A single night of bloodshed — breaking free from the cocoon, transforming into a butterfly.
Lang Jiuchuan hovered suspended in midair, her ink-black hair cascading like a waterfall, her skin luminous and radiant. Every bone and muscle in her body brimmed with boundless vitality and strength. Her figure was tall and flawlessly proportioned, and her pair of phoenix eyes were as deep and vast as a sea of stars — clear and pellucid on the surface, yet carrying an icy coldness in their depths, along with the enlightened transparency and power that came only after rising from the ashes. Around her whole person, there swirled an indescribable aura, one that seemed simultaneously fused with this small pocket of heaven and earth, yet wholly transcendent and apart from it.
Threads upon threads of golden fortune drew near, as though approaching the most beloved of companions, causing her entire being to appear as if suffused with a faint golden luminescence — a sight that refused to let the eyes look away.
Feng Ya quietly closed his eyes.
Propriety forbids gazing upon what one ought not to see.
Lang Jiuchuan stretched out both hands, gazing at her slender ten fingers, sensing the perfect union between her divine soul and this cultivated Dao body, as well as the support of the power of heavenly laws. Her brows curved gently, and the corners of her lips lifted.
A Dao heart both upright and unconventional — even a shattered remnant soul can rise from the ashes.
These were the parting words of Master Luole.
And she had done it.
She had succeeded. She was no longer a remnant soul scraping by in someone else’s body, nor the ignorant and naive fool of her previous life. She was a wholly new Lang Jiuchuan.
She had a name, she had a surname — complete and whole, protected by the laws of heaven and earth. No matter who they might be, no one could ever again claim she defied the natural order, that she had borrowed a corpse to resurrect her soul. She was simply herself — that Lang Jiuchuan who would one day cry out with the soaring call of a crane across the nine marshes!
Lang Jiuchuan formed a hand seal with her ten fingers, mending the shredded garments back into wholeness and putting them on. The artifacts and objects belonging to her that lay within the stone pit were then collected one by one.
The bone bell hung at her waist. The water spirit leapt out, circled around her once, and said: “Congratulations on your rebirth from the ashes.”
This woman had truly not deceived it. By following her, it had indeed walked the path of cultivation with great purpose. It had grown purer — especially after being steeped within this dragon vein, absorbing the most pristine spiritual energy of heaven and earth, becoming all the more refined. The bone bell, too, had grown richer in spiritual essence as a result.
Lang Jiuchuan lowered her head, glancing at the bone bell, and pressed her fingers against it, feeling the spiritual energy circling at her fingertips. She said: “Likewise.”
Her voice was calm, yet the water spirit inexplicably dared not act impudently, obediently burrowing back into the bone bell to channel its spiritual energy.
After rising from the ashes, she had become even more impossible to provoke!
The corners of Lang Jiuchuan’s lips curved. She raised her hand in a light sweep, and the surging power around her flowed naturally, smoothing out the energy storm within this pocket of space. All the raging dragon qi seemed to be pressed down, and the violent dragon fell back into deep slumber. Yet that strand of fortune remained upon her, unceasing.
This was the benefit of a complete divine soul and a Dao body in full health — this was the primordial power that truly belonged to her.
But it was not yet enough. At the very least, it was not enough to face that fine master of hers.
Yet, so what?
She had returned. Everything he had taken from her would, by virtue of her very existence, depart from him in turn. She was the origin — she always had been.
Lang Jiuchuan lifted her gaze toward the void, her voice tranquil yet carrying within it an unquestionable force: “Master — your era ought to come to an end.”
Meanwhile, having suffered the backlash, the National Preceptor — who could feel his fortune slipping away from him — spat out two mouthfuls of true essence blood, then struck a nearby stone platform with a furious palm. He had been just one step away from tracking her down by following that breath of hers, yet she had been as alert as ever.
Ha. The wolf cub has truly grown up.
After a long while, from within the cultivation cave, there came a sigh of supreme complexity — laced with shock, admiration, and seething hatred: “Worthy indeed of being the most outstanding disciple I personally raised and shaped. Yet the more outstanding you are, the more wary and fearful you make your master feel — and so, you must be…”
His words trailed away. After a lengthy silence, he murmured something vague — something to the effect that since she was already so exceptional, she might as well become even more so, helping him ascend the heavenly ladder, so as to bring their bond of master and disciple to its full and proper conclusion.
