Mutated Tao

Bai Lingmiao's carriage arrived at the entrance of Cowheart Village. The villagers came out to greet her upon seeing her return. However, Bai Lingmiao's stepchildren soon attracted their attention.

"Well, this isn't that bad as well," Pupp said, supporting his pregnant wife. "We have too much land here, and we won't be able to work on them all, even if we had cows. At least, we now have farmers to handle the land."

"Hey, isn't that Lu Xiucai? Why is he—" Puppy was interrupted by someone shoving him aside. When he recovered his balance, he saw Lu Juren rolling up his sleeves and rushing at Lu Xiucai with fury in his face.

Lu Zhuangyuan rushed forward as well and slapped Lu Xiucai in the face twice.

The sight invigorated Puppy, and he exclaimed, "This is going to be entertaining!"

Lu Xiucai was soon tied to a tree at the entrance of the village.

Lu Zhuangyan smacked Lu Xiucai with his smoke pipe, and the father and son proceeded to exchange insults.

"How dare you steal my money and run away?! Our old Lu Family has been upright for generations, but a scoundrel like you actually appeared in this generation! I can't accept that—I can't! I'm going to beat you to death, you little bastard!"

"If I'm the little bastard, then you're the big bastard! If you dare to fight me, then release me! Release me, and I'll kill you!"

"Who are you calling a big bastard?! Say that again! Who are you calling a big bastard?!" Lu Zhuangyuan roared, swinging the smoke pipe at Lu Xiucai's mouth.

Bai Lingmiao cast a placid gaze at the father-and-son argument. She leaned out of the carriage, looked around, and turned to the tall Gao Zhijian, asking, "Zhijian, can you bring some paper and pens? We need to sign up some laborers for the village."

Gao Zhijian looked away from Chun Xiaoman and turned to the children behind the carriage.

"All right."

Soon, the desolate Bai Family’s ancestral hall became lively. People were queueing up, stamping their contracts with their handprints. None of them could read, but the contracts remained fair.

"Miaomiao, what's going on?" Chun Xiaoman asked, looking at Gao Zhijian busy writing on the pieces of paper.

"We're making them sign contracts. Grandfather often hired workers, and he always made them sign contracts. These people are just the beginning; more and more people will come here later. With that in mind, we might as well make it systematic from the start," Bai Lingmiao replied, recalling how her grandfather once managed the village.

"You still want to recruit more people?"

"Of course, Cowheart Village is quite large. We need to fill it up at the very least," replied Bai Lingmiao. More people were necessary to revitalize Cowheart Village, especially when they still needed to weed out those who were dumber than average.

Once the stepchildren had signed their individual contracts, Bai Lingmiao stood up and walked up to them, saying, "You're calling me 'stepmother,' so we can be considered family. The trip here was exhausting, so tonight, we'll slaughter a pig and have a good meal."

The children's anxiety upon arriving at a foreign place vanished instantly at the mention of meat. They started drooling; some of them had never tasted meat in their lives and had only heard that pork meat was delicious.

Yang Xiaohai worked hard for the sake of delivering a delicious dinner to everyone. A large black swine weighing over fifty kilos was slaughtered and transformed into a variety of dishes. Amazingly, no part of the pig was wasted.

Afterward, the children were assigned to the empty houses in the village, bringing life back to the quiet village.

The night deepened, and the village became quiet once more. Inside the ancestral hall of the Bai Family, Bai Lingmiao was holding a lantern, stroking the Bai Lian Sect's martial arts manuals with her fingers as her eyes sparkled with desire.

"What do you think? Can these help us resolve the issues we've been encountering from the Immortal families?" Bai Lingmiao asked the Second Deity standing quietly behind her.

The Second Deity recalled a familiar face. "Senior Brother Li said that we could seek out an evil being to use as leverage against the Immortal families."

"He did say that, but he said it so casually. How are we supposed to do that?"

Four lines of tears appeared on the Second Deity’s red veil as an intense feeling of longing surged in her heart. "I miss him."

Bai Lingmiao snarled and chided, "How come you're always thinking about him?! Are you going to die without him? Why are you crying? This is exactly like when you tried to kill yourself back then. You're really pissing me off!"

The Second Deity sobbed and took out a jade pendant. The jade pendant was a gift from Li Huowang; they were planning on selling it, but she decided to keep it.

Bai Lingmiao said, "Have you not noticed that we can no longer intervene in his affairs? If you want to avenge our parents and settle the score, you can go ahead and be a burden to him—become an obstacle to him during his missions."

The Second Deity didn't reply, and Bai Lingmiao could feel her leaving. Soon, a faint sobbing echoed from the darkest corner of the ancestral hall.

Bai Lingmiao rolled her eyes and continued looking around the dark room. After looking around for a while, Bai Lingmiao ultimately fell to the temptation and casually picked up a book to read. Unfortunately, the characters were still a bit too complicated for her to read, and she struggled quite a bit.

As Bai Lingmiao frowned and pondered over the words on the manual, a faint glow from the side caught her attention. Bai Lingmiao turned and saw that the glow was coming from the giant lotus made from white jade on one of the cabinets.

However, the faint glow had become intermittent for some reason. She approached for a closer look, but she had no idea what was going on. Of course, she also had no idea why there was a giant lotus on one of the cabinets.

However, the fact that it was here meant that it was valuable.

Bai Lingmiao thought that it might be related to the so-called Heavenly Mater. From what she had learned, the supernatural powers of the Bai Lian Sect had been bestowed upon them by the Heavenly Mater.

Why is the light flashing? Is something wrong?

A hand landed on Bai Lingmiao's shoulder just then, startling her. She turned around and saw the Second Deity staring at a mural on the wall.

Bai Lingmiao looked up, and her eyes widened slightly. The lotus flower that was being carried by six white donkeys on the mural overlapped with the lotus' petals, and the petals had become so thick that the lotus looked more like a hollow onion rather than a lotus.

Just then, a strange chanting came from their left and inundated them.

"Great Thousand Nectar Realm, Qinghua Chang Le Gate, Eastern Extreme Wonderful Strict Palace. Within the ten million circles, on the nine-colored lotus seat, a hundred billion auspicious lights surround the Jade Pure Spirit Treasure, helping in the great calamity. Seven treasured horses in the forest responding to the origin of Xuan Yuan."

The chanting was a cacophonous din of a variety of voices including men, women, elderly, and youngsters. The voices overlapped incessantly, creating a jarring melody.

Bai Lingmiao trembled all over upon hearing the chanting, and the killing intent in her heart was on the verge of getting dispelled.

No, it’s not just my killing intent… it's affecting my Ten Emotions and Eight Sufferings! A variety of emotions suffused Bai Lingmiao's face as she struggled against the chanting.

Bai Lingmiao instinctively reached out to the lotus made from white jade, and she felt a bit better when the flickering light enveloped her.

Fortunately, the chanting soon disappeared. Bai Lingmiao looked back at the mural in shock and found that the lotus flower that was being carried by six white donkeys had become a conjoined lotus.

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