Chapter Summaries

Li Banfeng helped the Peddler rescue Face Not Big and dealt with the aftermath of the battle at Yellow Earth Bridge. The Peddler explained Face Not Big’s history and revealed that Snow Cream could be turned into silver coins.

• The Peddler explained that the Carriage Driver had rescued Face Not Big, while the genuine Carriage Driver returned after defeating the last fake.
• Li Banfeng collected the fallen fake Carriage Drivers, rescued Little Qin from a sealed mine tunnel, and brought her back to Qin Bulou.
• The Carriage Driver vouched for Qin Bulou, and the Peddler gave him until next year to prove he could found the path of Mis-cultivation; Qin Bulou and the Carriage Driver agreed to share Yellow Earth Bridge’s Local Earth Seal and popular support.
• Face Not Big asked the Peddler for Snow Cream, then said he would return to his former territory and seek the Mystic Life Crimson Lotus from the Sedan Chair Bearer.
• The Peddler told Li Banfeng that the Sage had imprisoned Face Not Big to control his oil and mechanical technologies, and explained how the Sage’s purges had devastated Pro State.
• The Peddler demonstrated that Snow Cream mixed with medicinal powder could become silver coins, suggesting that Snowflake Port’s coinage might come from his product.

Li Banfeng learned about the Peddler’s wager with Master Kong Fang and delivered Red Lotus’s message about ending the fight with the Heavenly Person. After the household questioned an Inner State spy and the Projector revealed his ability to perceive colors, Red Lotus made a puppet body for the Music Box, and Zhao Xiaowan went out with Li Banfeng.

• The Peddler explained that Master Kong Fang had wagered that the Peddler could not destroy Snowflake Port within twenty years, and that losing would require him to establish the Deceiver Cultivation sect.
• Lu Qianjiao arrived, accused the Peddler of neglecting her, and threw rocks; Li Banfeng caught one, threw it back, and fled after she retaliated.
• Li Banfeng returned to the Portable Abode and learned from the fake Carriage Driver that he had been a spy assigned to watch the He Family and could split off new Carriage Drivers.
• The fake Carriage Driver split off another body, and the Projector displayed his ability to perceive colors while the household discussed his growing cultivation.
• Li Banfeng told Red Lotus that the Peddler said his bond with the Heavenly Person was real, and Red Lotus made a puppet body for the Music Box.
• Zhao Xiaowan possessed the puppet, appeared before Li Banfeng, and asked whether she looked good; Li Banfeng embraced the Music Box and told her she did.

Li Banfeng discovered that the Ninth Room girl had used a Fool Cultivation technique through Red Lotus’s puppet to manipulate Zhao Xiaowan, and he confronted her about it. He spared the girl after the Portable Abode intervened, while Zhao Xiaowan chose to keep the puppet and returned to the Night Market with Li Banfeng.

• Zhao Xiaowan struggled with jealousy and indecision during a Night Market outing, and Li Banfeng used Fool Cultivation techniques to calm her and help her choose purchases.
• Zhao Xiaowan returned to the puppet and became emotionally unstable, so Li Banfeng realized a Fool Cultivator was influencing her thoughts.
• Li Banfeng identified the Ninth Room girl as the culprit after Zhao Xiaowan left the puppet and returned to the phonograph.
• The Ninth Room girl asked Li Banfeng about Sun Tiecheng and Fool’s City, then explained the technique Speaking of Sourness and Uttering Bitterness.
• Li Banfeng prepared to kill the Ninth Room girl, but the Portable Abode asked him to spare her, and he made her promise not to harm his family.
• Zhao Xiaowan chose to keep Red Lotus’s puppet, and she and Li Banfeng went to buy a bookshelf while Red Lotus and the Ninth Room girl spoke privately.

Li Banfeng used Ninth Room’s Three Gates Three Openings Formation to send Master Kong Fang and Du Wenming away from Fool’s City. With Sun Tiecheng absent, he warned the city’s residents and stayed at the gate to face the danger with them.

