Jiangche followed the thread of the Blood Fierce Destructive Curse to the small courtyard, took in the scene within, and its tiger eyes grew cold and fierce — yet it reined in every trace of its ferocious aura, and informed Lang Jiuchuan through their shared spiritual platform.

The man in the courtyard was still reeling from the shock of his Soul-Binding Art being broken — and the sheer magnitude of the backlash it had brought upon him.

The cultivation he, Mingda, had painstakingly built up over these years had been shattered by more than half in an instant.

Who had done this?

Was it the demonic spirit that had taken over the body — or was there some formidable Celestial Master standing guard nearby?

The more Mingda thought, the more alarmed he became. If a truly powerful Celestial Master had appeared out of nowhere, the Xuan clans would not have failed to recruit them — unless it was one of those true ascetics who had spent their lives in the deep mountains and never shown their face to the world, finally emerging.

Whatever the case, he had now lost this exchange of spiritual techniques against the other party.

Mingda looked at his own hands — now withered and wrinkled — and felt the savage tearing pain in his soul. Vexation and fury surged up in him at once.

Infuriating!

He would have to answer to his employer as well. At the thought, hatred and indignation welled up together — he cursed whoever had assigned him this task for failing to gather sufficient intelligence, letting him suffer such a grievous loss. No amount of miraculous medicines could compensate for the cultivation he had lost — he had been set back by years!

Utterly hateful!

Mingda was so furious he coughed up another mouthful of dark blood, his face taking on an even more livid, purplish hue.

Just as he was about to take his leave, his body suddenly stiffened. He gripped the ritual bell in his hand, his senses on high alert as he scanned his surroundings. “Who is skulking about — show yourself!”

The north wind swept bleakly through the air.

Not a trace of human presence, not a sound — yet he had unmistakably felt a flicker of ferocious and murderous energy just moments ago.

Had that demonic spirit come in person?

Mingda drew himself taut, still seeing nothing. He made a decisive move toward the courtyard gate.

He had suffered a devastating backlash and needed to enter seclusion immediately to recover. Without a few years of recuperation, he would be in no condition to use spiritual techniques — and if someone truly powerful came, he might not be able to hold his own.

The mountain remains; there will always be firewood.

He could not afford to be done in here.

Jiangche let its aura rise, stepping into his path.

Mingda shook the ritual bell in his hand. Incantations — as though descending from the heavens — poured out from the sound of the bell, sharp and piercing, setting one’s ears ringing and aching.

Jiangche let out a cold snort and directed a ferocious tiger’s roar at him — the primal and lethal power of it struck Mingda’s already-devastated soul directly, as though ripping it into shreds. Blood poured from all seven orifices.

Mingda bit his fingertip and traced a talisman on the ritual bell, chanting rapidly: “By the might of heaven and earth, divine powers smite the ghostly foe. My faith guides my path; no fortress stands against me. Banish the wicked, heed my command — swift as the law decrees!”

Ding ling.

The bell’s tone, carrying a faint charge of thunder, rippled outward in all directions, attempting to break apart Jiangche’s lethal and destructive aura.

Sure enough, the ferocious energy Jiangche had released faltered momentarily.

Its tiger eyes blazed with golden light, gathering strength and readying for the next strike. The dead woman’s instincts had been right — this soul-binder truly was of orthodox Daoist origin. The incantations he chanted and the ritual implements he used all carried the righteous energy of the Daoist tradition.

It just did not yet know why he had attempted to seize Lang Jiuchuan’s soul.

Sensing the pause in that lethal energy, Mingda felt a flash of relief and retreated toward the courtyard gate, his free hand already closing around a Tunnel Escape Talisman he kept on his person — his life-saving measure, and his final hidden card, of which he had only this single one.

But before he could use the talisman, an overwhelming yin energy surged up at his back, freezing him to the bone. He twisted around to look.

There — on the wall behind him, which had been empty a moment before — a pitch-black hole appeared without warning, fully as tall as a person. From within came a bone-chilling ghost aura and the shrill wails of spirits — cold and lethal.

From within it, someone stepped out.

It was Lang Jiuchuan.

She turned back and gave a casual wave toward the void behind her. “Many thanks.”

In the opening behind her, an underworld officer shrank back with a miserable twist of his mouth, shut the spirit gate, and vanished at speed.

