Two tales of Judge Dee. "The Morning of the Monkey" is set in the fictional city of Han-yuan in the year 666. One morning a gibbon drops an emerald ring right at the entrance to Judge Dee's house. This leads to the discovery of a strangely mutilated body in the nearby forest.

"The Night of the Tiger" takes place a decade later, when Judge Dee is returning to the capital at Chang'an and bandits force him to take cover in an isolated country house. There, he must fight off the vicious cut-throats as well as solve a murder.