Chapter 14 The Hunchback's Revenge
"Bitte...Please...I'm sorry I screa ..."
CRACCKK!! She felt the searing tails of the whip across her shoulders.
"Aaaaahh!"
"Quiet, woman. I've heard quite enough screaming from you tonight."
The hunchback edged stealthily to his right and then swept the punishing
four-thonged lash across Erika's shapely bottom, leaving a quartet of rosy
blemishes. Despite her submissive position, Professor Leung was still somewhat
in awe at the sight of the blonde's magnificent body, so artfully posed for
punishment. The tight wrist ropes not only lifted her arms up; they also kept
her body kneelingly erect, thus making every inch of the back of her body
accessible to his whip.
Leung, a deranged look in his eyes, slashed feverishly at Erika's tanned
thighs, first the right, then the left, each of the four cruel thongs of the
whip leaving its own tell-tale imprint on her golden flesh. Then he re-directed
his malignant purpose to her ripely rounded behind, whipping her deeply-cleft
buttocks with every ounce of strength he could muster. He was determined to use
this hour to make up for every insult, every derisive laugh that a woman had
ever cast in his direction.
Now that he was well inside the curtained-off room, the professor noted
that the walls on either side of him were lined with a priceless collection of
erotic paintings and drawings. They hailed from the far corners of the
continent, each of them depicting a different Asian beauty in erotic jeopardy.
Full-breasted Arabic houris, supple south-Asian nautch girls, slender nymphs
from Cochin-China, Thai temple dancers. Not too mention a pleasing assortment
of Chinese and Japanese maidens -- each being subjected to some form of cruel
and barbaric rape, bondage, or torture. Sometimes all three at once. Clearly
this was an art-form of which George Chan had proven himself an unquestioned
connoisseur.
Erika's slim and shapely calves felt the next few stings of the hunchback's
multi-thonged instrument of torture. Fearful of even worse treatment from her
gnome-like tormentor, Erika did her best to stifle the groans that begged to be
released. It was amazing, she thought, that a body so twisted, so deformed,
could be possessed of such strength.
Indeed, the crazed professor felt rejuvenated. He attacked her flanks next,
aiming for the gentle protrusion of the feminine ribcage that pressed against
her flesh. Left! Right! Left! Right! he flogged her sensitive sides, letting
the tongues of the thongs creep around to visit her flat belly.
Erika tried desperately to use the foot or so of slack to move away from
the frenzied little man, but all she could really do was clumsily circle the
ebony cylinder to which she was bound, moving slowly counter-clockwise, while
the relentless hunchback stalked her, lashing furiously at her legs and bottom.
Once she tried to stand, but in doing so it was necessary to part her legs
for balance, and when she did so her tormentor swept the lash viciously up
between her smooth golden thighs, blinding her with pain and driving her back to
her knees in agony, even before he had finished saying, "Back on your knees,
whore! Or you'll get a dozen more just like that one."
Defeated, Erika slid to her knees in despair. Moments later Professor
Leung began a slow march up her spine with the whip, alternating fierce
forehands with brutal backhand strokes, enjoying the way the blonde cringed in
response to each painful impact. Each stroke of the lash fell slightly higher
than the one preceding, until the strokes were raining down, one after another,
on her broad but softly rounded shoulders, well-muscled from her recent stint as
Ming-Tsu's galley slave.
The soft expanse of Erika's back was ablaze with the pain of a score of
lashes when the professor elected to try a new weapon. Forsaking the thonged
whip, he took the black rectangular paddle from the table, gripped it tightly in
his small hand, and gave the forlorn blonde a series of vicious whacks high
across the back of each supple thigh, before devoting himself to a second
thorough thrashing of her plump buttocks.
WHACCKK!! the black rectangle burned into the base of Erika's milky
buttocks as she squirmed in pain. The professor felt the sublime, unique thrill
of dominance course through his body, as each blow seemed to send pleasurable
jolts of carnal electricity through his cock and balls.
WHACCKK!! He gave her a blazing blow across the left asscheek, leaving a
burning rectangle of rubescent flesh.
Re-gripping the paddle, he WHAACKK!!ed her across the ripest curves of her
shapely bottom. "AAAGGHH!"
"Silence, I said!" WHACCKK!! "Unghhh" was Erika's muted cry.
WHACKK! WHACCKK!! WHACKK!!! he pounded her gloriously resilient buttocks
with the hellish paddle.
