Something was wrong with Ou Sixing.

There was no malevolent spirit following him, and the yin energy on his person was not significant — yet upon entering Wanshi Shop, the wind chime had rung. Which meant the wrongness lay within him.

The omen-reading chime hanging at her door had been specially carved with rune markings by her own hand. Whenever a yin entity drew near the entrance — or even passed by — the chime would ring without any wind to move it.

Ever since Wanshi Shop had opened, with Fuqi standing watch, some of the wandering spirits and lone ghosts within the city had come to understand this. Upon learning of it, they had started giving the shop a wide berth, passing it on to one another — so that now many ghostly and yin entities automatically rerouted themselves around Wanshi Shop.

Yet Ou Sixing had no ghostly presence following him. The faint yin energy clinging to his body was the negligible kind, not the sort that could harm anyone — and still the chime had rung. Which meant there was a yin entity within him.

Not much yin energy, and yet a yin entity was present. What could that be? Surely it could not be that the karmic darkness Ou Sixing carried on his back had manifested into a yin malevolence?

She also noticed how deeply uncomfortable Ou Sixing appeared — the revulsion in his eyes when he looked at her, barely held in check — and could not help but feel a flicker of curiosity. That was why she had wanted to read his pulse, to see through it and find the strangeness within.

It was quite the impertinent thing to request, but she truly could not restrain herself. For one, the oddity she had noticed while reading his fate chart earlier now seemed even odder having seen the man in person, and she naturally wanted to get to the bottom of it. This was the spirit of dedicated inquiry — she was eager to learn.

Ou Sixing’s expression was none too pleasant. He knew the young woman standing before him was slight and delicate, and that it was wrong of him to meet her with a dark expression — but it was as though his mind refused to obey him. The revulsion was genuine.

That she should propose to read his pulse struck him not only as impertinent but also infuriating, and so he said, “I am a physician myself.”

“‘A physician cannot heal himself’ — do you not understand what those words mean?” Lang Jiuchuan returned evenly. “Or is it that you have some secret ailment you dare not allow anyone to see?”

“There is absolutely nothing of the sort!” Ou Sixing could maintain his composed façade no longer, and he snapped back in anger: “You, a young woman — how can you be so utterly unreasonable? Making baseless conjectures about others without cause — is this how your parents raised you?”

“Sixing!” Director Ou had already recovered enough to hear those words, and his whiskers practically shook with the shock of it.

Was this still the same grandson of his — the one who was invariably courteous and proper, always gentle and respectful toward women, never crossing a line?

To speak such vicious words to a young girl — was he possessed?

Thinking of what Lang Jiuchuan had said about him being deeply in love with someone, could the feeling run so deep that he had become cold and dismissive toward all other women, willing to shatter his own carefully maintained image? If that person told him to do something, would he not be like a puppet in her hands?

If he truly became a puppet — willing to do anything for her, even the crime of treason — then the Ou family would naturally become the burial goods to accompany him in ruin.

The more Director Ou thought on it, the colder his heart grew. His temples throbbed violently, and the fury he had just managed to suppress came surging back up again. His aged face flushed red, his eyes rolled, and he once again showed signs of being on the verge of another stroke.

Lang Jiuchuan stepped over to him and pressed a finger lightly to his forehead. “Elder, please don’t let your anger rise — if something happens to you here in my shop, I won’t be able to explain it even with ten thousand mouths.”

Director Ou felt a gentle, cool energy flow into the three-flower crown at the top of his head, and his mind cleared noticeably. He drew in a deep breath. “Today, I truly am fortunate you were here. Otherwise, this old life of mine would have been genuinely lost.”

“If you had not heard what you heard inside my shop, your heart would never have been driven to such extremes,” Lang Jiuchuan shook her head.

Ou Sixing, hearing this exchange, furrowed his brows and stepped forward. “What did you say to make my grandfather so agitated?”

Director Ou’s expression sank. “You — silence!”

Ou Sixing stared in disbelief. Had he heard correctly — wretched scoundrel?

His grandfather had called him a wretched scoundrel?

