Lang Jiuchuan understood perfectly what Feng Ya had said.

This destiny — the great fortune that rested upon her — was both her capital and a deadly poison.

With this capital, as long as her Dao-heart remained pure and righteous, her cultivation would be among the foremost of her peers, even surpassing them. What she came to comprehend and attain would also be gifted to her in far greater abundance than to others.

And the reason it was called a deadly poison: Tantai Wuji, in order to achieve his aims, would inevitably covet a person such as her, who carried such a great destiny. He had already done exactly this — otherwise, he would not have suppressed her within the Imperial Mausoleum. And Lang Jiuchuan’s “escape” would only further confirm his calculations and schemes, leading him to manipulate and exploit her to the absolute limit in order to ensure his great plan was fulfilled.

In other words, everything she had said before would come true. Tantai Wuji would most certainly sacrifice her a second time.

She had thought of it already, but now that it had been laid out in analysis, Lang Jiuchuan felt all the more wretched and aggrieved.

“What ridiculous, wretched savior business — this is completely unfair. Why does it have to be me?” she muttered with exasperation.

Feng Ya cast a sidelong glance at her. “Who knows? Perhaps you must have committed some terrible sin in a past life.”

Only someone who had committed great sins would face eighty-one tribulations, enduring hardship to atone.

Lang Jiuchuan glared at him. “If I committed terrible sins in a past life, then you received your just punishment — meeting me.”

Feng Ya: “……”

That ungrateful little wretch, truly without a shred of gratitude.

Seeing the dark currents swirling in his obsidian eyes, Lang Jiuchuan immediately said, “To the point. Tell me — back then, when I was trying to escape from that place that had imprisoned me and was willing to let my own spirit-soul detonate itself, you came to retrieve it. How did you get in? Did you notice anything unusual about the place that imprisoned me — any formations, for instance? Did you recognize them?”

A flicker passed through Feng Ya’s eyes. A trace of something uncomfortable crossed his face. “Why do you ask?”

“I know that place was the Imperial Mausoleum. Before, I suspected he had suppressed me there for the sake of the dragon veins and national fortune — to steal the nation’s resources for his own enrichment. But knowing now that he is Tantai Wuji — since his spirit-soul is still in the world, his physical body and remains may not have turned to ash. If he had me suppressed there also for the purpose of nourishing his remains, so that his soul might one day return to its original body, then I must shatter and scatter that body before he can bring it to completion.” A thread of cold ruthlessness and ferocity surfaced in Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes. “He has made such good use of me — how could I simply let that stand? I must claim some interest.”

The corner of Feng Ya’s mouth curved into a faint smile, which he quickly suppressed. What he admired most in her was precisely that ferocity — the relentless tenacity to bite back at her enemy even while dying.

He thought back to when he had gone to retrieve Lang Jiuchuan from that Imperial Mausoleum, to the sight of her four limbs locked in place by several dark jade chains, the chains piercing through her shoulder blades as she hung suspended from the altar, and the violent, churning energy that surged through him became impossible to contain.

And yet even that was nothing compared to watching her dare to detonate her own soul.

“Back then, you asked me to mark your spirit-soul with an imprint. Had you already foreseen that day? Or had you long since held wariness toward him in your heart?” Feng Ya suddenly asked.

If it had not been so, he would not have known in time to come retrieve her scattered soul.

Lang Jiuchuan was taken aback for a moment, then shook her head. “One can calculate for others but not for oneself. The hardest fate to predict is one’s own — and for those who cultivate the Dao, that is even more true; one’s own life and death are even more impossible to divine. If I had foreseen this tribulation, I would certainly have killed him before he could kill me.”

“Even if he was your master?”

“Of course. He was my master. He tried to kill his disciple. Did that not teach me, without a single word, how to kill one’s own master?” Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold laugh. “If a student fails to learn well what their master teaches, they get their hands slapped.”

Feng Ya: Fair enough — there’s nothing wrong with that reasoning.

“Having you mark me with an imprint was likely a lesson I had learned in the meaning of caution — a way of leaving myself a path of last resort. Best if it were never needed; if it was needed, then that was my fortune and my misfortune both.” Lang Jiuchuan looked at him and said, “I never thought you would come. And I never thought you would go so far.”

