Chapter Summaries

Meng Anli witnessed the village chief frame Chu Feibai for Madam Shugen’s death and learned that he was conspiring with a dragon-like black mist to sacrifice cultivators. She returned to Cang Er’s home with news and dragon-killing poison, then set out with her companions as Cang Er’s Mother warned them to stay out of what lay ahead.

• After Madam Shugen died, Shugen’er and the village chief accused Chu Feibai, restrained him with Immortal Binding Ropes, and dragged him away for execution.
• Meng Anli overheard the village chief and the black mist discussing their plan to feed on Chu Feibai and the other cultivators, including Meng Anli and her companions.
• Meng Anli returned to Cang Er’s home, told Lu Yao that Chu Feibai had been framed, and took a bottle of poison that could kill a dragon.
• Meng Anli, Lu Yao, Mo Ziqian, and the others prepared to investigate, but Cang Er’s Mother urged them not to interfere with what they saw or heard.

Meng Anli and the others confronted Cang Er's Mother, who revealed that Cang Er's Father had been poisoned by Dong Gan and that the village chief had concealed the murder. She also recounted how she freed a nail from the imprisoned dragon in hopes of reviving her husband, leaving the dragon promising revenge and prosperity but saying he could not bring him back yet.

• Meng Anli told Cang Er's Mother that the village chief was sacrificing villagers to the imprisoned dragon, and Cang Er arrived as his mother reacted.
• Cang Er's Mother confessed that Dong Gan had poisoned Cang Er's Father out of envy after the man's fortune improved.
• Cang Er's Mother recalled that the village chief had covered up the poisoning and erased Dong Gan's memories after he confessed.
• Cang Er's Mother discovered the dragon trapped beneath the village and pulled a nail from his spine in exchange for his promise to help her.
• The dragon told Cang Er's Mother to bury the nail beneath the plantain tree and promised revenge, but said he could not revive her husband until he escaped the formation.

Cang Er's Mother revealed how the village chief had used her to free and restrain the dragon, and Meng Anli exposed her suspicions about the woman’s motives. At the execution ground, Meng Anli summoned Madam Shugen’s soul, leaving the village chief unable to deny that he knew the truth about her death.

• Cang Er's Mother recounted how she freed the dragon with the Soul-Fixing Nail and later helped suppress it by turning the northern water into a cesspit.
• Cang Er's Mother warned Meng Anli and her companions that the dragon had begun attacking again, but Meng Anli questioned her knowledge and motives.
• Meng Anli and her companions went to the execution ground, where the village chief prepared to execute Chu Feibai despite Yin Lian's objections.
• Meng Anli interrupted the execution and used a talisman to summon Madam Shugen’s soul so they could ask who had killed her.
• The village chief called the soul fake, and Meng Anli pointed out that his response suggested he knew where the real body was; he stayed silent because Zuo Yuan had eaten it.

Meng Anli saved Chu Feibai from execution and exposed evidence that the village chief was connected to demons and the village’s misfortunes. After discovering that Cang Er and his mother were not truly family, she secretly replaced the Soul-Fixing Nail beneath their banana tree, while the village chief and a dragon remained at large.

• Madam Shugen revealed that her husband had come to take her away, and Meng Anli used her testimony to challenge Chu Feibai’s execution.
• Chu Feibai explained that he had pursued sinister yin energy to protect Madam Shugen, while Zhu Rongyao, Lu Yao, and the villagers persuaded the village chief to release him.
• Meng Anli exposed the village chief’s connection to black mist and pointed out that families living near the water suffered unexplained deaths and injuries.
• Yin Lian freed Chu Feibai, then confirmed that Cang Er and his mother were not truly family.
• Meng Anli went to Cang Er’s home, removed the Soul-Fixing Nail beneath the banana tree, and replaced it with a pill that could poison a dragon.
• Cang Er and his mother disappeared, and Meng Anli warned her companions that they might be caught if they confronted the village chief and dragon together.

