Chapter Summaries

After two years in the City of Slaughter, Di Hong returned to Heaven Dou City and reunited with Tang Yuehua, intending to put his killing days behind him and focus on cultivation. Tang Yuehua helped suppress his killing intent and proposed teaching him etiquette and music theory, but Tang Hao resisted joining their lessons.

• Di Hong returned to Heaven Dou City after spending two years killing in the City of Slaughter, resolving to keep a low profile and aid the kingdom's infiltration of the empire.
• At the Marquis Mansion, Tang Yuehua welcomed Di Hong, while Tang Hao and Tang Xiao left the couple to speak privately.
• Tang Yuehua told Di Hong that Ning Fengzhi had become a Soul Saint, Star Luo Empire's border incursion had been repelled, and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect had grown stronger under Ning Fengzhi's leadership.
• Tang Yuehua released her domain to suppress the heavy killing intent surrounding Di Hong, and he agreed to learn from her.
• Tang Yuehua offered to teach Di Hong etiquette and music theory and invited Tang Hao to join, but Tang Hao refused and dismissed the lessons as useless.

Di Hong spent two years studying noble arts while overseeing royal soul masters, and his cultivation rose to level eighty-six as Tang Hao reached Soul Saint. In Silves Kingdom, Di Yang sent the kingdom-trained Ge Long to infiltrate the Heaven Dou Empire’s army and secretly bring it under their control.

• Tang Hao left the Marquis Mansion to return to the Clear Sky Sect and focus on cultivation, while Tang Yuehua began teaching Di Hong etiquette, music, and other instruments.
• Di Hong reviewed the kingdom’s smooth reforms, its military academy graduates, and Di Ming’s expanding intelligence network, while deciding against recruiting Lou Gao and the Blacksmith Association.
• Over two years, Di Hong’s Soul Power reached level eighty-six, Tang Hao became a Soul Saint, and Di Yuan improved with Di Hong’s medicinal herbs.
• Di Yang summoned sixteen-year-old Ge Long, praised his Soul Ancestor rank, and assigned him to join the Heaven Dou Empire’s army as a seemingly loyal subject.
• Di Yang ordered Ge Long to secretly take control of the empire’s army, remove loyalist generals, and replace them with Silves Kingdom supporters; Ge Long accepted the mission and burned the list of names.

Di Hong saw Tang Hao and Tang Xiao off as they left the Clear Sky Sect for ten years of training, while he continued strengthening his influence among Heaven Dou’s royal soul masters. At Spirit Hall, Qian Xunji considered Di Hong a greater future threat than the brothers and kept him under surveillance.

• Di Hong burned a note identifying Ge Long as a Silves Kingdom undercover agent in the Heaven Dou military and considered how Ge Long could gradually gain influence.
• Tang Hao and Tang Xiao visited Di Hong and Tang Yuehua, explained that they would train outside the sect for ten years, and left after discussing Di Hong and Tang Yuehua’s upcoming wedding.
• Di Hong hoped the brothers’ training would go smoothly, though he intended to let events unfold because he needed the Clear Sky Sect and Tang San to hate Spirit Hall.
• Di Hong continued cultivating and building relationships with the royal soul masters while serving as their leader in Heaven Dou City.
• Qian Xunji learned that Tang Hao and Tang Xiao had left the Clear Sky Sect and asked Yue Guan whether Di Hong remained in Heaven Dou City.
• Qian Xunji concluded that Di Hong was a greater threat to Spirit Hall than Tang Hao and Tang Xiao because of his strength, his two Hundred Thousand Year Soul Rings, and his ties to the Clear Sky Sect.

Bibi Dong concealed her relationship with Yu Xiaogang from Qian Xunji, who ordered Gui Mei to investigate her companions. In Heaven Dou City, Di Hong praised Tang Yuehua’s zither playing and suggested she open an academy, but she declined to consider it for now.

• Qian Xunji questioned Bibi Dong about her frequent absences, and she claimed she was going out to meet talented people and gain experience.
• Qian Xunji asked whether Bibi Dong liked anyone in Spirit Hall, while Bibi Dong hid her feelings for Yu Xiaogang, whose Soul Power Level was permanently stuck at level twenty-nine.
• After dismissing Bibi Dong, Qian Xunji ordered Gui Mei to investigate who she had been associating with.
• In the garden of the Marquis Mansion, Di Hong listened as Tang Yuehua played the zither and praised her skill.
• Di Hong suggested that Tang Yuehua open an academy to teach nobles etiquette and music, but she said she was not considering it.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua prepared to marry, with their wedding drawing the Clear Sky Sect and Heaven Dou City together. On the wedding day, Di Hong overcame Tang Hao and Tang Xiao’s playful attempts to stop him and successfully took Tang Yuehua away.

