A woman. How on earth could it be a woman — and a frail woman at that, one who would topple in a gust of wind?

Lang Jiuchuan had heard those words all the way home, repeated over and over again, and watched as that ball of white mist contorted itself into countless shapes — stretching into a long strip one moment, puffing into a round ball the next — muttering the same phrase endlessly, as though it were wrestling with some kind of dilemma.

It did not move. Lang Jiuchuan simply pretended it did not exist, though her hand never left the Dizhong bell hanging at her waist.

This consciousness — she did not know what it was, but she could smell something of her own kind coming from it. That being the case, it was not something she could dismiss lightly.

Indeed, the white mist before her was no ordinary cloud. It was a consciousness of unknown origin, and Lang Jiuchuan felt it was best not to ignore anything whose background she could not see through — particularly given the state of her current body.

It followed her the whole way home, muttering without cease, and it was not until they were back at the Lang estate, inside her own courtyard, that it seemed to make up its mind.

“A woman’s it is, then. At the very least, she’s my turning point, and I can hardly afford to discard it.” The consciousness fixed its gaze on Lang Jiuchuan, and from between clenched teeth squeezed out: “Besides — a great tiger can be fierce or yielding; it can be male, and it can be female. As long as I say nothing, who can tell?”

What?

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyelid twitched. She jerked her head up — and the consciousness had already launched itself at her with blinding speed.

A hum resonated through her.

Lang Jiuchuan’s spiritual soul gave a violent wrench, nearly sent completely flying, while the consciousness forced its way in with savage aggression, making straight for her spiritual core, intent on seizing it and pushing her soul out entirely.

Overbearing and brute.

Lang Jiuchuan nearly laughed in her fury. So that was it. She now understood — it had been hesitating because it resented that she was a woman, and had been wavering over whether to seize this broken body of hers.

First the little ghost in the mourning hall, and now this consciousness of unknown origin.

Really. There were always people with bad eyes coveting this body of hers!

“Young Miss…” Xiao Man came in carrying a pot of tea.

Lang Jiuchuan’s voice turned sharp and cold. “Get out!”

Xiao Man was startled, unable to make sense of why she had erupted like this. She set the tea down and quickly retreated, pulling the door shut behind her. She pressed a hand to her still-thumping heart and moved further away.

Inside the room, Lang Jiuchuan gripped the Dizhong bell, her voice cold and frigid. “Either you get yourself out, or I force you out!”

Upon hearing those words, the consciousness — which had been fighting to take root — gave a full-body shudder, like a startled cat with every hair standing on end. “You can actually see me? So you’ve been watching me jabber away the entire time?”

“Don’t make me say it a third time. Get out of my body!”

The consciousness let out a defiant sound. “This body of yours is my turning point. As long as I take hold of it, I can make my comeback.” It paused, then gave a cold laugh. “And besides — aren’t you an outsider too? This body doesn’t rightfully belong to you either. Let each of us rely on our own abilities.”

Rely on our own abilities, indeed!

Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze went ice-cold. She gave the Dizhong bell in her hand a shake, and a long, resonant toll rang out — a bell-sound saturated with the profound will of the Dao, rolling outward like a wave, striking straight to the heart and driving deep into the soul.

The consciousness was rattled by that bell-sound. The consciousness that had been on the verge of taking root inside the spiritual core suddenly locked up and began to disperse, and pain like millions of needles from the fires of hell stabbed into it mercilessly, leaving it riddled with wounds.

“Ahhh, you madwoman!” The consciousness shrieked in agony — and yet the pain only stirred its inborn refusal to yield. It bore down harder, driving its roots deeper. “If I don’t get to feel good, you don’t get to feel good either.”

The consciousness, fine and mist-like, did not just push into the spiritual core; it spread outward through the entire body.

Lang Jiuchuan’s face went bloodless white. She cursed under her breath, pouring her intent into the Dizhong bell in her hand, causing the bell-sound to ripple out in layered waves, tunnelling into the spiritual core like a demonic chant, hammering at the consciousness there.

The two of them were locked in a contest of wills: whoever flinched would lose; whoever showed weakness first would lose.

