Lang Caining and her husband were supporting Wen Yue as the three of them looked around the small, modest shop. It was cold and quiet inside, with not a customer in sight — hardly the picture of a thriving business. If they had to survive on it, wouldn’t her ninth younger sister starve to death?

Lang Jiuchuan and Fuqi walked out to meet them, and she was somewhat surprised to see the group. “Why have you all come?”

Her gaze shifted to Wen Yue and Wen Ze, and her brow furrowed. She asked, “Where have you come from? Why are you both drenched in a shroud of ill fortune, and carrying a sickly death-taint with you?”

The aura on them made her feel both revulsion and disgust.

Wen Ze and the others startled and looked down at themselves, even sniffing at their own sleeves. “Ill fortune?”

Lang Jiuchuan nodded. “You are both enveloped in a layer of foul, unclean sickness-qi, laced with ill fortune. Can it be you don’t feel any discomfort in your own bodies? Look at the colour of your face — it has already gone ashen-blue, and your vital energy is draining away. You must feel heavy and fatigued throughout, yes?”

Wen Ze felt every hair on his body prickle upright and said rapidly, “Yes, yes, yes — I feel off everywhere. I thought it was because the whole wretched affair with that rabbit-eared gentleman, Lu Ruiting, had gotten me so irritated and agitated.”

Rabbit-eared gentleman!

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyebrow arched upward. She glanced at Wen Yue, whose eyes flickered briefly before she lowered her head in shame and self-mockery. “At this point, there is no use concealing it any longer.”

After Lang Jiuchuan’s treatment — the acupuncture, the herbal medicines, and the soul-calming incense — Wen Yue’s mind had mostly cleared. When she thought of how close she had come to committing an unforgivable, catastrophic act, she was racked with regret. Under the relentless questioning of Wen Ze and the others, she no longer held anything back, and finally spoke the secret she had buried deep within herself for all these years.

She had believed she was marrying into a distinguished family and wedding her ideal match — but as it turned out, her husband had long given his heart to someone else. And that someone else was a man. Aside from their wedding night, he found one excuse after another to sleep in the study — either too busy with official duties or staying overnight at the government offices.

When she cast aside her dignity and pride to seek him out, what did he say? He said she was immodest and without propriety — that all she ever thought about were men and the matters of the bedroom, that she had no shame.

Wen Yue had only ever been a new bride. She had never been subjected to such humiliation and could not understand: the consummation of a marriage between husband and wife was the most natural thing in the world — conceiving children required it — so how, in his eyes, had it become shamelessness?

At first, she genuinely thought he was a man of restrained and principled temperament and endured patiently. Three years later, she finally understood: it was not that he respected propriety or subscribed to the ludicrous saying about preserving one’s vital essence. He simply had no interest in women whatsoever.

The husband who performed perfect affection before all the world was nothing but a consummate hypocrite — utterly repugnant. Wen Yue naturally had no wish to share a bed with him, yet dared not breathe a word of it outside. She was one of the four renowned beauties of Wu Jing, celebrated throughout the capital even before her marriage. After her wedding, she was the great lady everyone envied, praised for having found an ideal husband — capable, promising, and devoted. How could she possibly say a word?

To protect that facade, she swallowed everything, performed alongside him, and drove herself into becoming a hollow, composed woman on the verge of madness — until, after years of marriage and still no child, with everyone’s eyes fixed on her belly, she was forced to go to him and plead.

Regardless of the gender, she had to have a child. So did he.

And then a child came — and was born dead. That was the final straw that broke everything. Wen Yue collapsed entirely and descended into complete madness.

“I was foolish — I clung to that so-called face and harmed myself, and harmed my child.” Wen Yue’s pallid face was streaked with tears.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the robes that hung loose and empty around her gaunt frame and let out a quiet sigh. “Your child possesses an extraordinary fate — it is precisely because of that that she encountered this trial. She was born with the destiny of a phoenix. If she grows up in peace, her future will be one of great and extraordinary fortune — she may one day become a noble consort or an empress. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Wen Yue’s eyes trembled, and she seized Lang Jiuchuan’s hand with both of hers. “Does that mean you have news of her whereabouts? I do not want her to have great fortune — I only want her to be safe and well. Even a plain and ordinary life is perfectly fine. I will provide for her into old age myself, as long as she lives.”

