Volume One, Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Leader’s Address

The leader was from Zhangzhou, Fujian, and he knew that Chang Ke could understand most of the Minnan dialect. Today’s visit was for business, and although they sat in a private room, the leader still spoke in his hometown vernacular.

“You’ve been in Beijing for about half a month, haven’t you?” The leader picked his teeth with a toothpick and covered his mouth with his other hand as he spoke. “What have you been busy with?”

“I heard there’s a new ‘Yansha Mall’ in Beijing,” Chang Ke replied in Mandarin, chewing lamb. “Leader, I’m thinking before my next assignment, I’ll do some trading, bring some leather goods from Guangdong to Beijing. The profit margin would be considerable.”

As the leader picked his teeth, a sliver of meat flew into the hot pot. Chang Ke paused, setting down his chopsticks.

“No ambition! Worthless, stagnant! Want to be a self-employed trader? That used to be a job for ex-convicts,” the leader said, clearly dissatisfied.

“It’s not anymore. And what’s wrong with being self-employed? Don’t look down on them; they earn an honest living, pay taxes, and make their lives flavorful and legitimate. That policy once solved the employment problem for countless jobless youths. What’s bad about it?” Chang Ke said calmly. “I’m just an ordinary person, Leader. The only reason I do this job is because my child is young and my wife inexperienced. I wanted to ask you—can I finish a few more assignments and leave?”

He didn’t reveal his true motives; his real reason for taking this job was to wash away the disgrace of being expelled from university.

“Do you know how much funding the country invested in training you after recruiting you? And think about your salary—a city bureau chief in Sarro makes only a tenth of yours. How would you support your wife and child without this income? Do you have any other skills? Stop talking nonsense!” The leader’s voice grew louder. Chang Ke glanced nervously at the cement walls of the private room—the soundproofing was decent. Outside, the main hall was full of people playing drinking games and getting drunk; their noise seeped faintly through. No one could overhear their conversation.

“Please keep your voice down. Besides being a small-time agent, I really don’t have any other skills.” Chang Ke suddenly remembered something. “Leader, I’d like to ask you a question. Please tell me the truth, will you?”

“Why so serious? Go ahead.”

Chang Ke ran through his thoughts again: “Leader, I’ve worked here for years, but there’s something I’ve never been sure about. Now, you know I’m familiar with the style of this business. Since I can ask, the answer hardly matters; I just want the truth. Was it you who arranged for my expulsion from university?”

The leader narrowed his eyes, gazing at Chang Ke through a haze of smoke. He was not surprised; this was the person he had discovered, nurtured, and managed himself. Chang Ke was no longer the scholar selling clothes and cigars on campus.

This question was bound to come up someday.

“It’s true. I made the request to the university, and I submitted the evidence of your violations.”

“I had guessed as much. Leader, you recruit people like me, those with nowhere else to turn, don’t you?”

“No, only you were ‘desperate.’”

Chang Ke recalled that all the others had been excellent grassroots officers, some decorated with honors. He shrugged helplessly; after all, he had abandoned his studies for speculative ventures. “I remember you described this job as noble and honorable. You never told me it was dirty, exhausting work that had to be done in the shadows, walking alone in darkness, living on the edge between life and death.”

“Haven’t you already proved with your performance that this is what you’re best at?”

Chang Ke’s face showed no emotion as he quietly watched the leader. The answer was as expected.

He naturally regarded the leader’s actions back then as despicable, but after having performed much colder, more ruthless “tasks,” he could accept it calmly.

The leader said, “You know, it’s normal for the organization to seek and cultivate candidates in society. There are many channels. Especially in foreign-related units, we always have people serving as deputy directors.”

Chang Ke nodded. He had long suspected he’d been discovered while working part-time at the Seafarers’ Club.

The leader continued, “We felt that someone like you spending four years in university would be a huge waste. Besides, you were never meant to be a scholar or contribute to society.”

Chang Ke nodded again, agreeing. The monotonous routine of daily life disgusted him.

The leader went on, unrelenting: “You didn’t want to follow the rules like your peers. Venturing into business at such a young age showed you had a desire to change others—perhaps a trajectory set by your father. Not only desire, but intense drive; you’d stop at nothing to achieve your goals. Yet you broke rules, not laws, which means you set yourself a high bottom line.”

Chang Ke did not deny the leader’s assessment. “I do have that flaw—fear of death.”

“That’s more important. Not understanding fear is pure stupidity. I’ve reflected: in our line of work, you have only two mentors—pain and fear. You’ve already learned survival from fear.” The leader affirmed Chang Ke’s response.

But he wasn’t finished. “You have one fatal weakness for this job: emotion. Pain arises from emotion. Only the emotionless feel no pain and only know joy. Of course, I doubt you’ll ever learn much from that ‘mentor’ called pain.”

At this, the leader set down his toothpick. “Fortunately, you understand hatred. Where there’s love, there’s hatred. Hatred can dissipate your overflowing emotions and transform them into the power of attack. You’re eager to learn, you like to think. I noticed you spent money on books in the bookstore without hesitation. Your reading choices weren’t what someone your age or background would pick—they had nothing to do with your studies or grades. They were about humanity, society, history, even philosophy. It seemed you were always ready to apply what you learned to your own life.”

Chang Ke recalled those books: Heidegger, Schopenhauer, especially Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness,” Camus’ essays, Eugene O’Neill’s plays.

He had studied Brecht and Stanislavski’s theories of drama, which he could now apply effortlessly to his work, switching roles at will. He thought with pride: he had portrayed so many characters so convincingly, he could almost win the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor.

He had read books on Ming dynasty history by various authors in the library, biographies of great figures like Napoleon and Catherine the Great—their ideals, willpower, intelligence, and strategies deeply impressed him.

Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams” and “Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis,” with their deep analysis of the unconscious, personality, and dreams, including the imprint of family environment on thinking, had benefited him greatly when quickly assessing opponents’ psychology and perceiving the essence of human nature.

The leader, now gesticulating, said, “You’re not just driven by desire, you disdain mere theoretical talk—you really apply what you learn. You do business, fall in love, rarely interact with classmates, but mix with all sorts in society. You execute your ideas immediately, with intense focus, yet without being showy. This shows your great self-control and self-awareness.”

Finally, the leader stared into Chang Ke’s eyes and said, “Perhaps because you read so much and think so deeply, you disregard some basic morality, believing it’s meant only for ordinary people, the masses.”