Yang Ming went to town to buy some items and led a dairy cow back to the village. As soon as he entered, many people surrounded him, all curious about why the Scholar had bought a cow.
"Scholar Yang, did you buy this dairy cow?"
"Yes."
"What did you buy it for?"
Thinking he couldn't hide the matter of adopting a child any longer, Yang Ming decided to just tell them outright to avoid misunderstandings, "My wife and I have adopted a child from a relative's family, and we bought this cow to feed the child."
After he finished speaking, Yang Ming led the cow home, but rather than preventing gossip as he had hoped, his explanation only stirred more up.
"Why would Scholar Yang adopt a child out of the blue?"
"Hmph, it sounds nice, but it's probably his own child from outside."
"That can't be, the Scholar seems like a very honest man."
"No way, the Scholar's wife is formidable. If he had a child outside, would the Scholar's wife agree to adopt it?"