Meng Anli kept the villagers gathered while the village chief and Zuo Yuan waited in a pit for her, eventually realizing she had anticipated their trap. The village chief emerged to find her and the villagers waiting, then struggled to explain why he had been investigating the waterways.

• Meng Anli reasoned that the village chief cared about the villagers and that protecting them could force him to reveal a weakness.
• The village chief and Zuo Yuan waited in the pit, attacking passing fish, frogs, and a leaf as they watched for Meng Anli.
• After Meng Anli failed to appear overnight, Zuo Yuan and the village chief concluded she had likely anticipated their plan and might be guarding the pit’s exit.
• Zuo Yuan used black mist to learn that Meng Anli was in the village center with the villagers, and the village chief flew out of the pit.
• Shugen'er asked why the village chief had emerged from the pit, and he said he had investigated the waterways after Meng Anli raised concerns about incomplete families among the neighbors.

Meng Anli confronted the village chief and went underwater to find Zuo Yuan, hoping to learn whether he wanted help escaping or punishing the village chief. Zuo Yuan took her questions as mockery and trapped her in shrinking water mist.

• Meng Anli proposed splitting the group, then arranged for Yin Lian and the other disciples to watch the village chief and villagers while she went underwater.
• The village chief believed Zuo Yuan would defeat Meng Anli and planned to alter the villagers’ memories afterward.
• Meng Anli found Zuo Yuan, who had a human head and dragon body, and asked what he wished for.
• Zuo Yuan accused Meng Anli of mocking him and attacked her with black mist that enveloped her.
• Meng Anli slashed the water mist with the Azure Water Sword, but it quickly reformed and closed in around her.

Meng Anli discovered that Zuo Yuan’s Water Mist Prison was condensed spiritual power and began absorbing its circulating currents to strengthen her own. Outside the prison, Mo Ziqian continued fighting Zuo Yuan while Yuan Tuo urged his master to intervene before the prison crushed Anli.

• Meng Anli failed to escape the shrinking Water Mist Prison with attacks or transformation, and realized its currents struck her spiritual power rather than merely touching her body.
• Meng Anli understood that the prison was Zuo Yuan’s condensed spiritual power and began following its currents to absorb them.
• After briefly withdrawing her spiritual power, Meng Anli found it had become more condensed and her stagnant cultivation had begun to advance.
• Mo Ziqian remained locked in battle with Zuo Yuan while the black mist restrained the others, and Zuo Yuan expected the prison to crush Meng Anli.
• Yuan Tuo warned his master that Zuo Yuan had used his ultimate killing move on Anli and asked whether they would intervene.

Meng Anli circulated her magical power through the Water Mist Prison and discovered that it let her experience Zuo Yuan’s memories. She broke through to Grand Unity Mysterious Immortal, but remained trapped and continued to work her magic through the prison’s currents.

• Yun Jing assured Yuan Tuo that Anli could resist Zuo Yuan’s mind-bewitching ability, while the other academy masters worried about the danger she faced.
• Meng Anli endured the Water Mist Prison’s pain and saw increasingly vivid images as her magical power made more revolutions.
• Meng Anli realized the images were Zuo Yuan’s memories, including his childhood and a battle in which Yun Jing faced a powerful demon.
• Meng Anli urged Zuo Yuan to watch Yun Jing’s fight, but Zuo Yuan hid underwater, so she suppressed his memories and returned to the prison.
• Meng Anli discovered that she had advanced to Grand Unity Mysterious Immortal and resumed circulating her magical power through the Water Mist Prison.

Meng Anli explored Zuo Yuan’s memories and discovered how the village chief helped him after Yuan Tuo punished his attempted rebellion. After breaking Zuo Yuan’s Water Mist Prison, she tried to recreate it, leaving him trapped in a new one that he quickly destroyed.

