The Qi Family’s faces were tight with fury. Qi Xingyu had barely breathed her last, and this cursed short-lived wretch was already at their door. Calling this an intrusion was putting it mildly — she was clearly here to provoke them.

But with her standing beside the Gong Family’s sons, every person present swallowed their rage and dared not vent it. The glances that were cast her way, however, were like flying daggers — every one aimed to kill.

“Miss Lang, what brings you here? The Qi Family has no dealings with your household, as I recall.” Qi Xinfei asked, her expression controlled.

“That is precisely what I came to ask your household.” Lang Jiuchuan replied with the same unhurried calm. “Since we have no dealings, I would very much like to know where exactly I have offended your household, that you would see fit to drive my entire family to their deaths.”

“Don’t go spewing your vile slander!” Qi Xinfei’s elder brother erupted in fury. “You were the one who opened your wicked mouth and cursed our Fourth Sister, which is what sent her to an early grave!”

Qi Xinfei’s expression shifted sharply. “Brother — Fourth Sister died of sudden illness!”

She turned again to Gong Qi and Gong Four, forcing a smile. “My elder brother has always doted deeply on Fourth Sister. Now that she has passed so suddenly from illness, he is grief-stricken beyond reason. Please pay his words no mind.”

Claiming it was a curse that killed her might work to fool an outsider. To say such a thing in front of the Gong Family’s sons right here — that was nothing but a laughingstock.

Lang Jiuchuan glanced at Gong Qi. “If we don’t go in now, the people inside are going to run.”

Gong Qi immediately stepped into the courtyard. Gong Four followed.

Qi Xinfei’s face went white. By all appearances, this short-lived wretch and the Gong Family’s sons were on quite familiar terms — they had walked in at a single word from her, not even acknowledging anything she had said.

Had the Gong Family come here to back Lang Jiuchuan up?

Qi Xinfei’s fingernails dug into her palm. Her mind was working rapidly. Today’s matter was unlikely to be resolved cleanly. The Qi Family had never been important enough to make the Rong Family and the Gong Family fall out with each other — especially when the Rong Family still had plans to arrange a marriage between their young heir and the Gong Family’s young heir.

The Qi Family was probably about to become the sacrificial pawn.

And not just that — she herself, upon returning, would likely be ordered to sever all contact with her family. After all, the Qi Family’s actions had cost two Daoists their cultivation, and had now drawn in the Gong Family’s sons.

Understanding this clearly, Qi Xinfei felt the ground sway beneath her and her face drained of all color. For the first time, a faint thread of resentment toward her younger sister surfaced in her heart.

Qi Xingyu should have reined herself in. She had buried herself in this, and not only that — she had dragged the whole family down with her, and Qi Xinfei along with it.

Qi Xinfei raised her eyes and looked at Lang Jiuchuan. The other woman was watching her in return, her gaze deep and cold — as though it saw straight through everything — carrying a flicker of contempt and disdain. Qi Xinfei’s heart clenched.

She had provoked the wrong person.

That thought flashed through her and was gone. Qi Xinfei’s vision darkened.

Lang Jiuchuan had already entered the courtyard. Before her stood several members of the Rong Family’s household — their so-called guardian elders — who had come out at the commotion.

Gong Qi recognized Daoist Wumu on sight. And at one glance, he could see that both he and the Yellow-Browed Daoist at his side had suffered severe karmic backlash. His expression turned frigid. “The Xuan Clans have a standing order: practitioners are forbidden from using Xuan arts to strike down or retaliate against common people, and even more forbidden from using sinister and harmful techniques to injure the innocent. Once discovered, the Xuan Alliance’s Enforcement Hall will strip the offender of their cultivation. You are members of the Rong Family’s household — and elders at that. You can’t claim you didn’t know. Is this, then, a deliberate and knowing violation of the prohibition?”

Hearing this, Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes moved with subtle interest. There was actually an Enforcement Hall like this?

Elder Daoist Cheng wished he could shrink himself down to the size of a quail. What rotten luck. He’d known — the moment these two’s techniques had collapsed, he should have left the Qi household immediately. And now here they were, caught red-handed with someone standing right at the door. And the one who’d caught them was the Gong Family’s second son.

Gong Qi had a reputation for being utterly relentless. When he got fierce, it was said he’d overturn a man’s ancestral graves — the kind of unstoppable madman who answered to no one.

Word also had it that Gong Qi was the next designated successor of the Gong Family — though whether that was true, the Gong Family alone could say, since it all hinged on whether he had a cultivation root.

