Chapter Summaries

Li Qingyun confronted True Lord Yunyu of the Rotten Moon Palace, who used his Clear Self Realm power to suppress the battlefield and dismissed Li Qingyun’s attacks. Li Qingyun broke through Yunyu’s Dao world with Jade Pure Profound Light and pursued him into his past-life spacetime, where the clash continued.

• Li Qingyun identified the white-bearded Daoist as True Lord Yunyu and saw that he was in the Clear Self Realm.
• True Lord Yunyu enveloped the Southern Border in a pale-blue world that suppressed Li Qingyun’s lightning and claimed he had acted to protect the living.
• Li Qingyun summoned divine lightning, but Yunyu drew it away and boasted that his fifteen awakened lives made him untouchable.
• Li Qingyun unleashed Jade Pure Profound Light, pierced Yunyu’s True Self Dao World, and filled it with divine lightning.
• True Lord Yunyu vanished into one of his past lives, and Li Qingyun entered his Dao world and pursued him with Jade Pure Profound Light and lightning.

Li Qingyun overwhelmed True Lord Yunyu with Jade Pure Profound Light and Divine Lightning, forcing him to flee before his true body suffered further permanent damage. Li Qingyun pursued him toward the Rotten Moon Palace, where a White Robes Figure warned that four True Lords guarded it and urged him to hear them out.

• Li Qingyun's Divine Lightning broke through Yunyu's defenses and permanently charred two of the old daoist's fingers.
• Li Qingyun walked unharmed through Yunyu's Rotten Moon True Fire and battered him with another barrage of Divine Lightning.
• Yunyu withdrew his True Self Heaven and Earth and fled, but Li Qingyun tried to block his escape with Gates of Heaven.
• Li Qingyun sent a bronze Dao statue clone to Youjiang Temple to suppress the emerging Heavenly Anomaly and told Miaoxuan to leave.
• Li Qingyun pursued Yunyu toward the Rotten Moon Palace, where a White Robes Figure warned him that four True Lords guarded the sect.

After Zhu Yuyan revealed that the Fu Kingdom hid the Fu Di Tower, Li Qingyun crossed into the country and found its forbidden zone beneath Rotten Capital. He entered a temple in the imperial harem and identified a dao statue as the sealing array’s core, leaving the Rotten Moon Palace true lords rushing to stop him.

• Zhu Yuyan warned Li Qingyun that the Fu Kingdom contained the Fu Di Tower, a forbidden zone comparable to Youjiang Temple.
• Li Qingyun crossed into the Fu Kingdom and told Rotten Moon Palace he was only passing through.
• Rotten Moon Palace’s true lords realized Li Qingyun might know about the Fu Di Tower and hurried toward Rotten Capital.
• Li Qingyun examined Rotten Capital’s dragon qi and spotted a hidden region beneath the imperial city.
• Li Qingyun entered a temple where the Qing Dynasty Empress Dowager and imperial concubines were praying, ordered them to leave, and recognized the central dao statue as the sealing array’s core.

Li Qingyun broke into the Rotten Moon Palace’s sealing formation, shattered its founding Dao Lord statue, and entered the depths beneath Rotten Capital. There he found the Fu Di Tower and came face to face with a scholar imprisoned at its summit.

• Li Qingyun used illusion arts to clear the temple hall, then moved the Dao Lord statue that anchored the formation.
• When the statue’s distant will tried to suppress him, Li Qingyun repelled its Dao rhythm with Jade Pure Profound Light and shattered the statue before its will could descend.
• Li Qingyun redirected the statue’s backlash into the mysterious soul corpse, refining more of its left arm, then began breaking through the sealing formation.
• True Lord Yize arrived with True Lord Yunyu and True Lord Qingquan, but Li Qingyun entered the formation before they could stop him.
• Li Qingyun followed the formation’s nodes a thousand zhang underground and found the ancient bronze Fu Di Tower, which leaked corrosive black qi held back by the dragon qi of national fortune.
• A courteous scholar appeared in the tower’s highest level and invited Li Qingyun inside, raising his suspicions.

