Chapter 358 Soft Heart (Yesterday)
Tao Ji was not afraid of them. He flicked the dust off his clothes and said, "The truth is not pleasant to hear, right? Don't forget, every family present has a share of my ancestral land and vegetable garden."

As soon as these words were spoken, the two young men tightened their grip on the hoes in their hands and stopped.

Tao Ji ignored them, snorted, and turned away.

As soon as he left, a young man couldn't help but smash his hoe to the ground and said angrily: "Dad, how much ancestral land did our family take from his family? Give it back!"

"you shut up."

"With just a few acres of land, are we going to be stabbed in the back by him for the rest of our lives? Give it back!"

"Even if we return it, no one will answer it. He is a Taoist priest now and doesn't live in the village..."

"That's his business. Whether he sells it or abandons it, it's his business. Anyway, our family will return it."

Chief Tao spoke up, "That's enough. It happened many years ago. The lands have been mixed together. Can your father separate them?"

In the past, if Chief Tao had spoken, the young man would not have dared to say anything even if he was dissatisfied.

But after this incident, the young man was no longer afraid of Chief Tao, and even doubted his position as chief. He tilted his head and spat, saying, "There must be a limit, right? At worst, I can return him an acre of land, and I don't want to suffer this humiliation!"

When Chief Tao saw that he dared to talk back to him, his already red face turned even purpler and his vision became blurry.

He leaned on the stool and slowly fell down, muttering: "Rebellion, rebellion, you are all lawless... Retribution, this is retribution, it must be Tao Ji who is cursing the Tao family..."

Chief Tao fell on his back on the ground.

"Clan leader——"

The yard was in chaos.

Tao Ji, who had already walked out of the door, stopped and looked back.

Xuan Miao then stopped and said softly, "You are a doctor, go ahead and treat him if you want."

Among their senior brothers and sisters, Tao Ji is the worst-spoken one, and he is also the softest-hearted one.

Pan Yun is much more cruel than him.

Xuanmiao doesn't think about these little things, and the villain becomes his inner demon.

Tao Ji's face was solemn. He looked away without turning back, but he didn't leave either. Instead, he waved to a child, handed him a medicine bottle and said, "Take it in and give it to the clan leader."

Tao Ji did not leave Tao Village until he heard Chief Tao taking medicine in the yard.

Tao Ji's medicine was very effective. After taking one pill, Chief Tao woke up slowly, but his right hand was numb and he couldn't use any strength.

He panicked and said quickly: "Where is Tao Ji? Please ask him to come and take a look at me..."

As soon as the words came out, everyone fell silent.

Chief Tao was also stunned. His voice was unclear and he couldn't even control his tongue. He couldn't even control his mouth and a string of saliva overflowed from his mouth.

Realizing his abnormality, Chief Tao felt desperate. He tried to pull his son with trembling hands and looked out the door hard.

His son understood, and while asking people to help carry his father back, he ran after Tao Ji.

The only one who can cure his father now is Tao Ji.

Tao Ji had already mounted his horse, and rode away from Tao Village with Xuan Miao. His legs could not catch up at all.

Sanqing Mountain is some distance away from Taojia Village, so the son of Chief Tao gave up after chasing for a while.

If he ran on his own two legs, he would have to run until dark to reach Sanqing Mountain.

Tao Ji and Xuan Miao first went back to the market to return the rented car, and then led Wang Cong's horse back to the mountain.

As soon as I entered the village, I saw Pan Yun, Miao Zhen and two other people leaning against the bridge. A group of young boys and girls surrounded the four of them. Each of them held a steaming rice cake in their hands and were eating it in small bites, passing it from hand to hand.

Tao Ji couldn't help but pause and take a deep breath. The whole village was filled with the aroma of food.

As the Chinese New Year approaches, every household starts preparing New Year goods, grinding beans to make tofu, grinding flour to make steamed buns, and grinding rice flour to make cakes and rice noodles...

The children ran around smelling the fragrance coming from everywhere.

It is also for the children that the adults make these foods.

In the words of adults, "Other families make it, but we don't. How pitiful it is for our children to go out and see others eating it?"

These days, food is precious and no one is willing to eat other people's food.

So every household makes it, but not all of them make it the same way, so that families who live nearby can share the food.

The children also brought rice cakes, rice dumplings and other snacks from their homes and shared them.

There are only four people including Pan Yun, and they are just begging for food.

Tao Ji felt distressed when he saw this, and said to Xuan Miao: "Junior sister, let's also grind some rice flour and flour to make snacks."

Xuanmiao was silent for a moment and then said, "I can grind the mill."

Tao Ji assumed that she agreed, and immediately said, "I'll go up the mountain to get some rice and wheat, and I can also grind some soybean powder..."

Tao Ji had planned the snacks to make in an instant and said, "We can make rice cakes, white sugar cakes, sour jujube cakes, wick cakes and tea cakes."

Xuanmiao was shocked, "You can do it?"

Tao Ji nodded.

Xuanmiao: "I've only seen you make rice cakes and crispy candies."

Tao Ji: "I've been busy practicing and refining medicine for you in the past few years, so I haven't made much. When I was young, my sister-in-law would make these cakes for us during festivals."

Tao Ji learned all his skills from his sister-in-law. Pan Jun held the hot cakes and raised his hand to greet him, "Third Brother, Fourth Sister, you are back?"

