coobybook Chapter 202 The Foolish Woman Gao Dan's Wrongdoing! She drags her husband and daughter down wit
Chapter 202 The Foolish Woman Gao Dan's Wrongdoing! She drags her husband and daughter down wit
During the Tianbao era, the prosperous city of Chang'an harbored hidden crises. An Lushan's forces secretly infiltrated the court and the countryside, and the practice of feng shui and metaphysics flourished among the common people.
At this time, Xiao Si is an innocent girl who gets caught up in An Lushan's rebellion plot. She has to deal with both the open and hidden attacks from women in the city and protect secret letters that are crucial to the survival of the dynasty.
She possesses the destiny of the Five Waters, corresponding to the Water Virtue of the Five Elements. The holder of this item can sense the fluctuations in people's hearts through special magical artifacts, but must bear the backlash of her destiny.
First, let's talk about the bond between the young girl Xiao Si and her master:
A feng shui master takes in an orphan named Xiao Si and secretly nurtures his Five Waters destiny. However, he discovers a secret letter from An Lushan plotting a rebellion at the home of the husband of a woman named Gao Dan in Chang'an.
Street-level scheming has always been Gao Dan's forte. Driven by jealousy and hatred, she spreads rumors among the noblewomen of Chang'an about Xiao Si's fate and her colleagues, unaware that her husband has already fallen into a vortex of rebellion.
Xiao Si discovered through the glass compass that the woman Gao Dan's gilded three-eight-arm garment contained a secret message pattern. While following her, he stumbled upon Shun Fu, who had a fierce expression, having a secret conversation with a Hu merchant.
Then there's the so-called "fatal tea party": the woman Gao Dan also came to attend the treacherous banquet, her mind filled with thoughts of how to be jealous of Xiao Si and how to find flaws in the perfect Xiao Si to embarrass her.
Xiao Si deciphered the deadly poison through the divination of the tea soup and unexpectedly discovered that Gao Dan's daughter was the writer of the secret letter, but was later reborn as a security guard at a subway entrance holding a detector.
While the foolish woman Gao Dan was plotting how to trick her husband out of his salary to buy new clothes, Xiao Si had already presented a secret letter to the emperor, revealing the shocking, bloody truth.
Xiao Si was shocked to discover that the emperor had already tacitly approved of An Lushan's rebellion, and that this turmoil was actually a game of imperial strategy...
The morning mist on the bluestone road had not yet dissipated, and Xiao Si's cloth shoes were already covered with dew.
She stared at the teahouse at the corner of Zhuque Street, the coolness seeping from her palm as she held the glass compass.
This is the ritual implement that her master gave her before his death, and it is now pointing to the private room on the third floor—where the foolish woman Gao Dan is sitting and doing her makeup.
"Young master, you've arrived very early." The tea server lifted the bamboo curtain, and the aroma of agarwood wafted out, mixed with the spiciness of borneol from the Western Regions.
Xiao Si's pupils suddenly contracted. The gilded three-eight-arm armor that Gao Dan was wearing today contained a secret message pattern, which was exactly the pattern of the secret message.
Gao Dan crushed the tea cake into fine pieces, the gold bracelet on her wrist jingling: "This is newly arrived Mengding stone flower tea; even my brother raves about it!"
This woman was vulgar. Even when she came into contact with high-ranking officials and nobles, she was never respectable. The "brother" she spoke of was nothing more than an old steward who took advantage of her and lusted after her bloated body.
The moment the boiling water poured into the Jian kiln rabbit fur teacup, Xiao Si saw the jade ring on her little finger flash with a ghostly light—the snake's tongue mark of the lowly Five Poisons Sect.
The tea soup rippled strangely in the cup, and Xiao Si's fingertips lightly touched the rim of the cup.
The chill brought by the Five Waters Fate Pattern travels along the meridians, and the tea foam even condenses into a Bagua (Eight Trigrams) pattern.
“The Kan position’s life gate is locked, this tea…” Xiao Si looked up and met Gao Dan’s cold smile that he couldn’t hide in time. He suddenly understood why all the musicians in the teahouse were new faces today.
"Madam, are you aware of the secret behind this teacup?" Xiao Si suddenly flipped the teacup over, and the brown tea flowed in strange patterns on the table. "The clay of Jian kiln contains magnetism; when it comes into contact with gilded ware, it will alter a person's blood and energy."
She watched as the tea gradually seeped into Gao Dan's peacock-patterned skirt, and the gold-embroidered lotus blossoms suddenly began to fade.
Gao Dan's face turned ashen. Just as he was about to slam his fist on the table and stand up, the sound of porcelain shattering suddenly came from behind the screen.
