Decoded

Rong Jinzhen’s Notebook

As the name makes clear, this final section consists of one of Rong Jinzhen’s notebooks, or at least excerpts from it. The following pages are like an index, completely independent of the previous five sections. These pages reveal no new information, nor do they have some secret connection to what has already been written. You can choose to read this section or not. If you do, perhaps it will add some further details to the story, but it really doesn’t matter — the words that follow have no bearing on how we have come to understand Rong Jinzhen. In other words, this section is like our own appendixes: it doesn’t really matter if we have them or not. For this reason — I would like to emphasize this — I consider this section an ‘appendix’. Its essence is that of an afterword or coda; nothing more, nothing less.

Okay. I can tell you that according to my information, over the period of time that Rong Jinzhen worked for Unit 701 (from 1956 until 1970) he filled out twenty-five notebooks, all of which are now in the custody of his wife, Di Li. Di Li used her position as Rong Jinzhen’s wife only once, to take a single notebook into her personal possession. The remaining twenty-four are in her custody because she is the security officer and they are all locked away in a rather imposing iron cabinet, secured with a double lock that requires two keys to be turned simultaneously to open it. One key she keeps on her person, the other is held by her section chief. Essentially then, although these notebooks are in her care, she is not permitted to look at them, let alone treat them as her own.

When will it be possible to see them?

According to Di Li, that’s difficult to say for certain. Perhaps some will be declassified in a couple of years’ time; for others it might take several decades. That is because each notebook has been classified with different degrees of secrecy vis-à-vis national security. It goes without saying, therefore, that for us it is as though those twenty-four notebooks don’t even exist; just like the man residing in the Lingshan hospice doesn’t really exist. I mean, he is there, we can go and see him, but the real Rong Jinzhen has long since departed; he is gone. Consequently, I was very keen to see the single notebook in his wife’s possession. From what I was able to gather, no one has ever actually seen that particular notebook, but everyone knows she has it. That is because when she went to get it she had to sign it out and they keep records for that sort of thing. So, no matter how much she might have hoped to fob me off, I knew she had it and so in the end she had to admit it. However, every time I mentioned that I would like to have a look at it, she would spit out two words: ‘Get out!’ This was how she kicked me out of her house each and every time. There was never any hesitation on her part, never any explanation; no room for argument. A few months ago, once I had completed the first five chapters in manuscript, I had to visit Unit 701 one final time in order for the authorities to inspect my work and ensure that I had not inadvertently revealed any sensitive information. Naturally, Di Li was one of the censors in charge and upon reading it she shared her opinions concerning the story I had written. Then she suddenly asked whether or not I still fancied seeing the notebook? I answered, ‘Yes, of course.’ She told me to come and see her the following day; but before that day arrived, she came of her own volition to the guest quarters and presented me with the notebook. As you would expect, it was a photocopy of the original.

I need to explain three points:

1. The copy that Di Li provided me with was incomplete.

Why do I say this? Well as I understand things, each and every person in Unit 701 uses the notebooks supplied by the Unit itself. There are three sizes: the largest is 142 mm by 210 mm, the medium size is 130 mm by 184 mm, and the smallest is 90 mm by 100 mm. The exterior is either plastic or hard leather. Two colours are available for the plastic covers, red or blue. Since Rong Jinzhen was partial to blue, all the notebooks he used were the same: a blue, medium-sized notebook. I’ve seen a genuine example of this kind of notebook (empty of course), and so I know what they look like. Blazoned across the top and the bottom are the words ‘Top Secret’, stamped into the cover in red ink. In the middle of the cover the following is printed:

Serial No.: __________

Code No.: __________

Date: __________

The serial number gave the number in the series; the date indicated from when to when the notebook was used; the code number would tell you the agent’s name. For instance, Rong Jinzhen’s code number was 5603K. No one outside Unit 701 would recognize who that was, but everyone inside would: the year he began work at Unit 701 — 1956; the section he worked in — cryptography; the 03 in the middle indicating that during the aforementioned year he was the third person to have been recruited by Unit 701. Finally, each page is stamped with the words ‘Top Secret’ on the top right-hand side and a page number on the bottom right-hand side, all in dark red ink.

Looking at the copy given to me by Di Li I noticed immediately that it had been tampered with because the ‘top secret’ banner on the right and the page numbers had all been removed. I thought, ‘I can understand why the “Top Secret” banner was removed, since this material was no longer considered top secret. But why erase the page numbers?’ At first, I couldn’t figure it out. I counted the number of pages. There were seventy-two. I then began to understand. In the course of my research, I had learnt that this type of notebook contained ninety-nine pages, and so it was clear that the photocopy provided by Di Li was incomplete. She offered two explanations: first, Rong Jinzhen had not used the entire notebook and thus many pages were blank and did not need to be copied; secondly, certain pages contained their personal secrets — the secrets between husband and wife — and so she did not wish me to see those. Hence they were omitted. From my point of view, those omitted pages were what I most wanted to see.