• Meng Anli saw Zuo Yuan’s memories of serving Yuan Tuo and learned that the village chief urged him to seize the North Sea while Yuan Tuo was away.
• Yuan Tuo returned, defeated Zuo Yuan’s rebellion, gouged out his eyes, drained much of his magic power, and ordered him sent to Han Chuan.
• The village chief gave Zuo Yuan his eyes, then hammered Soul-Fixing Nails into Zuo Yuan’s legs after lulling him to sleep.
• Meng Anli cultivated until the Water Mist Prison collapsed, prompting Zuo Yuan to demand that she come out.
• Meng Anli formed a new Water Mist Prison with forty-nine rotations, but Zuo Yuan broke it, and she proposed trying eighty-one rotations next time.

Meng Anli defeated Zuo Yuan and exposed that he had been posing as Cang Er's Mother to lure cultivators into a trap. Zuo Yuan collapsed after using the so-called Soul-Fixing Nail, and the chapter ended with him accepting his defeat after learning Meng Anli had hidden her cultivation.

• Meng Anli and the disciples attacked Zuo Yuan, and she stabbed him in the back and pierced his tail with the Azure Water Sword.
• Zuo Yuan revealed himself as an incomplete black flood dragon, escaped into the sky, and dug up the Soul-Fixing Nail beneath the banana tree.
• Zuo Yuan drove the nail into his back and unleashed black mist that overwhelmed the villagers, but Yin Lian's arrow pierced his eye and the medicine soon brought him down.
• Meng Anli questioned Zuo Yuan and explained how his disguise as Cang Er's Mother and his attempts to lure the cultivators had exposed him.
• Zuo Yuan realized Meng Anli had returned in disguise and advanced to Grand Unity Mysterious Immortal, then accepted that losing to her was not humiliating.

Meng Anli exposed how the village chief had used Cang Er's Mother and blamed him for the villagers’ losses. The chief then persuaded the villagers to side against the cultivators, while Zuo Yuan questioned whether the chief had ever truly cared for him.

• Zuo Yuan revealed that Cang Er's Mother had taken arsenic with her son after failing to stop him, and both had become his nourishment.
• Mo Ziqian explained that the village chief had discovered Cang Er's Mother eavesdropping and deliberately let her approach Zuo Yuan; Zuo Yuan admitted the chief had used her to help him move freely.
• The villagers blamed the village chief for their families’ deaths, and Meng Anli accused him of causing the tragedy by bringing Zuo Yuan back.
• The village chief urged the villagers to offer the cultivators to Zuo Yuan, claiming he could grow stronger, bring the dead back, and secure five hundred years of prosperity.
• The villagers turned against Meng Anli and the disciples, but Zuo Yuan rejected the chief’s claim that they would fight together and asked whom the chief would save if he and the villagers were both in danger.
• Shugen'er defended the chief’s proposal, saying Zuo Yuan would become the village’s god if he killed the cultivators and protected them.

Meng Anli exposed the village chief’s schemes and helped the disciples fight him, while Zuo Yuan revealed that he had mistaken poison for a ruined inner core. After Zuo Yuan surrendered, he led the group beneath the cesspit to his treasures, but no one moved to take them.

• Zuo Yuan rejected the village chief’s offer and revealed how the chief had repeatedly manipulated him, while Meng Anli said she would spare him.
• Meng Anli identified the village chief as a North Sea exile and sent Chu Feibai’s team to fight him as a test of their strength.
• Zuo Yuan learned that Meng Anli had used poison to temporarily disperse his spiritual power instead of destroying his inner core, and he begged her for another chance.
• Meng Anli demanded Zuo Yuan’s treasures, and he led her and the disciples beneath the cesspit to retrieve them.
• The group found a resplendent, fragrant treasure chamber, but Meng Anli and the others did not move to take anything.

