[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.""No editorial comments, please," Remo said."The legend and nothing but the legend.I want to be out of here today.""You can leave now," Chiun said."The story," Remo said."Legend," Chiun corrected."So the avaricious Yee told the Master Shang that she wanted just one more thing and if he could not provide it, would she then be free to return to her people.And Shang finally understood what had been concealed from him all along: that Yee did not love him but only the things he could give her.But he also understood that he still loved her and so he gave her his promise.'What is it you wish, my wife?'"And Yee pointed beyond him into the night sky." 'That,' she said." 'The moon? No one can give you the moon.It is impossible.You are trying to trick me.'" 'I will settle for a piece of the moon.A piece no bigger than my fist.Is this so much to ask?'"Shang was beside himself for days.He did not sleep, he did not eat, for he was in love and at length he decided that if he wished to keep Yee as his wife, he must try."What a dork," Remo said."Silence," Chiun commanded."So one clear night with a walking stick and a pack on his pack, Master Shang set out to walk to the moon.He walked north, beyond Korea, beyond the colder lands above Korea, always keeping the moon before him.He reasoned that where the moon set would be his goal.For wherever the moon went by day, he would find it."Master Shang walked and walked until he ran out of land on which to walk, and so he made for himself a boat and betook himself north in that boat.He ran out of food, he ran out of water to drink.There were strange animals in the water and bears who swam and were the color of snow."Finally, Master Shang, sick with hunger, sailed into a cold sea where the sun never set.He thought himself dead and doomed to sail the Void through eternity.Until his boat reached a strange land."Now this land was white, with mountains of snow.Everywhere there was snow and under it rock.The days passed and still the sun did not set but only hung low in the tired sky.There was no moon in the sky.Shang waited for days but it did not appear.And it was then that the Master of Sinanju knew that he had reached his goal."Chiun lowered his voice to a respectful hush."And so the legend tells us, he had walked to the moon."Master Shang ate the meat of the white swimming bear and broke off a rock the size of Yee's fist from a mountain of the moon.And with extra meat in his ration pouch, he sailed back from the land of the moon."When, months later, he returned to the village of Sinanju, he told Yee, 'I have brought you a rock of the moon.I have kept my promise.'"And Yee accepted the rock and his story, although she cried because she knew she would never see her homeland again.Her days were not long after this and in the end, Master Shang was stricken by grief and he too died.But not in shame, for he had done a wondrous thing.And to remind future Masters of the lesson of Shang, the rock you hold in your hands, Remo, has been passed from generation to generation."Chiun smiled benignly."Do you understand, Remo?""Chiun, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Shang didn't walk to the moon."Chiun looked at Remo with an unhappy glare."You do not understand," he said sadly.Page 57ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"He walked to the North Pole," Remo said."The white swimming bears were polar bears.And at the North Pole, the sun doesn't set for six months every year.That's why it never got dark," Remo said."You disappoint me, Remo," said Chiun, taking away the rock of Master Shang."I will have to keep this until you have learned the lesson of Shang.It is sad.""All right.Time out," Remo said."Answer me this.If Shang did walk to the moon, why isn't he considered a great Master? Answer me that.After all, it's not everybody who can walk to the moon.""Shang is not greatly honored for a simple reason," said Chiun evenly."He married a Chinese and this is just not done [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]