Any scheme that uses devious arts to steal karmic fortune — even if it succeeds for a time — creates its own cause and effect. One day, that cause and effect will deliver its retribution.
Cong Bian was no exception. By stealing the energy of the earth vein, he would suffer the backlash of the ground-marrow in return. It was only a matter of when — and what Lang Jiuchuan intended to do was break his scheme before that could happen on its own.
Without Cong Bian’s birth date and Eight Characters, along with his blood essence, dismantling this scheme would have required considerably more effort. But she not only had his Eight Characters — the divine statue was mixed with his blood essence, and she even had the hundred-family blessing garment. It was as though Heaven itself had dropped a windfall of treasures at her feet.
No — the blessing garment wasn’t needed yet. That precious item had a far more important purpose, to be used at a critical moment.
Lang Jiuchuan had made up her mind to make Cong Bian suffer a great loss. But she had left in a hurry and carried few useful implements on her. She had no choice but to gaze hopefully at A’Piao. “A deed of boundless merit — care to lend a hand?”
A’Piao: “……”
I have truly been led astray by my charge.
“Wait here.” He ground out two words through his teeth and vanished before Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes.
Jiangche felt quite enlightened by the sight of this and said, “No wonder you said his attitude toward you has changed. He’s so agreeable now — are you sure he isn’t scheming something against you? Don’t walk into a trap.”
“If there were a trap to walk into, I’d have walked into it back at Tongtian Pavilion.” She thought of the strange feeling that had come over her when she touched those yarrow stalks during the divination at Tongtian Pavilion — that inexplicable sense of familiarity that rose within her again.
She must have some unresolved connection to Tongtian Pavilion — or rather, to the Pavilion Master of Tongtian Pavilion.
Feng Ya.
She murmured the name silently. Her mind felt faintly muddled. Where exactly had she heard it before? What was her relationship with this person?
The truth would reveal itself to her one day.
Lang Jiuchuan shook her head, casting the uncertainty aside. Taking advantage of the winter sun that had not yet set, she snapped two branches from a nearby tree, fashioned a rudimentary directional compass needle, then traced a seal upon it and began walking around the earth-god shrine, calculating bearings and directions.
Inside the Small Nine Pagoda, Wooden Fish sensed her movements and let out a quiet sigh. It could have faith — the inheritance of the Master’s lifelong learning would not perish with her. She learned with great speed.
And this was while her divine soul was yet incomplete. Once her divine soul was whole, to what heights of brilliance might she ascend?
Such Heaven-chosen spiritual roots — even it felt a pang of envy. Let alone others. How had she come to be in such a state as this?
Lang Jiuchuan settled the orientation points. By then, A’Piao had already gone and returned, a bundle slung over his shoulder. He dropped it on the ground and opened it. “I only hope the merit gained from this will justify these fine materials.”
Seeing the array of items for laying formations neatly spread before her, Lang Jiuchuan smiled at him. “Your good materials won’t go to waste.”
She picked up peach-wood stakes, copper coins, jade talismans, and similar objects, and began moving around the earth-god shrine, burying symbols and laying the foundations and structure of the formation according to the calculated bearings. Once the formation’s frame and base were in place, she picked up a meteorite that had been refined by lightning and thunder, and began laying the formation’s core.
Lang Jiuchuan felt the steel-righteous energy emanating from the meteorite and found it rather difficult to part with. Such a treasure — how rare.
But difficult to part with or not, it had to be used. If the formation took hold and the backlash came down with enough force, then even if that old dog Cong was left alive, it would certainly strip him of a good portion of his cultivation. After suffering such a backlash, if he still tried to proceed with his scheme to seize a reincarnation, he’d be doing so with badly diminished power — and would almost certainly be overwhelmed in return by the jiangshi. At that point, he would likely be defeated by his own creation and become fodder for it instead.
Losing the chicken while chasing it — just as it should be.
Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. She rubbed the meteorite between her palms, then ran her hand over the surface of the earth vein beneath her, hoping that the dragon vein’s qi of the Zhanguo Kingdom was strong enough — for only then would the ground-marrow’s backlash come down with true ferocity.
She summoned her cinnabar brush, which transformed into an engraving blade, and began carving formation markings onto the meteorite — each stroke deliberate and unhesitating. With every line she laid down, the air around her seemed to stir of its own accord, unseen energy gathering in anticipation.
