In Yangzhou City in the Ming Dynasty, there were two playboys, one named Zhu Jun and the other named Tang Biao. They smelled the same and got together all day long, either fooling around or eating, drinking, prostituting and gambling.

This morning, the two men went to the north of the city to play. When they passed by Guanyin Temple, they saw a beautiful woman outside the mountain gate. The woman was about eighteen or nineteen years old, and her eyes were like autumn water, and her face like peach blossoms.

Zhu Jun and Tang Biao were stunned, and they did not come back to their senses until beauty entered the temple to burn incense. After a while, Tang Biao let out a sigh of relief and exclaimed in admiration, "The national color and the natural fragrance, it is really the national color and the natural fragrance!"

Zhu Jun nodded frequently, shook the folding fan and said, "The most wonderful thing is the gait of beauty. Nana is like a weak willow blowing the wind. I guess the pair of golden lotus under her skirt is exactly three inches!"

Tang Biao didn't think much of that. He felt that the beauty was walking very steadily when she went up the steps, and the pair of golden lotus were at least three inches and five inches. Zhu Jun still insisted on his opinion, but Tang Biao would not allow an inch. Finally, Zhu Jun said angrily, "If beauty's golden lotus is not three inches, my younger brother would rather lose a hundred taels of silver to Brother Tang!"

Tang Biao clapped his hands again and again and smiled: "Wonderful! Brother Fool is willing to accompany you!"

The bet was set, but it was a problem to decide the winner. Then Zhu Jun took Tang Biao to a tea stall, ordered two cups of fragrant tea, and sat in the shade of the tree to sip slowly.

After a while, the beautiful woman came out of the temple. Zhu Jun pointed at her and whispered to the old woman selling tea, "Do you recognize this little lady?"

The old woman looked up, nodded and said, "I know, I know, she is Zhang Xiucai's wife, Xu shi, who lives in Wicker Hutong, and people call her Sai Chang'e. She must come here to offer incense on the first and fifteenth day of every month."

After hearing this, Zhu Jun winked at Tang Biao, and the two quietly left the tea stall. When they came to a secluded place, Zhu Jun leaned into Tang Biao's ear and talked like this. Tang Biao smiled and praised Zhu Jun for his resourcefulness.

Rich and young as a bearer

Half a month has passed. On that day, Zhu Jun and Tang Biao got up early. They put on the clothes of servants and went to wait outside the wicker alley. After a while, two palanquins were seen from a distance carrying an empty palanquin towards the entrance of the alley.

Zhu Jun hurried forward to greet the sedan chair driver and asked, "This sedan chair was hired by Zhang Xiucai's family?"

The sedan chair man nodded: "That's right, Xiucai wife is going to Guanyin Temple to burn incense this morning, and she ordered the sedan chair yesterday."

Zhu Jun pointed at Tang Biao, who was standing beside him, and said to the palanquin, "We want to taste the taste of lifting a beautiful woman. If you are willing to give up this job, I will give you three taels of silver each."

The two palanquins were stunned, thinking that the other party was talking nonsense. They didn't believe it until Zhu Jun took out six taels of white silver flower.

After the discussion stopped, the two palanquins took the money from Zhu Jun's hand. Zhu Jun and Tang Biao lifted the empty palanquin and came to Zhang Xiucai's house. Zhu Jun rushed to the door and shouted loudly, "Lady Xiucai, the palanquin is here!"

After a moment, the door creaked, and Xu shi and a little maid came out. Xu shi got into the palanquin, Zhu Jun and Tang Biao lifted the palanquin and left, with the little maid following closely.

Lifting a sedan chair is a manual job, and it is very laborious for laymen to do it. Zhu Jun and Tang Biao are usually pampered, but they have not suffered this pain, and soon they are tired and panting. But in order to find out the size of Xu's shoe size, they gritted their teeth and lifted the sedan chair, and walked forward.

Arriving in front of a tall stone arch bridge, Zhu Jun suddenly said that he had twisted his foot and asked Xiucai wife to get off the palanquin and walk across the bridge, and then continue to carry it forward. Xu shi had no choice but to get off the palanquin, and Zhu and Tang carried the empty palanquin and slowly followed behind. Xu shi walked to the bridge and found that there was a thick layer of rice bran in the middle of the bridge deck. Hey, it's so strange, who spread rice bran on the bridge early in the morning? Xu Shi felt very puzzled. In fact, this is Zhu Jun's plan.

