Chapter Summaries

Gu Shen met Lin Lin alone in the restored Conference Room and asked him to obtain materials from Northern Continent. Lin Lin agreed, but their identities remained concealed as they made the transaction a first step toward building trust.

• The Key contacted Lin Lin through the Mental Link and brought him into the reopened Conference Room for a private meeting.
• Gu Shen explained that he could contact the Wandering Souls, then said he had stabilized the Conference Room and erased its old records from Deep Sea.
• Gu Shen asked Lin Lin to acquire materials listed for him, explaining that he had selected Lin Lin because of his Northern Continent connections.
• Lin Lin agreed to obtain the materials but asked to meet Gu Shen and see the Key in person.
• Gu Shen said meeting openly was too risky and proposed that they build trust through the transaction, and Lin Lin accepted and asked for its details.

After securing a deal for the Tomb Keeper’s materials, Gu Shen wandered Snow Forbidden City and learned that his victory over Shen Li and mastery of the Grain Rain Scroll had drawn a crowd and sparked comparisons with Bai Xiu. The Witch of the Bai Family confronted him and declared that he could never defeat Little Xiu.

• Lu Nanzhi learned that Gu Shen had confirmed a deal with 073, who had agreed because he was interested in their identities.
• Gu Shen walked through Snow Forbidden City and watched the Ning River flow beneath its ice while reflecting on the city’s warmth and the tomb beneath it.
• Chu Ling told Gu Shen that 174 visitors, including 131 Prison Institute Transcendents, had gathered at the Gu family villa to see him.
• Chu Ling said Deep Water Zone commenters doubted Gu Shen’s victory over Shen Li and debated whether he could match Bai Xiu, whose strength far surpassed his own.
• The Witch of the Bai Family approached Gu Shen and insisted that Little Xiu would defeat him whenever they fought.

Bai Lu confronted Gu Shen on the Ning River bridge and used the A-class dream Sealed Item Thorn Dream to trap him. Gu Shen destroyed the dream with his Blazing Fire, but Bai Lu saw a mysterious girl standing amid the flames and thorns.

• Bai Lu tried to influence Gu Shen with her mental power, but his Blazing Fire blocked her hypnosis.
• Bai Lu revealed that Han Dang had hired her to dampen Gu Shen’s momentum, then attacked him with Thorn Dream.
• Gu Shen used the Blazing Fire to see through the dream’s illusions while Bai Lu reshaped the landscape and overwhelmed him with thorns.
• When Bai Lu offered her hand, Gu Shen called her a crazy woman and released his grip on the bridge railing.
• Gu Shen turned himself into fire and detonated Thorn Dream, and Bai Lu saw an ethereal girl at the bottom of the Ning River.

After escaping Bai Lu’s dangerous dream, Gu Shen talked with Chu Ling about her feelings and discovered that she could experience annoyance and warmth. Chu Ling admitted that she liked Gu Shen.

• Bai Lu returned to the real world and realized Gu Shen had vanished from the bridge.
• Gu Shen and Chu Ling discussed Bai Lu’s dream and whether she had intended to harm him.
• Chu Ling admitted she had wanted Gu Shen to make a fool of himself and wondered if that meant she felt annoyed with him.
• Chu Ling recalled feeling nervous and moved when Gu Shen chose to fall into the Ning River rather than take Bai Lu’s hand.
• Chu Ling told Gu Shen that she liked him.

Gu Shen confessed his feelings to Chu Ling before Gong Zi and Mu Nan confronted him with an invitation to dinner. Gong Zi revealed that the Gong Family’s eldest legitimate son wanted to offer Gu Shen help against Bai Lu’s pursuit, but his offer remained unfinished.

• Gu Shen told Chu Ling that he liked her, and she warned him that someone was approaching.
• Gong Zi and Mu Nan blocked Gu Shen’s path and invited him to dinner.
• Chu Ling identified Gong Zi as the Gong Family’s eldest legitimate son and Mu Nan as a member of the Mu Family.
• Mu Nan used spiritual projection to show that they had tracked Bai Lu, whom Wind Eye had been watching.
• Gong Zi said Bai Lu would keep pursuing Gu Shen and began presenting his status as the Gong Family’s eldest legitimate son as his trump card.

Gu Shen joined Gong Zi and Mu Nan for clear-broth hot pot, while Chu Ling experienced hunger and envy through their Mental Link. The chapter ended with Gu Shen promising to wait for her and share a meal if she ever reached the real world.

