Chapter Summaries

Li Yang escorted the released prisoner Smith from the Star Crown Sect and discovered he had been imprisoned for Star Gazing. That night, he showed her the stars and proposed that their strange movements might make sense if the earth itself was moving.

• Li Yang met the gaunt Smith as Star Crown Sect disciples released him from imprisonment and escorted him toward her village.
• Smith took Li Yang’s Astrolabe and notebook, recognized her interest in Star Gazing, and invited her to meet him that night.
• Smith claimed his imprisonment was because of Star Gazing and revealed that he was Li Yang’s maternal uncle.
• Li Yang met Smith at the village entrance, and he led her to a cliff where they could see the Milky Way and Lu Qibin’s village.
• Smith questioned why the stars moved in irregular paths and suggested that the earth itself might be moving.

Smith introduced Li Yang to the possibility that the earth rotated and the sun was at the center, prompting Li Yang to reconsider his observations of the stars. Half a month later, Lu Qibin discovered Li Yang meeting Smith at night and wrongly suspected a secret romance, then learned they were stargazing.

• Smith challenged Li Yang’s assumption that the earth was the center and explained that the earth’s rotation could account for sunrise and sunset.
• Li Yang left to reconsider his recorded star paths, then returned to study stargazing with Smith over the following nights.
• Lu Qibin spotted Li Yang and Smith on a cliff at night and grew concerned after imagining that Li Yang might be under threat.
• The next night, Lu Qibin hid nearby and watched Li Yang and Smith discuss the stars before revealing himself.
• Smith introduced himself as Li Yang’s Maternal Uncle, and Li Yang invited Lu Qibin to join their stargazing.
• Lu Qibin doubted that they were only watching the stars.

Smith secretly drugged Lu Qibin to teach him not to underestimate others, then warned Li Yang that their stargazing had to remain hidden because it was tied to the Star Crown Sect’s rules about direct-line disciples. Half a month later, Lu Qibin tried to return to the sect for help, and he later told Zhou Qing that he regretted not understanding what had caused the sect’s problems sooner.

• Lu Qibin confronted Smith about threatening Li Yang, but Smith revealed that he knew where Lu Qibin’s family lived and drugged him with a sachet made from Heavenly Star Vine.
• Smith explained to Li Yang that the scent had made the exhausted Lu Qibin fall asleep and warned her to keep their stargazing secret because the sect’s restrictions on discussing direct-line disciples were connected to it.
• Li Yang continued recording the stars with Smith, joined by Lu Qibin, who believed she was being led astray and planned to seek help from Star Crown Academy instructors.
• Lu Qibin later told Zhou Qing that he regretted focusing on cultivation instead of understanding the cause of the sect’s problems, and Zhou Qing encouraged him to keep trying to change things.

Li Yang used her observations of the stars to devise a model in which the Earth was round and orbited the Sun, then learned from Smith about the Star Crown Sect’s plan to build faith for a future Star God. Smith left her with this secret before she returned to the sect.

• Li Yang calculated that the Moon orbited the Earth while the Earth and other stars revolved around the Sun, and she reached Level 30 Soul Power.
• Smith praised Li Yang’s model and explained that Heaven and Earth Energy could be cultivated like energy from starlight.
• Smith told Li Yang not to reveal that she had met him and explained that the Star Crown Sect’s direct-line disciples were protected because the sect pursued faith and godhood.
• Smith described the records of past Deities and revealed that the Star Crown Sect hoped a future descendant would gather faith and become the Star God.
• Li Yang understood that the sect’s versatile Star Crown Martial Soul and its gentler approach to influence were meant to help its direct line earn faith.

Smith explained to Li Yang how the Star Crown Sect’s reverence for its direct-line disciples conflicted with the evidence that their world orbited the sun, then challenged her to face the sunrise. As Li Yang prepared to return to the sect, Smith gave her a hidden Storage Soul Tool depicting a sun-centered cosmos.

• Smith told Li Yang that the Star Crown Sect concealed their observations because they threatened the direct-line disciples’ authority, and that a sun-centered understanding of the stars could improve cultivation.
• After another month of stargazing, Smith urged Li Yang to feel the beauty of sunrise, but she rejected the sun’s light and said she would never accept fate.
• Smith told Li Yang to go die if she refused, prompting her to call him senile before they laughed and acknowledged their easy friendship.
• As Li Yang prepared to return to the Star Crown Sect, Smith gave her a metal Storage Soul Tool that opened only when its grooves formed a sun-centered cosmic scene.
• Smith said he had found the tool in Abyss Ruins near Tianming City, suggesting people had understood the universe’s true arrangement tens of thousands of years earlier.

Li Yang’s research into stellar movements was discovered, while Smith defended his beliefs to his teacher and was killed for them. Li Yang faced the Star Crown Sect’s elders in the Hall of Punishment, where Li Gong ordered her to reflect for two days.