Li Qingyun confronted Rotten Moon Palace while sending only a divine-awareness phantom into Fu Di Tower to meet the powerful scholar aberration inside. He began speaking with Rotten Scholar, but grew wary when the aberration asked whether he liked clear tea.

• Li Qingyun sent a divine-awareness phantom into Fu Di Tower, and Rotten Scholar drew it into the tower after Li agreed to approach.
• True Lord Qingquan and True Lord Yunyu arrived and tried to stop Li, but he threatened to disrupt the sealing formation and condemned Yunyu for slaughtering the aberrations of Youjiang Temple.
• Li Qingyun rebuked the two True Lords and declared that Rotten Moon Palace should fear him because Fu Di Tower held a danger capable of threatening the mortal world.
• Inside the tower, Li Qingyun met the scholar aberration, who called himself Rotten Scholar, and maintained a composed manner while questioning him.
• Rotten Scholar offered Li Qingyun tea and asked whether he enjoyed clear tea; Li sensed a possible rule trap and gave an indirect answer about how his tastes had changed over time.

Li Qingyun answered Rotten Scholar’s question about an eternal dynasty with a principle of good governance, then used a difficult couplet to suppress the fiend with his talent. Rotten Scholar remained trapped by the unsolved first line, while Li Qingyun considered using him against Rotten Moon Palace.

• Rotten Scholar told Li Qingyun that he had destroyed the ancient Fu Di Sect and explained that the dragon aura of Fu Kingdom restrained him in Fu Di Tower.
• Rotten Scholar asked whether an eternal dynasty could exist, and Li Qingyun answered that the people were most precious, the state came next, and the ruler was least.
• Rotten Scholar accepted Li Qingyun’s principle as the Great Dao and stopped focusing on eating him.
• Li Qingyun realized he could make Rotten Scholar act by suppressing him with knowledge and considered using the fiend against Rotten Moon Palace.
• Li Qingyun challenged Rotten Scholar with the couplet, “Lodging among Hakka guests, lonely by the cold window, guarding widowhood in emptiness,” and Rotten Scholar could not find a second line.

Li Qingyun defeated Rotten Scholar in their literary contest and persuaded it to undermine Rotten Moon Palace. Outside Fu Di Tower, he resisted Qingquan’s attack, broke through the sealing formation, and watched True Lord Yize contain the escaping corrupt aura at the cost of delaying his progress toward ultimate Pure Self.

• Li Qingyun matched Rotten Scholar’s couplet, won its acknowledgment, and asked it to corrupt the location of Rotten Moon Palace’s mountain gate.
• Li Qingyun dispersed his consciousness to avoid carrying anything eerie out of the tower, while Rotten Scholar watched him from within.
• Li Qingyun activated the sealing formation’s lightning as Qingquan and Yunyu confronted him, and he repelled Qingquan’s attempt to trap him in his past life.
• Li Qingyun used Jade Pure Profound Light to break through the formation and open a passage for corrupt black aura to pour out above Rotten Capital.
• True Lord Yize purified the breach and contained the corrupt aura, but its contamination forced him to postpone attaining ultimate Pure Self.

Li Qingyun fought Lord Qingquan above Rotten Capital while Rotten Scholar manipulated Lord Yunyu into leaving Fu Di Tower. Li Qingyun departed Fu Kingdom after his attack damaged Rotten Moon Palace’s mountain gate and Lord Wanhong intervened to stop the corrupted black mist.

• Lord Yunyu bargained with Rotten Scholar for the safety of Rotten Moon Palace, but Rotten Scholar tricked him into rushing back to the sect after claiming his aura had reached its mountain gate.
• Li Qingyun struck Lord Qingquan with Divine Lightning, breaking through his defenses and forcing him to retreat into concealment.
• Li Qingyun left Fu Kingdom a warning that his actions were retaliation for Rotten Moon Palace’s underhanded tactics.
• A wisp of corrupted black mist destroyed Rotten Moon Palace’s protective formation and killed nearly a hundred disciples before Lord Wanhong severed and dispersed it.
• Li Qingyun crossed the restriction barrier between the kingdoms and vanished.

