The Eight Wilds Bestiary: The Hollow Scale
A rotten scale hangs in the eastern market, weighing not goods but the debt in a man's heart — short someone by so much, and it takes so much from your grain by night.
In the eastern wilds stands a ruined market, and within it hangs a scale, its beam rotten and its marks worn away, of unknown age. The locals call it the Hollow Scale. When a trader passes beneath, one who takes heavy and gives light, who receives much and returns little, the scale sounds of itself and its weight slides three inches. That evening, the grain in his granary dwindles of its own, and the amount lost matches exactly what he had cheated.
There was a grain merchant named Old Sun, skilled at the measure, who made a habit of taking in heavy and sending out light. One day he carried his measure past the scale and heard its weight slide with a clang; he wondered at it. At home his granary shrank day by day, and within ten days stood empty. Old Sun was seized with fear and mended his ways, dealing ever fairly. Before long the granary filled again.
The village elder said: "Does the Hollow Scale weigh goods? It weighs the heart. Men think themselves clever, not knowing a scale hangs in the market; short them by so much, and it records so much."