The golden light faded. The devastating spell combat had swept through like a hurricane and then passed, leaving behind a stillness like death.

The lake pavilion had long since been shattered and tilted sideways. The entire lake had sunk lower, and the floodwater poured back onto the banks, sweeping flat every plant and tree along the shore. Some of the buildings nearby — already old and poorly maintained — had their walls half-collapsed from the shockwaves.

The already-overcast sky suddenly broke into rain. The downpour thickened into a curtain, growing heavier by the moment.

Lang Jiuchuan was sinking steadily toward the lake bed. Her eyes were tightly shut, her four limbs spread open, and into her ears came the soft, murmuring whispers of countless voices — as though a multitude of people were talking and arguing beneath the water without end.

A bone-deep cold rolled in around her. Countless strands of hair crept slowly up her limbs, pulling her deeper and deeper.

Lang Jiuchuan furrowed her brow. So cold. So painful. Get away from me.

Someone was calling to her. Someone took her hand, and beside her ear taught her how to draw talismans and read the star paths — how to guide energy into her body and comprehend the supreme Dao intent. Someone watched her from a distance, their eyes gentle and wise, yet hiding within them an endless layering of emotions she could not read.

Who was that? Who was this person?

The more desperately Lang Jiuchuan tried to see the owner of those eyes, the more sharply her divine soul ached. Fragments of images flashed through her mind at blinding speed — then suddenly, she glimpsed her own eyes, staring fixedly at a single point, filled with a hatred carved into the bone. The fire called hatred burning within those eyes could have burned down ten thousand things.

Who was she looking at?

The murmuring whispers sought to drag her down into oblivion. Countless skeletal remains took the shapes of human silhouettes and reached their hands out toward her. Lang Jiuchuan’s entire body erupted with a burst of savage, violent energy: “Get back!“

As the violent energy surged, the world fell silent.

Lang Jiuchuan was enveloped by a surge of pure, cold spring water that dragged her away from the darkened lake bed. Her hand caught on something — she clutched it tightly and brought it up with her.

She breathed in fresh air. Her eyelids trembled open, just enough to see the worried expressions on A’Piao and Jiangche’s faces. She broke into a grin: “I won…”

Her words were not yet finished when another mouthful of dark blood erupted from her lips. Her face turned the color of gold paper, strength drained from her entirely, and she slumped sideways — out cold, as fragile as a broken doll.

A’Piao pressed two fingers to the pulse at her wrist. “Her vital energy is gravely depleted. Her spiritual energy is completely dry. She needs to rest and recover properly.”

After consecutive bouts of spell combat, even the most resilient body and soul would not have been able to hold up — and Lang Jiuchuan’s had never been resilient to begin with. Yet she had genuinely defeated a cultivator on the verge of Foundation Establishment through her own strength alone. That kind of will was beyond what most people were capable of.

By the standards of the cultivation world, this could be called combat across a full cultivation tier.

But the cost was enormous. Her vital energy was severely diminished, and her spiritual energy had dried up entirely. It was impossible to say how long recovery would take — and enemies were drawing closer. They would not grant her time to rest.

“What is this?” Jiangche noticed something clutched tightly in Lang Jiuchuan’s hand — something that was neither metal nor wood, and of an indeterminate nature.

“Someone’s coming.” A’Piao looked toward the outside, then turned his gaze to the sunken lake, and the ghost-fiend energy rising from beneath where the water dungeon lay.

The so-called righteous path — so much for that. He wondered how the Surveillance Division would handle this particular mess.

Fuqi arrived first. The moment he saw Lang Jiuchuan’s condition, his expression changed drastically. “Who did this?!”

His killing intent shot outward in every direction.

“Take her to Tongtiange. I need to wait here for the Surveillance Division.” A’Piao transferred Lang Jiuchuan into Fuqi’s arms and said, “When you return, light the merit incense beside her bed and ask Red Lady for a Rejuvenation Pellet — feed it to her.”

Fuqi took her without a word and immediately departed. Jiangche followed close behind.

In the middle of the third month, several major events occurred.

