The news of Xi Yun’s sudden death left the entire Rong Family in stunned shock. But what was truly staggering was this: the Fourth Master, who had remained invisible for over a decade — absent even from the great ancestral rites — had suddenly roused himself, and with overwhelming force reclaimed the title of young master.
How overwhelming? To put it plainly: he killed four trusted clan elders the family head himself had elevated and groomed — elders who had thought little of him — dissolved the Dao Hall, and allowed clan disciples to disperse at their own will. Those who refused and would not heed his warning: either had their cultivation crippled, or were killed outright.
No one knew how the crippled Fourth Master had recovered his power. Yet his ruthless, blood-soaked methods — utterly unconcerned with karmic consequence — and that aura of near-demonic madness were enough to intimidate a great many people. The clan elders who bowed under his authority did so in terror, all while frantically sending people to the forbidden ground to beg the family head to emerge from closed cultivation and take charge of the situation.
The man has launched a coup, and you are still in closed cultivation — are you planning to abdicate?
But the forbidden ground could not be entered by any but the main lineage, and the family head was in closed cultivation. To prevent the outside world from disturbing and interrupting him, he had even erected a barrier formation — which meant he had no awareness whatsoever that the clan had turned upside down.
This was because ever since his confrontation with Lang Jiuchuan had laid everything bare, the family head had been gripped by a powerful sense of impending crisis hanging over his head. His instincts told him that the scourge that was Lang Jiuchuan would come clashing with him again very soon.
He had suffered one setback after another, and had endured considerable backlash. His vital energy had not recovered. If he were to face that scourge again, he would likely be at a disadvantage.
A skilled commander never fights an unprepared battle. He had to push his cultivation to its absolute peak — and was not above using the clan’s secret arts to do it. So he had shut himself away, utterly ignorant of what was happening outside.
Or perhaps more precisely: even if he had known, he might not have cared. A mere Xi Yun — the greatest stain of his life, the greatest blunder he had ever made — was hardly worth splitting his attention over.
What mattered most right now was eliminating the immense threat that was Lang Jiuchuan, so that he could finally have peace.
Yet still he could not settle his full spirit into cultivation. It was not only because the sense of crisis grew stronger with each passing day — it was also that the message he had sent out had produced not even the faintest reply, and this left him profoundly unsettled.
Emperor An’he was useless. The imperial clan’s elder patrons were out of his reach. He needed greater reinforcements — especially now that Lang Jiuchuan had intertwined herself with the Gong Family. He felt more strongly than ever that the Rong Family was in peril.
Yet no word came back from that side. Left with no other choice, the family head sent another letter to Emperor An’he, laying out the stakes in plain terms.
Lang Jiuchuan must be eliminated.
Emperor An’he received the message and felt nothing but irritation. He could not help asking the senior eunuch at his side: “Has that Lang Jiuchuan gone to Canglang Guan yet?”
The eunuch glanced at the unmistakable exhaustion and haggardness on his master’s face, the dark circles beneath his eyes, and replied with anxious caution: “N-not yet, Your Majesty.”
“Is she openly complying while covertly defying me? Does she truly think We dare not touch her?!” Emperor An’he hurled a yellow jade paperweight across the room in fury.
“Your Majesty, please calm yourself.” The eunuch fell to his knees and ventured: “Shall this servant go once more to the Marquis Kaiping’s residence and convey Your Majesty’s oral decree? She would never abandon the Lang Family entirely.”
Emperor An’he was about to say: go at once — but then he remembered the dream he had been having every night, and swallowed the words back down. “Forget it. As long as she stays quiet, let it be.”
He rubbed at his brow, the fire within him climbing steadily, and said: “Go and look into what is happening with the Rong Family, and why the family head is in such a panic.”
