‘That’s not fair. If you’re asking me to leave here without telling me what I’m going to be doing, how do I know if I want to go or not?’

‘You don’t have a choice. That’s part of the test. You have to be able to put the needs of the country first, and have a revolutionary consciousness that means you’re willing to go wherever and do whatever the Party demands.’

‘Well, I’m afraid that right now I don’t have such an impressive level of revolutionary consciousness.’

‘Then give up,’ I said. I picked up the answer papers of the other two candidates and waved them in front of her. ‘You were absolutely right; only two comrades solved both equations. However, right now you have only solved one, so if I pick you, if I make you the winner of this competition, that won’t be fair.’

‘I can tell you for free that I know both of them well, and if you’re expecting them to be able to work independently, to do something earth-shattering, you’re out of luck. Particularly with Xie Xingguo.’

‘Why?’

‘I know him only too well. He’s a very proficient scholar, meticulous in his research, and a classic example of a super-patient person, but he lacks creative ability. If you want to set him to do some kind of theoretical research, he’d be perfect: you just have to tell him your idea, and he’ll work out a beautiful proof for you. You won’t be able to pick a single hole in it, and it may well be even better than anything you could ever think of yourself. But if you’re hoping he’ll come up with something independently, you’ll find him completely lacking in inspiration. He has neither the ability nor the gumption to create something from nothing.’

‘Have you done anything together?’ I asked.

She replied in a tone as flippant as that she had used before, trying to keep me in suspense: ‘Have we done anything together? Do you mean work or something else? Well, let’s just say we’ve done all sorts of things together. We share an office at work, and as for the rest, that’s my private business, though I dare say you can guess.’ She smiled wickedly.

I really did not like the way that she was carrying on, so I said coldly, ‘I’m really not interested in the rest of what the pair of you have been up to, but I’m somewhat surprised to hear you bad-mouth him in this way.’

‘But I was praising him!’ she said. ‘I’m telling the truth!’

‘You know perfectly well that saying those kinds of things about him might well mean that I decide not to hire him. But then that’s what you want. You need him for your theoretical research, and you’re afraid I might take him away.’