Ji Xiaolan was a talented university scholar of the Qing Dynasty who lived through the Yongzheng, Qianlong and Jiaqing dynasties and was one of the few humorous ministers of the Qing Dynasty. In his later years, he compiled many things he heard and witnessed in his “Notes on Reading the Weed Hall” to teach people.
Among them, he told a story about a constable. A constable is equivalent to a policeman nowadays. The name of this constable, Ji Xiaolan can’t remember, only that his surname is Shi.
This Shi was a brisk, unpretentious and straightforward person. Although his work is not very good, in the three religions and nine streams in the tributary, but he is very backbone, despise those nasty and despicable villain.
Once, on his way Home, he saw a couple holding their child and crying. He went over and asked what was wrong. Neighbors said: “They can’t pay their debts to the tycoon, and now they are ready to sell their wife to pay their debts. The couple usually have a good relationship, not to part, not to mention the child is still small, still breastfeeding, the daughter-in-law so gone, the Family is very sad. But right now there is really no way.”
Shi asked: “They owe how much money ah?”
The neighbor said, “Thirty taels of silver. When he sold his daughter-in-law as a concubine, he sold her for fifty taels.”
Shi asked again, “Can you redeem her now?”
The neighbor said, “Look, the deed has just been written over there, and you haven’t paid yet, so how can you not redeem her?
As soon as Shi heard this, he gave the villager who owed the debt the seventy taels of silver he had with him, so that he could pay the debt as soon as possible. He said, “Thirty taels to pay the debt, the remaining forty taels you use to earn a living, do not sell your daughter-in-law again.” The villagers were dumbfounded, how could someone be so stupid as to give away silver for nothing, not even interest?
The couple was so grateful that they didn’t have anything of value at home, so they killed the chickens they kept and served him a drink. After three rounds of wine, while Shi Mou is drunk, the husband went out with his children, before leaving he gave his wife a wink, implying that she should accompany Shi Mou. They know that it is difficult to return the great kindness, they came up with such a bad idea. His wife nodded in agreement and began to say some provocative words to Shi Mou.
Although Shi Mou was very drunk, he was not drunk and immediately said seriously, “I have been a robber for half my Life and a catcher for half my life, sometimes killing without blinking, but never taking advantage of people to rape good women, that is never what I want to do, and I will never do it.” He finished his drink, he threw up his arms and walked away, not looking back, and did not say a word.
Half a month later, Shi Mou lived in a village fire at night. It was the Time of the autumn harvest, the families just finished harvesting, so families are piled with firewood, even on the roof, under the eaves, fences are piled with firewood.
The fire was raging, Shi woke up from his dream and turned his eyes to see that the house was surrounded by fire. He thought: this time there is no way to escape, simply sit with his wife and son in the house with their eyes closed and wait for death.
In a flash, he heard someone shouting from far above the house: “Dongyue God has an urgent document: Shi Mou’s family is exempt from death!”
At that moment, he heard a boom and the back wall of the house suddenly collapsed in half, Shi immediately pulled his wife, picked up his son and leaped up. He quickly escaped the fire with his family as if he had wings.
The villagers who survived the disaster looked at Shi’s family and put their hands together and said to him, “Yesterday we laughed at you for being so stupid. But I didn’t think that the seventy taels of silver saved three lives of your family.”
In this regard, Ji Xiaolan commented, “I say that in this case, the merit of Shi’s gift of money accounted for four tenths of the reason why Shi was sheltered by God; his merit of refusing women and not taking advantage of people’s danger accounted for six tenths.”
(The incident is according to Ji Xiaolan’s “Notes on Reading the Weed Cottage”)
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