Ignore Jiuchuan’s counsel, and misfortune is guaranteed.

Without a single exception, those who had stayed behind in the mourning hall fell prey to the yin energy — in the dead of night they broke into fevers, whimpering and groaning, and Lang Jiuchuan called for people to have them moved out.

In truth, a small amount of yin energy wouldn’t cause much real harm. But the business of conducting funeral rites was exhausting in itself — they had been keeping vigil for days, eating only plain vegetarian food, their bodies depleted of energy. Add to that the bitter cold of winter, and once the yin energy entered their systems, illness was only natural.

In the eyes of the Lang family, however, this business had an uncanny and eerie quality to it. Here they were, all in the same mourning hall — yet the men, sturdier and more resilient by nature, had collapsed, while that frail, willowy girl who looked as though she’d blow over in a strong wind was perfectly fine.

The most important point of all: she had warned them beforehand. The yin energy in the mourning hall had not dispersed, she had said — those who lingered would meet with misfortune or fall ill. And while no one had taken her words seriously at the time, her words had come true to the letter.

“How are you unaffected?” Lang Cailing couldn’t help herself. One of those who had fallen ill was her own full-blood younger brother, Lang Caiyi — when he had been carried away, his mother had nearly fainted from fright.

Watching her standing there perfectly fine, and then thinking back to what she had said earlier, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this person had done something crooked and strange.

Lang Jiuchuan rose and stretched lazily, then looked back at the Lang family members who had come to resume the vigil, and pointed at her own face: “Do I look like I’m unaffected to you?”

Even with the faint traces of ancestral merit energy nourishing her body, the damaged parts of this physical form had not been repaired or improved. So this life of hers remained precarious, dangling by a thread.

Just look at her complexion — a sickly, pallid blue-white. One glance and anyone could tell she was not a person in good health. Even the physician had said it, in so many words: a body like hers, without careful tending, would not last long.

Those who had heard those words at the time included, apart from Wu Shi, the head of the household — and her birth mother as well.

Yet last night, when she had said she wished to stay in the mourning hall to keep vigil, had a single one of them remembered this, and forcibly pulled her away?

The answer was no.

Lang Jiuchuan, though she cared little for herself, still couldn’t help but feel grievance on behalf of the original soul — a complaint, at least.

What a pitiable little wretch.

Lang Cailing looked at that pale, blue-white face — white enough that faint blood vessels were visible beneath the skin, the veins at the temples even more starkly clear. She pressed her lips together for a moment, then gave a cold laugh: “Who’s to blame? You brought it on yourself with your pointless bravado.”

She said her piece and turned away, returning to her straw mat and kneeling down, muttering under her breath: “Keeping vigil through an entire night — has she got rocks in her head?”

Wu Shi walked in looking exhausted, and the moment she saw Lang Jiuchuan, she remembered what the physician had said the day before. She walked quickly toward her and said: “Ninth Sister — surely you didn’t actually keep watch the entire night?”

She had completely forgotten. The physician had said this younger sister’s health needed to be carefully tended. Afterward, Lang Jiuchuan had gone to the Old Madam’s courtyard, and Wu Shi had only arranged for someone to tidy up her rooms. By evening, her daughter’s wet nurse had reported that her daughter was running a slight fever, and she had immediately gone to attend to her. Then at night, that whole incident had occurred, and she’d had to look after her husband as well — she had utterly forgotten that Lang Jiuchuan’s health was fragile.

Managing the funeral proceedings was already an overwhelming undertaking. As the eldest grandson’s wife, she didn’t have a single moment of rest. In just a few days she had lost a noticeable amount of weight around the waist — where would she have found the time to think of this newly-returned younger sister who barely seemed to leave an impression? It was only now, seeing her complexion, that she remembered what she had forgotten.

This was bad. Would the image she had cultivated — kind, gentle, virtuous, amiable — collapse in a single day?

Unaware of Wu Shi’s mental turmoil, Lang Jiuchuan only said: “I’ve fulfilled the filial duty I came to fulfill. Where is my courtyard?”

“Ah — I’ll have someone take you there right now.” Wu Shi said immediately.

“Thank you.”

