Once upon a time, there was a couple who had two daughters – Janghwa and Hongryeon
Unfortunately, the mother died and the father then remarried. Just like in a classic Cinderella story, the stepmother turns out to be an evil woman who was abusive towards her stepdaughters.
However, the two sisters never told their father about it. The stepmother and the father had three sons of their own.
Years passed and when Janghwa got engaged, the father asked his second wife to help with the wedding ceremony. Unwilling to spend a penny on Janghwa, she came up with an evil plan.
One night when Janghwa was sleeping, the stepmother had her eldest son put a dead skinned rat in Janghwa’s bed.
She brought the father to Janghwa’s room the next morning, telling him she had a bad dream about her elder stepdaughter.
When she pulled back the covers on Janghwa’s bed, the father saw the skinned rat, but was convinced by the evil stepmother that it was a bloody foetus. Immediately, the father believed his wife and that Janghwa had a child out-of-wedlock.
Feeling wronged, Janghwa ran out of her house to a pond in the nearby forest. The stepmother ordered her eldest son to follow Janghwa, who later pushed her into the pond.
She died by drowning, but the villagers believed she committed suicide out of shame.
Unable to bear the abuse by her stepmother, Hongryeon soon committed suicide in the same pond where Janghwa had drowned.
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