11

An Evil Boatman Commits Blackmail with a Dead Body

A Heartless Servant Wrongfully Presses Murder Charges

AS the poem says,

In this vast world on earth,

Under the boundless sky,

Those who harm others bring harm on themselves;

Evil plots come to nothing in the end.

Let me begin my story with this comment: Nothing can be more momentous in this world than the crime of murder and its punishment—a life for a life. This is no trifling matter. Therefore, the real culprits will eventually be found out and the falsely charged will be exonerated. Real murderers who bribe the powers that be with their ample supplies of money may escape justice for a time, but at the end of the day, divine justice will catch up with them and make them give themselves away in unguarded moments. The falsely charged may be put under torture and be unable to find redress for the wrongs inflicted on them, but eventually their day of vindication will come. If mistakes lead to more mistakes and the guilty live peacefully to a ripe old age whereas the innocent die in prison or by the executioner’s sword, could it be that the old man up there has no eyes? The ancients put it well:

Heaven is not to be fooled;

It knows your mind before you act.

Good is returned with good and evil with evil;

The only difference is in the timing.

Storyteller, you’ve got it wrong! The way you put it, no one is sent unjustly to death row, and there is no need for the “City for Victims of Injustice” in the netherworld!

Gentle reader, let me tell you: Unjust deaths or some murderers’ escape from justice are mostly retribution from lives of previous incarnations. If not, if murderers don’t pay with their lives and the falsely charged die unjustly, both the dead and the living will be so resentful that even if government authorities don’t know better, Heaven sees everything and will, in all manner of unexpected ways, create the right opportunities for settling the cases—hence the saying “Villains are feared, but not by Heaven; kind people may be bullied, but not by Heaven.” Another saying goes “The net of Heaven is of large mesh, but it lets nothing through.”

In olden times, there was no lack of upright and wise judges who assigned the highest importance to cases involving human lives. To complicate matters, the ways of the world are so unpredictable that cases abound in which what sounds incredible turns out to be true and what is easily believable turns out to be false. This is why even those criminal cases with evidence beyond the shadow of a doubt were also reviewed meticulously over and over again so as to make sure that no one was unjustly convicted. But officials of today, in their love of money and their adulation of the rich and powerful, cast integrity and fairness to the winds. They release those who are evidently unpardonable criminals and hastily convict those who are not guilty. They don’t stop to consider how reprehensible it is to let killers off the hook. If evil murderers are not convicted and punished, when will the aggrieved souls ever be able to rest in peace? (MC: All judges should copy these lines and post them to the right of their seats as their motto.) The unjustly accused are put through endless rounds of interrogation and torture. Unable to withstand the pain, they confess too quickly, even to crimes punishable by dismemberment. Their entire families are ruined, because when one man falls, his family goes down with him. As for those officials who care only about their own careers with never a thought about the misery of others, I wonder if, in some nook or cranny of their minds, they ever entertain the thought of accumulating some moral credit to their names in the next world for the benefit of their offspring. My sole purpose in telling this story is to offer this advice to all officials of integrity: Every blade of grass, every tree, is a life given by Heaven, let alone human beings with their long lines of ancestors. It behooves you to make mercy the guiding principle, be lenient or firm as the situation demands, uphold justice and punish evil. Only by so doing can you rightly be called “parent-officials.” Not only will the populace be grateful to you, but Heaven will also protect and bless you.

Our story takes place in this dynasty [Ming]. A rich man named Wang Jia, a native of Suzhou Prefecture, had an enemy named Li Yi, also a Suzhou native, and the feud between their two families went back generations. Wang Jia had been meaning to do Li Yi harm, but no opportunity presented itself until one windy and rainy night when the night-watch drum sounded the third strike. Li Yi and his wife, having eaten supper quite some time ago, were sound asleep. All of a sudden, more than ten bandits, their faces painted red and black, stormed in. In consternation, Li Yi’s wife, Jiang-shi, dived under the bed. From there, she saw that a man with a long beard and a broad face grabbed her husband by the hair and killed him with one blow of his sword. The men did not take anything from the house but left quickly. Having witnessed everything from under the bed, Jiang-shi emerged from her hiding place, still shaking, put on her clothes, and burst into wails of grief beside her husband’s corpse.

Neighbors came over to see what the commotion was about. Grief-stricken at the sight, they comforted Jiang-shi with kind words.

“It was Wang Jia, my husband’s enemy, who killed him,” said Jiang-shi.

“How do you know that?” asked the neighbors.

“I saw everything from under the bed. Wang Jia has always been an enemy, and he has a long beard and a broad face. Even though his face was smeared black, I could still recognize him. If they were burglars, why did they kill my husband without taking anything? If he’s not the murderer, who is? Please stand up for me!”

“We do know that he and your husband were enemies. And we do have the obligation to report crimes to the authorities. Tomorrow morning, you can have an indictment drawn up and then go with us to the yamen. But let’s call it a day for now.”

After everyone left, Jiang-shi closed the door and continued to weep. In no mood to go to sleep, she waited miserably for morning. When morning came at long last, she asked a neighbor to buy an official indictment form. She then filled it out and went to the Changzhou County yamen. As the county magistrate happened to have just opened his court session for complaints, Jiang-shi went straight to the steps leading to the dais and cried out her grievances.

After reading the indictment and asking some questions about the circumstances, the magistrate promptly accepted the case because it was a serious one involving a murder and a break-in. The local headman also came to report the crime. The magistrate asked the sheriff to check the report, after which he quickly dispatched yamen runners to arrest the accused murderer.

In the meantime, after killing Li Yi, Wang Jia savored his success without staying on guard because he thought no one could have recognized him with his smeared face. To his surprise, a team of yamen runners descended on his place with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. With no place to hide in the rush of the moment, he was trussed up with a rope and taken to the county yamen.

The county magistrate asked, “Why did you kill Li Yi?”

Wang Jia replied, “Li Yi was killed by bandits. What does it have to do with me?”

The magistrate turned to Jiang-shi and asked, “Why do you accuse him?”

Jiang-shi replied, “I saw him from my hiding place under the bed.”

“How can you be so sure when it was dark?” pursued the magistrate.

“I not only recognized him but also deduced that burglars would not have killed and then gone away without taking anything. If it wasn’t a longtime enemy, who could it have been?”

