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A Broken Mirror Joined Together
This set phrase metaphorically means the reunion of husband and wife after an enforced separation or a rupture.
At the end of Southern Dynasties,when the Chen Dynasty was about to be overthrown.
Xú Déyán felt very worried.He foreknew that his wife Princess Lè Chāng was destined to separate from him.
His wife is the last Emperor Chén Shūbǎo's younger sister.
Hence he broke a round bronze mirror into halves.
One half is given to the Princess,the other half left with himself.
The couple agreed on it that the wife would pretend to sell the broked mirror in the street of Cháng'ān,the capital of the Suí Dynasty,on the Lantern Festival.
After the fall of Chén Dynasty,Princess Lè Chāng was captured and sent to Chang'an and forced to be a concubine-servant in the mansion of Yáng Sù.
Xú Déyán missed his wife very much and went to the captial to look for her.
On the 15th day of the first lunar month,he found a man selling half the mirror.
After asking the man,he knew that his wife had been a concubine-servant of Yáng Sù. Thinking that he could not see her again,he sighed a great sorrow.
Having known the matter,Yáng Sù felt much sympathy for the couple.He sent for Xú Déyán and told him to take wife away.Thus the husband and the wife were reunited into a happy couple.
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