Dong.

The deep, heavy toll of the bell rang out like nine thunderclaps detonating directly above one’s head. An invisible pressure bore down with tremendous force, making one’s entire body shudder and one’s chest ache with sudden pain.

Elder Wanfang’s entire body went rigid. He spat out a mouthful of old blood with a retching sound, his eyes wide with shock and terror.

Before him appeared a vast, dense fog, so thick that the surroundings became impossible to distinguish. In his ears, innumerable voices seemed to rise — sutras chanted in tones both righteous and sinister, descending from all four directions at once. His eardrums ached sharply, and every other sound was drowned out.

Within that sea of chanting, Elder Wanfang seemed to see, unfolding before him, all the acts he had committed over his years of walking the path — every violation of righteousness, every deviation from the Dao. His heart faltered for a single moment.

What had been his original intention when he first entered the Way?

Elder Wanfang’s eyes held a flash of bewilderment. Then a scorching heat flared at his chest — his life-bound artifact, the Bagua Jade Seal, was issuing a warning. His eyes cleared at once.

This was bad.

The wicked woman was trying to shake his Dao-heart.

Elder Wanfang had just drawn out the jade seal when a blaze of golden light erupted before him, and a bone blade came swinging directly at his head. He hastily raised the jade seal to meet it and shouted his incantation with ferocity: “By the boundless Supreme Polarity, I borrow the power of Heaven and Earth — Destroy Evil!“

The jade seal unleashed a brilliant white light that rushed to meet the bone blade, the material of which was utterly unknown.

Boom.

Bone blade and jade seal collided in midair with a tremendous crash. Golden light and white light exploded outward in a blinding burst, like an enormous fireball erupting — illuminating the entire stretch of mountain forest. Distant creatures cried out in alarm and fled in all directions.

Ding.

The jade seal was cleaved in two by the bone blade, shattering into fragments. Yet the blade did not stop — it continued its arc, driving straight toward Elder Wanfang.

Pfft.

The bone blade pierced clean through his shoulder blade. The tremendous domineering power contained within the blade, carrying with it righteous and scorching celestial energy, seared through the bone within his shoulder, sending up a smell of scorched flesh.

Elder Wanfang was sent flying backward. He let out a wretched scream, slammed into a tree, and then crashed heavily to the ground, spurting several mouthfuls of black blood. His hair was turning white strand by strand, his previously ruddy complexion drained to a deathly pallor in an instant, and his face began to wither and shrivel as though every drop of moisture was being evaporated from it.

This was the appearance of spiritual power collapsing and cultivation regressing.

Elder Wanfang could not stop coughing up blood. Feeling the spiritual power within him hemorrhaging away at terrifying speed, struck with shock and terror, he lifted his head to look at the lean, blue-clad figure walking slowly toward him.

“Who — who in the world are you?” What manner of person was this, to choose such a frail woman’s body to reincarnate into? Did the mistress have any idea what kind of ghost they had provoked?

Lang Jiuchuan recalled the Jade Bone Talisman Brush and twirled it idly between her fingers. “Why, I am a wicked creature.”

“You—!” Elder Wanfang looked at the wild, unruly cold smile curling at her lips and felt a chill run down his spine.

Lang Jiuchuan came to stand over him, looking down from above. “Now speak. On what grounds do you claim I am a wandering spirit in a stolen body? What wandering spirit could withstand artifacts like these without being driven out?”

She flicked the tip of her foot, sending a fragment of the jade seal skittering across the ground to land in his lap.

Elder Wanfang retched up another large mouthful of old blood.

From pure rage.

“Your appearance has always been the face of one who dies young…”

“I have no interest in listening to nonsense.” Lang Jiuchuan planted her foot directly onto his shoulder blade where the talisman-brush-turned-blade had pierced through. He screamed in agony.

Elder Wanfang trembled all over, his eyes bloodshot. “The order of Yin and Yang must be maintained — you invert that order, and Heaven and Earth will not abide your existence…”

“Enough.”

Lang Jiuchuan struck his spiritual altar with the talisman brush. The immense divine might bore down and shattered his spirit, causing his spiritual power to hemorrhage even faster.

She was going to destroy him utterly.

Elder Wanfang felt the first stirrings of despair.

“Amitabha.” A Buddhist invocation drifted toward them.