The magistrate called forth the neighbors and asked them, “Were Wang Jia and Li Yi indeed longtime enemies?”

The neighbors said in chorus, “Yes, they were. And it’s true that they killed him but didn’t take anything.”

Thereupon, the magistrate sharply ordered that the ankle-squeezer be applied to Wang Jia. Being from a rich family, Wang Jia could not hold out under the pain. In resignation, he confessed, “I do have a grudge against Li Yi, and I did make myself out to be a bandit and killed him.”

The magistrate made him write down the statement in his own hand and sent him to death row. (MC: The magistrate should also interrogate Wang’s followers. With a few witnesses, Wang would not be able to elude the punishment of the law in the future.)

Although he had confessed, Wang Jia did not stop thinking about retracting his statement, but no idea came to him. Then he thought, “There’s that Old Man Zou in my neighborhood who makes a living out of helping people with their lawsuits. He’s a most crafty man and quite friendly to me. He gets the worst criminal off the hook. When my son comes to deliver my meal, I’ll tell him to go and talk with Old Man Zou.”

Soon, Wang Xiao’er, his son, came to deliver his meal. Wang Jia gave him detailed instructions as to what to do, adding, “Don’t skimp on payment! My life is at stake!”

Xiao’er promised to do as he was told. Straightaway, he went to Old Man Zou’s home, gave him an account of what had happened to his father, and asked the old man for ideas on getting his father exonerated.

The old man said, “Your father has confessed, and the county magistrate is new to his post and tried the case himself. Wherever your father may go to defend himself, the original verdict made at the local yamen won’t be reversed, nor will the magistrate concede that he’s in the wrong and nullify the confession. Why don’t you give me two hundred or three hundred taels of silver? I’ll take a trip to Nanjing and look for an opportunity. I’ll surely come up with something to get him out.”

Xiao’er said, “What idea do you have?”

“You just give me the money and leave it to me. Wait until I show you a thing or two. I can’t let on about anything as yet.”

After returning home, Xiao’er put together three hundred taels of silver and delivered the money to Old Man Zou. When he urged the old man to be on his way, the old man said, “With so much money, I’ll surely find a way to do it. You just relax and wait.”

Xiao’er thanked him and went home.

That very night, the old man packed and departed for Nanjing. Before many days had passed, he arrived in Nanjing and went to the Ministry of Justice to make detailed inquiries. He found out that Mr. Xu, director of the Zhejiang Division, was prone to stretching the rules and liked to entertain. Losing no time, Zou obtained a letter of recommendation and went to call on Mr. Xu, carrying lavish gifts.

Mr. Xu took a liking to the old man with his glib tongue and his easy laugh. Henceforth, they saw a great deal of each other, and a familiarity began to grow between them. Old Man Zou was fretting that no opportunity to help Wang Jia had presented itself when, one day, more than twenty pirates were taken under guard from the yamen to the Ministry of Justice for conviction. Old Man Zou went there to find out more about them. On learning that there were two Suzhou natives among them, he nodded in delight and said to himself, “I’ve got it!”

The next day, while preparing a feast, he sent an invitation card to Mr. Xu. Before long, the feast was ready, and Mr. Xu arrived in a sedan-chair. The old man greeted him, all smiles. After sitting down, they chatted about nothing in particular, and it was not until late at night that the old man dismissed all the servants and presented the hundred taels of silver to Mr. Xu. (MC: So, a hundred taels is enough to get him out. If made earlier, this request might not have been granted. The old man knows how to bide his time and wait for the right moment.)

Much taken aback, Mr. Xu asked why he was doing this. The old man said, “I have a relative, Mr. Wang, who’s in the local county jail on a false charge. Could you do something for him?”

Mr. Xu said, “If there’s anything I can do, of course I’ll do it, but I’m afraid there’s little advice I can offer you about a case that’s in another location.”

“But it shouldn’t be hard to do. Mr. Wang and Mr. Li were enemies. Now Mr. Li has been murdered, and the murderer is still at large. So Mr. Wang is in jail on a false charge. Yesterday, I saw more than twenty pirates taken under guard to your yamen, two of whom are Suzhou natives. Now, these two can be forced to confess that they murdered Mr. Li. They’ll be sentenced to death anyway, and one more murder won’t make any difference. But my kinsman Mr. Wang will be given a new lease on life, for which he’ll be ever so grateful to you.”

Mr. Xu agreed. Calmly, he took the silver, put it into his portfolio, called his servants back, thanked the old man for the feast, and departed in his sedan-chair.

Then the old man went secretly to see the two pirates’ families. He promised them hefty rewards and presented them with one hundred taels of silver on the spot as an initial payment. (MC: He leaves no stone unturned.) The two pirates accepted the deal.

When the court trial began, Mr. Xu ordered the two pirates to approach the bench and asked them, “How many people have you killed?”

The two men immediately confessed that they had killed so-and-so on such and such a date at such and such a place, and that one night on such and such a date they went to Li Yi’s house and killed him. Mr. Xu took note of their confessions, sent the pirates to jail, and prepared a file on the case.

Old Man Zou then asked a scribe to copy the confessions and addressed them to the Changzhou County magistrate. Carrying the document with him, he took leave of Mr. Xu, returned to Suzhou, and delivered it to the Changzhou County yamen when the court was in session. The magistrate opened the seal, and seeing that the murderers of Li had already been identified, he thought that Wang Jia must have made a false confession under duress. He was about to summon Wang from jail for further questions when, suddenly, Wang Xiao-er came in, crying, “Injustice!” All the more convinced of Wang’s innocence, the magistrate barked out an order that Wang Jia be taken out of jail and set free immediately.

Jiang-shi was shocked when she learned of this development. Wondering if her eyes had played tricks on her the night of the murder, she saw no alternative but to call it quits.

Let us follow Wang Jia as he triumphantly sauntered his way home. Just as he reached the gate of his house, a sudden gust of chilly wind sprang up. He cried out, “Oh no! Brother Li Yi is here!” With that, he collapsed to the ground. Attempts to revive him failed, and quickly he breathed his last. (MC: Hurrah!) There is a quatrain in testimony:

The foreign-looking Yama King means business—

For cases of murder, a life for a life.

Underhand deals do not deceive Heaven;

How laughable—that crafty Old Man Zou!