The Ren Estate — which had been destroyed along with its entire clan — suddenly erupted into commotion. Word spread that beneath the ink-dark lake of the long-deserted Ren Estate, an enormous quantity of skeletal remains had been discovered.

Beneath the lake pavilion, a water dungeon had been found — inside it, Daoist formations were laid to completely conceal any sign of living energy. Within a hidden chamber inside the dungeon, talisman formations covered the walls, and spiritual weapons were arranged throughout. Seven children, none older than twelve, had been held there in chains — forced to offer their blood essence and souls to a spirit tablet.

Strangest of all: when the Surveillance Division arrived, they had not yet been able to make out the date of birth inscribed on the spirit tablet before it spontaneously exploded and turned to dust — leaving them nothing to go on.

Of course, these finer details would not be made public to the ordinary people, so as not to cause widespread panic.

What was made known — particularly among lower-ranking officials in the Surveillance Division — worked the officials up into a frenzy, ready to press charges against the Mystical Clans. This was because the proprietor of Tongtiange had given testimony: Zhengyang Zi, an elder of the Rong Family of the Mystical Clans, had prevented him from going down to the water dungeon to search for someone, and had then attempted to kill him. The scale of destruction from the resulting spell combat was what had caused all this upheaval.

As for who had engaged in spell combat with Zhengyang Zi — A’Piao kept his mouth sealed shut on the matter. Press him for an answer and he demanded an intelligence fee. Press him further and all he would say was “a certain Foundation Establishment master.” The truth remained firmly in A’Piao’s hands alone, and it infuriated the Surveillance Division officials so much they would have liked nothing better than to raid the place — but Tongtiange had powerful backers. They could neither provoke it nor move against it.

And so the Surveillance Division could only shift its focus elsewhere, digging relentlessly for evidence of the Rong Family’s wrongdoing. After all, your family’s elder was skulking around in Wu Jing conducting some kind of shared sacrifice ritual — that was a rather difficult thing to explain away.

When news of all this spread, the Rong Family’s reputation — already on the verge of ruin after the young master’s cultivation deviation — took yet another blow, blood added to blood.

When word reached the Rong Family, the family patriarch flew into a furious rage. He was even more incensed when he saw that Zhengyang Zi’s soul tablet had shattered — his eyes went red with fury.

The Rong Family had never had many truly capable elders. Zhengyang Zi had ranked second among them, and he had been on the verge of Foundation Establishment. To lose him at this juncture — with even his spiritual weapon gone — was a devastating blow.

Losing one elder on the verge of Foundation Establishment meant the family’s overall strength had taken another plunge. If anything else went wrong, the Rong Family would be cast out of the Mystical Clans entirely, never to reclaim their former glory.

And so the Rong Family dispatched their most capable remaining elder, who immediately declared publicly that Zhengyang Zi had been a traitor to the clan, expelled long ago — and pinned the entire affair of the hidden chamber’s formations squarely on Zhengyang Zi. A clean frame-up, using a dead man — after all, he was dead, so he could be used for something. The spirit tablet’s explosion was conveniently explained away by his own demise — his death had caused it to shatter.

It was a disastrous move. Claiming there was no witness to contradict them was one thing — but it amounted to a “no silver buried here” declaration. It might fool ordinary people, but it fooled none of the other Mystical Clan members, nor anyone like Shen Qinghe.

Without concrete evidence, however, the matter could only be set aside for the time being.

Lang Jiuchuan knew nothing of any of this. She remained sunk in deep sleep. She could dimly sense people coming and going to visit her, but her divine soul was adrift — like duckweed with no roots, unable to find any place to anchor itself.

Then a pair of ice-cold hands pressed her forcibly back into her physical body. Some power surged violently into her spiritual seat — and only then did she feel herself settle back into reality.

“Your blood debt is not yet cleared. You have no right to go wandering. Get back in.” A voice — calm without a ripple of emotion — sounded in Lang Jiuchuan’s ear. And then she felt both her wrists sliced open by a sharp blade, and something flooded into her meridians.

That was rough. And it hurt terribly.

She forced her eyes open, and managed to catch only a glimpse of the person walking out the door — the inner lining of his robe, as he moved, revealing a faint border of dark gold embroidery.