The Shadow of the Empire

by Qiu Xiaolong

  It was true that Xuanji frequently came to the flower garden because of the flowers she needed for her parties, but, from time to time, it was also because of their talking about and discussing the problems they had in common. They were young, single, and lonely, and both of them were seen as unorthodox. More so in Xuanji’s case. In spite of the dominant Confucian discourse of arranged marriage, paradoxically, the early Tang Dynasty also happened to be a period when romantic affairs among young people could also be considered fashionable, at least in popular stories and poems. That made things harder for Xuanji, who felt helplessly trapped in the nunnery despite all her fancy parties and celebrated friends. That was not at all what she had dreamed of for her life. She was worried that she would soon lose her youth and beauty. And then everything else. As for those men at the parties, she knew clearly they cared only for her body – and even that only for the moment. She prayed that someone would come to rescue her from her plight, but for her, he had to be a man of higher social status. A knight in shining armor on a white horse, so to speak.

  ‘A knight or not, has she had a “true-hearted lover” as described in that poem she wrote for you?’ Judge Dee cut in with a question.

  Zhang hesitated, leaning over a dainty pot of pale-pink peonies, keeping herself busy watering the flowers as an excuse for not responding to the question, and touching the petals with her nervous fingers.

  Judge Dee lifted his gown and produced a tiny silver ingot from an inner pocket, weighing it in his hand.

  ‘It’s not a profitable business to publish poetry, but I’m a devoted fan, willing to go all out for the project because I believe, no matter what may happen to her, those poems of hers will live on for generations. For that, I need to know as much as possible about the background of the poems. The peonies are so lovely. Please send a bouquet of them to her on my behalf.’

  ‘It’s so kind of you, sir. Xuanji really loves peonies. She has even written a poem about them, but a bouquet does not take that much silver, sir.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. You keep the change.’

  ‘You’re a very generous man,’ she said, accepting the silver ingot. ‘About your question regarding a “true-hearted lover” of hers, she once imagined she had a man who really cared for her, she told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Wei.’

  ‘Wei – I think I’ve heard of that name before, but what do you mean by “once”?’

  ‘Wei’s a musician, young, handsome, and talented in his way, and he set a couple of her poems to music. At first she was crazy about him, but he was as poor as a rat, with no social or literary status to speak of. What’s worse, it did not take too long for her to be devastated with the discovery that he’s good for nothing – except in her bed. And for that matter, possibly in other women’s beds, too.’

  ‘But she continued to see him?’

  ‘He denied those allegations, but she too was seeing other men. So theirs turned into a sort of open relationship. He was not the one for her, she realized, but she nonetheless kept him with a kind of tacit understanding between the two of them. Whenever she was not seeing other men, he would sneak over to her from the small hut she had bought for him – or, occasionally, for a change, she would scurry over to him under the cover of darkness. In short, she continued to see him, even though she no longer regarded him as a serious choice – definitely not as a “true-hearted lover.”’

  ‘Wei must have had some idea about the other man or men she was seeing before the murder?’

  ‘It’s possible. But why the question?’

  ‘For a better understanding of her works. The occasions for the composition of her poems. Reading her poems, the readers may have a vague impression about the other men she had been seeing, and they are curious for details. For instance, what do you know about Wen, and for that matter Zi’an, too?’

  ‘I don’t know too much about Wen. They wrote passionate love poems for each other, some of which she showed me. Indeed, she’s very proud of his poems to her. Had Wen cared that much for her, however, he would not have pushed her into the arms of another man. At least that’s what I think.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Judge Dee agreed.

  ‘As for Zi’an, he’s simply a hen-pecked, false-hearted coward. I saw him just once in the neighborhood of the nunnery. It was at the time she first moved over here. She had since become so disappointed with him. As far as I know, he has hardly written to her since his departure for his official position in another province in the company of his wife.’

