In ancient times, there was a family named Fang in Zhending Province, Hebei Province, called Fang Mao, who opened a family cloth village and had a relatively solid family. Fang Mao has a young son, named Fang Shicai, who is only seven or eight years old, but he is violent by nature and likes to abuse small animals. The Fang family has a white cat, and Fang Shicai chases after him when he sees it, so the white cat will run away when he sees him, often running to the neighbor's house next door to hide.
The next-door neighbor, Liu Ziqian, was a scholar, eighteen years old, and his parents died. Liu Ziqian liked this white cat very much. When he read, the white cat played at his desk; when he was sleepy, he played with the white cat for a while, adding a lot of fun to his usual dull and boring life.
In the early years, ZiQian's father was good at business, flexible in mind, and made a lot of money, and his family life was still relatively rich at that time. There was a man named Chen in the street named Chen Lian, and he had a daughter named Xiugu. Chen Lian saw that the Fang family was well-off, and wanted to marry his daughter into the Fang family, and at this time Zi Qian and Xiu Gu were still young, so Chen Lian entrusted the matchmaker and the Fang family to kiss, and the two families agreed in the marriage contract to wait until the two were older before getting married. However, when Zi Qian was seventeen years old, his parents were seriously ill and died not long after, and the Liu family fell into the middle of the family. The Fang family changed from rich to poor, and Chen Lian never talked about the marriage contract from then on. Zi Qian understood the meaning of the Chen family, and did not force it, thinking of studying hard and quickly, waiting for the meritorious name, and everything would be as desired in the future.
After a year, Fang Mao wanted to tell his son a child bride. There was a woman in the town outside the city, named Yang Rui'e, who was eighteen years old and had a raw flower appearance. But her parents died early and she has been living with her brother and sister-in-law. My sister-in-law always bullied her on weekdays and wished she had gone out early. The brother was greedy for money, so he sold his sister to the Fang family. Rui'e married into the house as a child bridesmaid, although her husband is young, but fortunately, the in-laws are very good to themselves, and they have settled down, waiting for a few years to live with their husbands.
The white cat of the Fang family, well-behaved, very pleasing to Rui'e, she always likes to hold it in her arms when she is fine, and when she sleeps at night, she still sleeps in the bed and sleeps in a bed. Rui'e's bedroom is in the backyard of her in-laws' house, next door is the neighbor Ziqian's study, only separated by a wall, the distance is very close. White cats sleep at home at night and go out to play during the day. The white cat went out, never walked through the door, climbed over the wall and jumped to Zi Qian's study. The white cat was very clever, never spent the night outside, returned home after dark, and sometimes brought back some paper with some handwriting on it. Rui'e had read a few words when she was a child, but then her parents died and they were abandoned. Rui'e thought that she had just taken this opportunity to grow up and see, so she picked up a pen and drew on the paper.
This morning, Rui'e and her mother-in-law were gossiping, when they suddenly heard the sound of reading. It turned out that Rui'e's bedroom and Zi Qian's study were very close, Zi Qian read, and Rui E could hear it. She had always been very curious about this neighbor, so she casually asked: "Mother, is the reader next door a show talent or a child?" ”
The so-called rich people look down on the poor, and the people who look down most are those who turn from rich to poor. The mother-in-law skimmed her lips and said, "Is it a child who fell in the middle of the family road, and is so poor that it clangs?" Rui'e smiled and said, "I heard that he has to read until late every night, so hard, maybe there will be a day in the future." When the mother-in-law saw that Rui'e did not believe it, she told the experience of the Ziqian family in detail and in detail, and her words were full of sarcasm and ridicule, and Rui'e only thought it was some gossip, and did not pay attention to it.
In the evening, the mother-in-law returned to the bedroom, but her heart was muttering. The daughter-in-law took the initiative to inquire about the neighbors, suspected that the daughter-in-law had a different heart, wanted to hook up with the neighbors, and thought about the situation of her son, which made her feel weak in her heart, worried that there would be an accident after a long time, so she told her husband Fang Mao about the day's affairs. Fang Mao was even more sensitive, and after hearing it, he was furious, so he immediately decided to move his daughter-in-law's bedroom to the front yard the next morning, so that she could not hear the reading next door and cut off her thoughts.
Rui'e is a smart person, and her in-laws ask her to change rooms, and she knows what they mean. But she did not expect that the day after she had just changed her room, the neighbor Ziqian had also followed her to the front yard.
