Recaps

Bai Yujun, in black armor, rescued the black market’s Rogue Cultivators by defeating and beheading a Golden Core Demonic Sect cultivator. She returned to the teahouse, where the rain had stopped and a camel caravan arrived in the busy streets.

• Bai Yujun ambushed the Golden Core Demonic Cultivator as his disciples attacked the black market, then killed the fleeing Demonic Sect disciples in the fight.
• Bai Yujun disarmed and brutally beat the Golden Core Demonic Cultivator, then executed him with Hengdao while the surviving Rogue Cultivators watched.
• Bai Yujun spared a young Demonic Sect disciple who pretended to be dead and told him to change careers before leaving with the dead cultivator’s storage bag.
• Bai Yujun returned to the teahouse, cooled the tea with a spell, and drank the entire pot while Old Hui Xian watched.
• After the rain stopped, the streets filled with travelers and a caravan of merchants from the northwestern desert arrived with camel bells.

Si Tieyou left Woniu Village with Zhang Qi to serve amid the turmoil in the Northern Lands. Elsewhere, Bai Yujun, Old Hui Xian, and Little Stone approached a haunted manor and stopped to watch a ghostly opera.

• Si Tieyou told Zhang Qi to prepare to leave for the Northern Lands, and Zhang Qi eagerly went home to tell his family.
• Si Tieyou, Zhang Qi, and a richly dressed old man left Woniu Village the next day as unrest spread across the realm.
• Bai Yujun urged Old Hui Xian to honor their paid ghost-exorcism job and led him and Little Stone toward an abandoned manor.
• Bai Yujun heard gongs and drums in a graveyard and took Old Hui Xian and Little Stone to watch an eerie opera.
• When the Paper Figures stopped singing, Bai Yujun threatened them, and they resumed their performance.

Bai Yujun learned that a Ghost King and an evil cultivator were connected to the haunted manor, then led Hui Xian and the cobra there to confront them. The group entered the manor after Bai Yujun kicked in its gates and was welcomed by a seductive ghost woman.

• Bai Yujun enjoyed a ghost opera and questioned a yellow-haired weasel spirit, who told her that a Ghost King ruled the local ghosts and an evil cultivator had been seen at the manor.
• Bai Yujun decided to take the manor's spoils and set out with Hui Xian, Little Stone, and the cobra to deal with the fierce ghost.
• Hui Xian admitted he was afraid but said he would enter the ghost den to deliver the evil ghosts from suffering.
• Bai Yujun and her companions reached the lavishly lit manor, where music and laughter came from within.
• Bai Yujun kicked open the gates, teased the bewitching woman who answered, and entered the manor with Hui Xian and the cobra.

Bai Yujun and Hui Xian attended a banquet in an evil cultivator’s hall, where they confronted a Ghost King and the cultivator who collected women’s skins. Bai Yujun battered the Ghost King while Hui Xian’s chanting drove off the lesser ghosts, and the fight continued in the hall.

• Bai Yujun saw through the banquet’s alluring women and recognized them as ghosts wearing the skins of murdered girls.
• The evil cultivator arrived with the female Ghost King and declared that he wanted Bai Yujun’s skin for his collection.
• Bai Yujun attacked the Ghost King with Hengdao, then shielded Hui Xian, Little Stone, and the cobra from the ghost’s soul attack.
• Hui Xian began chanting sutras, forcing the lesser Ghostly Entities to flee or writhe in pain.
• A female ghost tried to attack Hui Xian, but the cobra knocked her down and left her Human Skin deflated on the floor.

Bai Yujun fought the evil cultivator’s Infant Fiend in the hall, using her speed, Hengdao, and Chunyang Art to wound and suppress it. As the cultivator hesitated to intervene and the ghost king stayed back, Bai Yujun began forming a seal to destroy the fiend.

