"Who is it?"
The voice was in English, deep and steady.
The sound made Lu Shen's heart skip a beat.
Lu Shen responded in equally steady English, "East Asia Economic Intelligence Group, Lu Shen. New team leader. I have a few questions about the historical trade sanctions files."
There was a slight sound of the lock turning, and the door opened a crack.
Jin Youdai stood inside the door.
Lu Shen saw him.
Not a photograph, not a black-and-white image from the archives.
A real person.
Alive, breathing, standing less than half a meter away.
Not tall, just over 1.70 meters.
Lean but not frail, with a solid frame, like an old tree deeply rooted in barren soil... above ground, nothing remarkable, but you know below ground lies an unexpectedly vast root system.
His face was gentle, almost honest, which was Lu Shen's first instinctive judgment upon seeing him... If unaware of his true identity, anyone would conclude at first glance: this is a kind, unremarkable elderly Asian man, perhaps a university professor or a beloved old neighbor in the community.
He was dressed simply, in a dark blue flannel shirt with tightly buttoned cuffs, dark gray wool trousers, not freshly pressed but still basically tidy, and a pair of brown loafers, polished clean.
Jin Youdai stood inside, scrutinizing the young man through the crack.
He didn't move aside, nor did he show any intention of inviting the other in.
"I might not be of help, my expertise leans more towards geopolitics."
A standard excuse, giving the other a way out while leaving himself room to close the door at any time.
Lu Shen knew that if he continued in English, Jin Youdai would politely end the conversation, close the door, and return to Reading Booth 7 to continue perusing the files.
There was no more time.
Then, he switched languages.
"Mr. Jin..."
Mandarin.
Perfectly enunciated standard Mandarin.
The moment those two words left Lu Shen's mouth, there was no visible change on Jin Youdai's half-exposed face through the door crack.
Nothing at all.
"I am also a member of the organization infiltrating CIA."
Lu Shen's voice was so soft that it could only be heard within a meter's distance.
"We are comrades."
Jin Youdai looked at him.
Those calm eyes showed no ripples.
Like a bronze mirror polished for thirty years... any light cast upon it would only reflect back a perfect, colorless image.
Jin Youdai slowly withdrew his right hand from the door frame.
The door began to close.
"Wu Hao."
When Lu Shen uttered those two words, the door's movement halted.
The gap froze at about five centimeters, and Lu Shen could no longer see Jin Youdai's face... only a narrow shadow and the faint reflection of an eye in the depths of the shadow.
"In 1952, Wu Hao personally approved and deployed your mission."
Lu Shen's voice dropped to almost a whisper... his speech quickened.
The eye in the door crack slightly widened in the dim light.
Lu Shen did not pause.
"He personally set the first half of the code phrase you would use for life... 'The green hills cannot block it.' The second half was sealed by you, never disclosed in full to any single contact. His exact words to you were..."
Lu Shen took a breath.
"...lie in wait, not seeking immediate success, but building a century-long benefit."
The hallway fell completely silent.
So silent that Lu Shen could hear the blood flowing behind his eardrums.
The door remained motionless at that five-centimeter gap.
Lu Shen did not urge, standing outside with his hands at his sides, breathing steadily, waiting.
He knew what the person behind the door was experiencing at this moment.
Thirty-three years.
From 1952 to 1985, a full thirty-three years.
Those words... those words spoken under the lights of Xihua Hall... from the moment he left that red door, they were locked in the deepest recesses of Jin Youdai's memory, buried under thirty-three years of disguise, thirty-three years of solitude, thirty-three years in a foreign land.
In those thirty-three years, no one had ever spoken those words to him.
No one knew of their existence.
Except for the person no longer alive, and himself.
And now, in the corridor of the Top Secret Archives on the second basement level of Langley Headquarters, a young man he had never met recited those words he thought would go with him to the grave, word by word.
The door gap widened from five centimeters to ten centimeters.
Then to twenty centimeters.
Thirty centimeters.
Jin Youdai's face reappeared in Lu Shen's view.
Different from a minute ago.
On that gentle, honest face, the perfect disguise of thirty years... the flawlessly polished bronze mirror... showed its first crack.
