The Shadow of the Empire

by Qiu Xiaolong

  ‘Yours appears to be a very complicated case, but let me first make one thing clear. I’m here not in any official position to investigate your case. Having said that, I admit that I’m not that unfamiliar with it. It’s because quite a number of people have talked to me about it.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, Your Honor.’

  ‘I like your poems, that’s true, but there are far more things than poetry can possibly tell in this world. So regarding my questions about your poems – and about the case, too – let me start at the very beginning.’

  It was going to be a shot in the dark, but Judge Dee did not think he would have the time for one of those usual approaches he had taken before.

  ‘Just three days ago, I was leaving the capital of Chang’an for a new post in another province when Internal Minister Wu sent a messenger to me in a hostel at night, asking me to take a look into your case.’

  ‘Internal Minister Wu?’

  ‘Yes. I, too, was more than confounded. As an old-fashioned man, I recently submitted a memorial to the empress about keeping the crown prince of the Li family in line for succession, for which Minister Wu could not but see me as an obstacle to his own ambition for the throne. So why would he have requested my help for your murder case?’

  ‘That also puzzles me. Minister Wu wants to succeed the empress – that’s no secret under the sun of the Tang Empire. Then, why should he have been so anxious for your help in an ordinary murder case like mine?’

  Xuanji seemed to be well informed about the power struggle at the court, though it was perhaps not too much of a surprise for someone with her wide connections.

  ‘According to Minister Wu, your case has stirred up a lot of controversies in the empire, so much so that it might come to affect its political stability. As a result, I had to agree to take a look into it. To my consternation, Minister Wu was not pushing me alone. Mayor Pei, too, has told me that he’s under a lot of pressure from above to investigate further.’

  ‘Really!’

  ‘Yes. “Get to the very bottom of it, and bring everybody involved to justice, whatever his position or status.” Those are the exact words said to Mayor Pei from somebody high above. So, you see, Internal Minister Wu must have suspected that somebody else is involved in the case.’

  ‘Somebody else?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. There are all sorts of questions about how you could have pulled it off by yourself. Not just the murder, but the burial of the body, too. And it’s a legitimate question: How could a young, delicate woman like you have done that job single-handedly? With questions like that remaining unanswered, Mayor Pei and the people above him will have no choice but to go all the way, by hook or by crook, to get what they want from you. It’s just a matter of time before some clues come to the surface—’

  ‘But I was so drunk, Your Honor. I did not remember anything about what happened in the nunnery that night. Whatever I may choose to say now, people will still have their doubts about it.’

  ‘Let me put it this way, Xuanji. As something of a judge, I, too, have questions about the case, though I have not yet discussed them with others – neither with Mayor Pei nor with Internal Minister Wu.’

  ‘What are your questions?’

  ‘Well, let’s establish a clear timeline first, and we can talk about things in the proper order. Ning’s body was discovered on the third day of the month, and earlier that day you had a lunch party with several guests. However, Ning was killed the day before, the second day of the month, when you entertained a very special guest in the evening, about which you did not say anything to Mayor Pei.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ she said, her face instantly bleached of color. ‘I had no party or a guest on the evening of the second day of the month. I was drunk, as I’ve told you.’

  ‘That’s why we have to begin from the very beginning, Xuanji. On the morning of the second day, you went out shopping, purchasing a lot of fancy and expensive stuff. And a large bouquet of peonies from the flower girl Zhang in the village as well. According to her, you picked up flowers only when you had a special guest or party. So that really shed light on your unusual purchases that day.’

  ‘That morning, Ning told me that she had to go back home for a day or two, so I did the shopping by myself for the party scheduled for the next day. How could that have anything to do with the murder case, Your Honor?’

  ‘For one thing, your shopping list included swallow saliva nest and shark fin, but in very small quantities – enough only for one person. The store owner said you bargained with him, saying you had just one guest that evening.’

