FRAGMENT 61
"Good Morning, Chairman"
Fragment: A Mongolian proverb | A crow pretending to be dead on an operating table
Time & LocationAutumn 2003 · Hanwei Plaza, Beijing｜A casino in Macau
Gao Yong personally escorted me back to Hanwei Plaza.
Hundreds of employees filled the corridors.
"Good morning, Chairman!"
The greetings came from every direction, mixed with applause.
To my surprise, my emotional intelligence seemed to rise several levels at once.
Without thinking, I smiled and nodded naturally to every indistinct face that passed before me.
Taking charge of the television company again required almost no effort.
I no longer worried about financing.
I no longer exhausted myself managing day-to-day operations.
Experienced professionals handled everything.
The channel soon began satellite broadcasting.
Steady.
Predictable.
For a long time, nobody paid much attention.
The audience ratings supplied by international research firms approached zero month after month.
My responsibilities were simple.
Personnel decisions.
Financial approvals.
And one additional authority personally granted by Gao Yong:
control over the release of satellite signal packages.
From time to time, he would hand me a set of signal data and instruct me to upload it from a secure room in Macau or Hong Kong.
The signals would then be embedded inside public broadcasts or commercial advertisements.
To broadcasting engineers, they appeared to be nothing more than noise.
But they occupied frequency bands that ordinary listeners could never hear.
Gao Yong never realized that I could.
Most of the messages involved financial transfers.
Millions.
Tens of millions.
Hong Kong dollars.
U.S. dollars.
More and more.
The White Crow missed nothing.
A Mongolian proverb echoed in my ears:
“The closer you stand to the truth, the closer you stand to death.”
Gao Yong was wading deeper and deeper into dangerous waters.
I had no desire to join him.
Instead, I cultivated idleness.
I spent more and more time playing slot machines in Macau.
And I kept winning.
One night, shortly after midnight, I noticed two men who looked like casino managers speaking quietly nearby.
I filtered out the noise of the slot machines and listened.
They were discussing my membership number.
Trying to determine whether I was cheating.
Or possessed abilities beyond those of ordinary gamblers.
One of them nearly raised his voice.
"I'd bet my life that this guy has some kind of supernatural ability."
I almost laughed.
They had no idea I could hear every word.
From that moment on, my gambling became deliberately stupid.
I lost continuously.
Whenever the two men appeared, I lost.
When they left, I lost some more.
Eventually they stopped coming.
I leaned back in the oversized leather chair and tapped the betting button gently.
No more thousand-dollar notes fed into the machine.
I stood.
Stretched.
Never looking up.
Above me, surveillance cameras rotated with faint mechanical whispers.
The sound made me feel like a crow lying motionless on an operating table, pretending to be dead.
The rewards of disguise grew larger every day.
Whenever Gao Yong came to Macau, he increasingly relied on me to deposit cash into local banks or convert it into casino chips.
Again and again he tried to lure me into the VIP baccarat rooms.
"Don't worry about losing," he would say.
"What worries me is when you stop playing."
There was almost a pleading note in his voice.
One evening he handed me ten million Hong Kong dollars' worth of chips.
I began betting.
Baccarat.
He taught me how to read probabilities.
How to remain calm while losing.
I listened carefully.
I followed every instruction.
Never allowing him to suspect that I possessed methods of winning entirely my own.
The first ten million disappeared quickly.
Without hesitation, he pushed another ten million in chips across the table.
FRAGMENT 62
A Period of Silence
Fragments: Subjected to a Security Inquiry | The Confidence of Calculated Power | A Throat Breathing with Precise Rhythm
Time & Location: Winter 2003 · Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16, Macau｜｜ No. 8 Mansion Bathhouse, Beijing
My winning rate kept increasing.
After attracting the attention of casino surveillance teams, I would deliberately lose from time to time.
All the chips were provided by Gao Yong. He gave me ten percent of the profits.
I also discovered that several of his subordinates were placing illegal under-the-table wagers.
Over the course of a year, through casino laundering operations and encrypted transfer keys uploaded via satellite links, Gao Yong moved a total of HK$570 million—or the equivalent in U.S. dollars—out of the country.
We spent much of our time moving between Macau's famous casinos: Lisboa, Jai Alai, and the floating Casino Palace. Beginning in 2004, we also visited Sands Macau, the city's first foreign-operated casino.
Toward the end of that year, Gao Yong was promoted to vice-ministerial rank.
Soon afterward, he invited me back to the Sofitel in Macau.
To my surprise, Old Tong was there as well, accompanied by an acoustic security specialist.
From his eyes and heart rate, I knew immediately that this was not a friendly gathering.
I was summoned to his room.
He motioned for me to sit on the sofa while he pulled over a chair and sat facing me.
