Chapter Summaries

Lord Canghai escaped the Black Tortoise as a newly strengthened Earthly Immortal spirit and abducted Wei Jiangli to force Li Chu to surrender his body. After Li Chu agreed and Lord Canghai possessed him, Li Chu threatened the stolen body with his flaming Flying Sword, leaving Lord Canghai alarmed.

• Lord Canghai emerged from a blank scroll painting and told his White-robed Youth that he had awakened as an Earthly Immortal after the Black Tortoise swallowed him, but needed a new physical body.
• Su Wan learned Wei Jiangli had vanished before her first show and received a letter demanding that Li Chu come to Tianlu Peak.
• Li Chu arrived at Tianlu Peak, where Lord Canghai demanded his body in exchange for Wei Jiangli's safe return.
• Li Chu sent his primordial spirit out of his body, and Lord Canghai released Wei Jiangli before entering Li Chu's body.
• Lord Canghai marveled at Li Chu's power, then grew alarmed when Li Chu's primordial spirit raised a flaming Flying Sword and declared the transaction over.

Li Chu destroyed Lord Canghai’s Divine Soul with a sword strike, though his own physical body remained unharmed. After confirming Lord Canghai was dead, Li Chu explained the mistakes behind his hatred while Wei Jiangli asked why he was still speaking to him.

• Li Chu struck Lord Canghai’s Divine Soul with the Chunyang Sword, causing a massive shockwave that shattered much of Tianlu Peak.
• The Little Monk and the elders of Facing Heaven Pavilion sensed the blast, and Duan Geng told the elders that Wei Jiangli had been kidnapped and Li Chu summoned to Tianlu Peak.
• The White-robed Youth watched in terror as Li Chu’s body remained standing while Lord Canghai’s Divine Soul was destroyed by the sword’s vibration.
• Li Chu told Lord Canghai that his obsession and habit of treating everything as a business transaction had led him astray.
• Wei Jiangli asked whether Lord Canghai was dead, and Li Chu confirmed it before explaining that he had waited to lecture him until it was safe.

After the Flower Capital Assembly, Li Chu worried over his lost investment in Youlan Pavilion but learned he could eventually recover the money and sell the temple residence for a profit. As the group prepared to leave Divine Luo City, Wang Longqi discovered that Lan Zhi had two sons and casually offered to bring them to meet his parents.

• The Flower Capital Assembly ended with Xie Shirong again winning the Flower Kingdom Top Scholar title, while newer courtesan queens Shang Youya and Qiao Shengzi rose to prominence.
• Li Chu stood on a pavilion roof in despair over his losses until his companions called him down, and Su Wan later offered to repay his investment with interest after next year's assembly.
• Du Lanke decided to leave Divine Luo City with Li Chu, then reported that their residence could sell for at least twice its purchase price.
• Lan Zhi visited Virtuous Cloud Branch Temple to thank Li Chu and reunite with Wang Longqi, who planned to bring her to meet his family.
• Lan Zhi revealed that she had two sons despite never having married, and Wang Longqi froze when she suggested bringing them to his parents.

Li Chu and his companions returned to the newly expanded Virtuous Cloud Temple, where Yu Qi'an welcomed them and explained what he knew about immortal destiny. Their reunion was interrupted when Wang Longqi rushed in saying his father was in trouble.

• Li Chu and his companions traveled south to Yuhang Town and arrived at the newly rebuilt Virtuous Cloud Temple.
• Yu Qi'an, Little Koi, and Ten Thousand Miles Flying Sand welcomed Li Chu, Du Lanke, Fox Girl, and Little Fatty Dragon back to the temple.
• Li Chu recounted his recent deeds, and Yu Qi'an praised him for saving Guo Xiaobao and Divine Luo City.
• Yu Qi'an told Li Chu that immortal destiny was a destined opportunity expected to descend somewhere in Jiangnan within the century, though no one knew its exact form or location.
• Wang Longqi burst into the backyard and urgently told Li Chu that his father was in trouble.

