Jiangche was so incensed he could barely breathe. He had gone through all this effort, skulking about doing underhanded tasks, and that woman back home had gone and wreaked havoc on herself instead of behaving — nearly dragging him down with her into oblivion. If she wanted to die, she could at least do it without taking him along!

Did she not understand the concept of sharing one life — that if one flourished, both would, and if one suffered, so would the other?

Lang Jiuchuan gripped the talisman brush and pressed it against her spiritual platform: “Golden light fills the body, reflecting upon my form. Let the golden light appear swiftly — guide the soul back to its dwelling. By urgent command!”

A faint golden glow emanated from the talisman brush. Lang Jiuchuan’s weakened soul, light as a feather, drifted back into the physical body. In an instant, her blank eyes opened, her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, and her hands and feet trembled faintly.

So weak!

She needed nourishment.

Lang Jiuchuan lay motionless on the floor and, without a second thought, began siphoning off Jiangche’s accumulated prayer-power.

Jiangche — whose spiritual consciousness had only just steadied — had not even caught his breath yet: “!”

This robber.

“I advise you to know when to stop!” Jiangche threatened darkly from within the spiritual platform.

Lang Jiuchuan said feebly: “Just borrowing a little for now. I will repay you next time.”

He laughed in fury. How in hell was that something that could ever be repaid?

Lang Jiuchuan said: “I need to enter meditation to recover. Come back quickly.”

With that, she stopped paying any attention to Jiangche, climbed onto the bed, lay down, closed her eyes, and let her soul sink into stillness.

Jiangche: “……”

Why did this feeling of throwing a punch straight into soft cotton make him so utterly furious?

As for the small room where Lang Jiuchuan lay — the commotion had gone unnoticed by anyone. Meanwhile, over at Cui Shi’s quarters, when Jian Lan delivered her report, Cui Shi nearly suffered a relapse of her heart condition.

Cheng Nanny kept soothing her: “The delivery was chaotic enough to begin with, and you yourself nearly spent half your life in it — seeing things wrong was entirely possible.”

Cui Shi waved her hand and closed her eyes, unable to produce a single word.

Cheng Nanny, seeing this, said no more — and could only exhale long, lamenting sighs.

A person who had buried themselves in a dead end — even if someone reached in to pull them out, they had to be willing to take the hand themselves. All the facts were laid out before Cui Shi now. It remained to be seen what she would make of them.

If she truly refused to take that step forward, the bond between mother and daughter would simply run dry.

After all, the choice Lang Jiuchuan had made on her end was already clear — otherwise she would never have let Jian Lan come back and report so candidly.

Cui Shi turned to face away, pressing a fist against her lips, as tears slid silently down the corners of her eyes.

The tangled disputes of this mother and daughter of the second branch drew little attention from the rest of the Lang family. But outside parties keeping a quiet eye on the Lang household’s period of mourning — those were not in short supply.

Five hundred li from Wu Jing, a villa with mountains in view and water at its banks carried the refined name “Xunxian Manor.” It spanned a hundred mu of land, laid out in the pattern of the Taiji yin-yang eight trigrams, with vital energy flowing ceaselessly around the estate — tranquil and graceful.

Within the ornately carved and painted main residence, a noblewoman of dignified bearing, dressed in a gown woven with interlocking floral brocade, received news from Wu Jing. Her brow knit together. Her expression turned grave. She left the main residence in hurried steps and made her way to a plain and austere standalone meditation courtyard.

In the courtyard, a young attendant in dark robes spotted her, went inside to announce her arrival, and then led her in.

“What has you in such a panic?”

Inside the room, a middle-aged man sat with his hair coiled and pinned by a purple jade hairpin, wearing a robe embroidered with the eight trigrams pattern in purple. He held an open scripture scroll and glanced at the noblewoman with casual indifference. Beside him rested divination objects — tortoise shells and copper coins.

The noblewoman’s expression was respectful and deferential. She first offered him a bow, then presented the message in her hand. “Master, word has come from Wu Jing — the ninth young miss of the Lang family has returned home for the funeral rites.”

Lang Jiu — who had been as dead as anything could be — how could she possibly return to attend a funeral?

