Tear Jerker / Judge Dee

• During The Chinese Maze Murders the military official whom Chiao Tai has sworn to take revenge on is murdered; after the case is wrapped up Chiao Tai comes in to the Judge's office and tells him the whole story of his desertion (precipitated by the actions of the aforementioned official). By the end of the story, Chiao Tai, who began in a flat and toneless voice "as if he were reading from a military report," is sobbing. So, perhaps, are you.
• The Chinese Maze Murders has a scene where Dee reads the letter of a long dead famously honest reformer who regrets how for all of the good he accomplished, he failed to raise his eldest son right. In his letter, he blames himself for the crimes he correctly believes his son will commit and begs for whoever reads the letter to show his son as much mercy as is legally acceptable. The severity of the son's crimes makes the only possible mercy a quick execution rather than a drawn-out one, and for all his hatred of his father, the son cries after reading the letter.
• The scene where the judge's assistants learn of the sergeant's murder in The Chinese Nail Murders. They have to turn away when they see the judge tearing up.
  • Less sad, but still depressing, is the judge realizing at the end of the book that his days of close relationships with his lieutenants are now over due to his new prestigious position.
• The short story "The Wrong Sword" ends with two Happily Married actors learning that one of their children killed the other by switching a play's fake sword with a real one (which the oblivious father struck the fatal blow with) and faces certain execution. Her motive is based on a cruel lie that could have been exposed with better communication. Dee gives them a compassionate and uplifting speech about how they are good people who are still fairly young and have each other and the work they love, but that doesn't make the tragedy go away either.
• The ending of Murder in Canton, as Chiao Tai dies, struck by the judge's sword as he predicted in the first book.
• The death of Mrs. Kuo after she saves Dee's career and life in The Chinese Nail Murders by essentially confessing to the murder of her first husband, a drunken brute. Made even worse by the fact that Dee wanted to save her, but his usual attention to detail in his official records would have doomed her anyway.

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