Erika still tried to edge away from him, but since all she could do was
slide around the perimeter of the polished black pole, her futile efforts to
avoid his blows perturbed him not in the least. As he WHACCKKed her well-toned
thighs once again, he was reminded of a book he had read many years ago, "Notre
Dame de Paris", in which the hunchbacked bellringer was put in a pillory while
the beautiful Gypsy girl, Esmeralda, watched. But he had altered Hugo's classic
somewhat; tonight it was the beauteous Esmeralda who was in bondage, and it was
he, the admiring hunchback, who was administering the punishment.
Setting the paddle down for a moment, he crouched behind her and seized a
rounded buttcheek in each of his small hands, delighting in the radiant heat
given off by her well-whipped derriere. He pulled her wriggling buttocks
apart, revealing her delicate anal rosebud. And then with a quick thrust he
drove the thick middle finger of his right hand deep into her puckering anus,
while he slapped her warm bottom with his left. The blonde's pelvic gyrations
to escape the intruding finger amused him; but she angered him when she
eventually did free herself by squirming suddenly to her right.
Professor Leung scowled, determined to crush her resistance to his
advances. "WHACCKK!! he smote the blonde right across the deep groove of her
buttock cleft.
"Bitte...please ..."
"I'll teach you to pull away from me, slut!" Then, drawing the sinister
paddle back, he gave his prisoner a resounding WHACCCKK!! on exactly the same
reddening spot. And then a third punitive WHAACCKK!! precisely on top of the
second.
"AAGHHHH! Gott!"
Having painted the golden girl's buttocks a blazing red, the professor
flung the paddle away and seized the long brown leather strap from the table.
Unbeknownst to him the strap was the dreaded double-thick Tadzhik yak-strap --
one of the most punishing implements of discipline ever conceived.
Leung took the dark strap back over his shoulder and then sent it rocketing
downard at the back of Erika's shapely thighs. The strap cut through the air at
the speed of lightning before exploding into her flesh with a most stimulating
CRAACCKKKK!!!! "EEAYAHHH!" Erika screamed in agony.
The golden girl was no longer able to suppress her pain and suffering.
Each subsequent stroke seemed to draw from her a fresh expression of anguish.
CRACKKK!! "AAAUUHHH!! Gott!!" A scalder to her meaty buttocks.
CRACCKKK!! "AAIIAAGHH!!" High on her smooth legs; Erika's body was
vibrating deliciously in pain now between each stroke of the punishing strap.
CRACCCKKK!!! "UAHHHH!!!" Across the shoulderblades that pressed so
deliciously against the reddening skin of her back.
CRACCKKK!!! "AAAGHH!" Another searing blow to her surprisingly tender
calves. Virtually every inch of her backs, buttocks and legs was on fire now.
The wild-eyed hunchback stared down at his moaning victim -- the scapegoat
for his vengeance and his lust. He felt more vibrantly alive than ever before
in his life, as if his prior existence had been a mere prologue to this exciting
encounter.
But he wanted one thing more... and he would have it. He thought back on
the countless times he had begged, or would have begged, for female
companionship. But tonight this blonde goddess of lust, the representative of
every woman who had rejected him, would be made to beg HIM for his sexual
favors. Or suffer mightily for failure to do so.
Professor Leung walked over to the curtain and peeked through to make sure
that the Chans were not in sight. Satisfied that they were indeed gone, he
began unbuttoning his dull gray robe.
During their whole encounter, Erika Weiss had done her best to avoid
looking at her gruesome tormentor, afraid that her facial expression might
betray her disgust for his appearance and lead to even angrier retribution. For
the most part she had kept her eyes submissively down while he had beaten her.
But now, although her eyes were downcast, she sensed that he was returning
toward her, discarding his garments as he did so. Shortly he was standing before
her, naked, his erection robust and randy.
"Look at me!" the crazed little man bellowed. Only the ebony cylinder
separated them. Once again Erika hugged the pole a little closer, in an obvious
attempt to hide her wondrous breasts and alluring pussy from the raving monster.
Slowly Erika lifted her sapphire-blue eyes only to be confronted by the
contorted body of her tormentor. It wasn't so much the twisted, scoliotic
spine, and the veinous hump on his back that she found repulsive; it was the
scores of pock-marks that ravaged his skin, some large, some small, some scaly,
some moistly festering. There was nothing wrong with his purplish penis, though
- it was at least a match for any man of normal build. The hunchback's swollen
testicles swung heavily from his scaly crotch. His pubic hair was rather sparse,
perhaps owing to his skin disease; his belly, thighs and loins were pitted with
the tell-tale craters of his childhood illness.