Lang Jiuchuan was unaware of the National Preceptor’s killing intent. But she understood deeply that the entanglement of cause and effect between them would one day be fully reckoned with — just as she had reckoned with the causes and effects of death on behalf of the original soul.
Her face expressionless, she formed seals with her fingers, sealing off this pocket of heaven and earth, and sealing the dragon qi within. The dragon vein could not be plundered by anyone — nor could it be used as someone’s personal granary and foundation, and this applied to any emperor.
No matter who wore the crown of this world, the moon waxes and wanes and the sun sets in the west — if one must yield the throne, then yield it properly. But one must not sacrifice the dragon vein as tribute to the imperial seat.
The dragon vein belongs to all living beings under heaven. It does not belong to any single person — and that included her.
Lang Jiuchuan hungered for great power, but there were proper means of obtaining it. She disdained this path.
And so she severed the dragon vein’s flow of karmic fortune back to herself. She would grow powerful — but not through such methods. Otherwise, what difference would she be from Tantai Qing?
“Come out.”
Feng Ya did not move. Not until Lang Jiuchuan’s attack arrived directly before him did he disperse it with a light, effortless motion, manifesting in human form. He gave a cold laugh: “The grace of saving your life — I don’t ask you to offer yourself to me in gratitude, but don’t repay kindness with enmity either, surely.”
Lang Jiuchuan looked at him, her tone complex: “A lofty Ghost Immortal — why on earth would you willingly cripple tens of thousands of years of your own cultivation? Ghost cultivation is no easy path, and achieving the lowest of the five immortal orders of Daoist cultivation is harder still. Even if you cannot ascend to the immortal realm, your power alone is sufficient to make you the master of the underworld — rather than falling into the Void Realm, beyond the tolerance of the laws of heaven and earth.”
She lowered her gaze, watching the way he was at odds with the power of heavenly laws, growing visibly more uncomfortable by the moment, and muttered: “This debt… I’d rather have just offered myself to you.”
To offer oneself — that would have been merely a moment of pleasure.
But this great debt — he had painstakingly gathered her scattered soul piece by piece after it had been destroyed, sent half of it into the underworld to recuperate, brought the other half into the Void Realm to evade the laws of heaven and earth, nourishing her with his own soul force, until she could be reborn from the ashes.
How was she ever to repay this?
“You think a mere Dao body can repay me for the grace of nourishing your soul?” Feng Ya sneered coldly: “Ugly as you are, you certainly dream beautifully. I do as I see fit — you need not lecture me. In the past, you did not believe my words about the selfish complexity of human nature, and you reaped what you sowed — death and the obliteration of your soul. That was heaven’s punishment for you. And my choices are mine to make, dictated by my own heart. What does it have to do with you?”
Lang Jiuchuan was momentarily speechless, then argued stubbornly: “My figure — where it curves, it curves, and where it hollows, it hollows — I’m hardly the scraggly little girl I used to be. And you call that ugly? You’re blind!”
Feng Ya, thinking back to that figure bathed in rain and mist, found himself uncharacteristically at a loss for words. The tips of his ears flushed faintly red, and he said: “There’s no need to dodge the real question. Though you have been reborn, the true weight of the cause and effect that belongs to you is far greater than the Rong family head’s. What do you intend to do about it?”
So long as this karmic debt remained unresolved, there would be no clear road ahead for her on the Great Dao.
Lang Jiuchuan said with quiet composure: “I’ve survived even the total annihilation of my soul. What bitterness is there that I cannot swallow? I will not fall twice in the same place.”
Feng Ya gave a derisive snort: “What I fear is that you’ll be soft-hearted as before. If he hadn’t used an entire city of living people as leverage, how would you have fallen into that trap and met that end?”
“But from another angle — it also means he was afraid.” Lang Jiuchuan once again looked toward the void and said: “The faster I grow, the greater the threat I pose to his schemes. So he moved in a desperate hurry to eliminate me. He should have waited — waited until I had accumulated enough merit and virtue. Then perhaps everything he wished for might have come true on its own.”
She smiled once more: “But one wrong step leads to every step being wrong. He will have no more chances.”
And I, Lang Jiuchuan, will not give them to him.
The account she had to settle with that “master” of hers — the one who had lived for two hundred years, stealing from the nation for his own enrichment — began now.
The doctor visit went as follows: lumbar osteoproliferation, cervical osteoproliferation with physiological straightening of the curvature, blocked meridians, insufficient qi and blood, internal heat and cold-dampness, exhaustion and fatigue… It’s fine, it’s fine — all just sub-optimal health!