Chapter Summaries

Li Wei revealed overwhelming power when Phoenix Ceremony Palace collapsed, killing Yang Degong and the Imperial Guards who attacked her. She seized a young palace maid and asked where the emperor was.

• Li Wei emerged from the ruins with Yang Degong, forced poisoned wine down his throat, and strangled him with a white sash.
• Yang Degong's Imperial Guards shot arrows at Li Wei, but she crushed the arrows and obliterated them with a palm strike.
• Yang Degong begged Li Wei for mercy, but she tightened the sash until his neck snapped and then turned his body and the sash to ash.
• Li Wei pulled a young palace maid from the palace ruins and asked where the emperor was.

Li Wei broke through the Imperial Guards to reach Gu Jinzhi, where she stopped an assassination attempt and discovered that both of them shared the same trial task. The chapter ended with Fu Man restrained and Li Wei refusing to release him until Gu Jinzhi explained what was happening.

• Li Wei used a gust of wind to clear a path through the Imperial Guards and entered Gu Jinzhi’s bedchamber.
• Gu Jinzhi ordered Li Wei to capture Fu Man, and she pinned the eunuch in place with her spiritual power.
• Fu Man’s young eunuch accomplice attacked Gu Jinzhi with a dagger, but Li Wei killed him with a flash of sword energy.
• Li Wei told Gu Jinzhi that she had reached sixth-order peak and was half-step Grandmaster, alarming him.
• Li Wei asked Gu Jinzhi whether his trial task was to save the dying Jing Dynasty, and he confirmed that it was.

Li Wei and Gu Jinzhi learned that Fu Man had poisoned the Emperor’s medicine on the Empress Dowager’s orders and questioned him about the kingdom’s crises. After discovering how powerful the strongest martial artists were, they remained confident that Li Wei could handle them.

• Li Wei released Fu Man from her mental restraint, and Gu Jinzhi confronted him about poisoning the medicine.
• Fu Man admitted the Empress Dowager had ordered the poisoning, while Gu Jinzhi revealed he had only bluffed about knowing the medicine was poisoned.
• Gu Jinzhi questioned Fu Man as Li Wei sensed whether he was lying, learning that the Great Jing faced political division, rebellion, foreign invasions, financial collapse, and a looming coup by Prince Su.
• Li Wei proposed killing the Empress Dowager, Prince Su, and their allies, but Gu Jinzhi told her not to act rashly and asked Fu Man about powerful martial artists.
• Fu Man said Yang Degong was among the world’s five strongest, while Duan Tianhe, the Sword God, was acknowledged as number one; Li Wei revealed she had already killed Yang.

Li Wei waited with Gu Jinzhi outside Jianji Hall for the rebels to arrive, while Fu Man revealed the Empress Dowager had poisoned the Emperor. As troops approached Zhaoming Gate, Li Wei prepared to confront them.

• Li Wei questioned Gu Jinzhi’s plan to wait for the enemy, and he said it was better to defeat them one by one.
• Fu Man disclosed that the Empress Dowager had poisoned the Emperor and murdered his birth mother, Consort Hui, using the same poison.
• Fu Man said Chief Councilor Minister Wu had forced him to poison Gu Jinzhi by holding his family hostage; Gu Jinzhi remained calm and assured Li Wei there were no fatal trials.
• The eunuchs Wei Xun and Chu Hong arrived with a crowd carrying improvised weapons and urged Gu Jinzhi to flee the palace after reporting that the Imperial City Guards, Imperial Guards, and Warrior Camp had rebelled.
• Li Wei learned the eunuchs’ names and saw troops approaching Zhaoming Gate, then eagerly prepared for their arrival.

Empress Dowager Wu and Prince Su led their forces into the palace after launching their coup early because key figures, including Yang Dewen, had disappeared. As the army advanced toward Zhaoming Gate, Prince Su ordered the captured loyalist officials to be taken along to witness his seizure of power.

• Empress Dowager Wu told Prince Su that Phoenix Ceremony Palace had collapsed and that Madam Li, Yang Dewen, and Fu Man were missing, prompting her to launch the coup early.
• Prince Su agreed with his mother, escorted her into the palace, and ordered the army to advance through Chengtian Gate.
• The advancing procession passed Lu Zhenyan and other bound officials, whom Prince Su's forces had captured for resisting the coup.
• Lu Zhenyan denounced Prince Su, Empress Dowager Wu, and Wu Daoqi as traitors and warned that Duke Li's army could defeat them.
• Prince Su mocked Lu Zhenyan and ordered the prisoners taken to Zhaoming Gate to witness his claim to the throne.

