Lang Jiuchuan and the consciousness sat across from each other at a round table.

“Speak then. What manner of consciousness are you, and what is your purpose in trying to seize this wrecked body of mine?” Lang Jiuchuan’s face was perfectly cold — though that impression would have been far more convincing if those two eyes of hers were not staring at the votive power surrounding the other party with the hunger of a dog that had spotted a slab of meat.

The consciousness sighed. “If I could remember, would I have been so conflicted about you as my turning point?”

Not being straight with her.

Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold laugh, her fingertip shifting slightly. The jade-bone talisman brush seemed to come alive in her hand, spinning rapidly, blurring the eye — and in a tone of complete indifference, she said, “Oh? What kind of turning point would make you conflicted about this female body of mine?”

The consciousness was already watching the spinning brush in a daze, and so when she posed her question, it answered without a second thought: “Of course I’m conflicted! I am the magnificent White Tiger King — to enter a woman’s body would mean becoming a fe—”

It suddenly felt something was off, leapt onto the table, and let out a wailing cry: “Wretched human, you tricked me!”

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes half-lidded. “So it’s only a cat.”

The White Tiger, upon hearing this, was more furious than ever, bristling and snarling: “What cat?! I am the White Tiger, King of All Beasts on Mount Taiyi, the sovereign that ten thousand animals pay tribute to — how dare you call me a little kitten?!”

A cat — this was an insult of the highest order to it!

“Oh, but didn’t you say you couldn’t remember anything?” Lang Jiuchuan said with a half-smile. “So you never intended to talk things over with me nicely from the start. ‘Those who are not of our kind harbor different intentions’ — those words really do hold true.”

The White Tiger had been backed into a corner. For a long moment it was at a loss for words, and after much struggling, managed to say: “I have… intermittent amnesia.”

As the words left its mouth, it felt how transparently false they sounded even to itself.

Sure enough, the wretched person across from it began to chase the tiger away.

“No sincerity — then there is nothing to discuss. Off with you, and don’t let me see you out.”

The White Tiger panicked. “On what grounds do I have to leave?”

“On the grounds that this is my territory and this is my body. And don’t tell me I’m an outsider too — right now, I am the one who is here, so it is mine. What is more, I am here through a proper soul return; I am no reckless body-snatcher.” Lang Jiuchuan said coldly. “You want to snatch a body, but have you thought about how many thunderbolts a scattering consciousness like yours could withstand?”

A body-snatcher invited the thunder of heaven — survive, and you live; fail to survive, and you die.

The White Tiger thought back to the tribulation it had undergone, those violet bolts of lightning as thick as water barrels. It had been a legitimate crossing through a proper tribulation, yet it had still not survived. Now it was nothing but a wisp of consciousness drifting through the world.

“But I was guided here by an enlightened one!” the White Tiger argued. “If a great master pointed the way, it means a path to life has been found for me. They say the Great Dao is fifty, the Heavenly Cycle forty-nine — this one thread of chance is mine to grasp, and Heaven itself cannot stand in my way.” The White Tiger argued: “Do you know how long I have waited for my turning point to stir? Three hundred and fifty-nine days. Three hundred and fifty-nine days of waiting.”

“What does that have to do with me!”

“Your body is my turning point! As long as I reside within it, I can truly live on, and not vanish from this world. In time, I will ascend once more and become a divine beast—”

“Quite the boast from someone with no great ability. Ascend once more — are you cultivating immortality? This is the mortal realm.” Lang Jiuchuan sneered.

“I am a White Tiger who has cultivated for five hundred years — a born war deity,” the White Tiger said.

“Indeed — a dead war deity.”

The White Tiger puffed up like a blowfish with rage, its consciousness swelling to several times its size as it glared ferociously down at the diminutive Lang Jiuchuan.

Lang Jiuchuan raised her talisman brush upright. “If you want to fight, then fight — stop bluffing.”

