Crimson Fairy Book

Chapter 34 The Crab and the Monkey

Once upon a time there was a crab that lived in a hole on the back of a mountain.She is a competent housewife, industrious and careful. No animal's den can be as clean and tidy as hers, and she is often proud of it.

One day, the crab saw a handful of cooked rice not far from the entrance of the cave, which must have been dropped by tourists when they were resting and eating.The crab was overjoyed, and she hurried over to move the rice into the hole.At this time, a monkey who lived in the nearby woods ran down to see what the crab was doing.His eyes lit up when he saw rice, which is his favorite food.The cunning fellow wants to make a deal with the crab.He asked the crab to share half of the rice with him, and in exchange, he was willing to give the crab a sweet persimmon core that he had just eaten.He thought the crab would snicker at his shrewd suggestion, but she only looked up at the monkey and said she would trade.

So the monkey took the rice and left, and the crab returned to the cave with the persimmon core.

After that, the crab didn't see the monkey for a long time, because he went to play on the sunny side of the mountain.

One morning, the monkey happened to pass by the crab's hole and saw the crab sitting under a beautiful persimmon tree.

"Hi," he said very politely, "you have a lot of fruit on your tree! I'm hungry, can you give me a bite or two?"

"Oh, of course," replied the Crab, "but, you must forgive me, I cannot pick the fruit for you myself, because I cannot climb trees."

"You don't need to apologize," the monkey replied, "as long as I have your permission, I can easily pick the fruit myself." The crab agreed to let him go up the tree to pick the fruit, but she asked the monkey to throw half of the fruit down for herself.

After climbing up the tree, the monkey jumped from branch to branch. He picked all the ripe persimmons and put them in his pockets while eating.The poor crab saw that the persimmons thrown to her were either underripe or overripe, and she was very angry.

"What a shameless rascal you are," cried the crab angrily.But the monkey didn't care at all, and still ate the persimmon quickly.Crab found it useless to scold him, so he decided to fight evil with evil.

"Mr. Monkey," she said, "you are such a good tree climber, but you have eaten so much, I bet you can't do somersaults." He stood upside down on the big branch three times, and all the overripe persimmons in his pocket fell to the ground.The crab picked up some persimmons like lightning and moved them into its cave. When she came out to carry them again, the monkey jumped on her and beat her hard.The monkey kept beating the crab until his arm hurt and then he stopped and left.

Fortunately, all of Crab's friends came to help her, otherwise, the poor Crab would have died of anger.The wasp flew over and moved the crab to the bed to take care of it. He discussed with the 碓 (a rice pounding device made of wood and stone.) and the egg. punish him.So the pea climbed up to the front door post, the eggs lay quietly on the ground, and the wasp hid in the bucket in the corner.The crab also burrowed a deep hole in the ground, and buried itself without showing a single claw.

Sure enough, the monkey jumped down from the tree where he lived, and tiptoed to the door of the crab. He talked hypocritically for a long time, and asked the crab to forgive him for what he had done.He waited for someone to answer, but there was no response.He listened, but there was no sound in the room; he looked, and there was no one.So he went into the house and searched in vain for crabs.When he saw the egg, he picked it up and put it on the fire to roast.After a while, the egg exploded into thousands of pieces, and the sharp shells hit the monkey's face and scratched it everywhere.Because of the pain, the monkey ran to the bucket, bent down and poured water on his head with his hands.The wasp crawled up his face along his hands and stung his nose.The monkey screamed and rushed to the door, but just as he reached the door, the pestle fell down and killed the monkey.

From then on, Crab lived happily for many years, until finally, she died of old age peacefully under her own persimmon tree.

(End of this chapter)