Chapter Summaries

Lu Ban went to the Third People's Hospital to find Tang Yu and ask about her family's past as he planned a film about the Nine Streams. After arranging to meet her after work, he asked He Jiaoyang about his ancestors and fellow disciples, and He Jiaoyang decided to ask his father for help.

• Lu Ban went to the Third People's Hospital and learned that forensic doctors assessed injuries as well as deaths.
• Lu Ban met Tang Yu at her forensic outpatient clinic, asked to speak with her about her family, and added her on WeChat before leaving.
• Lu Ban reserved a restaurant table and messaged He Jiaoyang to ask about his family's records and contacts among his fellow disciples.
• He Jiaoyang realized he knew little about his grandfather's fellow disciples and decided to ask his father.

Lu Ban drafted a documentary storyboard, then met Tang Yu at a restaurant after evading reporters who had recognized him. He learned that Tang Yu knew about her Corpse Sealer ancestry, and she grew serious when he asked about the Nine Streams lineage.

• Lu Ban planned a film that would combine modern accounts with scenes from the past, building toward the Nine Streams successors inheriting from the Profound Lord.
• Fans recognized Lu Ban at a café and queued for autographs, so he sent Tang Yu a restaurant address and vanished from the reporters following him.
• Lu Ban disguised himself and met Tang Yu, who explained that people often avoided her because she was a forensic doctor.
• Lu Ban praised Tang Yu's work and revealed that he had wanted to ask about her family and the Corpse Sealer.
• Tang Yu reacted seriously to the Corpse Sealer and Nine Streams, while Lu Ban said he wanted her help researching her ancestors for his film.

Lu Ban learned about Tang Yu’s family connection to Tang Que and went with Tang Yu to her home to search for records about the Nine Streams. As Tang Yu’s mother recounted stories of Tang Que, Lu Ban found a letter bearing Seventh Master’s name and an address at Yannan University’s archaeology department.

• Tang Yu explained that Tang Que was her great-grandmother’s older sister and described her family’s inherited Corpse Sealer techniques.
• Tang Yu drove Lu Ban home so they could search through Tang Que’s belongings for clues about the Nine Streams.
• Tang Yu’s parents returned and Tang Yu’s mother mistook Lu Ban for her daughter’s romantic interest, teasing him about their age difference.
• Tang Yu brought out letters exchanged by Tang Que and her friends, and her mother began telling Lu Ban what she knew about Tang Que.
• Lu Ban found a letter addressed to Seventh Master at Yannan University’s archaeology department.

Lu Ban visited Professor Hu at Yannan University to learn about the Mountain Mover and Dragon Seeker lineage and was directed to seek out a blind man surnamed Zhang at Panjiayuan. There, Lu Ban found the old man he remembered as Blind Zhang, who greeted him as Mr. Lu.

• Cao Manwen escorted Lu Ban to meet Professor Hu, who recognized Lu Ban’s connection to his father, Seventh Master.
• Lu Ban told Professor Hu he had contacted the Tang family of the Corpse Sealer lineage and explained why he was investigating the Nine Streams.
• Professor Hu recalled that his father had once met a blind man surnamed Zhang who set up a stall near Panjiayuan, though their meeting had been forty years earlier.
• Lu Ban asked Cao Manwen to take him to Panjiayuan, where he searched the antique market and found an old man matching his memory of Blind Zhang.
• Blind Zhang told Lu Ban, “Long time no see, Mr. Lu.”

Lu Ban reunited with Blind Zhang, who revealed that he had survived as a paper man, and asked him to help expose the existence of supernatural beings through a film. After gathering interview materials, Lu Ban announced his next film, Nine Streams.

• Cao Manwen watched Lu Ban and Blind Zhang recognize each other and learned that Blind Zhang had survived for decades as a paper likeness of himself.
• Lu Ban told Blind Zhang he planned to make a film about the Nine Streams and reveal the monsters and supernatural forces affecting the world, and Blind Zhang agreed to cooperate.
• Lu Ban demonstrated his ability by turning Cao Manwen's lighter into a living cat, leaving Cao Manwen shaken and searching online for proof afterward.
• Lu Ban contacted Du Danping's family and the Hundred Li Walker lineage to obtain interview footage, while his investigation found the Dai family had disappeared after going abroad during the war.
• Lu Ban gathered his materials and announced the basic information for his film Nine Streams on Silent Media's account in June.

