Recaps

After Shen Tang fell asleep drunk, Qi Shan and Chu Yao decided to attack the bandits’ hideout that night before she woke and could change her mind. As the group prepared to move, Lin Feng saw Shen Tang’s Literary Heart Sigil rise in a flash of golden light.

• Qi Shan carried the sleeping Shen Tang into the carriage and cast [Self-Preservation] to protect her.
• Gongshu Wu returned from killing the ambushers and reported that he had found the bandits’ hideout.
• Qi Shan ordered Gongshu Wu and himself to raid the hideout that night rather than wait until morning.
• Chu Yao assigned Zhai Le to guard the camp while the others went after the bandits.
• Lin Feng told Chu Yao that Shen Tang’s Literary Heart Sigil had suddenly risen and flashed with golden light.

Shen Tang woke in a bandit stronghold with no memory of getting there or saving Wind under the Woods, and learned that she had been drunk the night before. After hearing that Wind under the Woods's family had been killed, Shen Tang promised to look for their bodies and let the girl stay with her.

• Chu Yao checked Shen Tang's pulse and reassured Wind under the Woods that she was healthy, so Wind under the Woods set aside her doubts and fell asleep.
• Shen Tang woke aching in an unfamiliar earthen house and cursed about her overturned wine stall before Wind under the Woods entered.
• Wind under the Woods told Shen Tang that she had saved her while drunk and that they were in a bandit stronghold outside Xiaocheng.
• Shen Tang drank Chu Yao's hangover soup, praised the name she had given Wind under the Woods, and learned that the Lin Family had met with disaster.
• Shen Tang promised Wind under the Woods she would search below the cliff for her family and offered to let her stay with her.

After waking in the bandit stronghold, Shen Tang learned that the captives and their valuables were being presented as her spoils of war. She arranged to protect Lin Feng’s claim to a share, then had to decide what would happen to the captured bandits and their families.

• Shen Tang woke and found more than a hundred people and dozens of boxes gathered outside the earthen house under the watch of Chu Yao, Qi Shan, Gongshu Wu, and Zhai Le.
• Qi Shan gave Shen Tang a ledger of the captured property and explained that Zhai Le had taken a promissory note for his share instead of carrying away the valuables.
• Shen Tang worried that the property belonged to Lin Feng, but Chu Yao explained that it had been taken from the Lin Family’s traitor and the bandits, not from Lin Feng herself.
• Shen Tang agreed to write Lin Feng a promissory note so she could receive a suitable dowry when she came of age, while the group promised to keep her safe.
• Qi Shan asked Shen Tang whether she would release, sell, bury, or slaughter the people gathered outside.

Shen Tang decided to spare the captured bandits and give them work, then learned Qi Shan had provoked her to make her consider responsibility for their lives and futures. The chapter left her proposing that they name the village they would build together.

• Qi Shan proposed selling the captured bandits or killing and burying them, but Shen Tang rejected those options and chose to leave them alive and give them whatever work they could handle.
• Shen Tang suffered a sudden, severe headache that passed quickly, and Qi Shan and Chu Yao worried that it might be an illness rather than a hangover.
• Qi Shan apologized to Shen Tang for provoking her and explained that he hoped she would shoulder responsibility for the suffering people under heaven.
• Shen Tang misunderstood Qi Shan's intentions before realizing he meant for her to act like a village elder, and she suggested giving their village a name.

Shen Tang named the settlement Hand in Hand, We'll All Strive for Prosperity and helped Lin Feng recover her family’s bodies. Downstream, an old man and his young disciple found a badly injured survivor among the floating bodies.

• Shen Tang chose Hand in Hand, We'll All Strive for Prosperity as the village’s name after learning Qi Shan had taken a group down the mountain for supplies and Gongshu Wu was training the able-bodied men.
• Shen Tang found Chu Yao and Lin Feng managing the kitchen’s supplies and asked Lin Feng to come with her.
• Shen Tang and Lin Feng recovered the identifiable bodies of Lin Feng’s family guards and prepared to bury her grandmother and the others.
• Shen Tang promised the Old Madam she would treat Lin Feng as her little sister and care for her as long as she lived.
• An old man and A Yan spotted a survivor floating in the river and pulled him out; the man’s unusually positioned heart had spared him from a fatal chest wound.

