After the ghost-hunting master descended the mountain, his fame spread throughout the capital.

After listening to Li Xiuniang's tearful accusations, Jiang Dusheng felt the night wind blowing through her skirt and carrying away her overwhelming resentment.

Jiang Dusheng stood still, like a frozen snowflake in the eye of a storm.

She didn't immediately answer the question of whether it was possible or not, nor did she repeat those empty doctrines of cause and effect and reincarnation.

After a moment of silence, she suddenly reached out her hand to Li Xiuniang, "Give me your hand."

A hint of wariness and confusion flashed in Li Xiuniang's bloodshot eyes, and the long hair wrapped around the necks of the Wang family mother and son loosened slightly.

"Didn't you ask if I would still have advised you if I had known what you'd been through?" Jiang Dusheng looked at her calmly. "Now I know. So, I want you to see it too."

A white light emanated from her fingertips, not dazzling, yet seemingly capable of dispelling the darkness.

"What are you looking at?" Li Xiuniang asked in a hoarse voice, her resentment still churning, but her movements hesitated.

"Look at them now." Jiang Dusheng's gaze swept over the Wang family mother and son, whose faces were filled with only fear, now stained with the stench of incontinence. "Then look at you."

"Me? I'm neither human nor ghost! I'm full of resentment and hatred!" Li Xiuniang became agitated, and black energy surged wildly.

"That's right," Jiang Dusheng actually nodded, "You are a vengeful spirit now, a malevolent ghost. But Li Xiuniang, is there truly nothing left in your heart besides hatred?"

Before she could answer, the white light followed the direction of her finger and gently enveloped Li Xiuniang's chest.

That is where the heart's light resides, where even the faintest good intentions or true nature may remain.

"You hate them because you once believed in love and hoped for a better future. It's because deep down, you are someone who can feel pain and love." Jiang Dusheng's voice seemed to carry a certain resonance.

"They torture your body and trample on your heart, trying to turn you into the same filth as them."

"And the hatred you feel now is proof that you were once human and were never corrupted."

Li Xiuniang's soul trembled violently, and the resentment around her stagnated.

Complex emotions surged within those bloodshot eyes.

Jiang Dusheng continued, his voice clear and calm, but no longer cold:

"Killing them is easy. But will your hatred disappear afterwards? No. It will become a deeper shackle, binding you."

She shook her head slightly, and the white light intensified, as if protecting the faint, flickering light deep within Li Xiuniang's soul.

"They will face their karmic consequences for their evil deeds. They will be imprisoned in the mortal realm and punished in the underworld, without exception."

"But if you stain your hands with blood, you will transform yourself from a victim into a murderer no different from them."

"When you reach the gates of Yama, all your suffering will become punishment for the sins you committed."

Jiang Dusheng looked at her, his eyes reflecting the struggling soul of Li Xiuniang:

"I am not advising you to let go of your hatred. This hatred is a part of you, a mark of your suffering, and no one has the right to tell you to forget it."

She then changed the subject, "But... you can choose to carry this mark and go where you belong."

"Present your grievances and sufferings in their entirety before the judge. Let the Wang family mother and son live on, enduring the torment of contempt, fear, illness, and poverty in the mortal world."

"May they repay you double for every bit of suffering you endured in the underworld after you die."

"And you, having finished your cleansing and unloaded your burdens, can re-enter the cycle of reincarnation and be reborn cleanly."

"This is the cleanest revenge for you." Jiang Dusheng withdrew his hand, but the white light did not dissipate, gently enveloping Li Xiuniang.

"Trade their eternal damnation for your liberation and rebirth. Instead of...trading your eternal damnation for their quick death."

"The choice is yours," Jiang Dusheng said finally. "If you still insist on ending them now, I will not stop you."

After saying that, she fell silent and waited quietly.

The moonlight and the white light blended together, creating a small space of peace in this courtyard filled with resentment.

Li Xiuniang stood there, tears of blood silently streaming down her face.

