Chapter 657: Old Friend
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In the afternoon, Dong Sheng the young novice monk was clad in a robe, and he was walking steadily toward the inpatient building of Beijing University Sixth Hospital.
The robe was tailor-made this year itself and fit Dong Sheng perfectly. Dong Sheng cut a refreshing figure in it. Dong Sheng only changed into the robe after got out of the plane. He felt more confident in this robe.
“Hello, may I know if Doctor Ling Ran is here? Where can I find him?” Dong Sheng pressed his palms together as he asked a young nurse who was passing by.
The young nurse was in a rush, and she would have gotten impatient if it was not for the fact that Dong Sheng was asking about Ling Ran. She stopped in her tracks, and her gaze fell upon Dong Sheng’s bald head. She then glanced at Dong Sheng’s robe and asked, “You know Doctor Ling? How are you related to him?”
“I am Dong Sheng, a monk from Twelve Fountains Temple. I’m an old friend of Doctor Ling,” Dong Sheng said obediently.
“Are you really a young monk?” The young nurse sized him up in curiosity. “Why are you looking for Doctor Ling? Hmm? Did you come alone?”
Dong Sheng smiled. “As my master is suffering from hemorrhoids, it’s not good for him to travel a long distance. Hence, he asked me to come to Beijing alone for learning purposes.
“What are you learning?”
“I’m furthering my studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies.”
The young nurse was astonished. “Monks need to do further studies too?”
Dong Sheng bowed a little with his hands folded in front of his chest. He then raised his head a little and said, “Patroness, there is a limit to life, but there is no limit to knowledge. Of course, we can always increase our knowledge of Buddhism. Patroness, may I know where Doctor Ling is right now?”
“Such a good boy.” The young nurse smiled and said, “Doctor Ling just left for a break this morning. He’ll probably only be back in the afternoon. You can wait for him on the surgical floor. If he’s taking a cab here, he’ll probably take the lift straightaway to the surgical floor.”
All the young nurses knew Ling Ran’s schedule very well. Beijing Sixth University Hospital was a large hospital with almost a thousand nurses, and they worked very well together to spread information. QQ and WeChat groups related to Ling Ran were always bursting with information.
“Amitabha, thank you for showing me the way, patroness.” After giving the young nurse a bow, Dong Sheng headed straight to the elevator.
The young nurse was very amused, but it was not like she could leave her post and follow Dong Sheng. She could only quietly whip out her cell phone and send a message to a WeChat group. [A young monk is in the hospital and looking for Doctor Ling. His bald head is so shiny and I really felt like touching it. He mentioned that he’s here to further his studies at the Institute of Buddhist studies. It’s really funny.]
The WeChat group with the name [Satisfied Nurses in Beijing Sixth University Hospital] was immediately flooded.
[How did Doctor Ling get to know a young monk? This is very dangerous.]
[How is this dangerous? It may even be a good thing. I’m suddenly wondering how Doctor Ling would show another kind of charm if he were to shave his hair.]
[Why is a monk looking for Doctor Ling? What does him furthering his studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies have to do with Doctor Ling? Don’t just tell random people where Doctor Ling is. He’s a very busy man.]
Half a minute later, the young nurse saw that there were so many messages in the group chat that it was impossible for her to finish reading all of them.
This was when someone sent a message to the group and tagged the young nurse. The sender was Mai Chun from Yunli Medical Company who was quite active in the group. [The young monk is called Dong Sheng, isn’t he? He knows all the shop owners in Lower Groove very well. When he was young, his master used to bring him along while asking for alms. Because of how cute Dong Sheng is, his master gets so much money that he can afford good food all the time. This is how he ended up with digestive problems.]
The young nurse thought about it and sent a message in reply. [Yeah, I think his name is Dong Sheng.]
More messages immediately appeared in the group chat.
[Wow, Mai Chun, you’re such an expert.]
[Yunli Medical Company is amazing indeed.]
[Out of so many pharmaceutical sales representatives from so many medical companies, Mai Chun is the only one who does her job properly.]
[Young Mai, do pay attention to what’s going on with the young monk. There’s no need for you to head to any of the departments for these few days. It’s a waste of time. We’ll divide the tasks your company assigned to you among ourselves.] This message was sent by the head nurse of the Department of Surgery. Her display picture was of her daughter, and she was an authoritative figure in the group chat. After she sent this message, she sent another message tagging the head nurses from the Gynaecology Department, Department of Interventional Services, General Surgery Department, and other departments.
