The Ninth Lady is a rebellious person.

Chapter 553 A Life or Death, Seamless Transition
The head of the Gong family swept around the stone chamber, thought for a moment, then took out a scroll, brushed away the restrictive laws, opened it, glanced at it, nodded slightly, and then handed it over.

"Our senior loved compiling unofficial histories, and many of the rumors he gathered were from his travels and had no real basis. Although I've read them, I never really thought much about them before. Even if someone is a genius who appears only once in a century, I don't really find them that amazing." The head of the Gong family said with a hint of embarrassment, "Perhaps we've been living in a comfortable cocoon for too long. As long as the family is stable and prosperous, there won't be too many conspiracy theories. Especially in the last two hundred years, the Xuan Clan has been praised to the point of being somewhat complacent."

Gong Tinglan remained silent. He was the same way; as long as his own clan's interests were not involved, he would not pay much attention to the storms outside.

The prevailing attitude among most of them is to mind their own business and not concern themselves with others.

Lang Jiuchuan didn't think they were morally inferior because of this. He said, "The change of dynasties is a natural law of heaven, and the rise and fall of a clan is the same. Just looking at what Senior Bai Xiaosheng wrote, there's nothing particularly strange about it. Who would really investigate whether there's any conspiracy involved? In fact, if I hadn't been suppressed and planted, I wouldn't be a conspiracy theorist. It's only because I was planted and personally experienced its evil that I started to investigate. So your understanding can only be considered common sense. After all, no matter how intelligent you are, you're still just a mortal. How could you see some unofficial history and immediately think there's a conspiracy involved?"

She glanced at the scroll and said, "As for the fact that this is written without any basis, sometimes, the records in unofficial histories are closer to the truth than those records that are known to the world. It's just that people find it difficult to judge."

The head of the Gong family cupped his hands in a gesture of respect.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the sheepskin scroll again. It contained news of the deaths of the geniuses of the Tantai clan. The records were somewhat blurry and not very clear, but all of them had reached the advanced level of the elite, but failed to break through. Even worse, some of them did not break through at all and suddenly declined, just like when they had not yet opened their minds, becoming mediocre and withering away and dying rapidly.

"My dearest friend and I had a long and fruitful conversation under the moon, and Fellow Daoist Lanruo once said that the Tantai clan has a thousand-year-old heritage, and the curse is utter nonsense. If one person becomes a genius, they will enjoy a hundred years of good fortune. When one person falls, a new genius will be born. Death and life are seamlessly connected, which we can only envy..."

Gong Tinglan looked at these words with a solemn expression and said, "A genius who appears only once in a hundred years is extremely rare, whether from a Taoist or secular family. But before the Grand Preceptor, did the Tantai family really have a seamless transition, as our ancestor said? These things are completely unknown to the outside world. Especially since the Tantai family has been a royal family for two hundred years, very few people know about their ancestors' history. Even the history of Da Dan only begins with the founding ancestor, Tantai Jing."

Even he, who grew up immersed in the library, only knew about events from the last two hundred years, which was the result of extensive reading. He didn't really understand anything before that.

"If the Tantai clan wanted to downplay their history after becoming the rulers, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't know about it." Lang Jiuchuan's eyes flashed with a sharp light as he said, "Then why would they want to downplay these things and not let people know about them? If they wanted to be remembered for generations, they would want everyone to praise them, but they deliberately went against the grain."

"Unless they worry that revealing this pattern will arouse suspicion," the Gong family head said with a frown. "Those who have entered the Dao can only dig deeper if they want to know. Unless it's a major sect or a large clan that has a secret history, it's probably difficult to find it. Ordinary people simply won't think about it deeply. In their eyes, the Tantai family's founding of a dynasty that has lasted for two hundred years is already extremely impressive!"

Most importantly, if people don't notice anything amiss, why would they dig up the secret history of a royal family's past for no reason?

Silence fell again in the stone chamber, and the atmosphere gradually became heavy. "Before the generation of the Imperial Preceptor Tantai Qing, who was the genius of the Tantai family in the last hundred years?" Lang Jiuchuan suddenly asked.

The head of the Gong family thought for a moment and said, "It was Tantai Ji, an elder of the Tantai clan. At that time, the Liang Kingdom was in decline, which led to the people's suffering and death. It was Tantai who united with several Xuan clans to save the world."

He raised his hand and snatched a jade slip from the air, brushed away the restriction, and said, "This is a record of the Xuan Clan joining forces with Buddhism and Taoism to save the world two hundred years ago."

Lang Jiuchuan read the contents and said, "After Tantai Ji successfully saved the world and established the Tantai Kingdom, he perished. Immediately afterward, a new genius, Tantai Qing, was born. This is a seamless transition between death and life. And until now, no new genius has been born because the old one did not die. Tantai Ji's name is only one character different from the ancestor's."

Gong Tinglan instantly grasped the key point: "In other words, this seamless transition must mean that he 'died' and was reborn first. Combined with the previous genius, it can be considered as repeated possession. Why is that?"

“This kind of possession isn’t about death; it’s just about surviving in a different body.” Lang Jiuchuan paced back and forth in the stone chamber, lightly tapping the body of the imperial bell at his waist. His fingertips produced a subtle yet exceptionally clear and crisp sound in the enclosed chamber.

If you don't know what the other person is thinking, then put yourself in their shoes.

Would an ambitious person give up easily and give up after failing to reach a certain level? No, they would not give up until they achieved their goal. If they failed, they would find a way to start over. This is in line with the personality of her "master".

She suddenly stopped and looked at the Gong family head and his son, saying, "Do you think it's possible that after this ancestor Tantai Wuji failed to break through to the next realm, he didn't actually perish, but rather suffered a severe and irreparable injury to his soul, perhaps even becoming incomplete? That's why he needed to constantly possess the most outstanding and fortunate descendants in his bloodline, using them as vessels to nourish and repair his own damaged soul with their bodies and fortune. Once the fortune of that vessel was exhausted, he would replace it with another, which is why he experienced a life-and-death cycle every hundred years?"

"Just like the zombie incident at home last year?" Gong Tinglan recalled the century-old zombie incident last year and thought that Lang Jiuchuan's speculation had perfectly explained the doubts about constantly possessing and being reborn. Apart from that, what other situation would require constantly changing physical containers? It must be that the containers could no longer support his soul!
"Our ancestor was a true demon-refining cultivator, but they were similar in that their souls were not dead. Our ancestor planned to use the demon fetus created by the union of a zombie and a human to achieve immortality. As for Tantai Wuji..." Lang Jiuchuan had a sudden inspiration and said, "He first nourishes and repairs his soul. When the time is right, he will make a comeback like me, and be reborn. However, his goal is not revenge, but to fulfill the regret of his ascension back then, cross the Golden Core Path again, and ascend to the Boundless Heaven!"

Her thoughts became clearer, and her eyes suddenly shone brightly: "His physical body from back then must still exist!"

(End of this chapter)