• Bai Yujun battered the female ghost with a rapid barrage of punches while Hui Xian’s chanting weakened it.
• The evil cultivator summoned an Infant Fiend from a small black coffin, and Bai Yujun recognized its dense Yin Sha Qi.
• Bai Yujun defended against the Infant Fiend’s relentless attacks, dodged its Black Qi, and cut its neck with the Hengdao.
• Bai Yujun struck the Infant Fiend with a powerful crescent Blade Light that sent it rolling and tore through the hall.
• Bai Yujun kicked the Hengdao toward the Infant Fiend, and the fiend clamped onto the blade as the evil cultivator hesitated to rescue it.
• Bai Yujun began forming a complex seal to destroy the Infant Fiend.

Bai Yujun destroyed the Infant Fiend, Ghost Queen, and evil cultivator in the ghost manor, then left the manor standing so local people could reuse its materials. The forest began to recover, and she and her companions headed down the mountain while chatting about salt and the sea.

• Bai Yujun burned the Infant Fiend to ash with her pure-yang power and killed the Ghost Queen with her roar.
• Bai Yujun crushed the evil cultivator and shattered his soul, then took his storage pouch.
• Hui Xian turned away and chanted scriptures while Bai Yujun dealt with the manor’s enemies, and a little female ghost slipped away.
• Bai Yujun refused to burn the manor, saying local mountain folk could reuse its beams and tiles.
• The group left the recovering forest, and Bai Yujun told Little Stone and Hui Xian how seawater could be dried or boiled into salt.

Bai Yujun’s group struggled to earn money amid growing unrest and decided to switch from selling umbrellas to working as bodyguards. A Little Girl named Lian'er paid Bai Yujun a copper coin to kill the County Magistrate's Son for harming her sister, and Bai Yujun vanished to carry out the job.

• Bai Yujun added a wanted-criminal capture service to the group’s failing umbrella stall as unrest and prices worsened.
• The County Magistrate's Son rode through the market, injuring commoners, while a Little Girl watched him with hatred.
• Bai Yujun learned the rider was the County Magistrate's Son and decided the group should become bodyguards instead of selling umbrellas.
• Lian'er gave Bai Yujun a copper coin and asked her to kill the County Magistrate's Son for harming her sister.
• After Lian'er's sister found her, Bai Yujun accepted the contract and suddenly vanished.

Bai Yujun continued rescuing children from the Demonic Sect while struggling to hold on to her fading humanity and memories. The chapter revealed that the sect had gathered thousands of children for a blood sacrifice, and ended with Bai Yujun waking briefly in the wilderness after sensing that something was wrong.

• Bai Yujun took gold from the County Magistrate's residence, burned it down, and returned his severed head to the girl whose family he had wronged.
• Bai Yujun, Hui Xian, and Little Stone rescued abducted children and traveled through the region, while Bai Yujun sold seized Demonic Sect goods in black markets.
• Hui Xian asked Bai Yujun why she saved children, and she explained that doing good deeds helped her preserve memories of her past and resist her beastly nature.
• Powerful figures failed to find the Demonic Sect's hidden gathering place, while a scholar in Bamboo Sea Village realized the scheme could not be stopped.
• The Demonic Sect sacrificed countless children on a rune-carved altar as Bai Yujun, Hui Xian, and Little Stone slept in a mountain bamboo grove.
• Bai Yujun woke in the night with a vague sense that something bad had happened, then changed position and went back to sleep.

After parting from Hui Xian and Little Stone, Bai Yujun lay low and settled into a quiet life running an umbrella shop in a small city. As heavy rain brought customers to her shop, a wealthy couple came inside and waited for the storm to ease.

• Bai Yujun gave Hui Xian and Little Stone another hundred taels of silver and watched them leave for Bamboo Spring Temple.
• After killing many demonic cultivators and attracting the attention of Nascent Soul old monsters, Bai Yujun parted from her companions and later hibernated in a lake.
• Bai Yujun bought a house in a peaceful city, opened an oil-paper umbrella shop, and began living quietly among its residents.
• Bai Yujun reinforced a bird's nest in her courtyard and prepared umbrellas and bamboo hats when thunder warned of rain.
• A wealthy middle-aged couple entered Bai Yujun's shop during a downpour, bought a blue paper umbrella, and stayed inside to drink tea until the rain eased.

Bai Yujun watched a poor boy get beaten by the Song family for resisting their seizure of his ancestral land, then gave him food and shelter after seeing his extraordinary fate. The next morning, he thanked her and left as she opened her shop for another day.

