The Northern Stories of Chef Lao Tan

Chapter 589 This Is Empty

Lao Tan left for Changsha on the third day after having dinner with his old family, and arrived in Suzhou after staying in Changsha for three days.

This trip is very inconvenient. Nucleic acid testing is required everywhere. Fortunately, I did not catch up with the risky areas, otherwise I would have to be quarantined.

On the morning of the second day in Suzhou, Lao Tan came to the Humble Administrator's Garden shop.

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.

The mother and son did not look to eat.

The woman was carrying a large bag, her waist was bowed, and her expression was dull and miserable.The boy was sixteen or seventeen years old, also carrying a bag, with blank eyes.

The mother and son are dressed in simple but shabby clothes, which makes people feel pitiful and distressed in such a winter.

To be honest, the mother and son reminded Lao Tan of the situation when he met Xiaohui's mother and daughter at the Sanba Square in Binhai eighteen years ago, and it was a bit uncomfortable.

"Brother, are you the owner of this restaurant?" the woman asked.

When Lao Tan approached, he found that the woman had a large dark red birthmark on her right face, and her face was frightening.

"Oh—not exactly, what's the matter with you?" Old Tan asked.

The woman pulled the child to stand in front of her, and asked, "Is your family still employing people?"

It turned out to be looking for a job.

Old Tan was moved with compassion, he opened the store door and said to the mother and son, "Come in."

The woman didn't move, she was waiting for Old Tan to advance.Lao Tan raised his legs and walked in, and the mother and son followed behind.

When the store manager saw Lao Tan coming, he came forward to say hello, and then looked at the mother and son with hesitant eyes.

Lao Tan asked the mother and son to put down the bags on their backs, and then greeted them to sit down.

After sitting down, the woman looked reserved, while the boy looked around the hall.

"Where are you from?" Old Tan asked.

"Sichuan, Pi County." 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 card is that the woman is Mo Wumei, 44 years old, and the boy is Zhang Lei, 17 years old.

"What did you do before?" Old Tan asked.

"Washing dishes in a restaurant, my baby does chores." Mo Wumei said.

"Why don't you do it?"

"Business is not good, the boss ran away, and my baby and I didn't open any 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 I didn't get paid for two months. Later, the chef left, and the owner said he quit when he couldn't find the chef. , didn’t come the next day—”

Old Tan sighed sympathetically, and thought about scolding that unscrupulous boss and forgetting about it - scolding is not worth it.

"Boss, I have been looking for a job for two days, and there is no shortage of people in every family. Some of them saw my face and kicked me out without waiting for a word-you can do whatever you want, I am not afraid of being tired, and the salary is fine. , the main thing is to give the children a place to live and enough to eat—" Mo Wumei said, tears seemed to have long since disappeared from her miserable face, only the numbness left by fate and the love for the children.

It is true that maternal love is great at any time.

The store manager brought over the brewed tea, Lao Tan asked him to tell the kitchen to cook two plates of dumplings, and then called Shangguan Qingyuan.

"Who else is in the family?" Old Tan asked.

"There is no one else, my baby's father died of illness, and life is terrified, so I took my baby out to work—" Mo Wumei said.

"Oh——" Lao Tan said, "I have been to Pi County, which is close to Chengdu. Why didn't you go to Chengdu to work?"

"Fight, the money is too little --- the fellow led me here. The restaurant I worked on last year was okay, and all the wages were paid. I planned to do it at his house, but they quit after the Chinese New Year was lifted. ---
My baby and I haven't gone to work for three months, and the money is almost spent, but fortunately, the boss let us live in the dormitory—"

After a while, the waiter brought up two plates of dumplings, and Lao Tan asked the mother and son to eat.Mo Wumei was a little surprised, but Lao Tan didn't explain anything, saying what happened after eating the dumplings.

Mo Wumei thanked her 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, and she said that there was no shortage of people in any store, and it was full.

Old Tan said: "In this way, arrange the two of them to go to the central kitchen, and one will make dumplings and the other will chop stuffing."

Shangguan Qingyuan took a look at Mo Wumei and his wife, and asked in a low voice, "Mr. Tan, did you get introduced by a friend?"

"No, we met at the door." Old 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—poor."

"Well--"

After arranging Mo Wumei's mother and child, Old Tan seemed to have a heart attack, and his depressed mood improved a lot. Then he asked Shangguan Qingyuan to drive him to Qiao Gang's Buddhist hall in the north of the city.

The Buddhist hall cannot be described as the flourishing of incense, after all, it is not a temple.But there are many people who 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 complaint.

"Do you know what kind of Buddha this is?" Old Tan asked.

"I know, Medicine Buddha." Gu Yi said.

"Okay." Old Tan teased, "You don't believe in Buddhism, why are you here?"

"You can't come here, you won't be allowed to go to bed at night."

"Look at your promising future."

Gu Yi laughed, and then whispered: "Did you find out? Buddhist halls are more profitable than restaurants."

Old Tan was taken aback for a moment, but then he came to his senses and asked, "Why are there so many people throwing money into the merit box?"

"It's not just a lot, there is everything that you don't want to throw away. The minimum is fifty, the maximum is tens of thousands, and there are even hundreds of thousands."

"The tens of thousands are Qiao Gang's friends, right?"

"Well, most of them are." Gu Yi lowered his voice again, and said in a voice close to a whisper: "Many are officials. They don't show their faces, and their family members show up. They are very generous."

Old Tan said: "Hmph, it's not my own money, how can my own money be so generous? It's all the people's fat and people's ointment." After speaking, he took three incense sticks from Gu Yi's hand and lit them, stepped forward to insert the incense burner, and muttered : "Dongfang Liuli Pharmacist Buddha, use your Hongyuan to save people, the epidemic will disappear as soon as possible, and let the common people live in peace."

After finishing 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 Buddhist hall of Medicine Buddha.

"Hey, it's like sending a message. It's just a thought. If you believe in it, it will work. If you don't believe it, it will be a fool." Lao Tan then said: "We all know that there is no Buddha, and they all burn incense. This is not the same as Christians believe Like God, a faith."

"Didn't it mean that there really is a Buddha?"

"Yes, Sakyamuni is the Buddha, and he is also a figure of the same era as Lao Tzu and Confucius." Lao Tan explained: "The three of them each founded a sect, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

Sakyamuni is Buddhism, for interpretation.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 taught people to escape from suffering and obtain happiness, and guided them to do good.It is good to read the Diamond Sutra more. "

"Call my brother that all four things are empty."

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, and all appearances are illusory. It actually refers to external illusory things. In the words of ordinary people, it is something that life does not bring and death does not take away. This is emptiness."

(End of this chapter)