‘Mayor Pei, this is my assistant, Yang. He is going to have the carriage horses fed outside. So don’t worry about him. We’ll have a good talk, just the two of us. Indeed, it’s long time no see.’

In the midst of the pleasantries, Mayor Pei appeared to be both excited and nervous. He led Judge Dee into a spacious room, which looked like a comfortable combination of a library and a home office.

Apparently, Mayor Pei had also made it something of a cozy retreat for himself. Its mahogany-framed lattice windows showed elegant designs against the white walls, which were lined with well-stocked dark wood bookshelves, decorated here and there with choice antique bowls and vases. The long ebony desk was topped with black-streaked white marble, on which stood a large porcelain vase sporting a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums, two or three days old, thinner, but still attractive.

The two of them seated themselves in the red damask-cushioned chairs with a tall tea stand between them.

‘In accordance with our yellow lunar calendar, Your Honor, today is a day marked as an auspicious one. For me, a lot of things have been going badly of late. I hope your visit may miraculously turn the luck for me.’

Mayor Pei was a sharp one in spite of his bookish appearance, who immediately came to the realization that Judge Dee would not have come all the way over for a long-time-no-see chit-chat early in the morning.

‘In this red-dust world of ours, eight or nine times out of ten, things do not go the way we expect,’ Judge Dee said, quoting an ancient saying in the Han dynasty. ‘There is no smooth sailing all the time.’

‘So please tell me, Your Honor, what favorable wind has brought you over to my place today?’

‘To open the door to the mountains, Your Excellency, I have to admit that it is the wind of the Xuanji case. It has become such a sensational one.’

‘Yes, an extremely sensational case indeed.’

‘I was about to leave the capital for another post, as you may have learned, when Internal Minister Wu asked me to take a look into the murder case before setting out for the trip. So I’m just taking a quick look for him. It’s not in any official capacity, needless to say.’

‘Internal Minister Wu! But that’s little wonder. He admires your talent so much as the most capable judge of the Great Tang Empire. For the murder investigation, your help will be like the long-expected rain during a summer drought. Not just for the minister, but for me, too. It may truly turn the luck for me. So please go ahead with any questions you have about the murder case. And any suggestions and directions from you will be very much appreciated.’

‘To begin with, the murder case has not yet been concluded in spite of Xuanji’s confession, Mayor Pei?’