Every ugly toad thinks that sooner or later he is going to get to eat the meat of a swan

The expression “every ugly toad thinks that sooner or later he is going to get to eat the meat of a swan” is a taunt that casts Rong Jinzhen as an unimpressive figure reaching for an achievement beyond his abilities. In the novel, its force comes from the gap between the deputy division chief’s certainty and the success that follows: Rong decrypts the PURPLE cipher one year later, making the insult an emblem of misjudgment.

Meaning and Use

The saying’s image sets an “ugly toad” against a swan and makes the toad’s imagined access to the swan’s meat sound absurd. The deputy division chief uses it to belittle Rong Jinzhen, presenting ambition as delusion and Rong as someone who has mistaken himself for capable of a task far beyond him. The insult is not an isolated quip: it is the deputy’s final response to Rong’s one-line self-criticism, which had declared that all the world’s secrets were hidden in dreams, ciphers included.

The Insult at Unit 701

The deputy division chief is already unpopular with subordinates in the cryptography division. They advise Rong to write a few lines and put the matter behind him, but Rong’s idea of a sufficient response differs sharply from theirs. The deputy reads Rong’s sentence as evasive and arrogant, then storms to the mountain cave, kicks open the division’s steel door, and confronts him in front of the staff. The proverb is delivered as the deputy’s last word in a public reprimand.

At the time, the insult seems plausible even to those around them. The deputy’s colleagues see no fault in his assessment, and Rong has not yet displayed the intelligence or good fortune that the work appears to demand. The expression therefore speaks for more than one man’s anger: it gives memorable form to the division’s shared underestimation of Rong.

Reversal and Irony

The novel answers the taunt with a sharp change of scale: one year later, Rong decrypts the PURPLE cipher. He has taken on a cipher that others were avoiding, and the result exposes the confidence behind the deputy’s comparison as misplaced. The deputy ultimately pays for his outburst in humiliation and has to leave Unit 701; Rong’s achievement reverses the status relation embedded in the insult.

The account does not settle on a single explanation for Rong’s success. Colleagues speculate that he decrypted the cipher in his sleep, through interpreting a dream, by playing chess, or while reading a novel. What the episode establishes is the result, not a tidy method: Rong’s ability and extraordinary luck overturn the verdict that he was merely an ugly toad dreaming of a swan. The expression thus becomes an ironic refrain, exposing how quickly apparent improbability can be mistaken for incapacity.