Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• The third challenge causes an uproar: contestants must create an Illusion Realm that makes Ruthless Sect grand elder Guo Yunfeng cry.
• Rakshasa clarifies that tears are not mandatory; if no one succeeds, Guo will judge the entries herself. Zhong Yi recognizes that this gives the Alliance a convenient way to control the results.
• Lu Ze realizes the challenge may be a pretext to investigate the Spell he used in This Demonic Cultivator Is Not Too Cold—the Dao Transformation Art that let him shape an Illusion Realm. Since it lacks the system’s protection, the Alliance might be able to uncover its secrets.
• Lu Ze decides not to reuse that Spell. Instead, he chooses To the Moon as the basis for his Illusion Realm: its story can move people across generations, and its linear, single-ending structure avoids exposing the Spell’s workings.

Character developments

• Lu Ze remains calm despite Zhong Yi’s concern, then quickly pieces together the Alliance’s hidden motive.
• Zhong Yi shows insight into the challenge’s unfairness, but assumes Guo is beyond being moved by love.
• Lu Ze distinguishes enduring love from youthful romance and settles on a story better suited to Guo’s age and temperament.

Significant themes

• Fairness and manipulation: A challenge with defensible rules can still conceal a rigged outcome.
• Love beyond romance: Genuine love can affect people regardless of age or gender.
• Protecting knowledge: Lu Ze must balance making a compelling Illusion Realm with keeping his unique technique secret.

Character interactions

• Zhong Yi warns Lu Ze that Guo’s judgment could let the Alliance dictate the winner. Lu Ze counters with humor, briefly teasing him about a spell that could make a rooster lay eggs.
• Zhong Yi suggests repeating This Demonic Cultivator Is Not Too Cold, but Lu Ze rejects the idea after recognizing the risk.
• Their discussion of romance leads Lu Ze to explain his choice: To the Moon offers a more universal, emotionally powerful kind of love.

Plot points and events

• Lu Ze tells Zhong Yi he is about 80% confident he can make Guo Yunfeng cry. If his story fails, he plans to enlist the Fragment of the Heavenly Dao to force the result.
• For the Illusion Alliance’s third challenge, Lu Ze adapts the story of To the Moon into an Illusion Realm. He translates its futuristic memory-altering devices into Spells and builds the realm over several days.
• While other contestants’ entries are rejected without moving Guo Yunfeng, Lu Ze spends extra time adding layers of deliberately misleading, useless Spells. This is meant to thwart the Alliance’s attempts to deduce how his magic works.
• Zhong Yi asks Lu Ze to review his own Illusion Realm. Lu Ze finds it deeply misguided: Zhong Yi labels a generous junior sister a villain and casts a woman who disparages her as the heroine. Lu Ze concludes Zhong Yi should stick to strategy games.
• Guo Yunfeng finishes evaluating another contestant’s entry and briefly admits it stirred memories, placing it first. The crowd assumes Lu Ze cannot surpass it. She then picks up Lu Ze’s crystal, labeled “To the Moon Realm,” setting up its evaluation.

Character developments and interactions

• Lu Ze shows confidence, creativity, and caution: he adapts the story effectively while protecting his Spell secrets with deliberate misdirection.
• Zhong Yi remains comically confident in his romantic storytelling despite having little understanding of how his characters come across. Lu Ze’s blunt critique punctures that confidence.
• Nangong Yuan anxiously watches Lu Ze’s progress, while Chao Wendao rebukes Zhong Yi for predicting Lu Ze’s failure.
• Guo Yunfeng remains outwardly impassive but shows a rare reaction to a contestant’s work, hinting that the story touched something personal.

Significant themes

• Storytelling versus technical skill: The challenge depends on emotional writing, not simply mastery of Spells.
• Emotion and memory: To the Moon’s central ideas are introduced through the memory-altering premise and Guo Yunfeng’s unexpected response.
• Strategy and concealment: Lu Ze treats the contest both as an artistic challenge and as a way to guard his techniques from the Illusion Alliance.
• Comic mismatch: Zhong Yi’s belief that his story is moving contrasts sharply with Lu Ze’s assessment of it.

Plot points and events

• Guo Yunfeng enters Lu Ze’s Illusion Realm, “To the Moon Realm,” intending to judge it harshly. She already dislikes Lu Ze’s earlier work and believes the Illusion Alliance has reason to expect her to give this one a low rating.
• The story casts her as a junior disciple of the Dreamweaving Sect, traveling with her senior brother, Xu Ci. Their transport beast suddenly goes berserk and crashes; Guo Yunfeng leaves Xu Ci behind as he rambles about its possible defect.
• Their commission is to create a dream for Gu Yun, a dying man, and fulfill his lifelong wish. The Dreamweaving Sect can explore memories and construct dreams, sometimes altering a person’s memories.
• At Gu Yun’s home, Guo Yunfeng hears children playing a melody that echoes the music from the Illusion Realm’s opening. It moves her emotionally, though she suspects a Spell is influencing her and resists it.
• After setting up the dreamweaving array, Guo Yunfeng asks about Gu Yun’s wish. His servant, Chen Lili, answers: he wants to go to the Moon Realm.

Character developments

• Guo Yunfeng begins confident and dismissive, expecting the Realm—and its apparent romantic pairing of her with Xu Ci—to fail. Yet the music unsettles her, hinting that she is more emotionally affected than she wants to admit.
• Xu Ci comes across as talkative, bumbling, and unreliable, but he helps Guo Yunfeng set up the array.
• Chen Lili appears devoted to Gu Yun and warmly welcomes the cultivators, while worrying about her master’s failing health.
• Gu Yun remains unseen beyond his illness and his stated wish, which becomes the central mystery of the commission.

Significant themes

• Memory, dreams, and unfinished wishes: the Dreamweaving Sect’s work gives the dying a chance to fulfill what they could not in life.
• Emotion versus skepticism: Guo Yunfeng tries to dismiss the Realm’s effects as tricks, but the music stirs feelings she cannot easily explain.
• The power of art: the recurring melody links the Realm’s opening to Gu Yun’s household and suggests music may carry deeper meaning.

