Public lives, secret lives

Stories of how public officials get rich through corruption have kept one novelist writing furiously, Li Na and Wen Chihua report.

Zhou Meisen, a sharp dresser and an unconventional artist, once had many influential contacts in positions of power. Some of them are still in power. Some are in prison.

"They are in prison because there are no restrictions on the use of power. That has ruined a lot of officials," says the 62-year-old Zhou.