2. Looking at the data and the content, the early pages of the notebook concerned a time when Rong Jinzhen fell ill.

One day in the middle of June in 1966, after he had eaten breakfast and had left the canteen, Rong Jinzhen abruptly lost consciousness and fell to the floor in the middle of the hallway. The side of his head hit the corner of a wooden bench — and the blood came gushing out. He was taken to hospital, whereupon they discovered that the blood dripping down his face was nothing compared to the bleeding in his stomach. The problem with his stomach had actually caused the fainting fit. The result of this diagnosis, coupled with the doctor believing that it was quite severe, meant that Rong Jinzhen was admitted to the hospital for treatment.

This hospital was exactly the same one as the chess-playing lunatic had been taken to all those years before — it was attached to Unit 701. Located next to the training base in the Southern Complex, the quality of its equipment and the skill of its physicians was no whit inferior to that of a big-city hospital. With respect to Rong Jinzhen’s ailment — well, there was nothing really difficult about treating such a common condition, and it certainly would not give rise to the same kind of problem that the treatment of the lunatic had caused. The difficulty lay in the fact that although this hospital was attached to Unit 701, it was located in the Southern Complex and, as you can imagine, its level of secrecy could not be compared to that of the Northern Complex. To employ a rather inappropriate analogy: the relationship between the northern compound and the southern one was like the relationship between master and servant. A servant is always busy fulfilling his master’s wishes, but what is the master up to? Alas, the servant is not privy to such information. Even if they were to learn of such things, they would not be permitted to talk about them, at least not openly. Strictly speaking, Rong Jinzhen’s true identity was not to be disclosed even when he was in hospital. Of course, that was easier said than done, especially since he was such a well-known person; most people had already learned of him through formal or informal channels and everyone understood that he was a really important man. Of course, if your identity is made public then it is public; you could say that everyone in Unit 701 was part of the same family and so it didn’t really matter one way or the other. Still, when it comes to work or other professional matters — well, those things are not to be revealed at any cost.

As we all now know, Rong Jinzhen always carried a notebook on his person. But when he got sick, when his blood was flowing down his face, he wasn’t really cognisant of his own person to say nothing of others, and so his notebook was brought along with him to the clinic. Of course, this was strictly prohibited. However, even though his personal security guard knew that he had been admitted to the hospital (in other words he was out of the Northern Complex), she didn’t rush over to immediately collect it. Consequently, it wasn’t until the evening of the day he took sick that Rong Jinzhen himself handed it in. Once the security bureau authorities learnt of what had happened, they straightaway reprimanded the guard, dismissed her from her position and began to make arrangements to appoint a new security officer to manage Rong Jinzhen’s affairs. The new guard was none other than his future wife. From the looks of it, all of this must have happened three or four days after Rong Jinzhen had signed out this particular notebook — on the fourth or fifth day after he was admitted to hospital.

This notebook was most definitely not that notebook! In truth, when Rong Jinzhen handed in the notebook himself, he didn’t forget to make a request for a new one, because he was only too aware of his own personal habits — only too aware of his need to have a notebook always on his person. This was part of his life. You could say that this habit began on the day that Young Lillie gave him that Waterman pen; even though he was sick, a habit is a habit and they are hard to break. Of course, given his surroundings at the time, it would have been impossible for him to write anything involving work, and this is the reason why this particular notebook has been declassified and allowed to be held personally by Di Li. In my opinion, the notebook contains random thoughts and impressions about his time spent at the hospital.

3. The people he mentioned in the notebook are unclear.

The people he writes about are simply called ‘you’, ‘he’ and ‘she’. It seems to me that all of these people lack any clear designation; the pronouns do not point to any single person. To use a linguist’s vocabulary, the ‘signifieds’ are at play. That is to say, at times these pronouns seem to refer to himself, at other times to Liseiwicz, or Young Lillie, or his mother, or Master Rong. At yet other times it seems that the pronouns used refer to his wife, or the chess-playing lunatic, or the Christian God. There are times when they even seem to be referring to a tree or a dog. In any case, it’s all very confusing, and perhaps he didn’t really know himself who or what he was talking about, so the whole thing is quite a mess. Understanding it is something you will just have to play by ear. Why is it that I think you, my readers, can choose to read this section or not? Well, this is my reason: there is no way we can be sure we understand what is written in the notebook, no way to be certain, no way to clearly grasp the exact meaning; all we can do is rely upon our feelings and play it by ear — accept it for what it is. That being the case, reading what follows is up to you. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. If you do want to continue, then to assist you in doing so, I’ve added numbers to each entry to help organize them, at least somewhat. Also, whatever was written in English has been translated.

