An unfortunate girl finds an unfortunate suitor. A little bonze from the
Temple of the Gourd acts as judge.
As ALREADY MENTIONED, AFTER HIS REINSTATEMENT Yu TSUN GOT
the position of Prefect of Ying tien fu thanks to the patronage he re‐
ceived through the influence of Lin Ju Hai and his brother‐in‐law
Cheng. Immediately after he took up office the case of a murder com‐
mitted in his district less than a month previously came before him for
hearing. In a quarrel over the ownership of a pretty slave girl one buyer
had had his rival beaten to death. The plaintiff was the servant of the
murdered man. In his evidence he declared:
"The murdered man was my master. My master had bought the slave
fairly from her owner, a child‐thief, and had also paid the purchase
price, but it was arranged that he was only to bring the slave to his
house three days later, because that day was stated in the calendar to
be a lucky day. Now the rogue of a child‐thief had used this interval to
secretly sell the slave a second time, namely, to a man named Hsueh
Pan. My master heard in time of this deal and set off to fetch the girl
from the slave dealer, but the servants of that brutal fellow Hsueh Pan,
who, relying on the power of his family, has contempt for law and jus‐
tice, stopped him by force and beat him to death with sticks. The cul‐
prits then made off with the slave girl, and there has been no trace of
them sinfce. It is already a month since I made a charge, but your prede‐
cessor in office did not take up the case. I beg of you to have the mur‐
derers traced &nd to give them the punishment they deserve, that jus‐
tice may be done and innocence may triumph over wickedness."
When Yu Tsun had lisle; ed to the end, he angrily hit the judge's
table with his fist.
"What! A murderer is let go scot‐free! How is that possible?" he
cried indignantly. "I shall immediately write out warrants for arrest,
and send detectives to the relatives of the murderer. And if they do not
disclose the whereabouts of the murderer voluntarily, they will be tor‐
tured!"
He was just about to take up his writing brush when he noticed that
one of the yamen secretaries who were standing around the judge's
table winked at him quite visibly. He realized that the secretary obvi‐
ously wished to communicate something of importance to him, so he
laid down his brush, interrupted the sitting, and withdrew to his private
office. There he spoke privately to the official conceraed.
"The old Governor has probably completely forgotten my humble
self since he came into his high administrative office?" began the man
with a cunning smile. "But of course it is already eight or nine years
since we met."
"As a matter of fact, your face is very familiar to me, but I cannot
really recall at the moment . . ."
"Yes, indeed, when fortune smiles on them, great gentlemen do not
like to look back upon their early struggles. But you surely still remem‐
ber the Temple of the Gourd?"
Now Yu Tsun knew who he was.
"Why, of course, you were the young brother who used to clean the
incense vessels and had the cell next to mine in the Temple of the
Gourd in those days. Tell me, how have you been getting on since
then?" he said laughing, and amiably invited the other to take a seat.
But the man who was now a yamen secretary remained politely
standing and recounted briefly how he was homeless after the burning
of the Temple of the Gourd, but soon decided to let his hair grow again
and, having long since tired of the cold and dreary convent life, became
a yamen ‐servant.
"But now sit down!" said Yu Tsun, giving him a friendly push onto
a chair: but the other only ventured to sit shyly on the edge of it. "Old
friendships made in times of poverty and want should not be forgotten.
Moreover, we are now in my private office and not in a public court. So
why this ceremony? But now explain why you winked at me just now
as I was about to write out the order for arrest.".
"Has no Protection List been placed before you since you have been
in office here?"
"What do you mean by Protection List?"
"It is customary nowadays for government officials in the provinces
to keep a secret list of the names of all the specially prpminent, well‐off,
and influential citizens domiciled in their district, above all the 'Wear‐
ers of the Belt,' or former high officials who have important connections
with government circles at the Court. A prudent provincial magistrate
will take great care not to come into conflict . with these important
people, otherwise he endangers his position or in certain circumstances
even his life. That is why it is called the Protection List. Now, that man
Hsueh Pan is one of the prominent people of the district whom one dare
not annoy. That is why your predecessor in office did not take any steps
in the murder case, although Hsueh Pan's guilt is quite obvious."