Truly — it was not that he did not want to move against Lang Jiuchuan. But ever since he had summoned her for that audience, he had dreamed every single night of himself standing on the banks of the River Wangsheng, working as a ferryman for ghosts, oar in hand, poling the boat. That river was red as blood, overrun with snakes and insects, reeking of rot and gore. The condemned souls and wicked ghosts kept trying to board his boat, and he was forced to battle his wits against them each time.
He was exhausted to the point of wanting to die.
And though it was only a dream, he woke every time with his body utterly drained — his hands in particular so weak he could barely hold the imperial brush, to say nothing of his vitality and spirit. In this short span of time, he felt as though the life was being hollowed out of him.
His imperial health was declining by the day. The memorials stacked on his imperial desk formed a small mountain.
Emperor An’he knew something was wrong. He suspected Lang Jiuchuan had placed a nightmare curse upon him. But without evidence, he could only summon the clan’s enshrined elder patrons to come and break the technique — and after repeated communications with the divine and a considerable expenditure of spiritual power, they finally reached the underworld. There, a man clad in blood-red robes on the banks of the River Wangsheng spoke a single sentence to him.
This is a lesson for the murderous intent you harbored.
Emperor An’he understood in an instant. He immediately told the man it had all been a misunderstanding — that he would never dare to act rashly — and only then was he no longer made to ferry boats on the Wangsheng River.
And now — if he agreed to the family head’s request, would he not find himself, the very next moment, not just manning the oar but swimming the river himself?
When he thought about it, the imperial clan and Lang Jiuchuan had no truly impassable grievance between them. The betrothal decree — it had been the family head who proposed it first. He had been taken in by her talent for a moment and acted impulsively. If the family head had never raised it, how would he ever have even known of the existence of someone called Lang Jiuchuan among all the noble daughters in the capital? Besides — had the betrothal decree not already been voided?
The imperial clan and that scourge Lang Jiuchuan could perfectly well keep their waters from mixing with each other’s wells. Yet the family head kept trying to drag the imperial clan out to be his shield. That was going a bit too far.
Emperor An’he grew more vexed the more he thought about it. Everything had gone wrong since the betrothal decree. And because of that private-born daughter of the family head’s, he had even wasted one of his own sons.
The Rong Family — truly a walking curse.
“Your Majesty — Your Majesty.” The senior eunuch came hurrying back, breathless with urgency. “Your Majesty — the Sacred Woman has returned to the capital.”
Emperor An’he nearly fell from the dragon throne. The color drained from his face. “So suddenly — how did not a single piece of news get back to us?”
“There was no ceremonial procession. Just the Sacred Woman herself, with her guardian elder and two disciples. She has already entered the city through the East Yang Gate. She says she will not enter the palace — she is going directly to Liuyuan.” Liuyuan was the Sacred Woman’s private residence — the personal estate of the Imperial Princess Tantai, set upon the tea mountain beside the east city gate.
Emperor An’he sank back into his seat, muttering under his breath: “Was she not attending upon the National Preceptor and studying the Dao arts under him? Why has she come back so suddenly — did she foresee something?”
Could she have learned of the anomaly that had appeared on the plaque in the Hall of Golden Bells, and come back to call him to account for incurring Heaven’s censure?
The thought alone made the Emperor feel wholly undone. Cold sweat began to bead at his brow. Everything — Lang Jiuchuan, the family head, all of it — was flung to the outer reaches of his mind; none of it mattered in the least. His dragon throne was not secure.
But the person he was anxious about — at this very moment — was standing on Vermilion Bird Avenue, looking slightly lost, eyes fixed on a woman just about to step into Tongtian Pavilion. Her crimson lips parted faintly. The young disciple standing beside her pricked up his ears, a look of puzzlement on his face — just who was the Sacred Woman calling out to?
Lang Jiuchuan seemed to sense something. She turned her head to look — and met the gaze of a woman clad in moon-white robes embroidered with snow lotuses, a lotus crown upon her head, her eyes cool and expressionless. Lang Jiuchuan’s brow gave the faintest involuntary twitch.