In the days while waiting for the Fourth Master of the Rong Family to arrive, Lang Jiuchuan had done several more particularly showy good deeds — such as using her ability to track and locate remains to dismantle the den of a child trafficker, rescuing ten children, two or three of whom were the young sons and daughters of noble households.
But the tale that spread most widely was how she had helped a pair of wronged souls pass on from beneath the Twin Sons Bridge over the Black Water River.
It was a bridge renowned for a hundred years. When it had been built, legend had it that a vicious flood dragon lurked beneath the river, making it impossible to drive in the piles no matter how they tried, and workers were dying one after another. Eventually, a Xuanmen Daoist was summoned to perform rituals and suppress the dragon. After that, the bridge was completed. It had originally been intended to be named the Dragon-Suppression Bridge, but for fear of offending imperial taboo, the name was changed to Twin Sons Bridge.
Yet after the bridge was finished, every time there was a thunderstorm at night, travelers would hear a muffled knocking sound coming from deep within the bridge’s archway — as though someone were using their head to strike the stone walls of the bridge piers.
Then the Dragon Boat Festival rains of the Five Poisons Month had fallen with tremendous force, causing the Black Water River’s water level to rise so dramatically that it broke the bridge apart entirely. Once the water receded and people set about rebuilding Twin Sons Bridge, one strange occurrence after another arose — the workers tasked with the reconstruction would suffer accidents for no apparent reason, and so the bridge remained unrepaired.
Most unsettling of all, people had heard the agonized wailing of children above the river’s surface. Everyone said it was the River God issuing a warning. The people implored the local gentry to petition the county magistrate to hold sacrifices to the River God so that Twin Sons Bridge could be renovated.
But the newly appointed young magistrate at the county office, after reviewing the county records, did not perform sacrifices to the River God. Instead, following the example set a hundred years prior, he invited the Inspectorate and Lang Jiuchuan to replicate the rituals of that ancient Xuanmen Daoist. After divination and communing with spirits, they chiseled open one of the old bridge piers — and within it, they unearthed two skeletal remains, kneeling with their hands twisted and bound behind their backs.
The two skeletons had been bound with rope steeped in cinnabar, sealed with yellow talismans, and nailed through the center of their brows with soul-suppressing spikes. By their bone age they had been no more than five or six years old — a pair, one boy, one girl — and judging by how their skulls’ jaws hung wide open, they had been screaming in terror at the moment of their deaths.
This was the practice of using living children as foundation pillars — an act devastating to the harmony of Heaven and to virtue itself. Moreover, upon examination by Lang Jiuchuan and the Daoist masters of the Inspectorate, it was found that the boy and girl had not been willing sacrificial offerings at all. They had been buried alive with soul-nailing stakes, their spirits permanently anchored to the bridge’s foundation — until a hundred years later, when their grievance was finally brought to light.
What made it interesting was that the Xuanmen Daoist who had performed the rituals on Twin Sons Bridge a century ago was none other than the Rong Family’s former patriarch, Reverend Jiuping.
Once this matter got out, the Rong Family’s already precarious public standing collapsed entirely, and they were drenched in a torrent of condemnation.
Using living people as foundation pillars, nailing their souls — a boy and a girl at that — this was not something any righteous path could do. They had treated human lives as worthless.
Lang Jiuchuan had the remains of the boy and girl properly collected and coffined, then personally performed rites to help them pass on. She chose a plot with good fengshui for their burial, then held a fresh memorial ceremony at the Black Water River. On top of all that, she donated a large sum of merit silver — and only then did the repair of the bridge proceed smoothly.
The boy and girl had used their very souls and flesh to build and anchor the bridge. Though they harbored grievances, the Twin Sons Bridge had never collapsed over a hundred years, carrying countless travelers across. So they had accumulated merit of their own. Lang Jiuchuan escorted them to their rest, and contributed money for the bridge’s repair — she naturally gained a share of that merit, and her reputation resounded far and wide.
But what satisfied her most was this: through this affair, she had stepped on the Rong Family’s face to elevate herself. Truly magnificent.
The Fourth Master of the Rong Family was named Qingcang, with the courtesy title Wu Youzi. He had not left the Rong Family for many years, but now that he had finally emerged, all he seemed to hear was the Rong Family’s ill repute — and a name that kept appearing on everyone’s lips: Lang Jiuchuan.