• Li Yang returned home and found her instructor and sect elders had discovered the backup copies of her research and ordered her back to the sect.
• Smith told his teacher that the sect needed to change and argued that the sun, not the land, was the center of the universe.
• Smith’s teacher killed him and buried his body in the Back Mountain.
• Xu Ming and Li Gong discussed Smith’s death and anticipated harsher punishment for anyone studying Star Movement Trajectories.
• Li Yang questioned whether she should admit fault and asked Li Gong why her stargazing was considered wrong.
• Li Gong told Li Yang to stay in the Hall of Punishment’s lounge for two days and reflect.

Li Yang rejected Elder Li’s demand that she hide her research into the stars, choosing her pursuit of truth over her future in the sect. After Elder Li left, Lu Qibin appeared near the lounge, and Elder Li asked whether he would become his disciple.

• After the direct disciples left, Li Yang considered pretending to repent so she could continue her research in secret, but gazing at the moon calmed her resolve.
• Elder Li told Li Yang that Smith was dead and urged her to admit her mistake publicly, then keep studying the stars in secret until she gained standing in the sect.
• Li Yang refused to abandon her research, arguing that truth required open discussion and that she could not change her family’s fate for them.
• Elder Li struck Li Yang with Soul Power and warned her that the sect could threaten her family, but she remained unmoved and he left.
• Outside the Hall of Punishment, Elder Li found Lu Qibin and asked whether he was willing to become his disciple.

Lu Qibin recalled becoming Li Gong’s disciple as Li Yang publicly rejected the Star Crown Sect’s demand that she recant her study of the stars. After the Sect Leader crushed her with his pressure and she fainted, Lu Qibin blamed himself and went to the Hall of Punishment, where Li Gong sent him to persuade her.

• Lu Qibin accepted Li Gong as his teacher after Li Gong offered to take him as a disciple.
• At the Star Crown Sect’s ceremony, Li Yang began a prepared apology for studying the stars but refused to say she would stop.
• Li Yang declared that their world was one of countless stars and that the sun was the center, prompting the Sect Leader to crush her with his Soul Douluo pressure.
• Li Yang told the Sect Leader that the Star Crown Sect had to change or face failure, then fainted under his attack.
• Lu Qibin blamed himself for informing the instructor about Li Yang’s connection to Smith and went to Li Gong for help.
• Li Gong reassured Lu Qibin that the sect would not give up an Innate Full Soul Power and asked him to persuade Li Yang.

Li Yang revealed that he had planned to fake his death and escape the sect, but after Lu Qibin brought him Ju Zi, he chose to drink poison and truly die. As his heartbeat slowed, Li Yang explained that his sacrifice came from being moved by the idea that Earth was a star, then urged Lu Qibin to look up at the Starry Sky.

• Lu Qibin visited Li Yang in the Confinement Room and admitted he had become Elder Li Gong's student, while Li Yang teased him about his feelings.
• Li Yang told Lu Qibin that he had acted foolishly onstage to reveal his true self, then explained that Heavenly Star Vine stems mixed with rice wine and Ju Zi peel juice could stop a heart.
• Lu Qibin mistook Li Yang's warning for a prank, but Li Yang revealed he had added the activating juice to his own cup and had chosen to truly die rather than fake his death and flee.
• Li Gong and Xu Ming rushed in and tried to make Li Yang vomit, but Li Yang said the wine had already been absorbed and explained that he was satisfied with his mission.
• Li Yang told Xu Ming that he had been moved by the belief that Earth was a star, handed him a metal ball on a cord, and urged Lu Qibin to look at the Starry Sky.

Li Yang staged her death to escape the Star Crown Sect and arranged for a villager to recover her hidden materials. She woke in her grave after the woman struck her and offered to lead her to the promised payment in exchange for the materials.

• Li Yang collapsed at sunrise, and Li Gong and Xu Ming confirmed that she had died after poisoning herself.
• The Sect Leader banned Star Gazing, and Li Yang's family buried her after the sect told them she had died absorbing her Third Spirit Ring.
• Lu Qibin told Zhou Qing that Li Yang had feigned her death and left Xu Ming the small metal ball.
• A middle-aged woman dug up Li Yang's grave to claim the Gold Plate and materials Li Yang had promised her.
• Li Yang awoke when the woman struck her chest, pinned her down, and offered to show her where the money was hidden if she returned the materials.

Li Yang survived the poison and escaped by burying a greedy woman in her place, while Lu Qibin was drawn into the Star Crown Sect’s campaign against forbidden star research. Li Gong forced Lu Qibin to torture a disciple, then revealed his personal reasons for trying to suppress the Earth as a Star Theory.

