The divine light shattered the ghost mist, revealing the birthing room in its true state.

The stench of blood nearly made Lang Jiuchuan retch. She quickly swallowed a medicinal pill and surveyed the situation in the birthing room. Her already pallid face darkened several shades further.

The woman in labor lay on the bed barely clinging to life, looking as though she might stop breathing at any moment. The midwife, servant women, and the rest had all collapsed on the ground. If the child was not delivered soon, two lives would be lost here.

“Wake them up and continue the delivery,” Lang Jiuchuan said, tossing over a medicinal pill. “Feed it to the woman in labor.”

Jiang Che coiled around the pill and stuffed it into the mouth of the laboring woman — a woman named Ning Shi. Then, using his divine power condensed into needle-like points, he jabbed her palm. She let out a small whimper of pain.

Jiang Che paid her no further attention and used the same method to rouse the midwife.

The midwife had long since been half-dazed by the eerie ghost energy in the birthing room. She screamed that there were ghosts and demanded to go home.

Jiang Che landed a heavy slap across her face and roared into her ear: “Get over there and deliver that baby right now, or I’ll kill you.”

The midwife wailed in pain and sobbed, her whole body going limp — she was truly too frightened to do anything.

Lang Jiuchuan glanced over and said, “Jiang Che, use your divine power to stabilize this woman in labor. Don’t let her stop breathing.”

She turned her head and looked at the little ghost crouched on the ground, fixing her with a pair of enormous, pitch-black eyes filled with venomous malice and fierce hatred. The features on its face were almost identical to those of the Ten-Thousand-Ghost Matriarch from before.

A mother-and-son pair of ghosts.

And they had been cultivated by someone — no wonder they were so ferocious.

Lang Jiuchuan noticed the pair of pitch-black malevolent soul-imprisoning bracelets on the little ghost’s wrists. Strange patterns were carved into the bracelets, a layer of blood and filth coating them, the yin killing energy emanating from within continuously nourishing the little ghost’s evil soul.

“Aah, aah.” The little ghost’s grating voice erupted from its throat. Moving with incredible speed, it charged at Lang Jiuchuan in a fury, like a leopard.

She killed Mother. Killed Mother.

Kill her!

Lang Jiuchuan’s pupils contracted. An uncontrolled little ghost was harder to deal with than the Ten-Thousand-Ghost Matriarch, who had retained rational thought. He did not think the way a mature person would, could not weigh the pros and cons — and as mother and son ghosts, with a bond between them, the reason he was so furious was almost certainly because he knew she was the one who had slain his mother.

In that case — this battle would be a fight to the death.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes deepened.

She gripped the Panguan writing brush like a blade and swept it horizontally outward.

Sizzle.

The little ghost was struck by the spirit brush and his ghost body began to smoke as he was scorched. The air carried the stench of something rank and putrid, mixed with the smell of blood, making everything even more foul.

He let out a sharp ghost screech — eerie enough to make eardrums throb with pain — yet his movements didn’t slow in the slightest. He circled around behind Lang Jiuchuan, opened his mouth, and rank, foul liquid dripped from his jaws as he clamped down on her neck with a bite.

Jiang Che saw this, his tiger eyes contracting in alarm. He instinctively let out a roaring tiger’s cry of intimidation and lunged toward her.

But from Lang Jiuchuan’s neck, an intensely brilliant golden light suddenly burst forth. The little ghost was scorched by it and let out a scream of agony, black smoke pouring from his ghost body. The yin killing energy recoiled as though it had encountered something terrifying, retreating at rapid speed.

And so did the little ghost.

He dropped onto all fours, arching his back, raising his head, his eyes filled with both venom and terror. His throat growled and snarled.

Lang Jiuchuan stumbled. Her spiritual power was nearly exhausted.

She had to end this quickly. If she failed to destroy him and he escaped — half-ruined as he was and brimming with towering hatred — he would certainly kill and devour souls to replenish himself. This manor, and even the entire surrounding area, would know no peace.

She could not bear the burden of that guilt!

Infuriating, that this body wasn’t strong enough — and she herself had nearly come to grief.

Lang Jiuchuan touched the scorched place on the back of her neck, suppressed her curiosity about it, glanced at the woman in labor who was still emitting faint, broken groans, and said in a deliberate tone: “Jiang Che — first, let’s destroy this thing.”

“You call it.”

