One morning in April 2020, Ranawaka Perera cooked fried eggs and tomatoes for his wife, Li-Meng Yan. When she said she wasn’t hungry, he pressed her to eat anyway. Lately, Dr. Yan had been so anxious that at times she felt she could barely breathe, and Dr. Perera was worried about her health.

2020年4月的一个早晨，拉纳瓦卡·佩雷拉为妻子闫丽梦做了番茄炒蛋。她说自己不饿，佩雷拉劝她多少还是吃一点。最近，闫博士焦虑得有时几乎喘不过气来，佩雷拉博士对她的健康状况感到担心。

Everyone they knew was stressed in early 2020. The couple both worked at a prestigious lab at the University of Hong Kong, where they researched viruses, including an alarming new coronavirus that was spreading around the globe.

2020年初，他们认识的每个人都压力重重。夫妻二人都在香港大学的一个知名实验室工作，研究方向是病毒，其中包括一种当时正在全球蔓延、引发警惕的新型冠状病毒。

But Dr. Yan was convinced that the prevailing theory that Covid-19 had emerged from a live-animal market in the city of Wuhan was false, and that the truth was much darker. She believed the Chinese government had purposefully grown the virus in a lab and released it to set off a deadly pandemic.

但闫丽梦坚信当时的主流观点是错误的，即新冠病毒源于武汉一家贩卖活体动物市场的理论，她认为真相更为骇人。她认为中国政府在实验室故意培育该病毒并将其释放，从而引发了这场致命的大流行病。

Dr. Perera, an experienced virologist, didn’t rule out the possibility of a lab accident. But that would have been far different from a deliberate release, and he told Dr. Yan, who was relatively new to their field, that it was too soon to know where the virus had come from, if they ever would. He resolved to spend less time at the lab so he could care for his wife. After breakfast, he told her, he had planned a journey to a secluded beach. Dr. Yan loved the sea.

佩雷拉是一名经验丰富的病毒学家，他并不排除实验室意外的可能性。但那与蓄意释放病毒完全不是一回事，他告诉在他们领域里相对资浅的闫丽梦，现在断言病毒源头还为时过早，甚至可能永远都无法确定。他决定减少在实验室的时间，以便照顾妻子。吃完早餐后，他告诉她，打算带她去一处僻静的海滩；她一直很喜欢大海。

His attempts to calm her failed. A few days later, Dr. Perera returned from work to find that his wife had fled their home. She left no clues to where she had gone, but there was a cryptic note scribbled on their chalkboard that referenced their pet nicknames for each other.

但他的安抚没有奏效。几天后，佩雷拉下班回家，发现妻子已经离家出走。她没有留下任何去向线索，只在家中的黑板上潦草地写了一句带有他们之间爱称的留言：

“Yoyo love Bingo forever,” it said.

“悠悠永远爱宾果，”上面这样写道。

Soon Dr. Perera would learn that Dr. Yan had for some time been in contact with powerful allies of the Trump administration, people who had their own incentives for blaming the pandemic on China.

佩雷拉很快得知，闫丽梦早已与特朗普政府的重要盟友建立了联系，这些人各自都有将疫情归咎于中国的动机。

Her plane ticket to the United States had been paid for by a foundation tied to Mr. Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon, and the exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. They had placed her in a series of “safe houses” once she arrived and had arranged for her to meet some of the president’s top advisers.

为她购买赴美机票的是一个与特朗普前首席策略师史蒂夫·班农以及流亡的中国富豪郭文贵有关的基金会。在她抵达后，他们将其安置于多处“安全屋”，并安排她与总统的一些高级顾问会面。

Later that summer, he watched in shock as Dr. Yan became a talking head on the MAGA media circuit in the United States, with repeated appearances on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News TV show promoting her origin theories.

那个夏天晚些时候，佩雷拉震惊地看到闫丽梦频频在美国的MAGA媒体上发表评论，还多次出现在塔克·卡尔森的福克斯新闻节目中，宣扬她的病毒起源理论。

“The whole arc of the story and the counternarrative that we put out about Covid, a lot of it was because of Dr. Yan,” Mr. Bannon said in a recent interview. “She became a media star.”

班农在最近的一次采访中说：“我们构建的整个疫情反叙事故事线，很大程度上得益于闫博士。她成了媒体明星。”

In the years since, neither Dr. Perera nor Dr. Yan’s parents, with whom she was close, have been able to find her or communicate with her, though they have tried desperately.

过去几年里，佩雷拉和与闫丽梦关系原本很亲密的父母尽管用尽了各种办法都一直无法找到她，也无法与她取得任何联系。

Dr. Perera got a job at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021 so he could move to the United States and more easily search for his wife. He has traveled the country, begging for help not just from the men who facilitated her move but from police officers, F.B.I. agents, the State Department, powerhouse lawyers, private detectives, even cult deprogrammers. Nothing has worked.

