User: short summary of a cricket boy

Weegy: The Cricket Boy(A Chinese Tale)A long time ago, cricket fighting caught on in the imperial court, withthe emperor leading the fad. [ A local magistrate in Huayin, who wanted to winthe favor of the monarch, tried in every way to get him the best fightingcrickets. He had a strategy for doing so: He managed to get a cricket thatwas very good at fighting. He then made his subordinates go to the heads of each village and force them to send in a constant supply of fighting crickets.He would send to the imperial court the crickets that could beat the one hewas keeping. Theoretically, everything should have worked smoothly. However, asthe magistrate was extremely zealous to please the emperor, he meted outharsh punishment on any village heads who failed to accomplish their tasks. The village heads in turn shifted the burden to the poor villagers, who had tosearch for the crickets. If they failed to catch them, they had to purchasethem from someone else, or they had to pay a levy in cash. The small insects suddenly became a rare commodity. Speculatorshoarded good crickets, buying them at a bargain and selling them for anexorbitant price. Many village heads worked hand in hand with thespeculators to make profits. In so doing, they bankrupted many a family.Cheng Ming was one such villager. The head of his village delegatedpart of his duties to him because he found Cheng Ming easy to push around.Cheng Ming did not want to bully his fellow villagers as the village head didhim, so he often had to pay cash out of his own pocket when he failed tocollect any competent crickets. Soon the little proper ties he had weredraining away, and he went into a severe depression. One day, he said to hiswife that he wanted to die.?Death is easy, but what will our son do without you?? asked his wife,glancing at their only son, sleeping on the kang. ?Why can?t we look for thecrickets ourselves instead of buying them? Perhaps we?ll strike some goodluck.?Cheng Ming gave up the idea of suicide and went to search forcrickets. ]
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