During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Shen Yuniang, a weaver girl from Wujiang County, Suzhou, met a poor scholar, Lu Wenzhao, at a temple fair. They made a secret promise for life with a pair of embroidered shoes, with the word "Zhaoxin" embroidered inside the shoes. Shen Gui, the uncle of Yuniang's clan, covets the family property and colludes with the wealthy gentry Qian Lu and the county magistrate Wang Dechang to tamper with letters and falsely accuse Yuniang of having an affair and throw her into prison. Yu Niang preferred to die and was secretly sold to a Yangzhou brothel. She disfigured herself and refused to accept customers. She survived by relying on her superb Su embroidery skills. Ten years later, she opened "Jinxiu Fang" to hide her name.
Lu Wenzhao returned after failing the imperial examination. Hearing the news of Yu Niang's "death", he dug up her grave and found nothing, and embarked on a ten-year journey to find his wife. After receiving enlightenment from eminent monks, he studied hard and passed the examination, becoming the county magistrate of Zhejiang Province. I heard that there was a "Shen Xiu Niang" in Yangzhou who covered her face with a curtain hat. When I found her in the embroidery workshop, I saw her embroidered "Hanshan Temple Night Mooring" and the embroidered poem "A farewell and a long time", and finally recognized her with her embroidered shoes. Wen Zhao connected the old evidence and joined the Yangzhou magistrate's public trial, and ordered Shen Gui, Qian Lu, and Wang Dechang to commit crimes. In the end, the injustice was cleared up, Yu Niang's father and daughter were reunited, they got married, and opened the "Zhaoxin Embroidery Workshop", where the embroidered shoes were offered in the hall, testifying that good and evil are rewarded, and all hardships are rewarded. A pair of embroidered shoes, after ten years of separation, the infatuation remains unchanged, and finally comes to perfection.