  ‘I cannot remember what I said exactly to the store owner, but I might have made up something like that, so he would not insist on selling the whole box to me. Both the swallow saliva nest and the shark fin are ridiculously expensive, you know.’

  ‘And there were also live fish and shrimp – in very small quantities, too – in your shopping basket. Usually, people make a point of preparing and cooking them live. So how could you have purchased them for the party the next day – with the fish and shrimp long dead?’

  ‘I did not buy all of them for the party the next day. Some I just wanted to treat myself to in the evening. Ning was a capable servant, but not a gourmet chef.’

  ‘But in your statement, shortly after you got back from the shopping trip, you started drinking by yourself instead of preparing the live fish and shrimp. That did not add up, Xuanji.’

  She failed to produce a response, murmuring an indistinct word or two and shaking her head in confusion.

  ‘As a judge, I cannot help coming up with different scenarios, which may or may not necessarily prove to be one hundred percent true. Quite likely, they’re nothing but fantasies conjured up, I have to admit, in the feeble brain of an old man during sleepless nights. No offense, Xuanji – that’s just in the line of my work,’ Judge Dee said, stretching his legs, feeling increasingly uncomfortable sitting in the same position on the bamboo stool. ‘Now, instead of going into the questions one by one, I think I’ll start by presenting a couple of scenarios to you.’

  ‘You have more than one scenario?’

  ‘For the first one, let’s suppose Ning not only stayed in the nunnery when you came back from shopping, but she also said or did something outrageous to you. Totally intolerable. Flying into an uncontrollable rage, you started kicking and whipping at her with all your strength, not stopping until she sank to the floor. She died there and then, and it’s too late for you to do anything about it. It’s possible you were not really aware, as you’ve said, of what you were doing at the time, as you were overwhelmed by a blinding fury. In another case I dealt with several years ago, I encountered something like that—’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Your Honor.’

  ‘In this scenario, the sequence might be complicated. But let’s suppose that somebody arrived at the nunnery before Ning left for home. Who could have made such an unannounced visit? Wei? He’s a regular visitor, also an impossible womanizer, and Ning was a coquettish young girl. So what could the two have done there while you were away shopping?

  ‘Upon your return, you found Ning still there, half-clad, disheveled – busy erasing suspicious traces in the bedroom. It took no brains to know what had just happened between Wei and Ning. You were precipitated into a fit of murderous fury, and I don’t think I need to go into details here about what then took place there. Later, Wei came back over to the nunnery. And he helped you bury Ning’s body in the night. The shocking discovery of the body the next day, however, had you thrown into prison. With the murder investigation dragging on, Wei became more and more worried about the possibility of your giving him up as the accomplice that night. That accounted for his sudden flight yesterday.’

  ‘What do you mean by “his sudden flight yesterday,” Your Honor?’

  ‘I’ve not finished yet, Xuanji. Such a scenario may account for several aspects of the case, and it sheds light on the circ
umstances of the flight as well as the subsequent death – the second death—’

  ‘The second death …’

  ‘Yes, the death of Wei!’

  ‘What! Wei died?’

  ‘He died yesterday.’

  She looked up sharply. A faint spot of color seemed to be returning to her cheeks, though her face was otherwise still mask-like and betraying no emotion.

  ‘Forsooth, I’m cursed beyond redemption!’

  ‘What do you mean, Xuanji?’

  ‘I’m really cursed with the black fox spirit, as the villagers have declared, so those people close to me also suffer the worst luck imaginable.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe so. Confucius says, “A gentleman does not talk about spirits and ghosts.” Whatever interpretation, however, it’s hard not to associate the two deaths, each of them connected to you in one way or another.’

  ‘I did not know anything about Wei’s death, Your Honor, not until you mentioned it just now.’

