her desire to marry him. Wang could hardly believe in his own luck, and so with great haste he said good-bye to his bachelor life. On the wedding night , however, he got a great shock when he discovered that his bride was already three months pregnant. But he was a reasonable man, and instead of blaming her he did his best to console her, assuring her that nothing could alter his love for her.

    And he was as good as his words , so the newly-wed couple lived in harmony and bliss until half a year later when Yang gave birth to a lovely plump son. Wang cared for the mother and child as if he was the real father.
    Then on the day of the full month of the baby, Wang came home from school to find that his wife had prepared a small feast.Overjoyed and teuched by this show of affection,he nevertheless admonished her for overtiring herself while secretly congratulating himself for having found such a considerate and loving wife.

    Then, before he had finished eating and with the wine still warm in his heart , Yang suddenly said to him : "Happily we got together, now let us gladly part!" Wang could hardly believe his ears. "Please don't talk such nonsense!"
    "I'm not talking nonsense. We have to divorce. To be quite honest, I don't find it easy leaving you like this, and I feel very sad having cheated you. You are a very good man. But I was a happily married woman with a lovely daughter. Our only regret was having no son. What were we to do? I couldn't very well give a second birth, especially as I am a family planning officer.

So my husband and I worked out this plan ...We agreed to divorce temporarily after having made sure I was prcgnant again. I had secretly gone to see a doctor and he had given me hope that it was likely going to be a boy, and so we went ahead with our plan. After I put out fhe advertisement, I got many offers We picked on you for two reasons. First, you are a teacher and therefore are likely to be a reasonable man and would not make things difficult for me. Secondly, you are no longer so young and would not be too choosy and therefore would readily take me ... Now you know all. Say whatever you like. Curse me, call me names ... All I ask is that you forgive me and let me go back to my former husband."

    Wang was dumb-founded. In vain he tried to plead and remonstrate, and begged her to stay. But Yang was adamant. "I still love my former husband.
Our divorce was not for real in the first place. If you don't let me go. you can only keep my body, but you can't keep my heart. I had madeit clear in my advertisement that I had lost my heart to my first love!"

    In the end the good, honest Wang had to agree to divorce hcr and let her go. Left alone again, Wang thought not only of the injury done to himself,but the deceit and trickery on the part of the couple to dodge the law, and the woman was supposed to be some sort of officer of the law too. Could such a monstrous thing be allowed? Was the force of feudal ideas so much stronger than the force of law?
    We may well ask the same questions.

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