Everyone in the world knows that paper-crafted spirit offerings are made from nothing more than bamboo strips and paper. Skilled funeral shops create paper offerings that look remarkably lifelike — like the pile of offerings waiting to be burned before them now, every one exquisitely beautiful.

Therefore, an ordinary paper offering should contain nothing beyond bamboo strips and paper. Yet who had told them that the paper-crafted spirit maiden that Lang Jiuchuan had frantically smashed apart — why, at her feet, was there a blackened, ominous object?

Was that… a finger bone?

Outside, the north wind howled, and then came a tremendous boom — a gust of wind had blown down the white mourning banners standing outside, sending the younger girls shrieking in fright, cowering behind the adults and trembling.

The female family members were equally frightened.

Especially with the Elder’s coffin still present in the mourning hall, the lid not yet sealed — looking closely, beneath the mourning cloth the wind had lifted, one could see the face beneath: utterly pallid and colorless, sunken, dreadfully grim.

Though it was their Elder, and he would not leap out to harm them — in this moment, in this scene, in this atmosphere, who among them was not unnerved?

Lang Jiuchuan tossed that blood-soaked finger bone toward Lang Zhengping. He instinctively reached out and caught it.

Cold and sinister to the touch, he shuddered. The moment he realized what it was, every instinct told him to fling it away — but he forcibly restrained himself and said: “What is this thing — how did it come to be here…”

For an object being burned as an offering for the ancestors to contain something so unknown and evidently malevolent — everyone knew this could be nothing good.

“A child’s finger bone, carved with runes, soaked in human blood — it is an object of dark malevolence.” Lang Jiuchuan sat back down before the spirit-money basin: “Since the matter is resolved, all of you should go rest. I will keep the vigil.”

With only her here, the merit energy wouldn’t be diluted by the Lang family members. Hehe — she really was a clever little thing!

Everyone watched her actually toss spirit money into the basin and settle into the posture of someone keeping vigil — the corners of their mouths twitched involuntarily.

Was this the moment to be keeping vigil? That finger bone — you say just a little and don’t explain properly. Even a storyteller doesn’t bait the audience as well as you do. Are you asking to be struck by lightning?

Even Lang Zhengping, the new head of the household, could barely hold himself together — he wanted to throw that finger bone right back at her and shout: if you know something, say more of it — not these half-finished hints.

“Ninth Young Miss, how did you know this object would be hidden inside the paper offering?” Lang Zhengping narrowed his eyes and asked.

Lang Jiuchuan didn’t even look up: “If I said a ghost told me, would you believe it?”

“…”

What sort of answer was that?

“This is no small matter — can you not speak properly?” Cui Shi, suppressing her irritation, spoke up.

Lang Jiuchuan’s hand paused. She looked up and said: “Since it is no small matter, it is for you to investigate — what use is there in asking me? What — a grand and illustrious marquis’s household, and you can’t even afford to keep one insignificant young miss, let alone look into how this object ended up inside an ancestor’s paper offering? Is there truly no one capable of that?”

Everyone fumed.

What kind of talk is this — enough to vex someone to death without recourse. What do you mean, can’t afford to keep you?

The marquis’s household, though it had seen better days and had been declining for years, was still a ship with plenty of nails left in it even if it was rotting.

Yet not a single person dared argue at this moment — especially with Cui Shi’s expression turning to ice, no one dared make a sound.

She was clearly venting her resentment toward her mother in a roundabout way.

Lang Zhengping found her deeply exasperating — this niece of his not only had rebellion in her bones but was covered in thorns from head to toe. Two words out of place and she was stabbing someone.

He looked at Cui Shi, then at his own wife, and finally at his eldest daughter-in-law Wu Shi — and made eye contact.

You. You’re the one who can get through to her.

Wu Shi’s heart lurched at receiving her father-in-law’s meaningful look, and she walked over. She casually picked up a sheet of spirit money and tossed it into the brazier, then asked in a trembling voice: “Ninth Sister, if that malevolent object had remained on the paper-crafted spirit maiden this whole time — what would have happened?”

Everyone strained their ears.

Lang Jiuchuan said: “What would have happened? Are those three not living proof? What is a malevolent object? A thing of dark yin evil — what it draws is misfortune and calamity. As for what consequences follow from being touched by such things, I imagine you don’t need this village girl to explain it to you.”

