‘Thereupon Mayor Pei summoned two witnesses who had been to the parties at the nunnery. They both testified that she’s no alcoholic, hardly touching a drop at the parties. Still, she kept saying she was dead drunk that afternoon, unaware of anything that was happening around her at the time.’

‘Was there any other evidence found in the nunnery or in the backyard?’

‘That I don’t know, Your Honor, but in accordance with a coroner’s report, Ning was brutally beaten, kicked, and whipped until she breathed her last. The broken whip was also buried with her, I’ve heard.

‘Anyway, Xuanji’s statement about her ignorance did not add up. With all the evidence pointing to her, Mayor Pei had no choice but to interrogate her further in the courtroom, you know, with a brutal bludgeon beating.’

‘A bludgeon beating of Xuanji in public!’ Han Shan commented for the first time.

‘Oh, what a scene in public! She’s known as such a great beauty. And an arrogant one, too. In the past, ordinary people like us could not even have dreamed of taking a close look at her. So we would not have missed it for the world. Now she was pinned down on the ground, with her pants pulled down to the ankles, and her bare buttocks glistening white like two half-moons, and part of her blouse pulled up, too—’

‘Such a humiliation for a well-known poetess like Xuanji!’ Han Shan cut in hastily.

‘Things like that happen in the courtroom,’ Judge Dee said, stroking his white-streaked beard. ‘The moment a suspect – particularly a female one – is pinned down to the ground, with the constables raising the bludgeons high, and pulling down her pants, she may more likely than not start spilling out secrets, being too crushed even at the thought of the cruel humiliation.’

‘You can say that again, Your Honor. How could she have ever held her head high again? There would be no way for her to live down the shame. Never. Do you think a man would touch her with the memories of her naked butt like a cracked watermelon, broken under the gaze of all the men standing around, watching like hungry wolves? She’s definitely bewitched out of her mind, as people may tell you,’ Nameless said enthusiastically, carried way with the vivid details of the courtroom scene, his cheeks flushed and his voice hoarse. ‘Under the bludgeons, she writhed and screamed like a dying fox. After less than ten blows, her bare thighs and buttocks were already a bloody mess.

‘Then they had to turn her over, spread-eagled on her back, her groin hairy, luxuriant like a black fox, and her bare thighs scarlet like jinhua hams—’

‘So you were there, watching, all the time?’ Judge Dee cut in before Nameless could have moved further.

‘Yes, I was there, watching from the very beginning. Unfortunately, she passed out after fifteen blows or so and the constables had to stop.’

‘She did not spill even under the blows?’