Li Wei and Gu Jinzhi faced Prince Su’s rebel army at Jianji Hall, where Li Wei’s power left Prince Su and a hired martial hero frozen in terror. As she prepared to confront the assembled forces, she asked Gu Jinzhi whether to kill the rebel leaders or spare Empress Dowager Wu to question her about his poisoning.

• Li Wei recruited the musicians guarding Gu Jinzhi and had them play her stirring battle tune while the rebels advanced.
• Gu Jinzhi dismissed attempts to move him to safety and sat exposed on the Dragon Throne, halting the rebel army’s advance.
• Prince Su arrived with Wu Daoqi, other officials, and Empress Dowager Wu, but froze after addressing Gu Jinzhi as his imperial brother.
• Li Wei took the center of the Dragon Throne and joked with Gu Jinzhi as the rebels noticed Prince Su’s terror.
• Wu Daoqi summoned Great Hero Duan to act, but Li Wei’s power froze him before he could move.
• Li Wei rose to face the rebel army and asked Gu Jinzhi whether to kill its leaders or keep Empress Dowager Wu alive to question her about his poisoning.

Li Wei killed Empress Dowager Wu after learning the poison had no antidote, then obeyed Gu Jinzhi’s order to attack the rebels. Her sword strike wiped out nearly a thousand soldiers and left Wu Daoqi dead.

• Li Wei forced Empress Dowager Wu to reveal that the emperor’s poison had no antidote, then killed her and severed Prince Su’s left arm.
• Gu Jinzhi told Li Wei to kill the rebels, and Wu Daoqi offered to surrender.
• Gu Jinzhi ordered the rebels killed, and Li Wei unleashed a freezing sword strike that slaughtered nearly a thousand soldiers.
• Wu Daoqi saw the destruction around him, trembled, and collapsed dead.

Li Wei destroyed the rebel forces with two sword strikes, leaving Lu Zhenyan convinced that her power would erase every rival and leave only one person and one voice in the world. The surviving soldiers, officials, and palace attendants surrendered in terror as they recognized her as Heaven.

• Lu Zhenyan told Shi Weizhen that Li Wei's rise went beyond the precedent of the female emperor Zhao Mu and would leave only one person and one voice in the world.
• Li Wei struck again before Jianji Hall, turning more than a thousand rebel soldiers to ash.
• Lu Zhenyan asked Shi Weizhen what Heaven was, then pointed him toward Li Wei; Shi Weizhen answered, "Heaven."
• The surviving rebel soldiers dropped their weapons and prostrated themselves before Li Wei.
• The guards on Zhaoyang Gate and the gathered officials, Imperial Guards, eunuchs, and palace maids knelt and bowed to Li Wei.

After Gu Jinzhi collapsed, Li Wei learned that the imperial physicians could not identify his poison and discovered that she had already killed the court’s best detoxification expert. Gu Jinzhi woke long enough to order Li Wei to govern from the Dragon Throne and hide her true strength, but she insisted her power came from sweat and effort.

• The imperial physicians failed to identify Gu Jinzhi’s poison, and Li Wei learned that Director Qiu had been executed by her.
• Gu Jinzhi woke and sent everyone except Li Wei out of the bedchamber.
• Gu Jinzhi told Li Wei to govern from the Dragon Throne and kill any ministers who opposed her.
• Gu Jinzhi urged Li Wei to learn to wield her Sixth Order power, conceal her strength as Fourth Order, and beware changes caused by breaking the Third Order’s limit.
• Li Wei reassured Gu Jinzhi that her strength came from sweat and effort.

Li Wei learned that she should conceal her true rank and seek Zeng Yi’s help, then offered to use her White Lotus blood to purify Gu Jinzhi’s poison. Meanwhile, a demonic presence briefly took over Min Zimo, restored his body, and sent three barbarian soldiers away before Min Zimo regained consciousness and left the beacon platform.

• Gu Jinzhi urged Li Wei to present herself as fourth-rank, find Zeng Yi in the palace, and keep using Fu Man because converts could prove fanatical in their loyalty.
• Li Wei revealed that her sixth-rank White Lotus blood and qi could purify poison and offered to test it on Gu Jinzhi.
• A demonic presence controlling Min Zimo restored his ruined body and raised his strength to third-rank, then enchanted three barbarian soldiers into worshipping the Great Dream Bodhisattva and sent them away.
• The demonic presence said its plan had changed, collapsed, and withdrew into Min Zimo’s brow.
• Min Zimo woke among the corpses, picked up a Red Tassel Spear, and left the ruined beacon platform.

