鲁智深倒拔垂杨柳

A big city monastery does not only pray. It owns land, and one piece of that land is a vegetable garden that has to be watched. The monk sent to watch this one is Lu Zhishen (Lǔ Zhìshēn), who was a soldier before he shaved his head, and who is built like a door.

Thirty or so local men have been living off that garden for years — they gamble for a living, they take what grows there, and they have seen off everyone the monastery has sent. Two of them lead the rest: Zhang San (Zhāng Sān) and Li Si (Lǐ Sì), whose names are the Chinese equivalent of Tom and Dick, any two men off the street. They have decided to settle with the new monk the way they settled with the old ones, and they are on their way to the garden now, all thirty of them, smiling, to offer their congratulations.

One thing about a vegetable garden of this period that a modern reader cannot be expected to know: the manure pit at the edge of it is not a decoration. Everything the garden grows depends on it, so it is large, it is open, and it is deep.