New Year’s Eve — a day of reunion for ten thousand households — and yet the Lang Family’s residence at the Marquis Kaiping’s household had had an entire courtyard reduced to ruins. The debris of collapsed walls and crumbled masonry made for a sight impossible to bear looking at.
Right on the eve of the New Year, a building had caved in. This was surely a first for Wu Jing.
But after Lang Zhengping offered a few vaguely-worded explanations, coupled with an offhand joke about how old things must go before new ones can come, everyone found it easy enough to believe. After all, disciples of the Gong Clan of the Xuan Clans were guests in their household — what demon or malevolent spirit would dare make trouble here?
And so the Lang Family gathered in cheerful reunion for their New Year’s dinner, and after the meal, sat together to keep the New Year’s vigil. Only Lang Jiuchuan was the exception — citing the excuse of feeling unwell, she excused herself from the table early and returned to her courtyard.
She entered her study, took out paper and brush, and spent the better part of an hour writing and drawing. Then she sat gazing at the web of names and relationships she had mapped out on the page.
She lowered her head slightly. In the candlelight, that already gaunt and pale little face appeared even more austere and remote. The chill emanating from her body seeped outward in waves — Jian Lan, who came in to refresh the tea, couldn’t help but give an involuntary shudder before slipping out again with careful, quiet steps.
When Jiangche returned, he found the force radiating from Lang Jiuchuan’s body was practically on the verge of crystallizing into malevolence. “Who got under your skin?” he said.
“You’re back.” Lang Jiuchuan looked up. “How did it go?”
Jiangche slipped into the Spirit Platform and brushed against her fortune-aura. “The Enforcement Hall’s people were remarkably alert — it took me everything I had to find an opening. I used the technique you taught me and planted a Yin malevolence curse on them. With any luck, the moment they return to the Enforcement Hall, that Yin malevolence will begin eating into them from within — corrupting their lungs, scattering their cultivation.”
Lang Jiuchuan gave a satisfied nod.
Jiangche asked curiously: “But — risking discovery by the Enforcement Hall just to eliminate these two — that doesn’t exactly fit your usual cautious approach. What’s the reasoning?”
Lang Jiuchuan’s smile was cold. “Do I look like someone who lets a grudge sit until morning? They came at me with killing intent — and they didn’t even try to spare the innocent members of the Lang Family. Since that’s how they want it — courtesy demands reciprocity — I’ll return the favor, and do it without a shred of karmic pressure on my conscience.”
Jiangche: Mm. Very much so. This is the Lang Jiu way.
Lang Jiuchuan continued: “And besides — we have no idea what this so-called Enforcement Hall actually is. I have no confidence they’ll handle it impartially. What if they simply let those two off lightly? Once they’re sheltered and free, it’s nothing short of releasing tigers back into the hills. They’ll bear a grudge against me and stab me in the back whenever the opportunity arises. Am I an idiot? Am I going to leave two threats like that alive to ring in the New Year with me?!”
Jiangche huffed: “You’re making your point just fine — why are you taking a jab at me? Do those useless pieces of garbage dare compare themselves to me, the magnificent White Tiger King?” It spotted the papers on the desk. “And what’s all this?”
“This is also the most important thing. The Rong Family — they should be the ones behind the murder of the original soul.”
Jiangche jolted with sudden alarm and floated out from the Spirit Platform. “What makes you say that? Have you found evidence?”
“Today, when they came after me, one of them targeted my life-chart. Without knowing one’s exact birth date and hour, that technique cannot be performed — and that’s the same as what happened before, when someone targeted me through a remote technique. The one who has attacked me before — look here.” Lang Jiuchuan’s slender finger pointed to a small figure marked with a cross on the paper. “That person is the first. And this Lu Family — they are the second.”
“But you haven’t uncovered concrete evidence against the Lu Family yet, have you?”
Lang Jiuchuan shook her head. “You’ve seen how the Xuan Clans operate. When they move against someone, they deploy their clan’s protector disciples. So how many protector disciples of that kind are there? Little white kitten — no matter how loftily the Xuan Clans position themselves, they cannot sever themselves from the mortal world. Their discipline is even looser than that of Buddhist monks or Daoist temples — they are simply people versed in the five arts of the Xuan school, not clergy of any kind. They recruit capable practitioners as disciples, graded into a hierarchy of protector elders. When it comes to handling affairs in the mortal world, they naturally rely on others for that.”
