The Month the Almonds Bloom
a hard bargainer. He insists that my offer lacks sufficiency. He wishes me to throw in a vase of salmon Jade to even the balance. This I will not do. The vase is worth a fortune. It, too, is rare. Shun Kao he shall have but not the salmon vase. He loves women. He already has many concubines in his palace. I know ere long he will bow down to my wishes."
As Mu Kao spoke he turned again to the bit of snowy Jade before him. Without a word Woo Fung crept out of the house. As in a daze he wandered through the countless alleys of Canton. And somewhere in the crooked lanes his little dream was lost.
At last he returned to his garden. He was crushed. His beautiful lady was vanishing. She was to be sacrificed to a horrible old man in exchange for a bauble of Jade. Mu Kao was a gem-expert, yet he could not see that the finest jewel of all was being stolen from his house. For days Woo Fung did not eat, nor did he fashion any poems of gorgeous trinkets. The sheen of the wondrous moonlight had vanished from his garden. Only sadness and shadows remained, sadness and shadows and desolation. How long he remained in the abject depths of despondency he did not know nor did he care. The future was shrouded in gloom; the past was a well of sadness. The present was pain. He roamed about like a shadow, like the shell of a man with the soul burned out. How could he live without his lady? How could he live without his dream, the
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