Happy are those even to whom is left a little ash to be
placed in a precious urn and diligently guarded, for it, in any event,
truly represents all that is left of the once living person, whereas
after an honourable and spotless existence my illustrious but
unthinking lord will be blended with a variety of baser substances and
passed from hand to hand, his immaculate organs serving to reward
murderers for their deeds and to tempt the weak and vicious to all
manner of unmentionable crimes."
So overcome was Ling by the distressing nature of the oversight he had
permitted that he could find no words with which to comfort Mian, who,
after some moments, continued:
"There are even worse visions of degradation which occur to this
person. By chance, that which was once the noble-minded Ling may be
disposed of, not to the Imperial Treasury for converting into pieces
of exchange, but to some undiscriminating worker in metals who will
fashion out of his beautiful and symmetrical stomach an elegant food-
dish, so that from the ultimate developments of the circumstance may
arise the fact that his own descendants, instead of worshipping him,
use his internal organs for this doubtful if not absolutely unclean
purpose, and thereby suffer numerous well-merited afflictions, to the
end that the finally-despised Ling and this discredited person,
instead of founding a vigorous and prolific generation, become the
parents of a line of feeble-minded and physically-depressed lepers.
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