The Corpse Reader

2

For the rest of the afternoon, choking on the stench given off by the laboring buffalo’s hindquarters, Cí tried desperately to imagine what crime Shang could have committed to get his head chopped off. As far as Cí knew, Shang didn’t have any enemies and had never given anyone any trouble. His worst offense, it seemed, was to have fathered several daughters, which meant he had to slave to make enough money for remotely attractive dowries. Shang had always been honest and respected.

The last person someone would think of killing.

In addition to the plowing, Lu had ordered Cí to spread a pile of black earth made up of a mix of fertilizers—excrement, earth, ashes, and weeds. Before Cí had realized it, the sun had set. Climbing on the buffalo’s back, he set off wearily in the direction of the village.

Cí considered the similarities between Shang’s body and cases he’d seen during his time in Lin’an. He had accompanied Judge Feng to the scenes of several violent crimes and had even witnessed the results of brutal ritual killings carried out by various sects, but he’d never seen such a savagely mutilated body. It was good that Feng would be at the house; Cí knew he’d find whoever was responsible.

Cherry and her family lived not far from Lu’s house in a hovel that was precariously balanced on worm-eaten stilts. Cí arrived there deeply anxious. He’d thought of a few different ways of telling her the news, but none of them seemed right. It was pouring with rain again, but he stopped outside the door and racked his brain for what to say.

I’ll think of something.

As he lifted his hand to knock, he realized his arms were trembling.

No one answered. He knocked again without receiving a response, then gave up and headed to his house.

Cí had barely opened the door when his father began reprimanding him for being late. Judge Feng had been there for some time, and they’d been waiting for Cí to begin dinner. Seeing their guest, Cí brought his fists together in front of his chest and bowed in apology, but Feng wouldn’t allow it.

“By God! What have they been feeding you? Only last year you were still a boy!”

Cí hadn’t noticed it himself, but it was true: he was no longer the scrawny boy people used to make fun of in Lin’an. Working in the fields had transformed his body, and his lean muscles were like a bunch of tightly woven reeds. He smiled shyly. Feng didn’t seem to have changed at all. His serious, furrowed face contrasted with his carefully arranged whiskers and his silk bialar cap—an indicator of his rank.

“Most honorable Judge Feng,” said Cí. “Excuse my lateness, but—”

“Don’t worry yourself, boy,” said Feng. “Come in, you’re soaked.”

Cí ran to his room and came out with a small parcel wrapped in delicate red paper. He’d been looking forward to this for a whole month, ever since he’d heard that Feng was coming. As was custom, Feng rejected the gift three times before accepting.

“You really shouldn’t have.” He put the gift with his belongings without opening it. To do so otherwise would mean he valued the object over the act of its having been given.

“He’s grown, yes,” said Cí’s father, “but he’s still as irresponsible as ever.”

Cí tried to speak. The rules of courtesy meant he shouldn’t burden a guest with issues that weren’t related to the visit, but a murder surely transcended all protocol. The judge would understand.

“Excuse the discourtesy, but I have some terrible news. Shang has been killed! Someone cut off his head!”

His father looked at him gravely.

“Your brother has already told us. Sit down now and let’s eat—our guest has waited long enough.”

Cí was exasperated by how coolly his father and Feng took the news. Shang had been his father’s closest friend, but the two older men began eating, unflustered, as though nothing had happened. Cí followed their lead, seasoning the food with his own bitter feelings. His grimaces didn’t go unnoticed.

“There’s nothing we can do,” said his father eventually. “Lu has taken the body to the government offices, and his family will be holding a wake. And as you well know, Judge Feng is out of his jurisdiction here. All we can do is wait for them to send the relevant magistrate.”

Cí knew all this, but his father’s levelheadedness upset him. Feng seemed to read his thoughts.

“Don’t worry yourself,” said Feng. “I’ve spoken to the relatives. I’m going to go and examine the body tomorrow.”

The rain battered the slate roof, and the conversation moved on to other topics. Summer typhoons and floods often took people by surprise, and that day it was Lu’s turn. He arrived drenched, reeking of alcohol, his eyes glazed. He stumbled straight into a chest and then kicked the piece of furniture as if it had stepped into his path. He babbled an incoherent greeting to the judge and went straight to his room.

“I think it’s time I retired,” said Feng once he’d cleaned his whiskers. To Cí’s father he said, “I hope you’ll consider what we discussed.” And to Cí, “As for you, I’ll see you tomorrow at the hour of the dragon. I’m staying at the sergeant’s house.”

As soon as they shut the door, Cí scrutinized his father’s face, his heart pounding.

“Did he—did he talk about our coming back?”

“Take a seat. Shall we have some more tea?”

Cí’s father poured a cup for each of them. He gave Cí a sorrowful look before dropping his gaze.

“I’m sorry, Cí. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to going back to Lin’an.” He took a sip of tea. “But sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want.”

Cí stopped with his cup halfway to his mouth.