2021年，佩雷拉在宾夕法尼亚大学找到了一份工作，以便能搬到美国，方便寻找妻子。他在全美各处奔走求助，不仅找到协助她来到美国的人，还求助于警察、联邦调查局探员、国务院、顶级律师、私人侦探，甚至是邪教脱离辅导师。但所有努力均告徒劳。

That is because Dr. Yan does not want to be found.

这是因为她不想被人找到。

In a series of video interviews with The New York Times from undisclosed locations, Dr. Yan said she believes her family has been coerced by the Chinese government to lure her back to China, where she said she fears she will be retaliated against.

在一系列未披露的地点接受《纽约时报》视频采访时，闫丽梦表示，她认为家人受到了中国政府的胁迫，目的是诱使她回国，而她担心自己回去后会遭到报复。

Dr. Yan’s relatives strongly deny any such connection — in fact, they concede that it’s reasonable for her to worry about returning to China after publicly criticizing the government for so long. But they also think that she fell under another kind of control, this one exerted by those who they believe exploited her for their own political gain. Because of them, they said, Dr. Yan is now effectively trapped in the United States, her once-promising career and happy marriage destroyed.

她的家人强烈否认与政府存在任何这样的联系——事实上，他们承认，在长期公开批评政府后，闫丽梦对返回中国的担忧是合情合理的。但他们也认为，她落入了另一种控制之下，施加这种控制的人在他们看来是为了自身政治利益而利用她。正是因为这些人，闫丽梦如今实际上被困在了美国，她原本一片光明的事业和幸福婚姻都被毁了。

For the first time, both Dr. Yan and her husband have shared the full details of their family’s story: Dr. Perera’s, the tale of a husband who moved halfway around the world to try to save his wife; Dr. Yan’s, the story of a wife who doesn’t want to be saved.

闫丽梦和她的丈夫首次详尽分享了这个家庭的故事：佩雷拉讲述的是一个丈夫远渡重洋试图拯救妻子的故事；而闫丽梦则讲了一个并不想被拯救的妻子的故事。

“I just want to talk to her directly, and make sure that she’s safe,” Dr. Perera said. “If she’s safe, and doesn’t want to be with me, I can move on. But not until I know exactly what happened. She is the person I love the most.”

“我只想直接和她谈谈，确保她平安无事，”佩雷拉说。“如果她平安无事，并且不想和我在一起，我可以放手。但除非我确切知道发生了什么，否则做不到。她是我最爱的人。”

A Promising Research Career

前途光明的科研生涯

Dr. Yan grew up in Qingdao, a port city in eastern China. As the only child, she was often the center of attention, said her mother, Angel Zhao, who described her daughter, whom she still calls Meng-Meng, as a thoughtful, smart and obedient girl. Ms. Zhao said she and her husband had tried to encourage her passions, whether that meant reading all day in the library or swimming in the sea.

闫丽梦在中国东部的港口城市青岛长大。她的母亲安吉尔·赵说，这个家中唯一的孩子是他们的掌上明珠。她仍然叫女儿梦梦，说她是一个体贴、聪明、听话的孩子。赵女士说，她和丈夫一直鼓励女儿追求自己的兴趣，无论是整天在图书馆看书，还是在海里游泳。

Her grandfather, a renowned doctor, inspired Dr. Yan’s career. At first she decided to be an ophthalmologist because she found it too upsetting to treat people with terminal illnesses. But she later decided to pursue research and moved for a postdoctoral role in stem cell research at the University of Hong Kong.

闫丽梦的祖父是位名医，这激发了她从医的志向。最初她选择成为眼科医生，因为她觉得治疗绝症患者令人过于难受。但后来她决定转向科研领域，并赴香港大学从事干细胞研究的博士后工作。

That’s where she met Dr. Perera, who is from Sri Lanka. He worked as a virologist at a university laboratory affiliated with the World Health Organization, alongside some of the top virologists in the world. After a few years of friendship, Dr. Perera and Dr. Yan married in 2014, and she started working in his department soon after.

正是在那里，她遇到了来自斯里兰卡的佩雷拉。佩雷拉当时是一家世界卫生组织下属大学实验室的病毒学家，该实验室拥有一众世界顶尖病毒学家。经过数年交往，两人于2014年结婚，婚后不久闫丽梦便开始在丈夫的部门工作。

Dr. Perera described their prepandemic marriage as a loving relationship built on mutual trust. When they did argue, he said, it was often because Dr. Perera, who at 51 is nine years older, felt that Dr. Yan was too gullible; Dr. Yan would counter that he was too cynical. But serious fights were rare. Friends and colleagues would remark that even after years of marriage the couple still held hands and were affectionate. Their WhatsApp messages to each other, provided by Dr. Perera, were filled with heart-eyed emojis and kissy faces. Texts show that they discussed trying to have a baby shortly before Dr. Yan left for the United States.

