Outside the Negotiation Table

The first time Huo Chengzong addressed Zhao Weiguo as "Commander Zhao" in person, he was holding a visitor registration form.

It was 8:00 AM in early September 1945. The Guiyuan Negotiation Hall had just opened, and tea had already been served twice. The weather was stuffy, and the porcelain cups were damp on the outside, leaving several round stains on the tablecloth from the bottom of the cups.

The delegation of about twenty people entered the hall in batches. Important documents were taken by two delegates separately, and the secretariat kept sealed copies. Not all twelve escorts managed to squeeze in; the monk led six people to guard the entrance and passageways, while the remaining six were positioned at the courtyard gate, garage, back door, and beside the vehicles.

The approximately one hundred military and police personnel on duty around Guiyuan were still under the control of Chongqing. They had their own passwords, sentry posts, and duty roster. The escort team did not cross the outer ring, and the other side could not use "unified security" as a pretext to take over the inner ring.

Zhi Zi chose two vantage points outside the negotiation room. One offered a view of the courtyard gate and garage, while the other overlooked the back wall and the side windows of the main building. She only brought her public contact pass and notebook, leaving the core list behind.

Huo Chengzong stood outside the door, followed by two recorders. He first glanced at the ordinary pistol at Zhao Weiguo's waist, then scanned the six people in the corridor.

"Commander Zhao."

Zhao Weiguo stopped: "I used the escort team's credentials in Chongqing."

"So, the commander of the independent regiment only has his escort duties left after changing his credentials?"

"Today's checks are on the escort personnel, vehicles, and identification. The main force from North China is not on Guiyuan's list."

Huo Chengzong pushed the registration form forward: "Negotiations require sincerity. How can you show sincerity if you won't even disclose unit numbers and troop strength?"

Zhao Weiguo didn't take the form; he simply handed his identification to the gatekeeper.

"You manage the neighborhoods, we manage the delegations. The outer troop deployment wasn't listed in the escort list, and the North China troops won't be included in the visit registration."

One of the recorders said, "These are two different things."

"Separating responsibilities is, of course, a two-way street."

Huo Chengzong looked at him for a while, then stepped aside.

"I hope Mr. Zhao won't treat the negotiation room like a battlefield."

"I also hope you won't turn a vigilance into a search."

Ten minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin, the secretary noticed that a page was missing from the list of attendees for the public meeting on the table.

The core list and the original documents are both available. What's missing is the page detailing the negotiators and vehicle arrangements from the publicly available list. The secretariat has a copy of the same page, with consecutive page numbers. Anyone who touched the document on the desktop can easily find out.

Zhao Weiguo first instructed the people in the hall not to change positions. The paper was not moved again, and everyone who had entered the negotiation room was re-verified according to the registration. The last people to have contact with the list were the secretary, two representatives, and a tea-serving person.

The tea tray was still on the side table.

The missing page lay at the bottom of the tray, creased and marked with a short pencil mark in the corner. The paper wasn't taken, but the number of vehicles, the people to be met, and the time allotted for the next day were enough to make a copy.

The monk lifted his foot and walked towards the side door.

"Come back," Zhao Weiguo said.

"The papers are all hidden at the bottom of the plate."

"First, write down who touched it, what time they entered, and which door they exited through. The person can't run away; if the evidence is mixed up, it'll all just become a war of words."

The public and core lists were immediately separated. From then on, important documents had to be carried by two people. Tea, water, and cleaning staff were not allowed near the document table unless both the secretariat and the escort team registered simultaneously. Radios and papers were collected every night; who borrowed, who returned, and when were all recorded in a notebook.

The secretary recounted the papers. The public list was twenty-four pages, the negotiation summary twelve pages, and the vehicle arrangement three pages. The missing page had returned, but its corner was damper than the others. There was water under the tea tray; it had been there for at least a while.

The pencils from the same batch were also compared. The pencil used by the Secretariat was long, with a neatly sharpened edge; the marks on the page corners were short and blunt, and it even had a bit of red paint on it. This detail is only included in the evidence description; we can't use "red-painted pencils" to arrest people indiscriminately.

When the tea deliveryman returned, his hands were still stained with tea. He said he had handed the tea tray to someone temporarily filling in at the side door and went to the kitchen to fetch hot water. When asked about the color of his hat, he first said gray, then thought for a moment and changed it to blue-gray.

The monk, enraged, retorted, "A hat that can change color?"

The tea server shrank back, his lips dry.

Zhao Weiguo instructed the recorder to write down both versions of the story.

"If you've misremembered, just write 'I've misremembered.' Don't try to find a more palatable version for him."

