Cheng Renba was a man who lived during the Northern Song Dynasty (960 -- 1279 A.D.). He was once the military advisor of a royal court. The following is a story about his righteous deeds and his rewards.
One day, a person from Meizhou stole several turnips, accidentally hurting the owner of the turnips with his knife. A low-level local official wanted to show off his strict law enforcement and thought he should charge the thief with violent robbery. The official bribed the prison warden and incarcerated the thief as a violent robber.
When the county officials were reviewing the prisoners' cases, the thief wept so much in the hallway that his clothes were drenched. Cheng Renba happened to walk past him and thought the prisoner might have been wronged. He told him, "If you have been wronged, please tell me. I will certainly uphold justice for you." The thief told Cheng what happened. Cheng transferred the man to another prison and wanted to try him fairly. However, the local official and the prison warden transferred him back and sentenced him to death.
Cheng was outraged when he found out what happened. He quit his position and went back to his hometown. Within one month, both the local official and the prison warden died suddenly.
Thirty-some years later, Cheng saw the man who had been wrongly executed as a thief. He bowed and said, "The local official and the warden are still in the netherworld, awaiting you to testify so a judgement can be made. A while ago, the court of the netherworld wanted to temporarily summon you to testify, but I pleaded and said that you should not be bothered because of my incident. That's why the trial was postponed until now. Now that your scheduled days of living are over, I will lead you to the netherworld for the trial. After the trial, you will be reborn as a celestial being. Your children and grandchildren will enjoy longevity, good fortune, and high official positions."
Cheng told his family members what the man had said, bathed, changed his clothes, and passed away peacefully in his sleep.
Cheng's family indeed became famous and prestigious in the local area, as well as the most wealthy family in Meizhou. Cheng was the great-grandfather of Su Shi, a great scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty. When Su was a child, he heard these stories. As an adult, he wrote an article entitled "Great-Grandfather Cheng's Stories." In Su's generation, everyone in the family became officials, including three that became high-level government ministers. In the generation following Su, the children all had high scholarly accomplishments. The descendants of the low-level local official and prison warden who had wrongly condemned the man accused as a thief to death ended up in poverty.
Heavenly principles uphold the relationship between one's actions and their eventual consequences. Even wrongfully killing one thought to be a thief was heavily punished. In the persecution of Falun Gong in China, some people have acted very brutally. They have engaged in killing and organ harvesting for personal profit. What would such deeds eventually bring to these people and their families? One must remember that doing good brings rewards and good fortune, while doing wicked acts brings harm to oneself and one's offspring.
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