Wang Longqi told Li Chu and Yu Qi'an how a Medicine Beauty had cursed his father and the others who encountered her in the Southern Border. Yu Qi'an said they had to travel to the Southern Border to break the deathly obstruction, leaving Wang Longqi’s father’s fate unresolved.

• Wang Longqi recounted how his father’s herb-buying party found a fresh grave surrounded by wild dogs and learned that a Medicine Beauty had killed Heizhu and cursed Er Laizi.
• Daoist Cen tried to protect Er Laizi, but the Medicine Beauty vanished, killed Er Laizi, and marked the herb collectors with red lines on their wrists.
• Daoist Cen and the other shopkeepers and assistants died one after another, while the red line on Wang Longqi’s father’s wrist continued to grow.
• Wang Longqi asked Li Chu and Yu Qi'an to save his father, and Yu Qi'an said they needed to go to the Southern Border.

Li Chu, Wang Longqi, and Du Lanke reached a Southern Border village while investigating the curse on Wang Longqi’s father. After hearing conflicting accounts about the Medicine Beauty case in Shanbei Village, Li Chu sent Du Lanke to investigate Tie Tou’s dead father, unaware that Du Lanke had already destroyed a walking corpse near Tie Tou’s home.

• Tie Tou heard a voice claiming to be his dead father outside his door, then admitted Li Chu, Wang Longqi, and Du Lanke when they arrived seeking lodging.
• Tie Tou warned the travelers not to discuss Evil Spirits after dark, but Li Chu asked him to tell them what had happened in Shanbei Village.
• Tie Tou described how an old Daoist killed a woman mistaken for an Evil Spirit, after which Er Laizi received compensation and was later found dead with the silver missing.
• Li Chu decided to go to Shanbei Village with Wang Longqi the next morning and left Du Lanke behind to investigate Tie Tou’s father.
• Du Lanke reassured Tie Tou by recounting how he had destroyed a walking corpse near the village entrance, which had come from the direction of Tie Tou’s home.

After Tietou realized the walking corpse they had destroyed might have been his father, he sent Li Chu, Du Lanke, and Wang Longqi away. The three crossed Black Mountain through strange red mist and reached an empty Shanbei Village, where the Old Blind Man said its people had been taken to Sheep Slaughter Cave.

• Tietou politely drove Li Chu, Du Lanke, and Wang Longqi from his home after realizing their account of a walking corpse might concern his father.
• Li Chu, Du Lanke, and Wang Longqi climbed Black Mountain and found it covered in red mist that blocked spiritual senses.
• Li Chu used the Chunyang Sword's flames to repel the red mist and destroy a powerful Lantern Monster as the three crossed the mountain.
• Li Chu found Shanbei Village deserted, and the Old Blind Man emerged to tell them that the villagers had been taken to Sheep Slaughter Cave.
• The Old Blind Man insisted that he had seen the villagers taken to the cave with his own eyes.

Li Chu and his companions followed the Old Blind Man’s lead to Sheep Slaughter Cave, where they found a horde of walking corpses held back by a strange plant formation. They flew past the defenses to investigate, but Du Lanke accidentally triggered an explosive plant as they landed.

• The Old Blind Man told Li Chu and Wang Longqi that Shanbei Village’s people had been captured because someone wanted to use the Medicine Beauty in a great medicine at Black Mountain.
• Li Chu and his companions traveled to Sheep Slaughter Cave and found its entrance surrounded by hundreds of walking corpses drawn to the red mist.
• They saw rows of plants defending the cave by biting, shooting projectiles, and freezing the corpses.
• Li Chu chose to investigate quietly, and the group flew over the plant defenses to land outside the cave.
• Du Lanke stepped on a buried red fruit, which cracked open and began to explode.

Li Chu and his companions entered Sheep Slaughter Cave, killed the Medicine Demon, and freed the captured villagers of Shanbei Village. After Shou Fu woke, he revealed that the Medicine Beauty had come from the Water Wild Plains, giving Li Chu and Wang Longqi a lead in their search.