Xiao Si darted into the inner room and saw Gao Dan's daughter, A Ruo, writing on the wall with her blood-stained fingers.
The crooked handwriting perfectly matched the secret letter's inscription: "In the winter of the ninth year of Tianbao, there was unusual activity in Fanyang."
The window frame was shattered by a strong gust of wind, and three willow-leaf darts were driven into the wall.
Xiao Si hugged A Ruo and rolled towards the corner of the wall, catching a glimpse of a black cloak flashing across the opposite rooftop.
The girl in her arms suddenly grabbed her collar and wrote on Xiao Si's palm with her blood-stained fingers: "The secret letter was dug out of the mouth of a dead man by my father."
……
Xiao Si discovered that every time she used the Glazed Compass, white hairs would appear at her temples, suggesting that the Five Waters Fate was consuming her transmigration energy.
It turns out that Gao Dan's husband's merchant friend was actually a Sogdian spy under An Lushan's command, and they were using wine barrels to transport weapons into the capital.
Emperor Xuanzong knew all along that An Lushan harbored rebellious intentions, and deliberately condoned the rebellion to purge the Guanzhong aristocracy from the court. The secret letter was actually bait set up by the higher-ups!
As for Gao Dan's daughter, she hated her pig-brained mother to the core.
Gao Dan is a dullard, like a block of stone, yet he always pretends to be innocent and naive. In reality, he is narrow-minded and extremely jealous.
Her greatest skill lies in her attention to clothing and appearance.
Her wardrobe was overflowing with gaudy, tacky clothes, which filled the living room. Before going out, she would spend a lot of time dressing up, making herself look flamboyant and tacky. She would tell everyone that her husband was an official and could afford to support her.
In public, she deliberately puffed out her chest and held her head high, feigning arrogance, and every gesture she made was an effort to put on an air of nobility, hoping to win the envious glances of others.
But anyone who has had close contact with her knows that she is actually quite vulgar.
Before each outing, she would spend a long time meticulously dressing up in front of a bronze mirror, drawing her eyebrows and applying makeup, adorning herself in a flamboyant manner, wearing a Tang-style ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress) that exposed her chest and back, and accessories that were inappropriate for her status.
Passersby wanted to say something to her, after all, it was a rare sight to see a lower-class woman dressed in such an unbecoming manner.
As she walked through the streets, she deliberately held her head high and puffed out her chest, feigning arrogance in her eyes. Every gesture she made was an effort to project an air of elegance and nobility, with the sole aim of winning praise and envy from others.
However, everyone who has ever interacted with her knows that she is actually vulgar and shallow.
In Chang'an, scholars and literati often gathered by the Qujiang Pool to discuss poetry and philosophy.
Whenever he had the chance, Gao Dan would gladly go and join in the fun, otherwise there would be no occasion to show off his silk and satin garments...
As everyone was discussing Li Bai's newly composed poem, she couldn't wait to speak up in order to show off her knowledge. However, she made many mistakes and misattributed the allusions in the poem, which drew snickers from the crowd.
Others kindly reminded her not to speak carelessly in this gathering of scholars, lest she expose her ignorance. But she remained unrepentant, continuing to speak eloquently and revealing her shallowness. Everyone shook their heads and sighed, feeling that she had ruined the elegant atmosphere.
She was utterly incompetent when it came to her daughter's upbringing.
Her mind was not on her daughter at all; she only thought about buying fine silks and satins and dressing herself up carefully every day.
At that time, girls' schools were emerging in Chang'an. Her daughter was eagerly looking forward to entering a girls' school to learn, but she was stingy with money and unwilling to prepare tuition fees for her daughter, neglecting her daughter's studies.
The teacher invited the parents to the school to discuss the students' studies, but she always made various excuses to avoid going.
She ignored the fact that her daughter's writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones were old and worn out.
When her daughter excitedly recounted the fun things that happened at the academy, hoping to receive her attention and response, she would either give a perfunctory reply or impatiently interrupt her daughter.
Not only that, she also acts like a child, vying with her daughter for her husband's affection!
Whenever her husband showed affection to their daughter, she would feel jealous and inexplicably angry, trying every means to draw her husband's attention back to herself.
Once, her husband bought a beautiful set of writing implements for their daughter. Upon seeing it, she immediately made sarcastic remarks, complaining that the style was outdated and criticizing her husband for wasting money, completely ignoring the grievances and disappointment in her daughter's eyes.
Her actions made her daughter's path to adulthood fraught with difficulties. Lacking her mother's guidance, her daughter was ridiculed by her classmates for her lack of manners at school; and when she encountered difficulties in her studies, she received no encouragement or support from her mother.
