As for the flower girl’s death, Xuanji said she did not know anything about it. It happened late at night, with hardly any people moving around, so the mayor seemed to believe that it was done by a local criminal. The flower girl was a ‘bit coquettish,’ according to some of the villagers, and it was possibly a sex crime that happened at night. The examination done at the crime scene later also fitted with the scenario, though no one could really tell why the flower girl was there. In appearance, it was unrelated to Xuanji’s case, and Mayor Pei saw no point connecting it with the other deaths. Particularly for a nobody like the flower girl, it made sense for the death not to be considered as part of Xuanji’s case. Any further complication would not have been in the interests of the mayor.

‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough, Judge Dee,’ Mayor Pei concluded in sincerity. ‘It’s a very convincing confession, I have to say, particularly about her motive. After so many cruel letdowns in her life, the betrayal by Wei and Ning became the last straw for her. She killed the maidservant in an uncontrollable rage that afternoon. As for the burial of the body in the backyard, it’s no longer something unimaginable with Wei acting as her accomplice in the night. She said repeatedly she had not told the truth because it was too mortifying for her to admit such a defeat to a low-life maidservant like Ning; and because she still cared for Wei in her way, she tried hard not to drag him into the trouble. However, his death changed everything.

‘All in all, it’s a believable statement, acceptable with so many bizarre details in the case convincingly explained. I don’t think those men of letters or any other busybodies could have anything else to say about the conclusion.’

So the latest version – the one in the letter grasped in his hand – was pretty much the first scenario Judge Dee had suggested to her in the prison cell, with Xuanji represented as a murderer driven by jealousy, and with Wei cast as an accomplice, though it was not without some minor, intriguing modifications here and there improvised by the poetess.

Was that statement a truthful one?

After all, anything was possible for a woman madly in love. At least it could prove to be acceptable to Mayor Pei who was so desperate for a satisfactory conclusion.

But was it possible that her statement was given simply to cover the second scenario involving the man in the yellow silk underrobe embroidered with golden dragons?

When he put the letter back into the envelope, Judge Dee found in it an additional note on a scrap of paper, which Mayor Pei must have added in a hurry in the morning.