The above story is about a real murderer escaping the law. Our next story is the other way around: Over a trifling matter, an innocent man fell prey to an evil plot, with tragic results. If it had not been for the intervention of divine will, he would have died a violent death. Verily,

Good fortune or bad is up to divine justice;

Those who mean harm first bring harm on themselves.

Our story goes that in the Chenghua reign period [1465–78] of this dynasty [Ming], there lived in Yongjia County of Wenzhou Prefecture, Zhejiang, a Mr. Wang Jie, courtesy name Wenhao. He and his wife, Liu-shi, had only one daughter, two years old at this point in our narrative. They had several servants, male and female, but they were not very rich. Although Mr. Wang pursued Confucian studies, he had never had any formal education but pursued his studies at home. Sometimes he also went out and compared notes with his friends. Liu-shi ran the household frugally. With her many wifely virtues, she and her husband enjoyed a peaceful conjugal life.

One day in late spring, a few friends took Mr. Wang out to the suburbs to enjoy the sights of spring. Behold:

It is a glorious and sunny day in spring

With soothing and gentle breezes.

Purple swallows and yellow orioles

Look for companions among the willows.

Busy bees and flitting butterflies

Seek friends among the peach blossoms.

Scions of the noble, when fancy takes them,

Visit the wineshops day after day.

Beautiful girls with desires stirring

Cannot suppress the urge to venture out.

Those feeling the wine’s effects can be helped to their feet;

How fortunate that the fallen petals are as yet unswept!

The wonders of spring filled Mr. Wang with such joy that he drank until he was slightly tipsy before he started on his way home. Upon arrival, he saw two of his servants quarreling with a man carrying a bamboo basket. What happened was that the man, a Mr. Lü from Huzhou, was peddling ginger, and Mr. Wang’s servants were trying to slash the price. After finding out what the problem was, Mr. Wang said to the peddler, “The price they asked for is very reasonable. Why did you have to kick up such a row in front of my house? You really have no sense!”

The peddler happened to be an outspoken man. He said, “Do you really think it necessary to take advantage of a peddler like me? You, sir, should have a bigger heart. Don’t be so cheap!”

Still under the influence of the wine, Mr. Wang flew into a rage. “Where did this old ass come from? You’ve got a lot of nerve, talking back to me like that!” So saying, he walked up, showered blows on the man with his fists, and pushed him with one thrust of his hand. As it turned out, the middle-aged peddler had an ailment caused by excessive phlegm and internal heat. That one push made him collapse, unconscious, to the ground. Truly, he was

Weak as the waning moon at the third watch

And feeble as the spent oil lamp before dawn.

As a general truth, outbursts of anger should be the first thing to avoid. (MC: Words of wisdom.) What’s more, all this rumpus was for the sake of one or two puny coins. What was the big deal? We often witness situations in which some servants, made presumptuous by their connections with the powerful families they serve, all too often bully the poor and the humble. Once things get out of control, they bring disgrace to their masters. This is why good masters must strictly discipline their servants. In this case, though, Mr. Wang was at fault for losing his temper and striking the peddler. He was to suffer the consequences later.

But I digress. To get on with our story, on seeing the peddler collapse to the ground, Mr. Wang was shocked into sobriety and promptly ordered the servants to carry him into the main hall. They laid him down and forced warm tea down his throat. Soon he regained consciousness. Mr. Wang apologized to him, had wine and food served to him, and offered him a bolt of white silk to pay for his recuperation. (MC: He should be given credit for switching from violence to graciousness. But he overplays his hand by offering a bolt of silk, and this will cause disaster later.) The peddler’s anger turned to joy. He thanked Mr. Wang and went off in the direction of the ferry crossing. If Mr. Wang had been a prophet, he would have immediately thrown his arms around the peddler from behind, turned him back, and gladly let the man recuperate in his house for two to six months. That way, he would have averted the grim calamity that was to befall him. Now that the peddler was gone, it was as if

He had cast out hooks and lines

And drew out of the water not fish but trouble.

After the peddler was gone, Mr. Wang’s heart was still pounding violently. On entering the bedchamber, he told his wife about what had happened, adding, “I almost got myself into big trouble. I’m a lucky man!”

The hour being late, his wife, Liu-shi, asked a maidservant to serve a few dishes and warmed wine to help him recover from the shock. After he had downed several cups, they heard violent knocking on the front gate. Mr. Wang was again seized with fear. He picked up a lantern and went out, only to see Zhou Si, the boatman from the ferry crossing, with a bolt of white silk and a bamboo basket in his hands. In consternation, he said to Mr. Wang, “Sir! You’re in trouble! You took a human life!”

His face drained of all color, Mr. Wang asked what had happened.

“Do you recognize the white silk and the bamboo basket?” asked Zhou Si.

“Yes. The silk is my gift to a ginger peddler from Huzhou who was here earlier today, and the basket is his, for carrying his ginger. Why are they in your hands?”

“Earlier this afternoon, a Mr. Lü from Huzhou hired my ferry boat. As soon as he got into my boat, he fell violently ill with too much phlegm and internal heat. As he lay dying, he told me that it was your blows, sir, that brought on the attack of his disease. He gave the silk and the basket to me, so that they could serve as evidence, and he asked me to take legal action against you on his behalf. He also wanted me to go to Huzhou to tell his family about this so that they can come here to seek justice and demand your life. After he finished saying that, he closed his eyes and died. The body is still in my boat, and my boat is now moored by the bank in front of your house. Please go to my boat to see for yourself, sir, so that you can decide what to do.”

Mr. Wang was so terrified that his eyes popped wide open, his jaw dropped, his hands tingled, his legs went weak, and his heart thundered against his ribs as if a small deer were there, dashing about. But aloud, he said, trying to sound defiant, “This is impossible!” Yet he quietly sent a servant to the boat to investigate. Sure enough, there lay a dead body. (MC: The investigation was not thorough enough.) With his guilty conscience, Mr. Wang ran into the bedchamber in a panic and told Liu-shi about it.

“What’s to be done?” she asked.

Mr. Wang said, “Now that things have come to this, we have no time to lose. Let me pay the boatman and ask him to dispose of the corpse under cover of night. That’s the only way to avoid trouble.”

