Rider Chan and the night river

The short story is about two brothers who were born in a small village near south China. Their father died soon after, and it was their mother who raised them. She loved her sons deeply; she had little time for them because she worked all day long.
When news of the California gold rush reached China, the two brothers, one hard worker and the other lazy, decided to emigrate. The hard worker one became known as Rider Chan for the courage and strength he showed when delivering mail and medicines, while the other brother disappeared into gold country. One night, as he was crossing a river, a spirit suddenly grabbed his ankle and pulled him harder and harder into the water. Even when at first the spirit didn't hear Rider Chan's screams of terror, at the end he released him, when Rider Chan explained how he carried mail and medicines. Rider Chan thanked the spirit, and said that he owed it a favour. The spirit asked the man to bury its body, and as Rider Chan was up to that he saw a knife protruding from the spirit's back. “Who did this?” he asked. The spirit told Rider that it was his greedy, ambitious partner, with whom he struck gold. "He also ate the food I had poisoned for him, so he is dead too", the spirit confessed, and explained that his ambitious partner was Rider Chan’s brother. The spirit asked Rider Chan to collect the gold, which was still safe, and send it to his mother. Rider Chan did so and his mother felt very proud of her children, because she never knew what had happened to Rider Chan's brother. Rider Chan's brother was ambitious and greedy, but Rider Chan, who loved his brother and his mother even more, never told his mother what his brother had done. Therefore, this is a story of ambition and greediness, but this is also a tale of love and courage!

Milky Way