Lang Jiuchuan returned home and first went to see the Old Matriarch. When the old woman saw her, she touched her face and kept calling her “dear child” and “you’ve suffered so,” then in the next moment was calling out for “Fan’er,” and then in another moment held her face steadily and said, “Dear child is no longer the same dear child as before, but she is still my dear child.”

Nanny Wang said that the Old Matriarch’s periods of confusion were growing longer and longer, and the time she spent in deep sleep was increasing as well.

Lang Jiuchuan pressed her lips together, felt her pulse, and let out a soft sigh. “Indulge her in everything,” she said. “Whatever she wants to eat, let her have it. Wherever she wants to go, let her go.”

No one could fight against the natural cycle of life — birth, aging, illness, and death. The Old Matriarch was already old.

Though Lang Dabo and the others had long heard as much from the household physicians and the Imperial Physicians and had already formed their suspicions and preparations, hearing it now from Lang Jiuchuan — words that were no different from a death sentence — their eyes instantly reddened.

“The tonic medicines you gave us, she’s been taking them every day. Is that still not enough?” Lang Dabo asked softly.

Lang Jiuchuan replied, “Medicine is not all-powerful. When a person’s allotted time has run out, no medicine, not even the immortals of the highest heavens, can do anything.”

The Old Matriarch was just an ordinary elderly woman. Her lifespan was finite. When her time came, she would simply go.

And they were the same. So long as one had not attained the Great Dao and ascended to immortality, all were mortal flesh and blood, destined to die in the end. This was something one had to accept.

And so, National Preceptor Tantai Qing — was it that you refused to accept your fate, and thus schemed in every possible way to evade the rules of life and death? Or was there some grander design behind all of this?

Lang Jiuchuan sank into contemplation. Seeing this, Lang Dabo and the others felt that they should not burden the child the moment she returned with such heavy matters, so they deliberately lightened the mood and changed the subject.

The group moved to the main reception hall to talk. Lang Jiuchuan dismissed everyone, keeping only Lang Dabo and Cui Shi. The matter of her origins was something Cui Shi most needed to know — others were of no importance — while Lang Dabo, as the head of the Lang Family, was kept so that he would have a clear picture in his mind.

“Jiuchuan, do you… have something to say?” Lang Dabo could not explain it, but he suddenly felt nervous.

Whenever this great niece of his became serious, his heart would feel uneasy.

“Mm. I’ll speak about what happened to me over these past six months.” Lang Jiuchuan hesitated for a moment, then added: “And about what happened in my previous life.”

This last part she directed at Cui Shi. At the same time, she tipped two pellets from a porcelain vial and offered them. “These are for strengthening the body. Take them.”

Lang Dabo looked at the fragrant, medicinal pellets. They smelled wonderful, yet to him they looked like poison. Tonics for the body — were they not actually calming medicines prepared in advance, for fear that the shock might frighten them to death?

Cui Shi, without knowing what prompted her, said nothing and simply swallowed hers, then looked at Lang Jiuchuan in wordless silence.

Once both had taken the medicine, Lang Jiuchuan stepped to stand before Cui Shi, then took one step back. Under their astonished gazes, she slowly bent her knees, pressed both hands to her forehead, and knelt down. Her voice rang out clear and resonant: “This bow — is offered in reverence to my mother.”

Mother…

Cui Shi’s body jolted violently. Her hands gripped the armrests with force. Tears rushed swiftly into her eyes, and her heart began to pound wildly.

Lang Jiuchuan had never once addressed her with such a honorific as “mother.” And now she had said — in reverence to my mother.

She stared, dazed, as Lang Jiuchuan prostrated herself on the ground, forehead resting on the backs of her hands, the full length of her neck exposed.

Cui Shi suddenly went rigid. Then, in disbelief, she rushed forward with near-violent force, reached out and pulled aside the collar and back hem of her garment — and there, a small, faint reddish crescent birthmark, bordered with a faint shimmer of gold, came into view. It struck her like a bolt of lightning. Her pupils contracted sharply.

