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When he awoke, the sun was blazing down upon the streets of Chang-ngan, and making the town like a furnace. However, Pei-Hang took up his stick and set off, because he had promised his father and mother to start that day. "I will rest a little at the Indigo Bridge, and walk on again in the cool of the evening," he said to himself.
He! he! he!" he chuckled. And when Pei-Hang offered him three rubies, each as large as a pigeon's egg, if he would go away and forget all about Yun-Ying, he took them and went. Perhaps he knew that Yun-Ying's mother would not have much more to say to him, now that she had a chance of a son-in-law who scattered jewels about the grass like pearl barley.
And how do you come to know Yun-Ying?" asked the old woman peering and blinking at him, with her hand over her eyes, to shade them from the sun. And when she heard about the dream, and the red cord, and that Pei-Hang wanted to marry her daughter, she did not look at all pleased. "If I had two daughters you might have one of them, and welcome," she grumbled.
He forgot all about the pestle and mortar as he watched the waves rippling along the shore, and leaving behind them diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls in thousands. Every pebble on the margin of the lake was a precious stone, and Pei-Hang wanted to go down and fill his pockets with them.
This was exactly what he wanted; for he knew that the yellow-faced mandarin was only the richest man in Chang-ngan, and that the richest man in China would have a far greater chance of marrying Yun-Ying. "Well, what next?" cried the eight Genii, when he had finished. "Will you take it on your shoulder or on your head?" "I will just carry it under my arm," replied Pei-Hang, easily.
And he took out his little box, and threw one of his red seeds on top of the gems. In a moment the gigantic pestle and mortar shrank into one of the ordinary size. Pei-Hang put the pestle in his pocket, and took up the mortar carefully, because he did not wish to spill the precious stones, and made a low bow to the Genii. "Good-bye, and thank you," he said.
At last a light came into his eyes; and he jumped up and asked the friendly Geni if he would make a little heap of stones at one side of the mortar. "I want to be able to look inside it, and I am not tall enough," said he. "And why don't you do it yourself?" asked the Geni. "Because I must go down to the Lake of Gems and collect precious stones," replied Pei-Hang.
The inside of the hut was fragrant with the scent of herbs which were strewn all over the floor, and on a wooden stool in the middle lay a broken pestle and mortar. "Now," said Yun-Ying's mother, "on this stool I pound magic drugs given to me by the Genii; but my pestle and mortar is broken. I want a new one." "That I can easily buy in Chang-ngan," replied Pei-Hang.
They did not laugh this time, but they pursued him with such a roar of rage that it sounded as if eight lions were waiting for their dinner. But they did not dare to stop him, knowing that he had the power to turn the four brooks into four rivers again. Pei-Hang hurried away, and on his journey did exactly what he had promised.
With all these precautions Pei-Hang got safely over the troubles of his babyhood, and grew from a little boy into a big one, and from a boy to a tall and handsome youth; and he left off wearing his netted shirt, although the silver chain still hung round his neck and there was red silk in his pigtail. "It is time that Pei-Hang saw a little more," said his father.
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