It was customary to adorn the Seekong altar with a new couplet written in calligraphy on the eve of every New Year. However, this year, the Wise One, Xiao Quanren, had taken ill and was unable to write the couplet. What were they supposed to do?
Xiao Dizhang knitted his eyebrows in a quandary as this was an important custom and would affect the good fortune of the village for the coming year.
"I heard that someone from Chen Village is good in calligraphy as well. Why not invite him over?" a villager suggested.
But someone else immediately refuted his proposal. "Preposterous! The Seekong altar belongs to the Xiao family. If we invite people from the Chens to write the couplet for us, wouldn't we be mocking ourselves? We can't do that, absolutely not!"
