size of the bags under his eyes – he saw me measuring his face, blushed, his voice ivery low, I leaned my ear over to hear clearly.
“I was also considered first facial plastic surgery, the doctor said 100,000 yuan although they cannot give me a face like Chow Yun Fat or Lai Ming face, but enough to make me comparable to Stephen Chow Sing-chi and Jet Li. Later I enquired at several hospitals. One was the Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, the doctor who received me there gave me a price list, facial plastic surgery also cost about 80,000 to 90,000. I noticed that they have other kinds of plastic surgery operations at their hospital. Surgery to lengthen the penis is the type of plastic surgery that they are best known for.”
Little Jiangxi licked his tongue and his voice got lower and I had to lean closer. Two passing prostitutes muttered “gay” and walked away in disgust. “You probably don’t know that I was born with this toy a little short, so when I was in college I was afraid to go to the public bathhouse to shower. I had a huge inferiority complex. I was embarrassed to ask the doctor for advice. The doctor explained that everyone’s phallus is the same length, but due to two factors: early development and late use, some people’s phallus is mostly shrunk inside the pubic bone, and their surgery is to cut open the perineum and pull out the shrunken phallus – I then took off my pants so the doctor could examine me, and after he examined me, he said that they could use the surgery to make me grow to the level of a normal person, but it would cost 100,000 yuan. I put my pants back on and debated whether to have a normal face first or to have normal length genitals. I have a normal face, plus my Beijing University degree and my real talent. I won’t have fewer girlfriends, but what do I do after I get a girlfriend? Due to low self-esteem because of my short penis, I was afraid to tell you old classmates that I am still a virgin, when the FBI once tried to lure me with pornographic magazines and blondes, they didn’t know that I was still an adolescent haha. I finally decided to spend $100,000 on penis enlargement surgery first.”
Hearing this, I shuddered and quickly jumped back, my eyes wide open, staring at Jiangxi’s crotch.
“Don’t exaggerate so much, okay?” Little Jiangxi’s face had returned to normal and looked at me with a smile.
“I say, Little Li-“
“Shhh!” Xiao Jiangxi immediately made a gesture of silence, looked around nervously, lowered his voice and said, “Attention, don’t call me Little Li or Jian Guo, my name is Chang Feng, okay? Chang Feng!”
“Chang Feng?” I repeated the name as if it was familiar, as if I had heard it somewhere before.
“That’s the name I used on the Internet before you sent me to prison in America!”
Confused, I looked at the already posed Chang Feng Warrior and couldn’t help but ask, “And who is the one you’re dating today?
“Geez, why are you so curious today, well, I’ll tell you, listen and then go, I don’t want someone as ‘big’ as you standing next to me when she arrives to make me look as small as she does. I’ll tell you something, before I smuggled myself into the United States, I was in love with a woman named Xiao Qian on the Internet. At that time, we had not seen each other for three years, but due to low self-esteem, I was reluctant to meet her in the real world. I did not think that after five years in the United States, and we had not been in touch, but when I went back online, suddenly I saw her, God, she was crying her eyes out.
“You didn’t see her, so how do you know she was crying her eyes out?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“If you don’t understand the online world, don’t interject. You can tell the other person is crying by the speed of typing, the intermittent dialog, and the poorly worded sentences. Not to mention, if that prevents you from feeling it, there are special punctuation marks to represent crying. She asked me where you’ve been all these years and why you don’t surf the Internet anymore. I said that Chang Feng went on a mission. Old classmate, you see, I used to play agents on the Internet all the time, robbing the rich to help the poor, to do justice, but that is telling a lie, this time is different, I said I went on a mission, a mission of life and death. I said it with a straight face, she cried more sadly, as if I could feel her tears flowing from the computer screen. I gently touched the screen, closed my eyes and felt Xiao Qian’s long, flowing hair ruffled – I said, “Xiao Qian, do not cry, I am very much alive, I have completed my mission and made a glorious, triumphant return?
