The bell’s tone was deep and unhurried, lingering long after each strike. The chanting of scripture was compassionate and serene. The paper money burned to fine ash and was caught by the wind, carried into every corner.

The wind wailed like a lament, as though the spirits of the dead were crying out.

Old Master Cui stood to one side in silence, watching Lang Jiuchuan recite scripture. An inexplicable pang of sorrow rose within him.

Huijun’s greatest failing — her worst and most stubborn error — had been sending the child away to be raised on the country estate. How obstinate she’d been. And look at what the child had grown into now.

She had entered the Dao.

A daughter of a marquis’s household, born in nobility — she should have lived in comfort and luxury, dressed in silk and splendor. At the proper age she should have found a suitable husband, married, borne children, and lived out a content and ordinary life.

Yet here was Lang Jiuchuan. Everything about her existence diverged completely from the path of an ordinary woman. Her road was cultivation.

Old Master Cui recalled the image of Cui Shi on her knees before him, begging him to look after Lang Jiuchuan in the days ahead — and felt a renewed surge of irritation. What had she been doing all this time?

Truly beyond foolish!

The scripture chanting ended. He looked again across the entirety of the estate and sensed something remarkably different — a clarity, a luminosity. The murky, stagnant resentment had faded considerably.

Old Master Cui looked at Lang Jiuchuan again. She had rehung the simple, ancient little bell at her waist, and her eyes, as she gazed outward, were clear and tranquil, washed clean of turbulence.

He turned his gaze away, pressing down the trace of bittersweet feeling stirring at the bottom of his heart, fingers moving slowly against the fabric of his sleeve.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the burned-out incense on the ground. “Now that the offerings are done, let’s leave. The yin energy here is still heavy — staying too long is harmful. Remember to have an imperial physician take your pulse when you return.”

“And you?”

Lang Jiuchuan looked at him with a peculiar expression. “We’re not going the same direction, and I have things to attend to.”

What sort of things could a young girl possibly have to attend to?

“You—” The words rose in Old Master Cui’s mind — but he kept them there, unsaid. This girl had a mind of her own, and a strong one. His gaze drifted to the white cat perched on her shoulder — he hadn’t noticed it climb up there — and his unspoken words transformed: “Your white cat is quite well-behaved.”

Lang Jiuchuan gave him a blank look.

That’s how you make casual conversation?

Jiangche reared back on his hind legs, brandishing his front paws in the air with dramatic indignation: “Who are you calling a cat — your whole family are cats!”

Old Master Cui’s expression went blank.

He was still somewhat dazed as he exited the Ren estate. It wasn’t until the side gate slammed shut that he startled back to himself. He turned to look at the little door, then at Quanshou — who wore the same blank expression — and asked: “Quanshou, can cats talk?”

“They — they can’t, can they?” Quanshou stammered. Something like that would have to have attained spiritual sentience.

Just like the one on Cousin Miss’s shoulder.

Old Master Cui pressed his lips together, fixing Quanshou with a firm look. “We were never here today. You saw nothing. Understood?”

“Yes, sir, understood. Your servant has been blind this whole time — truly saw nothing at all.” The real truth was: he’d seen it and didn’t dare say a word.

“Good.” Old Master Cui gave a satisfied nod. “When we return, take my calling card and invite Physician Liang to come to the estate.”

She had said it once too many times — it was probably not an idle warning.

He turned for one last look at the Ren estate and let out a long sigh. “Let’s go.”

Lang Jiuchuan glanced at Jiangche with mild exasperation. “What are you showing off for? So you can speak in human tongue — is that something worth making a fuss over?”

Jiangche gave a haughty sniff. “I am the White Tiger General. Who does that old man think I am — some common tabby? He had it coming.”

“Then first go and demonstrate the full power of a general!” Lang Jiuchuan gave a soft scoff, and walked deeper into the rear courtyard.

Jiangche tilted his head, puzzled. “Why did you come to this estate anyway?”

“The last time I came in here — searching for that girl from the Qiao family — I felt my emotions go wrong. An intense, seething bitterness arose in me, cold and hostile. Back then I wasn’t sure whether it was because so many had died here and the resentment was heavy, or whether it originated from something in myself. But later, with this bone fragment of unknown origin appearing — I’ve felt more and more that I ought to come and look properly.” Lang Jiuchuan touched the bone chime, her expression cooling. “And what did we just learn? This estate had someone living in it with Cui blood in her veins — and she perished in the massacre. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

“What are you getting at?” Jiangche looked at the crumbling, rotting structures of the estate, corroded by years of neglect. “You’re thinking this Cui woman, or perhaps that Ren Yao, has something to do with you?”