The head nurses replied one after another.
[Agreed!]
[Agreed!]
[Agreed!]
A few kilometers away, Tian Qi who was sitting beside a pond in the patio chuckled as she sprinkled a handful of fish pellets into the pond. She passed Mai Chun’s phone back to Mai Chun and said with a smile, “It’s pretty interesting to work as a pharmaceutical sales representative.”
“Yeah.” Mai Chun was very speechless as she gazed at the koi fish in the pond which was almost half an acre. Before Yunli Medical Company was bought over, life as a pharmaceutical sales representative was not so relaxing. No, she was actually far from relaxed now. It was just that because the company had been making more money, its employees were getting raises and bonuses. However, her workload had increased too. As the company had expanded to all of Changxi Province and even Shanghai and Beijing, Mai Chun had to travel for work every month. This had never happened before.
“Do get some vegetarian food. What’s the most famous vegetarian restaurant in Beijing? Ask them to send a table’s worth of food to Beijing University Sixth Hospital.” Tian Qi sprinkled another handful of fish pellets. She then stretched and continued, “I’ll go jogging at the park over there so that I have room for more food at night.”
“Oh, alright,” Mai Chun answered like an idiot. Her mind was still a mess.
At the same time, Dong Sheng who grew up eating food purchased using alms walked excitedly out of the elevator.
Dong Sheng was curious about everything in Beijing. Even though Yun Hua City is also a large city, it was not as massive as Beijing. The subway trains in Beijing were bigger, and there were also more people in Beijing hospitals.
Dong Sheng was not able to tell which hospital was better yet. But from what he could see, Beijing University Sixth Hospital seemed to have more patients compared to Yun Hua Hospital.
Dong Sheng remembered what his master once said. “It’s good for a place to be crowded, as the more crowded the place is, the more it will prosper. When a place is crowded, there will be plenty of job opportunities. Besides, Buddha likes it when bazaars are full of people.”
Whenever Dong Sheng was in the temple, his master had often reminisced about the large bazaars in the village with fondness. For the past few years, during the period before and after Chinese New Year, Dong Sheng did visit a few large bazaars near Twelve Fountains Temple. They were very lively indeed, and there were more people in these bazaars compared to the shopping malls in Yun Hua City. This period of time before and after Chinese New Year was also when Twelve Fountains Temple had the most visitors. This was especially true on the first day of Chinese New Year, where the visitors would donate large sums of money and head to the temple early in the morning. This was the second-largest source of income of Twelve Fountains Temple, the largest being the funds they got from the government.
Truth be told, even now, Dong Sheng still did not understand why his master missed the large bazaars that were held every first and fifteenth day of the month according to the lunar calendar so much. In his opinion, even if the people in the villages were free to visit the bazaars, it was not like there were many things to buy in the bazaar. Now that online shopping was such a popular thing, no one would head to the bazaar just to buy a basin to wash their faces with.
But Dong Sheng did like crowded places.
Only when a temple was crowded would it be filled with incense smoke. Dong Sheng did not mind that certain people chose to light their incense at other temples instead of Twelve Fountains Temple. It was the intention that mattered.
The only worrisome thing was that nowadays, fewer and fewer people were interested in learning about Buddhism. This was not only true for Buddhist temples. It was the same for the Taoist temples nearby. Even though many people visited those temples and lit incense, very few of them were willing to sit down and learn about the religion. Many of them were not even willing to spend their time of day in the temples. They would just take a walk as if they were shopping and leave immediately after…
Dong Sheng was lost in thoughts. When he saw rows of chairs in the waiting hall in front of him, he thought of taking a seat.
The moment he entered the hall, he heard someone saying, “It’s very effective. My husband is queueing up right now. We’ll get to pray there soon.”
“There’s no need to donate any money, but you can if you want to.”
“But they said that it’ll be super effective if you put some coins inside. It’s just that there’s hardly any space left inside.”
Dong Sheng walked toward the crowd in curiosity and saw that there was a strange stone filled with coins beside the window. There were all kinds of offerings around it such as food, cigarettes, drugs, mouth face masks, and other things.
“What’s…” Dong Sheng could not for his life figure out what was going on.
This was when an old man suddenly shouted, “Eh, there’s a young monk over there!”
