Was it possible that Judge Dee had been seriously contemplating that he might conclude the case in the way he’d discussed with Luo in the dream?

  No, he wasn’t sure about that. That deliberately false scenario had only occurred to him subconsciously, flashing through his consciousness in the dream.

  And, paradoxically, he could never have argued for concluding the case that way as clearly, as logically, when he was awake as he had in the surreal dream.

  But what about the supernatural factors?

  Well, Confucius says, people should not speak about the supernatural or the surreal.

  Anyway, what would be the outcome of Judge Dee’s argument – either in the dream or not in the dream? The judge was by no means in a position to tell.

  In fact, before Luo had come up with a conclusive response, the dream had come to its unexpected ending, with the judge falling, tumbling down from the trail-side bench and hitting his head hard on the very real ground.

  With or without the abrupt fall, the judge had to admit to himself, it was obvious that, for all his arguing, he’d failed to convince Luo that his solution would work.

  What made sense to Judge Dee did not necessarily make sense to Luo. For that matter, what made sense to Empress Wu did not necessarily make sense to Judge Dee, either. It was little wonder, with each and every person looking at his or her own feet, judging things from his or her own perspective and reaching his or her own conclusion.

  In fact, Luo had not said anything substantial in the dream. He was standing there more like a straw man, his answers mechanically echoing Judge Dee’s questions.

  Judge Dee stood up abruptly, shaking the dust from his long gown and wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. He was still reeling slightly in disorientation.

  He started walking onwards without a destination in mind, feeling like a blind man on a blind horse that keeps galloping toward the edge of a fathomless cliff in the depths of a pitch-black night.

  Judge Dee must have walked for a further fifteen minutes or so along the trail, lost in thought, before he came to another abrupt turn of the hill trail. He could hear a gurgling sound, faint yet audible, as if from a stream flowing, murmuring not too far away.

  He told himself again that he should be ready to trace his steps back to the Dingguo Temple, but he kept on walking, even as he felt his energy levels sag. He had skipped the vegetarian breakfast.

  Once he was back at the temple, he should have some vegetarian food, and he might be able to do some more serious thinking about the case with a new perspective. The perspective he had derived from the dream on the bench.

  He knew there was one thing he had to take very seriously, whether in the dream or not. If the investigation kept dragging on like this, there would be more and more victims of collateral damage. He could not see the light at the end of the shaded trail.

  The empress had such a powerful network of state surveillance, with so many secret agents working in her interest alone. As it said in The Book of Songs:

  All the people are the emperor’s people,

  all the lands are the emperor’s lands.

  For that matter, it was the same with an empress. This empress. As a supreme dictator, she had to have a heart of steel.

  And it was also true that Judge Dee himself felt less and less inclined to push the investigation through to the end as the empress had ordered him. Indeed, he had to ask himself: for what end?

  Whatever Empress Wu was so desperate to find out would no longer be any of the judge’s business.

  It should never have been his business in the first place, as Yang had repeatedly told him, right from the very beginning of the investigation.

  What Judge Dee had said to Luo in the dreamland could turn out to be exactly what he would say to Luo in the real world of red dust, if the man was still alive.

  And Judge Dee had to bring an end to his search for Luo Binwang in a way – any way conceivable – that would be acceptable to Empress Wu. It was a way Judge Dee had never trodden before.

  Last but not least, he had to do it in a way that was acceptable to Judge Dee himself as well.

  Thirteen

  ‘Always assume incompetence before looking for conspiracy.’

  – Niccolo Machiavelli

  ‘Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

  – George Santayana

  ‘Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.’

  – Immanuel Kant

  After groping along the trail for several more steps, Judge Dee found himself venturing into an even more secluded trail next to a large bamboo grove.

  And, after taking several more steps again, he soon heard the sound of children’s laughter, bursting out joyfully from the rustling, dancing bamboo leaves. Behind the bamboo grove, he was amazed by a partial view of a small but fast-flowing stream, its banks covered with verdant weeds and other green vegetation.

  Under the cover of the bamboo leaves, Judge Dee held his breath, poked his head out and let his glance sweep over to the other bank.

  There, four or five children could be seen scampering in and out of view – playing hide and seek, jumping around and singing blissfully. They seemed to be waving their hands at some water birds swimming there, imitating their call, ‘Goo, goo, goo …’

  Judge Dee jolted at the sound and watched on intently, understanding and yet simultaneously not understanding, why he felt so shocked.

  On the other bank, Judge Dee then spotted a tall, gaunt white-haired man, half lying and half sitting on a rattan recliner. The man on the recliner could not have been able, due to the angle of his vision, to catch a glimpse of the judge hiding under the cover of the bamboo groves. At least, he did not exhibit any signs of surprise on his wan, pallid face when his glance swept over in Dee’s direction.

  The man on the rattan recliner somehow struck Judge Dee as eerily familiar.

