The detailed memorandum submitted by Judicial Commissioner Zhu Zuoding of the Anhui Judicial Commission states that he had examined a certain individual named Rui Meisheng, twenty-nine sui age, of middling height, with pockmarked face and thin whiskers, a native of Jingde District of Ningguo Prefecture in Jiangnan. The complaint contends that this Meisheng, an utterly lawless country bumpkin [xiangye yumin], together with Rui Jiu, who has fled, beat in an affray resulting in death the late Rui Mian, a distant relative in an older generation of no recognized degree of mourning who was his near neighbor and against whom he bore no previous enmity.