Chinese folk tale: The little widow buys meat, the butcher collects debts

In a small town, there was a young widow named Liu who had been a widow for over a year. As her three-year mourning period had not yet ended, she had not remarried.

One day, the widow came to buy meat from the butcher. After the butcher weighed the meat, the widow, with a blush on her face, said, "I'm sorry, I forgot to bring money. Can I pay you next time?" The butcher agreed and allowed her to pay the next time she came.

However, the widow forgot to bring money every time she bought meat. The butcher, being a man, didn't want to cause a scene and let her owe the money.

One day, the butcher finished his stall early and decided to go to the widow's house to collect the debt. The widow lived on the outskirts of the town, in a solitary house, backed by a small mountain and facing a river, with a quiet environment.

The butcher knocked on the gate, and after a while, the widow opened the door, seeing the butcher, her face showed a look of surprise, saying, "I knew you would come, I've been waiting for you."

The butcher was pleased, thinking that the widow had feelings for him, intentionally not paying so he could come to her house. They sat down in the hall, and suddenly the widow knelt in front of the butcher, sobbing and saying, "Brother, you must save me. I've been waiting for you to come and save me. It's not easy to talk about this with people coming and going, so I intentionally owed you money to get you to come here."

The butcher was shocked and quickly pulled up the widow, asking what difficult thing she had encountered and why she was asking him for help. The widow wiped away her tears and began to tell her story.

It turned out that some time ago, in the middle of the night, the widow suddenly found an extra man in her house, which scared her. The man softly said, "I surname Zhu, I admire your beauty, please forgive my intrusion." The widow wanted to drive the man away but found that she couldn't move. The man used force and possessed her.

The widow found that Mr. Zhu was younger than her and very handsome, so she had to accept him and planned to have a long-term relationship with him. Every night, she left her bedroom door ajar, waiting for Mr. Zhu to arrive.

At this point in the story, the widow sighed and said, "But one night, he got drunk, and I discovered that he was not human." That night, the widow prepared a table of wine and dishes and drank with Mr. Zhu. Mr. Zhu was greedy for drink and drank two jars of wine, getting drunk and falling down to sleep soundly.

In the middle of the night, the widow woke up and was shocked to discover that Mr. Zhu had turned into a fat wild boar, which made pig noises. The widow tearfully said, "I can't live with a monster, so I want to get rid of him. After thinking about it, only you can help. Because you're a butcher, you're the nemesis of pigs, and you can naturally get rid of the pig demon."

The butcher nodded and asked what he should do. The widow whispered, "You come again tonight, bring iron hooks, and do as I say. Things will surely succeed." The butcher agreed and left.

That night, when Mr. Zhu arrived, the widow brought out good wine and dishes and drank with him happily. As expected, Mr. Zhu got drunk and fell asleep on the bed. Quietly, the widow left the room and opened the gate. The butcher had been waiting at the door. The butcher walked into the bedroom and found a big wild boar lying there. He pierced the iron hook through the roof beam and suddenly stabbed it into the throat of the wild boar while pulling down the rope vigorously.

The wild boar let out a scream, and the widow also came to help pull the rope. The wild boar was hooked by its throat and hung up. After struggling for about a cup of tea time, the wild boar breathed its last breath.

The widow settled her debt and gave the butcher twenty strings of coins to show her gratitude. The butcher smiled and said, "This wild boar also belongs to me. It's a great tonic. I'll enjoy it slowly to strengthen my body." The widow readily agreed.

Without the harassment of the wild boar, the widow lived in peace but suddenly became listless and pale. When the butcher learned about it, he said, "You have toxins from the pig demon in your body that need to be detoxified