Wang was only a departmental cadre, but he was nevertheless an important figure. Although in name I was Deputy Director of Unit 701, I was still junior to him in Party ranking, and organizational matters were outside my remit. As a result I had to ask Unit Director Luo to question him. When Unit Director Luo heard my report she was even more shocked than I had been, and immediately phoned Comrade Wang to summon him to her office. I was not expecting that the minute Unit Director Luo started questioning him, the bastard wouldn’t even try and deny it, but just caved in and admitted everything.

According to him the two of them had got together while I was in the Soviet Union. That bastard Wang really was bloody audacious: having an affair and not just with any woman – with our treasure, destined to do great things for the Party! Unit Director Luo was absolutely furious and didn’t have the least sympathy with any of his pleas for mercy: she immediately summoned all the senior people in the unit for a meeting to discuss how to punish him. At the meeting Unit Director Luo said that she had already reported the matter to our superiors at headquarters, and headquarters had requested that we come up with a means of punishing him which they would then consider. She was clearly in favour of the most severe punishment, severe and quick, and she was not going to listen to any excuses or allow any face-saving measures. ‘It is completely unacceptable, a married man, a government official and Party member of almost twenty years’ standing, to behave in such a corrupt and decadent manner! I can hardly believe it!’ Unit Director Luo said angrily.

Deputy Director Zhong, who was responsible for discipline within the unit, asked the head of the political affairs division what kind of punishments had been handed out in this sort of situation in the past. Unit Director Luo said, ‘I don’t care about precedents, the nature of this offence is particularly serious because this isn’t an ordinary affair: he has been interfering with our treasure, a comrade expert who is going to do great things for the Party. This is very serious because if we don’t deal with it root and branch it might have a detrimental effect on our ability to complete this mission on time.’

Deputy Director Zhong said, ‘Well then it is a “Triple Loss”: he loses his government position, his Party membership and his job, and we send him home.’

Chen said, ‘A Triple Loss is pretty severe; it would be better to leave him a shred of dignity.’