In truth, dumping her mess on someone else was a perfectly reasonable little scheme on Lang Jiuchuan’s part. This formation guardian had been beaten half to death by her and Gong Qi — and he was a member of the Xuan Clans. Handing him over to the Xuan Clans to deal with seemed entirely logical, didn’t it?

There was also another consideration: she wanted to know how the young master of the Gong Family would react upon hearing all of this — and what he would choose to do.

Gong Qi was pushed by Lang Jiuchuan into the Shadow Road, along with Zixiao Zi. He had no choice in the matter, and could only press one last earnest plea before the gate of the Shadow Road closed behind him: “Don’t act rashly. Wait for our news. This matter is not like the reanimated corpse incident — you are not alone in this.”

The formation’s fate was intertwined with the dragon vein and the national fortune. The imperial family would never concern itself with something as abstract as the harmony of Heaven. If this commotion attracted their attention and they learned who was responsible, the Gong Family might still be able to protect Lang Jiuchuan alone — but what of the entire Marquis’s household standing behind her?

The Lang Family lived and breathed beneath the shadow of imperial authority.

These words weren’t pleasant to hear, but they were the truth. And the blood-tie that bound her to that household — she could not sever it.

Lang Jiuchuan was well aware of all this. It was precisely because she knew that she felt so restless. That sensation of being constrained, of having her hands tied and being unable to move freely, filled her with a profound and gnawing frustration.

Gong Qi left.

The sky pressed down, dark and heavy, lightless — yet the sounds of battle continued to drift in from beyond the city walls.

Lang Jiuchuan watched as wisps of fire-souls dissolved into golden sparks and streamed away toward the dragon vein, and her chest grew heavy.

Fuyi emerged from the small pagoda atop the stele and stood beside her, his eyes long since gone red. He had never imagined that the failure to pass on into Wangsheng was due to human greed — due to the depravity of human nature.

He drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressed the blaze of his fury, and asked, “Can meritorious wish-power truly nourish the dragon vein and sustain a nation’s fortune?”

Lang Jiuchuan nodded and said, “Meritorious wish-power is like the power of faith — in its very essence a force both pure and formidable. Everyone covets it, myself included. If it were to fall upon me, it could nourish my divine soul and illuminate my path of cultivation, making my foundations broader and my abilities stronger. Zixiao Zi’s private siphoning was driven by the same logic.”

It was the same as why the former Cong Bian had once gone to siphon the dragon vein’s vital fortune.

Fuyi looked toward her.

Lang Jiuchuan did not flinch away. She said, “I, too, am nothing more than an ordinary person of this mortal world. I, too, have my own self-interest. In accepting this request from the General, it was also for the sake of merit — for the sake of being able to keep surviving.”

She needed to repair this body. She needed to recover that missing soul and those two lost spirit-shards. Only when her divine soul and her physical form were both restored — whole and complete, back in their proper place — could she call it a true rebirth from the ashes.

So she was no saint. Everything she had done was for her own sake, nothing more.

But Fuyi said, “Everyone has self-interest. Yet you are a person who knows what to do and what not to do — unlike certain others, who have no bottom line whatsoever.”

Some of those who called themselves practitioners of the righteous path — to satisfy their own desires, they defied the harmony of Heaven.

They truly deserved to die.

Fuyi’s divine soul was growing slightly translucent. He was silent for a moment before he said, “If this matter is causing you difficulty, you need not concern yourself with it. The living will always matter more than the living dead. We have been gone for many years now. If we truly were to dissolve and scatter through this land, guarding this stretch of earth and sky — perhaps that could be called getting what we sought.”

He laughed softly at his own expense.

Lang Jiuchuan gave no reply. All she felt was a surge of fierce, overwhelming indignation and refusal to accept — and before her eyes, beyond the endless fog, there was nothing else to see.

Within those dense layers of mist, it was not only those soldiers who were trapped. It was her as well — as though somewhere in a place unknown, she, too, had been struggling like this in bitter desperation.

Why should they?

Lang Jiuchuan abruptly leaped up onto the city wall and sat there, her legs dangling over the outer edge. She gently closed her eyes to regulate her breathing, and sat in motionless stillness until the Hour of Zi — midnight — before she finally reached down and unfastened the Dizhong bell from her waist.

Her mind was clear as still water. She sank her breath to her core energy center, and slowly drew up the entire current of her dao-intent from within herself, concentrating it in her hands and pouring it into the Dizhong bell.

The dao-intent was like the great hammer in the Thunder God’s hands — it struck the small bell’s frame.

Dong.

A deep, resonant toll rang out.

Once. Then again.

