I am Bao Zheng, courtesy name Xiren. Later generations mostly call me Lord Bao or Bao the Just. But now that I have come forward to tell my own tale, I must recount a bizarre case from the magistrate's court. My descendant Bao Baozi inherited my name and became the prefect of Kaifeng. The events he encountered were so bizarre they were both bewildering and absurd.
When Baozi first opened court, he could not even find the court's wooden clapper! His wife, it seemed, had taken it for kindling to boil soup. He raised court and brought his hand down on the desk, but the blow made no sound. Instead, hot tea splashed all over him, and his dignity went out the window. Just then, the village head from Yanggu County came to file a complaint. The paper was stained with grease, and the writing looked like chicken scratches. Somehow, he had written “endangering the countryside” as “endangering Xiang Yu,” conjuring the aggrieved ghost of the Hegemon-King of Chu out of nowhere. Then there was the phrase “yiyang oh,” which made no sense to anyone.
Pan Jinlian, the suspect in the case, was even stranger. She neither knelt nor bowed in court. Instead, she brought along a troupe of musicians and dancers, turning the courtroom into a pleasure house and singing “Black Brother” at Baozi. He tried to question her, but she only teased him. The dignified prefect ended up hiding under his desk. What kind of behavior was that?
Yet beneath the farce lurked deadly danger. The word “Ao,” which Wu Dalang sighed the night before he disappeared; the inexplicable grease stains concealing writing on the complaint; the village head shot dead in court; the mysterious wooden token in his sleeve... Every clue pointed to a shocking conspiracy. Baozi might seem to joke around, but his mind was as clear as a mirror. He knew this case was no trifling matter.
I investigated countless cases in my lifetime, impartial and stern, and no innocent soul ever fell beneath my bronze executioner's blade. Yet this descendant of mine, though lacking my imposing presence, has a different kind of cleverness. Amid laughter and scolding, he notices the smallest details; amid absurdities, he patiently unravels the truth. His methods are worlds apart from mine, but his convictions come from the same source: the pursuit of justice.
