Cui Shi had suddenly been struck by cardiac pain. Lang Jiuchuan had not been especially alarmed at first, but she could not endure the relentless chatter from Jiangche’s mouth.

“Provoking your own mother to death — that invites divine retribution, doesn’t it? And you’re only borrowing this body as a temporary lodger, yet you’re pulling stunts like this — shouldn’t that cost you some merit points?” Jiangche said coolly.

Cost merit points — that absolutely could not happen!

Lang Jiuchuan saw that Cui Shi’s complexion had turned ashen, her face a picture of someone unable to draw breath. Without another word, she stepped forward and seized Cui Shi’s right wrist, pressing her thumb against the Neiguan acupoint and massaging it with gradually increasing pressure. Then she casually pulled a single “hair” from Jiangche’s form, transformed it into a needle, and inserted it into the acupoint. The needle dissolved into an invisible force that climbed up the wrist and spread soothingly over the aching organ.

Jiangche was thoroughly shaken — how on earth could she just pull from his spiritual consciousness whenever she pleased?

The pain in Cui Shi’s heart had felt like an invisible hand wringing it mercilessly — but Lang Jiuchuan’s swift series of actions startled her so completely that she even forgot to rub her own chest, and stared at her in astonishment.

“The medicine is here.” Jian Lan came in holding an exquisite jade bottle. She removed the stopper and quickly tipped out a Lifesaving Pellet, cradling it in a handkerchief and bringing it to Cui Shi’s lips. Mo Lan, who had followed behind, offered warm water to help her swallow it.

Suddenly Cui Shi realized the pain was gone, and she swallowed the pellet on pure reflex.

Lang Jiuchuan had already stepped back to one side. She furrowed her brow and studied Cui Shi’s face intently, yet found she could not read it clearly — and a sense of doubt quietly stirred within her.

The art of physiognomy had one rule: one could not divine the fate of oneself or of a blood relation. To attempt it by force would invite a backlash.

She could not discern Cui Shi’s lifespan. That proved something — she was indeed a close blood relation.

So what strange delusion had taken hold of Cui Shi, that she could not even recognize her own daughter?

Lang Jiuchuan’s expression was not pleasant. She stood in silence. Cheng Nanny, seeing this, mistakenly assumed she was still being stubborn, and quickly drew her aside, lowering her voice to advise her: “Ninth Young Miss, please return to your courtyard for now. Don’t repeat those hurtful words — Madam suffers from cardiac pain, and agitation harms the body. Ah, you are all family. Why put each other through this?”

Lang Jiuchuan said nothing, gave her a slight nod, turned, and left.

Cheng Nanny watched her go and felt her headache deepening. She turned to look at Cui Shi, intending to smooth things over with a few words — but Cui Shi spoke first.

“Jian Lan, follow her and attend to her.” Cui Shi pinched her own wrist, then looked at Cheng Nanny and instructed: “What happened just now must not be spread around. Tell them to keep their lips sealed tight.”

Cheng Nanny quickly agreed.

Of course it must not get out — otherwise, the name of an unfilial daughter who had nearly provoked her own mother to death would be plastered on Lang Jiuchuan, and the sheer volume of gossip would drown her.

“How are you feeling? The manor physician really should come to take your pulse.” Cheng Nanny’s face was full of worry. “If nothing else, returning to the Cui family…”

Cui Shi’s gaze shifted over. Her expression was displeased.

Cheng Nanny caught herself mid-sentence, sighed, and said: “Let this old servant help you inside to rest. We’ll wait for the manor physician to come and check your pulse, just to be at ease.”

Cui Shi nodded, but then instructed Mo Lan: “There is no need to summon the physician. One was just here not long ago. I’m sure he is kept busy attending to the various courtyards — I am quite fine.”

After a funeral, many in the household were bound to feel unwell. She too had fallen ill with a cold brought on by the wind and wintry air. She could hardly monopolize the manor physician for herself alone — that would only invite criticism.

“But Madam…”

Cui Shi stood up and touched her own wrist. “Truly, nothing is wrong — not the slightest pain.”

