TÁN Jì’ér 谭记儿 = a stunning young widow
YÁNG Yánèi 杨衙内 = a repellant hoodlum with a powerful father
BÁI Shìzhōng 白士中 = a handsome scholar
His Aunt = a Daoist nun, inclined to be meddlesome
Once upon a time there dwelt an intelligent and spectacularly beautiful widow, whose husband had been dead for three years and who had no children. Her name was TÁN Jì’ér 谭记儿, and she lived alone in the city, where she came to the attention of a repellant young hoodlum named YÁNG Yánèi 杨衙内, whose father was an important official, and who wanted to marry her.
To avoid his attentions, she moved the Translucent Peace Hermitage (Qīng’ān Guàn 清安观) located along a river bank, where she helped the nuns copy scriptures.
One day a handsome young student named BÁI Shìzhōng 白士中, passed by. He had newly passed his civil service examination and was on his way to become the prefect of Tánzhōu 潭州 in Guǎngdōng 广东 province. He stopped at the hermitage to visit his aunt, who was a Daoist nun in the place.
Bái’s wife had died two years before, and his aunt decided to play matchmaker. She asked Bái to wait in an adjacent room and listen as she went to talk to Tán. If Tán was interested, Auntie would cough, and Bái should come in.
Bái’s aunt asked Tán about her future plans, and whether she would like to marry again, and proposed to introduce her to a young official. Tán feared she would introduce the horrible Yáng, so she said “no” so emphatically that Auntie had an involuntary coughing fit, which of course brought Bái running in, eager to see his potential bride. It was an embarrassing moment for all, from which Auntie escaped on the pretext of needing to check something in the kitchen.
The two young people, alone together, instantly fell in love, but were interrupted by the arrival at the gate of the repellant hoodlum Yáng, who had somehow discovered that Tán had moved to the hermitage, and had come with armed men to abduct her. Bái and Tán escaped secretly out a back way and got a river passage to Tánzhōu as Yáng’s men broke in and searched the hermitage.
Yáng was furious at losing his prize to the new prefect of Tánzhōu, so he visited his father, himself a magistrate, and stole a ceremonial sword (bǎojiàn 宝剑) used to deliver official documents, and forged an imperial decree (shèngzhǐ 圣旨) accusing Bái of corruption. News of this reached Bái and Tán.
It was the fifteenth day of the eighth month, when everyone celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival. Yáng stopped to relax at the River View Pavilion (Wàngjiāng Tíng 望江亭), an inn along the river at Tánzhōu, on his way to make his arrest, and there he had more than a few cups of wine. The wily Tán disguised herself as a flirtatious fishmonger and appeared selling fish outside the inn. Even in disguise she was, of course, still spectacularly beautiful, and so she easily attracted his drunken attention. He required her to come and entertain him, and she managed to get him so utterly drunk that he passed out. Then she stole the ceremonial sword and the false imperial decree.
The next day Hoodlum Yáng, rather hung over, hurried to arrest Bái, never noticing that he did not have the sword and the document necessary for his "official" mission. He arrived at the yamen of Tánzhōu full of bluster, but when he was not able to produce the decree and the sword, he was arrested, and even convicted of concocting a fake decree.
Bái and Tán lived happily ever after.