A countryman was selling pears in the market; they were sweet and fragrant, and their price had soared. A Taoist in a tattered hat and padded coat begged for one at the front of his cart. The countryman scolded him, but he would not go; the countryman grew angry and berated him. The Taoist said, "In your cart there are several hundred pears; the old priest begs but one. It can be no great loss to you, sir—why be so angry?" The onlookers urged the man to give him a single inferior pear and let him go, but he obstinately refused.
A hired hand in one of the shops, unable to endure the wrangling, bought a pear with his own money and gave it to the Taoist. The Taoist bowed and thanked him, then said to the crowd, "We who have left the world know nothing of stinginess. I have fine pears of my own, which I beg to offer you." Someone said, "If you have them, why not eat them yourself?" "I need the core of this pear for seed," he replied. So he took up the pear and ate it, and when it was nearly gone, held the core in his hand, unshouldered his iron hoe, dug a hole a few inches deep in the ground, put in the core, and covered it with earth. He asked the market crowd for hot water to irrigate it, and some busybody fetched boiling water from a roadside shop, which the Taoist poured over the pit. Ten thousand eyes watched as a sprout broke through, grew larger, and presently became a tree with spreading leaves; it burst into blossom and then into fruit—large, fragrant, and hanging thick from every branch. The Taoist then plucked fruit from the tree and distributed it to the onlookers, and in a moment it was all gone. When he had done, he cut down the tree with his hoe, chopping for a long while before it fell. He shouldered it, leaves and all, and walked slowly away.
While the Taoist was working his wonder, the countryman, mingled in the crowd, had craned his neck and stared, quite forgetting his business. Only when the Taoist was gone did he turn to his cart and find it empty of pears; then he understood that what the man had handed round were his own. Looking closer at the cart, he found one shaft missing, freshly cut through. In great fury he hurried after the man and, turning a corner, found the broken shaft cast down beside the wall—the very thing the Taoist had hewn down for his tree. The Taoist himself was nowhere to be found. The whole market rang with laughter.
The Historian of the Strange says: "The countryman was a fool, his simpleton's look enough to make one smile, and it was fitting that the market-folk should laugh at him. Often we see one who passes for rich in the village; when a good friend begs a little rice, his face darkens and he reckons, 'This is the wherewithal of several days.' If urged to relieve a person in distress or feed a lonely soul, he turns angry and reckons again, 'This is food for ten or five.' Nay, even father and son, elder and younger brothers, will haggle to the last fraction. But when lust and gambling have bewitched his heart, he will pour out his whole purse without a thought; when the saw and axe are at his neck, he thinks only of buying off his life. Of such cases there is no end—a silly countryman, after all, is hardly to be wondered at."