• Li Banfeng discovered Master Kong Fang and Du Wenming searching for Fool’s City, and Ninth Room taught him the Three Gates Three Openings Formation.
• Li Banfeng used his shadow to help plant three anchor points, sending Master Kong Fang away; Du Wenming then fled across the formation’s boundary and vanished as well.
• Li Banfeng went to Fool’s City, found Sun Tiecheng and Gui Jianchou absent, and told the residents to prepare to evacuate.
• The residents armed themselves and refused to leave their home, while Yan Qing’er urged Li Banfeng to return after the danger passed.
• Li Banfeng sent the gatekeeper into the city and waited alone at the gate, ready to face Master Kong Fang and Du Wenming alongside Fool’s City’s residents.

Li Banfeng helped defend Fool's City against Smiling Thousand Hands, then learned that Sun Tiecheng's daughter had created the Three Gates Three Openings Formation. The formation had sent Master Kong Fang to Green Water City, where he discussed Entry Medicine Powder with Mu Yuejuan and He Jiaqing, while Du Wenming encountered DaoLao Ghosts at Prince Chun's Mansion.

• Li Banfeng stopped Smiling Thousand Hands from entering Fool's City, and the old man's Universal Celebration laughter forced the crowd to laugh until Gui Jianchou arrived and drove him away.
• Gui Jianchou identified Smiling Thousand Hands as the ancestor of Thief Cultivators, and Sun Tiecheng revealed that his daughter had created the Three Gates Three Openings Formation.
• Sun Tiecheng told Li Banfeng that he had taken the blame for possessing Red Lotus to protect him, then urged him to carry a message to his estranged daughter.
• The Three Gates Three Openings Formation sent Master Kong Fang to Green Water City, where he met Mu Yuejuan and He Jiaqing to discuss finding the key to refining Entry Medicine Powder.
• Du Wenming reached Prince Chun's Mansion on Carefree Plains, where hundreds of DaoLao Ghosts surrounded him and Cui Tike demanded to know why he had come.

Li Banfeng decided to advance to the third layer of House Cultivator and learn Carefree Sleep to save the cursed glove, while Boss Lu tested Yu Yaoming’s wormhole cannon in Goat Horn Garden. The test sent Qin Tianjiu into the boundary, and the chapter ended as Luo ZhengNan noticed that strange radio static seemed to be seeking him out.

• Li Banfeng thanked Ninth Room for helping defend Fool’s City, but she rejected his reward and chose to keep hating Sun Tiecheng rather than return to see him.
• Li Banfeng learned that Smiling Thousand Hands’s curse had incapacitated the glove, and Wife agreed to stabilize the curse and help Li Banfeng advance so he could learn Carefree Sleep.
• Boss Lu used Adding Fragrance Lyrics to hide Yu Yaoming’s cannon, then brought it to Goat Horn Garden to test its ability to open a passage into a wormhole.
• Boss Lu sent a bird through the wormhole entrance, but it vanished, and Yu Yaoming insisted that a human might still be able to pass through and return.
• Boss Lu bound Qin Tianjiu and hurled him toward the boundary to test Yu Yaoming’s claim, but Qin Tianjiu disappeared and did not return.
• Luo ZhengNan heard patterned static through his antenna and suspected that it had come looking for him.

Li Banfeng searched his territories for enough popularity to advance his House Cultivator and found an unexpectedly rich reserve in Mountain Pulling Master's new land. After investigating Zhang Wanlong's plant people and receiving a mysterious piece of bamboo, he began his advancement with a Profound Essence Pill.