“This — this is… how did you—” She was utterly incredulous, her trembling hands reaching out to touch the crescent mark.

Though it seemed contrary to propriety, Lang Dabo cast a sideways glance, and he too saw it — at the nape of her neck, a small crescent.

Was this not what his sister-in-law had always insisted — that her true daughter had a crescent birthmark at the nape of her neck?

Look — what was that if not a birthmark? How could this not be a daughter of the Lang Family?

“It’s impossible. It can’t be. Before, you clearly didn’t have this.” Cui Shi’s voice trembled. Her whole being was falling into disarray. She could not calm herself.

Because she had needed to confirm that she had not been mistaken back then, she had repeatedly had people examine the child, and Lang Jiuchuan had absolutely no such birthmark. So what was this?

Lang Jiuchuan rose, helped her to her feet, and with a subtle, precise press of her fingers against the web of Cui Shi’s hand, forced her to calm down. “You did not see wrong,” she said. “The child you bore, the one with the birthmark — she was taken away. And the child left in your care…” She paused. “Do you still remember Ren Yao?”

Cui Shi startled. A figure rose in her mind. She nodded blankly. Ren Yao — a distant cousin from her maternal side. The two of them had played together as children and had once been teased as two sisters, because there was some resemblance in their bearing.

“Her child and the one you gave birth to were switched. That is also why everyone believed you were mistaken — you two resembled each other, so your children would naturally share some likeness as well.”

Lang Dabo was completely stunned. “Jiuchuan, this… I can’t make head or tail of it at all.”

Lang Jiuchuan picked up a piece of paper, tore it into two small paper figures, and breathed a touch of spiritual energy into them. Once the paper figures came to life, she began to recount the cause and the consequence — starting from the switch, leaving out the scenes of her own death, and slowly laying bare this blood-soaked truth.

With the paper figures as stand-ins, and her account direct and concise, the two of them understood at once. It was like watching a shadow puppet play — they witnessed a tale of extraordinary twists: the dragon’s cub and the commoner’s child, swapped at birth.

The most devastating part was that in this tale of the switched dragon and the commoner’s child, the ending was that both the dragon’s cub had died, and the commoner’s child had died as well.

Lang Dabo went pale with shock. The teacup in his hand clattered and fell to the ground, shattering to pieces. His heart very nearly seized. He looked toward Cui Shi. This matter was too shocking, too extraordinary — how could she possibly bear it?

Cui Shi’s complexion had turned a ghastly white. She stared blankly at the paper figures. Then she watched as Lang Jiuchuan crumpled the two paper figures together, forming a third — which was herself.

Something inside her mind shattered.

“Though the outcome is not what anyone wished,” Lang Jiuchuan said, “I have still returned to the Lang Family. As Lang Jiuchuan of the Lang Clan, I bow to you in gratitude for the gift of life. I am your biological daughter. What you have insisted all along — you were not wrong.” She bowed to her once more.

Cui Shi staggered as though struck by a thunderbolt, stumbling backward, her body swaying as if she might crumple at any moment. Her eyes were filled with immense shock and disbelief. She stared at Lang Jiuchuan, her breathing came in rapid gasps as if she might faint the next second, her lips parted and closed — yet her throat seemed to be blocked, and she could not produce a single word.

She had not been wrong. Yes, she had not been wrong. But what did that matter now?

Her daughter. Her poor daughter. Dead. Whether the real one or the false one — both were dead.

Lang Jiuchuan had come back, that was true. But she had clawed her way back from hell. One could not know what ordeals she had endured before she could stand here and lay this blood-soaked truth bare before her.

“You are my daughter, you are my Jiuchuan — and yet all these years, what I… The child I turned away with cold indifference, I…” She looked at Lang Jiuchuan. Tears streamed down her face. Her hands clenched into fists, striking her own chest one blow after another. Then she threw back her head and let out a shrill, anguished cry.

“Ahh—!!”