Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

“Is he here today?”

“Cao Hua? He is probably away—”

“In Switzerland, spending his money!” someone finished.

Everyone laughed.

“Where is his office?”

Hulan’s old friends laughed again. “Cao Hua has no office!” Nixon Chen explained between breaths. “He is here, he is there. No one pins him to the ground.”

“He must live somewhere,” Hulan persisted. “I can look it up or you can tell me.”

“The Capital Mansion—same floor as Guang Henglai.”

10

LATER

Cao Hua’s Apartment

In the car, David brought up a subject that he felt sure was safe to talk about in front of Peter. “Liu Hulan, revolutionary martyr?” he asked. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you were named after her?”

“That was just a romantic thing my parents did,” Hulan said with the same indifference she’d shown in the restaurant. “It doesn’t have much to do with who I am.”

She seemed content to leave it at that, but Peter jumped into the conversation. “Inspector Liu is being modest,” he said. “We all know the story of the real Liu Hulan and many people try to emulate her. I, like many of us, have memorized her slogans.”

“Who was she?”

“She was just a girl who had the misfortune to die at a young age,” Hulan said.

“Inspector, she was far more than that! You should tell Attorney Stark about her brave deeds.”

When Hulan didn’t, David asked, “So? What did she do?”

Again Peter answered. “She was born more than sixty years ago in the village of Yunchouhsi in Shansi Province. Liu Hulan’s family was very poor. They poured their blood, sweat, tears, and sorrows into the soil. Hulan worked in the fields under a sun as scorching as a bonfire. When her little sister got tired, Hulan sent her home away from the heat, then continued the work herself.” Peter paused, then said, “My parents used to tell that story to my older sister, but she was still mean to me.”

Peter then described how Hulan spun cotton to make her own clothes and how she helped her mother with household chores when others we

nt to sleep in the hot afternoons. “Once,” he recounted, “when Hulan was picking wild herbs with other village children, the landlord’s son tried to scare them away. She stood up to that bully. She said, ‘Landlords are fed on rice, flour, fish, and meat, yet we are not allowed to gather wild herbs for food. Well,’ she told the boy, ‘we are going to!’ She was just a girl, but she was not afraid.”

An old-fashioned bridal procession of several pushcarts and bicycles loaded with the bride’s dowry crossed in front of the car. As Peter waited for it to pass, he caught David’s eye in the rearview mirror. “When the Japanese came, Liu Hulan spied on traitors in the village. She learned that it was ‘better to die than to become a slave.’ When the Kuomintang came, that same slogan was used.”

Once the procession was out of the way, Peter turned left into a large parking area. As he pulled up to the entrance of the Capital Mansion, he rushed to finish his story. “One day a Communist soldier came to the village to recover from his wounds. Hulan helped to hide him. She told the other children, ‘He has fought and bled for the sake of the people. Now we must take good care of him and feed him as many eggs as we can so he can go back to the front.’ One thing led to another, and the two fell in love. It was 1945 and she was thirteen years old.”

Hulan told Peter to wait in the car, then she and David headed into the high-rise. At first, the elevator was crowded, but after the fifth floor, David and Hulan were alone. David moved to her, placed his hands on the wall on either side of her head, and leaned into her. She had nowhere to escape, but she wouldn’t have tried even if she could. Her black eyes met his.

“So,” she said casually, “it seems Billy Watson and Guang Henglai kept secrets from their fathers.”

“Ummm” was David’s response. He took a strand of Hulan’s hair that had fallen across her forehead and moved it delicately from her face. “I don’t want to talk about them,” he said. “Tell me more about Liu Hulan.”

Knowing she could avoid the subject no longer, she said, “There is a saying: ‘The revolutionary marches toward the storm.’ This is what Hulan did. She went to a training class for female cadres, then she went back to her village and taught the women how to economize in their daily lives. She organized them to make shoes and collect string for the People’s Army. Although Hulan was very young, she already knew that these things were not enough. It was important to deal a fatal blow to the enemy, preserve the revolution at all costs, struggle to the bitter end.”

Hulan’s voice fell to a whisper as David traced a finger along her cheekbone. “The Kuomintang army—growing up we called them the Kuomintang bandits—came closer and closer to the village. At last, they invaded Yunchouhsi. The soldiers demanded that all of the villagers meet in the square. Hulan wanted to hide with a woman who was giving birth, then realized that if they were caught, they’d all be killed. Hulan said, ‘If I must die, I’ll bear the brunt alone,’ and stepped out onto the square.”

The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. For a moment, David didn’t move, then he pulled away and said with a smile, “After you.” They stepped into the stuffy corridor and the elevator closed behind them. Hulan started down the hall, but David held her back. “Finish the story.”

“I told you it doesn’t matter,” she said impatiently.