• Li Banfeng drained the popularity from Green Water City, Ye Song Bridge, and Sleepless Town, but still lacked enough to reach the third layer.
• Li Banfeng visited Ink Fragrance Shop to borrow popularity, but discovered the brush scholar was using the Local Earth Seal himself and left without taking it.
• Li Banfeng absorbed enough popularity from Mountain Pulling Master's territory to advance, then met Zhang Wanlong and learned about the plant people he had cultivated.
• Li Banfeng noticed that some of Zhang Wanlong's plant people showed humanlike emotions, while others appeared to be tools, and Little Genzi secretly placed eight-tendon bamboo in his coat.
• Li Banfeng returned to the Portable Abode, decided to advance his House Cultivator, and swallowed an entire Profound Essence Pill.

Li Banfeng used Carefree Sleep to lift Glove’s curse, and Glove recovered memories of serving Smiling Thousand Hands. In Seven Autumn City, Li Banfeng explored Shui Yongquan’s soul and uncovered a way to restore his memories; as Shui Yongquan recognized Qiu Luoye, Glove warned that the Patriarch had arrived.

• Li Banfeng found a hidden curse seed on Glove by comparing him with old photographs, then scrubbed it with soap until Glove revived.
• Glove remembered that he had been a disciple and living hand of Smiling Thousand Hands, and recounted how he escaped and later came to serve Li Banfeng.
• Li Banfeng promised to help any family member who wanted to become human, then took Shui Yongquan to Seven Autumn City to investigate his Mind Cleansing Thought Washing technique.
• Li Banfeng saw the few memories remaining on Shui Yongquan’s human soul and uncovered patterns on the back of its bone that began restoring memory drawings.
• Shui Yongquan woke and recognized Qiu Luoye, then recalled that Zhu Chunhua had once asked whether Qiu Luoye liked her and that Shui Yongquan had driven her away.
• Glove warned Li Banfeng that the Patriarch had arrived, and Li Banfeng told Qiu Luoye that a thief had come to their home.

Li Banfeng and Qiu Luoye confronted Smiling Thousand Hands at Qiusheng Bathhouse, where Smiling Thousand Hands stole the proprietor’s liver before escaping. Cui Tike asked Li Banfeng to help establish a hospital and revealed new developments involving DaoLao Ghosts, while Dou Jiyan asked him to witness her high-stakes gamble against Ding LiuSan for control of Thousand Liang Workshop.

• Li Banfeng and Qiu Luoye tracked Smiling Thousand Hands to Qiusheng Bathhouse, where the thief stole the bathhouse proprietor’s liver and fought Qiu Luoye.
• Cui Tike and Dou Jiyan revealed themselves at the bathhouse, and Smiling Thousand Hands escaped through a drain after Cui Tike warned that he was seriously injured.
• Li Banfeng helped return the proprietor’s liver and agreed to discuss Cui Tike’s plan to open a hospital in Seven Autumn City.
• Cui Tike told Li Banfeng that DaoLao Ghosts had begun appearing in Carefree Plains but said he had found a way to keep them there.
• Dou Jiyan told Li Banfeng that she had wagered Thousand Liang Workshop against Ding LiuSan and asked him to witness the match, fearing Ding LiuSan would refuse to honor its outcome.

Li Banfeng accompanied Dou Jiyan to Thousand Liang Workshop, where she explained how its rules protected gambling cultivators from ruin and exploitation. As the match with Ding LiuSan approached, Li Banfeng questioned the colors he sensed around the gambling house, while Dou Jiyan insisted she would not lose her workshop.

• Dou Jiyan persuaded Li Banfeng to witness her match with Ding LiuSan, and they drew up a contract defining their obligations to each other.
• Li Banfeng and Qiu Luoye discovered that Shui Yongquan had reached the Third Layer Above the Clouds by secretly stealing human vitality from nearby territories and using Spinning Qing Flowers to endure it.
• Shui Yongquan claimed there were Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Layers Above the Clouds, and Li Banfeng believed his claim might be true.
• Dou Jiyan led Li Banfeng through Thousand Liang Workshop, showing him its guarded districts, gambling houses, and strict rules against private games and large losses.
• Li Banfeng watched gambling cultivators use techniques at a small-stakes game, while Dou Jiyan explained how her rules protected them from losing their savings and flesh to creditors.
• The projector reported that the gambling house's colors shifted toward oppressive black, fearful green, and bright red after Li Banfeng entered, and Dou Jiyan said she would not lose the coming match to Ding LiuSan.