“Oops, poor Xiao Qian saw what I typed and cried even harder. She typed over to tell me that she wasn’t crying for me, but for herself. She said that since I disappeared, she had been discouraged, the first year almost every day on the Internet looking for, probably netizens to see his obsession, someone pretending to be me online and chatting with her, comforting her, but of course Xiao Qian knew. She said that these people pretending to be me, regardless of their literary talent, chivalrous heart, or deep love for Xiao Qian, are not one tenth of the warrior Chang Feng. In the second year, she went online every week, but she no longer had much hope of finding me. After the third year, she knew that I had given up my life. She said she made a small wreath for me. In the fourth year she got married, I mean married in the real world.
She said that after the wedding she had not been online for a long time, and one day she felt something in her heart, like something was calling her, so she went to an Internet cafe. As if by magic, she saw Chang Feng’s avatar light up! She could not believe her eyes, it was the real Chang Feng. She sobbed and told me that her real name was Wang Qian, a highly talented student at Fudan University in Shanghai. After graduation, she was assigned to work for the Propaganda Department of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. She is now married to a government official – but she immediately confessed that her heart had long belonged to the network world of the Chang Feng warrior.
After getting married, she felt that real life was boring because she always compared her husband to the Chang Feng Warrior. Her husband, a civil servant, has begun to be smug and self-satisfied. He often does not come home at night. While she and I were talking, she suddenly became nervous and wrote, “Oh my God, Chang Feng Warrior, this is not a dream, is it? Could it be that someone’s computer suddenly crashed, or the power went out, or there was a sudden earthquake, and then I couldn’t find you? No, you must give me your phone number now, I want to see you right away – she typed this in bold on the computer screen, but I felt like I was hearing voices from all directions in my head – I was so excited that I even imagined I could drill into the computer screen, into the electricity flowing down the phone line to Xian Qian’s end of the line. So I quietly, shyly became that person. And then quietly, shyly, into that keyboard, so that Xiao Qian’s fingers were tapping on my body!
“When I was in the United States, I already thought that if I could get out alive, I would have to bring the good things in the virtual world to the real world. Besides, I was now in a long and confident body, so we went on a date. I flew to Guangzhou just to meet my “Xiao Qian.
I listened to Jiangxi’s story with stunned eyes, my mouth still unable to close. At that moment, from the bridge came several women, there is a short fat woman wearing glasses seems to be long hair, then apparently two prostitutes, and a young woman holding a baby, the long hair as if not washed for months. Xiao Jiangxi looked at the women, suddenly nervous, suggesting that I hurry to leave.
I had not yet fully recovered, so I had to open my mouth and take steps to escape from the overpass in a hurry. Walked under the bridge, found a more secluded position to stand, wanted to look at her, but a look up, found the bridge where I could see Little Jiangxi’s shadow! I was no longer in the mood to walk, so I had to leave. I walked a long way, then turned around in disgust and cursed: another adulterous couple!
When I got home, I subconsciously looked at the phone several times, then I thought I was being funny, I was looking for a job ad and the marriage announcement won’t be posted until tomorrow, I started waiting for the phone. So I turned on my computer and decided to go online and just browse around to see if I could also meet a chatting friend like Xiao Qian. After the computer connected to the Internet, I immediately found a secret letter in my mailbox. It was from Tian Haipeng! He had successfully retired from the United States and then technically emigrated to Australia. We kept however the encrypted e-mail contact method we both used from the beginning. He sent me a letter from time to time to update me on his progress in this sunny new land. I opened the email, used special software to translate the letter, and a letter from Haipeng appeared before me.
Dear Yang,
How are you doing? I immigrated to Australia a few months ago. Now I have settled in the most beautiful city in the world, Sydney. I’m going to open a barbecue restaurant in Sydney’s Chinatown, and I’m going to hire a Hong Kong chef. They’re very good at it, that is, they slowly roast the bare chicken and duck with fire and charcoal to make them shiny/ They hang them in the display window in rows. The aroma will be very attractive – my shop is initially located at the junction of Sather Street and George Street, the most lively part of Chinatown. I thought, to make money is to rely on an idea, an idea, I happen to have a vacant room above the store, I will open an adult book and pornographic video rental store above. My idea is that everyone downstairs has enough to eat and drink, you can come upstairs to see the yellow books, ha ha, as the saying goes, “when people are well fed and warm, they become lustful.