"Hasslich Zwerg! she muttered softly under her breath, as she shook her
long blonde hair from side to side in disgust.
"Fraulein, fraulein," Leung responded scornfully, his accent flawless, as
he walked around behind the kneeling nymph, still holding the terrible
yak-strap. "Perhaps your Master did not inform you that I have taught myself
seven European languages. I don't appreciate being called an 'ugly dwarf' in
any of them. "Turn around. Face me."
"Nein... bitte... please... God...no..."
"Very well," the hunchback responded, and he looped the chocolate-brown
strap around Erika's pretty neck. "Will you turn around?"
"N-no ... please ... let me gghhk" Erika's voice disappeared in a strangled
gasp, as he pulled the strangling strap tight. "Will... you...turn?" he
demanded, as he wrenched the the strap tighter with each syllable.
"Aghhkk! Hagghkk!! ... y-y-yes" she choked again. When the enraged
professor released the pressure just enough to allow her some freedom of
movement, she rose into a crouch, dipped her shoulders under her extended arms
and turned 180 degrees.
Erika was now facing him, in a squatting positon, her elbows pulled up
parallel with her face, her white-corded wrists still roped to the gleaming
brass ring above and behind her head. The golden fringe between her legs failed
miserably at concealing her delectable woman-slit. "Back on your knees!" ordered
the half-demented little man, and Erika was soon kneeling once again.
"Back up, so that your hips and back are flush up against the pole, and so
that your lower legs extend backward on either side of it. Schnell!" The
hunchback lifted the yak-strap threateningly.
Erika scrambled to do as she was directed, trying not to look at the naked
hunchback. The glossy obsidian felt blessedly cool against her burning thighs
and buttocks.
Professor Leung took a moment to savor once again the voluptuous body of
this sacrificial scapegoat doomed to suffer his cruel revenge. With her elbows
lifted high, her breasts were lifted up in silent offering. There were beauties
aplenty in George Chan's art collection, but none had breasts that could compare
with those of this young German nymph. He stroked his rigid manhood lewdly as
he admired the surging mounds that rose from Erika's chest, round and firm and
gloriously pink-nippled.
Leung fell to his knees in front of Erika and reached for those inviting
globes. Despite herself, the German girl could not help but shudder in
revulsion as the scaly hands reached toward her. But her shudder, noted with a
scowl by the professor, could not prevent him from touching her breasts, and
caressing them gently -- at first. Moments later he took her ripe melons into
his small hands and began squeezing them, tentatively at first, and then more
vigorously.
How many nights had he lain sweating on his simple cot wondering if it
would ever be his lot to hold a woman's breasts in his hands. What would they
feel like, he had wondered? Would they be warm? Soft? Firm? Would they be
scented with some sweet perfume? How would they taste?
But never, even in his wildest erotic fantasies, had he imagined that he,
the most ill-featured of men, would have at his disposal a body such as the one
that cowered before him now.
Leung made up for lost time, reveling in her breast flesh, manipulating her
delicious pleasure-mounds with his eager fingers while he inhaled the faint,
tangy aroma of clove that enveloped her enticing body. But when he bent his
head to worship her swollen melons with his scaly lips, to take those tempting
nipple-nuggets between his eager teeth, Erika could not help giving another
involuntary shudder.
The professor's face darkened in anger at this rebuke and he drew his right
hand back and slapped Erika's left breast hard, as she winced in pain. Pleased
by the way her lust-globe bobbled at the impact, he smacked her other breast
with his left hand, enjoying the sold impact of palm striking breastflesh. He
spanked each of her firm, young tits a few more times before reaching for her
quiescent pink nipples, trapping them between the thumb and forefinger of each
hand.
He twisted and twirled her nipple-nuggets gently for a second, and then not
so gently, as he felt them swell in his hands. When they were pleasingly erect
he warned Erika in a stern voice. "I'm going to pull on these, Fraulein. I'm
going to pull on them very hard; but you are to keep your back pressed firmly
against the post. Verstehen?"
"Y-yes... I... und-derstand." she replied, quivering with fear. The next
few moments, she rightly sensed, would test the limits of her endurance
severely.
"Good." And the grotesque little man intensified his grip on her breast
buds, rolling them roughly between his fingers, until they were a pair of
pinkish peaks of desire surging outward from her crinkly coral aureolae.