Every wealthy household prayed to the gods and worshipped the Buddha. Even those who publicly dismissed the strange and supernatural still paid their respects at temples, and the women of the inner household were especially devout. Everyone had heard of what happened to people after they became tainted by something unclean, even if they hadn’t witnessed it themselves.

And even if they hadn’t, Lang Caize’s earlier appearance of being completely possessed — was that not an entirely comprehensive demonstration of what it looked like to be entangled by malevolent spirits?

Sensing everyone’s gazes, Lang Caize: “…”

He had no desire whatsoever to be this cautionary example.

Wu Shi swallowed again and asked: “Then how did you discover it…”

“Perhaps a ghost possessed me!” Lang Jiuchuan sighed and said: “Otherwise, what ability would I, a mere village girl, have? Surely you don’t think I’m some all-knowing, all-capable grand master?”

Right. The conversation was completely dead — talked to death.

Everyone swelled with rage like puffer fish.

They had never encountered anyone whose very words made them want to give her a thorough thrashing.

Lang Zhengping, seeing her utterly casual and indifferent manner, knew he would not get much more of use out of her. When he thought about it — she was nothing more than a girl who hadn’t even come of age yet. What great ability could she have? Noticing that the paper-crafted spirit maiden was wrong had probably come from years of living on the estate, seeing such things often enough to have picked up on something odd.

His gaze drifted to the corner where his father’s coffin rested, and guilt came flooding up. Regardless of the circumstances, that the objects being prepared to be burned for his father in the underworld had been compromised was a failure of filial piety on his part as the eldest son — he had been negligent.

“Ninth Sister,” Lang Caicheng spoke up at this moment, his voice trembling: “Paper figures — summoning spirits into them — what does that mean?”

Lang Jiuchuan looked toward the paper-crafted spirit maiden and said: “The meaning is literal. As for summoning a spirit — what does it mean to summon a spirit? It means to grant life to something dead. The eyes of a paper figure are not painted casually — does painting them not bring it to life?”

Everyone looked again at that row of paper figures — those eyes, painted with startling realism, seemed to peer right through the paper and fix themselves upon the onlookers.

“Wait — you people raised in the city, people of refinement — do you really not know that paper figures must not have their eyes painted, must not have their pupils added?” Lang Jiuchuan put on an expression of theatrical astonishment: “On the estate, even small children know this.”

Everyone: “…”

Whether we knew or not is one thing — but that condescending, pointed tone of hers is something that truly deserves a slap.

“All right — everyone disperse. Third Brother, bring people in here to keep the vigil…” Lang Zhengping, seeing everyone’s barely-suppressed resentment, felt his head pounding. To disturb their father’s rest any further would be a true failure of filial piety.

Lang Jiuchuan spoke urgently: “There’s no need — I am sufficient. The yin energy here has not yet fully dissipated. If you all linger in this place, yin energy will enter your bodies — you’ll either suffer misfortune or fall ill!”

At these words, everyone’s eyes nearly rolled back into their heads.

Lang Cailing, emboldened by the numbers around her, pointed at her and erupted: “How can you be so vicious? You say these things to outsiders, and now to family as well — how dare you speak such malicious curses.”

Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold laugh: “Treating my good intentions as the lungs of a dog, are we. Fine, fine, fine — stay if you want. Just don’t blame me for not having warned you.”

She dragged the brazier close to her crossed legs and spoke not another word.

That attitude, perversely, left everyone feeling uneasy in their hearts.

Lang Zhengping still had third brother leave two young men behind — the mourning hall couldn’t be left without a single male present. As for Lang Jiuchuan’s words, they went in one ear and out the other.

Everyone filed out of the mourning hall, and the wind outside hit them, sending a shiver running through each of them.

“Something isn’t right — how does she know about all these strange and crooked things?”

“Who knows. She probably attended so many banquets on the estate and saw so much of that sort of thing, she grew a thick skin and sharp eyes. Guts like that — she might have even burned spirit money for people herself.”

Cui Shi heard the murmuring, and her cold eyes swept over those who had spoken. The two juniors immediately drew their necks in, not daring to say another word.

Lang Zhengping, meanwhile, summoned a trusted steward and sent people to investigate the matter of the paper offerings. Looking at the white mourning banners in the courtyard, he recalled what Lang Jiuchuan had pointed out in the mourning hall — and then he thought of what she had said to the elder Zhao. A sudden chill settled in his heart without warning.