Chapter 165 192. Solomon's Counsel

Once upon a time, there was a businessman who ran a grocery store.One morning, when he went to open the shop, he saw a dead body lying on the doorstep.He was very afraid of being implicated by this, so he left his wife and three sons and ran away by himself.He came to a city and looked for work everywhere, but found nothing.Later, he heard that someone wanted to hire a servant. He thought that being a servant is better than being idle, "Then I will try it." This gentleman is Solomon, and he is a prophet.All the people in the city went to him for advice.The owner of the grocer became Solomon's faithful servant, and the owner also valued him very much.He served Solomon for more than 20 years, during which he had never been home, so he knew nothing about the situation at home, so he decided to go home and have a look. "Master," he said to Solomon, "I've decided to go home and have a look. Let's make a settlement, and I'm going." He was a servant there for twenty years, and he didn't pay a penny for what his master paid him. Didn't move.The master owed him three hundred scudos, and gave him the money.

The servant stood up to take his leave.When he walked down the steps, Solomon stopped him again: "All the people come to ask me for advice, don't you just leave without asking any questions?" "How much does a piece of advice cost?" asked the servant. "One hundred skudos." The servant thought for a while, turned around and went up the steps, and gave the master a hundred scudos. "Give me a piece of advice." Solomon said, "Don't leave the old way for a new way." "Just this one sentence? I spent a hundred skudos, and that's all I got!" the servant cried.

"So you should remember it all the more," Solomon urged him. The servant walked down the steps, after another thought, he turned around and said to the master: "Since I haven't left yet, please give me another suggestion." "Another hundred skudols," said Solomon.The servant handed him another hundred skudols.The master gave this piece of advice: "Don't meddle in other people's business." The servant thought: "Well, instead of just taking a hundred scudos home, it's better to ask for another piece of advice and return empty-handed." So he bought this piece of advice with the last one hundred scudos: "Take today's anger It won't happen until tomorrow." After hearing this, the servant turned around and was about to leave, but the master stopped him again, gave him a cake, and told him, "You can't cut the cake until you are with the whole family. "

The servant is on his way.He meets a group of travelers. "Would you like to walk with us? We're going that way, so come with us." The servant thought to himself: I spent a hundred skudos to get a piece of advice from my master, who told me not to abandon the old way and take the new way.So, he didn't go with those people, and still walked the old path. He continued to walk, and after a while, he suddenly heard a gunshot, followed by shouts and groans of pain.It turned out that the group of travelers had been attacked by robbers and all of them were killed.The servant rejoiced secretly, spending a hundred skudos to ask for the true value of a piece of advice!My master's advice saved my life.When he came to a wilderness, it got dark and he couldn't find a place to stay. At last, he saw a lonely house, went to knock on the door, and asked for a place to stay.The master invited him into the house and invited him to dinner.The host prepared the table and they sat down to eat.After eating, the master opened a door of a basement, and a blind woman came out. The master poured some soup for her in a skeleton, and handed her a piece of bamboo to use as a spoon.After the blind woman finished eating, the master sent her back to the basement and closed the door again.

Then, the host turned around and asked the lodger, "What do you think about what you just saw?" The servant remembered the second advice and said, "I think you must have your own reasons for doing what you just did." So the master said: "She is my wife. When I was out, she fooled around with other men; once, I caught them on the spot when they were together. The plate she was eating just now was that man's head. The spoon is the piece of bamboo I used to goug out her eyes. Huh, what do you think? Did I do the right thing?" "If you think it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do," said the lodger.

"Very well," said the host, "if you answered just now that I was wrong, I would have killed you." The lodger thought to himself: "Thanks to the other hundred skudos for saving my life again." The next night, he returned to his hometown.Along the familiar road, he found his home.He looked out the window and saw the house was brightly lit, and then he saw his wife with a handsome young man.She caressed the young man's face.Immediately he was furious, and wanted to rush into the house at once; but then he thought again: "I pay my master a hundred skudos for the third piece of advice: Save today's anger for tomorrow."

So, holding back his anger, he walked up to a woman in front and asked, "Who lives here?" "Here lives a happy woman, because today her son came home from seminary and celebrated his first mass, and she is still celebrating her son today." He thought, "Thanks to my last hundred skudos for saving my life again." When he entered the house, his wife recognized him, but his sons no longer knew him, and they pressed on hug each other tightly.When the neighbors were away, the family was sitting around the dinner table, and the man cut open the cake: inside were the three hundred skulldos he had given to Solomon!Solomon took his three hundred skudols to remind him of the three pieces of advice.

(Campidano region)