Linxia

Chapter 172, Fortune Telling

He politely declined the Fan family's sedan chair, returned from Fan's house, and went back to Xixiang Hutong.

It was a sunny March day. On the open space in Xiaowu Mountain, the huge willow tree that had been dry and faded for months sprouted tender leaf buds. The willow branches were emerald green, and looked like light green gold under the sunlight.

The cherry tree next to it is in bloom, and the pink petals are particularly bright in the sunlight. Yellow bees with black circles on their bodies are flying among them, startling the petals to fall and spreading the fragrance.

Under the trees of Xiaowu Mountain, a group of old ladies, aunties, and young wives were sitting there, chatting while doing sewing work, peeling peanuts, etc.

In this season when grass is growing, birds are flying, and all things are growing, the vitality between heaven and earth is rising, and they seem to have inexhaustible energy, and are very enthusiastic and lively.

Fang's mother and Tian Xuan were also here, with Su Xiaoqing and Sister Guihua beside them. Su Xiaoqing brought her daughter, and Sister Guihua also brought Chen Ye.

Fang's mother excitedly told them about how Grandma Man stole the Bodhisattva: "Grandma Man went to the temple to steal the Bodhisattva. She was not alone. Grandma Qiu also went. Grandma Qiu wanted to ask the Bodhisattva to bless Mr. Qiu... Grandma Man told me that they lit the incense and candles, knelt in front of the Bodhisattva, put their hands together, kowtowed, and said something while knelt. The old monk didn't see when she hid the Bodhisattva inside her clothes... When she came back that day, Grandma Man came to me with a light in her eyes. She was flustered but also a little excited. She said that the Bodhisattva had been stolen and asked me to go and see. I saw it. It was a Guanyin Bodhisattva more than one foot long. The Bodhisattva was shining with golden light. It stood on a lotus flower, holding a willow branch in its left hand, and had a very kind face with a smile."

"Since the Bodhisattva was brought back, Grandma Man has been worshipping her devoutly, and I don't know what she looks like."

"I've also heard this saying. The stolen Buddha statue is more effective." Su Xiaoqing said.

Sister Guihua shook her head: "The gods and Buddhas are like clay statues sitting on the stage. They can't hear or see. People have to rely on themselves."

Fang Lin didn't say anything. He squatted down beside and teased Geng Xueer. The little girl couldn't speak yet. She was chubby, fair and tender, and babbled. She was at her cutest when she was little. She also talked to Chen Ye.

After a while, he came over obediently.

It has been in the Fang family for more than a year and has grown a lot bigger now. Maybe because it eats well, it has a coat of shiny yellow hair. It squats there with a calm and majestic look, as majestic as a little tiger.

This guy has really grown up and started to have his own privacy. He was away from home for a few days last month, and the whole family was worried that something might happen to him. Once, when Fang Lin came back, he saw Guaiguai fighting with another cat at the entrance of the alley. It turned out that he was fighting with another cat of the same kind because of jealousy.

"The estrus season has arrived, you little bastard, I wonder if you have any cubs outside?" Fang Lin stroked Guaiguai, making it meow comfortably.

The puppy Huahua has grown a lot now. When he saw this side, he ran over happily. The other side wagged its tail vigorously to show that it liked him.

Under the bright sun, time seems to slow down, just like the sunlight passing through the leaves, the veins can be clearly seen, and it flows through the fingertips.

……

Fang Lin did not stay in Xiaowu Mountain for long. He quickly got up and went over to the door of the Ou family. Mr. Ou was lying on a rattan chair under the osmanthus tree with a dazed look on his face, as if he was in a daze.

He called out, but Master Ou didn't seem to hear him. He called out twice more before Master Ou came to his senses and said in a daze, "It's you, Fang Lin!"

At this moment, Fang Lin suddenly remembered what Master Ou once said: "The difficulty of life is not just about clothing and food, daily expenses, spiritual life also occupies an equally important position. When your loved ones leave you one after another, the unforgettable and heart-wrenching feeling makes people feel at a loss. "

"Mrs. Ou is gone. I guess this is how the Master feels right now?"

Fang Lin thought so and sighed in his heart. He had originally planned to go back and write some manuscripts, but now he changed his mind and sat down next to him to talk to Master Ou.

Master Ou probably really wanted to have someone to talk to, and soon he started talking about himself: "When I was a child, my family lived in a village below the city. My father was a kind and honest man. Every year at this time, he would roll up leaves into a small tube, and we would stand side by side at the door and blow it like a competition, attracting many children to come and watch. Sometimes my father would suddenly say to me, 'Don't blow this anymore, my turtledove sounds just like the real one, I'll blow it for you to see.' When we looked over, my father would quickly put his hands together and start blowing, coo! coo coo coo! There would be children who didn't know what was going on and would run over to see my father's hands, and he would smile and spread out his hands to show them, saying that the turtledove had flown away."

