The east window comes to light
Legend has it that Qin Hui hesitated over killing Yue Fei and plotted with his wife Lady Wang beneath the east window; she said, "It is easy to catch a tiger, hard to let one go." So Yue Fei died. Later, when Qin Hui fell ill and died while boating on West Lake, an occultist saw him in the underworld bearing an iron cangue in punishment, and Qin Hui sent word: "Trouble my wife with this message — the east window has come to light." The tale comes from a Yuan-dynasty anecdote, a folk elaboration — but "the east window comes to light" entered the language, the people supplying, in their own way, the verdict on this historical mystery.
The kneeling iron statues
In the reign of the Ming Emperor Xianzong, iron kneeling statues of Qin Hui and his wife were cast before Yue Fei’s tomb in Hangzhou; travelers struck and cursed them, and they were destroyed and recast again and again — the present ones are the umpteenth version over the centuries. A Qing-dynasty top graduate surnamed Qin, visiting the tomb, left a couplet: "Since the Song, men are ashamed to be named Hui; come to this grave, I blush to be surnamed Qin." Here the Chinese way of dealing with historical justice takes physical form: in the temple the loyal soul’s incense never fails, and below the steps the traitor kneels forever — the trial is held not in a court but in the people’s memory.