The Grateful Cow

Zhao Wu, a martial student, was poor and served in a rich house. His master kept a cow, old and sick, and meant to sell it to the butcher. Seeing Zhao Wu, the cow knelt long and wept, as if it had something to plead. Moved, Zhao Wu poured out all his wages to redeem it, led it home to his broken hut, and cut fresh grass to feed it daily.

Grateful, the cow worked the fields with twice the usual strength, and Zhao Wu grew a little better off by it. After three years the cow was older still; one evening it lay at Zhao Wu's knees, tears falling, and died that night. Zhao Wu wept, shrouded it in a straw mat, and buried it at the field's edge.

The next year, digging beside the cow's grave to plant melons, Zhao Wu found a clay jar in the earth; opening it, he found it full of silver. Neighbors heard and contended for it, saying buried goods should be shared by all. Zhao Wu said, "This is the cow repaying me, not buried treasure." The matter went to court. The magistrate was wise; he examined the jar's bottom and found the print of a cow's hoof, sunk deep as if branded, and ruled it Zhao Wu's. With half, Zhao Wu redeemed some dozens of cows about to be butchered in the village, and freed them all.

The Chronicler of the Strange says: A cow is but a beast; redeemed for the price of a meal, it repaid a jar full of silver. Men who receive men's kindness often fall short of the cow in virtue. Zhao Wu redeemed the cow not for gold but out of pity; the cow repaid gold not to buy favor but out of gratitude. The pitying give, the grateful repay — this is the constant of heaven's reason. Today those who forget kindness and betray duty, set beside this cow, can they not blush? The hoofprint at the jar's bottom is deep enough to brand — not the cow's hoof branded, but the human heart.