CHAPTER 80

Second Tiger Son accuses Lei and Chen; a chivalrous stalwart disturbs the court

“YOU two! What are your names? Which of you is called Chen?” The two men gave their full names. Then the prefect continued. “Lei Ming and Chen Liang, you are accused of having immoral relations with the sister-in-law of Second Tiger Son for an unknown number of days!” When Lei Ming and Chen Liang heard these words, their exasperation and anger knew no bounds.

When Second Tiger Son had left them during the night, the rascal had spent the rest of the night getting into the city. Then he took a broken rice bowl and scratched his head and clothing with it. At daybreak he was at the yamen gate making a complaint against them. This was why the prefect had called Lei and Chen to court.

“In answer to your honor,” said Chen Liang, “we are Chejiang prefecture men. Lei is my sworn brother. This is the first time we have been in Changshan, and only stayed at the inn here last night. It was very hot, and we were trying to cool ourselves outside when we heard a call for help, ‘Murder! Murder!’ Since it is our profession to act as escorts, we try to be helpful. We thought it might be a highway robbery. We followed the sound to a courtyard. What we saw was a man threatening a woman with a sword. We then learned that it was Second Tiger Son threatening his sister-in-law. We did not know him, but we persuaded him to leave. We never thought that he would accuse us of having relations with his sister-in-law. We only stayed at the inn last night. If Your Honor does not believe us, ask the people at the inn. We have no connections with the Son family. We have not been here long and do not know them. If Your Honor would call the sister-in-law, she would tell you this is so. In addition, we come from far away and only arrived here last night. How could we have known her? If we had been here ten days or half a month, it would be a different situation.”

While they were speaking, the prefect had already sent someone to bring Second Tiger’s sister-in-law to the yamen. She had been weeping steadily all morning. While her maid was urging her not to cry, there was a knock at the gate. When the maid answered it, she saw a female officer and two male officers. When the maid asked what the headmen and the woman wanted, they told her that she and her mistress must come to the yamen.

On being told that, the widow said, “Good! Second Tiger has accused me. I was just about to accuse him!” She then hired a sedan chair, and with her maid went to the yamen.

When the prefect saw her, the sister-in-law, kneeling before him, he knew by her greenish complexion that she was either a widow or a woman whose husband had been absent for a long time. “What is your name?” he asked.

“My name is Son,” she answered. “My mother’s name was Kang. My husband left this life three years ago and I live alone in widowhood.”

“Second Tiger has brought an accusation against you,” the prefect said. “He says that you have been having immoral relations with Lei Ming and Chen Liang. You see Second Tiger here in court and you must speak the truth.”

“I really do not know anyone named Lei or Chen, and Second Tiger is not one of my immediate family, but a demon I called up by burning paper.” She went on to tell the entire story of what had happened.

The prefect then ordered that Second Tiger, Lei Ming, and Chen Liang be removed from the audience hall. “Now that there are no outsiders here, I must ask you about your big stomach. What has caused it? If you speak the truth, I must help you. Is it caused by illness or are you going to have a child?”

“Your honor, truly I am sick,” she replied.

The prefect ordered that the yamen doctor be summoned. This yamen doctor was half blind, and after he had looked at her, he said, “Your Honor, I see that there is to be a happy event in the future.”

When Widow Son heard this, she slapped the doctor in the face, saying, “How can you talk such rubbish! My husband has been dead for three years and I have lived alone since then as a widow. How could I be expecting a child? That is just nonsense coming out of your mouth!”

The doctor listened and replied, “I say you are going to have a child.”

“Widow Son,” said the prefect, “I ask you now, since you have denied Second Tiger’s accusation. Why did Lei Ming and Chen Liang come to your aid?”

“I really do not know anyone named Lei or Chen,” she replied, “but when Second Tiger was going to kill me, I called out ‘Murder!’ and Lei and Chen came. I didn’t know them.”

The prefect ordered that Lei Ming and Chen Liang be brought into the courtroom. When they came in, the prefect asked, “Lei Ming and Chen Liang, why were you two climbing over other people’s roofs in the middle of the night and interfering in things that were none of your business?”

“We two had good intentions. How could we not act to save someone from being killed?”

“Hateful!” exclaimed the widow Son.

“What do you hate?” asked the prefect.

“I hate the fact that these two men do not have a knife!” replied the widow. “Otherwise I would cut myself open and show the court whether I am sick or whether I am going to have a child!”