“Bai Ying, has Gao Yong discovered your special ability?”
“Discovered what?” I asked.
“Some people in the Ministry are curious about you.”
After a brief pause, he continued.
“Vice Minister Gao says you seem able to hear things that other people cannot.”
The room suddenly fell silent after he spoke.
The airflow from the air-conditioning vent drifted slightly off balance.
Someone upstairs was taking a shower.
The ballast inside a wall lamp emitted an unusually smooth hum.
I said nothing.
Nor did I intend to reveal Gao Yong's secrets.
“I can't lie to the Organization. You know that,” he said, sounding helpless.
Whenever Old Tong lied, his heart remained perfectly calm.
Yet I sensed no indication that he was helping Gao Yong with any private operation.
After that meeting, Gao Yong stopped coming to Macau to see me.
The instructions to upload satellite transmission signals also ceased.
He seemed determined to avoid me altogether.
Back in Beijing, I quickly reached my own conclusion.
Gao Yong did not actually know that I could understand the secrets hidden inside his body.
What troubled him was something else.
He feared that the strange abilities I displayed in the casinos might eventually expose his affairs.
As a result, I lost my most convenient source of income.
It was mildly depressing.
After a period of silence, Gao Yong contacted me again.
This time, we met at No. 8 Mansion, a luxury bathhouse near Chaoyang Park in Beijing.
Following a foot massage, we held a private conversation behind closed doors.
“The moment I started working at the Ministry, a very important person asked about you.”
He lowered his voice.
His heartbeat was slightly accelerated.
“I don't know any important people.”
“Don't play dumb.”
Inside Vice Minister Gao's abdomen, I heard a faint mechanical friction, as though he were drawing confidence from calculations of power.
I lit a Zhongnanhai cigarette.
“Lao Lin. You don't know him?”
The moment I heard the name, a faint defensive discharge ran across my back.
“Oh. Isn't he the Director of the General Secretary's Office? What did he ask about?”
“There you go,” Gao Yong said immediately.
“So you do know him.”
“We knew each other years ago. Not so much anymore.”
I understood.
The man had recalculated the numbers.
“My brother,” Gao Yong continued, “he's my childhood friend. You two really don't keep in touch now?”
“Of course not. I'm just an insignificant businessman. How could I possibly have access to someone at that level?”
Gao Yong leaned back.
His legs hung loosely over the edge of the massage bed.
“Give me a cigarette.”
I handed him my lighter without making any effort to flatter him.
After a few drags, he crushed the cigarette out.
Then he turned toward me and leaned closer.
“We should continue working together. When you're in Macau, I feel completely at ease.”
His throat released breaths with an unusually strong sense of rhythm.
I exhaled a ring of smoke and tilted my head back.
I was calculating as well.
Several minutes later, I gave him my answer.
“As long as you're comfortable with it, I'll do my best.”
He raised both hands in front of his face.
Clap.
Then he pressed the service button.
FRAGMENT 63
The Pupil Contained a Shining Nail
Fragments: A Calculated Tremor of Grief | The Friction of Knuckles Against Steel
Time & Location: Winter 2003 · No. 8 Mansion, Beijing｜ Gaming Floor of Sands Macau
A woman who looked like a hostess entered the room.
“Miss, arrange two girls for us. Right here in this room.”
There was no room for argument in Gao Yong's voice.
When two men did something that was supposed to involve a man and a woman, it was one of Beijing's most secret forms of alliance.
With my patron returning, my source of income seemed to be revived.
Unfortunately, Gao Yong's calculations also allowed me to hear something buried very deep beneath the surface.
I invited Baorigé out for drives, parked beside quiet roads, drank with her, deliberately avoided taking her to bed, and watched her blush and sway her hips as she walked back through the gate of her courtyard.
The next day, I transferred five million yuan into her charitable foundation.
I also met Xu Yanan.
Following the rhythms inside her body, I said many things designed to touch her heart.
My only purpose was to encourage her to spend more time around Gao Yong and, whenever possible, mention her concern for me in passing.
Behind both women stood forces far greater than outsiders could imagine.
On the night before my departure for Macau, Baorigé climbed on top of me.
As I stroked her back, I spoke in a carefully calculated tremor of grief and told her what I had inferred.
She said nothing.
She merely hummed softly.
At the very end, she gave my earlobe a gentle bite.
China's Individual Visit Scheme for Macau allowed at least twenty thousand mainland visitors to enter the casinos every day, where the strains of the "Radetzky March" rose and fell without interruption.
Alone, I moved among the VIP rooms of the major casinos.
Using the chips supplied by Gao Yong, I pursued victory deliberately and rarely failed.
One afternoon, I noticed a middle-aged Caucasian man.
