It is told that there was a commoner named Luo Jinxian. On the twelfth day of the second month, in a downpour, he set out with an umbrella to visit a friend. When he reached the pavilion in Back Lane, a young man asked to share his umbrella. Jinxian refused: "In rain like this you don't bring your own umbrella — how can one umbrella cover two people?" The young man was Qiu Yisuo, a rogue from inside the city, smooth-tongued and a master swindler. He spun a story: "I have an umbrella too, but a friend just borrowed it and told me to wait here a bit. I'm in a great hurry to get home, so I'm asking you to shelter me — brother, why are you so ungenerous?" Hearing this, Luo let him share the umbrella. When they reached the fork at the end of South Street, Qiu Yisuo snatched the umbrella and said, "You go that way!" Luo Jinxian said, "Give me back my umbrella." Qiu Yisuo laughed: "I'll give it back tomorrow. Good day." Jinxian ran after him, cursing: "You rogue! I never wanted to share with you in the first place, and now you claim my umbrella as yours — what kind of reasoning is that?" Unable to contain himself, Luo Jinxian grappled with him all the way to Lord Bao's yamen. Lord Bao asked, "Do your umbrellas have any mark on them?"
Both said, "An umbrella is a small thing — who would mark it?" Lord Bao asked again, "Any witnesses?"
Luo Jinxian said, "He joined me under my umbrella in Back Lane; there were no witnesses." Qiu Yisuo said, "When he joined me under my umbrella, two people saw it — I just don't know their names." Lord Bao asked again, "What is the umbrella worth?"
Luo Jinxian said, "New, it's worth five fen of silver." Lord Bao said angrily, "A five-fen trifle, and you come bothering the court with it!" He ordered his attendants to tear the umbrella apart, gave each man half, and had them both thrown out. Then he secretly told the gatekeeper, "Go and see what those two say, and report it truthfully." The gatekeeper came back and reported: "One cursed Your Honor as a muddle-headed fool; the other said, 'You had no right to fight me for my umbrella — now you're the one fuming.'" So Lord Bao ordered the bailiffs to bring both back and asked, "Who cursed me?" The gatekeeper pointed at Luo Jinxian: "This man did." Lord Bao said, "Cursing the official in charge of your own district — what punishment does that deserve?" He ordered twenty strokes. Luo Jinxian said, "I never cursed — I'm truly wronged!" Qiu Yisuo insisted, "He plainly cursed, and now he's here he denies it. So it's clear he was grabbing my umbrella for nothing, too."
Lord Bao said, "If you hadn't brought up the umbrella quarrel, I'd nearly have flogged this man by mistake. It's plain Qiu Yisuo grabbed his umbrella for nothing; I judged unclearly and had the umbrella torn up besides, so he felt wronged and cursed me in anger." Qiu Yisuo said, "He's greedy beyond measure — seeing the umbrella wasn't awarded to him, he cursed the official on a whim. How is the umbrella his?"
Lord Bao said, "You rogue, how dare you lie against your own conscience? Even now you insist he cursed an official, trying to land another man in trouble. That is exactly why I tore the umbrella on purpose — to test which of you was telling the truth. Otherwise, who has time to haul in witnesses for so petty a case?" He had Yisuo given ten strokes and made him pay one qian of silver to compensate Jinxian. As it happened, the two people who had earlier seen Qiu Yisuo con his way under the umbrella in Back Lane were there, and one of them, a grain-tax householder named Sun Fu, seeing Lord Bao uncover the truth, clapped his hands without thinking and said, "Truly a living City God — he needs no witnesses!" Lord Bao had him brought forward and asked what he meant. Sun Fu then told how Qiu Yisuo had come to share the umbrella. "And then Your Honor judged it so clearly that I couldn't help but marvel." Lord Bao knew all the more that his judgment had been just.
