It may not matter if you let them off overnight, but it will give them an opportunity to concoct some alternative explanation.”
“That will not be a problem,” said Prefect Hsü. “I know what I’m doing.”
Thereupon, the prison guards proceeded to take Ch’en Ching-chi and Ch’en An back to the lockup.
Prefect Hsü Feng had some suspicions about the situation in his mind, so he summoned a trusted subordinate and instructed him, thus and so, to go to the lockup, endeavor to ascertain what lay behind the crime that had been committed, and then report back to him.
This man, thereupon, disguised himself as a prisoner, slept in the same cell with Ch’en Ching-chi that night, and asked him what had happened, saying, “Brother, you are still in the springtime of your youth and don’t look like a criminal, but this day you have fallen into the clutches of the law and seem to be the victim of a miscarriage of justice.”
Ch’en Ching-chi responded by saying:
“It’s a long story.
I was originally the son-in-law of Hsi-men Ch’ing from Ch’ing-ho district. This woman, née Meng, who is the newly married bride of Assistant Prefect Li’s son, was formerly a concubine of my father-in-law’s, with whom I have had a sexual liaison. Now, on the occasion of her marriage, she brought with her ten trunkloads of gold and silver, and other valuables, as part of her trousseau, that originally belonged to a relative of my family’s, His Honor Yang Chien, who had entrusted them to my father-in-law’s family for safekeeping. I came here with the intention of recovering them but have been double-crossed by her, thus and so, and ended up being arrested as a thief:
Severely beaten into making a confession,32
and rendered no longer able to see the light of day. It’s really intolerable.”
Having heard this, his questioner made his way back to the rear hall of the yamen and reported it to Prefect Hsü, who said, “Just as I suspected, there was a reason why this man claimed to have suffered an injustice at the hands of this woman, née Meng.”
The next day, when he took his place on the bench, with two rows of lesser officials standing to either side, Prefect Hsü Feng had Ch’en Ching-chi and Ch’en An haled before him, directed that a record be made of their testimony, declared their innocence, and ordered them to be set free.
Assistant Prefect Li Ch’ang-ch’i, who was sitting beside him, did not know what was going on and objected repeatedly, saying, “Venerable sir, the guilt of these rascals is apparent. How can you let them go free?”
But Prefect Hsü, in front of his assembled subordinates, gave Assistant Prefect Li a severe dressing down, saying, “I occupy the senior office in this prefecture and derive my authority from the Emperor. It would not be right for me, on your family’s behalf, to:
Abuse the law to avenge a private dispute,33
and falsely accuse an innocent party of larceny. Your son has married the concubine, née Meng, of his deceased father-in-law, Hsi-men Ch’ing, who brought with her as part of her trousseau, trunkloads of gold and silver, and other valuables, that are subject to confiscation by the authorities. As Hsi-men Ch’ing’s son-in-law, the accused has come here in the hope of recovering the said property. How can you bring yourself to frame him, have him arrested for a crime he did not commit, and then expect me to collaborate in this injustice on your family’s behalf? As an official, one should:
Raise sons and raise daughters,
Hoping that they will become decent adults.
To allow them to act in this way, is a violation of justice.”
In front of the court, he berated Assistant Prefect Li till his face turned red with embarrassment, and:
He hung his head in mortification,34
not daring to utter another word. Ch’en Ching-chi and Ch’en An were then allowed to go free.
Not long afterwards, Prefect Hsü retired from the bench, and Assistant Prefect Li returned to his own quarters with his mind in a state of extreme turmoil.
When his wife noticed this, she said, “Sir, normally when you return from the courtroom, you act as though:
Nothing in Heaven or Earth could
make you happier;
but today, you seem so unhappy. What’s going on?”
“You’re only a woman!” shouted Assistant Prefect Li. “What do you know about anything? You have given birth to a worthless son, and today, on his account, Prefect Hsü has subjected me to a severe dressing down in the open courtroom, in front of all the assembled subordinates. It’s utterly enraging.”