Lang Jiuchuan walked out of the mourning hall and saw the monks and Daoists once again — they had begun to take their places one by one on the prayer cushions arranged in a corner of the courtyard, preparing to begin their chanting.

How dedicated.

She had no desire to spend the daylight hours in the mourning hall either — precisely because she had no patience for listening to those sutras and scripture recitations.

Cui Shi came walking toward her from the opposite direction. Seeing Lang Jiuchuan’s complexion, her brow furrowed, and her already pale lips pressed tightly together.

Lang Jiuchuan gave a light dip of her head as acknowledgment of greeting, but it was the Nanny walking beside Cui Shi — Cheng Nanny — who gave her a proper bow, and upon learning she was returning to her courtyard to rest, also instructed Jian Lan to go along and attend to her.

Lang Jiuchuan declined. Cui Shi’s expression grew even darker, and she walked into the mourning hall without a word.

Cheng Nanny was deeply troubled, and said softly: “Madam — she is the only child of our second branch. Her constitution is this weak, and you treat her so harshly…”

Cui Shi glanced back, and Cheng Nanny swallowed every remaining word. Only then did she enter the mourning hall.

Cheng Nanny let out a long sigh and turned to Jian Lan, instructing her: “Go after her and see. Lend a hand wherever you can — don’t use the young miss’s cold manner as an excuse to wash your hands of it. She is our second branch’s own — we cannot have her relying on others for everything.”

Jian Lan hurried after her.

“They were cut from the same stubborn cloth — how is it not mother and daughter?” Cheng Nanny shook her head and sighed: “Mother and daughter who should be each other’s closest kin, and yet they’re treating each other like enemies. What sin have they committed to deserve this?”

Lang Jiuchuan, the subject of all this lamenting, sneezed and rubbed her nose, then looked at the courtyard before her. She pressed her tongue against her left cheek, surveying it: the courtyard she had been assigned was a little off to the side. It was not far from Cui Shi’s Qichi Pavilion, and it faced south — the orientation was acceptable. But the courtyard’s feng shui was far too stagnant and dead. The energy was not moving, not flowing — it was no place to nurture a body as precarious as hers, this body that might fall apart at any moment. No, not fall apart — her body.

If she wanted her health to improve, she would have to get this energy moving and alive again.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the people behind her — apart from Jian Lan, there was also a pair of twin maidservants called Da Man and Xiao Man — and said: “Since this is a courtyard prepared for me, was it said that I may make requests?”

Da Man and Xiao Man exchanged a glance. Before they could speak, Jian Lan said: “Whatever you are lacking, Young Miss, you need only mention it. However, the household is currently in the middle of funeral proceedings and everything is in disarray — it would not be appropriate to trouble the First Young Madam or the Great Madam. Whatever it is you require, tell this servant, and this servant will report to Cheng Nanny and have it sent over. Nanny said — you are our second branch’s own.”

Which is to say: you fall under the second branch’s care.

Lang Jiuchuan asked with interest: “Anything at all can be requested?”

Jian Lan said: “It can. But during the mourning period, nothing too outlandish — so as not to give people reason to talk.”

“Then asking for some jade stones or the like should be fine?”

Jian Lan paused: “Is Young Miss looking for jewelry?”

“I’ll want those too, naturally, but I have a fondness for shiny, glittering things — jade ornaments aside for now, since one can’t wear them during mourning anyway.” Lang Jiuchuan said: “Just go find a few pieces of raw jade for me.”

Jian Lan agreed.

At that moment, a maidservant from Kangshou Courtyard arrived to deliver Lang Jiuchuan’s coarse cloth bundle. She took it, then directed Da Man and Xiao Man to rearrange some things in the courtyard, and went straight into her bedroom. She needed to sleep.

Jian Lan watched her figure disappear and came back to herself, turning to ask the maidservant from Kangshou Courtyard: “Is that bundle the entirety of the Ninth Young Miss’s belongings?”

“It is.”

Jian Lan fell silent.

The Ninth Young Miss was the only child of the second branch — she ought to have been a pampered young miss of the marquis’s household, cherished and adored. And yet, who would believe it: her only traveling possession was a single bundle, wrapped in coarse cloth that even she herself would have looked down upon — shabby and meager.

Her young miss, was far too pitiable.