Xu Yan found his master, He Jiugong, hanging from a beam in the leaky funeral lodge, his feet three feet off the ground. He examined the body and found a needle mark without blood on the back of the neck, a soft lump behind the head, and cinnabar beneath the fingernails. Certain it was murder, he refused to fill out the form as a suicide. County magistrate Cao Jin tore up the paper and burned it right in front of him, forcing him to draw up another. Xu Yan insisted that Song, the chief coroner at the prefectural office, be present before he would sign. Meanwhile, more than twenty people gathered outside to watch had already seen the body come crashing down.
