Ancient anecdote: the villager's tricks to cure the shrew



Xuancheng County There is a vulgar man whose name is not available for examination. Marrying a daughter-in-law looks a little bit charming, but her violent mother-in-law is very disrespectful, especially Whenever the husband went out, he abused and insulted his mother-in-law. The man came back and his wife cried and complained of grievance, saying that the mother-in-law could not tolerate him, and he could only be silent.

One night the man sat under the lamp and took out a sharp blade for his wife to see. The daughter-in-law asked what he was going to do? The man said to her with a pleased expression: "I think you often say that your mother-in-law is harsh to you, and I will be with you. How about going to her with a knife for the theory?" The wife said: "I wanted to do this a long time ago!" The man said: "But now is not the time, you and I will treat her better for a month and save your hard work. The brutal abuse of Xianhui and your mother-in-law is known to all neighbors in the neighborhood, and then you and I can act secretly to take her life. People will not ask the cause of the violent death even if they know that she is dead.”

The wife obeyed the man’s arrangement, so He Yanyuese takes care of her every day, and she buys fresh meat and vegetables at the market for her mother-in-law to cook. The mother-in-law doesn't know the reason, but seeing the daughter-in-law treats herself so kindly, she is naturally reciprocated, and get along well with her every day.



So for nearly a month, the man took out the knives under the lamp to play with him again, and called his daughter-in-law to ask her how his mother-in-law was treating her recently. The daughter-in-law said: "It treats me much better these days than before." Another month later, the man knocked on the knife again and asked how the daughter-in-law was doing? The daughter-in-law sighed and said: "My mother-in-law and I are more harmonious now, don't do the thing that I discussed before", and repeatedly told the man.

Seeing that the time had come, the man slowly held the sharp blade and glared at his wife and said, "Have you ever seen a husband kill a wife in the world?" The wife said that she had seen him, and then asked her if she had ever seen a son kill a mother? The wife said she had never seen it before. The man went on to say: "In life, filial piety is the first priority. The kindness of parents is hard to repay. When they grow up, they marry a wife in order to serve their parents and raise their children.Since you came to my house, I have long realized that you are self-reliant and unwilling to serve my mother with filial piety. On the contrary, you want me to do great rebellious things. Will the gods of heaven and earth tolerate it? I made this sharp blade with the intention of taking your head and comforting my mother. But let me give you two months to reform and rehabilitate, and see how my mother will treat you. Now I know it’s not my mother’s fault, so don’t hurry up! "

The daughter-in-law was afraid of tears, she knelt by the bed and said, "I beg your husband, forgive me this time, I will be as filial as my mother-in-law for the rest of my life, and I will never dare to slack any more", crying and begging for a long time before the man agreed. Sparing her, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are very harmonious since then. The male relatives knew about this in private and spread the matter secretly. The insiders said that although the man is a vulgar, he is so good at mediating contradictions and turning evil into good. Some scholars and gentlemen who read poems but are helpless are hundreds of times stronger


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