Cover

Also by Qiu Xiaolong

The Inspector Chen mysteries

DEATH OF A RED HEROINE

A LOYAL CHARACTER DANCER

WHEN RED IS BLACK

A CASE OF TWO CITIES

RED MANDARIN DRESS

THE MAO CASE

YEARS OF RED DUST (short story collection)

DON’T CRY, TAI LAKE

THE ENIGMA OF CHINA

SHANGHAI REDEMPTION

HOLD YOUR BREATH, CHINA *

BECOMING INSPECTOR CHEN *

INSPECTOR CHEN AND THE PRIVATE KITCHEN MURDER *

* available from Severn House

THE SHADOW OF THE EMPIRE

Qiu Xiaolong

Dedication

In Memory of Wang Yuanlu

This antique Huizhou writing brush

of scarlet skunk tail came

from Wang Yuanlu. A visiting scholar

of the classical Chinese, too obsessed

with the image of the brush tip

softened on her moist tongue

in Li Shangyin’s lines to pound

on the unfeeling computer keyboard,

he went back to China,

asking me to keep the ineffable

touch of a Tang Dynasty brush –

‘for inspiration …’

Epigraph

‘At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.’

– Aristotle

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

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

– William Shakespeare

‘Life is like a dream –

I pour out a chalice of wine

To the moon in the river.’

– Su Shi

ONE

‘Honorable Judge Dee …’

Dee Renjie, the newly appointed Imperial Circuit Supervisor of the Tang Empire, put down the routine report that had been submitted to him earlier in the day, stroking his white-streaked beard and shaking his head reflectively, as if at someone sitting opposite him across the rough, unpainted wooden table in the room of a dilapidated hostel. The hostel was located on the outskirts of Chang’an, the grand capital of the Tang Empire.

Dee was no judge. For the moment, however, he had no objection to people addressing him as such. It sounded far less impressive, further away from the center of the imperial power, though he was in no mood to do anything judge-like whatsoever in the midst of the ferocious political infighting around the throne.

In various official positions during his long, checkered official career, Dee had found himself involved, from time to time, in investigations – even when serving as the prime minister or in other high-ranking official positions. In the Tang system, he had to serve, more often than not, as a multifunctional official with both the executive and judicial powers combined in one position. As he had solved a number of sensitive political cases that had proven to be too difficult for others, people had chosen to simply call him Judge Dee.

In the days of the increasingly fierce power struggle at the imperial court, the title ‘judge’ had somehow turned into a neutral one, acceptable both to the Wu and the Li factions at the top, he reflected in the trembling candlelight, folding his hands around a cup of lukewarm Dragon Well tea.