Gao Dan's ignorance, selfishness, and narrow-mindedness have completely dragged her daughter down, and it's no wonder that her daughter harbors deep resentment towards her.
At that moment, in the elegant room filled with the aroma of tea, Xiao Si suddenly noticed strange ripples appearing on the surface of the glass compass.
The gilded armlet reflected light on Gao Dan's wrist, casting a blurry "security check" sign on the blue brick floor.
These simplified Chinese characters, originating from a thousand years later, can only be glimpsed by those born under the Five Waters destiny.
"Young master, try this tea with perilla salt." When Gao Dan's daughter, A'ruo, pushed the Jianzhan teacup over, Xiao Si, who was dressed as a man, clearly saw silver-gray metal fragments embedded in her fingernails—it was clearly a special alloy that would be produced when a bullet grazed the rifling.
The hexagram formed by the tea froth suddenly trembled violently, and a sharp electronic buzzing sound rang in Xiao Si's ears.
Within the spatial rift constructed by the Five Waters Fate, she saw A-Ruo standing in front of the subway turnstile wearing a fluorescent vest, the metal detector she held being a transformation of the Glass Compass.
The flashing red dot on the security scanner screen perfectly coincided with the arsenic crystals slowly sinking into the tea soup.
"Miss, are you aware of the intricacies of 'going through the X-ray inspection'?" Xiao Si suddenly grabbed Gao Dan's daughter, A'Ruo's wrist, pressing her fingertips against the artery where A'Ruo wore a jade ring. "Just like the poison in this tea, it can't escape the ultraviolet light!"
The moment the sound of porcelain shattering came from behind the screen, three Kaiyuan Tongbao coins flew out from Xiao Si's sleeve.
The moment the copper coin shattered the window paper, the announcements of the subway station in later generations and the hawking sounds of the Tang Dynasty market strangely overlapped.
The words "mother murder" written on the wall by A'Ruo's blood-stained fingers have become a dangerous goods warning sign on the security check screen.
……
Aruo knelt on the blue bricks of the ancestral hall, her knees bleeding profusely from being pierced by shards of broken porcelain.
The mother held up the rattan cane, casting a distorted shadow in the moonlight. The shimmering light from the sweet water well reflected on the windowpane, like countless mocking eyes.
In the distance, the laughter of neighboring children drinking well water drifted over, but all she tasted on her tongue was the bitter, fishy tang of the well.
On the night of her coming-of-age ceremony, under her red veil, she bit her lip and swallowed her bloody tears. The mimosa flowers in the tyrant's mansion bloomed luxuriantly in the moonlight, just like the purple marks on her waist where she had been pinched.
The incandescent light bulbs of the subway station in later generations buzzed above A'Ruo's head, and the five poisonous cinnabar moles under the collar of her uniform suddenly burned like branding irons.
As the trendy young woman Zhen Xiaosi brushed past, the old woman's hoarse whisper overlapped with the whispers that had circulated beneath the walls of the Yeting Palace a thousand years ago:
Don't forget to check the soles of your shoes!
In the blue light of the monitor screen, the mysterious man in the Tang suit revealed military boots through the fluttering fabric of his clothes—the standard equipment of the special forces under my father's command.
In the archives late at night, yellowed experimental records show that "on X month X day of X year, the memory of the 79th experimental subject was successfully cleansed." On the inside of the wrist of the mother, Gao Dan, in the photo, there is a tattoo of a tiger-backed, bear-waisted stupid girl from the Third-Rate Five Poisons Cult.
On a stormy night, Aruo stood in the eerie blue halo of the particle collider, while her stepfather, dressed in a crisp military uniform, and the leader in a Tang suit were adjusting the spacetime coordinates.
"Your mother sold you into the brothel back then, and in this life she's using you as a test subject. You're truly excellent material for reincarnation."
The leader's laughter shook the water from the ceiling. A'Ruo pressed the detonator, and the ancestral Gu worms emerged from their cinnabar birthmarks, gnawing at the intricate circuitry.
"Does Mother know?" She held up the evidence—the sole of her mother's shoe stained with ashes—"You used the flesh and blood of your closest relatives as anchors in time and space; I will use this karmic fire to burn away your centuries-long schemes!"
When the thunder cleaved through the night, the patterns on Gao Dan's broad back and strong waist shattered inch by inch, turning into the mottled patina on bronzeware.
The glass compass burned a scorch mark on Xiao Si's palm, and the divination indicated that this cycle of reincarnation would not end until six more times...