All the people followed the empress's order, but one illiterate family had pasted the character upside down. On the second day when the emperor's soldiers went to the streets, they found the character everywhere, including the upside down one.

When the emperor heard this, he was very angry, and immediately ordered his palace guards to kill the family who had pasted the character in the wrong way.

Empress Ma found the situation very serious and came up with her quick-wittedness, "That family had known that you would come to visit them today, so they pasted the character upside down intentionally. Doesn't that mean 'Fu comes' today?"

The emperor agreed with his wife and released the family, thus avoiding spilling innocent blood. From that time on, people began to paste fu upside down to express the good wills for fortune and luck and to commemorate Empress Ma.

Editor:Liu Fang