The Ninth Lady is a rebellious person.

Chapter 373 This matter is accomplished
As the karma dissipated, the once peaceful courtyard returned to darkness. But as a white shadow flashed past and rushed into the bone bell, another burst of white light appeared, as bright as day, causing a sharp pain in one's eyes, and one instinctively closed them.

Lang Jiuchuan instinctively tried to close her eyes, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the white shadow enter the bone bell, and the bone bell seemed to have grown legs and was trying to escape from the glutinous rice incense burner on the altar.

She intended to keep the bone bell she had converted for her own use, but this thing has already taken it and is now trying to escape.
It's trying to steal food from a tiger's mouth; it's courting death!
Lang Jiuchuan tapped his toes on the ground, stretched out his hand, and summoned the Emperor Bell back, striking the Bone Bell once more.

With a hiss, the bone bell sped up and darted toward the lake.

Once inside the lake, it was its own domain. Lang Jiuchuan realized this as well, her eyes growing colder and more ferocious as she chased after it. If the Emperor Bell couldn't subdue it, she had other options.

"Wooden fish." Lang Jiuchuan summoned the Small Nine Towers.

The wooden fish received Lang Jiuchuan's thoughts and propelled the small nine-tower to fly away. It saw the round bone bell, as if it had grown ten thousand legs, rushing and rolling towards the lake.

The small nine-tower flashed with golden light, suddenly grew larger, and blocked the path of the bone bell in a flash. As the bone bell bounced into the lake, it swallowed the bell inside the tower.

The mournful wailing of the bone bell abruptly stopped.

Lang Jiuchuan arrived, and the little nine-tower was returned to her hands. Yi Ce, who had caught up with her while clutching his chest, narrowed his eyes when he saw the little nine-tower.

That little pagoda looks familiar!
Lang Jiuchuan turned his head and saw him staring at the small nine-tower, then calmly put it away.

Yi Ce sighed, "This tower..."

Lang Jiuchuan walked past him and returned to the courtyard. Yi Ce quickly followed and asked, "What kind of magical artifact is that tower? It looks familiar to me."

"Your vital energy is greatly depleted, and your eyes are blind. You just misread it."

Yi Ce narrowed his eyes. There was something fishy about those words; they were clearly implying something was left unsaid.

He changed the subject, saying, "What was that bone bell all about? And what was that white shadow?"

Lang Jiuchuan was in a bad mood because he almost had his treasure stolen by some unknown thing. He said, "I don't know yet. I'll see later."

Anyway, it can't escape Little Nine Tower, so it's good to let Little Nine Tower curb its arrogance for daring to covet her things.

Seeing her unfriendly expression, Yi Ce wisely refrained from provoking her further and shut his mouth, returning to the courtyard.

At this moment, the courtyard truly returned to calm, with only the sound of the cold wind blowing from the lake rustling the treetops. Zuo Yan and several trusted servants stood or sat beside Bai Shi, their faces pale and blank.

They were still immersed in the atmosphere of the temple they had just visited, having personally experienced the danger posed by those ghostly and sinister creatures, and only then did they understand why there were both Buddhist and Taoist sects here.

Without a righteous sorcerer with profound spiritual cultivation to exorcise evil and uphold justice, how could ordinary mortals like them possibly contend with these things?

Even though things have calmed down now, they are still shocked by the battle they just fought, looking like they have survived a disaster.

Yi Ce looked up at the sky; dawn was not far off. He then looked at the damaged altar and the mess, but his face showed little joy, only heaviness and exhaustion.

Suddenly, he felt a great sense of relief, his expression became listless, and he collapsed onto the cold ground, tears welling up in his eyes.

He wasn't some great expert; in the battle just now, he truly gave it his all, not only to obtain the reward from the government, but more so to prove to others that the Maoshan Sect was not without its members. Although it had declined, it still had disciples, and its lineage had not been lost.

So he went all out and did his best, and did not bring shame to the Maoshan Sect.

