The Shadow of the Empire

by Qiu Xiaolong

  ‘Wei’s nocturnal movements in the vicinity of the nunnery could have led to the neighborhood people imagining things, finger-pointing, gossiping, and speculating. It was understandable that he felt bugged, so the black fox costume could have been designed for a specific purpose: to make the black fox spirit even more realistically menacing so as to scare the village folk away. Consequently, they would not be able to witness his visits to you in the nunnery.

  ‘But then a question follows, Xuanji. Wei had been seeing you for quite a long time, so why had he not tried to do anything about it until just about a month and a half ago? Besides, his wearing the black fox costume for his visits at night could also have escalated the spreading of the black fox stories, and that could have been something unpleasant to you.’

  ‘I’ve had no idea at all about the existence of the black fox costume, Your Honor, let alone its specific purpose. I’m totally befuddled. You were talking about the death of Wei. Then why, all of a sudden, the abrupt shift to the black fox costume or the black fox spirit?’

  ‘Because it has everything to do with the death of Wei, Xuanji. Paradoxically, the second scenario, which involves the black fox spirit in such a superstitious way, has evolved out of the first scenario.

  ‘As I’ve mentioned earlier, on the second day of the month, you made elaborate, extravagant preparations for dinner in expectation of a mysterious guest in the evening. Such expensive delicacies as swallow saliva nest and shark fin were not purchased for a low-class man like Wei, I am guessing, but for a man of really high social status.’

  ‘Almost all the visitors to me at the nunnery are of higher social status than Wei. That does not really mean anything, Your Honor.’

  ‘But much, much higher social status, I have to say, than all of the visitors you have received there. Guess how the flower girl Zhang described the mysterious man you were seeing for the last couple of months? She said you compared him to “a divine dragon soaring in the cloud, with its head visible, but not with its tail.” It’s something you have never said about any man before, so she remembered.’

  ‘Zhang is a young, naïve girl who has a knack for exaggeration. The chit-chat between the two of us should not have been taken too seriously.’

  ‘Alas, Zhang was silenced.’

  ‘What do you mean, Your Honor?’

  ‘She, too, was killed yesterday – in the evening. Mayor Pei and I have just had a discussion about it. To say the least, we could not rule out the possibility of her death being related to your case. First Wei and then the flower girl Zhang. Killed in the same day.’

  ‘Oh, it’s such a shock, and very sad, but I was just one of her customers at the flower garden.’

  ‘Definitely more than “just one” of her customers; you know that, Xuanji – the way you talked to her about the special guest you were seeing. Not to mention the poem you wrote for her – “To a Girl in the Neighborhood.” Again, according to the flower girl, it’s rather unusual that she had been barred from entering the nunnery for the last couple of months. Why all the secrecy all of a sudden for a close confidante like her? Supposing the special guest is a married man – but what’s the problem with that? Most of the visitors to the nunnery are married. It’s no big deal, and I agreed with the flower girl on that.’

  ‘One more piece of collateral damage. I was truly born under an ill star—’

  Her sentence was cut short with the eerie sound of something black jumping, bumping against the rusted window railing of the cell, as if in support of the superstitious belief of the black fox spirit. They turned toward the window in haste, but they failed to see anything there.

  Could that be another ominous sign?

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Judge Dee said in relief. ‘You were talking about the curse of the black fox spirit. No, you had just denied its existence. And I agree with you that it’s nothing but superstitious belief among the village folk. On the other hand, it’s really because of the complexities of the case that the black fox spirit came into the picture. I’ve discussed some of these complexities with Mayor Pei, but not all of them.’

  ‘You are scaring me, Your Honor!’

  ‘No, I’m not. But I’m very much worried that with the case dragging on like this, more collateral damage will come. Wei might not have been innocent, but the young flower girl was different, and I feel so sorry about her. Had she not come to deliver the poem to me in the temple, she might not have been ambushed on the mountain path. It would probably just have been a matter of time before the killer silenced her one way or another, though.

