During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, an official retired and ran a glass company in Beijing. The company was very large, and the retired eunuch made a fortune and was very famous at the time. Tuihuan had a daughter who was of marriageable age. His daughter was very beautiful, but she was very charming and frivolous and liked to socialize everywhere. This caused many frivolous rich kids to show their favor.
There was a son of a minister whose ancestral home was Guilin . He was particularly fond of this girl and planned to marry her. After the minister learned about the girl's situation, he firmly refused to agree, but his son insisted that he would not marry anyone other than this girl. In the end, the minister had to compromise and get married for the two of them.
After getting married, the two of them were very affectionate at first. Later, the daughter who retired from eunuchs gradually began to be unwilling to be lonely, and continued to go to various social places as before marriage. After meeting a true suitor, the daughter of a retired eunuch actually offered to leave, and the minister's family tried hard to persuade him to stay, but to no avail.
Since this woman left, Shangshu's son has been depressed. On the one hand, he still misses this woman, and on the other hand, the woman's behavior has caused great humiliation to the family. In the end, the son of the minister became depressed and became ill, and died soon after.
This minister has a high reputation as an official and has a certain influence. After this happened, people were naturally deeply affected, and people also felt sorry for the unfortunate experience of his family.
After leaving the Shangshu's house, the daughter who retired from eunuchs became even more dissolute and dated many people, but they did not last long. Many people were as fascinated by her as the Shangshu's son.
When the retired eunuch's daughter was less than thirty years old, she suddenly contracted a strange disease. She often yells and screams for no apparent reason. Sometimes she shouts: So-and-so is beating me with a whip! Then patches of bruises would appear on her body, and she would wail as if she was being whipped.
Sometimes she shouts: So-and-so is biting me with his mouth! Then some scrofula , commonly known as rat sores , appeared on her neck. The pain caused her to keep wailing, especially at night. She said some horrifying lies, and the maids and women who served her were so scared that they stayed away from her. Later, her condition became more and more serious, and she would sometimes cry out: Pulling out my nails! People around her saw her nails slowly falling off; sometimes they cried out: "Cut my tongue!" Then I saw her tongue falling away little by little.
Everyone who saw this scene said: This is living hell! In the end, the woman died due to this strange disease.
At that time, people said that this girl looked like a peach and plum, but her heart was like a snake and a scorpion. What people can know is what happened to Shangshu's son, but there may be many things they don't know! Maybe it was because of too many harms that such tragic things happened.
This incident is recorded in the "Supplementary Records" of the "Three Chronicles of Dongling" written by Guo Zeyu. Guo Zeyu was a Jinshi during the Guangxu period and served as the Secretary-General of the Republic of China government. He recorded this incident in his book, which shows that this incident still had a great influence in Beijing at that time.
Source: "Dong Ling Xiaozhi · continuation of · supplement" by Guo Zeyu
