As with earlier stories, Chen soon detected suspicious ambiguities in the text. An implied critique was discernable even in an alternative title of the story: “A Curse in Life and Death for Attendant Cui.” There was no mistaking the message about Xiuxiu being a curse. Cui was doomed because she, in the name of love, never let him get away-doomed to the loss of his position, the punishment at court, and eventually the loss of his life. Xiuxiu embodied the contradiction: a pretty girl who loves Cui with a courageous passion rarely seen in classical Chinese literature also deliberately destroys Cui with her own hands. Attraction and repulsion were like two sides of a coin.

For the merging of the two sides, Chen found an explanation in the contemporary generic classification. The story belonged to the category of yanfen/linggaui. Yanfen referred to tales of beautiful women in amorous affairs and linggui, to tales of women identified as demons and ghosts.

There was a similar term in western literature-femme fatale.

In “Artisan Cui and His Ghost Wife,” Xiuxiu was exactly such a curse. Chen took out a pen to underline the paragraphs at the end of the story.

Cui returned home in a depression. He stepped into his room only to see his wife sitting on the bed. Cui Ning said, “Please spare me, my wife.”

“I was beaten to death by the prince because of you and was buried in the back garden,” Xiuxiu said. “How I hate that Private Guo for talking so much! I have finally avenged myself-the prince has beaten him fifty times on the back with a stick. Now that everybody knows me as a ghost, I cannot stay here anymore.”

With that, she sprang up and grabbed Cui Ning with both hands. He screamed and fell to the ground.

At that moment, there happened to be something falling to the floor in the café. Chen turned to see a girl slipping from a bar stool. She had overreached to kiss a young man across the bar, her foot stretching to the floor for balance, and her high-heeled sandal flew off into a corner.

The café was not as quiet as expected. Customers came pouring in, most of them young, fashionable, and spirited. One brought in a laptop and started playing a game, her fingers pecking and chirping like noisy sparrows on a spring morning. Several had cell phones in their hands, talking as if there were no one else in the world.

Chen ordered another cup of coffee.

How could Xiuxiu bear to take away Cui’s life? Chen turned back a few pages, to the part about Cui and Xiuxiu running into each other on the night of the fire.

“Do you remember the night when we were enjoying the moon on the terrace?” Xiuxiu said to Cui Ning. “I was betrothed to you and you just kept on thanking the prince. Do you remember or not?”

Cui Ning clasped his hands and could only respond with “Yah.”

“That night, all the people were congratulating you, saying ‘What a wonderful couple!’ How come you’ve forgotten all about it?”

Cui Ning again could only respond with “Yah.”

Rather than continuing to wait, why don’t we become husband and wife tonight? What do you think?”

“How would I dare?”

“You dare not? What if I shout and ruin your reputation? You can never explain why you brought me home. I shall report you to the prince tomorrow.”

Chen was now beginning to see Xiuxiu “seducing” Cui. Cunning and calculating, she actually dragged Cui into it.

There were still questions left unanswered in the story, but Chen believed he had found something in common with the other stories. He would be able to wrap up the paper, even though it was not as ambitious a project as he had hoped.

Draining the coffee, he flipped open his phone. There were quite a few messages, including one from White Cloud. He called her back first. She reported to him like a cop, about the lack of progress in her computer research, but toward the end, she made a suggestion like a “little secretary.”

“Give yourself a break, Chief. Go to a nightclub. There you can experience the environment of the victims firsthand, and get to relax a little too. And you can always have my company, you know. You have too much on your mind and I’m worried. Your nerves won’t stand the strain.”

Whether that was intended as a hint, he didn’t know. As an ex-singing girl herself, though, she knew about the business, and it might be helpful to the investigation.

“Thank you, White Cloud. That might be a good idea, after I finish my paper in a couple of days.”

He then made a phone call to Professor Bian, who was at home, picking up on the first ring.

“How is your paper coming, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“I’ve been working on another story,” Chen said. “Do you think an analysis of three stories will be enough for the paper?”

“Yes, three should be enough.”

“They share a common movement: each of them contains something that contradicts the love theme generally taken for granted, with the heroine unexpectedly turning into a demon or a disaster. The turns come through a tiny detail: a medical term, an ambiguous poem, or a phrase thrown in at random. Once those are examined closely, the romantic motif undergoes a dramatic reversal.”

“You have an original point. But you have to prove what’s behind it, I think.”

“What’s behind it?” Chen said, echoing Bian’s comment. No coincidences, just as in police work. Or as in psychoanalysis. There had to be an explanation for it. “You’re right, Professor Bian.”

“The stories were written during different dynasties, and the writers came from different social backgrounds-”

“So you mean something that is always there behind the scenes, going on through the different dynasties, whether those writers were aware of it or not.”

“If you want to see it that way. Something deep within the Chinese culture. So your project may not be an easy one.”

“I’ll think about it. Thank you so much, Professor Bian.”

Indeed, that was thought-provoking. As Chen put down the phone, the first thought that came to him was about Confucianism, the ruling ideology for two thousand years in China, something hardly ever challenged until the beginning of the twentieth century.

However, Confucius said nothing about romantic love, as far as Chen could recall.

But he still felt excited, as if standing on the threshold of a breakthrough. He had borrowed several Confucian canons, which he hadn’t had the time to read. Now he should be able to work out a conclusion for the paper. Ideas came crowding into his mind when the phone rang again. It was Director Zhong.

“I’ve been looking for you all morning, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Sorry, I’d forgotten to turn my phone on,” Chen said. “Anything new in the housing development case?”

“The trial date has been moved up to about two weeks from now. It was a decision made in Beijing.”

“Why such a hurry?”

“A longer night has more nightmares. No one wants the case to drag on. Peng is to be punished anyway, so why delay? People will see that the Party authorities are on their side.”

“That’s good,” Chen said. But it was just another case in which politics dictated the outcome of a trial. “So we don’t have to worry anymore.”

“Well, Jia has been pushing hard. He declares that Peng is not alone in the scandal. What is wrong with this attorney? Peng may be acquainted with some people in the city government, but being acquainted doesn’t necessarily lead to corruption. Have you found anything out about him?”

“Not anything special,” Chen said. True, he had been too busy with his own things to delve deeply, but it was also true that no one had said anything special to him about Jia. “But I’ll keep checking.”

When he closed the phone, Chen had already lost his earlier train of thought about the paper. Another cup of coffee failed to help.

He looked up at the clock on the wall, feeling sick.