She did not know whether it was the medicine that had worked, or simply her imagination — but when Lang Jiuchuan had gripped her wrist and massaged the Neiguan acupoint, the cardiac pain seemed to have vanished entirely.

Her mind was clear now, and only then did she recall that as Lang Jiuchuan pressed her wrist, something like a warm current had seemed to flow into her heart — deeply soothing.

She leaned back against the bed. Cheng Nanny placed a soft cushion behind her lower back, then directed Mo Lan to summon the other attendants. The room grew busy — a bed warmer was tucked beneath the covers, the blanket corners were folded in neatly, and the freshly decocted medicinal broth was brought and offered to her.

The moment Cui Shi caught the bitter scent of the medicine, her brow creased and she recoiled slightly.

Cheng Nanny stood before her with a small plate of preserved fruits, coaxing: “The funeral rites alone were exhausting enough, and now you have fallen ill on top of that — if you will not drink the medicine, how are you to recover? The New Year is barely a month away. Would you truly prefer to be taking this bitter medicine straight through the holiday?”

Cui Shi accepted the bowl and drank it down in one breath. Her mouth was filled with bitterness, and it seemed to seep into her heart as well. When Cheng Nanny speared a piece of preserved fruit with a silver fork and offered it to her lips, she opened her mouth and took it without a second thought.

Cheng Nanny watched her expression and spoke: “Madam, Ninth Young Miss has come home now. There is no reason to let her go back to the estate alone, especially when she is nearly of age. You have been feigning deafness and blindness for all these years — over a decade of it — surely you cannot pretend forever. She is the only flesh and blood you and the Master left behind.”

Cui Shi’s face remained still. “Am I the one refusing to let her stay? You saw what she said yourself — it is she who wishes to leave.”

Cheng Nanny sighed. “My dear lady, she is only a child — and a girl at that. Since she was small she was cast away to the estate because of your disfavor, and it has been fourteen years like that. If it were you, would you not carry resentment in your heart?”

The term she used — “my dear lady” — was the same intimate address she had used when Cui Shi was still a young girl in her parents’ home. She was speaking in earnest.

Cui Shi’s whole body stiffened. She pressed her lips together.

“This old servant is your wet nurse — I am the one who raised you at the breast. Do you not trust me still? When you gave birth, I was there the entire time and never looked away, not for a moment. And there were Red Chrysanthemum and the others from that time — all completely trustworthy. There was no one who would dare to do anything as audacious as swapping the infant. Why do you insist on saying the young miss is not your own child? This old servant dares to ask boldly — could it truly be that your longing for the Master drove you to some kind of delusion?”

Cui Shi’s face turned paper-white, her lips trembling slightly. “What if even you were mistaken?”

“If this old servant alone were mistaken, could every single person have been mistaken?” Cheng Nanny looked at her and asked: “What basis do you even have for insisting she is not the one you bore? As a young child, the resemblance wasn’t obvious, but now she has grown to look somewhat like you in your younger years — and her temperament, I suspect, takes after the Master. No — there is one way she does resemble you: equally stubborn, the both of you.”

Cui Shi fell silent. Her fingers drifted up to her wrist, where the lingering warmth from Lang Jiuchuan’s touch seemed to still remain.

So had she truly been wrong all along?

Cui Shi closed her eyes. A blurred image surfaced in her mind — a deep crimson-purple aura suffusing the room, an infant’s wail piercing the heavens. She had strained to open her eyes. Someone had held the child up for her to see, and she had looked, and she had seen…

Had she been too exhausted, her eyes too bleary, and simply misperceived — or was it something else? If it was the former, then what she owed for having abandoned her daughter all these years — how was that debt ever to be repaid?

Tears rolled down the corners of her eyes, one after another, dripping onto her wrist. Cui Shi drew in a slow, deep breath, looked at Cheng Nanny, and gestured for her to lean in close. “Wet nurse, go and say something to Jian Lan — tell her to…”

Cheng Nanny listened, and her pupils contracted slightly. This had been the basis of her conviction all these years?

“And if there is none?”

Cui Shi was quiet for a long while. She pressed down the exhaustion showing in her eyes and said: “If there is none, then it is Heaven’s will. As for the matter of adoption — let them have their way.”