At the sight of Lang Jiuchuan, an extreme terror flashed through Xi Yun’s eyes — as though she were seeing a vengeful demon clawing its way up from the depths of the underworld. Her entire body shook like a sieve; her throat produced only hoarse, choking sounds.

She was not foolish. Wu Youzi, who had been sunken into ruin for over a decade, had suddenly roused himself — and Lang Jiuchuan had appeared here, too. This was no coincidence. This was a trap laid specifically for her, Xi Yun.

A trap to claim her life.

They had recognized each other. How was that possible?

Xi Yun’s mind was in complete chaos, bewilderment and panic crashing through her. She looked at the nearly identical contempt in both their eyes, and then she broke — screaming in hysterical collapse: “No — you two could never have met! You wild-born bastard, you curse-born wretch — what right do you have to be his daughter?! What right?!”

She turned her fury on Lang Jiuchuan with a roar: “You should never have existed in this world! You bastard! You should have died long ago!”

Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze was deep and still. She watched Xi Yun unravel with perfect calm and said: “A curse-born wretch — would that not better describe Rong Huanxuan? Who in this world is more vile and repulsive than the two of you? Bearing a child with your own father-in-law — a perversion against all human bonds. Heaven and earth will strike you down for it.”

Xi Yun’s pupils contracted sharply. “You understand nothing!” she snarled. “That was never my intention!” She turned to Wu Youzi: “I am your wife — I had you as my betrothed. Why would I ever have done such a thing? It was the family head — he forced his way in. He was suddenly overtaken by his inner demon and lost all awareness of who was before him. You knew this. You knew it!”

Wu Youzi’s gaze turned glacial. “Yes — I knew. And so I proposed dissolving the betrothal. You could take another identity and become the household’s principal mistress.”

“Naïve.” Xi Yun laughed coldly. “The family head values the Rong Family’s reputation above all else. A different identity — do you think I could have lived openly? No. I would not have been allowed to live at all. He would never permit such a stain to exist upon himself. Never.” She continued: “And dissolving the betrothal — so that you could go off and nest with that lowborn Ren Yao, is that it? Dream on!”

Seeing that her stubbornness had no end, Wu Youzi stopped speaking. It was meaningless now — there was no point wasting breath.

He summoned the Soul-Seizing Life-Taking Jade Disc.

Xi Yun saw it and trembled with terror. “You cannot do this. I was also without guilt — if only you had spared me a single glance, shown me the least bit of tenderness, none of this would have happened.”

Wu Youzi’s voice was flat: “Rest assured — once I have dealt with all of you, I will not linger on either. But the crime I repay is not redeemed for your sake — it is for Yaoyao and her mother.”

He intended to throw away his own life.

“You’ve gone mad!” Xi Yun gasped.

“I went mad long ago.” The jade disc in his hand blazed with a sudden flood of dim light, illuminating the entire mass grave — then vanished in an instant, leaving the place more ghastly than before, more terrifying.

“This time — it is not the Soul-Seizing Art!” Wu Youzi’s voice was a low, sinister rasp. “Whatever evil you have done, you will return it in full.”

As would he himself.

Xi Yun felt a chill settle upon her forehead — yet the surroundings remained unchanged. The two of them still stood there, watching her in silence. And yet that silence filled her with dread, because she realized with dawning horror that her body was no longer under her own control.

Her hand had closed around a dry bone — the arm bone she had broken earlier, its break so precise it had left a jagged point like a sharpened dagger. It was now in her hand.

“No — no — I beg you, please!” Xi Yun’s mind flew instantly to what had happened to her at the clan grounds — when she had been dragged into the technique-induced collapse by the Soul-Seizing Art. She understood now. Wu Youzi intended to repay her in kind, an eye for an eye, blood for blood.

She had already endured it once in despair — even though it had been an illusion, it had felt horrifyingly real.

But what was happening now was no illusion. It was real. And it was precisely for that reason that the terror gripping her now was so much worse.