“Then perhaps I also sinned grievously in a past life — I must have owed you a debt.” Feng Ya’s voice was utterly serene.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes curved with laughter. “Then we truly are a perfect match — both great sinners.”

Feng Ya’s lips curved as well.

Perhaps this connection truly was one carried over from entanglements in a previous life, extending into this one.

He lowered his gaze and said, “When you were being suppressed there, you were still alive. Do you truly have no memory of that place? There was a great formation there. Which specific formation it was, I did not pay close attention to. Things had their own order of urgency and priority — for me, you were the most important thing. I had to gather your scattered remnant soul before it dissipated entirely, then bring it away and nurture it.”

Feng Ya was no savior. He held no particular compassion for the collapse of the mortal world. When the imprint had stirred strongly, when he had rushed to Lang Jiuchuan’s side and seen that scene, he had been furious — and he had been rational. He knew that saving her was the paramount concern. As for the person who had harmed her, that could be settled in due time. Everything else — he did not care. Whether Heaven’s law cracked apart or the mortal world became a living hell, those were matters of fate. He could not manage them, and had no heart to.

He was selfish and cold-blooded. His blood ran cold. The only tenderness he had, he gave to the one person who suited his nature — Lang Jiuchuan.

Lang Jiuchuan said, “Tantai Wuji was fully prepared. I was no match for him. Those chains were inscribed with symbols and script — they did not merely shackle the physical body, they locked the soul as well. All I know is that my spiritual soul-force felt bound by an invisible thread, extending downward toward something below, in resonance with it. I believed it was the dragon veins — but thinking about it now, it was probably more than that.”

“Tantai Wuji’s physical body?” Feng Ya said. “My cultivation is in the ghost Dao — formations and arrays are not my strength, they are yours. Just wait.”

Lang Jiuchuan looked over, and saw him sitting cross-legged, hand extended toward her. “I am not versed in them, but you are clever, and you never forget what you see. You may be able to discern something. See for yourself.”

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyelids twitched. This was an invitation to peer into the memories of his spirit-soul. Only with complete trust in her would he dare do something so bold.

Before she could refuse, Feng Ya had already formed his seal. A vast, encompassing power surged and wrapped around them both. Lang Jiuchuan felt her spirit-soul ripple and shift, and a thread of Nine Abyssal energy served as a bridge, connecting her sea of consciousness to Feng Ya’s.

His sea of consciousness was boundless, without edges — filled entirely with fragments of memory, each one wrapped in something and floating like a sphere.

Led by his guiding presence, she came to one memory-sphere. Unlike the others, this memory was suffused with darkness and the color of blood, as though a current of malevolent energy stirred within it.

It was an unpleasant memory.

Lang Jiuchuan felt a pang of sorrow, then was abruptly yanked inside that recollection. It overlapped with her own dim, fragmented memories of the same moment and instantly grew clear. She set aside her grief, for even though it was an invitation, it was still a form of intrusion — the longer it lasted, the more unfavorable it would become for both their spirit-souls.

She had to move swiftly and decisively.

Lang Jiuchuan, like an outside observer, stood suspended in mid-air, watching the terrible scene that had once taken place.

Her gaze swept rapidly across the entire space — a place that resembled a sealed chamber — taking in its entire layout in a single pass, committing even the formation diagram inscribed on the vaulted ceiling to perfect memory. Finally, her eyes came to rest on the altar at the very center, where a young girl hung with her head slightly bowed, suspended by six soul-locking chains inscribed with intricate symbols that pierced through her shoulder blades. There was not a trace of breath about her. The altar beneath her had been constructed from Netherworld dark jade and was carved all over with twisted, ancient evil markings, from which the deathly energy of the Netherworld seeped and spread.

And her soul — it had burst into fragments, scattered all around her physical body, and Feng Ya, using the power of his ghost immortal form, had forcibly intercepted the laws of Heaven and Earth to gather them back. One soul and two spirit-components had been sealed within a soul-nurturing lamp and taken away; the remaining two souls and five spirit-components he had sent down into the Nine Abyssal depths.

…