Liang Dayou's ancestors came from a family of carpenters and accumulated a lot of money by running a coffin shop. As the saying goes, a father knows his son better than his father. Liang Dayou's father, Old Man Wang, knew that his son was honest and dull and might be plotted by o

The story takes place in the Northern Song Dynasty During the Huangyou period, there was a carpenter named Liang Dayou in Zizhou Prefecture. Liang Dayou's ancestors came from a family of carpenters and accumulated a lot of money by running a coffin shop. By Liang Dayou's generation, he had hundreds of acres of farmland and more than ten houses, and he was truly a wealthy household in Zizhou Prefecture.

As the saying goes, a son is better than his father. Liang Dayou's father, Old Man Wang, knew that his son was honest and dull and might be plotted by others in the future, so he arranged a marriage for him early. The woman was the daughter of an old scholar in Zizhou Prefecture, named Cuihua. When the two families got engaged, Cuihua and Liang Da were only seven or eight years old. The two families discussed waiting until their children came of age before consummating the marriage.

Who knows that God will not follow people's wishes. When Liang Dayou was seventeen years old, old man Liang died of illness. Since then, all the wealth of the Wan Guan family has been handed over to Liang Dayou to take care of. Gradually, some friends began to gather around Liang Dayou. These people cheated and drank, and took Liang Dayou to eat, drink, and gamble, hoping to get more money from Liang Dayou.

Cuihua's father saw that his daughter had grown up, so he came to Liang's house to discuss a wedding date. After Liang Dayou met his future father-in-law, instead of giving him a warm reception, he looked on coldly. Liang Dayou already had the idea of ​​​​breaking off the engagement. The reason why he had such a plan was due to two considerations. First, the wives of his friends were all beautiful and charming, while Cuihua was tall and thick at the time, and her skin was Dark and quite ugly, Liang Dayou felt that if he married such a woman, he would not be able to hold his head high in front of his friends in the future.

Another reason is that Cuihua's family was very poor at that time, and Cuihua's mother was ill in bed. It can be said that after marrying Cuihua, not only did she not get much dowry, but she also had to pay a lot of money to Cuihua's family. In the end, Liang Dayou made up his mind to break his engagement with Cuihua and get back the betrothal gift he had given him.

After that, Liang Dayou was introduced by a friend to a widow named Zhou Meiniang. Zhou Meiniang's husband was a woodcutter, and later he accidentally fell off a cliff and died. Since then, Zhou Meiniang has been a widow at home. Zhou Meiniang is graceful and charming, and is deeply loved by Liang Dayou. With the help of many friends, Liang Dayou and Zhou Meiniang decided to get married.

The stonemason Old Man Ding's family lived next door to Liang Dayou's house. Old Man Ding had a close relationship with Liang Dayou's father, and Liang Dayou also respected Old Man Ding on weekdays. Old man Ding learned that Liang Dayou had rejected his marriage to Cuihua and wanted to marry Widow Zhou instead. Old man Ding went to Liang Dayou and said, "Son, you are not doing this right. Cuihua is such a good girl, how can you If you can say you regret your marriage, then you regret it."

Liang Dayou said disapprovingly: "Three-legged toads are hard to find, and two-legged wives are everywhere. The most important thing in life is to be happy. I don't want to face it all day long. Living an ugly life." Old man Ding argued: "Cuihua was born in a scholarly family, and is knowledgeable and courteous..."

Liang Dayou said impatiently: "Since you like Cuihua so much, just marry her. We have already made an engagement with Zhou Meiniang, and we will wait for the wedding banquet in two days." After that, Liang Dayou walked away, leaving old man Ding trembling with anger. On the day when Liang Dayou and Zhou Meiniang got married, half of Zizhou Prefecture was in shock. Only old man Ding was not present and kept smoking at home.

Old man Ding murmured: "This kid did not listen to advice and kept a tiger on the kang. It seems that his life is not long!" After nightfall, the guests and friends dispersed one after another, and Liang Dayou walked into the bridal chamber with great interest. Around the third watch, Liang Da screamed, followed by Zhou Meiniang's whimpering cries.