• Medicine Demon threatened the villagers and fed a crying young man to a Man-Eating Flower while questioning them about the Medicine Beauty.
• A villager identified Shou Fu as the only person still alive who knew where the Medicine Beauty had come from, and Medicine Demon rescued Shou Fu after the flower swallowed him.
• Li Chu, Wang Longqi, and Du Lanke burst into the cave, and Li Chu killed Medicine Demon with a Flying Fire Meteor before his plants could attack.
• The cave's dangerous plants fell quiet, and Li Chu and his companions untied the villagers and learned that Medicine Demon had abducted them to investigate the Medicine Beauty.
• Li Chu revived Shou Fu, who explained that the Medicine Beauty had lived in the Water Wild Plains and had insisted on leaving before sunrise.
• Wang Longqi concluded that they needed to visit the Water Wild Plains to save his father.

Li Chu traced Medicine Beauty’s attack on Shanbei Village to a powerful demon called Medicine Lady, while learning that the curse on Wang Longqi’s father was tied to a life medicine sold in ghost markets. The clue led Li Chu and his companions toward the Underground Ghost Market in the Southern Border.

• The Medicine Demon revived from a deep pool and told the White Bone Demon that a handsome Little Daoist Priest had killed him and destroyed his resurrection medicine.
• A spider demon family hosted a bald woodcutter, then Lianlian welcomed Li Chu, Du Lanke, and Wang Longqi into their pavilion on the Water Wild Plains.
• Li Chu confronted the women about Medicine Beauty, and the mother and daughters transformed into spider demons before Li Chu froze them with a spell.
• The spider demon mother said Medicine Lady had borrowed her pavilion to lure the herb gatherer and was responsible for the deaths and curses in Shanbei Village.
• The mother explained that Medicine Lady’s curse bound a victim’s fate to a life medicine sold in ghost markets, and named the Underground Ghost Market as a place to seek it.

Li Chu, Wang Longqi, and Du Lanke entered the Ghost Market through its hidden passage, where Lord Tongyou ordered them erased. Li Chu destroyed an invisible assassin with a carefully weakened sword strike, and the three passed through Ghost Gate Pass into the market.

• Wang Longqi found the Moon-Reflecting Flowers that marked the hidden route to the Ghost Market, and Li Chu led the group through it.
• Lord Tongyou sensed the three travelers and ordered his minions to erase them.
• Li Chu detected an invisible assassin approaching and warned Wang Longqi and Du Lanke to be careful.
• The assassin attacked, and Li Chu destroyed it with his One-Eighth Spiritual Power Sword without breaking the passage's spatial wall.
• Lord Tongyou dismissed his earlier suspicion as the three travelers successfully passed through Ghost Gate Pass.

Li Chu and his companions entered the Ghost Market to find Life Medicine that could preserve Wang Longqi’s father, but the fish-headed stall owner demanded unusual goods in exchange. When Li Chu refused her demands, Wang Longqi offered his Yang Energy under strict conditions.

• At the Ghost Market gate, Grand Elder suspected Li Chu and his companions, but Lord Tongyou told him not to provoke them.
• Li Chu and his companions searched the eerie market and found a stall selling four stalks of Life Medicine, including one marked with Wang Longqi’s father’s birth date and eight characters.
• Li Chu offered to buy all four stalks, but the fish-headed stall owner demanded rare Yin Souls, freshly peeled women’s faces, or a dragon descendant’s heart instead of silver.
• After Li Chu refused each demand, the stall owner asked for a living person’s Yang Energy, and Wang Longqi offered his with the conditions that she wear a mask and not kiss him on the mouth.

Li Chu and his companions took four stalks of Life Medicine from a Ghost Market stall and escaped without interference from Lord Tongyou. Outside the market, Li Chu killed the revived Medicine Demon, collapsing the gate tower, while Tongyou claimed he had seen nothing.

• Wang Longqi offered his Yang Energy to the Fishman, but Li Chu refused to help it seize Yang Energy from others.
• Li Chu froze the Fishman, and Du Lanke packed up the four stalks of Life Medicine before the three companions left the stall.
• Tongyou told the gatekeeper that Li Chu and his companions had merely completed a transaction with an Immobilization Spell and let them leave the market.
• The Medicine Demon confronted the companions outside the gate and revealed his identity, prompting Li Chu to kill him with the Chunyang Sword.
• Li Chu's Red Dragon attack also destroyed the city gate tower, and Tongyou claimed he had been resting with his eyes closed and had seen nothing.

Li Chu returned from the Southern Border with Wang Longqi and discovered that Wang Longqi’s father had become four identical men after a mysterious scholar left clay figures to ward off a curse. Unable to determine which Shopkeeper Wang was real, Li Chu returned to Virtuous Cloud Temple for advice and found the young scholar waiting with Yu Qi'an.

• Li Chu accompanied Wang Longqi back to the Wang Family, where four identical Shopkeeper Wangs appeared instead of one.
• Wang Dalong explained that a young scholar had left three clay figures to protect Shopkeeper Wang from a curse, and the figures vanished before four fathers appeared.
• Li Chu found that all four Shopkeeper Wangs bore the same curse mark, but none matched Wang Dalong in a bloodline test.
• Li Chu left Du Lanke to watch over the Wang Family and returned to Virtuous Cloud Temple to consult his Master.
• Li Chu arrived in the backyard and met the young scholar in white robes who had been speaking with Yu Qi'an.

Li Maoqing, the Imperial Preceptor of He Luo, visited Virtuous Cloud Temple to meet Li Chu and invite him to the Immortal Sect Examination, where he could join the newly strengthened Mountains and Rivers Bureau. Li Chu declined the offer and the chance to succeed Li Maoqing, then admitted he regretted giving up the competition’s prize money.

• Li Chu learned that Li Maoqing had used three clay doubles to protect the Wang Family’s Seventh Young Master from a curse, and Li Maoqing gave him a talisman to identify the doubles.
• Li Maoqing said Gongsun Zhe, Duan Lulong, and Master Jintan had praised Li Chu, with Master Jintan saying that the future belonged to him.
• Li Maoqing invited Li Chu to skip the preliminary round of next year’s Immortal Sect Examination and explained that its winners could join the Mountains and Rivers Bureau.
• Li Chu declined the invitation and the prospect of succeeding Li Maoqing as Imperial Preceptor, saying he preferred life at Virtuous Cloud Temple.
• After Li Maoqing left, Yu Qi'an pointed out that Li Chu had turned down a large prize, and Li Chu admitted he regretted it.

Li Chu resolved the Wang Family’s impostor problem, then turned Virtuous Cloud Temple’s growing household toward study. Chen Huaji arrived with a strange case from the Southern Border, ending his account with the sight of a crow’s eye in an abandoned manor.

• Li Chu used talisman water to dissolve three of the four Wang Family shopkeepers into muddy water.
• Li Chu found Little Koi and Fox Girl attending school and ordered Old Du to teach Little Fatty Dragon and Ten Thousand Miles Flying Sand.
• Chen Huaji visited Virtuous Cloud Temple and asked Li Chu to help investigate a case that might earn him a transfer from the Southern Border.
• Chen Huaji described how people sent to keep watch in an abandoned manor were found hanged, then admitted he had watched the manor from outside.
• Chen Huaji recounted seeing a crow land in the manor garden and cry out before he saw an eye.

Li Chu and Chen Huaji investigated the haunted Shen Family Manor, where an eye-shaped Evil Spirit used illusions to attack them. Li Chu uncovered the spirit’s origin at a dried pond and drew the Chunyang Sword as its resentment gathered.

