ZQ: Hello and welcome to Listeners' Garden on China Radio International.

L: Well, another busy week for CRI, but I'm sure we won't disappoint our listeners because they can always find their favorite part of the program.

Z: Of course.

L: I think it's now time for a story of ancient Chinese wisdom. Here is Wang Jing with a story named Faith.

Fan Zihua was a rich and powerful man in the state of Jin over 2,000 years ago. He was a good friend of the king. Although he held no office in the imperial court, he was more influential than many of the high-ranking government ministers.

He retained many men of different professional skills in his mansions than there were in the imperial court. In those days, men of distinction generally retained a large host of lodger-guests at home, a host of scholars, consultants and warriors, most of them fortune seekers.

One day two of Fan Zihua's lodger guests went on a trip out of town. They put up for the night in a small inn run by an old farmer named Shang Qiukai . At the dinner table the two men began chatting about their benefactor Fan Zihua. They said there was no one more influential than Fan Zihua, who could turn a rich man into a poor man and a poor man into a rich man overnight. He could also ruin anyone or save anyone from ruin if it pleased him to do so.

The innkeeper Shang Qiukai overheard their conversation and made up his mind to give up his business and apply to Fan Zihua to be one of his lodger guests. After all what was the point of keeping this inn business any more since it had not brought him any profit. He was such a poor man that he needed a change badly.

Before he got permission to meet Fan Zihua, a number of Fan's lodger guests came to see him. As they all came from noble families, the sight of a shabbily dressed old man with a wrinkled weather-beaten face irked him. They began to poke fun at him. They jostled against him, pushed and shoved him around, and showered insulting remarks on him. To all this, Shang Qiukai bore up calmly.

Then they took him to a high terrace. Someone offered a hundred ounces of gold for anyone who dared to jump down. Without any hesitation, Shang Qiukai leaped and landed himself on the ground like a bird.

The crowd was not surprised, thinking it was just good luck.