Speaking of Clear Breeze Temple, apart from that food editor who had promoted it earlier, no other media reporters had contacted Yun Zhaozhao about publicity since. So now that Xu Fugui was volunteering to help promote it, she naturally couldn't have asked for more.
The two of them launched into another enthusiastic discussion about the follow-up publicity.
Among the group, aside from Grandpa Lin, who had known in advance, only Daoist Chang Kong was a little more perceptive. Everyone else kept obliviously sucking on snails and eating fish, while Daoist Chang Kong looked at Xu Fugui and couldn't help thinking of his former self.
Wasn't this exactly how Yun Zhaozhao had sweet-talked him into wandering along the main road in a Daoist robe printed with advertising slogans back then?
Sure enough, there was no more innocent bunch in this day and age than foodies.
As Daoist Chang Kong reflected on this, he couldn't help scooping a spoonful of fish for Xu Fugui out of sympathy. Xu Fugui was quite flattered. "Thank you, thank you. Have some yourself, Daoist."
Daoist Chang Kong smiled. "Eat more fish. It's good for your brain."
Xu Fugui: "...???"
At my age, I still need brain food? Besides, isn't that something adults say to coax children?
While Xu Fugui had sold himself to Clear Breeze Temple as a laborer for a bite to eat, Mrs. Wang hadn't even had time for dinner because a teacher had summoned her to school.
Why had she been summoned? Because her son, Wang Ziyu, had written an essay over the weekend on the topic: My Dream.
Wang Ziyu's dream used to be becoming Ultraman. Now his dream had finally changed: he said he wanted to become a Daoist priest at Clear Breeze Temple.
Mrs. Wang had the honor of "reading" young Wang Ziyu's masterpiece in the teacher's office. She had to admit, it was quite well written, at least far better than the incoherent, blow-by-blow accounts he had written before. In this essay, Wang Ziyu listed in detail the various benefits of becoming a Daoist priest at Clear Breeze Temple, such as getting to eat all sorts of delicious food, as well as weeding, catching bugs, and digging up earthworms in the backyard... In short, it basically matched what had happened during Wang Ziyu's study trip to Clear Breeze Temple.
However, Wang Ziyu's homeroom teacher, Teacher Li, was clearly very dissatisfied with the essay. She had called Mrs. Wang specifically because she wanted her to pay attention to the direction of Wang Ziyu's thinking. Put simply, he needed more positive energy!
After all, an elementary school student was saying he wanted to leave home and become a Daoist priest. What would the other teachers think? What would the principal think?
What could Mrs. Wang say? She could only apologize while assuring Teacher Li that she would have a proper talk with Wang Ziyu once they got home.
Finally, Teacher Li tactfully reminded Mrs. Wang, "Does someone in your family follow Daoism? I remember Ziyu saying his father is a lawyer, so his father probably doesn't believe in Daoism. You don't look like the sort of person who would be religious either. Is it one of the elders in the family? Personally, I think it's good for elderly people to have something to put their faith in, but children are still young. It's best to expose them to more positive things..."
Mrs. Wang was too embarrassed to admit that she was actually the one who went to Clear Breeze Temple at every opportunity, so she could only answer vaguely, "Not really. It's mainly that Clear Breeze Temple is a little different from ordinary Daoist places. You haven't been there before, have you, Teacher Li? If you have time to look around, you'll understand. It really is quite special."
Teacher Li felt helpless and a little angry as she listened. She thought Mrs. Wang hadn't realized the seriousness of the matter at all, but as a teacher, she couldn't very well say much outright. She merely gave a couple of noncommittal replies before letting Mrs. Wang and Wang Ziyu leave together.
Although deep down Mrs. Wang didn't think this was particularly serious, she still had a proper talk with Wang Ziyu on their way home. Of course, she mainly instilled in him the idea that even if he wanted to become a Daoist priest at Clear Breeze Temple, he still had to study hard and get into university first. To make her argument more convincing, she even went online to find recruitment notices from Daoist temples and read them to him.
Naturally, she picked temples with particularly strict hiring requirements. Some even required a master's degree.
Wang Ziyu had thought becoming a Daoist priest meant he wouldn't have to study anymore. Now that he heard he had to get into university even to become a Daoist priest, his enthusiasm instantly dwindled by half. Still, he hadn't quite given up, so after getting home, he hid in his room and secretly sent Lin Banxia a WeChat message.
The WeChat message was tediously long, practically a letter: "Sister Banxia, today I told my teacher I wanted to become a Daoist priest at Clear Breeze Temple when I grew up, but she got really angry and even called my mom to school. My mom told me that to become a Daoist priest at Clear Breeze Temple, I have to get into university first. I just want to ask you, do I really need to get into university to become a Daoist priest at Clear Breeze Temple? Also, how much do you get paid each month? Is it 20K?"
When Lin Banxia received Wang Ziyu's WeChat message, she had just finished helping clean the kitchen and was sitting in the courtyard resting.
Honestly, the message was full of things to pick apart from beginning to end, so much so that Lin Banxia didn't know where to start.
