Wu Youzi possessed a treasure — the Soul-Seizing Mind-Stealing Art — which shared certain similarities with soul-searching, yet differed fundamentally. Soul-searching consumed tremendous vitality from the caster and invited severe backlash, while the victim would inevitably be left an idiot or even lose their life entirely.

The Soul-Seizing Mind-Stealing Art, however, worked through a treasure to cast curse techniques. By weaving illusions, it seized the soul and stole the mind, bringing forth the deepest, most terror-inducing scene buried within the target’s heart.

Yet activating the treasure still required considerable cultivation; without it, the desired effect could not be achieved, and the treasure’s backlash would strike the caster instead. As for the one upon whom the curse was cast — when their spirit and mind fell into chaos, they became far more susceptible to sinking into a technique-induced mental collapse.

Xi Yun had been restless these past days, plagued by nightmare after nightmare. Before all this, she had also expended spiritual energy to summon spirits through incense, leaving her soul and spirit in a weakened state. How could she possibly have any defense against the Soul-Seizing Mind-Stealing Art that had so suddenly descended upon her?

She stared blankly at her husband — a man who could not possibly appear in her chambers — her gaze falling upon the black jade disc he held cradled in his hands. A dim light flickered across its surface, where countless agonized, contorted human faces were carved in rune-work. Her entire body went rigid.

The Rong Family’s treasure — the Soul-Seizing Mind-Stealing Jade Disc — was passed down only to the young master. After Rong Qingcang’s legs were crippled and he retreated into that forbidden ground of his, Xi Yun had once begged the family head to reclaim this treasure, hoping to pass it to Rong Huanxuan as a protective artifact. After all, Rong Qingcang was already crippled and confined to his forbidden ground — why waste such a treasure?

But the family head had not agreed. So just now… had Rong Qingcang used the Soul-Seizing Mind-Stealing Jade Disc on her?

Xi Yun watched as he curved his lips into a smile toward her, and a wave of bone-deep dread washed over her — especially when she recalled what he had said: for real this time?

That meant…

Xi Yun did not know where she found the strength. She lunged toward the door and screamed for help at the top of her lungs: “Someone come — someone, help!”

Her voice was sharp and twisted and shrill, yet strangely, no one heard it. This courtyard, once so bustling and full of life, seemed to have become a dead place — no one approached, or rather, no one dared approach.

The courtyard was as though sealed by a restrictive formation, cutting off all sound and movement, severed from the world of the living.

Xi Yun was seized with terror. She spun toward Wu Youzi and shrieked his name: “Rong Qingcang — what are you trying to do?!”

“What I’m trying to do, you’ll know soon enough.” Wu Youzi smiled with perfect calm. “Also — I no longer carry the Rong surname. My surname is Ren.”

Ren?

The surname Ren — was that not the surname of that lowborn wretch Ren Yao? He appeared out of nowhere, changed his surname, and cast a technique on her. Just what did he know? No — how could he possibly know? Was he not supposed to never find out?

He knew — and he had come here. Did that mean he had come to collect a debt, on behalf of that wretched mother and daughter?

Xi Yun met his gaze — those cold eyes, filled to the brim with hatred — and her soul nearly scattered from her body in fright. She tried to speak, but her throat, seized by terror, could only produce a hoarse, ragged wheeze.

Wu Youzi’s eyes were like something steeped in venom. He silently chanted his incantation and forcibly tore open a passage into the shadow roads, then dragged her through it as though hauling a dead dog.

“Let go of me — no!” Xi Yun’s piercing shriek vanished into the room.

All fell still.

Outside the Daoist courtyard, a young maidservant sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, tilting her head back to gaze at the night sky. Tonight’s moon, she thought idly, was exceptionally bright.

To revisit a place of death — Lang Jiuchuan could not quite name what she felt. Standing before the mass grave, the stench of rot and filth bored ceaselessly into her nostrils. Not far off, a wild dog — its bones jutting sharply through its hide, its body covered in wounds — was staring at her with predatory attention. If it still had eyes, that is.

The dog’s nose twitched, as though confirming some terrible scent. It suddenly let out a low growl, turned, and bolted — and somehow, even without eyes, it navigated around every obstacle in its path with uncanny precision.

