Enigma of China by Qiu Xiaolong

Author:Qiu Xiaolong [Qiu, Xiaolong]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Novela, Policial
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2013-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chen turned to click Lianping’s photo file. The picture Peiqin talked about was that of the paper villa burned as sacrifice in the temple courtyard. He enlarged the picture and, sure enough, could see the address clearly on the door—123 Binjiang Garden. It was the same thing Lianping had pointed out to him at the time. It was one of the most expensive subdivisions in Shanghai, a symbol of wealth and status in the city.

Once again, an elusive idea flashed through his mind like a spark. He stared hard at the screen. Possibly there was something he’d overlooked. However, the idea vanished before he could really get hold of it. The screen stared back at him.

Finally, he stood up from the computer.

At the front desk, the clerk checked the time he spent on “Computer 51” and another clerk charged him accordingly. They didn’t bother to record that he’d moved to a different computer, he observed. After all, the employees weren’t netcops. For them, the regulation was only an inconvenience, so it wasn’t realistic to expect them to observe it conscientiously. He pushed over a five-yuan bill, and the clerk handed him the change.

He stepped out and made his way back to the concert hall. He was still about twenty minutes early. The concert hall was an ultramodern construction with a huge glass façade that incorporated metal sheeting of variable density. From where he stood near the entrance, he caught a glimpse of the interior partially covered with enamel ceramic, which alone must have cost an obscene amount of money.

He was startled out of his observation by a car pulling up alongside him, a slender hand waving out of the window.

“Have I kept you waiting long, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“Oh, no.”

“Sorry, the traffic was terrible,” Lianping said. “I’ll park the car in the back and join you in one minute.”

In four or five minutes, she emerged from the crowd with two tickets in her hand. She was wearing a light beige cashmere cardigan over a white strapless satin dress, and she had on silver high-heeled slippers, as if she was walking around in her living room.

She belonged to a different generation: “born in the eighties,” as it was sometimes called. The term wasn’t just about the time but about the ideas and values imbued by that time.

The lights in the concert hall were dimming as they entered and took their seats.

Tonight it was Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 by the Singaporean Youth Orchestra. He had read and heard about Mahler, but he didn’t usually have time to go to concerts in the city.

Somewhere backstage, a musician was erratically tuning his instrument. Lianping opened the program and studied it. In the semidarkness, Chen found himself beginning to miss, somehow, the career he’d once designed for himself. It was during his college years, when he went to concerts and museums quite regularly. Like the rest of his generation, he had a lot to catch up on because of the ten years lost to the Cultural Revolution.

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