Chen Shimei is a Chinese opera character and a byword in China for a heartless and unfaithful man. He was married to Qin Xianglian, also translated as Fragrant Lotus. Chen Shimei betrayed Qin Xianglian by marrying another woman, and tried to kill her to cover up his past. This fictional couple are also popular in legends. History “Illustrated Edition of Bao Zheng’s Trials of A Hundred Legal Cases” (增像包龙图判百家公案), “Bao Zheng’s Cases” (包公案) in short, published in 1595 had already had the story of Chen Shimei whose children's names were as the same as they are in the traditional opera. The character was based on the historical court records of the Qing dynasty government official Chen Shumei (陳熟美), whose wife was Qin Xinglian (秦馨蓮). Like Bao Zheng, Chen was an upright official who eventually became an enemy of other corrupted officials. These officials created two fictitious husband-and-wife characters based on the couple by changing the middle Chinese characters of their real names and brought Bao Zheng of the Song dynasty era into their fictitious story to slander and smear Chen Shumei and his wife Qin Xinglian. Qin Xianglian first appeared as Lady Qin (秦氏) without a given name (like most women recorded in imperial China's literature) in the 1594 story collection Legal Cases of A Hundred Families Judged by Dragon-Design Bao (包龍圖判百家公案), Story 26, "Lady Qin's Ghost Return to Exile Shimei" (秦氏還魂配世美). In this version, she was killed by Chen's assassins, but her ghost sought justice with "Dragon-Design Bao" or Bao Zheng. The story most familiar to modern people no longer contained superstition, and instead had Chen's assassin Han Qi (韓琪) commit suicide to let Qin escape. Chinese opera The story of Beijing opera “[Chen Shi] Mei’s Beheading Case” (铡美案)： In the Song Dynasty, Chen Shimei (陈世美) was a poor scholar studying for the imperial examinations. Chen Shimei was married to Qin Xianglian (秦香蓮), who took care of him, his parents, and their children so Chen Shimei had time to study. When the time for the examinations came, Shimei went to the capital to take them, leaving Xianglian and their children behind. He did not return. In the meantime, a famine hit the country and killed their parents. With nothing left in the countryside, Xianglian and the children traveled to the capital to look for Shimei. It turned out that Shimei had placed first in the examinations and had been