The Marquis Zhenbei’s personal attendant was named Jin Kang. As he stared at his master now, the horror and fear in his eyes surpassed even what he had heard of the news outside.

More than anything, it was the dark blood spreading across the blanket that drained the color from his face entirely. He strode forward in quick steps and said: “My lord, what has happened to you? I’ll go summon the household physician this instant.”

He was gone in a flash.

The Marquis Zhenbei pressed a hand to his wildly pounding heart, his head ringing and pounding with a splitting ache. The pain was so overwhelming that it dragged his mind back to the nightmare of the previous night — how staggeringly real it had been.

He had even summoned the Golden Armor Gu.

But it had been just a dream — so how could it leave him so shattered in spirit, so utterly drained of strength?

The Marquis Zhenbei felt as though every last drop of energy had been wrung from his body. He was limp and feeble, unable to muster even a fraction of his usual force. His inner robe was soaked through and clinging to his skin, clammy and cold.

Jin Kang returned and came forward to help him up: “My lord, the household physician will be here shortly. You…”

He stared in terror at his master’s temples, which had turned wholly white overnight, and at a face that had aged by more than a decade. How had the lord come to look like this after a single night?

The Marquis Zhenbei noticed the alarm in his expression and asked in a low, measured tone: “What is it?”

Jin Kang did not dare speak.

The Marquis Zhenbei frowned and shoved him aside with effort, swinging his legs off the bed. Both legs were feeble as overcooked noodles, and he nearly pitched forward and collapsed before he steadied himself.

Jin Kang supported him as they moved in a few steps to the dressing table. A bronze mirror rested there. The Marquis Zhenbei glanced at it without thinking — and his expression fractured with shock: “How is this possible!”

He lurched toward the table, snatched up the mirror, and raised a hand to touch his own face. The man who had aged by more than a decade staring back at him — was that truly himself?

Something was deeply wrong.

The Marquis Zhenbei slammed the bronze mirror down with force, his expression darkening like still water before a storm, the furrow between his brows creased into a harsh line.

In a single night, his vitality seemed to have been completely hollowed out. How could this be?

Could it really be nothing more than the nightmare that had come upon him without warning? He rarely dreamed of Lang Zhengping at all — when he did, the visions were hazy and brief, flickering away almost at once.

But last night’s dream — it had dragged him into a mountain of blades and a sea of fire, subjected him to the agony of being burned alive. The nightmare had been so real it had scarcely felt like a dream at all.

Could a mere dream truly drain a man of his vital essence? Could it be because he was a ghost?

The Marquis Zhenbei breathed hard, staring down at both his hands. Had he been struck by some hidden scheme? Poison, perhaps?

The household physician arrived shortly. The sight of the Marquis Zhenbei gave him a considerable shock as well. He quickly set down his medicine case and stepped forward to take his pulse — the moment his fingers made contact, his brow creased tight.

The Marquis Zhenbei looked at the physician’s deeply furrowed, grave expression and asked: “Has this marquis been poisoned?”

The physician started, then said: “My lord’s pulse does not resemble that of someone who has been poisoned.”

“Then how does a grown man in his prime come to look like this in a single night? Unless some specter came and drained his lifeblood.” The Marquis Zhenbei’s face had gone as black as the bottom of a pot.

The physician immediately replied: “In my assessment, my lord’s pulse appears to indicate excessive depletion of vital essence and blood, deficiency in both Qi and blood circulation, and an upsurge of liver-fire brought on by fatigue and exhaustion…”

The Marquis Zhenbei was plainly dissatisfied with this explanation. Qi and blood deficiency — to reduce a man in his prime to this state overnight, you might as well say a jiangshi had come to drain his blood.

He wanted to lash out but stopped himself, some private thought shifting his expression. He waved a hand and said: “Prescribe a decoction to replenish Qi and blood.”

The physician acknowledged the order and withdrew.

The Marquis Zhenbei’s expression remained deeply overcast. He thought of how he had summoned the Golden Armor Gu within the dream — and how he had then broken free of that terrifying nightmare. Could it be that it had not been entirely a dream, but that someone had worked a technique upon him?

A chill ran through him, a layer of cold sweat rising along his back. He summoned his hidden guards and asked whether anything unusual had occurred the previous night. The report that came back was that all had been entirely normal.

