Chin Cho felt the last drops of water drizzle into his mouth. Chin owned a small cottage and a half decent sized property to grow his rice. He lived in a small town just south of modern day Beijing. The year was 24569 BC only a year before writing was invented. Chin was a short, skinny 25 year old man. His property ended at a dry lake. Everything was dry. The local lakes, ponds, and creeks; bone dry. The fields, meadows, once grassy hills; wiped clean of vegetation. Even the sky was dry. It hadn’t rained in 6 weeks and it was the “wet” season. China was facing powerful raids from the rival Mongolians. China may be no more! Chin was scavenging through his rice fields when he finds a single grain of rice more circular than most rice grains. He shakes it next to his ear. He hears a soft clicking sound. He cracked it open only to find a shiny pearl as bright as the sun smiling. Frustrated he throws the pearl into the barren soil. Suddenly, like a rabbit with too much sugar it spurted out of the ground. Rice was growing and maturing in seconds. “Yayess” Chin hollered. It was heard from miles around. Colonel Benny Hanna was just in earshot of the cry of joy. “How can anybody be experiencing joy at this time of crisis?” he asked one of his cadets. “Something to investigate?” The cadet responded, obviously intimidated by the colonel. So the small army marched to Chin’s cabin. Meanwhile Chin was singing, dancing, laughing and crying. He went into his cabin, skipping. He wrote to his father who was stationed by the Mongolian border. He drew out his feather and some ink. Chin tried to hold back tears of joy as he wrote:

Dear father, I have found something of great joy. As you know there has been a terrible drought, a tyrant, scouring the land of China. But I, Chin Cho have made the single most important discovery in the history of history. I was scavenging through my field abolished, almost, of rice. I found a grain of rice. Not a normal grain… certainly not normal, it turns the ordinary into extraordinary. Magic, some may call it but me, no. It is of great importance, it is something of a miracle. It is a Miracle Grain. So yes, father you were right by telling me a grain of rice is as important as a harvest of rice. This may save China. I certainly found that one grain you once spoke of. A Miracle Grain.
As forever known, Chin Huang Cho.

Chin never got to send that letter. Chin, hearing a beating of war drums, runs outside to see soldiers of his nation hacking away at his rice. Almost all of his rice was already being piled into wheelbarrows. “Stop!” Chin screamed. Two armed soldiers run at him pushing Chin in dry, hard soil. While trying to resist he remembered that he wasn’t being robbed by bandits but by the soldiers. They only want the food to be sent to the front lines... where his father is, or was. Chin stopped struggling and the soldiers helped him up. Then Colonel Benny Hanna approached him. “You are an honorable man, allowing us to detain your rice supply for your country’s cause.” “Yes” Chin replied while spitting out dirt and the syllable. “Onward and upward!” called Colonel Benny Hanna. The army moved on, pushing 25 wheelbarrows of his rice to soldiers fighting in a war he didn’t believe in. Whatever, the past has past and future is yet to come. Chin didn’t know that the future would be so good.

Hoping to find the Miracle Grain’s prize he dug around in the soil for 4 hours. Then he finally found it, a small pearl the size of his eye looking back at him as if it was an eye. Chin tried tossing it back into the soil many times but it never had the same experience as before. In fact nothing happened. After the 7th try he started to cry. Why? Why didn’t it work, 7 is the luckiest number of all. A tear ran down his face like a jaguar runs across the African plains. Chin was holding the pearl in his palm directly under his face. The tear and pearl are on a collision course! Then Plop! There was a slight sizzling sound as the tear moistened the pearl. Chin felt the pearl getting bigger and heavier in his hand. He suddenly dropped the pearl. It was hot! Now the pearl is the size of an ostrich egg, at least 10 pounds and scorching hot. Then it cracked. Chin sobbed. His most valuable possession; broken. Life; ruined. A dragon slithered out of the egg and started puffing little clouds that let out about 3 raindrops before evaporating. If only the clouds grew bigger there might be rain. Over the course of 60 minutes the dragon was an egg, a baby, a bigger baby, a 3 foot creature, a 5 foot dragon, and in the last minute a 36 foot dragon. He was a blood red color, lighter in some areas. One eye was white and the other, black, two different comma shapes. If put together it would create a Ying-Yang symbol (Chin invented this in his later years). Every 5 minutes Chin would try to communicate with the dragon. Finally, after his hundredth attempt he got a response but not by speaking like humans. It felt like a needle was put into his temple and thoughts were injected. The dragon responded: My name is Tung Shun. Chin tried to communicate back with his mind. He tried to say: I am Chin Cho; will you help me get the clouds back into the sky so it can rain again? His response: What?!!? We couldn’t fly to the beyond and pick grapes! Chin tried something easier: No, I said get clouds back and get rain. It couldn’t be clearer. Sure, said Tung, easy... kind of... Convincing response, kind of. So that evening Tung and Chin set off to the lost temple of the Earth. They prayed for no more drought and for prosperity to the land of China. Then Tung said to Chin, We should go, if we pray too much the land may think we are greedy and we won’t get what we want, plus it’s 11:30 and the task must be completed by 12:00. Okay? It’s 11:33. Sure Chin responded. So the duo flew off into the dead silent, goose bump creating cold night. After a while Chin noticed that they weren’t in China anymore! Stop! Stop! Turn back! We’re in Mongolian territory now! Turn back! Tung’s response was short and simple. No. We save our land. “Fine, better than disagreeing with a dragon flying at over 30,000 meters high” said Chin to himself. Soon they were over the battlefield. There were small fires, overturned carts and the nasty smell of death. They were where all the clouds were floating. Above the war cemetery! So, to get the rain back the war must end. So early that morning Chin and Tung flew above the Chinese army. Right when the Mongolian army came in sight Chin and Tung flew over them and Tung blew. Suddenly clouds appeared over the army’s heads. Then it started raining a mist. The Mongolians cheered, the drought had ended! Then the mist turn into a drizzle; then the drizzle became a downpour as if the above was draining all the water out of a sinking boat. Then it started to thunder and lighting. It was like someone was clapping then taking a picture with the flash on. The lighting was vaporizing the flanks of the army. Soon the white flag was waving. As if on cue clouds floated into China then unloaded all the stored up rain restoring the crops of China.
China prospered, even to modern day...

It is of great importance, it is something of a miracle. It is a Miracle Grain. So yes, father you were right by telling me a grain of rice is as important as a harvest of rice. This may save China. I certainly found that one grain you once spoke of. A Miracle Grain.
As forever known, Chin Huang Cho


Forever, The End