During the Ming Dynasty, there was a scholar Geng Zhongxin, whose family was surrounded by walls, and it can be said that he was poor. But he looks like a talent, Yushu is in the wind, and he has been admired by girls since he was a child, so he met a girl Wang Xiu'e who admired him, and the two quickly fell in love.
In that era, marriage was a major event, paying attention to the life of parents, matchmaking, and private interaction between men and women was taboo. Even if the parents agree, they will be pointed at by outsiders and drowned by spitting stars.
But beautiful love often makes people ignore the eyes of the world, and moths to the fire. Geng Zhongxin and Wang Xiu'e are secretly dating under huge pressure. The two are sincere, to the point of talking about marriage.
As soon as Geng Zhongxin told his family about the relationship between the two, the family agreed, because their family was too poor, and it would be good to have a girl to take a fancy to. Besides, Wang Xiu'e is a good girl, and she looks like a peugeot, so being able to marry her into the family is really incense.
Wang Xiu'e was different, she secretly told her mother, and her mother was furious. When her father found out, he locked her up at home and forbade her to go out. Pity the hearts of parents all over the world, they all hope that their daughters can marry into a family with no worries about food and clothing, Geng Zhongxin's family is so poor that they can't even get the bride price money.
In this way, Wang Xiu'e lost her freedom, couldn't see her lover, and washed her face with tears at home all day long. Geng Zhongxin didn't see Wang Xiu'e for a long time, so he expected that something was wrong, and it seemed that this family business was going to be yellow.
In addition to studying, Geng Zhongxin went to the grove where the two used to date every day. The past is vivid, but things have long been wrong, and I can't help but feel depressed, but I can't help but be helpless.
One evening, around midnight, Geng Zhongxin was napping on his desk when he heard a quick knock on the door. Geng Zhongxin went out to take a look, and it turned out to be Ertao, who was good with him, and Ertao's family and Wang Xiu'e's family were close neighbors.
I saw that Er Tao looked anxious, panting and said to Geng Zhongxin: "You go and help find it, the villagers have gone to find it, Wang Xiu'e jumped off the cliff!"”
Geng Zhongxin listened, and his head suddenly "buzzed", but he still forced himself to calm down and asked Ertao what was going on.
It turned out that after Wang Xiu'e was locked up at home by her father, she became lovesick and depressed. That evening, when she saw that her parents were asleep, she quietly leaned on a small ladder against the wall, wanting to climb over the wall and escape outside to find his lover Geng Zhongxin.
Unexpectedly, her father heard the noise, and when he came out to look at it, he saw a small wooden ladder leaning against the wall, and there were obvious traces of climbing on the wall. I went to Xiu'e's house to check again, but there was no one in sight. The old man suddenly understood, and was not furious.
He walked out the door, only to see a figure staggering forward in the bright moonlight, probably falling from the wall. He shouted Wang Xiu'e's name while chasing after him.
Wang Xiu'e heard her father's voice and ran forward desperately, and the father and daughter arrived at the edge of the cliff one after the other. Her father shouted at her to stop, and Wang Xiu'e stood on the edge of the cliff, just trying to force her father to agree to her and Geng Zhongxin's family affair, but her feet slipped and she fell off the cliff.
Wang Xiu'e's father thought that his daughter deliberately jumped off the cliff and cried on the edge of the cliff, which was heartbreaking. He beat his spirits, went home and called his neighbors, carried torches, and went down the cliff to find his daughter's body.
After Er Tao found out, he hurried to inform Geng Zhongxin. Geng Zhongxin was anxious and heartbroken, and he didn't care to say a word to his parents who woke up when he heard the noise, so he went out with Ertao.
All the people who came out found that it was dawn, and they didn't find Wang Xiu'e's body, so they had to go home separately. With such a high cliff and a rushing river below, if a person falls, he will either fall to his death or drown, and it is unlikely that he will survive.
After that, in order to resolve the sadness in his heart and force himself to forget that incident, Geng Zhongxin devoted himself to reading.
Two years have passed, and Geng Zhongxin is ready to go to Beijing to take the exam. Before leaving, he went to the place where Wang Xiu'e jumped off the cliff to take a look, pay tribute, or say goodbye.
Geng Zhongxin took a pot of wine and sat there until dark, and then he staggered back. The night covers the four fields, the stars are brilliant, and the surrounding silence is terrible. He smelled of alcohol and walked on the rugged mountain road, not caring about anything.