The White Tiger gave a cold snort. “There’s no need for you to put on a brave front before me either. Your soul is incomplete. You’re using techniques to maintain any semblance of normality in this wrecked body, and sooner or later you will run out of strength and be exposed. If you meet something more troublesome — something you cannot overpower — you may well end up with your soul utterly obliterated. You’re not much better off than I am.”

The colour drained from Lang Jiuchuan’s face.

The White Tiger settled back into its usual bearing and said, “So why not cooperate, and reach an outcome where both of us win?”

“Oh?”

“What if you and I share this body, and support each other?” the White Tiger pressed persuasively. “Right now, I have no wish to waste votive power and spiritual power fighting you. If I truly went all in, you would not come out of it well either…”

“Then let’s have another round. I’m sure the great White Tiger is no coward.”

“You’re a woman,” the White Tiger sputtered indignantly. “How can you have such a fighting spirit? When both sides take losses, there are no real victors.”

Lang Jiuchuan let out a derisive laugh. “Who knows — maybe in the end I swallow your consciousness whole and come out the clear winner?”

The White Tiger felt a sudden chill. That insufferable woman was so arrogant.

“Stop being stubborn. You only entered this body within the last few days, am I right? Let me guess — this body is ravaged to this degree, which means the original person must have died a terrible death. As a rule, those who die in violent circumstances leave restless souls that do not scatter. Since you are using this body, cause and effect dictate that you must avenge the original soul’s grievances; only by putting that soul to rest can you truly bond with this body and become its rightful owner.”

Lang Jiuchuan was caught off guard. She had not expected this foolish cat to have a working brain.

“Just now, you were absolutely hungering after my votive power. If you let me share this body, the votive power I carry can nourish you as well. Two souls occupying one body, our combined power will be vast — surely better than you struggling along on your own. Once this body’s damage is mended and I find a new host, I will naturally leave. By then, your soul will have been well nourished, will it not?”

Lang Jiuchuan turned the talisman brush over in her fingers and said, “First, you tell me — you are a White Tiger who gave rise to a consciousness. How did you end up in such a state?”

“How else? Heaven has treated me unjustly. During my tribulation crossing to ascend, I could not withstand the lightning strikes.” The White Tiger King said mournfully. “After the failed crossing, my consciousness wandered through the world, until an aged monk gave me enlightenment and I was able to find this one thread of chance — which is you, my turning point.”

“Meaning you are the more desperate of the two of us!”

The White Tiger froze. It had been talked into revealing itself again. What a cunning human.

“But why should I believe anything you say?” Before it could retort, Lang Jiuchuan pressed on in the same maddening tone: “Just now you were lying, claiming you remembered nothing at all — yet you seem to remember things quite clearly now, don’t you?”

The White Tiger pounded the table with its fist. “We only just met — what is wrong with me being cautious?”

Lang Jiuchuan looked at it with calm, quiet eyes. “A moment ago you said I was your turning point. Now you say we only just met. My, my — you really are not being honest, big cat.”

How utterly enraging. It wanted to fight her until dawn!

The White Tiger held its fury in check. “Stop being difficult. What would it take for you to trust me? Think carefully about your own situation.”

Lang Jiuchuan lowered her gaze, tapping the talisman brush lightly against the tabletop, looking as though she were weighing the practicalities of what it had proposed.

Votive power — yes, she needed it. And she needed a capable helper.

The White Tiger held back its anxious urgency, glancing sideways at her, its own doubts stirring — where did that extraordinary force of destiny she had so fleetingly revealed earlier come from?

If it were the one carrying such a vast force of destiny, would that not be the same as the ancient forebears of its line — a divine beast worshipped by ten thousand, a true god among beasts?

The woman and the tiger were both secretly calculating, yet neither let it show.

After a long silence, Lang Jiuchuan said, “Sharing a body is not out of the question, but I have one condition: we establish a Heaven-and-Earth covenant — the kind that is bound and governed by Heaven and Earth itself. What say you?”