Lang Jiuchuan had him use his fierce killing energy to form a barrier and encircle the ghost within it, while she channeled Dao energy through the Dizhong Bell’s incantation charms to trap it inside.

The little ghost seemed to sense the danger. He screeched and howled frantically, his dark and resentful energy surging massively and sweeping through the entire birthing room.

The midwife was once again knocked unconscious by the venomous cold wave.

The woman in labor’s breath grew ever fainter. Were it not for Jiang Che’s divine power wrapping around her, she — the most vulnerable person in the room — would likely have become a new ghost in this chamber already.

“Decree, decree, glorious and brilliant, the sun rises in the east — I bestow this spirit talisman, sweeping away all inauspiciousness, following the law and obeying the command, vanquishing pestilence and subduing demons — decree!” Lang Jiuchuan chanted the incantation at flying speed, her hand seal striking the Dizhong Bell. With a resonant hum, the Dizhong Bell released an invisible golden light dome, enveloping the little ghost within it — who had just sensed something was wrong and was trying to flee.

Inside the bell, it was as though ten thousand thunderclaps were sounding at once. The incantation text was recited ten thousand times by the bell’s resonance, and each repetition was golden light blazing like fire, sweeping over the little ghost — reducing him to dust, all his sins and karmic burdens dissolving into nothingness beneath the golden radiance.

It was done.

Lang Jiuchuan released the technique — but the exhaustion of pushing past her limits had caught up with her. She let out a mouthful of fresh blood, her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground.

“Are you all right?” Jiang Che drifted over to support her and said, “The way you look right now is like someone who’s already died and then died a second time.”

Colorless face, dark circles under the eyes — she looked exactly like a dead ghost.

Lang Jiuchuan’s body was limp and without strength. She said weakly, “Just exhausted and drained. That’s all.”

She looked at the Dizhong Bell lying quietly beside her hand, picked it up and tucked it into her sleeve. With trembling hands she braced herself on her knees and shook her way to standing, then came to the bedside and said, “Call someone in from the doorway.”

Jiang Che drifted to the doorway and called out, mimicking her voice.

Ou Luozhong had long been waiting outside. Restrained by the nature of a birthing room, he had not dared to barge in. Now, hearing Lang Jiuchuan’s voice, he immediately summoned the waiting servant women to go inside, while he himself came to stand at the doorway. The smell of blood hit him and he turned ashen.

He had been frantic with worry — but he was a man, and a father-in-law at that. It would not be proper for him to force his way in.

The servant women who entered the birthing room let out cries of alarm. Bodies lay collapsed all over the ground, the room was in disarray — and the only one still awake was a young girl as frail-looking as the Third Young Miss. But that complexion — it was more ghastly than the woman in labor’s. If not for the fact that her eyes were still open, one would have thought she was a corpse.

Lang Jiuchuan felt for the woman in labor’s pulse. It was faint to the point of barely existing. Her hands trembling, she asked the stunned and terrified servant women, “Do you have a needle?”

“I — I have a sewing needle — would that do?” One servant woman pulled at her collar and removed a needle threaded with a length of silk — she had a habit of leaving needles in her collar after sewing.

Lang Jiuchuan took the needle, drew her fingertip across it, and inserted it into the inner gate acupoint on the woman’s wrist. She channeled the very last thread of Dao energy within her, then slumped against the side of the bed and said, “Prepare for the delivery.”

What?

Everyone was stunned — and then they saw that the second young mistress of the family, who had moments ago been half-unconscious with barely a breath left in her, suddenly opened her eyes and let out a groan.

“Look.” One of the servant women pointed to the lower part of her abdomen.

The child was coming.

Lang Jiuchuan began to chant a prayer text — the Incantation of Prayer and Healing, which could calm fright and settle the soul, as well as soothe the infant in the womb and guide it toward life.

When she had finished chanting the prayer incantation, Lang Jiuchuan slumped to the ground and lost consciousness — she had used up every last drop of her strength.

And at that very moment, everyone cried out in joyful exclamation: “The child is born!”

Two sharp little cries rang out, and then a faint, thin wail — small and weak as a kitten’s — broke through the blood and chaos, adding a thread of joy to the room.

Standing at the doorway, Ou Luozhong heard that feeble little cry and stumbled against the threshold, sitting down hard.

Heaven’s mercy — no, it was the Ninth Young Miss’s great benevolence — she had kept the entire Ou household safe and sound.