Lang Jiuchuan had fallen to the ground, the impact sending a raw ache through her spine — but she had no time to dwell on the physical pain. She immediately checked on Jiangche’s spiritual consciousness.

“Are you all right?” She examined its spiritual state carefully and found it faint and fraying. She summoned the Little Nine Pagoda at once. “Get inside and recover.”

Jiangche was still reeling from the fright, shaking as it said, “Capsized in a ditch — I nearly met my end in there. What kind of treasure was that? It could have destroyed me.”

“It should be an artifact similar to the Imperial Human Banner,” Lang Jiuchuan said gravely. “But it isn’t a true Imperial Human Banner — merely a replica forged in its image. If it had been the real thing, you really would have been done for this time.”

To be precise, “done for” wouldn’t have meant Jiangche’s true annihilation — rather, its capture. It was not an evil spirit or malevolent wraith, but a strand of spiritual consciousness. Captured, it could be bound and pressed into someone’s service.

Jiangche cursed under its breath. “The wickedness of the mortal world never runs dry. I’m better suited for cultivation in the deep mountains.”

“This lesson also tells you — all things have something that can subdue them. When cultivating in the mundane world, never underestimate anyone or anything, no matter how unassuming they appear. Always maintain a measure of vigilance.”

Jiangche said plaintively, “I told you I wanted to leave. And you said that ghost of a prince consort was too sharp-eyed.”

“Was I wrong?” Lang Jiuchuan countered. “Not only is he sharp-eyed — his reactions are extraordinarily fast. A prince consort with a cultivator’s reflexes, and an artifact of that caliber. This prince consort is no ordinary man.”

Jiangche said, “You forgot — Princess Zhao’an is an imperial princess. She bears the name Tantai, belonging to the Xuan Clan. The prince consort very likely falls under the same category of those who can walk the path of cultivation.”

As for the artifact — with the Tantai family behind them, and imperial bloodlines to boot, possessing something of that caliber was hardly surprising. It was simply unexpected that such an artifact could suppress Jiangche specifically.

“Now that’s interesting,” Lang Jiuchuan murmured, narrowing her eyes. “He can cultivate — and yet Princess Zhao’an’s belly is as round as a drum and saturated with heavy Yin energy, and he hasn’t noticed? Even if he somehow missed it, he’s carrying that replica Imperial Human Banner — and not a trace of that Yin energy has been dispersed. This fetus inside Princess Zhao’an is wrong.”

“Regardless of whether it’s wrong or not — this tiger was scared half to death. I need to recover.”

Jiangche dove into the Little Nine Pagoda, drawing a round of disdain from Muyú: “Look at the state of you — reeking of Yin stench. Filthy.”

Lang Jiuchuan recalled the image of Princess Zhao’an’s pregnant form that she had seen through Jiangche’s consciousness. The more she thought about it, the more unsettled she felt.

“Miss, are you all right?” Jian Lan had heard the commotion and came rushing over, her face going pale at the sight of Lang Jiuchuan lying on the ground.

Lang Jiuchuan let Jian Lan help her up and said, “A sudden dizzy spell — I lost my footing. It’s nothing.”

She picked up the Records of the Strange and Uncanny she had been reading before, and turned back to the page she hadn’t yet finished. There, she found this passage: “There was once a practitioner of dark and demonic arts who performed a forbidden and heaven-defying technique — cultivating a demonic corpse through vileness, feeding it with blood tainted with Yin, nurturing Yin elemental force, borrowing life to sustain existence…”

Flip.

“That’s it?” Lang Jiuchuan turned the page — and found the last page had been torn away, leaving only ragged remnants along the spine. Her expression darkened.

This was no different from fighting a monster to a critical moment, raising her hand for the killing blow — only for the monster to raise a white flag of surrender.

Lang Jiuchuan nearly threw the book. Somehow remembering she was inside the Scripture Repository Hall, she held herself back and swallowed her frustration, settling instead for poking the author’s pen name with one finger.

Remarkable, truly. This person who called himself Ask Not My Daoist Title had even written about demonic corpses — and how remarkably similar it was to what they were currently dealing with.

“Borrowing life to sustain existence?” Lang Jiuchuan stared at those last few words, lost in thought.

Something felt off — but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what.

