One piece of bad news after another — Lang Zhengping’s mood had turned as bleak and bitter as the frozen landscape outside.

They had only just traced a thread to Song Chengfu and Concubine Rong, with no conclusive evidence yet that either of them was actually connected to what had been done to the Lang Family. But now both of them were dead simultaneously — if there had been nothing to it, what were the odds of a coincidence like this? There was none.

After Gao Cailiang had uncovered their names, three people connected to this affair had died in quick succession. It needed no explanation: there was a powerful hand working unseen behind all of this, pulling the strings — and the Lu family was very likely not innocent in all of this either.

Lang Zhengping did not ask Lang Jiuchuan how to proceed. Perhaps privately he reasoned that she was, after all, just a physically fragile young girl — no use burdening that brittle little frame of hers. He sent her back to her room to rest.

But Lang Jiuchuan had already asked Gaoping for Song Chengfu’s and Concubine Rong’s names and birth dates.

Compared to Lang Zhengping, the timing of Song Chengfu’s first contact with Taiqing Temple stirred something subtle and complicated in her chest — it matched the very day the original occupant of this body had died. Whether the two events were related, she did not yet know, but if they were, things would become very interesting indeed.

Had the original girl’s death caused the person behind all this to move to eliminate the remaining loose ends? Or had the enemy the Lang Family had made brought ruin upon the original occupant?

Whichever it was, it seemed she could not afford to leave the Lang Family for the time being.

Lang Jiuchuan looked down at the table surface. The water traces there were drying — characters she had written unconsciously, dipping her fingers in water.

“Who nursed such hatred — to kill you, and then come for your entire family?”

Lang Jiuchuan let out a soft, cool laugh. A cold gleam swept through her eyes. She touched the tip of her tongue to her lips.

When Jiangche returned from outside, what he walked into was the sight of the person by the lamp lowering her gaze and running her tongue slowly over her lips. He felt a shudder pass through him involuntarily.

How to put it — the person under the lamplight did not look like a living human being. She looked like a she-demon wrapped in black mist.

This one is not to be trifled with.

Jiangche tightened his hold on his own hide and let out a deliberate loud cough, then feigned nonchalance: “Flashing a grin like that — who in this household was foolish enough to annoy you?”

“Someone wants me dead. Completely, irreversibly dead.” Lang Jiuchuan looked up and met his eyes, her smile carrying a venomous edge. “What do you suppose I should do?”

Jiangche felt a full-body shudder and said: “Did you not say you have your own rules? If someone wants to blow out your lamp, you do not merely blow back — you yank out their wick.”

“Exactly so.” Lang Jiuchuan laughed again, and then her tone shifted: “Now tell me — what did you find out?”

Jiangche plunged into her spiritual domain and said: “I am worn out. Let me draw a little first, then I will talk.”

His spiritual consciousness folded entirely into her domain. The karmic fortune that flowed naturally from Lang Jiuchuan’s soul began to circulate, and Jiangche sprawled out in delight, greedily absorbing every bit of it.

Lang Jiuchuan likewise felt the votive energy flowing from the other party and began harvesting it without ceremony.

As the two exchanged back and forth, Jiangche suddenly had an odd sense that something was off. This feeling — it uncannily resembled a term he had once heard whispered about.

Dual cultivation.

Jiangche went slightly rigid. The tips of his ears reddened. He stole a sideways glance at her — her face showed no color, her heart betrayed nothing. She harbored absolutely no such thoughts whatsoever.

Ptui!

Jiangche spat in disgust — though whether the disgust was aimed at himself or someone else, even he was not sure.

“The malevolent energy on that Shen Peng fellow — the way I read it, it looks like something his father brought back. Shen Qinghe has been working a case lately: a disappearance case. Two scions of noble families vanished in the capital — Yang Ming of the Changle Earldom and Li Xin, son of the Prince of Kangle. Quite a stir it has caused. They are called missing, but the real situation is more like a mountain deity taking a bride.”

“A mountain deity taking a bride?” Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes lit up with sudden interest. “What — are you saying those two playboys were taken as brides by a mountain deity? Wait, are you certain it was men who went missing, not women?”

A mountain deity taking male brides?

“That is precisely what is strange about it. In truth, the disappearances over the past few years have not been limited to these two — there have been others, mostly common folk. But commoners going missing draws no attention.” Jiangche’s tone carried a thread of contempt. “The moment the noble playboys were involved, everything changed. Those two families kicked up enough fuss to get the case escalated all the way to the Court of Judicial Review.”

The Changle Earldom, being connected to the imperial consort family, had the kind of overbearing manner that came with being imperial relatives — when their son went missing and could not be found, they made trouble. When the trouble reached the Court of Judicial Review, Shen Qinghe took up the case. He had spent considerable manpower investigating — at the cost of many lives — and only then unearthed a few small leads, all of them connected to what was being called the mountain deity’s wedding ritual.

“…A hundred li from Wu Jing, in the town of Tongcheng, there is a settlement known as Daughters’ Village. It sits deep within a grove of ten thousand maple trees. Come deep autumn, the entire mountainside blazes red — a sight that draws many scholars and travelers who come to admire the scenery. Interestingly, the village truly lives up to its name: it is a place where women outnumber men by a wide margin.”

“What does the village have to do with the mountain deity taking a bride?”

“Daughters’ Village is not only scenic — it also has a mountain deity shrine with a reputation for extraordinary efficacy. Legend has it that every eleventh month, the village holds a mountain deity ceremony. The deity is said to manifest during it, take a bride, and bestow blessings, ensuring the village enjoys peace and abundance for the year ahead.”

At this point, Lang Jiuchuan already sensed something was wrong. “If it is a deity ceremony, then this so-called bride-taking is actually a sacrifice, is it not?”

Isolated mountain villages offering up living sacrifices to spirits and deities — that was nothing new. The more elaborate the ceremony, the more precious the offering, whether object or human.

If this village’s offering was of the latter kind, then the talk of “bride-taking” was nothing more than a pleasing euphemism to make the ugly business sound respectable.

Jiangche gave her an approving look. “Exactly so. But the sacrifice at Daughters’ Village is somewhat unusual. Other offerings to spirits that involve a living human bride tend to use women — but at Daughters’ Village, the offering is male.”

“So those two playboys were sacrificed?”

Jiangche shook his head. “It is hard to say. From what I understand, the ‘bride’ in the mountain deity’s wedding has historically always been chosen from the men of Daughters’ Village itself — which is also why women outnumber men there. As for these two outsiders, the village’s own account is that they intruded at the wrong moment during the ceremony, enraged the mountain deity, and were therefore forcibly detained. Whether that is the truth of the matter — impossible to say.”

Lang Jiuchuan tapped her fingers against the table. “That Daughters’ Village is rather audacious — keeping noble scions against their will and not fearing having the entire place razed in retaliation.”

As Lang Zhengping had said: people exist in ranks. In the eyes of the powerful, an insignificant little mountain village — every single person in it combined — was worth less than a single son or daughter of the nobility. If the village truly dared to provoke those families, being annihilated in the blink of an eye was not out of the question.

“You are right about that — but setting aside the principle that a law cannot be enforced when the entire populace stands in violation of it, that village is genuinely eerie. Anyone who goes into the area around the shrine to search for someone either dies or comes away with serious injuries — some manner of supernatural interference seems to befall them, as if the mountain deity truly manifests to protect the village.” Jiangche stroked his tiger whiskers. “Were it not for that, Shen Qinghe would not have kept losing his men one after another — to the point where his own son ended up caught in it as well.”

Lang Jiuchuan lowered her gaze. “Whether it is human trickery dressed up as the supernatural, or a true manifestation of a so-called mountain deity — that will depend on what Shen Qinghe chooses to do.”

“Do you think he will come to find you?”

Lang Jiuchuan pushed open the window and looked out at the sky, which was slowly darkening. “I will not force it. Let it follow its own course.”

This, too, was one of her rules.