Author: Cai Hanquan
Good things always come with bad things. There is a monk who lives in a villa along a huge river, where it is just like a land of idyllic beauty and isolated from the outside world, anyone else who wants to visit him has to take the boat to cross the river. One day, when the monk is meditating on his precious rug in the morning after he got up, he heard a sound that came from outside. Out of curiosity, he went out and saw three very strange-looking seeds on the ground. Everything happens in the world for a reason in his perspective. He picked up those seeds and put them into a very large and pretty jar. Later on, he tries to plant them to see what type of plant it will grow.
Three days passed, nothing happened with those seeds. Because the monk can neither eat nor sleep, he thought the seeds must be the gift from the celestial. Since then, he holds the jar and sits on his precious rug every day. The monk obtained the ancient rug from the temple 5 years ago; the rug has over 150 years of history, which can help people to meditate.
Finally, some sprouts showed up after fifteen days, although he had drastic sleep and food deprivations the monk was extremely happy and excited. Unexpectedly, a few days later, the sprouts grew up inconceivably fast and were almost as tall as the monk. The next thing the monk had to do was to measure the trees with an old ruler he had not used for a long time.
“This must be a magical tree”, he thought. Sure enough, the trees shockingly turned out to be gold coin trees. The room became a gold palace from the luminous reflection of the coins. The monk was overjoyed because his wallet became packed with money.
The capacity of the monk’s storage rooms became full because the magical trees kept growing coins. The monk was very happy but he worried about what he should do with the abundance of gold coins.
In order to remember the memory and reward himself as to be the richest man in the world, he came up with a fantastic idea that he should build a statue of himself and a big trophy out of his gold coins.
Unfortunately, a flood came one year later which washed away most of his wealth including his statue and trophy. He considered the flood as a punishment from the god for not using the vast wealth in a good way. Ultimately, he decided to contribute all the money that the magical trees generated to all the poor area, and finally became an official seal.
