A tiny pine nut was heard dropping in the secluded trail, with the bell from the temple growing fainter in a cool breath of wind. The view was largely wrapped in a somber opaqueness of the morning mist. The tall dew-speckled weeds along both sides of the tranquil hill trail glistened, off and on, like myriads of curious eyes blinking inquisitively.

It did not take too long for Judge Dee to find his blue cotton gown sweat-drenched, as he kept trudging on along the trail. He was growing old, he told himself, fastening his straw hat against the morning sun.

He came in view of the village, a medium-sized one with small yet colorful houses scattered around in the neighborhood of the nunnery.

At the village entrance, he approached the villagers to ask about the flower girl in question. An elderly man directed him to the flower garden, merely raising a bony finger with a suggestion of annoyance.

So, at the southern end of the village, he saw a small flower garden with green bamboo fences circling around, in which a young girl in homespun indigo was watering a row of flowerpots near the garden door. It turned out to be none other than Zhang, perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen, whose hands were soiled with garden work. So were her bare feet.

Not at all like a seductive fox spirit in those tall folk tales, she looked up at Dee, smiling a shy smile and lowering her head in a demure way.

But it was perhaps not too surprising, Judge Dee observed, that she had earned for herself the epithet of ‘another fox spirit’ in the company of Xuanji.

The official Tang discourse regarding the future of young girls was that of arranged marriage. Because of it, they usually chose to present themselves in public as little as possible. They were not supposed to be involved in any prenuptial romance, as marriage had to be a matter arranged by their parents with the help of matchmakers. Anything that contradicted the time-honored tradition would be condemned and denounced in the light of the orthodox Confucian classics. For Zhang, a young girl who had to support herself by working in the flower shop, and eventually find a man by taking the matter in her own hands, she could not but be seen by others as a different, or even slutty, ‘fox spirit’ like Xuanji.

‘I’m a poetry publisher,’ Judge Dee said to her, coming straight to the point. ‘I feel so sorry about what has happened to your friend Xuanji. I’m trying to compile a poetry collection for her. That’s the least a bookish old admirer like me can do. I’ve just learned that you two saw each other quite a lot. Surely she has been more than a regular customer here for your flowers.’

‘Yes, she came to my shop from time to time, but first and foremost as a customer for my flowers.’