“Whatever it is you have done, and whatever it is you have concealed from me — when we return home, you had better recount it to me one by one.” Director Ou fixed him with a hard, unrelenting stare.

A jolt of unease struck Ou Sixing in the chest.

Director Ou said coldly, “If you still regard me as your grandfather, then give your hand to this little Daoist friend and allow her to read your pulse.”

Ou Sixing disliked being touched by others — especially women. But his grandfather had spoken with such gravity that to disobey would be a grave act of defiance against an elder.

Just now, Lang Jiuchuan’s emergency treatment had proven effective. He dared not imagine what would have happened had his grandfather truly suffered a full stroke.

Ou Sixing had no choice but to seat himself in the chair beside the table and extend his hand. Lang Jiuchuan did not even sit down — she simply reached out two fingers and rested their pads upon his pulse point.

Cold and soft — the touch settled over his wrist pulse, and Ou Sixing felt not a single trace of tender feeling. Instead, a full layer of goosebumps rose across his entire body. The sensation was as if what rested against his wrist was not a slender hand but a damp, ice-cold venomous snake — revolting and repulsive.

As that thought formed, his mind seemed to conjure the image of a serpent, coiling itself entirely around his head, until he could not breathe.

Yet when he looked at Lang Jiuchuan’s pale, delicate face, he reminded himself: it is not like that. She is only a child the same age as my own sister. She is not one of those lovestruck women.

As that thought surfaced, the breathing of Ou Sixing grew rough and heavy. Something in his chest was tearing at him — gnawing, leaving him in a pain he could neither define nor bear.

Lang Jiuchuan watched every shift of his expression, her eyes half-narrowed. This anguish did not seem feigned. He was genuinely revolted by her touch.

His pulse did not reveal any particularly significant issue, yet seeing how Ou Sixing suppressed everything until his face went white, and given the possible yin entity within him, she made a decision. From her fingertip, she channeled a thread of energy into him.

It was righteous energy — the powerful, pure energy of the heavens.

The righteous energy entered through the pulse point at his wrist and spread along the meridians through to his four limbs and every part of his body. Ou Sixing grew increasingly agitated. That face of his, ordinarily warm and refined, had begun to contort.

As though ten thousand insects were boring into his heart.

That was how he felt now.

Without conscious thought, Ou Sixing began to murmur a passage of scripture and incantation: “Heaven and earth, vast and boundless, dark and void without limit… the gu is unraveled, confusion dissolved, named and spoken, one word transforms the divine…”

Lang Jiuchuan heard that, and suddenly withdrew both fingers. She turned to Fuqi at the side. “Strip off his upper robe.”

Fuqi stepped forward without a word and went straight to it.

Ou Sixing, who had only just begun to feel his state of mind gradually easing as he recited the incantation, was abruptly interrupted by Fuqi’s sudden hands-on approach — and gave a startled jolt. “What are you doing?”

What sort of establishment was this shop? Was it a den of villains?

The insolence was beyond measure!

The aura of killing and slaughter on Fuqi’s person surged sharply. “Silence. Do not move!”

He had been cultivating diligently in recent days, and the ferocious energy of his killing nature could now be released and recalled at will — and had grown stronger and more concentrated. Unleashed without restraint now, it bore down upon Ou Sixing until he sat frozen rigid in his chair, his complexion a ghastly white.

Director Ou and the old manservant were both nearby and caught some of the pressure, yet neither of them made a sound.

Ou Sixing’s upper garments were stripped open, exposing his firm, muscular torso. Lang Jiuchuan leaned in to look. He trembled with fury, his eyes bloodshot — shameless!

Yet Lang Jiuchuan’s expression held nothing of that sort. She simply fixed her gaze on the area over his heart, and once more channeled energy through his fingertips — for the ten fingers connect to the heart, and the righteous energy drove straight to the very tip of it.

She saw the restless, agitated small protrusion bulging there, and only then did she withdraw her force and straighten up. She fixed her gaze on Ou Sixing and said in a cool, cutting tone:

“So it turns out — you’ve been gu-cursed.”