Lang Jiuchuan did not in the least believe the Imperial Transmission Seal in her hand was a fake. The auspicious purple-gold radiance it emanated could not be counterfeited — merely holding it in her hands, she could feel its dense and potent blessed energy.

No wonder she had seen purple energy emanating from that stone stele at the time. It had all been on account of this.

“The imperial seal is a supreme national treasure, symbolizing that sovereign power is heaven-granted and legitimate. Without the Imperial Transmission Seal, even a man who established a dynasty and sat upon the throne would be no more than a blank-slate emperor. Why would they press a national treasure symbolizing imperial power into service as a formation eye? Would they truly prefer to use a fake rather than risk someone discovering it and denouncing them as lacking heavenly mandate?” Jiangche could make absolutely no sense of their reasoning.

Lang Jiuchuan said, “If an ordinary person became emperor without the Imperial Transmission Seal, he might indeed feel uneasy. But the ones holding imperial power now are the Xuan clan. Having seen the genuine article, how difficult do you think it would be for them to forge a near-perfect replica?”

Jiangche understood.

“With the replica, they need only cast a minor illusion to deceive the civil and military officials. What is more, they are fully capable of crafting a counterfeit with nine-tenths — if not the full measure — of the genuine article’s quality to serve as the official seal. The real one can then be placed where they need it most, to serve its most useful purpose.” Lang Jiuchuan turned the Imperial Transmission Seal over in her hands, feeling the auspicious energy flowing from it. “Maximizing their gains — they are quite good at calculating for that.”

Jiangche said, “All just to nourish the dragon veins and enrich the national fortune?”

“No dynasty lasts ten thousand generations, yet every emperor who ever ruled wished his own line to be the one that does. If you were of the Tantai clan, would you not think the same? The longer imperial power bears the name Tantai, the more they stand to gain — would they ever be at a loss?”

No — of course it would be better the longer it lasted. Ten thousand generations if possible.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at it. “Besides digging this up, you did not do anything else to the formation, did you?”

“How would I dare? I only dismantled the formation — not destroyed an entire city of people. I am a tiger striving to become a divine beast, I cannot afford to do things that harm virtue.” Jiangche waved his paws emphatically. “But what do we do with this thing? Its auspicious energy is so potent — keep it nearby as a magical implement?”

“Greed invites disaster.” Lang Jiuchuan shot him a sideways look. “This is the supreme treasure the Tantai used to anchor the formation eye — and a national treasure at that. Once it goes missing, do you think they will go mad trying to trace its whereabouts? They will mobilize every resource at their disposal to find it. If it leads back to us, never mind us — the entire nine branches of the Lang Family would not be enough to fill the executioner’s quota. This thing is a greater explosive than even the Five-Thunder Talisman.”

“What do you intend to do with it?”

Lang Jiuchuan’s fingertip brushed over the dragon whiskers of the five dragon heads, her eyes deepening. “It must be hidden somewhere they cannot calculate.”

“Where?”

“The underworld is actually quite a good place to hide things.”

Jiangche leaped to his feet. “Be a person! This is a supreme national treasure of the mortal realm — it is equivalent to a divine implement of the mortal sovereign. If you bring it to the underworld, you would be throwing the balance of yin and yang into chaos. And with an object like this brought down there, that radiant auspicious energy would likely harm the souls. If you truly brought it there, even I as a ghost official of the underworld would fight you to the death over it. And once this treasure is tainted with the yin miasma of the underworld, its auspicious energy would also become contaminated.”

Lang Jiuchuan said with mild embarrassment, “I was only saying.”

Jiangche snorted. This lack of conviction — I know perfectly well you were not just saying.

A flash of inspiration crossed Lang Jiuchuan’s mind. “There is one other place it can be hidden — and one that can also keep it safe.”

She wanted to hide the seal — and as for why, she could not quite articulate it clearly. She simply felt that returning it to Tantai would do more harm than good. Since they had dared to use it as a formation eye, they ought to have been prepared for the day it might fall into someone else’s hands.

