Chapter 80 My Heart is Hard to Change
Pan Yun wiped her mouth. Today she was no longer the Pan Yun she was three days ago.

She was very strong after learning history. She raised her head and looked at Zhou's father seriously: "Master Zhou, natural feet are in accordance with nature and the way of heaven. In this great Zhouzhuang, how many people have bound feet and how many have natural feet?"

"Marriage is an acquired benefit, let's not discuss that. Just look at the woman with natural feet and the woman with bound feet. Who is healthier? Whose children are healthier, more likely to survive, and smarter?"

Ever since she was stumped by Sun Xianniang's question that night, Pan Jun has been looking up relevant history in the spiritual realm. These days, whenever she sees Sun Xianniang, she wants to argue with her again. Unfortunately, Sun Xianniang is devoted to her children, and she keeps having bad luck.

But Pan Yun rarely fails. She can't forget this incident and would go back to the situation and talk about it again in her dreams at night.

She felt that it was not a good thing to be too competitive.

But now that Master Zhou had put his words in front of her, if she didn't hold on to them firmly, it would be too unfair to her hard work and obsession over the past few days.

"Mr. Zhou also knows that she is a natural-footed woman, right?"

Zhou's father was silent, Zhou's mother was silent, and even the couple from the second branch of the Zhou family who rushed over were silent.

There are indeed very few families in Dazhouzhuang who bind their feet, and the vast majority of women have natural feet.

In addition to weaving, rural women also have to work in the fields.

They have to take part in planting vegetables, carrying water, transplanting rice seedlings, applying fertilizers and harvesting. With bound feet, their legs are powerless and they even have to walk by holding onto a wall. How can they do farm work and support their families?

Even in the Zhou family, most of the people have natural feet.

Sun Xianniang herself has natural feet, but because of three generations of accumulation, the family has more and more money.

After marrying Sun Xianniang, the Zhou family bought two more plots of land and hired a few more farmhands. The women in the family no longer had to work in the fields. It was only at this time that they thought about binding their granddaughters' feet so that they could find good marriages for them in the future. Through them, the Zhou family could also cross classes and reach a higher level.

The brothers Zhou and Chao also studied, but their talents were average. They wanted to train their children and grandchildren to study for the imperial examinations so as to achieve a class leap from farmers to scholars.

He was afraid that his born and unborn sons might not be very talented, so he wanted to increase his chances through his daughter's marriage.

Father Zhou was in a complicated mood at the moment. He was worried about the health of his granddaughters, but he also felt that they should make some sacrifices for the family's future. If Sun Xianniang had not vowed that foot binding would not only harm the children's health, but also the feng shui of the Zhou family and would hinder the family's future, he actually felt that it might not be a bad idea to take a gamble.

If it fails, only a few granddaughters will die, but children are difficult to raise and death is common.

But once successful, the Zhou family entered another class, and their descendants would benefit immensely.

"Master Pan, will Mei Niang's foot binding really ruin the feng shui of my Zhou family?"

Just as Pan Yun was about to speak, Wang Feiyin suddenly said, "Master Zhou, it's not that Zhou Mei Niang's foot binding will ruin your family's feng shui, but the presence of someone with bound feet in your family will ruin your feng shui."

"You see there is a canal in front of your house. When you open the door you see water. Water is yin, so this place is good for girls. Girls bring prosperity to the family. As for foot binding, no matter what the reason is, it is all based on the premise of harming girls. Benefit and harm are opposites. When the two collide, they will become a struggle."

Wang Feiyin paused for a moment, and waited until Master Zhou understood before he said, "If it were any other family, they could have moved or filled up the ditch to resolve the situation, but your surname is Zhou."

"The word Zhou, in oracle bone script, is surrounded on all sides, representing fields with crisscross paths. Although the seal script has a cut, it still has the same meaning, representing farmland with crops planted in it. Mr. Zhou has been farming all his life, so he should know how important water is to farmland and crops."

Mr. Zhou certainly knew. He clenched his fingers around the pipe and asked, "So this is the house?"

Wang Feiyin: "It is extremely beneficial to the Zhou family."

Mr. Zhou was a little excited, but he couldn't help feeling regretful, because this meant that their family would lose a shortcut to relying on their daughter.

Wang Feiyin said calmly: "This place is good for the Zhou family, this channel is good for Zhou girls, and Zhou girls are good for the Zhou family, both are beneficial. No matter if a girl is born in the Zhou family or married into the Zhou family, as long as there is a person who has bound feet, the damage to the body will damage the feng shui of the Zhou family."

Mr. Zhou asked: "If I pay a high price to ask the Taoist priest to perform a ritual..."

Wang Feiyin directly refused, "This is not something that can be eliminated by performing rituals."

He paused and smiled, "If Mr. Zhou changes his surname to Zhou, that's fine."

Pan Jun had a lot to say, but was afraid that if she interrupted him rashly, it would ruin the reputation of the senior brother. Her face turned a little pale. She opened her mouth to speak, but Xuanmiao came up and patted her shoulder, sealing her vocal cords.

Pan Yun was speechless.

Mr. Zhou was speechless. How could he change his surname? Isn't this forgetting his ancestors?
Didn't he bind his granddaughters' feet and let them marry into good families just to benefit his descendants and bring honor to the family?

What's the point of changing your surname?
Mr. Zhou immediately said, "Thank you, Taoist Wang, for clearing up my doubts. I understand now. In the future, I will definitely control my family members and never bind our children's feet. You must also remember that in addition to not binding our children's feet, we are also not allowed to let our descendants marry women with bound feet." Zhou Chao and his brother Zhou Wen responded with a serious face, vowing to defend the Zhou family's Feng Shui to the death.

