Although she had unexpectedly encountered the Pei Madam, Cui Shi did not rush to catch up on old times with her. She first led Lang Jiuchuan to light the long-burning lamp for Lang Zhengfan.

Every year on this day she came alone. This year she had brought Lang Jiuchuan with her. Cui Shi’s heart was in turmoil, especially as the Pei Madam’s words kept echoing through her mind — that looking at the girl was just like looking at her father.

Indeed — ever since Lang Jiuchuan had returned, Cui Shi had been finding more and more traces of Lang Zhengfan in her. And that thing she had witnessed during the birth all those years ago — could it truly have been nothing but a grief-stricken hallucination brought on by the trauma of childbirth?

Cui Shi’s heart twisted with anguish. She looked toward Nanny Cheng, who saw her pressing her hand to her chest and quickly produced a medicine vial to give her a small pill.

Lang Jiuchuan’s phoenix eyes gave a slight flicker. She reached up and touched the corner of her own eye. Was she truly so alike?

Even the Pei Madam, meeting her for the first time, had said she resembled Lang Zhengfan. Was Cui Shi wrong about what she had seen?

The welcoming monk had already prepared the lamp oil and other necessities, and now led the two of them before the offering table where Lang Zhengfan’s memorial tablet was enshrined. He pressed his palms together, intoned a brief invocation, and stepped back two paces.

Cui Shi stepped forward and lifted the new lamp vessel the temple had provided. She used a cloth dampened with pomelo leaf water that Nanny Cheng and the others had prepared to carefully wipe the vessel clean, then dried it with a fresh cotton cloth. She held it pressed to her forehead for a moment in silent prayer, then passed it to Lang Jiuchuan.

“This is your first time coming here, and you are his daughter. You should be the one to add the oil and light the long-burning lamp.” Cui Shi’s voice was low and rough.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the brand-new lamp vessel in her outstretched hands, then at the longevity tablet engraved with Lang Zhengfan’s dates of birth and death. Something surged in her chest, and her fingers curled slightly.

On what grounds should she be the one to do this? On the grounds that…

She was Lang Jiuchuan.

Lang Jiuchuan took it. The moment Cui Shi’s hands were empty, it was as though something had let go along with it — as though something had finally come to rest on solid ground. A sharp, sweet ache struck her heart without warning, and tears rushed to her eyes. She turned her face slightly to one side.

Lang Jiuchuan took the lamp vessel, looked once more at Lang Zhengfan’s memorial tablet, then lifted the lamp oil and filled the vessel, placing a wick inside. She then stepped back two paces, faced the tablet, and bowed once deeply.

She raised the lamp vessel above her head with both hands, gathered her intention at the core of her body, and began to murmur the incantation in her mind: “The primordial breath of chaos flows through my form; following the steps of Yu, I ascend to the brightness of Yang…”

Her feet began to shift in slow, deliberate arcs beneath her, step by step, toe-point touching the ground with precise placement at each measured spot.

Cui Shi watched her movements — almost like a dance — and her expression shifted slightly. But she said nothing. The maids and servants held their breath and kept perfectly still.

And at some point unnoticed, Gong Qi had slipped to the doorway and was leaning against the frame, watching Lang Jiuchuan’s movements through half-lowered peach-blossom eyes.

The Seven Stars of Heaven’s Pivot combined with the Eight Trigrams Yin-Yang array formation — this was a rite of prayer offered for a departed soul.

Lang Jiuchuan’s mind was undistracted. Her feet moved with fluid precision. Both her hands held the lamp vessel steady above her. Three kneelings, nine prostrations — offered for a departed father, offered for a departed soul.

Cui Shi’s tears fell in a single drop.

The maids and servants wept too.

And as Lang Jiuchuan’s final ritual step landed, her knees came down before the memorial tablet at the same moment. A single movement of her intention, and —

Pop.

“Ah—”

Someone drew a sharp breath from somewhere.

For as Lang Jiuchuan knelt, the long-burning lamp she held raised above her head ignited on its own — with no flame, with no spark — and blazed with a brilliant, luminous light.

Cui Shi was so startled she looked instinctively toward the longevity tablet. Tears streamed down her face without stopping.

As the saying goes: spirits dwell three feet above every bowed head. If you are truly in the heavens — then have you, in this moment, acknowledged this child as your own?

Gong Qi let out a quiet sound — half laugh, half breath. A lamp lit by intention alone, offered in prayer for a departed soul — if nothing went amiss, that lamp would burn for an entire year without going out, without even needing the wick changed. To pray for a departed soul with the most earnest of hearts, and in doing so, to accumulate blessings and merit for oneself.

And this, from someone who supposedly knew only a little bit of surface knowledge. Ha — what a little liar.

