A poor family’s child was born with various auspicious signs, and word spread that this child would marry a princess in the future.
When the king heard this, he was furious: “How could my beloved daughter marry a pauper?”
So he disguised himself as a commoner and went to the poor family, offering to buy the child.
Initially, the family refused, but they agreed after the king offered a large sum of money.
The king then placed the child in a wooden box and threw it into the river, thinking, “Now, I won’t have to worry about my daughter marrying a pauper!”
However, the box floated downriver and was discovered by a couple who, having no children of their own, happily adopted the boy and raised him with care.
Years passed, and the boy grew into a handsome young man.
One day, the king was passing by and spotted him. Somehow, his intuition told him that this was the very child he had thrown into the river years ago, and a sense of dread came over him.
After some questioning, his suspicion was confirmed.
Fuming with anger, though he kept a calm appearance, the king wrote a letter, handed it to the young man, and said, “Take this letter to the palace. The queen will reward you handsomely.”
In reality, the letter instructed the queen: “Kill the messenger of this letter immediately!”
Unaware of the king’s plot, the young man bid farewell to his adoptive parents and set off for the palace.
On the way, he encountered a group of bandits. The bandits initially intended to kill him but changed their minds after reading the letter.
The bandits switched the letter, writing a new one that read: “Queen, immediately marry the bearer of this letter to the princess!” They then released the young man.
As it turned out, these bandits held a grudge against the king and saw this as an opportunity to get revenge.
When the young man arrived at the palace, the queen read the letter and promptly arranged a grand wedding, marrying him to the princess.
The young man was handsome, the princess was beautiful, and they genuinely liked each other.
When the king returned to the palace, he found not only that the young man was alive but that he had married his daughter, making the king so angry he nearly fainted.
After some investigation, he realized this was the work of the bandits.
Unwilling to let the matter rest, he told the young man, “Unless you bring me three golden hairs from the devil, you must leave the princess at once!”
The king thought to himself: if the young man accepted, he would surely perish—pulling hairs from the devil’s head was like provoking a tiger.
To his surprise, the young man agreed, driven by his love for the princess.
After overcoming countless obstacles, the young man finally reached the devil’s home, only to find that the devil was away, with only his grandmother there.
Moved by the young man’s courage and his sincere love for the princess, the grandmother decided to help him.
She managed to obtain three golden hairs from the devil and gave the young man a great deal of gold as well.
When the king saw that not only had the young man returned unharmed, but he also brought back the devil’s golden hairs and so much gold, his greed led him to make the journey to the devil’s home himself.
He was never heard from again; perhaps he got lost, or maybe he met a darker fate.
In time, the young man inherited the throne, and he and the princess lived happily ever after.
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