In ancient times, there was a small merchant named Zhao Decai in Shanxi who opened a grocery store. He had a good life, but the weather was unpredictable. Suddenly, the grocery store caught fire one night, and Zhao Decai's efforts for several years were in vain. At that time, Zhao Decai's cousin opened a restaurant in Shandong and wrote a letter asking Zhao Decai for help. Zhao Decai had no choice but to leave home to make a living in Shandong in order to support his family.
Zhao Decai's wife, Lin's, was a person who couldn't stand loneliness. It happened that a local gangster, Wang Cai, learned that Zhao Decai had left home far away, always came to Zhao's house to talk to Lin. 's. Lin was also when he was empty and lonely. When he saw someone talking, he was naturally happy.
On the other hand, Zhao Decai spent three years in Shandong. He worked hard and worked hard. During these three years, he saved one hundred taels of silver. Although he worked hard, he missed his wife Lin all the time. On this day, Zhao Decai took leave with his cousin and wanted to go back to his hometown in Shanxi. The cousin thought that Zhao Decai had not been home for three years to visit, so he happily approved. The next morning, Zhao Decai took one hundred taels of silver on the way home.
Wang Cai was originally a loafing gangster who usually did things like steal chickens and dogs. It was raining heavily that night, and there were no pedestrians on the street. All businesses were closed in advance.
Wang Cai swallowed a few times and saw that there was no one around, so he secretly broke into the raw medicine shop with a dagger. Qian Yuben saw someone come in and thought he was here to buy medicine. Just as he was about to greet him, he was stabbed in his chest by the other party, and Qian Yuben fell to the ground and fainted with a slight hum. Wang Cai thought that Qian Yuben was dead, so he snatched all the silver on the counter, which was more than a hundred taels. When Wang Cai left, he set fire to the house in order to destroy the corpse, but because of the rain, the fire did not spread, but the neighbors woke up. Everyone came to Qian Yuben's crude medicine shop and took a look. Qian Yuben was still alive, so they carried him to a safe place for treatment. When the neighbors saw that the silver box at the counter was empty and Qian Yuben was seriously injured, they knew that he had encountered a robber, so they led the people to look for him separately.
Zhao Decai was homesick and didn't care about the rain and insisted on rushing home, but the rain was too heavy, so he went to a broken temple to hide from the rain. He had something to start a fire on his body, but he was wet by the rain, so he felt dark and hid in the broken temple. After staying for a while, he heard hurried footsteps outside. Zhao Decai thought, don't be a robber so late, just hide behind the Buddha statue. Although the temple was extremely dark, Zhao Decai could clearly see the man's appearance through the light of lightning. He hid a package in the east corner of the broken temple, looked around and saw that no one had found it, and left the broken temple. Zhao Decai waited a long time before coming out from behind the Buddha statue. He came to the place where the man buried the package, took it out, and found that there were almost more than 100 taels of silver in it. Zhao Decai thought it must not be a good thing for the man to bury the silver in the rain late at night, so he transferred the silver behind the Buddha statue and hid it.
Without a word, Zhao Decai walked home at dawn the next day, and when he was about to arrive home and could even see smoke from his roof, Zhao Decai saw a man walk into his house. Zhao Decai took a closer look and found that it was the person in the broken temple last night. Zhao Decai also quietly entered his yard and eavesdropped on the movement of the house under the window. He only heard Lin shi in the room say, "You dead ghost, where did you go to have a good time last night?" The man said, "There is no such fun as you." But Lin shi still asked him where he went last night, and the man had to say that he went to a certain friend's house to gamble last night. Lin shi seemed to believe it, and then the two drank and teased in the room, like husband and wife.
Zhao Decai, who was outside the window, completely understood what was going on. He thought he had to make them pay the price, so he quietly left the house and went to the county magistrate to sue them for fornication. Unexpectedly, before he arrived at the yamen, he heard that Qian Yuben, the owner of the crude medicine shop, was robbed, and Zhao Decai thought it must be that person.
He went to the lobby to sue his wife for adultery, and reported what he had seen last night to the county magistrate. The yamen immediately brought someone to Zhao Decai's house and brought Lin's and Wang Cai, who were drinking, to the yamen. The two had nothing to say about the fornication, so they confessed, but Wang Cai firmly refused to admit that he had robbed Qian Yuben. So the county magistrate punished Wang Cai, but Wang Cai gritted his teeth and refused to admit it. He thought that fornication with Lin would at most be a fight, but robbing the crude medicine shop would cost him his head.
When the county magistrate was at a loss, someone from the hall carried Qian Yuben to the lobby to identify the murderer. Qian Yuben came to the lobby and identified the person who committed the crime that night as Wang Cai. Now Wang Cai had nothing to say and had to confess. In the end, Wang Cai was sentenced to beheading, and Lin was sentenced to parading through the streets and accepted as an official slave. With the help of Zhao Decai, Qian Yuben was robbed of more than 100 taels of silver and recovered. To thank Zhao Decai, he married his daughter to Zhao Decai and handed over his crude medicine shop to Zhao Decai to run, while he enjoyed the pleasure of his children and grandchildren.