Once upon a very long time ago, someone asked, "Table, Table, who is the most beautiful person in this world?" Table answered, "You are the most beautiful," and then used that person's bones to make a sturdy table leg.
Once upon another very long time ago, Table sat gloomily on a hilltop. There was a mountain path and a small pavilion there. He would ask passersby, "Who is the most beautiful person in this world?" Then, no matter how they answered, their bones would become sturdy table legs.
Still once upon a very long time ago, Table had no idea how much time had passed, but he had gained 999 sturdy table legs, firmly rooted in the hilltop. He believed no one could topple him.
Then one day, a man arrived. He actually answered the question by bribing him. Although Table did not want to let him pass, who did not want good things? Besides, he had a second question.
Then Table received another bribe. He felt his intelligence had been insulted, but who did not want good things? Besides, he had a third question.
If the man before him could keep bribing him, Table was not entirely opposed to magnanimously letting him go—
But this truly was a mistake. Many years later, whenever Table thought of that blood-dyed dusk, whenever he thought of that plump, foolish-looking man who smiled with fleshy cheeks, he felt a heart-piercing pain, as though a hundred thousand iron nails had been driven into his body!
How many times had Table dreamed back in the dead of night, wondering, Wouldn't it have been wonderful if I hadn't asked that third question? Then his fate would never have become entangled with a man named Cousin Mu, and he certainly would not have been bound here to