My mother had been a pawned wife, passed through many households and made to bear many sons.
When age took her beauty and she could no longer have children, she opened a wife-pawning house of her own and began selling other men’s wives.
One spring day, a carriage stopped outside our shop.
A handsome young scholar stood there with tears reddening his eyes.
“Mother,” he said, “I’ve come to take you home and give you a life of comfort.”
The newly appointed imperial scholar claimed he was one of the sons she had borne, and he had returned to repay the gift of life.