What it truly meant to be as fragile as glass — Lang Jiuchuan now understood it fully. In this moment, she was living proof.

Jiangche’s eyes went red at the sight of her hand hanging limp and boneless. With vicious eyes, it glared daggers at Madam Shen, who had not known what she was doing.

“She deserves to die!”

Lang Jiuchuan looked at Madam Shen, who had flung herself over Shen Peng, with no thought to spare for anyone else. It was entirely typical of a mother consumed by fear for her child.

That is how a mother should regard her own flesh and blood — not with coldness and hostility.

Madam Shen paid her no attention. Shen Qinghe, however, was another matter. Seeing his wife had knocked Lang Jiuchuan to the ground, his expression shifted at once, and he reached out to help her — but when he caught sight of her condition, he sucked in a sharp breath and called out loudly, “Fetch the physician at once!”

Lang Jiuchuan’s wrist had been dislocated, and the forehead that had struck the shelf leg was swollen and red, a lump the size of an egg already rising, with a little scraped skin and a trickle of blood.

Terrifyingly fragile.

Seeing that her son had calmed, Madam Shen heard her husband cry out in alarm and assumed it was over Peng — but when she turned and saw that his attention was not on the bed at all, she followed his gaze.

This…

Madam Shen’s face went chalk white. She had shoved Lang Jiuchuan just now, hadn’t she — so this sorry state was her own doing?

The realization left her flustered and at a loss. She let go of her son, pinching at the hem of her robe, her voice trembling. “I — I didn’t mean to—”

She took two steps forward, wanting to help, yet not daring to touch her. She could see that Lang Jiuchuan was frail, but she had not imagined she could be this breakable. She was fairly sure she had not even used that much force?

“What are you all standing there for? Help the ninth young lady up!” Shen Qinghe directed the equally stunned attendants beside him.

Everyone snapped back to attention and hurried forward. But Lang Jiuchuan waved them off, and in full view of everyone present, with a perfectly composed expression, she grabbed her dislocated wrist and wrenched it back into place herself.

Crack.

Every pair of eyes in the room flinched. A creeping chill climbed up their spines, and cold sweat prickled their skin.

That — that was ruthless.

Even Shen Qinghe’s gaze deepened.

Lang Jiuchuan rose to her feet and rubbed her wrist. Feeling the throb of pain at her forehead, she reached up to touch it.

“Don’t touch it. Liao Nanny, go boil an egg at once, and bring the muscle-regenerating bone-mending ointment — and send someone back to the residence for the Jade Complexion Cream. Hurry.” Madam Shen issued a rapid stream of instructions, then walked to stand before Lang Jiuchuan, her face full of remorse. “I’m so sorry — I was in a panic and didn’t mean to collide with you. Don’t worry, the Jade Complexion Cream removes all scars and marks. Use as much as you need, I’ll keep you well supplied.”

A young lady’s face was precious beyond measure. If Lang Jiuchuan were to be left with a scar because of her, her conscience would never be at rest.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at her — the distress on her face was genuine, her remorse no performance. “I accept it,” she said.

Madam Shen was thrown off. “…I beg your pardon?”

“Your apology.”

Madam Shen was struck speechless. She and Shen Qinghe exchanged a glance, communicating through expressions alone: what is this girl about?

On the bed, Shen Peng, now lucid, let out a pained groan. Is someone watching me — I feel as though someone just castrated me.

At the sound, both husband and wife recalled themselves and turned back toward the bed, asking in rapid succession, “Peng, what’s wrong? How do you feel?”

“It hurts. Everything hurts.” Shen Peng’s voice was hoarse and shaking with tremors as his trembling hand moved to cover his most vital area.

Madam Shen burst into tears.

Fortunately, the attending physician was dragged in with urgent haste. Shen Qinghe — still keeping half his attention on Lang Jiuchuan — gestured for the physician to examine her as well. Madam Shen, though anxious about her son’s injury, had been the one to cause Lang Jiuchuan’s — she felt too much in the wrong to object, and said nothing.

“Attend to your young master first,” Lang Jiuchuan said obligingly, and stepped outside.

