A sudden siren came piercing the somber sky over the river, like a line in the poem.

Inspector Chen started walking again, along the bank like a tourist, before he took out the white cellphone. He changed his mind, however, at the sight of a public phone booth on another side street.

Few public phone booths were left behind and in use in the fast-changing city. As he was striding over, reaching out to pull open the dust-covered door of the booth, a young girl scampered by, eyeing him curiously, if not suspiciously, while talking non-stop to a cellphone through her white mask.

Once inside, he dialed the phone number of the Shanghai Literature magazine editor surnamed Ouyang.

‘You have some new poems for me?’ Ouyang said, more like a statement than a question.

‘Not right now, but I have to ask you a favor, Ouyang. Do you still have copies of the issue that contains “Don’t Cry, Tai Lake”? Some people want to read the poem.’

‘I’m not at all surprised, Chief Inspector Chen. You’re truly a rising star in the system. Some other people asked for the issue too. From Beijing, I remember.’

‘Really! Do you remember the name of the people who contacted you about it?’

‘No, just someone at a high-level government office in Beijing, that’s about all I remember. He must have talked to the city propaganda ministry before contacting me. The city people later called me, too. It’s a great honor, according to them, that the senior Party cadres in Beijing want to read our magazine because of your poem.’

‘What else did they say to you?’

‘Let me think.’ Ouyang started to speak reflectively. ‘The Beijing office did ask me some questions, such as whether the poem was based on your personal experience or not. I said I did not know. It’s impossible to say, as you know, how much of an imaginative literary work comes from the writer’s personal experience. Or at all.’

‘Well said, Ouyang. That’s what Eliot’s impersonal theory is all about. Anything else?’

‘Hold on. I may be getting things confused. It happened quite a while ago. It’s possible that a couple of people – actually from different offices in Beijing – called us about your poem. They both requested copies of our magazine, I think.’

‘Can you double-check that for me?’

‘Of course. Our office assistant Nanhua may have kept the mailing address or addressee in the office logbook.’

‘That will be great.’

‘You may pick up copies any time you like – as many as you like. The more people interested in our magazine, the better. By the way,’ Ouyang went on after a short pause, ‘Qiang is retiring after having been in charge of the foreign liaison office here for almost forty years. I saw him yesterday, and he specifically asked about you.’

‘Thanks, Ouyang,’ he said, thinking Ouyang’s mention of Qiang a bit out of the blue. ‘I’ve not seen Qiang for quite a long time. A nice man, he helped me a lot in the days when I first became a member of the Writers’ Association.’