During the Qing Dynasty, a wealthy man lived in Chao County (currently Chaohu City, in Anhui Province). He was over 50 years old and only had a daughter named Mei Xia, who was 14 years old. She was beautiful and intelligent. Mei once asked a teacher to teach her to read. She understood the heart of everything she read. The wealthy man and his wife loved her very much. She handled all the financial matters in the family.
Every evening after she finished reading, the servants would enter sequentially, one after another. As they assembled to report things to Mei, they stood aside with bated breath until she took their books to do their accounting. She listened and observed as the servants answered her direct questions while simultaneously calculating her hands without making the slightest mistake.
Everyone was in awe of her. A wealthy man once said: “The ancients stated that, although a girl is not as good as a boy, she could comfort her parents. I fear that a girl like our Mei is rare among men.”
The wealthy couple had a scholar as a neighbor. This scholar had a son named Xunsheng, who was one year older than Mei. He was a classmate of Mei’s when they were young. Being close in age, they had a very amicable relationship. Xunsheng was an intelligent and handsome young man, making him a good match for Mei. People who saw them praised them as a perfect match. The wealthy man and his wife thought so, too, but because Xunsheng’s family was poor, the man didn’t consent to his daughter marrying him.
One day, after he had eaten his meal, a teacher returned to the private school (old private teaching premises). He encountered a shocking scene: Student Mei lay murdered on the ground. Hurriedly, he called the wealthy man and his wife to come.
After examination, it was confirmed that Mei had been raped and murdered. The wealthy couple were deeply saddened after witnessing the crime scene. They suspected that Xunsheng must have done it, so they reported Xunsheng to the government and bribed the County Magistrate to make Xunsheng pay for this crime. The Magistrate, a stubborn official, accepted the wealthy man’s bribe, and with an inflated ego, he grilled Xunsheng in court, forcing him to confess to the crime and sentencing him to death.
As a result, the teacher was equally exiled to Fujian, 2,000 miles away, because he failed to discipline the student and avert this disaster strictly. The scholar had only one son, Xunsheng. Although he knew his son was wrongly accused, he was too poor to rescue him. Moreover, due to his timid and fearful nature, he could only helplessly wait for his son to be sentenced to death.
The teacher of this wealthy man’s family was originally a prestigious student in the county, but was still exiled to Fujian. Many readers admired his literary reputation, so people liked to hang out with him. At this time, a particular minister was at home on leave, and he wanted to hire a famous teacher to tutor his son. Someone recommended this teacher to him. The minister ordered the teacher to read the articles he had written in his spare time, and since he appreciated them so much, the minister hired him as a tutor. This was a very agreeable outcome for the teacher.
The teacher called a barber to cut his hair one day since he needed a haircut. As the barber entered the house, he recognized the teacher of the wealthy man’s family, staggered back, and left rather startled. The teacher strangely felt that the barber looked familiar, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he recognized him. So he asked the Minister’s son about it.
The son said: “This barber came here recently and is originally from your hometown. I don’t know why he suddenly turned around and walked back out as soon as he spied you!” Upon hearing that the barber came from his hometown, the teacher suddenly came to his senses and said in shock: “He is probably the murderer who put me in this situation!”
The wealthy girl was raped and killed
It turned out that the barber was from the same town as the wealthy man and had been going to and from his house since he was a child. That day, he went to the private school to cut the teacher’s hair. Seeing that Mei was the only one writing there, he was overcome by lustful feelings and raped her.
The barber was afraid that the girl would cry out during the entanglement, so he spied a book knife on the table and grabbed it to stab Mai. He ran out of the wealthy man’s house with the knife still in his hand. Fearing the authorities would trace the case back to him, he moved to Fujian but didn’t expect to meet the teacher there. Feeling guilty and deeply worried that his whereabouts would be exposed, he wanted to avoid the place.
The teacher had not thought of this at first, but after witnessing how suspiciously the barber acted, he recalled that when the murder just happened, the barber had left town unexpectedly. The teacher asked: “How am I to know that his running away was because he committed the crime and was fearful of being caught?”
So he told the Minister about this matter, who ordered the barber to be arrested and sent to the government. Sure enough, he confessed everything when tortured. The Fujian governor issued a document requesting that the teacher be reinstated because he was not guilty. He also sent the barber back to his hometown to face trial.
Some seven years passed since the case was brought to light, and the scholar was sick because of his grief over his son’s injustice. At this time, the exiled teacher suddenly returned and told him about the incident. He was so happy that his serious illness was reduced by half.
The scholar and teacher jointly filed a complaint, finally clearing his name. The barber eventually paid with his own life. As people often say: “You can escape being caught on the first day, but you can’t escape being caught on the fifteenth day!”
Translated by Eva and edited by Maria
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