  Judge Dee had not expected too much new information from that direction, so he shifted to questioning about what Xuanji did on the day of the murder.

  ‘No, I did not see Xuanji the day that one of her guests discovered the body in the nunnery backyard. The third day of the month, I remember. If anything, I don’t think they were important guests to her. She usually did not have lunch parties except for those who happened to drop in. Those visitors came on the pretext of sightseeing around the nunnery. Xuanji did not order any flowers from me that day.’

  ‘No, I mean the day before. The maid was killed the previous day. The second day of the month.’

  ‘Oh, that day, I did see Xuanji. Around noon-time, I think, she came over to pick up some flowers. Expensive bouquets of peonies, her favorite flower, most likely for a special guest in the evening—’

  ‘Hold on, Zhang. You mentioned that she once wrote a poem about the peony. I don’t think I have read that poem.’

  ‘It’s little wonder. She composed it only about two months ago. That day, after buying a large pot of pink peonies, she talked to me for quite a while, and then dashed off these lines in praise of the peony.’

  ‘What did she talk about to you on that occasion?’

  ‘Mostly about the peony. She told me that it’s the national flower of the Tang Empire, but the empress would have chosen another flower because of her uncontrollable ambition. Another empire and another national flower. Sometimes Xuanji said things I don’t really understand.’

  That went beyond the flower because of the politics involved in the background. The empress wanted to have another flower named as the national flower. Her suggestion came as a test of people’s reaction to her plan to change the Tang Empire to the Zhou Empire. A number of high-ranking officials opposed the idea, including Judge Dee. So the empress gave a different imperial order instead, declaring that the peony be exiled from the capital. It was nothing but political symbolism, and people saw no point in openly confronting the empress.

  The flower girl did not understand all that, but Xuanji should have known better. Such a poem could have been interpreted as a ‘thought crime.’

  ‘So you have the poem with you?’

  ‘I think so, but it may take a while for me to find it,’ she said, blushing again. ‘My room is such a mess.’

  ‘I’m staying at Dingguo Temple. I’ll be there for a couple of days more. Can you send it to me when you get hold of it? Perhaps you may also bring some flowers for the temple.’

  He fumbled in his inner pocket again.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, sir. The silver ingot you gave me more than covers that as well. But what were we talking about before shifting to the topic of the peony?’

  ‘She came to your flower garden the day before the discovery of the maid’s body in the nunnery backyard, right?’

  ‘Yes, she came that morning, the second day of the month. She must have done some other shopping on the way to my flower garden.’

  ‘For a special guest?’

  ‘I would think so. In her basket, I noticed a tiny package of swallow saliva nest. A slice of dried shark fin. And some high-quality rice paper along with a fox-tail brush pen.’

  ‘All so fancy and pricy!’

  ‘Usually, the shopping was a job for her maid named Ning, but it’s probably because of the expensive stuff that Xuanji did not trust her with it on this occasion. But I could not help feeling curious about such
a shopping spree.’

  ‘Did she say anything about the maid?’

  ‘No, she did not. She was picking up the flowers with the shopping basket placed on the ground, and I took another look into the basket.’

  ‘What else did you see?’

  ‘She had a live bass, shrimp, and some fresh bean sprout. Not large quantities, not enough for a party, but more likely for one guest. A small bunch of fresh lychee. Oh, and an urn of Maiden Red, too.’

  ‘Maiden Red?’

  ‘It’s a convention among some well-to-do people to bury an urn of Shaoxing rice wine in the ground on the birth of a daughter in the family. When she grows up, the people will dig the urn out on her wedding day – the wine is almost scarlet in color after it has been kept underground all these years. That’s the origin of the name. But people don’t have to drink it only on that special occasion. It’s also an indication of the age of the wine, at least fifteen or sixteen years old, so mellow and smooth, and of course very expensive, too.’

  Was there something else in the flower girl’s sensual description of the special shopping Xuanji did for that day?

