"The Case of the Cat", also known as "Justice Bao Hitting the Dragon Robe", spoke of how concubine Liu substituted concubine Li's newborn son with a de-skinned cat, hence defaming the later of giving birth to a demon and thus causing her to be banished to the Cold Court (similar to being under house arrest in modern terms). Palace maid Kou Zhu was ordered by Concubine Liu to throw the crown prince into the river, but she hesitated, and subsequently passed the baby to Eunuch Chen Lin, who then had the baby sent to Nanqing Palace whereby the prince was secretly adopted as the son of Prince Xian. Ten years later, still without a heir, Prince Xian decided to let Emperor Zhenzong adopt his son as an apparent heir, using this as an opportunity to restore the rights to the throne back to the crown prince. Concubine Liu, who was by now the Empress, grew wary of the past when she discovered how much this adopted crown prince resembled Lady Li. She interrogated Kou Zhu without success, and hence ordered Chen Lin to subject her to physical punishment. Kou Zhu stood by her oath not to reveal anything and committed suicide. Thinking that Kou Zhu was indeed innocent, Empress Liu decided then to let the matter rest. Empress Liu then tried to burn down the Cold Court to completely eliminate her rival, but Lady Li escaped. Another ten years passed and Justice Bao, who was on his way back to the palace after sending ration to Chenzhou, passed by the district Lady Li had been hiding. Lady Li seeked an audience with Justice Bao and had her grievances explained. With the help of Chen Lin, Justice Bao managed to get hold of evidences of the evil plot of Empress Liu and her subordinate Guo Huai, and subjected them to their due punishments, hence restoring justice to the wronged Lady Li.
This story, like Chen Shimei's, is widely popular in Chinese opera and had appeared in many genres. However, there is one very discrepancy that nobody seemed to have realised: Justice Bao and Emperor Renzong (the child of Lady Li who had later become the foster son of Lady Liu and became the Emperor after the death of his "foster father") were born just years apart, but in almost all Chinese opera renditions, the Emperor looked very young (beardless), whereas Justice Bao is portrayed as a middle-aged, full-bearded man. How is that possible?
Side-tracking a bit, Emperor Zhenzong, Renzong's father, did have a concubine with the surname of Liu that made it as an Empress in the end, but there was not record of any concubine by the surname of Li. Emperor Renzong's birth mother, however, was really a lady with the surname of Li, just that she was not a concubine, but a palace maid. According to the imperial law, the palace maid was not fit to become an Empress despite having given birth to Emperor Zhenzong's one and only son due to her status. Accordingly, this son was to be given to Lady Liu to be raised up as her son because she was the next best lady to the post of the Empress.
Emperor Renzong did not know about his birth mother until the death of Empress Liu. By then, he had heard from several senior ministers that Li had not died of natural causes, but after visiting her tomb, Emperor Renzong was surprised that Li's corpse had not decomposed, and had in fact been given a grand burial like those of Empresses. It was then Renzong realised that the accusations he had heard were all false and that Empress Liu had did her bit in giving Li a posthumous Empress rank.
This is how the real story of Renzong realisation of his birth mother. As to how it had mutated into the legend as we all see on the opera stage now, I believe it had to be attributed to how ancient Chinese mentality of women in power. Empress Liu had became the Regent after Emperor Zhenzong passed away as Emperor Renzong was too young to handle court affairs. Being the woman in power, she had the authority to do whatever she wanted or deem fit. This naturally would make many of the male officials unhappy, and she had been constantly been compared to Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang dynasty. Malicious words of Empress Liu could have been spread during this time secretly among the officials, and some of which somehow went beyond the palace, mutated and became a totally different story. This urban legend was mentioned in the Chinese classical novel "The Three Swordsmen and the Five Mice", suggesting the highly probable link, and it was from this novel that this twisted "historical fact" subsequently became "The Case of the Cat" that we know of now.
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