by Qiu Xiaolong
‘Now I have a question for you, Han Shan. There’s something between Wen and Xuanji. No one can miss it in those dewy-eyed poems she wrote for him. While he’s much older, by thirty years or so, an affair between the two still seemed to be romantically irresistible to her. Apparently, she’s more than ready to throw herself into his arms. Why did it not work out for the pair of them in the end?’
‘There are numerous interesting interpretations about the inscrutable relationship between the two. As some people speculated, Wen was not sure whether Xuanji was pursuing him as a way to climb up the social ladder herself. According to others, Wen simply suffered a sort of inferiority complex because he was a very plain-looking man, particularly so in the company of the young, beautiful Xuanji.
‘According to the most popular interpretation, however, Wen was too self-conscious of his social status because of his failure in the civil service examination. If he married a poor girl like Xuanji, his dream of moving up in society could come to an immediate end, so he balked in spite of all the poems she sent to him as well as those he sent to her. Family background can be of such great importance in our Tang Empire. Whatever the interpretation, though, they kept writing passionate poems for each other, which puzzles a lot of people.’
‘What a pity! I would really love to put those poems together for a special section – she for Wen, and Wen for her – which would probably cover the best pieces she has written.’
‘Alternatively, you may have a special collection of her love poems, including those written for others as well as for Wen, with a title such as “Love Poems between Xuanji and Her Men.”’
‘More than one man! Yes, that could be a truly tantalizing title for a best-selling poetry collection. Thanks for the suggestion, Han Shan.’
Such a suggestion from a poet monk was a surprise. In his younger days, Han Shan too might have had his share, however, of romantic illusions and disillusions in the world of red dust before he escaped into Buddhism.
‘In fact, I first came to know Xuanji through Wen – through stories and gossip about the romance between the two,’ Han Shan went on after taking another deliberate sip of the tea. ‘It was paradoxical that a group of Wen’s poems were written with a female persona complaining about her unreciprocated love, as if echoing from the bottom of her heart. And with her perspective, too. According to several critics, those poems of Wen’s must have meant a great deal to her.’
‘Yes, that’s unusual, but not without precedent. In the classical Chu tradition, men of letters wrote love poems as a way of showing their loyalty to the supreme ruler – comparing themselves to neglected beauties pining away because of their cold-hearted lords.’
‘Have you read the one titled “The Islet Enclosed in White Duckweed”? A love poem with a female persona informed by such helpless pining.’ Han Shan breathed into the tea with a dramatic pause before he started to read:
‘After applying her make-up,
she stands leaning against the balcony,
looking out to the river, alone,
to thousands of sails passing along –
none is the one she waits for.
The sun setting slant,
the water running silent, long,
her heart is breaking
at the sight of the islet enclosed
in white duckweed.’
‘The speaker’s voice is surely Xuanji’s in that poem by Wen. You’re so right about that, Han Shan.’
‘They kept on writing for each other. She was the more explicit one, going so far as to call her poems, quite unashamedly, her love letters to Wen.
‘Then Wen did something unbelievable. He introduced her to Zi’an, the number-one successful candidate in the capital civil service examination—’
‘Wen actually put the two of them together as a matchmaker?’
‘And for that matter, a materialistic matchmaker to boot. Zi’an was a far more worthy match than Wen in the eyes of the mundane world: younger, more wealthy, more handsome, and with a much more promising future, and he was waiting alone in Chang’an to be assigned an official post.’
‘But why should a romantic poet like Wen have chosen to do that, Han Shan?’
‘It’s possible that Wen cared for her in his way, so he tried to secure for her a better future in the company of Zi’an instead. At least, so it might have appeared to Wen. As for her, whatever feelings she might have cherished for Wen, she knew better as a realistic girl. But there’s a catch …’
‘Alas, there’s always a catch.’
‘Zi’an was married to someone from the illustrious Pei family. Still, it was not uncommon for a well-to-do man to have a concubine or two. The first poem in the Book of Songs, for instance, describes the scene of a virtuous queen in ancient China picking up a young pretty girl and welcoming her home as a concubine for her lord.’