Mr. Wang stuffed a packet of more than twenty taels of loose silver into his sleeve, went out, and said to the boatman, “Please keep this thing quiet. Let’s consider what course would be best in the long run. I’m indeed at fault, but it wasn’t intentional. You and I are both Wenzhou natives, so we have something of a bond between us. I don’t see why you have to seek revenge for an out-of-towner. Also, what’s in it for you? The best thing to do is not to tell anyone about this. I’ll give you a reward to show my gratitude, and you can dump the corpse elsewhere. Who’s to know in the darkness of the night?”

“Where am I supposed to dump it? If it’s ever found and identified, and the investigations start, I’ll be implicated, too.”

“My father’s grave is just a few li away. It’s very quiet there. You know where it is. Please take the body there tonight when there’s no one around and quietly bury it. No one will know.”

“Good idea,” said Zhou Si, “but how are you going to thank me?” (MC: That’s what this is all about.)

Mr. Wang produced what he had in his sleeve, but the boatman objected to the paltriness of the amount, saying, “Don’t tell me a human life is worth so little! Look! That man happened to die in my boat, and I take it as a little windfall sent by Heaven. Anything less than one hundred taels of silver won’t do.”

Eager to put this thing behind him, Mr. Wang dared not say no. With a nod, he went to the interior of the house. Before long, he came out with clothes, jewelry, and more silver. Handing them to Zhou Si, he said, “They add up to about sixty taels of silver. I’m a poor man. Please accept it as such and forgive me.”

Mollified by the sight of the many gifts, Zhou Si said, “Oh well, you’re an educated man. I’ll be content if you could take care of me from time to time. (MC: This is even worse. Mr. Wang’s bad luck has not run its course.) I’m not going to haggle.”

In his desperation, Mr. Wang found these words reassuring. It was indeed a case of “His consent is my luck.” He treated the boatman to wine and food and then told two servants to find hoes, iron harrows, and such. One of the servants, Hu, was nicknamed “Hu the Tiger” because he was vicious and had a strong build. After everything was ready, they boarded the boat together and went to the Wang family graveyard, where they picked an empty spot, dug a grave, and buried the corpse. Then they boarded the boat again and returned home. By this time, night had given way to dawn. Mr. Wang treated the boatman to breakfast before bidding him good-bye. After the boatman was gone, Mr. Wang told the servants to close the gate, after which they went to their own rooms.

On entering his bedchamber, Mr. Wang said to his wife, Liu-shi, “Being a respectable man from an old family, I never imagined I’d land myself in such a mess and end up being extorted by such a petty rogue.”

As tears rolled down his cheeks, Liu-shi said in a soothing tone, “You’re just meant to experience a shock or two at this time in your life. Don’t be upset about the loss of money and other valuables. Now that the trouble is over, thanks to Heaven, you should count yourself lucky. You must be tired from all the work you did throughout the night. You need a good rest.” She ordered tea and food for him, and they went to bed.

Several days later, relieved that nothing untoward had happened, Mr. Wang bought some sacrificial articles and offered them to the gods and his ancestors. Zhou Si often came to visit, allegedly to express his goodwill. Mr. Wang waited on him hand and foot, always trying not to get on his wrong side. And he forced himself to grant every small loan that Zhou Si asked for. In fact, Zhou Si had sold his ferry boat and opened a shop and was doing quite well. Peace was restored in Mr. Wang’s life.

Gentle reader, mark this: Mr. Wang was, after all, a bookish gentleman with little knowledge of the ways of the world. Since he had already paid the boatman and carried the corpse to his family graveyard, he should have gathered dry firewood and burned up the corpse so as not to leave any trace. Wouldn’t that have made a clean end to the business? But no good idea came to him in the rush of the moment, and he chose to have the body buried. This is a case of weeds not uprooted coming back the next spring.

One year went by. As the saying goes, “Frost kills only rootless grass; disaster hits only luckless people.” Mr. Wang’s three-year-old daughter fell gravely ill with smallpox. Prayers to the gods, divinations, and doctors’ prescriptions all failed to work. Deeply pained by their beloved and only child’s suffering, Mr. and Mrs. Wang stayed at her bedside day and night, shedding bitter tears.

One day, a kinsman of Mr. Wang’s came with a gift box to see the young patient. Mr. Wang greeted him and offered him tea. When Mr. Wang told him that the girl was on the verge of death, the kinsman said, “There’s a pediatrician in this county, named Feng, who has the skill to bring life to the dying, and this is no exaggeration. He lives thirty li from here. Why don’t you send for him?”

“Yes, I will!” said Mr. Wang. As darkness had already fallen, he kept his kinsman for supper. After his kinsman left, he told his wife about this, wrote an invitation card, summoned Hu the Tiger that very night, and said to him, “I want you to take this card and leave at the fifth watch of the night, to bring Dr. Feng here to see my girl. I’ll set out lunch and wait for you. Go and be quick about it!” Hu the Tiger acknowledged the order and departed. Nothing further happened that night.

The next day, Mr. Wang prepared lunch and waited until late in the afternoon, but still the doctor did not show up. Another day passed. When he went to his daughter’s side to check on her, he saw that her condition had worsened. At midnight, the girl stopped breathing. She had taken leave of her parents and gone to the netherworld. Indeed,

Cicadas are the first ones to feel the autumn wind;

Death comes to those who least expect to die.

Having lost their greatest treasure, Mr. Wang and his wife cried themselves into a stupor. The body was then encoffined and cremated. Hu the Tiger did not return until noon the next day. He said, “Dr. Feng wasn’t at home, and I waited for most of the day, which is why I’m back only now.”

Tearfully, Mr. Wang said, “This means that my daughter was fated to die at this time. Nothing more need be said about this.”

Several days later, one of Hu the Tiger’s friends let out the truth. Hu had been drinking all along the way and, in his tipsy state, had lost the invitation card. So he dragged his feet and did not return until the day after the girl’s death. His justification for his delay was an outright lie. On hearing this, Mr. Wang, still heartbroken over the death of his daughter, was furious. (MC: Again he lets his fiery temper get the better of him.) Without a moment’s delay, he summoned Hu the Tiger and took out a bamboo rod. When the rod was about to land on him, Hu the Tiger said, “I’m not guilty of murder. (MC: Mr. Wang is indeed too harsh.) Why do you have to do this?”