01

He continues to demand that I live my life like a mushroom, to grow and flourish with the sun and earth, with the clouds and rain, and to eventually die by their hands. But it seems as though I can’t do this. And now, for instance, he’s changed into a house pet.

A fucking house pet!*

02

He feels this way: he’s terrified of hospitals.

After being admitted to hospital, all the strongest men turn into pitiable creatures. Small and puny. Like children. Or old men. Other people will inevitably show concern for them. . like the concern they show for a pet.

* This was underlined in the original English version; as were some other passages below.

03

All that exists is reasonable, but not necessarily sensible — I heard him say this. Well said!

04

In the window you see the reflection of your head wrapped in a bandage; it’s like a wounded soldier fresh from the front line.

05

Suppose the bleeding in my stomach is type A, the blood from my forehead is B, the serious illness is X, then it’s quite obvious, the space between A and B possesses a multidirectional relationship with X, A is inside, B is outside, or perhaps A is dark, B is light. To proceed, you could also understand A as being on top, or positive, or this, B in contrast, B is on the bottom, or negative, or that, in brief it is a homologous multidirectional relationship. This type of multidirectional relationship does not need to be constructed upon a solid foundation, rather it is entirely random. But once this randomness appears, it becomes a necessity, then if there is no A there can be no B, B is the necessary counterpart of A. The concrete characteristic of this multidirectional relationship is akin to the theory of the binary nature of mathematical constants proposed by Georg Weinacht*. . could it be that Weinacht has also experienced something similar to what you have, and took from it the inspiration to invent his theory?

06

There is an explanation for the wound on the edge of my forehead –

Paul said: ‘The season prompts people to till the land, why is it that you are seated here crying?’

The farmer said: ‘Just now a donkey bucked and with one of its feet kicked out two of my front teeth.’

Paul said: ‘Then you ought to be laughing, why is it that you cry?’

The farmer said: ‘I cry because I am in pain and feel deeply hurt, tell me, why should I laugh?’

Paul said: ‘The Lord has said, for a young man to have lost his teeth and have had his forehead split is a good omen, it means that happiness will soon be upon you.’

The farmer said: ‘Then please entreat the Lord to give me a son.’

In that year, the farmer indeed had a son.*

Now your forehead has also been cracked open, will happiness soon be upon you as well?

Something will indeed happen, only it is difficult for you to tell if it will be good or ill. That’s because you don’t know what is good for you.

* Remember, Weinacht and Liseiwicz were one and the same. At this time, however, Rong Jinzhen did not know this.

07

I have seen all that is under heaven and it is all hollow, empty, all clutching at the wind. That which is crooked cannot be straightened, that which lacks cannot ever be sufficient. My heart tells me that I have obtained a formidable intelligence, surpassing all of those from my time before in Jerusalem, and my heart has experienced and possesses more knowledge and understands more of things. I have also been engrossed in open enquiries and secret searches into wisdom, egotism and ignorance, but I know that this is still only clutching at the wind. With much knowledge comes much worry and frustration; increasing knowledge only increases grief.†

08

He is very rich, ever richer.

He is destitute, ever more destitute.

He is he.

He is also he.

09

The doctor said a good stomach is smooth on the outside and rough on the inside: if you turned it inside out, with the rough

* This is a Bible story. The Apostle Paul was on the road to Jerusalem to preach. One day he met a farmer down on his knees wailing profusely. They had the above conversation.

† This passage is derived from Ecclesiastes 5.

side outermost, then a good stomach would look very much like a newly hatched chick, covered from top to bottom with shaggy hair. The hair would be evenly distributed. But my stomach is the reverse: it looks like someone suffering from favus of the scalp, oozing with blood and pus. The doctor also said most people assume that stomach disease is caused by the consumption of unhealthy foods, but actually, the main reason for a stomach ailment is obsessive worrying. It is not brought about by injurious drink and food, but by utopian longings and flights of fancy.

When have I consumed injurious drink and food?

My stomach seems like a foreign substance in my body, an enemy (a spy); it has never smiled at me.

10

You should loathe your stomach.

But you cannot.

The imprint of Daddy rests upon it.

It was that old man who had forged your stomach: it has a harmful disposition, extremely fragile, like a pear blossom. Does your stomach know how many pear blossoms it has consumed?

When your stomach hurts, you think of pear blossoms, you think of that old man.

Daddy, you’re not dead, not only do you live in my heart, you also live on in my stomach.

11

You always exert great energy to walk forward; you don’t like to look behind. Because you don’t like to look behind, you make demands on yourself to exert even more energy to walk forward.

12

All that is under heaven has all been planned by God.

If you were allowed to make your own plans, you might make of yourself a hermit who has fled this world, or perhaps a prisoner. The best would be an innocent prisoner, or a prisoner who cannot be saved; in any case a man free of guilt.