“Tend to yourself first.” Lang Jiuchuan drew away the shroud of ill fortune and sickness-qi from Wen Yue’s body, then turned to Wen Ze and asked, “Where exactly have you all been?”

The foul and unclean qi on them was far from ordinary — it was heavy, and laced with a dense sickness-taint.

“We haven’t been anywhere else. It must be from that ill-omened Lu Ruiting — he came wanting to bring Wen Yue home, and there was a quarrel. Pfah — a rabbit-eared gentleman wearing a human face, and he still had the nerve to talk about husband and wife and wedding vows. The man made me thoroughly sick.” Lang Caining said indignantly. “No need to ask — this ill fortune must have come from Lu Ruiting’s side. The moment I laid eyes on him, I sensed dark clouds hanging over his head, his face full of misfortune, the spirit of calamity clinging to him… wait — Ninth Younger Sister, does my body carry this foul qi as well? I am still nursing a child — it won’t pass to the baby, will it?”

“The protective talisman I gave you is not a fake.” Lang Jiuchuan said with mild exasperation. “So, from what you’re saying, something has happened on Lu Ruiting’s end. What is wrong with him?”

“Now that my wife mentions it, I recall — his eyelids were a dark, bruised blue, as if his vital energy and blood had been drained away. His complexion was ghastly and he had no life in him at all. We thought it was simply because the whole affair had come to light that he looked so wretched. But hearing Ninth Younger Sister speak this way — could he have been tainted by something unclean? And what about the ill fortune on me — how do I deal with that? Ninth Younger Sister, you’re as good as a blood sister to me — you have to help me out. My two little children are so young; they can’t be left without a father.” Wen Ze said urgently.

Lang Caining also looked at Lang Jiuchuan with pleading, flattering eyes.

Lang Jiuchuan turned to Fuqi. “Fetch a few jade talismans for them. This matter is not so simple — I’ll take a proper look at it later.”

This kind of ill fortune carried a heavy sickness-taint — it felt less like illness and more like something else. There was also an extremely faint trace of corpse-qi woven into it, and if it was the kind that spread from person to person — that could become a very serious problem indeed!

Fuqi reached casually into a cabinet and handed over several jade talismans.

Wen Ze said immediately, “How much silver? I’ll bring it myself next time.”

“Whatever you like.” Fuqi was entirely unconcerned. Gold and silver were not something they lacked, and when they ran short, they simply dug up ownerless graves.

Just then, from the rear courtyard came the sudden cry of an infant.

Wen Yue shuddered, as though touched by some invisible, heart-felt connection. From somewhere she summoned the strength, pushed past Lang Jiuchuan, and walked straight toward the sound.

Fuqi immediately looked to Lang Jiuchuan — should she stop her?

Lang Jiuchuan shook her head and followed along. What must come cannot be stopped. It was going to be said sooner or later anyway. Mother and daughter had a fated bond — let it be fulfilled. She had no desire to drag this out; she had far too many other things to attend to.

Wen Yue stumbled and half-ran toward the source of the infant’s cries, arriving at Madam Song’s room. Seeing the woman holding a bundled infant, Wen Yue’s breathing turned rapid and urgent, and a voice inside her mind seemed to urge her forward — go, go quickly, that is your child!

Madam Song stared in astonishment at this woman who had burst through the door. When she saw Lang Jiuchuan enter behind her, her heart steadied, and thinking of a particular possibility, she moved to hand over the infant.

But Lang Jiuchuan suddenly spoke, from behind Wen Yue. “Can you truly accept her living an ordinary life? Even then, there is a chance she may not live to grow up. Can you endure that pain?”

She was not certain that even if she broke the child’s destined fate-pattern, the National Preceptor would let the child go — so she laid out the hard truth first.

Wen Yue turned around, her lips trembling. “So… this truly is my child? She really did not die?”