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Chapter 23 The Little Taoist is Silence
After dinner, when Xie Hushan went to visit Yaowang Temple, he saw Shen Mo, a young Taoist priest who was the descendant of the authentic Longmen School. He was wearing a faded summer military uniform and squatting on the stone steps at the door, hitting a piece of clay he had dug from the edge of the fish pond.

An elderly lady stood nearby, watching the young Taoist mixing mud. She was a member of Team Seven.

"Hey, Hu San'er, you're here?" The young Taoist raised his head and smiled at Xie Hushan while pounding the clay.

Xie Hushan sat on the steps next to him, watching Shen Mo kneading the mud: "I heard that you were sick and hospitalized?"

"Hu San'er, don't talk to Xiao Shen yet." The old man next to him heard Xie Hushan joking with the Taoist priest and quickly said, "I asked Xiao Shen to help me tie a doll and pray for a grandson. If you interrupt, what if it doesn't work?"

Tying a doll to a child is actually a popular folk custom for childbirth in Tianjin. It is not very popular in Bingyang. Only families who have been married for two or three years but have not had any children will ask for a clay doll from somewhere, tie it around the neck with a red string and bring it back to seek peace of mind.

In fact, strictly speaking, this can also be regarded as a feudal superstitious activity. Perhaps because it does not have too many religious elements and is more like a folk custom, it has not been deliberately banned in rural areas. After all, rural people all have the beautiful wish of having prosperous descendants in their families.

After the young Taoist had kneaded the clay into a tough texture, he took out a wooden doll mold and broke it in half, then filled the clay into the depression in the middle. He then aligned the molds, pressed them together for a few seconds, and then opened the mold again. The clay in the middle had turned into a small clay doll.

"Grandma, now it's done, tie it with a red string and take it home." The young Taoist placed the clay doll carefully on the steps, looked at the old woman, and said gently.

"Thank you, Xiao Shen, for adding a Der to it. Otherwise, it won't be clear that it's a boy." The old lady bent her body and looked at the clay doll carefully for a moment, then spoke to Shen Mo and put forward her opinion.

Shen Mo smiled awkwardly at Xie Hushan beside him, hesitated for a moment, then broke off a thin bamboo strip from the broom by the door and drew a small outline between the doll's thighs: "Grandma, do you think this will work?"

"Okay, this fat doll is really adorable." The old lady took out a red string from her pocket and gently tied it around the neck of the clay doll. She said to Shen Mo, "Thank you, Xiao Shen. When my family has a grandson, I will send you eggs to eat."

After saying this, he held the clay doll in one hand and turned on the flashlight with the other hand. Fearing that the clay doll would be broken if he stumbled, he slowed down his pace and walked towards home.

Xie Hushan followed Shen Mo into the yard and saw him stretching out his dirty hands in front of the water pump. He went over to help pump the water twice. Shen Mo used the gushing well water to wash the river mud off his hands. Xie Hushan sighed:

"Little Taoist priest, your master is good at growing herbs and practicing Chinese medicine, but you are better than him. You can do nothing but make dolls with clay, and you are especially good at painting Der on the dolls. You are a master at it and can paint it with just one stroke. So you should just call yourself Der Painting Master from now on."

"Don't talk nonsense. I was just helping them. I made a doll for them as a reminder. It's better than letting them imagine it all day long." Shen Mo shook off the water stains on his hands and said:
"I didn't want to draw, but every now and then someone would ask me to make dolls, and I got used to it as I went along."

Xie Hushan said, "Anyway, I guess if your master knew that you hadn't made any progress in your studies, and your skills in drawing things had greatly improved, the first thing he would do when he comes back is to expel you from the sect."

Shen Mo is the young Taoist priest of Yaowang Temple. Although he has always been called the young Taoist priest by Xie Hushan and Han Hongbing, he is actually two years older than Xie Hushan and the others and is twenty years old this year.

He was a child picked up by his fourth senior brother at the gate of Yaowang Temple. It was not known whether it was because the family could not afford to raise him or because the eldest girl was pregnant before marriage, but in any case, this healthy baby boy was thrown at the gate of the temple. In addition to the bundle and the child, there was a piece of paper with Shen Mo and his date of birth written on it.

Their school is not silent. There are originally seven people in two generations, two masters and five disciples. Before the Anti-Japanese War, they had been living as monks in the Jade Emperor Temple in Baishiqiao, Xishan, dozens of miles away. They planted trees, reclaimed wasteland, built roads, and grew medicinal herbs. Occasionally they went to the city to sell medicinal herbs in exchange for daily necessities. They usually practiced seclusion in the mountains and were considered self-sufficient hermits.

