Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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Xie Lingya remembered the suggestion given to him by President Dai to increase the promotion of the Taoist temple. He was still thinking about what to do, whether he could find an Internet marketing company, but the Internet had already started a discussion about Baoyang Temple again.
He still had to thank the donor or indirectly thank Ma Xiaochuan. There was no impenetrable wall in the world. The donor donated such a large sum of money. Although there was no ceremony, the inner reason soon spread.
The donor came to “fulfill a vow”, and there were several theories about how he got rich. Some said he became rich overnight by gambling, some said he dug up a treasure worth a fortune from the ground, and some said he got lucky in business. There were many different opinions. Anyway, no matter which one it was, it was related to Baoyang Temple, and it was said that he was inspired by the gods.
The rumors were very detailed, saying that when this person came to Baoyang Temple to burn incense, he made a wish to the ancestor that if he made money, he would donate a certain percentage. Then after he really got rich, he dreamed of the ancestor and so on – he even knew what he silently prayed in his heart and what he dreamed about.
The main reason was that Baoyang Temple had been discussed online for its effectiveness because of the rituals and talismans in the past. This time, the news that someone donated 8 million to fulfill a vow brought back the memories of netizens.
It was the Baoyang Temple, where little foxes listened to sutras, cranes visited the altar, and mosquito repellent charms were sold. If it were any other Taoist temple, most people would probably just think that the rich were willful in their beliefs, but when it came to the Baoyang Temple, everyone couldn’t help but discuss it.
What posture did this person use to make a wish and get it to work? Baoyang Temple is so effective, should I go there to worship, too?
At this time, a new theory became popular, that was, Baoyang Temple had actually exorcised evil spirits for the believer, so he donated so much money without hesitation, and this was not actually a fulfillment of a wish, but a thank you.
“Is it real or just hype? Did they really donate 8 million to fulfill a vow?”
“Stupid people with so much money…”
“I’m a little tempted, what should I do? I’m in Queshan Province. I can go to Zhuyang to play on weekends, drink tea and burn incense, and ask the gods to bless me to get rich?”
“Huh? So superstitious?”
“To be honest, I always feel that this Taoist temple didn’t have much heritage. You said the scenery was good, but I went to see it in person. It’s obviously in the downtown area and there’s a vegetable market around it. The only thing interesting about it are the pictures. Either they use foxes to be cute, or they have weird products like mosquito repellent talismans that are like those to deceive primary school students. Oh, and there are a few good-looking Taoists. I’ve never heard of this place before. Hmm… It feels like it’s just for show and not a reliable Taoist temple.”
“Sorry, I only saw you say it’s in the downtown area? Why the hell is Baoyang Temple in the downtown area?”
“What? In the downtown area? I don’t believe it!”
….
Although it was a bit off topic, a certain statement was still recognized by many people. They always felt that Baoyang Temple had a kind of frivolous feeling of internet celebrities, and they didn’t see anything serious about it.
As a result, at this time, someone dug out the video and photos of the World Peace Dharma Assembly on Changle Mountain. This Dharma Assembly was reported in the news. From the short clip, someone recognized the faces of Xie Lingya and Shi Changxuan among the crowd.
They had shown their faces before. After comparing them and looking for the statement in the news release, it was known that they represented Baoyang Temple to attend the Dharma Assembly, and they stood together with the main Taoist priests to assist.
For a moment, those frivolous statements seemed like a joke. What kind of informal and weak Taoist temple would be invited to go up? Looking at the stage, except for Xie Lingya and Shi Changxuan, the other Taoist priests were at least middle-aged.
So many people who discussed Baoyang Temple were basically laymen, and the discussion of whether it was effective or not was also pale, but these screenshots and photos showed that although Baoyang Temple was small in size, it was still quite famous in the Taoist community. The professional level of the Taoist priests was very high, and they did not just rely on selling tea and being cute.
If you still feel that it is not enough, and you are thinking that one of them does not seem to be a Taoist priest, some people also call the Provincial Taoist Association to inquire, and you can also hear a clear answer that he is a Taoist priest specially invited by the president, and he also has a family background. Special reminder, everyone can also follow the WeChat public account of Baoyang Temple.
After checking the meaning of the Taoist priest, they followed this clue and found the WeChat account of Baoyang Temple. They found that half of their WeChat article readers were here to see the photos, and the other half were all Taoist priests, lay Buddhists and other Taoist people.
Ordinary netizens liked to read the daily popular science with pictures, and insiders liked to express their opinions under “Baoyang Notes”. There were also many people who thanked the Taoist temple for generously sharing their valuable experience and lamented that they did not know that there was a mistake somewhere before, and they learned it wrong.
It was not difficult to see from the collection of these remarks that they recognized “Baoyang Notes” very much. Moreover, there were quotations from classics in it, whether you looked at it at first glance or searched sentence by sentence, there was nothing wrong, it was absolutely dry goods.
“Look who this is? I thought he looked familiar so I searched on Baidu.” Someone even found a Taoist priest named Zhang in the comments. Upon checking the name, it turned out to be the contemporary Zhang Tianshi of Mount Longhu…
You may not know the status of other Taoist priests, and the number of comments was very intimidating, but everyone knew Zhang Tianshi of Mount Longhu. Maoshan, Mount Longhu, and Zhang Tianshi were all symbols of Taoism.
