Lang Jiuchuan took the scroll the Gong Family Head handed her. No telling how many years old it was — it emanated a somewhat time-worn and archaic aura of fundamental principles, and she could not help but feel a quiet tremor in her spirit.

Existence itself is reason.

The noble clans existed in this world for their own reasons. Though their reputation had grown poor, suffused with the stench of decay — and even, as the Gong Family Head’s friend had once divined, their fortune was waning — the depths they possessed were something that many minor sects or even Daoist temples could never match. These ancient scrolls, for instance, were carefully preserved by the Gong Family. How could an outsider ever hope to access them?

The deep reserves of an old family. That was the significance of clan inheritance — those depths could not be accumulated in a single day or night. They were passed down from generation to generation, slowly built up, until the foundations became immeasurable.

Lang Jiuchuan swept her hand over the scroll’s aura of ancient principles and unfurled it.

A thousand years ago, a disciple of the Orthodox Unity teaching — schooled under the lineage of Grandmaster Zhang Tianshi — by the name of Tantai Wuji, possessed a pure and untainted Dao root, of breathtaking talent and brilliance. For reasons unknown, he betrayed his sect and became a wandering unaffiliated cultivator, then founded his own clan and led it to glory. Later, while attempting to break through to the supreme realm of the Golden Core Great Dao, he failed, and along with his closed-door cultivation site, mysteriously vanished. The clan was thereafter passed down from his sons, generation to generation.

From that point onward, the Tantai clan seemed as though struck by a curse. The bloodlines bearing exceptional gifts within the family appeared suppressed, growing scarce. But every hundred years, without fail, there would emerge one individual of breathtaking talent and resplendent brilliance. These geniuses, without exception, all displayed a comprehension and gift far surpassing their peers — as though the glory of the founding ancestor had returned — and it was this continuity that kept the Tantai clan’s prestige standing firm and unshaken.

And yet, the ultimate fate of these geniuses was strikingly uniform. Just as their founding ancestor before them: either they fell inexplicably at the crucial moment of attempting a breakthrough, or they were on the verge of reaching the pinnacle of their lives — poised to challenge a higher realm — only to experience a sudden regression in their cultivation, followed by a strange and premature death.

As the ages passed and the spiritual energy of the world grew ever thinner, it became increasingly difficult for those who had entered the Dao to cultivate to the highest realms. The peculiarity of the Tantai clan had formed into a pattern, filling clan members with both dread and confusion. They believed it to be a curse, and had always been seeking a method to break it and cleanse themselves of its taint — for otherwise, they would never successfully break through to a higher realm.

Gong Tinglan pressed his fingertip against a line of small characters and said: “Look here — it is recorded that the ages at which these hundred-year geniuses of their family awakened followed no discernible pattern. Some displayed extraordinary signs while still in swaddling clothes; others did not attain enlightenment until childhood. And Tantai Qing — I just saw in the historical records outside that he did not suddenly awaken until the age of ten.”

The two of them exchanged a glance.

“The curse may be false — a notion they invented for themselves. But this particular detail is worth examining.” Lang Jiuchuan read aloud a short passage she had spotted: “‘Some clan members believed this was not a curse, but the return of the founding ancestor. Like the reincarnated children of great Buddhist masters, he had not truly passed away — he was instead ceaselessly seeking the right vessel of bloodline to be reborn, rising to glory once more.'”

This interpretation likened the founding ancestor of the Tantai clan to those Buddhist living Buddhas who, after passing in one body, reincarnated again.

Lang Jiuchuan laughed coldly. This Tantai founding ancestor had studied under the Orthodox Unity teaching and walked the path of Daoism — how had he become a living Buddha?

She fixed her sharp, blade-like gaze on the words vessel reborn and said: “The once-every-hundred-years pattern is far too regular to be natural. The cycles of Heaven’s Dao, the natural gifts of living beings — these do not operate with the precision of a water clock. So I too lean toward the interpretation of reincarnation rather than a curse. However, whether such a ‘reincarnation’ is natural or man-made — that is another question entirely.”

