Huang Yiyi gathered up her flowers, and followed me happily out of the guards’ barracks. Everyone we passed seemed to look at her, staring at the flowers in her hand, or at her appearance. On the way, Huang Yiyi noticed some people walking along the road carrying bowls and chopsticks, and so she asked me if it was lunchtime, and could we go and get something to eat. I thought that she shouldn’t go to the canteen looking like that, so I told her to take the flowers home first and get changed. But when Huang Yiyi reappeared at the canteen having left her flowers at home and got changed, everyone’s eyes stood out on stalks! Why? Well, she had changed into a very low-cut jumper, which she was wearing without a jacket, and the top two buttons of her white shirt had been left undone – revealing an expanse of pale flesh to the point where you could almost see her cleavage – and she had put on bright red lipstick. When I told her to go home and get changed I was thinking that she’d put on something plainer; I had no idea that she … Well, she’d got herself dressed up like a Mata Hari, and when she came to a halt in front of us, we were all stunned. They stared at her and then they stared at me, which clearly meant: What the hell kind of person is this that you’ve brought back?

You could say that while lots of people used their eyes to ask me that question, only old Comrade Chen came right out and said it.

I met Chen in his office. He had an office, and a cryptography room next to it. When Huang Yiyi and I went to his office, we found nobody there, so we went to the cryptography room. When he heard the sound of knocking, Chen came out, but when he caught sight of Huang Yiyi he immediately shut the door to his cryptography room, as if he had seen a ghost, and insisted that we go to his office. I had heard that Chen was terribly superstitious, and would not let a woman into his cryptography room under any circumstances whatsoever. Cryptographers all have their own idiosyncrasies and taboos, because in addition to knowledge, experience, intelligence and application, the job also requires the kind of luck that comes from far beyond the stars. Luck is a mysterious, elusive thing, and if you want to catch it, you have to become mysterious yourself.

When we got to his office, Chen came straight to the point. ‘You’re here to pick someone?’

Huang Yiyi got in ahead of me. ‘I guess so.’