It was the hottest it had been for years. On every hand the roof tiles of the stone-floored houses reflected the sunlight dully like lead, and it seemed that, if this kept up, the little swallows and eggs in the nests under them must be steamed to death. In addition, in every field, the hemp and millet plants all hung their heads limply in the radiation from the soil, and there was not one, though they were still green, that did not droop. And the sky above the fields, probably because of the hot weather, seemed dull, although the sun was shining bright, and cloud masses floated here and there like bits of rice cake puffed up in an earthen pan. This story of the wine worm begins with three men out deliberately on a blistering flailing floor under the burning sun.
Strange to say, one of them not only was lying naked on his back on the ground, but, for some reason or other, had his hands and his feet bound up in a long cord. However, he seemed not to be greatly troubled about it. He was a short and sanguine man, fat as a pig, who somehow gave an impression of dullness. An unglazed jar of moderate size stood by his head, but it was impossible to say what was in it.
The second was a man in a yellow robe with little rings of bronze in his ears, who at a glance was recognizable as an eccentric Buddhist priest. From his exceptionally dark skin and his frizzled hair and beard, he seemed certainly to be from west of T’sung-ling. He had for some time been moving a whip of long white hairs with a red handle patiently back and forth to drive away the horseflies and common houseflies that swarmed about the naked man, but now seeming naturally to have grown a little tired, he had come to the unglazed jar and was squatting solemnly beside it like a turkey cock.