  He seemed stiff, as if he could neither sit properly nor lie down with ease. He kept his uncomfortable position for quite a long while under the sunlight, without making any movements at all. A ray of golden light seemed to be playing on his expressionless face.

  Was it possible that the reclining man, Judge Dee wondered, was an invalid, still recovering from a stroke … or from a serious wound?

  While Judge Dee was still watching, wondering, the children started singing again, giggling, frolicking by the water, jumping around the man lying on the rattan recliner, clapping their hands in the joyful chorus:

  ‘“Goo, goo, goo!”

  Arching its neck,

  the goose is singing

  to the high skies,

  white feathers drifting

  over the green water,

  and red webs pedaling

  in the clear ripples.’

  Could the mysterious man on the other side of the stream be none other than Luo Binwang himself, teaching the children here to sing the poem?

  The question crashed down on Judge Dee like a violent thunderbolt, attacking, breaking, crushing out of nowhere in the immensity of the azure sky.

  Momentarily, the judge was too shocked to think or to react logically.

  Judge Dee had never met Luo in person. The figure in the dream had appeared as a dark silhouette and did not really count. The judge had studied several hand-drawn portraits of Luo, back in the capital of Chang’an, shown to him by the empress herself when she tasked him with the case.

  Judge Dee even carried a small portrait with him, back in the temple bedroom, that the empress had generously allowed him to take with him on the investigation. But he had not examined the portrait since the beginning of the long, arduous trip.

  Now, at this distance, Judge Dee could not see a clear picture of the man across the stream. At a second or third glance, though, he thought he noticed that there appeared to be a small scar above the left eye of the man on the recliner.

  He searched through his memories for impressions of Luo Binwang from those hand-drawn portraits. While viewing them from this angle, and from that angle, searching through forgotten corners of his mind, the judge kept watching the man who was reclining stiff, motionless, almost paralyzed on the rattan recliner on the bank across the gurgling stream.

  Finally, Judge Dee managed to convince himself that he saw some vague resemblance in his memory of the portraits – though not that striking, not that clear – to the uncanny apparition on the other bank of the stream.

  Goo, Goo, Goo … The white goose arched its long neck high towards the cloudless skies, calling in leisure, swimming over the light green ripples.

  For four or five minutes, Judge Dee compelled himself to see more and more of a resemblance between the portraits he had seen and the man he was watching on the other bank.

  Judge Dee then recalled something else. It was rumored that Luo Binwang had been seriously wounded in the last battle fought under General Xu, the disastrous battle by the Wuding River. Without the excellent care and effective herbal medicine provided by the good old doctor Hua, Luo could have remained in a serious condition. That accounted for the reason why Luo could keep himself only in that uncomfortable half-sitting, half-reclining position …

  Far, far away in the capital of Chang’an, the empress, too, must have heard about Luo’s stay in the Dingguo Temple, though many years earlier. It was natural for her to assume that after the failure of the rebellion led by General Xu, Luo Binwang could have run into hiding in or somewhere close to the temple. So when her shadowy spies had seen Judge Dee heading in the temple’s direction as a possible part of his investigation, they must have assumed there was something they missed. It was likely that was why the so-called official food hygiene inspection team raided the temple.

  As for the fire, it could have been a further attempt to kill two birds with one stone. One purpose was to smoke out any strangers staying as guests in the temple near the back garden – which could have included Luo.

  And the second purpose was to erase the poems left by Luo on the back garden wall. With the wall burned down, the poems too would be gone with the wind. With so many things happening in the Tang Empire, people’s memories were not long.

  That also explained Judge Dee’s impression during his talk with Abbot Vanity in the temple that the old monk had rehearsed his answers. Abbot Vanity could have known Luo Binwang was hiding somewhere near the temple. He had probably helped him into hiding.

  Abbot Vanity would not have gone out of his way, however, to help Luo without good reason, and that motive was still unknown to the judge. In fact, Empress Wu was far from against Buddhism. The waters could run much deeper there …

  So what should Judge Dee do right now?

  One possibility was for him to try wading across the water, stepping on the wet stones, one after another, as in the Chinese old saying, to approach – to confront – the ‘possible’ Luo Binwang reclining on the rattan recliner on the other bank.

  But was Judge Dee really up to the job?

  The water was cold. The torrent was swift. He was old. Unpredictable risks were involved. Judge Dee was not even one hundred percent sure that the man on the rattan recliner would turn out to be Luo Binwang.

  And what would he do next, if he did manage to reach the other side of the stream?

  Even if the scenario revolving in his mind proved to be true on the other bank, what could Judge Dee possibly achieve?

  In other words, what would be the outcome?

  As in the dream, Dee did not think he would be able to win Luo over. The pragmatic judge knew that the idealistic poet would not cooperate with someone who was supposedly affiliated with Empress Wu.

