From that point onward, without saying a word, Zhang Guoqing was often to be found helping out Huang Yiyi: he’d be sweeping the floor, or washing it, or putting new paper in the windows, or cleaning her bathroom – in the end he also washed her clothes, including her underwear! Thanks to all this, the two of them gradually got closer and closer. So she was having an affair with him just as she had with Comrade Wang, but the difference was that this time most people didn’t know. This was because the pair of them lived in the same compound, so they would meet regularly anyway without attracting any attention. Comrade Wang on the other hand had worked in a different unit, so any relationship was easily detected. There was also another factor. Zhang Guoqing was generally agreed to be a good husband, not the kind of person you would believe this of, so anyone who discovered the affair would be sure that it was Huang Yiyi who had seduced him. But she was in a very different position now, whereby we could forgive any mistakes that she made, because she had done so well for us. So this particular piece of gossip hadn’t gone very far and neither Unit Director Luo nor myself was aware of it.

Having discovered this bombshell, I decided to deal with the situation in a completely different way from that with Comrade Wang. So rather than reporting to my superiors, I made an appointment to see Huang Yiyi. I needed to make her understand one thing: although at present very few people were aware of her relationship with Zhang Guoqing, if the Party acceded to her request to resolve the problem of his wife and son, the whole of Unit 701 would know about them and her reputation would be ruined.

‘Really,’ I reminded her, ‘you can’t carry on being single.’

‘Why not?’ she said in a half-teasing voice.

‘If you love Zhang Guoqing, this won’t help him.’

‘You mean I should make him get a divorce and then marry me?’

‘Yes.’

‘It wouldn’t work, and besides it’s impossible. I know him, he’d almost rather die than get a divorce. He couldn’t bear it.’

‘Leaving that on one side, you still shouldn’t do this for him.’