One day, the stepmother sent both Tấm and Cám to fish in the rice fields where seasonal floods bring many small aquatic creatures which the peasants add to their daily diet, promising to reward the girl who brought home the most shrimps with a lovely scarlet silk camisole. The two little girls, each with a fishing basket in their hand, went to explore the soft mud of the rice fields. Hoping to wear something beautiful for the first time, Tấm worked very hard to catch all the shrimp she could, and at the end of the day, she gathered enough to fill her basket. On the contrary, Cám spent the whole afternoon wandering along the riverbank. She realized that her basket was still empty as she had made no effort and a few shrimps constituted her catch.
However, she did not want to lose the scarlet camisole, so when they passed by a pond, Cám said to her elder sister: "Hey Tấm, you got mud in your hair while you were catching shrimps; if our mother sees you dirty like that, she will certainly be displeased and will punish you. So plunge yourself in this pond."
Tấm, who was very credulous, followed her younger sister's advice and left her basket on the bank, then plunged into the water. Then the perfidious Cám seized her sister's basket, emptied its contents into her own, and hurried home, where she was loudly praised by her mother and presented with the precious camisole.
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