Wu Qing didn’t have much time to celebrate last week.

Spring Festival or not, “The Broker Butcher” had work to do. Chinese equities are at risk of a fourth consecutive annual loss and as of this month, Wu’s in charge of turning things around.

Notwithstanding the Rob Zombie visuals conjured by his frightful nickname — earned during a sweeping crackdown that claimed the lives of nearly three-dozen Chinese brokerage houses — Wu’s an unassuming, obsessively diligent technocrat. He’s the guy still poring over documents when everybody else is on the way out the door. (“Do you want us to cut the rest of these lights off, Wu?”) As a reporter for the Shanghai Securities News put it Tuesday, Wu “has not had a break during the holidays and has worked overtime continuously.”

The undated photo above shows Wu at a press conference. Believe it or not, he’s exhibiting something that vaguely resembles emotion there. Typically he’s a statue — his face a frozen glower.

Earlier this week, Wu showed up at the sales department of China Galaxy Securities, where he “talked for a long time” with individual investors reps, according to another Chinese daily, which also said Wu’s CSRC “held a series of symposiums” on Sunday and Monday “to listen to opinions and suggestions” around capital market supervision, risk prevention and the promotion of “high-quality development” across Chinese capital markets.

The CSRC issued an official account of those symposiums and… well, what can I say? It’s nothing short of hilarious. The readout suggested the regulator not only wants input from all concerned parties, but intends to take that input seriously. That, as opposed to the black box-style the Party typically favors when it comes to regulation.

“The responsible comrades of the China Securities Regulatory Commission listened carefully to the speeches of the representatives attending the meetings and expressed their sincere gratitude to everyone,” the account read. “The more complex and severe the situation, the more important it is to brainstorm and build consensus.”

Again, it’s difficult to overstate how bizarre it is for an institution like the CSRC to adopt a conciliatory tone, let alone lapse into a colloquial cadence (“brainstorm”) while recapping official proceedings. The same readout went on to say the regulator will “take seriously opinions and suggestions” from anyone brave enough to offer them.

Not only that, the CSRC invited “criticism.” (And yes, that’s a quote. That word’s actually in the readout). In the event any such criticism has merit — is “proven feasible,” as the regulator put it — it’ll be dealt with “immediately.” In the event the CSRC doesn’t believe critiques have merit, the body will “explain” why, and in any case will “respond to concerns in a timely manner, relying on the cooperative efforts of all parties to build a good capital market.”

In case this needed to get any more surreal, Bloomberg said two Mainland media outlets launched a pilot program for reader feedback called — and try not to laugh — “I would like to give a message to chairman Wu.” It’s like “Dear Abby,” except “Dear Butcher.”

A word of caution, though: A close reading of the Shanghai Securities News article cited above suggests the Party still intends to fall back on threats and coercion in the event the soft-touch approach doesn’t work. For example, Wu’s going to monitor the “holding behavior” of large shareholders for evidence of “detours” and “illegal reductions.” Violators may be compelled to “repurchase shares,” and if that’s insufficient as a deterrent to selling, “penalties will be increased in accordance with the law.”