After confirming the death of the old master, Director Mao searched for the letter, and after a cursory look, he learned that the old master was from Tianjin, and he had been a monk in a local temple for several years before the liberation, and only after the liberation did he take care of the morgue in the hospital.

Tracing back to the source, his background is also the basis of the case, so Officer Xu ran to the suburbs overnight. Combined with Officer Xu's investigation, the matter is roughly as follows:

After the liberation, the temple was converted into a local historical archive, and most of the original monks had gone elsewhere to place orders or were forced to return to the world like the old masters.

When Officer Xu arrived at the hillside historical archive, it was already night, and the door was closed. There are few houses around, far away from the town, he didn't know who to contact for a while, and he was afraid of delaying the task, so he squatted under the eaves all night, and waited until dawn the next day to have a staff member come to open the door.

The staff member's surname is Zhang, he is a young man in his twenties, wearing a light green military uniform, obviously cut, it looks like the fabric is some years old, and he wears glasses like Officer Xu, but the degree is much deeper, and after looking at it for a long time, he recognized that Officer Xu in front of him was a policeman.

After the greetings, the two young people were already very familiar with each other, and they were not formal, calling each other Xiao Xu and Xiao Zhang.

Xiao Zhang took Officer Xu to the lounge, made a pot of hot tea, and gave him a bag of bread.

After spending the night in the open air, the whites of Officer Xu's eyes were bloodshot, and he struggled to support the eyelids of the fight, but thanks to the hard training of the troops, he laid the foundation and persevered.

With his responsibilities in his body, Officer Xu did not dare to delay. But now it is impossible to find the person who originally lived in the temple, this Xiao Zhang is too young to know much, so he wants to wait for other older staff to ask.

From the time he arrived at the archives to the present, almost all of them have been spent in the dark, and Officer Xu rarely goes to the temple, but he is interested in seeing this kind of building, and he observes the courtyard. Xiao Zhang said that the lounge was rebuilt from the monk's dormitory, where the monks lived, and it was very spacious. It's just cold. It may be the relationship between the building material and the geographical location.

Xiao Zhang saw that Officer Xu was holding a teacup in both hands, shaking unconsciously, so he took a military coat from the cabinet and gave it to him.

Wrapped in a military coat, Officer Xu expressed his gratitude. It was found that this military coat was also very old. Also patched. I can't help but ask.

After asking, Officer Xu learned that Xiao Zhang was the person he was looking for, and the owner of the military coat turned out to be the old master.

According to Xiao Zhang. Don't look at his age, he lived here before the establishment of the Historical Archives, that is, he grew up in the temple, and he is an orphan, he doesn't know what his name is, the monks in the temple call him a boy.

Since he was a child, he followed the monks in the temple to eat fasting and chant Buddha, recite scriptures, chop wood and laundry, although it is bitter, but three meals are food and clothing, and he may live like this for a lifetime, but on a special night, he met a person and changed him.

One night in 1945, Xiao Zhang, who had just passed his eighteenth birthday, cleaned up his bedroom, and only on this day did the abbot allow him to rest for a day.

He was picked up by the monks in the temple on the second day of the second month of February, and this day became his date of birth. Xiao Zhang is one of the lucky ones. He was unshaved and lived in a kitchen cubicle with a fire-headed monk. The fire-headed monk is over 70 years old, and in recent years, he has been riddled with tuberculosis, and he has been lying in bed for half a day, so Xiao Zhang often gives the fire-headed monk a hand, and over time, Xiao Zhang actually became the head chef. Seeing that he is young, he works very dedicatedly and does not delay anything.

When night fell, he could only hear the sound of rats eating outside the kitchen, at a fast pace, with occasional hiccups. The food in the temple was stored in the kitchen, and it was only a matter of time before the rats ate it, so he tiptoed to find the source of the sound.

He held the basin in both hands, thinking that he would later put the rats in the basin and release them outside the temple. There are often rats in the temple, and the people who chant the Buddha do not kill, and it is also a helpless merit to release the rats outside the temple again and again.

In the gap between the two sacks of rice and the pyre, he saw a man in a torn military coat gnawing on something, and the rice bag was cut by him, and the white rice was scattered all over the ground.

This man is the master.

Xiao Zhang was taken aback, not because he saw the master, but because the half of the cured meat he hid was there, and this person ate the cured meat on the rice, and he didn't show mercy. Xiao Zhang is not a monk and does not need to be a vegetarian, but he can't blatantly open meat in the temple, so he often hides cured meat and salted fish, and occasionally beats his teeth.

Seeing that he was stolen to eat, Xiao Zhang was anxious, and he couldn't wait to go up and drag him away, and then he thought about it, who didn't eat raw rice when he was not down, and he must have been forced to be helpless, so he would enter the temple to eat secretly, and his heart softened, so he opened his mouth to ask.

When the old master heard someone behind him, he didn't panic, he stood up unhurriedly, stared straight at Xiao Zhang, and then took out a red rope from his pocket, held it in the palm of his hand, looked at it for a while, and gave it to Xiao Zhang.

Xiao Zhang was surprised and delighted at a glance, only to see that there were six golden Maitreya hanging on the red rope, which was cute and vivid.

After that night, Xiao Zhang and the old master became old friends, and they hated each other when they saw each other, taking care of each other like father and son. Later, the Huotou monk's illness worsened, and soon he passed away, which made Xiao Zhang anxious, with his own strength, how to open the mouth and stomach of the monks of the whole temple. At this time, the master recommended himself to take over the kitchen, don't look at his appearance, the dish is very good, won the love of the monks, coarse tea and light rice in his hands became a delicacy, but according to the temple rules, if you want to cook for a long time, you must be a monk in the temple, but the master will be a monk with a heart, and he will stay in the temple instead of the firehead monk, and the law name is repentant.

Xiao Zhang didn't pay attention to the origin of the master, first, he was embarrassed to take the initiative to ask, and secondly, he seemed to have something unspeakable. Whenever night falls, the master tosses and turns, only when the rooster crows three times to close his eyes, and finally once, Xiao Zhang was accidentally injured when carrying water from outside the mountain, and lay on the bed for half a month, the master told the truth.

The master had an excessive sense of affection for this child, and took good care of him, and over time, he let down his guard and remembered the past days.

Only then did Xiao Zhang understand the origin of the master. It turned out that the old master's family name was Zhang, and the people in the rivers and lakes called Zhang Gouzi, because he had a pair of noses that were smarter than dogs, and no matter what smell he had, he couldn't escape his inhalation. Xiao Zhang's half of the cured meat is simply trivial.

But why is the old master so depressed, so pitiful that he wants to steal into the temple to eat, the reason is that his means of making a living are not something ordinary people would do. (To be continued......)