佩雷拉将他们在疫情前的婚姻描述为建立在互信基础上的恩爱关系。他说，两人偶尔发生争执，通常是因为51岁的佩雷拉（比闫丽梦年长九岁）觉得妻子过于轻信他人，而闫丽梦则会反驳丈夫总把事情往坏了想。但严重的争吵很少发生。朋友和同事都感叹，即便结婚多年，这对夫妇还是会经常手拉着手，恩爱如初。佩雷拉提供的WhatsApp聊天记录显示，两人的对话夹杂了很多爱心眼和亲吻表情符号。信息内容表明，在闫丽梦启程前往美国前不久，他们还在讨论尝试生育孩子的事。

闫丽梦的母亲安吉尔·赵仍然叫女儿梦梦，说她是一个体贴、聪明、听话的孩子。

At the end of 2019, Dr. Yan’s supervisor, Leo Poon, called her into his office with a question. He wanted to know if she could ask her friends from medical school in China if they had heard anything about a new coronavirus — one that was circulating in the city of Wuhan, though officials were claiming it was not contagious.

2019年底，闫丽梦的导师潘烈文将她叫到办公室，询问她能否向中国的医学院朋友打听是否听说过一种新型冠状病毒的消息——这种病毒当时已在武汉传播，但官方声称其不具备传染性。

Dr. Yan did what was asked and was shocked by what she heard.

闫丽梦照做了，但听到的消息令她震惊。

One doctor told her that the virus, Covid-19, in fact appeared transmissible between humans. She also heard rumors implicating the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Dr. Yan reported the information back and was dismayed when Dr. Poon didn’t leap into action.

一位医生告诉她，这种新冠病毒实际上似乎能在人际间传播。她还听到了涉及武汉病毒研究所的传闻。闫丽梦将信息反馈后，发现潘烈文并未立即采取行动，这让她深感不安。

Dr. Poon declined to answer specific questions about the encounter but said the meeting had not been unusual and that there had been no secrecy involved.

潘烈文拒绝回答关于那次会面的具体问题，但表示那次见面并无异常，也不存在任何保密内容。

When Dr. Yan complained to her husband that her supervisors hadn’t acted on her concerns, he told her to be patient.

当闫丽梦向丈夫抱怨上级没有对她的担忧采取行动时，他让她耐心一点。

Instead, as the Chinese government downplayed the dangers of the virus and moved to silence medical whistle-blowers, she reached out to Wang Dinggang, a former businessman from China who ran a YouTube channel from the United States on which he regularly criticized the leadership in Beijing. His outlet was one of many geared toward the Chinese diaspora that, as The Times has reported, were often rife with misinformation and supported by the conservative American media.

然而，随着中国政府淡化病毒的危险并开始压制医疗系统内的吹哨人，她联系了王定刚（音）——这位前中国商人在美国运营着一个YouTube频道，经常批评北京领导人。他的平台是众多面向海外华人的媒体之一，而据《纽约时报》报道，这类媒体中常常充斥虚假信息，并得到美国保守派媒体的支持。

Dr. Perera said he had noticed how scared and upset his wife became whenever she had spoken with Mr. Wang. He advised her to cut off contact with the YouTuber, and Dr. Yan didn’t bring him up again. As winter turned into spring, they both continued working hard in the lab.

佩雷拉说，他注意到妻子每次与王定刚交谈后都变得异常恐惧和不安。他建议她与这位YouTube博主断绝联系，闫丽梦之后也没再提起过他。冬去春来，两人继续在实验室埋头工作。

Dr. Perera was so busy that he didn’t realize just how preoccupied his wife still was until early one morning in mid-April, when Dr. Yan received a call while the couple was in bed. It was Mr. Wang, who claimed to have learned that the Chinese government wanted to silence her.

佩雷拉工作很忙，直到4月中旬一个清晨，他才意识到妻子仍深陷困扰。那天早上，夫妻俩还没起床，闫丽梦接到一个电话。打来电话的是王定刚，他声称听说中国政府想封她的口。

After they got off the phone, Dr. Yan started to panic. She confessed to her husband that she had continued speaking with Mr. Wang and begged him to move with her to the United States. She said she was under the impression that his high-powered contacts there could help protect her and arrange jobs for them.

