The corpse specter had been destroyed — yet the chaos she had left in her wake was still far from resolved. Throughout the time she had been unleashed upon the world, the people she had bitten numbered beyond counting. She had chosen her victims without discrimination, targeting wherever she pleased. Some remote villages received news only sluggishly, and the locals had no knowledge of the symptoms of the corpse venom. By the time it took hold and spread, the number of infected was considerable — and some people, poisoned too deeply and unable to be treated in time, had died and transformed into corpse fiends, going on to bring harm to others.

This vicious cycle meant that even as some were successfully cured, others continued to die, while still more transformed into corpse fiends. Dahan was in a state of widespread disorder and turmoil.

There was also the matter that Zhishang Daoist had worried over, and his worry had proven well-founded. The Righteous Yang Miasma-Breaking Talismans required for the antidote were extraordinarily difficult to produce. One talisman was needed per batch of antidote, and though many Daoists had lent their efforts, only those who were truly accomplished and had attained the Dao were capable of producing talismans that would actually take effect as spiritual talismans. This made them all the harder to come by.

Rare things are precious — and human nature, at its core, is selfish. Terrified of missing their chance at a single bowl of medicinal broth, certain officials did indeed take brazen risks. Some used the talismans for personal profit; others ensured their own privileged associates received treatment first, leaving the most destitute commoners at the bottom unable to obtain a single bowl of detoxifying medicine and dying in vain.

When this came to light, the new Emperor — under the “intimidating influence” of the Holy Maiden — executed two or three officials along with their nine familial connections, and this at last frightened the self-serving among them into compliance. He then issued a series of decrees in succession: every county and prefecture was to establish a medicinal broth distribution booth for dispensing the remedy. Yamen runners were sent to every village, beating drums and gongs to announce that anyone suffering from corpse venom could come receive free medicine and treatment. Orders were also given to thoroughly investigate any cases of concealed poisoning. Not enough personnel? Then conscript able-bodied men — five hundred copper coins each, and there would be no shortage of willing hands.

With this top-down directive in force, results were achieved. The corpse-venom plague had not been entirely eradicated, but it had gradually been brought under control. The death toll was falling, though the damage done to bodies — especially among the gravely ill — was permanent.

Lang Jiuchuan had drawn an enormous quantity of Righteous Yang Miasma-Breaking Talismans, entrusting them to Gong Qi and Shen Qinghe to lead their people in saving the suffering. But this left Gong Qi and the others deeply unsettled.

She was too calm. Beneath that calm, an immense storm seemed to lie in wait, needing only a single spark to erupt.

Tantai Princess had heard that Lang Jiuchuan had drawn a great stack of Righteous Yang Miasma-Breaking Talismans and handed them to Gong Qi. She was silent for a long time.

Still the same Ah Qing — the girl whose mouth was the hardest thing about her, yet whose heart was wide enough to hold the Dao of all living beings.

The world was in peril, and she threw herself into it without looking back. Just as she had done in those years gone by.

Those years…

Tantai Princess thought of what she had once spoken of — the disaster at Pancheng. Her expression changed in an instant. What Lang Jiuchuan was doing now bore a profound resemblance to what had happened back then. Was this a coincidence?

Her heart began to pound with force. Especially when she recalled that the National Preceptor had not made any appearance — her unease only deepened.

Could it be… deliberate?

A presence suddenly appeared behind her. Tantai Princess’s entire body went rigid. She turned around and saw her. Her gaze was layered with complexity.

“You’ve come.”

She studied Lang Jiuchuan carefully. She had arrived by way of the yin path, and still carried a faint chill of yin cold about her. The aura emanating from her entire person was restrained and contained. After a stretch of time apart, her cultivation had grown even more advanced, and her spiritual bearing was richer.

Yet the more deeply Tantai Princess sensed the weight of karmic merit upon her, the more panic she felt — as though she were glimpsing Lang Jiuchuan’s future.

Lang Jiuchuan swept her soul sense over the other woman’s entire being, then laid down a barrier. She went directly to the matter at hand.

“The corpse-venom plague has ravaged the land — ten thousand lives hang in the balance, and the people suffer untold devastation. As the National Preceptor, he not only failed to save the world — he was the very executioner who brought this disaster about. Even now, will you still throw yourself without hesitation into helping that hypocrite achieve what he calls the Great Dao?”