Character interactions

• Guo Yunfeng repeatedly brushes off Xu Ci’s chatter and proceeds according to the quest, while he tries to explain the Earth Dragon’s behavior and comment on the commission.
• Chen Lili welcomes both cultivators, guides them to Gu Yun, and shares her belief that he is kind.
• Guo Yunfeng’s reaction to the children’s music creates the first noticeable crack in her guarded attitude toward Lu Ze’s Illusion Realm.

Plot points and events

• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien investigate why the elderly Gu Yun wants to reach the Moon Realm. Their task is to discover what would genuinely motivate him, since Qin Lien’s Dreamweaving Spell must establish a believable “cause” before it can produce the desired “effect.”
• Chen Lili, who has cared for Gu Yun for two years, says he is kind, quiet, and possibly a carpenter who built the old house himself. His wife died shortly before Chen arrived, but she knows little else.
• Qin Lien sends Zhong Yi to search the house for clues. The main quest updates accordingly.
• Wen Yaoxin gives Zhong Yi a Twin-Life Gu that tracks Gu Yun’s condition. It indicates he has only one day and fourteen hours left.
• Downstairs, Zhong Yi hears Chen Lili’s children playing a sorrowful melody. The music makes him emotional and unusually curious about the house.
• In the livestream, Lu Ze explains that he has enhanced the music with a spell that first encourages curiosity and exploration. His plan is to draw Guo Yunfeng into the story before guiding her toward sorrow.

Character developments and interactions

• Qin Lien is practical and sharp-tongued. She corrects Zhong Yi, explains the logic of her spell, and directs the investigation.
• Zhong Yi remains talkative and playful, but shows perceptiveness by noticing the music’s emotional effect. He also sympathizes with Gu Yun’s plight.
• Chen Lili offers what little she knows about her master and suggests searching the house for letters or other clues.
• Wen Yaoxin contributes the Twin-Life Gu so the others can monitor Gu Yun’s rapidly dwindling life.
• Lu Ze reveals the calculated strategy behind the music: use curiosity to draw his target into exploring, then steer her toward sorrow.

Significant themes

• Cause and effect: Qin Lien’s magic requires a believable motive rather than simply forcing an outcome.
• Fate, loss, and limited time: Gu Yun’s remaining lifespan makes the search urgent, while his deceased wife hints at a painful history.
• Emotion as a narrative force: Music and magic shape curiosity and sorrow, drawing people into a story and affecting how they respond to it.

Key plot points and events

• Following quest prompts, Zhong Yi finds a basement key hidden in a book and enters a dark room Gu Yun often visits. Inside, he discovers a room filled with carefully folded paper rabbits, an old music box, and a patched stuffed platypus.
• He takes the platypus, then learns from two children that more paper rabbits are kept in the lighthouse on the cliff. There, he finds many more rabbits and one unusual blue-and-yellow rabbit that the children say was not there before.
• A grave beneath the lighthouse identifies Gu Yun’s late wife as Lin Xi. Zhong Yi collects the distinctive rabbit as another clue.
• Qin Lien calls Zhong Yi back: the Dreamweaving Array is ready. He returns to the house, where Qin Lien explains that the array creates an interactive illusion from Gu Yun’s memories. The team can question Gu Yun directly, but must investigate first because memories may be incomplete, distorted, or shaped by a person’s unwillingness to tell the truth.
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien enter the dream and set out to find Gu Yun, whose time is running short.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhong Yi grumbles about the quest-like errands and is frustrated that his investigation seems pointless, but his curiosity grows as he connects the children’s objects to the mystery. He remains humorous and self-deprecating, including over a failed attempt to jump down the mountain and save time.
• Qin Lien is impatient with Zhong Yi’s delay and his lack of findings, yet patiently explains why the physical clues matter before questioning Gu Yun.
• The children guide Zhong Yi to the lighthouse and draw his attention to the newly placed rabbit. Their familiarity with Gu Yun’s habits helps advance the investigation.

Significant themes

• Memory and truth: Memories are not necessarily reliable, so direct questioning alone may not reveal the truth.
• Clues and emotional history: The repeated children’s objects and Lin Xi’s grave suggest a personal story behind Gu Yun’s behavior, though its meaning remains unresolved.
• Game-like quests and exploration: Zhong Yi’s RPG-style tasks provide structure, but the chapter hints that their clues carry deeper significance.

Key events

• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien enter Gu Yun’s memory, beginning ten days before the present. Because Gu Yun is frail, they plan to move backward through his memories gradually rather than risk overwhelming him.
• Zhong Yi notices a composition dedicated to Gu Yun’s late wife, Lin Creek, and guesses that Gu Yun may be beneath the lighthouse. The two travel there and find him with his servant, Chen Lili.
• Qin Lien records Gu Yun’s location so they can track him. A quest then tasks Zhong Yi with demonstrating dreamweaving and earning Gu Yun’s trust.
• Zhong Yi freezes and makes Chen Lili vanish to show that the scene is a dream. Though the display frightens Gu Yun—and exasperates Qin Lien—he accepts their explanation.
• Gu Yun asks whether the dreamweavers can send him to the Moon Realm. Qin Lien explains that they cannot simply grant the wish: they must discover its cause and plant a suitable memory in his past. Asked why he wants to go, Gu Yun says he does not know, but insists, “I just... have to go.”

Character developments and interactions

• Zhong Yi shows initiative by finding Gu Yun, and quickly learns how to manipulate the dream. His dramatic demonstration reveals his confidence and impulsiveness.
• Qin Lien acts as the practical, responsible senior: she explains the limits of the spell, guides Zhong Yi, and presses Gu Yun to identify his motive. Her teasing criticism also highlights their familiar senior–junior dynamic.
• Gu Yun moves from surprise and fear to cautious trust and intense hope. His inability to explain his wish suggests it is rooted in a deep, perhaps unconscious need.
• Chen Lili is present as Gu Yun’s servant, but Zhong Yi’s spell temporarily freezes and removes her from the dream.

