The death of the herbal doctor Hua in his poor hut could have been just a coincidence. Judge Dee went over in detail what he had discussed with the doctor, including the poem Luo Binwang had copied out for Hua. So while Hua qualified as one of Luo’s close contacts, that had only been for a week or so. After Luo had hurried back to the battlefield near the Wuding River, there’d been no further contact between the two of them.

  On the other hand, a tip from the local mayor claimed that Hua was an easily irritable, bad-tempered man, who often had arguments or fights with people in the neighborhood. That could have led to his vicious murder, Judge Dee concluded in his report.

  The specific circumstances of Hua’s gruesome death made this theory strike Judge Dee as unbelievable, however. It had been too blood-congealing for a neighborhood squabble. How could such a thing have resulted in a violent, savage end? It was said that with Hua’s beheaded body lying in pools of blood, the impoverished hut looked just like a slaughterhouse. Dee did not want to include this in his report. But he did write that due to the extremely important assignment he was on for the empress, he’d decided not to stay on by the Wuding River and conduct his own investigation into Dr Hua’s gruesome murder.

  In the part he’d written about Hua’s violent death, Judge Dee had not forgotten to quote Chen Tao’s poem ‘By the Wuding River’. Whether the anti-war poem would make a difference to Empress Wu, who was so eager to be known as the number-one empress in China’s history, he was in no position to tell, but he was deeply touched by the heart-breaking devastation those ambitious wars had brought upon the ordinary people, whether the Han or the Huns.

  Regarding Little Swallow, there was something truly inexplicable about her bizarre murder. As a fishing girl, she was not rich, so that excluded the possibility of the killer going after her money. She was pretty, but there were other ways for people to approach her, like during the special sampan meal. Alternatively, he proposed as a different theory in his report, the culprit could have been a man rejected by her time and time again.

  Could a repeated rejection be a strong enough motive for a vicious, elaborately preplanned killing? Judge Dee privately considered that the circumstances of her death did not support such a scenario. Plus, the murderer in question must have been professionally trained to be able to hurl a knife into the young fishing girl’s throat with such accuracy.

  And then, even more inexplicably, there was the matter of the second flashing, flying knife. The culprit should have been able to see Little Swallow fall on the sampan’s deck, the knife glimmering in her throat, and then lie there, blood oozing around her body.

  So why throw another flying knife? Not to mention the fact that it was a different knife, with the line and the hooks attached – as if it were engaged in fly fishing, with all the tackle. It was apparent that the second flying knife had not been aimed at her body, but at the piece of paper she’d just given to the judge.

  Judge Dee summarized the facts of the murder in his long report, and emphasized that he had read only the first one or two lines of the poem when the second flying knife had succeeded in landing on the parchment, snatching it from the sampan and retrieving it to the murderer’s boat.

  In other words, he wrote, whoever had hurled the knife had been after something important in Little Swallow’s possession. That could have been the very purpose of the murder. Since what Judge Dee had read on the sampan had been the start of what appeared to be a romantic poem, the reason for its theft was totally beyond him, he concluded.

  Soon after the murder of Little Swallow, the disastrous fire had then happened, all of a sudden, in the Dingguo Temple, claiming at least two more lives. The temple people were still digging and searching in the debris, so the number of casualties could increase.

  One of the two badly burned bodies discovered near the temple’s back garden was short, but the tall one pretty much matched the height of Luo Binwang, according to the material in the file His Majesty had shared with him before he set off on his investigation, he wrote.

  Other than that, Judge Dee did not give any hints or guesses regarding the identity of the two burnt bodies in the temple. After all, the bodies had been burned beyond recognition, though he did not rule out any possibilities.

  But then Judge Dee moved on to copy out in a list what he had managed to recover from the scrap of the paper, grasped in the hand of the nameless dead body in the temple.

  The diary of X**—

  Finally, I have lived and died once as a wom**—

  ‘What an insatiable bitch squirting non-s***—’

  Judge Dee added a footnote in small characters underneath the excerpts:

  ‘One * indicates a character unreadable in the badly burned paper, but I’m not absolutely certain about the seemingly readable characters, either. Some of them could be nothing but guesswork, as I lack any context for the meaning.’

  Judge Dee hadn’t made them up, not all of them. Rumor had it that the first incomplete quote had been said by Empress Wu herself, still shaking in the aftermath of her sexual rapture, and then quoted verbatim in her lover Xue’s seemingly not-so-secret diary. With her huge network of surveillance, covering the whole empire, she must have heard talk of the existence of such a diary, though she had chosen to do nothing about Xue so far.

  As for the second fragmented quote, it could have been said by a deplorable lowlife piece of scum like Xue. It served as a vivid follow-up to the empress’s rapturous exclamation that she’d finally ‘lived and died once as a woman’, as observed from the perspective of her lascivious partner in bed.

  The report had reached its vital stage, and Judge Dee could only hope that his wild conclusions, gathered both by logic and by dreams, proved to be the real reason behind the empress’s frantic search to find Luo Binwang – or, rather, the item of vital importance in his possession.