  At this moment, it was out of the question that Judge Dee could bring Luo back to the temple by force. Wet and exhausted, the judge did not believe that he would have the physical strength for the task, even if Luo was injured. In reality, he was hardly in better shape than the man on the rattan recliner.

  It would be another story, possibly, if Judge Dee returned to the temple and then hurried back to the bank of the stream immediately with Yang.

  By that time, however, the man on the rattan recliner across the stream could have long vanished.

  And supposing Judge Dee did somehow succeed in dragging ‘Luo’ back to face the empress in the royal palace, where Her Majesty would be capable of doing whatever she pleased with the rebellious poet—

  What then?

  More victims, more collateral damage … perhaps even including Judge Dee himself.

  He was not worried about himself. He felt too tired, too old and too worn out. Whatever might happen to him, it did not really matter.

  Judge Dee was taking a couple of steps back, nervously, soundlessly, away from the opening in the middle of the grove of sharp, long bamboo leaves, when he was seized with a new idea.

  His legs beginning to wobble, he caught himself sweating profusely, almost as if he were drowning.

  From a distance he thought would be safe, Judge Dee looked back over his shoulder once again, towards the scene across the gurgling stream.

  The rattan-recliner-ridden old man, as well as the playing, singing children by the water, had vanished from sight behind the bamboo grove, as if in a dream.

  Could that have been because of the distance and perspective? It was possible.

  Surely the idea that he’d been seized by was crazy? But it was still developing, expanding and getting more and more frenzied.

  Clutching at such a crazy idea like a life raft … was he no longer worthy of being known as the composed Judge Dee?

  Perhaps it was true – at least, during that undignified moment when he’d fled from the stream and the man who could be Luo Binwang on the other bank. He had to acknowledge that to himself. At the same time, he did not think he had any other options.

  Edging toward a clearing in the woods, Judge Dee came to an abrupt stop, his brain still working frantically at full throttle.

  Perhaps Judge Dee could claim that, after further research, he’d managed to recognize some of the blurred Chinese characters on the scrap he’d torn from the tight fist of a nameless body – matching the height and build of Luo Binwang – at the scene of the fire in the Dingguo Temple.

  The meaning of the fragments on the scrap, though elusive and incomplete, would be guessed by the empress herself. Or, at least, the meaning would be suggestive to her, in the direction Judge Dee would imply.

  Judge Dee knew he had to immediately put these new, plausible ‘fragments’ down in writing – an integral part of pulling the crazy scenario off – or his idea would just vanish into thin air.

  He picked up a handy broken twig and wrote the characters down, stroke after stroke, on a small patch of sand not too far from the stream.

  Judge Dee was now betting all his hopes on the probability that the empress would have heard a report from her secret police about the existence of the fragment, which had disintegrated in his hands. The scheme he was plotting was so new, so original, so full of unpredictable risks …

  In short, it was not like any investigation Judge Dee had ever worked on before.

  The story he was concocting to fool Her Majesty would not just put a stop to her desperate hunt for Luo Binwang, but was one with which Judge Dee hoped he could soon bring the whole deadly investigation to a conclusive end.

  Fourteen

  ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’

  – Heraclitus

  ‘It is no easy task to be good.’

  – Aristotle

  ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’

  – John Milton

  That night, Judge Dee began to work on a long report on his investigation for Empress Wu, who was currently far away in the capital of Chang’an. With the imperial six-hundred-miles-a-day delivery arrangement available to the empress, however, the report should reach her well before his return to the city.

  The night was so quiet, so peaceful, with the bells chiming on the temple eaves, the candle sparkling by the western windows, the monks chanting in the scripture hall …

  All of them seemed to be positively contributing to his work on the difficult report. It was a report which started from the very beginning of the investigation, when he’d bidden farewell to the empress in the imperial palace.

  To Judge Dee, writing a case report after the conclusion of an investigation was like doing a review of it, forcing him to go over any unanswered questions. He knew, from experience, that writing helped him to come to terms with his discoveries, even though he also knew he would not put all of them into his actual report to Empress Wu.

  Although he mentioned the help he had obtained from the poets in the capital at the beginning of his report, Judge Dee knew better than to say a single word about Ning. His report read as if he had never met her. Instead, it focused on the horrible deaths of Hua and Little Swallow, and the two nameless charred bodies near the back garden of the Dingguo Temple – one of which, he made sure to emphasize, was still grasping a scrap of paper tightly in his rigid, pulseless hand.

  Judge Dee wrote that these diabolical murders, which happened in close sequence, at first appeared to be interconnected, as if in a sinister serial murder case. Judge Dee had crossed paths with all the victims in one way or another during the course of his investigation, so their deaths could also be seen as collateral damage. But while such a hypothesis seemed highly plausible initially, Judge Dee’s elaborate analysis and interpretation concluded that there was nothing definite.