Significant themes

• Memory and agency: The dreamweavers can alter memories, but lasting change depends on what Gu Yun himself will accept.
• The limits of power: The spell cannot create a new world or fulfill a wish without understanding its underlying cause.
• Unexplained longing: Gu Yun’s urgent desire to reach the Moon Realm persists even though he cannot say why.

Plot and events

• After learning that Gu Yun cannot remember why he wants to reach the Moon Realm, Qin Lien and Zhong Yi decide to plant an earlier motivation: joining the Nine Heavens Sect, whose cultivation and formation offer a route out of the Azure Realm.
• They use Gu Yun’s yellow-and-blue paper rabbit as an anchor to enter his memories. In an old-house memory, they find the rooms covered in paper rabbits and collect Dream Power from meaningful objects. Zhong Yi works out that Memory Leap uses Dream Power and a shared “memory shard” to reach earlier recollections.
• An umbrella leads them to a rain-soaked memory at Lin Xi’s grave. Gu Yun mourns her and says he will care for “her” as Lin Xi did. He also mentions Anya and wonders who will look after them after he is gone.
• Qin Lien breaks observer mode to question Gu Yun. His grief destabilizes the Illusion Realm, so Zhong Yi freezes him to steady it. Qin is shaken by the exchange but insists they should continue with their plan.
• Using Gu Yun’s patched platypus doll as the next memory shard, they travel further back and arrive in a bedroom where a middle-aged woman—apparently Lin Xi—lies in bed.

Character developments and interactions

• Qin Lien takes charge of the plan but becomes unusually emotional when Gu Yun speaks of Lin Xi. Her impulsive questioning violates the rules she had laid down for Zhong Yi.
• Zhong Yi jokes about Qin’s earlier warning that memories can lie, then proves resourceful by identifying how Memory Leap works and stabilizing the realm when Qin’s intervention causes it to waver.
• Gu Yun appears first as an elderly, grieving man devoted to preserving memories of Lin Xi. His references to Anya raise questions about the family history and the commission’s claim that he has no children.
• The pair bicker throughout, but work together to navigate the memories and gather what they need.

Significant themes

• Memory and meaning: Objects such as paper rabbits, an umbrella, and a doll serve as gateways to emotionally charged recollections.
• Grief and unresolved understanding: Gu Yun admits he may never understand Lin Xi’s choices, yet intends to honor them.
• Intervention and risk: Planting a motivation in someone’s past—and questioning them within a memory—may have consequences.
• Hidden history: Lin Xi’s grave, Anya, and the contrast between the commission’s information and Gu Yun’s words suggest important facts remain undiscovered.

1. Key plot points and events

• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien observe a memory of Gu Yun arguing with his gravely ill wife, Lin Xi. Gu Yun wants to sell their possessions to pay for treatment, but Lin Xi refuses to let doctors examine her.
• Lin Xi asks Gu Yun to finish building a house on a cliff and live there, keeping “her” company so she will not be lonely. The identity of “her”—apparently Anya—remains unexplained.
• Lin Xi tests Gu Yun’s understanding of a handmade paper rabbit, but his answers fail to satisfy her. He changes the subject by playing a composition he wrote for her, Remembering Lin Creek.
• Zhong Yi’s Observer abilities are disabled by Qin Lien, who says the memory’s unanswered questions are irrelevant to their task. When he protests, she magically silences him.
• The chapter also shows Guo Yunfeng’s separate Illusion Realm. She suspects the story is meant to make her compare Xu Ci favorably with Gu Yun, but remains unmoved and continues gathering dream power. She then finds a memory fragment showing blue-purple wildflowers.

2. Character developments

• Gu Yun is loving and desperate to save Lin Xi, yet struggles to understand what she wants. His earnest music-making shows his devotion.
• Lin Xi is stubborn and cryptic, apparently prioritizing Anya’s happiness and the completion of the house over her own survival. Her disappointment at Gu Yun’s answers hints at an unspoken expectation between them.
• Zhong Yi grows increasingly curious and emotionally invested in the mystery, though he is frustrated by Qin Lien’s restrictions.
• Qin Lien keeps Zhong Yi focused on the Illusion Realm’s purpose, emphasizing that witnessing loss is part of their path.
• Guo Yunfeng remains skeptical that the scenario can make her feel love; she dismisses Xu Ci and focuses on the task.

3. Significant themes

• Love and sacrifice: Gu Yun is willing to give up everything to save Lin Xi, while Lin Xi appears willing to sacrifice herself for someone else.
• Unspoken wishes and misunderstanding: Lin Xi expects Gu Yun to grasp meanings she never fully explains, leaving their intimacy tangled with frustration.
• Memory, grief, and mortality: The observers confront a relationship shaped by illness, impending death, and promises whose meaning is still unclear.
• Perspective and emotional influence: The Illusion Realms may be designed to shape participants’ judgments, though Guo Yunfeng resists that effect.

4. Character interactions

• Gu Yun and Lin Xi’s exchange is tender but strained: his attempts to save her clash with her refusal, and his answers about the paper rabbit disappoint her.
• Zhong Yi seeks clarity from the memory, while Qin Lien prevents him from interfering and reminds him to accept witnessing partings.
• Guo Yunfeng ignores Xu Ci’s chatter and rejects the idea that comparison with Gu Yun could make her appreciate him.