At present, God’s plan conforms to your wishes.

13

A shadow has caught hold of you.

Because you stopped.

14

Yet another shadow has caught hold of you!

15

Klaus Johannes said sleeping is most exhausting because you have to dream.

I say not working is most exhausting because your mind is empty. It is very much like dreaming; the past can take advantage of your weakness and burst in.

Work is the means by which the past can be forgotten, and even the reason for it can be cast off.

16

Like a bird leaving its nest. Like running away. .

17

‘You ungrateful bastard, where are you running to?’

‘I’m to your west. . in the valley a kilometre away.’

‘Why haven’t you returned to see us?’

‘I can’t. . ’

‘Only a criminal cannot return home!’

‘I am almost a criminal. . ’

He is his own criminal!

18

You gave him too much! With too much he simply won’t dare to recollect, thinking makes him uncomfortable, he feels remorseful, humbled, he would think that all he has was obtained by luck and that would be depressing, as though his pitiful lot in life had been achieved by preying on your benevolence.

The ancients said, no more no less, no contentment no suffering. God said, all under heaven is unsatisfactory. .

19

Some people who are loved become blessed; others become cursed. Because of such a blessing, he wanted to return.

Because of being cursed, he wanted to leave.

He did not leave because he discovered this, it was because he hda left that he learnt of it.

20

An ignorant person has no fear.

Fear is like a cord wound around him, pulling him back; it seemed to be hung round him telling people he was unsuitable to be confided in.

21

Mummy, how are you?

Mother, mother, my dear mother!

22

Before drifting off to sleep last night you purposely encouraged yourself to dream. But no trace remains of what you dreamt. You most likely dreamt about work because that was your objective, you wanted to free yourself of ‘the worry about not working’.

23

Pointing his index finger at me, Klaus Johannes told me that in this profession he is the greatest, I’m next after him.* But he also criticised me, saying I had committed two fatal errors: first, I had become part of the system; second, I had gone about deciphering these mid to low-level ciphers that other people could easily crack — the second mistake derived from the first.† The outcome of these two errors, Johannes told me, pushed me farther and farther away from him; it did not bring me closer. I said that now our adversary was no longer using any new high-level cipher, if I didn’t do this work then what would I do? Klaus Johannes said he had recently completed writing a book, a work that represented the apex of high-level cryptography. Since comprehending the highest or the lowest level of secrets was difficult, then whoever deciphered his book, whoever understood its contents, within thirty years that person could easily decipher all of the most sophisticated ciphers in the world. He suggested that I try to decipher his book and at the same time stuck his thumb up to me saying that if I should crack it, then his thumb would represent me.

* Karl Johannes, of German origin, was a famous cryptographer during the Second World War. He died in 1948.

† This much was certain, since after becoming section chief he participated in the deciphering of every cipher that they encountered.

Contrary to what one might expect, this was actually good news. But where is this book?

In my dream.

No, it was in the dream within my dream, in the mind of my imaginary Klaus Johannes.

24

If this world truly had such a book, it could only have come from the hand of Klaus Johannes. No one else!

In all honesty, his mind was just like this book.

25

During his lifetime, Klaus Johannes did write one book; it was called The Writing of the Gods.* Someone once said that they saw it in a bookshop. But this is highly unlikely since I had have already mobilized all the forces at my disposal to search for the book and yet we have not found it. There is nothing in this world that my people can’t locate, unless there was nothing there to begin with.

26

You are a rat.

You are waiting inside a barn.

But you cannot eat the millet.

Each grain of millet has been daubed with a protective coating to prevent your teeth from gnawing into it.

— That is cryptography.

* The Writing of the Gods: Chunghwa Book Company, 1945; the translation was given the title The Riddle. Clearly Rong Jinzhen was angry that the secret services had searched for this book but could not find it.

Ciphers on the one hand make the intelligence that you need disappear from under your eyes — you reach out and yet you cannot touch it. On the other hand they blind your eyes, so that you can see nothing.

28

When Douglas MacArthur stood on the Korean peninsula, he raised his hand into the sky and caught a handful, then he gestured to his cryptographers and said: this is the intelligence that I wanted, I want to know everything, things that are all around me, things that I cannot see because I am blind. It is up to you to restore my vision.

Several years later, in his reminiscences he wrote: ‘My cryptographers never once let me open my eyes, not even once. I was very lucky to come back alive.’

29

Might as well repeat MacArthur’s action and extend a hand to grasp at the sky. But your purpose is not to grasp the air, but to catch a bird. There is always a bird in the sky, but the likelihood of you grabbing hold of it with your bare hands is terribly remote. This remoteness is not the same as saying it’s impossible, since some people can indeed miraculously grab hold of a bird in the sky.

