The Song family's tribute-embroidery pattern of a scrolling lotus had a broken thread and no return stitch, concealed with a floating thread. Following the rules in the embroidery register, the inspecting official demanded that the suspected substitute's finger be cut off. Fan Hanyan pointed at Cheng Suzhen in front of everyone. Cheng knelt and admitted that she had worked on the piece, but asked to see the pattern again. She spotted a hidden backstitch knot beneath the broken thread: the "broken-thread return stitch," struck from the official register ten years ago. It was the very first covert stitch her mother, A Ling, had taught her. She refused to admit the embroidery was faulty and instead turned to the supplier kneeling on her right, Qian You'a. She pointed out an old scar on the second joint of his right index finger, left by splitting silk. Only splitting silk, joining patterns, and edging required the thread to be braced against the base of the finger. The stitch on the pattern was a turning stitch at an edging position. A substitute would use all four fingers to brace the thread and could not have gotten that scar. Qian You'a knocked his head on the ground and shouted that she was making things up. But A Ling had been struck from the Embroidery Register Office ten years ago. So who had brought this broken-thread return stitch back into the workshop?