“What happened? Didn’t the judge offer you your old job back?”

“Yes, he did, yesterday.” He took another long sip.

“So?” Cí got up.

“Sit down, Cí.”

“But Father, you said—”

“I said sit down!”

Cí obeyed. Tears came to his eyes. His father poured more tea, to the point that the cup overflowed. Cí started to wipe it up, but his father stopped him.

“Look, Cí. There are things you’re too young to understand…”

Cí didn’t know what it was he wasn’t able to understand: That he would have to go on taking the way his brother treated him? That he would have to accept not going to the Imperial University of Lin’an?

“What about our plans, Father? What about—”

His father stiffened. His voice was unsteady, but his look was uncompromising. “Plans? Since when does a child have plans? We’re staying here, in your brother’s house. And that’s how it will be—until the day I die!”

A poisonous rage ran through Cí, but he was quiet as his father left the room.

Cí cleared away the cups and went to the room he shared with his sister.

As he lay down next to Third, blood pounded at his temples. From the moment they’d come back to the village, he’d dreamed of returning to Lin’an. As he did every night, he shut his eyes and began thinking about his former life. He remembered the competitions with his schoolmates and the times he’d won; he remembered his teachers, whose discipline and determination he so admired. Judge Feng came to mind, and the day he had taken Cí on as his assistant. Cí wanted so much to be like him, to be able to take the Imperial exams one day and become a member of the judiciary. Not like his father, who, after years of trying, had only become a humble functionary.

He racked his brain as to why his father would not want to return. Feng had offered him the position he’d so badly wanted back, and then, in the space of a day, something had changed. Could it be because of Cí’s grandfather? Cí didn’t think so. Six months had passed since his grandfather’s unexpected death. The ashes could just as well be transported to Lin’an, and the filial mourning period observed there.

Third coughed, making Cí jump. She was half-asleep, shivering and breathing with difficulty. Cí tenderly stroked her hair. Third had shown she was more resilient than First and Second; she’d already lived to the age of seven. But she wasn’t expected to live beyond ten; that was her fate. If they were in Lin’an, they might be able to care for her better.

Closing his eyes again, Cí thought about Cherry, who would be shattered by the death of her father. Cí wondered what impact it would have on their future marriage; then he instantly felt miserable for thinking something so self-centered.

It was suffocatingly hot, so Cí got up and undressed. Taking off his jacket, he found the bloody cloth. He looked at it with renewed astonishment before placing it beside his pillow. He heard cries from next door; their neighbor had been suffering from a toothache for the past few days. For the second night in a row, Cí didn’t sleep.

Cí was up before dawn so he could meet Judge Feng at the residence of Bao-Pao—where government officials stayed whenever they were in the area—to examine the corpse. In the room next door, Lu was snoring loudly. By the time he awoke, Cí would be long gone.

Cí dressed quietly and left the house. The rain had stopped, but the air was muggy. He took a deep breath before diving into the labyrinth of tight village roads, where a series of identical worm-eaten huts were laid out like carelessly aligned domino tiles. Every now and then there was the tinted light from a lantern in a doorway and the smell of tea brewing, and Cí could see the ghostly outlines of peasants on their way to the fields. But the village was still mostly asleep; the only noise was the occasional wailing dog.

It was dawn when he reached Sergeant Bao-Pao’s residence.

Judge Feng was on the porch, dressed in a jet-black gown that complemented his cap. Though stone-faced, he drummed his fingers impatiently. After the usual reverences, Cí thanked him again.

“I’m only going to take a quick look; don’t get your hopes up. And don’t look at me like that,” he said, seeing Cí’s disappointment. “I’m out of my jurisdiction, and you know I haven’t been taking on any criminal work lately. And don’t be so impatient. This is a small place. Finding the culprit will be as simple as shaking a stone out of your shoe.”

Cí followed the judge to an annex where his personal assistant, a silent man with traces of Mongol in him, kept watch. Sergeant Bao-Pao was inside, along with Shang’s widow and sons—and Shang’s corpse. Seeing it, Cí couldn’t help but retch. The family had positioned it on a wooden chair as if Shang were still alive, the body upright and the head stitched to the neck with reeds. Despite the fact he had been washed, perfumed, and dressed, he still resembled a bloody scarecrow. Judge Feng paid his respects to the family and asked their permission to inspect the body, which the eldest son granted.

“Remember what you have to do?” Feng asked Cí as he approached the body.

Cí remembered perfectly well. He took a sheet of paper, an inkstone, and his best brush from his bag. Then he sat on the floor next to the corpse. Feng, commenting that it was unfortunate they’d already washed the corpse, came closer and began his work.

“I, Judge Feng, in this, the twenty-second moon of the month of the Lotus, in the second year of the era of Kaixi and the fourteenth of the reign of our beloved Ningzong, Heaven’s Son and honored emperor of the Tsong dynasty, with the relevant family authorization, undertake the preliminary investigation, auxiliary to that which should be carried out no less than four hours after the notice of death to the magistrate of the Jianningfu Prefecture. In the presence of Cheng Li, the deceased’s eldest son; the widow, Mrs. Li; and the two other male children, Ze and Xin; as well as Bao-Pao, the local sergeant; and my assistant Cí as witness.”

