Chapter 6: Is he a master?

Zhou Da sighed and said, “Well, what I was arguing with my wife about was this, but… I don’t know if it will help. Go find someone. He might be really good at it. A few years ago, when my wife was doing well, he came to my house for no reason, looked at my wife, and said, ‘I can’t spit out a breath of yang qi, I can’t swallow it, and I thought there was someone here who could cure my wife. Forget it, I’m leaving. We shouldn’t be together. In the end, we’ll just be dragging each other down. Then, this person left. Apart from my family, who else knows the details of my relationship with my wife? He must be a great man.”

“Who is he? Where is he?” my mother asked hurriedly.

“He… you must know him, he’s the old man Jiang.” Zhou Da said hesitantly, afraid that my mother wouldn’t believe him.

“Old Jiang, you mean the old man who came to our village a few years ago for no reason?” My mother was indeed a little skeptical and asked again.

That old man, could he be a master? But that old man is a master, he is also the most respected master in my life, both a teacher and a father!

“That’s him. Go find him. If you find him, we’ll have a favor to ask of you. I won’t say more. My wife can’t stand it anymore.” Zhou Da finished his words in a hurry, his body shook, and his whole body softened. Obviously, he had given his body back to Widow Zhou.

The widow Zhou looked even more frail than the last time. She was lying motionless on the table. How could my mother have finished asking about her own business and then left the widow Zhou alone? She quickly went over to help the widow Zhou. When she touched her body, she felt even colder than before, and her breath was very weak.

Rural women also have strength. My mother quickly helped Mrs. Zhou out of the west room and carried her to the main room, where she placed her on a chair in front of the stove. It just so happened that my father was also holding me in the main room, chatting with Mrs. Zhou, because the main room had a stove and was warmer.

Seeing this scene, Tuesday let out a cry of alarm and quickly went into the house to get a quilt to wrap around Mrs. Zhou. My mother quickly went back to the kitchen to make ginger soup.

Watching them busy, my ignorant father couldn’t help but say, “Xiu Yun, what do you think I should do?” Although my father knew nothing, he still vaguely understood that it was because of the affairs of my family that Mrs. Zhou was in such a state.

“Oh, you don’t have to do anything. Just help look after Yuehong here.” My mother wasn’t in the mood to argue with my father.

After a while, Mrs. Zhou’s condition had improved a little, and she looked at my mother as if she had something to say.

My mother probably knew what she wanted to say, so she asked, “Do you want to ask Chen and Zhou to leave for a while?”

Mrs. Zhou shook her head. She and Mr. Zhou must have had some major problems, and she couldn’t hide it anymore. “The wise man said that the two of us are dragging each other down, but I really don’t want to harm him. If I harm him, he’ll be in a dead end. I can still become a ghost, and that’s what I’ve always thought. And I’m afraid that Zhou Qiang’s son will be pitied. Although the Zhou family will definitely take care of him, a child with a mother is always better than a child with no mother or father. If you can get a high-level person to help us, please do so.”

“Sister-in-law, what are you talking about? What has become a ghost? What has become fatherless and motherless?” Tuesday was concerned about his sister-in-law and immediately shouted out loud. Widow Zhou just waved her hand and asked Tuesday not to ask again.

My father, as an outsider, even if he had a lot of questions, it was not good to talk, and it was even worse to ask me about it at this time.

As for my mother, she looked at Mrs. Zhou sincerely and said, “I will do my best. In fact, I also want to say that you should let go of things that you can’t change. Doing things that are good for the other person is also a sign of deep affection, not to mention that there is a baby?”

Mrs. Zhou nodded gratefully at my mother, who was so tired that she didn’t want to talk anymore.

In this way, my father returned home with my mother, who was full of questions and worries.

It was a cold winter night, and many people had already gone to bed early, or even fallen asleep. But my parents, who had just returned from Mrs. Zhou’s house, were not even a little sleepy. They were even lighting two very bright oil lamps in the room.

At this point, my father had already heard my mother’s account of the incident, and his hand was shaking as he took a cigarette. It took him a while to say, “Old Jiang, can he be trusted?”

“Chairman Mao said that practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. Let’s go and see,” my mother said, leaning closely against my father. She wouldn’t close her eyes, thinking that the house was like a ‘ghost meeting’. My mother couldn’t sleep.

“Well, let our son suffer a little more. I’ll go up the mountain to find Old Jiang tomorrow. Today… tonight, I’ll sleep with the light on.” My father was also very scared, otherwise why would he wait to sleep?

Sometimes, light can be a great comfort.

There was no word exchanged that night.

The next day, my parents got up early. My mother quickly made a simple breakfast for my father. After eating, my father put on his thick coat and stuffed two steamed buns into his arms before heading up the mountain.

Why did he have to carry two buns? It was simple. Our village was next to the mountains, which were not very high, but stretched for tens of kilometers. They were big enough. My father knew that the old man lived alone in the mountains, but he didn’t know exactly where. The villagers didn’t know either. They just knew that he would occasionally pop into the village.

So it was extremely difficult to find him all of a sudden. How could we not carry some food?

The morning mountain road was very humid. After my father walked for a while, his two trouser legs were already wet. Seeing that the sky was already turning pale, my father put away his flashlight, sat on a large rock, and prepared to smoke a cigarette and rest for a few minutes.

“This old man must be a master,” my father said to himself as the smoke rose.

If he wasn’t a master, why would he live alone in the mountains? Not to mention the ghosts and spirits, there are also a lot of insects in the mountains, especially the long worms. Even the locals don’t know how many species there are in these mountains.

Anyway, an ordinary person would never dare to live alone in the mountains.

My father seemed to have found a powerful excuse for the old man to be a master, and his furrowed brows relaxed. But after a while, my father’s brows furrowed again, and the image and deeds of the old man swirled in his heart.

What kind of image does old man Jiang have? He has gray hair and a long beard, and his face is actually very good, white and rosy, but it is dirty. I often see the dirt left behind by not washing his face, in lines, on his neck, and even on his beard.

He often wears clothes that are almost unrecognizable. In the summer, it’s okay, but in other seasons, his two sleeves are always shiny and hard. How long has it been since he washed them? How many times has he wiped his mouth?

It’s one thing to say that he looks like that, but his behavior is even more ridiculous. First of all, he is a lecher. When he sees a pretty young girl in the village, he doesn’t even blink. Sometimes he will even follow someone all the way, and people are not afraid of him, an old man, and they all know that he doesn’t have the guts to do anything, just watch.

And even if they chase him away and scold him, he doesn’t get angry. He just mutters to himself, “A gentleman’s feelings are governed by his sense of propriety. Everyone has a love of beauty…”

The villagers in the mountains don’t understand what he is saying, so they often scold him even more. He just smiles and walks away when he has had enough. At most, when he turns around and walks back, he will yell a nonsensical mountain song and then shout, “The young lady is beautiful…”

In addition, old Jiang was a glutton. When he was walking around the village, if he found out that something was ripe in someone’s house, he would always ask for it shamelessly. If someone refused, he would just hang around. When he saw someone working, he would quickly come to help. He wouldn’t help, but he couldn’t be driven away.

If the things he asks for are valuable, he will help with the work for a longer time. If the things he asks for are ordinary, he will help with the work for a shorter time.

Usually, many people would give him what he asked for, because they didn’t care much about the things in the fields anyway. The people in the mountains were simple and honest, and they couldn’t stand seeing an old man like that.

But the strange old man didn’t say thank you, he just said, “I’ll help you with your work, you’ll feed me, we’re even, no karma, and we’ll make a good connection, great, great kindness.” This is crazy to ordinary people.