When Wang Rong was seven, he once went out to play with a group of children.
They saw a plum tree beside the main road, covered with fruit and bending under the weight. The children rushed to pick them, but Wang Rong alone stood still.
Someone asked why he was not going.
Wang Rong said:
“A tree by the road with so many fruits must have bitter plums.”
They picked one and tasted it. It was indeed bitter.
The next year, Wang Rong went out to play with the children again.
This time they reached the outskirts and saw another plum tree by the road, its branches full of fruit.
Remembering the previous year, the children said:
“A roadside plum tree full of fruit with nobody picking it must have bitter plums.”
So none of them stepped forward.
Wang Rong picked one and tasted it.
It was sweet.
The children asked in surprise:
“Last year you said that unpicked roadside plums must be bitter. Why did you dare to pick one this time?”
Wang Rong said:
“Last year it was beside the main road in the city. This year it is in the suburbs. Few people pass here in the first place.”
The children heard this and picked some too.
They were indeed sweet.
Another year, Wang Rong and the children saw a plum tree by the road.
It was full of plums, but passersby still did not pick them.
A passerby told them:
“Do not pick them. Someone tasted them a few days ago and they were very sour.”
The children turned around and left.
Wang Rong picked one and tasted it.
It was sweet.
The children asked:
“Everyone says they are sour. Why did you still pick one?”
Wang Rong said:
“They ate plums from several days ago.”
The plums had ripened in the days since.
People who passed later continued telling one another:
“The plums on this tree are sour.”
So the plums remained on the tree.
Later, Wang Rong came across another plum tree.
There were no plums left below, but the highest branches still held many large, red fruits.
A child said:
“If such good plums were sweet, people would have picked them already.”
Wang Rong watched for a while, found a long bamboo pole, and knocked one down.
He tasted it. It was sweet.
The child asked:
“If they are so sweet, why has nobody picked them?”
Wang Rong looked up at the high branches:
“It is not that nobody wanted to pick them. They could not reach them.”
Later still, they saw a plum tree beside a mountain road.
Its plums were large and red, yet nobody picked them.
The tree grew across a shallow ditch. To pick the plums, one had to step across several stones.
The children all said:
“It is not worth falling into the water for a few plums.”
Wang Rong looked at the water, then at his old straw shoes, and walked across the stones.
The plums were sweet.
A child wearing new shoes asked:
“If they are so sweet, why does nobody go across?”
Wang Rong said:
“You are afraid of getting your new shoes wet. I am not.”
When Wang Rong was young, there were two places outside the city where people picked plums.
To the east was a large plum orchard.
The roads were ready, and bamboo poles and baskets were provided. When to enter the orchard, how many plums to pick, and how much money they could exchange them for were all clear.
Wang Rong’s parents picked plums there, as did his relatives and friends.
After growing up, most children in the city also went east.
To the west was a vast hillside.
People said there were plum trees there too, but nobody could say how many. No one told you how to climb the hill, which plums could be picked, or who would buy them afterward.
Occasionally someone returned from the west with a cart full of plums.
Some people went only for a few years and harvested as much as those in the east picked over many years.
Whenever this happened, people from the east gathered around to look.
But after looking, everyone still returned to the orchard.
Someone said:
“They were just lucky.”
Another said:
“You only see the people who came back with full carts, not those who came back empty-handed.”
Someone else said:
“If it is really so good, why are most people still in the east?”
Wang Rong had been curious about the west since childhood.
But he did not know how to get there either.
He did not know the people who returned from the west, and nobody around him could teach him. Whenever he asked about the west, his parents told him:
“Do not think about things with no proof. First learn to pick plums properly in the east.”
So when he grew up, Wang Rong went east as well.
He quickly learned how to pick plums.
Every day someone told him which tree to pick, which bamboo pole to use, when to start, and when to go home.
At the end of the month, he received his wages.
Everything was stable.
But Wang Rong always felt that something was wrong.
He often thought of the carts he had seen returning full from the west when he was young.