“Or perhaps — with us.” Lang Jiuchuan tapped at her own body, then at her spirit point. “I can only hope I’m overthinking things, and that it’s all coincidence. But consider — if this body’s original soul had Rong family blood, then who was her birth mother? The Fourth Young Master of the Rong family once had a woman he deeply cared for. Who was that woman?”

Jiangche’s tiger eyes went wide as saucers. “Don’t tell me you’ve worked yourself around to thinking this body belongs to the Fourth Young Master of the Rong family — and that the birth mother was someone from the Ren estate? You’ve spun quite a tale with that imagination of yours. Even writers of storytelling books couldn’t come up with this. Utterly absurd.”

“Old Master Cui said Ren Yao resembled Cui Shi — the two were cousins, and shared some likeness. If they were alike, what might the child they bore look like?” Lang Jiuchuan turned so Jiangche could look at her. “Setting aside the matter of my soul inhabiting this body — does this form truly bear no resemblance to Cui Shi? Even Nanny Cheng and the others said there was a likeness.”

A crawling sense of unease came over Jiangche. “Let me sort through this — so if your hypothesis holds, this body is the daughter of the Rong Fourth Young Master and Ren Yao. Your original self, meanwhile, was the daughter of Cui Shi and Lang Zhengfan. And someone behind the scenes switched you both. This is completely baseless, you realize? And moreover — why would anyone go to all that trouble? And if we follow this line of thinking — the Young Master of the Rong family is older than either of you. By this theory, the body you inhabit would be what people call a child born out of wedlock!”

Truly an outrageous and audacious theory.

What sort of mind was she carrying around to produce schemes and conspiracies like this?

“That’s precisely why the truth needs to be uncovered. But doesn’t this hypothesis feel disturbingly close to the truth? We were switched — both ultimately met our deaths — and I happened to return to life by inhabiting this particular body. The way everything aligns, everything fits. It can only be explained if blood and karmic bonds are the cause.” Lang Jiuchuan looked at one of the estate’s structures before her — a building blackened by fire — and pressed her hand to her chest as a wave of hostility, impossible to suppress, rose within her. She frowned. “I’m feeling it again. Fury — and a thread of something binding me here.”

Jiangche made a sound of surprise. “This Ren estate — it’s specifically this one building that was burned.”

Lang Jiuchuan walked into it, surveying the ruin. “This was a woman’s private bower — two stories.”

More than ten years had passed. The place had not only been consumed by fire but had fallen into severe disrepair — even the floor tiles had warped and buckled upward.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes swept across the devastation. After a long moment, she felt profound disappointment. There was nothing here.

But of course — whoever had gone to such painstaking lengths to exterminate an entire household would hardly leave behind traces for others to follow.

Then, all of a sudden, Jiangche was struck by a flash of insight: “Your theory — it might actually hold. You’ve forgotten: the altar array beneath the lake in the center of the estate? That Zhengyang Zi you’ve still got locked in the Little Nine Pagoda — he said the Rong Family Head established that ritual site. Why specifically here, in the Ren estate?”

Lang Jiuchuan gripped the Dizhong bell tightly. Yes. Why?

“The Rong Family Head knew the truth of this body’s origins. That’s why when the Rong Young Master ran into trouble, he didn’t hesitate for a moment — had this body mutilated and killed, the sinew-and-bone spiritual root stripped away.” Jiangche looked at Lang Jiuchuan. “He found you so easily — could he not be the very person who engineered the switch between you and this body in the first place?”

But then — why go to all that trouble? Why keep the original soul living in the Ren household, instead of simply doing so? Why bother switching her with the daughter of Cui Shi and Lang Zhengfan?

What was so exceptional about that child?

Lang Jiuchuan was just about to pull Zhengyang Zi out and demand answers — to see whether he had any clues — when the sound of something tearing through the air reached her from behind. She spun around in an instant.

Someone appeared, descending from the sky.

When she made out that person’s face, the fury already burning in her chest shot upward like a flame suddenly fed with oil.

Another one who sought her death — and now here they were.