When Erika's nipple buds were a satisfying half-inch long he altered his
grip, digging into the tender nuggets with his powerful thumbnails. "Keep your
back against the post, fraulein," he reminded her, and then he began to tug on
her aroused nipple-crests, cruelly distending Erika's honey-gold pleasure-melons
as he did so.
His nails clamped down with crushing force, even as his hands pulled ever
harder on her abused nipples. Erika felt her blue eyes fill with tears of
agony, as she tried her best to maintain the position she had been ordered to
hold. The pain was unimaginable as his nipple-grip stretched her tortured
breasts into two suffering cones of flesh.
At last she could bear the pain no more, her courage failed her, and she
slowly leaned forward from the post so as to relieve the terrible strain on her
stiff-nippled breasts.
"I warned you not to do that," the crazed hunchback said in a grim voice.
"I assure you that the pain you have just avoided will be as nothing compared to
that which you will endure for your disobedience."
Professor Leung rose to his unimpressive full height, retrieving the yak
strap as he did so. He stroked his angrily swollen cock for a moment or two,
and then, taking careful aim at Erika's succulent breasts, he lifted the strap
high over his over-sized head and then slammed it down with a resounding
CRAACKK!! across the upper slopes of her magnificent melons.
"AAAAIIIIEEAII!!' she screamed. "Please... not my br..."
"I warned you!" CRAACCKKK!! The professor whipped her luscious tits with
the thick strap again, leaving another garish streak on her proud love-gourds,
and drawing a tortured cry from his beautiful prisoner.
CRAACKK!! He followed those breast-busters with a stinging horizontal slash
across her sweat-slick thighs.
CRACCKK!! A diagonal blow that left a long, livid streak from just below
the blonde's left breast to the base of her right hip.
"AAGHHHH! please...no m-more..." Erika gasped in despair
"No more with the strap? That seems like a reasonable request." Leung
crab-walked to the table. "Perhaps you would prefer this?" And he held up the
thinner of two bamboo canes -- index finger-thick, and studded with rounded nubs
along its length.
"N-n-no... I meant..."
WHACKK! The cane ripped into her soft mid-section as Erika groaned in
agony.
Leung nodded knowingly when he heard the first fearful impact of the cane
-- he had heard the unmistakable sound of bamboo ripping into naked girl-flesh
many times in that lonely ditch below the punishment room at Madam Wong's.
WHACKK! He blasted Erica across her tanned, well-toned thighs once again.
And then twice more WHACCKK! WHACKK!! in rapid succession, as each stroke
elicited the forlorn cry of a wounded animal from his beautiful captive.
The crazed hunchback let her recover from those three vicious
thigh-cutters, before he poked the tip of the cane directly into the center of
Erika's mouth-watering left breast. The end of the cane bored into her roseate
as she grimaced in tit-pain. Leung was standing directly in front of her now.
He used the cane to push her shoulders back against the black post.
"Keep your head back, fraulein," he admonished her, and then, facing her,
he lifted the cane straight out from his body and held it about ten inches above
her left breast and then swept it down with a vicious "THWACKK" marking the
upslope of her tender breast from chest wall to nipple.
"AAIIIEEAAHH!" The cutting cane had proven to be even worse than the
strap. "Please...no m-more... I can't stan..."
THWHACKK!! The incredibly aroused hunchback delivered an excruciating
tit-splitter down the upper slope of Erika's other's breast.
"Bitte...bittte..." the golden girl moaned pitieously.
The professor, unhinged by sadistic lust, changed his stance slightly, and
stood at right angles to his sensuous prey. He cupped his swollen scrotum in
his left hand, fondling his balls pleasurably as he eyeballed her perspiring
tit-globes hungrily for a long moment. His hand moved to his swollen manhood,
sliding leisurely up and down its ruddy length, as he delighted in the proud
creamy-gold breasts that still jutted toward him defiantly, as if daring him to
do his worst. Erika's taut nipples were provocative up-tilted targets indeed,
centered perfectly in those ripe, juicy melons. Leung drew the rigid bamboo rod
back on a horizontal plane, and then swung it fiercely forward letting it
explode into Erika's swollen nipples with all the force at his command.
WHACKKKKK!!! "EEEEAAAAYYYYYAAAHHH!!!'
He tightened his grip and, focussing on Erika's delicious pink rivets, went
nipple-hunting again, attacking them with barbaric savagery.
WHACCKK!! "AAAUURGGHHHH!!!"