The bell’s sound rippled outward, breaking through layer upon layer of mist like a voice from beyond the heavens — it struck the eardrums of the dead, and they instinctively stopped and turned to listen.

The mountains and rivers are unharmed. Peace has returned to the mortal world.

The sound rang like a great temple bell, shaking the soul awake and clearing the ears.

The three thousand soldiers of the Fu Family Army looked up in confusion, all turning toward the source of the tolling. One strike following another — like a great hammer shattering the stubborn convictions in their hearts, their divine souls slowly, gently released.

The mountains and rivers are at peace!

Every face broke into an expression of relief. Listening to the toll that grew lighter and more ethereal with each strike, tears fell.

Then, from out of nowhere, a low, solemn voice of chanted scripture broke through the air — Thus have I heard…

It was the Diamond Sutra. The one who chanted it did so with the utmost sincerity, and that sincerity transformed into a power of merit that flowed toward the departed souls — repaying karmic debts, dissolving grievances and knots of resentment.

The chanting continued without ceasing. The long, lingering toll of the bell did not stop. Gradually, it condensed into sheet upon sheet of prayer banners inscribed with Sanskrit characters, laid out into a road to guide the souls home — golden light like wisps of incense smoke, reaching all the way to the depths of the underworld, knocking upon the gates of the realm of the dead.

Then, all at once, far away in the western sky, a gate slowly opened. A stream of golden light spilled out from within, transforming into the Bridge of Helplessness — the Bridge of No Choice — ferrying the souls across into the River of Forgetfulness.

Go, and return.

That single call of return rippled outward through the River of Forgetfulness like a ring on still water.

Go, then go.

Those soul-shadows who had lingered in this in-between place for two hundred years looked at one another. One by one, they set down the fire-torches in their hands. Smiling, in twos and threes, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, they followed the light and walked away.

Fuyi was struck with profound shock. He looked up at the young woman who had somehow come to be standing atop the city wall — her eyes closed, her lips moving silently, the Dizhong bell in her hands tolling out a steady, rhythmic soul-summoning call.

The north wind howled. Light fell upon her face — snow-white and luminous, as though she were a celestial being about to return to the heavens upon the wind.

The reverberations struck Fuyi’s heart and spirit. All at once, he dropped to one knee before her, both hands clasped in a fist salute, head lowered in a bow of deep reverence.

Jiangche didn’t know when he had drifted out, clutching a wooden meditation drum. He watched the scene before him and exhaled a quiet sigh — but made no move to intervene.

The wooden drum stared at that person, and seemed to see in her the silhouette of the high monk he had once served. It trembled with agitation.

She had not broken the formation. Yet she had struck the soul-summoning bell, knocked open the gates of the underworld, and used her own merit and sutra-chanting to escort the souls to their passage. Why bother breaking the formation? When a divine guide comes to lead the souls home — who dares obstruct?

Upon the bridge of soul-passage, shadow upon shadow of souls crossed — and finally dissolved into firefly-light, streaming through the gate into the underworld.

In the mortal world, no lingering attachment remains.

Om.

As the final resonance of the sutra merged with the last fading echo of the bell and sank into the night, countless golden sparks of light rose up and floated before the gate of the underworld — tiny points of light, like lamps before the Buddha, their wicks burning long and bright.

And beneath the city wall, the drum-sounds fell silent. Not a soul-shadow remained. Only the desolate wail of the wind sweeping past.

Within the small pagoda atop the great stele, the soul-sealing spirit talisman cracked — and a swastika symbol faintly rimmed with golden light lodged itself in the fracture.

The bell-toll ceased. The scripture fell silent. The power of her divine soul utterly spent, Lang Jiuchuan — drained of every last drop of strength — toppled straight backward off the city wall.

Jiangche cried out in alarm, whipped around in a spin, and flew over — thud — becoming her landing cushion.

Lang Jiuchuan lay on her back, gazing up as countless golden sparks came drifting down like snow. The heavy knot of indignation and refusal that had pressed upon her chest dissolved completely. A smile crossed her face — the smile of a person whose burden has finally been lifted.

It was snowing.

Crystalline snowflakes floated down. She raised a trembling hand and caught one.

When Gong Tinglan and Gong Qi came rushing out of the Shadow Road in frantic haste, what they saw was her collapsed on the ground — and their hearts lurched.

They had come too late.

She had actually done it. She had seen it through — by the strength of her own hands alone.

Gong Qi felt his scalp prickle with a creeping numbness. This madwoman — how can her rebellious streak be so utterly unyielding.

And far away, atop the peak of a snow-capped mountain range, someone who had been sitting cross-legged in deep contemplation abruptly opened their eyes. They lifted their gaze toward that thread of light breaking through the dark, heavy sky, and murmured softly — A change is coming.