Seeing that Wen Yue herself had agreed, and with Lady Wen present, Lu Ruiting and Lady Lu could find not a single excuse left to obstruct them. Though their expressions were dreadful to look upon, they had no choice but to watch helplessly as the women instructed the servants to prepare carriages and horses, pack their belongings, and depart.
Standing at the side gate, watching Wen Yue board the carriage, Lu Ruiting pressed his lips into a straight, hard line. He fixed his gaze unwaveringly on Lang Jiuchuan, who stood beside the carriage. This harbinger of disaster was truly a troublesome woman — and yet there was nothing he could do about her whatsoever.
Lang Jiuchuan, as though she had eyes in the back of her head, turned and walked a few steps back, looking at Lu Ruiting: “Young Master Lu should take care in the coming days. This little Daoist sees that your Hall of Fate is marked with a dark shadow — a calamity is approaching. This calamity is a Peach Blossom Curse. At its lightest, it brings injury; at its worst…”
Lu Ruiting’s expression shifted. He clenched his hands at his sides, his gaze cold and bleak.
Lang Jiuchuan let out a soft laugh and turned to leave.
Lady Lu, however, went white as a sheet and hurried forward to intercept her: “You — you said what? At its worst, what?”
“Shh — heavenly secrets cannot be divulged!” Lang Jiuchuan raised a finger to her lips. “If you wish to dispel this calamity, Madam and your son might do well to accumulate virtue through good deeds. Perhaps the ancestral masters in their great mercy will send down blessings in return. Oh — and it would be best to perform those deeds in Wen Yue’s name.”
“You—!”
“Mother!” Lu Ruiting stepped forward and took his mother by the arm. He looked coldly at Lang Jiuchuan: “The ninth young lady has quite a sharp tongue. One can only hope that tongue is not the kind that tears apart marriages and scatters families — otherwise there would be karmic retribution for that as well, would there not?”
Lang Jiuchuan fixed her gaze on him: “One last gift of words: seek a dissolution of your marriage while you still can. Do not destroy yourself and others along with you.”
“The ninth young lady need not concern herself.”
Lang Jiuchuan laughed, dropped a parting remark — truly, good counsel is wasted on the doomed — and boarded the carriage without a second glance.
Lu Ruiting stood there, his expression ashen, watching the procession of carriages depart. His brow was knotted in a deep furrow, and he did not move until Lady Lu came and clutched at his sleeve: “How could you just let her leave like that? You should have at least made her speak clearly — what Peach Blossom Curse?!”
“She was obviously taunting me. Mother, do you actually believe her?”
Lady Lu let out an anxious sound: “Anyone else and I might not — but who is she? She is a true Heavenly Master who even dared bring down the Rong family. Would she really say something so inauspicious just to frighten you with a single sentence? Just as you said — would she not be afraid of incurring a karmic debt for such careless words?”
Growing ever more uneasy, she said: “As I see it, you should simply not leave the house for the time being — and sever contact with those people.”
“Mother!” Lu Ruiting’s rebuke came out sharp and severe. He cast a glance to either side, his eyes issuing a pointed warning.
Lady Lu knew she had spoken carelessly, and dared say no more. She only said: “I’ll immediately have people prepare to go to Xiangguo Temple to offer incense, pray, and donate to the oil lamps — to clear the malignant energy from this house. These past six months, there has been no peace whatsoever.”
Lu Ruiting said nothing. He only watched the carriages grow distant, irritation churning within him.
It was the simplest of matters for the Duke Huguo estate to make arrangements for a young lady of the family returning home to recuperate — the courtyard that had always been kept ready for Wen Yue was still set aside for her. Though the household found the suddenness of it all somewhat remarkable, Lady Wen was the mistress of the house. With a mother bringing her daughter home to rest and recover, who would dare say a word against it?
Lang Jiuchuan administered acupuncture to Wen Yue and prescribed her medicine, then sent them to purchase calming incense from Wanshi Pavilion. The best method of recuperation was to reduce brooding and anxious thought, to sleep more, to keep one’s spirits light — and combined with the medicinal decoctions, the cure would come of its own accord.
Wen Yue gazed at Lang Jiuchuan with pleading eyes: “My child…”
“I cannot promise whether you will be able to see her again,” Lang Jiuchuan said, meeting her eyes steadily. “But staying alive is where hope begins. If you are gone, even if she is found — she will only be a child without a mother.”