Ding LiuSan defeated Dou Jiyan in three gambling matches, used his influence over Thousand Liang Workshop’s Gambling Cultivators to force her out, and replaced her rules with unrestricted gambling. As Dou Jiyan left with almost no followers, He Jiaqing encountered Cui Tike in the newly opened gambling halls, where both hinted they were working for powerful seniors.

• Ding LiuSan beat Dou Jiyan at dice and used the crowd’s shifting support to undermine her authority.
• Dou Jiyan borrowed chips for pai gow, won that hand, and then lost the cockfight after her fighting cock slipped and Ding LiuSan’s bird killed it.
• Li Banfeng ruled that Ding LiuSan had won, and Ding LiuSan ordered Dou Jiyan to leave Thousand Liang Workshop within a day.
• Fewer than a hundred of Thousand Liang Workshop’s more than one hundred thousand Gambling Cultivators followed Dou Jiyan, who left without taking her deed.
• Ding LiuSan abolished restrictions on gambling and allowed outside businesses into Thousand Liang Workshop in exchange for half their earnings.
• He Jiaqing warned Cui Tike that he would be exposed for switching pai gow tiles, and both men said they were working for powerful seniors.

Cui Tike used a disease technique to wipe out the Gambling Cultivators in Thousand Liang Workshop, and Li Banfeng recovered Dou Jiyan’s deed before returning to Seven Autumn City. There, he sought scientific equipment for Wife’s research and learned that a recording in the Dark Star Bureau’s files referred to a secret conflict called the Second Pro War.

• Cui Tike revealed that the Peddler had tasked him with containing Thousand Liang Workshop and unleashed DaoLao Ghosts and his Corpses Everywhere technique, killing the Gambling Cultivators while Ding LiuSan escaped.
• Li Banfeng met Cui Tike in the devastated workshop, collected Dou Jiyan’s deed and the Local Earth Seal, and heard that Cui Tike’s hooded allies came from Sage Peak.
• Li Banfeng told Dou Jiyan that Thousand Liang Workshop was gone, then returned to his laboratory, where Wife said she needed a new-model magnetometer for her research.
• Li Banfeng asked Shen Jingye to help locate research equipment, and Shen gave him records of institutions connected to Du Wenming along with Birch Hermit Association evidence.
• Li Banfeng listened to a translated recording by Nie Li’ai Shafu, and Shen Jingye explained that it came from the Second Pro War, a top-secret conflict from more than forty years earlier.

Li Banfeng learned more about the Second Pro War and sought clues about Huang Yuxian and Yao Lao while arranging scientific equipment for Wife. After struggling to learn a concealment formation, he returned to the Dark Star Bureau and asked Shen Jingye about its archives.

• Shen Jingye explained that the Second Pro War had been fought in scattered campaigns and that a recording implicated Huang Yuxian in the death of Birch Hermit Association members.
• Tangyuan told Li Banfeng that she had become a fifth-layer Scholar and shared what she knew about both Pro Wars and their participants.
• Wine Gourd recalled fighting alongside Yao Lao in a war involving foreign forces, leading Li Banfeng to suspect that Yao Lao and Huang Yuxian had opposed the Lavsha People.
• Li Banfeng used Tang Changfa’s company to buy an electromagnetic instrument for Wife, then asked Ninth Girl to teach him the Confusing Flowers Dazzling Eyes Array but failed to hide a rose bush.
• Li Banfeng left Tang Blade and Old Teapot to protect Wife in the laboratory, then asked Shen Jingye how many archive rooms the Dark Star Bureau had.

