There were once two rulers on a mountain, a smart Monkey and a fierce Tiger. They were blood brothers. One day, Tiger said to Monkey, “It’s true that you and I are the kings of the mountain, and we are living a leisurely life, you on wild fruits and I on wild animals. But I begin to find them boring. So what’s your take?”
“I think they are boring, too” Monkey answered, “but what else can we find that is interesting?”
“How about going to the villages down the mountain and seeing what food humans eat?” sug- gested Tiger.
“A great idea!” Monkey jumped with joy.
Evening came, and it began to snow. Tiger and Monkey waited until it was pitch-dark. Then they went down the mountain and arrived in a village at its foot. It was the New Year season, and the entire village was permeated with delicious, meaty aromas. It was customary for Chinese villagers to slaughter their pigs and goats at this time of year and prepare big feasts to celebrate the New Year.
“It smells so good,” said Tiger, sniffing with its big nose, “Domestic animals must taste good, too.” They began to search for pigs and goats in the village, but all they could find were cattle. Chi- nese farmers did not kill their best helpers in their farm work unless they became useless.
“Let’s steal a cow. Beef must taste better than pork and mutton!” said Monkey.
“Yes, let’s get a cow for our supper tonight,” Tiger said, smacking its watering mouth.
As they slipped into a courtyard in the darkness, a human thief had just sneaked into it and was lurking on the roof of the house. They did not hear each other because both parties tried to be very quiet. In the house there lived an old couple. They had built a big fire to warm themselves. However, they did not realize that the heat would melt the snow on the thin roof above them, and the roof began to leak. The old couple could not go to sleep and started chatting. Their conversation was loud enough for the animal and human thieves to hear.
“We’ve had a good year and are looking forward to another. We have nothing to worry about but the leak,” said the old woman to her husband.
“Sure, I really fear what the leak would do to us on a dark night like this,” responded the husband.
Tiger and Monkey pondered, “We are the most fearful creatures in the world as kings of the mountain. Why does the old couple fear ‘Leak’? Who in the world is this ‘Leak’?” Monkey pressed its mouth to the big ear of Tiger and whispered, “We’d better leave here and find another residence. Or we’ll be losing our lives when Leak knows we are here.”
The human thief was also asking himself the same question on the roof and decided to leave. He jumped off the roof and, as it happened, fell on the back of Tiger. Believing that Leak was on the of- fensive, Tiger began to run like mad, followed blindly by Monkey. When Tiger reached the moun- tain, it was almost daybreak. Tiger was so tired that it could not even pull itself up.
The human thief was terrified when he realized what he was riding on. As if he had a guardian angel, a branch of a tree happened to brush him as the tiger hobbled beneath it and stopped to rest. Wasting no time, the human thief jumped onto the tree and climbed to the top. When they found out what had been riding on Tiger’s back and had ruined their “night out,” both Tiger and Monkey were exasperated. They wanted to tear the human thief to pieces. However, Tiger had never learned to climb trees. Its teacher, a cat, had stopped short of teaching Tiger the skill when it found the beast of prey starting to threaten its life. Therefore, Tiger turned to its nimble partner Monkey for help. It asked Monkey to go up and drive the human thief down so that it could catch him. Then, we’ll share his flesh!” Tiger said with clenched teeth.
“That’s easy!” said Monkey. However, halfway up the tree it balked, thinking, “What if I fail to get the man, but instead, he gets me?”
Monkey came down and said to Tiger, Find us a rope. Tie one end to my waist and the other to your tail. Start running when I wave my hand.”
“That’s a marvelous idea,” said Tiger. It then found a rope and did as Monkey suggested. Mon- key began to approach the human thief. The thief was so nervous and scared that he sweated pro- fusely. His sweat fell like rain on the face of Monkey, approaching from below. Monkey had to rub his face and shake the perspiration off its hand. When Tiger saw Monkey shaking its hand, it thought that Monkey was signaling it to run. Tiger scampered off wildly, thinking that the human thief was even more frightening than Leak! Tiger ran and ran until it reached its den, totally forgetting its pri- mate friend, which had been dragged to its death.
The moral of this story is to not be overconfident to the point where mistakes can be fatal
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