A string of smooth, rounded eighteen-bead ornaments landed at Lang Jiuchuan’s feet. She bent down and picked it up. What should have been a warm and soothing object was now black all the way through — and across its surface, invisible to ordinary eyes, lay a coating of dark, reddish evil energy.

“How did it come to look like this?” Shen Qinghe was visibly shaken.

Shen Peng’s face went white as well. That string of eighteen beads had been carved and polished by his own hands from premium small-leaf rosewood — each bead had been painstakingly ground and engraved, some bearing an unbroken interlocking border pattern, others bearing the characters for fortune, prosperity, and longevity. It had been his birthday gift to his father, a token of his wishes and blessings.

It had once been warm and mellow. But now it was entirely changed — black and sunken, repulsive to behold.

The dense mass of dark energy was thick and viscous as congealed, rotten blood. Lang Jiuchuan looked at one particular bead, from which a faint trace of blood energy branched off into several threads, each one leading separately toward Shen Qinghe and Shen Peng.

The binding of blood and cause.

“This is the one.” Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze turned sharp as she saw the evil energy attempting to seep into her hand. She flipped her right hand — the Panguan brush appeared, and she tapped it lightly against the string of eighteen beads.

A deep, resonant hum spread outward.

The divine might pressed down as an overwhelming aura of power.

The evil energy recoiled as if meeting its natural nemesis — it retreated in an instant and dissolved into the air.

Clatter.

The dark reddish stain faded from the eighteen beads, restoring their former appearance — but now dull and lightless, all luster gone. In the same moment, each bead snapped off the string and fell to the ground, splitting into two halves.

Shen Qinghe drew Madam Shen two steps back, barely breathing.

Madam Shen’s face was bloodless. She swallowed, gazing at Lang Jiuchuan with a trembling look, her mouth opening — but her throat felt strangled, and no sound came out.

Lang Jiuchuan dusted off her hands, looked down at the scattered wooden fragments, kicked them aside with the tip of her foot with obvious distaste, then raised her head. Seeing the family of three staring at her as though they had seen a ghost, she pressed her lips together. “I am not paying to replace them.”

The Shen family: …?

Lang Jiuchuan kicked the broken fragments further away. “That string of eighteen beads had already been saturated with evil energy. Had I not eliminated the malicious energy, it would eventually have become a fully formed instrument of dark power and gone on to harm many more people. Now that it has broken apart — may the years ahead be peaceful and safe.” She turned to Shen Peng. “You can carve your father a fresh string later.”

Shen Peng nodded without thinking.

Madam Shen, however, had caught the implication beneath those words, and brightened. “Young lady, does that mean my son is going to be all right?”

“If it were that simple, why would you be giving up precious years of your life?” Lang Jiuchuan said. “Destroying the eighteen beads only severs the conduit — it prevents him from declining any faster than he already has. Without it, with the object still present and affecting his nature, the next step would not be beating himself — it would be running himself through with a sword.”

The Shen family went utterly silent.

“The conduit is gone, but the evil energy already soaked into him has not been expelled. It has gone deep into his bones. Without completely driving out the malicious entity, the moment the protection of his parents’ accumulated merit stops working even the slightest bit — he will die.”

Madam Shen shoved Shen Qinghe aside and dropped to her knees in front of Lang Jiuchuan with a resounding thud. “Ninth young lady, I beg you — save my son. Not ten years — twenty, thirty — I am willing to give however many you need.”

“Mother.” Shen Peng’s eyes reddened, and his heart ached for her.

Shen Qinghe could not believe what he was seeing. He moved to pull Madam Shen up, demanding, “What is this about ten years of life? What does that mean?”

“I once made a vow before the Buddha and the Bodhisattva — that if Peng could recover, I would willingly offer ten years of my life.” Madam Shen choked on the words.

“You—” Shen Qinghe, a man of stern dignity and righteousness on ordinary days, felt his own eyes mist over. “Never mind yours — use mine.”

“How can you offer yours in place of mine — I have already made this vow before the Buddha.” Madam Shen shot him a reproachful look. “Before the Buddha, there is no backing out. Your word must count for something.”