Li Banfeng rescued Guan Zhengyang from Birch Hermit Association kidnappers, then obtained a few pages about the Pro War that suggested the Inner State and the Birch Hermit Association had fought against Pro State. As he began investigating Gourd Village after people vanished into it, the Wine Gourd indicated she knew of the place.

• Shen Jingye first refused Li Banfeng’s request for Pro War materials, then called him for help when Birch Hermit Association kidnappers took Guan Zhengyang hostage.
• Li Banfeng arrived at the hotel, directed the Public Security Team’s assault, and helped rescue Guan Zhengyang while the team captured the kidnappers.
• Li Banfeng questioned Guan Zhengyang and had him taken to the bureau, prompting Shen Jingye to provide three pages of restricted Pro War records the next morning.
• Li Banfeng read Nie Li'ai Shafu’s speech and concluded that the Inner State and the Birch Hermit Association had allied against Pro State, while Huang Yuxian and Yao Lao stood with Pro State.
• Shen Jingye told Li Banfeng that Gourd Village had opened in Yuezhou and that several people had vanished there through an entrance at a pharmacy.
• Li Banfeng recognized the witnesses’ description of the village’s seductive women as gourd-like and asked the Wine Gourd whether she knew Gourd Village.

Li Banfeng investigated Gourd Village, a Stealth Space whose shifting entrance appeared around Lunar New Year, and his team questioned the family of missing man Zhang Peiwen. Chuunibyou concluded Zhang Peiwen may have been better off away from his controlling home, while Li Banfeng considered whether to investigate Gourd Village directly.

• Li Banfeng reviewed Gourd Village case files and learned that its entrance appeared each year as women who lured passersby inside, while survivors could recall little beyond its name.
• Chuunibyou questioned why Zhang Peiwen had taken a taxi despite living close to the pharmacy, and Li Banfeng's team visited Zhang Peiwen's parents to gather information.
• At Zhang Peiwen's home, Chuunibyou collected evidence, including loose change, a strict daily schedule, and a smartphone flyer, while Li Banfeng learned that Zhang Peiwen's mother had prepared the same carrot dishes repeatedly.
• Chuunibyou argued that Ai Xiafen tightly controlled Zhang Peiwen's life and that returning him home might not help him, leading Tangyuan to reconsider her assumptions.
• Li Banfeng's team debated whether to investigate Zhang Peiwen's taxi driver further, and Li Banfeng asked whether anyone wanted to visit Gourd Village.

Li Banfeng entered Gourd Village to investigate its strange entrance and encountered its eccentric residents, including the missing Zhang Peiwen. After refusing to sign a contract, Li Banfeng tried to escape with Zhang Peiwen, who betrayed him by detonating explosives in the stairwell.

• Li Banfeng investigated the survivors Wu Nianping and Deng Yunmei, then returned to Yuezhou after Shen Jingye reported signs of a new Gourd Village entrance.
• Li Banfeng volunteered to watch a movie theater entrance, entered Gourd Village when it appeared, and met A-Yun and A-Yi.
• A-Yun and A-Yi brought Li Banfeng to a tall building, where he found Zhang Peiwen instead of the Village Chief.
• Li Banfeng refused to sign a contract requiring him to stay in the village, and A-Yi revealed that she was the Village Chief before the stairs disappeared.
• Li Banfeng planned to fly down the shaft with Zhang Peiwen, but Zhang Peiwen lit explosives and detonated them, trapping Li Banfeng in the blast.

Li Banfeng tried to escape Gourd Village, where A-Yi and the villagers pursued him with traps and explosives, while he learned how the village separated outsiders from accepted residents. After A-Yi revealed the reality-altering powers of Mad Cultivation, Li Banfeng was left facing her full strength and wondering how Sun Tiecheng had defeated her.

