The one who kept the half-demon was no fool. Knowing that its existence would only bring trouble upon himself, he had immediately notified someone to come and destroy the evidence. Lang Jiuchuan was no fool either — she understood perfectly what the person behind all this was scheming. Now that the evidence had been destroyed, arguing was pointless. She was in a weakened state besides, and felt it beneath her to bother.
But did they truly think that destroying the evidence would be enough? She would bite back regardless. Whether there was proof or not — whoever suffered the karmic backlash, that was the proof. Oh, perhaps that sort of evidence wasn’t terribly convincing on its own, but rumors had a way of spreading, didn’t they? They spread and spread until they filled the air, and in the end became something no one could quite call true or false — yet everyone remembered that such a thing had happened.
That was one matter. Then there was the matter of the young Rong heir. One incident stacked upon another — the Rong Family’s credibility would grow lower and weaker with each one, until the foundation crumbled and the whole thing came crashing down with a roar.
The advantage of keeping the half-demon alive would have been to let the Surveillance Division investigate thoroughly, or to let the world know who had kept it, what sort of face that person truly wore — to make plain how sanctimonious and hypocritical they really were. But she couldn’t be certain the imperial family wouldn’t suppress the whole affair on account of their marriage alliance with the Rong Family.
Now that the half-demon was gone — did that mean the loss was great?
No.
From the moment the half-demon was destroyed, the contract between it and that person shattered, and the backlash struck the other party. That alone was a tremendous gain. Nothing compared to having one’s enemy’s strength weakened, their vitality severely depleted — wasn’t that so?
And then there was the punishment of the Three Deficiencies and Five Banes she had invoked through the Heavenly Dao.
That person must have suffered grievous damage to their vitality, their cultivation forced into retreat!
That was enough.
If they wanted to kill her, they had to pay a price.
So Lang Jiuchuan spent none of her vital energy and wasted no breath arguing with that troublesome Ruoxu. There was no point. Better to conserve her spirit and heal her wounds. Once she had recovered, that debt could always be settled in due time.
Lang Jiuchuan’s indifference and contempt was precisely what insulted Daoren Ruoxu. He had stood high above others for so long that being dismissed by a young girl like this caused him no physical harm — but it was an immense humiliation.
And she — at her age, relying on herself alone, she had actually managed to destroy a half-demon, and this after having already slain a river sprite!
This woman’s abilities were extraordinary, her mind sharp and keen, yet her methods defied all convention. If she were allowed to grow, she would become a serious threat at the heart of things. No wonder the Rong Family head regarded her as a mortal enemy and deployed even the half-demon to eliminate her.
Yet was the Rong Family head truly in such a hurry — even willing to deploy the half-demon, that secret ultimate weapon — simply because those not of one’s kind must harbor different intentions?
Lang Jiuchuan’s accusations gave quite a few people pause. From being rumored to be demonic, to finding fault with Tantai Cong at the Marquis Kaiping residence where she was betrothed to the young Rong heir, to this present slaying of the river sprite — her conflict with the Rong Family had been brought fully into the open.
But that was a small matter. What she was now claiming — that the Rong Family had kept a half-demon and even sent it to kill her — now that was a serious business.
Could it actually be true?
Gong Qi had separately sent word to both Gong Tinglan and the Law Enforcement Hall. Whether it was true or not, it needed to be investigated. After all, Daoren Ruoxu had behaved far too hastily — clearly the half-demon had already lost the ability to fight back, yet the moment he arrived, his very first act was to use a Black Doom Talisman to destroy all evidence. That kind of talisman was not easy to refine.
It was blindingly obvious — a guilty conscience, a clumsy cover-up.
Ruoxu himself felt that he had been too hasty, that he had only aroused more suspicion, but he didn’t truly take it to heart. She was merely a minor Daoist practitioner. Even if the investigation pointed to the Rong Family, what of it? That half-demon had originally been seized from another heretic. There was a perfectly prepared explanation for everything.
What truly gave him pause was Lang Jiuchuan herself — she was an even thornier problem than Gong Qi.
Lang Jiuchuan’s suspicions were correct. The one who had sent the half-demon against her was indeed the Rong Family head. Years ago, when he had accompanied his father to exorcise evil, he had discovered the half-demon’s existence. Together they had killed the heretic cultivator, and the half-demon had been kept like a demon beast — a weapon. Over the years, they had used it to cut down evil and eliminate rivals.
Yet a half-demon, even with half a human bloodline, had been raised from birth by that heretic using savage and brutal methods. In order to make its demonic nature stronger, it had always been used as a weapon of slaughter, allowing its human nature to grow thinner and thinner. When the Rong Family later seized it, there was even less chance of treating it as anything human — the more savage, the better.
Because the more savage it was, the more powerful a weapon it became for them.
And so it had indeed been, for decades. That half-demon had long since been fully consumed by its demonic nature, maintaining the face of a young boy while its demon power grew stronger day by day.
The Rong Family dared not reveal its existence to anyone, fearing discovery would tarnish their reputation as upholders of the righteous path. It had always been confined within the Rong Family’s forbidden grounds as a secret weapon, deployed only when absolutely necessary.
Over all these years, the half-demon had never once been defeated — in every contest it had been utterly unstoppable. The Rong Family head had assumed this time would be no different. He had not expected to be not only overturned, but to suffer tremendous losses and backlash.
He stared into the mirror at himself: the hair at his temples, once jet black, had gone mostly white — a great deal of it burned away besides — and his face had grown wrinkled, a bloody mark crossing the space between his brows. He instinctively channeled his power, and immediately felt a crushing pain in his chest. A mouthful of refined blood sprayed across the mirror, and his expression grew ever more haggard.
“Lang Jiuchuan — you deserve to die!” He suddenly smashed the bronze mirror, then broke into violent coughing.
The heavenly lightning had struck with strange and sudden ferocity, leaving him no time to react — it hit him dead on. He had channeled his cultivation to deflect some of the burning force of the lightning, but he was still made of mortal flesh: his skin had split open, his hair burned to char, and most critically — his cultivation had been forced into retreat.
The Rong Family head had lived this long, had sailed smoothly through his entire life, and had never suffered such devastating injury. This was a first.
And the other party had done it to him from a distance.
The contract’s backlash he did not find surprising. After all, that was a half-demon — a creature born from the union of human and willow spirit, an abomination repugnant to Heaven. He had entered into a contract with it; when it was damaged and perished, naturally he would suffer the backlash.
But to summon lightning from afar and strike him with it — that he had never imagined.
How had she done it? That magical implement of hers — it was at least high-ranked. How had she come by it?
What alarmed him most was her power. To be able to drive a top-tier high-ranked implement and unleash such overwhelming force meant her strength was extraordinary. And a person like that was a formidable enemy of his Rong Family.
Now the two sides could no longer smile and let bygones be bygones, and in his current state — his cultivation forced into retreat — he had made an enemy of this woman…
The Rong Family head grew anxious, and the dull ache in his chest surged; dark blood seeped from the corner of his mouth again.
He stared at his feeble, battered reflection scattered across the broken shards of mirror, then thought of that wild yet powerful Lang Jiuchuan, and a cold, vicious fury kindled in his eyes. She would never let this rest.
Ling Xu, who had entered Foundation Establishment stage and still lost to her — if his own cultivation was now in retreat, could he stand against her in battle?
If he could not, then…
The Rong Family head thought then of his current heir — useless, both of his surviving spiritual roots damaged — and rage and panic struck him at once. His spirit screamed in pain, and he fell backward in a faint. As his consciousness began to scatter, his lips pressed into a hard, thin line.
One wrong step, and every step after would be wrong. Regardless of what kind of monster or devil she was — the Rong Family could not simply be suppressed like this.