Chapter 204 - A Great Book (2/2)

“Wait!” When Xiao Hong was about to cast a spell, the Yan ran over. “Since you are so generous, is there anything that I can help you?”

“I have nothing!” Xiao Hong didn’t want to respond to him and pointed to Hao Ning. “You can help him.”

Yan nodded, and asked Hao Ning with his eyes.

“Well…” Hao Ning thought for a moment. He felt that he hadn’t seen that Yan for a long time, and a bit thought about him. “You help me take a message to that Yan of the Great Huaxia region. Tell him that if he has time, please get to find me.”

“I don’t dare.” Yan’s head swayed like a rattle. “That Yan’s temper is very strange, and he doesn’t believe what we say. Besides, you are in South Huaxia, while I am in the northwest. How can I explain to him how I met you? He definitely will ask me a lot of questions, and maybe he will think that I got the wrong person and entertained him, and maybe he will even deduct my wages ‒”

“Just say that you have met Hao Ning!” Hao Ning was anxious. “What is wrong with this?”

“What about the evidence?” Yan looked at Hao Ning, “There is no evidence to prove it.”

“We two take a photo,” said Hao Ning. “Is this OK?”

“Of course not. He will think it is a fake photo made by the retouching software,” Yan licked his fingers, “or using a straw man with the camouflage. The photo should be regarded as a lie.”

“How about I say some words to you?” Hao Ning said again, “Which only he and I know.”

“No, no! The words only you and he know must be private. If I told him, he would think ‒” Yan quickly waved his hands, “He would think that I used some methods to enter his memory and steal it! This is more possible than meeting you!”

“…” Hao Ning was speechless. His thoughts did be different from those of the gods and ghosts.

“This!” Hao Ning thought for a while, and then he took out a kit from his pocket and opened it, in which there were two blue little gem-liked things. These were what that Yan gave him at the time. Hao Ning had thought these belonged to Zhou Yuan, but when he went back and found Zhou Yuan to identify, Zhou Yuan said that he did not know what they were either. Hao Ning took out one from them and gave it to Yan. “This is what he gave me. There are two in total, and there is no way to forge. Is it OK?”

“OK‒” Yan took and looked at the blue gem, and then he nodded to Hao Ning. “I admire you very much. Don’t you be afraid that I am a fake Yan and I will take this away from you?”

“How can you be a fake one?” Hao Ning smiled. “And this is not valuable. I have one more. If I use it to exchange your meat clips, will you exchange it?”

“Of course, I won’t change,” After he finished speaking, Yan understood. “Well, you can go!”

…

“Brother Hao Ning,” Xiao Hong drove back to the company, next to the freshly-cooked mutton soup and pancakes that they bought from Changan. “As to this sutra of the Bodhisattva, you hold it.”

“Why?” Hao Ning was glancing at the sutra. He had not thought that Zhang Chi Hang’s brush writing would be so good. “I’m just curious to have a look. I’ve recited it.

“There are a lot of things that people have recited but they don’t really understand ‒ I mean, you have lost your mind recently,” Xiao Hong continued. “I will be more relieved if there is it to protect you.”

“Oh, thanks.” Hao Ning smiled relievedly and said, “What Yan said makes sense…”

“Yan?” Xiao Hong thought about it, but he seemed to have not found out anything meaningful. “Which sentence? He said so many words.”

“Although all the Yan have the same faces,” Hao Ning said with a smile. “and come from the same source, they have been independent respectively since they were separated because of different personalities. They should keep on their own road. Why bother to force each other and repent of the past?”

“The Yan are like this; parents are like this; brothers ‒” Saying here, Hao Ning looked at the traffic in front of him, people coming and going, and then he sighed, “Is it the same?”

“I…” Seeing the red light illuminate, Xiao Hong stopped the car, with his right hand protecting the swaying mutton soup. “I don’t have your experience, so I don’t know. But like this driving, although sometimes the red light will be bright and the car will stop, since it is a car, and since it is a road, you have to go forward. You can reverse the car when you drive, but can you always drive back? Even if you can keep driving back, the car can’t stand it, right?”

“It makes sense!” Hao Ning smiled and nodded. He took the sutra to pat Xiao Hong. “I have not found that you can speak out such meaningful words. Is it what your Brother Zhang taught you?”

“No,” the green light turned bright, and Xiao Hong stepped on the gas. “The things he taught me are about “empty”, and I surely couldn’t remember it. Later, he didn’t teach me anymore, and just let me realize by myself. What I just said is my own feelings.”

“Didn’t teach you anymore?” Hao Ning did not believe, and he looked at Xiao Hong and said half-jokingly, “As he has spoken and seen so many scriptures, isn’t there any sutra that he can teach you? It is unlikely. You are smashing that the Bodhisattva has nothing to teach you.”

“It is not nothing to teach, but unnecessary,” Xiao Hong said with a smile. “I was only low-educated when I was a child, but I was not a fool. Brother Zhang said that he had read a sentence on a book, and then didn’t teach me anymore. It is not that he has nothing to teach me, but he said that the best way to teach people like me is to let me put down the scriptures and realize by myself.”

“Which sentence?” Hao Ning was curious and was attracted by Xiao Hong’s words. “Which sentence can let Zhang the great Bodhisattva put down the scriptures and do not teach you, but let you realize by yourself?”

As the car turned into the garage, Xiao Hong pulled up the car and stalled it, and then looked at Hao Ning with a smile: “It is said that life is a great book.”

Hao Ning quietly looked at Xiao Hong and did not say any word for a long time. He knew that this sentence was a famous saying in the works of the academic master Ch’ien Chung-shu. Because of this famous saying, the master Ch’ien Chung-shu, the man of great talent with his eyes higher than the top, only dared to use the title “the Marginalia of Life”, saying that even if for himself, his written text could only describe the edge of life, to express the fear of the proposition of life.

But Hao Ning hadn’t thought that this sentence would actually come out from Zhang Chi Hang’s mouth. When thinking about it, Hao Ning thought it was reasonable. The ten thousand laws belonged to the one. As to the great understanding of the master Ch’ien in his own field, and the view of Avalokitesvara in his own world, who could say that they could not be the same?

People who had been looking at for so long would often feel a little shy or embarrassed, but Xiao Hong was particularly calm at this time. He also smiled and looked at Hao Ning. After a long time, he asked a question: “Brother Hao Ning, do you understand? If you understand, please teach me.”