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Antiquary and devout Buddhist Ting has to go the countryside for business: a farmer has dug up an old bronze tripod. He expects to be away for a mont. The monk Hwe Yuan, his best friend, who knows of the beauty of Ting's wife, sends her a message telling her that her husband has been taken seriously ill, and lies in the Temple of Boundless Mercy, and asks her to come immediately to the temple in the palanquin he has sent her.
When she arrives in the temple, Hwe Yuan tells her there's been a mistake, and since Ting lies in another temple, in the neighbouring district Chin-Hwa, she will have to stay for the night in the Temple of Boundless Mercy.
That night he rapes her. The following morning Hwe Yuan tells Lady Ting he will keep er in the temple and threatens to kill her when she does not acquiesce. Under pressure she gives in, and is abused by the monk and his friends
After a month Ting arrives home. He hears that his wife is in the Temple because of his illness. Astonished, he goes to the temple where his wife, clad in a monks garb, sees him by accident. She approaches her husband and asks him to save her. Raging with fury, Ting attacks Hwe Yuan, but is bested by the monks and put under a bell behind the official quarters of the abbot.
Lady Ting prays to the bodhisattva Kwan-yin for help, and that night Judge Dee is visited with a dream, and the partner of Ting, Lin Da-wen, approaches the Judge because he is alarmed by the disappearance of Lady Ting and of Ting himself.
The Gamesmaster is of course free to add more clues, especially if the players come up with something plausible. Deleting clues because they are too easily spotted is not a good idea, however, since the players do play intelligent investigators, not clueless readers of mystery fiction.
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