  ‘Yes, not just with a high price tag, but with a very evocative name as well,’ Judge Dee said, nodding. ‘So the Maiden Red as well as other special items would have been prepared for a special guest in the intimacy of the intoxicating spring night, I would like to imagine.’

  ‘I have no idea about the identity of the special visitor to her that night. At least, she did not mention anything about it to me. It’s a bit unusual. She used to keep nothing from me, bragging and boasting about those big-bug visitors of hers. But for the last one or two months, she appeared to be mysterious – inexplicably mysterious. For one thing, she did not talk to me at all about that special guest, and she actually made a point of coming to my place for the flowers instead of having me deliver them to the nunnery.’

  ‘That’s something, I see. Anything else?’

  ‘At times, she looked so radiant, as if with happiness pouring out from within, but the next moment, she could appear to be very pensive. It was just not like her.’

  ‘In addition to unusual things about her, did you notice anything out of the ordinary at the nunnery?’

  ‘No, I didn’t – but now you mention it, there might have been something a little bit strange. The last time I went there – it was more than half a month ago – I saw somebody – a man I had never seen before – standing outside the nunnery like a guard, who tried to bar me from entering. Then Xuanji herself hurried out, but she did not let me in, either. That’s so weird. I have seen men staying inside the nunnery before – in her bedroom, too. That’s no big deal – not something secret between us.’

  ‘She used to keep nothing from you, I believe.’

  ‘So the man she had been seeing that day must be somebody, as in an old proverb, “a divine dragon soaring in the cloud, with its head visible, but not with its tail.”’

  ‘A divine dragon soaring in the cloud, with its head visible, but not with its tail,’ he echoed, shocked by so many coincidences of dragons in the last few days. Was that why his nerves had been so frayed with the mysterious case? ‘Well, I’ve never heard of the proverb before.’

  But it came to his realization that it was not a proverb, but more likely a quote in classical poetry criticism. Who had initially said it, however, he failed to recollect.

  ‘I think that’s what she once said to me about the guest. But sorry, my memories may be getting confused.’

  ‘A different question, Zhang.’ He could not help staring at her before he went on, abruptly changing the subject. ‘How was the relationship between Xuanji and her maid Ning?’

  ‘When she first moved into the nunnery, she brought Ning from her family as a little maidservant. In a couple of years, Ning turned out to be a clever, pretty, but rather coquettish young girl. Xuanji once complained to me about it. But with all those visitors of hers, a capable maidservant like Ning was not without some benefit.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, vaguely disturbed by the flower girl’s description of Ning being pretty but rather coquettish. ‘Just one more question for you. Did some of the visitors hit on the maidservant in addition to Xuanji?’

  ‘That I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Xuanji is truly a great beauty. The fame of a celebrated poetess like Xuanji surely made a world of difference to the visitors. For a slip of an ordinary village girl like Ning, they had no need to come to the nunnery.’

  ‘That’s a good point. Thank you so much, Zhang. You have helped me a lot for the project of her poetry collection. The readers will be grateful to you, too.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I hope you will succeed with your endeavor. Here is just something small for you,’ she said, handing him a tiny ball of white jasmine bud, which people could put in their hair or in a buttonhole.

  But for an old bookish man like him?

  Long after the solitary figure of Judge Dee vanished from the hill trail, Yang remained standing still in front of the temple, unable to shake off the feeling that his master might not have told him everything about the investigation.

  Was it because there was too much risk involved in the investigation that Dee decided to prevent him from moving any further in that direction?

  From the very beginning, Judge Dee had tried to downplay the seriousness of the ominous flying-knife note left in the hostel room, Yang contemplated.

  In spite of Judge Dee’s effort, what information he gathered the previous day convinced Yang, however, that things were far more complicated and sinister than a tall tale of a bewitching black fox spirit prowling around the nunnery.

