Chapter 32 relic

The black rosary was originally put away by Wei Yishi.Even he himself couldn't explain why he did this, he probably thought it would bring luck.He kept the beads in an elegant curio jewelry box in his home. A few years later, when Wei Yishi was about to resign from office, he offended Prince Ping for some reason, coupled with the grievances accumulated in the officialdom for many years, he was dismissed from his post and liquidated, and finally executed for ransacking his home.The more valuable things in the Wei mansion were embezzled, and the box containing the rosary, together with other inconspicuous things, was sent to the palace treasury, where it stood quietly for many years.

One year later, a certain Nanban king came to the capital in person to pay tribute.That box was returned, among other things, to the king's galley store. The fleet sailed to a port city in the south of the mainland, where it stopped briefly for trade.Somehow, the attendant of the Nanban king sold that box as a commodity to a merchant in the city who bought sundries.The businessman saw that the box was quite unique, so he put it away by himself and gave it to his fourteen-year-old daughter when he returned home. The girl found the weird rosary in the box, and thought it was very interesting, so she passed a string through the hole in the center of the rosary, and wore it on her wrist like a bracelet.The more she looked at it, the more she liked it, and she still wore it even to sleep.

Two years later, the businessman owed a lot of debt because his partner cheated him out of his property, and his daughter was sold to a brothel to pay off the debt.On the night she betrayed her first night, the rough guest tore the rosary from her wrist and rolled down to an invisible corner under the bed. Until the end of the year, a servant in the brothel swept the rosary out from under the bed.He put it in his pocket at once, and two days later he sold it in the market, along with other things he had stolen from the brothel, for a copper coin. It was bought by a craftsman who made crowns and hats.He recently made a hat for a scholar and was in need of some embellishments.The bead was just the right color, and he sewed it on to his hat.The scholar was very satisfied after seeing it, so he paid for it.

The scholar took the county examination for three years in a row, but he failed to make the list.He gave up the idea of ​​studying to become an official, borrowed a sum of money from a friend, and learned to do business.Hearing that the barbarian country in the south has a lot of goods with good interest rates, he packed his bags and went out wearing his favorite hat. In order to save money, he only took a ride along the way.Once he sat in the back of a bullock cart and fell asleep in the pile of goods without knowing it.The silk thread that sewed the rosary was a little loose. During the bumpy journey, the rosary fell off and fell among the goods.He didn't notice it until he got out of the car.

The ox cart continued on, crossing a road that had been cut through the middle of the forest, and finally reached a town.The businessman who drove the car had inquired and knew that it could be sold at a good price, so he hired someone to unload the goods from the car.While moving the goods, the rosary fell out of the car and rolled to the corner of the alley. A little boy was wondering what was passing by at this moment.This morning, he played billiards with the neighbor's children and lost even the last one.He walked down the street dejectedly, and suddenly found this small black and round wooden bead. He picked it up and looked at it carefully for a while, then turned back and ran back to the pile of children.

That day he won a lot of marbles with this rosary, and the other children looked at him enviously.One of the boys took out a knife and offered to exchange the rosary with him, but the boy would not. The mother of the family didn't like boys playing billiards, saying it was gambling.But it doesn't matter, he has a secret place. Before it got dark, the boy ran to the deserted temple on the edge of the village that had not been visited for many years. He climbed up to the Buddhist altar, and took out a cloth bag from a crack behind the broken Buddha statue that was already covered with vines and had many cracks on its body, which contained all his treasures.The boy put all the marbles he had won into the cloth bag, then after thinking about it, he decided to put the rosary in it too.

After stuffing the cloth bag back into the belly of the Buddha statue, he climbed down from the altar and patted the dust off his hands and clothes. Before leaving, he glanced at the face of the Buddha statue half hidden under the vine leaves, closed his eyes and folded his hands together, praying for victory tomorrow too. After the boy left, the sunset slanted into the empty Buddhist temple at dusk, illuminating the Buddha's face with a warm brilliance. Just like many years ago.Buddha, still laughing. Drafted on June 28, 2006