His wife was thrown into consternation by this response and asked, “What’s it all about?”
Assistant Prefect Li merely called his son into his presence and shouted to his attendants, “Fetch a heavy bamboo cane. It’s utterly enraging!”
He then addressed his son, saying, “You are responsible for bringing this woman into our household as your wife. And now, the son-in-law of her deceased husband has shown up, insisting, over and over again, that she brought with her as part of her trousseau trunkloads of gold and silver that belonged to the convicted court official Yang Chien and were entrusted to his father-in-law’s family for safekeeping because they were subject to confiscation. He has come here in order to demand that you return them to him. He says that you surreptitiously removed government silver from the repository and used it to frame him as a thief. I didn’t know a thing about this but have suffered a tongue lashing from Prefect Hsü in front of the entire contingent of other functionaries. This is something you have visited upon me when I have not even begun to exercise my authority for a single day. What use do I have for a worthless son like you?”
So saying, he ordered his attendants to begin beating him, and the strokes of the heavy bamboo fell on him like rain. Alas, the young squire was beaten until:
The skin was broken, the flesh was split, and
Fresh blood spurted out.
When the prefect’s wife saw that he was being beaten until he was scarcely recognizable, she wept on the sidelines and urged her husband to desist. Meng Yü-lou, also, eavesdropped on the scene from inside the postern gate to the residential quarters in the rear and wiped away her tears.
After he had been given thirty strokes with the heavy bamboo, Assistant Prefect Li ordered his attendants, saying, “Take the young squire into custody, and expel that woman of his from the premises at once. She can remarry anyone she chooses, and thereby avoid any further scandal, and allow me to reassert my integrity.”
The young squire, Li Kung-pi, could not bear the thought of being separated from her, and fell to weeping and pleading before his parents, saying, “I would rather allow myself to be beaten to death by my father than relinquish my wife.”
Assistant Prefect Li ordered that the young squire should be shackled with iron chains, confined in the rear quarters of the yamen, and not allowed out, with the intention of letting him die there.
His wife wept at this, saying, “Sir, in the course of your career as an official you have reached the age of more than fifty years, and this is the only offspring that you possess. If you confine him until he dies on account of this woman, in the future, when you grow old and retire from office, on whom will you rely?”
“But if I don’t do so,” said Assistant Prefect Li, “he will only continue to make trouble for me with my colleagues.”
“If you don’t wish to allow him to remain here,” responded his wife, “why not send the two of them back to our ancestral home in Chen-ting prefecture?”
The assistant prefect allowed himself to be persuaded by his wife and consented to let the young squire go. He was given a limit of three days in which to arrange for transportation and set out with his wife for his native place in Tsao-ch’iang district, where he was to continue his studies.
To resume our story, when Ch’en Ching-chi and Ch’en An were released from the yamen in Yen-chou prefecture, they returned to the monastery where they had been staying, picked up their luggage, and went straight back to
the inn of Ch’en the Second in Ch’ing-chiang p’u.
When they asked for Yang the Elder, they were told, “Three days ago he went to the prefectural yamen to look for you and was told that you had been incarcerated in the lockup, so he came back, took charge of his boatload of cargo, and headed for home.”
Ch’en Ching-chi could hardly believe this, so he went down to the waterfront to see for himself but came up empty-handed, being unable to find the boat.
“That god-damned creature!” he exclaimed. “How could he fail to wait for me, but simply take off on his own?”
On top of everything else, having just been released from the lockup, he had nothing in the way of traveling expenses at his disposal. He and Ch’en An had no recourse but to take passage on another boat, pawn their garments to cover the cost, and scrounge for food on their way home:
As flustered as a dog who has
lost his way home;
As flurried as a fish who has
escaped the net.