挂断电话后，闫丽梦开始惊慌失措。她向丈夫坦白自己一直与王保持联系，并恳求他一起移居美国。她说她觉得王定刚在美国拥有强大人脉，既能保护她的安全，又能为他们安排工作。

Dr. Perera told his wife he was open to moving but wanted to wait until they had secured stable jobs at good universities. When Dr. Yan insisted they leave immediately, he grew frustrated, arguing that Mr. Wang was trying to manipulate her for his own purposes.

佩雷拉告诉妻子，他愿意搬去美国，但希望等找到好大学的稳定工作再行动。当闫丽梦坚持立即离开时，他感到十分恼火，认为王定刚在操纵她，为自己的目的利用她。

In a written statement, Mr. Wang said that Dr. Yan had come to the United States based on her own assessment of her safety risks.

在一份书面声明中，王定刚表示，闫丽梦是出于自己对安全风险的判断前往美国的。

“There was no ‘urging’ or inducement of any kind,” he wrote. “Any assistance I provided was purely humanitarian and rooted in principle — not in ‘political gain,’ which has no connection to my work.”

“不存在任何‘催促’或诱导，”他写道。“我提供的所有帮助纯属人道主义且基于原则——而非所谓的‘政治利益’，那与我的工作毫无关系。”

In the days after the call, Dr. Yan’s heart wouldn’t stop racing. Dr. Perera convinced her to go to the doctor for her heart palpitations and tried to calm and cheer her as best he could, but nothing seemed to work.

通话后的几天里，闫丽梦一直心悸不已。佩雷拉劝她去看医生，检查心悸问题，还尽量安抚鼓励她，但似乎没什么用。

In general, Dr. Perera said, Dr. Yan could be emotionally volatile. Her nickname was Yoyo because she was “so up and down,” Dr. Perera said. (His was Bingo because he greeted her with the enthusiasm of a dog.) And these were not normal times. On top of the pandemic, there had recently been a monthslong crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, some of whom had disappeared, just as Mr. Wang had warned would happen to Dr. Yan.

总体而言，佩雷拉说，闫丽梦的情绪波动很大。她的昵称叫悠悠就是因为她“情绪起伏很大”（此处悠悠是指上下摆动的悠悠球。——译注）。（而他的昵称叫宾果则是因为他每次跟她打招呼都非常热情，跟一只小狗一样。）而当时也绝非正常时期。除了疫情，香港的民主抗争者也刚经历了长达数月的镇压，有些人失踪了，王定刚警告闫丽梦，她也会落得这样的下场。

Soon after their fight, Dr. Perera arrived home to that final chalkboard message.

在他们吵架后不久，佩雷拉回到家，看到了黑板上最后的留言。

His wife was gone.

他的妻子已经离开了。

A Star on Fox News

福克斯新闻的明星

Dr. Yan arrived in April to a shut-down New York, its streets silent but for the sound of sirens. At first, she kept in touch with her husband and her parents, assuring them that she was safe and under the protection of lawyers and government officials. Increasingly convinced that the Chinese military had developed and released the virus, she encouraged Dr. Perera to join her.

闫丽梦于4月抵达纽约，此时纽约已经处于停摆状态，街头一片寂静，只有警笛的鸣响。起初，她还与丈夫和父母保持着联系，让他们放心，说她很安全，而且有律师和政府的保护。她越来越相信是中国军方制造并释放了病毒，于是她开始鼓动佩雷拉来美国找她。

But he and her parents instead begged her to reconsider.

但他和她的父母却恳求她重新考虑。

“We need real experts to help interpret those data,” Dr. Perera explained to her over WhatsApp. “This will ruin your reputation and after that no one will believe you.”

“我们需要真正的专家帮忙解读那些数据，”佩雷拉通过WhatsApp向她解释。“这会毁了你的名誉，以后就不会有人再相信你了。”

One day, Dr. Yan told her parents something “very big” was in the works, Ms. Zhao recalled.

赵女士回忆说，有一天，闫丽梦告诉父母，有一件“非常大的事”正在进行中。

The next time she heard her daughter’s voice was on Fox News, where Dr. Yan introduced herself to the world.

她再次听到女儿的声音时，是在福克斯新闻上，闫丽梦向全世界介绍了自己。

Mr. Perera traveled briefly to New York, but it was too late. Dr. Yan no longer wanted to see him. After that July, she never spoke with her parents or her husband again.

佩雷拉曾短暂赶到纽约，但为时已晚。闫丽梦已经不愿再见他。那年7月之后，她再也没有和父母或丈夫说过话。

They watched in disbelief as Dr. Yan was embraced by conservative media outlets and prominent Republicans like Rudolph Giuliani, who posed for photos with her at his home.

