When murder occurs and lives are lost, officials must come to examine the corpses, which are left uncovered. When people ask which clan produced those who died for adultery, their whole kin‑group is put to shame.
People ask: “Whose daughter is this, reared without proper teaching? Whose man behaves no better than brute beasts?”
“Without proper teaching” means lacking family moral instruction. “No better than brute beasts” means behaving like livestock, devoid of propriety and shame. When folk name the household from which these wrongdoers come, the entire family bears the disgrace.
Some exchange secret floral gifts of peonies and orchids to deepen their forbidden affection.
Lovers may secretly exchange floral tokens, deepening their secret bond, keeping all hidden from the world.
This may drive a wife to poison her lawful husband, for which she is condemned to capital punishment.
Eager to stay with her paramour, an unchaste wife may secretly buy poison to kill her husband. Once evidence emerges, authorities will punish her severely with the death penalty, to chastise such licentious wickedness.
Condemned to capital punishment, they see their souls scatter and perish.
A life must pay for a life, and lecherous crimes shall not be pardoned. When judges hear the case and pass a death sentence, once the verdict of capital punishment is pronounced, the condemned are utterly terrified, their souls torn asunder, with little hope of rebirth.
Fathers and sons wail in grief; mothers and daughters cling in agony. Crowds jeer and revile them, yet repentance comes far too late.