Chapter 80: My Heart Cannot Turn

Pan Yun wiped her mouth; today’s her was no longer the Pan Yun from three days ago.

Armed with historical knowledge, she felt powerful; she lifted her head and regarded Zhou’s father with seriousness: “Master Zhou, natural feet are in harmony with nature and the Dao. How many women in this Zhou Village bind their feet, and how many have natural feet?”

“Marriage alliances are postnatal interests—we’ll set those aside. Just look: which is healthier, women with natural feet or bound feet? Whose children are healthier, more likely to survive, and more intelligent?”

Since that night when Sun Xianniang had silenced her, Pan Yun had been reviewing historical records in the Spirit Realm; for days, every time she saw Sun Xianniang, she wanted to debate her again—but Sun Xianniang was wholly absorbed in her child, and Pan Yun kept suffering bad luck.

Yet Pan Yun rarely failed; she could not let go of this matter, and even in her dreams she relived that moment to argue it all over again.

She felt it was unhealthy—too strong a desire to win was not a good thing.

But now Master Zhou had laid the issue right before her; if she didn’t seize it firmly, she’d be betraying all her hard work and obsessive thoughts these past days.

“Master Zhou knows it’s the women with natural feet, right?”

Master Zhou fell silent; his wife fell silent; even the couple from the Zhou family’s second branch, who had rushed over, fell silent.

Indeed, very few households in Zhou Village bound their daughters’ feet; the vast majority of women had natural feet.

Rural women, besides spinning and weaving, also worked the fields.

They planted vegetables, carried water, transplanted rice seedlings, fertilized, and harvested—they all participated. With bound feet, their legs lacked strength; even walking required leaning against walls—how could they do farm work? How could they support their families?

Even the Zhou family itself had mostly women with natural feet.

Sun Xianniang herself had natural feet, but because her family had accumulated wealth over three generations, their money kept growing.

After marrying Sun Xianniang, the Zhou family bought two more fields and hired several more laborers; their women no longer needed to work the fields, and only then did they begin thinking of binding their granddaughters’ feet—to secure them better marriages and elevate the Zhou family to a higher social tier.

Zhou Chao and his brother had studied literature, but their talents were ordinary; they hoped to cultivate their descendants to study for the imperial examinations and achieve the leap from farmer to scholar.

Fearing their future sons might also be mediocre, they sought to strengthen their chances through their daughters’ marriages.

Master Zhou’s emotions were complex: he worried about his granddaughters’ health, yet also felt it was only right they sacrifice for the family’s future. If not for Sun Xianniang’s adamant claim that bound feet harmed children’s bodies and ruined the Zhou family’s feng shui, thereby obstructing their prospects, he might have considered taking the gamble.

Failure meant losing a few granddaughters—but children were hard to raise; infant mortality was common.

But if they succeeded, the Zhou family would ascend to another stratum, benefiting countless descendants.

“Master Wang, would binding Mei Niang’s feet truly ruin our family’s feng shui?”

Pan Yun was about to speak when Wang Feiyin suddenly said: “Master Zhou, it’s not that binding Mei Niang’s feet ruins your feng shui—it’s that any bound-foot woman in your household will ruin it.”

“Look: your gate faces a ditch, water visible at the threshold. Water is yin; this land favors women, and women strengthen the household. But binding feet—no matter the excuse—is predicated on harming women to gain advantage. Gain and loss oppose each other; when they clash, they become adversarial.”

Wang Feiyin paused, waiting until Master Zhou had absorbed it, then said: “Other families could relocate or fill in the ditch to resolve this—but yours bears the surname Zhou.”

“The character ‘Zhou’ in oracle bone script encircles four sides, representing farmland, crisscrossed with paths. Even in modern small seal script, though it now has an opening, it still means farmland—fields filled with crops. Master Zhou, you’ve tilled the land your whole life; you know how vital water is to farmland and crops.”

Master Zhou knew well—he clenched his tobacco pipe tightly. “So this residence?”

Wang Feiyin: “Extremely favorable to the Zhou family.”

Master Zhou’s heart stirred with excitement, yet he couldn’t help feeling regret—it meant his family had lost a shortcut to advancement through daughters.

Wang Feiyin spoke calmly: “This land favors the Zhou family; this ditch favors Zhou women; Zhou women, in turn, strengthen the Zhou family. Dual reinforcement, mutual success. Whether born into the Zhou family or married into it, any woman whose body is damaged by binding feet will harm the family’s feng shui.”

Master Zhou asked: “If I hire you at great cost to perform a ritual…”

Wang Feiyin refused outright: “This cannot be resolved by any ritual.”

He paused, then smiled. “But if you changed your surname, that might work.”

Pan Yun had a flood of words to say, but feared interrupting would damage her senior brother’s reputation; her face turned slightly pale, she opened her mouth to speak—Xuan Miao stepped forward and tapped her shoulder, sealing her vocal cords.

Pan Yun fell silent.

Master Zhou was speechless—he could never change his surname. That would be forgetting one’s ancestors.

He bound his granddaughters’ feet so they could marry well—not just to benefit his descendants, but to glorify the family name.

What meaning would changing his surname hold?

Master Zhou immediately said: “Thank you, Master Wang, for clarifying this. I understand. From now on, I will strictly restrain my family—no binding of children’s feet. You must also remember: not only must you never bind your children’s feet, but you must never marry a woman with bound feet.” Zhou Chao and his brother Zhou Wen solemnly agreed, vowing to defend the Zhou family’s feng shui at all costs.