Key plot points and events

• Guo Yunfeng and Xu Ci revisit a memory at the unfinished house site on Perilous Mountain. Gu Yun argues with Wang Qiao over how to respond to Lin Xi’s illness: he wants to secretly spend their savings on treatment, while Wang Qiao believes he should respect Lin Xi’s wishes.
• Gu Yun admits that he is frightened of losing Lin Xi and being left alone. Guo Yunfeng knows the outcome—Lin Xi refuses treatment, Gu Yun completes the house as promised, and eventually grows old alone—but briefly hesitates before collecting the memory fragment from a jar of pickled cucumbers.
• In Zhong Yi’s Illusion Realm, Zhong Yi and Qin Lien travel backward through Gu Yun’s memories. They reach a happier time, when Gu Yun and Lin Xi have just decided to build the house and are sharing a meal with Zhang Peng and Wang Qiao.
• Gu Yun tells Zhang Peng that Lin Xi has been folding large numbers of paper rabbits since he told her “that” something. Wang Qiao suggested the rabbits might be connected to the Iceheart Bloodline, but Gu Yun senses an unspoken meaning and feels he has failed Lin Xi. Zhong Yi is eager to learn the explanation, but the memory offers no answer.
• The restaurant memory is sealed, and it contains no fragment to move them onward. Zhong Yi creates one by bonding with Gu Yun over pickled cucumbers. He forces himself to eat a plate, and Gu Yun gives him his own jar. Inside the memory, the jar remains unopened and untouched, leaving Zhong Yi uneasy.

Character developments and interactions

• Gu Yun is revealed as loving but conflicted: he wants to save Lin Xi, yet fears both overriding her wishes and losing her. In the earlier memory, his guilt over the paper rabbits hints at an unresolved failure in their relationship.
• Guo Yunfeng remains emotionally detached in keeping with her centuries-long cultivation of the Dao of Ruthlessness, though Gu Yun’s grief makes her pause briefly.
• Zhong Yi is compassionate and intensely curious, especially about the paper rabbits. His eagerness to advance the story leads him to improvise, while Qin Lien cautions him against destabilizing the memory.
• Qin Lien is practical and cautious, but also teasing: she lets Zhong Yi struggle through the pickles rather than helping him block their taste and smell.
• The conversations between Gu Yun and Wang Qiao expose differing views about love and choice; Gu Yun’s talk with Zhang Peng reveals his confusion about Lin Xi’s behavior.

Significant themes

• Love, loss, and agency: Gu Yun’s desire to save Lin Xi clashes with the need to respect her decisions.
• Memory and regret: The reverse chronology lets the observers see happier moments while knowing what lies ahead, sharpening the sense of loss.
• Unspoken meaning: Lin Xi’s paper rabbits and Gu Yun’s feeling that he has failed her remain unresolved mysteries.
• Immersion and discovery: The Illusion Realm’s sensory detail and memory-fragment mechanics draw Zhong Yi into the story, though the untouched jar suggests the illusion may contain inconsistencies.

Key plot points and events

• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien revisit Gu Yun’s memories, first witnessing Gu Yun and Lin Xi decide to build a house beside an abandoned lighthouse.
• Lin Xi reacts with unexpected joy: living nearby would let them visit the lighthouse every day and keep it from being lonely. Zhong Yi realizes that Anya may somehow be the lighthouse itself, though the revelation makes little sense to him or the livestream viewers.
• Qin Lien reminds Zhong Yi that Lin Xi is not their mission target; their task is to send the elderly Gu Yun to the Moon Realm. They find a paper rabbit, which leads them to an earlier memory.
• In Gu Yun and Lin Xi’s old house, Zhong Yi discovers a chest full of paper. Lin Xi is folding paper rabbits while Gu Yun asks about the rabbit she left for him.
• Lin Xi presses him to describe it. Gu Yun can only say it is yellow and a little plump, then admits he does not know how to describe a paper rabbit. Lin Xi’s hope seems to vanish, and she resumes folding in silence.
• Zhong Yi recognizes the exchange as nearly identical to an earlier scene and wants to question Lin Xi, but Qin Lien freezes him. She argues that confronting Lin Xi cannot reveal what Gu Yun himself does not know and could destabilize the memory.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhong Yi grows increasingly invested in solving the mystery of Lin Xi’s behavior, despite Qin Lien’s insistence that he stay focused on the mission.
• Qin Lien remains pragmatic and protective of the memory, restraining Zhong Yi and steering him onward.
• Lin Xi is usually withdrawn and difficult to read, but her excitement about living near the lighthouse reveals deep attachment to it. Her reaction to Gu Yun’s inability to describe her rabbit hints at an intense need to be understood.
• Gu Yun shows affection and care: he offers to sacrifice financially to build a home beside the lighthouse, and tries to understand Lin Xi, though he cannot grasp what she wants from him.

Significant themes

• Attachment and loneliness: Lin Xi sees the lighthouse as someone who might be lonely and wants to stay close to it.
• The limits of understanding: Gu Yun’s inability to describe the rabbit—and Qin Lien’s point that outsiders cannot uncover what Gu Yun himself does not know—underscore how difficult it is to understand another person.
• Memory and unresolved mystery: The repeated scene and the unexplained connection between Lin Xi, the paper rabbits, and the lighthouse deepen the chapter’s central puzzle.

Key plot points and events

• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien continue moving backward through Gu Yun’s memories, trying to find a childhood moment that can be changed to set Gu Yun on the path to joining the Nine Heavens Sect.
• At the lighthouse, Gu Yun apologizes to Lin Xi for treating their first meeting as a joke and admits that his original reason for approaching her was only part of the story. Zhong Yi and Qin Lien arrive too late to learn what that reason was.
• Lin Xi asks Gu Yun to throw her patched sandbag toward the lighthouse. When it falls into the sea, she panics and nearly jumps after it, forcing Gu Yun to grab her. The memory freezes, leaving her contradictory behavior unexplained.
• In an earlier memory at a library-teahouse, Gu Yun asks Wang Qiao—who also has the Iceheart Bloodline—about Lin Xi’s condition. Zhong Yi realizes this explains why Wang Qiao understands and supports Lin Xi.
• Gu Yun and Lin Xi discuss childhood books. Lin Xi says she still loves The Emperor’s New Clothes, but for a different reason. Gu Yun, by contrast, says he has outgrown his childhood favorite, Battle Through the Heavens, whose dusty copy Lin Xi found in storage.
• Lin Xi asks Gu Yun to complete the saying, “Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west…” When he does not understand, she withdraws, appearing to draw a private conclusion.

