Oh? Countess Guiyang was on her deathbed?

That was entirely expected.

Lang Jiuchuan raised an eyebrow and was just about to say something when a commotion broke out in the street below. She rose and walked to the window to look out.

She saw a carriage come racing from the far end of the street at a furious pace — its pomp and presence even greater than the grandeur she had once witnessed from Countess Guiyang’s entourage. Truly, not a single soul on the street dared block its path. Even those in fine fur-trimmed robes who were knocked to the ground and wanted to curse out loud were silenced by a single sweep of a gaze from someone on the carriage, not daring to make a sound.

Behind that carriage came another, even larger one — both vehicles bearing the same clan emblem.

“The Rong Family of the Xuan Clan has arrived.” A’Piao had appeared at her side at some point, his sharp gaze fixed on the emblem, his expression cold — and tinged with something close to loathing.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes gleamed softly. “From the look on your face, it seems you have a deep hatred for this Rong Family. What happened — did they dig up your grave and desecrate your corpse?”

A’Piao’s mouth twitched. “Nothing like that.”

“Then there’s bad blood between you?”

A’Piao gave a cold hum and said in a flat tone, “There are so-called righteous sects that strike down anything not of their kind without a moment’s thought — the Daoist clans of the Xuan school are the same. In their eyes, all ghosts are evil and must be destroyed.”

“So they captured and killed you once, treating you as an evil creature.”

A’Piao said nothing — a tacit admission. He watched the carriage race past in the street below and continued, “Coming in such haste — I don’t know which family managed to move them to send clan members out. The ghosts and spirits of Wu Jing had better lie low for a while.”

Thinking of this, he quickly hushed a ghost’s wail, and soon a ghost drifted in through the door. Seeing Lang Jiuchuan, it startled — there’s a living person here, why didn’t A’Piao say something before summoning me?

A’Piao thought to himself: The person beside me may have a physical body, but her fundamental nature is that of a ghost — and a fiercely malevolent one at that. What is there to fear?

“Little Hanging One, the Xuan Clan’s elder-disciples have entered the city. Pass the word — tell those lesser ghosts not to blunder into anyone’s soul-binding chains.”

The hanged ghost’s expression went taut at the news. It immediately withdrew to spread the warning.

Lang Jiuchuan watched A’Piao give orders without so much as acknowledging her presence and said, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll tip off the Xuan Clan?”

“Please go right ahead, miss — as long as you have nothing to hide.” A’Piao smiled slyly. “We’re made of the same stuff at the bottom of it. Why expose your own weakness? You’re frail as it is — picking fights constantly isn’t good for you.”

Lang Jiuchuan let out a short, cold laugh. “You all behave like this all the time — hiding whenever the Xuan Clan shows up? Surely there’s no need to be this frightened. Standing here as we are, the people inside that carriage couldn’t detect a thing out of the ordinary. Could it be that you’ve been dead so long your powers have faded?”

“I, A’Piao, have been dead for a hundred years, and I have my master’s protection to shelter me — naturally those people can’t sense a thing.” A’Piao watched the lesser ghosts scrambling to hide in the shadowed corners of the street and said wistfully, “But not all wandering souls and wild ghosts are so fortunate or so powerful. If one of them gets caught — being sent to reincarnation would be the lucky outcome. Being dragged away for unknown purposes, forced to commit terrible acts against their will — that’s the real horror.”

“Do such things happen even within the Xuan Clan? Are there so-called righteous practitioners who capture ghosts and use them in dark refinement?”

“Miss doesn’t actually believe that everyone in the righteous path is truly righteous, does she? Not at all. There are those within the righteous sects who are more wicked than ghosts themselves — men of the so-called righteous path who have committed countless murderous sins. Are there none such within the Xuan Clan?” A’Piao’s ghost-eyes suddenly turned blood-red at some thought, his ghost aura surging into something cold and eerie.

Out in the street, the carriage that had already passed Tongtian Pavilion suddenly had its door open — the curtain was lifted, and someone looked out and scanned the surroundings before withdrawing back inside.

Lang Jiuchuan, seeing this, raised a hand in a quick seal and suppressed A’Piao’s ghost aura.