• Li Yang tricked a middle-aged woman into exchanging clothes, knocked her into the coffin, and buried her before settling into cultivation at the woman’s house.
• Li Yang reflected that her Heart-Protecting Mirror Martial Soul had helped her survive the poison, though oxygen deprivation had cost her some memories.
• Lu Qibin resumed cultivation with Li Gong, blaming himself for Li Yang’s supposed suicide and refusing to look at the Starry Sky.
• The Star Crown Sect banned the study of stellar trajectories, offered rewards for reporting researchers, and tasked Li Gong and Lu Qibin with finding Li Yang’s records and interrogating disciples.
• Li Gong brought Lu Qibin to the prison and made him turn a Luo Si into a prisoner’s finger despite the prisoner’s confession.
• Li Gong told Lu Qibin that his former disciple Smith, his son, and his daughter-in-law had researched stellar trajectories and fled, then said he meant to crush the Earth as a Star Theory to protect his granddaughter.

Li Yang struggled to continue researching the Earth as a Star Theory after the Star Crown Sect banned related books, while Xu Ming discovered that her star-system model was hidden inside an ancient Storage Soul Tool. The chapter left Li Yang facing a burly stranger at her home and revealed Xu Ming’s secret collection of star-gazing books and doubts about the sect’s teachings.

• Li Yang concealed her identity, moved to a village near Star Luo City, and researched star movements after the Star Crown Sect suppressed books about the Earth as a Star Theory.
• After earning her Third Spirit Ring, Li Yang spent two years seeking a noble’s star-gazing research materials, but her facial scar frightened away the noble she approached.
• Li Yang returned to her village home and found a tall, burly man standing at her door.
• Two years earlier, Xu Ming solved the scrambled metal ball Li Yang had given him and recognized its image of a star system centered on the sun.
• Xu Ming discovered that the ball was a Storage Soul Tool containing Li Yang’s research materials, then hid it and the papers.
• Xu Ming entered a secret chamber filled with star-gazing books and considered whether the Star Crown Sect might be wrong.

Xu Ming bought Dog Hybrid as an assistant and continued refining the Earth as a Star Theory. Dog Hybrid’s curiosity about Xu Ming’s research reminded Xu Ming of Li Yang, and Xu Ming gave him a pendant before revealing that his work studied the stars’ movements—a forbidden subject in the Star Crown Sect.

• Xu Ming decided he needed a trustworthy assistant and bought Dog Hybrid at the Star Luo Royal Auction House.
• Xu Ming spent the next year refining the Earth as a Star Theory, while coming to understand Li Yang’s choice to die for her discoveries.
• Xu Ming discovered Dog Hybrid had secretly been learning to read out of curiosity and gave him a pendant as insurance.
• Xu Ming told Dog Hybrid he researched the trajectories of the stars, and Dog Hybrid warned him that such research was forbidden.

Xu Ming’s secret research into stellar movement was exposed, and he died by suicide after defying the Star Crown Sect’s ban. The sect destroyed its research records and sent Li Gong, Lu Qibin, and Li Ming to track down Huo Xing, who had escaped to find the supposedly dead Li Yang.

• Xu Ming named Dog Hybrid Huo Xing and treated him more like a disciple than a servant; the next day, Xu Ming recognized Li Yang alive in Star Luo City and confirmed her grave held a substitute skeleton.
• Lu Qibin discovered that Li Yang’s grave had been disturbed and told Li Gong, who joined other elders in demanding an investigation of Xu Ming.
• Xu Ming sent Huo Xing away with a map and openly defended Earth-as-a-Star theory before the Star Crown Sect Leader, who confined him and ordered a search of his home.
• Li Gong and Lu Qibin found Xu Ming’s hidden stellar-movement research, and Xu Ming died by suicide in confinement the next day.
• The Star Crown Sect Leader ordered the destruction of the sect’s stellar-movement records and sent Li Gong, Lu Qibin, and Li Ming to search for Huo Xing.

After escaping the Star Crown Sect, Huo Xing followed Xu Ming’s address to Li Yang, who kept him as an assistant in her research on the stars. In Star Luo City, Huo Xing helped post her research questions on an underground Academic Bulletin Board and revealed his hope of bringing written communication to his hometown.

• Huo Xing saw Xu Ming being taken to the Hall of Punishment, then fled the Star Crown Sect and debated whether to follow Xu Ming’s address.
• Huo Xing reached Mianyang Village and found Li Yang, who recognized Xu Ming’s pendant and agreed to keep him as an assistant.
• Li Yang and Huo Xing spent six months observing the stars while Huo Xing helped villagers herd sheep and tend fields.
• Li Yang brought Huo Xing to Star Luo City and explained the masked society and its Academic Bulletin Boards.
• Huo Xing told Li Yang he hoped to establish a bulletin board in his hometown so people could communicate through writing, and she gave him papers to post on the boards.