他们难以置信地看着闫丽梦受到了保守派媒体以及像鲁道夫·朱利安尼这样的知名共和党人的认可，后者甚至在家中与她合影。

郭文贵与史蒂夫·班农。

By April 2020, without providing any evidence, Mr. Trump and his allies, many of whom were eager to confront China, had begun pushing the theory that Covid-19 came from a lab.

到2020年4月，特朗普和他的盟友——其中许多人急于对抗中国——开始推动新冠病毒来自实验室的说法，尽管没有提供任何证据。

For them, Dr. Yan was a godsend, a credentialed scientist who had worked at a World Health Organization-affiliated lab with some of the world’s top virologists. (They ignored the fact that she, herself, was not one of them.)

对他们而言，闫丽梦简直是天上掉下来的礼物——她是一名有资历的科学家，曾在世界卫生组织下属的实验室工作，该实验室拥有一批世界顶级的病毒学家。（他们忽略了一个事实：这批顶尖病毒学家并不包括闫丽梦。）

Once Mr. Bannon felt confident that Dr. Yan was ready to go public, he helped plan her Fox News appearance, he said.

班农表示，在确信闫丽梦已经准备好公开露面后，他开始协助策划她在福克斯新闻的亮相。

“She was very plain spoken, with no political agenda,” he said. “She’s kind of a nerd.”

“她说话很直白，没有政治议程，”他说。“她有点书呆子气。”

Documents obtained by The Times show that on July 31, 2020, a foundation linked to Mr. Guo agreed to pay Dr. Yan $10,000 a month to support her in a “shared mission of exposing corruption within the Chinese Communist Party and throughout the world.”

《纽约时报》获取的文件显示，2020年7月31日，与郭文贵有关联的一个基金会同意每月向闫丽梦支付1万美元，以支持她“揭露中共及全球各地腐败行为的共同使命”。

武汉病毒研究所。多年来，外界一直在争论新冠病毒是否从这座位于中国武汉的研究实验室泄漏。

Mr. Bannon said he had also connected her with as many of President Trump’s advisers as possible, in particular Peter Navarro, a longtime Trump confidant and a prominent China hawk who is now the White House’s trade adviser, and Steven Hatfill, then a White House adviser who until recently held another senior role at the Department of Health and Human Services.

班农表示，他还尽可能让特朗普的多位顾问与她会面，特别是彼得·纳瓦罗——特朗普的长期亲信、著名的对华强硬派、现任白宫贸易顾问——以及当时的白宫顾问史蒂文·哈特菲尔，直到最近他还在美国卫生与公众服务部担任高级职位。

“The Fauci crowd dismissed her, but we made sure people in the White House knew exactly what was going on,” Mr. Bannon said.

“福奇那群人对她不屑一顾，但我们确保白宫的人清楚怎么回事，”班农说。

Mr. Navarro said he couldn’t recall if he had ever met Dr. Yan. Dr. Hatfill and Mr. Guo did not respond to requests for comment.

纳瓦罗表示，他不记得自己是否见过闫丽梦。哈特菲尔和郭文贵没有回应置评请求。

From abroad, Dr. Perera and Ms. Zhao frantically tried to appeal to the men who appeared to be surrounding Dr. Yan, but they never heard back.

身在海外的佩雷拉和赵女士曾急切地联系那些似乎围绕在闫丽梦身边的人，但从未得到过回应。

Instead, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Guo and others used their media outlets to amplify claims that Dr. Perera wanted to harm his wife.

相反，班农、郭文贵等人利用他们的媒体渠道放大了一种说法，称佩雷拉想伤害他的妻子。

“From now on, she will forget about the tears of her parents and the threats from her husband,” Mr. Guo told his followers.

“从今以后，她会忘记父母的眼泪和丈夫的威胁，”郭文贵对他的追随者们说。

To support her bioweapon theory, Dr. Yan published a paper online in September, on an open-access repository with no peer review. She then appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and confidently wielded the report as proof that Covid-19 was “not from nature.”

为了支持她的生物武器说，闫丽梦于9月在一个没有同行评议的开放网站上发表了一篇论文。随后，她在塔克·卡尔森的福克斯新闻节目中亮相，自信地将该报告作为证据，声称新冠病毒“并非来自自然界”。

闫丽梦在9月接受塔克·卡尔森节目的采访，在线点击量至少达到880万。

The mainstream scientific community quickly and thoroughly attacked the paper, which claimed that puzzling features of the virus could only be explained if it had been designed by the Chinese military.

这篇论文断言，病毒令人费解的特征只能被解释为中国人民解放军的设计使然，相关说法立即遭到主流科学界的全面批驳。

Researchers at Johns Hopkins released a point-by-point rebuttal, stating that Dr. Yan’s key claims were flawed and misinterpreted and that the report provided no proof for its sweeping accusations of a cover-up.