Her mind made up, Lang Jiuchuan found a piece of fine silk, wrapped the seal carefully, then thought it over and felt it still was not secure enough. She summoned her talisman brush and drew a Concealment Talisman over it, hiding the seal’s aura and true presence. Without that measure, the moment the Tantai clan discovered their stronghold had been plundered, they would trace the aura straight to the source — and that would be trouble.

All of this done, she first cut a piece of camphor wood, shaped it into a memorial tablet, and carved Fuqi’s name along with his birth and death years into the face. On the reverse side, she used her talisman brush to inscribe soul-calming Daoist markings, and finally pressed a hand seal over it.

The memorial tablet completed, she dove into the Small Nine Pagoda all at once to nourish her soul and settle her spirit, refining and absorbing into her divine soul all the accumulated merit she had gathered, mending her deficiencies.

This single period of secluded cultivation lasted two full days.

When she emerged, she was refreshed and alert, her divine soul strong and resilient. She promptly set about crafting a supply of premium soul incense — among them several sticks of merit incense.

Crafting incense was not inherently difficult. Ordinary incense sold in the marketplace required nothing more than the right materials. Yet why was it that the incense Lang Jiuchuan made left the likes of A’Piao and the others consumed with envy and longing?

It was because her incense was imbued with spirit talismans. As had been explained before, a spirit talisman could only be called such if it carried spiritual energy — and such talismans were not something anyone who had merely cultivated the arcane arts could draw.

Lang Jiuchuan possessed exceptional talent and more than sufficient spiritual force, which was why a single spark of inspiration from her could become a talisman.

And certain precious talismans required even stronger soul-force to produce — such as this Merit and Vow Talisman, drawn with focused intent and imbued with the merit she carried within herself.

Incense crafted this way was rarer and more nourishing to the soul, for it contained the power of her vow — a portion of herself she had given away. But her present body still required great quantities of merit, so she dared not be reckless about it. One talisman per batch, yielding ten or so sticks, was as much as she would allow.

Once the incense was prepared, the final step after the spirit talisman was the Daoist incense sealing formula — locking in the incense’s potency to prevent it from dissipating, making the soul’s sense of satiation stronger, and solidifying the soul’s breath.

This was the incense Lang Jiuchuan crafted: every step done in accordance with Daoist method, with only the finest materials, meticulous but extraordinarily effective.

Over two full days, Lang Jiuchuan completed the incense, retrieved the moth-repellent incense boxes, and began packing the everyday soul incense first. When it came to those dozen or so sticks of merit incense, she studied the pale gold sticks — each one perfectly straight and plump, the fragrance rich and calming — and ran her fingertip over them, her heart aching as she counted out ten sticks to set apart.

You cannot catch the wolf without sacrificing the child. They were only a few sticks of merit incense, and moreover crafted from materials someone else had provided — she would give them away, then.

Lang Jiuchuan then made her way to the Tongtian Pavilion, bringing both the incense and the Imperial Transmission Seal.

Jiangche suddenly understood — the wonderful hiding place she had spoken of was this mysterious Tongtian Pavilion. Though he did wonder whether the Pavilion, keeping this thing within it, might absorb it whole.

A’Piao looked at her with profound aggrievement and said, “Please take your ghost away from here. He is an absolute nuisance.”

In just two days, he had acquired the haggard, weathered look of a man who had been worn down to nothing by a troublesome child.

The trouble was that the troublesome child was diligent and driven, showing no need for rest at all. But that ghost’s control over his spectral energy — once A’Piao demonstrated it, the ghost grasped it in an instant. What he did not yet understand, he would pester A’Piao about endlessly — asking, then practicing, then sparring.

Terrifying beyond measure.

A’Piao experienced the contradictory sensation of having a disciple who was brilliantly talented, and yet finding himself utterly exhausted by it.

Fuqi, for his part, saw it this way: cultivation was like martial training — it required perseverance, synthesis, and constant progress, because stagnation meant regression. And he had discovered one distinct advantage: living people who practiced martial arts still needed sleep. A ghost? He did not need to sleep at all!

Being resented? Not a problem whatsoever, so long as it did not interfere with his cultivation.