Chapter 2 — The Gateway to Public Service

I dialed a phone number right in front of everyone. It was a number I had used only once before, during a formal meeting. I wasn't even certain if it would be answered. The phone rang three times. It connected.

"Hello."

A male voice, slightly formal and impatient, responded. It was Zhang Kai Ming, the Director of the City Administrative Service Center. I spoke into the receiver, my voice low but sharp enough to cut through the ambient noise.

"Old Zhang, it is me."

"The person who just arrived from the province."

I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. Then, the jarring sound of a chair scraping harshly against the floor, followed by a heavy thud—as if something significant had tumbled from the desk.

"Sec... Secretary Tran!"

Zhang Kai Ming's voice cracked, dripping with terror and sycophantic desperation. "Sir... do you have any instructions? I shall come to your office immediately to report!"

I looked around the room. I saw the anxious expression on my uncle’s face. I scanned the weary, curious faces of the crowd behind us. Finally, my gaze settled on Liu Li, who was sitting behind the glass at window number three, lazily cracking sunflower seeds with the look of someone who thought herself untouchable.

"There is no need for that."

"I am currently standing in your first-floor lobby."

Silence hung heavy on the other end of the line, as if the connection had been severed. I could imagine Zhang Kai Ming’s expression; it was likely more wretched than if he were weeping.

"I am at window number three."

"My uncle has been here nine times to get a simple task done."

"Even I, arriving in person, have been locked out behind this glass."

"Old Zhang, your administrative center certainly provides excellent service. I must say, I have truly been opened to a new world today."

I did not give him the chance to respond. I hung up. The world went silent. My uncle looked at me in astonishment; he knew I worked in the city, but he had no idea what my actual position entailed. The people in line stared at me with newfound intensity. The elderly woman who had been shooed away by Liu Li paused, turning back to study me. Only Liu Li at window number three remained oblivious. Seeing me finish my call, she taunted me by jutting out her chin and mouthing two words: "Useless fool."

I ignored her. I stared toward the main entrance, counting silently. One. Two. Three. Less than a minute passed before the glass doors were shoved open with violent force. A middle-aged man in a white dress shirt, his tie askew and his face drenched in sweat, rushed inside. It was Zhang Kai Ming. Behind him trailed a flurry of subordinates—deputy directors, section chiefs, office administrators—all of them gasping for air, their faces pale with panic. Zhang Kai Ming scanned the crowd like a radar. When his eyes locked onto mine, he stiffened. Then, with the greatest speed he had likely mustered in his life, he wove through the crowd toward me. It was not a walk, nor a run—it was a bizarre, frantic gait fueled by terror. He stopped three meters away, and there, before everyone in the lobby, he bowed deeply at a ninety-degree angle.

"Secretary... Secretary Tran..."

"I... I am late... I offer my deepest apologies..."

His voice trembled, and sweat poured down his cheeks, dripping onto his leather shoes. The entire lobby went deathly still. The queue ground to a halt; those fiddling with their phones dropped them. Hundreds of eyes locked onto the scene. At window number three, the sound of cracking seeds ceased. Liu Li’s mouth fell open, and the hulls in her hand spilled to the floor. The smug contempt on her face shattered, replaced first by confusion, then by shock, and finally by raw, unadulterated fear. She looked at me, then at Zhang Kai Ming, who looked as if he might collapse to the floor entirely. The meager intellect she had honed over years of bureaucratic maneuvering finally began to stir. She seemed to realize the gravity of the situation. Her face went as white as a sheet of paper. I did not look at Zhang Kai Ming. My eyes cut past him, drilling into the glass window. I raised a hand, pointing at the closed partition, then at the terrified woman behind it. I addressed Zhang Kai Ming.

"Explain this to me."

"Is this how you serve the people?"

The sweat on Zhang Kai Ming’s face had turned into a torrent. He followed my gaze and saw Liu Li, frozen like a statue behind the glass. His face flushed a deep, bruised red. He didn't need to ask; he knew exactly what had transpired. He had managed this center for five years; he knew better than anyone what went on behind these counters. He simply had not expected that, on his very first day, a conflict would land directly in the lap of the newly appointed Secretary of the City Commission for Discipline Inspection.

"Secretary Tran, please, let me explain..."

"I have no interest in excuses."

I cut him off. "I only want to know: is this window meant for public service, or is it a barricade?"

"The people outside are anxious, sweating in the heat, while your staff sits inside cracking seeds."

"Is this the 'service to the people' you talk about?"

With every word I spoke, Zhang Kai Ming bowed his head a little lower.