Gordon

Gordon is Lu Xun’s dependable aide and one of the clearest channels between Lu Xun’s private decisions and the machinery that carries them out. His appearances are brief, but they establish a consistent function: when Lu Xun needs a hospital contacted, a missing wife found, or an order executed without delay, Gordon receives the instruction and acts on it. He therefore represents the practical infrastructure behind Lu Xun’s commanding public presence.

Identity and Position

Gordon serves Lu Xun directly and addresses him as boss. The relationship is formal, disciplined, and marked by obedience, but it is not merely ceremonial. Gordon is entrusted with sensitive tasks that require discretion and speed, including medical arrangements and the search for Su Xiangwan after she leaves home. The narrative repeatedly places him at the point where Lu Xun’s decisions become organized action.

His position also makes him a witness to the pressure surrounding Lu Xun’s marriage. When Su Xiangwan suddenly disappears, the people around Lu Xun are surprised, yet Gordon is especially careful not to comment openly. His silence reflects the hierarchy within Lu Xun’s circle: the crisis is visible to everyone, but only Lu Xun’s command determines what may be said or done.

Service in Medical and Personal Crises

When Lu Xun decides that Su Xiangwan should be examined by specialists in the capital, he takes out his phone and calls Gordon, instructing him to contact the most famous hospital there. Gordon is thus responsible for converting Lu Xun’s concern about Su Xiangwan’s health into an immediate medical arrangement. The task is practical, but its circumstances reveal the intensity of Lu Xun’s involvement: he wants the problem addressed during the trip rather than left unresolved.

Gordon’s role becomes still more urgent after Su Xiangwan disappears. Lu Xun orders his people to spread out and investigate the areas connected with the people being considered, but the search initially produces no trace. Gordon reports this failure directly, telling Lu Xun that the relevant areas of operation have already been investigated without finding Madame. Lu Xun responds by ordering him to continue searching, and Gordon, visibly ashamed, immediately accepts the command and leaves to resume the work.

The search also shows that Gordon understands more about the available network than he is willing to use at first. He has someone in mind who might help locate Su Xiangwan, but hesitates because that person is still hospitalized and unable to protect himself. Once Gordon’s ordinary investigative efforts fail, however, the possibility becomes harder to avoid. His knowledge of Lu Xun’s associates and of Su Xiangwan’s limited habits makes him an information broker as much as a messenger.

Loyalty, Discipline, and Information Flow

Gordon’s most distinctive trait is disciplined responsiveness. He does not challenge Lu Xun’s orders, even when the search has stalled or the circumstances are embarrassing. His blush of shame after reporting failure suggests that he experiences the boss’s disappointment as a personal professional lapse. The response is not argument but renewed action, reinforcing the structure in which Lu Xun supplies urgency and Gordon supplies execution.

This pattern places Gordon within the larger network surrounding Lu Xun, Su Xiangwan, Lin Yanche, Chu Fei, and their competing households and organizations. He is not a romantic rival, family authority, or political adversary. Instead, he connects otherwise separate zones of the plot. A phone call through Gordon can open access to a major hospital; a search order through him can mobilize personnel across the city; a report from him can tell Lu Xun whether his methods are working. His importance lies in this control of movement and information.

Narrative Function

Gordon’s appearances give material form to Lu Xun’s power. Lu Xun may make decisions in an office, hotel, hospital, or family setting, but Gordon ensures that those decisions do not remain expressions of anger or concern. The aide’s interventions show how private attachment becomes public logistics: anxiety about Su Xiangwan becomes a hospital referral, and fear after her disappearance becomes a coordinated search.

At the same time, Gordon helps preserve the contrast between Lu Xun’s forceful authority and the vulnerability beneath it. Lu Xun can order everyone to continue searching, yet he still depends on Gordon to obtain results. Gordon’s dutiful reports expose the limits of command without supplying melodrama of his own. He is a quiet but essential figure in the novel’s system of loyalty, hierarchy, and action, the person who repeatedly turns Lu Xun’s will into the next movement of the plot.