• Bai Yujun spent a rainy day in her quiet shop with a fat cat, then fell asleep behind the counter.
• Bai Yujun saw the Song family's servants beat a young fish seller who had protested their destruction of his home and ancestral grave.
• Bai Yujun used her fate-reading talent to glimpse the boy's promising future, bought him two flatbreads, and urged him to stay alive and find shelter.
• The boy spent the night beneath Bai Yujun's shop eaves, clutching half a flatbread.
• Bai Yujun opened her shop and prepared an advertising sign, while the boy thanked her and limped away.

Bai Yujun watched a young man named Yu Xiao prepare to take revenge on the Song family, then saw him slaughter the household and set Song Manor ablaze. When the fire threatened nearby homes, Bai Yujun summoned a torrential rain to put it out.

• Bai Yujun ate breakfast outside her shop as a grain convoy left town and witnessed a gambler’s wife weep after he took their money.
• Bai Yujun recognized the dark-skinned youth, who had gained a faint trace of spiritual aura and was scouting Song Manor.
• Bai Yujun played her bamboo flute, then went inside to sleep while the city settled for the night.
• Yu Xiao attacked Song Manor with a pig-slaughtering knife, killed the Song family head and others, and set the estate on fire.
• Bai Yujun went outside as neighbors rushed to fight the blaze, then summoned thunderclouds and rain that extinguished the fire.

Half a month after the Song family was destroyed, Song Wei returned and threatened the townspeople while seeking the killer. Bai Yujun realized that Yu Xiao was hiding in the ruins of Song Manor, and the story left her watching the conflict begin to unfold.

• Bai Yujun continued her shop routine beside the ruins of Song Manor, where Yu Xiao remained missing.
• Song Wei arrived with more than twenty riders, and the townspeople identified him as a Song family cultivator who had reached the complete Qi Refining Stage.
• A fat official apologized for failing to catch the killer, but Song Wei dismissed his dead relatives as burdens and vowed to punish Yu Xiao.
• Song Wei threatened to send the neighboring townspeople to the underworld, then rode away to pursue the killer.
• Bai Yujun realized that Yu Xiao was hiding in plain sight among the ruins of Song Manor.

Bai Yujun spent an unhurried day fishing and pondering her cultivation as her soul adjusted to her growing strength. She returned to the city before the gates closed and ended the day eating pickled cabbage fish in her courtyard.

• Bai Yujun left the city to fish upstream, where she caught many fish and released a fish spirit.
• Bai Yujun reflected on cultivation and her muddled thoughts while fishing through the day.
• Bai Yujun saw martial artists and gang members searching villages and homes for a dark-skinned youth named Yu Xiao.
• Bai Yujun stopped the city gates from closing with one hand and squeezed inside before nightfall.
• Bai Yujun cooked pickled cabbage fish, shared a small fish with the big-faced cat, and ate beneath the flowering tree.

Bai Yujun experimented with combining flute music and her Wind Control Talent as Song Wei threatened to kill the neighbors of the Song family. Her invisible Wind Blades beheaded Song Wei, leaving the neighbors and Yu Xiao stunned as his followers fled.

• Bai Yujun practiced killing flies with a homemade swatter before the street chief summoned the neighbors.
• Song Wei surrounded the neighbors and declared he would kill them because they had failed to save his family.
• Yu Xiao emerged from the Song Manor ruins, claimed responsibility for killing the Song family, and tried to protect the neighbors.
• Song Wei wounded Yu Xiao with his sword and prepared to kill him, but a flute melody interrupted his attack.
• Bai Yujun combined her flute melody with her Wind Control Talent and beheaded Song Wei with an invisible Wind Blade.
• Song Wei's followers fled, the neighbors panicked, and Bai Yujun calmly wiped her bamboo flute.

Over five years, Bai Yujun lived quietly at her shop, watching the people around her age, die, and move on. After mourning the old tabby cat and bidding farewell to Neighbor Granny’s ghost, she considered opening a new business to break the stillness of her life.