All the more enraged at these words, Mr. Wang ordered other servants to haul him away and beat him. Only after the man had been given more than fifty strokes of the rod did Mr. Wang call them off and go inside.

Badly lacerated, Hu the Tiger limped to his room and said savagely to himself, “All this humiliation, and for what? His daughter’s case was beyond cure. She would have died anyway. Don’t tell me I killed her because I didn’t bring the doctor! I don’t deserve such a vicious beating. How hateful!” After another moment’s reflection, he said, again to himself, “It’s all right. I know what will do him in. After my wounds heal, I’ll show him a thing or two. We’ll see who comes out the winner! I’m going to keep quiet for now, so he won’t have a chance to prepare.” Truly,

When your luck turns, even your servant steps on you;

When fate is against you, demons will have their way.

Let us leave Hu the Tiger at his evil plotting and come back to Mr. Wang. More than a month had gone by since his daughter’s death. With relatives and friends comforting him with frequent offerings of meals and wine, he gradually began to feel better. One day, when he was taking a stroll in his front yard, a team of arresting officers barged in. Before he could protest, they threw hempen rope and iron chains around his neck. Giving a violent start, he said, “I’m a Confucian scholar. How can you insult me like this?”

With a snort, one of the officers said, “A fine, murderous Confucian scholar you are! If the yamen wrongs you, don’t blame us! You can tell it to the magistrate!”

Liu-shi and the women servants heard the commotion but had no idea what was happening and could do no more than stare at them without daring to take a step forward.

Over Mr. Wang’s protests, the officers, as ferocious as wolves and tigers, dragged him to the Yongjia County yamen and made him kneel to the right of the dais. The plaintiff was on his knees to the left of the dais. When Mr. Wang raised his head and saw that the plaintiff was none other than his servant Hu the Tiger, it dawned on him that Hu was accusing him out of a personal grudge.

Ming Shizuo, the magistrate, asked, “Mr. Hu Hu has accused you of having beaten a Mr. Lü of Huzhou to death. What do you have to say to that?”

Mr. Wang said, “Your Honor, don’t listen to his lies. I’m a scholar of delicate constitution. How is it possible for me to beat someone to death? Hu Hu is a servant of mine. I punished him severely the other day for his trespass. He initiated these proceedings against me out of resentment. I await Your Honor’s judicious judgment.”

Hu the Tiger kowtowed and said, “Your Honor, don’t listen to his story. It’s common for masters to beat their servants. Why would I be so resentful? The fact is, the dead body is buried to the left of his family graveyard. Please send men to dig it up. The presence of the corpse will bear me out, but if the corpse isn’t there, I’ll plead guilty to making a false accusation.”

Accordingly, the magistrate dispatched officers to dig up the corpse. With the detailed information Hu provided about the location and the size of the burial site, the officers soon accomplished their mission and came back to the yamen, carrying the corpse.

The magistrate rose from his seat and personally examined the corpse. Turning to Mr. Wang, he said, “With the corpse as evidence, what more do you have to say?”

He was about to order torture for Mr. Wang when the latter said, “Your Honor, the corpse has already decomposed. It cannot be the body of the man I allegedly beat to death only recently. And if the man died a long time ago, why was the death not reported until today? All too clearly, Hu Hu found a corpse somewhere and conjured up a case against me out of thin air.”

The magistrate said, “You do have a point.”

But Hu the Tiger said, “The man was beaten to death a year ago. I didn’t have the heart to report against him at the time out of consideration of the bond between master and servant. What’s more, since it’s an offense for a servant to accuse his master of wrongdoing, I kept the secret to myself. (MC: What a smooth talker!) But I never thought that my master would again resort to force. I was afraid that I’d be implicated if something horrible happens, so I had to report what had happened. (MC: How can such an unscrupulous man be entrusted with anything? Mr. Wang is no judge of character. It is fitting that he has come to this.) If you don’t believe me, Your Honor, you need only call in the neighbors and ask them if they knew about the beating death on such and such a date last year. The truth will then be established.”

Again, the magistrate accepted his suggestion and soon had the neighbors brought to the court. The magistrate questioned them one by one and indeed established the fact that, on such and such a date the year before, a ginger seller was beaten at Mr. Wang’s house until he fell unconscious, although he was quickly revived. But the neighbors said they did not know what happened to the ginger seller thereafter. While they were stating the facts, Mr. Wang turned pale. As he tried to get by with evasive answers, the magistrate said, “Your guilt has been clearly established. What more can you say? This wretch will confess only if he’s beaten!” Right away he picked out a bamboo slip, a warrant for the authorization of the use of torture, from its container and thundered, “Beat him!”

With a mighty shout, the runners standing on either side of the dais along the walls flung Mr. Wang on the floor and gave him twenty merciless thrashings. Pity the scholar with his delicate constitution going through such torture! Unable to hold out, Mr. Wang resignedly confessed.

After the confession was duly recorded, the magistrate announced, “Although Wang’s guilt in the death of the peddler is clearly established, a conviction is premature in the absence of word from the family of the deceased. My ruling for now is to put Wang in jail, to await further decisions by the court after family members of the deceased come forward to identify the corpse.”

Thereupon, Mr. Wang was sent to jail, and the corpse was reburied. Orders were given not to cremate the corpse without authorization but to preserve it for identification and further examination. With the court session declared closed, everyone in the courtroom was dismissed, and the magistrate returned to the residential quarters of the yamen. Hu the Tiger felt triumphant for having given vent to his personal grievances, but he could not bring himself to return to the Wang residence to face Liu-shi. Instead, he moved elsewhere.

In the meantime, servants of the Wang family were asking for information at the county yamen. On hearing that their master had been put in jail, they were so horrified that even their ears were drained of color. After they ran all the way back and reported the news to their mistress, Liu-shi felt as if her three souls had taken flight from her body. Letting out a cry, she fell backward on the floor.

Alive or not, it was yet hard to tell,

But her four limbs were all deathly still.

In a panic, the maidservants kept shouting her name, desperately trying to revive her. Gradually, Liu-shi came to. With a cry, “My husband!” she burst into loud wails of grief and went on wailing for a good four hours. Then she hurriedly put together some loose pieces of silver and changed into black. Carrying the money, she told a maid to accompany her and a male servant to lead the way and proceeded straight to the Yongjia County jail. On seeing each other, husband and wife wept their hearts out.

