Молодой премьер-министр, отшельник

Глава 15

"The closest one?" You Fang frowned. She rattled off several names, so of course she couldn't guess.

"Who? Tell me!"

I poured her a full glass and said, "Drink this, and I'll tell you."

"I really can't drink anymore, or I'll get drunk."

"Who told you not to guess? I told you you were the most familiar with it. Here's what we'll do: you drink first. If I tell you the name and you say you're not familiar with it, I'll punish myself with three drinks, and I promise I won't go back on my word."

You Fang frowned and guessed a few more times, finally staring at me resentfully and saying, "I'll definitely make you drink three cups as punishment." Then she drank the glass of Chivas Regal.

I watched as the amber liquid slid into the glass, decreasing until it finally disappeared between You Fang's red lips. In an instant, the skin on her neck and collarbone flushed red.

"Now you can tell me who it is." She filled my glass, her eyes becoming watery as she looked at me and said, "I'm waiting for you to drink."

"You Hong, it's You Hong." The real drama of tonight begins with these two words I uttered softly.

The delayed effects of the alcohol made it take You Fang two seconds to realize what the name meant. She stood up abruptly, swayed slightly, and took a small step back before regaining her balance.

"Who? Who are you talking about?"

Juanjuan, who was standing next to her, noticed that something was wrong and stopped singing.

"It's You Hong. Over the years, hasn't he been the man you know best?"

You Fang stared at me, her expression changing. Just moments ago she was all lovey-dovey with her son's friend; even for someone as shrewd as her, who had been through so much in the world, it was hard to accept.

When the heaving of her chest subsided a little, she sat down again, but much further away from me than before.

"Juanjuan, go out for a while," she said.

Juanjuan responded and obediently walked quickly out of the private room.

"Speak, what is it? Ah Hong always tells others that I'm dead. For him to tell you about me and even send you to find me, he must consider you his best friend. I know he doesn't have many friends." At this moment, her expression became solemn, completely devoid of the seductive charm she had displayed earlier.

“Ah Hong has been seeing a psychologist a lot lately,” I said, following the pre-arranged script.

"ah!"

I was very satisfied with You Fang's reaction. The alcohol and the sudden psychological attack had greatly weakened her defenses, and now all that remained was a mother's worry for her son.

“I don’t think you know this, but he has serious mental health issues. The doctor said he has depression.”

"I...I don't know, I really don't know, how could he..." Upon hearing this news, You Fang was at a loss: "How much will the medical expenses be? Or should we send him abroad for treatment?"

"It's not about the money. He needs complete psychotherapy, and the doctor even suggested medication. But you know, these kinds of drugs can be quite damaging to the brain, especially for someone as young as him. So, we wanted to try regular psychological counseling first. Actually, I'm a journalist, and I found him a very good psychologist, but that doctor told me yesterday that Ah Hong has a mental block, and without resolving that block, his treatment can't continue."

"A knot in your heart? What knot in your heart?" You Fang asked anxiously.

"Children from single-parent families are more prone to mental health issues, and the nature of your work is also a significant factor in his mental illness. I apologize for being so frank."

"It's alright, I guessed it." You Fang's face was deathly pale, devoid of any rosy hue, as if she had aged ten years in an instant. This made me feel very guilty, but I couldn't care less for Liu Er's sake.

“I don’t know why you’ve been so reluctant to tell him about his father. People who are naturally withdrawn are often very stubborn, and this is especially true now that he’s sick. The more you don’t tell him, the more he wants to know. It’s become a real worry for him. The root of his depression lies in his parents’ issues, and it’s impossible to bypass his father during treatment.”

I straightened up, looked at the stunned You Fang, and said seriously, "I know you don't want to talk about his father, there must be some unavoidable reason. Ah Hong is not the type to pester you to ask now. He called you this afternoon, but you still didn't want to talk about it."

"I..." You Fang stammered, but I interrupted her before she could say anything.

"But from my perspective, it's incomprehensible to ruin a son's entire life because of someone who has already died. Don't forget, you are a mother!"

You Fang's face turned even paler. She closed her eyes, and then tears streamed down her face.

