The Tortoise-Carried God Temple.
Li Maocai was talking with Li Ping'an when he saw a streak of light flash past.
Where the light landed stood a graceful figure.
Ning Ninglong wore blue-green robes, her dark hair coiled up with pearls and jade ornaments, a jade hairpin tucked at an angle beside her temple.
Li Maocai's eyes brightened slightly.
The woman was young and beautiful, yet she inspired not the slightest improper thought. Instead, there was a sense of sanctity about her.
...The Turtle God Lady?
Li Maocai stared at her face, then looked at the shrine in the Turtle God Temple.
Sure enough, they were exactly alike.
Li Maocai offered an official salute.
The Turtle God Lady smiled gracefully. "Ning Ninglong pays her respects to Mr. Li."
"I wouldn't presume to be called sir," Li Maocai said. "You may simply call me Prefect Li, or Maocai, Turtle God Lady."
Ning Ninglong froze for a moment, looking at Li Maocai with a trace of embarrassment on her face.
But she quickly recovered. "Greetings, Prefect Li."
"My respects," Li Maocai said. "I was merely passing through and had no intention of disturbing you, Turtle God Lady."
Ning Ninglong smiled and nodded, then shifted her gaze past him to Li Ping'an.
"Sir, it has been many years, yet you look just as you did."
Li Ping'an smiled faintly.
The moment he saw the Turtle God statue, he had remembered her.
Back then, Ning Ninglong's father.
The Turtle God Ning Yan had run rampant here for years, colluding with the Government Office.
He abducted commoners and committed every imaginable evil.
He delighted in abducting mortal women, and because ordinary women could not bear a Spirit Embryo, almost all of them died in agony.
Ning Ninglong's mother had been abducted by Ning Yan.
She had