[Position available: Daoist!] [Requirements: priority given to those who can catch ghosts, tell fortunes and draw talismans, or assess feng shui for others.] [Compensation: generous...]
After posting the recruitment notice, Yun Zhaozhao forwarded the link to the lawyer's assistant, figuring she might as well try. Half an hour later, a sum of money suddenly appeared in her previously empty account. Although it was only 100 yuan, to Yun Zhaozhao, who was too poor to afford food, it was undoubtedly a fortune.
Yun Zhaozhao excitedly asked the lawyer's assistant: [Do I get 100 yuan for every recruitment notice I post?]
The assistant replied instantly: [Go to sleep. You can have anything in your dreams.]
Yun Zhaozhao: [...]
Although the lawyer's assistant had mocked her mercilessly, Yun Zhaozhao remembered the lawyer saying that completing each stage of her tasks would unlock a sum of startup funds. She soldiered on, posting similar recruitment notices on every hiring platform and leaving Qingfeng Temple's address and her contact information with eager anticipation. Then she lay down on the temple's only lounge chair and quietly waited for her new employees to come knocking.
One day passed, then two, then three... With the 100 yuan nearly spent and the new employees she had been hoping for still nowhere in sight, Yun Zhaozhao finally couldn't keep lying there.
She had neither friends nor family here. The only person she could exchange a few words with was the lawyer's assistant. So she consulted the assistant: [I can't recruit anyone. Do you think I could go to a nearby Buddhist or Daoist temple and drag a couple of people over to make up the numbers?]
The assistant replied instantly: [Go ahead! Get beaten up, and you'll have another sum of project startup funds.]
Yun Zhaozhao: [...] You really know how to snare a white wolf with empty hands.
Chapter 2
Qingfeng Temple, where Yun Zhaozhao now lived, was inside Qingfeng Park. True to its name, the park was bleak and deserted. Perhaps because it was so far from the city, and because there was no particularly noteworthy scenery or recreational facilities nearby apart from Clear Breeze Mountain, hardly anyone made a special trip here.
Even the occasional visitors were hiking enthusiasts who had come specifically to climb Clear Breeze Mountain. Their goal was clear: they were essentially here to climb, so they almost never set foot in Yun Zhaozhao's Qingfeng Temple.
Unable to recruit anyone online, and not daring to actually poach people from those thriving Buddhist and Daoist temples, Yun Zhaozhao could only wander around Qingfeng Park, hoping to find a couple of pearls lost in the vast sea in the nearby villages.
After all, as the old saying went, masters were usually hidden among the common folk!
Yun Zhaozhao wandered through Qingfeng Park for half the day, then went out to explore the surrounding area. She didn't recruit anyone, but she did solve another major problem that had been troubling her lately-she found vegetable plots tended by local residents nearby and arranged with an older village woman to deliver fresh vegetables to Qingfeng Temple every three days.
Why not have meat delivered? Because she couldn't afford it, of course. Besides, a Daoist temple was sacred ground. Meat probably wasn't appropriate there anyway... right?
The woman was quite willing when she heard the vegetables were to be delivered to Qingfeng Temple, but she couldn't help being a little curious as well. "Wasn't Qingfeng Temple abandoned ages ago? How come someone's living there again? How many people are staying there?"
Yun Zhaozhao gave an ambiguous answer. "There aren't many of us now, but there might be more and more in the future."
The woman smiled faintly. "More and more people? I've lived here for over sixty years, and as far back as I can remember, I've never seen that temple crowded."
Yun Zhaozhao: "..." That stabbed right in the heart, ma'am.
After reaching a verbal agreement with the woman, Yun Zhaozhao also bought some fresh vegetables from her, then turned and headed back to Qingfeng Temple. Before she reached the entrance, she spotted a plump Daoist standing on the steps in the distance, looking up at the writing on the temple's signboard just as she had when she first arrived.
A gentle breeze came, softly stirring his Daoist robes and somehow lending the scene an air of ethereal grace.
At any rate, Yun Zhaozhao nearly wept with joy at her first glimpse of him. Oh, heavens above and earth below, after all these days of waiting, a Daoist has finally come knocking on his own.
Yun Zhaozhao had already decided privately that, regardless of who he was or where he came from, those Daoist robes alone were enough for her to do everything possible to make him stay. That way, she could complete the first stage of her recruitment task and collect another sum of startup funds from Lawyer Wang.
So when she walked up to him, she didn't even wait for him to speak before making the decision. "Here to apply, right? Congratulations, our temple has hired you."
"..."
He looked at Yun Zhaozhao earnestly and asked with some surprise, "...Really?"
Yun Zhaozhao said, "Really."
"But I don't know how to do anything!"
Yun Zhaozhao looked even more earnest than he did. "You don't need to know what to say. The fact that you stepped up with your left leg first just now tells me you're fated to join Qingfeng Temple! The position of the temple's eldest senior brother belongs to you and no one else."
"..."