The tea server left his fingerprint and returned to the kitchen, forbidden from entering the negotiation room again. The secretariat assigned a familiar person to deliver water, and the tea trays, teapots, and rags were all numbered. The negotiations did not stop, but a white line appeared next to the document table.

The tea delivery person stopped at the side door, turned back, and asked, "Should I continue delivering tea from now on?"

The secretary didn't answer, but looked at Zhao Weiguo first. This man hadn't been investigated for anything; he'd simply handed the tea tray to the wrong person. If he were fired from Guiyuan with a single sentence, the kitchen would quickly spread the word that a traitor had been caught; if nothing happened, no one would be responsible for the list that had just been placed at the bottom of the tray.

"You'll continue your original work in the kitchen," Zhao Weiguo said. "Water will be delivered to the side door and received by the registered person. We'll decide whether you can enter the dining area after the substitute's identity is verified."

The tea deliveryman rubbed the ink off his fingers and whispered in protest, "I really don't know who he is. He said the squad leader asked him to fill in for me, and he even knows the kitchen manager's surname."

"I didn't say that earlier."

The man's face turned pale, realizing he sounded more and more like a liar. Zhao Weiguo instructed the recorder to start a new line and write down the name of the kitchen manager that the man could recall. He also had the tea delivery person confirm whether the man had heard it with his own ears or remembered it later.

"I heard it with my own ears," he answered hastily, then paused, "It must be. I was carrying hot water at the time, and all I could hear was the kettle clattering."

The recorder didn't delete the word "should." The tea deliveryman pressed his fingerprint a second time before carrying the empty bucket back. Water dripped from the bottom of the bucket, leaving several dark spots on the blue bricks of the side door. The monk watched his retreating figure, still angry, but didn't chase after him to ask any more questions.

Gardenia brought a piece of paper from the high point: the military and police outside the door changed shifts three minutes early, and there was an extra plainclothes officer in the garage; after the negotiations began, the telephone exchange connected to Guiyuan's external line twice in a row.

She only wrote down what she saw, without directly attributing the movement of the list to the Kuomintang's Military Intelligence Bureau.

Inside the hall, discussions took place regarding the surrender zone, the garrison, and local takeover. Outside, a table was displayed on the tea tray, telephone, gatekeeper's post, and vehicle. The matters on paper and those on the table were closely intertwined; no one could pretend they were unrelated.

Before noon, the military and police on the outer perimeter proposed changing the password for the Guiyuan gate and also demanded that the escort team hand over their internal rotation schedule, citing the need for unified security.

The monk led the two men to the door. The other team leader brought out a new password but refused to show the complete shift change order.

"The passwords can be mutually recognized," Zhao Weiguo said. "The rotation form doesn't need to be handed in."

"Who is responsible if a mistake is made?"

"The gatekeepers will register names, identification documents, vehicles, and arrival times. Both sides will keep their own duty rosters and add a mutual recognition column to the register. You sign in when you change shifts, and we sign in when we change shifts."

Wouldn't it be easier to combine everything into one form?

"After the merger, it's unclear who was transferred to which position."

The two sides stopped at the door for three minutes. The secretary retrieved the pass, and the gatekeeper re-verified it using the new password. No one tried to snatch the pass, nor did anyone raise a gun. Two more entries appeared in the register: the other party's password verified, and their own gatekeeper's password confirmed. Each side signed off on a person who had handled the transaction.

It had a problem the first time I used it.

A military policeman on the outer perimeter only gave the password but refused to show his shift change pass, saying he had already checked him. The guard at Guiyuan Gate neither let him in nor raised his gun, but simply told him to wait outside the line for his former squad leader to come and identify him.

Five minutes later, the former squad leader, drenched in sweat, confirmed it was one of his men. The newcomer, annoyed by the gatekeeper's harassment, muttered a few curses. The monk stood inside the gate, his hand resting on the register, not touching his holster.

Only after the original squad leader signs off can the person be admitted to the hospital.

This five-minute handover record should also be included. If only "normal shift change" is left, the next time the same person doesn't bring their identification, no one will remember how they were let in last time.

The military police officers who had been stopped were still muttering after entering the room. After taking a few steps, they turned back and pointed to the mutual identification board: "If I had been shot outside, who would be responsible for the delay?"

The young gatekeeper at Guiyuan was blushing and wanted to retort. The monk touched the register with the back of his hand, signaling him not to leave his post.

"I'll take five minutes today to write your name, and also the former squad leader's name," the monk said. "If you really have a gun, we'll handle it accordingly. If you don't have identification, we can't just fire you because you're loud."