约翰斯·霍普金斯大学的研究人员逐条反驳，指出闫丽梦的关键论点存在缺陷和误读，并且该报告没有提供任何证据来支持其关于掩盖行动的笼统指控。

Dr. Yan’s former employers at the University of Hong Kong also released a statement clarifying that she was a postdoctoral fellow with limited experience.

闫丽梦曾供职的香港大学也发表声明，澄清她只是经验有限的博士后研究员。

It was painful for Dr. Perera to watch as his wife’s professional reputation was dismantled. Years later, he still hasn’t been able to bring himself to read the paper, preferring to preserve the memory of the ambitious and talented scientist he remembers her to be.

看着妻子的专业声誉毁于一旦，佩雷拉感到十分痛苦。过去了数年，他仍无法说服自己去读那篇论文，宁愿保留心中那个雄心勃勃、才华横溢的科学家的记忆。

The debate over whether the virus originated from a lab accident or an animal-to-human transmission has continued into the present. American intelligence agencies remain divided on the issue. But virtually none of the scientists who lean toward the lab leak theory have suggested that the virus was deliberately released. China, meanwhile, has disputed that Covid started in Wuhan at all.

关于病毒是源于实验室泄漏还是动物传人的争论持续至今。美国情报机构在这个问题上仍然存在分歧。但即便是倾向于实验室泄漏说的科学家当中，也几乎没有人认为病毒是被故意释放的。与此同时，中国则对新冠始于武汉的说法予以反驳。

In 2021, Dr. Perera moved to the United States to keep searching for his wife, and continues today. Just a few months ago, he tried once more to reach out to Dr. Yan directly, emailing an address associated with her online.

2021年，佩雷拉搬到美国继续寻妻，至今仍在努力。就在几个月前，他再次尝试直接联系闫丽梦，向一个与她相关的邮箱发去邮件。

“I would like to talk with Dr. Limeng Yan because some people told her lies about me to control her,” he wrote. “I want her to know that I’m not working with ANYONE in China/HK/USA that wishes any form of harm upon her.”

他写道：“我想和闫丽梦博士谈谈，因为有人向她说谎诋毁我，企图控制她。我想让她知道，我没有和中国/香港/美国任何意图伤害她的人合作。”

But as before, there was no response.

但和以前一样，没有回音。

Dr. Perera said he accepted that Dr. Yan might not want to be married to him any longer. But he can’t rest without knowing she is safe.

佩雷拉说，他已经接受闫丽梦可能不想继续维持这段婚姻的事实。但在确认她平安之前，他无法安心。

“I want her to be free, because she did not grow up in a free society that values human freedom,” he said. “I can move on when I know the truth of what happened to her.”

“我希望她能获得自由，因为她不是在一个真正重视自由的社会中长大的，”他说。“只有知道她究竟发生了什么，我才能继续往前走。”

In Hiding

藏匿

The truth is that Dr. Yan is not lost. She’s in hiding.

事实是，闫丽梦并没有失踪。她只是藏匿了起来。

She said she had agreed to be interviewed to raise awareness of her work, but would only confirm she was somewhere in the United States, because she believes that many people are still trying to find her. When she learned that The Times had interviewed her husband and her mother, she was furious.

她说，她之所以同意接受采访，是为了让更多人关注她的工作，但她只愿确认自己在美国的某个地方，因为她认为仍然有许多人在试图找到她。当得知《纽约时报》采访了她的丈夫和母亲后，她极为愤怒。

“For over five years, the C.C.P. has used my parents and Mahen as tools to lure me back, attempting to carry out a ‘perfect crime’ to erase the truth about the virus and avoid accountability,” she said in a statement, referring to the Chinese Communist Party and the name she uses for Dr. Perera.

“五年多来，中共一直利用我的父母和马亨作为诱饵，试图引我回国，实施一场‘完美犯罪’——掩盖病毒真相，逃避责任，”她在声明中写道。这里的马亨是她对佩雷拉的称呼。

In the video interviews, Dr. Yan said she had been affected by the Chinese government’s repressive authoritarianism from an early age. For her, the research job in Hong Kong and her marriage to a non-Chinese man had represented an escape.

在视频采访中，闫丽梦表示，自己从小深受中国政府高压威权体制的影响。对她而言，前往香港从事研究工作以及与一位非华裔男性结婚，都意味着一种逃离。

She told the same story as her husband and mother had about her life up until the pandemic. Yes, her childhood was “very happy.” Yes, she had once thought Dr. Perera was “her soul mate.”

