After having finished the second cup of lukewarm tea, Yang rose, bowed, and withdrew like a respectful attendant, though he had hardly any appetite for the celebrated vegetarian soup noodles back in his room.

Alone, Judge Dee began reading the proof of Xuanji’s poetry collection in the temple room. It was so peaceful, except for occasional rustles of falling leaves in the backyard.

He did not know how long he had been lost in the world of her poems. The temple bell was carrying the dusk over in a light breeze when he looked up from the proof, rubbing his strained eyes, toward a small green bamboo grove swaying gently outside the lattice window.

There were about forty poems in all in the proof, with the changes and notes made and marked by the poetess herself. Something immensely valuable if he had truly been such a collector as represented by Yang in the village.

Most of them were love poems, though readable in an allegorical way, too. There were quite a number of them that Judge Dee was reading for the first time.

After the long talk with Han Shan earlier in the day, Judge Dee thought he was in a better position to read more into those sad and sentimental lines composed by Xuanji.

And it might be a workable idea for him, Judge Dee reflected, to have two collections compiled instead of one, as Han Shan had suggested. One, the complete poems of Xuanji, and the other, the love poems of Xuanji – possibly with her love poems as well as some others written to her in response included in the same collection – and that with detailed biographical notes. In the meantime, there could have been some new, uncollected pieces recently discovered as those for the proof from Mo had been delivered about a year before.

Whether Judge Dee could afford the time or the energy for either of the collections, he hastened to remind himself, would be another story.

Halfway through the proof, he came practically to rule out Wen and Zi’an as possible suspects in connection to the murder case. It was not just because of their alibis. More because of the fact that these poems actually appealed to the vanity of her ex-lovers to have such a celebrated poetess, Judge Dee read on with knitted brows, complain in her poems that she was pining away, missing them in sleepless nights. The world of appearance is nothing if not informed with self-centered vanity, as Han Shan had observed. Neither Wen nor Zi’an had a motive, apparently, for a devious plot against her.

It was getting dark outside. Lighting a candle, Judge Dee came across another ‘personal poem’ titled ‘To a Girl in the Neighborhood,’ which reminded him of what Yang had told him about the flower girl in the village.

You cover your face with the silk sleeves,

bashful in the sunlight, too languid

to apply make-up in the worries