The man stared at the gun at the monk's waist, then swallowed back the curse he was about to utter. Fearing another confrontation, the former squad leader pulled out half a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, intending to offer one to each of them. The monk didn't take it, nor did the gatekeeper at Guiyuan. The cigarettes lingered between the three men for a moment before being returned to their place.

When the next shift changed, the outer ring police and soldiers would first slip their identification documents behind the password sheet and hand them over. The gatekeeper would verify them, sign in the mutual recognition column, and the whole process would take less than a minute. The first five minutes weren't wasted, but no one became friends because of it.

When Huo Chengzong reappeared, he asked the question in a different way.

"The Chongqing side is concerned that the escort team has too many weapons, which might affect the atmosphere of the negotiations. Could they be handed over to the outer perimeter for unified storage?"

"cannot."

The pens of both recorders moved at the same time.

Huo Chengzong asked, "You don't trust the military and police in the outer perimeter?"

"They manage the streets, the escort team handles close-quarters combat and evacuation. Once I hand over my gun, all I have left is a guarantee from someone else."

Isn't negotiation all about establishing guarantees?

"We can talk at the table. Someone needs to be responsible for the delegation's security right now."

Zhao Weiguo did not touch the gun at his waist while speaking.

In the afternoon, the secretariat checked the tea delivery records and found it near the side door. The tea cart had stopped there for seven minutes. The driver only carried the buckets; the person actually near the desk was a temporary replacement. The original record only noted the cart number, not the passengers.

Those seven minutes were broken down again: what time the cart arrived, who opened the door, how many buckets of water, who pushed the cart, and when the replacement driver left. The driver could say the number of buckets, but he couldn't say which side the person got on the cart from.

Gardenia pushed the empty tea cart through the side door. A normal walk would take two minutes, but pushing the cart would take more than three. Seven minutes was enough time to stop in the corridor once, and also enough time to jot down a few numbers from the list.

"Only write down the available time," she said. "Don't write that it's already been copied."

The person who temporarily filled in for the shift did not return to their original post that day. The only response from Chongqing was that they were searching for them.

Zhao Weiguo demanded a formal receipt. It had to include the driver's name, former employer, last known location, and the person responsible for the search. The driver released the driver after asking all the questions; no one would try to force a conclusion by detaining someone.

Gardenia divided the day's events into four columns.

Confirmed: The public list has been moved, leaving new creases and pencil marks; the gatekeeper requested a rotation sheet; the Guiyuan external line was connected twice.

Suspected: The list may have been copied; the plainclothes officers in the garage may be connected to external surveillance.

Pending verification: Who instructed the temporary substitute, and where did the phone call go?

Measures: Separate the public list from the core list; carry important documents in pairs; add mutual recognition columns at the gate; collect radios and paper every night.

Zhao Weiguo added the date, location, and person in charge.

"All future reports on Chongqing will follow this format."

The monk looked at it for a long time: "Where should I put my 'Someone is peeping' line?"

"Suspected."

"trouble."

"It's better than arresting the wrong person."

In the evening, twelve escorts retrieved the weapons, magazines, radios, and documents in three groups. Two witnesses were present for each group. Guns and magazines were recorded separately, and the number of pages on the publicly displayed papers was counted. The seals on the core documents were verified.

The first batch was missing a pencil, which was eventually found under a chair leg. The second batch was reported missing a magazine, which was found in the holster pocket upon verification. The third batch included two radios, with the battery remaining, seals, and frequency packets checked separately.

The error was not erased. The original number is underlined, and the reviewer and time are written next to it.

There was no fighting that day, and no one was killed.

The tea in the negotiation room went cold twice. The list had been touched, the passwords were almost mixed up, and weapons were demanded to be handed over. When the Grand Elder came out, Zhao Weiguo was still standing by the registration table, checking the last seal.

"How many people did we stop today?" the elder asked.

"Not a single one was stopped. Those who were allowed in were allowed in with their identification, and those who needed to be questioned were recorded."

"Then what did you protect?"

Zhao Weiguo locked the four-column report in the cabinet. He handed the two keys to the two representatives respectively.

"One person can't stop the door," he said.

The sound of changing shifts came from outside the gate, and the mutual recognition board turned to a new page.

"There must be troops, documents, and an escape route behind the door."

He watched as the two keys to the cabinet were put into the pockets of the two representatives before turning to leave the registration table. The lights in the negotiation room were still on, and the list on the table had been replaced with a new one carried by the two representatives.

Huo Chengzong stood in the shadows outside the courtyard, staring at the closed door, a crease in the registration form in his hand. He hadn't received his unit number, his rotation roster, or his gun today. But he had the young orderly's habit of checking hands first, and a crease in a list that had been pressed under a tea tray.

These two things are even more difficult to deal with than the code.