“Such as the nobility and powerful?”
Lang Jiuchuan made a sound of agreement. “The nobility may stand high and untouchable, but with sufficient incentive, even they can be drawn in. Mortal affairs are handled by mortal hands — that’s entirely natural.” Her fingertip came to rest on a specific name. “Suppose the fourth son of this Lu Family is currently studying under the Rong Family as a disciple — would the Rong Family not make use of the Lu Family?”
Of course they would. It would be wasteful not to.
“The Lu Family, eager to please the Rong Family on account of their own child, would naturally complete whatever task was given them — obediently and without question. You see? Once you lay it out like this, don’t the pieces connect?”
Lang Jiuchuan said, “Of course, it’s still somewhat speculative without more to go on. But the moment we confirm the Lu Family’s fourth son is indeed with the Rong Family, it stops being a stretch. As things stand, the Lu Family went looking for the wrong target — they were caught in the act of tampering with the body of the Lang Family’s patriarch, and that’s what exposed them. You could call it a failed opening move.”
“And the Qi Family…”
“The Qi Family was an accident. Nothing but a distraction — a throwaway piece.” Lang Jiuchuan’s voice carried a note of disdain. “Qi Xinyu was nothing more than the younger sister of a peripheral daughter-in-law. She was never important enough for the Rong Family to deploy their big weapons on her behalf. But using her as cover? That was entirely workable. Think about it — if they had succeeded, wouldn’t my death, on the surface, appear to be a retaliatory killing for provoking Qi Xinyu? That way, the true reason they wanted me dead could remain buried forever.”
Jiangche watched as her fingertip traced its way across the page and came to rest, finally, on the two characters of the Rong Family’s name. There had been suspicions before — but seeing it laid out and connected so plainly still sent a chill through it. Half its heart went cold.
“If it really is the Rong Family — why would they have their eye on you in the first place? You were a young girl who had been exiled to live on a farm estate since childhood. Not only did they kill the original soul — they wouldn’t even leave you, a wandering spirit who took over the body, in peace. What could possibly justify this kind of hatred?”
A defenceless young girl, drawing the enmity of something this vast and formidable — what kind of existence would the original soul have had to be, to call down something like this?
And so — at the moment she was murdered in that desolate burial ground — what depths of despair must she have known?
“Exactly. I want to know the answer too. That’s why the next step is to dig into every corner of the Rong Family’s history — who, and why.”
Jiangche asked, still reluctant to let it go: “What if you’ve guessed wrong?”
“You know what? The more one does, the more mistakes one makes, and the more cracks appear.” A mocking smile played at Lang Jiuchuan’s lips. “The right move — once they understood that whoever now occupies this body is not the original soul, just some nameless wandering spirit from who-knows-where — the right move would have been to do absolutely nothing. Because there was no guarantee I would concern myself with cause and effect, or bother seeking justice for the original soul. Had they done nothing, finding the one pulling the strings would have been considerably harder for me. Their mistake was in coming after me again and again, trying to kill me each time. That does nothing but stiffen my spine. Think about it — regardless of whether you have any personal grudge against someone, if they keep trying to kill you one attempt after another, are you going to just sit still and wait for death?”
Jiangche shook its tiger head emphatically — absolutely not!
If the other side came at you openly with murderous intent, how could you just sit there and do nothing? Either way it would end in death — you might as well fight back with everything you had. And if you happened to be a calamity, you might drag this all out for a thousand years.
Mm. The one right in front of it fit that description perfectly.
“And yet that’s exactly what they did. Their contempt for this body runs so deep that they couldn’t even tolerate a wandering spirit inhabiting it — they came for me again and again, trying to wipe me out, yet fell short each time. And that’s because of their own arrogance — their failure to understand that some people are this difficult to deal with, this impossible to kill.” Lang Jiuchuan lowered her gaze, and a quiet laugh escaped her lips. “Rong Family — they’ve provoked the wrong person.”