• Di Hong told Dugu Bo that his wedding to Tang Yuehua was set for the sixth of the next month in Heaven Dou City.
• Dugu Bo continued tending medicinal herbs near the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well while intruders were poisoned, blocked, or killed before discovering the well.
• The wedding guests and Tang Yuehua’s family gathered in Heaven Dou City and the Clear Sky Sect as preparations concluded.
• Tang Yuehua dressed for the wedding and teased Tang Hao and Tang Xiao about finding wives.
• At noon, Tang Hao and Tang Xiao tried to stop Di Hong at the Clear Sky Sect’s mountain gate, but he overcame them and took Tang Yuehua away.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua celebrated their wedding, returned to the Clear Sky Sect, and faced pressure from their elders to have children. Di Hong proposed that they travel together, and after Xue Ye approved, the newlyweds visited Ning Fengzhi to discuss their plans.

• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua held their wedding in Heaven Dou City, then spent their wedding night together.
• The next day, Di Hong and Tang Yuehua returned to the Clear Sky Sect, where Tang Wei and the elders urged them to have children.
• Di Yuan left with Shen Ning, Wang Yan, and Di Ming after staying for a few days.
• Di Hong suggested that he and Tang Yuehua travel wherever they found beautiful scenery, and Xue Ye approved their plan.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua visited Ning Fengzhi at the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, where he encouraged them to travel and enjoy the scenery.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua traveled to Flower City for their honeymoon, where Tang Yuehua helped a young flower seller whose father had died and whose mother had disappeared. While waiting to enter the city, they learned that Flower City had once been called Cloud City and had been renamed twenty-three years earlier.

• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua left Heaven Dou City and traveled through Anda Province toward Flower City during its peak blooming season.
• Tang Yuehua bought flowers from a young girl selling them beside the road and gave her a Gold Soul Coin, asking her to give flowers to passing couples.
• Di Hong tucked one of the girl's fragrant flowers into Tang Yuehua's hair, and they continued toward Flower City.
• At the city gate, Tang Yuehua read that Flower City had been renamed from Cloud City twenty-three years earlier, after a new city lord took power.
• Tang Yuehua discovered that the city lord's inherited martial soul was the Black Striped Lotus, but the book gave no further explanation for the city's renaming.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua explored Flower City as preparations for the Hundred Flowers Festival filled the streets. That night, the City Defense Army and Flower City's Spirit Hall Branch searched their hotel for a Black-cloaked Masked Man, but Di Hong had not seen him.

• After passing a strict inspection at the city gate, Di Hong and Tang Yuehua entered Flower City and checked into a couples room.
• Tang Yuehua bought dough figurines of herself and Di Hong, then chose a fiery red brocade robe for him.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua watched two low-level Spirit Masters perform, and Tang Yuehua gave the female performer a Gold Soul Coin.
• That evening, the City Defense Army questioned Di Hong about a Black-cloaked Masked Man and searched his room with help from Flower City's Spirit Hall Branch.

Hua Yang continued the search for three missing Spirit Masters without showing concern, then secretly entered an underground passage beneath his garden. Di Hong and Tang Yuehua learned that people had vanished from Flower City for years and met Tang Hao and Tang Xiao, who had come to investigate the disappearances.

• The City Defense Army commander reported that searches had found neither the missing Spirit Masters nor any clues, and Hua Yang ordered him to continue searching while sending money to Spirit Hall.
• Hua Yang entered a hidden underground passage in the Hundred Flowers Garden after reflecting that disappearances had become common in Flower City.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua heard that three Spirit Masters had gone missing and learned that the city’s residents had grown used to people disappearing each year.
• Tang Yuehua wondered whether the missing Spirit Masters were connected to the flower-selling girl’s missing mother, while patrols and inspections increased across the city.
• Tang Hao and Tang Xiao told Di Hong and Tang Yuehua that they had been assigned to investigate disappearances dating back to Hua Yang’s appointment as city lord, but they had found no leads.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua investigated the disappearances of outsiders during Flower City’s Hundred Flowers Festival and suspected the City Lord’s Mansion. They learned that the mansion was secretly monitoring unfamiliar soul masters and that the city lord’s son had died after his Martial Soul Awakening, leaving the reason for the disappearances unresolved.

• Tang Hao and Tang Xiao left to continue investigating, while Di Hong suspected the City Lord’s Mansion was behind the disappearances.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua discussed the yearly pattern of missing outsiders and considered whether someone in the mansion was using an evil cultivation method.
• Di Hong noticed a street vendor watching them and followed him, using his Vermilion Bird Feather to track the man.
• Di Hong captured and pressured the vendor until he revealed that the City Lord’s Mansion was monitoring unfamiliar soul masters during the festival.
• Tang Yuehua learned that the city lord’s son had died at age six after his Martial Soul Awakening, apparently because of a Martial Soul Mutation.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua investigated the disappearances in Flower City and uncovered questions about the City Lord’s son and the location of the City Lord’s Mansion. Hua Yang learned the identities of the four investigators and feared they would expose his secret, especially as the Hundred Flowers Festival approached.

