[The story is taken from Goenggeq gangj gojgaeq Bwz Licuh, At Grand-father’s Knee - Zhuang Folk Tales from Wuming - 主編白丽珠 ; 副主編李作应. The storyteller is Vei Saengvi from the town of Fucheng in Wuming County, Guangxi]

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Long ago there was a family that had three sons. One night after eating dinner they sat around talking. The eldest asked his brothers what they liked to do best. First he asked the youngest one, who answered, "I like to go fishing. That's what I like to do best." Then he asked the other brother, and he answered, "As for me, I love young women." Then the youngest asked the oldest what he liked to do. He said, "Oh, I love to drink sweet wine." Each of the sons liked different things. But the youngest brother liked to fish. His name was Ma Dai.

Every day Ma Dai took his rod and went out fishing, and every day he always hooked a clam. "Hey, why is it every time I come fishing all I hook is this clam!" Each time he pulled up that clam he unhooked it and threw it back into the river. One day he would fish in one area and the next day in a differeni spot, but each and every time he would hook that clam. Finally one time when he fished it up from the river he said, "Well now, since you like to eat my bait so much, I will just take you home and put you in a basin and keep you there."

Well, that clam was no ordinary clam; it turned into a woman! After Ma Dai left in the morning, she got up out of the basin and cooked rice and fixed food for him to eat when he came home. After fixing the food, she turned back into a clam and went into the basin again to hide.

When Ma Dai came home from working, he saw all the rice and all the dishes laid out and ready to eat on the table. At first he thought that his sisters-in-law had made the food for him, so he called them to come over to his place to eat the food with him. One of them said, "Wow! Where did you get such good rice and such good dishes from?"

"What?! Don't you know? Aren't you the ones who cooked this food?"

"No, we didn't make it!"

The sisters-in-law thought it was very strange. Ma Dai thought it was strange too, but he couldn't figure out who was cooking the food. At every meal food was always prepared for him. One day he did not go out to work. Instead he climbed up into the loft over the kitchen and hid there, peeking out to see who would come to make the meal. In a little while he saw the clam in the basin change into a woman; he saw her get up and start cooking the food. Then he gathered himself together, leaped down from the loft and grabbed hold of the woman.

When he grabbed hold of her, she talked for the first time. She said, "Oh! Don't hold me so tight! I don't have any bones and tendons yet. Take some chopsticks and a wooden rice ladle and boil them, and give me the broth to drink. When I drink it, I will become real through and through."

So Ma Dai boiled up some chopsticks and a ladle and gave her the broth to drink, and then she became a beautiful woman. After she turned into a real person, she and Ma Dai became husband and wife and started their lives together as married couple.

At that time the emperor heard about how beautiful this woman was. He decided he wanted to have her as his own wife. However, he had no excuse for stealing her away from Ma Dai and forcing her to go with him. So he called several of his personal advisors together to come up with a scheme.

One time when Ma Dai was plowing his field along the markei roed, the emperor came by. The emperor said that he would ask nima question, and if he could not answer it, then he would have to give his wife up to the emperor. Then the emperor asked him this question: "This morning, how many clumps of soil have you plowed up; how many clumps of soil has your plow turned over?"

Well. Ma Dai didn't have an answer. He had been plowing all mornring. Who would even think of keeping count of how many clods of dirt they turn over as they are plowing? So he took the question back to his wife. He went back home and told her about it. Then he said, "If I cannot come up with an answer for him, he's going to take you away. He won't let you stay here and be my wife any longer. What are we going to do?

His wife said, "Tomorrow go back to the same place and plow there again. If he asks you how many clumps of soil you turned up, then you can ask him a question too. Say: 'This morning you rode over here on your horse. How many strides did the horse take? Answer my question, and then I'll answer yours. That way it will be fair. He'll never be able to come up with an answer to that."

So the next morning he went to that same field along the road to plow, and the emperor did come along. The emperor said, "How about the question I asked you yesterday morning? Do you have an answer for me yet?"

