It dawned on her that Wei must have arrived before Ning’s departure, had a ‘quickie’ with her, and fled upon Xuanji’s return in such a hurry – with no time even to clean up the mess in the bedroom, or to retrieve the hat left on the chair.

That discovery proved to be too much for Xuanji, who was crushed with the humiliation of having lost Wei to a maid in her service. Flying into a blinding rage, she started beating, whipping, and kicking Ning with all her strength. In fact, she was not really aware of what she was doing in the hysterical fit – until it was too late. Ning dropped dead, all of a sudden, with a thud on the floor of the bedroom.

Shortly afterward, Wei came over to the nunnery again – to the shocking scene of Ning’s body lying cold there. He managed to calm Xuanji down and hurried out to dig a shallow hole in the backyard, as if doing some tree-planting yardwork. Later on, under the cover of the black night, he and Xuanji carried out the body of Ning and buried her in the hole.

But they were too nervous to do a proper job in the backyard, so Ning’s bloody body began to smell from under a thin layer of soil and attracted the flies over the next day, a scene that appeared too suspicious to the guests there, who immediately reported it to the local authorities.

Xuanji had not confessed in the courtroom because it was too humiliating for her to acknowledge, so it seemed to her, that a celebrated, beautiful poetess could have lost her man to a humble maid like Ning.

Magistrate Pei and Xuanji then also discussed the death of Wei. It seemed to Xuanji, after she was thrown into prison with the mounting pressure brought to bear upon her, that Wei must have become panic-stricken. He thought it would only be a matter of time before she cracked and gave him up. So he decided to take flight after scooping up the valuables in Xuanji’s bedroom into a large bundle, but he could have been seen sneaking out of the nunnery with the bundle on his back. Someone in the neighborhood – possibly a villager – must have noticed his furtive movements and come up with the mugging plan. And that’s how Wei ended up being mugged and killed on the road in front of the nunnery.