That evening, Zhang Xiaohua finally got to eat the rabbit meat he had dreamed of day and night. It was not braised in soy sauce, though. Zhang Xiaohua had been born into a poor family and had helped with chores since childhood, but he was still a boy, and the work he did had all been out in the fields. The fine work around a stove was quite unfamiliar to him; the closest he had come was carrying spring water to the stove at home.
Therefore, though he had imagined braised rabbit, in the end he merely skinned the rabbit, cleaned the wild hare the way his father handled chickens, and tossed it into the pot to boil. Once the water boiled and the meat was cooked, although no seasonings had been added, its fragrance still filled the air. Zhang Xiaohua's mouth watered at once.
Then Zhang Xiaohua closed his eyes and silently chanted, "I'm eating braised rabbit. I'm eating braised rabbit." Without fearing the heat, he fished the entire rabbit from the pot, opened his jaws wide, and gnawed away. His mouth glistened with grease, and he was delighted beyond measure!
Only after Zhang Xiaohua had eaten every scrap of meat from the rabbit, then licked the picked-clean skeleton again and again with lingering reluctance, did he casually toss the bones into the river before him. Yet in this winter day, the once-rushing river had long since frozen over. With a crack, the bones landed on the ice. He could not destroy the evidence of his meat-eating after all. But they were fish and meat, while I was the blade and chopping block—what had I to fear? Such was the way of Heaven: the weak were prey to the strong. This law still applied in the martial world.
Let