Along the route, they sought for news of Yang the Elder but found no trace of him. At the time, it was already late autumn:
The trees were shedding leaves,
The metallic wind was turbulent,
and the atmosphere was desolate. There is a poem of eight lines that describes the hardships suffered by travelers in the autumn:
Stem by stem the caltrop and the lotus wither;
Leaf by leaf the phoenix tree’s foliage falls.
The crickets chirp in the decaying grasslands;
The wild geese come down upon the level sands.35
Drizzling rain showers drench the green woods;
The frost is heavy as the weather gets colder.
Those who do not have to journey on the roads;
Are quite unable to savor the taste of autumn.36
On the day that Ch’en Ching-chi finally arrived home, the servant Ch’en Ting was standing in the doorway. When he saw Ch’en Ching-chi arrive and noticed that:
His clothing looked disheveled,37 and
His face was dark with sunburn,
it gave him quite a start. After ushering him inside, he inquired about the whereabouts of his boatload of merchandise.
Ch’en Ching-chi was so angry that it took him what seemed like half a day to respond, telling him about the trial he had endured in Yen-chou prefecture, and saying, “I am lucky that the presiding officer, Prefect Hsü Feng, set me free. Otherwise:
My life would have been in jeopardy.38
And now, that god-damned creature Yang the Elder has made off with my merchandise, and who knows where he has taken it?”
The first thing Ch’en Ching-chi did was to send Ch’en Ting to Yang the Elder’s home to see if he could find out anything, but they merely reported that he had not returned home yet. Ch’en Ching-chi then went in person to inquire about the situation but did not gain any information and came home and entered the house in a highly agitated state.
It so happens that Feng Chin-pao and Hsi-men Ta-chieh had proven to be incompatible:
One turning south and the other facing north.
Ever since Ch’en Ching-chi had embarked on his expedition, they had quarrelled with one another, right up until the day of his return.
Hsi-men Ta-chieh claimed that Feng Chin-pao had been secretly filching money to give to the procuress of the brothel from which she had been purchased, saying, “The servant from her place comes here all the time:
Surreptitiously acquiring things on the sly,
and purchasing wine and meat for her, which she consumes in her own room, while the rest of us do without. She sleeps until noon all the time and refuses to buy anything for the household, simply leaving the rest of us to put up with it.”
Feng Chin-pao, for her part, said, “Hsi-men Ta-chieh is so habitually lazy she will:
Neither pick up a bent piece of hay,
Nor glean a standing stalk of grain.39
She pilfers rice to exchange for baked wheat cakes to eat, and marinated pork which she sneaks into her room to share with her maidservant Yüan-hsiao.”
Ch’en Ching-chi believed this last accusation and accosted Hsi-men Ta-chieh, saying, “So, you lousy worthless whore! I guess you must be suffering from such:
Acute consumption or avid craving,
that you can’t help pilfering rice to exchange for baked wheat cakes, and marinated pork to share with your maidservant.”
So saying, he gave Yüan-hsiao a beating and kicked Hsi-men Ta-chieh a few times.
Hsi-men Ta-chieh was so upset by this that she chased after Feng Chin-pao and confronted her, head to head, saying, “What an adulterous whore you are! I suppose that the money you have been filching on behalf of that procuress of yours doesn’t matter; but you actually have the gall to allege to my husband that I have been pilfering rice and meat for myself. This is a case of:
The curfew violator arresting the watchman.
And you have even incited my husband to kick me. I’ll put my life up against yours any day, you whore. After all, what is it worth anyway?”
“What a fine whore you are!” exclaimed Ch’en Ching-chi. “You offer to put your life up against hers, do you? You’re not even worth as much as one of the toes on her feet.”
This was one of those occasions on which:
Something was destined to happen,
and it turned out to be a catastrophe.
