Original Text
A countryman was selling pears in the marketplace; the pears were fragrant and sweet, but their price was very high. A Taoist priest, wearing a tattered headcloth and a ragged cotton jacket, approached the pear cart and begged for a pear to eat. The countryman scolded him, but the priest would not leave. The countryman grew angry and began to curse him loudly. The priest said, "In this cart there are several hundred pears; I, an old Taoist, ask only for one of them. It would be no great loss to you, so why must you be so enraged?" The bystanders urged the countryman to pick out a slightly spoiled pear and give it to the priest, to send him on his way, but the countryman stubbornly refused.
The shop assistants nearby, seeing the commotion escalating beyond control, took out some money to buy a pear and gave it to the Taoist priest. After thanking them, the priest said to the crowd, "A man of the Way knows not stinginess. I have fine pears here, and soon I shall invite everyone to partake." Someone asked, "Since you have pears, why not eat your own?" The priest replied, "I only need this pear's core for a seed." So he took the pear and devoured it in large bites. Once finished, he held the core in his hand, unfastened the iron spade slung over his shoulder, dug a pit several inches deep in the ground, placed the core within, covered it with earth, and asked the passersby for hot water to irrigate it. A meddlesome fellow fetched a pot of boiling water from a roadside shop, and the priest poured it into the pit. Before the eyes of the crowd, a pear sprout broke through the soil, gradually grew, and soon became a lush, leafy pear tree. In a blink, it blossomed; in another, it bore fruit—the whole tree laden with large, sweet pears. The priest then climbed the tree, plucked the pears, and distributed them to the onlookers, finishing the lot in no time. Afterward, he took his iron spade and chopped at the tree, striking it with a clanging sound for a long while until it fell. He hoisted the trunk, branches and all, onto his shoulder, and walked away leisurely and unhurriedly.
At first, when the Taoist was performing his tricks, the country fellow was mingling among the crowd of onlookers, craning his neck and staring wide-eyed at the spectacle, so absorbed that he quite forgot about his pears. After the Taoist had departed, he turned back to look at his pear cart, only to find that not a single pear remained. Only then did it dawn on him that the pears the Taoist had been distributing were all his own. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that one of the cart's shafts was missing, freshly cut off. Furious and aggrieved, he hastily followed the path the Taoist had taken. Turning a corner, he saw the broken shaft lying discarded at the foot of a wall, and the country fellow realized that the pear tree the Taoist had cut down was none other than this very shaft. The Taoist was nowhere to be seen. The entire marketplace was convulsed with laughter, their mouths unable to close.
The Chronicler of Strange Tales remarks: The country bumpkin, muddle-headed and foolishly laughable, was mocked by the market crowd, and rightly so. One often sees those who are called local wealthy landowners in the countryside—when a good friend asks to borrow a bit of grain, they frown with displeasure, calculating, "This would cost me several days' expenses." If someone advises them to aid those in distress or offer food to the lonely and helpless, they grow indignant and calculate, "This would feed five or ten people." Even among fathers, sons, and brothers, they haggle down to the last penny. Yet when such men are bewitched by whoring and gambling, they squander gold like dirt without the slightest regret; when crime brings the axe to their necks, they instantly pay to ransom their lives, fearing only that it might be too late. Cases like these are endless to recount! What wonder, then, that a foolish and dull-witted pear-seller should be so?
Commentary
The original story of "Planting Pears" originates from Gan Bao's "In Search of the Supernatural": "During the Wu period, there was a man named Xu Guang, who once practiced his arts in the marketplace. He begged a melon from a vendor, but the vendor refused. Xu Guang then took a seed from the melon, planted it in the ground with his staff. Soon, a melon vine sprouted, spread, blossomed, and bore fruit. He then picked and ate the melon, and also gave some to the onlookers. The vendor, looking back at his melons for sale, found them all gone." The same account is also recorded in Feng Menglong's "Anecdotes Old and New" from the Ming dynasty.
Both are writings about magic arts. "Stealing the Peach" is a recollection of the author's own youthful experience, adopting a limited perspective narrative that focuses on the process of witnessing and hearing, highlighting the wonder of the peach-stealing illusion. "Planting the Pear" is a tale told from an omniscient perspective; although it also vividly describes the magic, using extensive detail to recount how the Taoist begged for a pear, ate it, planted it, and how the pear tree grew, blossomed, and bore fruit—"large, fragrant, and abundant, covering the tree"—and how the Taoist "plucked them to give to the onlookers, exhausting them in a moment," the story's emphasis lies not here but in admonishing stinginess and satirizing those who cling tightly to their wealth, refusing to engage in charitable acts, thus rendering them ridiculous. Therefore, in the midst of the narrative, the perspective shifts from the omniscient storyteller to that of the villagers, who observe the process of planting and distributing the pears: "He looked closely and saw that one handle of his cart was missing, freshly cut off. Filled with great anger, he quickly followed its trail. Turning around a corner of the wall, he found the broken handle discarded beneath the wall, and then realized that the pear tree that had been felled was none other than that object. The Taoist was nowhere to be found." Thus, though the tale concludes, its lingering resonance remains, full of interest and rich with a comedic tone of moral admonition.