Chapters (20)
The delighted prisoners around him suddenly scattered and dashed back to their bunks. The door opened; the police guard from earlier came in. He looked with disgust at Song Cheng, still crouched in front of the toilet. “Wash off your head at the tap. You have a visitor.”
*
Once Song Cheng rinsed off, he followed the guard into a spacious office where his visitor awaited. He was very young, thin-faced with messy hair and thick glasses. He carried an enormous briefcase.
Song Cheng sat down coldly without looking at the visitor. He had been permitted a visit at this time, and here, not in a visitation room with a glass partition; from that, Song Cheng had a good guess as to who sent him. But the first words out of his visitor’s mouth made Song lift his head in surprise.
“My name’s Bai Bing. I’m an engineer at the Center for Meteorological Modeling. They’re coming after me for the same reason they came after you.”
Song Cheng looked at the visitor. His tone of voice seemed odd: this was a subject that should have been discussed in whispers, but Bai Bing spoke at a normal volume, as if he wasn’t talking about anything that needed hiding.
Bai Bing seemed to have noticed his confusion. “I called the Senior Official two hours ago. He wanted to talk face-to-face with me, but I turned him down. After that, they got on my trail, followed me all the way to the detention center doors. They haven’t seized me because they’re curious about our meeting. They want to know what I’ll tell you. They’re listening in to our conversation right now.”
Song Cheng shifted his gaze from Bai Bing to the ceiling. He found it hard to trust this person, and regardless, he wasn’t interested in the matter. The law might have spared him the death penalty, but it had sentenced and executed his spirit all the same. His heart was dead. He could no longer muster interest in anything.
“I know the truth, all of it,” Bai Bing said.
A smirk flickered at the corner of Song Cheng’s mouth. No one knows the truth but them, but he didn’t bother to say that out loud.
“You began working for the provincial-level Commission for Discipline Inspection seven years ago. You were promoted to this rank just last year.”
Song Cheng remained silent. He was angry now. Bai Bing’s words had dragged him back into the memories he’d worked so hard to escape.