Maybe I was young and had little experience at the time. I didn't realize that the Taoist priest's words had any special meaning.
But on the way back to the teahouse with my uncle, my uncle asked me, do you think this Taoist priest is particularly powerful? I nodded and said, he knows a lot of things that we don’t understand, so of course he is great. The uncle snorted and said, "What's the big deal? How can he know how to make Laoyin tea better than me?"
After saying that, my uncle burst out laughing, and I giggled too, because that was the first time my uncle spoke in a joking tone in front of me. I could see that the problem was solved and he was in a good mood. When I was almost home, my uncle said to me again, since you think that Taoist priest is so powerful, then let you send these things back to him.
I readily agreed. The uncle then said, if you talk to the Taoist priest again and he asks you if you are interested in learning from him and learning his crafts, will you be willing to learn it? After my uncle said this, he looked at me, as if he was looking for the answer in my eyes. Only then did I realize that my uncle had asked because of the Taoist priest's words, "You are welcome whether you are here to play or not." I heard the clues.
But I didn't think about it like this, so I was a little panicked and didn't know how to answer my uncle. The uncle went on to say, I am not close to your father, but we have only met your mother a few times. It took me a long time to receive the news after your father died. Since your mother entrusted you to me, although we have different surnames, we are They are blood relatives. So no matter what, I will take good care of you.
The topic suddenly became a little serious, and I started to lower my head and said nothing. This habit was developed when I was in private school when I was a child and was scolded by my husband. So when I faced situations where I was helpless, I would often choose to lower my head and remain silent.
The uncle went on to say, I am already in my forties, but I have not yet married a wife. My father was in the grain business before liberation. He had a rice shop. During the war, it was confiscated. He left some money and then died. After finally being liberated, he still had some gold bars and silver notes in his hand. I want the silver notes. After discounting, I found that I had lost too much, and the gold bars could only be sold on the black market. If you were lucky enough not to be caught, if you were caught, everything you could steal would be confiscated.
I finally saved a little money and wanted to start a small business so that I could marry a wife in the future. Seeing that life was getting better, my mother, your grandma, passed away again. I have become a loner. Although we are estranged, you are the closest person to me in this world.
My uncle looked a little sad, and I said nothing. The uncle said, but I have no other ability. I just open a teahouse in such a shabby house. I will starve to death, but there is no future. If you stay here, you can at most take over my teahouse and continue to run it. Otherwise, Until that day, you are just a handyman. But you are only seventeen years old, it is a good time, and there is no war now. If you go to school too late, if your mother entrusts you to me, but let me delay your youth in vain, this will indeed make people feel sad. Very sad.
The uncle paused and then said, "Today's Taoist priest, if I am not wrong, he may want to accept you as a student, so I ask you, if he accepts you, will you be willing to learn?" I looked up at my uncle, not knowing how to answer. In fact, I think I am willing in my heart, but I don't want to leave my uncle alone, which is very contradictory.
The uncle said, if one day really comes, I hope you will think carefully. The profession of Taoist priests was very respected in the past, but now that things have changed, they may not be respected anymore. But if you take advantage of your youth to learn a craft in a down-to-earth manner so that you can eat, dress and live no worse than others, it is better than working as a handyman every day, eating and waiting to die.
At this point, the conversation suddenly stopped. My uncle did not continue, and I did not express my opinion immediately because of my inner conflict.
So that day I went back to the teahouse and cleaned up the broken porcelain on the floor. After dinner, before my uncle and I returned to the house, my uncle only said one thing to me, we will open for business tomorrow. After so many days of rest, It shouldn't be too busy. You can take a nap. When you wake up, you can send this pile of things to the Taoist priest.
Since my uncle also learned about the Taoist priest from others, and we always addressed him as "Master" or "Taoist Master" from the beginning of our meeting, neither my uncle nor I knew the Taoist priest's name or how to address him by his Taoist name.
And that night, I did sleep in, because in the first half of the night I kept thinking about the meaningful words of the Taoist priest and my uncle, and I couldn't fall asleep at all. When I woke up, it was already close to lunch.
When I was clearing away the dishes after dinner, my uncle asked me, will you deliver it to the Taoist priest in the afternoon, or another day? I thought about it and said, I'll send it over in the afternoon.
That afternoon, I took the things that the Taoist left in the teahouse and went to the Taoist's home.
The Taoist asked me, why did your uncle not come? I said that now the trouble in the store has been solved and the teahouse is open again. The Taoist priest said "Oh" and packed up everything I brought back, except for the wooden man. He walked to the candle in front of the altar, turned the wooden man over several times, and then placed it on the wooden man. His neck, hands, and feet were all wrapped with red thread. Then he tied the red thread to a chopstick, and then leaned against the incense burner. Only then did I take a closer look at his incense burner.
The incense burner was placed on a high platform with vermilion paint. On both sides of the incense burner were two large candles as thick as wrists. There were three white porcelain wine glasses in front of the incense burner. The wine glasses were filled with liquid, which should be wine.
In front of the three wine glasses are three plates with fruits, three each of bananas, apples, and oranges. Behind the incense burner, there is another colorful clay statue of the ancients. Behind the clay statue is a large yellow paper with various words written on it, some of which are recognized, some of which are not, and some of which are even A word made up of several words. What surprised me the most was that there was a glass bottle without a lid placed next to the statue. The bottle was yellow and orange, and it looked like oil. Because there was no lid, the oil was floating on the surface. A few dead bugs.
The Taoist priest saw me watching intently, so he smiled and said, "Young man, this is my altar." The wooden figure you brought back today, I need to use a method to enshrine it into my altar, so that it can reduce the anger. On the one hand, it can be purified by me as an offering, and on the other hand, it can be used by me to accumulate blessings and merits for myself. , when the merits and blessings are enough, it will be time for it to re-enter the reincarnation.
Having said this, the Taoist priest patted the dust on his hands, took me to sit down in the main room, and then said to me, do you think that people like me who deal with monsters and ghosts are particularly unlucky? I shook my head and said no, I thought it was quite powerful and it could help others.
The Taoist priest smiled and said that in fact, no matter whether they are humans or ghosts, good or bad, they all coexist. I think I am a good person, but sometimes I have some vicious thoughts. You think this ghost is bad because he harms people, but in fact, when he is subdued by Taoists and used in other places, it is also helping. Others, unless there are some people with evil intentions, will use their own troops to do some harmful things, but they are a minority.
So no matter what we are, it doesn't matter. Whether it is good or bad, it may be important to ourselves, but it is not important to all living beings. The key to these things is how to use it or what to use it for.
After saying that, he stretched out his hand, made a pistol gesture, fired a pretentious shot at me, and then asked me, this bullet can kill an innocent you, or it can kill a Japanese devil or the Kuomintang. Reactionaries, tell me now, is this bullet good or bad?
I stopped talking, the answer was actually obvious in my heart.
The Taoist priest asked me, if you are just here to return something today, then you can go back. If you have anything else, say it now. So I asked, Master, is it difficult to learn these skills of yours? The Taoist priest looked happy and said, "It may be difficult to say it, but it's not difficult to say it's not difficult, it depends on why you want to learn it." If you want to make a living and make a fortune in the world of martial arts, it may be more difficult to learn. I thought about it and told him that I wanted to learn and help others.
The Taoist priest was stunned, and after a moment of silence he looked at me and said, "Young man, what's your name?"
I told the Taoist priest that my surname is Situ. I live in Baixiang Street and my name is Situ Qin.
