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“The chief of the bureau was a thin, bald man, who looked serene and intelligent. His slim hands handled the written pages in the folder like those of a lecturing scholar. To Mr. Chiu’s left sat a young scribe, with a clipboard on his knee and a black fountain pen in his hand.” 

This is the moment in which Mr. Chiu first encounters the chief of the Muji Railroad Police, the man who ultimately holds Mr. Chiu’s fate in his hands. In other circumstances, if the situation had been very different, the chief might have been the sort of man Mr. Chiu would have had a cordial discussion with. The chief has the appearance of a lecturer and a thinker of the sort that Mr. Chiu spends his days working alongside. In his own way, the chief is a professor like Mr. Chiu, but he dispenses a lesson on law and civil responsibility. His manner seems to be removed from the brash hooliganism displayed by the two policemen, and he is a man of some refinement. However, he lays out the charges against Mr. Chiu in a businesslike manner and cares nothing for Mr. Chiu’s word that the policemen were responsible. In this moment, it becomes clear that the chief is just the same as the two policemen under his command. 

“‘You may have seen your lawyer. He’s a young man without manners, so our director had him taught a crash lesson in the backyard.’ 

‘It’s illegal to do that. Aren’t you afraid to appear in a newspaper?’

‘No we are not, not even on TV. What else can you do? We are not afraid of any story you make up. We call it fiction.’”

This moment after his weekend in jail makes it very clear that the entire system is turned against Mr. Chiu, and the only way out is for him to sign the false confession. The police chief reveals himself in this moment to be just as brutal as the two policemen, except he inflicts his blows with words. The police chief reveals that he is secure in his position as the head of law enforcement, and he fears no repercussions from the judicial system or from the news media. His description of Fenjin’s torture as a crash lesson reiterates that he too is a scholarly man, except that his lessons involve cruelty and corruption. It is also a mocking of sorts of Mr. Chiu’s profession as a teacher and lecturer, and therefore a reminder that he has no way out of his situation unless he complies with the chief’s orders.

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