A’Piao noticed and quickly reined himself in. He wasn’t afraid of the Xuan Clan, but his master had been in seclusion for the past two years — he couldn’t afford to bring trouble to Tongtian Pavilion.

Lang Jiuchuan thought of that pair of ghost-fiends from the Ou Family — the mother and son. The Seven-Star Vajra Pagoda was a sacred artifact, born of the righteous path, yet it had been used to refine ghost-fiends. And who on earth was this “Nine-Brow Immortal Elder”?

“Since you know such corrupt practitioners exist within the Xuan Clan — do you know of someone called the Nine-Brow Immortal Elder? Is he one of them?”

A’Piao tilted his head slightly. “Nine-Brow… if I’m not mistaken, that should be an elder who served the Feng Family fifteen years ago. He later vanished without a trace. The Feng Family even issued a Xuan Order over it.”

“What is a Xuan Order?”

“A kill warrant.” A’Piao seemed vaguely disdainful. “Ordinary temples and shrines serve the people — offering incense, prayer, and a place of faith. But this Xuan Clan — they’re merely cultivators of the Daoist arts, yet because their ancestors produced true practitioners with genuine lineage, they’ve put on airs, turned their cultivation into something resembling the great sects of the immortal cultivation era, forming their own faction. Three-year cycles for recruiting disciples and enlisting elder-protectors for the clan — not quite a sect, not quite a martial world organization, not quite an aristocratic family. A complete mess, yet they lord themselves above countless noble families. Ridiculous.”

He watched the distant carriage and continued his explanation. “The Xuan Clan has warrant tokens, divided into three tiers. The first tier is also called the kill warrant — it is distributed far and wide across the land. Any fellow cultivator who hunts down the person named in the warrant receives the Xuan Clan’s patronage, along with alchemical pills, sacred artifacts, talismans, and other treasures as reward — or has any one request granted.”

“So this Daoist Nine-Brow was once a wanted criminal of the Xuan Clan’s Feng Family,” Lang Jiuchuan said. “What did he do — dig up the Feng Family’s ancestral graves?”

“Rumor has it he stole some kind of precious artifact from the Feng Family — one of their supreme treasures. They’ve been searching for it ever since. What was it again… I believe it was some sort of Buddhist pagoda?”

Lang Jiuchuan: !

Jiang Che, who had been playing dead: !

We’re all done for. Another mortal enemy added to the list.

Indeed — anyone who came after what she held in her hands was a mortal enemy.

Her aura shifted subtly, becoming strange. A’Piao couldn’t help but glance at her, a look of suspicion crossing his face.

Lang Jiuchuan kept her expression perfectly neutral and said with forced calm, “It seems this Xuan Clan has quite the flair — issuing some grand warrant just to hunt one person.”

A’Piao was entirely unimpressed, and gave a scoffing laugh. “They think the era is still what it was for their ancestors — when spiritual energy was rich and abundant. All these empty, pretentious theatrics. If they actually produced someone who had achieved Core Formation in their cultivation today, they wouldn’t need any of this hollow posturing to prop themselves up. The Xuan Clan does inspire fear and reverence — but most of that rests on their ancestors’ renown and whatever sacred artifacts still remain in their possession. It’s all smoke and mirrors for ordinary people who don’t know better.”

A’Piao leaned lazily against the window frame. “A cultivator without real power — even if they hold a sacred artifact in their hands, they’ll never be able to fully draw out its strength. How can they call themselves formidable? If the Xuan Clan keeps putting prestige and status before actual cultivation, they will fall eventually. Not a single genuine talent has emerged from the Xuan Clan in the past hundred years — that tells you everything.”

“What about outside the Xuan Clan?” Lang Jiuchuan said. “Have you heard of anyone? The kind who remained hidden, perhaps — someone of great talent who died too soon to be recruited by the Xuan Clan?”

A’Piao shook his head. “I have not. Unless they were someone who spent their life in deep seclusion — but if such a person existed, they would have made a name for themselves long ago.”

Lang Jiuchuan felt a flicker of disappointment. So she had no idea who she was — even A’Piao had heard of no one like her.

She didn’t dwell on it and said, “I can see that you and the Rong Family of the Xuan Clan have bad blood. What if we worked together?”

A’Piao’s paper form stiffened. …What?