Wen Yue’s tears fell at once. She nodded heavily, then closed her eyes. Perhaps it was the spiritual energy emanating from Lang Jiuchuan that brushed over her — her breathing very quickly grew long and even.
Only then did Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze fall once more upon Wen Yue’s face. Though she had drifted into sleep, between her brows there still lingered a deep and unresolvable sorrow that made her look pitifully forlorn.
Her gaze focused on the area of Wen Yue’s face corresponding to the palace of children and progeny. Lang Jiuchuan was somewhat curious about what method had been used to obscure this aspect of her reading — to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
Was it the work of Tantai Qing? No — his methods should not be so crude. And with her own failed case as a prior example, he would not use the same approach twice. After all, now that both sides had partially revealed their hand, knowing his self-assured nature, he ought to carry on with complete indifference — the sort of insufferably smug air that said: yes, it was I who did it, what can you possibly do about it?
Lang Jiuchuan cleared her mind and concentrated her spirit, using her increasingly acute spiritual perception to carefully sense outward. She could see that the layer of grey, murky energy veiling Wen Yue’s eyelids was no ordinary accumulation of ill fortune or impure energy — it was the work of a deliberately applied technique, as though a false mask had been laid over her. The difference was that what had been masked was her energy — causing anyone who looked upon her with the eye of perception to readily read her as a woman who had lost a daughter.
“The arts of the Dao — truly ten thousand transformations without limit. In the past, it was I who had studied too shallowly.” The gleam of fascination in Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes grew ever thicker.
Jiangche gathered his breath and concentrated his energy, then opened one tiger eye. He gave his tail a lazy flick: “A self-deprecation of that kind, you absolutely must not say aloud to others — or they will think you are inviting a beating. Also — this technique used here, are you truly certain it is not the work of the National Preceptor? In all this world, he alone is your equal. Who else could nearly lead you astray in your judgment?”
Lang Jiuchuan shook her head: “Arrogance will get me nowhere. There are always those stronger beyond the horizon. Studying many disciplines does not necessarily make one the equal of someone who has devoted themselves to mastering a single art. Nor can I allow my thinking to be unconsciously led — that only makes my judgment easier to sway.” She paused. “Go outside and stand guard for me. I am going to follow this technique back to its source — listen for my instructions.”
Jiangche leapt out without another word, sprang onto the roof, and refused to let Lang Caining and the others enter, declaring that Lang Jiuchuan was still in the middle of administering acupuncture and had not finished.
Lang Caining and her husband stared blankly at that white cat, their expressions vacant and stunned. It… had spoken in a human voice?
Lang Jiuchuan looked at the layer of grey murky energy and did not attempt to force her way through it. Startling the prey by disturbing the grass was the worst of all strategies.
She considered for a moment, then formed a seal with both hands and murmured under her breath. Visible to the naked eye, a current of pure Yin energy infused with refined Daoist resonance coalesced at her fingertips, and she gently touched it to the spiritual platform between Wen Yue’s brows.
Pure Yin energy, supreme and undefiled — it could not only refine evil but also nourish the spirit and soul, and dispel illusion and falsehood.
Wen Yue’s mind and spirit were unstable. This small measure of power could nourish her fractured soul force. As for its price — she would collect it in due time.
As the pure Yin energy entered Wen Yue’s body, the tense expression on her face gradually relaxed. Using the cover of that pure Yin energy, Lang Jiuchuan immediately reached out with her spiritual perception, probing silently and without the slightest disturbance toward that grey, murky place.
Ten thousand arts of the Dao, behold illusion and falsehood — break!
The moment her spiritual perception brushed against that thread of grey murky energy, Lang Jiuchuan felt as though she had entered a thick and turbid fog, the energy within it twisting and writhing without cease. She picked her way carefully inward — until she faintly heard the sharp, shrill cry of an infant.
An unexpected delight!
Lang Jiuchuan jolted inwardly. Her spiritual perception probed deeper, piercing through the fog, and she glimpsed a resplendent temple perched atop a mountain summit, its roof adorned with upswept eaves, the divine beasts carved upon it exuding solemn majesty.
It was a Daoist temple!
Lang Jiuchuan’s spiritual perception pressed further inward, and her gaze settled upon the name inscribed above the gate of that temple — Canglang Temple.
Circling back around in the end — it all leads back to that old fox.
“Jiangche…” Lang Jiuchuan opened her eyes, yet held back the instruction she had been about to give. Canglang Temple had been founded by the National Preceptor. Its abbot was Dao Jicang. Jiangche was no match for him.
She would have to go in person.