• Gu Shen accepted Gong Zi's invitation to dinner, despite Chu Ling warning that dining with him could bring trouble.
• Gong Zi explained the northern hot-pot custom as Gu Shen tried sesame flatbread and beef, and Chu Ling watched through the Mental Link.
• Chu Ling grew intensely envious of the food and told Gu Shen that she was hungry.
• Gu Shen entered Chu Ling's train space, where she said she wanted boiled beef, sesame flatbread, roasted sweet potato, and red-oil hot pot.
• Gu Shen reassured Chu Ling that she could someday come to the real world and promised to eat whatever she wanted with her.

During dinner, Gong Zi and Mu Nan questioned Gu Shen about his cultivation of the Breath of Spring and his unusual aura. Gong Zi then offered the Gong Family’s help, warning that Gu Shen’s recent actions would bring trouble.

• Gu Shen practiced the Breath of Spring during dinner while Gong Zi and Mu Nan discussed how restrained his aura was compared with Bai Xiu’s.
• Gu Shen explained that he and Bai Xiu followed different paths, and Gong Zi described the risks of cultivating the Four Seasons Wilderness before forming a Domain Embryo.
• Gong Zi asked about Gu Shen’s black Mental Radiance, but Gu Shen said he did not know what caused it.
• Gong Zi explained that their dinner would become public knowledge and warned that Gu Shen had made enemies by hitting Shen Li, provoking the Prison Institute, and offending a woman from the Bai Family.
• Gong Zi offered the Gong Family’s help to reduce the trouble Gu Shen would face.

Gu Shen rejected Gong Zi and Mu Nan’s offer to join their alliance, saying he would avoid all the major families and cultivate quietly. After learning that the Snow Forbidden City Rookie Competition’s champion would receive a dream of insight into the Fire Seed, he became interested, while Gong Zi named him alongside Bai Xiu as a potential rival.

• Gong Zi offered Gu Shen the support of the Gong and Mu Families, but Gu Shen declined because he had also refused the Bai Family’s offer and wanted no alliance.
• Gong Zi invited Gu Shen to reconsider and told him about the upcoming Rookie Competition, but Gu Shen initially said he would not participate.
• Gong Zi revealed that the competition’s champion would receive a dream of insight into a Fire Seed, a rare opportunity linked to testing one’s potential to wield one.
• Gong Zi said that every previous competition champion had failed to gain insight from the dream, and that Bai Xiu might compete this year.
• Gong Zi explained that he might wait until next year if Bai Xiu entered, then acknowledged Gu Shen as another possible contender.

After defeating Shen Li, Gu Shen told Gong Zi he would not enter the Rookie Competition, while pursuing a more direct route to the Fire Seed Dream and investigating Gu Changzhi’s slumber. As Bai Lu watched the alley, visitors from the Li Family arrived to meet Gu Shen.

• Gong Zi told Gu Shen that Nagano’s young fighters now saw him as a dangerous rival after he defeated Shen Li, but Gu Shen said he would skip this year’s and next year’s Rookie Competition.
• Gu Shen considered repairing the Clear Tomb Array Pattern and uncovering the truth behind Gu Changzhi’s slumber, and believed he could seek the Fire Seed Dream directly from the Tomb Keeper.
• Bai Lu monitored Gu Shen and Gong Zi through [Wind Eye] and concluded that Gu Shen had declined the Gong Family’s offer to join forces.
• Bai Lu learned that two people from the Li Family were approaching the alley and drove away to avoid meeting them.
• A tall man from the Li Family raised an umbrella, disrupting [Wind Eye]’s surveillance, while Bai Lu wondered why so many important young figures had gathered around Gu Shen.

Li Qingsui arrived at Gu Shen’s residence with Uncle Gao and invited him to join her for a meal. Gu Shen realized Bai Lu was waiting nearby too, leaving him to choose which invitation to accept.

• Uncle Gao used his mental power to summon Gu Shen outside while Li Qingsui waited in the snow.
• Gu Shen sensed the powerful presence outside and went to the gate with Gong Zi and Mu Nan.
• Gong Zi recognized Li Qingsui of the Li Family and greeted her respectfully.
• Li Qingsui studied the flame between Gu Shen’s brows, introduced herself, and invited him to eat with her.
• Uncle Gao’s imposing gaze pressured Gu Shen as Li Qingsui revealed that Bai Lu was waiting outside the alley as well.

Li Qingsui took Gu Shen from Snow Forbidden City to an undisclosed destination, while Chu Ling felt an inexplicable fondness for the girl. As Uncle Gao severed Gu Shen’s Mental Link with Chu Ling, Gu Shen realized they had entered an independent Special Territory.