  ‘That I believe. You were here. In fact, Mayor Pei has not yet heard anything about it, either. My assistant did a hurried search at the crime scene, so I can tell you some details about it. According to an eyewitness there, shortly after noon-time, Wei broke into the nunnery, packed up valuables into a gray cloth bundle, and sneaked out. Carrying the large bundle on his back, he was fleeing down to the road that stretches out in front of the nunnery, when out of the blue a horseman rushed over, caught up with him from behind, and struck out with a saber. Wei was killed with two mighty slashes at the head and shoulder, and a vicious thrust in the groin. The large bundle on his back was gone when his body was discovered by the roadside.

  ‘But why should Wei have tried to flee like that? That’s a question we have to answer. So far, Wei has not been seen even as a suspect. Mayor Pei has not so much as sent for him as a witness. While your being locked up here did not help him financially, it could be much worse in the event of his moving somewhere else. At least the hut here was rent-free for him. Besides, who would have ambushed a penniless, harmless man like Wei?’

  She opened her mouth, but said nothing.

  ‘To be frank, anything would have been possible for a man like Wei, Xuanji. But from another perspective, the dead take secrets into the grave, just like the old saying.’

  In spite of herself, she started fidgeting on the heap of straw. An eerie noise became audible, like a rat’s feet scurrying over the cell floor scattered with stray straw. He wondered whether she got the hint in his last sentence.

  ‘Could that have been a mugging gone wrong?’ she said weakly. ‘Perhaps it was because of the cloth bundle he carried on his back.’

  ‘No, I’m not inclined toward the theory of a screwed-up mugging. A bundle-carrying man was a common sight along the road. Who could tell what was inside the bundle? Besides, it’s not a likely location for a mugging, particularly not during the day, nor with Wei as a likely target. The killer must have been waiting there to ambush him.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ she finally said.

  It was the first time she agreed with anything Judge Dee had said.

  ‘And there’s something so inexplicable about the way Wei was attacked.’

  ‘What’s so inexplicable, Your Honor?’

  ‘The two hits at the head and shoulder must have finished him instantly. Then why inflict the stab to the groin? The killer had to dismount for him to do so. Not unless it was done for a specific message, the way I read it, about his having touched an untouchable woman …’

  Their talk was once again interrupted, this time by Yang who was moving across the corridor in strides toward the prison cell, carrying a vermillion-painted bamboo lunch box in one hand and a fairly large bag in another.

  Judge Dee stood up shakily, his feet and legs numbed from sitting too long on the small bamboo stool, unable to stretch out in the cramped cell space.

  Pushing open the unlocked cell door with his elbow, Yang put down the bag and the two-tiered bamboo box on the ground. The box contained four or five dainty dishes, and a kettle of amber-colored sticky rice wine. Squatting, he tried to find a piece of board on which to place the cups and dishes, yet without success. He ended up turning over the box lid, which served as a tiny tabletop between Judge Dee and Xuanji.

  ‘Thanks, Yang. You have done a good job. Now you may leave. And I, too, have to stand up and stretch my legs a little,’ Judge Dee said, rising to see Yang off in a ceremonious way, but making half a step out of the prison cell.

  Yang looked around, turned, and started whispering excitedly into his master’s ears.

  ‘Got you,’ Judge Dee said simply after he listened through the briefing from his assistant, his one foot still remaining in the prison cell.

  Turning back into the cell, Judge Dee poured out a cup of the slightly sweet sticky rice wine for Xuanji.

  ‘I did not know things could be so horrible in the prison. So at least we should have a decent meal, if nothing else. It’s about all my assistant Yang could have done at such short notice. Sorry, nothing fancy like shark fin—’

  ‘You really don’t have to say that, Your Honor.’

  So saying, she crawled over to the lunch basket and snatched up a chunk of wood-smoked Sichuan duck with her swollen fingers. She looked nothing like a graceful poetess in those elegant images of her poetry.

  ‘The finger-crunching torture in prison, as you probably know,’ she said with a sarcastic smile when she saw Judge Dee staring at her hands. ‘Anyway, I can hardly hold chopsticks nowadays.’

