Chapter 1 Creating God
This is a true story of my life.
When I was about five years old, a fortune teller insisted on reading my fortune, saying that when I grew up, I would be able to see through other people's minds at a glance and would also be famous and wealthy.
When this news spread, the whole village thought I was a genius.
My parents put all their efforts into sending me to school, but they were disappointed. My English and math scores were always below 60.
I have taken a lot of tonics, but my IQ in this area has not improved.
A high school diploma became my highest level of education. My mother was so angry that she yelled at the fortune teller, calling him a jerk and a fool.
Then, I followed the old path of the children in the mountain village and went out to work. I became a noodle maker at the "Pang Ge Noodle Shop" opened by my sister and brother-in-law.
I won’t say more, it’s all tears, let’s just eat fried noodles.
The night in the south in September was still like a furnace. My sister called out to me:
"Wanshanhong, you go!"
My arms were so sore, so she gave an order and I took over from my brother-in-law.
Add oil, flour, and then scoop salt, sauce, garlic, pepper, and chili powder...
With one hand, he kept stirring the food while with the other, he kept throwing up the rice noodles. The rice noodles jumped out of the wok and fell from the air.
Once, twice, three times. It looked like an acrobatic performance.
Four times, five times, six times... my arms suddenly stopped responding and I was unable to lift the pot.
The pot fell heavily to the ground with a clang, and yellow, white, and green things were scattered all over the floor.
The diners all looked over.
My brother-in-law rushed over, picked up another iron pan, and in less than a minute the excitement continued.
My sister, hunched over cleaning up the mess, glared at me and cursed in a deep voice, "Useless."
If I keep doing this, my life will be ruined. I'll be trading every day and every night. Besides building some arm strength, I'll gain nothing.
"What are you doing sitting here? If you can't do it, go back and rest. It's embarrassing."
My sister gave me a disgusted look.
I went back to the dormitory in a huff.
Ever since I came to Wuxiang to work as a helper for my sister, I have become restless.
In the first month, I gave her a suggestion: buy the dying scrap shop next door, hire a few professional noodle chefs, and expand the business.
My sister's eyes narrowed: "You just want to be lazy. Hire a few masters, what if you lose money?"
The next month, I suggested to her that she could run a buffet during the day. She said, "If you don't want to do it, go back."
After asking it countless times, I gave up.
I became a mechanical arm, repeating the same action of throwing things up and down every day.
I am so tired that I often have accidents where I can't throw the rice noodles away. What happened tonight was that the rice noodles were spilled all over the floor. It was not the first time nor the last time.
The noise outside gradually died down and it was almost time to close the stall. I checked my phone and it was one in the morning.
I sat alone on the bed, my arms aching more and more, thinking, they'll come and say hello to me, right?
No one paid any attention to me until the stall closed.
I was so angry that I grabbed a pillow and threw it at a book on the bedside table.
The book was teetering on the edge of its seat, but it didn't fall. I found it at a scrap yard a few days ago.
The book was called "Business Golden Ideas." I grabbed it and read it slowly, because I couldn't sleep anyway.
The book says that there was a man who made no money collecting scrap copper and silver, but made a lot of money by melting them down and making Buddha statues.
I stared at the words "Buddha statue" without taking my eyes off them. Suddenly, I slapped my thigh: Got it.
I'm going to create a myth because my sister is the biggest believer in Buddhism.
I never expected that this idea would change my life.
I ordered a Buddha statue mold from Taobao, about the size of a one-yuan coin.
At one o'clock in the morning the next day after receiving the mold, I quietly got up, took a hammer and a stepladder, and went to the big tree.
I climbed up the ladder and hammered the Buddha statue mold into the tree trunk. After it was nailed, I came down from the ladder.
One month, two months, three months... I often went to check on it late at night, filled a syringe with nutrient solution, and injected it into the tree trunks around the Buddha statue.
The following spring, the mold fell off and a Buddha statue grew on the tree trunk.
In March, the scrap shop next door to us closed down, and I started my action plan.
One afternoon, I invited my sister to play badminton.