Jiangche was astonished. “You’re not serious — you’re just going to let her off the hook? What happened to that temperament of yours where you’d sooner see someone else suffer than let yourself lose out?”

Lang Jiuchuan rubbed her wrist. “It was a careless accident. Not worth making a fuss over.”

She would simply see to it that she was compensated with a few more benefits later.

She walked to the window. Beneath the great spreading bodhi tree in the courtyard, there now stood — as if from nowhere — an elderly monk in a worn kasaya robe. His brows and eyes were gentle and compassionate. Through the window, he caught sight of her, offered a faint and quiet smile, pressed his palms together, and gave a small bow of his head — then turned and walked away.

“I was just saying the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is too thin here, and neither Buddhism nor Daoism can reach their peak — this Ci’en Temple, for all its grandeur, only that head abbess from earlier had a truly deep reserve of merit. Not even she could see through the fact that you’re a wandering soul inhabiting someone else’s body, some evil—”

Jiangche caught the word ghost on the tip of its tongue and clapped its fuzzy paw over its own mouth. She can’t hear it.

“And how do you know they couldn’t see through it?” Lang Jiuchuan said coolly.

“Ah — they saw through it?” That shouldn’t be possible. If they had, why hadn’t they exorcised Lang Jiuchuan on the spot?

Lang Jiuchuan said nothing. Was she going to admit that she had been briefly tense back there? The head abbess had possessed an unusually dense reservoir of merit and spiritual power, and she had felt more than a little uneasy — afraid the woman might try to usher her into the afterlife.

Buddhist temples had always had a particular fondness for ferrying ghosts onward.

But she was a person.

Lang Jiuchuan pressed her fingers gently against her faint, faltering pulse, her voice barely above a breath: “Even half-dead, I am still a person.”

And if it truly came to that — to being forcibly ferried away — she would fight the old monk with everything she had.

“Ninth young lady.”

Madam Shen came to join her outside — it was a matter of propriety between men and women, and even as his mother, she had to withdraw while the physician examined her son in his most private area.

She approached Lang Jiuchuan and, seeing the swollen lump on her forehead still bearing a scraped, bloodied mark, felt her guilt deepen. She bowed again. “Your injury — I am truly sorry.”

“It’s a small wound,” Lang Jiuchuan said. “Think nothing of it.”

“You can rest assured, I will cover all the herbal medicines and treatments.” Madam Shen considered her words carefully, then asked, “My husband says you can save our son. May I ask, young lady — how certain are you, regarding the strangeness afflicting him?”

“My certainty,” Lang Jiuchuan replied, turning the question back on her, “depends on what price you are willing to pay. For the sake of your son, how far are you, as his parents, prepared to go?”

“As his mother, for the sake of my children, I would naturally be willing to lay down my life.” The corners of Madam Shen’s eyes reddened. “I once made a vow before the Buddha — that if I could have my son restored to health in exchange for ten years of my life, I would willingly offer them. But after what I’ve just witnessed, ten years no longer feels like enough. If it would ensure my son’s safe recovery — even my entire life is something I am willing to give.”

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes brightened. “You would truly be willing to reduce your lifespan by ten years?”

“My entire life, if need be.” Madam Shen choked on the words as she looked toward the sleeping chamber.

That was the child she had carried for ten months, half her own life spent bringing him into the world. She had raised him little by little from infancy to the man he was now. How could she bear to watch him die young to something wicked and supernatural?

“Ten years will be sufficient, actually.” A decade of lifespan — now that was something worth having. Especially the accumulated merit-bearing years of a great person of virtue.

Lang Jiuchuan was quietly excited.

Jiangche looked left and right. “What is her background?”

“A reincarnation of a great benefactor, blessed with immeasurable merit. Those years of life could fortify my own fate.” Lang Jiuchuan said with restrained but evident delight.

Jiangche scoffed.

Even setting aside that it had been an unintentional accident, Lang Jiuchuan had still been knocked to the ground with a cracked forehead and a dislocated wrist. By rights, with her grudge-holding disposition, she should have been seething. Yet she had chosen not to make an issue of it — and he had thought she had actually mellowed out, showing such magnanimity. Only to discover it was purely because of the woman’s background.

This ghost truly never moves unless there is something in it for her.