隨州大洪山作人李遙，殺人亡命。逾年，至秭歸，因出市，見鬻柱杖者，等閒以數十錢買之。是時，秭歸適又有邑民為人所殺，求賊甚急。民之子見遙所操杖，識之，曰：“此吾父杖也。”遂以告官司。吏執遙驗之，果邑民之杖也。榜掠備至。遙實買杖，而鬻杖者已不見，卒未有以自明。有司詰其行止來歷，勢不可隱，乃通隨州，而大洪殺人之罪遂敗。市人千萬而遙適值之，因緣及其隱匿，此亦事之可怪者。

A man named Li Yao from Dahong Town of Sui County committed a murder and was on the lam outside. After a year, Li came to Zigui. In the marketplace, he saw a guy selling a cane at an inexpensive price, so he bought it with decades of coins. Meanwhile, there was a murder taking place in Zigui, and the local government was trying hard to round the killer up. When the son of the victim saw the cane in Lis hand on the street, he recognized it at once, "That is my fathers cane."  Then he sued against Li. The law bureau detained Li to inspect the cane and found it belonged to the victim. Li confessed under duress that he bought the cane from someone else, but he did not know the seller. Therefore, Li was unable to prove his innocence in that murder case, and the bureau further interrogated Li about where he was from. Li was aware that he could no longer hide anything, so he confessed that he came from Sui County. Then, the law office of Zigui contacted its counterpart at Sui and found Li was the suspect in the murder case of Dahong. Eventually, the seller of that cane was still unknown.  There had been hundreds of thousands of people in the marketplace, and Li met the seller of that cane by chance, which revealed an irrelevant murder case he committed in the other county. What a strange coincidence it was!