"I have never been able to learn this unique skill."

Fang Lin listened quietly. The bright sunshine made him feel peaceful.

"My mother is a gentle person. When I was a child, every evening when we were having dinner and the smoke from cooking was rising from the village, my mother would stand at the door and shout 'Shui-gen-zi' at the top of her voice. When she shouted, the sound was long and could be heard from far away. Whenever she shouted, I could always hear it. With this sound, it was like a pair of invisible hands leading me, and I would go back quickly."

Listening to Master Ou talking, Fang Lin suddenly thought of the "Shui-gen-zi" that Madam Ou had once called out when she was alive, and knew that this was the source.

At this moment, he looked at the other person's face. The sunlight was reflected on Mr. Ou's face. He was immersed in happiness. His eyes could not lie.

"Dad has a stubborn temper, he is unreasonable and always quarrels with mom. Mom, who is so good-tempered, can get really angry sometimes. I remember one time, I asked, 'Mom, you are such a good person, why don't you have the last name Ou? Grandpa, dad, aunt and youngest aunt all have the last name Ou.' Mom got angry and said, 'Your dad always makes me angry, I was too lazy to have his last name Ou, and I still am too lazy to have his last name Ou.'"

As Master Ou said this, he laughed, blinked hard, and took a deep breath: "This happened more than 70 years ago."

More than seventy years!

As Fang Lin listened, he could feel the passage of time coming upon him, but the emotions contained therein, the familiar emotions, would not fade with time.

Master Ou continued, "My son who didn't survive was nicknamed Zhuangzhuang because he was very small when he was born. Fortunately, my wife was well-nourished and even the nutrients from drinking water were passed on to him. Therefore, the boy grew very fast and was a little chubby when he left the confinement period."

"But there was a famine that year. When the boy became fat, my wife became terribly thin... I remember that my wife once hugged her son and said, 'Son, you came at the wrong time.'"

He took a breath and continued, "Fortunately, as the adults lived one day, the children lived another day, and he still followed us until he was over one year old. I remember that at that time, he was chubby, with black hair that grew to the back of his neck, black eyes like pearls, fair skin, and he loved to laugh. Everyone loved him. My wife liked to tease him, imitating the mooing of cows and dogs, and she always made him giggle... But later he had a fever and died."

"My eldest daughter, Niuniu, was well-behaved and lovely. There was a field of wheat in front of our house before, and I took her out to play. When she first learned to walk, she spread her hands, smiled, and waddled like a duck. Sometimes I held her hand from the side, sometimes I walked in front of her, and sometimes I held her clothes from behind. After walking for a while, when she got tired, she would hold my clothes, hook her legs up, and refused to get off the ground. She had to be held in my arms. Such a good child, but later she died of a cough."

Mr. Ou recalled in a soft voice, "We lost one son and one daughter in succession. My wife often sat in front of the door. One day, she was watching a group of three or four-year-old kids playing, and suddenly said to me, if we could raise Zhuangzhuang and Niuniu, they would be this big..."

Fang Lin listened, and a huge sadness rose up from the bottom of his heart uncontrollably. He didn't know what to say for a moment. "My old partner is also a very good person, but I treated her badly in the past. That year, she bought a hairband, came to me and asked me if it looked good. I said it was good-looking, but she didn't agree. She said I didn't even look at it carefully, but she said it was good-looking and insisted that I look at it carefully. I was angry. At that time, the dog Ping An was still there, so I called Ping An to come and see this person's head. She was so angry that she said that it would be fine if I didn't look at it myself, but she asked the dog to look at her."

Mr. Ou laughed as he spoke: "My wife once said, 'When you are old, I will be your servant for free and guarantee your safety.' I said, 'When I am old, you are not old too. If I fall to the ground, you won't be able to help me up.' She laughed and said, 'At least I can be with you so that you are not alone. If you fall, I will find someone to save you so that you won't fall on the road without anyone to take care of you.'... But she died before me in the end. This is good, this is good!"

"You lost your father and mother when you were young, your son and daughter when you were middle-aged, and your spouse when you were old. These are all things that happened to you. How sad and miserable you must have felt." Fang Lin sighed inwardly.

"Cough cough!"

As Master Ou was talking, perhaps because of his emotional ups and downs, he suddenly started coughing violently. Fang Lin quickly patted his back and waved his hands: "It's okay, I've let it go a long time ago. Things like this...will eventually get over. Aging and death are like fallen leaves returning to their roots. Everyone will have such a day. Life is like this. Many times, you can't hold on to anything even if you try your best. You can only cry and laugh, and then move on."