But if she had to choose, what she most wanted to take issue with was the last point. A monthly salary of 20K? What ordinary Daoist priest these days could guarantee a monthly salary of 20K? Perhaps even Yun Zhaozhao, the temple master, couldn't guarantee that! Elementary school students really did talk big. Plenty of university graduates only dared ask for 2,000 when discussing their starting salary, yet these kids asked for 20K right off the bat.
Lin Banxia tapped forcefully at her phone keyboard and replied: [Not 20K, kiddo. It might not even be 2,000.]
Wang Ziyu must have been watching his phone watch the whole time, because his reply came quickly. "Then it looks like being a Daoist priest really isn't worth it. Such high qualifications and such low pay. I'd be better off becoming a lawyer like my dad when I grow up!"
Lin Banxia: "...You think becoming a lawyer is easy?"
Wang Ziyu: "Sure it is. My mom said I can follow in my father's footsteps when I grow up."
Lin Banxia: "..."
Lin Banxia felt she had been outdone by an elementary school student, and quite thoroughly at that. She turned her head and looked at Grandpa Lin indignantly. "Grandpa, don't we have any family assets worth inheriting?"
Grandpa Lin gave her a puzzled look. "We didn't before, but now we do."
Lin Banxia was delighted. "Really? What do we have?"
Grandpa Lin: "A hundred mu of fertile farmland waiting for you to inherit."
Lin Banxia: "..." Now she had been completely outdone by an elementary school student.
Chapter 34
Early the next morning, Xu Fugui kept his promise and came to work the fields. Grandpa Lin hadn't even arrived when he got there, because Grandpa Lin had gone to the farmers' market that morning-he planned to buy some fish fry and softshell turtles.
However, after walking around the farmers' market, he found that softshell turtles were a little too expensive and wouldn't be very economical to raise. Moreover, a vendor at the market told him that softshell turtles ate small fish. If he wanted to raise fish and turtles together, he should try to buy larger fish, but larger fish cost a different amount from fish fry.
Grandpa Lin had lived frugally his entire life and felt that this wasn't a worthwhile deal no matter how he calculated it. In the end, he abandoned his plan to buy softshell turtles and bought only a batch of fish fry.
After buying the fish, Grandpa Lin made another circuit of the farmers' market and discovered a stall selling chicks. The chicks looked as though they hadn't hatched long ago. A few were still unsteady on their feet, but most of the others were a soft yellow and looked utterly adorable.
As mentioned before, the old house Grandpa Lin was renting was the ancestral home of a family in the village. Though very old, it came with a large courtyard, and like Clear Breeze Temple, it had a mountain behind it.
The mountain and courtyard were usually left empty, with no one tending to them. After all, the people in the village were all elderly, frail, sick, or disabled. Old Master Lin had therefore been wondering whether he could raise something there. Otherwise, whenever he came home after working the fields, there wasn't even another breathing creature in the house.
Seeing the chicks now, he couldn't help feeling tempted.
He figured he could buy some chicks and raise them on the mountain behind the house. Then the chickens would lay eggs, and the eggs would hatch into chickens... Their descendants would go on without end!
Besides, when the wheat and rice in the paddies were harvested later, some heads of wheat might well fall into the fields. Those usually couldn't be gathered up because they were too scattered. When the time came, he could drive the chicks into the fields and put everything to good use.
Although he had it all planned out, he was out spending public funds today, so before buying them, he still called Yun Zhaozhao at Clear Breeze Temple to ask for approval.
Yun Zhaozhao was very supportive. She had actually considered raising chickens, ducks, geese, or other poultry in Clear Breeze Temple's backyard herself. But she had later worried about all the people coming and going, and whatever else might be said, Clear Breeze Temple was ultimately a place of Daoist peace and purity. Raising such things there didn't seem entirely appropriate, so she had finally dropped the idea.
Now that Old Master Lin had brought it up himself, Yun Zhaozhao naturally wouldn't object. She had only one concern. "But won't that be too much work for you?"
Grandpa Lin said, "It's not like I have to hold a few chickens in my arms and soothe them. What's so hard about it? Besides, I even managed to raise someone like Lin Banxia. Why would I worry about keeping a few chickens alive?"
Yun Zhaozhao: "..."
The old man was a man of action. Once he hung up, he picked out a hundred chicks, with males and females in a ratio of roughly three to seven.
Since he also had the fish fry with him, after buying the chicks, he carried both the chicks and the fish fry straight back to the rice paddies.
By the time the old man arrived, Xu Fugui and several of his old companions were already diligently transplanting rice seedlings.
Seeing the chicks in the old man's hands, Xu Fugui's first reaction was, "What, besides rice-paddy fish and rice-paddy softshell turtles, are we planning to raise rice-paddy chickens too?"
Old Master Lin said, "...You're getting carried away. How could we raise chickens in rice paddies? These few plots of rice you're planting wouldn't even be enough for them to eat."
Xu Fugui said, "Then what are these for?"
Old Master Lin released the fish fry into the paddies that had already been filled with water and planted with seedlings before finding a moment to answer Xu Fugui's question. "I'm planning to raise them on the mountain behind my house. These chickens can lay eggs, and they can also be sold for money."