Once upon a time during the Ming dynasty, there was a young man named Huang-hsi, who, from the time he was small, had been looked after with love by his older brother, Pai-chen. They were hence very close.
One day, the older brother left home to seek work in the outside world. After ten years had elapsed, he still had not returned home. For ten years, his family neither saw him nor received any word from him. Everyone missed him very much, in particular, Huang-hsi.
So he decided to go and look for his older brother. Having no clue at all to Pai-chen's whereabouts, he wandered to many different, faraway places. But everywhere he went he had no luck.
One day, while passing through the countryside, he stopped at a small temple and prayed to the temple god to help him find his brother. The same night Huang-hsi had a dream in which the god repeated two lines of a poem to him. Not being a learned man himself, Huang-hsi, upon waking, had to find a scholar who could interpret the dream for him.
The scholar told him he knew the title of the poem, which contained the name of a county in Hunan Province, and urged him to go there.
Huang-hsi promptly went there to continue his search, but there was no news of his brother.
Once, he went into a public lavatory to relieve himself, leaving his umbrella outside the doorway. By coincidence, Pai-chen, the older brother, happened to be walking just at this time along the road. He spied the umbrella, which had the distinct styling of the village he had grown up in. Examining it more closely, he discovered his younger brother's name engraved on it.
With the sudden realization that his brother must be inside, Pai-chen waited outside. Walking out, Huang-hsi was astonished beyond belief to find his older brother standing there.
The older brother was so deeply moved by the younger brother's long, arduous search that he decided to wind up his business and return home with Huang-hsi.
(Denny Chiu)
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)