Tang Yu discovered that Lu Ban had released a trailer for his Nine Streams movie, featuring a character who resembled her. After the trailer spread, people at work began recognizing her as the fearsome Corpse Sealer.

• At lunch, Tang Yu watched a trailer for Lu Ban's new movie, Spring No War, after two nurses told her she was on TV.
• The trailer introduced the Nine Streams and their extraordinary members, including a Corpse Sealer who looked like Tang Yu.
• Tang Yu watched the trailer again and became curious about the story Lu Ban had made.
• After the trailer spread, a young patient mistook Tang Yu for the Corpse Sealer and begged her not to dissect him.

Lu Ban’s “Nine Streams” trailer became popular, while Cao Manwen recognized its supposedly supernatural footage as real and began investigating Lu Ban’s past. The chapter ended with Tao Hongying messaging Cao Manwen that she believed him and that Lu Ban had something seriously wrong with him.

• The “Nine Streams” trailer went viral, and viewers debated its style, plot, and whether Lu Ban’s films would end tragically.
• Cao Manwen told his high school class group that the trailer showed real events and that superpowers existed, but his classmates laughed at him.
• Cao Manwen studied the trailer and wondered whether Blind Zhang and Professor Hu had appeared in it, then speculated that Lu Ban was immortal.
• Cao Manwen searched Lu Ban’s earlier films and found a real abandoned hospital connected to “Crying,” but could not tell which parts of the films were real.
• Tao Hongying contacted Cao Manwen on QQ and told him she believed him and that Lu Ban definitely had something seriously wrong with him.

Cao Manwen and Tao Hongying bonded over supernatural stories and Lu Ban, then met in person to investigate the Paper Cutter Official from “Nine Streams.” They reached Panjiayuan and found it packed with people.

• Tao Hongying shared an occult chat group's claims about Lu Ban, and Cao Manwen told her about meeting him while working in archaeology.
• Cao Manwen and Tao Hongying chatted about supernatural incidents and archaeology, then arranged to meet near Yannan University.
• Tao Hongying arrived with a dramatically different appearance, and she and Cao Manwen discussed the novel they were both reading.
• Tao Hongying asked Cao Manwen to take her to see the Paper Cutter Official, who had reportedly stayed unchanged for decades.
• Cao Manwen drove Tao Hongying to Panjiayuan, where they found the market crowded with people.

An old man in Panjiayuan cut paper butterflies that came to life before he vanished, stirring speculation among Lu Ban’s fans. Liu Huajian, a Lu Scholar, planned to visit the market after work to investigate the Paper Cutter Official.

• Master Wang saw Blind Zhang cut intricate paper butterflies with iron scissors in Panjiayuan.
• The paper butterflies flapped their wings, flew away, and vanished into the sky.
• Master Wang found that Blind Zhang had disappeared, leaving a lifelike paper figure on his chair.
• Lu Scholars debated the mysterious world depicted in Nine Streams and whether the Panjiayuan incident was real or publicity.
• Liu Huajian decided to visit Panjiayuan after work to see whether the Paper Cutter Official was real.

Liu Huajian encountered a strange old paper-cutting seller at Panjiayuan, who gave him a paper figure substitute and warned that he had suffered severe erosion. After the figure appeared to save him from a crash and was found torn in half, Liu Huajian suspected that knowledge of Ruined City and other realms was contaminating him.

• Liu Huajian visited Panjiayuan and spoke with an eerie old man whom other people seemed unable to see.
• The old man cut out a lifelike paper figure resembling Liu Huajian and told him to carry it to ward off a calamity.
• Liu Huajian discovered that the neighboring stall owner remembered the spot as empty and left with the paper figure.
• An electric car charged toward Liu Huajian, swerved at the last moment, and crashed into a tree after its driver ranted about revenge.
• Liu Huajian found the paper figure torn in half and wondered whether he was being eroded by knowledge of Ruined City and other realms.

Lu Ban released a second trailer for Nine Streams that portrayed the legendary successors through their descendants’ ordinary memories, while using the film to spread Otherworld knowledge and contamination. By the approach of autumn, the movie’s release was less than a week away.

