Zhang Yi: In Shanghai?

Shenghua: Yes, in Shanghai. When in Shanghai, a place for Li Bai to hide and to operate his radio transceiver was located at Huang’pi’nan’lu Road ( another translation was Huangpi Rd, South) Li Bai was the radio operator. When it came to the winter of 1939, Gong Yinbing, who was in charge of CCP underground work in Shanghai, said to Tu Zuochao:＂we have decided to let Li Bai, the operator, learn radio engineering, thus a complete radio talent both for operation and for engineering, able to build and repair the transceiver, a radio operator and the concurrent radio engineer. So a program was worked out and the leadership had approved Tu Zuochao’s program. Therefore, a residence shop house was rented. Located at the crossing of Weihaiwei Road and Qinghai Road. Weihaiwei Road is 338 Weihai Road now. The shop was named Fu Sheng Radio Company, meaning Happy Voice. Tu Zuochao was the boss and the concurrent master. Li Bai was the accountant and the concurrent apprentice. Tu Zuochao and his family lived on the second floor. Li Bai and his wife lived on the third floor. The third floor was a loft and the ground floor was for business. From the winter of 1939 to the autumn of 1941, in totally 1 year and 9 months, Li Bai had basically mastered all the necessary radio engineering skills. Tu Zuchao had taught him what all he could teach.

Screen cuts from The Eternal Wave: Why don’t you work here? It is too hot upstairs, asked the heroine.

Hero Li Xia: We shall in no case expose the nature of our work.

Screen cuts continue, Li Xia took his radio set from his bedroom upstairs to the loft…

Shenghua Tu: As we saw from the movie The Eternal Wave, before Li Xia was arrested, there is one such scene whereas he was going to operate his radio transceiver and took that radio set upstairs to the loft. The audience would ask: why you take your radio set for radio operation? What is that radio set for? His signal receiver, well, was exactly hidden inside his radio set. A super heterodyne radio set had been built in advance. The automatic gain (volume) control inside had been changed to manual gain (volume) control. When it was used as a signal receiver, only 2 temporary coils were connected thus a temporary signal receiver. (notes by this translator and curator – I made a mistake during the interview. Should have been receiver, not transmitter as I had said. Besides, the actual part to change the radio set to a temporary signal receiver was one 4-inch long thin wire only. This secret was disclosed in 2009 when the third elder brother Yanhua of this translator had succeeded in copying the operational model for the spy signal receiver.) When the autumn came in 1941, Tu Zuochao reported to Gong Yinbing: