The Myriad Affairs Shop, as the lanterns were just being lit.

The moment Lang Jiuchuan stepped through the door, she heard an infant’s heartbreak-piercing wail. She rushed toward it at once — and found both Fuqi and Jiangche standing helplessly over a swaddled baby girl, at a complete loss. Beside them, Song Yuedie looked eager to help but didn’t dare make a move, and could only pat the bundled infant while murmuring soft, soothing sounds.

“What happened?”

When they saw her return, Fuqi and the others looked as though they had been granted a reprieve. “Madam Song says the little one must be hungry. The wife of Innkeeper Huang next door just gave birth to a son, so she went over to see if she could get something to feed her with.”

The words had barely left his mouth when Madam Song came in, carrying the cold of outdoors and a food box in her arms. A thick layer of cotton cloth had been laid over the top to keep the contents warm.

Lang Jiuchuan tapped the baby girl on the forehead. The crying quieted to a low, muffled whimper, the tiny face a picture of pitiful misery.

Madam Song opened the food box and took out a bowl of breast milk. “Though it’s only a short walk, the cold is bitter, and the milk may have chilled. She’s so small — it ought to be warmed first.”

“No need, give it to me.” Lang Jiuchuan took the bowl of milk, focused her palm briefly, and the bowl was warm in moments. She handed it back: “You go ahead and feed her.”

Madam Song quickly picked up the child, set the bowl to one side, and with practiced ease ladled spoonfuls into the baby’s mouth. Watching the child drink with such eagerness, a tenderness showed in her eyes.

Seeing this, Lang Jiuchuan drew Fuqi and the others aside to her room to speak. It was at that moment that A’Piao suddenly appeared and said: “I heard you truly fell into that old monster’s trap. Are you all right?”

His gaze lingered on her face, now pale from the depletion of spiritual power and the backlash from wielding her curse techniques. His expression darkened. If their master were to see this, he would surely be furious.

“This was indeed a trap set against me specifically. It cost me some spiritual power and vital essence, but it’s not going to kill me.” Lang Jiuchuan made no attempt to conceal it. “Though they intended to probe the extent of my abilities, they specifically chose a child with this kind of fate — I can’t help but wonder whether that was a deliberate selection or merely an expedient. If it was the former, then even though I’ve brought her back, the fate she carries will remain a root of trouble.”

There had been plenty of other ways to test her — yet they had chosen a child born with the fate of the phoenix. That alone gave her reason to think more carefully.

The child had now been brought back to her without any obstruction whatsoever. Was it because Tantai Qing feared her, or because he was too far away to intervene? No — it was because he had sufficient confidence and power that, if he wanted to, he could take this child back at any moment.

If that were so, then all her efforts tonight had been useless, nothing more than a laughingstock performed for his amusement.

This was also why she hadn’t had Jiangche return the child to Wen Yue’s side.

Guarding against a thief day in and day out — she had no such leisure for that.

“This is precisely what makes it convincing — and what makes it a trap you would willingly step into even knowing it was one. After all, was that child’s situation not exactly like you when you were small?” A’Piao said. “That old monster calculated that you would empathize, that you would inevitably pour every last bit of your strength into it. And sure enough, he drew out exactly what he wanted.”

Fuqi nodded in agreement, looking at Lang Jiuchuan, brows knitted tight with gravity: “He knows you very, very well.”

To know your enemy and know yourself was to win a hundred battles. The Imperial Preceptor understood Lang Jiuchuan all too thoroughly — from that, he could easily deduce her next move and her thinking. This placed her at a severe disadvantage.

“It doesn’t matter. There are always things he doesn’t know about me. He has no knowledge of Feng Ya’s existence — I never mentioned it. And as for what happened after I died, what I experienced in the Nine Depths, what I gained there — he knows none of it. Until the day one of us must die, I certainly won’t reveal everything in front of him.” Lang Jiuchuan paced to the edge of the writing table and said: “I’m not afraid of him knowing me. What I cannot stand is that right now, I don’t know what he is truly scheming.”

If she could understand what his so-called “great dao” was, she would have a way to respond and break his design.

The room fell silent.

Lang Jiuchuan lit a stick of merit incense, fixed her gaze on its crimson flame, her expression razor-sharp: “Setting aside what’s far away — let’s resolve what’s right in front of us first. This round of probing was ostensibly to gauge my capabilities, but knowing his temperament, he would never place just one idle piece on the board.”

“You mean the infant girl’s fate?”

Lang Jiuchuan nodded. In her mind she replayed every detail of Canglang Temple, placing herself in the Imperial Preceptor’s position to think and act as he would. She closed her eyes: “Such a perfect lure — it would be a tremendous waste to use it only to test my strength. Is there a way to kill two birds with one stone…”

Her words trailed off. Her fingertip tapped lightly against the bell’s surface. Her mind turned at a furious pace. Her face grew paler by degrees.

A’Piao was about to say there was no need to push herself so hard — recovery came first — but Fuqi shook his head at him. They did not have much time, and they could not simply wait passively for the other side to make its move, letting themselves be led by the nose.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes snapped open. “This child’s experiences are like a mirror image of mine. A fate this fine will not lack for fortune, but if that fortune were to be ‘developed,’ it would only grow stronger, more valuable — just like me. Even at the brink of death I had accumulated great merit, which allowed me to bolster the national fortune more effectively… Fuqi, go bring the child to me.”

Fuqi slipped out. Shortly after, he returned carrying the infant, who had drunk her fill and fallen soundly asleep.

Lang Jiuchuan unwrapped the swaddling cloth, examined the child carefully, formed a hand seal, pressed two fingers together and drew them across the space between her own brows, opening her heavenly eye. Her divine sense cautiously probed into the child’s spiritual platform and meridians.

She traced her way through the examination and found at the child’s dantian a tiny, faint cluster of qi. She withdrew her sense, letting out a quiet sigh.

“What is it?” A’Piao and the others were intensely curious.

Lang Jiuchuan rewrapped the swaddling cloth and said: “This child was taken from her mother’s side. Over the past half year that Dao Jicang kept her, he must have mixed in his own blood essence, then nourished her with spiritual objects to form a parasitic covenant. Though such a covenant is malicious in nature, when he was in cultivation, she may not have failed to receive some cultivation resonance to nourish her divine soul — so-called mutual benefit works just like that. As for her — she stumbled into the path of cultivation by accident.”

The others understood at once. The infant girl now had cultivation resonance within her, giving her the capacity to cultivate. If her meridians were further broadened and nourished by another kind of power, it would only make things easier.

“The final step in dissolving the covenant is nourishing her primordial spirit and essence soul — and for that, my own power is required.” Lang Jiuchuan’s expression was complex: “It’s akin to expanding the meridians with the force of thunder, only my power is gentler. But it is more than sufficient to baptize and temper her root constitution and soul.”

Her fingers gently brushed the child’s soft, fair cheek. “She has walked the edge between life and death, and been baptized and nourished by powerful energy. The fate and fortune she carries will only grow stronger, her potential only more extraordinary — just like me, back then… That old thing has had me help him raise a more pure and perfect phoenix-fate vessel.”

The child still needed saving — but this was thoroughly infuriating.

Fuqi and A’Piao both drew in a sharp breath and said: “What kind of monster is he? How can he scheme this precisely?”

Such cunning and calculation — it was terrifying in its depth.

“Do you think,” Jiangche murmured, “that he might not actually be limited to two hundred years of age — that he may in fact be far older? A mind and intellect like this — how many storms must one have witnessed before it takes shape? Two hundred years, for someone who walks the path of cultivation, passes in the blink of an eye.”

Those words struck like a pail of cold water poured over a drowsy head. The room fell into a dead silence.

“Regardless of all that — he has schemed this far, which means the infant girl’s fate is likely still to follow the same path as yours.” A’Piao looked at Lang Jiuchuan: “So this child — send her back to her mother, and it’s still a road to death.”

To lose something and then regain it brings immense joy — but to regain it only to lose it again, that is true despair. Whether to return her or not was a dilemma with no clean answer.