Shen Tang returned to the village with the exhausted Lin Feng after Lin Feng mourned her mother, while Qi Shan discovered that strangers had searched his private residence. The chapter left Qi Shan calm but alert to the unwanted attention.

• An old man treated a badly injured man rescued by A Yan, while A Yan helped recover the other bodies from the water.
• Lin Feng broke down grieving over her mother's body, and Shen Tang took her back to the village on the Motorcycle.
• Chu Yao welcomed Shen Tang home and cautioned her against being overly familiar with eight-year-old Lin Feng.
• Qi Shan returned to his private residence and learned that family retainers had asked about him and searched his room.

Qi Shan was summoned to the Prefectural Government, where the prefect tested him while pretending to request a painting. The prefect recognized that Qi Shan’s name and manner resembled an old enemy, but Qi Shan’s ease around cats contradicted what he knew about that man.

• Qi Shan found his room ransacked, then packed to leave with Su Shang.
• The prefect’s steward surrounded the residence and summoned Qi Shan, who went with him to the Prefectural Government.
• Qi Shan greeted the prefect and recognized Zhai Huan among the guests.
• The prefect questioned Qi Shan about his identity and watched him handle Su Shang and a large orange cat without distress.
• The prefect claimed to admire Qi Shan’s paintings and offered gold for a work, which Qi Shan accepted.
• The prefect recalled that the Qi Shan he knew was terrified of cats and could suffer a life-threatening reaction near them.

Qi Shan endured the prefect’s test and the guests’ mockery, then spent several days in Xiaocheng making extravagant purchases before leaving with his supplies. When thieves followed him into the outskirts, he killed them and continued into the mountains with Su Shang.

• The prefect tested Qi Shan by asking him to paint with his left hand and hinting that he resembled an old friend, while the banquet guests mocked his technique.
• Qi Shan finished the painting, collected his payment, and left the hall, where he met Zhai Huan and teased him about visiting the prefect.
• Qi Shan spent three or four days drinking and shopping, buying enough goods to fill more than forty carts while government agents watched him.
• Qi Shan left Xiaocheng with his belongings, and a group of thieves followed him into the outskirts.
• Qi Shan disappeared from the thieves’ sight, then surprised them from behind and killed them before heading into the mountains with Su Shang.

Shen Tang grew restless in the mountain hideout and helped make food while discussing how to raise pigs for meat. Her graphic explanation of tapeworms horrified Lin Feng and ruined Chu Yao and Gongshu Wu’s meal.

• Shen Tang refused to help Gongshu Wu train the militia, so Chu Yao suggested she assist in the kitchen by making flatbreads.
• Shen Tang used her Literary Heart Word Spirit to produce flatbreads while Lin Feng counted and carried them to the kitchen.
• While eating flatbread soup, Shen Tang proposed catching piglets and raising castrated pigs for meat.
• Shen Tang warned Lin Feng that pigs should not be raised near latrines because people could get tapeworms from infected pork.
• Lin Feng turned pale as Shen Tang described tapeworms growing inside the body, while Chu Yao and Gongshu Wu asked her not to discuss it during the meal.

The Prefect dismissed reports about Qi Shan after deciding he was an impostor, while Wu Yuan returned to the Moonlit Pavilion frustrated by failed negotiations. Qi Shan reached Shen Tang’s new residence and found her riding a pig with a herd of piglets following behind, leaving him stunned.

• The Prefect concluded that the violent Qi Shan could not be the benevolent scholar he had known and told his steward to return to work.
• Wu Yuan asked whether the Prefect would recruit Qi Shan, but the Prefect refused, and their talks over an arms deal ended badly.
• Wu Yuan returned to the Moonlit Pavilion, where Gu Chi learned from his thoughts what had happened at the Prefectural Government.
• Qi Shan shook off his pursuers, killed the thugs who tried to rob him, and made arrangements for the elderly couple before heading to Shen Tang’s new residence.
• Qi Shan saw Shen Tang riding the Black-faced Gentleman down the mountain road with more than twenty piglets behind her, while Lin Feng hurried after them with a whip.

