Chang Bao was a man of Pingyang in Jinzhou. His father, a village headman, died early, and his mother took him and remarried a wealthy man named Kang Dexiu. Bao grew up dissolute and good-for-nothing. Dexiu gave him three thousand strings of cash to set up a shop, and so he made a living of his own. But Bao showed his stepfather barely a thought of gratitude.
After several years Dexiu died, and Bao treated him as a stranger, stealing away all his wealth. Bao was just thirty, strong and hale, with no illness, when suddenly he gave a lowing cry like an ox and died.
That very evening, the Kang family’s ox gave birth to a calf — one of its hooves grew out from its back, and on its flank were two characters in vermilion, plainly his name. Dexiu’s two sons, being educated and knowing righteousness, could not bear to expose the disgrace, and hid the calf behind the house.
But the ox bellowed, plunged and butted the fence, broke free, and ran into the town market; spectators thus all learned of it. The Kang family sent several strong servants to corral it, but they could not; the calf made straight for a deep valley and did not return.