• The White Bone Demon told the Medicine Demon that Li Maoqing had arrived in the Southern Border, and they hurried to join the effort against him.
• Li Chu and Chen Huaji searched the Shen Family Manor but found nothing unusual before nightfall.
• An enormous eye appeared on the gate and trapped Chen Huaji in an illusion, while a second eye opened on his back and attacked Li Chu.
• Li Chu used a burst of golden light to drive the eye away, then chased the fleeing Yin Qi to the dried pond.
• The pond’s eye showed a White Clad Woman having her eyes gouged out and falling into the pond, and Li Chu drew the Chunyang Sword as the Resentful Qi gathered.

Li Chu destroyed the powerful Evil Spirit in Shen Family Manor, while Li Maoqing confronted demons who had impersonated Qin Zhenghu and plotted to revive the City of Immortal Slaughter. The demons summoned the Wood Man King and formed an array against Li Maoqing, and the next morning Li Chu found the apparently battered State Preceptor trapped in a roadside pit.

• Li Chu used the Chunyang Sword to destroy the merged pupil spirit and Vengeful Spirit, obliterating Shen Family Manor in the blast.
• Li Chu explained the Evil Spirit’s origins to Chen Huaji, and they told a Shen Family servant that the haunting was gone.
• At Tiannan Military Town, Li Maoqing exposed an impostor posing as his disciple Qin Zhenghu and discovered the Eight Demons under the City Lord of Immortal Slaughter.
• Li Maoqing overwhelmed the Eight Demons with countless avatars, but the Wood Man King descended and the demons began forming their Eight-Demon Immortal-Slaughtering Array.
• The Wood Man King revealed his grudge against Li Maoqing from their encounter thirty years earlier as the battle escalated.
• The next morning, Li Chu and Chen Huaji heard a scholar calling for help and found Li Maoqing lying at the bottom of a roadside pit.

After escaping the demons, Li Maoqing told Li Chu and Chen Huaji how the City of Immortal Slaughter had stripped away his cultivation and asked to recover at Virtuous Cloud Temple. The Medicine Demon sensed Li Maoqing nearby and set off to find him.

• The eight demons argued over Li Maoqing’s escape, then split up to search for him in Southern Border.
• Li Chu and Chen Huaji rescued Li Maoqing from a pit and brought him to an inn.
• Li Maoqing explained that a demon had impersonated his former disciple Qin Zhenghu and that the demons’ array had erased his cultivation.
• Li Maoqing decided not to return to Zhao Ge City and accepted Li Chu’s invitation to recover at Virtuous Cloud Temple.
• The Medicine Demon sensed Li Maoqing’s remaining immortal-slaughter power and hurried to capture him.

Li Chu killed the Medicine Demon again after it rushed to attack Li Maoqing, then heard Li Maoqing’s suspicion that the City of Immortal Slaughter planned to use Chen Fuhuang’s corpse to breach the barrier between the Demon Land and the human world. Li Chu agreed to investigate the Fuhuang Great Tomb in Southern Border, while the chapter ended with seven demons waiting at a deep pool and calling for the Medicine Demon to come out.

• The Medicine Demon sensed Li Maoqing’s presence, charged toward him, and found him roasting chicken with Li Chu and Chen Huaji.
• The Medicine Demon tried to flee, but Li Chu killed it with a restrained strike of the Chunyang Sword.
• Li Maoqing explained that the demons could rebuild their bodies after death, though each defeat weakened them and disrupted their plans.
• After Chen Huaji escorted Li Chu and Li Maoqing to Virtuous Cloud Temple, Li Maoqing asked Li Chu to investigate the Fuhuang Great Tomb in Southern Border.
• Li Maoqing suspected the City of Immortal Slaughter wanted to use Chen Fuhuang’s corpse to break through the barrier between the Demon Land and the human world, and Li Chu agreed to help.
• At a deep pool on Withered Mountain, seven demons waited as the water churned and then settled, and the White Bone Demon called for the Medicine Demon to come out.