Chapter 124 - Make Wishes In Front of the Buddhist Statue
Translator: Lav
Editor: Levs
What the present Er’jie wanted was rather simple; she only hoped that Shi Lei could spend a day with her and he would do anything she says without opposition. If she pointed to the east, Shi Lei definitely couldn’t point to the west, if she wanted to hit a dog, then Shi Lei couldn’t curse at a chicken(1).
After hearing Er’jie’s proud declaration, Shi Lei coldly scolded her: “How pitiful is that puppy. It’s gonna be beaten up by you and it doesn’t even know what it did wrong.”
Cold jokes which were funny for kids born in the 90’s weren’t recognised by Er’jie, who was close to be born in the 00’s, as she snorted.
Zhang Meimei completely agreed to their plan and walked Er’jie down herself. She even considered this and lent her car to Shi Lei —— Of course, after she made sure that Shi Lei did know how to drive and had his driver’s license with him.
She shoved eight paper notes of 100 yuan into Shi Lei’s hands firmly.
Shi Lei only hesitated for a while before he took it as he thought of this as a favor to him. With Shi Lei’s rate of spending right now, it would be extremely easy for him to return the favor.
After they got into the car, Shi Lei turned towards Er’jie, who was sitting on the front passenger's seat, and asked: “Where are we going? Also, are you sure you don’t want your Mum to come? She looked like she was about to cry.”
“Hmm! She should have a taste of what it feels like to be abandoned! Let’s go, go, go! I want to go to Niu Tou Mountain. I heard that they got a new Buddhist statue there recently and I want to pray. We can also climb the mountain and train our bodies.” Zhang Liangliang was extremely excited and her hands were almost out of the window.
Shi Lei stepped on the accelerator and the car drove away steadily. It was a Passat which was easy to drive, hence Shi Lei wasn’t too pressured to drive it.
But as a small millionaire who had drove a 3 million yuan car before, Shi Lei shouldn’t have any pressure when handling with more family friendly cars.
Niu Tou Mountain was located in the outskirts of Wu Dong city. It was definitely the outskirts, or countryside as the people used to call it, except it was one of Wu Dong’s famous tourism spot so there were plenty of wide roads which connected to it. A few years ago, the prefecture where Niu Tou Mountain was had long been included into the urban areas and even became the prefecture which provided the most GPD for Wu Dong city. Although the mountains which surrounded Niu Tou mountain had not changed much, but no one would ever consider it as countryside again.
The car drove to the highway which surrounded the city and entered the road to Niu Tou mountain after half an hour. Not long after, Shi Lei already drove into the car park of the mountain view district.
Wu Dong City had the saying of ‘spring, Niu Tou, autumn, Hong Ye’. Niu Tou mountain was the most renowned scenery spot for excursions in spring and the ‘autumn, Hong Ye’ refers to Hong Ye mountain in the northern outskirts. Although both were related to Buddhism, but it was mainly because when it’s autumn, the red leaves of hundreds of maples that covered the mountains were as if they were burning. It was majestic and attracted many tourists.
In this season, one could not see too much greens other than the pines which remained green throughout all the seasons. Urged by her mother, Zhang Liangliang firmly shoved the ticket money to Shi Lei and he accepted and bought the tickets.
The two of them followed the steps made out of bluestones. On the way, Zhang Liangliang seemed to be extremely excited and didn’t say anything that made Shi Lei awkward. He was also quite happy that he could climb a mountain at a time with such air pressure —— well, the happiness was faked. Who wanted to climb a mountain in such chilly winds? The winds were like knives cutting through his face. Luckily it was only the middle of December, if it was January, Shi Lei would rather die than climb the mountain with her.
Mainly because Zhang Liangliang was delighted, Shi Lei could only pretend that he was happy too as he chatted with her at ease. Other than the strong wind, it wasn’t that bad.
Time flies when a loli was chirping non stop. After an hour, they reached the top of the mountain and entered the temple located there.
It was said to be the biggest Buddhist statue in Wu Dong. Shi Lei didn’t believe in Buddhism; he was firmly a proletariat and an atheist.
From his understanding of Zhang Liangliang, this girl should be an atheist too, except today, she seemed to be exceptionally pious. She prayed in front of the statue and mumbling inaudible words which Shi Lei assumed to be wishes.
Shi Lei didn’t scorn at her action of seeking help at the last moment. Although he didn’t believe in it, but he thought that if he did, it was never too late to believe it at the last moment. If one must say that it was too late for someone to believe, it was the type of person who said that if something happened, Buddha was always in front of them, but if nothing was happening, Buddha would be standing behind them.
Plus, in the such majestic and solemn Da Bao Hall, Shi Lei discovered that he was affected by the solemn atmosphere easily. Even unbelievers could sense the power and influence, feeling a sense of deep respect from the bottom of their hearts.
After Zhang Liangliang finished praying and walked out of the hall, Shi Lei asked: “I saw you mumbling, were you making wishes? What did you wish for?”
Zhang Liangliang beamed and said: “I made a few wishes, which one do you wanna know?”
“You can tell me all of them if you are willing to!”
Zhang Liangliang stuck out her tongue and made a face: “Greedy.”
Shi Lei shrugged carelessly and looked at the sky.
“Fine, fine, I’ll tell you. The first wish is that I hope Mum won’t be this busy in the future. I don’t need her to earn so much money and I can spend less. As long as she’s safe and healthy, or spend more time with me it would be sweet.”
Shi Lei nodded and as expected, Zhang Liangliang cared about her mother a lot and all of her rebellious reactions were for the sake of hoping to receive more attention from her.
“The second wish is that I hope Yi’jie’s mother can recover quicker. She loved to smile before as all her photos on WeChat previously were of her smiling. But after I’ve hung out with her twice, she didn’t smile that much. I asked her, she said it was because her mother was sick and she couldn’t be happy. So, I hope that her mother recovers quickly so Yi’jie can smile more. She’s pretty and she will be even more beautiful when she smiles. Plus, she could only go back to university after her mother recovers. She almost gave up on university because of her mother’s illness.”
Shi Lei also smiled. He didn’t expect Zhang Liangliang to be so considerate and softly said: “I thank you on behalf of Yiyi. What about you? Did you make a wish for yourself? Such as make it into a good high school or university in the future.”
Zhang Liangliang ran down a few steps and raised her head to look at Shi Lei. She said loudly: “I do, but not tacky like what you said. Because I’m Er’jie, so I think with my intelligence, it’s a must for me to make it into a good high school and university. So, I only prayed that he would watch over me and make me stay happy everyday. As long as I’m happy, I won’t have any problems with studying.”
“This wish is a bit too much. No one can ever promise oneself to be happy for their whole life. What about your father? Didn’t you pray for him?”
Zhang Liangliang’s eyes dulled slightly but quickly laughed again: “I didn’t plan to make a wish for him initially, but then I thought, he is my father after all despite that my Mum and I dislike him a lot, so I prayed that my father will become a better person. Just a little bit, he can be a tiny bit less rascal, and not so…… Hmm, nevermind, I don’t want to mention him, but I just want him to be slightly better than before, at least not to make my Mum want to call the police whenever she sees him.”
Shi Lei nodded silently. He knew that Zhang Liangliang must had a lot of other wishes. A girl at this age should have the most wishes. He knew that Zhang Liangliang wasn’t going to talk anymore, then, she should protect her small secrets, so he remained silent.
Chinese idiom that expresses obedience towards someone