“It’s that scoundrel Hu the Tiger who did this to me!” said Mr. Wang tearfully.

Gnashing her teeth, Liu-shi called the man the worst names. Then she took out the loose pieces of silver and handed them to Mr. Wang, saying, “Give them to the wardens so that they’ll take good care of you and spare you from the hardships of life in jail.” Mr. Wang accepted the money.

Darkness had fallen, so Liu-shi resignedly took leave of her husband and returned home, weeping as she went. After eating a perfunctory supper, she went to bed in low spirits. Saddened by the thought that she and her husband had been sharing the bed only the night before but had now been driven apart and were in the grip of such a disaster, she again burst into sobs. Let us leave her in her misery as she drifted off to sleep and come back to Mr. Wang.

After he was thrown into jail, even though his bribes to the wardens spared him from flogging, he found himself among prisoners with unkempt hair and grimy faces. How could he possibly be otherwise than melancholy? In addition, his case was still pending, and he had no idea whether he was to be given the death sentence or not. Although clothes and food were delivered solicitously to him, he had his share of suffering, as was only to be expected, and he grew emaciated. Liu-shi paid bribes high and low, planning to have him freed on bail. However, given that murder was a serious charge and a murder suspect would not be lightly freed on bail, Mr. Wang continued to languish in jail.

Time flew like an arrow, and the sun and moon shot back and forth like the weaver’s shuttles. After spending about six miserable months in jail, Mr. Wang was so weighed down by his worries and hardships that he fell gravely ill. Liu-shi called on physicians and brought medicine to him, but all to no avail. It looked like he did not have long to live.

One day, when a servant came to deliver his breakfast, Wang said to him, while keeping an eye on the warden, “After you go back, tell the mistress that I’m so gravely ill that I’m going to die anytime now. Tell her to come quickly to see me so that I can bid her farewell for the last time.”

At the servant’s report, Liu-shi shuddered with fear. Losing no time, she hired a sedan-chair and was carried to the county yamen with the speed of the wind. She alighted a few steps from the gate and walked to the jail. We need hardly say that husband and wife dissolved into tears on seeing each other.

Mr. Wang said, “Your foolish and unworthy husband took a human life by accident and landed in jail. I brought disgrace to you, my good wife. My condition is getting worse. Now that I’ve seen you for the last time, I’ll die content. As for that scoundrel Hu the Tiger, I won’t let him off easy when I’m in the netherworld!”

With tears in her eyes, Liu-shi said, “Don’t say such unlucky things! Just relax and focus on your treatment. It was an accident, and no family member of the deceased has come forward. (MC: Right on!) In the worst-case scenario, I’ll sell off all our land and other property in order to have you released so that we can be together again. Divine justice will catch up with that villain Hu the Tiger. The day of revenge will come. Don’t worry about it.”

“With you, my good wife, trying so hard to get me out, I already feel a little better. But still, my constitution is weak to begin with. I’m afraid my number will soon be up.”

Liu-shi gave him more words of comfort before she took tearful leave of him. Back at home, she sat in her room, woebegone and glum.

The servants were playing card games in front of the main hall when they saw a middle-aged man enter the gate carrying a box on each end of a pole borne on his shoulders. As he put down his load, he asked the servants, “Is your master home?” Thanks to this man,

The poor scholar found the Emperor of Qin’s mirror;1

The killer could not escape Xiao He’s penal code.2

There is a poem in testimony:

The peddler of Huzhou lived a world apart;

The boatman, unprovoked, was the cause of the havoc.

Mr. Wang will soon be cleared;

His woes will change into bliss.

Taking a closer look at the visitor, the servants screamed, “A ghost! A ghost!” And they fled pell-mell every which way. You may ask, who was that man? He was none other than Mr. Lü, peddler of ginger from Huzhou. He seized a servant and said, “I’m here to see your master. Why call me a ghost?”

Hearing the noise, Liu-shi went to the main hall to see what was going on. Mr. Lü walked up to her, called out a greeting, and said, “Madam, this old man is Lü Da, seller of ginger from Huzhou. When I was here last time, the master of the house treated me to wine and food and gave me white silk as a present. I’m ever so grateful. After I bade him good-bye, I returned to Huzhou, and in the past year and a half, I’ve traveled to other places to ply my trade. And now, I’m here again with some products from my hometown, to visit the master of the house. (MC: A kind and honest man.) I wonder why these gentlemen call me a ghost.”

A servant off to one side shouted, “Madam! Don’t listen to him! He must have heard that you’re eager to get Master out of jail and has come here in human form to reclaim his life!”

Liu-shi ordered sharply that he withdraw. Turning to the visitor, she said, “So, this means that you’re not a ghost. But how you’ve made my husband suffer!”

Startled, Mr. Lü asked, “Where is your husband? And how did I make him suffer?”

Thereupon, Liu-shi gave him a detailed account of what had happened, about how Zhou Si had brought a corpse to their house, how he had produced the silk and the basket as evidence, how her husband had bribed the boatman and buried the body, how Hu the Tiger had accused her husband of murder, and how her husband had confessed and been clapped into jail.

After hearing her out, Mr. Lü thumped his chest and said, “How sad! How sad! How can there be such injustice in the world! Last year, after I left your house and boarded a ferry boat, the boatman asked me how I had come by the white silk. I shouldn’t have told him about how I almost died from Mr. Wang’s blows and how he treated me to wine and gave me the gift of silk, but I did, and in detail. Then he offered to buy my silk. I agreed because he offered a good price. He also wanted my bamboo basket, so I gave it to him as payment for the boat ride. I had no idea he’d use those two things of mine for such an evil purpose! Because I didn’t come earlier to Wenzhou, your husband was made to suffer. I’m to blame!”

Liu-shi said, “If you hadn’t come today, even I wouldn’t have known that my husband was falsely charged. So he tricked you out of the silk and basket, but what about the dead body?”

Mr. Lü thought for a moment before answering, “Oh, I see now. When I was telling the boatman about what had happened to me, there was a dead body floating on the water by the bank. I noticed that he was staring at it, but I didn’t put any meaning to it. Who would have thought that he’d get such an evil idea! What a vicious man! Now, we have no time to lose. Please put my present away first, Madam. Then you and I will go together to the Yongjia County yamen to state Mr. Wang’s innocence so as to get him out of jail. I think this is the best thing to do.” (MC: A kind and honest man.)