Before leaving in the morning, Zhu Jun instructed his servant to carry a bag of rice bran to wait by the stone arch bridge. When he saw himself walking over with a sedan chair, he immediately spread the rice bran to the center of the bridge. The reason why Zhu Jun did this was to let Xu Shi leave clear footprints on the bridge floor for easy measurement on the spot. But Zhu Jun never expected Xu shi to wear a floor-tracking dress, and just as the front stepped on the rice bran, the back skirt wiped the footprints clean. Zhu Jun saw that his eyes were on fire, and he could not wait to step forward and tear off Xu shi's skirt.

Zhu Jun and Tang Biao had no choice but to lift the palanquin again and head to Guanyin Temple in a dejected manner. When they finally arrived at Guanyin Temple, they were so tired that they almost vomited blood. When Xu Shi and the little maid entered the temple, Tang Biao sat down on the ground and said with a sad face, "Hey, I worked hard for nothing!"

The size of Xu's golden lotus was still a mystery.

Steal embroidered shoes

Zhu Jun was not disheartened. On the contrary, his desire to find out Xu's shoe size grew stronger. Soon, he came up with a new idea, which was to steal Xu's embroidered shoes!

After several searches, Zhu Jun found Liu Amao, who is good at stealing chickens and dogs. After understanding Zhu Jun's purpose, Liu Amao asked for twenty taels of silver, and Zhu Jun agreed. Liu Amao promised to do it that night, and promised to steal Xu's embroidered shoes. That night, Zhu Jun, Tang Biao, and Liu Amao quietly came to the wicker alley. The three of them touched Zhang Xiucai's door, and Liu Amao first listened to the movement inside. Convinced that the Zhang family had fallen asleep, he took out a tool to open the door bolt and dodged in. Zhu Jun and Tang Biao hid behind a big tree, waiting for Liu Amao to steal the embroidered shoes.

After waiting for a long time, Liu Amao finally slipped out of the Zhang family sweating profusely. Zhu Jun rushed forward and asked in a low voice, "Have you got it?"

Liu Amao shook his head and cursed bitterly, "Damn, what the hell, there are only two pairs of men's shoes in front of Xiucai's bed!"

"Two or two pairs of men's shoes? What's going on? Zhu Jun opened his mouth in surprise.

Liu Amao said firmly, "Yes, I've searched the entire bedroom. There are only two pairs of men's shoes!"

This time, he found the habitual thief Wang Dapeng and promised to give him thirty silver taels. However, Wang Dapeng had been messing around at Zhang Xiucai's house in the middle of the night, but he still couldn't steal Xu's embroidered shoes. His statement was the same as Liu Amao's, saying that there were only two pairs of men's shoes in front of the bed, and he searched inside and out, but could not find any shoes worn by women.

Things were getting weirder and weirder, and Zhu Jun and Tang Biao were even more curious. They swore to the truth. After much effort, Zhu Jun invited Liang Shangfei, the number one thief to the south of the Yangtze River. Liang Shangfei was on a pedestal and asked for a hundred taels of silver.

Zhu Jun and Tang Biao discussed for a while and said firmly, "As long as you can get the Xu family's golden lotus, you can get one hundred taels."

Liang Shangfei pouted and sneered disdainfully, "There's nothing I can't do if I go out personally. Not to mention a pair of embroidered shoes, even if you wear the underpants on the lady of Xiucai, you can get it smoothly!"

Zhu Jun and Tang Biao were overjoyed when they heard this, and agreed with Liang Shangfei to do it that night. After dark, Zhu Jun and Tang Biao accompanied Liang Shangfei into the wicker alley. Liang Shangfei was really talented, he didn't sneak through the door to pick the lock, but used his light skills to jump up to the roof and quietly enter Zhang Xiucai's house through the skylight. Zhu Jun and Tang Biao gave thumbs up, expecting that this time there would be results.

However, after waiting for two hours, they still did not see the beam fly out. Seeing the east gradually glow, Zhu Jun and Tang Biao were so anxious that they scratched their heads. At that moment, a black shadow floated down the roof unknowingly. Looking closely, it was the beam flying in black that stood in front of them.

Zhu Jun and Tang Biao asked in unison, "Hero Liang, how are things going? Why did it take so long?"

