‘I’m not that sure about it – usually, it’s made of skunk tail, the best-quality hair for a brush pen, but she’s called a black fox spirit. Some people say she’s literally a fox spirit, you know, even using a fox-tail brush pen. Who can really tell? You can talk to Xiahou about it. Another one close to Xuanji is a young flower girl at the southern end of the village. She sent her fresh flowers from time to time, for all those wild dinner parties in the nunnery.’

‘Thanks. I’ll definitely come back to you,’ Yang said, thinking it was lunchtime and wondering what ‘celebrated vegetarian meal’ Judge Dee might be having with the poet monk in the temple.

The vegetarian meal in the temple was very fancy. Instead of serving it in the temple dining hall, the lunch was delivered into the room in which Judge Dee and Han Shan had been talking about Xuanji and the murder case. Nameless had the small monks carrying into the room a couple of two-tiered, red-painted bamboo baskets. It was considerate of Nameless to make sure that Judge Dee and Han Shan could continue talking in privacy.

In the midst of producing the steaming hot dishes out of the bamboo baskets and placing them on to the table, Nameless kept himself busy introducing each of the delicacies to Judge Dee and Han Shan with unmistakable pride in his voice.

‘For today’s lunch, we have extraordinary red braised pork, super fried rice paddy eels, exceptional bear prawns in white sauce, unbelievable spicy and tender beef tendon—’

‘What a paradox,’ Judge Dee commented. ‘For a vegetarian meal, the dishes here appear to be all named in connection to meat and fish – non-vegetable.’

‘For the people who can hardly keep the pot boiling, it’s a matter of course for them to take meat and fish as the more desirable delicacies,’ Han Shan said, ‘so the names of meat and fish lend themselves to the delicious imagination. For most of the patrons of the temple, the vegetarian dishes here serve for a pleasant change, and those names simply make a vegetarian banquet more impressive, and more imaginative, too.’

‘What is the “super fried rice paddy eel,” then?’

‘Extra-dry tofu sliced and fried like the real paddy eels, prepared with the same sauce,’ Nameless explained, gesturing with his hand in imitation of cutting, deboning, and slicing the live rice paddy eel in the kitchen, ‘topped with sizzling sesame oil on chopped green onion and golden ginger when the dish is served on the table.’

‘Indeed, what’s in a name?’ Han Shan commented, raising his chopsticks. ‘In this world of red dust, there’s nothing but appearance, to which we give one name or another, as if it really existed or meant anything.’

‘Masterfully said, our renowned Buddhist poet master,’ Nameless responded. ‘And that’s why our abbot Stainless gave me this Buddhist name here. Name is nothing, and nameless is also nothing.’