It was said that, in the south of Sijiucheng, there was a family, whose husband in the past had packed tobacco for an official; afterwards, the official had plaited his hair, and no longer had the mind to smoke, and so the man had set up a tobacco stand, right at the mouth of the Nansanshi Alley, and others called him Tobacco Stand Wu. Tobacco stand Wu's wife was a fool; once, she'd looked after the stand for him, and although she'd sat at Zhu Rougui's stand, when people asked how much two liang of pork cost, [1] she would say, "What sort of tobacco do you want?". This comedic happening travelled about the whole neighbourhood, half because their lives didn't have any prospects, and partially because Tobacco Stand Wu's fool wife looked lovely. How foolish was she? The uneducated, coarse-skinned residents of the marketplace couldn't describe it, but when they passed by her, they would whistle. When I met her, she was already no longer that pretty; a...