Character developments and interactions

• Gu Yun tries to be more honest and open with Lin Xi, apologizing for his past behavior and talking about his childhood. He still does not understand the significance of her questions.
• Lin Xi remains emotionally guarded and enigmatic. Her panic over the sandbag and her response to Gu Yun’s childhood book suggest that seemingly small objects and memories carry deep meaning for her.
• Wang Qiao’s shared Iceheart Bloodline gives her a special bond with Lin Xi and makes her a source of guidance for Gu Yun.
• Zhong Yi pieces together clues from the memories but remains frustrated by arriving too late to uncover the couple’s earliest history. Qin Lien keeps him focused on their mission.

Significant themes

• Memory and missed understanding: Each recovered memory answers some questions while creating new ones; Zhong Yi’s pursuit of the first meeting reflects the desire to understand the past completely.
• Growing up and losing childhood passions: Gu Yun sees his old favorite as something he has outgrown, while Lin Xi’s attachment to stories appears to have changed rather than disappeared.
• Communication and emotional distance: Gu Yun is trying to open up, but he and Lin Xi often speak past one another, leaving her thoughts concealed.
• The Iceheart Bloodline and belonging: Lin Xi’s condition shapes her behavior and relationships, while Wang Qiao’s shared experience helps bridge the gap between her and others.

Chapter Summary: “Nothing to Do with Our Mission”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Zhong Yi travels back to the day Gu Yun and Lin Xi were married. Their wedding is held beneath the lighthouse, a place deeply meaningful to both of them and described as their “second home.”
• Guests question the unconventional wedding location, but Gu Yun’s mother calmly defends the choice.
• Before the wedding, Gu Yun and Lin Xi spend the night together at the lighthouse. They name it “Anya,” sing and dance on its roof until dawn, and share a peaceful, romantic evening.
• The following day, they complete the traditional wedding ceremony and celebrate with friends and relatives.
• Gu Yun’s mother blesses the couple and reminds Gu Yun to toast Wen Qingyun, who once saved his life. She also affectionately calls him “Xiao Feng,” explaining that the nickname honors her deceased father.
• The memory space freezes, and Zhong Yi reflects sadly on how many people in Gu Yun’s life have gradually passed away.
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien search the wedding feast for important memory fragments. Most guests appear only as shadowy figures because Gu Yun barely remembers them.
• Zhong Yi notices Wen Qingyun, whose unusually clear presence identifies him as an important figure. Wen has a distinctive mark on his cheek that Zhong Yi finds strangely familiar.
• The recovered memory fragment turns out to be the corpse of a rabbit accidentally trampled by an Earth Dragon.
• Zhong Yi jokingly speculates that the rabbit might somehow explain Lin Xi’s habit of folding paper rabbits, but Qin Lien dismisses the idea as irrelevant to their mission.
• After infusing the fragment with dream power, they enter the next memory, which takes place on a grassland.

Character Development

• Zhong Yi: Remains observant and sarcastic, using humor to cope with the bizarre and emotionally heavy memories. However, he begins to doubt whether Lu Ze’s Illusion Realm is unfolding correctly, especially because the dream’s focus seems unrelated to their mission.
• Qin Lien: Acts as the practical and mission-focused partner, repeatedly reminding Zhong Yi to concentrate on gathering dream power and memory fragments rather than speculating about personal details.
• Gu Yun: Is shown as loving and emotionally connected to both Lin Xi and the lighthouse. His childhood nickname, “Xiao Feng,” reveals the importance of family memory and inherited grief.
• Lin Xi: Her attachment to the lighthouse is emphasized through the wedding location and the couple’s shared rituals there, though her emotional reserve leads observers in the live stream to judge her unfairly.
• Gu Yun’s mother: Appears warm, patient, and supportive. She understands the significance of the lighthouse, blesses the marriage, and encourages Gu Yun to treat Lin Xi well.
• Wen Qingyun: Is introduced as a significant figure from Gu Yun’s past, specifically someone who once saved his life. His clear appearance in the dream suggests that he may become important later.

Significant Themes

• Memory and emotional importance: The dream world reflects the strength and clarity of Gu Yun’s memories; familiar people appear clearly, while less important acquaintances remain indistinct.
• Love expressed through places and rituals: The lighthouse symbolizes Gu Yun and Lin Xi’s shared history, intimacy, and sense of home. Their decision to marry there demonstrates that emotional meaning matters more to them than social convention.
• Misjudgment and incomplete understanding: The live-stream audience condemns Lin Xi for seeming emotionally distant, but their criticism may come from seeing only fragments of her relationship with Gu Yun.
• Loss and remembrance: Gu Yun’s childhood nickname and Zhong Yi’s observation about people leaving one after another highlight how memory preserves those who have died or disappeared.
• The tension between mission and personal meaning: Zhong Yi and Qin Lien are searching for clues connected to their objective, yet the memories they encounter are often ordinary, intimate, or seemingly irrelevant.

Important Character Interactions

• Wedding guests question the lighthouse ceremony, while Gu Yun’s mother defends the couple’s choice.
• Gu Yun and Lin Xi share a quiet, affectionate night before the wedding, naming the lighthouse and celebrating together.
• Gu Yun’s mother embraces and blesses the newlyweds, reminding Gu Yun to honor Wen Qingyun.
• Zhang Peng notices Gu Yun’s mother calling him “Xiao Feng,” prompting Gu Yun to explain the family history behind the nickname.
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien work together to locate and activate memory fragments, with Qin Lien repeatedly steering Zhong Yi away from speculation.
• Zhong Yi notices Wen Qingyun’s unusual presence and mysterious facial mark but chooses to postpone investigating it.

Key plot points and events

• A visit to the Spiritual Medicine Sect reveals that Lin Xi has the Iceheart Bloodline. In the era of scarce spiritual energy, it brings no cultivation benefit and instead makes it agonizingly difficult for her to express her thoughts. Her heart-devouring symptoms can be eased by riding, explaining why Gu Yun took her to the grasslands.
• A theater memory shows young Lin Xi and Gu Yun’s unusual bond: though they never met during the shadow-puppet show, Lin Xi insists that sharing the theater meant they watched it together. Gu Yun finds her oddness endearing and agrees to watch another show with her.
• Earlier, Gu Yun nervously invites Lin Xi to a show. Her apparent refusal—“I can’t go”—turns out to mean he has not yet told her when or where. She accepts, and Gu Yun celebrates.
• Gu Yun tells his friend Zhang Peng that he likes Lin Xi because she is “special.” He admits he may first have been drawn to her because being with her made him feel different from everyone else.
• Zhong Yi concludes that Gu Yun’s later explanation of those original motives hurt Lin Xi, causing her to withdraw and changing their relationship. But important mysteries remain, including the lighthouse, her short hair, the paper rabbits, and the platypus plush.
• The memories shift to Gu Yun’s childhood home. Zhong Yi notices an Earth Dragon skull in the courtyard, but it provides no useful clue. A Cuju ball then leads them to a shattered memory space they cannot enter, prompting Qin Lien to tease Zhong Yi for jinxing their progress.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Xi is revealed to be both constrained by her bloodline and deeply unconventional in how she understands closeness.
• Gu Yun moves from shy, excited courtship to a more complicated realization: his initial attraction may have been rooted in wanting to feel different. His laughter and acceptance show genuine affection for Lin Xi’s peculiar nature.
• Zhang Peng challenges Gu Yun’s romantic idealization, while Gu Yun remains unable to fully explain his feelings.
• Zhong Yi pieces together the reason for Lin Xi’s later withdrawal but recognizes that his explanation does not solve the larger mystery. Qin Lien keeps him focused and later mocks his bad luck.

Significant themes

• Misunderstanding and emotional harm: sincere affection can still hurt when its motives are revealed to be shallow or self-serving.
• Communication and isolation: Lin Xi’s bloodline makes expressing herself physically painful, intensifying her natural distance from others.
• Unconventional intimacy: Lin Xi and Gu Yun find connection in a shared understanding that differs from ordinary ideas of dating and companionship.
• Memory and unresolved truth: each flashback answers some questions while leaving others—and the inaccessible final memory—open.

• At the end of Gu Yun’s memories, Guo Yunfeng and Xu Ci find a gap in his childhood recollections, possibly caused by a serious illness. They decide to use an earlier memory to plant the motivation to join the Nine Heavens Sect, hoping the Cause-and-Effect Formation will make Gu Yun reach the Moon Realm.
• Guo Yunfeng remains convinced Lu Ze’s illusion is flawed. She has avoided interacting with Xu Ci and dismissed the story’s strange details as rushed, poorly explained plot points. Spectators at Leisure Cloud Lake likewise expect Lu Ze to fail, mocking the awkward romance and anticipating his downfall.
• The first attempt fails: activating the formation does not change elderly Gu Yun’s fate. He remains alone beside Lin Xi’s grave rather than appearing in the Moon Realm.
• Qin Lien and Zhong Yi investigate and try again, injecting new causes into many memories—changing a shadow-puppet play, staging a recruitment by the Nine Heavens Sect, and inviting Gu Yun and Lin Xi to the Moon Realm. None of their interventions alters the past: Gu Yun still falls in love with Lin Xi, marries her beneath the lighthouse, loses her to illness, and keeps his vow by growing old alone.
• Character developments and interactions: Guo Yunfeng is observant and methodical but still dismissive of the story’s meaning. Xu Ci proves dependable despite his chatty manner. Qin Lien and Zhong Yi work together, with Zhong Yi proposing explanations while Qin Lien directs the formation; repeated failures leave them baffled and exhausted.
• Themes: The chapter emphasizes the apparent immutability of memory and fate, contrasting attempts to force a new outcome with Gu Yun’s unwavering life story. It also builds dramatic irony: the audience expects Lu Ze to fail, while the unexplained clues and the formation’s resistance suggest the illusion may have a deeper logic.
• New direction: Just as Qin Lien pauses to rest, the main quest updates: they must collect at least four clues in Gu Yun’s dream that defy logic.

Key plot points and events

• In the Illusion Realm, the second half of Act Two lets players investigate contradictions and advance the story by connecting clues.
• Zhong Yi’s first theory—that Lin Xi’s paper rabbits reflected resentment toward Gu Yun—fails for lack of evidence.
• He then notices that Gu Yun claims to like pickled cucumbers and Battle Through the Heavens, but shows no signs of enjoying either. Both deductions are accepted.
• Linking these supposed preferences to Gu Yun’s mother’s habit of calling him “Xiao Feng,” Zhong Yi deduces that those likes belonged to Xiao Feng, not Gu Yun.
• Zhong Yi recognizes that Wen Qingyun, the man who saved Gu Yun, bears the same distinctive red mark as Wen Yaoxin. He confirms that Wen Yaoxin is Wen Qingyun’s grandson, then asks whether Gu Yun has any Gu Worms besides the Heart-Strengthening Gu.

Character developments

• Zhong Yi becomes increasingly confident as he solves the clues, shifting from speculative theories to evidence-based deductions. His breakthrough leads him to investigate Gu Yun’s condition directly.
• Gu Yun appears to have a distorted understanding of his own preferences, suggesting that his identity or memories may be entangled with someone else’s.
• Wen Yaoxin is surprised by Zhong Yi’s sudden recognition and questioning.