She looked at her enemy's ugly state, then looked down at her own illusory hand, and then felt deep within her soul, at a place that had been touched by Jiang Dusheng's words and white light, a place that was faintly painful yet seemed to be gently lifted.

That was the original, genuine heart of a woman named "Li Xiuniang".

After a long silence.

"Hmm..."

She let out a long, weary sigh, and the long hair that had been wrapped around the Wang family mother and son finally loosened little by little.

Granny Wang and Wang Fugui collapsed to the ground like two puddles of mud, coughing and panting violently. Their crotches were damp and hot, and their eyes were unfocused.

They've been terrified and won't be able to do anything wrong anytime soon.

The resentment churning around Li Xiuniang did not dissipate immediately, but the violent killing intent that threatened to destroy everything slowly subsided.

She raised her head, her bloodshot eyes looking at Jiang Dusheng. The hatred in her eyes remained, but there was now a hint of sorrow and expectation.

"They...will they really get their comeuppance?" she asked hoarsely.

Jiang Dusheng nodded and said, "Wang Pozi's forehead is filled with a deathly aura that won't dissipate, the horizontal lines between her eyebrows indicate a shortened lifespan, and her lips are bluish-black, which is an offense against the White Tiger."

Her voice was cold and emotionless. "Within half a month, she will be plagued by illness, and medicine will be ineffective. She will suffer endless torment on her sickbed and die vomiting blood. This is the backlash of her lifelong verbal sins and evil deeds, and no one can save her."

Li Xiuniang's soul trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the excitement of having avenged her great grudge.

Jiang Dusheng continued, "As for Wang Fugui..."

She paused, her gaze sweeping over the man on the ground. "His eyes were cloudy and yellowish, the bridge of his nose was broken, and his tear troughs were sunken."

"My foundation was already eroded by wine and women, and my liver and gallbladder were damaged. Today, resentment has directly attacked my vital point, and one of my three souls has been lost."

"Afterwards, his mind will gradually become clouded, and he will become addicted to alcohol. Within half a year, he will surely die drunk in a ditch or sewer, his body incomplete."

Her prophecies contained no exaggerated curses, but simply clearly stated the established cause-and-effect trajectory.

If Wang Fugui were willing to repent and start anew, there might be a glimmer of hope, but... Jiang Dusheng did not want to give such a person a chance to change.

Li Xiuniang listened quietly, and strangely, her pent-up hatred did not surge at this moment, but instead turned into a long sigh.

After a long while, a real smile slowly bloomed on her illusory face, glistening with tears, but without any trace of blood:

"Good...that's good."

She spoke softly, as if to Jiang Dusheng, yet also as if to herself, "This is enough. I don't want them to die immediately; I want them to live and suffer, to slowly repay their debts... and then, to go down and continue repaying them."

She raised her head, gazing at the clear, cold moon in the sky, her eyes filled with longing:

"Master, please send me to where I belong. This life has been too bitter. If there is an afterlife, I don't want great wealth and status, I only ask for loving parents, a happy family, and peace and prosperity."

She spoke the last eight words very slowly and earnestly, as if she had used up all her remaining strength to make a wish.

Jiang Dusheng replied, "Okay, close your eyes."

Li Xiuniang obediently closed her eyes.

Jiang Dusheng's fingertips gathered spiritual light, and he sketched in mid-air.

Pale golden runes flowed from her fingertips, gradually converging into a blurry outline of a portal of light in front of her.

"Li Xiuniang, take this gate as the boundary; all past grievances and grudges shall remain on this shore," Jiang Dusheng said solemnly.

Li Xiuniang's soul trembled. She could feel that the painful memories that haunted the depths of her soul were being soothed by a gentle force.

Although it will not disappear, it no longer has the power to tear her apart.

She was about to step into the gates of hell.

"Wait a minute," Jiang Dusheng suddenly called out to her.

Li Xiuniang opened her eyes and looked at him in confusion.