Li Qingyun summoned the Moon Yin Palace and Biyou Palace True Lords to share responsibility for guarding Youjiang Temple after the Rotten Moon Palace targeted it. The three sects agreed to rotate guards and prepare vessels to contain the Rotten Anomaly, which was expected to emerge in about a month.

• Li Qingyun inspected the Anomaly Temple and concluded that its bronze Dao statue could hold back the ghostly aura for only another month or two.
• Li Qingyun sent talismans to Zhu Yuyan of the Moon Yin Palace and Void True Lord of the Biyou Palace, asking them to meet him at Youjiang Temple.
• Zhu Yuyan and Void True Lord arrived, and Li Qingyun proposed that their three sects take turns guarding the temple.
• Zhu Yuyan and Void True Lord agreed to rotate the guard duty every three years, beginning with Zhu Yuyan and followed by the Biyou Palace.
• Zhu Yuyan offered Moon God Wood for a vessel to contain the Rotten Anomaly, and Void True Lord pledged the Biyou Palace's Anomaly Containment Lamp for a future vessel.

Li Qingyun hosted Zhu Yuyan at the Youjiang Temple wasteland and reflected on people and memories from his past at Maple Mountain. He returned to the South You Lingbao Grotto-heaven, where Yuanbao woke from its long slumber, and considered whether the cat could continue advancing by entering the Immortal Ghost Heaven.

• Zhu Yuyan fashioned a wooden courtyard in the forest and invited Li Qingyun to stay for tea during the next three years.
• Li Qingyun drank tea with Zhu Yuyan and remembered Zhao Keyi, He Xiao, and his earlier life at Maple Mountain.
• Li Qingyun left Zhu Yuyan and returned to the bronze secret hall at the summit of the South You Lingbao Grotto-heaven.
• Yuanbao emerged from its long sleep, saw that Li Qingyun had surpassed it by a major realm, and meekly meowed.
• Li Qingyun asked Yuanbao whether it could enter the Immortal Ghost Heaven and stroked the cat as they sat together outside the hall.

Li Qingyun surveyed Southern You before returning to Lingbao Sect and entering the inner landscape, where he found a High-grade Small World attracting several Heaven Gate cultivators. As the cultivators fought over it, Wang Chengyuan was driven out, while Li Qingyun watched from outside.

• Li Qingyun left Yuanbao to explore Immortal Ghost Heaven in his inner landscape, then toured Southern You and noted the progress of its rulers and the surviving Li descendants.
• Li Qingyun chose not to aid Li Yan in Fu Kingdom and returned to Lingbao Sect after finding no new trouble from Rotten Moon Palace.
• Li Qingyun entered the inner landscape and spotted a High-grade Small World in the Heavenly Ruins, racing there after seeing other cultivators converge on it.
• Tuo Feng and Chenxi killed two cultivators and joined Changye, Mu Bai, Xuan Hua, and a Spirit God Palace cultivator in driving Wang Chengyuan from the Small World.
• Wang Chengyuan remained outside, resentful of his defeat, while Li Qingyun calmly watched the remaining cultivators fight.

Li Qingyun disguised as He Xiao entered the contest for a high-grade Small World after the other factions had driven out Rotten Moon Palace. He revealed his fourth-order Thunder Emperor’s Crown and demanded that Mishin Palace’s Tuo Feng and Chenxi withdraw, refusing Chenxi’s offer of Three Lives Stones.

• Wang Chengyuan invited the disguised Li Qingyun to join forces, but Li Qingyun made him wait while the others fought.
• Tuo Feng and Chenxi allied with Su Hu to drive Yun Changye, Mu Bai, and Xuan Hua from Rotten Moon Palace out of the Small World.
• Tuo Feng and Chenxi persuaded Su Hu to withdraw in exchange for a Three Lives Stone, leaving them in control of the Small World.
• Li Qingyun entered the Small World, and Wang Chengyuan followed him; Tuo Feng recognized Li Qingyun from their earlier encounter.
• Li Qingyun summoned his fourth-order Thunder Emperor’s Crown and ordered Tuo Feng and Chenxi to withdraw.
• Chenxi offered Li Qingyun ten Three Lives Stones for the Small World, but Li Qingyun again told the two Mishin Palace cultivators to leave.