Li Yang pushed Huo Xing into the underground Fighting Arena, where he refused to fight and endured a beating until she conceded for him. Meanwhile, Li Ming researched Star Movement Trajectories and concluded that the earth orbited the sun while the Moon Orbits the Earth.

• Li Ming took down questions about Star Movement Trajectories, while Li Yang warned Huo Xing that powerful people could exploit others and described the violence and exploitation beneath the Star Luo Auction House.
• Li Yang brought Huo Xing to the Fighting Arena so he could earn money, and Huo Xing faced a battle-hardened Soul Scholar despite not wanting to fight.
• Huo Xing dodged his opponent, then refused to retaliate even as the man beat him, insisting that the fight was wrong.
• Li Yang revealed her Soul Rings, conceded the match, and got Huo Xing out of the cage; she told him to keep evading opponents in future fights and handed him a flatbread.
• Li Ming searched the Star Crown Sect's Library Pavilion for records and worked out that the earth orbited the sun and that the Moon Orbits the Earth.

Li Ming secretly embraced the Earth as a Star Theory and met Li Yang, whose research questionnaires she had answered. The two agreed to work together in secret, with Huo Xing helping them exchange research materials and meeting with them monthly.

• Young Lu Qibin recalled that he had failed to take his teacher’s instructions to look after Li Ming seriously, and Zhou Qing said he could not have changed her fate.
• Li Ming posted her answers beneath Li Yang’s questionnaires, and Li Yang invited her to join their research into the movement of the stars.
• After Huo Xing reasoned that intelligence depended on access to knowledge rather than status or Soul Power, Li Yang reconsidered her assumptions about commoners.
• Li Ming returned to the underground hall the next day, where Li Yang revealed her identity and asked to borrow her family’s research materials.
• Li Ming recognized Li Yang as the person who had spoken in favor of the Earth as a Star Theory and agreed to help her research in secret.
• Li Yang arranged for Huo Xing to exchange materials with Li Ming and agreed to meet with her on the fifteenth of every month.

Over three years, Li Yang developed her Earth as a Star Theory and improved her Soul Power through a new cultivation method, while Huo Xing also made surprising progress. As the research neared completion, Li Yang refused to seek fame and stopped Huo Xing from giving his lunch to beggars before taking him home to continue their observations.

• Li Yang studied the Star Crown Sect’s materials and observed Huo Xing, concluding that ordinary people lacked access to knowledge rather than intelligence.
• Li Yang’s research and adjustments to her Soul Power circulation increased her cultivation to level forty-three and gradually healed her facial scars, while Huo Xing reached level eighteen.
• Li Yang and Huo Xing met Li Ming in Star Luo City to compare their research records, and Li Yang told Li Ming to publish the theory without naming her.
• Li Ming told Li Yang that Huo Xing had secretly asked her to teach him to read and planned to write a book.
• Li Yang found Huo Xing sharing his lunch with beggars, scolded him, and took him home to use his eyes for their nighttime observations.

Huo Xing continued writing down his experiences while helping Li Yang and Li Ming with their secret research, and Li Ming encouraged him to preserve the book for his hometown. Zhou Qing and Lu Qibin discussed whether Huo Xing had come from their Holy Soul Village, while Huo Xing ended the chapter by giving food to beggars in Star Luo City.

• Huo Xing explained to Li Yang that he wanted to record their experiences and someday share them with his family, and Li Yang warned him that the book could expose their secret work.
• Over the next two years, Huo Xing continued helping villagers, assisting Li Yang with Star Gazing, carrying messages, and learning to read and write with Li Ming.
• Li Ming praised Huo Xing's book, learned that his hometown was Holy Soul Village near the border of the Star Luo and Heaven Dou Empires, and added a request for readers to help the village communicate.
• Zhou Qing was surprised to hear Huo Xing came from Holy Soul Village, and Lu Qibin noted that he had encountered eight villages with that name.
• Huo Xing bought supplies in the city and gave dried cake to beggars, reflecting on their hardship and their concern for whether he would have enough food.

Li Ming offered Huo Xing a place in her home, but he chose to stay with Li Yang, while Li Ming later learned that her grandfather wanted to discuss her parents. Li Gong also tried to arrange a marriage between Li Ming and Lu Qibin, and she refused as they went to hear about her parents.

• Li Ming offered Huo Xing more rations and a place in her home, but Huo Xing said he wanted to keep looking after Li Yang.
• Li Ming met Lu Qibin on the main street, and he said their teacher had sent him to find her and wanted her at the Sect Leader's residence to discuss her parents.
• Lu Qibin remembered Li Yang's death and wondered why she had sacrificed her life.
• Li Gong called Lu Qibin his granddaughter's husband and urged Li Ming to marry him, but Li Ming rejected the idea.
• Li Gong told Li Ming and Lu Qibin to come with him because he needed to discuss Li Ming's parents.