Digital Story

A Blessing in Disguise
I’m an old man lived in a faraway town near the Chinese border with my son. We farmed the land and lived a mostly peaceful life.
One night, there was a terrible storm. Wind lashed the trees. An old elm crashed into the barn door. The frightened horse ran out of the barn, heading toward the hills. My son and I looked all over for the horse. We walked through the dark fields, holding torches. We called to the horse and scattered sweet hay. Still, we could not find it.
The entire time I kept saying, “Perhaps losing our horse isn’t such a bad thing.” My son kept quiet. He didn’t understand me.
We asked everyone about the missing horse. The townspeople answered politely, saying that they hadn’t seen the horse, but would look out for me. They all pitied my son and me. “It must be terrible to lose such a beautiful animal,” they said. But I insisted that losing the horse might not be a bad thing. The townspeople grew quiet.
They didn’t understand me.
Indeed, it turned out to not be such a bad thing. The horse returned the next day, bringing with it a beautiful female horse. The townspeople congratulated me, telling me that I had good luck. I, however, responded, “Perhaps my horse returning is not such a good thing after all.” The townspeople grew quiet. They didn’t understand me.
As the days passed, my son came to love the new horse. He rode it every day. When they raced, they flowed like the wind over the grass. But one day, as my son was riding the horse, a large bird suddenly flew in front of them. The terrified horse stood up on two legs, pawing the air. My son reached for his horse’s mane but grabbed only air. He flew off the horse’s back.
He slammed into the hard ground. His leg broke. I ran to my son and carried him back to the house.
The townspeople expressed their sympathy to me. They were all very sorry. My son would never be able to walk without pain again.
Yet unlike the townspeople, I said, “Maybe this is not such a bad thing after all.” The townspeople grew quiet. They didn’t understand me.
A few months later, the Emperor passed through the town with his soldiers. There was a war raging near the border. All the able bodied young men had to join the army. What the Emperor didn’t say was that most of the young men would die in the fight.
However, because my son was handicapped, he could not fight. He didn’t have to join the army. Instead, he stayed home. He helped tend crops on the family farm.
“See?” I said to the townspeople. “It all worked out in the end.”
My horse running away brought back the second horse. And that second horse stopped my son from going off to his death. So, in the end, it was good and lucky that these things happened.” The townspeople cheered my wisdom. At last, they understood me.
This story is called a blessing in disguise. The original text was written from a third-person perspective, and I rewrote it to the first person. This perspective enhances the attractiveness of the article, shortens the distance between it and the reader, and makes it easier to induce the reader's thinking. What’s more, it also makes the story seem like an old man telling his own experience, and expressing it earnestly that even the worst things can have positive effects. There is a similar idiom in English. It is “Every cloud has a silver lining.”