I should say that I had had that kind of impression too, so they were just confirming what I thought. It was not a feeling that I had had very often, and so it piqued my interest. I could clearly feel that the non-committal way in which the other two were talking about her, and the evidence that they adduced, was not only not reducing my curiosity about her but even adding oil to the flames; they were just adding to the impression that Huang Yiyi had already made in my mind. When I compared them to her, I could feel that she had a kind of wickedness and brutality about her – that they were domesticated, but that Huang Yiyi came from the wild. Yes, that’s exactly what I felt, and it was a very strong impression, so strong that I could not get rid of it.

In spite of everything I was absolutely clear that I didn’t want either of them, but I did want Huang Yiyi! Because this was the world of cryptography, and as everyone knows, ciphers are counter-intuitive and inhuman. A counter-intuitive subject is just the same as any other science, and so research and cryptography both require intelligence, knowledge, skill, experience, genius. But at the same time they also need a kind of evil – regardless of whether you are talking about research or cryptography – because both are inhuman. When you get right down to it, ciphers are deceitful, they are concealed, they attack you from the dark. Soldiers do not despise tricks, and ciphers are a kind of weapon, they are just hidden. They are the biggest trick in the world. In a world full of deceit, danger, wickedness and cruelty, perhaps an arrogant, overbearing, difficult and wild person would find it easier to survive … Once I got to that point, I picked up the phone and told Party Secretary Wang that I wanted to see him that afternoon.

Some time later, I set off to find him.

The Party secretary’s office was on the third floor, and on my way up I passed a woman comrade on the stairs. Why do I remember her? When we passed each other, I noticed that she was crying bitterly – she had one hand over her mouth, and the other was clutching at her chest. Her head was hanging down, and she really did look terribly unhappy, as if she had lost all hope. I realized afterwards that the crying woman must just have left the Party secretary’s office, and that was why he was in such a bad mood. When he saw me he was not as polite as he had been at our previous meetings. He asked me what was up, and I said straight out: ‘I want to see the file on Huang Yiyi.’