Chapter 148 Dao Heart
Lu Yao could see it clearly.
This is not "sharing" at all; it is clearly bullying Jiang Peiling and her daughter, an orphan and widow, who are to be devoured alive until nothing is left.
Jiang Peiling trembled, tears welling up in her eyes.
Lu Yao stared at Jiang Peiling's trembling back, her Heavenly Eye suddenly opening wide.
In an instant, the girl's future destiny flashed before her eyes like a revolving lantern.
When the Jiang family's wicked servants threw the mother and daughter out of the house, it happened to be the plum rain season in Jiangnan.
Jiang Mu's old illness relapsed, and the blood she coughed up soaked through her thin clothes.
Jiang Peiling knelt in front of the pharmacy, kowtowing and begging for medicine. Blood from her forehead mingled with rainwater and meandered on the bluestone slab, but all she got in return was the shopkeeper's words, "Get out if you don't have money."
Three months later, a desolate grave appeared in the mass grave in the west of the city.
Jiang Peiling sold herself into servitude to bury her mother, wearing a straw tag, with a pale white paper flower pinned in her hair.
She was bought by the madam of Zuixianlou for five taels of silver.
When Lu Yao saw the final scene, her breath caught in her throat.
In the dilapidated room, eighteen-year-old Jiang Peiling was curled up on the dirty bedding, her bones visible beneath her festering skin.
Those once stubborn eyes gazed at the azure sky outside the window until their very death.
The Master's admonition echoed in my ears: "Those who peek into the secrets of heaven should tread on thin ice; those who recklessly alter cause and effect will surely suffer a backlash..."
But when she looked at the girl in the hall who was trying to hold back her tears, she suddenly let out a cold laugh.
If a cultivator stands idly by while innocent people suffer, what difference is there between his extraordinary abilities and that of scrap iron?
Even if it means defying fate and incurring divine punishment, she is determined to intervene in this cause and effect!
She looked up at the magistrate, her voice cold: "Your Honor, since the living cannot say for sure, let the dead decide."
"What?" The magistrate was taken aback.
Before anyone could react, Lu Yao had already taken out three copper coins from her sleeve, flicked them with her fingertips, and the coins fell to the ground in an array, forming a triangular shape.
She bit her fingertip, and a drop of blood fell into the center of the formation. She murmured, "Soul returns to its homeland, manifest your testimony!"
In an instant, a cold wind suddenly rose throughout the courtroom, the candlelight flickered violently, casting eerie shadows on everyone's faces.
Everyone looked in horror toward the center of the hall, where a wisp of pale blue mist slowly condensed and gradually transformed into a blurry human figure.
It was Jiang Zhiming's remnant soul!
"Father!" Jiang Peiling cried out in anguish, reaching out to touch him but not daring to.
The spirit turned to look at her, its eyes also glistening with tears.
Jiang Zhiming's gaze then turned to the Jiang family, his eyes suddenly becoming sharp.
"Uncle, Third Uncle..." The ghostly voice echoed, carrying a chilling aura, "When I left home, you wouldn't even give me a bowl of rice, yet you dare to bully my wife and daughters now?"
Uncle Jiang was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground, his face ashen: "A ghost! A ghost!"
The magistrate was so startled that he stood up from his chair, and the gavel in his hand fell to the ground with a "thud".
Jiang Zhiming's soul swayed slightly in the cold wind, and a mocking look appeared on his pale face.
"Every spice in this recipe is the result of my personal tasting of sauces from seventy-two sauce shops in Jiangnan." Hunpo laughed sternly, his gaze sweeping over the panicked clansmen. "The Jiang family, who pride themselves on their high-mindedness, always say that gentlemen stay away from the kitchen, yet they don't even allow men to step into their kitchens!"
"Nonsense! Nonsense!" Uncle Jiang shouted, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "This is clearly a secret recipe passed down from Grandfather! You...you're just a son of a concubine, how dare you..."
"Your Honor, please see the truth!" The spirit suddenly floated to the magistrate's desk, startling him so much that he almost fell off his armchair. "The seventh article of the Jiang family's ancestral precepts clearly states: descendants must not engage in lowly professions. You say that cooking is a lowly trade. Now you want to steal my recipe for this lowly profession?"
Suddenly, Uncle Jiang pointed at the spirit and screamed, "This must be sorcery! It's fake! This vile woman must have colluded with a sorcerer..."
"Shut up!" the spirit shouted, and the candlelight in the entire courtroom instantly turned a ghastly green.
He stretched out his ghostly hand, grabbed his third uncle by the neck and lifted him up. "Back then, I knelt down and begged you to lend me a peck of rice to cure my mother's illness. What did you say? 'A lowly concubine's son is not worthy of eating the Jiang family's rice!'"
Uncle San kicked wildly with his feet off the ground, his face gradually turning purple.
Uncle Jiang collapsed to the ground, a wet patch spreading across his crotch: "Spare me... Spare me... We know we were wrong... I confess! We forged the secret recipe to seize the house and business!"
The magistrate scrambled to hide behind his bailiffs: "This official, this official, will re-investigate! The Jiang family forged documents, forcibly occupied homes, and bullied the elderly and widowed. According to the law..."
He glanced at Lu Yao's face and said, "Guards, give her fifty lashes and half of her property as compensation to the victim!"
The constables swarmed forward and dragged away the wailing Jiang family members.
As I left the government office, dusk had already fallen.
Jiang Peiling suddenly knelt down in front of the stone steps and kowtowed heavily. The sound of her forehead hitting the bluestone made Lu Yao's heart tremble.
"Sister's kindness is immeasurable," the girl's voice choked with sobs, mingling with drops of blood, "Peiling can never repay it in this lifetime..."
Lu Yao reached out to support her, but when her fingertips touched the girl's thin shoulder, she suddenly froze.
Jiang Peiling's fate line was clearly visible in her eyes. The originally dark trajectory of her early death was now glowing with a faint golden light, winding into the distance.
"There's no need for that."
Before Lu Yao could finish speaking, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen.
She looked inward and discovered a hair-thin crack on the surface of her golden core.
The Master's teachings still echoed in my ears: "Those who seek to understand the secrets of heaven should tread on thin ice..."
But when she looked at the girl in front of her who had survived the ordeal, she suddenly understood something.
The so-called Way of Heaven may not lie in the elusive concept of destiny, but rather in the moments when mortals struggle to survive.
If cultivating the Tao requires learning to observe detachedly and not daring to intervene in injustices, then it's better not to cultivate the Tao at all!
Lu Yao suddenly chuckled and actually guided the backlash into her golden core, making her Dao heart even clearer.
As she turned to leave, the puddle on the bluestone slab reflected Jiang Peiling's suddenly straightened back.
The girl pressed the paper package tightly to her chest, the flame in her eyes burning brighter than the lanterns in front of the yamen.
That was the determination of an ordinary person to declare war on fate.
Many years later, when the signboard of "Jiang's Sauce Garden" was hung all over Jiangnan, Lu Yao was standing on the observatory of the Imperial Observatory, brushing the starlight off her official robe.
"I see..." Lu Yao looked south, a smile appearing on her lips.
Jiang Peiling, the girl who once shivered in the rain, not only rewrote her fate of dying young, but also turned a small sauce into a business that reaches all corners of the world.
The power of mortals to break free from their destiny is far greater than imagined.
Sometimes, it can shake destiny even more than magic.
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