The villagers heard the noise and hurried to Liang Dayou's house to check. Old man Ding also hurried over. Everyone saw Liang Dayou lying upright on the bed, having been out of breath for a long time. Everyone asked Zhou Meiniang what happened. Zhou Meiniang only said that the two of them were in Yunyu just now, and for some reason Liang Dayou screamed and died.

Old man Ding knew that Liang Dayou's death was not as simple as Zhou Meiniang said.Because there was a murder, the land security officer invited Wu Zuo to conduct an autopsy. After Wu Zuo carefully examined it, he found nothing unusual. Just when Wu Zuo was about to leave, he accidentally discovered some blood stains on Liang Dayou's bun. After Wu Zuo untied Liang Dayou's bun, he discovered that there was an iron nail driven into his head.

Everyone was shocked, Zhou Meiniang was taken to the county government for interrogation. Under the severe punishment, Zhou Meiniang had to admit that she had poisoned Liang Dayou in advance. After Liang Dayou fainted, Zhou Meiniang nailed Liang Dayou to death with iron nails. Her purpose of doing so was to seize the Liang family's property. . I thought the case would be over like this, but Old Man Ding provided a new piece of evidence, which led to another murder case.

It turns out that Old Man Ding saw Zhou Meiniang and blacksmith Diao Er having a tryst in the back mountain when they were quarrying rocks. Shortly after that, Zhou Meiniang’s husband accidentally fell off a cliff and died. Therefore, Old Man Ding speculated that the death of Zhou Meiniang’s ex-husband must have happened. He was also murdered by them. Based on the clues provided by Old Man Ding, the county magistrate arrested the blacksmith Diao Er and brought him to justice. Diao Er thought that his crime had been committed and confessed everything without questioning him when he arrived at the county government office.

It turned out that blacksmith Diao Er and Zhou Meiniang had known each other since childhood, but unfortunately they started their own families later. After Zhou Meiniang married the woodcutter, her life was not happy, and she got together with Diao Ergui. Later, the woodcutter discovered Zhou Meiniang's scandal and prepared to report it to the county government. However, Diao Er and Zhou Meiniang teamed up to kill him, and then threw him off the cliff to make it look like he died accidentally.

Later, Diao Er came up with a plan. He asked Zhou Meiniang to marry Liang Dayou, and then took the opportunity to kill Liang Dayou. In this way, all the Liang family's land will belong to Zhou Meiniang. The plan of the two was that Zhou Meiniang would sell off all the property, and then the two of them would fly away. They never thought that their deeds would be exposed in the end, and they would both be arrested and imprisoned.

Since ancient times, adultery has resulted in human death. It was precisely because Old Man Ding saw Zhou Meiniang being unruly that he was worried that Liang Dayou would end up like the woodcutter one day, so he said that Liang Dayou marrying Zhou Meiniang was "raising a tiger on the kang, and his life is in danger" "It's been a long time." After the case was found out, Diao Er and Zhou Meiniang were executed by Ling Chi, and Liang Dayou's property was confiscated because there was no one to inherit it. The family business of several generations of the Liang family was destroyed in this way.

It is worth mentioning that Cuihua later married a poor scholar, and the two stayed with each other after their marriage and were very loving. A few years later, the scholar won the first prize in the examination. Cuihua gave birth to five sons for him. Later, all five sons passed the examination. Cuihua lived to the age of ninety-eight before she died without any illness. After her death, she was posthumously granted the title of " "Mrs. Yipingaoming".

Postscript:

Liang Dayou's experience tells us a truth: when marrying a virtuous wife, beauties are more troubles than ugly wives. If a good wife is at home, no disaster will happen to her husband. This is absolutely true.

[Solemn statement]

This story is a folk tale, purely a literary creation. The plot and characters are fictitious. It is intended to enrich readers' spare time life. Please do not contradict feudal superstition.