The person behind the counter didn’t want me to change, and though I made up various excuses, he thought I was just being gratuitously annoying and refused categorically to help me. I wasn’t going to be put off and my voice got louder as I got more and more cross. The man wasn’t in the least bit bothered; he kept glancing at Party Secretary Wang behind me while treating me with taciturn contempt. In the end there was nothing else I could do, so I decided (in a most unprofessional way) to scare him.

‘I am here as a guest of Party Secretary Wang,’ I said. ‘Can you please help me out?’

You know, although I didn’t know it, Comrade Wang was in fact standing right behind me, infuriated by his long wait. When he heard what I said, it seemed as though he still felt a bit slighted, because he was not at all polite when he asked me: ‘I am Party Secretary Wang. Who are you?’

‘I come from Unit 701,’ I said.

‘Comrade An?’

‘Yes. My name is An Zaitian.’

He um’d and ah’d a bit at that, then he stepped forward and shook my hand. The force of his handshake and his breathing alerted me to the fact that he seemed to have something important to say. I had no idea what he wanted to tell me, but I knew that we couldn’t talk here, because it might be awkward. In a very professional (and resourceful) manner I turned his handshake into a hug, and then made use of this to turn my head to say softly in his ear, ‘We can’t talk here – let’s go to my room.’

5

Of course I got room 301.

When we entered the room I went straight to the window to look at the jujube tree, which was being tossed about in the wind. A sound like the waves of the sea came rushing towards me, and the branches seemed to be doing their very best to strike me, but try as they might they began their recoil when they were still a metre or two away. I thought that it might just about be possible for a cat to jump across to my room, but for a human, only a character from Outlaws of the Marsh would have a hope. I admit that I am a cautious person, but then caution was inculcated in every member of Unit 701. As the people at headquarters said, every single member of 701 was worth an army in the field.