Extremely subtle, but real.
The crack was not at the corner of the mouth, nor the brow, nor any usual area for expressing emotion.
It was in the eyes.
Jin Youdai's eyes... those eyes that had learned not to convey any information during thirty years of infiltration... were now slightly reddened.
Lu Shen saw those reddened eyes, something caught in his throat.
"Your ultimate infiltration code name within CIA... 'Bedrock.'"
Jin Youdai's body wavered slightly, barely noticeable.
"This code name is registered only in the top-secret archives at the highest level domestically."
Lu Shen stopped, looking at Jin Youdai.
Jin Youdai looked back at him.
The two men faced each other through the thirty-centimeter door gap.
Jin Youdai's lips moved.
Then his jaw tightened, his Adam's apple bobbing once.
This young man before him...
He couldn't think of any reasonable way for a twenty-seven-year-old... a young man within CIA... to have access to this information.
Unless what he said was true.
Unless he truly was a comrade.
Unless, in some corner of this gray-white building, thirty-three years of solitude had finally found an echo!
Jin Youdai's hand slowly moved away from the door, revealing the cramped interior of Reading Booth 7... a table, a chair, a desk lamp, with several yellowed old files spread out on the table.
Jin Youdai stepped back, his breathing uncontrollably quickening, unable to control it, at least at this moment, he couldn't restrain himself!
He stood in the center of the booth, slightly tilting his head under the light, looking at the person nearly forty years younger than him.
His lips moved again, this time, the voice emerged.
Mandarin.
Hoarse and trembling, like a language locked in a safe for thirty-three years, being used for the first time.
"...but eventually flows east."
The second half of the code phrase.
The half never disclosed to any single contact... sealed for thirty-three years.
The green hills cannot block it, but eventually flows east.
From Xin Qiji's "Bodhisattva Barbarian: Written on the Wall at Zaokou in Jiangxi."
Below Yugu Terrace, the Qing River flows, how many travelers' tears in between.
Looking northwest towards Chang'an, countless mountains pitifully block the view.
The green hills cannot block it, but eventually flows east.
The river at dusk brings sorrow, deep in the mountains, the partridge calls.
Lu Shen stood at the door, and when he heard those words, his vision blurred for a moment.
Lu Shen stepped into the booth.
The two men stood face to face, less than a meter apart, the light stark white, the air dry and cold.
Jin Youdai's hand rose.
Slowly, trembling, with the stiffness unique to a sixty-year-old's joints.
The palm opened, facing up, reaching forward.
Like a person adrift for half a lifetime, finally seeing someone from their homeland, at a moment when language and reason fail, the body makes the most instinctive response.
Lu Shen extended his hand as well.
The two hands, under the pale light of Reading Booth 7 in the Top Secret Archives on the second basement level of Langley Headquarters, finally clasped together.
Jin Youdai's hand was dry, rough, slightly cool... the hand of someone who has worked in a constant temperature environment for years, typically cooler.
But the joints were firm, the grip unexpectedly strong... this hand had signed countless documents affecting U.S. policy in Asia, flipped through countless pages marked "TOP SECRET," and clenched tightly in countless solitary nights.
Lu Shen's hand was warm, dry, steady.
A twenty-seven-year-old's hand, smooth skin, firm muscles, strong knuckles... this hand had broken a traitor's neck two months ago, written a report that shook Langley not long ago, and endured countless moments of solitude unknown to others.
The two hands clasped tightly.
So tight they could feel the pulse in each other's palms, feel the warmth of each other's bones, feel thirty-three years of solitude, thirty-three years of perseverance, thirty-three years of waiting, finally finding an outlet at the junction of their palms.
Jin Youdai's lips trembled.
He wanted to speak.
There was so much to say... thirty-three years' worth of words, enough to fill the entire archive.
But they were all stuck in his throat, like thirty-three years of silence had built a dam there, and the moment of breaking was too overwhelming, nothing could come out.
In the end, he said just one word.
A word spoken in Mandarin, like it was dredged up from the depths of a thirty-three-year-old well.
"...Good."