There was another reason why Wong Ts’in sought the solitude of the thinly-peopled outer places, away from the influence and distraction of his own estate.  For some time past a problem that had once been remote was assuming dimensions of increasing urgency.  This detail concerns Fa Fai, who had already been referred to by a person of literary distinction, in a poetical analogy occupying three written volumes, as a pearl-tinted peach-blossom shielded and restrained by the silken net-work of wise parental affection (and recognizing the justice of the comparison, Wong Ts’in had been induced to purchase the work in question).  Now that Fa Fai had attained an age when she could fittingly be sought in marriage the contingency might occur at any time, and the problem confronting her father’s decision was this:  owing to her incomparable perfection Fa Fai must be accounted one of Wong Ts’in’s chief possessions, the other undoubtedly being his secret process of simulating the lustrous effect of pure gold embellishment on china by the application of a much less expensive substitute.  Would it be more prudent to concentrate the power of both influences and let it become known that with Fa Fai would go the essential part of his very remunerative clay enterprise, or would it be more prudent to divide these attractions and secure two distinct influences, both concerned about his welfare?  In the first case there need be no reasonable limit to the extending vista of his ambition, and he might even aspire to greet as a son the highest functionary of the province—­an official of such heavily-sustained importance that when he went about it required six chosen slaves to carry him, and of late it had been considered more prudent to employ eight.

If, on the other hand, Fa Fai went without any added inducement, a mandarin of moderate rank would probably be as high as Wong Ts’in could look, but he would certainly be able to adopt another of at least equal position, at the price of making over to him the ultimate benefit of his discovery.  He could thus acquire either two sons of reasonable influence, or one who exercised almost unlimited authority.  In view of his own childlessness, and of his final dependence on the services of others, which arrangement promised the most regular and liberal transmission of supplies to his expectant spirit when he had passed into the Upper Air, and would his connection with one very important official or with two subordinate ones secure him the greater amount of honour and serviceable recognition among the more useful deities?

To Wong Ts’in’s logical mind it seemed as though there must be a definite answer to this problem.  If one manner of behaving was right the other must prove wrong, for as the wise philosopher Ning-hy was wont to say:  “Where the road divides, there stand two Ning-hys.”  The decision on a matter so essential to his future comfort ought not to be left to chance.  Thus it had become a habit of Wong Ts’in’s to penetrate the Outer Spaces in the hope of there encountering a specific omen.