A villager of Feiyuan Fort in Yifang county, Lan prefecture, named Nan Yan, was on his way to Loufan county. Resting partway on the road, he met a woman in plain white with a high coil of hair, about twenty, who bowed and asked: “I have come from Loufan and am going to Lan prefecture. I am walking alone and have lost my way. Which way should I go?” He pointed the way for her, and they parted.
As they parted the woman gave a long sigh, and fell down on the ground. He helped her up and looked: she was dead.
He went to a lodging house and asked for hot water to pour into her, but she did not revive. A passer-by, seeing the dead woman and not understanding, was afraid of being implicated, and seized Nan Yan and reported him to the local security group. He was thrown into the county prison and questioned under torture. Though he confessed falsely to killing her and taking her goods, the corpse had no wound, and he could not say what he had stolen.
The prefecture sent a clerk named Ming Sheng to examine the case, who called him in and asked: “Did you really kill her?”
He answered: “Hard to say.”
Ming Sheng did not catch the name, and asked again, and got the same answer, and thought it strange. “Then is the one called Hard-to-Say not you?”
And again the answer was: “Yes.”
Ming Sheng returned to the prefecture and reported to the governor. Another official was chosen, the grave was opened and the body examined, and all they found was a piece of rotten wood in the coffin. There was nothing to investigate, so Nan Yan was released and allowed to go.
At home he served his parents with extreme filial piety and was held in high regard by the village community. On this occasion, it seems, he was protected by Heaven.
