The story takes place during the Tang Dynasty period. There is a widow named Ma Dalian in the city of Yuzhou . A few months ago, Ma Dalian's husband Zhang Kui drowned while fishing. Strangely, Zhang Kui was originally a fisherman and was familiar with water. How could he be drowned? Ma Dalian suspected that her husband was killed. After reporting to the official for investigation, she found that there was no doubt about Zhang Kui's death and that he was indeed drowned.
Ma Dalian had to hold a funeral for her husband, and since then she has become a widow. A year later, Ma Dalian became big and people scolded her for being unfaithful. Ma Dalian explained that the child in her belly belonged to Zhang Kui, and the neighbors naturally refused to believe that Zhang Kui had been dead for a year. How could Ma Dalian be able to conceive his child? Ma Dalian saw that no one was willing to believe her, so she didn't explain. Since then, Ma Dalian has lived in simplicity and has a safe life at home to raise her baby.
A few months later, on the day when Ma Dalian was about to give birth, she saw her stomach hurt, but no one was taking care of her, and she was in the room and was in pain. When the neighbor Aunt Wang heard Ma Dalian's shrill cry, she couldn't bear it, so she invited the midwife to stay by Ma Dalian's side to help. Finally, Ma Dalian successfully gave birth to a son.
Ma Dalian looked at her white and tender son and cried happily. Aunt Wang looked at the mother and son and couldn't help but say, "Children, you are still young. Even if you have no husband, it's nothing to marry again. But you gave birth to a child alone, and his father didn't take a look at him. How can you live in the future?"
Ma Dalian couldn't help crying after hearing the words, "Aunt Wang, everyone doesn't believe me. My child is really Zhang Kui." It turned out that after Zhang Kui passed away, Ma Dalian was heartbroken and wanted to jump into the river to commit suicide, but she saw her husband Zhang Kui in her dream. Zhang Kui cried and said, because he overfished, he offended the river god, so the river god pulled out his soul and turned into the black fish in the river.
After Zhang Kui became a black fish, he had to avoid fishermen's hunting every day. He understood the difficulty of a fish. He apologized honestly to River God every day, begging for his wife to stay so that his wife has hope to survive. The River God was eventually moved by Zhang Kui's infatuation and would become human every night and go home to accompany his wife, so Ma Dalian became pregnant.
After Mrs. Wang learned the truth, she felt very sympathetic to Ma Dalian's trouble, so she told the neighbor Lin Jun that the truth was wrong. People knew that Widow Ma had misunderstood, so they all came to visit her with their things. Since then, with the help of neighbors, Ma Dalian's life has improved a lot, and no one has ever talked about Widow Ma anymore.
The villagers found that on the fifteenth day of every month, Ma Dalian would come to the river with her child and ask him to call a black fish and call him dad. Gradually, people knew that the black fish was transformed by Zhang Kui, and the kind villagers would not hurt the black fish. Even if they were caught accidentally, they would release it.
Without gossip, Ma Dalian's life has improved a lot. But on a dark and windy night, a dark shadow would always sneak into the room of Widow Ma. This black shadow is nothing but Zhang Kui’s friend Lin Sheng. Of course, Widow Ma’s child is also his.
Lin Sheng and Ma Dalian were childhood sweethearts back then. Because Ma Dalian's father disliked Lin Sheng's poor family, he betrothed Ma Dalian to Zhang Kui. Later, the two planned to kill Lin Sheng, causing him to fall into the water. After Ma Dalian became pregnant, she fabricated the lie that the child was Zhang Kui. In order to make people believe, she deliberately carried the child to the river and asked the child to call a black fish as her father.
The two thought things were perfect, but they didn't know where to walk by the river often. After a long time, people discovered the secret of the two. After the lie was exposed, Ma Dalian was soaked in a pig cage and Lin Sheng was sentenced to death for murder. Their children lose their parents' care and can only become orphans and beg for a living in the streets. Lin Sheng and Ma Dalian eventually harmed others and themselves because of their own selfish desires.
Message: Ma Dalian had a happy life, but because of her own selfish desires, she had tragic consequences.She could have used other methods to pursue her own happiness, but she took someone else's life, which was too cruel. Evil will be punished, and the two of them will eventually pay the price they will cope for their actions. The story is a folk legend and belongs to literary creation. The plots of the characters are all fictional. Please do not link them to feudal superstitions. It aims to enrich the readers' spare time.
