One pharmacist had a student. No matter what he did, the owner was always dissatisfied and scolded him for his stupidity. One day, after another mistake by a student, the pharmacist began to lecture him angrily:
- From now on, when you start doing something, use your chicken brains, don’t wait for someone to rub your nose in, learn to understand at a glance. If you see some task undone, do it; if you see some food uneaten, eat it, don’t yawn! Then you will be an example for others.
One day the owner left the pharmacy, and the student began sweeping the shop. Suddenly he saw a board on which the pharmacist wrote down the debts of his customers with chalk, and on the sacrificial table, in front of the image of Yao Wangye - the god of medicines, food and wine. Remembering the pharmacist's teachings, the student, without thinking twice, erased all the hieroglyphs from the debt board and polished it to a shine, and then ate the food and drank the wine.
By noon the owner returned. Seeing that the sacrificial table was empty, he asked the student:
-Where did you put the offerings to God? “I ate them,” he answered calmly. -Who allowed you to do this, turtle spawn? - the pharmacist became furious. “Didn’t you tell me: “If you see some food uneaten, eat it without yawning”? I remembered that Yao Wangye’s food had been standing here since yesterday, and I ate it!
The owner's eyes went wide with rage. For a moment he was even speechless. But then his gaze fell on the debt board, cleaned to a shine, and he shouted again:
-Who dared to erase my notes? “It’s me,” the student answered just as calmly. “Didn’t you tell me: “If you see something undone, do it”? No one has cleaned this board for a month, so I followed your advice.
The pharmacist almost burst with anger:
- Oh, you stupid brute, no matter what you do, you’ll ruin everything! Your pot isn't cooking at all! It's like you're sleeping with your eyes open. Even in my sleep I think better than you in reality!
The student just grinned slyly and said nothing.
The next day, around noon, while the pharmacist was sleeping, a man brought him an invitation to dinner. The student accepted the letter and promised to immediately give it to the owner. The man left, and the student went into the bedroom and twice raised the letter to the apothecary's face. But the owner was fast asleep; He woke up only at dusk and slowly left the bedroom.
“At noon they brought you an invitation to lunch,” the student told him.
Seeing that it was already dark outside, the owner became angry again:
- What a fool you are! Couldn't you have given me the letter earlier? “But you yourself said that you think better in your sleep than I do in reality!” - answered the student. “When you were sleeping, I showed you this invitation twice, but for some reason you didn’t want to get up.” Am I to blame?
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru