How to Adjust When Things Go Wrong? The Wealth-Generating Wisdom Tao Zhu Derived from the Second Yang Line of the Qian Hexagram

In the market of Luoyi in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, Tao Zhu squatted on the threshold of his own grain shop, clicking the abacus beads rapidly. No matter how he calculated, the revenue of the past half month was not even enough to pay the market tax.
The old woman selling linen beside curled her lips and said, "Young man, you flick that abacus every day, but I haven't seen you earn an extra knife coin. In my opinion, you just lack a noble person to give you a leg up."
Tao Zhu did not reply. He just took out the frayed scroll of *I Ching* from his bosom, flipped to the page of the Qian Hexagram, and pointed his fingertip at the words "Nine in the second place: The dragon appearing in the field. It is advantageous to meet the great man" — his fingertip was almost calloused from rubbing it so often.
He had really been having bad luck for the past six months: half of the millet he stockpiled in spring got soaked by rain; in summer, when he tried to trade some sea salt, he ran into strict inspections at the checkpoints; a while ago, hearing there was a grain shortage in the west, he scraped together money to haul a cart of grain there, only to find that new fields had just been opened there, and grain prices fell faster than running water. On the way back, he pondered: how to adjust when things go wrong? He couldn't just sit in the shop every day waiting for money to fall from the sky, could he?
Just as he was lost in thought, there was a commotion at the market gate. It turned out to be the official in charge of the market leading his men on an inspection tour. When they reached Tao Zhu's shop, the official suddenly stopped and stared at the grain bags displayed on his counter for a long time.
Tao Zhu's heart skipped a beat, wondering what trouble was coming this time. He quickly stood up to salute.
Unexpectedly, the official asked directly, "Why are there crushed beans mixed in with your grain?"
The onlookers around all broke into a cold sweat for him — the market laws were strict. If he was convicted of giving short weight or selling shoddy goods as quality ones, the lightest punishment would be a fine, and the heaviest would be having his shop closed down.
But Tao Zhu remained calm, bowed with hands clasped and said, "To answer your honor, this is not adulteration. It's a newly blended 'rice bean mix'. There's been a lot of rain this year, and millet is sticky. Adding thirty percent crushed beans when cooking makes the rice more fragrant and more filling. Ordinary people who buy a dou of it can go three more days without going hungry."
The official's eyes lit up. He reached out, grabbed a handful and sniffed it, then asked the price. On the spot, he ordered his attendants to load twenty dou of it, saying it was for rations for the garrison soldiers at the city gate.
After the official left, Tao Zhu still stood there in a daze. The old woman beside him slapped her thigh and exclaimed, "You lucky boy! You've met a noble person!"
Tao Zhu came to his senses, looked down at the scroll of *I Ching* again, and suddenly smiled. It turned out that he had always been thinking about how to read the situation and staring at the rise and fall of grain prices every day, but instead forgot that what he should think about most was what the people buying grain really needed. For the past six months, he had been looking for business opportunities everywhere, just like a dragon diving too deep, forgetting to look up and see what the people in the fields were actually longing for.
From that day on, Tao Zhu's grain shop changed completely: for farmers, he mixed beans suitable for planting into the grain; for craftsmen, he added millet to the grain; he even prepared special sacrificial rice for the noble families in the city. In less than half a year, his grain shop became one of the largest and most famous shops in Luoyi.
When people asked him the secret of making money, he would spread out the scroll of *I Ching*, point to the line of "Nine in the second place" and say, "What secret is there? I was so worried that I couldn't sleep before, thinking every day about how to solve problems. Later I realized that when the dragon is in the field, it's not waiting for a noble person to fall from the sky. It's that you first do the work in the field solidly, and then the noble person will naturally see you."
Later, when people asked what "the dragon appearing in the field" really meant, Tao Zhu would point to the people coming and going in the market and say, "Look at these people carrying loads and sacks on their backs. Their needs are the dragon in the field. Doing things in line with their wishes works better than praying for anything else."
As he said this, he was standing on top of the newly built granary. When the wind blew, the fragrance of the grain bags drifted half a street away. The shop assistants below were busy weighing the newly arrived beans, and the sound of the abacus beads was livelier than the chime bells during the New Year.