ABSTRACT
Chen Ching mournfully concluded that all the demons of hell had chosen him to be the victim of some devilish prank. How else explain why he was at this moment sitting on the cold stone floor of a foul-smelling prison cell, accused of murdering a holy monk? He tried to turn his head slightly and winced with pain. Because he had dared to protest his innocence while the brutish jailers fumbled clumsily to clamp the cangue * around his neck, he had been cruelly beaten. The purple welts raised by their bamboo rods stung painfully and the wooden collar threatened to choke him. To avoid further agony he forced himself to sit perfectly still. But while his body remained motionless, his mind raced along a thousand paths of remembrance.