• Gong Zi asked Li Qingsui to call him Brother Gong Zi, but she told him to conduct himself with dignity.
• Chu Ling told Gu Shen that Li Qingsui’s uncle was powerful and admitted she felt an inexplicable fondness toward Li Qingsui.
• Uncle Gao invited Gu Shen into the car, and Li Qingsui dropped her cheerful manner to speak with him formally.
• Li Qingsui told Gu Shen to rest and close his eyes as Uncle Gao drove them north from Snow Forbidden City.
• Gu Shen secretly used Wind Child to record their route, but Uncle Gao’s turn cut off Chu Ling’s transmission and severed their Mental Link.
• Gu Shen pretended to be carsick and concluded that he had entered an independent Special Territory.

Bai Lu failed to stop Li Qingsui from taking Gu Shen to the Li family’s Shrine Land, a Mystic Realm beyond Nagano’s northern border. There, Li Qingci invited Gu Shen to extinguish his lantern and see the realm’s true nature.

• Bai Lu realized Li Qingsui had taken Gu Shen and could not track her car, then went to vent her anger at the Old Residence, only to find everyone gone.
• Uncle Gao brought Gu Shen and Li Qingsui to a mist-shrouded mountain and waited while they entered the shrine.
• Li Qingsui explained that the mountain was the Li family’s Shrine Land, a Mystic Realm, and warned Gu Shen that her Elder Sister was expecting him.
• Gu Shen met Li Qingci by a waterfall and questioned her invitation, noting that the secluded shrine had no food.
• Li Qingci asked Gu Shen to extinguish his lantern and open his Blazing Fire, revealing drifting Transcendent Source Matter and malformed black points of order throughout the realm.

Gu Shen learned from Li Qingci that Shrine Mountain was a collapsing Mystic Realm held in balance by the Li family’s inherited Prayer Art, which sought to bring forth a Divine Embryo. Li Qingci revealed that a vision of the Divine Embryo had led her to meet Gu Shen, and she left him with the warning that Shrine Mountain could not wait any longer.

• Gu Shen saw the countless black spots of Order Collapse covering Shrine Mountain and refused to follow Li Qingci into the curtain cave.
• Li Qingci told Gu Shen that the Li family had guarded Shrine Mountain and its Divine Embryo for generations, while the Five Great Families had enjoyed peace in Changye District for nearly twenty years.
• Li Qingci explained that her ancestor used Prayer Art to delay Shrine Mountain’s collapse, nurture a Divine Embryo, and pray that it would descend when the Mystic Realm could no longer bear Divine Power.
• Li Qingci said she had guarded Shrine Mountain alone since her father’s death and had willingly made it her prison to witness the Great Aspiration’s fulfillment.
• Li Qingci revealed that Prayer Art had recently shown her an image of the Divine Embryo, which was why she had arranged to meet Gu Shen.
• Gu Shen asked why Li Qingci trusted him, and she answered that Shrine Mountain could not wait any longer.

Li Qingci explained how the Li family's Prayer Art had allowed Shrine Mountain's Order Collapse Flowers to spread, and Gu Shen learned that their growth could eventually threaten Nagano. After Gu Shen plucked a flower, Li Qingci revealed that she had traded ten years of her life to meet him.

• Gu Shen realized the Li family's Guardians of the Way had sacrificed themselves for Prayer Art and that Shrine Mountain's flowers could become a catastrophe.
• Li Qingci told Gu Shen that Gu Changzhi had once visited Shrine Mountain and vowed to destroy it if Prayer Art lost control.
• Li Qingci explained that she had wished to meet someone who could resolve Shrine Mountain's crisis and eat the flowers.
• Gu Shen used Blazing Fire to pluck an Order Collapse Flower from the mountain.
• Li Qingci revealed that she had traded ten years of her life to meet Gu Shen.

Gu Shen promised to help Li Qingci with Shrine Mountain’s Order Collapse Flowers and urged her to keep living. On the way back, Li Qingsui offered anything in exchange for freeing her sister, but Gu Shen rejected the deal and told her not to make such an offer.

• Gu Shen asked how long Li Qingci could live, and she said no Li family Dao Guardian on Shrine Mountain had lived past forty.
• Gu Shen urged Li Qingci to live long enough to see hope spread, and she thanked him after his words renewed her resolve.
• As Gu Shen and Li Qingsui left Shrine Mountain, he said he could help with its troubles and might return despite the mountain’s Silent Extinction.
• Li Qingsui asked whether Gu Shen could solve Shrine Mountain’s problem, and he promised he could help a little.
• Li Qingsui offered to do anything Gu Shen asked if he cleared the flowers and freed Li Qingci, but Gu Shen rejected her offer and warned that Li Qingci would be sad to hear it.