Starting from 1933 when the Japanese invaded the south and the Anti-Japanese Allied Forces fighters hid in the Western Hills to escape the Japanese raiders and were taken in by these monks, over the course of more than ten years, the seven Taoist priests rescued and protected dozens of Anti-Japanese Allied Forces and Eighth Route Army fighters at the cost of four of their own lives.

Shen Mo's uncle accidentally fell off a cliff while rushing to deliver medicine to several injured soldiers late at night. Shen Mo's eldest senior brother had been to the city many times to buy medicine for seriously injured Eighth Route Army soldiers. He was reported by a traitor and committed suicide by taking poison when he was captured by the Japanese invaders.

The second and third brothers were in order to cover the transfer of the Anti-Japanese Allied Forces soldiers. They risked their lives with guns and were eventually killed by the Japanese.

At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, only Shen Mo's master, Taoist Master Chen Zongli, and two apprentices under the age of ten were left of the original seven Taoist priests. They were awarded the honorable title of "Model Anti-Japanese Fortress Household" by the military sub-district at that time.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Taoist Master Chen Zongli donated hundreds of acres of Taoist forests planted by the Jade Emperor Temple for decades to the troops stationed in Xishan. Later, for combat readiness reasons, the troops wanted to build a radar station in Xishan, and entrusted Bingyang County to properly arrange the Taoist master and his two disciples to practice in the Yaowang Temple in Zhongping Village, and allocated them several acres of private land to ensure their living.

Later, the radar station was eventually rebuilt at another location, and the Xishan Jade Emperor Temple was not requisitioned. The two disciples returned to the Jade Emperor Temple to practice. In order to better support Shen Mo, who had just been adopted, Taoist Master Chen Zongli stayed in the Yaowang Temple in Zhongping Village, where he has lived for all these years.

When the Special Years movement was at its worst, the troops stationed in Xishan took several people away for a period of time on the pretext of requesting the Taoist priest's assistance in surveying the terrain of Xishan and drawing a map.

A few months before the Yaoshan earthquake, the 75-year-old Taoist priest Chen told his 18-year-old disciple Shen Mo that he was going to travel south and never come back.

In the past two years, Shen Mo has basically been living on the food of hundreds of families in the Third Team, but it's not for free. The few acres of land belonging to him and his master were entrusted to the Third Team for cultivation. He doesn't ask for work points or dividends, and he doesn't care about the amount of grain produced, as long as he can have food to eat for a year. As for other daily necessities, they are mainly given to him by the members of the Third Team, or brought to him by his two senior brothers from Xishan.

This guy grew up in Zhongping Village with people of the same age like Xie Hushan. Under the influence of these people, he has grown into a staunch proletarian atheist. He also has no Taoist robes or magical instruments or any props that can make him look like an experienced Taoist. If he walks on the street and says he is a Taoist, no one will believe him except those who know him and his master in Zhongping Village.

At present, Shen Mo’s biggest wish is to wait for his master to come back and return the home to him so that he can sign up for the army, put on a military uniform and go to the front line.

"Why are you in the hospital?" Xie Hushan sat back on the steps and asked Shen Mo.

Shen Mo first glanced awkwardly at the accountant in the wing room who was working on an abacus, then hesitated and said, "It's okay."

"If you don't tell me, I can ask someone from the health center someday. What happened?"

"I practiced acupuncture according to the method my master used. I just gave myself three needles, and half of my body became numb and I urinated on the spot..." Shen Mo lowered his head and sat next to him and whispered:
"I was so scared that I ran to the health center without changing my pants while I was still able to walk. Doctor Hao at the health center gave me more than 30 injections and cured me. He also scolded me and told me not to commit suicide."

Xie Hushan was so shocked that he forgot to speak softly: "Good fellow, after three injections, he became half-paralyzed and wet his pants..."

"Keep your voice down, am I using you to promote the pants-wetting issue for me?" Shen Mo quickly interrupted Xie Hushan and reminded him dissatisfiedly.

Xie Hushan looked at Shen Mo suspiciously and asked, "Are you sure you're okay? You can't walk a few steps and your pants get wet again, right? Otherwise, I won't ask for your help tonight. Just focus on recuperating."

"I'm not sick, why should I take care of it?" Shen Mo looked at Xie Hushan dissatisfiedly: "What do you want from me?"

"I'd like to invite you to go to the Old Immortal Cave with us tonight and give a political lesson to the old lady who was burning incense. Although you don't have the skills of your master and you even wet your pants when you gave him acupuncture..." Xie Hushan scratched his head and yawned:
"But you are really experienced. They dare not scratch you."

(End of this chapter)