After recovering from the poison, Gu Jinzhi faced a mountain of delayed memorials, but Li Wei took over the Dragon Throne and tried to read them herself. When she could not make sense of the unpunctuated documents, Gu Jinzhi was sent back to the desk, while Zeng Yi remained forgotten in an empty Annex Building.

• News spread through the palace that Gu Jinzhi's poison had been neutralized, and he appeared much healthier.
• Wei Xun brought memorials from Shoukang Palace to Gu Jinzhi and explained that the urgent ones had been sorted onto the imperial desk.
• As Gu Jinzhi reached for a memorial, Li Wei sent him to the couch and took the Dragon Throne, insisting she would handle the work.
• Li Wei struggled to read the memorials, which were densely written without punctuation, and tossed one aside in frustration.
• Gu Jinzhi returned to the imperial desk, while Zeng Yi was revealed to be forgotten in an empty Annex Building.

During the ten days after the Palace Coup, Gu Jinzhi rebuilt the cabinet and restored order while Li Wei uncovered more than twenty million taels of stolen silver and appointed Zeng Yi as Phoenix Ceremony Palace’s Grand Steward Eunuch. The chapter ends with Gu Jinzhi telling Li Wei she will preside over a meeting for the new cabinet and Directorate of Ceremonial that night.

• Gu Jinzhi restored the cabinet by promoting Shi Weizhen and Xia Heng, and assigned Chu Hong to oversee confiscations through the Eastern Depot.
• Li Wei demanded that the confiscated silver exceed thirty million taels, then personally exposed over twenty million taels and sent the recovered wealth to the inner treasury.
• Li Wei and Gu Jinzhi found the starving Zeng Yi in an abandoned courtyard, and Li Wei appointed him Grand Steward Eunuch of Phoenix Ceremony Palace.
• Zeng Yi embraced his new eunuch role, and he and Li Wei amused themselves by acting as an arrogant empress and her sycophantic eunuch.
• Gu Jinzhi told Li Wei she would preside over a meeting for the new cabinet and Directorate of Ceremonial that night.

Gu Jinzhi urged Li Wei to help reclaim fiscal and military powers and test the court’s reaction to tax reforms, while warning her to conceal her sixth-stage strength. Li Wei interrupted a heated debate in the front hall with a dramatic entrance, only for the ministers to praise her poem instead of reacting with the wary silence she expected.

• Gu Jinzhi instructed Li Wei to raise labor-service and acreage tax reforms, and reminded her not to reveal her sixth-stage strength.
• The Grand Secretariat scholars and Directorate of Ceremonial eunuchs argued over Xu Yuncheng’s bandit-suppression campaign and its heavy costs to the people.
• Gu Jinzhi told Li Wei to enter the front hall, and she delayed to devise a grand entrance.
• Li Wei recited a poem as she entered, prompting everyone to kneel before they had clearly seen her.
• Chu Hong, Wei Xun, and the Grand Secretariat scholars praised Li Wei’s poem, leaving her frustrated that they had not reacted with fearful caution.

Li Wei confronted the court ministers with sweeping tax and land reforms, and Lu Zhenyan agreed to carry them out through force rather than oppose her. She left the shaken officials behind, while Gu Jinzhi and Zeng Yi discussed her role in intimidating them.

• Li Wei demanded that the ministers return financial and military powers to the throne, and Lu Zhenyan endorsed her authority.
• Li Wei proposed unifying corvée and taxes and levying taxes by the acre, but Lu Zhenyan warned that the reform would provoke the gentry.
• Lu Zhenyan said the reforms could succeed by killing those who resisted, and pledged that the cabinet would serve as Li Wei's blade.
• Li Wei demanded that gentry and officials pay taxes together, and Lu Zhenyan again agreed to enforce the policy through killings.
• Li Wei proposed striking down landlords and dividing their land, causing Shi Weizhen and Xia Heng to faint before she left the hall.
• Gu Jinzhi watched Li Wei retreat, and Zeng Yi questioned whether using her to frighten the officials was underhanded.

Li Wei left the palace to explore Yujing City, but the hunger and death she witnessed changed her plans and shook her belief that the Mirror World was merely a game. She headed toward the villages outside the city, convinced that she and Gu Jinzhi could not stand by and do nothing.

• Li Wei went out of the palace with Chuntang and Fu Man while Zeng Yi stayed with Gu Jinzhi.
• Fu Man suggested visiting Jinming Lake, but Li Wei used her mental power to observe the city and saw starving beggars and a man strip a scrap of cloth from a dead child.
• Li Wei stopped the carriage and changed course, ordering the group to leave the city and visit a village instead of going to Jinming Lake.
• The young eunuch driving the carriage offered to take Li Wei to Wang Family Village, where his family lived, and she agreed.
• On the road outside the city, Li Wei witnessed corpses, desperate refugees, starving children, and a mother holding her dead baby.
• Li Wei questioned whether the Mirror World was fake and resolved that she and Gu Jinzhi had to do something about the suffering.

