The Willow Immortal’s evil curse had been forcibly severed. With the effigies reduced to fine powder, it signified the severing of Bai Ning’s bloodline — the blood curse had been broken, and the contract of sacrifice made to heaven and earth had likewise been nullified.
The black fog serpent that had been cut apart seemed, for just an instant, to go blank. The blood curse she had planted had fulfilled its purpose, and so she slowly began to dissipate.
Yet — she was unwilling.
She had cultivated for many years and become an earth immortal who received offerings. She had even developed a small horn, just beginning to form. Had she continued cultivating, she would have transformed into a water dragon. At worst, she could have remained enshrined in a temple as a guardian deity. Yet in the end — why had it come to this?
It was her own greed for mortal life, her eyes clouded by jealousy. She had deserved it. Yet she remained unwilling, truly unwilling.
The resentful energy of that unwillingness surged into the serpent’s head. She lunged toward Yice. This human had tried to destroy her — then she would kill him in turn.
Humans did not know gratitude. Every one of them deserved to die.
Yice watched the serpent’s head surge toward him and turned pale as ash. He wanted to raise the Three-Five Swords to meet the attack — but he had spent himself entirely in that one technique. His spiritual power was depleted, his vitality badly damaged. There was no way to call the swords to hand. As his life was about to end here, his hand touched the spiritual talisman Lang Jiuchuan had gifted him. He slapped it against his own forehead.
Spiritual power surged through him. He immediately activated his mental cultivation method, channeling his incantation intent through his hands:
“Heaven-Fire Thunder General, Split-Sky Thunderbolts, slay the wicked and purge the taint — Edict!”
As the serpent’s head plunged down upon him, he slammed his palm outward with all remaining force — unleashing a thunder strike from his palm.
BOOM.
A thunderous explosion.
The serpent’s head instantly descended into frenzy. In that single moment, the resentful intent shattered and scattered, lashing out indiscriminately at every human being within that small courtyard.
Humanity — deserving of death!
“Stop watching the spectacle — it’s your turn now!” Yice bellowed at Lang Jiuchuan.
If she did not act, everyone here would be finished together.
The evil curse had already been broken — yet the resentful intent had not dispersed. It had re-descended into dark frenzy. How was this possible?
Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze fell on the bone bell, spinning without cease. Her eyes deepened. Most likely, it was because there was a vessel here that prevented the spirit from yielding to dispersal.
This was what A’Piao had spoken of — that this particular curse was best handled in cooperation with other practitioners. It had indeed come down to this very point.
Lang Jiuchuan took a swift step forward, scooped the bone bell from the ground, and channeled Daoist intent into her palm, wrapping around it. The origin-tracing talisman adhered to the bone bell ignited without flame. Immediately after, she struck it with a Demon-Suppressing Seal.
The serpent’s head stiffened. It twisted around, fixing its gaze on Lang Jiuchuan. Those slit pupils had turned scarlet.
Lang Jiuchuan held the serpent’s gaze: “All cause and effect arise from delusion. You were once an immortal — yet you gave rise to greed and desire, and gave birth to a demonic child. The karmic retribution you suffered was nothing but the reflection of your own deeds. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
ROAR.
The serpent’s massive maw gaped open and spat a torrent of thick, dark miasma — like a fog-arrow, it shot straight toward Lang Jiuchuan.
Unrepentant to the end.
Lang Jiuchuan summoned her talisman brush. She channeled spiritual power into it and traced talismanic inscriptions in midair at blinding speed. The brush seemed to carry intent of its own, laying down lines of talismanic script in the void. When the final stroke fell, a complex and profoundly mysterious golden talisman seal materialized.
The moment it appeared, Lang Jiuchuan pointed her talisman brush at the seal and sent it hurtling toward the serpent’s head: “Five-Thunder Evil-Breaking Talisman — suppress the wicked!”
As her voice fell, the golden talisman slammed into the serpent’s head, releasing a piercing suppressing resonance — like a bell struck before the Buddha — striking the serpent’s head with tremendous force and detonating in a burst of blinding golden light.
An anguished wail rose up. The serpent’s head convulsed wildly. Already half-dissolved from the Three-Five Swords’ slash, now struck through further by purple lightning, it dissipated even more severely — the serpent’s head began to turn translucent and insubstantial.
Lang Jiuchuan spun and leaped onto the ritual altar. She set the bone bell before the incense burner in front of Yice’s ancestral founder’s statue, then sat cross-legged and closed her hand around the Dizhong.
Though her wrist made no visible motion, the small bell released a deep, prolonged resonance.
Dong.
The bell’s tone rang through the nine heavens, reaching all that listened.
