Shi Ming is a stone carver who specializes in carving "epitaphs". But he was able to deduce the "real cause of death" of the tomb owner from the "depth of the chisel marks" on the tombstone - if the chisel marks were light, it meant a good death; if the chisel marks were heavy, it meant a violent death; if the chisel marks were light and sometimes heavy, it meant someone had tampered with the "tombstone". In a case of "the grave of the ancestor of a salt transporter in Yangzhou being excavated," he discovered that the chisel marks on the tombstone of the salt transporter's grandfather had been altered - the traces that were originally a "horrible death" were smoothed out and re-engraved with a "good death".
