Having learned that the Qi Family had called upon members of the Rong Family’s clan, Lang Jiuchuan did not let arrogance get the better of her. As the saying goes — know yourself and know your enemy, and you will prevail in a hundred battles. She could keep a low profile, but she couldn’t go in blind. She needed at least a rough measure of the other side’s capabilities.

And so — she would spy.

A’Piao watched as the nimble little yellow paper figure waved its tiny hand at them from the window ledge and then leapt off without hesitation. He gave Lang Jiuchuan a deeply peculiar look and said nothing.

Was she showing that off to prove she wasn’t weak, or to make clear she had real skill — and that her offer to poach him still stood?

A’Piao hugged his paper form tightly. He would remain loyal to his master unto death.

Lang Jiuchuan had him go downstairs to prepare the materials she needed. She then sat in stillness within the room, centering her breath, intending to see through the paper figure’s eyes and observe what abilities the Rong Family’s arrivals actually possessed.

Why not send Jiang Che? Precisely because she was wary of the other side having some artifact that might detect Jiang Che’s presence and get it captured — which would then cost her considerable effort to rescue.

The paper figure was different. It was only imbued with a certain degree of spiritual sense, and if discovered, she could incinerate it immediately. For anyone to trace it back to her, they would need a cultivation level to match.

Jiang Che was deeply moved and resolved to stop cursing her out loud in future. It would only curse her in private from now on.

It slipped outside, checked that no ghosts were around, and then communicated with her through her spiritual sea. “You just heard what A’Piao said. That Vajra Pagoda — it turns out it came from the Feng Family.”

“It’s mine,” Lang Jiuchuan said without hesitation. “An unclaimed object — I found it, so it belongs to me.”

Jiang Che was stumped for a moment, then said, “That may be so, but you also know what the Xuan Clan is like. The Feng Family isn’t someone to trifle with either. They’re famous for their artifact refinement, and their temperament is as explosive as the forge fires they work with. Once they find out the Vajra Pagoda is in your hands and you won’t return it — that volatile temper of theirs won’t stand for it.”

Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold laugh. “If they can’t stand it, neither can I. They couldn’t keep their own treasure safe and let someone steal it away — that’s their incompetence. Or rather, their lack of fortune. There’s a saying: a house without destiny cannot keep its wealth. Even if wealth comes through the door, it won’t stay. Who’s to blame for that?”

She paused and added scornfully, “And furthermore, the one who stole it wasn’t even an outsider — it was one of their very own disciples. You know what that’s called? Embezzlement from within. If that got out, it’d be a laughingstock. What face do they have to go demanding it back from someone who happened to pick it up?”

“Not having any face doesn’t stop them from demanding it back,” Jiang Che replied drily. “This is a sacred artifact. If it were something of yours that went missing, and you learned where it was — would you just sit on your hands? Especially when it’s something passed down from the ancestors.”

Lang Jiuchuan was, for once, stumped. She wouldn’t.

She pressed her lips together, and after a long moment said, “Then we’ll each rely on our own abilities. Besides — what makes them so sure this is the same one their family lost? What proof do they have?”

She hadn’t brought the Vajra Pagoda out at all. Her reasons for coming to Tongtian Pavilion were twofold — first, to collect the intelligence she had previously commissioned, and second, to find some materials to strip away the malevolent ghost-fiend energy from the Vajra Pagoda and reawaken its artifact spirit.

But the situation was now clearly more complicated than that.

The treasure had once resided with the Feng Family — she didn’t know whether they’d placed any marks or seals on it. If they had, she needed to remove them as soon as possible and re-temper the artifact, so that if they ever crossed paths in the future, she’d have grounds to argue. You say it’s yours — prove it.

Lang Jiuchuan’s mind worked at a furious pace. She was only sorry she still had to keep her head down for now. If her cultivation were at its peak, she’d like to see who would dare come and take anything from her.

For now, the only option was to re-temper the Vajra Pagoda. Then, if it ever surfaced, she could claim it was merely a very fine replica — a very fine one, at that. Ha.

That settled it.

With her mind at rest, she sat cross-legged, steadied her breathing, and the little paper figure arrived at the Qi estate.

