the wine worm, he would certainly have died before long. Consequently that he fell into poverty and illness one after the other should be called his good fortune.
Third. The wine worm was neither Liu’s affliction nor his good fortune. He had always been a heavy drinker. When wine was taken from his life, there was nothing left. So Liu was himself the wine worm, and the wine worm was Liu. Therefore, getting rid of the wine worm was quite the same as killing himself. In short, the day Liu stopped drinking wine, he was Liu without being Liu. If Liu himself was already dead, it was most natural that the health and fortune of the Liu of other days should have been lost.
Which of these answers is most nearly right, I do not know. I have only set down such moral judgments at the end of this story in imitation of the didacticism of Chinese novelists.