Li Wei arrived at Wang Family Village and intervened in a brutal rent collection, saving a drowned child and reuniting Wang Gui with his relatives. After learning that the attackers had been collecting rent in advance, she asked where Old Master Wang lived.

• Li Wei saw thugs tormenting villagers, hanging Wang Gui’s grandparents, and trying to drown Wang Gou’er, so she killed the thugs with a sword strike.
• Freed from their captors, Wang Gou’er’s father attacked the young scholar while the villagers killed the scholar’s servants.
• Li Wei revived Wang Gou’er, but said she could not save Wang Gui’s grandparents because they had been dead too long.
• Wang Gui recognized his grandparents and wept with them as they embraced.
• Fu Man explained that Autumn Tiger Rent was landlords’ advance rent collection, which trapped farmers in debt.
• Li Wei asked Wang Gui where Old Master Wang’s home was.

Li Wei vented her fury over the suffering of the poor by killing eastern-suburb gentry, then told Gu Jinzhi what she had witnessed and vowed to wipe out the gentry. Gu Jinzhi promised to stand by her side before revealing a bundle of papers covered in English.

• Li Wei stormed into the Imperial Study and told Gu Jinzhi she had killed every landlord and rich landowner within dozens of li of the eastern suburbs.
• Li Wei asked Wang Rulin whether his father was Wang Wenyu, then beheaded him and ordered Wei Xun to have Chu Hong seize Wang Rulin's household.
• Gu Jinzhi dismissed the terrified ministers and asked Li Wei what had made her so angry.
• Li Wei recounted the suffering she had witnessed and vowed to wipe out all the gentry under Heaven, while Gu Jinzhi warned that killing alone could not solve the problem.
• Gu Jinzhi took Li Wei's hand and promised he would only stand by her side, then pulled a bundle of xuan paper covered in English from beneath the imperial desk.

Gu Jinzhi persuaded Li Wei to temper her anger and laid out a staged plan to stabilize the Great Jing Dynasty before pursuing reforms. Li Wei agreed with his reasoning but decided to threaten officials over the starving people in Yujing.

• Gu Jinzhi warned Li Wei that destroying the gentry without a replacement governing force would plunge the Great Jing Dynasty into greater chaos.
• Gu Jinzhi proposed that Li Wei first subdue rebel leaders and take control of their troops and Xu Yuncheng's army while he secured Yujing and built a new elite force.
• Gu Jinzhi outlined a later stage of gradual reforms, including piloting policies in the Capital Region and redistributing confiscated manors to land-poor peasants.
• Li Wei said she would tell Lu Zhenyan and the other officials that she was watching from the sky and would execute an official for every commoner who starved to death in Yujing.

Li Wei summoned Yujing’s officials and nobles, threatening them with death if commoners were oppressed or starved and demonstrating that no one could escape her reach. After killing princes and defiant officials, she declared she would bear the infamy of crushing the gentry, leaving the assembly terrified and silent.

• Li Wei ordered every ranked official, noble, and imperial relative in Yujing to attend a Grand Assembly and gave them three days to prevent commoners from being abused or starving.
• Li Wei killed several princes and commandery princes who protested, and Chu Hong ordered their residences seized and their occupants arrested.
• Li Wei demonstrated her speed by retrieving an old lord, then threatened to hunt down gentry families across Great Jing and beyond if they kept commoners from living.
• A white-haired official denounced Li Wei as a demon empress, and nearly fifty people rose to support him.
• Li Wei killed the dissenters with sword-light and said she would bear the infamy for making the gentry suffer.

Li Wei forced palace officials to prove their loyalty and began a sweeping campaign against their wealth and landholdings. Chu Hong and Wei Xun moved to distribute property to tenant farmers and aid refugees, while Lu Zhenyan compelled his fellow ministers to follow suit, though he wondered why they struggled to relinquish their privilege.

• Li Wei questioned officials leaving Zhaoyang Gate and killed those whose support she judged insincere, while Chu Hong recorded their names for arrests and confiscations.
• Wei Xun learned Chu Hong had given land to tenant farmers and turned most of his shops into refugee shelters, then ordered his own estate to distribute its land and aid the poor.
• Lu Zhenyan showed ministers letters ordering his family to surrender its land and threatening to have Yang Tingkai arrest them if they resisted.
• The ministers left Lu Zhenyan's residence subdued, and he wondered why people steeped in the sages' teachings could not let go of their possessions.