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37 Part One Trip to Tiantai In the nineteenth year—the guisi year—of the Guangxu era, beginning when the Emperor took the dragon throne, on the sixth day of the fourth month [May 21, 1893], this tiny insect took a trip to Tiantai. Thus the world came into being. I suppose the fruit of bodhi was about to ripen. In the evening, together with a traveler, Mr. Pan, who was a native of Tiantai, I went out the eastern gate of Ningbo and boarded the ferry boat to Fenghua. When we got into the boat, there were four men there already. Two of them spoke with a Hu’nan accent, and looked like soldiers ; the other two were from Xianju of Taizhou, whose dialect sounded like bird talk. They frequently eyed my luggage, and asked me where I was heading. I suspected that they were up to no good. Mr. Pan nervously whispered to me that they might be robbers. I quickly stepped on his foot to stop him from saying anything more. By the next morning, we were still over ten leagues away from the Great Dockyard of Fenghua. The currents were too fast for our boat to advance, so we got off the boat and took a raft instead. The four men took leave of us and were gone. Mr. Pan was delighted that we were now safe. I said, “Well, not yet, I am afraid.” We arrived at the Great Dockyard, and reached Huanggongtai, and indeed, there they were, waiting for us to show up. Huanggongtai was the name of the transfer station. After we ate our meal, the four men set out first. I asked them where they were going. They replied, “Xinchang.” Alarmed and panicked, Mr. Pan said to me, “We will have to share the same mountain road with 38 The World of a Tiny Insect them. What should we do?” I smiled and asked the restaurant owner to find us nine able-bodied men. Once they were assembled, I asked them, “Aren’t you all Taizhou people who are working as hired hands here?” They said, “Why, yes indeed.” I said, “Well, the barley is yellow now and ready to be harvested. Would you like to come with me and visit your families?” They all said, “Sure.” They proceeded to carry me with a bamboo sedan chair. On our way, we ran into some mountain folks who were traveling merchants, and invited them to join us. By the time we arrived at Xikou, we had with us a group of forty-five people. Mr. Pan said, “I think we are okay now.” I took out three hundred cash, bought five kilos of rice wine, and treated everyone to a drink; they all became tipsy. Continuing on our journey, we came to a stream. Those four men were indeed there first. Upon spotting them, Mr. Pan gave a holler to the folks traveling with us, who clustered around me as we all crossed the stream together. We made a great deal of noise. The four men did not expect to see us with so many people, and their countenances changed. They departed on a different route through the mountains. This was one of those situations that, though one never knows, might have become quite sticky if something bad had happened and I had taken no precautions. It was truly hard to be on the road. As I looked into distance for a hundred leagues, the journey ahead seemed infinite, and I wondered where I would eventually end up.1 That night, we stopped at Madaitou. Ontheeighth,wegotupearly.WecrossedtheShijieRangeandentered the territory of Xinchang. Earlier, from the Great Dockyard all the way to Madaitou, the plain was flat and the fields fertile; green plants met the eye everywhere, and the mountain was not yet very steep. By now, however, cliffs were rising high, and remarkable trees stretched across 1 The author is alluding to a couplet from “The Supple Mulberry Tree” (Sang rou), one of the “Greater Odes” in the Classic of Poetry: “Here is a wise man, / whose insight reaches a hundred leagues.” The ode laments the miseries of the common people and the death and disorder afflicting the empire. It contains the following lines: “Intense grief and worries fill my heart, / as I think on the condition of my land. / I was born at an inopportune time, / encountering the wrath of Heaven. / I go from west to east, / there being no peaceful dwelling...

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