Recaps

Tan Qu awoke from the Ice Coffin and learned about his past from Yu Hai, who kept him from dwelling on an old feud with Qi Shan. Meanwhile, Shen Tang dreamed that figures in the Investiture of the Gods were gathered around something with its bottom half missing.

• Tan Qu woke earlier than expected, and Yu Hai helped him into a wheelchair to see the full moon in the villa garden.
• Tan Qu asked about Zhai Le's bet, and Yu Hai complained that the wager could cost the state of Qu while Tan Qu wished the conflict would spare ordinary people.
• Yu Hai told Tan Qu that his name was Tan Qu, his courtesy name was Le Zheng, and he had painted, studied military texts, raised hundreds of cats, and known Qi Shan.
• Tan Qu recalled the cat Huai Xu and said he did not blame Qi Shan, while Yu Hai insisted he would settle his own grudge.
• Tan Qu fell asleep in his wheelchair, and Yu Hai stayed up studying game records.
• Shen Tang dreamed that figures on the Investiture of the Gods were watching something missing its bottom half, but she could not find the missing piece.

The boy questioned Gui Long’s lies while Yu Hai tried to manage his strange symptoms and growing suspicions. Meanwhile, Shen Tang rewarded Su Shi Yilu, learned that he and Chu Jie had reconciled, and revealed that Stone Fort had been without provisions for eleven days.

• The boy woke hungry, learned that Yu Hai’s estate had no food prepared, and asked the attendant to arrange a meal.
• The boy developed blisters after touching sunlight, enjoyed a meal of pig’s and duck’s blood, and secretly tested his reaction to a stray cat.
• Yu Hai told the attendant to discourage the boy from keeping a cat because he suspected the boy was becoming suspicious of him.
• The boy wondered how much Gui Long had lied to him before falling into a dream about a missing piece of a character.
• Shen Tang placated Su Shi Yilu by giving him extra rewards, while Chu Jie explained that he and Su Shi Yilu had made peace.
• Shen Tang told Chu Jie that Stone Fort had run out of provisions eleven days earlier and asked how many ordinary soldiers might still be alive inside.

Shen Tang explained why she refused Stone Fort’s commander’s surrender, then spent a sleepless night with her ministers and generals eating barbecue outside the camp. A growing group of starving deserters approached the gathering, and Shen Tang suspected their sudden numbers signaled something unusual.

• Shen Tang told Chu Jie that Stone Fort’s commander had tried to surrender, but she had refused because he and his elite troops were tied to the Central Branch and posed a future threat.
• Shen Tang followed her usual routine of eating, working, and cultivating, then went on a night patrol and met Qin Li and Kang Shi, who were both awake.
• Shen Tang discussed the internet with Qin Li and Kang Shi, then invited them and other officials to a late-night lamb barbecue.
• The group revealed their various side businesses while Su Shi Yilu grilled meat, and more than ten people joined the gathering.
• A dozen starving deserters threatened the group and devoured the food after Shen Tang pretended to surrender.
• About twenty more deserters arrived, and Shen Tang grew suspicious because they were gathering in unusually large numbers.

Shen Tang and her companions were captured by deserters while disguised, then followed them to a mountain hideout where they exposed themselves and defeated the Central Allied Army commander. The commander was revealed to be fleeing with his guards rather than launching a night raid, and Shen Tang began mocking him after his capture.

• Su Shi Yilu and Yang Ying competed to step in front of Shen Tang, but Yang Ying stopped him with a subtle shove.
• Shen Tang and her companions posed as pampered officials’ children and let the deserters bind them and take them to their hideout.
• Shen Tang recognized the hideout’s soldiers as elite defenders from Stone Fort and prepared her companions for a possible fight.
• The Central Allied Army commander arrived, recognized Shen Tang, and was ambushed by Yun Ce and the other martial generals.
• Bei Jiu sealed the commander’s Dantian, and Shen Tang learned from Qi Shan that the commander had been attempting a night escape.
• Shen Tang mocked the captured commander for abandoning his troops, and he spat blood from rage and shame.

Shen Tang’s forces captured Stone Fort, discovered that its defenders had resorted to cannibalism, and spared the surviving prisoners by sending them to the mines. As the Central Allied Army reeled from its defeats and failed plots, its leaders considered unleashing ancient diseases against Kang.

• Shen Tang’s forces interrogated and killed the captured allied commander after he tried to attack her, then displayed his head before Stone Fort.
• Su Shi Yilu and Chu Jie stormed Stone Fort and found nearly ten thousand corpses, while the surviving soldiers described how their leaders had turned people into food.
• Shen Tang ordered the surviving prisoners sent to work in the mines for ten years instead of executing them.
• After three days of clearing Stone Fort, Kang received news that the Central Allied Army had also failed to secure Qu’s support and that its attempt to disrupt Kang’s waterways had failed.
• The Central Allied Army’s leaders discussed using ancient diseases against Kang, despite the risk that the outbreak could destroy both sides.

