Lang Jiuchuan followed Zhuang Quanhai out of the shop and saw a man in his thirties standing inside, with a young servant dressed in blue beside him.

Her gaze swept over the two of them, and before she could say anything, her eyes fell upon the doorway — the Madam Song she had seen at the lumber shop the other day was standing at the entrance, peering inside with pursed lips, but had not come in.

The death aura around Madam Song had grown even denser. Her eyes had already turned thoroughly clouded and murky, yet her living form now carried a faint trace of something more.

Lang Jiuchuan gave her a slight nod. Madam Song startled, and immediately wanted to leave — yet, for reasons unknown, her feet seemed nailed to the ground, and she did not take a single step away.

She simply stood there at the doorway.

Zhuang Quanhai noticed her. He walked over and studied her for quite a while before recognizing who she was, then invited her inside.

Only then did Madam Song step in, though she merely stood off to the side near the door, making no sound — for Lang Jiuchuan had already begun speaking with the man.

“I am Liang Jinfeng,” the man introduced himself first, sizing up Lang Jiuchuan with a furrowed brow. “You, little miss, are the proprietor of this establishment?”

Lang Jiuchuan gave a nod. “I am.”

“My apologies for the intrusion. I’ll take my leave.” Liang Jinfeng didn’t bother asking anything further, merely shooting a glare at the servant beside him. This is the so-called peculiar shop you spoke of — one that might resolve his troubles? Treating a dead horse as a living one still had to depend on the subject at hand. What good could this frail little girl possibly do?

Lang Jiuchuan watched him turn to leave and said, “The Imperial Examination candidate is about to sit for the examinations, I take it. Step out that door, and the same old troubles will come one after another, just as before.”

Liang Jinfeng stopped in his tracks and spun around to look at her. “You know who I am?”

“We have never met before,” Lang Jiuchuan said. “But I have eyes. You carry the upright scholarly aura of a man of letters; at your waist hangs a Huguo Temple Wenchang talisman — most examination candidates this year have gone to the Hall of Wenchang to pray for peace of mind, and you are among them. Furthermore, I observe that your right ring finger, middle finger, and index finger all bear calluses — those must be from years of holding a brush — and the pads of your fingers are worn, with even a few small scrapes from turning pages. You are, in truth, left-handed; you have also been practicing calligraphy with weights tied to your wrist, for the calluses on your left hand are even thicker. Your sleeve has a spot of ink, and the fragrance is rich — you have added walnut oil to your ink, haven’t you? The grace examination opens in the second month of this year. From all this, I can conclude: you are an examination candidate preparing to sit for the imperial trials.”

Liang Jinfeng was stunned, and unconsciously looked down at his own hands.

Everyone present fell speechless with amazement.

The servant could barely contain his excitement, his eyes blazing with delight. We’ve come to the right place — that was far too accurate.

And Madam Song, who had been listening attentively from the doorway, had a small flame ignite within those clouded eyes of hers, her hands clenching tightly into fists.

Liang Jinfeng suddenly clapped his hands together with a resounding slap. “Ah, it is I who failed to recognize a great talent before me! I looked right past you — you, young proprietor, are truly an all-knowing oracle?”

The corner of Lang Jiuchuan’s mouth twitched. All-knowing oracle was a stretch, but being a spiritual practitioner — well, a Yin-Yang master — required cultivating a sharp pair of eyes. Only then could you take the three parts that a well-meaning person might believe and have them believe seven or eight parts of it.

How else would there be the saying that a fortune-teller could deceive someone for ten or eight years? It was precisely because such people could read expressions and circumstances that their mouths could spin into eloquent tools of persuasion.

“Since the all-knowing oracle has seen through my identity, can she divine my troubles?” Liang Jinfeng looked at her with hopeful eyes.

“The trouble of an Imperial Examination candidate,” Lang Jiuchuan said, “is nothing more than repeated failure to pass the examination. With the grace examination drawing near, the color of worry has seeped into your brows, and your eyes are shot through with red threads. You fear that this sitting will go as poorly as those before — that you’ll be beset by the same bad luck?”