Li Qingyun defeated True Lord Tuo Feng, True Lord Chenxi, and True Lord Su Hu when they attacked him in the High-grade Small World. He then began refining the world alongside Wang Chengyuan, who still hoped to claim more than half of it.

• True Lord Chenxi and True Lord Tuo Feng attacked Li Qingyun, but his Thunder Jade Starlight overwhelmed them and forced them out of the Heavenly Ruins Inner Scenery.
• True Lord Su Hu ambushed Li Qingyun with his Greenwood Lord divine office, but Li Qingyun shattered the wooden stake and expelled him as well.
• Wang Chengyuan asked whether their temporary agreement still stood, and Li Qingyun challenged him to compete for the High-grade Small World.
• Li Qingyun and Wang Chengyuan sank into the earth and began refining the world from opposite sides.
• Wang Chengyuan prayed to Biyou Palace's patriarch Dao Lords for help in refining more than half the world before Li Qingyun.

Li Qingyun finished overwhelming Wang Chengyuan in the Heavenly Ruins Inner Scenery and refined more than half of the High-grade Small World, driving away other Heaven Gate Realm cultivators who arrived too late. After his identity was confirmed across the nineteen nations, Wang Chengyuan’s humiliation and envy corrupted his Dao heart, and he became convinced that Li Qingyun practiced an ancient incense-offering method.

• Li Qingyun expanded his Gate of Origin to encompass half the Small World, shattering Wang Chengyuan’s confidence before sending him out of the Heavenly Ruins Inner Scenery.
• Several Heaven Gate Realm cultivators tried to enter the Small World but were repelled by the void’s recoil because Li Qingyun had already refined too much of it.
• Tuofeng and Chenxi investigated the identity of Fellow Daoist He, and cultivators across several sects confirmed that he was Li Qingyun of Lingbao Sect.
• Heaven Gate Realm cultivators recognized that Li Qingyun’s rise could make You State a powerful nation and criticized Rotten Moon Palace for overlooking him.
• Wang Chengyuan brooded over his defeat and concluded that Li Qingyun’s strength came from an ancient method of attaining Dao through incense offerings, as pallid yin aura further corrupted his Dao heart.

True Lord Void Trust entrusted Yi Tianxing with Biyou Palace’s Sect Master Seal before entering three years of seclusion, and Yi Tianxing secured support for Wang Muyun. Meanwhile, Li Qingyun completed refining the small world and disappeared with it.

• True Lord Void Trust summoned Biyou Palace’s senior cultivators, warned them of an approaching upheaval, and kept Yi Tianxing behind after dismissing the others.
• Yi Tianxing recalled his defeat by the man from the Lingbao Sect and assured True Lord Void Trust that he was devoted to Biyou Palace.
• True Lord Void Trust named Yi Tianxing sect master and handed him the Sect Master Seal before beginning his planned dead seclusion.
• Yi Tianxing asked to promote Wang Muyun, and True Lord Void Trust approved her support as a promising talent.
• Li Qingyun finished refining the small world and vanished with it as Heaven Gate Realm cultivators watched.

After refining a second High-grade Small World, Li Qingyun realized he needed to find his own path to obtain enough worlds for his cultivation. He sent Yan Chaoyun down the mountain to gain experience, while an old memory briefly resurfaced before he pushed it away.

• Li Qingyun refined a second High-grade Small World and concluded that ordinary cultivation would not provide the worlds he needed quickly enough.
• Meng Shan brought Yan Chaoyun to pay respects to Li Qingyun, who told Meng Shan to send the youth down the mountain to temper his Dao heart.
• Meng Shan questioned whether Yan Chaoyun was ready, but Li Qingyun insisted that the timing was right.
• Yan Chaoyun reluctantly accepted the order and left to prepare for his journey.
• Li Qingyun tasted the pastries and asked who had made them, while Meng Shan concealed Lu Liqian's name.

