The shaven-headed clever-faced monks explained that such people aroused the wrath of Buddha by their importunate prayers, and he gave to them the insight they asked for, but the awakening of their true essence appeared to be beyond the strength of their weak untrained wits, not prepared by way of righteous life and meditation...

The judge Bao did not doubt a moment that the too eloquent monks were as far both from insight and from Buddha: for even the most importunate human beings are not able in any way to disturb Buddha in his Nirvana...

And the Dao magicians were unanimously asserting that all these events were the pranks of some assistant demons of Yanlo, the lord of the Underworld...

The assistant demons interested the judge Bao the least of all. He had enough things to care of besides the Underworld. ("Won't anybody give me a pair of demons as assistants?" – thought the judge with melancholy pouring himself a cup of red tea from a small teapot that has already became cool.)

Some time ago Buddha's Madness touched the family of Bao himself. His young nephew Zhong became mad literally in a week, now he could not recognize his closest kin and strove to leave his house and to go away to Luoyang saying that his family was waiting for him; sometimes he was reciting verses for hours, and very bad verses they were, while formerly Zhong would have never allowed himself such bad taste; and other strange things he did... Several reincarnations conflicted inside the soul of the unhappy young man, burying his present personality as if under an avalanche of snow.

Bao did not know how to save his beloved nephew. The efforts of the town physician seemed to be useless, but a wandering monk with his rattles and gong who chanced to visit the judge's house failed to help the diseased too.

Only the Dao wizard Lan Daoxing, called also "Iron Hat", a very gloomy and taciturn person, managed to return the boy to his senses for a time. But the next evening Buddha's Madness took possession of Zhong again. So, even the Dao wizard was not capable to resist to the awful disease.

The judge knew that people afflicted by Buddha's Madness die usually in a month or less, that's why he was gloomy and upset; for the cruel fate continued to persecute his family.

Just the day before yesterday the judge found his firstling and heir Wen talking pleasantly in the western outhouse with a girl completely unknown to the judge. The girl lowered her eyes modestly, bowed politely to the head of the family. There was nothing indecent in her manners, she didn't seem to be one of the streetwalker singers. His son has already grown up, it was high time to find a wife for him, and the judge Bao was not one of those old-fashioned stubborn fathers who marry their children without giving the future spouses the possibility to see one another in advance... The judge cast one more glance at the guest: her dress was not rich but neat and decent, her face rather pretty, her eye-brows darkened and rouge applied to her cheeks quite to measure and the only thing that the experienced Bao disliked a bit was the red kerchief tied around the girl's neck.

The judge was not superstitious. But he could not neglect the things that were going on in Tianxia: the epidemic of Buddha's Madness that has affected his family too, dead men coming out of their graves (he didn't believe at first, but happened to see one with his own eyes!), evil spirits roaming in broad daylight, animals acquiring intellect, and not the usual were-foxes but vulgar badgers... Even if two thirds of these cock-and-bull stories and gossip were fictitious the rest of the facts was quite enough to feel unquiet.

Thus the suspicion was to be verified immediately.

So Bao went at once to Lan Daoxing, an old acquaintance of his, who has helped the judge in many similar situations.

Fortunately, the Iron Hat has not yet left Ningo for the mountains where he used to prepare his pills of immortality.

The judge had hardly entered the wizard's temporary abode and opened his mouth in order to tell the reason of his coming when the old man said turning to him and nodding in affirmation:

– She's a demon. A spirit of some woman who had hanged herself. She's looking for a new body to enter into it and be born anew. Take this gourd and sprinkle the evil spirit with its contents; all spells would dissipate at once and you'll see her true image. Then take the broom made of peach twigs that stands in a corridor corner of your house and drive her away. The spirit won't ever try to come back.

With these words the magician handed the judge a small vessel. The judge swallowed some air, unable to find necessary words; it was difficult to get accustomed to the surprises of the wizard and to call him openly a friend.

– Thank you, saint Lan, – was all he dared to say. – If ever you'll need something...

– I know, – Lan Daoxing smiled a little, hiding his cunning small eyes under the shaggy brows. – And now don’t tarry. The demon has already almost charmed your son.

The reverend Bao hasn't ran so swiftly since his youth! But now he didn't care whether it was decent for his social position and post that did not imply such sports at all: his son was in danger, and he had to come in time!

And he did it.

The girl, smiling guiltily, was already fastening a fashionable girdle under the lintel, and his dear boy, his Wen stood on a stool trying unconsciously to reach the beams. Just at this moment Bao the Dragon's Seal, out of his breath, broke into the western outhouse uncorking in haste the gourd given to him. The girl recoiled, frightened.

And when the mixture of unparalleled stench (there were rancid oxen, swine and ram blood, human urine and various other components, unknown to the judge but none the less aromatic) sprinkled her, the veil of the devilish delusion fell off the eyes of all who were present.

The First Son Wen stood at the stool as an utter fool and was ready to put with his own hands a noose made of a tattered rope on his neck, and a half-rotten corpse with a deep mark of a rope on its neck was wriggling and coiling convulsively at Wen's side. The sharp-clawed fingers have already torn off the elegant red kerchief. It might have been quite a charming girl when alive, just such as the judge and his son have seen a few minutes earlier. But now, with her hair disheveled and her tongue hanging out of the mouth, about a foot long, she was horrid...

The moaning dead was expulsed out of the house with the help of the peach broom to seek a body for her next regeneration somewhere in other places. The judge had a talk with his son and explained him how the decent young men should behave. Everything was all right again, the demon didn't come any more, but the judge remained unquiet. Something went wrong in the Tianxia...

For, isn't it indeed true to say:

– ...so the illustrious Zhou-wang expects you, the highly respected xiangyigong, to unravel this mysterious case. Let me humbly transfer to you the written order of the illustrious Zhou-wang giving you corresponding powers, – the official bowed and handed the judge a scroll written in formal kaishu letters with the seal of the prince stamped on red wax.

The judge was obliged to stand up, to bow and take the scroll expressing aloud the doubt that the contemptible Bao would be capable enough to cope with such an important mission and then for some long minutes to listen to all kinds of assertions and expectations of the noble wang expressed by his master of ceremonies until the latter went away at last.