Liang Jinfeng’s eyes lit up at once. “You, little oracle — what a pair of perceptive eyes you have. How old are you, and what school of learning did you study under to have cultivated such ability?”

“A good person does not ask about one’s origins,” Lang Jiuchuan replied with a mild smile and a shake of her head.

Liang Jinfeng knew that Daoist practitioners observed three things one did not ask about; he realized he had committed a transgression and quickly rose to his feet, cupping his hands in apology. “The fault is mine for being impertinent.” He gave a bow and sat back down. “I am thirty-three years old. I currently hold the rank of a juren, though I have carried that title for over ten years now. I passed the preliminary examination at fifteen and attained my juren status at eighteen. Each time I have sat for the spring metropolitan examination since then — counting the grace examination along with the triennial sittings — this year will be my fifth attempt.”

He let out a long sigh. “In those four previous sittings, my misfortunes were truly relentless. Either I fell ill with a stomach ailment right before the exam, or I broke my leg. I entered the examination hall with my heart in my throat each time. Once, I was assigned a cell near the foul-smelling pit — and though the stench carried over, it felt as though someone was whispering it into my ear without stop. Needless to say, I failed that sitting. Last year, I was not placed near the pit, yet within two days I was carried out — the cold was so brutal that even wrapped in a ten-jin cotton quilt, I still felt frozen, and I fainted from the chill, struck down by wind-cold sickness.”

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes flickered with a subtle gleam. Her gaze drifted, seemingly without intention, toward the doorway. “And so the Imperial Examination candidate has grown afraid.”

“In my youth, when I watched others fail repeatedly, I would sigh and say it was merely because their foundations were not solid. Yet when it became my own experience, I came to understand — even if your writing has reached a certain level, it still comes down to fate and fortune. How laughable that I was so arrogant and ignorant in my younger days; only now that it has fallen upon me do I understand that time and fate are masters of all.” Liang Jinfeng gave a self-deprecating laugh. “For this grace examination, I find myself uncertain. I live in fear that the same disruptions will occur as before. If it happens once more, whatever fighting spirit I still have left will be ground down to nothing.”

Lang Jiuchuan smiled slightly. “And what if you do not pass this time either?”

Liang Jinfeng’s expression shifted. Even his hands began to tremble. He tried to put on an air of indifference but found he truly could not manage it, and answered with a discomfited air: “Then I’ll just keep being the one who falls short of the mark.”

“I may as well be candid with you, sir: had you not walked through the doors of this Know-It-All Shop today, the outcome of your examination would have been the same as before — you would have met with crushing defeat.” Lang Jiuchuan said. “But since you have come, it depends on whether you are able to untangle this knot of grievance.”

Liang Jinfeng’s heart had been utterly cold with despair, but hearing Lang Jiuchuan’s words, there seemed to be a turn in the road ahead. Still — what did untangling a knot of grievance mean?

Lang Jiuchuan continued. “Your repeated misfortunes in the past were not entirely a matter of fate. They were caused by human means — or rather, I should say, by the work of a ghost.”

What?

Liang Jinfeng was horrified. “You mean to say that my repeated failures are the result of being haunted by a ghost?”

A chill ran down his spine. Suddenly he felt a cold, eerie presence pressing in from behind him, and the air around him turned frigid.

Lang Jiuchuan looked toward the decrepit old figure that was trying to drape itself over Liang Jinfeng’s back. “Scholar, do you not fear that the scholarly righteousness around him will harm your own spirit? This is my domain — ghost visitors shall not run amok here.”

With a flick of her hand, she snapped out a Daoist hand-seal. The old scholarly ghost let out a shriek of pain and was flung away, immediately bursting into a tirade of curses: “Outrageous! You little girl not only meddle in what doesn’t concern you, but you bully an old ghost too — truly detestable and despicable!”

Liang Jinfeng heard that sharp, shrill outburst and shuddered violently, collapsing to the ground, staring in pale-faced terror at the direction the voice had come from.

What ghost?