When we finally stopped, I could smell the sea in the air and hear the sound of radio broadcasts. Even before the jeep had pulled to a stop, a young man wearing a Chinese navy uniform welcomed him and reached near to open his door. His manner was incredibly respectful and deferential, suggesting he wasn’t an officer, or, at best, a navy ensign. I soon learnt that he was from Jiangsu Province, but I never learnt his name. I just took to calling him the man from Jiangsu, or ‘Su’, for short.

It was obvious that I wasn’t at a crematorium, so I wondered where they had taken me. Later I discovered the answer: Harbour No. 201; a small port leased to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Why had they brought me here? I was completely confused about the whole situation.

Once Bureau Chief Lü had stopped the jeep and got out, he came round to the back and opened the rear door. Gesturing to my feet, he said, ‘This is him. I’m giving you an hour, and only an hour. I will be waiting for you on our submarine, the Yangtze.’

Su unloaded my corpse and carried me off to a brightly lit room. It was there that he attended to my entire body, being careful even to trim my nose hairs and clean the plaque from my teeth. All of this took the better part of half an hour, and I couldn’t help but think that such delicate, circumspect treatment had to be reserved for officers of the highest rank, or at least those who had distinguished themselves in combat, rather than a corpse.

Things only got stranger.

In fact, the strangest was yet to come. Once Su had finished, he began to dress me: underpants, kneepads, undershirt, socks, shirt, trousers, overcoat – everything the same, layer upon layer, from inside to out: all of it was the uniform of a navy officer, of not insignificant rank, I must say. As you know, serving in the navy was my dream, but who could have known that it would come true in this fashion? Even more bizarre, once I was dressed, Su carefully strung a platinum cross and chain (no doubt a talisman of some sort) around my neck and then an incredibly fancy watch around my wrist (a French brand). I wondered why on earth, if my corpse was to be sent off to the crematorium, did they dress me so, especially with such expensive jewellery? If I weren’t dead, such attire would surely be fit only for meeting senior officers.