As he was walking, a figure suddenly flashed not far in front of him, blocking his way. Geng Zhongxin saw it, and suddenly half sobered up. Because he expected that the figure he encountered in this barren mountain and wilderness must not be a good person, so he could only move forward with courage.
When he approached, it turned out to be the figure of a woman, although she couldn't see the appearance clearly, but the image was very similar to the dead Wang Xiu'e.
Geng Zhongxin secretly blamed himself, maybe he missed Xiu'e too much, and he couldn't help but be wrong. So he rubbed his eyes, and when he looked again, the figure still looked like Xiu'e, he was very surprised, and secretly speculated that it was Xiu'e's ghost
I only heard the woman say, "Is it good for the son to marry me?"No bride price. ”
Geng Zhongxin listened, and asked rhetorically: "You, are you Xiu'e?"When he finished asking, the woman cried "wow". After she finished crying, she told Geng Zhongxin what happened.
It turned out that Wang Xiu'e escaped from home that day and was about to go to Geng Zhongxin, but she was discovered by her father, so she had to run away. She ran, and her father chased, all the way to the edge of her cliff. She wanted to blackmail her father into compromising and agreeing to their marriage, but unexpectedly her feet slipped and she fell off a cliff.
Under the cliff is a rushing river, she fell into the water, thinking that her life was not guaranteed, but she was saved by a mother-in-law on the shore.
When Geng Zhongxin heard this, he was surprised: "In the middle of the night, how can there be an old woman on the shore?"”
Wang Xiu'e said: "That old woman is actually a fox demon, who is cultivating on the shore, and when she saw me falling into the water, she rescued me. ”
Wang Xiu'e said as she led Geng Zhongxin to a cave. The cave is brightly lit, with tables, chairs, benches, pots and pans. This is the residence of the fox demon mother-in-law.
When the fox demon mother-in-law saw the two, she said with a smile: "Speaking of which, our acquaintance still has a relationship. Back then, in order to avoid the lightning disaster, I hid behind two children and successfully escaped the catastrophe. And those two children, it is the two of you who are sheltering from the rain in a small pavilion. ”
Listening to what his mother-in-law said, Geng Zhongxin suddenly remembered that it was the first time Geng Zhongxin and Wang Xiu'e met, that is, on a rainy day, the two went to a small pavilion to shelter from the rain.
The fox demon mother-in-law said to Geng Zhongxin again: "After I saved Xiu'e, I recognized her as my goddaughter." The reason why I didn't let her go home right away was because I wanted to see how much you felt for her. Today, I see you at the bottom of the cliff to pay tribute to Xiu'e, I know that you have a deep affection for her, so I want to hand her over to you, I hope you can be together for a hundred years. ”
After the fox demon mother-in-law finished speaking, Geng Zhongxin and Wang Xiu'e cried with joy, and they both bowed to the fox demon mother-in-law, and the fox demon mother-in-law hurriedly supported her.
That night, the fox demon mother-in-law left Geng Zhongxin to have dinner in the cave. Early the next morning, Geng Zhongxin was sent home with Wang Xiu'e. Before leaving, the fox demon mother-in-law gave Geng Zhongxin a package and asked him to go home and open it again.
Geng Zhongxin sent Wang Xiu'e to the door of the house and left, promising to find a matchmaker to propose marriage after returning home. He expected to experience a life and death, and Wang Xiu'e's father would definitely not refuse again.
Geng Zhongxin returned to his house, opened the package given by the fox demon mother-in-law, and found that there were twenty silver ingots inside. A silver ingot is fifty taels, and twenty silver ingots are a thousand taels. Geng Zhongxin** has seen so much silver?His hands trembled, and he silently thanked the fox demon mother-in-law in his heart.
After discussing with his parents, Geng Zhongxin asked the matchmaker to go to Wang Xiu'e's house to propose marriage on the second day, and promised to give 50 taels of silver as a bride price. Wang Xiu'e's parents did not object again.
Later, Geng Zhongxin rebuilt the house with the silver given by the fox demon's mother-in-law, and married Wang Xiu'e into the house in a beautiful manner, and the husband and wife were in love.
Later, Geng Zhongxin won the fame examination, became an official on one side, took his wife, children and parents over, and the family lived a rich and prosperous life. But the little couple never forgot the kindness of the fox demon mother-in-law.