Marriage Is Predetermined – Husband and Wife Should Treat Each Other with Respect (Part 2)
 
The next day, Wei's servant put the knife in his sleeve and went to the market to assassinate the girl. The market crowd fell into chaos. Wei and his servant got away during the mayhem. He anxiously asked his servant whether he had stabbed the girl. His servant told him, “I aimed at her heart but I missed and stabbed her between her eyebrows.” After that, Wei proposed many times to many women, but had no luck.
 
Fourteen years later, Wei was working as a judiciary official under Wang Tai, the provincial governor of Xiangzhou, who was an old friend of Wei’s late father. Wei was in charge of collecting evidence and making interrogations. Wang admired Wei's superior ability and decided to marry his 17-year-old daughter to Wei.
 
Wang's daughter was virtuous and intelligent. She was gorgeous but always pasted a flower between her eyebrows. She would not take it off even when she took a bath or was alone. A year after they were married, Wei suddenly remembered the assassination attempt in the market years before and asked his wife about the flower. His wife cried and told him, “I was adopted by Wang Tai. My birth father was once the magistrate in Songcheng City. When he passed away, I was still a baby. My mother and my older brother died after that, leaving a farmstead south of Songcheng. I lived with my nanny, Chen. Because we lived close to a market, Chen made a living selling vegetables. When I was three years old, a gangster stabbed me while Chen was holding me in the market, leaving a scar between my eyebrows and hence I cover it with a flower. About seven years ago, when my stepfather was an official in Lulong, he adopted me as his daughter.”
 
Wei asked his wife whether Chen had a blind eye. His wife confirmed it and asked how he knew about it. Wei told her that he was the person who had ordered the assassination and told her everything that happened back then. After they learned what had happened, they respected each other even more. They had a son and named him Kun. When Kun grew up, he became the prefecture chief in Yanmen. Wei's wife was honored as Lady of Taiyuan Prefecture. After the magistrate of Songcheng learned their story, he named the inn Wei stayed in 14 years before the Engagement Inn.
 
The story tells us that marriage is predestined. It has been decided based on one's virtue and karma and cannot be changed. Wei refused to acknowledge his destiny. He would never have known that his wife would change from an ugly girl carried by a blind woman into a beautiful, virtuous woman. His pursuit of a wife with equal standing and good looks changed nothing except to leave a scar on his wife's beautiful face. Wei’s assassination attempt was a terrible deed that he had to repay his wife, but perhaps this was a conclusion of other factors.
 
In a morally degenerate society, the relationships between men and women are chaotic. It is not unusual to see husbands and wives commit adultery, abandon and fight with each other, and end their marriages in divorce. Perhaps Li Fuyan from the Tang Dynasty was trying to tell today's people something in his story of the Engagement Inn.
 
This story is based on Li Fuyan's book Xu Xuan Guai Lu (Records of the Mysterious and Bewildering).
 
婚姻前定　夫妻相敬 (下)
 
第二天，奴仆袖揣小刀随他进入菜市，在众人群中行刺。市场一时陷入混乱，韦固和他的仆人在混乱中走脱。离开市场后，韦固急切地问道：“刺中了吗？”他的仆人回答说：“初期我对著她的心脏刺去，不幸只刺在了她的双眉之间。”其后，韦固多次求婚，都没有如愿。
 
又过了十四年，韦固借助父亲的荫庇在相州军任职，相州刺史王泰让他做专门鞠审诉讼的司户橼。由于欣赏他的才能，刺史把十七岁的女儿嫁给了韦固。
 
刺史之女贤惠静淑，容色华丽。然而她的眉间常贴一花，即使在沐浴闲处之时，也不会除去。过了一年多的时间，韦固感到十分惊讶，猛然想起菜市行刺之事，就开始逼问事情的缘由。他的妻子潸然泪下，说：“我其实只是刺史的养女。我的父亲曾经是宋城的县令，他去世时，我尚在襁褓之中。继而母亲兄长相继去世，只有一个庄园在宋城的南边，我和保姆陈氏居住。由于离市场很近，所以卖菜为生。三岁时，保姆抱我穿行市中，被强徒所刺，现今刀痕尚在，所以以花覆之。七八年前，养父在卢龙任节度使，收我养女，后嫁君为妻。”
 
韦固问道：“陈氏一眼失明吗？”其妻对答：“是，你怎么知道？”韦固说：“刺你的人就是我呀。”随后说出整个事的来龙去脉，夫妻二人益发彼此尊重。后来其妻生子名鲲，官至雁门太守，韦固的妻子也被封为太原郡夫人。宋城令得知此事后，就把这家客店命名为“订婚店”。
 
这个故事告诉我们，婚姻因缘之事、业果阴骘之定，终不可违。韦固不承认因果之事，也无法知道被指定的妻子会由老妇怀中的很丑的女婴，出落的容色绝丽、贤惠静淑，为追求门当户对和外在的容色，雇人行刺，除了造成其容色绝丽妻子被毁容外，并未改变与她结为夫妻的事实。当然，韦固行刺是做恶事，需要对妻子偿还；也许这其中有其它的渊怨，可能因此而了结。
 
想今日之社会世风日下，两性关系混乱：相互见弃、你争我斗、离婚已为平常。更有甚者，夫寻花问柳，妻红杏出墙。这也许就是唐代李复言在《续玄怪录》中“订婚店”这个故事留给我们今人的现实意义吧。
 
（文据李复言《续玄怪录》）