With Master Zhou’s decision, the entire Zhou household’s attitude toward the Sanqing Temple Daoists changed drastically; they no longer glared coldly at Zhou Chao and his wife.

Zhou Wen said: “Father, what about Lan Niang’s binding strips?”

The Zhou family had two granddaughters: Zhou Mei Niang, the youngest daughter of the first branch, Zhou Chao; and Zhou Lan Niang, the eldest daughter of the second branch, Zhou Wen—two years younger than Mei Niang, and now beginning to bind her feet, though not yet to the point of breaking the foot bones, since she was still young.

After seeing Mei Niang’s bound feet, Zhou Wen’s wife feared her daughter’s feet would grow too large in two years and cause suffering, so she had already wrapped her in binding strips to restrict growth.

Master Zhou said: “Untie them. From now on, our family forbids foot-binding.”

Zhou Wen immediately agreed. His wife exhaled deeply, bowed her head, and hurried back to her room to remove and discard her daughter’s binding strips.

She had long despised those strips; if not for her sister-in-law starting the practice and her father-in-law demanding better marriages for their daughters, she’d never have bound her child’s feet.

She had seen bound-foot women—some could wobble a short distance, others couldn’t walk a li even leaning on walls. What kind of life was that?

Wang Feiyin bid farewell to the Zhou family, planning to leave early the next morning, leaving Tao Ji and Pan Yun behind.

He led everyone back to their room, ready to unseal Pan Yun’s vocal cords—when she turned her head away. “I’ve undone it myself.”

!. Read

Wang Feiyin smiled. “Good. You’ve learned to hold your tongue this time.”

Pan Yun: “Why did you limit this matter only to the Zhou family? Foot-binding truly harms the nation and its people—I’ve verified everything. I could start from the fall of the Southern Song and explain how vile foot-binding is, and make them understand.”

“What good would that do?” Wang Feiyin said. “They don’t care. Even if they did, they wouldn’t truly care—they care only about their own family’s rise and fall, their own interests.”

Pan Yun fell silent.

“Little sister, even immortals cannot instantly kill every bandit in the world just because they see one commit murder—how much less you and I?” Wang Feiyin said. “You wanted the Zhou family to stop binding feet and harming girls—you’ve achieved that. You want the world, after this Zhou family incident, to understand the evil of foot-binding and eradicate it entirely? That’s impossible.”

“Since the law began, the moral understanding that murder demands retribution has existed in people’s hearts—but the world has never stopped killing. Do murderers not know this law?” Wang Feiyin said. “They know. But profit and desire drive them.”

After a pause, Pan Yun said: “So all we can do is deal with each case as we see it?”

Wang Feiyin: “If not for your insistence, this would have been nothing but healing and saving lives—there’d be no need to tie it to feng shui. Do you think I didn’t strain my mind to link foot-binding to feng shui?”

He worked hard to connect foot-binding with feng shui, didn’t he?

Pan Yun: “But foot-binding really does ruin feng shui.”

Wang Feiyin: “People are ignorant. If you told them the human body is a universe governed by cyclical feng shui principles, would they understand?”

“Little sister, we’re not deceiving them—ordinary people’s minds and horizons are simply that limited. They can’t understand, and they don’t want to. If you say foot-binding ruins feng shui, they’ll think: so many women bind their feet—how could it possibly ruin feng shui? Even if it did, it would ruin everyone’s feng shui together. But if you say it ruins only *their* family’s feng shui, and not others’, then they’ll pay attention.”

Wang Feiyin: “You cannot stop foot-binding in the world by invoking feng shui. Foot-binding has reigned for three hundred years—can you change it with one or two sentences?”

Tao Ji said: “Little sister, if this spreads, those who fetishize lotus feet will resent Sanqing Temple. If gentry and nobles take notice, they may turn hostile toward us.”

Pan Yun stayed silent.

Wang Feiyin looked at her. “Even so, will you still loudly proclaim that foot-binding ruins feng shui and harms the nation?”

Pan Yun clenched her teeth, then said: “I understand. I won’t speak again about the fall of the Southern Song, the fall of the Yuan, or how foot-binding harms the nation.”

Wang Feiyin: “Next time you see a child with bound feet, what will you do?”

Pan Yun paused, then said: “Senior brother, I can abandon the issue of foot-binding entirely, so it doesn’t bring turmoil to Sanqing Temple. But I cannot turn away from suffering I see before me. If I see such a child again, I will still help her unbind her feet—but I won’t use the reasons of ‘foot-binding harms the nation’ or ‘ruins feng shui,’ nor will I tie it to Sanqing Temple’s Daoist methods.”

Wang Feiyin stared at her. “Why? You can simply turn your head and pretend not to see. If she falls ill or gets hurt, you can learn medicine and earn money treating her. Didn’t we just earn money healing and saving lives this time?”

Pan Yun: “But I can’t turn my head. My eyes won’t look away. I saw her.”

Wang Feiyin’s lips curled slightly. “We’ll forgo the hundred taels the old woman offered. You and Third Brother wait until her wounds heal, then return to the temple. Get back soon—the temple needs you to harvest the rice.”

Today’s lucky number is any number ending in 6, screenshot as proof.

(End of Chapter)