The Marquis Zhenbei understood well enough. What methods did those Xuanmen cultivators not possess? A spirit shaman alone was already someone to be wary of. For cultivators of such formidable ability, concealing themselves from mere hidden guards — what difficulty was there in that?

Perhaps the person had not even needed to come anywhere near him. So long as they had his birth characters and related details, they could have brought some dark art to bear and cursed him from a distance.

The Marquis Zhenbei had spiraled into conspiracy, his mind a tumult of disorder. If it was a political rival at court who wished to move against him, the methods would surely be the ones used in court — like what had been done to his family — and they would not ordinarily resort to occult arts.

So who would go to such elaborate lengths?

And yet the man in his dream had been Lang Zhengping.

The unease within him swelled larger and larger, like a maddened beast trapped in a cage, unable to find any way out of the confines that gnawed at his nerves.

The hidden guards withdrew. Jin Kang asked: “My lord, has someone cast a dark curse upon you? If so, why not summon the Supervisory Bureau to investigate?”

The Marquis Zhenbei started at that — yes, the Supervisory Bureau was an option — but then he thought of the body-guarding Gu within himself, and he shook his head.

He could not allow anyone to learn of the Gu in his body.

The Marquis Zhenbei shook his head again: “Not yet. Go and find Old Chang for me. Has there still been no news of the spirit shaman?”

“Still nothing.” Jin Kang then remembered something he had overheard outside, and said with some hesitation: “My lord, there is a storyteller who has suddenly taken up residence at the Bright Moon Teahouse, telling a brand new tale.”

“Speak fully. Do not give me half a sentence.” The Marquis Zhenbei’s face was clouded with displeasure.

And so Jin Kang relayed the tale in a few brief sentences. The gist of it was this: a certain man had used a vicious and sinister Gu to harm a young heroic general who had risen from humble origins. The two had once been as close as brothers, braving life and death together — yet in his desire to seize his comrade’s position, this man had not hesitated to use Gu sorcery against him, making his death appear to be the result of battle wounds that could not be treated. The man then ascended to glory, becoming a newly ennobled marquis. Afterward, he had made a hypocritical show of holding memorial rites for his fallen friend, accumulating a reputation for loyalty and benevolence — yet it was a pity that his son had no ability whatsoever, and on the very eve of his wedding, had stirred up a scandal by brawling over a woman, resulting in a broken engagement.

Though the tale named no names, the people of Wu Jing were no fools. The moment they compared the story against events they knew, they needed scarcely any effort at all to see who the original subjects were.

This tale was saying that there had been something deeply wrong with Lang Zhengping’s death all those years ago — that the Marquis Zhenbei had poisoned him with a Gu!

The Marquis Zhenbei swayed on his feet, his eyes wide with furious disbelief as he fixed his gaze on Jin Kang: “Who — who wrote this tale? How is it possible — when did this spread?”

His mind felt as though a thunderclap had detonated within it, leaving only a ringing haze. How could such a tale have gotten out? It had not come out earlier, nor later — it had only spread now, precisely when he had returned to the city.

Of course. He had felt unsettled every step of the way back. The moment he had entered the city, that unease had not let him alone for a single moment. And sure enough, one thing after another had unfolded — from that worthless son of his, to the matter of his wife’s milk-brother lending money at ruinous interest, to his daughter, who still had not so much as sent word of her whereabouts.

And now, overnight, he had been reduced to this state — while outside, a rumor that could destroy him had begun to spread. Everything that had come before was nothing but an appetizer. The tale about him harming Lang Zhengping — that was the killing blow.

This was a carefully laid trap designed to destroy him — no, it was a death trap!

Who was the person lurking behind all of this, the one who wanted him dead?

The Marquis Zhenbei was gripped by shock and dread, his thoughts growing more tangled the harder he tried to untangle them. The blood surged to his head, and in a moment of overwhelming agitation, he spat out another mouthful of blood and lost consciousness.

As his awareness faded, what rose in his mind was the nightmare of the previous night — Lang Zhengping reaching out his hand toward him, dragging him into the mountain of blades and the sea of fire.

What goes around comes around — the reckoning always comes.

Lang Zhengping had come to collect the debt of his life!