單衣順母，
忍寒受凍，
感化後母。
閔子騫是孔子的學生，年幼時母親去世，父親再娶。繼母對自己的兩個親生兒子非常疼愛，卻對閔子騫十分苛刻。冬天來臨時，繼母給自己的兒子穿棉衣，卻只給閔子騫穿用蘆花填充的薄衣。一天，閔子騫為父親駕車時，因寒冷而顫抖，不小心讓馬車失控。父親發現後，責罵他並用鞭子抽打他的衣服，結果蘆花從衣服裡飛了出來。父親這才明白真相，憤怒地要休掉繼母。然而，閔子騫跪下來懇求父親原諒繼母，說：「母在一子寒，母去三子單。」（繼母在，只有我一個人受凍；繼母離開，三個孩子都會失去母親的照顧。）父親被他的孝心感動，留下了繼母。繼母也因此悔悟，從此對閔子騫視如己出。
Min Ziqian,
Wore thin clothes to obey his stepmother,
Endured the cold,
And moved her heart.
Min Ziqian, a disciple of Confucius, lost his mother at a young age, and his father remarried. His stepmother favored her two biological sons but treated Min Ziqian harshly. During winter, she dressed her own sons in warm cotton clothes but gave Min Ziqian only a thin jacket stuffed with reed catkins. One day, while driving his father’s cart, Min Ziqian shivered so much from the cold that he lost control of the horses. His father scolded him and struck his jacket with a whip, causing the reed catkins to fly out. Realizing the truth, his father was furious and decided to divorce the stepmother. However, Min Ziqian knelt down and begged his father to forgive her, saying, “If Mother stays, only one son suffers the cold. If she leaves, all three sons will lose her care.” Touched by his filial piety, his father relented, and the stepmother, moved by Min Ziqian’s kindness, repented and treated him as her own son from then on.