While he was speaking he took from his pocket a folded paper which
he handed to Yu Tsun. It was the Protection List which he kept for his
personal use. Yu Tsun found it full of the names of the leading families
in the district, and beside the individual names, written in the common
tongue, were marginal notes of what people said about the families in
question. Among others he read the four names Chia, Shih, Wang, and
Hsueh.
"These four powerful families," the secretary explained to him, "are
all blood relations or connected by marriage, and are bound together
for good or ill. The punishment you mete out to one family hits all four;
the honor you show to one family is shared by the others. Besides this
powerful family bloc at his back, the murderer Hsueh Pan also has an
influential connection at the Court and in the provinces. If you now
issue a warrant for the arrest of his supporters, how many people will
you actually have to lock up?"
"Hm. I had not thought of that. But what line am I to take in this
matter, then? Evidently the murderer's whereabouts are well known to
you?"
The secretary gave a cunning smile.
"If I may speak frankly, old Governor, I may say that I know not
only the whereabouts of the murderer but also a good deal about the
other persons implicated, the murdered man, the slave dealer, and the
slave girl. If you will be so kind as to listen to me patiently, I will tell
you the whole story absolutely correctly.
"The murdered man was named Feng. He came from a modest
family of civil servants, and since his parents died, having no brothers or
sisters to share the heritage, he was able to live modestly on what his
father left him. The twenty‐year‐old was by nature averse to women,
and preferred the companionship of men. Probably Providence in‐
tended to make him atone for some crime committed in a previous ex‐
istence when to his misfortune it led him to that child‐thief who had
the slave girl. At all events, quite contrary to his usual habits, he be‐
came infatuated with the slave girl at first sight, decided to make her
his concubine, and renounced all intercourse with men for the future.
The fool took the matter so seriously that he even looked up a lucky
day in the calendar for taking home the girl, and that was the third day
after he had made the bargain and paid the purchase price.
"The cunning slave dealer now took it into his head to avail of the
interval to sell the girl again for cash, this time to Hsu^h Pan. But be‐
fore he could clear off with the double proceeds, he fell uu^ the hands
of the two rivals, neither of whom wanted his money back, but both of
whom wanted possession of the girl. So he was nearly beaten dead by
the two of them. Then the two rivals fell upon each other. Thanks to his
large suite of servants, Hsueh Pan had the advantage. Those fellows
beat the unfortunate Feng until he was so weak that he could not stir
any more. He died three days later. But his rival then went off to the
capital with his booty and his suite of servants, not as a fugitive, but
quite coolly, openly, and at his ease, like any innocent traveller, just as
if nothing at all had happened. But now comes the most remarkable
part of the story. Who do you think that slave girl was?"
"How should I know that?"
"Little Lotus, the daughter of your great friend and patron, Shih
Ying, of your Temple of the Gourd days!"
"What on earth are you saying? But she was hardly three years old
when she was stolen that time on the evening of the Lantern Festival.
And you say the thief was only selling her now, eight years later?"
"It is the custom of child‐thieves to keep the little girls they steal
and bring them up until they are twelve or thirteen years of age and
then put them on the market in another part of the country. So the mar
who stole our little Lotus kept her hidden in his lair near Suchow for
eight years, and then he brought her here to Ying tien fu to sell her. I
am not mistaken; I definitely recognized her again. For during his stay
here the thief actually lodged in the same house where I do, with the
little girl.
"We monks of the Temple of the Gourd were on the most friendly
and neighborly terms with little Lotus. The trustful child used to come
over to the temple every day and we used to play with her and have all
sorts of fun. That is why her face remained impressed upon my mem‐
ory. Her features have developed and gained in their beautiful propor‐
tions in the course of the years, but they have remained essentially the
same. Besides, I recognized her by her birthmark, a freckle the size of a
grain of rice between her eyebrows above the bridge of her nose.