Sydney is so beautiful, the sky here is so blue that people panic, it is said that the hole in the ozone layer causes the beautiful sky here. Hey, how to say ah, write here I do not want to pretend to go on. In fact, old classmate, I miss those days we spent together in the previous section. Whenever I think of those passionate years, how can I now handle the silence? Every time I receive your letter, I am excited, always want to find back when I was in the United States as an undercover agent. So I deliberately looked around nervously to make sure everything was okay before I carefully translated your letter and then read it word for word like your old secret instructions…
But, old classmate, your letter was very disappointing to me. Ah, you really want to quit completely. Are you really, willing to do an ordinary company clerk? (By the way, after coming to Australia, the first time I studied the suddenly upturned ass of women here, later a professor explained that it was because of the soil and water problems in Australia, which made British women come here after their ass began to upturn, you have the opportunity to tell Little Jiangxi) After all these years, I still don’t seem to know you that well. But can I say this, I actually know your fatal weakness well. Remember in college, when you got good grades, the first thing you wanted to do was tell your parents. If your grades were bad, you’d sigh and tell your parents to feel sorry for you. After working, you did everything for your parents. To save money to buy a house for them and live with them in Guangzhou, you quit your favorite job at the Ministry of State Security. You did this for your parents. You are not willing to take risks, and you were afraid of the tragedy of “a white-haired person attending the funeral of a dark-haired person. I can understand all this. But now that your aunt and uncle are 100 years old, what else can you let go of?
Do you want to be an ordinary person just because you want to be an ordinary person? Or are you tired of being a secret agent and doing secret work, or do you hate the elite and the self-righteous heroes like Liu Mingwei?
But I don’t see how that’s incompatible with doing the right thing. Let me tell you how many other tasks in this world require us to work together to accomplish them.
After the Olympic Games, the Chinese nation has embarked on the sunny path of China’s peaceful rise. However, this is not a good time for overseas Chinese around the world. Bad things don’t stop. They seem to be getting worse. The Chinese restaurants in Sydney’s Chinatown have been vandalized by white extremists, a nationalist party has resurfaced, Italy does not allow Rome to have a Chinatown, but a Chinatown forms naturally where Chinese want to live together. In recent years, with the support of evil forces in Italy, some saboteurs have begun to rob the Chinese, using the destruction of Chinatown as an excuse. Also, the Eastern Sea Devils–
Does that interest you? What about China’s internal affairs? Although the rise of the Chinese nation is unstoppable, there are always factors that undermine the interests of the Chinese nation. There is still no way to curb corruption among government officials. Even though some provincial officials have been executed by firing squad every year since 2003. But corrupt officials have a trump card: they send their sons and daughters to Western countries with the great wealth they have stolen. So what does it matter if a few of them are killed? How can we recover the losses suffered by the state and the people? Although the state has taken many measures to curb corruption, it has not yet been able to extend the fight against corruption abroad. If we allow the families of corrupt officials hiding abroad to have nowhere to hide, think about it, Yangzi, how much loss will we recover for the people and the country? You have the ability, if you ask us, we will voluntarily organize into action groups, just say the word and we’ll do it, okay?
But you say you are an ordinary person. What is an ordinary person? An ordinary person is someone who does what he can for his country, his family and himself. Ordinary people are ordinary people because they have tried their best. But Yang, have you tried your best? If the goal of defending the interests of overseas Chinese and helping the country expose corrupt criminals overseas is too big and too far for the people, what about the things around you? What about? Li Jun expected to spend a long time in prison, but it all seems to have been in vain! At that time, he wrote a fine summary of the facts of his corruption and his state of his mind. This was supposed to be the first shot fired against corruption in Guangdong. But after the report went up the chain, officials trembled when they read it. Not so much from reading the report, but from seeing themselves reflected in it. As a result, not only did they not dare allow Li Jun’s report to be circulated internally in the normal way, but some leaders even ordered that Li Jun be stripped of his political power for life so that he would not write another introspection report. All over the country, the fight against corruption has been in full swing in recent years. One corrupt official after another has been shot. But Guangdong province is doing nothing. What’s going on? If you go to the homes of officials who have a little bit of power, you can find millions or tens of millions of dollars of stolen money. Yang, how can you sit still?