Tantai Princess’s slight figure gave an almost imperceptible shudder. The hand hidden within her sleeve quietly clenched. Her face — already grown thin and pale from the exhausting work the corpse-venom plague had demanded — turned even colder and more ashen.

Her powdered lips parted faintly, yet she could not produce a single word in response.

Since the corpse-venom plague had begun, she had invited the National Preceptor down from the mountain — and had received only the reply that he would offer prayers on behalf of all living beings. She had again implored him to draw Righteous Yang Miasma-Breaking Talismans — and received an even icier refusal, along with a cold, indifferent utterance: that the answer to this catastrophe was not in his hands.

He had said: this calamity’s salvation did not lie with him.

She understood. The one who would save the suffering was Lang Jiuchuan — and though inevitable grief accompanied that salvation, especially watching gravely ill person after person die even after receiving the antidote, listening to those anguished, mournful cries — the tower of faith within her heart had long since been riddled with cracks.

Wait — what did Lang Jiuchuan mean by “executioner”?

“Executioner?” Her voice was weak, as though she could scarcely believe her own ears.

Lang Jiuchuan gave a mocking laugh. “That’s right. That corpse specter was something he manufactured. Surprising, isn’t it? What a wonderful shock.”

Bang.

Tantai Princess stumbled back two steps in horror, colliding with the tea cup on the table edge behind her. It fell and struck the ground with a sharp crack.

She paid it no mind at all. She stared at Lang Jiuchuan as though she were looking at a ghost, her face deathly white. She cried out sharply: “Impossible. Why would he ever do something that would throw Dahan into chaos like this?”

“Dahan in chaos means I have the opportunity to save it — and in saving it, I accumulate boundless karmic merit and faith, does it not?” Lang Jiuchuan’s smile was cold. “And if I fail to save the suffering — then he can still harvest the life force and fortune of ten thousand lives and make use of them. Is that answer satisfying enough for you?”

Her gaze was too piercing. Tantai Princess lowered her eyes, unable to meet it. Her fingertips trembled — this was exactly what she herself had just begun to suspect, and yet how did she dare believe it?

“Admit it. What he clings to is not the radiant and magnificent Great Dao at all — it is the most extreme self-interest, treating all things as straw dogs, not hesitating to use all living beings as the cobblestones for his road to heaven. And you—” Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold laugh — “have been his enabler, his complicit tool, serving the tiger while it devours.”

Tantai Princess snapped her head up. Her lips trembled. Her eyes brimmed with agony and struggle. “I have not!”

Lang Jiuchuan looked at her face — gaunt from the exhausting days spent drawing Miasma-Breaking Talismans and managing endless affairs, dark circles beneath her eyes. That person who had once stood high on her divine platform as the Holy Maiden had, for the sake of all living beings, descended to the mortal world at last.

She let out a faint sigh.

“Ah Yue — you are exceptionally intelligent. He would not have chosen you and brought you to his side to personally instruct you if you were not. You are capable of working out the truth of this yourself.”

Tantai Princess let out a self-deprecating scoff.

“Intelligent? I am nowhere near you. I was nothing but a playmate for you, and more than that — a substitute. I was never anything else. When you were gone, I was not even permitted to be called Ah Yue — instead, I was made to wear your name, to be held up as his only disciple. You were the unseen disciple, the hidden one — no. I was.”

From beginning to end, it was Lang Jiuchuan whom the National Preceptor, as master, had devoted his genuine care and attention to. She was his sole and true disciple. She, Tantai Princess, had been only a substitute.

And so she had been so desperate to be seen — to be recognized. She bore the surname Tantai. The National Preceptor was both a master and the ancient founding patriarch of their Tantai lineage. He had done much for the welfare of Dahan. She had followed him, served him, assisted him in achieving the Great Dao. What wrong had she done?

And yet now — everything he had done was nothing but a scheme calculated with meticulous malice from the very start. And her devotion to him was a laughable joke.

Tantai Princess drew a slow, deep breath and closed her eyes slightly. When she opened them, her usual cool composure had returned.

“You came — only to tell me he was the mastermind behind this plague?”

Lang Jiuchuan shook her head. “The Tantai clan, once every hundred years, invariably produces someone of breathtaking genius. One dies, one rises. Have you ever wondered whether there is something wrong with this pattern?”

The color drained from Tantai Princess’s face in an instant.