Who could understand his suffering — he had merely been in the vicinity of the Lang residence collecting a soul when Lang Jiuchuan spotted him and declared she wanted to hitch a ride.

Ha. “A ride.” She was the first person ever to make the spirit road sound so pleasant.

It was clearly just freeloading — using his spirit gate to tear open the yin path without expending her own spiritual power or incantations. If that wasn’t freeloading, what was?

Truly rotten luck.

The underworld officer fled at full speed. He had no intention of coming anywhere near this area for the next year.

Mingda watched the black void disappear and then looked at the young woman who had stepped out of it. He went on full alert, yanking a copper-coin sword from his waist. He shouted in a sharp voice, “What manner of demon and monster are you, daring to inhabit a corpse in defiance of the cycle of reincarnation?! Show your true form at once!”

The woman before him — clearly marked by fate for an early death — was standing before him very much alive, and had emerged from that black void in such a bizarre manner. Could she be anything other than some demon or monster of great cultivation?

“You try to bind my soul, and yet you dare ask who I am?” Lang Jiuchuan fixed him with an icy look. “I should be the one asking you — who ordered you to do this?”

What?

Mingda was taken aback. His expression shifted instantly. He stepped back two paces, gripping the copper-coin sword tight. So — the one before him was Lang Jiuchuan herself?

There had been no other Celestial Master protecting her. She had broken his Soul-Binding Art herself and followed the backlash straight to him.

This woman is not to be trifled with.

Mingda’s expression was cold. “I inhabit no borrowed corpse — I am a practitioner of the orthodox path, upholding righteousness and purging evil. What need would such a person have to be ordered by anyone?”

“Upholding righteousness and purging evil? And yet you knew I was inhabiting a borrowed body — and you knew my exact birth date and hour?” Lang Jiuchuan’s cold laughter cut through his pretense. “Heaven values life. Even in allowing me to inhabit a borrowed body, it has not struck me down with lightning or reduced me to ash — which shows that Heaven in its mercy sees fit to grant me this thread of hope. What makes you think it falls to a wicked practitioner like yourself, hiding behind the pretense of righteousness, to come and play the righteous purger? So-called righteous path — committing the deeds of the wicked path. Pfft.”

From the very beginning, when she had first come back to inhabit the body and returned to the Lang residence — when she had come face to face with the monks and Daoist priests in the mourning hall — she had felt a trace of unease and a guilty conscience. The droning chants had made her soul feel slightly unsteady. But she had held herself together, and Heaven had not sent down any thunderbolts to scatter her, which proved that she had seized this thread of hope legitimately — that she was entitled to walk openly once more among the living.

As long as she helped the original soul settle the blood feud that had taken her life and scattered her soul, and resolved the karmic debt of inhabiting the borrowed body — she would become the true Lang Jiuchuan, with no further need to fear that her soul had no proper home.

And this so-called righteous path?

What manner of righteous path could it be, when one who already knew the other party had taken over a borrowed body could also pinpoint that party’s exact birth date and hour, and proceed to deploy a thousand-li soul-binding technique — this was plainly premeditated, with a clear and deliberate objective: to bind and then destroy her soul.

He had come specifically for her!

Still playing the righteous guardian — what utter rubbish!

Mingda’s expression cycled through several rapid shifts, completely rattled. By now he had sized up the woman before him — she was no ordinary adversary, and she had already seen through his schemes entirely. There was no avoiding a serious confrontation between them.

He dared not underestimate Lang Jiuchuan. After all, someone who could break his technique and track him down by following the backlash had proven she was far from an ordinary young woman.

Right now, though frail in appearance and deathly pale, he had absolutely no idea what hidden abilities she possessed — while he himself had just suffered a major backlash, and had just been struck by that nameless ferocious aura, making his condition even worse.

If the two of them were to fight, he might not be the one with the upper hand. He might even meet his end here.

If that was the case — the best of thirty-six stratagems was to flee.

Mingda let out a cold laugh. “Whatever you say, it does not change the truth that you are a thing of ghosts and shadows, inhabiting a corpse in defiance of the natural order. A mere ghostly aberration — take this!”

He charged toward her with the sword in hand — but with his other hand, he slapped the Tunnel Escape Talisman behind himself.