Once things had settled down, Director Tie criticized our efforts to recruit new talent. He felt that we were beating about the same old bushes. He believed that at best all we had accomplished was to enlist a number of high-quality intercept agents, and that was it. But Unit 701’s surveillance division needed something more than this. At this juncture, we needed people of unusual abilities – prodigies, maybe even geniuses. The only advice he proffered was for us to break through the circle we had been trapped in and to strike out on a new path. He suggested we make our way into society, into the masses, to find that person of sublime listening talent.

The only problem was, where on earth were we to begin looking for such a person?

Whatever way you looked at it, searching for such a person was perhaps more difficult than identifying the enemy’s radio stations.

The Director’s unreasonable demand made many think that he had lost some of his marbles. But such was not the case. In fact, he already located such a person: a man by the name of Luo. This man had once been the specialist tuner for the instruments in the KMT’s national orchestra and had even played piano for Madame Soong Mei-ling. She had so admired his ability that she gave him the name Luo ‘Three Ears’. Before Liberation, the name Luo ‘Three Ears’ was inseparable from that of Madame Soong’s in Nanjing. This even led some to gossip about a possible romance. After Liberation, he changed his name to Luo Shan and moved to Shanghai, taking up a position at the Shanghai Conservatoire. Before we headed out to meet this Luo Shan, Director Tie told us how to make contact with him. He also presented us with a personal summons for Luo, handwritten by a well-known Party cadre. Our orders were to contact him with all due haste and ‘request’ that he accompany us back to Unit 701.

As I had worked in Shanghai several years before, I was quite familiar with the city. Perhaps that is why Director Tie thrust this responsibility onto my shoulders.

4

Thanks to the special permit I had received from the Director, not only was I received with courtesy and politeness on my secret mission, but I enjoyed unprecedented support and everybody looked at me with new eyes. Only one thing escaped me, and that was ordinary, everyday luck. I may have had a special permit, but that didn’t make me lucky. Barely a couple of weeks before I arrived in Shanghai, the man I was in search of, Luo Shan, or Luo ‘Three Ears’, had been thrown in jail. The bastard had gone and got the daughter of a prominent member of the Shanghai arts community pregnant.