Far away at Duoming Ridge, an old man draped in black robes was hiding in a darkened cave. For no apparent reason, he was seized by a growing unease. He raised his head and looked at the sky. The sun had begun to tilt westward. The valley floor, already thick with yin energy, was now shrouded beneath a canopy of forest shadow, growing more and more oppressive, dense with ghostly qi.
“Old Ancestor, the Princess seems to be in some distress.” The Cong Prince Consort — no, he should be called Cong Jinnian now — stood before the Cong Family’s old ancestor, his face tight with urgency.
Indeed, the black-robed figure before him was the architect of all these sinister machinations — Cong Bian.
“What’s wrong with her now?” Cong Bian growled impatiently.
Cong Jinnian shrank back slightly. “She says her stomach hurts.”
“Hold her down. The auspicious hour has not yet come.” Cong Bian said, his expression dark.
Cong Jinnian acknowledged this, then licked his lips and added, “Over on the Cong Family side — it seems they’ve all been thrown into prison.”
“What are you panicking for? Once the great plan succeeds and you are still here, even if the entire Cong Family dies out, the line can be continued through you. You shouldn’t be worrying about what happens to the Cong Family right now — you should be staying at the Princess’s side every single moment. If she suffers even the slightest mishap, you won’t be living either. The Cong Family has no shortage of people — you are not irreplaceable. Get out of my sight.”
Cong Jinnian was startled. “Your grandson knows his fault.”
He bowed low and retreated.
The unease in Cong Bian’s heart grew stronger and stronger. He could not help but reach out and cast a divination. The moment the hexagram formed, his brow furrowed so tightly it nearly cracked.
A greatly inauspicious omen.
Then he thought back to what Cong Jinnian had just told him, and his expression turned deeply grim. A hundred years of planning — could it truly collapse at the very last step?
Back at the earth-god shrine, Lang Jiuchuan set the meteorite at the formation’s core, then used her Panguan brush to inscribe the birth date and name onto the clay statue, placing it in the center of the formation. She then drew a formation-suppressing blasphemous divine execution talisman across the stone-carved spirit-prayer tablet, pressing it down at the formation’s foot.
Only one step remained.
Above, thunder clouds gathered in the sky, blotting out the last warmth of the afternoon sun.
A’Piao stood at a distance watching, and found himself running through his memory, trying to recall — among all the great masters he had witnessed over the ages, had any of them been like her?
None. Could she be an ancient relic from the same era as his master?
Pfft, pfft, pfft — forgive this one, Master!
A’Piao looked on intently, and his ghostly form suddenly went rigid.
He saw that at some point, Lang Jiuchuan had sat down cross-legged. On a piece of jiao-dragon bone, she painted the final stroke of a thunder-fire talisman. Her hands flew through seals and signs with blinding speed, and from her lips came the incantation: “Celestial Stern summons the malevolent force — drive the thunder, race the clouds. Earthly Stern receives the tribulation — slash the evil, obliterate the form. Rise.“
She snatched up the jiao-dragon bone fragment beside her and pressed it into the formation’s pivot. She channeled the energy of the Dao into her palm, and with a single strike to the ground beside her — a resonant, deep hum rang out.
The formation activated.
From the flat earth, a sudden hurricane erupted. The soul-devouring formation runes blazed to life in golden light, coiling like a living dragon around the earth-god shrine, knitting together into a web that enveloped everything within. The spiritual energy of the earth vein surged up from the ground-marrow, forming a violent vortex that ground stone and sand into fine dust. Muffled thunder roared within the clouds overhead as violet lightning coiled in readiness.
“One stroke erases all falsehood — Heaven and Earth are reversed.” Lang Jiuchuan hurled her talisman brush into the formation, aimed directly at the clay statue at its center.
Crack!
Lightning split down from the clouds, striking the talisman brush, then fell upon the jiao-dragon bone at the formation’s pivot — with a thunderous boom.
A dense web of thunder-fire exploded through the formation. The stolen vein energy that had been cut off was channeled back in full force through the clay statue at the center, transformed into the most extreme yin and malevolent poison of the ground-marrow, reversed and flooded back into the statue — which exploded with a thunderclap, reduced to dust.
“AHHHH—!”
Cong Bian let out a wretched, agonized cry, collapsing to the ground, gasping for breath like a dying dog. Both his eyes turned completely black. His voice came out as a raw, sand-scraped howl: “Who — who has ruined my plans?!”