On the third day after having dinner with his family, Lao Tan set off for Changsha. He stayed in Changsha for three days and then arrived in Suzhou.
This trip was very inconvenient. I had to undergo nucleic acid testing wherever I went. Fortunately, I was not in a risk area, otherwise I would have to be quarantined.
On the morning of the second day after arriving in Suzhou, Lao Tan came to the Humble Administrator's Garden store.
In front of the store, he saw a middle-aged woman coming out of a Hunan restaurant with a child, and he couldn't help but stop.
From the first glance, mother and son were not meant to eat.
The woman was carrying a large bag, hunched over her waist, with a dull and miserable look on her face. The boy, who looked about sixteen or seventeen years old, was also carrying a bag, with a blank look in his eyes.
The mother and son were dressed simply and shabbily, which made people feel pitiful and distressed when they saw them in such a winter.
To be honest, mother and son made Lao Tan feel a little uncomfortable when they remembered the scene when they met Xiaohui and her daughter at Sanba Square on the seaside eighteen years ago.
"Brother, are you the owner of this restaurant?" the woman asked.
As he got closer to Lao Tan, he discovered that there was a large dark red birthmark on the right side of the woman's face. Her face was frightening.
"Oh------not exactly, what's the matter with you?" Lao Tan asked.
The woman grabbed the child and asked him to stand in front of her, and asked, "Do you still have people in your family?"
It turned out that I was looking for a job.
Lao Tan was moved with compassion. He opened the store door and said to mother and son, "Come in."
The woman did not move, waiting for Old Tan to come forward. Old Tan lifted his legs and walked in, followed by the mother and son.
When the store manager saw Lao Tan coming, he came up to say hello, and then looked at the mother and son with hesitant eyes.
Lao Tan asked mother and son to put down the bags on their backs, and then asked them to sit down.
After sitting down, the woman looked cautious, while the boy looked around the hall.
"Where are you from?" Lao Tan asked.
"Pixian County, Sichuan," the woman said.
"Do you have an ID card?"
The woman took out two ID cards from her pocket and handed them to Lao Tan, who read them and handed them to her. The information on the ID cards was that the woman's name was Mo Wumei, forty-four years old, and the boy's name was Zhang Lei, seventeen years old.
"What did you do before?" Lao Tan asked.
"I'm washing dishes in the hotel, and my son is working as a handyman." Mo Wumei said.
"Why don't you do it anymore?"
"Business is not going well and the boss ran away, leaving me and my baby with no money."
"The boss ran away?"
"Well, I ran away. My friend introduced me to a small restaurant." Mo Wumei said: "During the epidemic, there were few people eating, and no wages were paid for two months. Then the chef left, and I couldn't find a chef boss to tell me to quit.
, didn’t come the next day------"
Lao Tan sighed sympathetically. He wanted to scold the unscrupulous boss but thought about it - scolding wouldn't do the trick.
"Boss, I've been looking for a living for two days. There's no shortage of people in every house. Some people just looked at my face and kicked me out without even saying anything. They asked me to do anything. I'm not afraid of getting tired.
The salary is small, but the main thing is to give the children a place to live and enough food to eat------" Mo Wumei said, her miserable face seemed to have no tears long ago, only the numbness left by fate and the care for the children.
like.
Maternal love is always great, this is true.
The store manager brought the brewed tea, and Lao Tan asked him to tell the kitchen to cook two plates of dumplings, and then called Shangguan Qingyuan.
"Who else is at home?" Lao Tan asked.
"There is no one left. The baby's father has died of illness. The days are very scary. I took the baby out to work ------" Mo Wumei said.
"Oh -" Lao Tan said: "I have been to Pixian County. It is close to Chengdu. Why didn't you go to Chengdu to work?"
"I was beaten, the money was too little ------ a fellow villager brought me here. The restaurant where I worked last year was okay, and all my salary was paid. I originally planned to work at his house, but after the Chinese New Year, the lockdown was lifted.