You can forcefully explain that the other Taoists are just praising each other for business, but there is no need for such a big signboard as Longhu Mountain, right? The president of the Provincial Taoist Association also had no need to give face to a small Taoist temple for no reason.
This time there was really no objection, and all doubts could be put into a dog’s stomach.
Baoyang Temple was not famous before, maybe it was just that the majority of netizens did not understand the Taoist community. Now there was irrefutable evidence in front of them. Not only were they not frivolous, but they were also very “stable”. They put out so many notes and even corrected the errors in some professional books.
Just because the Taoists are good-looking, you can’t judge them by their appearance and think they are just vases, right?
This reversal, although it may have deviated from the topic, could be regarded as completely raising Baoyang Temple’s prestige.
….
Taking advantage of this momentum, Xie Lingya also opened the official Weibo of Baoyang Temple and moved the previously compiled “Baoyang Notes” error correction article and some photos of Zhang Daoting to Weibo.
A large number of netizens who had just finished talking about Baoyang Temple flocked to the official Weibo of Baoyang Temple, calling on the official Weibo to post more photos of the other two Taoist priests who participated in the World Peace Dharma Assembly. Zhang Daoting had posted enough photos.
Some netizens also noticed that under the first Weibo post of Baoyang Temple, the account certified as the official Weibo of Donglin Temple actually congratulated Baoyang Temple on entering Weibo.
Donglin Temple was the ancestral temple of the Pure Land Sect of Buddhism and was also a very large temple. Of course, not to mention the scale, just saying that it was a Buddhist temple, it was very scary for it to have a relationship with a Taoist temple. What was going on?
In addition to leaving messages to ask questions, the famous detective netizens began to frantically flip through the Weibo of Donglin Temple. Netizens with good memory actually found clues.
A photo of an old monk preaching, the Weibo post introduced that this was Master Lian Tan from Donglin Temple.
“I said he looked familiar. When I saw him, I remembered him completely. Isn’t this the monk who was beaten by Taoist priests a few months ago? I compared them and found that there were people from Baoyang Temple among those Taoist priests [laughing and crying]. They didn’t seem surprised…”
– At the beginning, Xie Lingya followed the Zhuyang Taoist priests and ran into Lian Tan in the city where the Yuhuang Palace was located. A group of Taoist priests returned his phone to him, and a passerby took a picture of it and it was widely circulated on Weibo.
But at that time, everyone just looked at the battle and didn’t study the characters in it.
After many days, the case was solved. Lian Tan’s face was very obvious. If you zoomed in on the picture, you could clearly see the faces of Xie Lingya and Shi Changxuan. It was not a full front view, but you could definitely recognize them.
“Oh my god, hahahaha, you are awesome, are you all Sherlock Holmes? You can even figure this out!”
“F**k you, what does this mean, no friendship without fighting?”
“I was saying how can a Taoist temple and a Buddhist temple have a relationship?”
“I give up, I’ve forwarded this picture before, I didn’t expect it.”
At this time, the official blog of Donglin Temple finally responded to everyone and explained the situation: “A few months ago, our temple worked together with Baoyang Temple, Yuhuang Palace and other temples to crack down on illegal cults. The scene in the picture is not a gang fight, but the Taoist priests picking up the phone of the master of our temple and returning it to him.”
If you look into the Hongyang Dao incident, there was still some news, because the den was actually in a Taoist temple and a Buddhist temple, so it was not surprising that the Buddhist and Taoist circles were involved in the matter. The report also mentioned a few sentences to support the words of the official blog of Donglin Temple.
In this way, it all made sense.
“I’m dying of laughter. They went there with his phone. So they were just looking at the picture to talk?”
“But just looking at the picture really looks like asking for trouble! You guys are different!”
“I burst out laughing, and it turned out to be like this!”
“Look at the reposts at the time, so what were everyone expecting at the time…”
“To be honest, I’ve been using this picture with ‘covering my bald head and trembling’ as an emoticon for several months. How embarrassed I am to know the truth.”
“It’s okay, you can continue to use it if you change the words to ‘we are all family’.”
….
After such a long period of excitement, in addition to contributing more jokes and emoticons to everyone, the attention of Baoyang Temple’s official blog had also increased. It could be said that the accumulation of several previous incidents had exploded.
At this time, a live broadcast platform also came to Xie Lingya and wanted to cooperate.
They hoped to broadcast the ritual of Baoyang Temple once. If the effect was good, they also hoped to cooperate for a long time in the future.
Xie Lingya had seen live broadcasts of rituals from other Taoist temples with the Wendao group. This was also the current trend. Many Taoist temples had also launched WeChat remote incense burning. Believers who could not go to the scene could participate in the ritual through their mobile phones.
Of course, this live broadcast platform was obviously not to help them open up any communication with believers in the new media era, but simply to take advantage of this popularity to broadcast live.
But no matter what their purpose was, it was also an opportunity for Baoyang Temple, especially when Xie Lingya was trying to seek investment.
The only thing he was concerned about was that he was afraid that he had no experience and the live broadcast effect would not be good, which would damage his own reputation. With a hint of hesitation, he asked the docking staff of the platform, “Our Taoist temple has never done such an event. I am quite worried. Can I think about it again? I am afraid that it will not work well.”
The other party hurriedly persuaded: “Of course it is okay to consider it, but Teacher Xie, you have to have confidence in your face!”
Xie Lingya: “???”
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