Meng Anli and the disciples left the secret realm after forcing the village chief to fight for days and helping every disciple gain a level. Yun Jing had already returned to Beiming, disappointing Meng Anli, while Zuo Yuan was handed over to her group and questioned whether they had truly come from North Sea.

• Meng Anli left Zuo Yuan in charge of distributing treasures, then watched the village chief fight while the disciples trained and gained levels.
• Yun Jing departed for Beiming with Yuan Tuo, telling him to wait until Meng Anli returned to the academy before seeing her.
• The exhausted village chief begged Meng Anli to stop making him fight, and she reminded him that he would have to pay for the villagers' destroyed homes.
• Zuo Yuan asked to leave with Meng Anli and accepted that she would hand him over to the Great King; the villagers then dragged the village chief back and attacked him.
• Meng Anli left the secret realm and learned that Yun Jing had already departed, while Zuo Yuan asked whether she and her companions had been sent by North Sea.

After Xuantian Academy’s procession departed, Meng Anli contacted the Wolf King to ask about Crown Prince Shaoguang, but a demon ambushed her and transported her to the Demon Realm. Badly burned by the Netherflame Night Demon’s fire, she reached a town and tried to figure out how to disguise herself.

• Meng Anli learned that Zuo Yuan had not known she and her companions were academy disciples, and Lu Yao explained that their teachers were the Great King and Great Emperor Dangmo.
• Guang Ling bid farewell to Yin Lian and returned to Xuantian Academy’s departing procession.
• Meng Anli checked Shaoguang’s messages, then contacted the Wolf King, who said Shaoguang had been busy with his career and had not been seeing other girls.
• A demon disguised as Lu Yao appeared, announced that Meng Anli was in the Demon Realm, and said he had made separate arrangements for her friends.
• The Netherflame Night Demon attacked Meng Anli, whose fire-resistant flame only intensified his blaze; she fled into a blood-red river but remained in agony as the netherfire corroded her body and soul.
• Meng Anli flew to a small town, watched the passing demons, and looked in a mirror to assess her badly burned appearance.

Meng Anli searched the Demon Realm town for a cure to her netherflame poisoning and learned that Floating Life Water could heal it. She followed the trail to the home of the number one beauty, but her worsening injuries left her helpless when Yuan Jin fell on her.

• Meng Anli discovered that netherflame had left her left leg numb, used a branch as a crutch, and entered the town to find information.
• Yuan Jin knocked Meng Anli down, gave her a money pouch, and left after she claimed she was hurt.
• Meng Anli overheard that Floating Life Water could cure netherflame and that a young master had brought a gourd to win the number one beauty's favor.
• Meng Anli followed the crowd to the beauty's home, but worsening pain stopped her from using magic to sneak inside.
• A heavy object fell onto Meng Anli, and Yuan Jin scrambled off her after realizing he had landed on her.

Meng Anli used an Eastern Pearl to get into the courtyard with Yuan Jin, hoping to see the First Beauty and obtain Floating Life Water. There she discovered that the Demon Realm’s First Beauty was Meng Shiwan, who noticed her disguised as Yuan Jin’s maid.

• Yuan Jin accidentally landed on Meng Anli and made her cough up blood, then explained that he had climbed into the First Beauty’s grounds and been thrown out by demons.
• Meng Anli gave Yuan Jin an Eastern Pearl and told him she would pose as his maid so they could enter through the gate.
• Yuan Jin presented the pearl to the gatekeeper, and he and Meng Anli entered the courtyard.
• Yuan Jin criticized the First Beauty’s appearance loudly, and Meng Shiwan appeared to challenge him.
• Yuan Jin quickly praised Meng Shiwan, while Meng Anli recognized her and hunched over to avoid being identified.
• Meng Shiwan noticed Meng Anli and exclaimed that the supposed maid was actually a young lady.