Chu Yao bought more than twenty piglets, and Shen Tang agreed to raise them after imagining the pork they could provide. She began planning their castration in meticulous detail, leaving Chu Yao and Gongshu Wu astonished by her knowledge.

• Lin Feng led Shen Tang to see more than twenty piglets Chu Yao had bought from farmers.
• Shen Tang learned that Chu Yao intended to raise the piglets rather than slaughter them, and he assigned their care to Wu Lang.
• Chu Yao persuaded Shen Tang to raise the pigs by suggesting she could help make pork affordable for ordinary people.
• Shen Tang agreed to raise the piglets and asked Gongshu Wu to conjure a small knife for their future castration.
• Shen Tang planned to wait several days before the procedure and had Lin Feng record preparations, including fasting, washing, and choosing a cool time of day.

Shen Tang walked more than twenty piglets to exercise them and prepare them for castration, then subdued a wild boar and turned it into her mount. Qi Shan discovered the spectacle and angrily called out Chu Yao.

• Shen Tang proposed walking the piglets on leashes, and Chu Yao agreed to try it despite worrying they might escape.
• Shen Tang took Lin Feng and the piglets along the mountain roads, where a wild boar charged at them.
• Shen Tang fought the wild boar, subdued it, and used a waist rope to ride it as a mount.
• Shen Tang rode the boar while the piglets followed and Lin Feng ran behind them; Chu Yao and Gongshu Wu watched from afar.
• Qi Shan saw Shen Tang riding the boar and shouted angrily for Chu Yao.

Qi Shan returned and clashed with Chu Yao over Shen Tang’s unruly behavior and education. Chu Yao defended Shen Tang’s pig-raising project as a way to help ordinary people, leaving Qi Shan to reconsider what he had seen.

• Qi Shan returned to find Shen Tang filthy and riding pigs, then demanded to know how she had ended up that way.
• Chu Yao defended Shen Tang’s freedom to play, and he and Qi Shan argued over whether she needed stricter education.
• Shen Tang tried to calm them by suggesting Qi Shan rest and offering to have the Black-faced Gentleman butchered for dinner.
• Chu Yao argued that Shen Tang was not suited to conventional scholarly training, while Qi Shan insisted she should at least learn Word Spirits and basic knowledge.
• Chu Yao gave Qi Shan Shen Tang’s bamboo-slip notes and explained that raising pigs quickly could give ordinary people another way to earn a living.

Shen Tang spent her idle days herding pigs until Zhai Le visited, and the two caught wild boars and raced and fought on them. Qi Shan arrived to find them still riding pigs and fighting.

• Shen Tang met Zhai Le when he came to visit her at the mountain.
• Shen Tang took Zhai Le to catch a wild boar, and he learned to ride it.
• Zhai Le challenged Shen Tang to a pig race, wagering that the loser would buy wine.
• Shen Tang tricked Zhai Le into giving her a head start, and they raced while striking at each other with branches.
• Qi Shan caught Shen Tang and Zhai Le fighting on their pigs, and Shen Tang waved to him.

Qi Shan took Shen Tang to buy people so she could build a private retinue, and she accepted the idea despite having little money. Zhai Le joined them, while Qi Shan considered the costs and dangers of raising a private army.

• Qi Shan confronted Shen Tang and Zhai Le for leading a pig, then said he had come to take Shen Tang to buy people.
• Qi Shan explained that the stronghold needed more people and that Sibao Prefecture was becoming unsafe, while Zhai Le identified the plan as raising private retainers.
• Shen Tang worried that she lacked the money to fund a private army, but accepted that she needed to strengthen her forces.
• Zhai Le followed Shen Tang and Qi Shan, saying he could advise them because he had a private army of his own.
• Qi Shan explained that Zhai Le's retainers were back home and that bringing a large force while traveling could provoke other factions.

Shen Tang learned why Martial Gall Warriors could not easily establish their own territories: raising troops required vast resources, coordinated Word Spirits, and a National Seal. The group reached a poor town’s market, where Shen Tang saw a starving child being offered for sale.