Significant themes

• Truth versus accepted belief: Things everyone—including Gu Yun—believes about him may be false.
• Reasoning and discovery: Players uncover the story by spotting inconsistencies and building supported conclusions.
• Identity and hidden connections: The clues suggest a link between Gu Yun, “Xiao Feng,” and the Gu Worms in his body.

Character interactions

• Zhong Yi tests theories through the Evidence System and uses his deductions to guide further investigation.
• He confronts Wen Yaoxin about his family connection to Wen Qingyun, then asks her to reveal whether Gu Yun’s condition involves additional Gu Worms.

Key plot points and events

• Wen Yaoxin reveals that her grandfather, Wen Qingyun, placed a Forget-Worry Gu inside Gu Yun when he was young. It erased some of Gu Yun’s memories; it cannot be removed because it has become part of his body.
• Zhong Yi realizes the Gu could explain Gu Yun’s fragmented past, but not by itself the sense that Gu Yun had taken on another person’s identity. Wen Yaoxin says witchcraft using someone’s hair or flesh could impart a trace of their presence.
• Zhong Yi correctly infers that Gu Yun’s early memories were erased and some of Xiao Feng’s memories merged into them. The system confirms his fourth inference and offers a clue.
• In Gu Yun’s childhood home, clues point to his mother, an Earth Dragon skull, and a bunk bed. Zhong Yi suddenly recognizes the source of the mystery, but the inference task ends before the reader learns his conclusion.
• Qin Lien proposes using the stench of a dead squirrel—similar to the odor in the sealed memory—to help Gu Yun recall that period. Wen Yaoxin agrees to assist with a Gu Worm that temporarily heightens his senses.
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien enter the Dream-Making Formation to try to break the memory seal. A new act begins, introducing cryptic lines about “Lighthouses.”

Character developments and interactions

• Zhong Yi’s investigative confidence grows as he connects the Forget-Worry Gu, Gu Yun’s altered memories, and the clues in the childhood home. His curiosity pushes him to continue investigating even after completing the required inferences.
• Wen Yaoxin explains her family’s involvement and supports the effort, motivated by Gu Yun’s wish.
• Qin Lien takes the lead in devising a practical way to reach the sealed memory, working with Wen Yaoxin and Zhong Yi.
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien cooperate to enter the memory, while the plan depends on Wen Yaoxin guiding Gu Yun from outside.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: Altered or missing memories complicate the question of who Gu Yun is and what shaped him.
• Cooperation and care: The group combines spiritual techniques, medicine, and sensory cues to help Gu Yun.
• Unresolved mystery and discovery: The childhood clues and the new “Lighthouses” reference hint that the truth—and the meaning of “To the Moon Realm”—is larger than Zhong Yi yet understands.

Plot points and events

• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien enter a sealed childhood memory of Gu Yun’s. After stabilizing the collapsing dream world, they discover that the memory centers on a fatal Earth Dragon accident.
• Zhong Yi recognizes that the dragon has three holes near its horns—a sign of a defective bloodline that can cause it to go berserk. The dragon charges at Gu Yun’s Cuju ball, and a child is killed.
• The child who dies is Gu Yun’s older twin brother, Gu Feng. The surviving boy is Gu Yun, whose anguished cry for his brother confirms the truth.
• The unlocked memories reveal that Gu Feng and Gu Yun were close, though their tastes and ambitions differed. After Gu Feng’s death, Gu Yun became gravely ill from grief, and his mother had him given Forget-Worry Gu to erase his memories.
• Unable to bear her own grief and having favored Gu Feng, their mother also tried to remake parts of Gu Yun’s personality using Gu Feng’s remains. She taught him to like his brother’s favorite things and called him “Xiao Feng.”
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien then witness a happier memory from the twins’ last Mid-Autumn Festival. Gu Yun leaves the family gathering and watches the stars alone. As Zhong Yi wonders what other mysteries remain—including why Gu Yun never joined the Nine Heavens Sect and why Lin Xi behaves strangely—a mysterious little girl appears.

Character developments

• Zhong Yi connects the Earth Dragon’s defect to the accident and pieces together the truth behind Gu Yun’s altered identity.
• Qin Lien helps maintain the unstable dream and shares a rare, wistful response to the happy memory, though she quickly hides her feelings.
• Gu Yun is revealed as a survivor burdened by erased grief and a personality partly shaped to resemble his dead brother.
• Gu Feng emerges as Gu Yun’s beloved twin: a lively boy with his own tastes and dream of becoming a poet.
• Their mother is shown as deeply bereaved, but her attempt to overwrite her surviving son’s identity crosses a serious boundary.

Themes and interactions

• The chapter explores grief, memory, identity, and the harm caused by trying to preserve someone who has died by reshaping the living.
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien work together to investigate the memory, while Zhong Yi’s deductions challenge their initial assumptions about the child’s fate.
• The twins’ closeness contrasts with their mother’s favoritism, which becomes more painful in hindsight.
• The final appearance of the silent-eyed girl introduces a new mystery just as Zhong Yi recognizes that Gu Yun’s past may not explain every strange detail.

Key plot points and events

• Young Gu Yun meets a girl sitting on his favorite stump on Mid-Autumn night. She initially runs away, then explains that the spot is hers. Zhong Yi and Qin Lien, watching the memory, recognize her as Lin Xi.
• The children talk about their names and look for a rabbit among the stars. Lin Xi guides Gu Yun to trace a rabbit whose round belly is the moon—a revelation that resolves Zhong Yi and Qin Lien’s questions about the Paper Rabbit and Platypus Doll.
• Lin Xi describes the stars as distant lighthouses: each shines toward the others, though they cannot reach one another. She hopes to become friends with one of them.
• Gu Yun shows Lin Xi the ugly-but-special Platypus Doll he won at ring toss. When his mother calls him home, he gives it to her and promises they will meet again next Mid-Autumn.
• Lin Xi worries they might forget or get lost. Gu Yun reassures her: “We’ll always meet on the moon.”

