A countryman was selling pears at the marketplace. The pears were fragrant and sweet, but they were priced quite steeply. A Daoist priest, wearing a tattered headscarf and a shabby cotton jacket, stood in front of the pear cart, begging for a pear to eat. The countryman scolded him, but the priest refused to leave. Annoyed, the countryman began cursing at him. The Daoist replied: “You have several hundred pears in your cart. I only ask for one. It won’t hurt your business much—why get so angry?”
Onlookers persuaded the countryman to give the priest a damaged or lesser pear to send him on his way, but the countryman stubbornly refused. A clerk from a nearby shop, noticing the commotion, bought a pear with his own money and handed it to the Daoist. The priest thanked him and addressed the crowd: “We Daoists are not stingy. I have excellent pears of my own, which I will share with everyone shortly.” Someone in the crowd scoffed: “If you have pears, why don’t you eat your own?” The Daoist answered, “I only need this pear’s seed as a planting material.”
With that, he held the pear and began eating it in large bites. When finished, he carefully placed the seed in his hand. Taking an iron spade slung over his shoulder, he dug a pit several inches deep in the ground, placed the seed inside, covered it with soil, and asked the crowd for hot water to irrigate it. A curious bystander fetched a pot of boiling water from a nearby shop. The Daoist poured the scalding water into the hole.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, a pear sprout emerged from the ground. It grew rapidly, soon becoming a lush tree full of branches and leaves. In an instant, it bloomed; moments later, it bore fruit—large, fragrant, and abundant. The priest climbed the tree, picking pears and distributing them among the onlookers. Before long, all the pears had been shared.
Afterward, the Daoist took his spade and began chopping down the pear tree. “Clang! Clang!” The sound rang out as he worked until the tree finally fell. Carrying the trunk with its branches and leaves over his shoulder, he leisurely walked away.
Initially, the countryman had joined the crowd, his neck craned and eyes wide, captivated by the spectacle. He completely forgot about his cart of pears. When the Daoist had disappeared, the countryman returned to find his cart empty—not a single pear remained. Looking closely, he realized that even one of the cart’s handles was gone; it had been freshly chopped off. It dawned on him: the Daoist’s tree was made from his pears, and the trunk was his cart handle. Furious and resentful, he hurried after the Daoist, turning a corner, only to find the broken handle discarded by a wall. The priest was nowhere to be seen.
The entire marketplace erupted in laughter.
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