As Master Ou and Fang Lin were talking, the eldest son of the Qiu family pushed Mr. Qiu over, with Mrs. Qiu following behind.

The father and son greeted each other and went over.

Granny Qiu said a few more words to them: "After my husband fell, his lower body became paralyzed. I couldn't hold him anymore. Every morning and afternoon, my eldest son and son-in-law would take turns to hold the old man. I had to quickly put a piece of cloth underneath him... He was old and had fallen, so he couldn't digest many things. He had to eat soft and rotten food. Sometimes he would even be irritable, so I had to feed him..."

Fang Lin recalled what he had seen many times before: Granny Qiu muttering something in a low voice, saying something like "Buddha bless you", with an extremely gentle look in her eyes.

"Granny Qiu, this is a very difficult job, right? This is a job that requires a lot of patience," he said.

"Isn't it? Ever since the old man did that, I feel like a prisoner shackled by shackles. I can't hide or escape. The difference is that some are men shackled by women, and some are women shackled by men." Granny Qiu said with emotion.

"Yes, no one forced you to wear this yoke. It is civilized and you wear it willingly." Mr. Ou listened and nodded deeply. Thinking of the past year and a half of taking care of Mrs. Ou, he sighed: "No matter how heavy the burden is, no matter how much pain it is, I am willing to bear it, just like a snail carrying its heavy shell and crawling forward heavily."

After Granny Qiu passed by, Master Ou remained silent for a while, then suddenly said, "Fang Lin, cherish the person in front of you!"

Fang Lin nodded heavily.

As they were talking, a fortune teller in hemp clothes came over. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the fortune teller in hemp clothes who had once told fortunes for Xin You, the son of Xin Laoguan.

He was blind in one eye, and was still wearing an old linen shirt that reached his ankles, and a pair of torn cotton shoes without roots. The skin on his heels was exposed, dark and rough like the bark of an old locust tree. His hands were stretched into each other's sleeves, and in his arms was a flag with the word "fortune telling" written on it.

However, this time, the fortune teller in hemp clothes had some gray beard, which was combed neatly, giving him an immortal look.

"Can you tell fortunes, old man?" the fortune teller in hemp clothes asked Master Ou.

Mr. Ou, who always kept his distance from ghosts and gods, thought about it and said "forget it", and then reported his birth date.

The fortune teller in hemp clothes counted with his fingers and said to Master Ou: "You are an old man, so you are not worth it. Bring me a dead person's horoscope."

Upon hearing this, Master Ou stood up solemnly and apologized to the fortune teller in hemp clothes. He took a breath and said, "Don't blame me, sir. I really miss my late wife. Everyone who has seen her says that she has a blessed face. But she has never enjoyed any blessings in her life with me. She has done many good things, but such a good person is tortured by illness..."

The fortune teller said, "Seeing you are so sad, I don't blame you. She should have passed away last year, but because of your deep love and kindness, she lived with you for another half a year."

After hearing this, Mr. Ou subconsciously thought of last year when Mrs. Ou attempted suicide, but was saved by Zhang Dagou's tung oil and lived for another half a year.

Fang Lin was also surprised and confused after hearing this.

"Is there really such a thing as the cause and effect of good and evil? No, maybe this hemp-clothed fortune-teller asked about it before he came here," he thought to himself.

But no matter whether it was true or not, Master Ou seemed to have found some comfort. He stared at the fortune teller in hemp clothes and asked, "How is my wife now?"

Fang Lin also looked over when he heard that.

I only heard the fortune teller in hemp clothes say, "Don't be sad, old man. Your wife has been reincarnated. She will die before you anyway. You can't stop her. Life span is arranged by God. We ordinary people can't do anything about it."

"He has been reincarnated and has forgotten me? All right, all right. But, it is enough to come to this world once. Why should I suffer again?" Master Ou murmured.

"You still have a long life ahead of you, old man. It's hard to die even if you want to. Don't do anything stupid."

Seeing that Master Ou was immersed in his words, the fortune teller in hemp clothes looked at Fang Lin and asked, "Young Master, do you want to have your fortune told?"

Fang Lin thought for a moment and said with a smile: "I have no more doubts now, so I won't count it. Maybe I will ask you to count it next time I see you."

"Okay." Master Ma Yi didn't say anything. Master Ou was so stunned that he forgot to give him money. He didn't even want it. He just held the flag and left leisurely.

Later, Fang Lin talked about this matter with his family many times. Fang's father, Fang's mother, and Tian Xuan were all amazed and felt very sorry that Fang Lin did not ask them to do the calculation.

Until a long time later, he still didn't figure out whether the fortune teller in hemp clothes had learned the fortune from inquiries. The matter remained a mystery.

……

(End of this chapter)