Red Mandarin Dress

barged into Yu’s office.
    “What do we find in common between the two cases, Detective Yu?” Little Zhou started dramatically. “The red mandarin dress. A dress known for its Manchurian origin in the Qing dynasty. What else? Bare feet. Both victims had no stockings or shoes on. Now, a woman may appear sexy walking barefoot in a bathrobe, but in a mandarin dress she has to wear pantyhose and high heels. It’s the basic dress code. Otherwise she simply makes a laughingstock of herself.”
    “That’s true,” Yu said, nodding. “Go on.”
    “The murderer was able to afford the expensive mandarin dress and had the time to put her body into the dress. Why would he have left off her stockings and shoes?”
    “So what do you think?” Yu asked, beginning to be intrigued by the would-be detective’s argument.
    “I was watching a TV series last night, Emperor Qianlong Visiting South of the Yangtze River . One of the gifted and romantic emperors in the Qing dynasty. There are different versions about his real parentage, possibly Han instead of Manchurian, you know—”
    “Come on,” Yu said, cutting him short. “Don’t try to talk like a Suzhou opera singer.”
    “Now, what set the Manchurian apart from the Han ethnic group? The Manchurian women did not bind their feet, and were able to walk barefoot. But the Han women in the Qing dynasty, though their bound feet received erotic comparison to three-inch-long golden lotuses, could hardly walk at all, let alone go barefoot. And the mandarin dress, of course, was only for a Manchurian woman—at least at the time.”
    “Do you mean that the combination of the mandarin dress and bare feet delivers a message?”
    “Yes. We have to take into consideration the obscene pose too. So it’s a message against Manchurian culture.”
    “Little Zhou, you have watched too many of those shows about conspiracies of Han against Manchurian, or the schemes of Manchurian against Han. Before the Revolution of 1911, such a message might have made sense, since a large number of the Han people were against the Manchurian emperor. But nowadays it’s a myth found only on TV.”
    “There’re so many TV shows nowadays about great Manchurian emperors and their beautiful and clever concubines. Some people might think it necessary to send the message again.”
    “Let me tell you something, Little Zhou. Manchurians have disappeared—assimilated into the Hans. Last month a friend of mine for many years turned out to be a Manchurian. Why? Only because a good position requesting a minority ethnic background came along, did he reveal his Manchurian heritage. Sure enough, he got the job. But for all those years, he was never aware of any ethnic difference in himself. His family had changed their Manchurian surname to a Han surname.”
    “But how do you explain the exquisite dress and bare feet—of both victims?”
    “One possible scenario is that the criminal was victimized by a woman dressed just like that.”
    “In such a dress,” Little Zhou said, “with the torn slits and loose buttons. How could a victimizer—not a victim—have appeared like that?”
    Little Zhou was not alone in putting forth wild theories.
    In the routine meeting in Party Secretary Li’s office that morning, Inspector Liao tried to modify his focus and his approach.
    “Apart from what we have already discussed, the criminal must have a garage. In Shanghai, only about a hundred or so families have their own private garages,” Liao declared. “We could start checking them one by one.”
    But Li was against it. “What are you going to do—knock on one door after another without a warrant? No. Such an approach would cause more panic.”
    The private-garage owners were going to be either well-connected Big Bucks or high-ranking Party cadres, Yu observed. Liao’s suggestion amounted to swatting a fly on the forehead of a tiger, and it was a matter of course that Li opposed.
    After the meeting, Yu decided to take a trip to Jasmine’s neighborhood without mentioning it to Liao. There was something about her that made the effort worthwhile, Yu convinced himself, as he walked out of the bureau. Also, there were some differences between her and the second victim that couldn’t be dismissed. The fact that she showed bruises on her body, which was subsequently washed, suggested a possible sexual assault and then an effort to cover it up. In contrast, the second victim, a more easily picked-up target for a sex