她对自己疫情前人生的描述，与丈夫和母亲的叙述基本一致。是的，童年确实“非常快乐”。是的，她曾认为佩雷拉是“灵魂伴侣”。

She said she had left ophthalmology behind because she wanted to become a top expert in a field where she could help more people. The coveted lab position was a dream come true, but it had shattered when her supervisor dismissed her concerns about the virus.

她说自己之所以放弃眼科，是因为想在一个能够帮助更多人的领域成为顶尖专家。梦寐以求的实验室职位原本像梦想成真，但当自己的导师忽视她对病毒的担忧时，这个梦想破碎了。

王定刚（左）是一位YouTube主播，经常批评中国政府，右边为经常跟他搭档主持的安红。2020年1月，王定刚突然将注意力转向武汉暴发的新冠疫情。

In his first YouTube report that she contributed to while still in Hong Kong, Mr. Wang referred to Dr. Yan as the “world’s absolute top coronavirus expert” and said she had told him that China’s claims that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission were false. The day after the report aired, the Chinese government admitted that the virus was contagious, and Wuhan went on lockdown shortly after.

在闫丽梦仍居香港时协助制作的首个YouTube节目中，王定刚称她为“世界顶尖的冠状病毒专家”，并透露她曾告知：中国声称“没有证据表明人传人”是假的。节目播出后的第二天，中国政府承认病毒具有传染性，不久武汉封城。

There was no proof that the YouTube segment was responsible for the government’s admission — other Chinese scientists had also warned that the virus could be transmitted between humans — but Dr. Yan interpreted the timing as a calling to do more.

没有任何证据表明这个YouTube节目促使了政府的承认——当时也有其他中国科学家警告病毒可能具有人传人能力——但闫丽梦将这一时机解读为一种召唤，促使她继续行动。

“My only thinking was that if I don’t do it now, I will be regretful for my whole life, and I want to do something to prevent this disaster,” Dr. Yan said.

“我当时唯一的想法就是，如果现在不做，我会后悔一辈子，我想做点什么来阻止这场灾难，”闫丽梦说。

Dr. Perera’s distrust of Mr. Wang, and his refusal to flee to the United States, had shocked her, she said, and she had begun to wonder whether her husband, too, was trying to silence her.

她表示，佩雷拉对王定刚的不信任，以及他拒绝逃往美国，都让她大为震惊，她开始怀疑丈夫是否也想让她闭嘴。

“It’s like he suddenly became a stranger,” she said.

“就好像他突然变成了一个陌生人，”她说。

By the time Dr. Perera cooked her eggs and tomatoes and suggested a trip to the seaside, she had worked herself into a panicked state. Was he trying to poison and kidnap her?

当佩雷拉为她做了番茄炒蛋并提议去海边散心时，她已陷入恐慌状态。他是不是想毒死她、绑架她？

That, she said, was when she told Mr. Wang she was ready to leave. She said he connected her to Mr. Guo, and a foundation connected to him paid for her ticket.

她说，正是在那时，她告诉王定刚自己已经准备好离开。她说，是他帮她联系上郭文贵，而与郭文贵相关的一个基金会支付了她的机票。

Dr. Yan said that she knew little at the time about the politics of Mr. Bannon and the others who assisted her, only that they believed her and promised safety.

闫丽梦表示，当时她对班农及其他帮助她的人的政治背景知之甚少，只知道他们相信她，并承诺会保障她的安全。

Her family’s relentless efforts to find her have only reinforced her certainty that it would be unsafe to reconnect.

家人不懈寻找她的努力反而强化了她的判断——重新联系会使她处于危险之中。

“I miss them,” Dr. Yan said of her parents, “but for me, I don’t know that I can see them in my life until the whole government is eliminated.”

“我想念他们，”闫丽梦在谈到父母时说。“但对我来说，不知道这辈子还能不能再见到他们，除非整个政府被推翻。”

Life in the United States has not lived up to the hopes Dr. Yan held upon arrival.

闫丽梦在美国的生活并没有达到她初到时所抱有的期望。

After Mr. Trump left office in 2021, the invitations to meet with White House officials dwindled. The prime-time TV appearances dried up. Donations from private donors, which had helped with expenses at first, no longer flowed in.

2021年特朗普卸任后，白宫官员的会面邀约逐渐减少。黄金时段的电视露面机会也消失了。最初帮助支付开支的私人捐助也停止了。

By July 2021, Dr. Yan and Mr. Wang distanced themselves from Mr. Guo, and the foundation funding her cut off her payments. Mr. Guo’s legal troubles by then had intensified, and he was convicted in July 2024 in New York for defrauding thousands of his online followers.