"Once when the slave dealer was out and she was alone in the house,
I went to her and questioned her urgently, but she was unwilling to
speak out. She must not speak or she would be beaten, she said, quite
scared, and she insisted that the thief was her father, who had to sell her
to pay his debts. When I continued to press her with questions she be‐
gan to weep and said she could not remember her early childhood. But
later on she betrayed herself. The day that young Feng bought her I
listened at the door and spied into the room through a crack. The
slave dealer had celebrated the deal with young Feng and had got thor‐
oughly tipsy. Believing herself unobserved, Lotus let a deep sigh of
relief escape her. 'Today my debt from a former existence has at last
been paid off!' she cried. But when she heard that she would be fetched
by her suitor only three days later, her cheerfulness changed to sadness.
"I watched out for the next time that she was alone, and sent my wife
to her room to speak words of comfort to her. My wife said to her that
the fact that young Feng was waiting for a lucky day to take her home
showed that he had honorable and serious intentions towards her, and
looked on her as a wife and not as a slave; since this man, who had
always been known as a woman‐hater, had paid a heap of money for
her, he must be very much in love with her indeed. She should wait pa‐
tiently for the three days, then her lucky hour would come, and she
would find a pleasant life and a good home. At this she became more
tranquil.
"Who would have thought it would all turn out quite differently? The
following day the rogue of a slave dealer sold the poor thing again, this
time to that fellow Hsueh Pan. If it had been anyone else at all it would
not have been so bad. But that this brutal libertine and spendthrift, who
is known among the people as 'the Mad Robber Count,' should become
her master that was the last straw! Showering blows on her as thick as
autumn leaves, he dragged the poor thing away with him, more dead
than alive. One can really feel sorry for her hapless suitor, young Feng.
His joy came to nought, and he sacrificed his life and his money in
vain."
Yu Tsun sighed deeply.
"The poor things! Who knows what crimes they may have com‐
mitted in a former existence, since they have to atone so much now. For
the girl is also to be pitied. True, her first suitor could not offer her any‐
thing like the comfort and the luxury which she now enjoys in the
house of the second, but on the other hand she must share with many
other women the favor of a spoiled, bad‐tempered pleasure‐seeker,
whereas in the house of the other she would have been the only wife
and mistress. But what's the good of philosophizing afterwards? For
me, the important thing just now is to make a wise decision."
"Esteemed sir, long ago in the Temple of the Gourd you used to be
a very shrewd, clearheaded man. Therefore, after so many years' pro‐
fessional experience, it really should not be difficult for you to come to
a decision. After all, you owe your present position to the patronage of
these same families Chia and Wang, who belong to the set of that Hsueh
Pan. Do you want to fight against the stream and annoy your protec‐
tors? I advise you to drop the matter gracefully, so that you may be
able to look your patrons in the face without embarrassment in the
future!"
"Hm, that sounds reasonable. Nevertheless, it's a matter of a human
life. How could I dare to repay, by acting with partiality and defeating
the ends of justice, the trust which the Son of Heaven has placed in
me!"
"You may be right in theory. But in practice, unfortunately, one can‐
not always heed such moral considerations nowadays. 'The wise man
adapts himself to circumstances,' says the old maxim. 'The wise man
strives for a friendly settlement and avoids wicked conflict,' runs an‐
other trustworthy rule. If you were to act strictly according to theory,
you would very soon lose your position and consequently no longer be
able to justify the confidence of the Son of Heaven; indeed, you would
actually risk losing your head."
Yu Tsun was thoughtful for a moment.
"Good. What, then, in your opinion, should be done?"
"I have a splendid plan. When you continue with the case again to‐
morrow, play the severe, pitiless judge, shout and rage and issue a war‐
rant for the arrest of the murderer Hsueh Pan. Do not put it into force,
however, but, instead, just to appease the other side, have some unim‐
portant members o* his household here arrested, and examine them! I
will visit these people in their prison cell behind your back and let them
know that the matter is not to be taken so seriously, and that they
should say at their examination that their master, the murderer Hsueh
Pan, has meantime died of a sudden illness. Moreover, I will see to it
that a death certificate made out by the chief members of the Hsueh
clan, and the officials of the Ward concerned, is produced.
"In the further course of the hearing, in order to stifle any possible
discontent on the part of the people, you will play a little at calling up
spirits and stage a public performance with an altar of sacrifice and
magic wands, and cause the spirits of the dead to announce that they
had been enemies in a former existence and, meeting on a narrow path‐
way, had killed one another; that the murderer Hsueh Pan had been
afflicted with a malignant disease by the avenging spirit of the mur‐
dered Feng, and had also died. Therefore, the murder was already
atoned for, and apart from punishing the fraudulent slave dealer, there
was no necessity for the authorities to pursue the matter further.