Cí noted down the dictation, repeating out loud each of Feng’s words.

Feng continued, “The deceased, name Shang Li, son and grandson of Li. According to his eldest son, fifty-eight years of age at the time of death. Accountant, farmworker, carpenter. Last seen the day before yesterday, midday, having attended to his work in Bao-Pao’s warehouse, where we are now. His son declares that the deceased did not appear to have been ill, showed only the normal signs of aging, and had no known enemies.”

Feng looked over to the son, who confirmed the facts, and then Feng asked Cí to recite his notes.

“Due to an oversight by his family,” continued Feng disapprovingly, “the body has already been washed and clothed. They have confirmed that when it was brought to them, the body had no wounds other than the large cut that separated the head from the body—undoubtedly the cause of death. The mouth is exaggeratedly wide open, and”—he tried, unsuccessfully, to shut it—“there is rigidity in the jaw.”

“Aren’t you going to undress it?” Cí asked, surprised.

“That won’t be necessary,” Feng said, pointing to the neck cut and waiting for Cí to answer.

“Double cut?” suggested Cí.

“Double cut, the same as with pigs when they’re bled out…”

Cí leaned forward to look at the wound. At the front, where the Adam’s apple would have been, there was a clean, horizontal notch. Then the cut grew wider and showed teeth marks like those of a slaughterhouse handsaw. He was about to say something when Feng asked him to relate the circumstances in which he had found the body. Cí did so with as much detail as he could remember. When he finished, the judge gave him a severe look.

“And the cloth?”

“The cloth?”

How could I have forgotten?

“You disappoint me, Cí, something you never used to do.” The judge was quiet for a moment. “As you should already know, the open mouth is not that of someone crying out for help or in pain; if it had been either, the mouth would have shut with the loosening of the muscles that follows death. An object must have been introduced into the mouth before or immediately following the death and must have remained there until the muscles seized up. With respect to the type of object, I presume—noticing the bloody threads still between the teeth—we are talking about some kind of linen cloth.”

The reproach hurt Cí. A year earlier he would never have made that sort of mistake, but he was out of practice. He rummaged in his jacket pocket.

“I meant to give it to you,” he apologized, handing over the carefully folded piece of material.

Now it was Feng’s turn to examine it carefully; the material was gray, stained with dried blood, and about the size of a head scarf. The judge tagged it as evidence.

“Conclude the notes and put my stamp on it. Then make a copy for the magistrate when he comes.”

Feng bid farewell to the others and left the annex. It was raining again. Cí hurried after him and caught up just as they reached the Bao-Pao residence.

“The documents…” stammered Cí.

“Leave them over there on the night table.”

“Judge Feng, I—”

“Don’t worry yourself, Cí. When I was your age I couldn’t tell the difference between a murder by crossbow and one by hanging.”

Cí felt sure the judge was only saying this to make him feel better.

He watched the judge as he organized his certificates. Cí wanted to have even half Feng’s wisdom, decency, and knowledge. He wanted Feng as his teacher again, but there was no chance of that as long as he was trapped in this village. He had no idea how to get out. When Feng put the last piece of paper away, Cí asked about his father’s taking his old job back, but the judge shook his head resignedly.

“That’s between your father and me.”

Cí moved hesitantly among Feng’s possessions. “We talked about it last night and he told me…The thing is, I thought we’d be coming back to Lin’an, but…”

Cí was on the edge of tears. The older man took a deep breath and placed a hand on Cí’s shoulder. “Cí, I don’t know if I should tell you this—”

“Please.”

“All right, but you must promise to keep it to yourself.” Cí nodded, and Feng collapsed into a chair. “I only made this trip on account of your family. Your father wrote to me a few months ago communicating his intention to take up his post again, but now that I’ve made the trip to see him, he won’t hear of it. I tried to insist; I offered him a comfortable job with a good wage; I even offered him a house in the capital. But he refused, and I have no idea why.”

“Why can’t you take me, though? If it’s about forgetting the cloth, I promise I’ll work hard. I’ll work myself to the bone if I have to; I won’t shame you again! I—”

“Truly, Cí, the problem is not you. You know how highly I think of you. You’re loyal, and I’d be more than pleased to have you back as my assistant. I said the same to your father; I talked about your prospects. He won’t budge. I’m truly sorry.”

Cí didn’t know what to say.

There was a clap of thunder in the distance. Feng slapped Cí on the back.

“I had big plans for you, Cí. I even reserved you a place at the university.”

“Imperial University?” Cí was wide-eyed; this was his dream.

“Your father didn’t tell you? I thought he would have.”

Cí thought his legs might collapse. He felt utterly cheated.