Outside, the afternoon sunlight shone brightly.
Inside the cave, Black Snake lay coiled in his usual spot, while his yin spirit stood before the piles of gold and silver.
He held a copper coin in each hand, weighed them, frowned, then switched to another pair and weighed those again and again. At last, his hands stopped. He discovered that the copper coins actually differed in weight.
The old copper coins had been saved up years ago. They were thick and substantial, heavy in the hand, with smooth, rounded edges.
The few new coins he had earned recently, however, were thinner and lighter.
He examined them over and over in his hands, closed one eye, and brought a new coin up to the other. By the light leaking through the cave entrance, he studied it closely, gently rubbing it with his fingers. Fine file marks lined its edge, as though someone had scraped all the way around it with a knife.
Someone had shaved this coin.
Pah!
Crooks! Every last one of them was a crook!
He was a monster, yet through all his years making a living among humans, he had always done honest business, cheating neither children nor the elderly. He caught rats and collected his fees, fair and square.
Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to suffer a loss like this, with nowhere even to begin taking revenge. Those households had been cheated too, leaving him no idea who to settle the score with.
In a foul mood, he could not be bothered to set up his stall and earn money. He would take a few days off to roam and hunt.
Once the sun sank behind the western mountains and the last streak of twilight vanished, Black Snake took a cloth pouch containing some copper