It is true for everyone that if a relationship goes wrong or they have a personal problem, it affects their work. For some people it wouldn’t matter, or at least I wouldn’t worry about it, but anything affecting Huang Yiyi was serious. She was now not only the head of a division but a key figure in our cryptography programme and a model worker in Unit 701. If anything happened to her it would affect all of us, so it was our duty to protect her. Protecting her security, making sure that she was healthy and well-fed – that was easy; the problem was that we had no idea what Zhang Guoqing’s wife would do when she found out. I wanted to protect Huang Yiyi but I didn’t know how. Not only did I not know how to prevent disaster, I had no idea how I was going to minimize the damage if the worst happened. The whole thing was a real headache, but it seemed as though all I could do was wait.

Zhang Guoqing’s wife came back.

One month passed.

A second month passed.

Everything was quiet on the Zhang Guoqing’s wife front; there wasn’t any sign of trouble. The possibility I was most worried about seemed to have been averted, and the thing I most wanted to have happen did: within the space of six months Huang Yiyi cracked three mid-level Soviet military ciphers one after the other; it was wonderful news! It was an excellent omen. You see, regardless of whether you are thinking about Zhang Guoqing’s wife or about the ciphers, the first couple of months were going to be crucial. Having got safely through them, everything else seemed to be easy. The saying about how the beginning is always the most difficult really seemed to apply here!