Recaps

Si Ming posed as Si Jingyu’s younger brother and challenged Guan Chong, arguing that Guan Chong’s campaign against the Si Clan could not succeed against the powerful clans backing him. After Si Ming set a ten-move limit, Guan Chong opened the fight with a concealed technique drawn from the Water Moon Precious Mirror.

• Guan Chong questioned how Si Ming had learned the Si Clan’s Water Moon Precious Mirror, and Si Ming claimed his status as the clan head’s son gave him privileges.
• Si Shuiyun and Si Jingyu suspected Si Ming was a Mohist Knight Guard impostor, while Si Jingyue was reminded of her missing son by his resemblance to Si Jingyu.
• Si Ming pointed out that Guan Chong’s supporters belonged to the privileged class he claimed to oppose, leaving Guan Chong unable to answer.
• Si Ming explained that the prominent clans would not allow Guan Chong to disrupt their shared rules, then declared he would defeat him within ten moves.
• Guan Chong attacked Si Ming with Innate Tiger-Form Coil before turning it into Wind-Chasing Shuttle, a concealed move based on the Water Moon Precious Mirror.

Si Ming fought Guan Chong while pretending to use the Si Clan’s martial arts, then activated the Divine Sight Illusory Observation Art to end the match with overwhelming strength. Guan Chong sensed the danger Si Ming posed as Si Ming prepared to attack.

• Si Ming deflected Guan Chong’s Wind-Chasing Shuttle with Primordial Chaos Extreme Thunder Movement, which Guan Chong mistook for Countercurrent Divine Gang.
• Guan Chong used the Innate Twelve Coils against Si Ming, who concealed his true techniques and fought with the Ethereal Cloud and Mist Palm and the Spirit-Sacrificing Rain-Praying Yi Dance.
• Si Ming adapted to the dance, gained the upper hand, and recovered after Guan Chong tried to throw him out of the arena.
• Si Ming admitted he would cheat, explained that the Divine Sight Illusory Observation Art tripled his strength, and activated it.
• Guan Chong sensed Si Ming’s sudden, dangerous power as Si Ming prepared to finish the fight.

After Si Ming defeated Guan Chong, Si Jingyu ordered that he be saved, and the Si Clan’s banquet began. At the feast, Si Huamu accused Si Jingyu of violating clan rules by secretly passing the Water Moon Precious Mirror to Si Ming.

• Guan Chong unleashed his Innate Great Silk Coiling, but Si Ming shattered it with a powerful strike and left Guan Chong gravely injured.
• Si Jingyu ordered her clanspeople to carry Guan Chong away and try to save him, saying a living person was more valuable than a dead one.
• Si Ming deflected questions about his identity by claiming he had been kept hidden, and Si Jingyu showed the crowd the clan genealogy to confirm he was her brother.
• Si Jingyu declared the banquet open after the gathered families raised no further objections.
• At the banquet, Si Huamu called on the elders to punish Si Jingyu and Si Ming for secretly transmitting and learning the Water Moon Precious Mirror.
• Si Shuiyun complained that Si Ming had left the clan to deal with the consequences of his admission.

Si Jingyu defended Si Ming after he admitted using the Si Clan’s martial arts, arguing that his strength could protect Water Mirror Manor from future threats. She proposed amending the clan rules to let men cultivate Water Moon Precious Mirror and challenged the idea that ancestral rules could never change.

• Si Jingyu told Si Shuiyun that Si Ming’s candid, rule-breaking nature made him distinctive, while Si Shuiyun warned her to be careful about becoming interested in him.
• Si Huamu argued that Si Ming should be punished for violating clan rules despite saving Water Mirror Manor, while his supporters insisted his merit should offset his fault.
• Si Jingyu asked why the clan had faced danger, how strong Si Ming was, and how they would treat an outsider of equal strength, leading the council to recognize his value as a protector.
• Si Huamu warned that sparing Si Ming would encourage other men to seek permission to cultivate Water Moon Precious Mirror, and Si Jingyu proposed allowing men of the clan to practice it.
• Si Huamu accused Si Jingyu of changing tradition for personal reasons, and Si Jingyu replied that successive generations had amended clan rules before and that living rules should serve the Lineage.

Si Jingyu maneuvered the Si Clan into agreeing to let its men cultivate the Water Moon Precious Mirror, removing a vulnerability while preserving the clan’s women-favoring customs. Si Ming saw through her strategy and left the men of the clan to decide for themselves whether to take up martial arts.