Indeed. A string of incidents had befallen the Rong Family in quick succession, all stemming from this woman. She was the one who had stripped the Rong Family’s face away and ground it beneath her feet.
He had originally intended simply to watch from the sidelines and enjoy the spectacle — but thinking on it carefully now, the undercurrents of the whole affair seemed far from simple. That woman — why did she keep going against the Rong Family? By all accounts she was merely a noble daughter from a marquis household. How had she dared to provoke the Xuan Clan? What was she relying on?
Although Fourth Master Rong despised his family, he understood the standing the Xuan Clan had held in the eyes of the world for so many years — understood, too, that they genuinely had some foundation of power. To say nothing of ordinary commoners, even the nobility of Wu Jing would not lightly risk offending them. Had he not, under that same crushing pressure, once willingly clipped his own wings?
All to keep one person safe.
Fourth Master Rong lowered his gaze, concealing the flash of cold bitterness in his eyes.
His acolyte Sande pushed his wheelchair and said, “Master, just what sort of person is this Miss Lang? Are there really wandering cultivators this formidable out in the common world?”
For her to make the Rong Family swallow one humiliation after another — she must be extraordinarily capable.
Fourth Master Rong raised his head and lounged lazily against the wheelchair’s backrest, saying with a sneer, “The Xuan Clan has stood for many years and thrown its weight around for just as many years — but how vast is this world? Is it really something the Xuan Clan can measure? And how many remarkable individuals exist in this world? They haven’t the faintest idea. The Xuan Clan appears formidable, but in truth they subsist on nothing more than the lingering shadow and prestige of their ancestors. But Sanzai — even a tiger, for all that it is king, has its day of growing old. Even its teeth have moments of loosening and going dull. Look — does the saying ‘the sun sinks toward the western hills’ exist only on the pages of a book?”
Sande followed his gaze toward the horizon, where the evening sun hung over the western peaks, on the verge of descent.
In his thick, muffled voice, he answered beside the point entirely, “Master, my Daoist name is Sande.”
Why did he always get called Sanzai!
Fourth Master Rong lifted his wine jug, took a sip, propped one hand under his chin, and continued, “The Xuan Clan — they’re like that old tiger about to lose its teeth. Already old. If the new generation of cubs cannot rise to become kings of a new era, a mere Xuan Clan of a noble household will be carved up and devoured too. The great way of the world: what has long been divided shall unite; what has long been united shall divide. Where is there anything unchanging for ten thousand years? As for ‘bedrock that cannot be moved’ — hmph. Try bringing a heaven-flooding deluge? Who knows what distant ravine or mountain gully it would be swept into.”
“Saying such treasonous things — if the Family Head heard you, he would certainly punish you!” Sande said in a low voice.
Fourth Master Rong laughed coldly. “He’s got more than enough troubles of his own. How could he have the time to manage this useless, insubordinate wretch!”
“You’re not useless at all — Master is the most capable person there is!” Sande argued loudly.
Fourth Master Rong did not reply, only lowered his gaze to his legs. If he were not useless, why had he allowed the family to suppress him all those years ago? When all was said and done, it was because he had lacked the strength, lacked the hardness, lacked the decisiveness.
He took another sip of wine and said, “Speaking of that Miss Lang — if she isn’t someone who grew up eating the hearts and galls of bears and leopards, then she’s a pawn someone else pushed forward to deal with the Rong Family. Or else, she herself has a grudge against the Rong Family.”
“You’re not even the slightest bit worried — aren’t you afraid she’ll really bring the Rong Family to ruin!” Sande muttered, “The blood running in your veins is still Rong Family blood.”
Fourth Master Rong let out a deep, heavy sound of contempt. His handsome, somewhat roguish face went a shade pale, and he said, “If she truly has that sort of ability, I ought to raise a cup to her!”
“I wonder what she wants from meeting with you?” Sande said with some misgiving. “Surely she doesn’t mean to use you to wreak havoc on the Rong Family?”
“What large truths you blurt out carelessly!” Fourth Master Rong retorted without any grace, tapping his fingertip lightly against the wine bottle. “She’d better have something worthwhile in mind.”
It was rare indeed that he was willing to walk out from that grave he’d already had dug for himself.
Gong Tinglan had told him: Lang Jiuchuan of Wu Jing’s Lang Family had a grudge with the Rong Family that would end only in death — and she requested a meeting, for it concerned a secret of the Rong Family.
What secret of the Rong Family could there be that he, this useless wretch, did not already know?
He was very curious.