The White Turtle
A fisherman catches a white turtle; townsfolk vie to buy it for soup, but he pities it and releases it into the river. Years later the dyke breaks, and as flood swallows his family by night, a giant white turtle rises bearing his boat to high ground. When the waters fall, it is gone.
On the river there was a fisherman named Chen, whose family had lived by fishing for generations. One day, drawing his net, he caught a white turtle, large as a bowl, its whole body a lustrous white, its eyes faintly red, unlike common turtles. Hearing of it, the townsfolk came vying to buy — some to make soup, some to sell to rich houses as a curio — the price rising to several pieces of gold.
Chen's wife was poor and rather tempted, and urged her husband to sell. Chen looked at it long and hard, and seeing the turtle draw in its head and hide its feet, trembling as if it knew it was to die, he was moved to pity and could not bear it, saying: “Strange though the creature is, it is yet a living thing. To kill it for profit — that I will not do.” So he carried it to midstream and set it free. The turtle floated on the surface, turned its head to look back three times, and then sank.
For some years after, Chen fished as before, his household growing poorer, yet he never regretted it.
Then came a year of great rains; the river rose in flood, and one night the dyke broke. That night at the third watch the flood came all at once, and the village houses were wholly submerged. Chen's family of four scrambled up onto the roof, but the water still rose; seeing it about to cover their heads, they cried for help and none answered. Wife and children clung together weeping, certain they must die.
Suddenly something surged up from the water, gleaming white — a giant turtle, over ten feet across, the very white turtle he had freed those years ago, now grown to full size. It swam to the side of the house and lay still, as if waiting. Chen understood, and hurriedly helped his wife and children climb onto its back. The turtle bore the four of them, cutting through the waves, steady as level ground, and carried them ten li off to a high mound before it stopped. No sooner had the four climbed ashore than, looking back, they saw the turtle already entering the water, leaving only a track of white light on the surface, which after a long while faded.
When the waters fell, many in the village had drowned; only Chen's family was spared whole. Whenever Chen told this to others, he never failed to shed tears, and to the end of his life ate turtle no more.
The Chronicler of the Strange says: Chen's single kind thought freed but one turtle — did he look for reward? Yet the turtle, holding that kindness, forgot it not for years, and at last with its great body bore a boat and returned four lives to a family. He who gives without hoping for reward — his reward often lies in what he did not hope for; he who takes life for profit — his ruin often lurks within the very profit. The world haggles over the gain and loss of a few gold pieces, not knowing that a single kind thought can knot the virtue of a second life. Even a creature is thus; can a man not strive?