— That is decryption.

However, the majority of people will only grab hold of a few bird feathers, even if they work on it their whole lives.

30

What kind of person can truly grab hold of a bird?

Perhaps John Nash could.*

But Liseiwicz can’t, although his genius is not necessarily inferior to that of John Nash.

* John Nash, the American mathematician, played a key role in the development of game theory, for which he was one of the recipients of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics. His accomplishments in the field of pure mathematics were equally astounding: he was one of the founders of modern partial differential mathematics. Unfortunately, at the age of just thirty-four, he developed severe paranoid schizophrenia. This brought his remarkable genius to a premature conclusion.

Although Nash would be able to catch a bird in flight, in my mind’s eye I couldn’t be sure of when he might do so. However, as long as Liseiwicz paid close attention to Nash’s line of sight, to the precise moment at which he began to move his hand; if he paid attention to his attitude, his nimbleness, his accuracy, his power to leap, etc.; if he were to raise his head again to scan the skies for the number of birds in it, the speed at which they were flying, their path, special characteristics and changes in their motion, etc.; then perhaps he could judge when Nash would reach out to clasp a bird in his hands.

Possessing the same level of ability, Liseiwicz’s genius was more rigorous, cautious, and more beautiful, like that of an angel, like a god. Nash’s genius, however, was something unfamiliar, an unfamiliarity that made it seem freakish and uncivilized, as though he was possessed by an evil spirit. Ciphers are the work of the devil; they stand as testament to the craftiness and evilness of people, to our treacherous nature, our sinister intent, our devilish aptitude, there are no steps to be added, thus Nash, a man indistinguishable from the devil, was able to draw ever so close to them.

32

Sleep and death have the same given name, but not the same surname. Sleep prepares one for death; dreams are a kind of hell. People say that your spirit passes through your carcass to become small, your mind passes through your corpse to become tiny, this is the fundamental characteristic of demons and hobgoblins.

People also say that since you have had dealings with the dream world since you were a child, you’ve been polluted by the wickedness and evil encountered there; that is why you are able to catch hold of a bird in mid-flight.

33

All the secrets of this world are held in dreams.

34

You only need to prove yourself.

When you do so, your opponent will assist you.

When you cannot, your opponent will prove himself. You long for some other person of talent to step forth and permit you to keep your mouth shut. But to make this happen, you need to continue to speak.*

36

They’ve changed my personal security guard yet again; the reason for this one’s dismissal was her failure to come and collect my notebook. She’s not the first to be dismissed and she won’t be the last.

37

My new personal security guard will most definitely be a woman. . †

Who is she?

* I can speculate that since English is used here, this is some quotation or other, but I cannot find the source.

† During the mid 1970s, marriage for members of Unit 701 had to follow strict regulations. For instance, female comrades were prohibited from having romantic relationships with people outside the unit. If a man wished to begin a relationship with someone from the outside (although equality between the sexes was officially promoted, in reality men were privileged over women), they needed to report this to the relevant authorities. Once the report was made, the organization would dispatch agents to investigate the woman’s background. If consent was given, the relationship was allowed to proceed to the next level. Later, if this person did not wish to do a particular thing, or if there was some ‘problem’ that was difficult to resolve, then they could request that the Party step in and resolve it for them. The issue of Rong Jinzhen’s marriage had created quite a thorny problem for the authorities to deal with because he was getting older and older and yet had done nothing about getting married. He was not taking any initiative nor was he asking the authorities for help. Once he passed thirty years of age, the Party took it upon themselves to secretly and shrewdly arrange a marriage for him. First they selected an appropriate person and then arranged for that person to serve as Rong Jinzhen’s personal security guard. Not only would this woman have to have the complete trust of the Party, she also had to be determined to be by his side and hope to marry him. If she could not do that, she would have to leave in order to provide someone else with the opportunity — perhaps the next person would have better luck. It was due to this intricate plan that Rong Jinzhen’s personal security guard continued to change over and over again: the current guard was already his fourth.

Do you know her?

Do you hope it is someone you know, or not?

Did she volunteer, or was she talked into doing this kind of job? Will she come to see me in the hospital tomorrow?

Christ! This really gives one a headache!

39

The devil continues to bear and raise children because it wants to eat them all.

40

The doctor told me that my stomach is still bleeding a bit. He felt it odd that he had administered such excellent medicine and yet still had not seen the hoped-for results. I told him the reason for that: since I was in my teens I have been taking stomach medicines as if they were meals: I’ve simply consumed too much medicine; I’ve become numb to its effect. He decided to administer something new. I told him that it didn’t matter as there were no new medicines that I hadn’t already tried; the crux of the matter was the dosage needed to be increased. He told me that that was too risky, he didn’t dare do it. From my point of view, I had better prepare myself to remain here a little while longer.

