A thunderous boom rang out, followed immediately by the heaving and shuddering of the earth.

Both Lang Jiuchuan and Gong Tinglan’s expressions changed drastically. Each of them swayed — for beneath them, the low hill had begun to shake violently without any warning, as though a sleeping giant dragon had been jolted awake and was roaring in rage.

Something is wrong — they had walked into a trap.

Lang Jiuchuan’s pupils contracted sharply. She understood in an instant.

Why had breaking this formation gone so smoothly? Even the collapse and obstruction she had anticipated had never materialized. Everything had proceeded as though by natural course, as if the formation were a dying old beast that had simply let itself be dealt with — not a finger of resistance.

Now, as a wave of devastating, ferocious energy erupted from deep within the false acupoint eye in a furious counterattack — intent on obliterating everything in its path — it finally dawned on her.

So that was where the wrongness lay.

This was a contingency left behind by that old fox, Tantai Qing: a formation within a formation — a reverse-surge recoil trap. Whoever discovered this formation and attempted to break it would be struck by the inner retaliatory array, bearing the consequence of having disrupted his arrangement.

And this was not a defense mechanism. It was not a warning either. It was direct and unequivocal retaliation.

At the same time, it served as a concealment of the Fortune-Stealing formation’s existence.

“Damn it!” Lang Jiuchuan bore the brunt — that violent energy slammed into her with tremendous force, her chest cavity shuddering with pain, and she immediately coughed up a mouthful of heart’s blood.

With the formation fully exposed, the yin-fire talismans buried within, mixed with the yin energy and killing energy from the earth veins, all erupted together — flooding the interior of the cave with inauspicious killing energy in a moment, surging toward Lang Jiuchuan and the others like a tide that could topple mountains and overturn seas, intent on devouring and crushing them.

Though shaken, Lang Jiuchuan swiftly composed herself. Facing the surging yin killing energy, her reaction was instantaneous — with a single intent, the true energy throughout her body erupted without reservation, forming an invisible defensive barrier around herself. She called out sharply: “Young Master Gong — retreat!”

In this cave, fighting head-on was not an option. Even if they won, the mountain body would collapse from the exchange of techniques, and they would be buried alive within it.

In the thirty-six stratagems, fleeing is the best.

Jiangche had already darted out with the speed of thunder, while Gong Tinglan reacted with equal swiftness, producing a Sun-Moon-Star Formation Disc. The light of the stars and constellations spilled across the small cave, forming a gentle luminous barrier around himself as he retreated rapidly toward the exit.

Yet the retaliatory force was fierce and ferocious. His formation disc let out a sharp cracking sound almost immediately.

His expression darkened. Before he could even channel the upright true energy within his body, the protective barrier of light shattered.

At that critical instant, Lang Jiuchuan’s figure swept over like a ghost, seizing Gong Tinglan’s arm. Her other hand gripped the Dizhong Bell and struck it sharply — the bell tones surged out in great waves, transforming into invisible streams of upright energy that slammed into the retaliatory force.

Without a single pause, she dragged Gong Tinglan along, turned aside in a single motion, executed the Divine Locomotion technique, and in an instant of folded space, both of them had vanished from the cave and emerged outside.

Boom.

A deafening explosion rang out, shaking the entire ancestral tomb with a shudder.

Both turned back at the same moment. Behind them, the low hill had collapsed by nearly half. Dust, debris, and shattered stone, mixed together with inauspicious killing energy, surged up into the sky. Every tree in the surrounding area turned black under the impact, then swiftly withered, snapped, and crashed to the ground.

A scene of utter ruin.

Lang Jiuchuan and Gong Tinglan stood there, robes billowing — and both of them thoroughly dust-coated and disheveled.

They stared, expressions stiff and cold, at the hill that had half-crumbled to ruin. Both felt the same suffocating mixture of humiliation and fury — the feeling of having been played for fools.

At the very moment they had been privately congratulating themselves on successfully breaking the formation, it turned out the other party had long since laid a trap and was simply waiting for them to walk into it. Did this count as the praying mantis catching the cicada, unaware that the oriole was behind it?