Lin Su learned that the Central Allied Army planned to unleash an ancient disease on Kang’s commoners, while Shen Tang’s forces left the mountains. A prophetic warning of a deadly plague in Kang’s most populated places left Shen Tang and her companions facing a looming catastrophe.

• Lin Su opposed the Central Allied Army’s plan to release ancient diseases, but the alliance leader and most of the commanders approved it and had Lin Su watched.
• Kang Shi told Jiang Sheng about a recurring nightmare in which the dead rose, Qi Yuanliang attacked Tan Lezheng, and people were devoured.
• Kang Shi, Jiang Sheng, Gu Chi, and Shen Tang tried to investigate the nightmare, but Kang Shi’s dreams turned into comic gambling and hide-and-seek scenes instead.
• Chu Yao’s Way of the Scholar foretold a strange disease that would kill everyone in several of Kang’s most populous places, including Capital Fengluo.
• In Chu Yao’s vision, diseased officials had blue skin and fangs, the throne held only a coffin, and the Ji brothers said they would take the Sacred Object back to the Clan Land.

After Chu Yao’s vision foretold a deadly plague striking Fengluo and the court, Shen Tang’s ministers suspected the Central Branch of the Assembly of Gods had access to the zombie virus. Shen Tang mobilized troops and medical resources, then ordered the Medical Office to take priority as they prepared to face the outbreak.

• Chu Yao awoke from [Willow Dark Flower Bright] and warned Shen Tang that a deadly plague would strike Fengluo and leave the court transformed and infected.
• Kang Shi proposed gathering physicians and medicine, reinforcing regional garrisons, and quarantining or killing infected people if treatment failed.
• Gu Chi suspected the Central Branch of the Assembly of Gods, which controlled the virus samples, was behind the plague; Shen Tang mobilized half the southwest troops and ordered the borders guarded.
• Shen Tang summoned Jimò Qiu, who urged them to trust physicians and meet the crisis with the Medical School’s help.
• Shen Tang issued an order that the Medical Office would take priority over all royal court matters if the plague broke out.

Lin Su confronted the allied army's commander over his approval of releasing the ancient diseases, but the commander defended using them to control ordinary people. In Kang, Dong Dao mobilized physicians and Xinglin Physicians to prepare for an epidemic, while warning that the capital itself could soon be affected.

• Lin Su asked the commander why he had agreed to release the ancient diseases, and the commander said he considered them a way to keep ordinary people obedient and content.
• The commander invited Lin Su to join his plan, but Lin Su rejected him and left the tent.
• The Central Allied Army sent people to retrieve the ancient diseases, while Dong Dao received a confidential warning and began preparing Kang's physicians for the threat.
• Dong Dao summoned Xinglin Physicians to discuss the disease, but they lacked patients or corpses to examine and struggled to identify a treatment.
• One Xinglin Physician volunteered to enter the epidemic zone, but Dong Dao refused because Fengluo itself might soon become one.

Dong Dao mobilized Kang Country’s physicians and resources to prepare for a deadly epidemic, while the capital’s officials worked themselves to exhaustion. Miao Ne learned that Cui Mi had foreseen people in Fengluo turning into lifeless, inhuman figures, confirming the danger was close.

• Dong Dao persuaded the Medical Office to focus on finding a cure and secretly ordered preparations to prevent the disease from spreading through drinking water.
• Dong Dao sent Qi Miao to secure coal, post public notices, and urge people across Kang Country to boil their water.
• Independent Xinglin Physicians joined the regional response, while Ning Yan, Li Wan, and Miao Ne struggled under weeks of exhausting preparation.
• Cui Xiong and Cui Mi arrived in Fengluo and reunited with Miao Ne, who fainted when Cui Xiong embraced her.
• Cui Mi told Miao Ne that he had foreseen people in Fengluo with blue faces, fangs, and no signs of life, yet walking like the living.

After Cui Mi’s visions revealed that a plague source might be released in Fengluo, Ning Yan organized an effort to identify the location and stop its spread. Her investigators prepared to intercept the culprits, while a group of smugglers who had slipped through an inspection hid their goods in a restaurant courtyard.