41

That loathsome pet!

42

She’s come.

They always rush forward bravely, ready to suffer at your side.

43

When she is here, the hospital room feels practically thronged with people.

When she leaves, looking at her back, you almost forget that she is a woman.

She needed seven cakes in order to relieve her hunger.*

* This most likely comes from the Bible, but I cannot be sure of where.

She’s not very good at concealing things — what a terrible cipher she would make! You couldn’t help but feel that whilst in front of people she was not unlike you and in need of greater composure. As this is the case, why does she put herself through this? You have to realize, this is just the beginning. This has determined that every day you have to spend your time feeling bewildered and helpless; anyway, I knew that he wouldn’t sympathize with someone who had taken the wrong path.

45

Trying to help me with my train of thought is a type of sickness, only bed rest can help me to fully recover.

46

Thinking too much is also a disease.

47

Blue sky, white clouds, treetops, a breeze, something swaying, a window, a bird swooping past, like a dream. . a new day, wind just like time, water just like life. . some memories, some sighs, some confusion, some unforgettable events, some contingencies, something laughable. . you see two points: the first is space, the second is time, or perhaps you could say, the first is the day, the second is night. .

48

The doctor has told me that dreaming ruins your health, it is a sickness.

49

She brought me a carton of Daqianmen cigarettes, Guoguang brand blue ink, Junshan Yellow tea, a metronome, soothing balm, a radio, a feather fan, and a copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It seems as though she were studying me. . but she is wrong, I wouldn’t listen to a radio. My soul is my radio, every day it whispers to me non-stop, just like my metronome, the vibration caused by footsteps can cause it to swing back and forth for ever so long.

Your soul is hoisted up in mid-air, just like a pendulum. It was in a dream that he first saw himself smoking and then afterwards he started to smoke.

51

Smoking Daqianmen cigarettes was a habit cultivated my Miss Jiang.* She was from Shanghai. One time, after she returned from a visit home, she brought these cigarettes back with her. She said they were good and that she was going to have her family send her a carton every month. He liked to hear her speak Shanghainese, it sounds like the chirping of a bird, melodious, sharp and clear, complex; you could imagine her tongue being pointed and thin. It seemed as though he fancied her, but there wasn’t time to find out. Her problem was that when she walked there was too much noise, too much racket. Later it was as though she had horseshoes nailed to the soles of her feet, it was simply more than he could bear. In actual fact, this wasn’t a noise problem; rather it implied that his soul could at any moment float away — whilst floating it is common to grasp firmly the corner of one’s clothes, and then fall from up in the air.

* Miss Jiang was his first female personal security guard.

52

If he had a choice between day and night, he would choose night.

If he had a choice between a mountain and a river, he would choose the mountain.

If he had a choice between a flower and grass, he would choose grass.

If he had a choice between a man and a ghost, he would choose the ghost.

If he had a choice between a living man and a dead man, he would choose a dead man.

If he had a choice between being blind and being deaf, he would choose deafness.

To sum up, he despised noise and anything that made it.

This is also a kind of illness, like colour blindness, there is either a greater or lesser natural disposition to suffer from it.

A sorcerer unable to reach his goal. .

54

What a terribly sinister-looking thing!

She said it was a chiton;* in folk legends they’re said to come from the unnatural mating of a toad and a snake,† and they are peculiarly effective in treating stomach ailments. This I believe: one reason being they are used as a folk remedy to treat incurable diseases; the second being that my stomach ailment is just like this sinister-looking animal, and perhaps I can only rely on such a sinister and frightening thing to bring it under control. Supposedly, she spent an entire day trekking through the mountains to collect them, which must have been very difficult for her. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.‡

* Chitons are marine molluscs: they survive between mountains and rocks and are a sort of soft-shelled turtle. Compared to other molluscs their exterior skin is much coarser and frightening. They are extremely rare and have a multitude of medicinal properties.

† But in fact they do not; they are a type of soft-shelled turtle

.‡ Taken from the Song of Solomon 4: 6.

55

The forest seems to be breathing under the moonlight, then it shrinks back, forming a thick mass, it becomes small, the treetops stand erect, then in a moment it unfolds, following the hillside, spreading out with it, becoming short, low brush, so much so that it becomes hazy, a far-off image. . §

§ Source unknown.

56

I suddenly felt that my stomach was empty, at peace, as if it weren’t there — I haven’t felt this way for many years! For so long now I have felt that my stomach was a septic tank, permeated with a burning, evil smell; now it seemed as though it had sprung a leak, it had deflated, gone soft, loosened up. It is said that you need twenty-four hours before you feel the effects of Chinese medicine, but only a few hours have passed, it is simply unbelievable!

Might this be a miracle cure?

57

It was the first time I saw her laugh.