  There was hardly anything for Yang to do in the temple. The breakfast tasted so bland, with nothing but a small dish of soft tofu mixed with green onion and sesame oil, and a bowl of wishy-washy white rice porridge. Supposedly, a fashionable, delicious vegetarian treat to those men of letters, but not to him.

  And the continuous mumbled chanting of the Buddhist scriptures in the service hall of the temple repeatedly reminded him of the green-headed flies buzzing and murmuring in Xuanji’s backyard. It also brought along a suggestion of the onset of a dull headache.

  The young monk Nameless came over to chat with him amiably, given that Judge Dee was not in the temple. Nameless and Yang failed, however, to find any common topic interesting to them both.

  Shortly afterward, Yang sneaked out, too, wearing a smooth, shiny bamboo hat made by an old monk squatting in the front yard of the temple, slicing the bamboo deftly with a long knife, and looking up with a toothless grin at Yang.

  The sound of the bell wafting over in a fresh breeze outside the temple seemed to clear his head. Yang wondered whether Judge Dee was really taking a stroll around the temple in the hills. The day before, Yang recalled, Judge Dee had been listening to his report in earnest, raising a number of questions, and making some notes on a scrap of paper.

  So was Judge Dee now checking with those possible clues and contacts by himself?

  Halfway down the hill, Yang made an abrupt turn, heading toward the nunnery. It was only a little more than a mile from the temple. The distance was nothing to him.

  With no one in the nunnery, Judge Dee would more likely be talking to people in the neighborhood, whose names and addresses he had learned from Yang. So it might be as well for the ‘investigation assistant’ to take a look into the nunnery instead, even though it was cordoned off.

  There was one puzzle particularly inexplicable to Yang. The more inexplicable, the more he thought about it, while trudging through the surrounding stillness of the hills.

  Several villagers had confirmed witnessing the black fox spirit stalking the neighborhood of the nunnery. Testimony from one villager could have been a matter of superstitious hallucination, but when it came from several of them, it appeared to be way beyond Yang, the more so with the movement of the fox spirit reportedly intensifying during the last couple of months. Could that have been an omen that somethi
ng horrible was going to happen there?

  Another sharp, unexpected turn of the trail brought Yang in view of the nunnery, which was closer than he had thought. Located almost at the foot of the hill, it remained cordoned off with yellow banners. The lawn in front of the nunnery was uncut, untrimmed for days, and the rampant wild weeds looked desolate in the morning light.

  The nunnery was a one-story square building, with a strip of lawn in front, and a fairly large backyard. The yellowish painted walls were decked with intricate Daoist signs of yin and yang embossed in white and black. The front door was shut tight, presenting a shining brass padlock and an official seal issued by the mayor’s office.

  It might not be a good idea for him to try breaking into the nunnery at the present moment, given Judge Dee’s sensitive situation. Still, he could not shake off a hunch that something might have been left undiscovered inside the nunnery. He decided to do some espionage work outside first.

  Walking around the slightly discolored nunnery walls, he saw a small half-hidden trail stretching out from the back, the rampant weeds recently trodden here and there, leading to a shabby-looking wooden hut a short distance away. It could turn out to be Wei’s.

  The nunnery was not exactly a building standing in isolation. It was not a part of the village at the foot of the hill either, but just about a stone’s throw away.

  Yang moved down. It took him little effort to obtain from the villagers confirmation that the hut in question was indeed none other than Wei’s.

  A middle-aged villager with a long white-streaked beard claimed that he had seen a young woman like Xuanji trotting out barefoot and barelegged toward the hut on a summer night, her long black hair streaming like torrents in the breeze, but given the distance, he could not be too sure about it. An elderly gray-haired woman insisted she saw Wei heading toward the nunnery in raven-black clothing one dark night, like a stealthy animal.

  ‘Like a black fox spirit? No, she’s the black fox spirit. I tell you! What a shameless bitch! A black curse on the whole neighborhood.’