“Madam, I am the head of this household!”

“I am his mother. A mother and child share one heart.”

Lang Jiuchuan listened to them begin to argue and cut in, “Enough. I will only take Madam Shen’s offering. Yours I do not want.”

Shen Qinghe scowled.

Shen Peng cleared his throat. “Ninth young lady — can something else be exchanged instead? I could offer my own years — not ten, even thirty would be fine — but please, not my mother’s.”

“Your father won’t do, and you certainly won’t do — you, with nothing but your parents’ protection to rely on, you have nothing. Your years of life? They are worth nothing compared to your mother’s!”

Shen Peng’s face flushed red, and he looked at her with an expression of wounded reproach.

Madam Shen knew full well that this was a compliment directed at her — yet somehow, hearing it put that way, there was a faint sting to it nonetheless.

But she did not dare to say a word.

Lang Jiuchuan’s repeated interventions had opened her eyes. Frail-looking as this young lady was, she possessed genuine and formidable ability.

Jiangche, unable to contain itself any longer, popped up. “I knew it was worth coming to save them — look at this family. How deeply moving.”

Lang Jiuchuan pushed it back down.

Chatterbox.

Madam Shen said, “Ninth young lady, what do you need me to do? Must I go and kneel before the Buddha to make the vow?”

“Think carefully before you commit. Once ten years of life are removed, even if you were meant to live a full sixty years, that becomes fifty.” Lang Jiuchuan looked at her steadily. “After this ritual is performed, you may be bedridden and unwell for as long as three months. And as you yourself have said — there is no going back. Well, going back would be pointless in any case, because the cause and effect are set from the moment you make your decision. Nothing can undo them.”

“I am willing.”

“Madam, there may be other ways we haven’t yet—” Shen Qinghe’s expression was full of reluctance.

“Out of my way. Go wait outside.” Madam Shen pushed him aside, then suddenly raised three fingers and swore, “Ninth young lady — I, Lu Yun, swear that if I go back on my word afterward, may I die without a good death and be denied reincarnation for all eternity.”

“Mother!”

“Madam!”

Father and son both went pale as death.

Lang Jiuchuan gave a small nod and began issuing instructions one by one: “Then go and fetch some cinnabar, and a pinch of ash from before the Buddha — incense ash, that is — and some lamp oil and lamp wick…”

“You — go yourself.” Madam Shen pointed Shen Qinghe out the door.

Shen Qinghe stared at her for a long, unmoving moment. Then he turned and left, and even from behind, his posture seemed somehow less upright than before — as though he had stooped a little beneath the weight of it. His figure had barely disappeared from sight when a sharp, clean crack of a slap rang through the air.

Madam Shen looked anxiously toward where Shen Qinghe had vanished, her eyes brimming with unshed tears — yet she bit her lip and did not follow him.

Shen Peng gripped his fists tight. For the first time, he felt truly, deeply useless. He looked at Madam Shen’s face — worn and aged far beyond what it should have been — and in that moment, it felt as though he had grown up all at once.

Jiangche perched on Lang Jiuchuan’s shoulder, dabbing at crocodile tears. So moving. Truly moving.

It turned to look at Lang Jiuchuan. Her expression had not shifted so much as a fraction — not moved, not even the faintest reddening at the corners of her eyes.

“You unfeeling thing. You really are made of stone.”

Lang Jiuchuan communicated with it through the spirit altar: “Too much feeling would only bind my feet. Their deep affection for one another is their own fortune and blessing — I will not be guilted into working for free because of it. My foremost task is to restore this body to health.”

That reasoning was sound — if a little cold-blooded. Jiangche huffed. “I’ll be watching to see what comes of it.”

Lang Jiuchuan said nothing. She simply walked to the table, spread out the talisman she had taken down from the head of the bed, smoothed it flat, and began tracing patterns across it with her fingertip.

The talisman itself was a good one — but it lacked spiritual energy. She needed to infuse it with more spirit, transforming it into a true talisman capable of driving away evil and expelling malicious entities. All of this would cost her spiritual power and cultivation.

Ten years of life in exchange for one life saved. The Shen family had gotten quite the bargain — had they not?