It was an incredibly restrained laugh, very unnatural, absolutely silent and very short, over in an instant, like someone laughing in a painting.

Her laugh proved that she doesn’t like to laugh.

Does she really dislike laughing? Or. .

58

He abided by an old fisherman’s proverb to handle his affairs, the primary meaning of the proverb was: the flesh of an intelligent fish is much firmer than the flesh of a stupid fish and yet they are destructive, because a stupid fish is indiscriminate about what it eats, whereas an intelligent fish chooses to eat the stupid fish. .

59

In what seemed to be an effort to continue to provide me with treatment, the lead physician gave me a list of food to eat: hot porridge, steamed buns, soft bean curd in sauce. He made clear that this was all that I should eat, and no one was to alter the ingredients or the amounts. However, according to my experience, at this time I should eat noodles and they should be a little undercooked.

60

Our lives are full of ideas that we have created for ourselves, these are much more real than genuine ideas that have stood the test of time.

This is because our mistaken ideas appear before us, familiar and powerful.

When it comes to ciphers, you are the doctor, they are the patients.

61

You take them along the same road. The road you walk may lead to heaven but it will take them to hell. The things you have achieved are indeed fewer than those you have destroyed. .

Good fortune and calamity rely upon each other, good can come from bad, bad can come from good.

63

Like a clock, she always arrives on time; she is equally punctual about leaving. She appears with no sound, she leaves in silence.

Is she doing this because she understands you, wishes to pander to you, or was she always like this?

I thought. . I don’t know. .

64

Unexpectedly you hope that she won’t come today, but actually you worry that she won’t.

65

She works more than she speaks and everything she does is done in silence, just like that metronome. But working in this way has allowed her to quietly establish authority over you.

Her silence could be smelted into gold.

66

For God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words. . For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also diverse vanities.*

* Taken from Ecclesiastes 5.

67

Has she read the Bible?

68

She is an orphan!

She’s been more unfortunate than you!

She’s been reared on the food of the masses!

She is a genuine orphan!

An orphan — a word you are most sensitive about!

The answer to the riddle is suddenly clear.

She is an orphan, that’s the answer.

What is an orphan? An orphan has its upper and lower teeth, but

its tongue is incomplete. An orphan always uses its gaze to speak. An orphan is born of the earth (everyone else is born of water). An orphan’s heart is forever scarred. .

70

Tell her, you are also an orphan. . no, why tell her? Do you hope to draw nearer to her? Why do you want to be nearer her? Is it because she is an orphan? Or is it because. . because. . how is it that you suddenly have so many problems? Problems are the shadows of what one desires. . geniuses and fools have no problems, they only have demands.

71

Hesitation is also a form of power, but it is an ordinary person’s power.

Ordinary people like to complicate things, those who create ciphers have the ability to see this, but those who crack ciphers don’t.

72

She stayed an extra thirty minutes today because she was reading to me about Pavel Korchagin, the main character in How the Steel Was Tempered. She said this was her favourite book. She carried it with her wherever she went and whenever she had free time, she would pull it out to read. Today I scanned through it. She asked if I had read it and I answer that I hadn’t, she then asked if she could read it to me. She speaks very good Mandarin. She told me that she had worked as a phone operator at Headquarters. Several years ago she actually had heard my voice over the phone. .

73

The difference lies here, some people prepare for any eventuality while others do not; one should never criticize oneself for this.

74

In his dreams, he saw himself wading waist-deep in a river whilst reading a book. The book contained no words. . then the water began to surge and swirl, he put the book on his head to prevent it from getting wet. Once the surging water passed, he realized that the water had taken his clothes with it. He was naked in the river. .

75

In this world, every person’s dream has already been dreamt by everyone else!

76/77

He dreamt two dreams simultaneously, one was above, one was below. . *

. . What he experienced in his dream made him waken weary and exhausted, it seemed as though his dream had boiled him down to the dregs

* This page was filled, but the subsequent page has no header: I suspect that some sections have been removed..

78

A terrible fall can wreck even the greatest triumph. But that’s not for certain.

79

You’re thinking about things you would never have imagined that you might think about.

80

There is only one method to get rid of you: to look at you with one’s own eyes.

81

Listen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . one. . . . . . . . you. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . eyes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . most. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . on. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . you. . †

Two types of sickness: the former causes mostly pain, the latter makes one dream. The former can be treated with medicine, the latter, too. But the medicine is in one’s dreams. One can recover quickly from the former illness, the latter burns you up.

† Whatever he wrote here he erased; it was only possible to make out a few words.

83

Dreams! Wake up, wake up!

Dreams! Don’t wake up!

84/85

Listen, this time he won’t write something and then erase it, he. . *. . As the lily among thorns, as the apple tree among the trees of the wood!†

* I suspect some sections have been removed.