• When the clan members turned against Si Huamu’s demand to punish Si Ming, Si Jingyu suggested hearing his opinion, and Si Ming warned that he would resist any attempt to arrest him.
• In the peach orchard, Si Ming accused Si Jingyu of arranging the dispute to win support for changing the clan rule, and Si Jingyu admitted it was her plan.
• Si Jingyu explained that abolishing the restriction would remove a danger the clan’s rivals could exploit and let men choose whether to practice martial arts.
• Si Ming understood that without compulsory training, few men would likely become martial arts experts and challenge the clan’s established order.
• Si Ming declined to take on the role of advocate for the Si Clan’s men and reflected on how Si Jingyu’s schemes differed from Yu Shuying’s.

Si Jingyu asked Si Ming to help lure out the enemy threatening Water Mirror Manor, and he agreed before learning the plan involved impersonating her at Emperor Peak Luofu Academy. After he refused the disguise, he accepted a role protecting her cousin Si Huaruo, whose mother had challenged him.

• Si Jingyu explained that a wounded Spirit Transformation Grandmaster might attack Water Mirror Manor to avenge an old grudge, and Si Ming volunteered to serve as bait.
• Si Jingyu proposed that Si Ming disguise himself as her and attend Emperor Peak Luofu Academy, but he refused.
• Si Jingyu offered Si Ming the Water Moon Precious Mirror in exchange for taking her place, but he still declined.
• Si Jingyu asked Si Ming to enter the academy as a bodyguard instead, explaining that she would stay home and he would protect Si Huaruo.
• Si Shuiyun explained that Si Huaruo was a gifted student and the daughter of Si Huamu, who had challenged Si Ming earlier, while Si Jingyu insisted her cousin deserved protection.

Si Ming accepted Si Jingyu’s offer to protect the Si Clan and began practicing the Water Moon Precious Mirror, discovering that its dance-based techniques would be embarrassing to use in combat. He found a Qi-circulation method that suited his powerful body and could help him preserve his True Qi.

• Si Jingyu gave Si Ming the Water Moon Precious Mirror, and he agreed to disguise himself as her briefly when needed to bait enemies.
• Si Jingyu used a peach blossom and a staged reaction to make it appear that Si Ming had done something improper, then left while Si Shuiyun chased after her.
• Si Ming practiced the Water Moon Precious Mirror’s body-tempering method in private and reflected on the Shaman School’s history and decline.
• Si Ming found the Nine Songs God-Sealing Art, which kept True Qi circulating within the body, and realized his strong body could withstand its backlash.

Si Ming accepted Si Huamu’s invitation to Moon Spring Island, where he was lured through a misty formation to a hot spring and found a naked blonde girl. The chapter then retold the Cowherd and Weaver Girl legend as a coercive tale of voyeurism and forced marriage.

• Si Ming mastered the Nine Songs God-Sealing Art and accepted Si Huamu’s invitation to a banquet on Moon Spring Island.
• A maid greeted Si Ming at the island and led him to an empty banquet, then left to find Si Huamu and the others.
• Si Ming followed cries for help into the woods, where fog confused his sense of direction.
• The mist cleared to reveal a hot spring, where a naked blonde girl emerged and mistook Si Ming for Xiaoqin.
• The narrator described the Cowherd as a voyeur who stole a fairy’s clothes and coerced her into marriage, then compared the story to a woman forced to live in the mountains.

Si Ming secured a chance to accompany Si Huaruo by turning the hot-spring confrontation into a public accusation, while Si Huamu used it to demand that he guard her. Si Ming and Si Huaruo then traveled by boat toward Emperor Peak Luofu Academy through the Nation of Beauty, a water-rich country with a weak military and little strategic importance.

• Si Ming and Si Huaruo fought with techniques from the Water Moon Precious Mirror until she recognized him as Si Jingyu’s younger brother.
• When people arrived, Si Ming shouted that he had been molested, then offered to take responsibility for peeping at Si Huaruo.
• Si Huamu used the incident to require Si Ming to protect Si Huaruo, following a suggestion from an insider controlled by Si Jingyu.
• Two days later, Si Huaruo agreed to travel with Si Ming rather than oppose her mother’s plan outright.
• Si Ming and Si Huaruo traveled by boat toward Emperor Peak Luofu Academy through the Nation of Beauty, whose waterways made boats its most convenient means of transport.

Si Ming accompanied Si Huaruo to Emperor Peak Luofu Academy and discovered its demanding academic culture. Si Huaruo revealed that she aimed to compete in drama, while her polished public smile contrasted with the guarded manner she showed him.