I didn't expect her reaction to be so strong, and I was at a loss for words.

She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, then covered her eyes with both hands for a while. When she finally let go, her eyes were a mess, and her eyeshadow was all smudged.

She took the tissue I handed her, but instead of wiping her eyes, she wrote a few words on it and then handed it back to me.

“Summer 1982, Zhang Jinlong,” I read it aloud.

“His father’s name is Zhang Jinlong,” You Fang said, picking up another tissue to wipe her eyes.

"What about the summer of 1982?"

"When he died."

"How did he die?"

Looking at the dark marks on the tissue, You Fang pursed her lips into a thin line. After a while, she said, "If he is really so determined to investigate his father's affairs, he will eventually find out."

I was a little surprised that You Fang was still holding back on this, but she provided the name, which is the biggest clue. There's no need to press her now. It's clear that she loves her son very much, and there must be a reason why she doesn't want to say.

"What was the exact date your husband died in 1982?"

“He is not my husband,” You Fang said, emphasizing each word.

"ah……"

"I only remember it was that summer, but I've forgotten the exact time."

"Forgot? Then, how old was he when he died?"

"Probably in my twenties or thirties, but I don't know the exact age."

"You don't know?" I was genuinely stunned. How could such a thing happen? But now, it seemed that You Fang had no reason to lie to me.

What exactly is this golden dragon for?

"Alright, you didn't come here to play around. I've said everything I can. Go back and tell Ah Hong. As his mother, I have so many things I've wronged him about."

I tried to take out my money to pay the bill, but You Fang pushed it back.

"You've gone to so much trouble for Ah Hong as a friend, it would be shameless of me to ask you to pay for all these expenses."

After she said that, I stopped insisting on emptying my wallet, said goodbye to each other, and left this place of extravagance and debauchery for men.

I've already obtained the name of Liu Er's father. No matter how many secrets Zhang Jinlong holds, I'll follow this vine and dig them out no matter how deep.

Finding someone who died twenty-three years ago isn't exactly difficult, but it's not easy either. When I started looking, I realized I'd forgotten to ask You Fang for one crucial piece of information: if she wouldn't tell me or didn't know, the search would be incredibly complicated.

Fortunately, when I called, You Fang readily told me that Zhang Jinlong died in Shanghai.

He died in Shanghai, and the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau should have compiled statistics on deaths over the years.

Ordinary people who try to access the Civil Affairs Bureau to check deceased individuals' records will almost certainly be turned away. Whether this information is classified is unclear, but the Civil Affairs Bureau certainly has no obligation to provide this service to citizens. Journalists, however, are different.

Lu Qingshu, a reporter covering civil affairs, had just returned from a journalist tour organized by the Civil Affairs Bureau. He patted his chest and said there would be no problem. The relationship between government agencies and their corresponding reporters is mutually beneficial. Although reporters sometimes accidentally anger a leader, in general, these trivial matters can still be handled.

But a day later, Lu Qingshu came to me, looking quite embarrassed, and said that the Civil Affairs Bureau hadn't entered the 1982 death information into the computer, making it too labor-intensive to check. He said that if I wanted to check, I would have to go there myself. Lu Qingshu said he could put in a good word for me if I wanted to go and check.

Of course I said yes.

When I told Liu Er about it, he was overjoyed and said he wanted to go and investigate with me.

"Although it's not as exaggerated as you and Mom made it out to be, understanding my father's situation has indeed been a long-held wish of mine. So, I can't let you fulfill this wish for me. Now that I can go out, no one will notice anything unusual for two or three hours. Besides, if I notice my hair getting too long, I can just find a toilet, hide in it, and shave it clean."

Last time I found out his father's name, Liu Er was very strange and pressed me to tell him how I got the information out of his mother. After I confessed the truth, he yelled and shouted that I was talking nonsense and argued with me for a long time. While I was arguing with him, I was actually quite happy, which meant that he was gradually emerging from the shadows.

So I gave Liu Er a few instructions and then agreed.

On Tuesday morning, I got up very early (very early for me, of course) and went to the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau with Liu Er.

