“Coffin?” Pang repeated in utter confusion.

Lou did not explain. More suspicions barged into his mind. Hua’s colleagues had worried about his last assignment. Xing was reputed to be one with a long arm reaching into the skies. To investigate the high-ranking officials behind Xing was to bring a hornet’s nest about one’s ears.

In a recent press conference, the premier of the Chinese government had made a statement about the corruption eating up the system like cancer. “To fight against those corrupt Party officials, I have prepared one hundred coffins. Ninety-nine for them, one for myself.” It was not a pompous speech to impress the audience. With those Party officials interwoven into “a gigantic net covering the heaven and earth,” it was not inconceivable that the premier might fall as a victim.

“Have you seen the latest episode of Judge Bao on TV? The swarthy-faced judge who carries a coffin for himself all the way to the palace.”

“Judge Bao?” Pang repeated. “You mean the legend of the incorruptible Judge Bao in the Song dynasty?”

The premier’s coffin metaphor might have been an echo from the old legend. In his efforts to punish law-breaking officials, Judge Bao pulled a coffin all the way to the emperor, as a token of his determination to fight to the bitter end. Now, about a thousand years later, Hua had met an infamous end shortly after he had gotten a similar assignment.

Once again Zhu came out. “Lou, you don’t have to stay here anymore. It has been a long night for you, we know. We are going to send Hua and Nini to the hospital for tests, and put him into the mortuary afterward. You may notify his family if you want to.”

It was the last thing Lou wanted to. Hua had only a sick, old wife left behind. Their only son, an educated youth, had died in a tractor accident in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Lou wondered if the old woman could survive the blow of losing her husband too.