"If you wish to do something more, you can sentence the Hsueh
family to compensate the relatives of the murdered man for the costs of
his burial. The Hsueh family are rich. They will not mind paying five
hundred or a thousand ounces. The dead man's relatives are insignifi‐
cant, humble people. They will be glad to get a nice sum of money into
their hands and to shut their mouths. What do you think of this little
plan?"
"Impossible!" said Yu Tsun with an evasive laugh. "But I'll think
the matter over again."
He did not need to consider for long before deciding on the plan.
And then he carried it out, point for point, just as his adviser had whis‐
pered to him, with the result that there was no murmuring among the
people, and both parties were satisfied. Finally he wrote two letters, to
Chia Cheng and Marshal Wang Tzu Teng, the influential uncles of the
criminal, informing them that the proceedings against their worthy
nephew had been satisfactorily settled and that they need not be the
least troubled about it any more. And thus, thanks to the cunning idea
of a former little monk from the Temple of the Gourd, law and justice
were set aside and a painful lawcase was liquidated in an ingenious
way.
But after this Yu Tsun found the proximity of the unpleasing sharer
of his secret disturbing and uncomfortable. It pained him to think that
the former temple bonze might tell tales or by careless gossip disclose to
the people the obscure, miserable past of the present highly respected
magistrate. Therefore on the excuse that the secretary had acted in a
blameworthy manner in the execution of his duties, he took the first
available opportunity to pack him off to a distant position in his dis‐
trict. But this is enough about Yu Tsun for the present. Let us now talk
about Hsueh Pan.
Although descended from a good family redolent from generation to
generation of the highest culture, Hsueh Pan, as the only son of an
early‐widowed mother, had been spoiled and pampered from childhood,
and deprived of any serious discipline or guidance, and had only had a
very superficial education. Thanks to old and good connections, which
he owed to his forefathers, and to having inherited a fortune of some
millions of taels, he had procured the lucrative position of a privileged
buyer for the Imperial Wardrobe; but apart from the fact, that his name
stood in the register of contractors of the Ministry of Finance and that
he regularly drew his emoluments, he left the actual execution of his
official duties to his agents and trusted employees, as he understood
nothing about business. He himself lived completely for his passions,
and passed his time in cockfighting, horse racing, and riotous living.
He was a spendthrift and a voluptuary, a licentious, brutal fellow of
rough manners and arrogant speech.
His mother, a afster of Marshal Wang Tzu Teng of the capital and of
the wife of Chia Cheng of the Yungkuo palace, was now forty years
of age, and besides this son she also had a daughter about thirteen
years of age, named Pao Chai, "Precious Clasp." In her soft, rounded
beauty. Precious Clasp resembled a smoothly polished, glistening agate.
But her perfect polish was not only physical. Thanks to her great zeal
for learning and to the care her late father had bestowed upon her edu‐
cation from earliest childhood, she was ten times better educated than
her brother, Hsueh Pan, who was her senior. But when she realized that
her widowed mother could expect no real help from her ill‐behaved
elder child, she had laid aside her books for the past few years in order
to relieve her mother of the household worries, like a good, conscien‐
tious daughter.
On account of her outstanding virtues and qualities, she had recently
been placed on the list of the young women annually chosen from
among the respected families of the nobility and mandarin class
throughout the Empire, to be presented at Court and retained there,
some as concubines of the Emperor, others as ladies of the Court and
chaperons to the Princesses. For the present Son of Heaven valued the
exalted teachings and philosophical writings of Master Confucius, and
desired that the Princesses at the Court should be favorably influenced
and encouraged to exemplary behavior by the companionship of girls
educated in the classics.
Now, when Hsueh Pan decided to escort his sister to the Court, he did
so for three reasons. First of all, he wished to take the opportunity of
visiting his relatives in the capital; secondly, he wished to present him‐
self to his employers, the Ministry of Finance, and to settle some official
business matters; but the third and most potent reason of all was that
he wanted to enjoy himself. For it had always been his desire to know
the capital with its splendor and gay life, of which he had heard so
much praise.
