In the twenty-fourth year of Qianlong's reign, Ji Xiaolan presided over the provincial examination in Shanxi.
At the time, there were two qualified papers. One belonged to Fan Xuefu, the other to Li Tengjiao. Fan Xuefu ranked forty-eighth, while Li Tengjiao ranked fifty-third. But just as Ji Yun was writing the preliminary list, a gust of wind suddenly blew out the candle. He found it strange, because nothing happened when he wrote other people's names.
Later, he investigated and discovered that Fan Xuefu's paper had gone missing. After searching for a long while, they found it in an examiner's clothes chest. This moved Ji Xiaolan to reflect that success and fame in the imperial examinations were fated; why should people of the world strive so feverishly for fame, wealth, and rank?
After returning to Guangzhou, Nick immediately went to the run-down, nearly ruined house where the provincial graduate had been staying—a house where someone had once hanged himself. Yet it was already deserted. Only a letter had been left on the desk, with no name on the envelope.
Nick opened it. The letter said that the provincial graduate had gone to stay temporarily at Dharma Nature Temple. He would wait until April 1. If Nick did not come for him by then, he would leave Guangzhou. Nick immediately began asking where Dharma Nature Temple was.
Dharma Nature Temple stood in northwestern Guangzhou and was where Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, had received the precepts. The temple was founded during the Eastern Jin and flourished for a time in the Tang dynasty, when it had served as a site for translating scriptures. After the monk Jianzhen traveled to Japan to spread the Dharma, he set sail to return home and drifted to this place, where he had also resided