I am not trying to provoke you, but I am tired of living in a backwater. I know that despite your calm demeanor, you must be passionate about this. I am just afraid that if you suddenly decide to get involved, you will forget about me, your old classmate. I would be very disappointed.
Yang, when the time for action comes, let me know, I will immediately sell my barbecue restaurant and adult store, and immediately fly over to fight alongside you –
I’m not in the mood to look at the computer again. This Tian Haipeng simply makes it impossible for me to live in peace for even one day. I turned off the computer, then the phone rang. I thought, “The ad hasn’t gone out yet, Jiangxi is out on another date, Tian Haipeng just wrote to me, who else is going to call me? I suddenly remembered her, so I rushed over and grabbed the receiver when the phone rang for what must have been for about the last time.
Sure enough, it was Guo Qingqing!
“Qingqing, are you okay?” I was surprised by the concern in my voice.
Qingqing paused for a moment: “Are you saying hello? Do you think something is wrong with me, or are you worried about me? What could be wrong with me? I want to ask you, are you okay? I’ve been trying to find a way to thank you for fixing my problems and giving me back my freedom.
Nothing is wrong. That’s good! I was relieved. For the past two years, Qingqing has been obsessed with being someone’s second wife. Now she has moved on to her third “husband”. The vice mayor, who loved poetry, had really fallen in love with Qingqing. He decided to divorce his wife and marry her. When he excitedly told Qingqing about this decision, Qingqing almost fainted and ran away overnight.
The good thing is that she immediately became the second wife of a much bigger official than the deputy mayor. The deputy mayor happened to see Qingqing dressed as a nanny in the leader’s house, swallowing a big mouthful of saliva. Not long ago, Qingqing called me to tell me that she had changed “husbands” again, I guess this one will take a little longer. I asked her who it was. She stammered on the phone and refused to tell me. She only told me that if she did, it might shock me. She also hinted that it wasn’t convenient to say on the phone, and I thought that someone who wouldn’t even say on the phone must be a great person.
Although I was happy for Qingqing, I was a little worried. The newspapers reported that all corrupt officials have second wives, and when they get into trouble, their second wives get involved as well. Some of them go to jail, and worst of all, a lot of embarrassing stories are made up about them. I politely told Qingqing about my concern. What I did not expect was that she would laugh at my fussiness on the phone. She said, “How can you trust those newspapers and magazines? She said, “I don’t know how many second lovers are happy, but the probability of a second wife having an accident is less than the probability of you, Yang Wenfeng, being killed by a falling billboard while walking down the street. But in my heart, I still often worry about her.
“Wenfeng, why don’t you say something?” Qingqing’s voice came from the other side of the phone, I had to say that I was listening. She sighed and said softly, “You can’t go on living like this, you have to do something serious!”
I said that I had advertised for a job, I did not say that I had also advertised for lonely hearts.
“What can you do?” Qingqing raised her voice on the phone, “What else can you do besides being a secret agent? But now the world is peaceful again, and you are unemployed again. I advise you to be practical, don’t look for a job, you don’t belong in any job. There is no job that fits you.”
There was both sarcasm and sincerity in Qingqing’s words. But I knew she was telling the truth, so what could I do? When I didn’t make a sound, Qingqing softened her tone and said, “Wenfeng, why don’t you become a big boss like others and ‘buy’ one or two big state-owned factories with hundreds of millions of dollars by taking a loan from the bank and turn them into private property. How about you try it, okay? This is the last train to get rich overnight in mainland China…”
“Qingqing, what are you talking about? All I can pledge to the bank for a loan now is my own two pairs of underwear and a few pairs of socks with a few holes in them.” I teased in a self-consciously humorous way.