I had hidden a badminton in the tree in front of the scrap yard. When it was my turn to serve, I feinted, put the badminton in my trouser pocket, and yelled, "It flew right up into the tree."
My sister was a little disappointed.
"I'll get it." I said, and I brought a staircase. I climbed to where the badminton was hidden, shivered all over, slid down the stairs, sat on the ground, and didn't say a word for a long time.
"What's wrong with you?" My sister squatted down and shook my shoulders.
"There's something strange."
"What?"
"There is... a Bodhisattva on the tree."
My sister hurriedly said, "I'll go up and take a look."
She climbed up and saw a lifelike Buddha statue growing between the branches. She quickly climbed down and called me aside: "How can there be a Bodhisattva?"
"Our day of getting rich has come."
"Get rich?" My sister looked confused.
I lowered my voice and asked, "Why is the scrap shop business so bad?"
"Why?"
"Leaving all this filth and junk piled up there is disrespectful to the Buddha, so I can't continue."
"That makes sense. The scrap shop has been languishing for so long. It turns out there's a Buddha statue in the tree."
"If we buy the scrap shop, expand the noodle shop, and offer hot meals to the Buddha every day, he will surely bless the shop to prosper."
When my sister heard this, she kept her mouth open for a long time.
"If you don't do it, what if someone takes a fancy to the scrap yard and opens a powder shop there? Then their business will be booming."
My sister was stunned for a moment and immediately called my brother-in-law over.
My brother-in-law said excitedly, "Isn't this the Bodhisattva reminding us to get rich? Why did Shanhong's badminton fly to and stop in that place?"
My sister thought for a long time and said, "How about this? Let's ask Taoist Master Hongyi to take a look at the feng shui. If he says it's possible to expand, then we can expand it."
I volunteered, "I'll go and invite them tomorrow."
Taoist Master Hongyi is very famous in this area. When I go to the market to buy ingredients, I always pass by his house, but I have never gone in.
The next day, I went to the Taoist priest's house. There was a courtyard with an archway at the entrance. Above the archway hung a plaque that read "You Ran Ju".
Arriving at the gate, I hesitated. What if the Taoist priest looked at the place and said it wasn't suitable for a shop? Wouldn't that Buddha statue have been a waste of effort?
The Taoist priest saw me immediately. He was half-lying on a bamboo chair in the yard, his white beard fluttering, and he looked at me curiously.
Neither advancing nor retreating is possible.
I mustered up the courage to say, "Hello, Taoist priest. I just came in curiously. My family runs a fried noodle shop at the fork in the road about a mile ahead."
"Look if you want to."
I said, "I'd like to ask a favor, sir."
The Taoist priest glanced at me and said, "Go ahead."
"My home is on a major transportation route, with many migrant workers. If I expand the shop, business will definitely improve. But my sister lacks courage and is very stubborn. I try to persuade her, but she always refuses."
The Taoist priest smiled, as if he saw through my heart, and said, "You mean to let me convince your sister, right?"
"My sister really admires masters like you."
He sneered, "You're so young, yet you don't follow the right path, relying on these deceptive little tricks? Honesty is the key to business. And honesty is even more important to me in my studies."
I stood there frozen, feeling as if I had been slapped by the Taoist priest, and was extremely depressed.
He pondered for a while, then said slowly, "If you ask me to go and see it in person, I'd be happy to do so."
I'm not sure. What if he looks at it and says it's not okay?
The Taoist priest began to fan himself.
I could tell he still wanted to do this business, so I said, "We've heard a lot about your great name, but we're a small business and we're afraid we can't afford you."
I'm testing his asking price.
He looked at my hesitation and smiled, "Although we need to inspect it on the spot, some agencies have revealed some signs."
Agency? I was completely bewildered.
The Taoist priest waved to me and said, "Come in and sit down."
I followed him in. There was a calligraphy hanging on the wall: The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
When I sat down and my eyes fell on a small sign on the table, I felt even more uncertain. On the sign were four cold words:
No bargaining.
It was said that his feng shui services were shockingly expensive. Sitting across from him, my legs were shaking.
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