  ‘So the list of collateral damage could prove to be long. After Wei and the flower girl, other people connected to you – even though not that closely – would be removed as well. Those “high above” are just like Cao Cao, the mighty prime minister of the Han dynasty, who declared that he would rather wrong all the people in the world than let himself be wronged by others.’

  A ghastly silence ensued in the prison cell.

  ‘In retrospect,’ he started anew in an increasingly hoarse voice, clearing his throat with difficulty, ‘it’s perhaps no coincidence that three days ago, just prior to the arrival of Minister Wu’s messenger, I had a knife-fixed note thrown into my hostel room: A high-flying dragon will have something to regret. It’s a quote from the Book of Changes, you know. I was so alarmed that I consulted the classic book for divination, but another sign popped up with a more ominous message: A hidden dragon should be careful in its movement. That more than worries me, Xuanji. You know what a dragon can symbolize in our Tang Empire. The dragon symbolism cannot but bring up all its associations to me. I happen to be familiar with the fierce power struggle at the court, and I was terrified by the implication of these signs.’

  He saw the terror mirrored in her clear, large eyes. What he had suspected was being confirmed, at least partially, but she was making a visible effort to pull herself together.

  ‘You’re a man of great learning, Your Honor. It’s no surprise that you’re so familiar with classics like the Book of Changes. As for those dragon signs or symbols, however, you are just making a mountain out of a molehill. Whatever possible interpretations are involved, how can you be so sure I had a special guest that evening – a guest of the extreme high social status in association with those dragon interpretations? You have nothing whatsoever to prove it.’

  Instead of moving further with his second scenario, Judge Dee rose, reached his head out of the cell, and said in a loud voice to Huang and Yang, who were stationed at the end of the corridor, ‘You two stand guard there. Don’t come over. Don’t interrupt our talk. And make sure there is nobody moving near the cell here.’

  ‘Yes,’ Yang and Huang said in unison.

  ‘Actually, there is something, Xuanji,’ Judge Dee said, turning back to her, ‘that goes a long way to prove it. Let me show it to you.’

  With a dramatic flourish of his hand, Judge Dee snatched out of the bag the yellow silk underrobe embroidered with golden dragons and spread it out gingerly in front of her.

  ‘Surely you know to whom the yellow underrobe belongs, Xuanji.’

  She jumped to her feet, reeled, and then collapsed back to the heap of straw, her bare back pressing hard against the moss-covered prison wall.

  ‘Where … where did you get hold of it?’

  ‘At the crime scene, my assistant Yang found the underrobe wrapped around the waist of Wei – inside his long gown. Wei had taken it out of the nunnery in his flight. It must have seemed valuable to Wei for some reason known only to him.’ Judge Dee went on after a theatrical pause, ‘Look at the premium silk, at the yellow color, and at the intricate dragon pattern embroidered, and you surely know what it signifies.’

  She opened her mouth, yet she ended up saying nothing. Tongue-tied, she averted her eyes while stealing another look at the underrobe.

  ‘A true anecdote may shed a lot of light on the dragon symbolism in question, Xuanji. An early Tang Dynasty general in a southern pro
vince had his garden wall ridges decorated with yellow glazed dragons, for which he was impeached as one harboring secret ambition for the throne. As the dragon is known to symbolize imperial power, it’s reserved for use only by the emperor – or by the crown prince with some minor modification in the design details. That general managed to save his neck by claiming the dragon decoration on the garden wall had been actually extended from the adjourning Daoist City God Temple, which had a clay statue of the Heavenly Emperor standing majestic in it.

  ‘As for the yellow color, it, too, is commonly known as the “imperial color.” People like you and me know better than to wear any clothing of that color. And I don’t think you need me to go into details on that.

  ‘Anyway, whoever the owner of the underrobe might have been, he must have been fully aware of its imperial implications. Somehow, he still chose to cling to it.

  ‘So the question we have to ask is: Why?

