Xie Zhenming was truly questioning his existence. How had things come to this? Just a few days ago, he had been the Marquis of Zhenbei, commanding military power and inspiring awe along the frontier. Now he was a prisoner beneath someone’s heel, clad only in thin undergarments while the cold gnawed at him, leaving him trembling uncontrollably.

He was finished!

Even setting aside the matter of Lang Zhengfan, he had attempted to assassinate the sovereign. On that charge alone, his fate was sealed.

Those who killed the emperor would have their nine clans exterminated!

Heaven be his witness — that had never been his true intention. He wasn’t so foolish as that. Yet in that single moment, a fierce, unbearable resentment had erupted within him, forcing his protective Gu out into the open.

In that moment, he had not been himself. Just as the words had come pouring from his mouth — how could he possibly have spoken his innermost thoughts aloud, and in front of the emperor and the assembled court officials no less? Had he gone mad?

And yet — that was exactly what had happened.

His own body, his own mouth, had slipped completely beyond his control, and it had brewed disaster that carried a death sentence.

Xie Zhenming thought for a long while over how things had come to this. The answer that finally took shape in his mind became the image of a young woman holding a white cat, her mocking, cold smile vivid and sharp, her voice saying: Some debts have come due for reckoning.

And now she had taken form again in reality, standing silently outside the prison bars, watching him with icy eyes, like a specter. Behind her stretched a vast, ominous black mist — thick and unyielding, writhing and roaring as it surged toward him in a frenzied rush.

A rasping sound rose from Xie Zhenming’s throat. He stared hard at the young woman, his eyes sweeping around him. The prison was dead silent. No other sound existed — only his own labored breathing, and the thunderous pounding of his heart, beating like a war drum.

Drip. Drip.

He watched as the black mist transformed into a viscous sea of blood, reeking of nauseating gore and the musty stench of rot, crashing down upon him in heavy waves.

“Get back — get away from me!” Xie Zhenming snarled in furious desperation, yet his voice was like that of some ancient, battle-worn beast with no fight left in it — utterly without intimidating force.

Lang Jiuchuan raised her refined chin slightly and observed Xie Zhenming’s terror-stricken expression. The corner of her lips curved upward. Her hands formed a seal, and with a flick of her fingertips, her Dao incantation shattered into countless twisted, grotesque runes that blasted toward him.

Sinister and devious techniques — she knew them as well. It merely depended on whom she chose to use them against, and how.

Since Xie Zhenming had harmed others with Gu, let him taste the flavor of being struck by dark and malevolent arts. A nightmare curse — and that was only the beginning.

Watching those runes flash before him, Xie Zhenming’s pupils shrank violently. A bone-deep chill shot from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head — colder even than this frigid dungeon.

Having once used Gu to harm others and having dealt with Gu masters and spirit-shamans, he naturally knew the power of esoteric Daoist techniques. Everything unfolding before him was the work of those arts practitioners — sinister, wicked sorcery.

“You wretched demoness — you who can only rely on demons and monsters!” Terror and hatred surged through Xie Zhenming simultaneously. He longed to tear through the prison bars and rip Lang Jiuchuan apart with his bare hands.

He had never cultivated, knew nothing of Daoist techniques — yet he had planted Gu before, and he understood malevolent death energy and dark qi. Years of warfare on the battlefield had given him a beast’s instinct for danger.

One look at those runes told him they were supremely malignant and ferocious. They would devour him whole.

Sure enough, that demoness merely moved her lips, murmuring something inaudible. The runes twisted and churned, merging with the thick blood-mist to transform into massive black-and-crimson serpents, cold and sinister, their barbed tongues lashing outward as they lunged at him, intent on strangling him to death.

“AAAH!” Xie Zhenming let out a shrill and wretched scream that echoed through the entirety of the silent prison.

The Surveillance Bureau had only recently been established, and not many prisoners were held here yet — otherwise, a sound like that would have made countless others’ scalps crawl.

In Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes, Xie Zhenming’s body contorted into grotesque positions. His face was flushed a dark purple, as though several massive serpents had coiled around him. His eyes bulged so far they seemed about to burst from their sockets, and blood began to seep from within them.

For Xie Zhenming himself, he felt those cold and sinister serpents coiling tight around him, making it impossible to breathe. But worse than the physical torment was the agony inflicted upon his soul. He felt countless needles stabbing through his mind, his spirit being violently torn apart and gnawed at — yet he couldn’t even cry out in pain. His throat produced only the struggling, low howl of a trapped beast.

Pain. Unbearable pain.

Blood poured from all seven of Xie Zhenming’s orifices. It felt as though an invisible hand had seized his heart and was crushing it with savage force. He could feel his meridians snapping inch by inch, his blood flowing in reverse, his internal organs shifting out of place. The agony was beyond enduring.

So this is what it feels like — to wish for death rather than life, to be consumed by absolute despair.

With tremendous effort he looked toward Lang Jiuchuan. She stood there unmoving, watching him writhe in his death throes. Was this her revenge? The vengeance for the murder of her father?

“Kill me!” Xie Zhenming’s mouth worked open and closed as he screamed madly within his mind. Darkness surged across his vision in waves, his consciousness fading by degrees.

That’s enough.

Lang Jiuchuan withdrew her technique without warning. The prison reverted to its original appearance — yet Xie Zhenming lay sprawled on the straw like a dead fish, his body convulsing continuously as he vomited blood.

He would not live much longer.

Xie Zhenming strained to lift his head. Everything before him was a blur, yet he could still make out the young woman. She looked down at him with absolute contempt — like a divine being trampling his dignity beneath her feet, forcing him to atone for his sins, to feel remorse.

He was remorseful, all right. Remorseful that he hadn’t cut the roots out entirely.

A vicious, venomous light flashed in Xie Zhenming’s eyes. He shouldn’t have been so careless — so naive as to believe the Heart-Devouring Gu would go undetected. He should have steeled his heart and crushed the Marquis of Kaiping’s entire household into the ground. Had he done so, none of this would have come to pass today!

How he hated this!

Lang Jiuchuan saw the venom in his eyes and her gaze turned to ice. Unrepentant even at the moment of death.

She wanted to act — but Gong Qi appeared at precisely that moment, advising her: “If he dies by your hand, the Surveillance Bureau will have complications. Shall I handle this through official channels?”

Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold snort. She changed her seal and struck it into Xie Zhenming’s body — a backlash technique. He had Gu on him; she would let his own protective Gu rebound upon him.

The protective Gu had already suffered a backlash and gone dormant after attacking the emperor in the imperial hall. Now, forced by Lang Jiuchuan’s technique, it erupted into riot, rampaging wildly through his meridians.

Xie Zhenming rolled across the floor, screaming in agony as the protective Gu gnawed through his meridians, desperately seeking an outlet, its frantic confusion driving it to instinctively consume its host’s vital blood and life force.

This was what true backlash meant.

Boundless terror and despair surged in wave after wave, swallowing Xie Zhenming whole, and before long he had lost consciousness entirely.

Lang Jiuchuan glanced at Gong Qi. “Nothing to do with me — he suffered a backlash from the Gu creature inside his own body.”

Gong Qi’s face twitched. He walked in and checked Xie Zhenming’s breath, then said: “Nearly dead.”

The moment those words left his mouth, the protective Gu flew out from Xie Zhenming’s nostril. Gong Qi caught it swiftly with his fingers, sealed it in a jade vial — and Xie Zhenming went utterly still. The life had left him completely.

A wisp of soul drifted from his body, vague and disoriented. Upon catching sight of Lang Jiuchuan, his resentment surged, and he lunged at her. “I’ll kill you!”

Lang Jiuchuan summoned the Little Nine Pagoda, drew his soul inside it, and placed him within the Soul-Devouring Formation. Then she remarked, casual and unhurried: “If you have no wish to reincarnate, then let your soul scatter to nothing.”

A ghost messenger had just poked its head out — then, seeing the situation, shrank back. Oh dear, too slow by half. The ghost is already gone!