• Si Ming and Si Huaruo arrived at Emperor Peak Luofu Academy, where a guard registered Si Ming and made him wear a locator.
• Si Huaruo explained that students were preparing for the new Nine Arts Phoenix Fledglings selections, and she named drama as her goal.
• Si Huaruo greeted students warmly with an impeccable smile, then dropped it once she and Si Ming were alone.
• Si Ming reflected on Si Huaruo's childhood ostracism because of her golden hair and wondered why she showed him her unguarded side.
• Si Huaruo put her smile back on and knocked on the door of a large auditorium.

Si Ming accompanied Si Huaruo to drama club practice, where he met her friends and revealed that he was Si Jingyu’s full-blooded younger brother. After rehearsal ended without incident, Zhu Xuanhuai wanted to investigate a rumored ghost at the old school grounds, while Nan Yang warned that it could jeopardize the upcoming Nine Arts Phoenix Fledgling selection.

• Si Huaruo reunited warmly with Zhu Xuanhuai, Dong Qian, Nan Yang, and the other drama club members and joined their rehearsal.
• Si Ming observed the club’s dynamics and learned that Si Huaruo was its acclaimed leading actress.
• Zhu Xuanhuai approached Si Ming and suggested he might act in the club’s play, while another girl looked down on him.
• Si Ming revealed that Si Jingyu was his full-blooded older sister, silencing the girl’s contempt and changing the other students’ attitude toward him.
• The drama club finished practice without anything unexpected happening, and Nan Yang argued with Zhu Xuanhuai about investigating rumors of a ghost at the old school grounds.

After Zhu Xuanhuai vanished inside the old campus, Si Huaruo urged the drama club to leave the rescue to professionals, then secretly set out to save her that night. Si Ming uncovered her plan and joined her as they headed toward the danger.

• Dong Qian told the drama club that Zhu Xuanhuai and her guard had vanished after entering the old campus, and the school's searchers had also gone missing.
• Si Huaruo calmed the club members, sent them home, and warned them not to attempt a rescue themselves.
• That night, Si Huaruo disguised herself and headed for the old campus, but Si Ming intercepted her.
• Si Huaruo admitted she feared Zhu Xuanhuai could not survive until a Spirit Transformation Grandmaster arrived, and Si Ming agreed to accompany her.

Si Ming and Si Huaruo entered the old school building to rescue Zhu Xuanhuai, learning that a Ghostly Monster was likely responsible and that the school planned to seal off the area. They found a suspicious classroom, became trapped inside, and encountered a terrifying little girl outside its fourth-floor window.

• Si Huaruo explained that a Ghostly Monster, an illusion-wielding Anomaly from the Hide-and-Seek Forest, was likely behind the incident and that the great Lineages usually concealed such events.
• Si Ming realized the school would probably leave the old campus sealed until the Anomaly disappeared, while the Zhu Lineage might abandon its attempt to save Zhu Xuanhuai.
• Si Huaruo used Shaman Steps to pass the guards unnoticed, and Si Ming followed her into the old campus with Carefree Wandering.
• Si Huaruo tracked Zhu Xuanhuai's lingering presence to a classroom and warned Si Ming that the Ghostly Monster might be inside.
• The classroom door shut unexpectedly, and Si Ming and Si Huaruo saw a little girl repeatedly jumping outside a fourth-floor window until her face appeared.

Si Ming relentlessly battered the regenerating ghost girl after she frightened him, while Si Huaruo watched in disbelief. The girl fled, but Si Ming caught up and launched another attack, leaving their fight unresolved.

• Si Ming smashed the ghost girl's head and repeatedly battered her as she regenerated, demanding that she stop laughing and speak properly.
• The ghost girl escaped his grasp by cutting off her own leg and fled through the classroom window.
• Si Ming leaped after her, dodged her black spheres with Dunjia Heavenly Movement, and used the Divine Sight Illusory Observation Art to increase his speed.
• Si Ming caught the girl, struck her down, dragged her along the ground, and hurled her into the air.
• Si Ming pursued the airborne girl and attacked with the Ethereal Cloud and Mist Palm, unleashing Clouds Disperse, Flowing Rosy Clouds Burst Forth.

Si Huaruo battled a nearly complete Yin God while Si Ming remained trapped inside a sludge stele. Si Ming broke free, smashed the girl again, and chased her as she fled.

• Si Ming struck the girl with Blazing Sun True Qi, but she turned into black sludge and sealed him inside a stone stele.
• Si Huaruo summoned Water Yong and Ward, then used Lingering Lotus Breaking the Waves against the girl.
• Si Huaruo summoned the Si Clan's Frost Talisman and froze the girl in an ice pillar, but the girl broke free and destroyed the clan god.
• The girl's foul Qi grazed Si Huaruo and began corroding her soul as the girl approached her.
• Si Ming burst out of the stele, seized the girl, and smashed her into a pulp.
• The girl recovered and fled, but Si Ming caught up to her before she had flown ten meters.

