Qing During the Jiajing period, there was a small village called Qingxikou in Dongmen County, Hexi Prefecture. It was surrounded by mountains and a stream stretched westward along the entrance of the village. There was an old dry well at the entrance of the village, which had been abandoned for many years. There is a family in the village named Zhu. They have made a living by chopping wood for generations. This family has a son who is still unmarried at the age of twenty. The parents see it and are anxious.
This village is isolated from the world, and there are only a dozen families. The village implements a walk-in system, that is, if you take a fancy to a girl in the village, you will climb in through her window in the middle of the night. If a pair of men's shoes are placed outside the window, it proves that the other person has a famous flower and you can no longer think about this girl.
Originally, the son of the Zhu family and Xiao Cui in the village were childhood sweethearts, but before he could propose marriage, Xiao Cui was confused by a man from another place and stolen the forbidden fruit with the man. Unexpectedly, the boy refused to admit his claim and wanted to sneak away. Now he was caught by the villagers. The villagers forced the boy to marry Xiao Cui, otherwise he would have to execute him according to the rules of the ancestors. The boy pretended to agree, but he stabbed a villager and ran away secretly on the day of his wedding.
Xiao Cui has never suffered such humiliation, so she jumped into a well and committed suicide a year later. When the Zhu family saw that his beloved died tragically, he was in a state of grief and anger. He vowed to bring back the unfaithful man's head to worship Xiao Cui.
In a blink of an eye, ten years have passed. The son of the Zhu family has been looking for the unfaithful man, but has never found him. He has been alone in the past ten years and wandering around the world. The following year, the Zhu family's son's parents died of illness. He returned to his hometown for the first time in ten years. Things and people changed. He felt a lot of emotion. In order to pursue his enemies over the years, he did not fulfill his responsibilities of being filial to his parents. He felt deeply guilty and was useless to be a son. At this time, he made up his mind to stay in his hometown after his parents were buried, and he fulfilled his duty for the rest of his life.
One day, a young man dressed in a scholar came to the village and found him, and handed him a letter, which read: "Xiao Cui, the person I am most sorry for in my life is you. I blame me for being young, frivolous and willful. I have been spending all these years of regret. I hope you forget me and be with the person who really likes you." At this moment, he was particularly calm. If it were the past, he would have wished to end the scholar in front of him, because he knew that this was the evil seed of the unfaithful man, but now, he is extremely calm. The past is gone, and everything is irreversible. He asked the scholar to bring a letter to the unfaithful man. If he really regrets, he would personally go to the dry well to repent to Xiao Cui's body.
Unexpectedly, not long after, the news of the unfaithful Hanfu's death came, and he sighed. Another day, a young woman came to the village. The woman looked very similar to Xiao Cui. The woman said that she was lost in the place when she went out to collect herbs and fell into the place. He was stunned. The woman stayed in the village for two days and was about to leave. On the night before leaving, he looked at the girl silently, remembering her past with Xiao Cui, and tears couldn't stop flowing.
The girl heard someone crying and walked over to his room, and saw that the portrait in the room looked very similar to her, so she asked who it was. When she saw that the necklace worn by the woman on the portrait was exactly the same as her, she burst into tears and shouted, "Mom, my daughter is here to see you!" It turned out that when Xiao Cui knew that the unfaithful man had left, she was very sad and wanted to seek a short opinion. Unexpectedly, she found out that she was pregnant, so she secretly gave birth to a child, entrusted the child to a family to raise, and put a necklace exactly like her for her daughter. After sending her away, Xiao Cui jumped into a well and committed suicide.
From then on, the Zhu family's son completely closed the village, changed the system of walk-marriage , allowing women to fall in love freely, and choose their beloved man. If either side of the man and woman betray, they will be punished the most severely. He hopes that no tragedy like him and Xiao Cui will happen again. He hopes that a pair of mandarin ducks and a pair of immortals will be together for a lifetime.
