The antagonist of the story, a shameless female educated youth from Jiangnan's water towns described as a beautiful 'mermaid' who swims far better than ordinary people. She carefully staged a drowning incident to force Shen Jiandang to save her, then pretended to be unconscious until they reached shore, where she threw her arms around him and began shouting. A male educated youth acted as a witness to trap him. She spread rumors throughout the village, threatened suicide, and later conspired with the male educated youth to ruin Zhao Xiaomei's reputation. In her previous life, she was sentenced to fifty years of hard labor in the far northwest for being especially vicious.