• Qi Shan explained the costs of training private troops and the National Seal’s role in protecting a realm and its National Fortune.
• Zhai Le explained that Martial Gall Warriors were most powerful on the battlefield and that few had reached the highest ranks.
• Shen Tang insisted on bringing the two black pigs down the mountain, and Qi Shan led the group to a small town near Xiaocheng.
• At the town’s monthly market, Shen Tang saw impoverished people being sold, including a severely malnourished child offered by his mother.
• Qi Shan told Shen Tang that the child could not be saved, and Zhai Le said eating dirt had badly damaged his body.

Shen Tang encountered a grieving mother whose child had died and bought him, then questioned the meaning of living amid such suffering. Qi Shan and Zhai Le shared their ambitions, and Shen Tang declared she wanted to pacify the whole world.

• Shen Tang discovered that the child in the woman's arms had already died, but agreed to buy him for forty wen and gave the mother a flatbread.
• Shen Tang told the woman she could keep her son until she had finished her errands, and the woman thanked her tearfully.
• Shen Tang asked Qi Shan why people lived if death and suffering were inevitable, and Qi Shan said he wanted to leave behind a mark of his own.
• Zhai Le said he wanted to help his elder brother pacify the southeast, and Shen Tang laughed before proclaiming that she would pacify the whole world.

Shen Tang accidentally activated a powerful Word Spirit while quoting Du Shaoling, draining her literary energy and leaving her weak. Qi Shan and Zhai Le realized she lacked control over her Literary Heart, and Qi Shan advised her to study how to regulate it.

• Shen Tang argued with Qi Shan about her ambition to help the people and accidentally activated a Word Spirit while quoting Du Shaoling.
• Shen Tang collapsed from depleted literary energy, and Zhai Le caught her as Qi Shan checked her pulse.
• Qi Shan restored some of Shen Tang's literary energy and identified the line she had inadvertently tried to invoke as a Word Spirit.
• Qi Shan explained that Shen Tang could activate Word Spirits through her thoughts and that speaking aloud was not what triggered them.
• Qi Shan showed that Shen Tang lacked control over her Literary Heart because she used Word Spirits at full force instead of regulating their effects.
• Qi Shan advised Shen Tang to study the basics so she could control her Literary Heart and avoid another loss of control.

Shen Tang learned that a Word Spirit could copy things, then watched a black pig ram her and charge through the market. A burly stranger stepped into its path as it bore down on him.

• Shen Tang realized Qi Shan had used a Word Spirit to copy the food and wine she had labored to make, and added his actions to her mental grudge list.
• Zhai Le wondered about the power of Shen Tang's Word Spirit, while Qi Shan suspected that fully reciting it might create a thousand sturdy houses.
• The group reached a lively market, where Qi Shan negotiated with a vendor to buy young men.
• Shen Tang leaned against a post to nap, and the black pig rammed her calf before bolting through the crowd.
• Zhai Le prepared to stop the pig, but a burly, dark-skinned man stood in its path as it charged toward him.

Shen Tang’s Black-faced Gentleman fled to her for protection after a tall man threw it, then the man tried to claim the boar as ownerless. Shen Tang stopped him from taking it, and he backed down after Zhai Le’s Martial Gall Tiger Tally revealed he was a Martial Gall Warrior.

• The tall man caught the charging Black-faced Gentleman and tossed it aside, but the boar ran behind Shen Tang and Zhai Le for protection.
• Shen Tang scolded the boar for ramming her and claimed it as her own.
• The tall man demanded proof of ownership and reached for the boar, so Shen Tang stopped him and insisted it was her pig.
• Zhai Le offered compensation and identified the boar as Shen Tang’s beloved pet.
• The tall man noticed Zhai Le’s Martial Gall Tiger Tally and reluctantly let go.

Shen Tang decided to buy the towering man who had pushed her over, despite Zhai Le’s objections and the vendor’s warning that the man had killed someone. The onlookers began explaining the circumstances of the death, leaving Shen Tang to learn the man’s history.