Elder Daoist Cheng had no time to spare a thought for the two beside him. He stepped forward and clasped his hands together. “Fellow Gong Daoists, please take note: this old Daoist only came upon command to help the Qi household’s young miss expel evil and subdue malevolence. But my skills are lacking, and I could not fully purge the dark corruption from within the young miss’s body in time, which led to her death from the poison of it. As for the prohibition — this old Daoist has truly not violated it. I only suffered some injury during the exorcism, nothing more.”

“Save your excuses. Whether forbidden techniques were used or not, the Enforcement Hall will investigate.” Gong Four replied with cold indifference.

Elder Daoist Cheng trembled. “This old Daoist swears to Heaven on that.”

Daoist Wumu and the Yellow-Browed Daoist’s faces darkened. Clutching their chests, they shot a sidelong glance at Elder Daoist Cheng before Daoist Wumu said, “Young Gong Daoist, of course we would not dare violate the prohibition. But there were extenuating circumstances.”

“What circumstances were so serious that they required the two of you, in broad daylight, to gather Yin energy and summon malevolent spirits, putting innocent commoners at risk?” Gong Qi fixed his gaze on Daoist Wumu, whose complexion had gone ashen and whose hair had gone dull and white. His voice was cold. “Don’t bother burying me in rambling nonsense — it’ll do your backlash no good, and might even make it worse and send your cultivation plummeting to nothing. After all — the technique you used to summon spirits and drive off ghosts? It was my martial brother and I who broke it.”

He hadn’t mentioned what Lang Jiuchuan had done — not to claim her credit, but because the whole situation struck him as strange. He suspected they hadn’t made such a drastic move simply to settle a score for some Miss Qi. He doubted that was the whole story.

A flash of pure venom crossed Daoist Wumu’s eyes. No wonder they had suffered such severe backlash — his Ten-Thousand-Ghost Banner had been destroyed. So it was because of them.

He had known someone was shielding that Lang Jiuchuan. He just hadn’t expected it to be the Gong Family.

Did the clan know?

Gong Qi had a reputation for being impossible to reason with. If he truly called in the Enforcement Hall, they were truly finished.

Daoist Wumu said in a lowered voice, “Young Gong Daoist, we did indeed have just cause. Yellow-Browed.”

The Yellow-Browed Daoist reached into his robes and produced a small pouch, tipping something out from inside it, then held it forward with both hands. “Young Gong Daoist, please examine this. The young miss of the Qi household need not have died from being entangled by resentful spirits — she need not have perished from the poison of that malevolence. The reason she met this end was that someone deliberately destroyed her protective talisman treasure, which caused her to attract the malevolence and die from its poison. What we did was nothing but carry out Heaven’s justice — to call down karmic retribution upon the one responsible. If upholding righteousness is a crime, then we would stand before the Enforcement Hall with a clear conscience.”

“Disgusting! Shameless!” Jiangche nearly leapt out to point at those wicked Daoists and let loose a torrent of abuse.

Lang Jiuchuan pressed a hand on it. “Gong Qi’s cultivation is not low — don’t draw his attention.”

She looked at the protective talisman treasure they held out — it was the string of Five-Emperor Coins that Qi Xingyu had worn at her waist that day, weighing down the hem of her skirt. Saturated by the dense, blood-tainted malevolent energy, it had been shattered and its power scattered. Now, to escape punishment, they had taken it a step further — manipulating the evidence on it.

And this manipulation — ha — even bore a faint trace of her energy?

Extraordinary. They were going to pin the entire crime squarely on her.

Lang Jiuchuan lowered her eyes and stroked the Dizhong Bell at her waist, her fingertips itching. Her rebellious streak was stirring — she wanted to cause trouble.

The very moment her fingertip lightly tapped the Dizhong Bell, Gong Qi was already laughing coldly. “Carrying out Heaven’s justice means driving an entire household to their deaths? Is your Dao the Dao of demons? Or is this what the Rong Family teaches you? Since when did the Rong Family walk the path of darkness?”

He stepped forward unhurriedly, picked up the string of Five-Emperor Coins, lowered his gaze, and a strange light passed through his eyes. “Clearly this thing’s talisman patterns were shattered by an intensely Yin, intensely resentful blood-curse energy — you tacked on a few traces of technique afterward and expect that to fool my eyes? You think I, Gong Qi, am a fool?”

He raised his head, and a smile crossed his face. “The one thing I can’t stand — is when someone tries to treat me like a fool.”

Gong Four startled. His expression shifted and he immediately called out, “Little Seven, don’t—”

Too late.