"Yes, I do, but 1 will ask you a question first. This morning when you rode over here, how many steps did your horse take? If you can answer me, then I will answer you." Who could remember that? The emperor was left speechless. He lost that round, and could not take the woman away.

The emperor rubbed his chin in contemplation and then he challenged Ma Dai to a second trial. He said, "Weave a basket out of ashes for me to feed my horse with. You must make it out of ashes!"

When Ma Dai went back home, even before he started eating lunch he swept the ashes out from the stove, added water to them and stirred them up. Then he worked and worked at molding the mixture, but the more he worked it, the more it disintegrated, like a rope of sand. How would he ever be able to make a basket for feeding a horse?

He worked at it so long that his wife finally saw him there. "What's this? You are back from plowing but you haven't eaten lunch yet? What are you doing out here pinching and squeezing the ashes?"

"It's no good," he said. "The first time you told me what to do, and the trial turned out okay. But now he has set me another puzzle. He commanded me to make a basket out of ashes!"

"Oh, that's easy, that's easy. Go ahead and eat. Go wash up and eat lunch. After we eat I will make a basket for you.

After the meal she took some rice straw pith and formed into a long rope, and then she wove that rope into a basket. Next she placed the basket on a board, and set it on fire. After it burned, its ashes still stood upright on the board, keeping their original shape.

The next morning she gave it to Ma Dai to take out to the emperor. He gave it to the emperor saying, "Here it is. I have brought you the basket for your horse."

As soon as the emperor saw it he said, "What in the world! That rascal really did make a basket out of ashes!"

Once again he had failed to win the woman by his tricks. Twice now he had lost, and if he were to set another puzzle for Ma Dai he still wouldn't be able to stump him, so he gave up trying to win her that way. Instead, he decided to use force, and he issued orders for his men to kidnap her.

Just before the emperor's men came to take her, though, she gave some specific instructions to her husband. She said, "Plow this whole field and then plant it all in ginger. When the ginger plants have grown, the birds will come to peck at them and eat them. They will swarm around the ginger.When that happens, and you go out each morning to check on the field, just drive the birds away. As they fly up, each of the birds will drop a feather. Gather the feathers up and weave and tie them together to make a robe. Then when the ginger is ready, put or. the feather robe, take the ginger and go to the capital city where the emperor lives to sell it."

From the time that the emperor stole her away, the young wife missed her husband terribly. She was extremely unhappy and depressed, pining away for Ma Dai, and she wore a sad face all the day long. There was nothing the emperor could do to cheer her up; he was at his wits' end.

Finally the time had come. Ma Dai put on the feather robe, took up his load of ginger, and went to town. He walked along the road calling out his wares, "Ginger for sale!"

"How much for a pound?... Pshaw! Your ginger is so expensive, who would want it? You'd have to go to the capital in order to sell it at that price!"

He walked on to the capital, calling out his wares all the while. When he got to the capital, people came out to stare at the sight of a man wearing a feather robe and selling ginger.

When his wife heard of his arrival, she said to the emperor, "A really strange fellow has come into the city. How about calling him into the palace to liven things up by seeing what a sight he is?"

This idea pleased the emperor, and so Ma Dai was brought in. When his wife saw him, she broke out laughing. She laughed and laughed so that the emperor was quite put out. "I traveled a thousand miles to find you and bring you back, and I have given a thousand pieces of gold to you, but after all this, in all the time you have been here you were never happy. Then today this ginger hawker shows up, this poor, pitiful peasant, and suddenly you start laughing." She said, "If you were to wear that robe of feathers, I would laugh in just the same way."

The emperor really wanted to be the one to make her happy, so he told Ma Dai to take off the feather robe while he started taking off his royal robe. Ma Dai switched clothes with the emperor.

You will never guess what happened next - after the emperor put on the feather robe, he could not take it off again!

The woman called for the dogs to be let loose, and she started hitting the emperor, who had now turned completely into a bird! The dogs attacked him and bit him to death. Now the emperor was dead. Since Ma Dai was left wearing the royal robe, he became the new emperor.