Lang Jiuchuan watched in silent admiration. When pushed to the edge of survival, both humans and animals find the path best suited to their own survival. The prerequisite, of course, being: the will to live.

Jiang Che said, “You have a history with that dog.”

“Its original eyes — they were mine, once. It ran off too fast; I never even had a chance to say thank you.” Lang Jiuchuan’s expression was full of regret.

Jiang Che let out a cold snort. “Thank it for the mercy of not being killed?”

Just who owed thanks to whom.

Lang Jiuchuan said nothing, her brow shifting slightly as she turned to look into the empty air. Sure enough, Wu Youzi appeared, dragging a woman with him, landing at the mass grave.

She did not know what price he had paid. He had returned to the Rong Family only once, and he was no longer seated in a wheelchair — though his aura was dark and heavy, much like Rong Huanxuan had been not so long ago.

“Has he also gone demonic?” Jiang Che was acutely sensitive to baleful energy; the fur all along his body bristled. His pair of tiger eyes flashed gold as they fixed upon Wu Youzi with sharp, wary intensity.

Lang Jiuchuan glanced at Wu Youzi, then lowered her eyes and said, “He has the resolve of one who has burned his boats.”

The offering to be sacrificed before that mother and daughter — it was the mastermind herself: Xi Yun.

Lang Jiuchuan’s night vision was exceptional, and tonight the moon was full. Moonlight, clear and bright, filtered even through the shadowed grove, enough to make the figure before her visible with perfect clarity.

One glance was all it took. Lang Jiuchuan confirmed it — this was Xi Yun.

Because she felt her own body’s emotions surge into violent turbulence.

A grudge-born attachment did not vanish simply because the soul ceased to exist. Without someone to release it, it would endure. Especially when this was the very person who had killed the original body and seized its soul.

Lang Jiuchuan drew a slow, deep breath and pressed down the wrath rising from her heart. She closed her eyes gently and pressed a hand to her chest.

Soon.

Xi Yun had been flung down beside a corpse. The straw mat wrapping the body had been torn open by wild dogs; the remains had long since been gnawed to decay and rot, maggots swarming across the surface, putrid fluids spreading outward.

She had landed directly beside the corpse’s face. The stench hit her as she looked up — and found herself staring directly into an empty, hollow skull with barely a scrap of flesh clinging to it. A centipede crawled out from within the eye socket and came scurrying toward her with alarming speed.

“Ahh — ahh!” A voice-breaking scream tore from deep in Xi Yun’s throat. She scrambled backward in a frenzy, her hand plunging into something foul and reeking. A sharp crack — her hand had come down on something, and it snapped.

She looked back. A finger bone. She screamed again, and again.

“Do you remember this place?” Wu Youzi’s voice, like that of a malevolent spirit, sounded beside her ear.

Xi Yun looked around. Something about it was familiar, yet she had no space to think — she crawled on her knees to his feet and grabbed at the hem of his robes with both hands. “Fourth Master — Husband — spare me, please. I am your wife. You cannot treat me this way.”

Wu Youzi stepped back a single pace and bent slightly toward her, staring at her with absolute fixation. Something like a blade of ice seemed to surge within his eyes, and his voice was cold as iron: “Spare you? That day — my daughter — did she not kneel before you exactly like this, wagging her tail and begging for mercy? Did you show even a single breath of compassion?”

As he spoke, he looked toward Lang Jiuchuan, who was walking slowly forward. The rims of his eyes grew faintly warm.

Xi Yun followed his gaze. Someone was approaching against the light — that build, that face — emerging clearly in the moonlight, striking her vision with perfect, undeniable clarity.

Her expression was tranquil, yet it carried a trace of contempt and mockery, and beneath that, cold indifference.

Exactly as it had been that day — when she had lain on the ground, and that woman had looked down at her with those very same eyes.

Wagging her tail and begging for mercy — no. That child, even in death, had never once begged for mercy. Just like her wretched mother — the same unyielding hardness. And it was precisely that which had provoked her further.

Now she had come back. Come back to claim her life.