• Di Hong told Tang Yuehua he had let their spy go and explained that he wanted to provoke whoever was behind the disappearances into revealing themselves.
• Tang Xiao and Tang Hao returned from investigating Flower City without finding useful information, and Tang Yuehua told them the City Lord’s son had supposedly died after his Martial Soul Awakening.
• Tang Xiao noticed that the City Lord’s Mansion stood beside Hundred Flowers Mountain and had been moved there from the eastern part of the city after the new City Lord took office.
• Hua Yang learned that Di Hong, Tang Yuehua, Tang Xiao, and Tang Hao were investigating, and decided to keep a lower profile until they left.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua watched the Hundred Flowers Festival and learned how the enormous Mystic Lotus on Hundred Flowers Mountain worked. Sun He’s explanation led Di Hong to suspect the City Lord had hollowed out the mountain to conceal something about his supposedly dead son.

• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua watched the flower float, dancers, fireworks, and petals fill Flower City during the Hundred Flowers Festival.
• Sun He told Tang Yuehua and Di Hong that the Mystic Lotus had been hidden inside Hundred Flowers Mountain and was raised by a mechanism for the festival.
• Sun He explained that maintaining the lotus consumed nearly half the festival’s revenue and that the mechanism had hollowed out half the mountain.
• Sun He revealed that the City Lord’s son was buried inside the mountain, and Di Hong suspected the construction was meant to conceal a secret.
• Di Hong considered Spirit Hall’s oversight of evil martial souls and concluded that it had grown stronger while beginning a decline that would lead to its destruction.

Tang Xiao and Tang Hao planned to investigate the City Lord's Mansion while Di Hong and Tang Yuehua attended the festival at Hundred Flowers Mountain. At the summit, Di Hong detected blood coming from the enormous Mystic Lotus, suggesting the City Lord's Mansion was hiding something.

• Tang Hao and Tang Xiao found no clues about the missing Spirit Masters and decided to investigate the City Lord's Mansion that night.
• The city lord's convoy and festival visitors headed to Hundred Flowers Mountain as evening fell.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua paid to enter the mountain, climbed together, and found a place near the summit to watch the flowers bloom.
• Di Hong smelled blood beneath the floral fragrance and traced it to the enormous Mystic Lotus.
• Tang Yuehua realized the City Lord's Mansion might have ulterior motives for holding the Hundred Flowers Festival.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua waited for the midnight flower bloom while Tang Xiao and Tang Hao searched Hua Yang's mansion for evidence linking him to the Spirit Master disappearances. The brothers found a hidden passage beneath a garden rockery that appeared to lead to Hundred Flowers Mountain.

• Hua Yang greeted Tang Yuehua on Hundred Flowers Mountain and left after she expressed anticipation for the Giant Lotus's midnight bloom.
• Di Hong said Hua Yang seemed guilty and suspected Tang Xiao and Tang Hao had infiltrated the City Lord's Mansion.
• Tang Xiao and Tang Hao entered the mansion in disguise and searched its grounds but found nothing suspicious.
• Tang Hao and Tang Xiao noticed the garden's overpowering floral scent and wondered if it concealed the Black Striped Lotus Spirit's foul stench.
• Tang Hao pressed a protruding section of the rockery, revealing a secret passage that Tang Xiao believed led to Hundred Flowers Mountain.

Tang Xiao, Tang Hao, Di Hong, and Tang Yuehua uncovered the hidden chambers beneath the Mystic Lotus and found Hua Yang’s supposedly dead son, Hua Yu, feeding on victims’ blood. Hua Yang’s plan to conceal Hua Yu’s evil martial soul was exposed just as Hua Yu’s growing need for stronger victims came to light.

• Tang Xiao and Tang Hao discovered a narrow passage beneath the City Lord’s Mansion that led toward Hundred Flowers Mountain.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua realized the Mystic Lotus concealed a hollowed-out space and a small entrance, and Tang Hao described what he had found in the mansion.
• Tang Xiao, Tang Hao, Di Hong, and Tang Yuehua entered the lotus and followed a blood-scented staircase to a chamber beneath the mountain.
• The group found Hua Yu sitting atop a stone coffin among drained corpses, while Hua Yang watched him affectionately.
• Hua Yang had faked Hua Yu’s death to hide his mutated Black Striped Blood Lotus martial soul, which required him to drink blood each year to survive.
• Hua Yu had reached Soul Emperor rank and needed stronger Spirit Master victims as the people Hua Yang secretly supplied became insufficient.

