Above there is Heaven, and on earth there is Hangzhou and Suzhou.

“Above there is Heaven, and on earth there is Hangzhou and Suzhou.” The saying, recalled by Li Yan during the investigation, celebrates the beauty of two cities while becoming an ironic measure of the horror concealed in one of them: women held in a Suzhou clinic are spending their last days in a place celebrated as heaven on earth.

Meaning and Origin

Nien Mei-Ling had told Li Yan that her family originally came from Hangzhou. At the Green Wave restaurant, she shared the saying that places Hangzhou and Suzhou beneath Heaven as earthly ideals. The phrase carries a generous image of beauty and distinction; in the scene where Li remembers it, that image is inseparable from the person whose words first gave it meaning.

Recall in the Investigation

The saying returns when Huang Tsuo reveals that Cui Feng has a clinic in Suzhou, about sixty kilometres outside Shanghai. Li Yan knows Suzhou for its beauty, which he associates with its description as “The Venice of the East.” The new information gives the remembered saying an immediate, painful relevance: the investigation’s destination is not only a celebrated city but the site of a concealed crime.

Irony and Narrative Role

Huang explains that the women were kept in the clinic’s basement, accessible from the rear only by canal. At night, they could be taken in and out by boat without attracting notice. Against that concrete account of concealment, Li Yan remembers Nien Mei-Ling’s words and sees the cruel contrast: women destined to die on the surgeon’s table had spent their final days and nights in a place Chinese tradition held to be like Heaven on earth. The saying thus shifts from a tribute to beautiful places into an indictment of the violence hidden within one.