Lang Jiuchuan’s Dizhong bell did not stop ringing, and the consciousness seemed just as unwilling to concede a single inch — but facing the ruthless figure before it, it could not help being shaken.

It had taken root inside the spiritual core of this body, but upon truly entering, it found the body was utterly ravaged — broken in several places — and it was only because Lang Jiuchuan had been using techniques to hold up a normal-looking exterior that she had seemed intact. Now that she was locked in battle with it and had let those techniques drop, her two dark and glistening eyes tumbled right out of their sockets onto the floor; her arms and legs hung slack in an unsettling, boneless way; and there was a gaping hollow in the middle of her chest.

The consciousness stared in horror.

Unbearable to look at.

“Madwoman, would you stop!” the consciousness bellowed.

This insane person — her bell was well-played, true enough — but did she not see where she was striking? Yes, she was hitting it, but it was currently inside her body, so whatever damage it suffered, could this body really come out any better? She herself was inside this body too — was she not hurting herself just as much?

This was clearly the lowest of strategies: wound the enemy by a thousand while suffering eight hundred losses yourself — and yet this lunatic carried on without any regard whatsoever.

Lang Jiuchuan seemed not to hear a word of it. Her complexion had gone the colour of a corpse, yet she continued to drive the Dizhong bell, attempting to break apart the enormous votive power the consciousness was using to push back against her.

Votive power — this creature actually possessed votive power.

She craved it. She tried to siphon off the tiniest thread of it, but that golden light scorched her upon contact, and the pain nearly sent her soul flying out of her body.

Lang Jiuchuan’s soul was not whole. Fighting a full-force confrontation like this was causing the soul to ache more and more.

She could not lose.

She had already died once — and now to die again so quickly? Did she have no pride whatsoever?

It was not as though she were playing some endless dying-and-reviving game.

Lang Jiuchuan let go of the Dizhong bell, and in the moment the consciousness believed it had won, she drew out the jade-bone talisman brush — the Panguan’s Brush.

She took the brush and swiftly drew a talisman on her own palm. A flash of golden light, and then she drove it hard against her own forehead.

One talisman to determine the outcome.

The consciousness let out a wretched cry, and at last, fear took over. It retreated from the spiritual core.

Thud.

Lang Jiuchuan could hold on no longer either and collapsed to the floor. Her soul had grown so hollow it was on the verge of losing its anchor, so she jabbed the talisman brush against her own forehead.

Soul-anchoring.

“You — you absolute madwoman!” The consciousness was even more depleted than she was, wrapping itself in the thin golden light of its votive power and pointing at Lang Jiuchuan, who lay on the floor equally close to death. “What good did being that ruthless do you? Tell me!”

Lang Jiuchuan opened her mouth at it, and with a gush, spat out a mouthful of black blood. She wiped it away, and with her filthy mouth, spat to the side and laughed. “My body — if you want to seize it, then seize it — but did you ask me first? At the very worst, we both die.”

The consciousness was so furious it was nearly undone.

So this was what they called the kind of lunatic who frightened even themselves when they turned vicious.

Furious as it was, the consciousness had no intention of leaving. It needed this turning point. It was its lifeline. And so it said: “If you’d told me from the start that you could see me, the two of us wouldn’t have had to end up like this, both beaten half to death. There was room to talk things over, wasn’t there?”

“I don’t know you.”

The consciousness held back its feelings, forced a hollow smile, and said, “Well, after a good fight, we can say we’ve become acquainted now, can’t we?”

Lang Jiuchuan said lightly, “Defeated opponent.”

Ah, how it wanted to fight her to the last.

But when its gaze fell on her talisman brush and the Dizhong bell, it held itself back. It had noticed her unspoken actions from earlier. Thinking it over, it separated a thread of votive power and passed it to her.

Lang Jiuchuan accepted it without the slightest ceremony. This was a long drought finally receiving sweet rain — votive power and merit, as it turned out, were the greatest of tonics.

But then, that stingy, wretched thing — it stopped.

The consciousness watched her eyes go red with hunger, and let out a mean little laugh. “Want more? Then can we have a proper conversation now?”