He asked the people around him:
“What exactly is in the west?”
Someone laughed at him:
“You are still thinking about the west?”
Someone advised him:
“So many people live perfectly well in the east. Why insist on making trouble?”
Someone else frightened him:
“Nobody in the west will give you a bamboo pole or guarantee that you can pick plums. One wrong step and years could be wasted.”
After listening, Wang Rong felt they had a point.
So the next day he went east as usual.
But after a while, he began thinking about the west again.
He noticed something strange:
Almost none of the people advising him not to go west had ever been there.
Everything they knew about the west had also come from other people.
Wang Rong hesitated for a long time.
Finally, one day, he put down his eastern basket and went west alone.
At first, he truly knew nothing.
He took wrong turns, picked bitter plums, and once came home carrying a basket nobody wanted.
Sometimes he wondered:
“Were they right?”
But after walking for a long time, he gradually learned the paths. He learned which trees bore sweet plums, which plums people wanted, and where to sell them.
One year, he returned from the west with a cart full of plums.
Everyone in the east gathered around to look.
Someone said enviously:
“If I had known the west was so good, I would have gone back then too.”
Someone shook their head:
“Wang Rong is different. He has the ability.”
Someone else warned their child:
“You may look, but do not copy him. He can succeed; you may not.”
The child nodded.
The next day, the parents still prepared a bamboo pole and basket for him.
He went east with the other young people in the city.
Many years passed, and Wang Rong rarely returned east.
People in the city only heard news of him from time to time: some said he had found a vast plum forest in the western mountains, some said his plums were now sold far away, and some said one year of his harvest had long exceeded a lifetime of wages for many in the eastern orchard.
Gradually, “Wang Rong” became a story told by people in the eastern orchard.
Another boy stood in the eastern orchard and heard adults talk about Wang Rong in the west.
To the boy, Wang Rong was already a distant, almost unfamiliar person—just as the young Wang Rong had once stood among the crowd and looked up at those returning from the west with full carts.
The boy looked west and asked:
“Can I go and take a look too?”
The people around him said:
“Do not think about things with no proof.”
“First learn to pick plums properly in the east.”
Many years later, Wang Rong had become an adult.
Once, he passed a plum tree surrounded by people. Everyone who had picked a plum said:
“These plums are very sweet. Pick one quickly.”
Wang Rong also picked one. It was sour and astringent.
He asked the crowd:
“These plums are clearly sour. Why do you all say they are sweet?”
Someone lowered their head and said nothing;
Someone said:
“The plum has already been eaten. What difference does sweet or sour make?”
Someone said:
“We also picked them because other people told us they were sweet.”
Someone else said:
“Picking plums is hard, but picking plums itself is a kind of happiness. After eating so much bitterness, even a sour plum feels sweet.”
Besides, once a plum has been eaten, it can never be put back on the tree.
Over time, only one voice remained under the tree:
“These plums are very sweet.”
Those who came later heard everyone say this, believed it even more, and climbed the tree to pick them too.
Some people left quietly after eating.
Others stayed to tell those who came later:
“These plums are very sweet. Pick one quickly.”
The newcomers climbed the tree in turn.
Many years later, another young person came to the tree. Seeing Wang Rong, he asked:
“Sir, are these plums sweet?”
Wang Rong looked at the tree, then at the people below, and said:
“Very sweet.”
Now look back at these plums:
“Bitter Plums by the Road”: When others do not choose it, that is information.
“Sweet Plums in the Suburbs”: Others may simply not have seen it.
“Newly Ripe Sweet Plums”: The information others hold may already be outdated.
“Sweet Plums on High Branches”: Others may know, but lack the ability.
“Sweet Plums in a Risky Place”: Others may have the ability, but not be willing to take the risk.
“The Official Orchard and the Wild Plums”: The path everyone takes may only be the path that has been paved best.
“Plums Everyone Calls Sweet”: Everyone saying something is good does not mean they truly think it is good.