Piano

Chapter 28
"Obsession?" Lan Xue murmured, Chen Yingsheng nodded when he heard the words: "Yes, a little obsession."

"Assistant Lan, you are young, and you grew up in Huaiyang, a place where there is always no shortage of water and food. Perhaps you have only seen the so-called 'natural disasters' in books." Chen Yingsheng raised his hand and stroked the white beard under his chin. , raised his eyes and looked at the sunny day that was gradually hanging on the western mountain.

"That should have been... decades ago."

"Jin Province is located in the northwest and in the middle of a big river. If the climate is a little bit wrong, it is very prone to drought and flood disasters. In addition, there were many wars in Shenzhou back then. Everyone's family background is weak, and the ability to resist natural disasters is even worse—— "

"Professor, what you said is—" Lan Xuesheng described Wei Su.

"Assistant Lan, have you heard of 'Dingwu Qihuang'?" Chen Yingsheng relaxed his eyebrows, and slowly lowered his voice, "That happened in the late Qing Dynasty, which happened in 1877-1878."

"The strange famine started in Jin Province and spread eastward to Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong and other places, and even affected northern Jiangsu, northern Anhui, Longdong and northern Sichuan."

"At least 1000 million people starved to death in that famine."

"1000 million, what kind of concept is this? At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were about [-] million people in China, and a natural disaster with man-made disasters in between, killed one-fortieth of them."

"Professor..." Lan Xuesheng opened her mouth in a daze, and when she raised her eyes, she met the old Taoist's eyes full of vicissitudes and melancholy.

"When I was young, I also experienced similar natural disasters." Chen Yingsheng sighed softly.

"It's been so long, I can't even remember how many years it was... I just remember how old I was at that time, and the drought that came out that year, the wheat seedlings in the field were burned to death, and I had to eat every day Follow Master and the others to go out to nearby villages for free consultations, distribute food, and help the villagers pick some wild fruits and dig some wild vegetables."

"But the weather is too dry, the food production has decreased even more than we expected, and there are not as many wild fruits and vegetables in the mountains as in previous years. , can’t save many people.”

"Ordinary people can't learn Jinggong, let alone fasting. When this kind of food is more expensive than human life, for most people, it is lucky to be alive."

"So I watched them lose weight quickly." Chen Yingsheng's tone paused, "Like shooting stars or thawing snow in spring—this analogy sounds inappropriate—they become skinny in a few days."

"Some people will develop edema after being too hungry. It looks like they are fatter than usual, but in fact they have already turned into a ball of rotten cotton inside-of course, it is not only the villagers who are trapped by hunger. , but they still have to eat after all.”

"Someone in the temple will soon be unable to hold on anymore." Chen Yingsheng curled his fingertips behind him slightly, his voice was steady, but Lan Xuesheng always felt that her eyes were so dry that she was about to cry.

"My senior brother died that winter."

"I don't know if he died of starvation or not. I only know that a few days before his death, he gave his last bit of rations to a pair of mother and son who had fled. It can be two days longer... and then he died."

"It can be said that as long as the natural disaster has lasted, we have been struggling in the mountains for as long as possible. When the disaster was about to end for a month, I thought that everything had finally ushered in the dawn, but I didn't think it might just be the beginning of another pain."

"—The natural disaster is gone, but people's ailments caused by the previous natural disaster will not be cured immediately."

"It costs money to treat diseases, and it also costs money to buy medicines, but Guanli was poor at that time, and the neighboring villages were also poor."

"The herbs in the mountains have been hollowed out, but there are still so many people who are sick."

"At that time, I could see different families dealing with funerals almost every day." Chen Yingsheng looked calmly, "The same is true in Guanli."

"I thought at the time... If you said Guanli had more money, if we could have bought more food and herbs at that time, wouldn't my senior brother not have to die, could he have been saved? people?"

"I know that my thinking is mostly wrong, but I can't help but keep thinking about it, so the word 'money' has gradually become my obsession—it even became my demon at one point."

"Inner demon?" Lan Xue's voice was ignorant, Chen Yingsheng bent his eyes pretending to be relaxed: "Yes, inner demon."

"My obsession is 'money', but at that time my concept was similar to yours now, and I also felt that monks should not care about 'money'."

"So I was contradictory. That contradiction almost drove me crazy. I thought over and over again of the miserable conditions I witnessed in those years, and the appearance of my senior brother before his death... I was obsessed with 'money' and looked down on it at the same time. The smell of copper in the businessman——When Commissioner Feng passed by Jin Province and stayed in Guanzhong, I was only a hair away from going crazy."

"I'm ashamed to say this. It was Commissioner Feng who single-handedly pointed me at that time and pulled me out of that state."

"I thought about it later." Chen Yingsheng smiled lightly, "If you love money, you love money. Everyone in the world has emotions, and monks are still mortals. I don't need to think of myself so noble."

"It's good to be a profiteer." Chen Yingsheng smiled and folded his hands, "At least since I became a profiteer, within a radius of ten miles of Yaoshan Temple, there are no villagers who are still standing on the old roof that is leaking all day long. Covered with that torn quilt that is no thicker than a newspaper."

"Thinking about it this way, being a profiteer is pretty good." Lan Xuesheng nodded in agreement, and then pinched her cuffs hesitantly, "But...Professor Chen, for you practitioners, there is an obsession. It must be a bad thing."

"Is it really okay to keep this obsession in your heart?"

"Well, it's true that having obsessions is a bad thing, but how many people in this world don't have any obsessions in their hearts?" Chen Yingsheng asked back, "I'm afraid not one out of ten."

"That's true." Lan Xue responded silently - at least she knew that there was an obsession in her heart that couldn't be shaken off.

"So, it's normal to have obsessions," Chen Yingsheng said, shaking his eyebrows towards Lanxue, "as long as I look at it squarely, and don't let it change from 'obsession' to 'obsession', don't let it become If it becomes the demon in my heart, then there is no problem."

"What's more, I don't want to ascend, I don't want to live forever—"

He has such a big heart, but not so much ability.

So what is the wish for prosperity and peace, Haiyan and Heqing, that is the business of great people.

He is not a big man, he only wants to protect the ten li radius of Yaoshan Temple, and the only thing he can protect is this ten li radius.

——He has always been a person with a lot of acdef numbers.

Chen Yingsheng smiled and turned his eyes while thinking about it. At that time, He Luo had already been sealed in the water tank, and Feng Xi also instructed his little apprentice and others to help put away the fishing net.

Looking at the strange fish in the water tank, the village chief almost cried with joy, and when he thanked Feng Xi, his voice trembled uncontrollably: "This... Commissioner Feng, Professor Chen, thank you so much If it weren't for the help of a few people, we really don't know what to do!"

"The village chief is being polite. Your village is willing to let us take this strange fish away. This is also to contribute to the development of science in our country." Feng Xi said something nice without changing his face.

"Should be, should be!" The little village chief nodded his head again and again, and Shaoqing suddenly became curious again, "By the way, Commissioner Feng, can I take the liberty to ask this strange fish and the dog in the fish pond? What is going on?"

　Dingwuqihuang, let’s go Dingwuqihuang, don’t write the specific age, the late Qing Dynasty will always be fine! !The middle reaches of the fucking Yellow River are prone to droughts and floods. This is a fact, a fact! !Your mother’s facts are not allowed to write about me, and you have no mistakes to guide the contents of textbooks. You block me every day, am I wronged? !Is it my fault that Chen Ying lived so long!ah! ! !

　　
　
(End of this chapter)