A Chinese Folktale...

There was once a beautiful maiden taking a bath in a pond surrounded by trees, naked. As she was enjoying the warm waters, she said, "If someone will see me right now, I promise, I will marry him." And in an instant from the nearby bushes out comes this young man who then replied, "Well, I saw you. You have to marry me." And they then got married and were in so much love.

The young man never wanted to leave his wife, so the wife told him, "I know it is hard for you to leave me, so I made a picture of myself that you can carry with you wherever you go. When you miss me, just look at the picture like I am there right beside you, and you will be fine." So that was how he was able to leave her beside.

One day as he was looking, the wind took the picture away from his hands and carried it to the emperor's palace, and into the emperor's lap. Upon seeing it, the emperor said, "Can this be true? Is there such beauty in this world?" He then sent his men to look for the girl.

When he found that she was indeed real, the emperor summoned his knights to take the girl to the palace to be his wife. When the knights reached the girl, she was with her husband, who fought them, to his death, from his wife being taken from him.

When the woman was brought to the palace, the emperor looked at her, and told her she will be his wife. But the woman said, "I will marry you, if you can do three things for me. First, you must give me an elegant dress full of pearls which I can wear. Second, you must build me a three-story house right beside that river. And third, on the top floor you must build a terrace where I can have a view of the water." And the emperor agreed with all his riches.

When all the three wishes were made, the woman then wore the magnificent dress and went up to the terrace on the top floor. Once there, she look at the emperor and cursed him, with all the misery and rage he has cast upon her soul, and jumped into the river to her death. And the emperor, to his madness, ordered his men to chop her body into tiny pieces and throw then back into the river. When this was done, and the pieces were thrown, they became tiny silver fishes that have come to swim the waters ever since...