53. OLD LADY KUNG

　　This is something that happened during the later years of the reign of the emperor Qianlung, towards the end of the eighteenth century.
　　　
　　The people in a place called Junzhou were all mean. They actually enjoyed killing. Not just the boys and men were cruel, but the old folks, the women, and even the little girls were mean, too. There weren't many little girls, though, because the people there preferred boys. If they had a baby girl, they'd drown her and try again. They didn't care that they were killing their own babies, so you can imagine how they treated animals!

　　They taught their children to collect 'spiral lion' snails to sell and to eat.Kids gathered snails and clams and frogs, and even the littlest kids knew how to kill these animals with a knife. If a father or mother found their children mistreating animals, they would smile proudly and say, "What a smart kid I've got!"

　　Of course since the children there were brought up that way, they took it for granted that butchering animals was good, so when they grew up, they killed any animal they could lay their hands on.
　
　　But that's not to say that everybody in Junzhou was rotten to the core.There was one nice old lady named Kung. She was about the only person there who knew better than to kill animals. In fact, she used to save spiral lions that had wandered too far from the water. She saved a lot of ants from getting stepped on. All her neighbors laughed at her and said she was a nut.

　　One night a fisherman dreamed that two men dressed in black official uniforms picked up a book from the river bank.
　
　　"What's that book?" he asked.
　
　　"This is a record of good deeds and bad deeds. There are a lot of debts due for all you people's killing. You had better watch out!"

　　The fisherman didn't think much of the dream, because he had always killed things, but five days later, the whole city of Junchou was wiped out in a big flood.Most of the people there didn't even have a chance to yell for help before they drowned.

　　Only the old lady Kung escaped. The day before the flood, her littlest grandchild had come down with malaria. She took him to a temple in the mountains to burn incense and pray for the gods to cure him. A few days later, he was okay, so she left the temple. When she got home, she found the whole town was gone, and only she and her grandchild had escaped. Everybody else was dead.

53.孔老夫人

　　这是发生在18世纪末期乾隆末年的事情。

　　有一个叫君州的地方，那里的人们都很恶毒。他们都喜欢杀生。不仅男孩和男人很残忍，连老人，妇女，甚至小女孩都很卑鄙。那里小女孩很少，因为那里的人都重男轻女。如果生了女儿，他们就把她淹死，再生一个。他们连杀死自己的亲生骨肉都不在意，更何况是对待动物！

　　他们教自己的孩子去拣螺蛳来卖或者吃掉。孩子们收集蜗牛、蛤或者青蛙，既便是最小的孩子也知道怎样用刀杀死这些动物。如果他们的父母看到自己的孩子在虐待动物，他们会骄傲地微笑，说，“我的孩子真聪明！”

　　这些孩子都是这样长大的，他们自然而然地认为屠杀动物是对的。当他们长大后，他们就把能抓到的动物都杀了。

　　但这并不是说君州的所有人都坏到骨子里了。有一位很善良的姓孔的老妇人。她是那里唯一一个明白事理，不杀生的人。实际上，她经常救那些爬得离河太远的螺蛳。她还救了许多险些被踩死的蚂蚁。邻居们都笑她，说她是一个疯子。

　　一天，有一个渔夫梦到两个穿着黑色官服的人，从河岸边拿起一本书。

　　“那是什么书？”他问。

　　“这是一本记录善行和恶行的书。你们这些人杀生太多，罪孽深重。你们最好小心点！”

　　那个渔夫对这个梦不以为然，因为他经常杀生。但五天后，整个君州城被一场大洪水淹没了，大多数人还没来得及叫一声就淹死了。

　　只有孔老夫人逃脱了。洪水前的一天，她最小的孙子得了疟疾病倒了。她带他到山上的一个庙里去焚香祈祷，希望佛祖保佑他早日康复。几天后，孙子病好了，她才离开寺庙。当她回去后，发现整个城市都被毁灭了，只有她和孙子逃了出来，其他人全死了。