Search and Eavesdrop

The next day, vigorous and refreshed, Wang Yan rose from the tangle of four arms and four legs. After washing up, he slicked back his hair, put on clothes still carrying a fragrant breeze, took out his wallet and placed four fifty-dollar bills on the bedside table, then left the room without hesitation.

Since hundred-dollar bills were hard to spend and not particularly common, fifties, twenties, and so on were more popular. Wang Yan generously gave each woman a hundred dollars—roughly one or two taels of gold apiece—to maintain his persona as a lecherous, romantic, gullible spendthrift. After all, he gave little beggars fifty dollars at a time. He could hardly give less to the two women who had slept with him.

It was not easy for him, either. Maintaining such an image, attending to chickens day after day for ten years without pause—some of the women who approached him sought pleasure, some wanted money, and some were fishing for intelligence. Handling them all took quite a bit of energy.

It was necessary cover. If he had no flaws at all, he would have been killed long ago. At this time, everyone had problems. Whoever had no problems was the one with a problem, and that person ought to die. Wang Yan moved among the upper circles of the Shanghai Bund, awash in sensual pleasures and glittering nightlife. Where could he find a good person there?

Going downstairs, he encountered men in much the same state along the way. Acquaintances merely exchanged knowing smiles. After breakfast in the first-floor dining hall and stepping out of Paramount Hall, they became once more the prominent figures of the Shanghai Bund.

He Shaohong, Fang Yuantu, and Zhang Xian had already left the previous night. They were all married men. Though none of them