Do you remember this story from last summer?  China's President Xi Jinping had promoted Qin Gang to the position of foreign minister. Qin was known for his "wolf warrior" diplomacy, a reference to a Chinese action film series that is sort of the Chinese equivalent of Rambo. Qin had a habit of spouting off about America in a way that Xi Jinping must have liked.

And then last summer he disappeared. 

For three weeks no one knew where he'd gone or why. Was he ill? Had he been arrested? The leading theory was that Qin had been caught having an affair with an attractive Chinese news presenter named Fu Xiaotian. She also disappeared at the same time.

…television presenter Fu Xiaotian has also not been seen for some time, as well as her infant son.

The Cambridge-educated presenter is one of the most prominent figures on Chinese television and frequently interviews the state’s top officials.

This has caused rumours to circulate, especially in the Taiwan and Hong Kong press, that the two may have engaged in an affair.

Nearly a month after he vanished, China announced that he had been removed as foreign minister, though none of the reports delivered on state media said why. A day later, all trace of him was removed from the foreign ministry website. 

The story about the affair seems to be true. Fu Xiaotian had a baby in America through a surrogate and seems to have implied on social media that Qin might be the father.

Around the time of the appointment, he began to limit contact with Fu, two people familiar with the situation said. One person close to Fu said it prompted her to drop hints about their relationship on social media.

In March she told her followers on social media platform Weibo that the father of the baby was not American. When Qin was appointed state councillor, she posted a photo of the baby raising his hand, adding a caption: “A victorious conclusion.” A week later, around Qin’s birthday, she wished the unnamed father a happy birthday, saying that truly loving a person was not about “hoping for their promotion and riches”.

This week, more than a year later, we finally learned where Qin Gang landed. He has been demoted to a minor job working at a foreign ministry publishing house.

The former officials say that Qin, 58, has been placed — at least on paper — at a job with World Affairs Press, a state-owned publishing house affiliated with the Foreign Ministry.

The demotion, which the former officials said took place sometime in the spring, is a “fall from grace” but also means “he’s off the hook,” one of them said. “He’s not going to jail, but his career is over.”

The story includes and interesting behind the scenes story from Qin's time as foreign minister. After Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, he was the sole point of contact between China and Washington. And at one point, he got a little carried away with his "wolf warrior" tough talk.

After Pelosi left, China reacted by firing missiles into the waters around Taiwan, and the White House summoned the ambassador. In one fraught exchange, one official recalled, Qin made what appeared to be a threat about China “erasing the median line,” referring to an unofficial boundary down the middle of the strait separating China from Taiwan that both sides had long observed to maintain stability.

His statement alarmed the officials, who saw it as escalatory, and pressed to know whether this was an official position. Qin responded with a “performative” tirade on the affront Pelosi’s mission represented to China, a second official said.

The story ends with a chilling line from Victor Gao, who has worked as a translator for top Chinese officials. Pressed on where Qin Gang was, he told Al Jazeera, "He is somewhere in China. You will never see him."