Something about him felt wrong.
Even from several meters away, I could sense the coldness surrounding him.
He stood in the shadows.
Inside his pupils, a shining nail pointed directly at me.
The sound of his finger joints rubbing against a steel object was particularly harsh.
What I did not expect was that the next morning's Macau Daily would carry a report of his death by drowning.
According to police statements, the deceased had been carrying an illegal firearm.
Nevertheless, the case was closed as an accidental fall into the water.
No wonder.
During the night, I had heard the dull impact of a steel gun body striking the bottom of a speedboat, followed by the bubbling sound of it sinking into the sea.
One evening, the general manager of Sands personally knocked on my hotel room door.
“Mr. Bai, this is a gift from our owner. Two million in cash.”
“Why?”
“We would appreciate it if you would refrain from visiting our establishment in the future.”
He gently placed a black plastic bag in front of the liquor cabinet.
Leaving behind a quiet, “Thank you for your understanding, Mr. Bai,” he departed on tiptoe.
From that day forward, my name appeared on the exclusion lists of every casino in Macau.
The disappointment I performed in front of Gao Yong was highly convincing.
I nearly brought out a tremor of grief in his own voice.
He rubbed his fingers together.
The friction of his knuckles carried the sound of something breaking apart in despair.
To my ears, however, it sounded more like the triumphant music of a slot machine playing the "Toreador March"—
only slightly out of tune.
Gao Yong did not collapse.
Nor did I feel any satisfaction at the success of my own scheme.
I clasped his cold, fleshy hand tightly.
Using the tone reserved for a companion who had endured hardship together, I said goodbye.
“Take care, my friend.
If you ever need me, just call.”
FRAGMENT 64
The Living Buddha's Pupils
Fragments: The Low Murmur of a Yak | The Living Buddha Bestows the Name “Lobsang Kezhu”
Time & Location: Summer 2004 · China World Mall, Beijing｜Songzanlin Monastery, Zhongdian, Yunnan
Dawa Yangzong came to Beijing to receive professional vocal training.
Two months later, certificate in hand, she threw her arms around me inside China World Mall and kissed me in public.
Deep within her throat, a yak's low murmur resonated.
I immediately took her by the hand and hurried into the China World Hotel, where we surrendered ourselves to the exhilaration of the plateau.
Together, we flew back to Yunnan and settled in Zhongdian, the capital of the Diqing Tibetan region.
Dawa applied a layer of dark Tibetan oil to my skin, making me look very much like a Khampa.
We rode yaks together and posed for photographs.
We drank barley wine together and danced Khampa dances.
Yet my altitude sickness grew increasingly severe, and I began making plans to leave.
“Awu,” she always called me.
In Tibetan, it means “elder brother.”
“We should go see the Living Buddha,” she said, leaning against my shoulder.
On the fifteenth day of the fifth lunar month, I forced myself out of bed despite the altitude sickness.
Dressed in a black Giorgio Armani suit and a crisp white shirt, I accompanied Dawa to Songzanlin Monastery to pay respects to the Venerable Bengzhu Rinpoche.
In his modest quarters, the Living Buddha sat quietly on a bed.
He felt more like an elder brother than a spiritual master.
Several thangkas rested silently against the wall.
Butter lamps flickered before the shrine.
Within the Living Buddha's pupils, two tiny flames were reflected.
He offered me a small red cord, a blessing from the Buddha, and then carefully placed a khata around my neck as a sign of his personal goodwill.
Afterward, he touched the crown of my head and chanted prayers.
Once the rituals were complete, we sat facing one another and talked.
There was no distinction between sacred and secular.
The atmosphere was warm and ordinary.
I wanted to listen longer.
Yet the Living Buddha spoke no profound doctrines.
Most of the conversation consisted of family matters between him and Dawa.
Uncle and niece had apparently not seen each other for nearly a year.
Dawa asked whether the Tibetan name she had given me—Tashi Sengge—was a good one.
“It is very good,” he replied.
Then I asked whether he might give me a name as well.
After a moment's thought, he offered one I did not expect.
“Lobsang Kezhu.”
Just like that, my Tibetan name changed.
From “Auspicious Lion”
to
“Venerable Wise One.”
Dawa immediately changed the way she addressed me.
“Awu Kezhu,” she said.
That afternoon, we returned to our hotel in Zhongdian.
Rain poured from the sky.
At that moment, the lingering shadow of the attempted assassination in Macau finally disappeared from my mind.
The explosions echoing from television screens in Hong Kong's Lan Kwai Fong also seemed to fade away.
Even Dawa Yangzong's full and beautiful body no longer held my attention.
Her Tibetan robe swayed gently in the wind.
Like a monk's cassock.