  ‘And in the light of the yellow silk underrobe, the answer could be staring us in the face. It’s because he considered himself entitled to this yellow underrobe embroidered with golden dragons. Consequently, his identity in the scandalous murder case appears to be self-evident, which had to be kept a secret at all costs, and which really accounts for a number of puzzling details of this bizarre case.

  ‘First and foremost, it explains why for some people “high above,” the presence of the wearer of the yellow underrobe had to be removed out of any possible scenario of the murder case. The revelation of his involvement in your company – and on that murderous night in the nunnery – could have led to unimaginable, disastrous consequence for the empire. For other people “high above,” however, it was an opportunity they could not afford to lose to drag him into the mire—’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she cut in with a tremulous catch in her voice. ‘I’m simply getting more and more befuddled.’

  ‘Well, let’s come back to the heart of the matter for the second scenario, Xuanji. Even prior to the murder case, the revelation of his true identity could have lent itself to a number of catastrophic possibilities. One of them would be blackmail, particularly if the man in question happened to be in a vulnerable position. The knowledge of his mixing with someone of your social status would cause him enormous harm. In such a scenario, who could have been the blackmailer?’

  Xuanji still made no response, her head hung low, overwhelmed by the unfolding scenario. Judge Dee waited and then resumed in the ensuing silence.

  ‘I don’t think you told Wei anything, Xuanji, about the identity of the mysterious man in the yellow underrobe, though you might have asked Wei to prowl around in the black fox spirit costume at night. It was the precaution you wanted to take for that man in the yellow underrobe. As the village folk would be too scared at the sight of the skulking black fox to step into the vicinity of the nunnery, the mysterious movements of the man in the yellow underrobe would not have been noticed, detected by the village people.

  ‘The flower girl, too, was not supposed to know anything about the man in the yellow underrobe, so she was barred from stepping into the nunnery in the last month or so.

  ‘Who else, then, could have had any first-hand knowledge of the clandestine visits by that special guest in the yellow silk underrobe – and of his real identity, too?

  ‘Ning, the one and only maidservant in the nunnery. She practically stayed there with you all the time. Even on the occasions of poetry parties, there’re a lot of things for her to do as a maidservant. In some large households, a maidservant has to serve in the bedroom as well – giving a helping hand in the most intimate moments of cloud turning into rain, and rain turning into cloud. I don’t think she did that, but you would not have kept those visitors – or that special visitor of late – a secret from her. A capable, clever girl, Ning must have learned or guessed something, one way or another, about his real identity. So what could she have possibly done?

  ‘Blackmail. That afternoon, instead of leaving for her home as she had told you, Ning waited at the nunnery, searching for possible evidence and preparing for a showdown with you. She knew he was coming over that night, and that you would try to keep his identity hidden at any cost. Confronted with such an unscrupulous, ungrateful blackmailer, you started cursing, whipping, kicking, and hitting at her hysterically, perhaps not totally aware of how savage, how violent your beating was. In your subconscious mind, you could have chosen to silence her – once and for all – with one involuntary yet fatal blow after another raining on the maidservant …

  ‘You did not stop until she dropped to the floor, breathing her last breath.

  ‘And then the man in the silk yellow underrobe did come over – about dinner-time, I assume. Ning was already dead, lying cold on the floor. When you told him what had happened, it was he, not Wei, who helped with the burial of Ning’s body in the backyard that night. As a man of high status, he was not used to the digging work, which accounted for the poor, amateur job he did in the backyard.

  ‘But I have to say a good word for that special guest of yours. It was by no means easy for him to take such a huge risk helping you out, though he did so not just for you, but probably more for himself. He could not afford to have his true identity exposed because of it.

  ‘For you, I also have to say something. It was not for yourself that you did all this during the last couple of months – having Wei prowl around in that black fox spirit costume, barring the flower girl from the nunnery, arranging for the printing of the special edition of no more than two copies, doing the exorbitant shopping that morning, and then confronting Ning with the fatal beating … It was for him, whose identity you had to keep in absolute secrecy, a man of exceptional noble status, but also one exceptionally vulnerable at the moment.