• Yu Xiao thanked Bai Yujun for feeding him, while neighbors cursed the dead Song Wei and the Song family ruins were turned into shops.
• Five years passed as Bai Yujun made umbrellas and flutes, and the big-faced tabby cat grew old and frail.
• Bai Yujun followed the cat to some ruins and watched it die peacefully.
• Neighbor Granny died, and Bai Yujun visited her funeral and later spoke to her ghost, urging her to let go and depart.
• Bai Yujun reflected on the lives and deaths she had witnessed and considered opening a business in the entertainment quarter or a gambling house.

Bai Yujun failed to get hired at the theater, so she learned the guqin and pipa and went to a brothel to seek work as a musician. The brothel agreed to hire her as a qin player for ten taels of silver a month, and she eagerly accepted the prospect of earning more.

• Bai Yujun failed to persuade the theater master to hire her as a musician.
• Bai Yujun bought a guqin and pipa, practiced in the mountains for over a month, and mastered both instruments.
• Bai Yujun went to the brothel, where Sister Ma mistook her for a girl seeking work as a courtesan.
• Bai Yujun told Sister Ma she wanted to be a musician, and Sister Ma offered her a qin-playing job.
• Bai Yujun heard the monthly pay was ten taels of silver and exclaimed that she was rich.

Bai Yujun worked as a qin musician at a brothel, where she accidentally infused her Wind Control Talent into her playing and discovered it could cut objects. As the night unfolded, she reflected on the need to stay humble and inconspicuous until she gained enough strength to ascend.

• Bai Yujun rehearsed with the musicians and blended her Wind Control Talent into her qin playing, accidentally cutting a musician’s hair, a candle wick, and Sister Ma’s fan handle.
• Bai Yujun played refined music for the brothel’s arriving guests while carefully suppressing her power so she would not harm the mortals around her.
• Bai Yujun performed as dancers took the stage and watched the guests pursue their various desires.
• Bai Yujun considered how the Chunyang Classics connected ascension to the Celestial Court and concluded that she should keep a low profile until she possessed true strength.

Bai Yujun continued her quiet life selling instruments and playing guqin at a brothel, where her beauty and skill drew a wealthy patron's attention. After a scholar condemned her for playing music while the realm suffered rebellion, she beat him for criticizing her instead of fighting the rebels.

• Bai Yujun bought fine wood and carved a new guqin while continuing her daily work.
• Three months later, Master Wu offered a gold leaf to hear the brothel's free musician perform.
• Bai Yujun took the gold and played a piece that left the hall in stunned silence.
• A middle-aged scholar accused Bai Yujun of ignoring the nation's crisis by playing music.
• Bai Yujun dragged the scholar forward by his hair and beat him, telling him to fight the rebels instead of berating her.

As Hedong’s rebel army besieged the city, Bai Yujun ignored the fighting until the gates were betrayed and the starving soldiers poured inside. While the city burned and the brothel came under attack, its women escaped through a side door into an alley.

• Bai Yujun killed a man trying to break into a shop by flicking a tea droplet through the door into his brow.
• As the siege continued, Bai Yujun calmly carved a bamboo umbrella frame in her courtyard while the city endured days of fighting and shortages.
• Bai Yujun sensed that calamity was gathering within the city before nobles secretly opened the gates to the rebel army.
• Rebel soldiers flooded the city, killed the wealthy man and steward who claimed responsibility for opening the gates, and began looting and attacking residents.
• More than a hundred rebel soldiers attacked the brothel, and a quick-witted courtesan led the women out through a side door into an alley.

Bai Yujun relived the chaos she had faced as a young snake demon and took up her zither to protect the fleeing women and civilians. After cutting down the disorderly soldiers with Wind Blades, she saw an elite army approaching.

• Bai Yujun woke amid the burning city and remembered fighting rebels during her earlier travels and hearing Senior Sister Wei recount her own family’s death.
• Bai Yujun took her ancient zither to the roof as disorderly soldiers pursued the brothel’s courtesans and prostitutes.
• Bai Yujun used Wind Blades played through the zither strings to sever the soldiers’ limbs and drive them away from the fleeing civilians.
• Bai Yujun tuned her zither and continued killing the disorderly soldiers while civilians gathered near her for protection.
• The bandits called for the Great General, and an elite army rushed toward Bai Yujun as she finished her somber melody.

