"You can decide."
The Muslim seemed absolutely certain of victory and Yuanzhi began to feel suspicious. "What"s that in your hand?" she asked.
"It"s the donkey"s tail," he replied, waving it about. "After he started wearing the official cap, he thought it didn"t go well with his dirty tail, so he decided he didn"t want it."
"Let me have a look," she said.
He threw the tail across and she caught it, then pointed with it at a small sand dune some distance away. "We"ll race from here to that sand dune," she said. "The winner will be the first to get there, your donkey or my horse." The man nodded. "You go over there and be the judge," she added to Yu. He slapped his horse and galloped off across to the dune.
"Go!" Yuanzhi shouted, and with a lash of her whip, her horse leapt forward. After a few hundred feet, she glanced back and saw the donkey, limping along far behind. She laughed and spurred her horse on even faster. Then all of a sudden a black shape shot past her. She almost fell off her saddle in shock when she saw the man had slung the donkey around his shoulders and was running with long strides, already a good distance ahead of her. She recovered and tried to catch him up again, but he ran like the wind and stayed ahead all the way to the finish. Just before she reached the dune, Yuanzhi threw the donkey"s tail back the way they had come and shouted: "The horse is first!"
The Muslim and Yu looked at each other in puzzlement.
"Mistress!" the Muslim protested. "We agreed that whichever got here first, the donkey or the horse, was the winner, isn"t that right?"
Yuanzhi tidied her hair with her hand. "Yes," she replied. "But only part of the donkey got here first."
The man pulled on his beard. "I don"t understand. What do you mean, only part of the donkey?"
Yuanzhi pointed to the tail she had thrown far behind them. "My horse arrived complete, but only a part of your donkey made it. His tail didn"t."
The man laughed heartily. "Yes, you"re right!" he exclaimed. "You win. I"ll take you to find those four bad men." He went over and picked the tail up and brought it back. "You stupid donkey!" he said to the animal. "Don"t think that just because you"re wearing an official"s cap that you don"t need your dirty tail." He leapt onto its back.
Yu had been greatly impressed by the Muslim"s immense strength that allowed him to run faster than a horse even with the donkey slung over his shoulders. He knew he must be a martial arts master and bowed before him.
"If you just tell us which direction to go, we will go and find them ourselves," he said respectfully. "We don"t wish to trouble you, sir."
"But I lost," the Muslim replied, smiling. "How can I back out now?" He turned the donkey round and shouted: "Follow me!"
They travelled on. Yu asked the man for his name, but he simply smiled and answered with more crazy jokes. The lame donkey walked very slowly, and after half a day they had covered only ten miles. They saw riders approaching from behind, and "Mastermind" Xu and Zhou Qi galloped up. Yu introduced them saying: "This gentleman is taking us to find the Three Devils." Xu dismounted and bowed.
The Muslim simply smiled in response. "Your wife should be resting more," he said to Xu. "What"s she doing, racing about like this?"
Xu stared at him, not understanding. Zhou Qi, however, blushed red, and galloped on ahead.
The Muslim was very familiar with the roads and paths of the desert, and towards evening, he led them to a small village. As they approached, they saw that a Manchu military unit had also just descended on the village. The Muslims were fleeing in all directions dragging their children after them.
"Most of the Manchu forces have already been exterminated, and the remnants have been surrounded, so where did these come from?"