Lang Jiuchuan took a long breath, returned the book to its place, and flipped through two more volumes on herbal pharmacology before finally leaving the Scripture Repository Hall.

There was no shortage of texts here — scriptures of every variety, pharmacological works, and miscellaneous volumes. If she still couldn’t return to the city, she could come here to pass the time.

She had barely stepped out of the hall when a group of people came toward her. Walking at the front was a noblewoman who appeared to be in her mid-forties. Her bearing was gentle and dignified — her jet-black hair pinned up in an elegant cloud coil, adorned with two pearl-and-jade hairpins. She wore a deep indigo robe beneath a cape lined with grey squirrel fur. Beneath her eyes, there were faint shadows and traces of fatigue. She walked with one hand resting on a servant woman’s arm, the other loosely holding a string of Buddhist prayer beads.

Lang Jiuchuan’s initial impulse was to step aside and let her pass — but then something shifted in the space between her brows. The fingers tucked in her sleeve moved rapidly through a divination sequence, and when she looked up again, her gaze had deepened.

This noblewoman had a karmic tie with her.

Who was she?

The noblewoman had been walking with an air of casual indifference, but upon seeing Lang Jiuchuan, a flicker passed across her face — quickly suppressed and smoothed over. But it had not been quick enough: Lang Jiuchuan caught it.

She knew the original host.

“Madam Lu has also come to the scripture hall?” Someone else arrived, calling out a greeting to the noblewoman.

Surnamed Lu — so this was the matriarch of the Lu Family. Of course. It was said she came to Huguo Temple to burn incense on the first day of every month. New Year’s Day would certainly be no exception.

Lang Jiuchuan kept her expression neutral and glanced toward the other person who had just arrived. As it happened, this was one of the noblewomen who had come with the Qi Family to confront and denounce her earlier.

The other woman spotted Lang Jiuchuan as well, and her face changed. The contempt in her eyes was entirely undisguised — and mingled with a trace of wariness.

Really, that jinx turns up everywhere.

Lang Jiuchuan walked past without hurry, pulling a slip of paper from her sleeve. She fashioned it into a small paper figure, pressed a Daoist seal onto it, and as she passed a lotus flower pedestal, she tossed it in.

Madam Lu watched Lang Jiuchuan walk away, then turned to the other woman with a smile. “I’ve come to find a sutra or two to recite. And you, Madam Zhao?”

“What choice do we have when we can’t leave?” Madam Zhao sighed, then leaned in with a conspiratorial air, gesturing toward the direction Lang Jiuchuan had gone: “Did you see that girl just now? She’s the ninth young miss of the Lang Family of Marquis Kaiping’s household — a complete jinx. Anyone who crosses her ends up worse off for it…”

Through the little paper figure, Lang Jiuchuan heard every word, and the corner of her brow lifted slightly.

So the label of “cursed star” has been firmly attached to her, Lang Jiu. Well, that wasn’t such a bad thing — at least fewer people would dare to get close to her from now on.

Madam Lu was clearly distracted, murmuring a few vague responses before excusing herself into the scripture hall. The paper figure followed discreetly behind.

In a corner of the hall, the old Nanny who attended Madam Lu dismissed the other servants, then drew close and whispered: “Madam, that young Miss Lang Jiu…”

Madam Lu cast her a sidelong glance. Her eyes carried a sharp, silent warning, and her voice was edged with frost: “We do not know any young Miss Lang Jiu.”

The old Nanny’s pupils contracted slightly. She bowed her head in meek compliance. “Yes, Madam.”

Madam Lu opened a scripture, but the text on the page seemed to writhe like tiny leaping figures — she could not take in a single character. Irritation roiled inside her.

She despised Lang Jiuchuan.

The mere existence of that girl made her uneasy and restless. She could not shake the feeling that this person would overturn her life completely.

And yet — she could do nothing. Not right now. Because that person had forbidden it.

But was she simply supposed to stand by and watch?

Madam Lu’s slender fingers tightened around the scripture until they turned white. For just an instant, that composed, gracious face twisted into something cold and vicious — but she did not know that every flicker of that expression was captured in full by Lang Jiuchuan through the little paper figure.

Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze grew heavy.

Madam Lu of the Lu Family — was she the weapon that had once been turned against Lang Jiuchuan and the entire Lang Family? It seemed that now, in the face of its true target, it could no longer be concealed.