Character developments

• Gu Yun is open, cheerful, and eager to connect. He apologizes readily, shares his prize, and turns Lin Xi’s worry into a promise.
• Lin Xi begins guarded and reluctant to share her name, but gradually opens up. She reveals her loneliness and longing for connection, then finds comfort and happiness in Gu Yun’s company.
• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien move from confusion to understanding as the childhood meeting explains the clues they had been puzzling over.

Significant themes

• Connection across distance: Lin Xi’s lighthouse metaphor captures the desire to reach others despite isolation.
• Belonging and difference: Gu Yun wants to be special, while Lin Xi wishes for an ordinary name; their contrasting views bring them closer.
• Memory and promises: Their annual meeting agreement—and Gu Yun’s promise about the moon—suggests a bond meant to endure.
• Imagination and wonder: The children make meaning from the stars, finding a rabbit in the moonlit sky.

Character interactions

Gu Yun’s friendly persistence helps Lin Xi feel safe enough to talk. They trade ideas about names, stars, and the Moon Rabbit, then share the Platypus Doll and make plans to meet again. Their gentle exchange transforms a chance encounter into the beginning of a lasting connection.

Key plot points and events

• The phantom scene reveals the childhood promise Gu Yun and Lin Xi made: if they ever became lost or forgot each other, they would meet on the moon.
• This promise explains the earlier clues. Gu Yun sought the To the Moon Realm because of it, but the Forget-Worry Gu erased his memory. Lin Xi treasured the Platypus Doll and their blue-and-yellow Paper Rabbits because they were keepsakes of their first meeting.
• Unable to express her feelings because of the Iceheart Bloodline, Lin Xi repeatedly folded the rabbits and asked Gu Yun to describe them, hoping to revive his memories.
• The cultivators watching realize Lin Xi likely returned year after year to wait for Gu Yun. They grieve over the years she spent waiting and the pain her condition caused.
• Guo Yunfeng realizes the Illusion Realm’s emotional story is about Gu Yun and Lin Xi, not herself and Xu Ci. Though she wants to disengage, the Fearful Soul Entanglement Array compels her to keep watching. She nearly cries but forces herself to maintain her composure.
• In the Main World, Lu Ze is disappointed that Guo Yunfeng has not cried, but says the ordeal is only beginning. He plans to guide her from curiosity into grief with the next part of the story.

Character developments

• Lin Xi emerges as a devoted, quietly suffering figure whose keepsakes and habits are attempts to preserve a bond she cannot openly express.
• Gu Yun is shown to have forgotten the promise that shaped his journey, deepening the tragedy of their separation.
• Guo Yunfeng discovers that her emotional defenses are weakening despite her commitment to the Ruthless Sect’s ideals.
• Lu Ze reveals how deliberately he has engineered the experience, intending to break through Guo Yunfeng’s emotional restraint.

Significant themes

• Memory and promises: A forgotten vow continues to shape the characters’ lives.
• Love expressed indirectly: Lin Xi’s keepsakes and repeated gestures communicate what she cannot say.
• Waiting and lost time: The cultivators emphasize the cost of Lin Xi’s long, fruitless wait.
• Emotional vulnerability: Even someone devoted to ruthlessness may be moved by grief.
• Manipulation through storytelling: Lu Ze turns accumulated clues and emotional revelations into a calculated assault on Guo Yunfeng’s composure.

Character interactions

• Gu Yun and Lin Xi: Their childhood promise and shared keepsakes bind them, but memory loss and separation prevent them from honoring that bond.
• Lin Xi and Guo Yunfeng: Though they do not interact directly, Lin Xi’s story penetrates Guo Yunfeng’s emotional defenses.
• The cultivators and the story: The audience moves from discussing clues to collectively mourning Lin Xi’s suffering.
• Lu Ze and the Heavenly Dao Fragment: The Fragment eagerly wants to make Guo Yunfeng cry, while Lu Ze restrains it and explains that the emotional assault is not yet complete.

Plot points

• Zhong Yi and Qin Lien witness Gu Yun’s childhood memory of meeting Lin Xi. The lighthouse on Perilous Mountain was later named to honor their promise to meet again on the moon if they were separated.
• Zhong Yi realizes Gu Yun’s wish to reach the Moon Realm was never really about the sect or the realm: it was driven by his promise to find Lin Xi again, a promise that survived even after the Forget-Worry Gu erased his memories.
• Qin Lien concludes that Gu Yun will never leave for the Moon Realm while Lin Xi remains in his memories. Bound by a Spirit Contract to send him there in his dream, she decides to erase Lin Xi from his world.
• Zhong Yi tries to stop her, but Qin Lien removes his dream-world permissions and traps him. He battles through obstacles meant to delay him, but reaches her too late: a black-mist hand removes Lin Xi from the memory.
• Qin Lien prepares to restart Gu Yun’s memories, insisting the deed was necessary to fulfill the sect’s mission.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhong Yi moves from grief-stricken understanding to furious resistance, putting Gu Yun’s true happiness above the mission. Despite his resolve, he is powerless against Qin Lien’s control of the dream.
• Qin Lien shows a conflicted but unwavering commitment to her duty. She acknowledges the cruelty of her choice but prioritizes the Spirit Contract and the sect.
• Their clash exposes a sharp divide: Zhong Yi sees preserving Gu Yun’s love as the humane choice; Qin Lien believes sending him to the Moon Realm is an obligation.

Significant themes

• Love and memory: Gu Yun’s promise endures beyond the loss of conscious memory and shapes his lifelong longing.
• Duty versus compassion: The sect’s mission forces a choice between fulfilling an obligation and protecting someone’s deepest attachment.
• Powerlessness and sacrifice: Zhong Yi understands what Gu Yun truly wants but cannot prevent it from being taken away.
• The cost of fulfilling wishes: Sending Gu Yun to the Moon Realm may satisfy the contract while betraying the emotional meaning behind his wish.