WHACCKK!! "AAIIIAAHH!!' He revisited her straining thighs, drawing blood
for the first time, as one of the uneven nubs near the end of the wicked cane
accomplished its fearful, flesh-tearing mission.
WHACKKKKK!! "AAUGHHH!!" A ferocious stroke from the cane set her belly on
fire, sweeping across the soft flesh between her pelvic bones.
WHACCKK!! The cruel hunchback ripped the cane into the firm undercurve of
Erika's left breast, opening a thin laceration on the sumptuous flesh.
"Ouwwhhhhh...please....no mo..."
WHACKK!! "A punishing blow to her other lust-globe, breaking the golden
skin, allowing a thin stream of claret to trickle gently down the splendid
contour of her fleshy globe.
Somehow the sight of blood seemed to restore a vestige of sanity to the
frenzied professor; through the thick fog of lust that surrounded him, it
occurred to him that George Chan had given him permission to discipline this
girl with whom he was displeased, not to destroy her beauty. And in any event,
every nerve cell in his twisted body was screaming for sexual release.
He edged forward in his peculiar gait and offered his swollen manhood to
his distraught victim.
The teary-eyed blonde swallowed hard. The hunchback said not a word; he
did not need to. He merely tightened his grip on the dreaded cane, and Erika's
mouth, impelled by unreasoning fear, moved toward his fleshy spear.
Erica's rigorous weekend of training at the hands of Ming-tsu and Li Chang
had included a number of painful lessons directed toward improving her skill at
the fine art of fellatio. Her lips closed over the hunchback's throbbing penis
and within seconds her oral caress had nursed his arousal, which had been at the
precipice of orgasm for many minutes, to the brink of climax.
The sexually inexperienced professor stepped back, and shuddered with lust
as his veiny knob shot burst after burst of sperm arcing through space onto
Erika's lovely face, neck, and chest. Who would have thought the little man to
have had so much spunk in him? Erika thought, as she felt a gob of male juice
trickle down one graceful cheek; similar creamy streams joined the thin crimson
trails that had formed on each of her lacerated breasts.
Erica breathed a sigh of relief. The hunchback had been satisfied, and
now, perhaps, he would be content to be on his way.
But Professor Leung had other ideas. He hadn't waited nearly forty years
to be satisfied with one orgasm. He stepped closer once again, pressing his
dripping cock against her lips again, indicating that she was to tongue it
clean. And then the poor blonde prisoner was forced to lick and suck his slimy
organ back to full erection.
Several minutes later, after she had accomplished that degrading task to
his satisfaction, the misshapen little man forced her to turn her body around to
face the polished black cylinder once more. The newly-aroused professor had her
stand this time, but bent over at a right angle so that her blonde head rested
on her wrists atop the obsidian post.
Then he retrieved a six-foot-long braided leather whip from the table and
sent it CRACCKKing into the soft contours of her long smooth thighs. The sharp
report of the single-tail was familiar too, from his nights of audio-voyeurism
in the ditch behind the bordello. The hunchback pleasured himself as he
alternated savage strokes to Erika's sensuous thighs with blazing blows that
curled lovingly around the ripe curves of her buttocks, so temptingly proffered
by her inclined position. Twice he clumsily swept the snake-like whip up
between Erika's wide-spaced legs toward her inviting gash; luckily for her,
those blows at least, were rather awkard, and did not do much damage.
Six, eight, ten, twelve more times the evil, snake-like whip ripped into
Erika's body before the hunchback attacked her from behind, thrusting his ardent
lance into her. The sensation of intercourse, the working of her cuntal muscles
on his throbbing maleness, was as deliciously overpowering as her oral caresses
had been, and it did not take long for him to come to another overpowering
climax.
After that second triumphant orgasm Professor Leung withdrew his cock from
the brutalized blonde, as she collapsed to her knees again and curled up into as
fetal a position as her constraining wrist-ropes would allow.
Leung, somewhat dazed by his exertions, trudged over to pick up his
discarded robe. As he fastened the familiar, well-worn garment around himself,
he felt as if he were wrapping the comforting fabric of humanity around the
dark, twisted lusts and desires that the seductive machinations of George Chan
had summoned from the depths of his soul.
It was as if he were emerging from a horrible nightmare -- his hands shook
as he took a long look at the beautiful young girl cringing silently in the
center of the room, her graceful body covered with the angry marks he had
inflicted. Then he glanced toward the table of implements. The dark paddle and
the thonged whip lay there, still glistening with Erika's perspiration. A
droplet of fresh breast-blood clung to the end of the evil-looking bamboo cane
which hung over the end of the table; he watched as the crimson bubble swelled
slowly in size before dropping soundlessly to the tiled floor, where it seemed
to symbolize a scarlet period at the end of a sad chapter.
