Please believe me, I didn’t withhold the cassette for any selfish reasons. I did it to protect Abing and Unit 701. To tell you the truth, soon after he arrived, we were no longer referred to as Unit 701, but rather as ‘Abing’s work unit’. In other words, everyone across the intelligence service knew of Abing and his triumphs. News of such a man’s death – due to suicide, no less – would spread like wildfire and do irreparable damage to Abing’s good name, as well as to the reputation of Unit 701. In order to guard the reputation and honour of the service, and of Abing, I had to bury the cassette. I had to make Abing’s ‘last testament’ disappear.

Afterwards, however, I kept mulling the situation over in my mind and felt that I should let the organization know. How else could we avenge his death? Informing them of what actually happened was easy enough; all I needed to do was let Bureau Chief An hear Abing’s last words. According to the chain of command, however, I had to give the cassette to Bureau Chief Wu first. Of course, I had to tell another lie to cover up my first mistake. I told them that I had only just discovered this cassette. Bureau Chief Wu became the second person to learn the real reason for Abing’s death.

Wu handed the cassette on up to Director Tie, and so the latter became the third person to learn the truth.

Even after all these years, I can still hear Director Tie’s words as if he were standing next to me. Once he heard the cassette he let out a tremendous roar of invective: ‘Tell them to get the fuck out of here! Both of them! That bitch of a wife and that bastard pharmacist! Now! Inform them immediately! If I see them, they’re dead!’

I dare say that had this situation happened during wartime – if they’d been carrying guns – the two of them would have been gunned down in sheer rage. Now, however, that was not possible, nor permitted. Why? Well, partly because memorial services had already been held. Abing’s glorious history had been set in stone, and even though it’s obvious that a mistake is still a mistake, we couldn’t just throw everything out of the window: all we could do was muddle through. Then another problem presented itself: since Abing’s official cause of death was accidental electrocution, how could we tell his widow that she had to leave? It was impossible. When I had first withheld the cassette I’d never thought that my actions would result in the real persons responsible for his death going unpunished. I guess you could say that this was my punishment for having selfish motives.