Lang Jiuchuan set the burning lamp steadily in place before the memorial tablet, then straightened slightly with a gentle bow. Yet her heart was pounding and pounding in her chest — as if it had struck a resonance with something, as if something vast and distant were answering her call.

When she lifted her head again, the very quality of her spirit and presence seemed to have shifted. A blessing of merit had descended into her spirit domain, nourishing her soul — like a fish that had been long dried of water suddenly finding itself returned to a river, free and at ease, able to breathe.

She was Lang Jiuchuan.

Lang Jiuchuan pressed both hands to her forehead, bowed three more times, and then turned to the utterly astonished welcoming monk. “This long-burning lamp only needs to be kept before the memorial tablet. There is no need to change the oil or the wick. It will not go out.”

“Amitabha. This poor monk has received instruction.”

Lang Jiuchuan looked once more at the memorial tablet, then turned to Cui Shi. The latter wiped the corner of her eye and said in a hoarse voice, “We will not return to the city until the third day. Now that the lamp is lit, if you wish to go and enjoy yourself, go — just bring more people with you. Don’t wander too far. The first day of the new year brings many pilgrims to Huguo Temple. Do not let the servants leave your side.”

Whether it was because of the way Lang Jiuchuan had lit the lamp in this unorthodox and extraordinary manner, something in Cui Shi’s voice had shed one layer of its former sharpness. It remained cool and distant, but the frost within it had softened by a fraction.

“Go on. I wish to speak with your father for a little while.” Cui Shi turned back to the memorial tablet.

Lang Jiuchuan walked out, and the moment she stepped over the threshold of the small offering hall, she heard the sound of Cui Shi beginning to weep, and the soothing voices of Nanny Cheng and the other attendants.

She stood in the courtyard and lifted her gaze to the sky. Snowflakes drifted down slowly. Her heart was perfectly still.

Then she cocked her head slightly. A bodhi bead shot past, just grazing her temple.

Lang Jiuchuan turned around. “Daoist Gong has nothing better to do than practice ambushes on passersby, rather than going to catch malevolent spirits and eliminate demonic evils?”

“Lighting a lamp with intention, offering prayers for a departed soul — quite impressive of you, Ninth Miss Lang.” Gong Qi struck a casual, unhurried pose, his expression carrying a sly and laughing edge. “It seems the teacher who taught you surface knowledge has taught you quite a lot indeed.”

Lang Jiuchuan said, “Listening to your sourness, anyone who didn’t know better would think you’d swallowed ten catties of vinegar. Want to learn? You’re welcome to take me as your master — bow your head to the ground a few times, and I’ll teach you everything I know.”

“Is that a sincere offer?” Gong Qi’s eyes lit up. He was at her side in an instant, blinking at her eagerly. “If I call you Little Master, you’ll teach me what you know?”

Lang Jiuchuan looked at that delighted, ridiculous expression and thought better of it. She kept walking and replied beside the point, “What have you come to Huguo Temple for?”

Gong Qi fell into step beside her, glanced left and right, then dropped into an air of theatrical mystery. “You know your fair share of surface knowledge, so I’ll tell you — my senior brother and I are here investigating a demonic evil. Frightened now?”

Lang Jiuchuan’s steps halted. She turned her head to look at him. “Investigating a demonic evil?”

“You didn’t actually think we came here solely to stand up for the Lang Family, did you?” Gong Qi asked with a smile that was not quite a smile. “If we came for that reason alone, one person would be more than enough. Two is a waste of exceptional talent.”

Lang Jiuchuan shot back drily, “I also haven’t seen you resolve any of the Lang Family’s difficulties. Just now, we were still being tormented by a young miss from the Qi household — the one who’s close to that Qi Xinyu.”

Gong Qi said, “You could always just say your family is backed by the Gong Clan. Walk sideways anywhere you like after that.”

Lang Jiuchuan let out a cold, dismissive laugh. “I wouldn’t dare. I have no wish to end up like a certain someone.” She dropped the banter. “When you said you and your senior brother came here to investigate a demonic evil — did you mean that?”

Gong Qi nodded. He was about to take a jab at her — are your ears going bad at such a young age — but caught a glimpse of her expression out of the corner of his eye, and his own expression settled. “What is it? You, with your little bit of surface knowledge — have you noticed something wrong?”

Lang Jiuchuan gazed ahead and said, “When we were on our way here, I cast a hexagram. All six lines were yin — like black clouds pressing down over the earth, blood staining the full moon. The hexagram resolved to Earth over Earth, pure and absolute — it seems as though something of extreme yin and extreme evil nature is rising from beneath the ground. But I only know a little surface knowledge, so I may have read it entirely wrong. If the two of you discover something amiss, please look after us ordinary mortals.”

Though the writing may be rough, I will say this honestly — I love the scene where A-Jiu lights the lamp.