All preparations for the journey had already been made, the numer‐
ous trunks as well as the presents intended for the friends and relatives
had been packed, and a favorable day for departure looked up in the
calendar, when the previously mentioned incident with the slave dealer
happened, in the course of which the unfortunate Feng lost his life and
little Lotus fell into the hands of Hsueh Pan. Leaving the household in
the care of some of the older trusted servants, Hsueh Pan had set out
for the capital with his mother, sister, concubines, baggage, and serv‐
ants, on the prearranged day. The affair of the murder ,did not trouble
him in the least; to him it was just a trifle which could be disposed of
with a handful of dirty coins.
Actually, Madame Hsueh had intended to stay with her brother
Marshal Wang in the capital. But shortly before they reached the walls
of the Imperial City news reached them that Marshal Wang had just
been appointed Imperial Marshal of the Nine Provinces and had re‐
ceived orders to proceed without delay on a tour of inspection of the
frontiers. This news was a secret relief to Hsueh Pan. Now, he said to
himself, lie would be free of the irksome authority and supervision of
his uncle and have absolute freedom for his pleasures, and he thanked
heaven for having disposed matters according to his wishes. The altered
circumstances now rendered a family council necessary.
"We should send some of our servants on in advance to fix up one
of our own houses which has been unused for years," the son suggested.
The mother was against this.
"Why all this fuss? What have we got relatives for? We can stay
either with my brother Wang or my brother‐in‐law Cheng. There is
plenty of room in the Yungkuo palace. We can still move into one of
our own houses later on."
"Uncle Wang is in the midst of preparations for his journey to the
frontier; his house is in confusion. It would really be somewhat tact‐
less of us to invade him like a swarm of hornets," said the son, doubt‐
fully.
"You are right. Well, then we shall go to the Yungkuo palace. My
sister has invited me again and again to visit her, so she will be happy
to have us as her guests. But I quite understand that you want to be
free and unhampered, so you may go and look for quarters of your
choice wherever you like. But I shall go and stay in the Yungkuo palace
with Precious Clasp."
Naturally, Hsueh Pan could not go off and leave his family right at
the beginning ; that would have made a bad impression on the relatives.
So, suppressing his displeasure, he submitted to his mother's wish and
sent off messengers to announce their arrival at the Yungkuo palace.
There the travellers were received with the greatest cordiality, and both
the Princess Ancestress and Aunt Cheng urged them to stay on. Uncle
Cheng had a suite of ten unused rooms prepared for the guests in the
southeastern tip of his domain the so‐called Pear Garden.
The Pear Garden was a delightful pleasure house set in enchanting
surroundings in the park, the favorite dwelling of the first Prince of
Yungkuo in his old age. With its grounds it formed a separate, walled‐
off area within the estate. To the inside it was connected with the dwell‐
ing of Aunt Cheng by a little gate and a narrow path, and to the outside
it had its own exit to the street. This latter fact was specially pleasing
to Hsueh Pan, for it enabled him to go in and out unimpeded and
without the annoyance of his movements' being checked at the gate.
Altogether, the displeasure he had felt when moving in diminished
more and more. His fear that his uncles would supervise him at every
step proved unfounded. Uncle Cheng had his ministerial work, and
Prince Shieh, who as elder had first authority in the place, was far too
easygoing to bother himself about the goings‐on of the many different
inmates of the house. He preferred to meditate in his library and over a
chessboard and only wanted to be left undisturbed. Hsueh Pan on his
part found among the various male cousins in the two palaces just the
companions he needed. Most of these cousins wore "silk trousers" and
"airy coats" jovial, merry young people, from whom even he could
learn much in the art of savoir‐vivre. If he had a wish for a little game
of cards, a drinking bout, a stroll through the town, or an amorous ad‐
venture, there was always suitable company to be found for it. In short,
Hsueh Pan had no cause to complain of boredom, and made himself so
much at home in his new surroundings that in the course of one month
all thought of changing his quarters had vanished.
How the main story
goes, after this digression, will be seen from the next chapter.