(10-96) A few weeks ago I heard a news about two young cadets, one male one female, being charged for murdering a young girl. The motive, as speculated, was jealousy. The male cadet had a one night stand with the young girl. The female cadet was the steady girl friend who somehow persuaded the boy to kill the young girl together. They each fired a shot into the girl's head. After the event, according to the report, they looked at each other and said: "I love you."

There's something deeply disturbing about this murder. What troubled me the most was how can the boy kill the girl. He had a one night stand with her. Doesn't he feel something for her? Chinese have an old saying: "One night conjugal love is worth a hundred days of grace." What happened to the twisted nature of our young boy cadet?

I don't want to be preachy to analyze the boy's psychology. I just want to tell a story about jealousy. It has a happy ending which is rare whenever jealousy is involved in a relationship.

Emperor Tang Tai-Zong rewarded his high official named Ren Huai with two beautiful young women. Huai's wife Liu was extremely jealous. She used hot water to wash the women's hair, trying to make them bald. When the emperor heard of this he sent a bottle of poison wine with an order: "Your jealousy must stop. If not, you would have to drink this poison and die." Liu accepted the order and said: "Huai and I have been married since we were poor and humble. We helped each other to this date with great success. Now Huai has forgotten the humbleness of the past, and wanted to enjoy his success with young women. It would be better for me to drink this poison and die." She then opened the bottle and drank the whole thing. She passed out and slept for a long time. The wine was not poisonous. The emperor only wanted to scare her. When emperor heard about Liu drinking all the poison, he said to Huai: "When a person is not afraid of death, we cannot scare her with death. With a wife like yours, there's nothing I can do either." The emperor then gave an order to remove the women away from Huai's residence.