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— Oh heavens! she gasped as her mangled head hit the marble floor. Help me get him closer to the stairs!

For some time she examined the corpse, wiping sweat from her forehead with the edge of her sleeve. Through the transparent fabric of the nightgown, every curve of her snow-white body was clearly visible.

Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) did not invent the protagonist of his ancient Chinese detective series Judge Di Ren Yize. Judge Dee, with the dashingness of Sherlock Holmes, revealing the most intricate crimes, and in his spare time leafing through Confucius, is a completely historical person. Based on van Gulik's novel, one can even draw up some kind of his biography, in which each case can be clearly dated. For example, the novel Landscape with Willows takes place in the year 671. At the moment when a half-naked, frightened woman drags a corpse to the marble stairs with difficulty.