‘Yes, a poem about the virtuous queen indeed,’ Judge Dee exclaimed, taking a sip of the cold tea. ‘In accordance with the critics of the Five Classics, the poem embodies the so-called queenly virtue.’
‘For a woman of Xuanji’s poor family background, to be a concubine to Zi’an appeared nonetheless an acceptable choice, so she moved in with him. For a short while, things seemed to be working out for the two of them; they were said to be “writing love poems on one another’s bodies” in bed. However, happy days are always so short. His wife came to join him in the capital. There was no keeping it a secret from her anymore. Xuanji had imagined that they could manage to get along like other families, with the wife and the concubines living under the same roof – sometimes in the same bed. Xuanji was willing to play second fiddle in the family, but Zi’an’s wife turned out to be an insanely jealous tigress. She made a point of making Xuanji’s life miserable all the time, and it did not take long for her to finally drive Xuanji out.
‘A hen-pecked husband, Zi’an was in no position to fight for Xuanji. His official career could have been compromised in the event of a divorce, with his wife from such a noble family. Instead, he donated a sum to a Daoist nunnery on the outskirts of Chang’an, so that Xuanji at least had a temporary place to stay – a place not too far away, so that he might be able to pay a short visit to her in secret.’
‘Somewhat like me,’ Judge Dee said, ‘a place to stay in the Buddhist temple here. It’s fashionable in a way – and close to a celebrated poet monk.’
‘Enough, Judge Dee. For you, it’s just for a day or two’s leisure. But an indefinite time period for her.’
‘That’s true. And it’s a shrewd move on Zi’an’s part,’ Judge Dee said, adding hot tea to Han Shan’s cup. ‘Going to the nunnery could signify a break from one’s past. A new way of living, so to speak, though she did not have to behave like a nun. A nun in name, she’s still able to receive visitors such as Wen or Zi’an. With the temple door closed at night, what they could have done would not be too difficult for anyone to imagine.
‘Off the record, didn’t the Empress Wu – long before she became the empress – enter a Daoist temple for a while as a Daoist nun as well? I bet it was out of the same consideration.’
Judge Dee knew what the poet monk was referring to. In her earlier days, Empress Wu had once served as a ‘palace female talent’ for the first emperor Li Shimin of the Tang Empire, who was said to have taken a liking to her. What might have happened in the royal palace was not difficult to imagine. And it was conventional that after the emperor’s death, those palace women who had been touched by the divine ruler would then have to stay single, huddled up for life in seclusion. However, the new emperor, Li Zhi, the son of the late emperor, actually fell head over heels for Wu. One thing leading to another, as a ‘palace female talent’ for the old emperor, Wu became an imperial concubine for the young emperor, a dramatic turn that appeared so scandalous, so intolerable to the orthodox Confucianist officials. When she was declared empress after the death of Li Zhi, she eventually found herself sitting on the throne as the supreme ruler of the whole
nation. Of late, she had even tried to rename the Tang Empire as the Zhou Empire and to move the capital from Chang’an to Luoyang. Such a metamorphosis was naturally unacceptable to those who pledged allegiance to the Tang Dynasty of the Li family, and as a result, one rebellion after another broke out, but without any success.
Han Shan chose not to say too much as Judge Dee happened to be an orthodox Confucianist too, who protested against such moves on the part of the empress, yet, at the same time, was a senior trusted official serving under Empress Wu.
‘From time to time, Zi’an was able to sneak into the temple,’ Han Shan went on, changing the subject. ‘Xuanji had hoped that he would manage to eventually get her out of the nunnery, as he had promised, but Zi’an was then assigned to an official post far away from the capital. It was a matter of course for him to travel to the new post with his wife, and Xuanji was left alone in the nunnery. She was devastated by what she considered as his callous betrayal.