No — they had spent all their days hunting birds, only to have the bird peck out their own eyes in the end.

“We are still too young,” Gong Tinglan said, looking at the ruined hill and the ravaged, withered trees, still not entirely recovered from the shock — yet with an unavoidable note of self-derision. “Among those of my generation, and even compared to many fellow practitioners who have cultivated for years, I have always considered myself someone of exceptional talent — a cut above. I thought I could serve as a guide to others. But now I see clearly — it was my own shallowness and arrogance. There are mountains beyond mountains, and those who truly possess great ability never proclaim it loudly.”

Never mind the National Preceptor — even Lang Jiuchuan herself, back when her spirit and soul were incomplete, had never allowed the full extent of her abilities to be seen by others. Those who possess both shrewdness and ability always know to keep their own reserves and contingencies in reserve.

He had learned his lesson today.

“The ginger grows hotter with age,” Lang Jiuchuan said, lowering her gaze. “It seems even as a master, he feared teaching his apprentice too well and having her outstrip him. And so he saved this lesson — all the way to today.”

Today’s lesson: well received.

She lifted her gaze once more and looked at the hill, a quiet wariness rising in her heart. In the past, when she had dealt with the Rong family, there had certainly been moments of near-death — yet she had passed through them unscathed, and later, including the rebuilding of her Dao-body, when she looked back, this life of rebirth, for all its stumbles and setbacks, had been aided by benefactors, and had proceeded with relative smoothness. She had even grown a little complacent.

But she no longer thought so.

She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, fished out some medicinal pills, and swallowed a few. Then she said with cold, cutting humor: “Petty to the last copper, settling every account on the spot, never letting a grudge last the night — even if it costs him something of himself, he must see the other party left smeared and compromised. That has always been my master’s consistent style.”

Though — had she not learned that very trait from him? She simply had not learned it fully. That old fox ran far deeper than anything she had known of him, far more calculating and far-sighted — the precision of his schemes, the depth of his cunning, the ruthlessness of his nature, all surpassed her imagination by a wide measure.

Take this Fortune-Stealing Life-Nourishing formation alone: he had not only laid down an array that was nearly impossible for anyone to see through, he had also anticipated the possibility of someone seeing through it and breaking it — and had laid a retaliatory array to deal with that very contingency. If the breaker of the formation could not escape in time, this formation would be buried in the earth for eternity, unknown and unseen by anyone — and no one would ever trace it back to him.

This was a shield, protecting his concealment behind the scenes.

A chill settled in her heart. She could no longer judge his actions by her former understanding of him. She would need to push her calculations further, always, especially when opposing him. A single moment of carelessness or arrogance could mean stepping into a death trap he had prepared long in advance.

Tantai Qing was not like the head of the Rong Family. He had an illustrious reputation, and unlike a clan patriarch, he carried no family name to protect. The only thing he truly valued was national fortune and his own fate.

Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze went cold as ice. She narrowed her eyes. Do not be hasty. Do not rush. What he could do — she could do most of it too. But what she could do, he might not know.

Such as the inheritance she had received from Master Luo Le.

That was unknown to him. And it was her most important hidden card.

“Have you two come back to your senses yet?” Jiangche’s cool, flat voice broke in, pulling both of them out of their private thoughts. “The hill has collapsed — hasn’t the feng shui of this ancestral tomb been ruined?”

Lang Jiuchuan and Gong Tinglan came back to themselves, surveyed their surroundings, then looked at each other — somewhat sheepishly. “That… doesn’t count as good intentions gone wrong, does it?”

“Oh no — we also forgot about Yang Xiuyong.” Gong Tinglan realized belatedly. “The formation we were breaking was hit by the recoil as well — what about him?”

“Let’s go — check on his condition first. As for the ancestral tomb, we can come back afterward and lay a new feng shui formation for them!” Lang Jiuchuan’s figure flashed, and she departed the area.