Liu-shi agreed to do as he said. She put the present away and treated Mr. Lü to dinner. The daughter of a Confucian scholar, she was quite literate and did not need the services of a legal counsel. She wrote a petition, hired a sedan-chair for female passengers, and proceeded with Mr. Lü and a few servants to the Yongjia County yamen.

After they waited for some time, the magistrate took his place on the bench in his court. “Injustice!” Liu-shi and Mr. Lü cried out as they handed in the petition.

After reading it from beginning to end, the magistrate told Liu-shi to approach the bench and give her testimony. She gave a detailed account of how her husband had turned violent while haggling over price, how the boatman had brought a dead body and received a windfall, and how Hu the servant had made false accusations out of a personal grudge. She concluded by saying, “I didn’t know that my husband is innocent until earlier today when the ginger merchant came.”

The magistrate then called Lü Da to him, whereupon Lü Da gave an account of how he had been beaten and had sold the silk.

The magistrate asked, “Could Madam Liu have bribed you into doing this?” (MC: His suspicions are not unjustified.)

With a kowtow, Lü Da said, “Your Honor! I may be a native of Huzhou, but I’ve been plying my trade in these parts for years, and I have many acquaintances here. How would I be able to fool Your Honor? If I had indeed been on the verge of death, why didn’t I have the boatman bring an acquaintance of mine and ask the man to deliver my message and seek revenge? Why would I ask a boatman to do the job? Well, it may be said that I couldn’t afford to be particular when I was dying, but after my supposed death, why haven’t members of my clan in Huzhou done anything? My prolonged absence should have prompted some of them to come and make inquiries. If they found out that I’d been beaten to death, they would have taken the case to the yamen. Why was Mr. Wang’s servant the one to initiate legal action a whole year later? I didn’t know about the injustice until I came here today. Even though I did no harm to Mr. Wang Jie, I’m the one who caused all this, and I don’t have the heart to let him suffer from the injustice. This is why I’m here to plead his case. Please spare his life, Your Honor!”

“You say you have acquaintances in these parts. Name them for me,” said the magistrate.

Counting on his fingers, Lü Da named more than ten. The magistrate took down the names. He picked the last four names on the list, summoned two officers, and instructed them, “Bring these four here quietly, along with the neighbors who served as witnesses before.” The officers acknowledged the order and went off.

Before long, the officers came back with the two groups of witnesses. Mr. Lü’s four acquaintances cried out as soon as they saw him from a distance, “Well, if this isn’t Big Brother Lü from Huzhou! Why are you here? So you didn’t die, after all!”

The magistrate then told the neighbors to look at Lü Da up close. Appalled, they said, “Maybe our eyes are playing tricks on us, but this is the very ginger seller whom Mr. Wang had beaten to death! Was he brought back to life, or does this man just look exactly like him?”

One of the neighbors commented, “No two people in this world can look so much alike! I never forget a face. This is him all right, and no mistake!”

By this time, the magistrate had gained a pretty good idea of the truth. He accepted the petition, called the witnesses to him, and said, “After you leave the yamen, be sure not to say a word about this to anyone. If you don’t do as I say, you’ll be brought back here for severe punishment!” (MC: The magistrate covers every angle.) The witnesses murmured respectfully and withdrew.

The magistrate then summoned several officers and gave them these instructions: “Go quietly and find Zhou Si the boatman and sweet-talk him into coming here. Don’t tell him the truth. The plaintiff, Hu Hu, has a guarantor. Bring both of them here tomorrow afternoon for interrogation.” The officers acknowledged the order and went their separate ways.

The magistrate told Liu-shi and Lü Da to return the next afternoon. Liu-shi and Lü Da kowtowed and left the yamen. Liu-shi then took Lü Da to see Mr. Wang at the jail gate and told him everything that had happened. Mr. Wang was so overwhelmed with joy that, as if suddenly enlightened by Buddhist truth and rejuvenated by sweet dew from heaven, his illness was six or seven parts gone. He said, addressing Lü Da, “I blamed the Tiger only, never knowing that the boatman was so vicious. (MC: It is his lack of discernment that makes him a victim of deception and misfortune.) If you hadn’t come, even I myself wouldn’t have known that I was wronged.” Truly,

Egrets are seen on snowy days only when they take wing;

The parrots’ presence in the willows is not known until they talk.

After taking leave of her husband, Liu-shi left the yamen, mounted the small sedan-chair, and returned home, followed by Lü Da and the servants. Before entering her bedchamber, she told the servants to eat supper with Mr. Lü and put him up for the night in the main hall. In the afternoon of the next day, they went again to the yamen, where the magistrate had opened his session.

Soon, two officers entered with Zhou Si. What had happened was that Zhou Si had opened a fabric store in the county with Mr. Wang’s money. The officers sent by the magistrate told him, “The county magistrate wants to buy fabric from you.” They were thus able to trick him into following them to the yamen.

As if the man’s crime was destined to be exposed at this time, Zhou Si happened to raise his head, and whom should he see but Lü Da! As he reddened to his ears, Lü Da cried out, “Mister! How has your business been since you bought my white silk and my bamboo basket?”

Zhou Si was speechless, and his face turned ashen. A moment later, Hu the Tiger was also brought in. Having moved to another place, he was in the county visiting relatives, and the officers happened to run into him. They said to him, tongue in cheek, “The dead man’s relatives have come forward. The magistrate is waiting for the plaintiff to go so as to close the file. We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Hu the Tiger took them at their word. Cheerfully, he followed them to the yamen and knelt down in the courtroom. Pointing at Lü Da, the magistrate asked him, “Do you know this man?”

Upon a closer look, Hu the Tiger gave a start. Not knowing what to say, he remained silent.

Keeping the two men under close observation, the magistrate pointed to Hu the Tiger and lashed out: “You dog with the heart of a wolf ! What did your master do to you to make you conspire with the boatman and produce a dead body in order to falsely accuse him of murder?”

Hu said, “My master did beat the man to death. I didn’t lie.”

