This was a small fortune, Chen calculated quickly. At the rate of seventy-five cents per word, at about a thousand Chinese characters per page, for a total of fifty pages, this would be over thirty thousand American dollars, equivalent to three hundred thousand Yuan, an amount that it would take him thirty years to earn as a chief inspector, including all the bonuses he might get.

As he had attained the rank of chief inspector in his mid-thirties, Chen was generally viewed as a success: an emerging Party cadre with a promising future, with a bureau car at his. disposal, a new apartment in his own name, and an occasional photo appearance in local newspapers. As an iron-rice-bowl holder, however, his monthly income of around five hundred Yuan was sometimes barely enough to cover his needs. But for the extra money from his translations of foreign mysteries and the occasional short technical translation, as well as the “gray area” perquisites of his position, he didn’t know how he could have managed.

And, as an emerging Party cadre, he also felt the need to live up to certain unwritten standards. When he met with connections like Gu, for instance, he considered himself obliged to offer to pay occasionally, even though those businessmen would invariably insist on picking up the check.

Of late he’d also had sizable expenses due to the increasing cost of medical treatment for his mother, whose former employer, a state-run factory, had fallen into terrible shape and was unable to reimburse its retirees for their medical bills. She had talked to the factory director a number of times without success. The company was on the brink of bankruptcy. So Chen had taken it upon himself to pay. The money from the translation of the New World business plan would be like timely rain in the dry season.