On the following day, I didn’t accompany Abing to the radio control room. Instead, I borrowed a car in order to take him for a ride, to clear his mind. I had intended to take him to a mulberry plantation, but I couldn’t find one and so settled on a small fruit orchard. I cannot tell you what kind of orchard it was, since if I did, you might be able to work out the general location of Unit 701 – whether it was in the south or the north, the southeast or the northwest. At any rate, the orchard provided a pleasant respite from the confines of Unit 701. We enjoyed breathing in the fresh air, and having a relaxing chat. Abing was very much like a child, excited to be out and about. I, on the other hand, felt like a worried parent. Before we left the orchard, I told Abing the story of my uncle, the master fisherman. I embellished the ending somewhat, making it more like a fairy tale. Abing soaked it all up, believing every word to be true.

This is what I told him: ‘One winter, my uncle went out to the lake as usual, but for days and days he couldn’t spy any “fish bubbles” floating up to the surface. It was then that my uncle began to think that perhaps he had caught all of the big fish in Lake Tai. As a result, he began to stay at home, relying on the fish he had already caught to feed his family. But one day, whilst his grandson was out playing near the edge of the lake, the young boy witnessed whole schools of fish skimming back and forth in the shallows of the lake. This showed beyond a doubt that there were still lots of fish in the lake; it also showed that they were very crafty and cunning. They seemed to have realized that if they remained in the deep parts of the lake, my uncle would eventually net them all. So they left the deeps and swam towards the shallows near the shore. Although the shallows were terribly cold, there was still enough oxygen in the water for them to breathe, provided they didn’t over-exert themselves. The benefit from this was plain: not exerting themselves meant they didn’t produce bubbles. No bubbles meant my uncle couldn’t find them.’

This was how I explained to Abing our predicament: I told him that there were at least twelve enemy stations that we had not yet identified. How could this be? The answer seemed clear. ‘Like the schools of crafty fish, they are hiding.’ Hiding somewhere we hadn’t yet thought of. Where were they? Well, the only option was to proceed with our scouring of the airwaves, a difficult task to say the least. I asked Abing if he wanted to try.

He replied, ‘Let’s head back.’

That’s to say, he wanted to try.