In a rage, the magistrate said, “How can you be so brazen! If Lü Da is dead, who is that man kneeling at the foot of the dais?” He ordered the runners to use the ankle-squeezers on Hu and continued, “You’ll be let off only if you confess this instant!”

When the ankle-squeezers were applied to him, Hu the Tiger screamed, “Your Honor! I plead guilty to accusing my master of murder out of a personal grudge, but I’d rather die than admit to conspiring with the boatman! My master knocked Lü Da to the ground, something he shouldn’t have done, then he poured warm water down the man’s throat and revived him, treated him to wine and food, and gave him silk, and the man went to the ferry crossing. At around the second watch that night, Zhou Si came, carrying a dead body, and produced the silk and the basket as evidence, so everyone in the house believed him. (MC: Why didn’t he ask the boatman to serve as a witness the first time around?) Then my master bribed him and went with me to the family graveyard to bury the body. Later, because my master had me badly beaten, I came to Your Honor to report against him out of a personal grudge. I honestly didn’t know that the corpse was someone else. If Mr. Lü hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have known that my master was innocent. The boatman is the only one who knows about the corpse.”

The magistrate took those words down in writing before ordering Hu the Tiger to withdraw and Zhou Si to approach the bench. In the beginning, Zhou Si tried to get by with evasive answers, but with Lü Da off to one side to bear witness and the magistrate ordering torture, he came out with the truth: “On the nth day of the nth month last year, Lü Da boarded my boat, carrying a bolt of white silk. I asked him how he had come by the silk, just to make conversation. That was how I learned about the beating. It so happened that there was a dead body floating by the bank at the ferry crossing, and that gave me the idea of blackmailing Mr. Wang. So I bought Mr. Lü’s silk and got his basket, and I fished out the dead body, brought it into my boat, and went to the Wang residence. To my surprise, he readily believed my story. (IC: The beginning of all the troubles to come.) Then I got silver from Mr. Wang and buried the body in the graveyard. Everything I said is the truth.”

The magistrate said, “That may very well be so, but there are still a few things unclear to me. Do you mean to say that there happened to be a dead body floating on the surface of the water and that it happened to resemble Lü Da? You must have killed a man so as to use the corpse to rip off Mr. Wang.” (MC: He is not entirely unjustified in his suspicions.)

Zhou Si shouted at the top of his voice, “No, Your Honor! That’s not true! If I had wanted to kill, why didn’t I kill Lü Da then and there! It was the sight of the dead body on the water’s surface that gave me the idea of getting hold of the silk and the basket. Because the corpse didn’t look like Mr. Wang, I doubted that I could pull off the trick. But then I thought that, first, Mr. Wang must have had a guilty conscience, and, second, he had seen Lü Da only briefly, and who would be able to see a corpse’s features clearly in the dark by lamplight? Third, since the silk came from Mr. Wang himself and the basket belonged to the ginger seller, no one would have any doubt. That’s why I was emboldened to pull the trick. To my own surprise, I succeeded. No one saw through the hoax. As for that corpse, the man might have lost his footing and fallen into the water. I have no idea whatsoever.”

Lü Da moved forward on his knees and said, “Your Honor, when I was in his ferry boat, I did see a floating corpse. That’s the truth.”

The magistrate recorded every word.

Zhou Si continued, “I meant only to hit Mr. Wang up for money. I didn’t mean to do him such harm. Please be lenient with me!”

The magistrate roared, “You ruthless villain who defies divine justice! Your greed almost ruined his entire family. Such evil schemes of yours must have brought ruin to goodness knows how many other people. I’m going to rid Yongjia County of a scourge. (MC: This is what’s meant when they say “a case repugnant to reason.”) As for Hu the Tiger, as a servant, he betrayed his master and pressed an unsubstantiated charge against him. Such abominable behavior deserves severe punishment.” He promptly ordered that both men be pulled back and beaten with the rod, Hu the Tiger forty times and Zhou Si until he stopped breathing. As it turned out, Hu had not quite recovered from a bad cold and could hardly withstand the torture. Divine justice caught up with the servant who betrayed his master, and he gave up the ghost before he was given forty strokes with the rod. Zhou Si died after more than seventy strokes. How pathetic that the two evil men perished by the rod!

Seeing that both men had died, the magistrate ordered that their family members come to claim the bodies. Mr. Wang was released from jail and set free then and there. Zhou Si’s fabric store was searched, and all the fabric bolts were confiscated. Valued at one hundred taels of silver, the fabrics that had been bought with money wheedled out of Mr. Wang should have been government property, but considering the fact that Mr. Wang was a scholar who had been languishing in jail for quite some time on a false charge, the magistrate took pity on him for the gross injustice he had suffered and gave the fabrics to him. This goes to show the magistrate’s goodwill.

After the corpse was dug out of Mr. Wang’s family graveyard, the coroner found sand under the fingernails, which meant that the man had drowned. Since no family members came forward to claim the body, the coroner was ordered to have the body buried in the public graveyard.

Mr. Wang, his wife, and Mr. Lü thanked the magistrate and returned home. Mr. Wang and Liu-shi fell on each other’s shoulders and had a good cry before they went into the main hall and greeted Mr. Lü anew. Lü Da apologized to Mr. Wang for causing him suffering, and Mr. Wang thanked Lü Da for coming to his defense and clearing him. This is a case of “Out of blows, friendship grows.”

Henceforth they kept up a never-ending stream of mutual visits. Mr. Wang’s hot temper mellowed, and he became all affability, even to beggars. Aggrieved over his recent experience, he decided to win some honor for himself so as to wipe out the disgrace. So he cut himself off from society and devoted himself to his studies. In ten years, he became a jinshi.

The moral of the story is that government officials must never treat human life as a child’s game or as if it were not worth a straw. Let’s consider Mr. Wang’s case: The boatman was the only one in full possession of all the facts. If the ginger peddler had not gone to Wenzhou again, the servants would not have known that their master was under a false charge, the wife would not have known that, and even Mr. Wang himself would not have known that. Moreover, a courtroom is not always the place where all crimes are necessarily exposed to light. (MC: From this we know that cases of injustice abound in the prisons of our empire.) Gentlemen of kindly disposition, be warned!

A good ruler has no use for torture;

Entrapping people with the law is most insidious.

Lamebrained, corrupt, and ruthless officials, be warned!

Beware of retribution, to you or your offspring!