Meng Anli and Yuan Jin met Meng Shiwan, who tried to buy Meng Anli as her maid while humiliating her in front of the young masters. Meng Anli agreed to go with Meng Shiwan to get closer to the Floating Life Water, and the chapter ended with her planning to use the Yuan family’s status to her advantage.

• Meng Shiwan grabbed Meng Anli’s hand, then pretended to fall and let the young masters praise her beauty while insulting Meng Anli.
• Yuan Jin defended Meng Anli, but Meng Shiwan offered to take her as a maid and promised to improve her appearance.
• Meng Anli agreed to go with Meng Shiwan despite Yuan Jin’s warning, hoping the opportunity would help her obtain the Floating Life Water.
• Meng Shiwan mocked Meng Anli’s appearance and impaired leg as the young masters laughed, while Meng Anli endured the pain and hurried toward her.
• Yuan Jin threatened the young masters with the Yuan family’s name, and Meng Anli realized she could use the family’s standing in the Demon Realm in her plan.

Meng Anli tried to obtain Floating Life Water from Meng Shiwan while concealing her plans from Yuan Jin. She realized Meng Shiwan had lured her into a trap, but still maneuvered to get Yuan Jin to accept a drop, leaving the outcome uncertain.

• Yuan Jin pursued Meng Anli, and she tried to keep him from taking her away by claiming she wanted to stay with Meng Shiwan and become prettier.
• Meng Shiwan brought Meng Anli into her room, questioned her about Yuan Jin, and learned that his friend had been injured by Netherflame.
• Meng Anli asked for Floating Life Water, and Meng Shiwan revealed a gourd, offering a drop to Yuan Jin while claiming she wanted credit for saving his friend.
• Meng Anli realized Meng Shiwan had expected her arrival and suspected the Three Corpses Demon had arranged the trap to humiliate her.
• Meng Shiwan gave Yuan Jin a drop of Floating Life Water, and Meng Anli quickly claimed she had requested it, hoping Yuan Jin would not contradict her.

Meng Anli took the Floating Life Water from Yuan Jin and cured her fire poison while keeping her burned appearance concealed. She stayed with Meng Shiwan to learn about the Three Corpses Demon, then overheard that the Netherflame Night Demon had burned Meng Anli but failed to track her afterward.

• Yuan Jin gave Meng Shiwan's Floating Life Water to Meng Anli, who drank it and recovered from the fire poison while maintaining her scorched appearance.
• Meng Anli challenged Meng Shiwan's claim that Yuan Jin had compromised her purity, and Yuan Jin sided with Anli.
• Meng Anli refused Yuan Jin's offer to leave with him and insisted on staying with Meng Shiwan to become beautiful.
• Meng Shiwan ordered Meng Anli out so she could answer her Communication Mirror, but Anli stayed and secretly listened.
• The Three Corpses Demon told Meng Shiwan that the Netherflame Night Demon had burned Meng Anli early and left without sending a demon to track her.

Meng Anli learned that the Three Corpses Demon had arranged for her to be burned and that Meng Shiwan was searching for her without knowing her identity. She joined Meng Shiwan’s search disguised as a scarred maid, intending to make “Meng Anli” die at the right moment.

• The Three Corpses Demon told Meng Shiwan to search for Meng Anli and give her Floating Life Water if she was near death, while Meng Anli secretly listened and learned Meng Shiwan did not know who she was.
• Meng Shiwan asked the disguised Meng Anli to get Young Master Yuan to mobilize his household, then showed her portraits of Meng Anli and warned that her sister was beautiful and dangerous.
• Meng Shiwan told the gathered young masters that Meng Anli had been burned by the Netherflame Night Demon, and they offered to help find her.
• Meng Anli encouraged Yuan Jin to join the search, but Yuan Jin refused to mobilize his Lineage for Meng Shiwan and focused his attention on the disguised maid.
• Meng Shiwan arranged a carriage for Yuan Jin and Meng Anli, and Meng Anli agreed to go along so she could help make “Meng Anli” die at the right time.