Now that his mind was relaxed, he felt the pain in his soul caused by the depletion of his spiritual energy. The battle to break the curse just now had really consumed a huge amount of his spiritual energy, which was beyond his current cultivation level. Lang Jiuchuan looked over.

When Yi Ce met her clear eyes, he subconsciously straightened his chest, endured the pain, and stood up, saying, "I'm fine, I'll finish this quickly."

Who asked this?

Yi Ce took a deep breath, secretly regulated his breathing, came to the altar, straightened his already disheveled clothes, took another stick of incense, lit it, offered incense according to Taoist etiquette, bowed down, and murmured: "I burn incense to inform you, I bow to send you back, all the immortals return to their chariots, the cloud road is clear and empty, I will once again receive the grace of heaven, your disciple bows his head."

After bowing three times, he placed the incense sticks in the incense burner and watched the wisps of smoke rise into the sky before finally smiling.

Lang Jiuchuan also took incense, but his method was not as elaborate. He simply formed the Three Pure Ones Mudra with both hands and bowed deeply to express his reverence for the Heavenly Dao and his gratitude for the divine power of the ancestral master.

Wisps of smoke curled upwards, and a gentle breeze swept through, completely dispelling the last trace of cold, foul air from the courtyard, replacing it with the lingering fragrance of sandalwood.

Both of them relaxed and exchanged a glance.

This matter has been successfully completed.

Zuo Yan walked over, bowed deeply to the two men, and said in a sincere and respectful tone, "I am deeply grateful to the two masters for their help this time."

Yi Ce wanted to say something, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he spat out a mouthful of blood, which sprayed all over Zuo Yan's head and body, and then he fell straight backward.

Zuo Yan: "!"

He swiftly pulled Yi Ce to the ground as he fell, drawing him onto himself and looking at Lang Jiuchuan.

Lang Jiuchuan frowned, stepped forward, picked up Yi Ce's wrist to check his pulse, and said, "It's nothing, just that his spiritual power has been depleted, resulting in a serious loss of vital energy. Your Highness can have someone brew some ginseng soup for him to drink, and he'll be fine after a while. This is common for cultivators after battles."

Zuo Yan quickly called the steward over, carried Yi Ce to a guest room to recover from his injuries, and then looked at Lang Jiuchuan, asking, "Master, what about you?"

Her face looked very pale.

Lang Jiuchuan said, "It's nothing serious. Let's check on your wife first."

She walked over to Bai Shi, probed her pulse with two fingers, and then guided her spiritual power to her Heavenly Eye to examine her meridians. She saw that the evil curses that were attached to those meridians had all dissipated and were no longer as cold as before, so she was relieved.

“The curse has been lifted. The rest of the time is for careful recuperation. I will write you a prescription for recuperation and also prescribe a formula for Yangrong Pills. You can take them every day.” Lang Jiuchuan paused and then said, “However, as I said before, the curse can be lifted, but she will have to pay a price, which is that she will have no relatives or children in this life.”

Zuo Yan said, "I know the answer to that."

Lang Jiuchuan said no more. The greatest sin committed by the old lady of the Bai family was helping Liu Xian to implant that demon fetus and allowing the evil path to take the demon fetus away to do evil. She had to bear the karmic consequences, and her descendants would also suffer greatly as a result.

This is similar to the principle that doing good deeds and accumulating merit can protect one's descendants, while doing evil will naturally bring misfortune upon one's descendants.

Lang Jiuchuan may sympathize with the Bai family, but he will not empathize with them; this is all just karma.

Zuo Yan had someone escort Bai Shi back to the main courtyard. Seeing that it was still dark, he personally escorted Lang Jiuchuan to his guest room. On the way, he happened to run into Jiang Che returning. Zuo Yan then heard the fleshy mass utter horrifying words.

"Xiao Jiu, the two elders of the Bai family are probably not going to make it."

(End of this chapter)