Chapter 699: February 6: The Person Who Forgot His Birthplace

February 6: The person who forgot his birthplace.

February 6: The person who forgot his birthplace.

Yucun heard that the gatekeeper was an old acquaintance of his, and moreover an 'old friend'. Thinking back then, Yucun at that time was still an impoverished scholar, in dire poverty, living in that Hulü Temple, there was no doubt that the little novice monk's help was indispensable.

Is this the 'old friend' the gatekeeper spoke of?

No wonder the gatekeeper said: 'People of stature forget things, forgetting their birthplace! Don't you remember what happened at the Hulü Temple back then?'

"'People of stature forget things' is the little novice monk's reproach and satire toward Yucun."

Why does the gatekeeper dare to reproach and satirize Yucun? Because Yucun has 'forgotten his birthplace'.

Having become an official and wealthy, forgetting his roots, his eyes grew big, he no longer recognizes his fellow townspeople, thus 'Don't you remember what happened at the Hulü Temple back then?'

What could possibly have happened at that Hulü Temple? Just trivial matters among poor friends—you help me, I help you, petty squabbles. Perhaps Yucun and his ordinary poor friends, in a moment of fervor, had sworn the oath 'Seek wealth and honor, but do not forget each other'?

Someone like Yucun, to achieve his own goals, as long as it benefits him; he can say anything; he can do anything.

He could even treat the state's laws as a joke; when the gatekeeper showed Yucun the Official Protection Talisman, Yucun felt that his first case as a newly appointed examiner was thorny: he could not offend the murderer, whose background was too great.

What to do? He actually went to the gatekeeper to ask for advice on handling the case——

Yucun laughed and said to the gatekeeper, Yucun laughed again. This laugh hid a knife: 'If you say it like that, then how will you settle this case?'

Yucun's laugh revealed his two-faced, three-bladed nature like a wolf from Zhongshan.

But the gatekeeper did not know the meaning behind Yucun's laugh.

This is the gatekeeper's shallowness; although he considers himself clever and experienced, how could he have the scheming and methods of a great person? At most he is just a gatekeeper, forever among petty people. The matters a great person considers, the ideas he thinks of, the gatekeeper could never conceive, nor would he ever think of them.

This, Mengzi had long said: there are matters of great persons, and there are matters of petty persons.

Unfortunately, the gatekeeper hasn't read Mengzi or any of the other philosophers,. He doesn't understand that 'great persons' have the affairs of great persons, and petty persons have the affairs of petty persons.

'Great persons' consider matters that 'petty persons' can never consider.

The gatekeeper is like countless petty people in the world: he can only see some surface phenomena, or be misled by them, especially by those greater than himself—a kind word or a pleasant expression—and people like the gatekeeper will give their heart and liver to them. Meanwhile, the great person can turn around and take the petty person's heart and liver to throw to the dogs.

This, how could the gatekeeper know? Because he is a gatekeeper, a petty person; this, only someone like Yucun, a 'great person', could know....