到2021年7月，闫丽梦和王定刚疏远了郭文贵，而资助她的基金会也停止付钱给她。那时郭文贵的法律麻烦越来越大，并于2024年7月在纽约因诈骗数千名网络追随者而被定罪。

Once Dr. Yan dreamed of a job at a U.S. university, maybe even of running her own lab. But that is impossible, she said, since she has to remain in hiding. She would like a divorce, but putting her address on legal records could expose her location.

闫丽梦曾梦想在美国大学工作，甚至有一天能拥有自己的实验室。但她说，这已不可能，因为她必须继续躲藏。她希望离婚，但在法律文件上填写住址会暴露她的所在地。

Since she is unable to work, she spends her days assisting Mr. Wang, whom she called her “best friend,” with his broadcasts.

由于无法工作，她每天都在协助王定刚做节目，她称他为自己“最好的朋友”。

“My basic survival has been possible only because Mr. Wang has provided unconditional humanitarian support,” she said.

“我之所以还能基本维持生存，只是因为王先生提供了无条件的人道支持，”她说。

Her fears that the Chinese government is watching her are not far-fetched.

她对中国政府正在监视她的担忧并非毫无根据。

In 2023, she and Mr. Wang said they were among those described as victims in a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in New York that charged dozens of members of an elite task force of the Chinese National Police with running a transnational repression scheme targeting U.S. residents. None of the defendants have responded to the charges, which are still pending.

2023年，她和王定刚表示，他们在美国纽约东区联邦检察官办公室的刑事起诉书中被列为受害者。那份诉状指控中国公安部一个精英行动小组的数十名成员实施跨国镇压计划，目标针对美国居民。所有被告均未对这些指控作出回应，案件仍在审理中。

The reprisals may have continued into the present. Earlier this year, Google emailed her to tell her she was most likely a victim of a state-sponsored hacking attempt to steal her email password.

报复行动可能至今仍未停止。今年早些时候，谷歌发邮件告诉她，她很可能是一次国家支持的黑客攻击的目标，对方试图窃取她的邮箱密码。

These incidents have hardened Dr. Yan’s certainty that she is in constant danger, and her resolve never to speak to her family or husband again.

这些事件让闫丽梦更加确信自己一直处于危险之中，也更加坚定永不再与家人或丈夫联系的决心。

All of her actions have been “entirely the result of my own independent decisions, personal convictions, and professional judgment,” she wrote in a recent email. “Any effort to mischaracterize these actions as ‘being instructed,’ ‘controlled,’ or ‘manipulated’ by others is not only factually false, but also directly echoes the C.C.P.’s long-running disinformation campaigns against me.”

她的所有行为“完全源自我自己的独立决定、个人信念和专业判断”，她在近期的一封邮件中写道。“任何将这些行为歪曲为‘受指使’、‘被控制’或‘被操纵’的尝试，不仅与事实不符，而且完全呼应了中共长期以来针对我的虚假宣传。”

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said that he was not familiar with Dr. Yan but that Chinese officials opposed “anyone politicizing and weaponizing origins-tracing or scapegoating others.”

中国驻华盛顿大使馆的一位发言人表示，他不了解闫丽梦的情况，但中国政府反对“任何人将病毒溯源问题政治化、武器化，或甩锅的做法”。

Dr. Perera is still determined to protect his wife, if only from herself.

佩雷拉依然决心保护妻子，哪怕是让她免受自身伤害。

He and Dr. Yan’s parents struggle to understand why she abandoned a loving marriage, a close family and a prestigious scientific career. Is it possible, they wonder, that she made a rash decision in a state of anxiety and that pride now prevents her from admitting she was wrong? Have the years of isolation since she left, surrounded only by people who support her theories, detached her from reality?

他和闫丽梦的父母都无法理解，为什么她会放弃一段充满爱的婚姻、亲密的家庭和一份备受尊敬的科研事业。他们想知道，她是否可能是在焦虑的状态下做出了草率的决定，而如今又因为自尊，不愿承认自己错了？或者，她离开以来这些年的隔绝生活——身边只有支持她理论的人——是否让她脱离了现实？

But Dr. Yan insisted that the reality she now inhabits is the only one she desires.

但闫丽梦坚持认为，她如今身处的现实正是她唯一想要的。

During one of the video calls, she sat in an office chair in front of a poster that read “JOMO: Joy of Missing Out.” Two furry white puppies played around her legs. When asked if she missed her old life, she said simply, “It’s my previous life.”

在一次视频通话中，她坐在办公椅上，身后贴着写有“接受错失的喜悦”的海报。两只毛茸茸的白色小狗在她腿边嬉戏。当被问及是否怀念旧日生活时，她只是淡淡回应：“那都是前世的事了。”