‘I’m called Abing,’ Abing said. ‘I haven’t any other name.’

However, I knew that Abing couldn’t be his real name. He was called it after a once-famous blind man whose tale was told in an erhu song entitled ‘The Weeping Ballad’, part of that famous piece The Moon Mirrored in the Huiquan Pool. Our ‘Abing’ was carrying on the name, as it were, but it couldn’t really be a person’s actual name.

It perhaps goes without saying that this is another time when we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Finally, since his mother’s surname was Lu, and he came from Lujiayan, we decided to give him the name ‘Lu Jiabing’. It was this name that was recorded on the triplicate documents and filed away in the archives of Unit 701.

13

The sun had just come out when I accompanied Abing in beyond the high walls that sheltered our divisional quarters. To the right and left were hung imposing signs, one large, the other a fraction smaller. Emblazoned upon them were the following:

Army Weapons Research Area No. X

Restricted Access: Authorized Personnel Only

Of course, these signs were only there to fool people.

To be honest, what really went on in this area was beyond what people could fathom. It couldn’t consciously register with them, including those who came regularly to Unit 701, such as the guards, doctors, drivers and cooks. They couldn’t grasp what we did in here, even if they tried. Every day was the same. It seemed that even time ceased to exist for this place; it was as though we were outside both time and space. Whosoever entered our division would forever find themselves enshrouded within a web of secrecy. They would become part of the nation, part of the People, but they would cease to exist as individuals.

What follows is somewhat vague, but please do not criticize me for this. Everything behind these walls – the buildings, plants, equipment, facilities; the birds in the sky and the insects crawling across the ground – I cannot tell you anything about them. That’s because whatever words I use to describe this place will fall under the spotlight of the authorities; the words will be carefully studied, pored over, judged. That’s to say, my words could betray me, they could conceivably bring punishment upon me. Although there is perhaps a certain appeal to revealing what I know, don’t think that such an appeal will cause me to open my mouth. I’ve sworn an oath. And that’s the only thing I believe in.

There were no sounds of gunfire.

No weapons’ discharge hanging in the air.

Abing asked what kind of place this was.

I told him it was a smokeless battlefield …