In our traditional culture, filial piety to parents has always been the best virtue of the Chinese nation, and it can even be said that it is the foundation of a person's life.
Qingzhou, Shandong, close to the hometown of Confucius and Meng, is of course also deeply influenced by Confucian etiquette, and there have been many legends of filial piety since ancient times. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, a small mountain village at the foot of Dongxiang Mountain in Qingzhou also produced a famous filial piety.
This filial piety is called Zhou Shunting, who has loved to read since childhood and has a good cultural attainment. Unfortunately, the Zhou family's family is not well-off, and the father died early, and Zhou Shunting was brought up by her mother, but after all, a woman's family is also more than enough and insufficient, unable to provide for her son to continue to study and take the meritorious name.
As the saying goes, the children of the poor have long been in charge, and after Zhou Shunting grew up slowly, she felt empathy for her mother's hard work and vowed in her heart that she must honor her mother well.
Because there is a lot of ink in the stomach, although there is no meritorious name, but it does not affect Zhou Shunting's reputation in the local area, the villagers have any places in the family that need to read and write, they will consciously or unconsciously ask him to help, perhaps there is no cash reward, but it is still okay to give some food.
But as long as there is good food, Zhou Shunting herself is reluctant to eat, and will definitely keep it home for her mother to eat, and after a long time, everyone knows that Zhou Shunting is a filial piety.
Seeing that Zhou Shunting had reached the age of marriage, but the family was destitute, there was no dowry at all, and her mother was also worried about it, but Zhou Shunting never complained, and she was devoted to her mother.
But the roof leaked overnight rain, this winter, the old mother who has always been healthy suddenly fell ill, this disease is very strange, there is no other problem with the body, that is, a large poisonous sore has grown on the thigh, and the pain makes the old man cry out in the sky and sweat.
Seeing her mother so painful, Zhou Shunting of course went everywhere to seek medical treatment, but unfortunately, I don't know how many doctors have been changed, how many unilateral prescriptions have been tried, and the poisonous sore on the old man's leg is not good.
In the blink of an eye, three months had passed, and the old mother was so tormented by this poisonous sore that she could only lie in bed and moan day and night. Zhou Shunting was anxious, but in addition to scrubbing her mother every day to change the soup and change the medicine, she was really helpless.
Just like this, Zhou Shunting herself was also tossed and haggard, and she was originally a handsome student, who was unkempt like a beggar every day. Fortunately, the villagers also knew the situation of the Zhou family, and everyone tried their best to give a little food to his mother and son, and they were barely hungry.
In the blink of an eye, spring has come, and Zhou Shunting's mother's poisonous sores have not healed.
One night, Zhou Shunting, who was exhausted, had a dream about her father, who had died many years ago, although his father's appearance in the dream was a little blurry, but the voice was still so familiar.
Father told Zhou Shunting that for so many years, your mother relied on your filial piety to survive, and now unfortunately has a poisonous sore, although you go everywhere to ask her for medicine, but the so-called medicine doctor does not die of disease, her poisonous sore is not a medicine can be cured. The only way is to apply it with "human anointing", except that this method is in vain.
Zhou Shunting hurriedly asked her father what a human ointment was. His father told him that human ointment is the oil of human flesh, which can be obtained like fried lard.
After saying this, Zhou Father disappeared as soon as he flashed away, and Zhou Shunting woke up in a hurry to see that the sky was still around midnight.
After getting up, Zhou Shunting first went to see the old mother, and the old man seemed to have fainted in pain and was still sleeping. Zhou Shunting looked in her eyes, the pain was in her heart, remembering what her father had said in her dream, as soon as she turned around, she went into the kitchen, picked up a knife and cut off a piece of meat from her ass.
Although the blood on her ass was flowing, Zhou Shunting only wrapped it up hastily, immediately made a fire, and fried the piece of meat she cut off, and finally there was about one or two fats.
After dawn, the old mother also woke up, still lying on the bed moaning and screaming in pain, Zhou Shunting hurriedly walked over to tell her mother, saying that she had asked for the elixir and carefully coated her mother's poisonous sores with "human ointment".
It is also strange to say that as soon as this thing is painted, the old man immediately feels a cool, and soon it will not hurt. In less than three days, the poisonous sores that had been tossed for nearly half a year were healed.
If the story ends like this, then the story of Zhou Shunting cutting flesh to treat her mother's illness may not be known by others. But it just so happened that not long after, Shandong Xuezheng visited Qingzhou privately, took a boat tour alone, and overturned the ship for no reason.
Just when Zhou Shunting passed by the river, she saw someone falling into the water, took off her clothes and jumped into the river, the water in the spring was still so cold, fortunately he could water, and soon saved the old man of xuezheng to the shore.
After going ashore, Zhou Shunting carried the xuezheng back home, the two changed clean clothes, in the process of changing clothes, the xuezheng saw the wound on Zhou Shunting's buttocks, repeated inquiries to learn the reason.
When Lord Xuezheng came to thank Zhou Shunting for saving his life, he was also touched by his filial piety of sacrificing his flesh to save his mother, and after returning to Jinan, he immediately recommended zhou Shunting to the imperial court and elected Zhou Shunting as filial piety.
After having a meritorious name, Zhou Shunting's situation soon changed, and she also had money to continue her studies, and in the next year's big exam, she entered the high school and finally became the imperial master.
This story is to tell people that filial piety to parents is the first major event in the world, people are watching the sky, and good intentions will have good rewards.