Decoded (25 page)

I was floored. This was simply too good to be true. I couldn’t have asked for better!

It was in this manner that my book received a new vitality.

I met with the Director many times while I was staying at Unit 701. My understanding and grasp of Rong Jinzhen’s history expanded immensely, providing me with the ‘Transcript of the interview with Director Zheng’ sections in the earlier chapters. Of course, his purpose was not solely to provide me with material for this work; that was not his real aim. Before I got to know Director Zheng, Rong Jinzhen was something of a mystery to me, a legend. But now, after having talked with Director Zheng, he had become real, unquestionably a part of history. What is more, the man primarily responsible for putting Rong Jinzhen on this path, for changing the course of his life, was none other than Director Zheng. Not only did he not mind sharing his reminiscences with me, but he also provided me with a long list of names of people who were also familiar with Rong Jinzhen and his past, even though quite a few of them had already died.

I have only a single regret concerning my time spent at Unit 701. All the while I was there I had repeatedly referred to him as Director. I never thought to ask him his name and even now I still do not know it. As a member of a secret organization, one’s name is, as a rule, of no value; it is usually hidden behind a serial number and one’s official designation. For Director Zheng, his position in history was thoroughly identifiable by his lame foot. But covering up one’s name doesn’t mean that the name disappears; it just means that it has been buried. I truly believe that had I asked him – in a professional capacity – what his name was, he would have told me, but I was too enthralled by the image he projected and so I forgot to ask. As a result, I’m still confused as to what to call him – the Gimp, Zheng the Gimp, Section Chief Zheng, the Crippled Director, Director Zheng, Sir, and so on. Most people from N University referred to him as the Gimp or as Section Chief Zheng. He usually referred to himself as the Crippled Director. I generally addressed him as Sir or Director Zheng.

His connection to Rong Jinzhen had begun with his maternal grandfather. In the second year after the Xinhai Revolution, his maternal grandfather had got to know Old Lillie at the theatre and the two had become quite friendly thereafter. Since Director Zheng had grown up in his maternal grandfather’s residence, he had come to know Old Lillie from a very early stage. Later on, when Old Lillie died, his maternal grandfather had taken him along to N University to attend the memorial service and so he had met Young Lillie. He was fourteen at the time, in his second year of middle school, and the beauty of the campus left a deep impression on him. Once he graduated from middle school, he took his school transcripts in hand and went off to see Young Lillie to request that he be allowed to enrol in the high school attached to N University. And that was that, as they say. While a pupil at the affiliated high school, his language teacher was a member of the Communist Party, who would later recruit him. Once the War of Resistance against Japan broke out, teacher and student left the school and made their way to Yan’an. This was the beginning of his long revolutionary career.

I should say, once he set foot in N University, the foundation was laid for his path to cross that of Rong Jinzhen. But as he said himself, the sequence of events that ensured that they would meet wasn’t immediately set in motion. Fifteen years would pass before he was sent to N University to recruit talent for the cryptography division in Unit 701. It was mere coincidence that in paying a visit to the former chancellor and speaking of his mission to find people of talent that the latter would recommend Rong Jinzhen.

The Director said, ‘Although I couldn’t tell Young Lillie what kind of work I would be getting this person to do – only that they had to possess certain abilities – I was very clear about what abilities were needed. I was therefore very surprised and happy when the old man told me of Rong Jinzhen, especially since I had complete faith in his ability to discern another person’s character. The former chancellor was not someone given to making wisecracks, so when he made his joke, I was sure that Rong Jinzhen was precisely the kind of person I was looking for.’

It turned out to be true. Once Director Zheng had met Rong Jinzhen, he decided he was indeed the man they needed.

‘When you think about it,’ the Director said, ‘a mathematical genius, a man who since he was small had been intimate contact with the interpretation of dreams, who had studied both Chinese and Western thought, who had come to explore the intricacies of the human mind – he simply must have been put on this earth to be a cryptographer. Could I have been anything but startled?’

As to how they had come to agree to letting Director Zheng take Rong Jinzhen away, he said that this would remain a secret between himself and Young Lillie, a secret he wouldn’t divulge to anyone. On the whole, I thought this must be true, for at the time he must have been so eager to get the old man’s consent that he most likely violated the rules of his profession and told him the truth about why he wanted Rong Jinzhen. Otherwise, why would he still be so tightlipped about the whole affair?

Several times during our interviews he reiterated that his discovery of Rong Jinzhen was his single greatest contribution to the work done at Unit 701. But he never once thought that things would end up the way they did; he never foresaw the disaster that awaited Rong. Every time this was mentioned, he would shake his head in grief, sigh deeply, and then shout out Rong Jinzhen’s name several times in succession: ‘Rong Jinzhen! Rong Jinzhen! Rong Jinzhen!’