  If Monk Xue’s diary had been copied or stolen, with all their sexual intimacies documented in detail, it could have irreparably shattered the holy image of the empress and shredded the political stability of the entire Tang Empire. Consequently, Empress Wu had no option but to destroy all possible evidence of it, at whatever cost.

  Based on Luo’s vehement denouncement of the empress in his ‘Call to Arms’, it was more than understandable that the empress would suspect that, somehow or other, Luo had gotten hold of the diary, packed with confidential, highly sensitive information. That, in the judge’s opinion, was a more than plausible explanation for why she had dispatched Judge Dee himself to investigate Luo’s disappearance, and why she’d had the people who’d come into contact with him mercilessly removed. They could have been concealing this highly sensitive material for Luo Binwang.

  Therefore, Judge Dee concluded, this was why the empress had sent her agents to shadow him all the way. She had to make sure that all possibilities of disastrous leaks from the diary would be snuffed out.

  And it seemed to the empress that Luo must have had some secret access to the diary. So, whether the fragments he’d discovered in the dead man’s hand were the remains of the diary itself, or just some copied excerpts, logic dictated that the hand clutching the fragments mostly likely belonged to Luo Binwang. At least, that is the conclusion that Judge Dee, a man well known for his expertise in finding hidden connections and clues, hoped Her Majesty would draw when she read the faked excerpts from the fragment.

  As it appeared to Judge Dee, however, such a scenario was quite unlikely. He suspected the diary existed merely in rumor, and in Empress Wu’s paranoid imagination. A lustful quote might have occasionally burst out of Monk Xue’s mouth on an impulse, to be then heard and shared by the scandalized members of the court, but the monk would have known better than to enrage the over-suspicious empress by keeping a whole diary of these dirty intimacies or phrases …

  Judge Dee put down his ink-soaked brush pen, thinking and staring at the flickering candle on the table. The bell of the temple wafted over on the breeze, undisturbed, as always.

  In some way, the empress was just like Cao Cao, the founder of the Wei Empire, who had been a capable and resourceful dictator, and was posthumously acknowledged as the first Wei emperor. Cao Cao had declared unscrupulously in public, ‘I would rather wrong everyone under the sun than let anyone wrong me.’

  Cao Cao had believed in this maxim so faithfully that he’d once butchered a friend’s whole family. After a crucial battle had ended in disastrous defeat for him, Cao Cao had been panic-stricken, in fear for his life. He killed all of his friend’s family just because he overheard the head of the family say the words ‘to kill’. As it turned out, the words ‘to kill’ had referred to the chicken in the kitchen, and Cao Cao had taken them totally out of context.

  His reaction had been extreme, and he knew he was extremely suspicious, but he never repented for the mistake. That was how he became emperor. Period.

  It was also the way of being an emperor or an empress. Empress Wu, in spite of her appreciation of Judge Dee’s talent, did not trust him – at least not wholeheartedly. That, too, could have accounted for the shadows following him all along the path of the investigation. For the empress, Judge Dee was probably just a handy tool, capable of doing a good job, but simply a means to the end. Or like a fan in autumn that, after being used in summer, lies in the dust.

  Writing this report involved a huge risk, Judge Dee knew. The over-suspicious Empress Wu was just like Cao Cao in many ways, and she was far more powerful than Cao Cao had been in the days when he ran for his life like a homeless dog.

  But Judge Dee did not worry so much about himself – not at that moment. For him, the writing of the report was like a review of the investigation for himself – an opportunity to go over all the questions and puzzles he had encountered once again. Judge Dee knew clearly, however, that he had to stop procrastinating and finish up the report he had been struggling with.

  ‘All the evidence, circumstantial or not, points to the conclusion that Luo Binwang was burned to death in the temple, along with whatever material was in his possession. So, I think I have done the job you have assigned me, Your Majesty. A satisfactory job or not, I cannot tell, but I have truly done all I could.

  ‘With Luo Binwang burned to death, it will not do any good to keep people in unnecessary suspense about his fate, or to allow further speculation. So I am sending you this report to arrive ahead of me, and I have also decided to come back to the capital tomorrow. Of course, I will follow up with more details for you in person. I also need to return to the capital because of an urgent health issue.’

  Ironically, it could be argued that, even this time, Judge Dee had done as good a job for the empress as he always did. After she’d read his conclusion, Empress Wu might be able to heave a long sigh of relief and sit in relaxation on her splendid gold throne.

  Now all the information in the report was up to Empress Wu to interpret, not for Judge Dee.

  More significant evidence, perhaps, had been that Judge Dee had happened to hear those children singing the poem ‘The Ode to a Goose’ near a stream which was not far away from the temple. But he did not include that in the investigation report, for obvious reasons. And it was, after all, just a famous poem and it could have simply been a coincidence.

  The night-hour knocker came back for another round, circling the dark path around the temple. Presumably, it was the third round. Rising, Judge Dee looked up to the stars in the night sky before he seated himself back at the table, once again facing the difficult investigation report.

  Toward the conclusion of the investigation report, Judge Dee had made an impassioned statement about those innocent victims whom he considered collateral damage of the investigation.

