At the hour of Yin, Li awoke.
There was no crowing from his sickly chicken; perhaps it had died. That meant there would be meat to eat at last.
Alive with sickness, dead and free of it; illness clings only to the living. The dead may look horrifying, but they're actually quite delectable.
Ambling over to the chicken coop, Li leaned his hands on the fence, stepped on clumps of earth and, on tiptoe, peered with his one good eye into the coop, only to find the chicken sprawled on the ground, eerily staring back at him.
"Not dead, eh... Then why didn't you crow?"
Eyeing the chicken with suspicion, Li noticed a large tumor hanging off its neck, a sign it had contracted a new illness.
To fall ill anew, it must still possess the vitality of life; it wouldn't die anytime soon.
He sighed and returned to the courtyard to endure the hardship for yet another day.
