Upon returning to the city, Ning Zhe took Ning Shaosi and departed first. He was already a fully ranked scholar official and was soon to be assigned a post. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, he would take his son and go to serve in an outlying region. But before that, he also needed time to grow accustomed to this body, to spend time with his precocious son and find a common rhythm together — to familiarize himself with the experiences and acquaintances of this life as quickly as possible.

His Exquisite Pagoda still had its uses. Lang Jiuchuan had inscribed a talisman onto the tower for him, so that it could serve as a protective artifact — an extra talisman of survival for him in the treacherous waters of officialdom to come.

Ning Zhe did not refuse. How he would repay her — he already knew in his heart.

The two parties exchanged their farewells and went their separate ways.

Lang Jiuchuan followed A’Piao back to the Tongtian Pavilion. Along the way, she also listened as he recounted the many unfavorable rumors that had been circulating about her during this period.

“You really don’t seem worried at all.” A’Piao glanced at her sidelong. “Aren’t you afraid people will genuinely take you for a demonic creature and burn you at the stake?”

“Panicking serves no purpose for me — it would only cloud my judgment. Moreover, this sort of reputation can’t really touch me as a cultivator of the Dao. If anything, it only heaps karmic transgressions upon those who maliciously spread such slander. Most importantly — never mind whether I’m a demon or not — could they actually burn me?” Lang Jiuchuan opened her palm, and crackling lightning fire flickered to life in it. The fierce, righteous lightning intent made even A’Piao’s expression change.

He shifted his seat a little further away, in case a certain someone suddenly went berserk and he got caught in the crossfire.

“See how frightened you are? So, true strength is what truly matters. Could a demon carry righteous lightning in their body? Could a demon dare to receive a strike from the laws of Heaven? And yet — could they?”

“When people want to deal with you, they don’t care what you have. All they need is to pin a label on you.”

Lang Jiuchuan said coldly, “You’re right. So what I am doesn’t matter. They won’t care whether I’ve been wronged. What they want is simply a charge — one that is proper, legitimate, and beyond reproach. Just like an emperor who wants the life of a minister and doesn’t care whether he’s actually loyal or treacherous.”

Because those people believed they were the ones who set the rules.

Lang Jiuchuan toyed with the bone bell, feeling the cool, fluid spiritual energy flowing through it. “For me, strength is the rule. Only strength determines how the game is played.”

A’Piao said, “Allow me to remind you of one thing: you may not care about this tainted name, but what about the Lang Family behind you? Even if you were a complete stranger with no connection to the Lang Family whatsoever — with you occupying this body, that karmic tie is right there for all to see. It’s impossible to truly remain untouched. And besides, you’re hardly unconnected to the Lang Family. You are Lang Zhengfan’s daughter — the genuine, blood article.”

Lang Jiuchuan said grudgingly, “Perhaps there’s a one in ten chance I’m not?”

“And you can dismiss it with that?”

Lang Jiuchuan thought of certain people within the Lang Family, shook her head, and felt a surge of irritation. “The Rong Family has been making moves against me. I need to go deal with one or two of them before I can feel any better.”

A’Piao’s heart lurched. “You’re not thinking of barging into the Rong Family’s ancestral grounds, are you?”

“I’ve already dealt with two of the elders who tried to kill me. There’s still Xiu Yun.” Lang Jiuchuan pressed a hand against her chest. “Once I’ve dealt with her, there’s still the young head of the Rong Family, and the family head himself. Only then can the deep-seated grievance within this body finally be laid to rest.”

The same truth held as always: only by resolving the unjust enmity bound to this body could she truly undergo her rebirth.

“Before that, you still need to break through this situation — unless you can truly manage to remain untouched.”

“Breaking through this situation isn’t actually that difficult. The abbot of Huguo Temple can clear my name. And then there’s the Gong Family — they saw clearly what I did in that corpse-revenant matter. I was there.” Lang Jiuchuan said, “But why should I play along with the trap the Rong Family has set? They’ve called me a demon — so I’ll prove I am one. Or — bring out the ability to deal with a demon and come at me with it.”

Why should she be the one to prove she isn’t?

She simply wouldn’t.

Let them spread whatever they like. Let us see whether Heaven can actually strike down this so-called demonic anomaly.

A’Piao looked at her utterly contrary posture and let out a faint sigh. “That said, there are those who stand on your side. At least the ones you’ve helped are no ingrates. When they couldn’t find you, they sent gifts to the Lang Family — which in itself is a public statement of stance.”

Lang Jiuchuan lowered her gaze and said, “If someone has received my help and then turns into a white-eyed wolf, they can pray for their own good fortune.”

She could accept someone not coming to her aid. But if they stabbed her in the back — hah.

“By the way, I looked into the Ren Family’s matter. You’ll never believe it — someone in there is actually related to you by blood.”

“Ren Yao.”

A’Piao was taken aback. How did she know this name?

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the bone bell spinning at her fingertips and said, “Before I dealt with that Linghxu Elder from the Rong Family, I happened to encounter Old Master Cui at the Ren Family home, where he had come to pay his respects to someone. From his words, I learned that a daughter of the Cui Family had married into the Ren Family and given birth to a girl — Ren Yao. She is also something of a cousin to Cui Shi, and the two share a notable resemblance.”

A’Piao nodded. “That’s right. And what’s interesting is that Ren Yao was never known to have married anyone — yet she returned to the Ren Family quietly, with a visibly swollen belly.”

Lang Jiuchuan’s interest sharpened. So her conjecture had indeed hit upon something.

“An unmarried woman with child — that was an enormous scandal. The Ren Family concealed it as tightly as they could. But it wasn’t entirely unknown. Some whispers got out. After the Ren Family’s massacre, there were rumors circulating that it was Ren Yao carrying an illegitimate child that brought the calamity upon the family — that the first wife found out and had them killed. But those rumors barely spread before they went silent. What circulated far more widely was the theory that the Ren Family was massacred over the Mo Family’s treasured heirloom.” A’Piao looked at Lang Jiuchuan. “Worth noting is that Ren Yao returned home less than ten days before the entire Ren household was massacred — and the date of that massacre was within two days of when Cui Shi gave birth to her child.”

A chill settled over Lang Jiuchuan. She gripped the bone bell tightly, and their gazes met — no warmth at all in her eyes.

A coincidence? Could this truly not have been orchestrated with deliberate care?

“No one knows the true circumstances of the massacre, so no one knows whether Ren Yao’s child was actually born.” Lang Jiuchuan’s voice carried a bone-deep chill. “They covered it so completely — were they concealing whether that child lived, or where the child went?”

A’Piao said, “You think Ren Yao’s child is…”

Lang Jiuchuan recounted the theory she had once analyzed with Jiangche, and said, “So-called Heaven’s will — there are destined trajectories to it. It guided me to the Ren Family, drawing out the secrets of that household piece by piece. The more threads that connect, the closer we get to restoring the truth. And most critically — that ritual array the Rong Family set up in the Ren Family estate was handled personally by the Rong Family head. How can so many coincidences exist?”

“The Ren Family was massacred first, then Cui Shi gave birth afterward. She couldn’t have foreseen the future and massacred the Ren Family in advance to prepare for a child swap…”

His words cut off abruptly. Foreseeing the future — for most people, that would be impossible. But for a divination master, would it be difficult?

Had she herself not once glimpsed the future through the corpse-revenant case?

Lang Jiuchuan’s fingertip tapped rapidly against the bone bell, her gaze deep and still. “The Rong Family head is absolutely the key figure who knows everything.”

No — she wanted to go stir up trouble at the Rong Family right now.