It turned out that Zi Qian's study and Rui'e's bedroom were very close together, and as long as there was a sound, it could be heard. At first, Zi Qian heard the woman's voice, expecting it to be gossip between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, but when they continued to talk, they actually turned over the old accounts of his family and used his family's past pains as jokes to make fun of them. Zi Qian was angry and hateful, and he was eager to immediately go over and question them. But he thought again and endured. Readers pay attention to the way of Confucius and Mencius, reading is the right way, and should not be calculated with villains. In order to be able to read with peace of mind, Ziqian changed the study to the front yard.
Rui'e was also very angry, as soon as her front foot arrived, the neighbors followed closely behind, as if they had secretly made an appointment, and the sound of reading sounded in the front yard again. At this time, Ziqian deliberately amplified the sound of reading, wanting his family to know that he was angry and wanted his family to know him. Rui'e listened to the sound of reading, her heart was very awkward, in order not to make her in-laws suspicious, she rarely went out, and her words were much less.
Moreover, the white cat could not find its owner in the bedroom in the backyard, so he searched for the taste and found the front yard. Rui'e saw the white cat, had mixed feelings, and thought that only it would not abandon herself, so she put the white cat in the bed again and slept in a bed.
The next day, before dawn, Rui'e had not yet woken up, and there was a reading sound next door, and the white cat suddenly sprang out of the bed and jumped over the wall into Zi Qian's yard. Zi Qian was reading, saw the white cat and chased him to the front yard, very emotional, and then raised a poem. The poem expresses his bitter mood of unpaid ambition, unpredictable world, and difficult to find. After writing, Zi Qian did not think much about it anymore, put aside his pen and turned to the kitchen to eat.
Rui'e woke up, missed the white cat, knew that it was out to play, and did not care. When she turned around after dinner, she found a note on the bed with handwriting written on it, and a closer look was a poem. Although Rui'e didn't know many words, she could also understand the meaning of the poem, and she felt that her situation was very similar, so she was very sad in her heart. Rui'e liked the poem very much, so she pasted it on the tuan fan she carried with her, so that she could enjoy it all the time.
The daughter-in-law just changed rooms, and Zi Qian also followed suit, which made the in-laws and the old couple more suspicious, privately discussing secretly to observe more, paying attention to the movements of the daughter-in-law, catching adultery and catching doubles, getting the real evidence, and then cleaning them up before it was too late.
On this day, the mother-in-law came to Rui'e's bedroom and wanted to check whether the daughter-in-law had cheated. When she first arrived at her daughter-in-law's house, she saw the handwriting on the Rui'e Tuan Fan at a glance, and she used the excuse of admiring the Tuan Fan to carefully examine it, and found that it was a recorded poem, and there was also a drop, signed "Crazy Liu ZiQian". Tuan Fan was given to his daughter-in-law by himself, how could he leave Liu Ziqian's name on it, so he concluded that the two had hooked up together.
The mother-in-law endured anger, and after returning to the room, she told her husband Fang Mao about this matter, and the two immediately called Rui'e and asked where the note came from? Why did Liu Ziqian leave handwriting on it? Rui'e said that she had eaten and turned around, and found a note on the bed, thinking that the white cat had come back, as for who Liu Ziqian was written on it, she really did not know.
At this time, Fang Mao and his wife had already determined that their daughter-in-law and Zi Qian had an affair, Fang Mao had a hot temper, and did not allow Rui'e to argue, so he went forward and gave Rui'e a slap and scolded: "The physical evidence has been there, and I still want to deny it, this yanshi is the thing that Liu Ziqian gave you." You, a man who does not keep the way of women, has done unchaste things, how can our house keep you! Fang Mao took out a pen and paper, ignored Rui'e's cries, and wrote a letter of resignation. Rui'e was speechless, confused, and was thrown out of the house by her in-laws.
The daughter-in-law of the Fang family had an affair with her neighbor Liu Ziqian, and the news was spread that the city was full of wind and rain. Chen Lian, who had been close to Ziqian, heard that he was secretly happy in his heart, and he had long wanted to break the marriage contract with Liu Ziqian, but he regretted it because of his bad reputation. Now that Liu Ziqian was suspected of adultery, he just gave him an excuse, and he immediately took the opportunity to come to Ziqian's house, deliberately making a big fuss about this matter, standing at the door and scolding: Liu Ziqian, something that is inferior to animal life, you have a marriage contract, but you are going to do the thing of hooking up with a good family woman, I don't know how much I have harmed my daughter's innocence, how much of my Chen family's reputation has been insulted, how much can I marry my daughter to you! Chen Lian's shouting attracted many neighbors to watch, all of whom whispered accusations against Zi Qian's shamelessness. Zi Qian was confused, and ten thousand words poured into his mouth, but he couldn't say a word, and he didn't know when he had done such an unrighteous thing.
