To establish a Shared Fate Contract and merge two souls into one body would inevitably bring down a thunder tribulation. With such a commotion, the small courtyard would certainly draw attention — so Lang Jiuchuan decided to take Ning Zhe’s body and soul out of the city entirely, searching for a dilapidated temple to shelter in while they set up the ritual altar and established the contract.

The fewer people who knew of this matter, the better. Lang Jiuchuan did not allow Liang Jinfeng to follow, and used a technique to erase a small portion of his memory. She took only Ning Shaosi and the others along.

The ritual altar she set up was simple — just some fragrant incense, a roasted chicken, and wine. Nothing more.

Seeing this, A’Piao remarked: “You’re being this perfunctory about it. The thunder tribulation that comes down won’t even be all that large — it won’t do justice to your level of ‘sincerity.'”

“No matter how lavish the offerings, it won’t turn a blind eye for us. Good enough is good enough — we’ll have to endure it ourselves regardless.” Lang Jiuchuan said mildly.

With all preparations complete, she looked toward Ning Shaosi, who sat listlessly in front of Ning Zhe’s body. She walked over and said: “Would you like to see your father one more time?”

Ning Shaosi looked up. Both his eyes were swollen red, brimming with unshed tears.

Lang Jiuchuan let out a quiet sigh. She formed a seal and lightly brushed it across his eyes. Then she released Ning Zhe from inside the Little Nine Pagoda.

Ning Shaosi felt a faint sting in his eyes. He blinked — and saw his father standing before him, staring at him vacantly. Like a young creature that had endured too much, he let out a low, plaintive cry and burst into tears.

Ning Zhe walked to Lang Jiuchuan’s side and said: “Rest assured — I will treat him as my own son.”

Lang Jiuchuan smiled: “Teacher seems quite confident you can survive the thunder tribulation. Please, do not be careless. But so long as you hold firm to your original heart, that will be enough.”

Ning Zhe nodded. Standing beside her, they looked together at the heavy, dark sky. The soul contract had not yet begun, yet the horizon was already gathering black clouds, rolling toward them — as though the heavens already knew they were about to perform a rite that defied heaven’s will.

Ning Shaosi’s weeping gradually quieted. Lang Jiuchuan looked back and saw him kneeling at Ning Zhe’s feet, pressing his forehead to the floor three more times.

This was a farewell bow.

Father and son might never meet again in this form. These three kowtows were his thanks for the grace of being given life and raised.

Ning Zhe said: “A pure and good child. I will raise him with all my heart.”

Lang Jiuchuan watched Ning Shaosi rise to his feet and said: “Let us begin.”

Ning Zhe gripped the Lingling Pagoda tightly in his hand. Whether he would be reborn or consumed — it all hinged on this tribulation.

Lang Jiuchuan asked A’Piao and Jiangche to look after Ning Shaosi. Then she positioned Ning Zhe and the spirit of Ning Zhe beside the nearly breathless physical body. She herself sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, gently closing her eyes, both hands forming seals, directing the energy toward the sticks of agarwood incense standing in the offering burner.

Pfft.

The incense tips ignited without flame, their crimson glow striking in the dim, ruined temple. Pale smoke curled upward, rising straight to the highest heavens.

But almost immediately, the smoke bent sideways — and the crimson tips of the incense began to grow dimmer. The offering was not being accepted.

Lang Jiuchuan slowly opened her eyes. Her gaze was deep and unfathomable. Through the crumbling roof of the temple, she looked up at the sky blanketed in dense, oppressive black clouds — watching those swirling, writhing forms shift and change — and felt every bone of defiance in her body rise up.

Today, whether these offerings were accepted or not — they would be accepted!

She struck another seal. The incense tips blazed crimson once more, burning so rapidly that they were consumed to the base within moments.

Lang Jiuchuan formed another seal. Her ten fingers unfolded like petals cradling a flower, weaving an ancient and intricate ritual handprint — Buddhist and Daoist seals combined as one. At the tips of her fingers, faint threads of golden luminescence seemed to flow and drift.

“With heaven and earth as witness, with yin and yang as testament — herein, the believer Ning Zhe willingly offers his own body as the crucible, his lifeblood as the seal, his soul as the bridge, to share a body with the believer Ning Zhe, to stand for the lives of all people, to receive the blessings of heaven and earth together, to face the judgment of heaven and earth together…” Her voice was cool and clear, carrying a resonance that struck like a bell, each syllable crisp and precise, reverberating through the ruined temple.

Crack.