Si Ming fought the skeleton girl inside an isolated Anomaly, using Blazing Sun True Qi to counter her nether arts and rescue Zhu Xuanhuai. After seemingly destroying the girl, he faced her transformed devil’s face and the melting teaching buildings as his Solar Prominence Eruption neared its limit.

• Si Ming realized the teaching buildings had trapped them inside an Anomaly and rushed the skeleton girl despite Si Huaruo’s warning about her soul-corroding spell.
• Si Ming used True Yang Vermilion Blaze Saber to cut through the girl’s black tornado and sever her arm, then taunted her about being an inheritor of the Saints.
• The skeleton girl used Zhu Xuanhuai as a hostage, but Si Ming struck through Zhu Xuanhuai to burn the enemy and then passed the injured student to Si Huaruo.
• Si Ming caught up with the flaming skeleton girl, broke her limbs, and burned her body clean, but recognized that she was still alive.
• The skeleton girl formed a gigantic devil’s face from Yin Qi as the teaching buildings melted into sludge, and Si Ming summoned the image of the Kui Ox.

Si Ming destroyed the ghost at the old campus and carried the exhausted Si Huaruo back to Water Mirror Manor. On the way, Si Huaruo confided in him, and he promised to protect her; after they arrived, she asked whether he had grown up outside the clan.

• Si Ming dispelled the illusion with Kui Drum Thunder Sound, and he and Si Huaruo found themselves back in the classroom with the missing people, most of them dead.
• Si Huaruo used her remaining True Qi to stabilize Zhu Xuanhuai, but she was too weak to walk, so Si Ming carried her out of the school.
• While Si Ming carried her home, Si Huaruo shared how she had learned to rely only on herself after Uncle Gu died.
• Si Ming told Si Huaruo she could rely on him and promised that no one would hurt her while he was her guard.
• At Water Mirror Manor, Si Huaruo asked Si Ming whether he had grown up outside the clan, and he confirmed that he had.

Si Ming attended classes with Si Huaruo at Emperor Peak Luofu Academy and learned about its curriculum, its privileged art education, and its demanding scholarship students. After lunch together, Si Huaruo’s acquaintance arrived and remarked on how close the two had become.

• Si Ming and Si Huaruo awkwardly met the morning after Si Ming had boasted about his invented martial arts title.
• Si Ming attended classes and reflected on the academy’s art-focused curriculum and the unequal opportunities available to noble and commoner students.
• Si Ming told Si Huaruo that the academic lessons were engaging but the technical art lesson had baffled him.
• Si Huaruo ordered an elaborate meal at the dining hall, and Si Ming and Si Huaruo ate heartily together.
• A familiar voice interrupted them, remarking that Si Ming and Si Huaruo had become close in only three days.

Si Jingyu and Si Huaruo clashed over Si Ming and whether he should remain Huaruo’s bodyguard, then Si Huaruo admitted she was worried about replacing an injured drama lead before the performance. She insisted she would still win the Nine Arts Phoenix Fledgling title and took Si Ming to get tea and pastries.

• Si Jingyu teased Si Ming about his relationship with girls and warned him about the students at school, while Si Huaruo defended him as her bodyguard and younger cousin.
• Si Jingyu and Si Huaruo argued over who had the stronger claim to Si Ming’s care, and Si Shuiyun told Si Ming it was their 1,325th quarrel.
• Si Jingyu revealed that a drama club lead, Zhu Xuanhuai, had been badly injured by an Anomaly, leaving Huaruo only three days to find a replacement before the performance.
• Si Huaruo vowed to win the Nine Arts Phoenix Fledgling title anyway and asked Si Ming to stay close to her as her personal bodyguard.
• Si Huaruo told Si Ming she could not remember why her rivalry with Si Jingyu began, then invited him to a nearby teahouse for pastries and candied fruit.

Si Huaruo demonstrated tea preparation to Si Ming at the campus teahouse, where she failed to make a bitten cup. After a rival from the Lu Lineage taunted her and raised the possibility of a marriage proposal, Si Ming challenged the Lu Lineage’s tea contestants and declared he could master tea in five days.

