The Ming Dynasty’s Female Magistrate

One day, Bai Hanyan was out with her father, Bai Jingxuan. As they passed a low hill, they saw a fresh burial. The widow was dressed in mourning clothes, weeping loudly. Bai Hanyan hurriedly called her father's attention, and after the two listened closely for a while, she sighed. "Alas, wife-murder is all too common."

Bai Jingxuan did not understand what she meant, but could not refuse his daughter. He sent someone to notify the authorities and have the weeping woman brought in for questioning.

Guilty and nervous before the officials, the woman soon confessed to killing her husband by stabbing him in the abdomen with a silver needle.

Bai Jingxuan was astonished and asked his daughter, "How did you know the widow had murdered her husband?"

Bai Hanyan smiled faintly. "Her cries held no grief, only fear. What else could it be but a guilty conscience?"

Her father praised her, then lamented, "Though I was not born a man, my heart is fiercer than any man's!"