Master Rong

Master Rong is Young Lillie’s daughter and Rong Jinzhen’s older sister by family upbringing, though their place in the family tree made their formal generational relationship more complicated. Her recollections connect Jinzhen’s uncertain beginnings to the household that eventually welcomed him, then follow the consequences of his long absence: during a political struggle session, he intervenes to save her, and the authority attached to his work protects the family afterward. Her testimony also makes clear that his rescue did not dispel the mystery surrounding him.

Family and Jinzhen’s Place in the Household

Master Rong’s account situates Jinzhen within a family history marked by loss and disputed belonging. Before his birth, Young Lillie persuaded the Rong household to shelter an unmarried pregnant woman by telling the family that she was devout, had grown up in a nunnery, and had discovered her pregnancy after praying at Putuo Mountain. The explanation did not make the circumstances certain, and the child’s birth brought a further shock: he looked like the Killer, the notorious son of the family. A resemblance to his grandmother helped save him from abandonment, but the Rongs initially did not recognize him as one of their own.

Jinzhen’s first years were spent in the Rong mansion, cared for by an elderly servant couple. Later, after Master Rong’s younger sister Yinzhi died at seventeen, the family learned that Jinzhen existed. Young Lillie had kept the boy in the home of Cheng, a primary-school headmaster near the West Gate. Once Master Rong’s mother heard about the boy’s hardships, intelligence, and the old foreign gentleman’s request concerning him, she urged Young Lillie to bring him home. Jinzhen thereby entered the household as Master Rong’s younger brother. The family’s everyday forms of address did not match its formal genealogy: he called her Sis, while she and her mother called him Zhendi, and Young Lillie alone called him Jinzhen.

The Recruitment Visit

Master Rong’s recollection of Zheng the Gimp’s visit shows how Jinzhen’s unusual abilities first became connected, in the family’s view, with undisclosed state work. She opened the door to Zheng without recognizing him as the mysterious man people in the department had been discussing. Young Lillie introduced them after realizing who their visitor was. Master Rong asked what sort of work Zheng wanted someone to do; he described it only as important work involving national security. Asked whether the importance concerned humanity or the country’s development, he did not offer more detail.

Zheng was dissatisfied with the candidates he had considered and spoke dismissively of the results of his search. Young Lillie responded that he knew someone suitable. The scene places Master Rong close to the moment when Jinzhen’s recruitment was set in motion, while also showing the limits of what the family was told: she could identify the work as a matter of national security, but its nature remained concealed.

Persecution and Jinzhen’s Return

During the Cultural Revolution, Master Rong and a colleague were subjected to a public struggle session outside the chemistry department. Students and professors had gathered, and the proceedings continued through the day. By late afternoon, the two accused professors could no longer stand and were kneeling when three men arrived in a military-numbered jeep. The short man among them announced that they had come to take Rong Yinyi away. The intervention was not simply an unexplained rescue: the arriving group had come for Master Rong, and another vehicle soon brought Jinzhen into the scene.

Master Rong did not recognize him at first. Ten years had passed; he was much thinner and wore old-fashioned spectacles with very thick lenses. She realized who he was when he called her Sis. In the confusion, Jinzhen told her not to be afraid and said he would get someone to save her. His arrival changed the course of the public accusation. He repeated slogans, removed his own Red Guard armband, and tied it to Master Rong’s arm; others joined the shouting. The session ended with her no longer being treated as a counter-revolutionary. The apparent public ritual of condemnation became, through Jinzhen’s intervention, a means of ending it.

Protection, Distance, and the Family’s New Status

Master Rong’s account stresses how strange Jinzhen’s return remained even after it had saved her. He arrived the day after the family sent a telegram, but the circumstances of his life during the preceding decade were still unknown to them. Armed and plain-clothes personnel stayed close to him, restricted what the family could ask, searched the house, and refused his request to visit Young Lillie’s tomb. He was allowed to stay overnight only after Master Rong and her mother insisted. The precautions made his power visible while keeping its source obscure.

The family learned only a few personal facts: Jinzhen was alive and had married a woman surnamed Di who worked in the same unit. His wife could not accompany him on the visit, and she sent Master Rong’s mother a letter and 200 yuan in a thick envelope. The small amount of family news stood in sharp contrast to the arrangements around him and the limits imposed on his visit.

Three days after Jinzhen left, a representative from his work unit brought a document bearing the letterhead of the PLA Military Region headquarters and the Provincial Revolutionary Committee. It stated that the Central Politburo, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission had recognized him as a Hero of the Revolution. The order extended protection to his family: outsiders could not enter their home without permission, and their revolutionary credentials could not be attacked. A handwritten warning from the local Military Region commander threatened punishment for anyone who disobeyed. Master Rong’s family treasured the document; it helped them avoid further trouble, enabled her brother to return to N University from Shanghai, and later helped him obtain permission to go abroad for superconductivity research, which he could not continue in the country.

What Master Rong Knows—and Cannot Know

The recognition and protection did not tell Master Rong what Jinzhen had accomplished. She heard a departmental rumour that he had played a key role in the nuclear weapons programme, and considered it plausible because the dates appeared to fit and such work would explain the secrecy and authority surrounding him. Her account presents this as an inference, not confirmed knowledge. The gap between what his actions changed for the family and what the family could know about his work remains central to her portrayal.

That gap appears again when Jan Liseiwicz passed through C City under the supervision of Chinese and Country X minders. Unable to visit N University, he met Master Rong at a hotel, where guards monitored and recorded their conversation. Jan Liseiwicz wanted news of Jinzhen. Master Rong could tell him only that her brother had stopped working on artificial intelligence and moved on to something else. Jan Liseiwicz reacted with horror and called the change appalling. The encounter disclosed the depth of Jinzhen’s separation from his former life: Master Rong could report what he had left behind, but neither she nor Jan Liseiwicz could reach him or explain what had replaced it. Her role in the narrative is therefore both intimate and limited—she is the sister whose life Jinzhen saves, and a witness to the consequences of his hidden career, not a confidante who possesses its secrets.