The Story Of The Stone Read Online Free PDF Page A

drowned out. One of the reprobates looked at Master Li's venerable wrinkles and decided that somebody might be challenging for the title of Saintliest of Them All, and he took three or four deep breaths and raised his gaping mouth toward the Great River of Stars.
    “Hear me, O Heaven, as I pray to the six hundred named gods!”
    
     he bellowed. “I pray to the gods of the ten directions, and the secondary officials of the ten directions, and the stars of the five directions, and the secondary stars of the five directions, and the fairy warriors and sages, and the ten extreme god kings, and the gods of the sun and the moon and the nine principal stars!”
    The venders perked up. “
    
    
     Worms
    
    
     for sale!” they cried.
    “The gods who guard the Heavenly Gates!”
    
     the champion roared. “The thirty-six thunder gods who guard Heaven itself, and the twenty-eight principal stars of the zodiac, and the gods for subjugating evil spirits, and the god king of Flying Heaven, and the god of the great long life of Buddha, and the gods of Tien Kan and To Tze, and the great sages of the Trigrams, and the gate gods, and the kitchen gods, and the godly generals in charge of the month and the week and the day and the hour!”
    “
    
    
     Worms
    
    
    !” cried the venders. “Take pity upon poor helpless worms, most unfairly condemned to cruel death upon hooks!”
    “The gods of the nine rivers!”
    
     the saint shrieked. “The gods of the five mountains and the four corners! I pray to the gods in charge of wells and springs and ditches and creeks and hills and woods and lakes and rivers and the twelve river sources! I pray to the local patron gods! Chuang huangs and their inferiors! The gods of minor local officials! The gods of trees and lumber! The spiritual officers and soldiers under the command of priests! The spirits in charge of protecting the taboos, commands, scriptures, and right way of religion!”
    “Gentlemen, think of your poor old white-haired grandmothers who may have been reborn as worms!” an enterprising vender shouted.
    “Boy!” Master Li yelled, and to my astonishment he bought a bucket of worms.
    “I pray to the gods of the four seasons and eight festivals!”
    
     screamed His Holiness, “I pray to—”
    Master Li reached up and pried the gaping jaws even wider apart and dumped the contents of his bucket inside. Silence descended upon the Eye of Tranquility. The toad was holding the forgery no more than an inch from his eyeballs.
    “Forgery of a forgery,” he muttered. “Someone's made a tracing of this, and recently. The oaf left marks where he pressed down too hard.”
    He handed the manuscript back to Master Li. “Tracing is an amateur job,” he said contemptuously. “A freak forgery that can make scholars doubt their sanity is worth a fortune, but a tracing of it couldn't fool an illiterate baby, if the idiot tried to sell it to the wrong man, he'd soon be contemplating the pretty fish swimming around his solid stone sandals.”
    I had a sudden queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, but if Master Li was thinking of a dead dice cheater at the bottom of the canal, he gave no sign of it.
    “How very interesting,” he said mildly. “Hsiang, the manuscript has apparently been stolen. Any word on the grapevine?”
    “Are you serious? Li Kao, if a collector allowed word of something of this quality to get out, he'd have a visit from the emperor's agents inside of a day. There can't be another fraud as good as this in the whole world,” the toad said. “And don't bother looking for the forger. The August Personage of Jade has lifted him to Heaven, and he's now handling the divine correspondence.”
    Master Li scratched his forehead and tugged at his beard.
    “One last question. I can think of any number of men who would kill to get their hands on the manuscript, but the murder I've been handed appears to have been rather gaudy. Can you think of a man who would use methods suitable for