“Kill me — kill me, avenge them by killing me!” Xi Yun tried desperately to fling away the bone-dagger in her hand, but it seemed to have grown into her palm, and no effort could throw it off.

She looked at Wu Youzi and said: “It was jealousy that blinded me. It was my hatred of Ren Yao that made me strike against her. I did not know she was with child — my intention was to kill what the family head had left behind. It was also the family head who later disposed of that child. I had no knowledge of it. And it was only when something happened to Huanxuan that I even thought of the girl again — it was with the family head’s agreement that her tendons and bones were harvested to help Huanxuan rebuild her cultivation foundation. I had no part in deciding that.”

“Be at peace — his turn will come very soon.”

Xi Yun’s heart went cold. She watched — helplessly, with wide and horrified eyes — as her own hand rose. It moved toward her eye. Her pupils contracted in shock, and she fought with everything she had to redirect the bone-dagger toward her throat instead — but she could not.

Exactly as it had been in the illusory technique — her hand moved as though someone else was controlling it, slowly, inexorably, piercing toward her right eye.

Pfft.

A soft, wet sound — and then Xi Yun’s soul-rending, agonized wail erupted into the night. Her hand was moving, stirring. In mere moments, one clouded, terror-filled eyeball was gouged out by her own hand — trailing blood, skin, and the shreds of flesh around the socket — and rolled to the ground.

“Ahh — ahh!” Xi Yun screamed. As Wu Youzi’s control moved her hand, the bone-dagger gleamed with pale, eerie light. It found the tendon of her hand with precise, surgical cruelty — severing it. Then the tendon of her foot. Blood sprayed outward; her body convulsed without pause. Her remaining eye rolled back white again and again. The agony drove her to the edge of unconsciousness.

But how could she be allowed that mercy?

Wu Youzi held her awareness in place by force of technique.

It was not enough yet.

Far off, the hiding wild dog heard the screams and licked at its own muzzle — still faintly coated in old flesh. Humans, it thought, were truly vicious creatures.

Xi Yun stared in abject horror as the bone-dagger drove toward her chest. Her one remaining eye was filled with despair; the screams could barely leave her throat anymore. It pressed in, slowly — then drew a single downward line, carving her open with merciless brutality. Blood surged forth in a torrent.

She fell backward to the ground, her breath growing faint by the moment, her body still convulsing on instinct alone, her throat releasing soft, utterly hopeless whimpers.

What despair could be greater than watching, with your own eyes, the way your own life is cut away — step by step, by your own hand?

And still it was not over. She watched the bone-dagger move toward her intact left eye — its tip slick with blood and a trace of flesh — and in cold, merciless silence, it plunged in.

Another eyeball was gouged free. Blood poured from the empty hollows of both her eyes, seeping down into the foul, putrid mud beneath her. The stench of blood rose to the heavens, drawing a handful of vultures by the smell; they settled on the branches above and waited.

Lang Jiuchuan let out a short whistle. The wild dog that had been cowering in the distance came bounding over and stood still some way off.

“A pair of eyes to replace yours.”

The wild dog: ?

Blind as it was, it was drawn by some inexplicable force, and the two eyeballs were guided into its mouth — and swallowed.

Humans were, truly, a little deranged.

That cruel woman from half a year ago had been this way. The people here right now were this way too. The dog had decided — it was better not to go on living, because at this rate it would spend the rest of its days swallowing eyeballs.

It retreated to one side and waited.

If it had to die anyway, it was only right to die with a full belly — and there was a fresh one right here.

Xi Yun listened to the sound of the dog chewing and seemed to see — in her mind — the eyeballs bursting in its jaws. Her whole body went limp as mud. Her consciousness began to scatter. And she thought of that child.

Had she been this desperate, too, on that day?

Lang Jiuchuan looked at Xi Yun, blood-soaked as a butchered carcass, and said to Wu Youzi: “Look. It is your only chance now — and see too whether she knows the truth of the switch.”

Look? Look at what? What is she saying?

That was Xi Yun’s final coherent thought. And then she fell into a boundless, lightless dark.