Liang Shangfei let out a long sigh and sighed, "I have been in the rivers and lakes for many years, and this is the first time I have encountered such a strange thing!"

Then Liang Shangfei recounted the process of stealing the embroidered shoes: After sneaking into the bedroom, Liang Shangfei heard Zhang Xiucai and his wife discussing housework, and talked endlessly. It was easy to hope that there was no movement on the bed, and Liang Shangfei landed gently. Through the moonlight outside the window, he saw that there were only two pairs of men's shoes in front of the bed, and rummaged through the whole room, but he never found the shoes worn by the woman. Liang Shangfei did not give up, and went to other houses to search, but after tossing for a long time, he still found nothing.

When Liang Shangfei reached back into the bedroom again, he saw Zhang Xiucai get up to relieve himself, and saw him sleepily stepping on the right shoe. When he realized something was wrong, he immediately changed to the left pair. The two pairs of men's shoes were similar in size, so why did Zhang Xiucai choose? Liang Shangfei was suspicious. When Zhang Xiucai fell asleep again, Liang Shangfei gently lifted the pair of shoes on the right, reached out and touched it, and found that there was a pair of small embroidered shoes hidden inside…

Speaking of which, Liang Shangfei took out a pair of exquisite embroidered shoes from his arms.

It was really strange that men's shoes were covered with women's shoes, but Zhu Jun couldn't think of it. He grabbed the embroidered shoes and measured them with a leather ruler on the spot. After seeing the size clearly, Zhu Jun was so excited that he shouted, "Three inches!"

Tang Biao nodded frequently from the side. Zhu Jun loved these embroidered shoes as a treasure and carefully hid them in his arms. From then on, Young Master Zhu took Xu's embroidered shoes with him every day, took them out to enjoy from time to time, and missed the stunning scholar lady even more.

Maid solve the mystery

In the blink of an eye, three years later, Zhang Xiucai won the juren, found a good position in the governor's yamen, and moved his family to the provincial capital. Before leaving, Xu found an in-law for the maid Chunmei and married her to the shopkeeper of Dahuaxiang Restaurant.

At noon that day, Zhu Jun and a bunch of friends had dinner at Dahuaxiang. During dinner, several playboys talked about women's little feet. Zhu Jun thought that the most beautiful golden lotus was three inches, which was slender and elegant. Everyone said that such a standard golden lotus could not be found.

Seeing that everyone didn't believe it, Zhu Jun took out Xu's embroidered shoes from his arms. He handed the embroidered shoes to everyone present and said proudly, "This is the golden lotus of Mrs. Zhang Juren, no more, no less than three inches!" Everyone rushed to watch, and they were all amazed, and they were all glad that they were full of eyes.

At this time, Chunmei happened to be passing by. Seeing this situation, she couldn't help but laugh. Chunmei said, "You are mistaken, these shoes are not for the lady at all, they are mine."

Zhu Jun looked down at Chunmei's shoes and sneered: "Your feet are at least four inches five, how dare you pretend to be three inches!"

Chunmei defended: "Three years ago, I was still young, and my shoe size was only three inches. These embroidered shoes are indeed mine, and I lost them for some reason."

Hearing this, everyone looked at each other. Chunmei paused for a moment and said, "In addition, the wife's feet are the feet of heaven, and she can't wear such small embroidered shoes at all!"

"Lifting, lifting people's feet is a celestial foot? How, how is this possible?" Zhu Jun was dumbfounded when he heard this.

Chunmei nodded and revealed the secret: It turned out that Xu had been spoiled since she was a child, crying and refusing to bind her feet, and her parents doted on her in every way, allowing her feet to become natural feet. However, when Xu grew up, she realized that although she looked like a fairy, she could not get married because she had a pair of big feet. Later, the Xu family found a poor scholar surnamed Zhang and married her daughter to him.

Xu shi felt inferior to her big feet and tried every means to cover them up. She didn't know how to be a feminine, and she was too embarrassed to ask someone to make large embroidered shoes, so she could only wear her husband's shoes on weekdays. In order to cover her ugliness, Xu shi wore a floor-length dress every day, and deliberately wore small feet when walking.

After listening to Chunmei's story, Zhu Jun finally understood why there were only two pairs of men's shoes in front of Xu's bed. It seemed that Liang Shangfei used Chunmei embroidered shoes to pretend to be Xu's golden lotus in order to deceive the one hundred taels of silver, and even made up a bizarre plot!