Thereupon, Ch’en Ching-chi, grabbed Hsi-men Ta-chieh by the hair with one hand and proceeded to pound her with his fist, kick her with his feet, and beat her with a stick. He beat her until blood oozed from her nostrils, and it seemed like half a day before she regained consciousness. Ch’en Ching-chi then retired to the quarters of his singing girl and went to sleep with her, leaving Hsi-men Ta-chieh in her own lesser quarters, where she gave way to:
Sobbing and wailing,
as she cried bitterly, while Yüan-hsiao retired to the adjacent room to sleep. Alas, in the middle of the night, Hsi-men Ta-chieh suspended a length of rope from the rafters, and:
Hanged herself until dead.
At the time of her death she was twenty-three years of age.
The next morning, when Yüan-hsiao got up, she tried to push open the door to her bedroom but could not do so. Ch’en Ching-chi and Feng Chin-pao, who were still in bed at the time, sent their maidservant Ch’ung-hsi to fetch a wooden basin from Hsi-men Ta-chieh’s room, so they could wash their feet; but she, also, was not able to push the door open.
At this, Ch’en Ching-chi started to curse, saying, “That lousy whore! How can she still be asleep at this hour and refuse to get up? I’ll go kick her door open and pull the hair off her head.”
Ch’ung-hsi managed to look in the window and said, “She has already gotten up and is amusing herself in the room by swinging.”
She then went on to say, “It looks as though she has suspended herself like a puppet on a string.”40
Yüan-hsiao also looked inside for what seemed like half a day before exclaiming, “Master, it’s tragic. The mistress is hanging from the rafters over the bed and appears to be dead.”
Only then was the young gentleman alarmed enough to get out of bed, along with his singing girl, kick open the door to her room, cut the rope by which she was suspended, lay her down, and attempt to revive her for what seemed like half a day. But there was not a breath left in her. There was no way they could tell when it had happened, but:
Alack and alas,
she had died. Truly:
Who knows to what place her true nature
may have flown;
Unless it is in the flying clouds and the
autumn waters?41
When Ch’en Ting learned that Hsi-men Ta-chieh was dead, he was afraid of being implicated and went to Hsi-men Ch’ing’s residence to inform Yüeh-niang of what had happened.
When Yüeh-niang learned that Hsi-men Ta-chieh had committed suicide by hanging herself, and that Ch’en Ching-chi had brought a singing girl int
o his household, her feelings toward him were truly an instance of the adage:
When the ice is three feet thick,
It is not due to one day of cold.
Taking with her seven or eight of her page boys, maidservants, and servants’ wives, she made her way straight to his place. When she set eyes on Hsi-men Ta-chieh’s corpse, stretched out straight and stiff, she began to scream with rage, grabbed hold of Ch’en Ching-chi, and had her servants beat him until his entire body looked as though it had been gored with an awl in innumerable places. The singing girl Feng Chin-pao tried to hide under the bed, but she too was dragged out and beaten to a stinking pulp. Yüeh-niang had them smash the doors, windows, and walls of the house until they were in a shambles:
All at sevens and eights;42
and also ordered them to ransack her room, and carry away the beds and curtains and other remains of her trousseau. When she arrived home, she invited her brothers, Wu K’ai and Wu the Second, to come and consult with her about the situation.
Wu K’ai said, “Sister, if you don’t seize this occasion, when a member of your family has perished, to take the case to court, in the future, when he has trouble making a living, he will come back and demand those trunks from you once again.
If one does not take thought for the future,
One is sure to meet with present misfortune.43
The best thing to do would be to take him to court and have the case settled once and for all, in order to:
Stave off any future catastrophe.”
“Brother, what you say is right,” responded Yüeh-niang, and they proceeded,
forthwith, to set about drafting an accusation.
The next day, Yüeh-niang went in person to the courtroom in the district yamen and submitted her accusation.
It so happens that the newly appointed district magistrate was named Huo Ta-li. He was a native of Huang-kang district in the Hu-kuang region, a holder of the provincial graduate degree, and a person of upright character. When he learned that the case was a serious one, involving a human fatality, he promptly took his place on the bench and accepted the accusation, which read as follows:
Wu Yüeh-niang Creates a Stir in the District Yamen
The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei Page 38