His gaze swept around the room, taking in the erotic paintings, which
seemed distasteful to him now, and the array of weapons, tinged with sweat and
blood, that he had used to satisfy his base desires. He shook his head, as if
trying to clear it of the cobwebs of madness.
The professor stood there, lost in thought, for a long moment. Then he
seemed to make a decision. He sidled back over to the cylinder and undid the
ropes that bound Erika to the brass ring. He grabbed the long leather strap,
folded it, and inserted into a deep pocket in his robe. And then he dragged the
naked young woman to her feet and forcibly through the curtain and into George
Chan's den.
Spying the illustrated volume by Nakamura that had played such a large part
in his fall from grace on the desk, he stared at it for a long moment before
closing it with an air of finality. Then he stopped to scrawl something on a
piece of paper. He stared at what he had written for a long moment, and then
pulled Erika, who was too weak to resist, toward a closet in which he rummaged
around until he found and withdrew a long cloak.
Handing it to her he ordered, "Schnell! Quickly!" The terrified girl,
could only wonder "What next?" as she slipped into the cloak.
A few minutes later passersby outside were puzzled by the strange site of a
misshapen little man in a dull gray robe leading a tall cloaked figure by the
hand. The shorter of the two moving slowly in an odd sideways shuffle, his
companion moving as if every muscle in that person's body was wracked with pain.
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On the following morning several people in Shanghai were greeted with
unexpected suprises. After the council meeting of the Black Scorpions, George
Chan and his son had adjourned to the house of Madam Wong's. There they had
celebrated their success in the matter of the philosophy grade at the expense of
Mila, the girl from Macao whose superb breasts had afforded Ming-tsu such
stimulating practice with needle and thread.
Father and son had each consumed several drinks at the bordello, before and
after administering a vigorous simultaneous double-fucking to their sensuous
hostess de soir, and upon returning home they had retired early without checking
on their blonde captive.
Needless to say, George Chan was apopleptic when he discovered Erika's
absence the next morning. He was in a raging fury all day, and he took out his
wrath at midnight that evening at the House of Madame Wong. He ordered the
delectable Peony to be brought to the the punishment room, and when the slender
beauty was brought before him, he broke in a fiendishly cruel pair of silver
nipple clamps that he had bought with the intention of using on the swollen pink
nuggets of Erika Weiss.
The only good news that George had all day, was that based on Peony's
tearful pleas to be released from the sharp-toothed devices, the amount he had
spent on the clamps had been money well spent.
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The Assistant Secretary of the German foreign office, one Klaus Schumacher,
had been the first to arrive at the consulate in Shanghai the morning after
Erika's abduction. There, curled up in the doorway of that stately building near
the main square, he had found a cloaked figure sleeping, with a note in her
hand, written in perfect German, saying that the possessor of the note was a
German citizen who had been abducted by persons unknown, had managed to escape,
and wanted nothing more than to return to her homeland.
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The third suprised person on that fateful morning was the housekeeper of
Professor Leung. The professor was a habitually early riser, and typically
embarked for the library at the break of day. He had long since entrusted the
housekeeper with the key to his tiny aparment, so that she could clean it in his
absence.
When the housekeeper opened the door to the professor's lodgings she cried
out softly in horror when she saw the professor's small, lifeless body hanging
from the ceiling, clad in the old gray robe she had seen him wear hundreds of
times. His body slowly spun back and forth, suspended from a sturdy planter
hook, his grotesque face and body even more gruesome in death. A dark brown
leather strap encircled his strangled neck; an overturned chair lay on the
floor beneath his body. His last act on earth had been to kick the chair away
with one of his spindly legs.
The professor's little desk, which was usually covered with an assortment
of books and papers, had been carefully cleared, except for one item, his grade
book. After sending someone to get help, the aged housekeeper bent over the
book, wondering what the professor might have written or read that might have
prompted his suicide.
The book was opened to a page entitled Chiang Chan. A number of remarks
about Chiang Chan's academic career, none too flattering, had been inscribed in
slightly faded ink at the top of the page.
At the bottom of the page, in the place where the student's final grade was
to be entered, the professor, a man of his word, had inscribed in fresh red ink
the ideographic equivalent of an "A".