The incantation was not yet complete when a blinding white bolt of lightning punched through the churning black clouds, flooding the already lightless temple with stark illumination. Hard on its heels came a thunderous boom — the heavenly lightning carrying its full, terrible might, resounding through the sky with bone-shaking force, so powerful that the entire ruined temple shuddered, and the already decrepit beams tilted visibly downward.

A’Piao looked up. The lightning hidden within the black clouds was continuously building, compressing, layering — growing heavier and heavier. His expression shifted slightly. He scooped up Ning Shaosi and sprinted out of the ruined temple.

He was a mere ghost. He could not withstand that thunder.

Ning Zhe and the spirit of Ning Zhe were in the same position.

The might of heaven was vast and inviolable — awe-inspiring beyond all reckoning.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes were razor-sharp, yet the incantation on her lips did not falter for a single instant against heaven’s thunderous warning: “…This Shared Fate Contract is hereby established — to live together, to die together, soul and life intertwined.”

Her right hand opened. The jade-boned talisman brush appeared suddenly in her palm. She channeled her Daoist resonance into the brush — and the brush began, guided by her intent alone, to draw the contract talisman in midair. Written upon it were the two persons’ birth dates, the eight characters of their fate, and their names. With each stroke that fell, the markings transformed into golden light and dissolved into the air above.

At that same moment, Ning Zhe gripped the Lingling Pagoda in one hand, and with the other clasped Ning Zhe’s hand. The two of them began to rotate, hovering in the air above the physical body.

Lang Jiuchuan’s talisman brush fell with the final stroke. Her voice rang out sharply in command: “Souls return to their place — be decreed!”

Ning Zhe and the soul plunged downward toward the spiritual seat of the body.

Almost simultaneously — crack — a purple electric serpent as thick as two fingers, carrying a destructive and violent aura, pierced through the black clouds and drove straight down toward Ning Zhe and the soul.

Slipping through a loophole in heaven’s order — did anyone think that was easy?

Regardless of who it was — they must face heaven’s interrogation.

Ning Zhe shielded Ning Zhe’s remnant soul, casting out the Lingling Pagoda to intercept that first bolt of purple lightning. Meanwhile, Lang Jiuchuan called forth the Dizhong Bell and poured her refined Daoist resonance into the bell’s body.

Hum.

The Dizhong Bell rang out with a pure, resonant, and enduring tone — as though a Buddha or deity were exhaling in sorrow. Heaven holds reverence for all living things.

It spun furiously, drawing in the electrical force of the purple lightning entirely into the bell’s body, transforming it into nothingness.

Seeing this, Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes lit up with a brilliant glow — an extraordinarily bold and wild idea crystallized in an instant.

Boom.

As though profoundly displeased, the Heavenly Dao hurled down another bolt of purple lightning, even thicker than the last. It seemed determined to shatter those mortal souls who dared to struggle against heaven. Countless small lightning tendrils spread like serpents through the ruined temple, surging toward Ning Zhe and the soul.

Ning Zhe held tight around Ning Zhe’s soul, shielding him fiercely. That annihilating, domineering force of obliteration caused his soul to tremble violently, nearly transparent, nearly shattered.

But why?

He had never harmed anyone. He had never committed evil. He had been victimized by a treacherous and wicked master, surviving only as a remnant. His life had not been destined to end — and now he merely sought to live on for the sake of ambitions left unfulfilled. Why should the Heavenly Dao obstruct this?

He refused to accept it.

Ning Zhe opened his eyes and stared directly into the heavenly lightning. His gaze held both a questioning fury and a blazing anger. If heaven would destroy him, it had better first give him a reason to yield!

His Lingling Pagoda carried his will within it. Stirred by this refusal, it too began to spin, drawing in a measure of the lightning’s electrical force. Meanwhile, Lang Jiuchuan’s mind never ceased — her Daoist resonance poured continuously into the Dizhong Bell, driving it to absorb the electric serpents into the bell’s body, so that the already-existing lightning markings on the bell’s surface grew deeper and more arcane. At the same time, the bell positioned itself before Ning Zhe and the soul, sheltering them.

Ning Zhe, filled with furious unwillingness, carried Ning Zhe’s soul and drove forcefully toward the body’s spiritual seat. No one could block their path to survival — not even the Heavenly Dao!

And yet — Lang Jiuchuan suddenly turned pale. She jerked her head up and looked through the broken roof of the temple at the bowl-thick bolt of lightning coalescing within the black clouds. Her eyes went cold and still.

The Soul-Annihilation Tribulation.

It was coming for her.