Xiao Lü from the publicity department had already spoken with Lu Qingshu on the phone yesterday. After exchanging a few polite words with us, he led us to the archives.

The archive room used to be quite large, but now it is filled with rows of iron filing cabinets, leaving only a few narrow passageways.

Each metal cabinet door had a year label on it. Xiao Lü led us to two metal cabinets labeled "1982" and said, "Find them yourselves, there are too many. Put them back after you're done looking at them, don't mess them up."

He opened the door and saw two cabinets crammed full of bulging manila file folders.

"So many!" I exclaimed.

Xiao Lü smiled wryly: "Yeah, if it were less, I would have helped you find it without you coming. Back then, the annual mortality rate in Shanghai was about 0.7%, which means that the number of deaths every month was close to 10,000. Hey, you guys can take your time looking."

You Fang told me that the time of death was in the summer. Just to be on the safe side, I took out all the file folders marked with May, June, July, August, and September. There were more than twenty of them.

Liu Er and I were both wearing jeans, so we weren't worried about getting them dirty. We just sat down on the ground, each with a leather bag, and started reading.

A leather bag contained one hundred sheets of paper, each with a simple death record of twenty people. In other words, one file folder contained the death records of two thousand people.

Although I could glance at a piece of paper at a glance, my eyesight noticeably deteriorated as I read on, and I sometimes had to stop and look again to avoid missing anything.

My eyes were blurry, my head started to spin, and then my back started to hurt. It was really tough work.

I stopped halfway through the third folder, unable to keep going, and stood up to stretch my shoulders and back. Looking over at Liu Er, I was surprised to see he had already finished examining six folders. Strange, how could he be twice as fast as me? I was working so hard!

Looking at Liu Er's paper-changing speed, it was indeed incredibly fast; he would pick it up, pause for a second or two, and then switch to another sheet. This speed might be manageable for looking at just one or two sheets pieced together, but to maintain this rate while looking at such a large pile is truly amazing.

"Six Ears, how did you see it so quickly? Have you practiced?" I couldn't help but ask him.

"Really?" He stopped and looked at me.

“Of course we have them.” I pointed to the two packs I had my eye on: “You’re more than twice as fast as me.”

Liu Er looked at my record and then at his own, and was somewhat surprised: "Is that really so? But I didn't think I was that fast. When I was in college, I didn't think I read faster than others."

I thought to myself, my reading speed is definitely not slow. If this is Liu Er's normal speed, it should have been evident when I was reading. There's no reason why I wouldn't know it.

"Perhaps there have been some new changes within him, but it's not visible on the surface." Suddenly, I remembered what Liang Yingwu had said to me.

He just said it unintentionally, could it have actually come true? Could it be that the ability to read ten lines at a glance is due to that extra 0.3%?

I glanced at Liu Er, who was still reading the files at an astonishing speed, shook my head slightly, did some eye exercises for myself, and sat down to continue reading.

"Zhang Jinlong!" Liu Er exclaimed, "Found him!"

As I hurried over, Liu Er suddenly sighed dejectedly, "Oh dear, he died at 57."

“Zhang Jinlong is a very common name. There must be many people with the same name. We have to go through all these files and then list the people with this name together for screening.”

The rustling of papers in the archives continued until 11:15 a.m. All the files had been reviewed. Since Liu Er was doing the work of two people, it was much earlier than I expected.

When I stood up and straightened my back, I felt dizzy and lightheaded. This work is mentally and physically exhausting; doing too much of it will definitely shorten my lifespan.

Including the first person we identified, 57-year-old Zhang Jinlong, we found a total of three. Their ages are 57, 69, and 24, making it quite clear which one is our target.

Liu Er and I huddled together to look at this short death file.

The time of death was August 13, 1982. Zhang Jinlong was 24 years old at the time of death. He was cremated at the Xibaoxing Road Crematorium.

I found this file first. After my initial shock, I silently put it aside, hoping that Liu Er would see it later or find another Zhang Jinlong who met the criteria.

Because, in the cause of death column, it was written as "execution by firing squad"!