Carrying these doubts with her, Lang Jiuchuan arrived at the mourning hall — but the moment she crossed into the courtyard, her body lurched. Her spirit grew unstable, nearly slipping free of the flesh that housed it.

An incantation rose to the surface of her mind in an instant. Her fingers twitched subtly, and she forced her spirit back into the body with an iron grip.

Panguan, you plague-ridden wretch — you said this flesh and I were perfectly matched. I spit on that claim!

Lang Jiuchuan looked toward the corner of the courtyard. More than a dozen gleaming bald heads shone in the sunlight, nearly blinding her two borrowed dog eyes. The unceasing Sanskrit chanting bored into her eardrums like a torment, lashing at her spirit.

She was borrowing a dead shell — and a ruined one at that. Both her spirit and her body were incomplete. Confronted directly with these golden-light-laden sutras, she was suffering immensely.

Lang Jiuchuan silently reinforced the soul-binding incantation on herself. Her swaying body was caught and steadied by Jian Lan.

Jian Lan was badly frightened. She gripped her arm and asked, “Are you alright?”

She stared at Lang Jiuchuan’s face in alarm, instinctively swallowing. That single stumble had drained all remaining color from her complexion — not a drop of blood left in it, as white and lifeless as a corpse.

And her hands — they were ice cold.

Jian Lan’s own heart trembled.

This Ninth Young Miss, so renowned by name yet never seen in person — could she be a sickly, frail creature on the verge of collapse?

Lang Jiuchuan gritted her teeth and shook her head. “Let’s go in.”

Hearing this, Jian Lan tightened her grip on her arm, terrified she might truly fall.

By now it was well past midday, and fewer visitors had come to pay their respects than in the morning. Lang Jiuchuan crossed paths with only a handful of people.

As she entered the mourning hall, one figure among the Shengren chanting sutras in the courtyard — a gaunt elderly monk — raised his head and looked toward the hall entrance, his brow furrowing faintly.

A most peculiar aura.

The moment Lang Jiuchuan stepped inside the mourning hall, those kneeling on straw mats in deep mourning along the southeastern wall all turned to look at her. Their expressions held flickers of surprise and unfamiliarity — but someone murmured something, and their faces settled into knowing comprehension.

Ah. The ill omen of the Second Branch.

With no outsiders present in the hall at the moment, many of them stared at her without any attempt at restraint.

She looks terribly frail. And her face — it’s exactly the same color as the old lord lying in the coffin over there.

Lang Jiuchuan paid no mind to the gazes fixed upon her. She simply cast a glance at the gilded nanmu wood coffin resting against the wall, carved with longevity characters. The old lord of the Lang Family had already been laid out in full burial attire — they were preparing to seal the lid.

“Ninth Young Miss, please offer incense and kowtow to the old lord.” A steward who had evidently already learned her identity lit three sticks of incense and handed them over.

Lang Jiuchuan did not move for a moment. The watching eyes began to twitch.

How utterly ignorant.

This is what comes of being raised on a country estate — not a shred of propriety. What a dull creature.

Jian Lan grew anxious as well, and gently urged in a low voice, “Young Miss?”

Lang Jiuchuan came back to herself. To the eyes of everyone present, she accepted the incense with visible reluctance, bowed three times in the direction of the coffin, and inserted the sticks into the incense burner before the casket, already bristling with the burned-down bones of spent sticks.

Once she had paid her respects, another serving woman gestured for her to approach the coffin and view the remains, and said to her in a hard, flat tone, “Ninth Young Miss, as a granddaughter who has long been absent from the family and unable to render service at your grandfather’s side, you ought to keen and kowtow until your forehead strikes the floor, as a demonstration of filial piety.”

Everyone in this room — young and old alike — were filial descendants with red-rimmed eyes. And this one? Not so much as a trace of grief on her face.

Those who didn’t grow up in the residence just have harder hearts.

Lang Jiuchuan caught the dissatisfaction and contempt in those words. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked over.

How amusing. Her long absence from home — was that her choice? The Lang Family had never thought to bring her back. When they finally did remember her, it was to summon her for a funeral — and even then, it was already too late.

The true Lang Jiuchuan had died beyond all recovery, her very soul scattered to the winds knew not where.

The thought of it made the malice in her eyes rise to the surface.

Cold. Cutting. Dark.

Lang Jiuchuan fixed the serving woman with her gaze and said in a low, sinister tone, “Is it the Lang Family custom to have a servant teach the masters how to conduct themselves?”