Di Hong and the others found Hua Yu and Hua Yang, killed them, and returned to the mountain to await the Giant Lotus’s bloom. Realizing the City Lord’s death might have left nobody to activate the Mystic Lotus, they brought Sun He to its platform to start it at midnight.

• Hua Yu demanded stronger victims from Hua Yang, who warned him to stay hidden while the Clear Sky Sect investigated.
• Di Hong, Tang Hao, and the others confronted Hua Yu and Hua Yang in the burial chamber, where Di Hong killed both with Vermilion Bird Li Fire.
• Di Hong left the remains for the province and Spirit Hall to investigate, and the group returned to the mountaintop.
• Tang Xiao pointed out that the City Lord’s death might prevent the Mystic Lotus from blooming, and Tang Yuehua suggested asking Sun He for help.
• Di Hong carried Sun He to the lotus platform and told him to activate it at midnight, leaving Sun He with little choice but to agree.

Di Hong and Tang Yuehua admired the spectacular flower display in Flower City, then traveled north to see the snowfields before exploring the Star Luo Empire. After spending a year there, Di Hong reached Soul Power Level eighty-nine and Tang Yuehua became pregnant, so they prepared to return to Heaven Dou City.

• Sun He activated the mechanism at midnight, causing a giant multicolored lotus and fireworks to bloom across Hundred Flowers Mountain.
• Tang Xiao and Tang Hao left Flower City after the display to continue their commission, while Di Hong and Tang Yuehua planned to travel north and then visit the Star Luo Empire.
• Provincial officials and Spirit Hall announced that Hua Yang had been executed for heinous crimes and revealed his responsibility for the people who had disappeared.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua visited the northern snowfields and spent a year traveling through the Star Luo Empire.
• Di Hong's Soul Power Level reached eighty-nine, and Tang Yuehua became pregnant.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua stopped traveling and prepared to return to Heaven Dou City.

Di Hong and his pregnant wife, Tang Yuehua, celebrated Yelin City's Lantern Festival before encountering Yu Xiaogang searching for Bibi Dong. They reunited with Bibi Dong, who introduced Yu Xiaogang to them.

• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua stayed in Yelin City to enjoy its Lantern Festival and released a lantern together.
• Di Hong recognized Yu Xiaogang searching the streets with a portrait of Bibi Dong, but he and Tang Yuehua said they had not seen her.
• Bibi Dong surprised Yu Xiaogang from behind, then took his hand and ran with him to catch up to Di Hong and Tang Yuehua.
• Di Hong introduced Tang Yuehua to Bibi Dong, and Bibi Dong introduced Yu Xiaogang as the son of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan leader.

Di Hong discussed his Vermilion Bird Martial Soul and astonishing cultivation with Yu Xiaogang, who hoped to learn whether Di Hong’s successful mutation could help his own condition. Di Hong withheld the secret behind his rapid growth, while Tang Yuehua kept quiet about his true innate potential and the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

• Bibi Dong praised Yu Xiaogang as formidable, leaving Di Hong speechless and Yu Xiaogang embarrassed by the comparison with Di Hong’s achievements.
• Yu Xiaogang asked Di Hong about his Vermilion Bird Martial Soul mutation, but Di Hong said it had been that way since awakening and offered no explanation.
• Yu Xiaogang learned that Di Hong had reached level eighty-nine at twenty-five and expressed shock at how quickly he had advanced.
• Di Hong refused to reveal his cultivation secret, telling Yu Xiaogang they were not close enough to share it.
• Tang Yuehua knew Di Hong had innate level-twenty Spirit Power and had cultivated rapidly at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, but she kept both secrets from Yu Xiaogang.

Di Hong, Tang Yuehua, Bibi Dong, and Yu Xiaogang watched two lantern sellers perform, and Yu Xiaogang defended the Clematis martial soul as proof that there were no useless martial souls, only useless people. After Di Hong and Tang Yuehua returned to the inn and later departed Yelin City, Di Hong warned Bibi Dong to beware of those she trusted most, but she assumed he meant Yu Xiaogang and rejected the warning.

• Bibi Dong and the others watched a Clematis martial soul lantern seller outperform a flame martial soul seller, whose show accidentally set his lantern rack on fire.
• Yu Xiaogang questioned the Clematis seller about his Soul Power, and Bibi Dong challenged the flame seller before Yu Xiaogang declared that there were no useless martial souls, only useless people.
• The Clematis seller gave them a lantern, but Di Hong declined to release it with Bibi Dong because Tang Yuehua was pregnant, surprising Bibi Dong.
• Di Hong and Tang Yuehua discussed whether Qian Xunji would accept Bibi Dong and Yu Xiaogang's relationship, and Di Hong said he would not.
• After leaving Yelin City the next day, Di Hong warned Bibi Dong to be wary of those she trusted most, but she insisted Yu Xiaogang would never hurt her.