If we were to talk about the time before he cracked PURPLE, then the image of Rong Jinzhen in my mind would have been hazy, unclear – wavering between him being a genius and him being insane. But after he deciphered PURPLE, the image came into focus: it was graceful and yet terrifying, like a tiger silently waiting to pounce. To tell you the truth, I admired him and respected him, but I never wished to get too close to him. I was afraid that I would be scalded by him; I was fearful of him, just as you would be while watching a tiger hunting. I daresay his spirit was that of a tiger. He tore apart problems as a tiger would relish gnawing meat off the bones of a recent kill: there was an animal ferocity in him, a calculated approach – again like a tiger that stalks its prey, waiting for the precise moment at which to pounce.

A tiger!

Lord of animals!

Lord of cryptography!

To tell you the truth, although I was much older than him and was considered an old hand in the Intelligence Service (indeed, by the time he arrived I was already a section chief ), in my heart, I looked on him as my senior. No matter what the trouble was, I would ask him about it. The more I understood him, the more I got close to him, the more I became a slave to his intelligence, his presence; I would kneel down before him and have no regrets about doing so . . .

. . . As I’ve already mentioned, the world of cryptography does not allow for the appearance of similar ciphers – such an event would result in them becoming rubbish. Consequently, the world of cryptography has an unwritten rule, practically an iron-clad law: an individual can either create ciphers or crack them. Because Rong Jinzhen possessed the ability to create
and
destroy ciphers, he was enraptured by his own mind. However, such rapture was tantamount to discarding it, to losing it, to going completely mad. In principle, Rong Jinzhen should not have assumed responsibility for deciphering BLACK. His mind already belonged to PURPLE. Such a task should be his only if he was able to re-forge the inevitable fragmentation of his mind.

But for Rong Jinzhen, for that kind of person, we didn’t really believe that there were rules that applied. Rather, we trusted in his talent. To put it another way, we had faith in his ability to rebuild his mind – we believed that for him, this was not impossible. We might not believe in ourselves, we might not believe in the impartiality of rules, but there was no way that we could refuse to believe in Rong Jinzhen. For us, his very being was built upon those things that we believed to be impossible: he made those things real; made them part of reality itself. It was in this fashion that the great burden of cracking BLACK came to fall on his shoulders.

This necessitated his return to the forbidden zone.

But unlike the first time, this time he was forced by someone else – and also by his own illustrious reputation – into the forbidden zone. It was totally unlike the situation with PURPLE. There he penetrated deep into the historical woods of cryptography; of his own initiative he stormed into this forbidden area. But one man cannot be too outstanding. Once you are too apart from your fellows, you discover that your glorious reputation is no support. In fact, it is the reverse: it brings your own destruction ever closer.

I never probed into Rong Jinzhen’s frame of mind once he took on the responsibility for deciphering BLACK, but the suffering he endured as a result was unfair – that I saw clearly. If we were to talk of how he cracked PURPLE, then I could say that it was not terribly stressful for him: he was at ease going into battle; he arrived at work on time and left when the work day was over. Those around him remarked that it seemed as though it were all a game to him. But when it came to BLACK, well, his former light-heartedness had completely disappeared. The weight pressing down upon him was enormous, bowing him over. During the time he spent on BLACK, I saw at first-hand how Rong Jinzhen’s jet-black hair began to go grey, how his stature began to shrink: it was as though the situation had forced him into the labyrinth of BLACK; a labyrinth he couldn’t escape from. As you can imagine, BLACK carried Rong Jinzhen along with it, into its deeper realms – he was obsessed with tearing it apart, as well as about smashing his own mind to pieces. The torment and pain were like the two hands of the devil pressing down upon his shoulders. This man who had originally had no connection to BLACK (because he had cracked PURPLE), now endured the full weight of it: it was his shame, his sorrow, and even the pain and sorrow of the Unit itself. To speak frankly, I never doubted Rong Jinzhen’s talent and diligence, but as to whether or not he could pull another miracle out of his hat, to decipher BLACK, to overthrow the iron-clad law of the world of cryptography, I couldn’t say that I had no misgivings. I believe a genius is still a man, a man who can become confused, a man who can make mistakes; but should a man of this sort commit an error then that error must be colossal, must be shocking. In truth, in the world of cryptography there is unanimous agreement that BLACK was not some high-level cipher of exceptional rigorousness and importance. Indeed, the means by which it was cracked were shocking to everyone by their simplicity. For that reason, not long after Rong Jinzhen’s mental collapse, BLACK was quickly dispatched. In terms of talent, these cryptographers simply didn’t compare to Rong Jinzhen, but once the task had been undertaken, it was just like when Rong Jinzhen had cracked PURPLE: it took only three months and they did it in a completely relaxed fashion . . .