She also believed that the dead could be reborn into their own family line — which was why people said certain descendants resembled some ancestor or another. Perhaps that was exactly how it worked.

Even her own birth father had, by now, reincarnated back into the Lang Family. But that surely had not happened without the underworld opening a back door for her sake. And what of Tantai? This founding ancestor, reincarnating with such precision every hundred years for a thousand years — did he have the Gate of Reincarnation at his beck and call?

Who would believe that!

“I find it strange as well. It is far too regular — everything about it feels wrong at every turn. But if it is as you say, and he never naturally reincarnated at all but rather forcibly seized the bodies of others…” Gong Tinglan’s voice cut off, and a bone-chilling conjecture began to take shape in his mind. His voice dropped low: “What if the State Preceptor Tantai Qing of today is not the same Tantai Qing who existed before the age of ten — what if it is possible that the founding ancestor from a thousand years ago, Tantai Wuji, seized the body of his own descendant and was reborn through that vessel?”

That would explain the sudden awakening overnight — becoming the genius of breathtaking talent who appeared once in a hundred generations, possessing a vision and capability far beyond ordinary people’s reach. It would also explain the cold-bloodedness, the utter disregard for ties of blood and kinship — because in his eyes, whether blood relatives or personally-trained disciples, anyone who served his purposes was merely a chess piece, a reserve vessel to be used in achieving his ends.

Lang Jiuchuan and Gong Tinglan locked eyes, each seeing in the other’s gaze an unprecedented shock and gravity.

If that were true — a decrepit monster who had potentially lived for a thousand years by repeating this cycle — what was he scheming now?

Off to one side, the Gong Family Head watched the two of them going back and forth, unraveling thread by thread, and his heart ached with longing. Such supremely clever children — if they could become one family, what would the Gong Family have to fear about leaving its mark for a hundred generations?

The Gong Family Head gazed at Lang Jiuchuan’s beautiful, coldly serene face, finding her more captivating the longer he looked. Her bearing was clear and singular, her Dao root pure and untainted. And his son was equally fine-looking — if the two were to produce the next generation, it would be extraordinary!

“Father!” Gong Tinglan waved a hand sharply in front of his face and said with a darkened expression: “What are you thinking about?”

What moment was this to let his mind wander?

The Gong Family Head cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “Your father was thinking about whether there are any other records. What is it?”

“Who wrote this secret history, and are there other scrolls he wrote — about these hundred-year geniuses?” Gong Tinglan asked with a furrowed brow.

The Gong Family Head’s expression became somewhat awkward. “It was a rather unconventional elder of our Gong Family. He compiled and wrote this secret history after travelling the world and piecing together many fragments of clues. At the time, the clan elders considered it absurd nonsense and sealed it here, lest it stir up gossip or bring trouble upon the family. Do you see — Gong Baixiao, ‘the one who knows a hundred things’…”

“Is that the ancestor who spent his entire life obsessed with prying into the secrets and gossip of other families — the one who hid under someone’s bed for an entire night just to eavesdrop?” Gong Tinglan looked at the faintly visible ancient seal imprint on the scroll. Indeed it was.

The Gong Family Head’s face went dark. With a show of authority he said: “Do not speak ill of our ancestors. He simply was not one to be bound by minor conventions. He was known in the Jianghu as the ‘Hundred-Things Knower.'”

Gong Tinglan muttered under his breath — Hundred-Things Knower, more like village gossip.

The Gong Family Head shot him a disgruntled look, then glanced toward Lang Jiuchuan, wanting to explain that not everyone in the Gong Family was like this, that the rebellious wretch in front of him was the exception — she would understand if she got to know them better.

Lang Jiuchuan touched the tip of her nose and pressed down the corners of her lips before they could curl upward. “I wonder if Elder Baixiao left any other unofficial histories?”