Chapter 1: Returning Home, Mother Denies

Chapter 1: Returning Home, Mother Denies

Wu Jing

The first snow drifted down.

Lang Jiuchuan narrowed her eyes as she looked at the two large white lanterns under the eaves, violently swaying in the northern wind, each painted with the character for “mourning.”

The divination hadn’t lied.

A real death had occurred.

The one who died was the grandfather of this body—Lang Pu, Marquis of Kaiping.

“Ninth Miss, quickly put this on.”

Lang Jiuchuan lowered her gaze. What filled her sight was glaring white—mourning clothes. As a granddaughter, she naturally had to don sackcloth and hempen rope in honor of her grandfather.

Heh. When she wasn’t needed, she was cast aside. Now that she was useful, they summoned her back to play the filial granddaughter sending off the dead.

Seeing her unmoving for so long, the maid grew impatient. Just as she was about to urge her, the mourning robe was snatched away. The girl’s slender, bony hand—so pale it was colorless—looked exactly like the robe itself.

A dead person’s hand.

Lang Jiuchuan threw the mourning garb over herself, tied the hemp rope around her waist, placed the mourning cap on her head, then looked at the maid with a twisted grin.

“Do I look filial now?”

The maid’s heart trembled. She instinctively stepped back two paces, a cold chill crawling up her spine.

This Ninth Miss had been silent the whole journey, exuding a deathly aura. Now, dressed all in white, with that greenish-pale face, she looked even more ghostly.

Truly an unloved daughter—who would ever like someone with such a gloomy, deathlike appearance?

Lang Jiuchuan instantly saw through the maid’s thoughts and sneered. Wasn’t she indeed a ghost now?

Any skilled occultist would see through the illusion and recognize this ruined body—patched together in the most pitiful state.

When it had first collapsed in the mass grave, its tendons had been cut, eye sockets gouged empty, a rib missing from its chest—like a rag doll torn to shreds.

And she had been forcibly pressed into this broken vessel, borrowing the corpse to return to life—becoming the Ninth Miss of the Marquis of Kaiping, Lang Jiuchuan.

Thinking of it now, she really ought to go fight it out with that Judge of the Underworld. If this wasn’t a personal grudge, she wouldn’t believe it. Of all the dead in the world, why give her this most mangled body?

She tilted her head slightly—when suddenly, a round eyeball rolled down. She swiftly caught it with her hand and shoved it back into her eye socket.

Tsk. A dog’s eye really didn’t suit a human body. It kept falling out. Only a real human eye would do.

She remembered that wolfdog in the mass grave, its eyes clawed out, whimpering pitifully among corpses: forever gnawing on dead flesh, only to have the dead snatch its eyes away—what tragedy!

Once she was properly dressed, the maid led her toward the side gate. A steward approached, face dark and frowning. “Why so slow?”

Before the maid could answer, Lang Jiuchuan brushed past him and entered the gate.

The steward froze, his expression darkening further.

Raised in the countryside—utterly without manners.

He hurried after her.

Lang Jiuchuan walked straight toward the mourning hall, ignoring his nagging words. Through the borrowed dog’s eyes, she swept her divine sense across the Marquis household’s scenery.

The closer she came to the hall, the more solemn chanting reached her ears—the monks were reciting the Sutra for Deliverance.

“Ninth Miss, this way.” The steward blocked her path, pointing to a side route.

Lang Jiuchuan glanced at him, then turned in that direction.

The steward broke into a cold sweat. That one look had chilled him to the bone.

In the small courtyard he indicated, a nursemaid stood under the eaves. Seeing her, the old servant seemed to stir with recognition. She stepped forward, secretly studying her features, then spoke in a trembling, excited voice:

“Is it the Ninth Miss?”

Lang Jiuchuan didn’t reply. Her gaze slid past, to someone emerging from the house behind. Their eyes met.

Dressed in heavy mourning, thin and frail, the woman’s face was cold and expressionless. Her eyes, fixed on Lang Jiuchuan, were filled with chilling indifference.

Lang Jiuchuan’s fingers twitched inside her sleeve. Her eyes blinked. This woman… was she her mother?

She felt a faint, subtle pull of connection.

The nursemaid turned and looked toward the woman, her voice breaking with emotion.

“Second Madam, our Ninth Miss has returned home.”

Cui Shi, Second Madam of the Marquis of Kaiping and Lang Jiuchuan’s birth mother, looked down from on high at the frail figure standing in the courtyard. Step by deliberate step, she came forward until she stood before her.

The matron urged softly, “Ninth Miss, quickly greet the Madam—this is your mother…”

“You are not my daughter!”

The ice-cold voice cut her words short.

The matron’s expression changed, shocked, then quickly turned to helplessness. “Madam…”

But Cui Shi ignored her, fixing her eyes on Lang Jiuchuan with unshaken coldness. Her voice repeated, firm and unyielding:

“You are not my daughter!”