The Divination Stall Wager, the Dragon King's Defiance of the Decree

Chen Zhang Shi wanted to escape the tiger's claws. She tried to flee several times, only to be captured each time by the bandit chief impersonating Chen Zhichong.

In the end, she was confined to her bed and placed under guard.

Until the ninth month of her pregnancy, when a pain struck her belly and the child was born.

The child was plump and round-faced, with the bearing of nobility. The bandit chief was overjoyed, treating him as if he were his own son.

Afterward, he lifted Chen Zhang Shi's confinement and withdrew the guards.

Several months later, while the bandit chief was away on business, Chen Zhang Shi took a wooden basin, held her child in her arms, and secretly fled the residence to the riverbank.

She sobbed softly, her face full of reluctance and helplessness as she placed the child in the basin. Then she bit her finger and wrote the character Chen on an embroidered handkerchief with her blood before pushing the wooden basin into the river.

Tears blurred her eyes as she watched the basin drift away. After a while, the bandit chief hurried over, but the basin had already vanished without a trace.

The enraged bandit chief dragged Chen Zhang Shi back to the residence, confined her again, and ordered people to watch her.

That night, drunk out of his mind, he burst into her bedchamber and committed the vile act he had long anticipated.

Afterward, Chen Zhang Shi's face was ashen. She immediately tried to hang herself, but the bandit chief watched her too closely and gave her no chance.

Elsewhere, the wooden basin carrying the child drifted downstream until it reached a temple.

A monk fetching water discovered the basin and immediately returned to the temple to inform the abbot.

The abbot hurried