I have a friend and a couple with kind hearts working as modest employees in the same company. Two years ago, their company underwent restructuring, leading to layoffs. Being honest and humble, they were among the first to be laid off. Fortunately, they were well-liked by their neighbors and friends, who helped them open a Sichuan hotpot restaurant in a newly developed clothing market in the small town.
Initially, the hotpot restaurant struggled, relying on the support of friends and neighbors. However, within three months, the couple’s warm hospitality and fair pricing attracted many returning customers, and their business began to thrive.
I often took my company’s clients to their restaurants in the spirit of friendship. Over time, I noticed that seven or eight beggars would gather at my friend’s hotpot restaurant every mealtime. Unlike shop owners who scolded and chased away beggars, my friends always served these dirty and dreadful-looking individuals with big smiles. They would fill the beggars’ bowls and pots with hot food, freshly made in the kitchen, not leftovers from customers.
Observing them, I noticed that their gestures of charity were sincere and natural, as if they were an ordinary part of their lives. Their kindness flowed effortlessly, like water. The Zen saying “A kind heart is like water” perfectly describes the couple.
Kindness returned
About six months ago, late one night, a clothing wholesaler’s stove started a fire that quickly spread through the market, which was filled with flammable materials. My friend was in Kunming for supplies that day, leaving his wife alone to manage the store.
As the nearby fire threatened their hard-earned hotpot restaurant, the beggars who usually came for food suddenly appeared. Led by an elderly beggar, they risked their lives to move heavy gas canisters to safety and salvage other flammable items from the store.
The fire engines arrived soon after. Thanks to the timely help, the hotpot restaurant suffered only minor damages, unlike the surrounding stores, which were reduced to ashes. The firefighters remarked that the entire market would have been destroyed if the gas canisters had exploded.
After the fire, people said the couple’s past kindness was repaid. Without the beggars’ help, their restaurant would have been obliterated. Grateful, the couple decided to treat all beggars in the future with even more sincere compassion. Strangely, however, from the day the restaurant reopened, the beggars never returned, as if they had vanished from the town. Later, someone found them in another city, no longer begging but making a living by collecting recyclables.
This story illustrates that when genuine kindness flows naturally like water, it can create ripples of goodness that return to you unexpectedly and profoundly.
Translated by Katy Liu and edited by Tatiana Denning
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