Ching Chi was weeping for sorrow, and howling with rage when his brother Cha entered the room. The quick eyes of Brother Cha soon saw that something was amiss. He gazed at the wall where the plaques had struck. He gazed at the jam-coated plaques. Then he too howled, but with joy. “Oh, Brother Chi,” he shouted. “You have chanced upon a wonderful invention. It is a quick way for making books. What huge luck.” He led Brother Chi to the wall and pointed. “See. For reason of its jam, each plaque has made a black impression on the wall. Every line of the carving is reproduced upon the wall. Now do you understand? You will carve my thoroughly miserable stories upon blocks of wood. Ah Mee will spread black jam upon the carven blocks. Then I will press the blocks upon paper, sheet after sheet, perhaps a hundred in one day. . . . With the laborious brush I can make only one story a month. With the blocks—I can make thousands. Oh, what a wonderful invention.”
Ching Chi carved his brother’s stories upon wooden blocks. Ah Mee spread the jam thickly—only pausing now and then for a taste. Ching Cha pressed the blocks upon paper, sheet after sheet. . . . There were the stories upon paper—all done in a twinkling, and with little expense. The poorest people in the land could afford to buy Ching Cha’s most excellent stories.
Thus was invented Yin Shu (Make Books) or, as the very odd foreign demons call it in their so peculiar language—“Printing.” Ching Chi, his brother Ching Cha, and Ah Mee, all had a hand in the invention. As a matter of exact truth, Ah Mee had two hands in the invention (or in the jam), so he is generally given all the credit. His monument reads, “Ah Mee, the Inventor of Printing.”
SHEN OF THE SEA
Kua Hai City stands on a plain in northern China. The plain is called Wa Tien, and it is very smooth and fertile, giving many large melons. . . . Life there is good. The plain is likewise extremely low. Any reliable geography will tell you that Kua Hai is below sea level. And that, I know, is a fact, for I, lazily seated in my garden, have often gazed at sailing ships, large-eyed—wide-staring-eyed junks as they fetched into the Bay of The Sharp-Horned Moon, and to view them I had to raise my eyes. It is very true. I had to look up, as one looks up to behold the sky-hung eagles of Lo Fan.
I had as often wondered if the sea ever broke through its restraining walls and flooded Kua Hai. A storm coming down from the northeast would most likely thrust billows to overtop the wall. So I said to my gardener, Wu Chang: “Wu Chang, did fishes ever swim up the Street of A Thousand Singing Dragons? Did the sea ever come into Kua Hai?” Wu Chang paused in his scratching among the hung lo po (the radishes). Since thinking it over, I am inclined to believe that he welcomed an opportunity to change from the working of his fingers to the working of his tongue. “Once, and once only, Honorable One, has the sea invaded Kua Hai. But it can never do so again. Chieh Chung was fooled once, but he was far too clever to be fooled twice. He buried the bottle, perhaps in this very garden, for who knows? He buried it so deep that no ordinary digging shall discover it. And so, the sea may look over the walls of Kua Hai, but it may not enter.”
“Indeed?” said I. “And pray, who was this Chieh Chung? And what was in the bottle?”
Such astounding ignorance gained me a look of compassion from old Wu Chang. “The Honorable One is surely jesting. He, of course, knows that Chieh Chung was the first King of Wa Tien.”