• Li Banfeng questioned Zhang Peiwen, learned he had entered Gourd Village after following two women, and agreed to help him return home.
• After eating poisoned eggplant, Li Banfeng detoxified himself in the Portable Abode and learned from Ninth Girl that a powerful Mad Cultivation practitioner was in Gourd Village.
• A-Yi's villagers chased Li Banfeng through the village, and Awl hid him before betraying his location in exchange for permission to move to Gourd Belly.
• Li Banfeng escaped the wardrobe explosion, ran across Gourd Mountain, and shared a meal with A-Yi while arguing that he did not belong in the village.
• A-Yi unleashed Mad Cultivation Skill: Mountain Collapse and Earth Shatter, then summoned a torrent from the sky with Galaxy Nine Heavens, knocking Li Banfeng to the ground.

Li Banfeng fought A-Yi in Gourd Village, and his shadows multiplied into a powerful but unruly Heavenly Union Skill before A-Yi finally destroyed them. After the battle, he agreed to stay for three days and join A-Yi’s Mad Cultivators, then became her sworn brother and endured her attempt to dress him up with Entry Medicine Powder.

• Li Banfeng’s unstable logic unraveled as he used Reversing Cause and Effect on his shadows, calming them and turning them into allies against A-Yi.
• Li Banfeng’s shadows multiplied as they fought A-Yi, while the Ninth Room girl, Hong Ying, the projector, and the old master discussed Heavenly Union Skills.
• A-Yi overwhelmed Li Banfeng with explosives, but he survived by transferring himself onto a shadow and continued fighting until she pulverized his shadows.
• After the battle, A-Yi agreed to let Li Banfeng leave after three days in the village if he joined her school, and he accepted when his shadows began volunteering in his place.
• A-Yi and Li Banfeng swore brotherhood, with A-Yi taking him as her disciple, then she applied Entry Medicine Powder to his face and explained how the Peddler had recognized her school.

Li Banfeng toured the three villages in Gourd Belly, helped Zhang Peiwen choose to stay, and learned that A-Yi had built roads to Fool's City before returning to his wife. He left with a jade key to Gourd Village, learned more about A-Yi from Jiuer, and saw that his wife’s new device might create a passage across the boundary.

• Li Banfeng visited Unenlightened Village and used Reversing Cause and Effect to help Ami stop crying and return to her farm work.
• Li Banfeng toured Enlightened Village, tried to learn the Mad Cultivation technique for eternal youth, and joined the celebration in Thoroughly Enlightened Village.
• A-Yi allowed Zhang Peiwen to stay in Gourd Waist, where he could reconsider leaving his sick mother, and gave Li Banfeng a jade pendant that could open Gourd Village’s gate.
• A-Yi told Li Banfeng that she had built roads to Fool's City and warned him against combining Mad Cultivation with Arrow Cultivation or another sect.
• Li Banfeng asked Jiuer about A-Yi and learned that she was Jiuer’s sworn sister and the second sister, while their mother was the eldest.
• Li Banfeng returned to his wife, who comforted him and showed him a device that might build a passage across the boundary.

Li Banfeng obtained the real Lie Root Stone from He Jiaqing and helped complete Wife’s Dark Bridge Cannon. The cannon let Li Banfeng enter a wormhole while crossing a boundary line, where he encountered a familiar man in white and an Immortal Crane.

• Wife told Li Banfeng that the Dark Bridge Cannon needed a Lie Root Stone, and Feng Daiku said the stone from Soda Kiln had been sent to the Outer State.
• Li Banfeng borrowed a fake Lie Root Stone from Shen Jingye, discovered it was a Star Yellow Stone, and learned He Jiaqing had stolen the real one from the Dark Star Bureau.
• Li Banfeng arranged for He Yuxiu to negotiate with He Jiaqing, who returned carriers in exchange for leniency for his businesses and eventually sent the real Lie Root Stone.
• Wife installed the Lie Root Stone in the Dark Bridge Cannon, and Li Banfeng tested it with a Cabbage Man before preparing to cross a real boundary line himself.
• Li Banfeng entered the wormhole and heard a man in white and an Immortal Crane nearby, though they could not see him.