• Lu Ban reviewed the second trailer, which showed Tang Yu, Professor Hu, He Jiaoyang, and others recalling their Nine Streams elders as ordinary family members.
• Viewers debated whether the trailer’s figures were real, with some connecting its blind old man to the paper-cutting old man from an earlier video.
• Lu Ban recognized that repeated exposure to his films had raised many viewers’ contamination levels and that some were already receptive to Otherworld knowledge.
• After the trailer came out, Lu Ban’s task progress rose to one-fifth complete, or roughly two thousand people, as viewers became contaminated through research and prior supernatural encounters.
• Lu Ban planned to let the contaminated influence others, and less than a week remained before Nine Streams opened nationwide.

Lu Ban kept Nine Streams limited to domestic theaters without subtitles, prompting foreign fans to travel to China for its premiere. Stephen, a member of an overseas subtitle group, watched the opening screening and saw a man in sunglasses protect a child from the unseen dead.

• Lu Ban decided not to release Nine Streams overseas or prepare subtitles because he expected domestic viewers to understand its cultural ideas more readily.
• Foreign fans reacted to the domestic-only premiere, and some bought tickets to travel to China despite not knowing Chinese.
• Stephen, a Chinese-speaking student at Yannan University and a member of the subtitle group, bought a ticket to the film’s early showing.
• Stephen found the packed cinema and sent a photo to the subtitle group before the screening began.
• The film opened with an orphan keeping vigil beside his parents’ coffins on the First Seven, when the dead were said to return.
• A man in sunglasses covered the child’s eyes, reassured his parents’ spirits, and told the child to live well.

Stephen watched Lu Ban’s film about the Nine Streams, which introduced their past and present through eerie scenes, historical upheaval, and descendants’ memories. The story left him intrigued by what happened in Jiangcheng and watching as He Chong began a fight after Dai Yuanyang’s words.

• Stephen found the First Seven funeral sequence eerie and suspected the story involved Yin-Yang Eyes.
• Lu Ban and He Chong met on a train after He Chong recovered a passenger’s stolen wallet from a child.
• He Jiaoyang described his great-grandfather He Chong in an interview, and other descendants recalled how the Nine Streams had changed with age.
• Stephen grew curious about the events in Jiangcheng and believed the Nine Streams might have survived.
• Dai Yuanyang’s words heightened tensions among the group, and He Chong struck first, starting a fight.

Stephen watched He Chong and Dai Yuanyang fight, then followed He Chong’s terrifying first trial on Jiangcheng Mountain through Lu Ban’s film. The trial ended with He Chong resisting the illusions, while Stephen remembered the warning that the more one knew, the more unfortunate one became.

• Stephen watched He Chong and Dai Yuanyang combine their supernatural abilities with their fighting techniques and praised Lu Ban’s imaginative direction.
• The next day, Lu Ban, He Chong, and the others drove toward Jiangcheng Mountain, where the film focused on He Chong’s first trial.
• He Chong used his Yin-Yang Eyes to see that Seventh Master was an illusion formed from twisted maggots, then continued onward after Seventh Master vanished.
• He Chong saw Lu Ban lying in the grass and begging for help, but recognized the illusion and walked on as a monster seemed to swallow Lu Ban.
• He Chong saw an illusion of his child, revealed its maggot form with his Yin-Yang Eyes, then closed his eyes and passed it without looking back.
• Stephen recalled the film’s opening warning: the more one knew, the more unfortunate one became.

Stephen watched the trial’s eerie temple scenes, grew curious about Xuánjun and Lu Ban’s plans, and began anticipating what would happen next. The chapter left the camera moving toward Blind Zhang as he sat alone in the main hall.

• Stephen felt that the tentacle-covered statue was blasphemous, though the local audience only seemed frightened by it.
• Tang Que searched the temple for jade pendant fragments, heard something moving in the bushes, and turned back when Seventh Master called her.
• The bushes shook after Tang Que left, giving the audience a sudden scare.
• Lu Ban knocked Dai Yuanyang unconscious, took the jade pendant fragments, and assembled them into an eyeball-shaped object.
• Stephen suspected Xuánjun’s promise of immortality was a trap and wondered if Lu Ban would be burned as firewood.
• The camera watched Blind Zhang sitting in the main hall, then began to move.

Stephen watched the movie’s unsettling scenes as Blind Zhang revealed a formidable presence, while Professor Hu recognized his father among the characters and recalled his father’s lifelong regret. As Cao Manwen watched the foreign researchers seize Dai Yuanyang, he realized the supernatural practitioners and their abilities could represent master craftsmen and cultural-artifact protectors.

