Heavy snow fell outside the main hall of Zen Grove Buddhist Temple.
The Buddha statue in the hall still looked rather shabby, with paint peeling from the Buddha's outstretched golden palm. But Chanwood Temple could not even afford food in the depths of winter, so how could it spare any thought for the Buddha losing a layer of skin?
Five-year-old Yuankong sat below the prayer cushions in the main hall, sniffling as he leafed through the Buddhist Scriptures in his hands.
He had been reading this volume of Buddhist Scriptures for half a year. With his clever little head, he could already have recited it backward without a stumble.
Yet his senior brother, the Abbot, still crouched beside him every day, chanting without end. He really did not understand what the Abbot was thinking.
He sniffed twice more and found that his tiny nose simply could not hold it back anymore, then cautiously sized up the Abbot beside him, who seemed somewhere between sleeping and waking.
Yuankong decisively wiped his nose on his sleeve. He was not the one washing the clothes anyway.
Yuankong had only just finished cautiously wiping his nose.
The Abbot's voice drifted out:
"You'll wash your own clothes today."
Yuankong immediately felt deceived and pouted. "Senior Brother! You weren't asleep?"
"No need to sleep long while alive; after death, there will be a long slumber." Yuanjing opened his eyes, a kindly smile appearing on his aged face. "You little brat, if you weren't doing anything with a guilty conscience, would you need to care whether I was asleep?"
"Senior Brother, you have cultivation to protect you. Heat and cold can't touch you," Yuankong said aggrievedly. "But you won't let me cultivate. I barely have any clothes to wear in the depths of winter. I'm freezing worse