Lang Jiuchuan gazed at the pale white of dawn breaking in the east, motionless. With her fingertip, she wiped away the foul blood at the corner of her mouth and raised it high.

She could finally faint in peace!

She closed her eyes, and before she could fully surrender to the darkness, Jiangche came sprinting over, every hair on its body standing on end. Under Gong Tinglan’s stunned gaze, it reached Lang Jiuchuan’s side and said, “Don’t faint yet — the young master of the Gong Family has his eye on me.”

Lang Jiuchuan opened her eyes again. Sure enough, she saw Gong Tinglan watching her direction, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on Jiangche. She pressed her hand against the ground and slowly pushed herself into a sitting position.

Gong Tinglan cupped his fists toward her in a salute, his eyes full of admiration and praise.

But now was not the time for leisurely greetings and idle conversation. The Cong clan had been annihilated, yet this entire pit of corpses still needed to be dealt with. Left unattended, the dark and malevolent energy here would not disperse, and would eventually become a source of catastrophe. After all, this was a place of extreme malevolence, with no shortage of bodies — it was all too easy for corpse fiends to grow from this soil, and bring calamity upon the mortal world.

One only had to look at those Daoren in the distance dealing with the corpse fiends sustained by resentful and malevolent energy to understand.

Lang Jiuchuan had seen it too. The mountain of corpses was half-destroyed, but not entirely. Leaving it as it was remained a blight.

She sat cross-legged and formed hand seals to regulate her breathing. At this moment, surrounded by the corpse pit, there were still quite a few sharp-minded individuals nearby — she could not enter the Small Nine Pagoda, lest someone or some malevolent entity seize the opportunity.

Jiangche thought to itself: more likely she’s afraid of more people seeing the Small Nine Pagoda. It thought of the Feng Family’s golden vajra pagoda — speaking of which, had everyone from the Feng Family died?

It strained its eyes into the distance and spotted a bedraggled figure that looked like the Zhao Daoren from the Feng Family. Impressively resilient, that one.

“Seventh Brother — Young Master, come quick, look at Seventh Brother!” Gong Sixteen’s terrified voice pierced through the barely-lightening darkness.

Lang Jiuchuan opened her eyes and turned her head. Jiangche said, “That fellow flared up again just now.”

At this moment, Gong Qi’s eyes had turned a fierce, bloodshot red. His entire body was suffused with ferocity and murderous energy, his expression veering toward madness. He gripped a peachwood sword in his hand, hacking viciously at the corpse fiends before him. With every kill, the murderous energy grew more savage — as if some cruel and bloodthirsty demon within him had awakened.

Gong Tinglan leaped twice and closed the distance, his hand snapping out a whip. He coiled it around Gong Qi’s waist, pulled hard, and sent him crashing onto the ritual altar.

A thunderous boom rang out.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyelid twitched. She hissed softly, feeling the pain on his behalf.

Her gaze met Gong Qi’s bloodshot eyes, and she was suddenly struck still. Within those eyes, it seemed as though a tree had taken root — branches splitting outward, red veins spreading across the entire eyeball — and then, in an instant, it was gone.

Gong Tinglan had already leaped onto the altar. He flicked out a silver needle and buried it in the paralytic acupoint, then pressed several more pressure points. Gong Qi was momentarily unable to move, yet the more he was restrained, the redder his eyes became, the heavier the murderous energy — the veins in his neck bulging taut.

Immediately after, Gong Tinglan reached into Gong Qi’s robes and felt around, producing a porcelain vial. He gave it a shake. Not a single pill remained inside.

Trouble.

Gong Tinglan’s brows drew together. His hands formed a seal and he sent a sound-transmission talisman flying, his lips moving in a murmur.

He was calling Gong Four’s name.

Lang Jiuchuan walked over and held out a medicinal pill — the very one Gong Qi had given her earlier.

Gong Tinglan was visibly surprised.

“He gave it to me.”

Gong Tinglan sniffed it carefully. It was indeed the same pill Gong Qi typically required. He quickly pressed it between Gong Qi’s lips.

“What is wrong with him?” Lang Jiuchuan asked, her voice hoarse.

Gong Tinglan said, “It is a demonic poison flaring up. It was likely triggered by the corpse poison here — hence the violent episode.”

Demonic poison?

Gong Four came stumbling over the mountain of corpses, disheveled and ragged. Seeing Gong Qi’s condition, he unhooked the embroidered pouch from his waist and retrieved a needle case.

Lang Jiuchuan stopped him. “The resentful and yin energies in this corpse mound are extremely dense. Using needles on acupoints here risks the yin energy being channeled inward through the needles — the harm would outweigh the benefit. Suppress it with medicine or talismans for now, and tend to him properly once we have left this place.”