• The camera approached Blind Zhang, who sensed it and revealed the aura of a battle-hardened warrior before the view shifted to Du Ming, He Chong, and Seventh Master.
• Professor Hu recognized his father, played by Seventh Master, and remembered his father’s regret over running away instead of staying with everyone.
• The movie showed Lu Ban obtain the token and emerge as the Mysterious Lord candidate while Dai Yuanyang continued sleeping.
• Foreign researchers and soldiers found Dai Yuanyang at the Taoist temple, and Professor Hu said they had taken their things in the past.
• Cao Manwen interpreted the Nine Streams’ abilities and rivalry as representations of craftsmen protecting cultural artifacts from foreign collectors.

Cao Manwen realized Lu Ban’s film used the Nine Streams successors’ struggle to protect cultural relics and the Oldest One’s chosen sacrifice to reflect resistance in a war-torn era. As an evil god’s seal was disturbed, monstrous servants attacked the temple, and the foreign research team entered it.

• Cao Manwen recognized that the film’s supernatural contests represented craftsmen protecting the country’s cultural relics.
• Lu Ban found the Oldest One’s corpse and learned that the Oldest One willingly gave up his life to keep the world going.
• A foreign research team discovered a cavern and began opening a coffin despite knowing the mountain held sealed monsters.
• The Stone statue transformed into a monster, and Tang Que knocked it down, releasing swarms of the evil god’s insect servants.
• Foreign soldiers went mad and killed themselves, while the Nine Streams successors fought the monsters with their powers.
• The foreigners who had found the evil god’s seal entered the temple.

Lu Ban edited the sealed Old One’s image into a video after finding it caused little contamination to him and those close to him, though it remained lethal to ordinary viewers. As the video showed the Nine Streams successors returning to help Lu Ban, Professor Hu and Cao Manwen reflected on sacrifice, inheritance, and the people who had carried their country through hardship.

• Lu Ban found that footage of the sealed Old One had little effect on him, Feng Yu, Qin Tiantian, or most of his employees, and he theorized that the being’s seal had weakened its contamination.
• Lu Ban edited images of the Old One into the video, where Stephen and two foreigners suffered severe physical and mental effects from seeing it.
• The video showed Lu Ban reaching the temple and melting under the Old One’s power, while the Nine Streams successors turned back uphill to help him.
• Professor Hu realized that his father had regretted not following the Nine Streams successors, though he had fled to protect his family.
• Cao Manwen reflected on whether he could choose sacrifice when faced with danger, then saw the predecessors standing together and was moved to tears.

After Nine Streams, Professor Hu found hope in preserving his father’s traditions, while Cao Manwen and Stephen left the cinema deeply affected by the film. Critics later debated Lu Ban’s intentions and the movie’s documentary style, but agreed it was worth recommending.

• The film’s closing photographs showed how the Nine Streams successors and others lived on and served their country after the legend ended.
• Cao Manwen supported Professor Hu as he reflected that it was enough for someone to remember, and considered teaching his students about the traditions again.
• Stephen left the cinema moved by the characters’ courage and the tradition he saw between Professor Hu and Cao Manwen, then joined the crowd outside.
• Movie Weekly published a feature in the afternoon, and critics interpreted the Nine Streams successors as representing people who struggled for their land during a time of war.
• Critics debated the monsters, evil god, and mockumentary format, and speculated about Lu Ban’s changing approach before recommending the film.

After burying her grandmother’s ashes on Jiangcheng Mountain, Tang Yu discovered a mysterious path and climbed it with Lu Ban. They found the ruins of the place from the movie, but the cavern where Lord Xuan had been was gone, leaving only the quiet mountain behind.

• Tang Yu buried her grandmother’s ashes beneath a sapling and noticed an unfamiliar mountain path on her way back to the car.
• Tang Yu called Lu Ban, who recognized the path and climbed it with her after finding that its formation seemed to be gone.
• As they climbed, Tang Yu became distracted by the polluted mountain surroundings, and Lu Ban warned her to keep moving.
• Lu Ban and Tang Yu reached the ruined dojo and found scattered remains, weapons, and ammunition from the past.
• Lu Ban searched the higher platforms and found that the temple, Lord Xuan’s cavern, and the foreigners’ excavation cave had all vanished.