Seeing that the pears had all been handed out, the Taoist used an iron shovel to chop down the tree. He hacked at it with a clanging sound for quite some time before finally bringing it down. He hoisted the pear tree, branches and leaves and all, onto his shoulder and walked away without a care.
The onlookers saw that there was nothing more to watch and began to disperse. Suddenly, the vendor let out a wail: "Where did my pears go?"
Everyone looked over and saw that the vendor's cart, which had been full of pears, was now completely empty. The frantic vendor ran around and around his cart.
"It must have been that Taoist! He stole my pears." Fortunately, the vendor wasn't entirely stupid. He realized he'd encountered a cultivator, and that all the pears the Taoist had handed out were his.
Looking more closely, he saw that one of the cart's handles was missing, its end freshly chopped. Furious, the vendor hurried after the Taoist.
Turning a corner, he saw the chopped-off handle lying beneath a wall. Only then did he realize that the pear tree the Taoist had just cut down was actually his cart handle. But the Taoist had already vanished.
He had worked so hard to grow those pears, yet not only had he failed to sell them for a single coin, he'd also lost his cart. The vendor slumped to the ground in a daze, muttering over and over, "My pears... My pears..."
"Young master..." Watching what had happened to the vendor, Xin Shisi Niang said sympathetically, "How could that Taoist do such a thing? And I even thought he was—"
"Now you know not to jump to conclusions too soon, right?" Hao Shuai patted Shisi Niang on the head. "Now let's go