Yice’s gaze sharpened. She was striking the bell with her intent alone — and yet the tone was so deep and powerful. He could only wonder at the purity of the spiritual power required to produce such a resounding peal.
But, come to think of it — why was she sitting before the ancestral founder’s statue?
In short order, he understood. She was borrowing the awe-inspiring divine authority of the founding master’s image to suppress the rampant karmic force on the bone bell.
She truly knew how to borrow people — or rather, borrow the divine power of deities.
As the bell’s resonance sent out its commanding shock, the dark fog of resentful intent gradually dissolved, unable to hold the shape of the serpent’s head. At that point, the karmic force clinging to the bone bell began instead to lash out and rampage in self-defense.
“Om Mani Padme Hum.” From Lang Jiuchuan’s lips came the Six-Character Great Mantra of the Buddhists. Each syllable she intoned, deep and resonant, transformed into boundless golden light — a Buddha seal — striking the bone bell.
The bone bell trembled violently, karmic force running amok.
Yice stared numbly at Lang Jiuchuan. That was the Buddhist Six-Character Great Mantra. How did she— No, wait. That mantra was one any person could recite. But there was a vast difference between reciting it aloud and channeling spiritual power to transform the mantra’s might into golden Buddha seals that dissolved disaster and eliminated karma. The latter demanded considerable strength of spirit, and a measure of Buddhist understanding.
And yet Qingyi simply could do it.
Yice turned to look at Zuo Yan and the others nearby and saw in their eyes a mixture of awe and reverence. He pressed his lips together. There was a reason she only took on large-scale commissions with lofty prices. The difference in caliber was simply not the same.
Lang Jiuchuan kept her eyes slightly closed. With each syllable of the Six-Character Great Mantra she intoned, the Dizhong in her hand resonated with a peal, scattering and dissolving the karmic force upon the bone bell.
The karmic force raged and resisted, attempting to break free through the mantra’s golden light — yet it was held down firmly by both the mantra and the divine authority behind her, its violent energy pressed flat.
Meanwhile, at the Bai Family estate, Old Madame Bai clutched her head in anguished wailing. Her head was in agony — as though a cold, malevolent serpent was gnawing mercilessly at the marrow of her mind, tearing at her very soul. Shriek after shriek escaped her lips without cease.
Old Master Bai, sharing the room with her, also gave voice to anguished cries — though compared to Old Madame Bai, his condition was somewhat less severe.
Old Madame Bai’s face was like yellowed paper. Somehow, she had managed to pull a hairpin from her head and was bringing it toward her own throat.
The sins she had committed — she would pay them back. Surely paying them back would be sufficient.
She only wanted a good death.
Old Madame Bai regretted it now. Regretted not having heeded Lang Jiuchuan’s words. A good death was better than a wretched life — so that was what those words had meant.
Jiangche lay nearby, lazily licking its hairless tail. Out of the corner of one eye it caught her movement. With a casual swing of its paw, it snatched the hairpin away and batted it to the floor — and sent a pulse of energy along with the strike.
Old Madame Bai stared with eyes wide open in despair. Her whole body trembled without stop. Dark red blood slowly seeped from her seven orifices. Her breath was barely a thread.
Lang Jiuchuan finished two recitations of the Great Compassion Mantra and changed her technique, beginning instead to chant the Supreme Elder Lord’s Scripture of Salvation. The vast Daoist intent contained within the scripture flowed in waves toward the bone bell, smoothing away the karmic force layer by layer.
Buddhist and Daoist intent working in concert, both for the sole purpose of transforming and dissolving the karmic force on the bone bell. Lang Jiuchuan’s spiritual power was being expended, yet she steadfastly dissolved and shattered that karmic force until the bone bell’s true color was laid bare — porcelain white, with a faint flowing luminescence concealed within.
As Lang Jiuchuan’s complexion grew ever paler, the Daoist intent transformed into golden light that tempered and purified the bone bell. The karmic force that had accumulated over many years — like some gentle, fair hand reaching in to draw away all its strength — was completely extinguished without a trace. The porcelain-white bone bell spun frantically, then released a single clear, bright, crystalline chime.
Lang Jiuchuan opened her eyes. Before she had even drawn her technique back in, the corner of her gaze caught a sudden white flash — moving swift as lightning, it streaked toward her. Her eyes turned sharp and cold. She hurled the Dizhong at it — but the white flash grazed past the bell’s edge and plunged directly into the bone bell.
Ding-ling.
The bone bell blazed suddenly with brilliant white light, bright as full daylight.
Lang Jiuchuan: “?”
A quiet aside: She had privately made a decision — she never wanted to write this sort of story again. It was exhausting.