The Daoist who had come to apply had the Daoist name Wang Gaorui and went by the Daoist sobriquet Changkong. Yun Zhaozhao very politely addressed him as Daoist Chang Kong.
When they first met at the entrance, Daoist Chang Kong had said he didn't know how to do anything. Yun Zhaozhao had thought he was being modest, but after he settled in and they sat down for a proper conversation, she discovered he hadn't been modest at all. Drawing talismans and reciting incantations, telling fortunes and catching ghosts... all those things she assumed a Daoist ought to know, he genuinely couldn't do any of them.
In fact, his inability to do anything was precisely why he had been politely "invited" out of other Daoist temples.
Speaking of his past, Daoist Chang Kong was quite dejected. "My master said I lacked spiritual aptitude and wasn't suited to cultivating in the Daoist order."
Yun Zhaozhao asked, "If I may be so bold, in what way do you lack spiritual aptitude?"
Daoist Chang Kong let out a long, mournful sigh, raised his rounded hands to cradle his double chin, and said sadly, "My master said my appetite was too strong and damaged the image of pure Daoist cultivation."
Yun Zhaozhao: "..." All I can say is that losing weight is a challenge for the ages. Even Daoists aren't spared.
Regardless, as the first proper Daoist at Qingfeng Temple, Daoist Chang Kong received a warm welcome from Yun Zhaozhao.
Of course, as a temple master strapped for cash, Yun Zhaozhao's welcoming ceremony, though enthusiastic, was also rather shabby-she simply treated Daoist Chang Kong to a bowl of instant noodles. There wasn't even an egg in it, just a few leafy greens she had bought from the village woman that afternoon.
Daoist Chang Kong looked at the instant noodles before him with a troubled expression. "Does our temple not have rice?"
Yun Zhaozhao said, "We have rice, and vegetables too."
Daoist Chang Kong asked, "Then why are we only eating instant noodles?"
Yun Zhaozhao answered with perfect confidence, "Because instant noodles are what I make best! Besides, I don't have pots, bowls, ladles, or anything like that here... But don't worry, we'll have them soon."
What Yun Zhaozhao meant was that Daoist Chang Kong's arrival would earn her another sum of startup funds for building the temple, and then she would have money to buy cookware.
But to Daoist Chang Kong, her words meant something else entirely.
He looked at Yun Zhaozhao with admiration and said excitedly, "How did you know I brought all those things myself?"
Yun Zhaozhao: "...????"
Daoist Chang Kong had arrived carrying a bamboo basket on his back. Yun Zhaozhao had assumed it held everyday necessities such as clothes and bedding, but to her surprise, apart from pots, bowls, ladles, and other cookware, it contained nothing but seasonings such as oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. Once everything was taken out, his bamboo basket was completely empty.
Yun Zhaozhao asked, "Don't you ever change your clothes?"
Daoist Chang Kong said, "In this life, we merely arrive stark naked and leave stark naked. One garment to cover the body is enough. Anything more is a burden."
Yun Zhaozhao asked, "Then how do you sleep?"
Daoist Chang Kong said, "With the sky as my quilt and the earth as my bed."
Yun Zhaozhao: "..."
If even someone like him couldn't give up his appetite, what was wrong with us ordinary mortals being a little greedy for food? What was wrong with that!!!
Yun Zhaozhao hadn't moved in long ago, and she had barely cooked in the temple before.
Now that Daoist Chang Kong had arrived, the temple's long-abandoned little kitchen finally had a use.
There was no gas stove in the temple, only an ordinary earthen stove. Such a stove might not have been very convenient elsewhere, but here at the foot of the mountain, it was immensely practical, because branches and firewood could be picked up anywhere outside Qingfeng Temple.
Daoist Chang Kong clearly knew his way around cooking, and this wasn't his first time using this kind of stove either. In any case, he soon cleaned it inside and out, then successfully lit a fire.
With the fire going, the Daoist washed the rice, set a pot over it, and began cooking.
Yun Zhaozhao had initially worried that, with his appetite so strong, the Daoist would turn his nose up at the few radishes and leafy greens she had. But a Daoist was indeed a Daoist: he treated every ingredient with the utmost care. In his plump hands, the radishes became fragrant radish fritters, while his deft hands sliced the greens into fine shreds, which eventually became a dish of brilliantly green stir-fried vegetable shreds.
Yun Zhaozhao was a meat eater whose fondness for vegetables could only be described as very average, but the Daoist's culinary skills were presumably superb, because even these utterly ordinary ingredients tasted remarkably distinctive when he prepared them.
The vegetarian radish fritters in particular were fragrant and crisp. One bite was crunchy, tender, and clean on the palate, and after she swallowed, their fragrance lingered in her mouth.
Yun Zhaozhao feasted heartily, eating to her heart's content.
What pleased her even more was that, while she was still eating, Daoist Chang Kong had already started planning breakfast for the following morning. "I noticed some noodles beside the stove just now. Shall I make you a bowl of vegetarian noodles to try tomorrow morning?"