Quit ------
My son and I haven't worked for three months, and we've almost spent all the money. Fortunately, the boss let us stay in the dormitory------"
After a while, the waiter brought two plates of dumplings, and Lao Tan asked the mother and son to eat. Mo Wumei was a little surprised, and Lao Tan didn't explain. He said he would wait until he finished eating the dumplings.
Mo Wumei said thank you gratefully, and so did her son Zhang Lei, who seemed very sensible.
When Shangguan Qingyuan arrived, Lao Tan directly asked which store was short of people now. She said that there was no shortage of people in any store, Manbian.
Lao Tan said: "In this way, we will arrange for the two of them to go to the central kitchen, one to make dumplings and the other to chop the fillings."
Shangguan Qingyuan looked at Mo Wumei and her mother, and asked in a low voice: "Mr. Tan, was this introduced by a friend?"
"No, I met him at the door." Lao Tan said.
"There is no shortage of people in the central kitchen."
"I know there is no shortage. Let's be a backup force. You two girls are so pitiful."
"Well--"
After arranging the arrangements for Mo Wumei and her son, Lao Tan seemed to have gone away from a mental illness, and his depressed mood was much better. Then he asked Shangguan Qingyuan to drive him to Qiao Gang's Buddhist temple in the north of the city.
The Buddhist hall cannot be described as full of incense. After all, it is not a temple. However, many people come to offer incense. The reason is simple: there are many Buddhas here.
Perhaps influenced by the Bodhisattva, or coerced by Sister Wang, Gu Yi obediently volunteered here with Sister Wang and Qiao Shan, and worked hard without complaining.
"Do you know what kind of Buddha this is?" Lao Tan asked.
"I know, Medicine Buddha." Gu Yi said.
"Okay." Lao Tan joked: "You don't believe in Buddhism, why are you coming here?"
"But I can't come here. I'm not allowed to go to bed at night."
"Look at your potential."
Gu Yi laughed, then whispered: "Did you notice? Buddhist temples are more profitable than restaurants."
Lao Tan was stunned for a moment, then realized what was happening and asked: "Why, so many people are throwing money into the merit box?"
"Not only are there many, there are many that I won't throw away. The least is fifty, the most is tens of thousands, and even one hundred thousand."
"Are the tens of thousands of people Qiao Gang's friends?"
"Well, most of them are." Gu Yi lowered his voice again and said in a voice close to a whisper: "Many of them are officials. They don't show up, but their family members show up. They are very generous."
Lao Tan said: "Huh, it's not your own money. How can you be so generous with your own money? It's all the people's money." After saying that, he took three incense sticks from Gu Yi's hand and lit them, stepped forward and inserted them into the incense burner, and then muttered:
: "Buddha, the Oriental Glaze Medicine Master, uses your great source to save people, so that the epidemic will disappear as soon as possible and the people can live in peace."
After speaking, he kowtowed three times in front of the Buddha and then stood up.
"Brother, do you think burning incense is useful?" Gu Yi asked after coming out of the Medicine Buddha's hall.
"Hey, this is just like sending a message, it's just your thoughts. You believe that if you do it, it will work, don't believe that you are pretending to be a lake ghost." Lao Tan then said: "We all know that there is no Buddha, and we all burn incense. This is the same as what Christians believe.
Like God, a faith."
"Didn't you say that there really is a Buddha?"
"Yes, Sakyamuni is the Buddha and a figure of the same era as Laozi and Confucius." Lao Tan explained: "The three of them founded a sect, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.
Sakyamuni is Buddhism and Buddhism; Laozi is Taoism and Confucius is Confucianism.
These three people are real.
Buddhism originated in India, flourished in China, and became famous all over the world. It is the largest religion in China.
The Buddha allows people to escape suffering and gain happiness, and guides people to do good. It is beneficial to read the Diamond Sutra more if you have nothing to do."
"Call me, all the four elements will be empty."
"Form is emptiness, emptiness is color, and all appearances are illusory. It actually refers to external illusory things. In common people's terms, it is something that life does not bring and death does not take away. This is emptiness."