Li Qingyun learned that Li Xiuxuan was considering Chen Ziyao as a Dao companion and advised Meng Shan to help her judge the match carefully. After Meng Shan told the pair that Li Qingyun had given no approval, Li Xiuxuan left in anger, while Li Qingyun reflected on the path to understanding himself and his remaining cultivation goals.

• Meng Shan told Li Qingyun that Li Xiuxuan had reached the seventh level of the Dao Foundation Realm and was growing close to Chen Ziyao.
• Li Qingyun asked Meng Shan and the other disciples to look after Li Xiuxuan and help her weigh the matter of choosing a Dao companion.
• Meng Shan returned to his mansion and found Lu Liqian fussing over Yan Chaoyun before Li Xiuxuan and Chen Ziyao arrived.
• Li Xiuxuan asked whether Meng Shan had raised her relationship with Chen Ziyao with Li Qingyun, and Meng Shan said Li Qingyun had expressed no approval or disapproval.
• Li Xiuxuan left in anger, and Chen Ziyao regretted that his hope of joining the Li family had collapsed.
• Li Qingyun concluded that he needed to enter his past life to understand himself and dissolve the Shadows of Past Life, while noting how far he remained from refining twenty-seven Small Worlds.

Li Qingyun used the Ruins of Heaven’s ghostly shadows to temper his Jade Pure Essence, then concluded that his fame and cultivation plans required him to adopt a new identity. He left the plaza and arrived at the steps of the Hall of Human Heaven.

• Li Qingyun found that meditation alone could not help him form another high-grade small world, so he went to the Ruins of Heaven to seek stronger challenges.
• He sat before a six-armed, hundred-eyed ghost and provoked it into unleashing a torrent of polluting force, using the pressure to cultivate his Jade Pure Essence.
• Wen Miaozhu recognized Li Qingyun, and he admitted that he had previously used He Xiao’s identity out of necessity.
• Li Qingyun decided to cultivate another Dao and create an identity that would conceal his background and allow him to remain in the Ruins of Heaven unnoticed.
• After half a day of training, Li Qingyun judged the ghost too weak to be useful, brushed away its attempt to anchor him, and went to the Hall of Human Heaven.

Li Qingyun entered Human Heaven Hall, drove out True Man Changye and the others, and observed the second past life in the God-Illuminating Mirror. He noticed that the scene had shifted backward in time and that his past-life body’s breathing had grown stronger.

• Li Qingyun scattered Yin-Yang Copper Coins into the hall’s void turbulence but found no high-grade small worlds among the feedback.
• Li Qingyun met Wen Miaozhu, Jinyu, and another cultivator, who told him that True Man Changye of the Rotten Moon Palace was observing the mirror.
• Li Qingyun used thunder-jade divine radiance to expel Changye from the hall and declared that Rotten Moon Palace cultivators would not be allowed to enter while he was in the Heavenly Ruins.
• Li Qingyun ordered Wen Miaozhu, Jinyu, and the other cultivator to leave until the next day, then began observing his second past life.
• Li Qingyun noticed that the mirror’s scene had shifted backward by perhaps half a day or a full day, and that his past-life body was breathing more strongly.

Li Qingyun observed his Second Past Life in the God-Illuminating Mirror and discovered that his past self was being poisoned by a son and concubine, leaving him torn over whether to merge with the dying body or preserve his Dao heart. He postponed the choice until he had refined all twenty-seven High-grade Small Worlds, then cleared the chaotic void currents from Human Heaven Hall and left.

• Li Qingyun realized that the God-Illuminating Mirror was rewinding his Second Past Life, making his Clear Self breakthrough increasingly difficult.
• The mirror showed Li Qingyun's past self being urged by his son and concubine to drink fatal medicinal soup, and he understood they intended to kill him for his inheritance.
• Li Qingyun withdrew from the mirror rather than decide whether to accept an easier merger or protect his unsettled Dao heart.
• Li Qingyun resolved to refine all twenty-seven High-grade Small Worlds before returning to the Second Past Life trial.
• Li Qingyun scattered coins into the chaotic currents of Human Heaven Hall, then used Jade Pure Profound Light to disperse the currents and departed.