Mr. Zhou made the final decision, and the attitude of the Zhou family towards the Taoist priests in Sanqing Temple changed a lot, and they no longer treated Zhou Chao and his wife with hostility.

Zhou Wen also said: "Father, that Lan Niang's foot binding cloth..."

There are two granddaughters in the Zhou family. Zhou Meiniang is the youngest daughter of the eldest wife Zhou Chao, and Zhou Lanniang is the eldest daughter of the second wife Zhou Wen. She is two years younger than Zhou Meiniang. She also started foot binding this year, but has not yet reached the stage of breaking her feet, after all, she is still young.

After seeing Zhou Meiniang binding her feet, Zhou Wen’s wife was afraid that her daughter’s feet would grow too big in two years and she would suffer, so she wrapped her feet with cloth strips early on to restrict their growth.

Mr. Zhou said, "Let's untie it. From now on, no more foot binding is allowed in our family."

Zhou Wen quickly agreed. Zhou Wen's wife breathed a sigh of relief, lowered her head and walked away. She immediately went back to the house to take off her daughter's foot binding and throw it away.

She had long disliked the strip of cloth. If it had not been for her eldest sister-in-law taking the lead in binding her daughter's feet, and her father-in-law wanting them to have a better marriage in the future, she would never have bound her child's feet.

She had seen women with bound feet. Some of them could still stagger along for a distance, while others could not even walk a mile even with the support of a wall. What was the point of living like this?
Wang Feiyin said goodbye to the Zhou family and planned to leave early the next morning, leaving Tao Ji and Pan Yun behind.

He brought everyone back to the room and was about to unblock Pan Yun's vocal cords when she turned her head away and said, "I unblocked it."

Wang Feiyin smiled and said, "Yes, I can bear it this time."

Pan Yun: "Big Brother, why did you limit this matter to the Zhou family? Foot binding is indeed harmful to the country and the people. I have investigated it all. I can start from the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, and I will definitely make them understand how abominable foot binding is."

"What's the use?" Wang Feiyin said, "They don't care. Even if they do, they won't pay much attention to it. They care more about the rise and fall of their own family and their own interests."

Pan Yun was silent.

"Junior sister, even gods can't kill all the bandits in the world instantly after seeing a bandit killing someone, let alone you and me." Wang Feiyin said, "You want the Zhou family to stop binding feet and harming girls. Now your goal has been achieved. You want the world to know the evils of foot binding through the Zhou family incident, and from then on there will be no more people binding feet in the world. This is impossible to accomplish."

"Since the beginning of the law, the moral understanding of killing someone and paying with his life has been in the hearts of the world, but this world has never stopped killing people. Don't the murderers know this law?" Wang Feiyin said: "It's not that they don't know, but they are driven by interests and desires."

Pan Yun was silent for a moment before saying, "So what we can do is to deal with each case we see?"

Wang Feiyin said, "If you hadn't insisted on doing this, this matter would just be about curing illnesses and saving lives, and it shouldn't be involved with Feng Shui. Do you think I didn't have to think about those words?"

He put a lot of effort into linking foot binding and Feng Shui together, okay?

Pan Yun: "But foot binding does ruin a person's feng shui."

Wang Feiyin: "People in this world are ignorant. If you tell them that the human body is a universe and that there is a cycle of Feng Shui, will they understand?"

"Junior sister, we are not trying to fool people, but ordinary people have only so much brains and vision. They don't understand, nor do they want to understand. If you say that foot binding ruins a person's feng shui, they will think that there are so many people with bound feet in the world, how could it ruin a person's feng shui? Even if it really ruins, it will ruin everyone's feng shui together. But if you say that foot binding only ruins his family's feng shui and not others', then they will take it to heart."

Wang Feiyin: "You want to use Feng Shui to stop people from binding their feet, but that's impossible. Foot binding has been rampant for three hundred years. How can you change it with just a few words?"

Tao Ji said: "Junior sister, if this matter gets out, people who have a fetish for lotus feet will be dissatisfied with Sanqing Temple. Once those gentry and nobles take it seriously, I'm afraid they will be annoyed with our Sanqing Temple, which will be disadvantageous to our Sanqing Temple."

Pan Yun pursed her lips and said nothing.

Wang Feiyin looked at her and asked, "Even so, are you still going to spread the word that foot binding is bad feng shui and will harm the family and the country?"

Pan Yun clenched his teeth and said after a moment: "I understand. I will no longer say that the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed, the Yuan Dynasty was destroyed, and foot binding harmed the family and the country."

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

Pan Yun was silent for a while and said, "Big Brother, I can abandon the issue of foot binding and not let the world's troubles affect Sanqing Temple, but I cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering that appears before my eyes. If I see a child like this again, I will still help her unbind her feet. However, I will not use the reason that foot binding harms the country and ruins people's feng shui, nor will I involve the Taoism of my Sanqing Temple."

Wang Feiyin said calmly, "Why? You can just turn your face away and pretend you can't see it. If she is sick or injured, you can also earn money for her treatment if you learn medical skills. Isn't the money we earn this time the money from her treatment and saving her life?"

Pan Jun: "But I couldn't turn my face away, and I couldn't move my eyes. I just saw it."

Wang Feiyin raised his lips slightly and said to her, "We don't want the one hundred taels that Old Lady Sun mentioned. You and Third Junior Brother should wait until her wound heals and then go back to the Taoist temple. Go back early, the temple is waiting for you to harvest rice."

　Today's lucky number is the number ending in 6, as shown in the screenshot
　　(End of this chapter)