Back at home, when he has time to examine it more closely, it quickly becomes obvious why this ritual never turned up in all his early research. It's not a typical soul summoning ritual. It's not a cultivation ritual at all; as Nie Huaisang puzzles through it, the closest category he can put it in is folk magic...not only that, but sex magic.

Jiang Yanli and Jin Guangyao knew each other, during the year they both lived at Carp Tower.

“Something happened at the Lotus Pier.” “Oh? What does Fengmian have to say?” “Nothing,” Wei Changze said, and that’s when Cangse Sanren noticed that her husband was an unhealthy shade of pale. “He’s – he’s dead.” “What?” She snatched the letter away from him. “What – him and Yu Ziyuan both? Impossible! They’re – they’re sect leaders. Of a Great Sect! What happened?”

“You are never allowed to do this again,” Jiang Cheng’s mother said, her voice harsh in the way that means she was scared, because she hated being scared. “Never again, you hear me?” “I hear you, a-niang,” Jiang Cheng said. “Did it live?” “Yes, of course it lived,” Madame Yu snapped. “You’re the one that nearly died! You can’t – death-sharing is a rare gift, A-Cheng, but you can’t use it too often, you hear me? Every time you use it, your own life gets shorter. You must never do it again. And you mustn’t tell anyone else about it! No one at all! Swear to me!” “I swear,” he said. “No one at all.”

The woman that men called Cangse Sanren, a title she accepted out of lack of anything better to use, had any number of suitors, but her favorite one was one that never formally approached her to state his suit – neither the one who scolded her because she broke all the rules, nor the one who idealized her for it, but the one who made her laugh about it. His name was Wei Changze. He wasn't quite the same as all the others in another way, too.