"We don't want your salt, and you had better throw it down. We are sent from the Regions below and we want you to come down with us."
"Am I dead already?" asked The-tenth. "I did not know. I must tell my wife. Can't you come again to-morrow night?"
"Impossible to wait. You must come immediately. But I don't think you are dead. It is only to work for a few days down below."
"This is rather strange," replied The-tenth. "With all the people who have died since the world has been the world you still want living men? We don't go and ask you to do our work, do we?"
While thus arguing, he felt himself suffocated by a heavy smell and lost consciousness.
When he awoke, he was on the bank of a fairly large river. Hundreds of men were standing in the water; some of them carried baskets; others, with spades and different utensils, were dragging out what they could from the bottom. Soldiers with heavy sticks struck those who stopped even for a second.
On the bank several men were standing, and a number of others came from time to time. A magistrate was sitting behind a big red table, turning over the pages of a book. At last, he called "Wang The-tenth."
"Wang The-tenth!" repeated the soldiers. And they threw the poor man down in a kneeling position in front of the magistrate, who looked on the book and said:
"You have been an undutiful son; do you remember the day when you told your father he was a fool?"
Then speaking to the soldiers, he said: