The Rong Family’s ancestral estate.

The Fourth Madam of the Rong Family, Xi Yun, paced restlessly back and forth in her own courtyard. Ever since she learned that Rong Huanxuan had gone to Wu Jing, she hadn’t had a moment of peace. An inexplicable unease pressed down upon her chest, as though an invisible hand had seized her heart, making even breathing feel difficult.

“Has the Young Master not returned yet?” Xi Yun asked her personal attendant.

“She should not have.”

Xi Yun’s brows furrowed sharply, irritation rising within her. That feeling rooted in shared blood, in the soul-deep bond between mother and daughter, suddenly turned razor-sharp and stabbing — as though countless needle-points were pricking her over and over. Her heart seized with a wrenching, cramping pain, and she let out a muffled groan, doubling over with her back arched, her face drained of all color.

It hurt so much!

“Madam…” The attendant was frightened and rushed forward to support her.

Xi Yun pushed her hand away. She heaved labored, heavy breaths, raised her head, and her eyes were bloodshot. Her pallid forehead was drenched in cold sweat that seeped down and dampened the hair at her temples.

A foreboding sense of doom coiled around her throat like a cold, venomous serpent — tightening, tightening ever more.

Her expression filled with panic as she rushed to the ritual chamber, stumbling to the offering altar dedicated to her family’s ancestral spirit. With trembling hands, she retrieved an ancient, rustic box of purple sandalwood, opened it — and lying quietly inside was a stick of incense only three inches long, its entire length lacquer-black, yet faintly threaded through with shifting, dark blue markings. It was the family’s most precious treasure, the last remaining Spirit-Invoking Incense.

Spirit-Invoking Incense was not easily made. It was an heirloom passed down through the generations, and the ingredients required to craft it were exceedingly rare in this world. Even if the materials could be obtained, creating the incense required a spirit-medium’s cultivation to be of the highest caliber.

The Spirit-Invoking Incense could invite a god to descend into the body, employ the reversal of time, and connect with the soul of a blood-related kin — peering into the events that had occurred to her and the path that lay ahead. The price was immense; it was not to be used lightly unless absolutely necessary, and once the incense was burned, it was gone forever.

At this moment, Xi Yun hesitated for only an instant, then gritted her teeth and took it out. She washed her hands, sat cross-legged upon a meditation cushion, and removed the Spirit-Invoking Incense. Her eyes betrayed reluctance, yet she inserted it into the incense holder all the same.

The Xi Family also originated from the Xuanzu bloodline. Among her ancestors was one born with a natural spirit-medium constitution — yet this particular trait came paired with a shortened lifespan and few descendants. But during the age when the Xuanzu held dominion, the Xi Family, through this one ancestor, had secured their place.

Regrettably, the family produced no worthy successors and gradually declined. By the time it reached her generation, no natural spirit-medium had been born. Even Xi Yun herself had only inherited half of that constitution; her cultivation was not high, and to perform spirit-mediumship, she still needed the aid of the Spirit-Invoking Incense.

Had her lineage been otherwise, how could the position of the Young Lord’s principal wife have ever fallen to her?

And yet, she had been a Young Lord’s wife in name only — and later, even that title had been stripped away. All of it traced back to that one night…

The past was too painful to revisit.

Fortunately, her luck held. She had borne a Young Lord with spiritual roots — the next heir in line, and through her son, she would still rise by virtue of her child.

Xi Yun drew a deep breath, cast aside the chaotic thoughts cluttering her mind, pressed her hands together into a ritual seal, and murmured an incantation beneath her breath. As the spiritual energy around her began to circulate, the incense inserted into the holder ignited on its own with a soft hiss — no flame had lit it — its tip flaring with tiny blue sparks.

A wisp of fine, dark greenish-black smoke curled upward, swaying gently for a moment before coalescing into a slender, eerie black serpent. Soundlessly, it burrowed into the space between Xi Yun’s brows.

“Ugh!” Xi Yun’s body shuddered violently. Her eyes instantly lost focus, pupils dilating wide, and reflected within them appeared a scene of bizarre, rapidly shifting visions. Her consciousness was forcibly dragged into those images.

Xi Yun began to tremble. The eyeballs beneath her eyelids rolled and quivered ceaselessly; her lips, ordinarily pink, turned ashen; her throat emitted hoarse, involuntary rasping sounds, and her lips moved incoherently, shaping words unclear.

“No — no, don’t.”

She felt an anguish of the most extreme kind — not born of the flesh, but projected through the fusion of shared blood. It was Rong Huanxuan’s agony cast into the depths of her own soul, making her experience every sensation as though it were her own.

Xi Yun’s body shook violently. She saw the interior of the Prince Jing’s sleeping quarters — Rong Huanxuan consumed by demonic rage, condemning herself with the severance of all her cultivation paths, closing in step by step — and then she saw the family head, who, in the name of righteousness, raised his hand against his own kin. He struck a decisive blow. Xuanxuan’s spiritual roots shattered. She hovered on the brink of death…

“Ahh!”

Hatred and all-consuming terror swallowed Xi Yun whole. Her ten fingers curled into claws as she clawed frantically at the floor, unleashing wave after wave of shrieking wails.

Crack.

The visions within her mind shattered all at once, like fragile glass.

“No!” A shriek so wretched it barely seemed human erupted from Xi Yun’s throat. She snapped her eyes open. Her chest cavity throbbed with agony. Blood and qi surged upward — and a mouthful of heart blood sprayed from between her lips, splashing onto the floor, where it dissolved into greenish-black smoke. Her entire bearing turned haggard and spent, and the hair at both of her temples whitened at a rapid and visible pace.

Xi Yun gasped in labored, urgent breaths. Her hands — fingers bleeding where the nails had torn away from clawing at the floor — pressed against her chest. Her eyes seemed stained crimson, and her lips moved in a dazed murmur: “Impossible. It’s false. All of it is false!”

How could the family head have been so utterly ruthless as to cripple Xuanxuan? Even under the coercion of those around him — he was the head of the Rong Family, a man who held Foundation Establishment cultivation. Why would he have feared a mere handful of elders? And there was also the Gong family’s young lord, and…

Xi Yun’s eyes wept blood.

Lang — Jiu — chuan!

It was her. She had orchestrated all of it. She was the one who had stirred the pot time and again — her mouth full of righteous platitudes, pressing relentlessly, forcing the family head to cripple Xuanxuan, pushing Xuanxuan down into a bottomless abyss. She was taking her revenge!

As the realization struck her, Xi Yun heaved up two more mouthfuls of dark, blackish blood.

Had she known it would come to this, she should have ground that little wretch’s body to bone dust and scattered it on the wind long ago, leaving no root of future calamity.

One wrong step had led to one wrong step after another, and what had it brought her in the end? Nothing but endless grief and regret.

And the family head — how could he be so cold-blooded? He was the head of an entire clan. How could he have failed to protect his own heir? How could he have allowed them to coerce him so? That was his daughter — his only heir. How could he have brought himself to do it?

How vicious his heart must be.

“Madam, something has happened!” The attendant cried out in alarm from outside.

Xi Yun went rigid. She lurched to her feet, and sensing what this meant, stumbled and staggered her way out, heading toward Rong Huanxuan’s courtyard. The Daoist physician had already arrived, as had the Elder who served as the family’s guardian. She could even smell the faint fragrance of medicinal pills.

She burst inside and saw that imperious, all-dominant man standing at the bedside, his expression unreadable.

Xi Yun forced herself forward on unsteady legs. One glance told her everything: her daughter, her complexion the sallow yellow of old paper, her life-force as faint and wavering as a candle flame tossed about in the wind, lay perfectly still upon the bed. Even the rise and fall of her chest was so faint it was almost imperceptible.

Xi Yun opened her mouth. Her throat produced no sound. She looked toward the Rong Family head in disbelief — her gaze carrying shock, accusation, condemnation, and a hatred of the most extreme and concentrated kind.

“How could you — how could you — how cruel, she is your — urk!”

Xi Yun’s words were cut off, strangled in her throat.

Her eyes went wide with terror. Both hands clawed at the hand that had closed around her neck, and she struggled without ceasing.

The Rong Family head regarded her with eyes of glacial coldness. In their depths was an endless desire to kill. The woman before him had given the Rong Family an heir — but for today’s catastrophe, she also bore undeniable responsibility.

In his mind echoed Lang Jiuchuan’s words, spoken with the barest hint of provocation: “You were the first to make a move…”

It had been Xi Yun — a woman’s narrow, petty jealousy that had provoked someone like that unhinged creature.

It was her. She had left the root of trouble alive, and in doing so, had invited this ruinous enemy upon them.

The Rong Family head’s hand abruptly tightened — until Xi Yun had fallen unconscious, and then he hurled her to the floor, saying coldly, “Take Madam away and keep strict watch over her. She is not to leave this courtyard by a single step.”