  It was little wonder, Judge Dee contemplated in the surrounding gloom, aware of all the cruel tortures she had endured here.

  She was licking a finger that was without its fingernail – possibly pulled away by force. Those rumors about the torture in prison were not unfounded. He could not help wondering whether the cruel torture had also been ordered by somebody ‘high above’ Mayor Pei.

  All the pressure had been given, presumably, for a conclusion in the interests of those people around the throne, and, at the same time, acceptable to the public who did not know anything about the politics behind the scene.

  ‘What were you saying, Your Honor?’ she said after having devoured more than half of the dainty dishes placed on the bamboo basket lid.

  Perhaps she was now ready to say something. Not because of the lunch, Judge Dee observed, sipping at his cup. The sticky rice wine went smoothly down his throat.

  ‘I was talking about a couple of possible scenarios. The first one, with Wei as the accomplice that night, answers some of the questions, but it also leaves quite a number of them unanswered, and gives rise to others as well. For starters, Wei had not even been summoned by Mayor Pei, so why should he have tried to flee all of a sudden, with nothing but a bundle on his back? Here, he had a hut under his name, not to mention those connections of yours, and some of them may help him out because of you. More importantly, nobody else knew that Wei was the accomplice in the murder case, so who would have gone so far as to kill him?’

  ‘But how could I know all that, Your Honor?’

  ‘And to make a hypothesis for the sake of making a hypothesis, Wei was attacked because his tryst with Ning became known to one of her other lovers. But that does not sound plausible. No, not at all.’

  ‘You are the celebrated judge, not me.’ She then added reflectively, ‘He was a womanizer – you’re absolutely right about it. As far as I know, he slept with other married women in town. One of the cuckolded husbands could have got wind of it and killed him in revenge.’

  It was strange the way she was speaking, as if more than willing to offer a scenario echoing Judge Dee’s, more or less in that direction.

  ‘With questions like those unanswered, I began working on the second scenario. It may appear to be even more strange than the first one, Xuanji – pretty much guesswork based on a variety of pieces seemingly irrelevant to the whole puzzle. But it’s a scenario that accounts not only for Wei’s flight but also for the attemp
t at his life.

  ‘And it accounts for the ultimate mystery behind this bizarre case, too.’

  ‘Is that so, Your Honor?’

  Standing up from the stool, he bent over, opened the bag on the ground, and pulled out a head-to-foot costume with a dramatic wave of his hand like a magician at a market fair – a black fox costume, made of some hairy, fluffy material and with a long trembling tail.

  ‘What the devil is that ghastly stuff you are showing me, Your Honor?’

  ‘The very black fox spirit that scared the shit out of the villagers. My assistant Yang has just found it in Wei’s hut with the search warrant from Mayor Pei. Not exactly what I anticipated, but nonetheless a random harvest. It helps to shed some light on the existence of the black fox spirit in the neighborhood of the nunnery – particularly on its mysteriously intensified movement of late.’

  ‘It’s nothing but a stupid supernatural tale among those ignorant village folk,’ she said, her fingers clutching the black fox costume spasmodically in spite of herself. ‘An absurd superstitious belief. What on the earth does the black fox costume have to do with that second scenario of yours?’

  ‘As an investigator, I have no choice but to check and double-check all the aspects possibly related to the case. According to several village folk, you’re simply bewitched out of your mind by the black fox spirit, and that’s why you killed the maid in a fit of madness. Period. They’re also emphatic that the nunnery was haunted by the black fox spirit, particularly for the last couple of months. A number of villagers testified to me and my assistant that they saw with their own eyes the fox spirit skulking around, though you seemed not to have been bothered by the apparition at all.’

  ‘What are you driving at, Your Honor? How could I have been so superstitious as to be bothered by the stupid speculation among the village folk?’

  ‘Had it been just one or two villagers peddling such wild stories, I would not have given any credit to it. But there were quite a few villagers, and some of them swore that they actually saw the black fox spirit more than one time. I had to take it seriously.