“You have a lot of gall to talk that way in this court,” said Lei Ming. “I have a knife here. You can cut yourself open, and if you are sick, there must be someone who will avenge you. If you are going to have a child, you will know that yourself, as well as who the person was with whom you had relations.” With that, he threw the knife on the floor. Widow Son, seeing the knife, was about to seize it, but fortunately the hand of an officer standing nearby was quicker and he picked it up instead.

When the prefect heard Lei Ming’s words and saw his action, he was outraged. He pounded his desk and said, “Lei Ming, you are both audacious and reckless! How dare you roar and bluster in the yamen audience hall before the prefect himself! Come men, take him and beat him for me!”

Just then, the prefect saw a note appear on his desk. He opened it and his expression changed completely. He gave a sigh, bowed his head, and said with a smile, “The prefect sees that you are a sincere person with something of a temper. I will have my men fix a table for you two and give you something to eat and drink. In a little while I will come and join you.”

Lei Ming and Chen Liang thanked him and left the hall. In a nearby room, a man served them food and wine. “Second Brother,” said Chen Liang to Lei Ming, “this is strange! There must be some reason why His Honor is treating us this way. He must have some secret plan to imprison us. I fear we cannot escape.”

“I don’t understand it at all,” said Lei Ming. “Let us finish eating and then see what happens.”

What had just happened was that, right after Lei Ming had lost his temper and the prefect opened the note, he saw the following message: “Lei Ming and Chen Liang used to be wicked outlaws who belonged to the numerous men of the Greenwood. Then they reformed their ways and now they have an excellent reputation.” As the prefect read these words, he thought that this affair was very strange indeed, and wondered where the note had come from. As he looked at Lei Ming and Chen Liang, the prefect thought that not one of his men could compare with the two. He had Lo Biao summoned. “He would be able to deal with these two,” the prefect thought. As he continued to think about the note, he also wondered whether Lei Ming and Chen Liang had been at Ma Ran’s estate. He said to himself, “I will have the Tangled Hair Ghost, Yun Fang, brought out and see if he recognizes them. If he does, all the water in the Yellow River will not wash them clean.”

Just as he was going to do this, he heard a voice outside say, “Your honor of the night and day! I have a wrong to declare, a bitter wrong!”

As the prefect was about to ask who was outside, he saw Ji Gong walk into the audience hall, leading a scholar. Where had Ji Gong been? After the monk had said goodbye to Lei Ming and Chen Liang, he went on with the two headmen, Chai and She. Soon they saw a sedan chair approaching at a rapid pace.

Once the monk saw it, he exclaimed, “Ai ya! O Mi To Fu! When there are such things, how can one ignore them?” The monk took his two head-men and followed the sedan chair into the village. There they saw it enter a large gate on the north side of the road.

“Old Chai and old She,” said the monk, “you two wait outside.” The monk entered the gate and said, “Greetings! Greetings!”

One of the household servants came out and said, “Teacher, if you want to beg, go elsewhere. This is not a good time. If you had come three days earlier, it would have been. Just now the master will have nothing to do with Daoists or Buddhists.”

“What wrong has the yuanwai suffered?” asked the monk. “Tell me about it.”

“You are a person who has left the world,” replied the servant. “There is no use in telling you, but since you ask, I will tell you. It is the yuanwai’s third little wife. Three days ago the time came for her to have a baby, but she has been unable to give birth. We called several midwives, but it was no use. We sent her to her aunt’s home in the sedan chair to see if that family could help, but that was no good either. It is often said that small women should not marry large men, but what can we do? The yuanwai feels terrible.”

“Don’t worry,” soothed the monk. “Tell your yuanwai that I am a monk who can help with giving birth.”

“Monk, you’re asking a great deal,” said the servant. “What family has ever asked a monk to come into the room where a child is being born?”

“You don’t understand,” said the monk. “I have an unusual medicine that will help in giving birth. When it is taken, the birth takes place immediately afterward.”

“In that case,” said the servant, “I will relay your request.” He went inside and spoke to the distraught yuanwai, who at once asked that the monk be brought in. The servant came out and said, “The yuanwai invites you in.”

The monk went in with the servant to the library. When the yuanwai saw before him a poor ragged monk, he asked him to sit down, saying, “Holy monk, do you have a medicine that helps in giving birth?”

The monk nodded his head.