‘As the proverb says, it does not matter if you hurl a broken urn to the ground – it’s already broken anyway. She abandoned herself to despair, and then to debauchery. It did not take her long to start seeing men there in the open, night after night. With the reputation of the nunnery irreparably damaged, the abbess fled in the night, and Xuanji took it over as her own domain. She had a colorful banner displayed outside declaring, “Poetry Talk with Xuanji,” which provided a convenient pretext for her to receive men, and for the visitors to the nunnery as well. She turned into something of a high-class poetess/courtesan, cultivating connections for herself by hook or by crook, accepting money and gifts and favors and whatever else, though she did not necessarily have to pay it back with her body in bed, at least not every time—’
‘Sorry to interrupt you two, but it’s time for lunch.’ The reappearance of Nameless in the room broke off Han Shan’s narrative. ‘Our abbot Stainless is not feeling so well today, but he insists on my providing a special vegetarian meal for our two distinguished guests today. And he would like to meet you in person when he is better tomorrow.’
‘Yes, the vegetarian meal here is absolutely incredible,’ Han Shan said, nodding. ‘You cannot afford to miss it.’
Walking down along the winding hill trail, Yang knew he had to deal with an assignment totally foreign to him.
It was in Judge Dee’s field, the hunt for Xuanji’s poetry collection, but Judge Dee had to talk to the poet monk at the temple for the day. So it was a necessary division of labor for the two of them. There were just a couple of days for them to conduct the investigation, and Yang had to take over the job from his master.
As far as Yang knew, people sold and bought books mostly in temple market fairs, but he had no idea about the market fair dates. Only one time had he followed Judge Dee into something like a bookstore in the center of the capital city, and it was too far away for him to make it there and back in just half a day.
But he recalled having visited a medium-sized small town nearby, so he headed there.
It did not take him long to reach the town, but to his confusion, he failed to find a single bookstore there – at least not in the strict sense of the word. In fact, most of the stores he came across not only sold books but carried a lot of other stuff as well. On one or two half-empty shelves of the third store he stepped into stood nothing but textbooks of Confucian classics, including Book of Rites, Book of Songs, and Book of Changes, all of which were the furthest thing from his mind. The second shelf he was examining in a corner turned out to be more like an old rare book section, sporting several handwritten copies on display under an impressive array of silk scrolls of calligraphies and paintings hanging down from the white walls.
According to the store owner, some local poets and writers put a few of their handwritten manuscripts on sale there, but usually just a couple of pages, nothing close to a complete or well-edited collection.
‘A woodblock printing edition can be very expensive. For a poet’s collection, it is usually just a small print run. Not enough to cover the cost. Something like a vanity print, you know.’
So it might not be such a bad business idea for Judge Dee to compile a collection of Xuanji’s poems, Yang observed, if that was what Judge Dee indeed planned to do – perhaps not too small a print run after Xuanji’s execution, given the possibility it might gain wider attention and become a bestseller. Still, he doubted that his bookish master would throw himself into such a business venture.
Shifting his glance to a long silk scroll hung on the wall with a high price tag, Yang inquired whether Xuanji too had scrolls of calligraphies or paintings for sale in the store, either by herself or from other celebrities given to her as gifts.
Sure enough, the owner produced a silk scroll in Xuanji’s own handwriting – a poem composed for a girl in the neighborhood, but toward the bottom left-hand corner of the scroll, there was a line written in smaller characters: Copied out for Wei Hua as well. Yang was no judge of poetry, but the silk scroll was marked with a fairly low price. He wondered who Wei Hua was, given they were willing to sell it so cheap to the shop.
‘Wei Hua, one of her good-for-nothing lovers,’ the store owner said disparagingly in response to Yang’s inquiry. ‘Wei sold everything practically the moment he got it from her. What an impossible, insatiable leech!’
Yang made a mental note, which might turn out to be a clue worth exploring, although he had no idea who Wei really was, or, for that matter, how many lovers Xuanji might have had. Still, he went on playing the role of a diligent assistant in the presence of a curiosity dealer, purchasing the silk scroll after pretending to bargain for a short while. He also asked about Wei’s address, as Xuanji might have left some other valuable things for the antique business.