Lang Jiuchuan’s brow furrowed. She turned to look, and there was Abbot Xuanneng, hands pressed together in prayer, making his unhurried way toward them.

“Young benefactress, this is the grounds of Huguo Temple. Would you not, out of consideration for this old monk’s face…”

“No.” Lang Jiuchuan cut him off without a moment’s hesitation. “Before, when the Abbot sent someone to ask me to show mercy, I gave you face. And what came of it? They turned around and struck at those beside me. What I am doing now is returning blow for blow.”

The Fang mother and son wished to retaliate against her, wished to strike at her — they were welcome to come directly for her. Targeting those around her was something she could not tolerate. She disliked having the people around her suffer on her behalf, and even more so, she disliked owing such debts and bearing such burdens.

These kinds of ties and vulnerabilities — she wanted none of them.

Thinking of this, her Dao-intent swelled once more, flowing into the talisman brush. The pressure increased by another degree, and Elder Wanfang’s spirit was wracked with agonizing pain, as though his soul was on the verge of being utterly dispersed.

This was killing intent crystallized from baleful energy.

“Amitabha.” Abbot Xuanneng chanted again, then stepped directly forward. He reached out one hand and gave Lang Jiuchuan’s shoulder a light, gentle pat. “All things arise from cause and condition. For such a fruit to exist — was it not you, young benefactress, who set the first cause in motion?”

Lang Jiuchuan blinked. “I did not.”

Abbot Xuanneng was helpless. His gaze held the gentle forbearance of one looking at an unruly child. “The nightmare that invaded her mind — if you had not taunted that female benefactress, how would Daoist Lu ever have been summoned?”

“Her own abundance of wicked deeds was what haunted her — she was trapped by her own inner demons. What has that to do with me?” Lang Jiuchuan curved her lips with sly cleverness. “Besides, if she had not been asking for trouble — spreading her poisonous gossip and sowing discord — how would she have attracted a nightmare in the first place? Abbot, she is the one who planted the first cause.”

Abbot Xuanneng sighed. “When will the cycle of grievance and retribution ever end?”

“Kill him and be done with it.”

Abbot Xuanneng: “…”

This thorny temperament was truly enough to make even a Buddha contemplate breaking his vows.

Lang Jiuchuan regarded Elder Wanfang, who had already grown somewhat delirious, and said, “Abbot, I have not sought out anyone nor provoked anyone. It is they who have come to provoke me again and again, seeking my life. They struck first. Everything I have done is nothing more than retaliation and self-preservation — it stands in accordance with Heaven’s law of cause and effect.”

Abbot Xuanneng said, “Young benefactress, your Dao-heart is pure and true, singularly devoted to the Way. You are the finest among the practitioners of this region, and you also share an affinity with the Buddha — the fact that you can cultivate in both the Buddhist and Daoist traditions speaks to your exceptional spiritual roots. But to stop killing with killing, to repay grievance with grievance — such karmic debts will never be resolved. If slaughter becomes second nature and baleful energy becomes a plague, your Dao-heart will be damaged, and you will never achieve the Great Dao.”

Lang Jiuchuan looked toward him. Warmth and reassurance lived in his gentle eyes, but beneath them lurked a trace of genuine worry.

She averted her gaze. Her voice came out cold and level. “Abbot, it is they who are wicked. It is they who are prone to slaughter. It is they who forced me to take up the blade. Surely I cannot simply stand motionless while they come to butcher me, and simply let them?”

Lang Jiuchuan glanced down briefly at Elder Wanfang. “I was once entirely inclined toward goodness. They have forced me toward demonic corruption — then do not blame me for stirring up storms.”

She struck once more, heavy and decisive. Her vast Dao-intent entered Elder Wanfang’s spiritual altar, twisted through his spirit — and then withdrew. She swayed slightly on her feet, her face pale as she looked toward Abbot Xuanneng. “Even so, within your domain, I will still give you face. I will not kill him. Abbot, this is the second time. I have been willing, in your presence, to temporarily lay down the blade. I hope there will not be a third.”

Having said this, she gave him a slight bow and turned to walk up the mountain.

Abbot Xuanneng watched her figure disappear into the forested mountainside. He looked at Elder Wanfang — alive, yes, but with his cultivation completely scattered, sitting slack and vacant like a simpleton — and let out a long, weary sigh.