Invisible Straw
故事全文
Once upon a time, there was a rich landlord called Pang Fu-gui who lived in Fengshan. He was miserly and often liked to take advantage of others. One day, two young men decided to use his greedy nature to play a prank on him. In Pang Fu-gui’s backyard, there was a birch tree, that had a crow’s nest in it. One day, the young men stood beneath the birch tree and kept staring upward at the crow’s nest. They also disturbed the crows on purpose, making them croak loudly. Pang Fu-gui heard the commotion and came running to see what was happening. When he saw the two young men staring intently at the crow’s nest on top of the tree. He shouted, “This birch tree is mine! What are you looking at? Be gone from here!”The young men whispered on purpose, “Pang is here! Let’s leave for now. He must not learn of our secret.”
Pang Fu-gui heard everything clearly, and secretly followed them to a temple where he heard one of the young men say, “Both of us dreamt that an old man with a white beard told us that in the crow’s nest atop Pang’s birch tree lies a magical grass of invisibility that makes anyone holding it invisible. We are sure to get rich with the grass.”
Pang Fu-gui grew very excited when he heard the news and wanted the grass for himself. So, he ran all the way home and took down the crow’s nest. Then, he started to test each stalk of grass to see which one was magical. He kept asking his wife, “Can you see me?”He kept asking till the sun went down. Finally, his wife lost her patience and said, “No, I cannot see you anymore.”Early morning the next day, Pang Fu-gui brought the grass with him to the bustling market street. Since no one liked him, no one bothered to say hi to him. Pang Fu-gui thought it was because nobody could see him and became complacent. He picked up a pear from the nearby fruit stall and began to eat it without paying for it first. The owner of the fruit stall thought Pang Fu-gui had gone crazy, so the owner ignored Pang, who became further convinced that his invisibility grass was working.
Eventually, he became bold enough to walk into the court house and tried to steal the government’s official seal in front of the guards. In the end, he was caught and beaten forty times as punishment. Then, he was locked up for trial, and suffered terribly.