“Unfortunately, Wenfeng, I am serious. If you are willing, look into factories where the workers are being laid off, but the secretary and factory manager are relaxed, and also send their children to study overseas. Those kinds of factories can usually make a lot of money. In the textile industry, you can try to find one with total assets of about 100 million yuan. If you like one, let me know. I’ll tell my “man” to call the party secretary of your local provincial party committee secretary. Rest assured, you won’t have to mortgage your underwear. “
Qingqing’s words were serious. Her tone was calm and full of concern for me. I hung up without listening to the whole proposal. Then I just sat there alone. I couldn’t hold back my sadness and started to cry.
Yang Hengjun: Fatal Weakness of the Fatal Trilogy (Part 26, Conclusion)
Authoreditor
NOVEMBER 5, 2020 Yang Hengjun, Fatal Trilogy, Fatal Weakness
Epilogue
It seemed like the knocking wouldn’t stop for a while, so I reluctantly rolled over and got up, wrapped myself in a towel, and opened the door with a dazed look on my face.
“We’re the police, is your name Yang Wenfeng?”
I nodded, suddenly much more awake, “What do you two want?”
“Answer us first, are you Yang Wenfeng?” The tall policeman obviously looked impatient because he had been standing outside the door for too long.
“I am Yang Wenfeng.” I tightened the towel around my waist.
“Good! Yang Wenfeng, you are under arrest!” The short policeman said and showed me a warrant.
“What is this about Yang Wenfeng, why am I under arrest again?” I asked unhappily.
“There is no problem with Yang Wenfeng. He doesn’t have a problem, he has nothing to do with this.” The tall policeman with a sneer at the corners of his mouth must still have eye drops in his sleepy eyes.
“Then why did you arrest me?” I asked, staring at him with a provocative look.
“Because you’re not Yang Wenfeng.” The big cop finished, still looking at me mockingly, as if it was all over and he didn’t want to explain any more.
“Let me explain.” I looked at the two policemen in front of me with pleading eyes. They looked at each other, and when they looked back at me, I noticed that they both had a look of derision on their faces. The shorter one looked me up and down and said with a smile, “Is that your explanation? You better come with us!”
I gave up, asked them to wait, and went inside to change my own clothes. The two policemen looked at each other again, after which the taller of them scanned the room above my head, probably seeing that there was no way to escape from my room, and then nodded in agreement. I went in while changing clothes, deliberately making a loud noise, I wanted the police to feel that I was still inside, I did not want the police comrades to get nervous, if they got nervous, I would get even more nervous.
Sitting in the police car, I couldn’t resist asking them again why they were arresting me, and I told them that I had the right to be informed of the reason for my arrest. I also told them that the law had been passed at the NPC meeting a long time ago, and if they hadn’t read it, I hinted that I could have my lawyer show it to them. The two police comrades were obviously a little surprised that I knew the law so well, and they looked at each other, and the shorter policeman sitting next to me turned to me, said sorry, and then turned to me in a stern tone and said.
“Yang Wenfeng died a few years ago because of a car accident. We would not have noticed, however because his death involved a string of high profile corruption cases involving the Guangzhou-Shenzhen superhighway. This was almost fired the first shot in our Guangdong region’s fight against corruption and to promote integrity. When you posed as this dead man to the Public Security Bureau when applying for temporary residence permits it caught our attention. After investigation, we found that you had been impersonating Yang Wenfeng for several years, from finding a job to having a girlfriend, and you lived in the house left by his parents, and to add insult to injury, you told people that you used to work for the Ministry of State Security. You seem to know a lot about the law. Do you know the crime of impersonating a cadre of the Ministry of State Security, right?”
After the short cop finished speaking, he looked me up and down curiously again and muttered, “Who the hell are you?”
I know who I am, but if I go to the Public Security Bureau, maybe they won’t be able to figure out who I really am. This time there would be only one person who could get me out. But if Director Zhou gets me out again, I don’t know what kind of shocking action I’ll be stuck in the middle of next!
(The End — Please read Lethal Weapon, the second part of the Lethal Trilogy)
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