Jin Shengse was a man of Jinning. He married a girl of the Mu family from his own village, and they had a son, just a year old, when Jin suddenly fell ill. He was sure he was going to die. “When I die,” he told his wife, “you must marry again. Do not stay a widow1 for me.” His wife answered with sweet words and solemn vows: she would keep faith with him until she died. Jin waved his hand and called his mother. “When I die, please look after Abao,” he said, “and do not make her stay a widow.” His mother wept and promised. Before long Jin did die. Old Mrs. Mu came to mourn him. When she had finished weeping, she said to Jin’s mother, “Heaven has sent this calamity, and my son-in-law is suddenly gone. My daughter is so young and frail. What is she to do?” Jin’s mother, in the midst of her grief, was outraged to hear this. “She will stay a widow!” she answered hotly. Old Mrs. Mu was put to shame and said no more. That night she slept beside her daughter and said to her privately, “Any man can be a husband2. Pretty as you are, why worry about finding a good match? A young thing who doesn’t make a new home early, but sits staring over this bundle in swaddling clothes — what is she but a fool? If they insist you stay a widow, don’t show them a pleasant face.” Jin’s mother was passing, overheard the last of this, and was angrier still. The next day she said to Mrs. Mu, “The dead man left word that his wife was not to be kept a widow. But since you are in such a hurry you can’t wait, she will stay a widow!” Old Mrs. Mu went off in a rage. That night Jin’s mother dreamed her son came to her in tears and pleaded with her. She thought it strange, and sent word to the Mus that after the burial the wife could marry whomever she liked. But the diviners she consulted said the grave’s direction was unlucky that year3. The wife meant to show herself off to a buyer: even in her mourning hemp she did not forget her powder and paint. At home she still dressed plainly, but whenever she went back to visit her parents she was dazzling in new finery. Jin’s mother knew it and did not like it, but since the girl would soon be another man’s wife, she bore it in silence. And so the wife grew bolder. A village good-for-nothing named Dong Gui saw her and wanted her. He bribed the Jins’ neighbour, an old woman, to carry his attentions to the wife. At midnight he climbed over the wall from the old woman’s house to where the wife lay, and there they came together. This went on for ten days or so. The scandal was everywhere; the only one who did not know was Jin’s mother. At night the wife had only a little maid in her room, who was in her confidence. One evening, just as the two were taking their pleasure, there came a crash from the coffin like a firecracker. The maid, on a couch in the outer room, saw the dead man come out from behind the curtain with a sword at his side and go into the bedroom. A moment later she heard the two of them cry out in terror. Soon Dong ran out naked. Before long Jin came out too, dragging the wife by the hair. The wife howled. Jin’s mother woke in alarm and saw her daughter-in-law walking off naked, about to open the gate. She called to her; there was no answer. She went out after her, but all was silent, and she could not tell where the girl had gone. In the wife’s room the lamp was still burning. She saw a man’s shoes and called the maid. Only then did the maid come out, trembling, and tell her all the strange things she had seen. The two of them could only stare at each other in fright. Dong had fled over into the neighbour’s yard and crouched, curled up, in a corner of the wall. After a while, when the voices had died away, he got up. He hadn’t a stitch on and was shaking with cold, and he meant to borrow some clothes from the old woman. Seeing a room in the courtyard with its double doors pulled to but not barred, he slipped inside. Groping in the dark on the bed, he touched a woman’s foot, and knew it was the wife of the old woman’s son. Lust seized him at once. She was asleep, and he quietly took her. The wife woke. “Is that you back?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. She never suspected him, and they took every liberty with each other. Now the son had gone to the north village on some business, telling his wife to leave the door unbarred until he got home. When he came back he heard noises in the room. Suspicious, he listened closely: the sounds were utterly obscene. In a fury he seized a spear and burst in. Dong, terrified, scrambled under the bed. The son stabbed him there. Then he meant to kill his wife too, but she wept and told him it had been a mistake, and he spared her. Still he had no idea who was under the bed. He called his mother up, and together they brought a light; they could barely make the man out. He was still breathing, just. When they asked how he came to be there, he even confessed it himself. But he had stab wounds in several places, and the blood would not stop, and soon he was dead. The old woman was beside herself. “You caught them in the act and killed only one4,” she said to her son. “What will become of you now?” The son had no choice, and killed his wife too. That same night old Mr. Mu was just going to bed when he heard a crackling outside the door. He went out to look: fire was blazing at the eaves, and the one who had set it was still lingering there. Mu shouted, and the whole household came running. Luckily the fire had only just caught and was easily put out. He set men with bows and crossbows to hunt for the fire-raiser. They saw someone, nimble as an ape, go clean over the wall. Beyond the wall was Mu’s peach orchard, closed in on all four sides by high, solid walls. Several men climbed ladders to look, but there was no trace of anyone; only at the foot of the wall a dark lump stirred faintly. They called to it; it did not answer. They shot at it, and it went limp. They opened the gate and went to look: a woman lay there naked, with arrows through her chest and her head. They brought a candle close: it was Mu’s daughter, Jin’s wife. Aghast, they ran to tell their master. Mu and his wife nearly died of the shock, and could make nothing of it. The daughter’s eyes were closed, her face ashen, her breath finer than a silk thread. They tried to pull the arrow from her head, but it would not come; only by setting a foot on her head and neck could they get it out. She gave one faint moan, the blood gushed out, and her breath stopped. Mu was terrified and at his wits’ end. At daybreak he told Jin’s mother the whole truth, and knelt a long time begging her pardon. But Jin’s mother was not angry at all. She only told him how it had come about, and left him to bury the girl himself. Jin had an elder cousin, Shengguang, who came storming to Mu’s door and cursed him, listing all his past wrongs. Mu, ashamed and cowed, paid him to drop the matter and go home. But still no one knew the name of the man the wife had been with. Before long the neighbour’s son gave himself up for killing the adulterers he had caught, and after a light beating he was sent off free. But his wife’s brother, Ma Biao, who was never shy of a lawsuit, filed a complaint that his sister had been wrongly killed. The magistrate had the old woman arrested; frightened, she confessed the whole story from beginning to end. Jin’s mother was summoned too. She pleaded illness and sent Shengguang to testify in her place, and he laid out everything. So the earlier affair came out as well, old Mr. and Mrs. Mu were both dragged in, and every detail was got to the bottom of. For urging their daughter to remarry, the Mus were convicted of abetting lewdness and sentenced to a flogging5; they were allowed to buy it off, and it cost them everything they owned. The old neighbour woman, for leading a wife into lewdness, was beaten to death with the heavy rod. And with that the case was closed.