A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel Read Online Free Page A

their country and surrender to our enemy.”
    For ordinary residents, the consulate, guarded by frozen-faced Chinese police, looked mysterious and inaccessible, a place that bore little relevance to their lives. The perception changed on the cold, windy evening of February 7, 2012.
    Many commuters found themselves stuck in the area near the US Consulate, which was suddenly cordoned off. Dozens of police carswith flashing lights lined the street. Checkpoints were set up on every cross street. Police directed traffic and yelled at pedestrians who attempted to slip past. Frustrated commuters posted pictures on Weibo trying to figure out what had happened, and people in the city and around the country soon learned about the news.
    A person with the alias “Gray Wolf in the Desert” tweeted:
            Does anyone know which VIP is visiting the US Consulate? There are about several hundred policemen surrounding the US Consulate—armed police, traffic police, ranger police, you name it.
    Another posting stated:
            Police are everywhere. I’ve been waiting in the cold for an hour and can’t go home. Lights on the streets have been turned off. Fully armed police are posted around the Friendship Hotel next to the US Consulate. If they are not making a movie, it means something major has happened.
    As questions swirled around cyberspace, another Weibo user noticed that the police were towing an SUV that had been parked in front of the consulate. Judging from the license plate number, the car belonged to a government official in the city of Chongqing. By midnight, Wei Jiuru, a lawyer in Beijing, cited a government source as saying, “Wang Lijun, the deputy mayor of Chongqing, has escaped into the US Consulate to seek asylum.”
    The news quickly circulated, touching off a tidal wave of speculation. A person with the alias of “Koki-Wong” added more details: “Wang Lijun claims that Bo Xilai is out to assassinate him. So he is now hiding inside the US Consulate. At the moment, the US Consulate is under siege. A large number of armed police from Chongqing are there to get Wang Lijun. I think he will evaporate from this world soon!”
    By the time offices opened on the morning of February 8, Internet censors had deleted every posting about the incident, but by then everyone knew about Wang’s attempted defection.
    In a country where the government operates in secrecy and the media serves as the “mouthpiece” of the party, Weibo is tearing down the walls that block the information flow across the country. When anything major happens in China, netizens ignore state TV, radio, and newspapers and look to Weibo for their information. This is especially true for controversial events when regular media outlets are restricted and required to keep quiet and follow official lines. More than 300 million people subscribe to Weibo on Sina, one of China’s largest Internet search portals, with daily posts exceeding 100 million. The popularity of Weibo has posed a major problem for Beijing, which finds it difficult to shut down or simply ignore a Weibo site. Oftentimes the government has to respond to reports on Weibo, such has been the pressure of posts.
    The Chongqing municipal government turned to its Weibo shortly before eleven o’clock on the morning of February 8 and issued a ludicrous one-line comment:
            Chongqing deputy mayor and former police chief Wang Lijun, 52, is undergoing “vacation-style treatment” due to his heavy workload and stress.
    That merely fueled further speculation and ridicule. In a matter of hours, “vacation-style treatment” became the most popular political buzzword online.
    One sarcastic posting stated, “Getting a vacation-style treatment in the US Consulate? Did he defect or seek vacation-style treatment? What a blatant lie, unheard of in Chinese history!”
    Realizing the absurdity of its statement, the Chongqing municipal government removed it from its Weibo but