† Taken from the Song of Solomon 2.

86

The symbol of your life is dying out, like one insect being devoured by another.

87

A cage is expecting a bird. . ‡

‡ Unknown source.

88

This is one road that everyone walks, and so it is easy to recognize.

89

A bird!

90

Could it be that he hasn’t struggled enough? A cage waits for a bird, although. . §

It is easy to tell by looking at the notebook that its contents are in a jumble, and it is quite obscure at times. But you can see how Rong Jinzhen’s love for Miss Di grew, you can see how his feelings evolved. Especially in the latter sections, his deep feelings for her become apparent. I reckon that the sections Miss Di removed were most likely expressing intimate, emotional things, and they were probably even more obscure than the rest of it. That’s because I once asked her if Rong Jinzhen had expressed his love for her in a straightforward manner and she told me that he hadn’t. However, she also said that perhaps he had, since some of his words had that meaning.

§ This page was completed, but the pages that followed were removed. I don’t know how many are missing.

I asked her over and over again what those words were, but she hesitated and hesitated. Finally she told me that the words were not his own, they were quoted from the Song of Solomon, specifically song number four, the final verse. I looked this up afterwards to learn exactly what he had written. It must have been this: ‘Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.’

Since the notebook contained intimate details of their relationship, it’s not really right for me to criticize her for removing those sections; it’s just that from my point of view, it makes it more difficult for me to understand their relationship because things have been held back, left behind: they are still secret. Thus, I believe you could say that this notebook serves as a sort of cipher that has encrypted their relationship, closed it off to outsiders.

I should say that, with respect to Rong Jinzhen being a man of genius and a formidable cryptanalyst, I grasp enough of the picture; I understand who he was. But in terms of emotion, of love, of the private exchanges that take place between a man and a woman, then I will forever be left in the dark, unable to see the entire picture. The information I do possess that could shed light of this side of Rong Jinzhen is incomplete; pieces are missing. I have a feeling that there are those who do not wish to have this side of Rong Jinzhen revealed to outside people, as if this could remove some of the lustre from his image. Maybe, with respect to someone like Rong Jinzhen, personal feelings, emotions of an intimate nature, feelings of friendship — well, perhaps they shouldn’t have these types of emotions. Because they shouldn’t have these inner feelings, perhaps he was the one who tore them out in the first place. Even if it was difficult for him, someone else might have thought of a means to tear them out.

According to his wife, it was on the afternoon on the third day of his discharge from the hospital that he arrived at her office to personally hand in the notebook. As a security guard, it was her duty to inspect all notebooks as they were turned in, to determine whether or not any pages were missing or there were any pages left over: that was her responsibility. So, after Rong Jinzhen handed her the notebook, she performed her duty and inspected it. He remarked, ‘The notebook contains no work-related secrets, just my own personal ones. If you’re curious about me, you might as well look through it. I hope you do; I also hope to receive your reply.’

Di Li told me that the sun had already gone down by the time she finished reading the notebook and she had to walk back to her dormitory room in the dark. It seemed as though some evil spirit had entered Rong Jinzhen’s room. In fact, Di Li lived in building thirtyeight, whereas Rong Jinzhen lived in the specialists’ building: they were in different directions. Both buildings are still there, the former is made of red brick and has three stories; the latter is two stories tall and constructed from a bluish-green brick. I once stood in front of this bluish-green building; now I’m looking at its photo, and in my mind I can hear her voice: ‘When I arrived at my building, he was there looking at me. He didn’t speak and even though he was sitting, he didn’t ask me to join him. I stood there in front of him and told him I had finished reading his notebook. He asked me to speak, he would listen. I asked him to let me be his wife. He replied: “Yes.” Three days later we were married.’

How incredibly easy, like a story out of the legends — practically unbelievable!

To tell you the truth, when she said this to me she revealed no emotions, neither sadness nor happiness, neither surprise nor wonder; it seemed that even the emotional attachment people have to memories was absent, just as if she were relating the events of a dream for the umpteenth time. It made it very difficult for me to figure out how she felt at that time and how she felt when she told me this story. Perhaps presumptuously, I asked her frankly whether or not she loved Rong Jinzhen. This was her response: ‘I love him as I love my country.’

Afterwards I asked her again: ‘I heard that soon after you were married your adversary began using BLACK, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And after that he rarely returned home?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think he regretted marrying you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how about you, do you regret marrying him?’

I noticed then that this question took her by surprise; she opened her eyes wide, stared at me and replied excitedly: ‘Regret? When you love your country, how can you regret it? No! Forever the answer will be no —!’

Her eyes immediately filled with tears and she began to sniffle as if she was about to cry.

Begun July 1991 in Beijing, Haidian, Weigongcun Completed August 2002 in Chengdu, Qingyang, Luojianian