"Of course! Why wouldn't I?" Sun Tiecheng was very pleased with himself. "I was afraid Old Xu would try to cheat me, so I counted them right in front of him, one by one—exactly ten, not a single one missing!"
As he spoke, Sun Tiecheng took out the bamboo shoot, and Gui Jianchou stood to the side carefully counting.
The emerald green husk of the shoot was veined with strips of iron that gleamed with a metallic sheen; each strip of iron ran from the tip of the shoot all the way down to the base—ten strips in all.
Gui Jianchou exclaimed in admiration, "Really is not a single one missing."
Sun Tiecheng frowned. "No, something's missing—one."
Gui Jianchou shook his head. "I counted—ten iron veins, there really isn't a single one missing."
Sun Tiecheng shook his head. "Not an iron vein. A bamboo shoot. One bamboo shoot is missing."
Xu Han had given Sun Tiecheng two bamboo shoots; Sun Tiecheng had only brought one back.
