Fifteen Strings of Coins
(Shíwǔ Guàn 十五贯)

In a certain village in Wúxī County 无锡县 (Jiāngsū 江苏 province) there once lived a butcher named YÓU Húlú 尤葫芦, who was fond of practical jokes. One day he borrowed a string of 15 coins from another man, and brought them home with him in the evening. He had an adopted daughter-in-law named SŪ Shùjuān 苏戍娟, who asked him where they had come from.

In jest, he told her he had sold her. She was horrified, but he was enjoying the joke, and placed the money under his pillow and went to sleep without telling her the truth. As soon as he was asleep, Sū decided to flee and take refuge with her mother’s sister. She was so distracted when she left, that she failed to lock the door.

A notorious idler, drinker, and gambler named LÓU Āshǔ 娄阿鼠 (“Lóu the Rat”) happened by later that night, and, feeling hungry and noticing the door unsecured, came in to look for something to eat. He spotted the money and took it, but this awoke Butcher Yóu. In the scuffle that ensued, Lóu grabbed a cleaver from the table and hacked Yóu to death. Then he fled.

The next morning neighbors saw Yóu’s body on the floor and noticed that his daughter Sū was missing, with the money, and everyone immediately assumed that Sū had killed Yóu and run off with a lover.

Meanwhile Sū had got lost as she stumbled through the darkness along the road to her aunt’s house. Fortunately, she had happened into an honorable young man named XIÓNG Yǒulán 熊友兰, who accompanied her on her way. Suddenly they were set upon by You’s neighbors, who seized them and ripped open Xióng’s traveling bag, where, as it happened, he was carrying a string of 15 coins. The county magistrate, GUÒ Yúzhí 过于执 condemned them to be beheaded for murder.

But a yamen detective named KUÀNG Zhōng 况钟 was suspicious, got a stay of execution for half a month, and returned to the scene of the crime to investigate further. When Lóu the gambler heard this, he fled further into the countryside, just in case.

Detective Kuàng discovered several bits of counter-evidence.

• First, he found pieces of the string of coins, whereas the string found in Xióng’s baggage had been intact.
• Second, he learned that Sū had a reputation for being quite staid and hence unlikely to have a secret lover, and there was no evidence of her having known Xióng.
• Third, he found a gambling receipt, but as far as anybody knew, Butcher Yóu had never been a gambler. The most notorious gambler in the region was Lóu.

So Detective Kuàng set off to find Lóu, disguising himself as a traveling glyphomancer. (Glyphomancy is the art of telling fortunes based on the strokes and characters in people’s names.)

He found Lóu in a temple, trying to foresee his future using temple tallies. Detective Kuàng offered to tell Lóu’s fortune glyphomantically . He did this using the word shǔ 鼠, the last syllable of Lóu’s name, Lóu Āshǔ 娄阿鼠. Shǔ means rat, and what rats like is to steal oil, Kuàng told him. Oil is pronounced yóu 油, which sounds exactly like the name Yóu 尤, the name of the dead man, making Lóu a possible suspect, likely to have trouble with the authorities. Lóu became quite frightened, and asked Kuàng for advice. Kuàng told him where to flee, and Lóu did so. Then Kuàng, shedding his glyphomancer’s guise, sent officers to arrest Lóu.

And thus the innocent Sū Shùjuān and the noble Xióng Yǒulán were cleared, and the death of the trickster Yóu Húlú was avenged, although he remained dead.