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more!" Seeing that he would persist in his strange philosophy the village elders left him alone.
Another of his practices was to walk round the market in the evening to where his poorest relations would be hawking fish and pork. When he found any of them had something they couldn't sell he would note down in his pocket-book the price of the thing and ask to have it sent to his house. Quite a lot of food would accumulate in this way so Hei Sui would end up by asking the hawkers themselves to come and dine with him. At the end of the meal he would bring out his note-book and money and insist on paying each hawker for the things he had bought from him. His relations would be much embarrassed and did not like to take his money as besides eating their own produce Hei Sui had given them rice and wine. He would say "Nothing could be happier than to have so many cousins to dinner every night! If I give a feast I must needs go to the market and buy things, then why should I not buy them from you? If I have guests, why should you not be my guests?" If his cousins still demurred he would exclaim, "Alas, I was only able to invite you, and not your families as well. Pray take this money home and buy a feast for them which I ought to have provided myself!" This sometimes made the more sensitive hawkers very uncomfortable and they would in future avoid Kam T'in and sell their goods in another village.
When Hei Sui was fifty-six he died. Two years later a pedlar from Pok Loh (†) district came to Kam T'in one day with a strange story. He said that in his district city a Shing Wong (城隍) (the guardian god of a city wall) temple had been built about two years before and at the opening ceremony of the temple it was found that the characters Tang Lung Man (鄧龍文) had appeared miraculously painted on the bottom corner of the long gown of the idol. Thinking that some mischievous person had put them there, the people tried to rub them off, but the harder they rubbed the clearer the characters showed. Now Tang Lung Man was the "friendship name" of Hei Sui, and on asking the date of the opening ceremony his descendants learned that it was on the very day he had died in Kam T'in, so they decided that his spirit must have entered the guardian god of Pok Loh district city. After several years when the time came for his re-burial Hei Sui's heart was found to be quite intact. The people standing round were staring in amazement at this when a strange dog suddenly sprang into the grave and seizing
LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES
167
more!" Seeing that he would persist in his strange philosophy the village elders left him alone.
Another of his practices was to walk round the market in the evening to where his poorest relations would be hawking fish and pork. When he found any of them had something they couldn't sell he would note down in his pocket-book the price of the thing and ask to have it sent to his house. Quite a lot of food would accumulate in this way so Hei Sui would end up by asking the hawkers themselves to come and dine with him. At the end of the meal he would bring out his note-book and money and insist on paying each hawker for the things he had bought from him. His relations would be much embarrassed and did not like to take his money as besides eating their own produce Hei Sui had given them rice and wine. He would say "Nothing could be happier than to have so many cousins to dinner every night! If I give a feast I must needs go to the market and buy things, then why should I not buy them from you? If I have guests, why should you not be my guests?" If his cousins still demurred he would exclaim, "Alas, I was only able to invite you, and not your families as well. Pray take this money home and buy a feast for them which I ought to have provided myself!" This sometimes made the more sensitive hawkers very uncomfortable and they would in future avoid Kam T'in and sell their goods in another village.
When Hei Sui was fifty-six he died. Two years later a pedlar from Pok Loh (†) district came to Kam T'in one day with a strange story. He said that in his district city a Shing Wong (JA) (the guardian god of a city wall) temple had been built about two years before and at the opening ceremony of the temple it was found that the characters Tang Lung Man () had appeared mira- culously painted on the bottom corner of the long gown of the idol. Thinking that some mischievous person had put them there, the people tried to rub them off, but the harder they rubbed the clearer the characters showed. Now Tang Lung Man was the "friendship name" of Hei Sui, and on asking the date of the opening ceremony his descendants learned that it was on the very day he had died in Kam T'in, so they decided that his spirit must have entered the guardian god of Pok Loh district city. After several years when the time came for his re-burial Hei Sui's heart was found to be quite intact. The people standing round were staring in amazement at this when a strange dog suddenly sprang into the grave and seizing
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