  ‘That’s why in that “confession” of yours, you said not a single word that could possibly incriminate him, even though you knew the statements you made both in the courtroom and in the prison cell were far from convincing. You did not divulge the secret in spite of those cruel tortures you suffered, Xuanji. Truly, you care too much for him.’

  Perhaps Judge Dee had intended to conclude the scenario with a romantic touch. He immediately came to regret it, however, with the last sentence fading into the somber silence of the prison cell.

  ‘It’s such a long, complicated scenario!’ She finally managed to utter the words. ‘But all this must have come into your mind like the knife note in the hostel, flashing out of nowhere in the dark, Your Honor.’

  ‘No, it came to me gradually, piece by piece. First, Minister Wu’s request for my help in the investigation, which appeared to be more than surprising or suspicious to me. I’ve long been seen as an obstacle to his ambition for the throne, as you probably know. Why should he have gone out of his way to enlist my help with your case? It was obvious that Minister Wu was desperately after something or someone you have not acknowledged in the confession. Let me repeat: something or someone that justified, in the midst of the black fox spirit skulking here and there in the neighborhood, the killing of the maidservant Ning, of Wei, and of the flower girl Zhang.’

  To his astonishment, she then sat up on the heap of straw. She combed her hair with her fingers, drew back her bare legs and feet in a formal position, before she placed the hairy black fox costume across her white thighs. It presented an unbelievably weird sight.

  What was the possible meaning of that sudden pose?

  A black fox spirit, bestial, demeaned as it was, would still hold on to its dignity, in spite of anything Judge Dee might have chosen to say.

  ‘What happened in the nunnery that day,’ she said, having regained her composure, ‘I did not exactly remember, Your Honor. I was so drunk. For all I know, there could have been a black fox spirit lurking around, casting a deadly spell. As for the yellow silk underrobe, I know nothing about it. Perhaps Wei alone would be able to tell you how and where he had obtained it. As you have said, the dead take secrets into the grave. For su
ch a bizarre murder case, some people may stubbornly push ahead with all sorts of interpretations or scenarios, but I cannot make up for things that did not happen.’

  Judge Dee began wondering whether he had no choice but to take the riskiest gamble in his long official career when a huge dark-gray rat scurried out of nowhere, pattering through the rancid cell floor, producing the same eerie sound as before, and proving something he had suspected earlier.

  ‘As I mentioned earlier,’ Judge Dee resumed, appearing to change the subject again, ‘I really admire your poems. And I’m serious about the project of compiling a new collection of your poetry. That way, your work will be read not just by those in the circle of poets, but also by a larger group of readers for generations and generations.

  ‘In my research for the project, I met with Mo, the typesetter and publisher of your first poetry collection, and learned about your plan for the new, unheard-of edition of two copies. An edition of no more than two copies did not make any sense, at least as it appears to me, unless it is produced for that man you compared to a soaring dragon in the poem Mo showed me.’

  ‘You have read that poem? It’s impossible …’ she said in a frightened voice.

  She did not finish the sentence. Perhaps she was not sure about whether she had left the poem with Mo.

  ‘It’s a poem in a different style,’ he said, without responding to her question. ‘Mo agreed with me that it makes an almost unbelievable departure from your earlier works. It is informed with the high-flying expectations for the future that’s unfolding before your eyes.

  ‘Indeed, anything is possible – whether in poetry or in real life. Just think about the early days of our empress, the days before she became the empress, as we both know the part well. If I remember correctly, she also wrote a very moving poem for the man she once cared for. It was a forbidden affair at the time with a huge risk for the lovers if it became known.

  ‘And just between you and me, I would like to touch on another coincidence. She, too, was a Daoist nun at the time she composed the poem. Truly, for a woman with soaring aspirations, only the sky resplendent with the golden, divine dragon could be the limit.’