A Greedy Man
By Sarah S.
A long time ago, in a city near Hankow, there lived a very rich emperor. He was the meanest emperor and also very boastful. He would boast about everything. He would boast about being very rich, about getting to use the royal colors (red and gold,) about his jade jewelry, and about his silk robes. That's not all. He would constantly raise taxes so he could buy more jade and take the last grain of rice from the poor families. He thought money was the best thing in the world and that it could cure anything.
One day this emperor's father got very sick. He bought dried herbs,
dried geckos, and dried tea. But nothing seemed to work. Then,
he summoned all the doctors in the land to come and help. They
also tried everything from soup to acupuncture. But nothing worked.
The emperor was getting desperate. His father was becoming weaker
and weaker.
One day a wise man came to the palace. The emperor said that he
would be willing to pay any amount of money to cure his ailing
father. The wise man told the emperor that his father could not
be cured. Money could not save his father. All the emperor could
do was spend as much time as he could with his father. But the
emperor did not listen. He continued to spend his days looking
for someone who could be paid to find a cure. The last thing the
emperor did was offer a huge reward for anyone who could cure
his father. But still nothing worked. A week later, his father
died. The emperor realized then that he would have done anything
to spend just a little more time with his father. He even paid
people in the village who claimed to be magicians, to go back
in time and change what happened. But once again, nothing worked.
He thought that his money could cure everything. But then, the
emperor realized that "an inch of gold could not buy an inch
of time."