• Si Huaruo prepared tea for Si Ming and explained that a bitten cup was an advanced tea-brewing technique.
• Si Huaruo failed to cover the tea’s surface with foam and admitted that her tangled thoughts had affected her brewing.
• A young woman from the Lu Lineage insulted Si Ming and Si Huaruo, then warned that her clan might propose a marriage alliance with the Si Clan.
• Si Huaruo worried that her mother might try to seize power and that she could be married off to prevent future trouble.
• Si Ming asked when tea tasting would take place in the Nine Arts Phoenix Fledgling assessment, then challenged the Lu Lineage to prepare for defeat.
• Si Ming poured tea precisely into a cup and declared that five days was enough to master the art.

Si Ming proposed adapting “Puppet Show” into a three-person play for Si Huaruo’s performance, and she was moved by the story. He drafted an expanded outline, but Si Huaruo pointed out that they still had no way to portray the puppet.

• Si Ming told Si Huaruo the story behind “Puppet Show,” and she was moved to tears.
• Si Huaruo agreed the story could become their script but worried it was too short to earn a high score.
• Si Ming proposed expanding the old puppeteer’s backstory and building toward the final fire scene.
• Si Ming wrote a rough screenplay outline, using a dramatic structure to develop the characters’ hardships and the ending.
• Si Huaruo asked how they could portray the puppet without a suitable actor or a lifelike prop.

Si Huaruo began rehearsing Si Ming’s play for the Nine Arts Phoenix Fledgling selection, while her mother urged her to use the contest to challenge Si Jingyu. After returning to his room, Si Ming unexpectedly broke through to level six Internal Cultivation and tried to work out why.

• Si Huaruo agreed to cast the Si Clan’s deity as the doll in Si Ming’s play and quickly began rehearsals with the drama club.
• The drama club improvised dialogue and details while practicing, then agreed to rehearse again early the next morning.
• On the way home, Si Ming told Si Huaruo about his published novels, and she thanked him for helping the club.
• Si Huamu praised Si Huaruo for getting close to Si Ming and ordered her to win the Nine Arts Phoenix Fledgling crown and challenge Si Jingyu at the ancestral rites.
• Si Ming practiced the Water Moon Precious Mirror and suddenly broke through to level six Internal Cultivation, then wondered what had caused the breakthrough.

Si Ming suspected that killing Anomalies had increased his Internal Cultivation, but he postponed testing the theory until after the Nine Arts Phoenix Fledgling selection. At the drama finals, he watched Si Huaruo’s club face low expectations after replacing its lead and changing its script, while Si Jingyu supported his rumor-spreading tactic.

• Si Ming wondered whether Blazing Yang Battle Art granted experience for killing Anomalies, but he delayed searching for another one until the selection was over.
• Si Ming, Si Jingyu, and Si Shuiyun attended the finals, where Si Ming learned that Si Jingyu and Si Huaruo had become rivals after repeatedly competing as children.
• Si Ming admitted that he had helped create the club’s revised script and told Si Jingyu that he had written two novels.
• Si Shuiyun reported that audiences expected Si Huaruo’s club to fail because its lead had been replaced and its script changed at short notice.
• Si Ming revealed that he had arranged for people to spread pessimistic rumors, and Si Jingyu explained how lowered expectations could make the performance seem more impressive.

Si Ming worried that Puppet Show lacked the fight scenes audiences expected, but Si Huaruo’s final performance began with real wind and snow conjured onstage. The opening narration revealed a scholar meeting an old puppet seller, and the judges and audience recognized the play as a historical drama.

• After Journey Through the Jianghu ended, audience members debated which performances had the best chance of winning the competition.
• Si Jingyu asked Si Ming whether he remained confident in Puppet Show, and he admitted that its lack of a fight scene made him uncertain.
• The host announced Puppet Show as the final performance, and audience members speculated about its meaning before the curtain rose.
• Si Huaruo conjured real wind and snow onstage as Nan Yang appeared in the role of a scholar struggling through the storm.
• The narrator described the scholar meeting an old man carrying puppets, prompting the judges and audience to recognize the play as historical.

Si Ming’s group performed an ancient drama about a puppeteer whose devotion to his craft shaped his lonely life. After the puppet delivered a mesmerizing song and dance, the old man angrily threw it into the fire, leaving its fate unresolved.

• The judges praised the students’ choice of ancient drama as the play opened with Si Huaruo portraying an old puppeteer sheltering in a ruined temple.
• In a flashback, Si Huaruo portrayed the puppeteer as a child who bought a puppet, learned to perform with it, and refused repeated pleas to abandon puppetry.
• The puppeteer’s betrothed smashed his puppet, but he ignored her and mourned over its broken pieces before making a new, exquisitely crafted puppet.
• As an old man again, the puppeteer performed the puppet’s extraordinary dance and song for the scholar, astonishing the audience.
• The old man blamed the puppet for his poverty and threw it into the fire.