In the waning years of the Ming Dynasty, a devastating plague of locusts ravaged Qing and Yan provinces, slowly creeping closer to Yizhou.

The county magistrate was deeply concerned. After dismissing court, he retired to his residence, where he dreamed a scholar came to visit him. This scholar, adorned in an elegant cap and green robes, possessed a striking and handsome countenance, claiming he possessed a means to ward off the locust disaster. He declared, "Tomorrow, along the southwestern road, there will be a woman riding a heavily pregnant jenny, and this is the Locust God. Beg her mercy, and the calamity may be averted."

The magistrate was secretly astonished. He prepared fine wine and food and waited by the roadside. Sure enough, he saw a woman approaching, astride a donkey, her hair in a high bun, dressed in brown robes, proceeding slowly northward.

The magistrate burned incense and offered wine, greeting her reverently on the side of the road. He held the donkey’s tether, not allowing it to leave. The woman asked, "What is your purpose?" The magistrate pleaded, "This small county implores your pity. Restrain the locusts and spare our people."

The woman replied, "That scholar is too garrulous, revealing my secret. All that is required is for him to suffer the harm himself; it need not touch the crops." After drinking three cups of wine, she vanished in the blink of an eye.

Later, the locusts arrived, darkening the sky, yet they did not alight upon the grain fields, gathering instead entirely upon the willows. Wherever they passed, the willow leaves were stripped bare, and only then did they realize the scholar was the God of the Willow.