  ‘Alas, I did not kill them, but they died because of me – because of my investigation of the Luo case. I’ve been feeling so guilty about it, Your Majesty. In the last analysis, their deaths are my responsibility. At least, I have to admit it to myself.’

  Judge Dee had also briefly touched on his suspicions that he could have been followed by some mysterious ‘shadows’ right from the beginning of the investigation. And those shadows, too, could have had their share in bringing about the investigation’s collateral damage, though he’d chosen to be rather vague about his suppositions regarding how and why.

  It made sense that an experienced investigating judge, he reflected, should have been more or less aware of the conspiracies going on behind the investigation. If he didn’t mention it at all, it could actually appear to be rather suspicious to Empress Wu.

  The conclusion of the report consisted of a dramatic plea Judge Dee made on his own behalf.

  ‘For many years, I’ve been fortunate enough to serve Your Majesty. Under your brilliant, wise rule, the Tang Empire has been enjoying unprecedented prosperity, and the map of our great empire has been immensely enlarged. Because of my incapacity, because of my age, I know I have failed to do a satisfactory job for you. Before leaving the capital of Chang’an to investigate the Luo case, I knew only too well about my own incompetence, but I also knew I had no choice but to do my best for you, Your Majesty.

  ‘Now, in the course of the investigation, I’ve been badly drenched and shocked in the company of Little Swallow on the river, and that’s in addition to the long travel fatigue and the stress of the investigation. Sure enough, I broke down the next day on my way to the Dingguo Temple and had to take a convalescent break within the temple’s walls. Alas, I’m so withered, just like a yellow leaf ready to fall at any moment. It took me a couple of days to recover my strength enough to move around the temple for ten or fifteen minutes.

  ‘So I have to ask Your Majesty for a huge favor. Allow me to retire, or failing that, to take a short convalescence period on my return to the capital.

  ‘Afterward, when I have properly recovered – or if there are further developments in the Luo Binwang case – I will continue to serve you with all my strength, with all my dedication, with all my loyalty, like a dog, like a horse.’

  Judge Dee was far from pleased with the comparisons he had made at the end of the long report, but that was the prevailing way a high-ranking judge/official wrote to the empress in the Tang Empire.

  He was disgusted with himself.

  Scratching at his white hair, he looked in the bronze mirror on the table and was shocked by his reflection. His hair was growing increasingly thin, and there was hardly enough to hold a bamboo hairpin.

  A pale candle stood shivering to the side of the mirror, sparkling and shedding a single teardrop. Judge Dee signed his name at the end of the report.

  For a long while, Judge Dee did not stand up.

  He remained sitting at the desk, as if totally drained, suddenly too weak to move. He did not have the strength even to put the report into the envelope.

  He could hear the brass bells on the temple eves ringing in a flurry in the depth of the night. Judge Dee heaved a sigh, finally ready to straighten up the material littered on the desk. He had spread out the hand-drawn portrait of Luo Binwang on the desk, subconsciously. It almost appeared as if Judge Dee wanted to keep on talking with Luo before sending the report to Empress Wu.

  But Judge Dee was galvanized, all of a sudden.

  He snatched up Luo’s portrait to examine it more closely and checked it again. Yes, there was a tiny scar above the corner of Luo’s left eye in the portrait. The scar Judge Dee thought he’d seen above the left eye of the invalid who’d been half sitting, half reclining across the stream.

  So Judge Dee could tell himself that there was no doubt left about Luo Binwang being still alive, albeit a half-paralyzed, elderly man. He could also tell himself that if it was Luo Binwang, there was not much risk of his deception being uncovered by the empress. The secret police, despite all their efforts, had been unable to find Luo, and if the empress believed his report, she would order them to stop looking. Besides, Judge Dee did not think Luo would survive for too much longer.

  He finally put the case report to Empress Wu into the envelope. Coincidence or not, Judge Dee had already signed his name, and he did not want to think about it anymore.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,

  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

  – William Shakespeare

  ‘The wind is rising! … We must try to live!

  The huge air opens and shuts my book: the wave

  Dares to explode out of the rocks in reeking

  Spray. Fly away, my sun-bewildered pages!

  Break, waves! Break up with your rejoicing surges

  This quiet roof where sails like doves were pecking.’

  – Paul Valéry

  ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’

  – Ludwig Wittgenstein

  To the surprise of the monks in the Dingguo Temple, Judge Dee announced his decision – without any notice – to leave early in the morning.

  Abbot Vanity hurried over, stroking at his white beard, and at Judge Dee’s gesture, the abbot seated himself opposite. Before the abbot could begin to say anything, however, Judge Dee started:

  ‘I hardly slept a wink last night. My body is aching all over with a fever, and I feel totally drained.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear that, Your Honor. But how do you come to be feverish, all of a sudden?’

  ‘Perhaps I walked out too far yesterday, Abbot. Lost in the woods, I had to grope around for a couple of hours like one possessed. I went as far as a small gurgling stream with tall bamboo arching overhead. On the other side of the bank, I saw several kids playing and singing the song “Ode to a Goose” beside a half-paralyzed old man lying on a rattan recliner.’

  ‘Really!’ Abbot Vanity exclaimed, and he jumped up in shock.