‘You really have an eye for the potential,’ the store owner said approvingly. ‘The price of her writing or paintings could soon go through the roof.’
‘You mean after she is beheaded at the conclusion of the case?’
‘Yes, she’s doomed. It’s obvious.’
‘Well, is there anything else you’ve heard or learned about her?’
‘You mean the murder case?’
‘Yes. It’s unimaginable for a talented young woman like her – only in her mid-twenties. My master has told me something about her.’
‘I will ask around for you if you plan to come back. I may learn something about the poetess. Possibly get some more writing from her, too.’
‘Of course I will come back here. Now, another curious question: in addition to those visitors or lovers to the nunnery, what kind of people did she mix with?’
‘The nunnery is close to a village called Jiangling, so most of her neighbors there are ordinary villagers. She was not interested in mixing with them. Nor they with her – with one or two exceptions. One is a stationery dealer named Xiahou living in the village, with a small shop in town. He supplied her with things like paper, ink sticks, and brush pens. He once told me about her favorite fox-tail brush pen, which is obscenely expensive, as it is made of the hair from a rare scarlet fox tail.’
‘Fox tail?’
‘I’m not that sure about it – usually, it’s made of skunk tail, the best-quality hair for a brush pen, but she’s called a black fox spirit. Some people say she’s literally a fox spirit, you know, even using a fox-tail brush pen. Who can really tell? You can talk to Xiahou about it. Another one close to Xuanji is a young flower girl at the southern end of the village. She sent her fresh flowers from time to time, for all those wild dinner parties in the nunnery.’
‘Thanks. I’ll definitely come back to you,’ Yang said, thinking it was lunchtime and wondering what ‘celebrated vegetarian meal’ Judge Dee might be having with the poet monk in the temple.
The vegetarian meal in the temple was very fancy. Instead of serving it in the temple dining hall, the lunch was delivered into the room in which Judge Dee and Han Shan had been talking about Xuanji and the murder case. Nameless had the small monks carrying into the room
a couple of two-tiered, red-painted bamboo baskets. It was considerate of Nameless to make sure that Judge Dee and Han Shan could continue talking in privacy.
In the midst of producing the steaming hot dishes out of the bamboo baskets and placing them on to the table, Nameless kept himself busy introducing each of the delicacies to Judge Dee and Han Shan with unmistakable pride in his voice.
‘For today’s lunch, we have extraordinary red braised pork, super fried rice paddy eels, exceptional bear prawns in white sauce, unbelievable spicy and tender beef tendon—’
‘What a paradox,’ Judge Dee commented. ‘For a vegetarian meal, the dishes here appear to be all named in connection to meat and fish – non-vegetable.’
‘For the people who can hardly keep the pot boiling, it’s a matter of course for them to take meat and fish as the more desirable delicacies,’ Han Shan said, ‘so the names of meat and fish lend themselves to the delicious imagination. For most of the patrons of the temple, the vegetarian dishes here serve for a pleasant change, and those names simply make a vegetarian banquet more impressive, and more imaginative, too.’
‘What is the “super fried rice paddy eel,” then?’
‘Extra-dry tofu sliced and fried like the real paddy eels, prepared with the same sauce,’ Nameless explained, gesturing with his hand in imitation of cutting, deboning, and slicing the live rice paddy eel in the kitchen, ‘topped with sizzling sesame oil on chopped green onion and golden ginger when the dish is served on the table.’
‘Indeed, what’s in a name?’ Han Shan commented, raising his chopsticks. ‘In this world of red dust, there’s nothing but appearance, to which we give one name or another, as if it really existed or meant anything.’
‘Masterfully said, our renowned Buddhist poet master,’ Nameless responded. ‘And that’s why our abbot Stainless gave me this Buddhist name here. Name is nothing, and nameless is also nothing.’