• Zhai Le failed to befriend the man, while Shen Tang blamed the Black-faced Gentleman for knocking her down and threatened to deal with it later.
• Shen Tang asked the vendor how much he wanted for the man, and the man sprang up and insisted he would not be sold.
• Zhai Le warned Shen Tang that the man was an extraordinary talent who should be recruited rather than bought.
• The vendor said the man had killed someone who had been in bed with him, making Shen Tang suspect he was a wife-beater.
• The vendor denied that explanation, and the gathered onlookers began telling Shen Tang what had happened.

Shen Tang learned Lili’s extraordinary history and tried to buy him from a merchant. Qi Shan recognized Lili and stopped him with a line that made him turn back.

• The merchant recounted how Lili’s immense strength and appetite led his family to sell him, and how he became notorious after an affair with the previous governor’s sister.
• Shen Tang and Zhai Le realized Lili’s name had inspired suggestive rumors, while Lili remained unmoved by the gossip.
• Qi Shan returned, briefly recognized Lili, and agreed to help Shen Tang buy him because Lili had shoved her and hit her pig.
• Shen Tang offered two taels and promised to buy other people from the merchant, while Lili tried to leave.
• Qi Shan quoted a line about returning from ten thousand miles looking younger, and Lili stopped and turned back with a threatening gaze.

Qi Shan revealed his connection to Lili through Madam Mei, the Poisonous Spider, and persuaded Lili to join Shen Tang’s group. They returned to the settlement with more than seventy recruits and the dead child Shen Tang had taken from his mother.

• Lili reacted with hostility when Qi Shan recited lines from a painting, but Qi Shan explained that he had once helped Madam Mei restore it.
• Qi Shan told Lili that Madam Mei was doing well, and Lili asked about the painting before agreeing to go with them.
• Qi Shan selected more than seventy people to join their group, including young men and women experienced in needlework and farming.
• Shen Tang took the dead child from his mother and promised the woman that caring for herself could give her a chance to reunite with her son.
• On the way back, Lili watched Shen Tang’s group, and a black-clothed youth asked why Lili had never trained in martial arts despite his natural strength.

Shen Tang learned how the National Seal granted officials Literary and Martial Fortune and wondered whether those benefits could help Lili form a Martial Spirit or restore Chu Wu Hui’s ruined Literary Heart. The discussion ended with Qi Shan hinting that restoring a Literary Heart required a dangerous exchange of life, while Shen Tang noted a book that might explain the path.

• Qi Shan explained that people generally had to sense Heaven and Earth Qi before age ten to form a Literary Heart or Martial Spirit, but officials and generals could gain Literary and Martial Fortune through the National Seal.
• Shen Tang suggested Lili could become a general to gain a Martial Spirit, and Zhai Le warned that rising high enough to earn the necessary Martial Fortune would be extremely difficult.
• Shen Tang asked whether serving in government could restore a ruined Literary Heart, and Qi Shan said it usually could not because the Dantian Destruction Punishment also sealed the victim’s meridians.
• Qi Shan acknowledged that exceptions existed but said the path required trading one’s life, and he noted that Chu Wu Hui already knew what it involved.
• Zhai Le recommended Biographies of Famous Ministers and Scholars, and Shen Tang made a note to read it.

Shen Tang and Zhai Le discussed marriage and why women could not possess a Literary Heart or Martial Gall, stirring painful memories for Lili. Shen Tang proposed that the restriction might come from who held the National Seal, and Qi Shan cited a similar theory that could only be tested under female rule.

• Shen Tang teased Zhai Le about staying away from home and joked that he was still young, while Zhai Le insisted he was a grown man.
• Zhai Le asked what kind of wife Shen Tang wanted and explained that he hoped to marry someone who enjoyed fighting, hunting, and archery.
• Zhai Le wondered why women could not have a Literary Heart or Martial Gall, and Lili recalled Poisonous Spider being forbidden by her brother from keeping him as a lover.
• Shen Tang suggested that women's inability to form a Literary Heart or Martial Gall might depend on who held the National Seal and distributed Literary and Martial Fortune.
• Zhai Le pointed out that women could sense the Qi of Heaven and Earth but could not retain it or open their Dantian, and Qi Shan said a similar theory required a female ruler and female officials to test.