You humans fought a battle over two peaches, three thousand years ago.
Don't laugh. Two peaches killed three warriors — it's in your own books. Three great captains, two peaches, three lives spent over the three words "who deserves them." When our ancestors told that story, the whole troop laughed at the foolish humans. I didn't laugh. I understood those three warriors. The peach was the small matter; dignity was the large one. They weren't fighting over fruit. They were fighting over "do I measure up."
We monkeys fight over that too.
On the peach slope stands an old tree. Its highest branch bears exactly one peach a year — the reddest, the sweetest, closest to the sun. In my youth, Beng and I — yes, that same old warmonger — fought seven days and nights in that tree for that peach. On the seventh night, with victory in reach, my foot slipped. I broke my tail. The peach fell, rolled into the ditch, and rotted for three days.
Neither of us got it.
After that we made a rule: the highest peach stays on the branch. As long as it's there, we're still the rivals we were. The day it's gone, we're just two old fools who once brawled over fruit.
My legs are slow now; I can't climb that high. But every day I sit under that tree a while and look up to check the peach is there. It is. Good. Old Beng comes by too, pretending he's passing through. Passing through? That tree is three li from his post. What is he passing to?
You want to help me pick peaches? Fine. The low trees, help yourself — half of what you pick is yours. The highest one —
If you've really got the skill to reach it, pick it, don't eat it, bring it to me. I'll trade ten low peaches for it. Don't ask why. Some peaches are for eating. Some are for leaving where they are.
Long after we're gone, that branch will bear one peach a year. The monkeys who come after will ask: why does nobody pick the peach that high?
And then it's your turn to tell them the story of me and the old fool.