Chen Lian and Ziqian dissolved their marriage contract, and their hearts were overjoyed, and finally they got rid of Liu Ziqian, a poor ghost, as he wished. Chen Lian was a greedy man, and suddenly found an opportunity to get rich. The Fang family has taken a leave of absence, there is just a vacancy, if he marries his daughter, can't he climb the rich family of Fang Mao? So he prepared a heavy gift to say goodbye. Fang Mao saw that Xiugu looked beautiful and agreed without thinking.
But he said that since Rui'e left the house, the white cat had disappeared from its owner, and was looking for it in the front yard of the backyard, which smelled, sniffed, and meowed urgently. Fang Shicai heard this and beat him all the way with a stick. The white cat had nowhere to hide, so he had to jump into the courtyard of Zi Qian's family. When Zi Qian saw the arrival of the white cat, he did not care, and only concentrated on reading and letting it play.
In the evening, the white cat wanted to sleep in Rui'e's bed, but could not find the owner, and the Fang family still had Fang Shicai's chase, and it did not dare to go back, so it searched behind the front of Zi Qian's house while barking. After a while, the white cat came out of the gate, and Zi Qian felt very strange, so he secretly followed the white cat. The white cat walked all the way out of the city to a secluded path. Under the moonlight, I saw a woman curled up and sleeping on the side of the road, and the white cat went straight into the woman's arms.
It turned out that the woman was Rui'e, and when she woke up and saw that it was her own white cat, she put her arms in her arms and cried. Zi Qian was very surprised and asked the woman why. After Rui'e calmed down a little, she told what had happened.
Zi Qianfang suddenly realized that it was indeed his doing, which caused a misunderstanding, so that she was homeless. Zi Qian thought that his situation at this time was no different from That of Rui'e, so he said indignantly: "When a person reaches the poor jedi, he can see the essence of the world, and when he is rich, he is blinded." Those little people who pursue fame and profit, flatter and deceive, bully soft and afraid of hard, see some people lose power, have no use value for them, they will fall into the well, strike at all kinds of blows, where will talk about the morality, the so-called "wicked people are not as good as cats." Life is a life, lies in a word of qi, when the more frustrated the braver, the more defeated the stronger. If you want to survive and be rich, you must work hard; if you do not suffer, it is difficult to be a superior person. Only by working hard can we be the one who gets rid of dust and dirt! ”
Rui'e grew up with her brother and sister-in-law, and later was sold to the house as a child bridesmaid, from the time she understood things, all she saw were greedy and widowed people, and now the man in front of her is knowledgeable, sensible, sentient, and righteous, just like a white cat. When Rui'e thought of this, she was overjoyed that this was the person she could entrust herself to for life.
On the sixth day of october of that year, Ziqian and Rui'e were happily married. At this time, Fang Mao's adopted daughter-in-law Chen Xiugu also stood in the crowd, although her appearance was beautiful, but compared with Rui'e, she was dwarfed, and people did not say that they were the appearance of Lang Cai. After marriage, the husband and wife fell in love with each other. Two years later, he had to meet the big examination, and Zi Qian took the examination to become a jinshi and entered the capital as a hall official. When the husband and wife left, they took the white cat with them, and the family of three went to the capital to enjoy the taiping wealth forever.
Until now, people are still praising the white cat is the moon old man, is specially for Liu Ziqian and Yang Rui'e, the talented couple as a matchmaker, the combination of husband and wife, but also in line with the heart of the old man, now this matter has been passed down as a good story by later generations.
This article is adapted from Folk Tales.
Editor's Note:
It is said that when Rui'e marries into her in-laws' family, she can only be at ease as a child bride of other people's families; Ziqian and others can only wait for marriage when they grow up. If this is the case, Rui'e will step into the abyss of infinity, and Ziqian will let the years go down. However, a misunderstanding made them get rid of their suffering, and they were talented and beautiful, and they achieved a happy marriage. But such an ending is only the good wishes of people, who can think of the interchangeable ending is good or bad! Even now, how many helpless yin and yang mistakes are there?