Lu Zuomei was prefect of Xunzhou. There came up from the county a case of a woman who, charged with consensual adultery, had killed herself; the county’s report reached the prefecture, the documents lay on the desk, and he was about to endorse it — “as reported, verified and forwarded.”
That night a great wind rose in the private secretary’s room, and there stood, plainly, a young woman; she stood and spoke not, and left only at the fifth watch. The secretary told the prefect, who happened then to be summoned to the provincial capital; he said to his son: “You are bold; tonight you may keep watch in the secretary’s room.”
In the evening the young master obeyed and lodged in the secretary’s study. Sure enough the wind rose as before, the secretary saw the girl again and told the young master, but the young master saw nothing; so he called out: “What do you want?” The girl said: “I am the person in the case upon your desk. I died resisting rape. My parents took bribes and testified it was consensual adultery, sullying my name and virtue. Earlier I complained to the county, but the county too took bribes and would not right me — that is why I have come here to cry injustice.”
The young master assented, and wrote her words in a letter home and sent it posthaste to the prefect. The prefect, returning from the capital, happened to pass through that county, and so wrote to the secretary to send the original case back to the county. Soon the county magistrate came to welcome him. The prefect would not lodge at the official quarters, but first went to the City God’s temple to offer incense, and said to the magistrate: “I have heard by enquiry that the former rape case holds an injustice — is it true?” The magistrate, relying on the parents’ testimony, answered hotly and demanded a hearing.
The prefect, with no recourse, lodged that night in the City God’s temple, and summoned the accused and the neighbour-witnesses to sleep in attendance behind the great hall, and secretly posted men behind the hall to listen. Past the third watch the witnesses spoke among themselves — some cursing the parents’ worthlessness, some pitying the girl’s chastity and courage — and the listeners wrote it down. At dawn he first interrogated the witnesses, showing them what had been written in the night, and all confessed. So the case was settled as rape resulting in death. The girl was honoured and entered into the chapel of chastity and filiality.