The Qi household had been suffering no small amount of torment these days. Who could have imagined — Qi Xinyu had merely stayed at her elder sister’s home for a while, and upon returning to the capital, a startled horse had sent her striking her forehead against the inside of the carriage. The wound simply never healed. Medicines were applied, but the wound kept festering and blackening day after day, no matter how many physicians were called. No one could do a thing.

The Qi Family didn’t dare let Qi Xinyu see a mirror. But water reflects too — on one of Qi Xinyu’s rare lucid days, she caught sight of her own reflection in the surface of some water by chance. What had been only a small red swelling on her forehead had transformed, through some unknown means, into something blackened and rotting — the flesh split open at the edges, curling back, exposing glimpses of bone beneath. Utterly horrifying.

At the sight of it, Qi Xinyu fainted on the spot. She had since become frantic and disordered in her mind — sometimes flailing wildly as though chasing something away, sometimes screaming that there were ghosts. She wasted away rapidly, her skin going dark, every trace of vitality gone from her. She looked less like a young woman than a dried-out old crone.

The Qi Family was at their wits’ end. They knew their daughter had been entangled by something unclean. They immediately sent word to her elder sister, asking her to have someone come and perform a ritual to suppress and destroy the evil.

The Xuan Clan, lofty as they were, still needed a reason to maintain their place in the world — whether out of reputation or genuine faith. When great evil, great malice, and great baleful entities threatened the populace, so long as someone reported it and the local authorities coordinated, the Xuan Clan would respond alongside Buddhist monks and Daoist priests to uphold the righteous path. After all, they prided themselves as defenders of all living beings. If they truly refused to deal with anything, who would continue to venerate them and keep them seated on their sacred pedestal?

Private requests, however, depended on connections — or the mood of whoever was asked.

When someone protected under the Xuan Clan’s wing was in trouble, the clan would generally intervene on their behalf. For someone like Qi Xinyu, whose elder sister was, after all, a daughter-in-law of the Rong household by marriage — she was family. Of course they would step in.

Still, how capable the person they sent actually was depended entirely on the weight of the one making the request.

Qi Xinyu’s weight was evidently not great enough — only a single disciple and a small Daoist acolyte were dispatched. The disciple called himself Daoist Master Cheng, a male practitioner in his mid-forties. Accompanying him was Qi Xinmei, the Qi sister who had married into the Rong Family.

The two of them arrived at Qi Xinyu’s courtyard. Daoist Master Cheng furrowed his brow, pressed his fingers together in a seal, narrowed his eyes, and said, “Such dense resentful energy. Bone-chillingly cold.”

Qi Xinmei gripped her own wrist tightly — it bore a protective artifact her husband had petitioned the clan to obtain for her: a bracelet of peach-wood beads carved with the Vajra Incantation.

Holding it was the only thing that kept her feeling any warmth. She didn’t dare stray far from Daoist Master Cheng’s side, and with a grave expression turned to look at her parents. “My sister has only just returned. How did her courtyard accumulate such dense resentful energy? What did she encounter? And where is her protective talisman?”

Qi Xinmei’s mother’s eyes flickered evasively. “Your sister has always been well-behaved. She hasn’t provoked anyone. It must have been a collision with some ill-fated spirit on her way back to the capital — and then the other party cursed her and said she wouldn’t live long. After that day, Yuer never recovered, and now it’s come to this… Meimei, Daoist Master, please — you have to save Yuer. She has a marriage arranged for a few months from now. Something cannot happen to her.”

Qi Xinmei watched her mother’s evasive manner and knew something was being hidden — but her face remained impassive. She turned to Daoist Master Cheng. “Daoist Master Cheng, I leave this in your hands.”

Daoist Master Cheng gave an affected, pompous sound of acknowledgment. “Rest assured. Expelling evil and suppressing malice is the very purpose of cultivation for those of our path. A resentful ghost that harms people must be destroyed.” He paused, apparently worried about contradicting himself later, so he added, “That said, all things have their cause and effect. If the lady’s sister was the one who sinned first — well, that is another matter.”

Lang Jiuchuan, listening through the paper figure’s senses, nearly burst out laughing.

In other words: if he won, the credit was his. If he lost, Qi Xinyu had sinned and brought it on herself. Nothing to do with him.