Others also called for help.

Xuan Miao nodded slightly, and Tao Ji asked, "Whose cakes did you eat?"

Pan Yun pointed at Wang Xiaojing, "It's his."

Tao Ji nodded and decided to send a return gift to the Wang family tomorrow.

"Yanbai, I have already made an agreement with your parents. They have agreed to let you go to seek the truth. You will practice in the mountains from now on. If you miss home, you can go back to visit. If you are busy, you can stay at home."

Tao Yanbai breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Third Master, have you seen my sister?"

"Yes, I secretly gave her the purse and books you gave me," Tao Ji said, "Don't worry, she is much smarter than you. I heard from the villagers that she is learning needlework from someone and is doing very well. Because they want her to learn a craft so that she can go out and make money in the future, your father and others didn't let her go up the mountain to collect firewood this year."

Tao Yanbai finally let it go and decided to go home to see her after some time.

Xuanmiao said to the four people, "Go and clean the mill. We will bring the rice and soybeans down to grind them later."

The four of them became excited when they heard this, "We're going to make some delicious food in the temple too?"

Seeing how happy they were, Tao Ji couldn't help but laugh, "I can't let you be like greedy cats, watching others eat all the time, right?"

The four cheered.

Xuanmiao walked a few steps and stopped, then turned around and asked Miaozhen, "When did you come back from the city? Where is Wang Cong?"

Miao Zhen: "Just came back, the eldest brother brought New Year's goods up the mountain."

Wang Xiaojing happened to take out food to share, and the junior master was also eating happily by the bridge, so the three of them stayed.

Xuanmiao said, "Call Wang Cong down to grind the millstone."

There are two stone mills in Fenshui Village, one at the entrance of the village and the other in the center of the village.

The whole village owns these two mills, and people usually use them to grind rice flour, wheat flour, soybean flour and other flours.

They had a lot of things to grind, and it was already afternoon, so Xuanmiao decided to grind both at the same time.

It just so happened that the villagers got up early this morning to line up for the grinding session, and it just ended a short while ago. There was no one in front of them and no one behind them.

Not only Wang Cong, but also Wang Feiyin came down from the mountain.

The elders in the village gathered at the mill to talk to Wang Feiyin, mainly to teach him a lesson, "Feiyin, why are you grinding rice flour only now?"

"I learned all this from you. The kids are getting lazier and lazier. Tao Ji used to be so hardworking, but it was all because of you..."

Wang Feiyin sat on a rock and chatted with them, "We deliberately avoided the time and let the villagers use it first."

"Come on, you didn't even soak the rice and soybeans, and you didn't grind them wet or dry. It's obvious that you didn't think of making it. You just saw that everyone in the village was making it, and you felt sorry for the children, so you decided to do it on the spur of the moment."

Wang Feiyin did not deny it and said directly: "Uncle Wu, you are smart and you guessed it right at once."

"Hey, Fei Yin, don't you practice Taoism and know magic? Aside from turning stone into gold, how come you can't turn rice into rice flour?"

"Who said no?" Wang Feiyin pointed at Wang Cong who was pushing the mill and said, "Look, what's falling from the mill? Isn't it rice flour?"

Everyone: “…We can do this too!”

Wang Feiyin stroked his beard and said with a smile: "So everyone knows magic, hahahaha..."

Pan Yun added rice to the millstone with a spoon, "Is this why the villagers both believe in and don't believe in Sanqing Temple?"

Wang Cong pushed the millstone with a grunt and answered, "My father said that people like me who practice Taoism can let others believe in us, but they cannot let others be superstitious. And the common people can believe in things like mysterious arts and magic, but they cannot be superstitious."

Pan Jun pondered for a moment and nodded: "What Senior Brother said is very philosophical."

Wang Cong pushed the millstone and nodded half-heartedly.

Pan Yun couldn't stand it anymore, so he put down the barrel, grabbed the man and pulled him back, "I'll do it. I'm really anxious to see you dawdle."

Leaving the task of adding rice to him, Pan Yun grabbed the grinding rod with both hands and left.

Seeing Pan Yun walking quickly, Wang Cong hurriedly added rice and called out, "Uncle Master, slow down a bit. This stone mill is grinding too fast. The rice flour it grinds won't be fine."

Only then did Pan Yun slow down.

Finally, she got tired of using two hands and just used one hand to push the millstone forward at a constant speed.

While Wang Cong was adding rice, he looked at her with envy, "Little Master, you are really strong."

Pan Yun: "You can achieve it if you have strong Yuan power. If you don't have strong internal power, you can also achieve it."

Wang Cong said: "I went to buy New Year's goods today, and it took too much energy and effort. If it were usual, I wouldn't be out of breath so quickly."

Pan Jun said "Oh" without any emotion.

Wang Cong felt that she didn't believe it, but she didn't say it clearly.

He secretly swore that when he returned, he would start practicing hard the next day, not for the sake of keeping the jade pendant space, but just for grinding powder. He also couldn't let his junior uncle look down on him too much.

However, the next day, Wang Cong stayed in bed and couldn't get up.

Why is it so cold today?

Wang Cong stayed in bed without moving. Wang Feiyin first knocked on the door, then banged on it. He said angrily from outside, "Why don't you get up? You're the only one who hasn't gotten up. How can you be the senior brother?"

(End of this chapter)