Long time ago a remote village, in central China, was inhabited mainly by farmers and hunters. One day, a poor farmer lost his entire livestock because of a flood. He prayed hard to God for help or his family would die of starvation.

A few days later, an old man with a long grey beard, passing by his house, took a pity on the farmer. He gave him a goose and said “ I don’t have any expensive thing
to give you and hope this goose will help you to ease your hardship.” A week later to his surprise the farmer found an egg in his yard. It was not an ordinary egg. It was a golden egg. He was suddenly filled with joy.

Thereafter, his livelihood had rapidly improved but the farmer had forgotten his earlier hardship. He became lazy, arrogant and spendthrift. Strangely, the goose only
laid one golden egg every six months. The greedy farmer lost his patient and slaughtered his goose thinking there were plenty of golden eggs inside its stomach. He found nothing! Poor him! Though he very much regretted for his foolishness, it’s already too late.

The farmer regretted at the end of the story because ....