Li Qingsui arranged for Gu Shen to receive a Shrine Mountain Talisman and asked him to keep the Li family's secrets. As they left, she warned him not to harbor improper feelings for Li Qingci, then tried—and failed—to guess who he liked.

• Li Qingsui told Gu Shen he could visit Shrine Mountain again and instructed Uncle Gao to give him an extra Shrine Mountain Talisman.
• Li Qingsui asked Gu Shen and Uncle Gao to keep what happened at Shrine Mountain confidential, and Gu Shen agreed.
• Uncle Gao used his domain to guide the car safely through the black seams left by Order Collapse as Gu Shen memorized the route.
• Li Qingsui warned Gu Shen not to have improper thoughts about Li Qingci, and Gu Shen said he already liked someone.
• Li Qingsui guessed that Gu Shen liked Lu Nan Jin, Bai Lu, or Song Ci, but Gu Shen denied each guess.

Gu Shen returned from Shrine Mountain and told Chu Ling about the Li Family’s efforts to nurture a Divine Embryo, while Chu Ling’s database check revealed she had never met Li Qingsui. Before they parted at Snow Forbidden City, Li Qingsui gave Gu Shen a talisman plaque and promised the Li Family would not influence public opinion about their meeting.

• Gu Shen and Chu Ling restored their Mental Link after leaving Shrine Mountain, and he explained that the mountain was filled with Order Collapse Flowers and nearing collapse.
• Chu Ling said her database showed she had never met Li Qingsui, then asked Gu Shen to disconnect their link so she could think alone.
• Uncle Gao gave Gu Shen a six-hundred-year-old Li Family talisman plaque that allowed outsiders to enter Shrine Mountain’s Mystic Realm.
• Li Qingsui promised the Li Family would not steer public opinion about Gu Shen’s meeting with them and said the family would help him in the future.
• Li Qingsui privately asked Gu Shen whether the person he had met really was not Song Ci.

Bai Lu set out to meet Gu Shen, while Han Dang trapped him in the Truth Domain to question him about Da Teng City. Gu Shen endured the domain’s attacks until Uncle Gao’s remote intervention shattered the dream and left Han Dang incapacitated.

• Bai Lu told Bai Chen she wanted to see Gu Shen, and persuaded him to help stall Uncle Gao.
• After leaving Snow Forbidden City, Gu Shen encountered Han Dang waiting on the inner-city wall.
• Han Dang pulled Gu Shen into his Truth Domain and questioned him about their past and Da Teng City.
• Gu Shen used the Blazing Fire to withstand the domain’s attacks and defied Han Dang’s questions by burning Transcendent Source Matter.
• Gu Shen revealed that he had been with someone whose mental power could reach them, and Uncle Gao shattered the Truth Domain.
• Uncle Gao warned Han Dang not to target Gu Shen again as Han Dang suffered severe mental pain.

Gu Shen confronted Han Dang, whose Truth Domain was shattered by Gao Tian, while Bai Lu ended her deal with Han Dang. As Gao Tian drove Li Qingsui away, Bai Chen stopped him to discuss his younger sister, leaving Gu Shen’s troubles unresolved.

• Han Dang recognized that Gao Tian was far beyond his ability to challenge and prepared to leave.
• Bai Lu arrived and told Han Dang that their mundane goods deal was over.
• Li Qingsui and Gao Tian discussed the growing challenges confronting Gu Shen and suspected Han Dang was behind the uproar.
• Snow pierced Gao Tian’s domain, and Bai Chen appeared to stop the car and ask Gao Tian to speak with him.
• Bai Chen told Gao Tian he was concerned about his younger sister and did not want her to end up like Han Dang.

Gao Tian confronted Bai Chen and overwhelmed him in a fight, repeatedly disrupting his attempts to summon the Inquisitor. Bai Chen realized his mental power still needed training, while Gao Tian explained that he had attacked because Bai Chen had stopped his car and disturbed his young lady.

• Gao Tian congratulated Bai Chen on passing the twelve-level Deep Sea trial, then asked if beating him up would count as bullying.
• Gao Tian struck Bai Chen and repeatedly knocked his consciousness out of his body, preventing him from summoning the Inquisitor.
• Bai Chen endured Gao Tian's barrage of punches as the Inquisitor phantom repeatedly formed and shattered.
• Bai Chen realized his spirit and body could not be separated and that Gao Tian had interrupted him whenever he tried to act.
• Gao Tian said Bai Chen still did not understand and explained that he had attacked because Bai Chen had stopped his car and disturbed his young lady.