Early next morning, Chueh Chun’s ancient donkey returned to the village. She had broken loose from the brigands and ambled home with all her load of silks intact. How the neighbors rejoiced. A person might easily have thought that the little donkey belonged to them, so jubilant were they. “Oh, Chueh Chun, awake,” they screamed. “Here is your donkey, all hearty and hale—with not so much as a yard of silk missing. What wonderful, wonderful luck.”
Chueh Chun said: “I’m afraid, good gracious yes, it’s very bad luck. No good can come of this. It’s unfortunate as can be. Alas. Alas.” Nor was he far wrong. That very morning, while ministering to a wound upon the donkey, that sinful little beast kicked with such violence as to break her master’s leg. The somewhat inquisitive neighbors gathered, as bees gather to the blossoming beans. “Oh. Oh. Oh,” they screamed. “What is the matter? Did the shameless donkey kick our handsome neighbor?”
“Truly, she did,” laughed Chueh Chun. “So hard that I think my leg has come apart.” And as he thought, so it was. He could not walk.
The neighbors redoubled their wails, asking each other, “Is not that the extreme height of ill fortune?”
“Not at all,” denied old Chueh Chun, perhaps a trifle grumpily. “In my opinion it may be a blessing. It, no doubt, will save me from something worse. Besides, it convinces me that my donkey is very strong, despite her age.”
By darkest midnight the Khan of the warlike Tartars, with fifty thousand men, swooped down to raid such villages as had, rather foolishly, been built outside the Great Wall. Tien Ting suffered. Every able-bodied man was taken prisoner. Only the very young, the extremely ancient, the lame, the blind, and the bedridden were left in their homes. Chueh Chun was one of those thus spared. Lameness and age were in his favor. By torchlight a toothless, grinning old neighbor dropped into Chueh Chun’s cave to say that the danger was no more. “The Tartars are gone, my admirable friend, Chueh Chun—and so are all of our young men, and our goods, even to house chimneys. I think you and I are about the only ones spared. How fortunate we are.”
“It may be all very fortunate for you,” put in Chueh Chun, “but as for me, I have a feeling that things could be much better, and still be not so good. I wish the Tartars had carried me into captivity astride my own poor lost donkey.” For, of course, his donkey was gone again.
With the dawning, His Majesty, The Emperor Ching Tang, entered the village to learn of its losses. He was told that all of the men, save half a dozen, Chueh Chun among them, had been carried off. “Why wasn’t such a one taken?” asked the Emperor. He was told: “A cripple for ninety years and a day.” “Why wasn’t Chueh Chun taken?” asked the Emperor. “Because, Noble Majesty,” answered a villager, kneeling three times and knocking his head on the ground thrice with each kneeling, “because, most gracious light of the sun and beauty of the moon, lord of the earth and sea and sky, Chueh Chun was kicked by his own donkey, and I well remember his saying at the time that it was extremely fortunate his leg was broken—a blessing—those were his words. And they were true.”
“What say you?” thundered the Emperor “A blessing—to be crippled? Why then this Chueh Chun must have known beforehand that the Tartars were coming to carry away my people. He must have known it, and knowing, gave us no warning. Bid this traitorous fellow appear. Soldiers—go. Headsman—draw your sword.”
Fortunately, Chueh Chun’s wife heard the Emperor’s command. Swiftly she ran home. As she entered the cave Chueh Chun sneezed. “Kou Chu.” The sneeze led to an excellent idea. Said the wife: “Aha. Aha,” with much emphasis. “You were out in your boat on the river last week, and now you have a cold.” Adding with proper severity, “Don’t you dare go near the river again. Do you hear?” She knew very well what would happen. “My husband—come back.”