What could it be that she had found out? I wondered at the time if it was about Xiaoyu, and later on Director Tie confirmed it. According to our rules, Huang Yiyi would have to wait until Xiaoyu’s mission was completed before she could leave.

It was all my fault!

Huang Yiyi went on hunger strike and ended up making herself seriously ill. I understood why she had decided to stay, why she had taken over Chen’s old job – it was because she had no choice, and was trying to make the best of things. Her life was in ruins, but she couldn’t be bothered to talk to me, she couldn’t even be bothered to complain, and just warded me off with politely worded generalities. I guessed that she must hate me, hate me to the point where she was left helpless and mute, and so she had written me out of her life, not wanting to have anything to do with me ever again.

Sure enough, from that day onwards unless it was necessary for work, Huang Yiyi never said another word to me. I understood that this was her way of punishing me, and that it was my fate. Since it was my fate, I had to try and make it look as if I accepted it … Day after day, Huang Yiyi and I would meet on the road and walk past each other without a word, as if we had not seen each other.

This went on for nearly a year, and then suddenly one afternoon Huang Yiyi came to see me and asked for help from the Party with solving a problem. I asked her what the problem was, and she seemed to be sunk deep in silent thought. After a long pause she raised her head and said it was about Zhang Guoqing from the communications section. I was most puzzled; what on earth could have happened to Zhang Guoqing that he needed her to sort it out? She said: ‘Don’t you know that his wife and son have been sent back home as punishment?’ Of course I knew. I asked her what she wanted done about it. She said, ‘You promised me that if I cracked the cipher I could save someone.’

‘That’s right, you can bring Wang back to work. I’ve been wondering why you haven’t mentioned it recently.’

She sniffed. ‘When Director Tie forced me to stay, I didn’t want to live, and I really didn’t have the energy to think about anyone else. Besides which he’s gone back to his old home town to try and make things up with his wife. He’ll be watching her every mood day in and day out; he won’t love me any more.’