Forced into the position of master and senior, A’Piao was only after Fu Qi had finished kneeling — when the moment had already passed — that something dawned on him as being wrong.

He looked at Fu Qi, with that overwhelming dense killing energy wrapped around his spirit, and it came back to him.

“That Myriad Affairs Shop of yours — surely it doesn’t only deal in dead people’s business?” A’Piao said. “Among the dead, how many are truly wealthy enough to pay you in gold and silver? Or do you expect to go digging up their burial goods? Not to mention the inauspiciousness of it all.”

Fu Qi’s brow twitched. He felt as though he had forgotten something.

Lang Jiuchuan replied, “The Myriad Affairs Shop — by day, it adjudicates matters of the living; by night, those of the dead. Of course I will not only deal in dead people’s business.”

“True enough. But if you are dealing with the living, how is he supposed to serve as manager? Not everyone is born with yin-yang eyes to perceive spirits.”

Lang Jiuchuan curved her lips into a small smile. “Is that not why I have come to Tongtian Pavilion? One never visits without reason — since I am here, I naturally have something to ask for. Just look: you are already a master now, he has already bowed in respect, so surely a master’s gift to a new disciple is in order? Something like…”

Her eyes drifted, rolling over with pointed meaning toward his paper body.

A’Piao stared. “!”

Shameless — so that was what she had been waiting for all along. No wonder something had felt off.

“I have noticed that your brazenness is not quite ordinary — about three feet thick, I would estimate.” A’Piao let out a cold laugh. “This paper body of mine was made by my master specifically in my likeness. Are you suggesting he walk around wearing my face?”

“I feel the time has come for me to make the acquaintance of your master,” said Lang Jiuchuan, her gaze drifting toward the inner room. “What do you think?”

“In your dreams!” A’Piao caught himself, then said, “Besides — did you not say before that you can also create this kind of paper body? So what exactly are you doing right now?”

Lang Jiuchuan sighed. “I guided several thousand Fu Family soldiers across to the other side. My spiritual energy is nearly exhausted — I am propped up on sheer willpower at this point, with my spiritual power running dry. It needs time to recover.”

A’Piao let out a brief, contemptuous laugh. Keep telling yourself that — I’ll believe you when I believe a ghost!

Lang Jiuchuan rubbed her nose. It was not quite as severe as she had made it sound — but her spirit truly was weary. Fortunately, the merit returned to her by the Fu Family soldiers had replenished her flow; without that, she would have been running on empty entirely.

Still — if she could play the soft, helpless little white rabbit, she might as well do so. And yet that person in the back room still would not come out to meet her?

Seeing that A’Piao had adopted an expression of absolute immovability, Lang Jiuchuan gave a light cough. “Very well — since there is nothing, surely you can at least give me the materials for making a paper body? I will make one for him myself. He is my ghost, after all — what else can I do?”

The air of mild wronged suffering she projected was enough to make anyone who did not know better think she had been greatly mistreated.

A’Piao had half a mind to say something cutting. Lang Jiuchuan spoke first, with a languid drawl, “I was thinking of going into seclusion for a while to produce more soul incense. I have accumulated considerable merit — I wonder how many merit-infused incense sticks I could produce from it?”

A’Piao snapped his mouth shut.

Merit incense — there was something that precious?

“Fine — keep him here, I will personally bring him into the basics. But a paper body is impossible. You figure that out yourself. My master is not someone who can be moved at just anyone’s will — do not push your luck, or you will be thrown out!” A’Piao gave a dismissive sound.

“Impossible. He and I share a bond of fate!”

Caught off guard for a brief instant, A’Piao replied before thinking, “A bond indeed — the bond of adversaries.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he had made a mistake. He immediately looked toward Lang Jiuchuan.

But Lang Jiuchuan appeared not to have heard it at all — not so much as a flicker in her expression. Her gaze drifted toward the inner room and deepened quietly.

Adversaries, was it?

A hanged ghost poked its head in. Fu Qi’s killing aura surged, and the ghost shrieked and retreated in terror. A moment later, from the inner room direction came the sound of footsteps, along with A’Piao’s voice and that of another person in conversation.

She watched the agitated spirit and let a thought form quietly. She gestured for Fu Qi to go inside and hold him down, then stepped forward herself and pulled open the door of the private room — just in time to see A’Piao leading in a refined yet faintly cold-looking middle-aged man.

The man clearly had not expected the door of this side room to open suddenly. When his gaze met Lang Jiuchuan’s, there was a brief flash of razor-sharp intensity in his eyes — along with a subtle, barely-detectable malice lurking beneath the surface.

But the moment he registered that the person before him was a slight and gentle young woman, he instantly resumed that composed, amiable manner, as though that fleeting expression had been nothing more than a trick of imagination.

Lang Jiuchuan likewise put on a suitably startled expression, turned, and retreated back into the private room, pulling the door closed behind her.

She was young. Her build was slight and fragile. Her complexion was not the robust, rosy hue of good health, but rather pale — the kind of pallor that spoke of a constitution weakened from before birth.

A frail and timid little girl.

Not worth worrying about.

The man relaxed entirely.

A’Piao stood at his side, his senses extraordinarily keen. He had caught that moment of tension in the man — the brief coiling and then the release of it — and something shifted quietly in his eyes. His face, however, remained that same effortless, unreadable smile.

The kind of smile that made a person think: he is just a manager. Nothing more than a manager — just perhaps a slightly unusual one.

“Master Liu Feng, please come in.” A’Piao smiled warmly and gestured inward. Once the man had entered, he followed, and cast one unobtrusive glance toward the private room where Lang Jiuchuan sat.

That name he had let slip deliberately was plainly meant as a signal to Lang Jiuchuan — to let her know who this person was.

And that pantomime of startled clumsiness Lang Jiuchuan had performed just now — the man did not see through it, but A’Piao most certainly did. She was playing the docile, harmless creature.

With that deceptive air of fragility as her cover, she had made him believe it entirely.

Tsk.

Believe it, and you’ve simply gone blind.

What was so remarkable about this Liu Feng, that she found it necessary to disguise herself so?