Bai Yujun played her guqin against an elite rebel army, cutting down its soldiers and hidden experts. After shattering the Golden Core sword cultivator’s seven swords, she decided she did not need a soulmate.

• Bai Yujun took her place atop a stone archway and began playing “Ambush from Ten Sides” as the armored rebel army charged.
• Bai Yujun used invisible Wind Blades to destroy the archers’ arrows and slice through the advancing soldiers.
• Bai Yujun stopped playing while a bloodied Little Girl crossed the battlefield searching for her parents, then resumed once the child had passed.
• Bai Yujun killed the experts who leaped from the army, including the rebels’ hidden leader, an early Golden Core sword cultivator.
• Bai Yujun shattered the sword cultivator’s seven treasure swords with her guqin and declared that she did not need a soulmate.

After slaughtering the rebels who attacked the city, Bai Yujun helped its restless dead move on and blessed a lost child so she could be reunited with her parents. As the city recovered and its people left her offerings, Bai Yujun returned to her courtyard to eat hot pot.

• Bai Yujun saw the ghosts of a little girl’s parents following their daughter as she searched for them, and blessed the child to change her fate.
• The little girl was reunited with a grieving couple who had lost their own daughter and took her in.
• Bai Yujun chanted scriptures until the city’s resentful souls left for the Yellow Springs Road and the Yin Sha Qi dispersed.
• The surviving citizens cleaned the city and left food at Bai Yujun’s shop to thank her.
• Bai Yujun paid the dead charcoal seller for the charcoal she took, then returned to her courtyard and cooked hot pot.

Zhang Qi reunited with Bai Yujun after years apart and sought her advice, while she tried to avoid being drawn into his military affairs. Fearing that fate would make her a victim in a grand drama, Bai Yujun packed her valuables and fled, only to run into Zhang Qi again and escape by leaping away.

• Zhang Qi entered the ruined city with his fellow generals and heard that a white-clothed Qin cultivator had defeated the rebel troops.
• Zhang Qi recognized Bai Yujun outside her shop, and she welcomed him as her former student.
• Zhang Qi asked about Bai Yujun's past and sought her advice on battle strategy, while she asked after his mother and Woniu Village.
• Bai Yujun sent Zhang Qi away before lunch, then worried that his return would pull her into danger and packed her belongings to flee.
• Zhang Qi returned just as Bai Yujun left the shop, and she made an excuse before leaping away and running off down another street.

Bai Yujun traveled north toward Chang'an through a drought-stricken land, intending to witness the Li Tang’s downfall and take revenge on the emperor. Overheated by the sun, she found a cool, yin-rich tomb and entered it to rest.

• Bai Yujun headed north as drought, famine, and war ravaged the land, and she blamed the demonic sect’s Blood Sacrifice for the calamities.
• Bai Yujun found a puddle and drank alongside wild beasts, including a Colorful Fierce Tiger, without driving them away.
• Bai Yujun switched to traveling at night and resting by day to escape the oppressive heat.
• Bai Yujun used her ability to sense qi and earth veins to locate a likely royal tomb and burrowed into its mausoleum.
• Bai Yujun lifted a heavy stone gate and entered a lavish, undisturbed tomb chamber.

Four Great Tang agents used the Dragon Seeking Plate to track the Dragon Snake and vowed to capture her, while Bai Yujun explored an underground mausoleum and settled in to rest. The agents continued their search, and Bai Yujun slept beside the underground river, unaware of the danger approaching.

• The leader of four Great Tang agents buried their Waist Tokens and ordered that only one of them could survive if their mission to capture the Dragon Snake failed.
• Bai Yujun explored the mausoleum and set up a drying formation to help preserve its collection of ancient books and bamboo slips.
• Bai Yujun swam in the underground lake, then entered the main hall and learned from the murals that the tomb belonged to a Princess of the previous dynasty.
• Bai Yujun left the Princess's treasures untouched, asked permission to stay, and made a bed beside the river.
• Bai Yujun fell asleep in the mausoleum as the four agents pressed on with the Dragon Seeking Plate.