“The young lady speaks wisely. But Seventh’s medicine is exhausted — do you have any?” Gong Tinglan asked, turning to Gong Four.

Gong Four felt at his robes and his expression shifted. He shook his head.

Even if he had brought any, the medicine he carried had long since been distributed to the fellow cultivators who had accompanied him in searching for the corpse fiend’s hiding place.

“Leave it to me.” Lang Jiuchuan produced her talisman brush. She pressed at the still-unhealed tip of her finger until blood seeped out, dipped the brush in the blood, and began drawing a Soul-Settling, Fiend-Suppressing Talisman on Gong Qi’s forehead.

Consider it repayment — for the medicine he had gifted her, and for shielding her from the yin energy just moments ago.

Gong Tinglan caught sight of her talisman brush — lustrous and exquisite beyond compare. His eyes lit up. Could this treasure be the legendary Spirit Brush?

Jiangche shot him a hard stare.

Gong Tinglan seemed to sense it. He looked up and offered it a friendly smile, then returned his attention to Lang Jiuchuan’s talisman-drawing. Her complexion was deathly pale. He had assumed that, having spent herself fighting the corpse fiend, she would struggle to write a talisman — yet here she held the brush with steady composure, her strokes flowing without the slightest hesitation or stiffness.

In moments, golden talisman script sank into her forehead.

Gong Qi stiffened faintly. The murderous energy suffusing his body began, gradually, to subside.

Gong Tinglan cupped his fists toward Lang Jiuchuan in a bow. “I must trouble the young lady to keep watch over him here for the time being, while we attend to destroying this place of extreme malevolence before we depart.”

Lang Jiuchuan hesitated a moment, then nodded.

Since someone else was handling it, she would simply observe — and take the chance to see how the Xuan clan conducted its affairs.

With so many bones buried in this place, it was impossible to incinerate every last one to ash. Furthermore, these souls had died unjust deaths here — their resentment was already great enough. Reducing them to ash would cause further damage to virtuous merit. And so Gong Tinglan’s plan was to arrange the Five Thunders Formation, summon heavenly lightning to blast the mountain body nearby, shatter the terrain of this extreme malevolent ground, and then lay a Five Elements Formation across the entire area. With the Five Elements in mutual generation and the passage of days and seasons, what had once been a place of extreme malevolence would cease to be.

Lang Jiuchuan found this approach entirely sound.

“You see — not everyone in the Xuan clan is useless.” Lang Jiuchuan watched Gong Tinglan and the elders gathering around him, her eyes growing deep and contemplative.

Jiangche followed her gaze to the bedraggled figures battered by the earlier battle. “If there were a few more upright individuals like the young master of the Gong Family, it would not have come to such a state of decay and decline.”

Lang Jiuchuan lowered her eyes. “It is all the result of cause and effect.”

Without needing Lang Jiuchuan to raise a hand, she quietly continued regulating her breathing while watching them lay the formation. Her gaze drifted to the mountain of corpses. Silently, she retrieved a sheet of soul incense from the pouch at her waist, lit it, then unhooked the Dizhong Bell and rang it with force. The sound of the bell rolled and echoed through the ravine.

Through a ravine swept only by cold yin winds, the bell’s tolling was deep and resonant. Then, carried on the wind, a passage of the Great Salvation Mantra of the Supremely Sublime Wangsheng drifted over, along with a faint, elusive fragrance. Everyone present turned to look in that direction. They gazed at the swirling yin energy, stilled their hands, and began silently reciting along.

Fragrance to offer the souls. The mantra to ferry them onward.

The weeping, wailing souls of the wronged dead were drawn out from their place of bitter resentment.

When the final word of the mantra was spoken, the souls returned to the heavenly realm.

Gong Sixteen came over and carried the dazed and confused Gong Qi on his back, called out to Lang Jiuchuan, and they left the altar.

Standing on a hillside at a safe enough distance, Lang Jiuchuan watched as Gong Tinglan called down heavenly lightning to blast the mountain. The booming crashes of thunder shook the earth — the shattered mountain body broke open the malevolent ground, and great chunks of rock and stone buried those white bones, sending them plunging into the depths of the earth.

The dark malevolent energy spread outward from all directions, then dissolved into nothing.

Immediately after, Gong Tinglan led his people in calculating the cardinal positions, burying talisman seals and objects of the Five Elements at each point, and laying down a simple Five Elements Formation.

When the formation was complete, the white snow on the trees rustled and fell with quiet desolation.

Then, a warmth of sunlight broke through — pouring into this place of extreme malevolence that had never known the light of day, piercing through the gloom. The dark and malevolent energy was no more.

Dawn had broken.

On the day of the Lantern Festival, the sky was clear. A great auspicious omen.