[To be continued]

Did you hear? Someone deciphered BLACK!

Who?

Was he (or she) still alive? Director Zheng told me his name: Yan Shi. What is more, he told me that he was indeed still alive. He suggested that I go and interview him, and once the interview was over, come and see him again; apparently, Director Zheng had additional information to give me. Two days later, I met with Director Zheng again and the first words out of his mouth were a question: ‘So, what do you think of that old bastard?’ He was referring to Yan Shi, the man responsible for deciphering BLACK. His wording left me speechless for a moment.

‘Don’t be offended,’ he went on. ‘In truth, no one around here cares much for Yan Shi.’

‘Why?’ I asked, feeling that this was rather odd.

‘Because he has got so much out of it: too much, in fact.’

‘But he cracked BLACK – doesn’t he deserve to be rewarded?’

‘But everyone believes that his accomplishment was only possible because he had Rong Jinzhen’s notebook to work from; that his inspiration came solely from the work already carried out by Rong Jinzhen.’

‘That’s true; he admitted that to me,’ I said.

‘Really? No way – he would never have said that.’

‘Eh? I heard it with my own ears.’

‘What did he say, then?’ Director Zheng asked.

‘He told me that actually it was Rong Jinzhen who deciphered BLACK; that his own reputation was underserved.’

‘Oh, this is big news.’ He stared at me in surprise. ‘Previously he always skirted round the issue of Rong Jinzhen, evaded questions about how he figured out how to decipher BLACK. How is it that he didn’t with you? Hmm . . . perhaps it’s because you are not a member of this organization, you’re somebody on the outside. I wonder.’ Director Zheng paused for a moment and then continued, ‘He never before so much as mentioned Rong Jinzhen, purposefully pushing him aside, trying to create the impression that he was entirely responsible for deciphering BLACK. But how could that have been possible? We’ve all been here together for such a long time, who doesn’t know who? Yet it seemed as though he had changed into a genius overnight; now tell me, who could believe that? No one, that’s who! As we saw him hog all of the glory for cracking BLACK, we really couldn’t accept it. There was so much gossip and complaint – we all felt outraged by the injustice done to Rong Jinzhen.’

I fell into deep thought. I wondered if I should disclose to him everything that Yan Shi had told me. To tell you the truth, Yan Shi never explicitly told me not to share with others what he had told me, but neither did he imply that it was okay to tell other people.

A moment of silence passed. Director Zheng looked me over and then continued speaking: ‘Actually, his inspiration for deciphering BLACK could only have come from Rong Jinzhen’s notebook, this fact is undeniable; everyone had already come to this conclusion and you’ve just now said that Yan Shi himself admits to this. Then why has he never come clean with us, why hasn’t he admitted it to us? It is just as I said: his only aim was to push Rong Jinzhen aside in order to obtain all the glory for deciphering BLACK himself. Everyone knew that. And because everyone knew it, he has stubbornly refused to admit it, causing everyone to loathe him even more and to not trust him at all. But I think that he was not at all clever with his selfish little machinations. Ah, but that is another topic altogether, let’s leave that for now . . .

‘Now, I want to ask you – and you can take your time thinking about it – how is it that he was able to discover inspiration from Rong Jinzhen’s notebook when Rong Jinzhen himself couldn’t? It is quite reasonable to say that whatever it was that he learnt from the notebook, Rong Jinzhen should have been able to do the same and much earlier. Don’t you agree? After all, it was Rong Jinzhen’s notebook; his thoughts, his ideas. To use an analogy, you could say that the notebook was like a room and inside this room there was a key, the key to unlocking BLACK. Then how is it that the person whose room it was couldn’t find it? How is it that someone on the outside could simply enter the room and discover it immediately? Now I ask you, is that not strange?’

His analogy was quite apropos. It laid out all of his innermost thoughts about this situation on a plate; it was all very incisive. But I wanted to say that none of what he thought was actually what really happened. That is . . . there were no problems with his analogy; rather, the problem lay in what he thought had taken place. Mulling it over whilst listening to him, I ultimately decided that I would tell him everything that Yan Shi had told to me; that in and of itself that should clear things up and establish for certain what actually transpired. But he never gave me the chance to get a word in edgewise, he simply continued on in the same breath: ‘It was then that I came to believe that while attempting to crack BLACK, Rong Jinzhen had made a cardinal sin, and what’s more, this error wound its way into his head, bludgeoning a genius into an idiot. This mistake, when all is said and done, could only have happened to someone who could transgress the iron-clad law of cryptography: it was the residual effect of his having cracked PURPLE lurking in the shadows, waiting to cause mischief.’