The middle-aged man was briefly startled. He took the slip of paper, skimmed it, and immediately dropped it into the water-washing jade bowl carved in the shape of a Buddha’s-hand fruit sitting on the table. He said with utter indifference: “Just some lesser ghost that happened along and took possession of a corpse. What is there to panic about?”

But the noblewoman’s brow remained furrowed. “Even so, I feel uneasy. What if…”

“What if what? Whether it is a wandering soul inhabiting a body is something you surely know, don’t you?”

The noblewoman fell silent and lowered her head. A flicker of cold intent passed through her eyes. When she raised her face again, it wore the same gentle, benevolent expression as always. She smiled mildly and said: “I was overthinking.”

Naturally it would be nothing but a wandering soul. After all, the true owner of that body — she had personally arranged for even the soul to be recaptured and brought back. There was no possibility of escape.

“Master,” the noblewoman pressed on, affecting a tone of grievance and outrage, “ought we not to settle matters with the Lang family? A mere wandering soul forcibly seizing a body and clinging to the living world — Heaven and Earth do not permit it. To prevent it from bringing harm to the world, we should eliminate this evil thing and restore clarity.”

The middle-aged man studied her for a long while, until fine beads of sweat appeared on the noblewoman’s forehead. Only then did he withdraw his gaze and say with complete indifference: “Do as you see fit. A person who was meant to die has disrupted the cycle of reincarnation — her soul scattering to nothing is a consequence of her own sins.”

The noblewoman’s eyes glinted subtly. “Understood.”

“Do not inform Huanxuan of this matter — she is at a critical juncture,” the middle-aged man said further.

The noblewoman quickly answered: “Please set your mind at ease. A trifle such as this will not reach her ears.”

The middle-aged man said nothing more. He waved his hand in dismissal. The noblewoman withdrew. Once she had gone, he glanced at the divination objects on the table, and reached a hand toward them — but then, as if something had occurred to him, he shook his head instead.

In this world, truly rare were those born under heaven’s special favor. Their family, across two hundred-odd bloodlines — and only one had a pure and unblemished spiritual root, fit to truly walk the path of Dao, slay demons, and commune with the nine heavens above.

It was merely a coincidence.

The middle-aged man picked up the scripture scroll again, and studied its meaning with careful attention.

Out in the courtyard, the noblewoman’s footsteps faltered slightly as she emerged. She turned her gaze toward the lush green hillside to her left, her expression softening with warmth and brimming with pride.

Her son — who could compare to him?

The noblewoman drew her gaze away and looked westward. Her expression cooled and grew hard. Her fingernails pressed deep into her own palm.

Whatever that wandering soul might be — walking through the world under that face was already an offense to her eyes. It could not be allowed to stay.

No one could block her son Huanxuan’s path. Least of all that wretched creature.

Under the respectful gazes of all her servants, the noblewoman returned to the main residence. She had scarcely sat down when a trusted Nanny entered, cradling an exquisite long velvet box. The noblewoman glanced at it with the ease of someone well-accustomed to such things, and asked mildly: “Who sent this?”

“The young wife of the third branch. She said she happened to come across this fine ginseng and wished especially to send it to the Young Master for nourishment.” The trusted Nanny spoke as she opened the velvet box, revealing inside a full-formed, pristine premium grade ginseng root tied with red cord.

The noblewoman was rather pleased. “She knows how to conduct herself better than that former wife of the third brother.”

The trusted Nanny smiled and said: “Who in the entire clan does not respect and admire our Young Master? It’s only those who lack sense and overestimate themselves who end up as they do — with their hearts not in the right place, they can’t even carry a child to term… this old servant speaks out of turn.”

The noblewoman said: “Go and fetch one of the protective talismans Huanxuan drew previously and send it back to her as a gift.”

“The young wife will be overjoyed,” the trusted Nanny said, eyes lit with envy, following with several honeyed words of flattery.

The noblewoman’s smile widened and her eyes brightened further. “Enough of that, you silver-tongued old thing. Go and summon Fang Quan here — I have instructions for him.”

The trusted Nanny’s heart clenched, though she dared not ask anything more. She nodded and withdrew. Pausing on the corridor outside, she thought to herself: she wondered which unfortunate soul, this time, was about to fall out of luck.

(Author’s note: New book, please vote — it’s only natural!)