In ancient Kashgar, a tailor lived with his wife on the borders of a great territory. One morning the tailor was working in his shop when a little hunchback sat by the shop’s door. He played a tambour and sang many songs. The tailor was so impressed he thought, “I’ll take him home. When I am at the shop, he can entertain my wife.” The tailor took the little hunchback home in the evening. His wife arranged dinner, and they were introduced.

The three of them were having dinner, joking and laughing with each other, when the little hunchback swallowed a fish bone. He started choking, and the tailor patted his back while his wife gave him water, but the little hunchback did not recover and soon lay dead at the dinner table. The two worried that the king’s guards would accuse them of murder. So they thought they would make it appear that someone else had caused his death….