• Miao Ne learned from Cui Mi that Kang State officials, including Li Wan, had fallen ill, and she took the Cui brothers to report the danger to Ning Yan.
• Ning Yan had Cui Mi examine guards; he identified a murdered guard whose death scene pointed to a shady mountainside with running water and dense vegetation.
• Cui Mi warned Ning Yan that interfering with the future could make events worse, but Ning Yan said she would stand with Kang State regardless.
• Cui Mi examined four guards who had served with the murdered man and found that two had become living corpses while two had been murdered; one had seen an enemy with an ordinary face.
• Fengluo prepared to catch the spies and contain the plague, while the Four Divisions Office inspected a restaurant and its patrons.
• After the inspection, smugglers discussed retrieving goods they had hidden in the restaurant’s courtyard water tank.

The Four Divisions Office discovered that contaminated water had triggered a violent transformation in a restaurant cook, while Ning Yan investigated the early signs of the plague. The chapter ended with another person transforming and the Medical Office finding that hot cooking prevented the illness, but treatment had not restored a victim’s reason.

• A customer accidentally cracked a glass tube containing a tiny figure and decided to sell the damaged item before his deadline.
• The proprietress reported the suspicious customers to her neighbor, a squad leader in the Four Divisions Office, who found colored light in the restaurant’s water tank and a bloodied cook attacking people in the kitchen.
• The Four Divisions Office subdued the cook, detained the proprietress, and seized the water and kitchen supplies after confirming the restaurant’s cooking water came from elsewhere.
• Ning Yan examined the incident with the Medical Office and ordered a search for the suspicious customers, while Cui Mi realized his vision of the future had changed after touching his elder brother.
• A man shivered and transformed in a residence, while the Medical Office found that hot dishes were safe but cold dishes made with tank water were contaminated; a patient’s Sea of Consciousness remained sealed despite needles and medicine.

Dong Dao and the Imperial Physicians discovered that the infected feared strong yang martial qi, while Ning Yan raced to locate the toxin’s source in Fengluo. Shen Tang learned that the Inner Society had three doses of the toxin, with further attacks likely planned in the southwest and southeast.

• Dong Dao’s team found that the cook recoiled from reflected sunlight and concluded that the patients were especially vulnerable to yang energy.
• The Four Divisions Office brought in thirteen more victims, and Dong Dao urged containment while the Imperial Physicians confirmed that yang martial qi could restrain the infected.
• Ning Yan ordered a search of the National Temple after deducing that the enemy might have poisoned its spring to spread the illness through Fengluo.
• Jimò Qiu recognized the tiny figure in the toxin drawing as resembling a Divine Statue connected to Shen Tang’s blood essence.
• Wei Lou reported that the Inner Society had three toxin doses in separate underground cities, with likely attacks planned in Kang, the southwest, and the southeast.

Shen Tang wrestled with the temptation to use the Investiture of the Gods to save her ministers, but Qin Li persuaded her to accept their shared fate. She sent Zhai Xiaofang a warning about the plague, and Zhai Le learned that the pathogen was real and that someone had already used half of it.

• Wei Lou urged Shen Tang to keep her troops out of the plague’s front lines, and Shen Tang ordered Gongshu Wu back to Kang to help defend its people.
• As the crisis weighed on Shen Tang and her ministers, Qin Li confronted her about the Investiture of the Gods and persuaded her not to kill her followers to put them on the list.
• Qin Li admitted that he wanted to retire after the war, while Jimò Qiu thanked him for helping Shen Tang let go of her dangerous obsession.
• Shen Tang sent Zhai Xiaofang a report warning of the pathogen, and Zhai Le asked Yu Hai to verify whether it existed.
• Yu Hai confirmed that the pathogen was real and said someone had already used half of it.

Yu Hai explained how he used half a dose of the Nectar of Immortality to revive "Tan Qu," who now craved raw blood and sensed others like himself. The young man discovered a moving corpse by the river and feared that it looked delicious to him, too.

• Yu Hai told Zhai Le that half a dose of a toxin had been used and recalled secretly injecting it into "Tan Qu" to revive him.
• "Tan Qu" admitted he could smell Yu Hai approaching and ate a late-night meal of raw animal blood.
• Yu Hai teased "Tan Qu" about eating people, then assured him that he was his close friend and wanted him to live.
• "Tan Qu" asked for a sword because he could not manifest his Literary Heart Sigil, and Yu Hai lent him his own while warning him not to attempt suicide.
• After smelling one of his kind, "Tan Qu" led Yu Hai and an attendant to a river, where they pulled a struggling corpse from the water.
• "Tan Qu" feared the corpse looked delicious to him, too.

Yu Hai explained how the young "Tan Qu" had been revived, and the boy discovered he could hear and command an infected corpse before realizing it might still be alive. At the Kang Country Medical Bureau, physicians identified living pathogens that suppressed their hosts’ consciousness and drove them to eat, while investigating a treatment.

• Yu Hai stopped the young "Tan Qu" from drawing his sword and told him he had been framed and died, then revived with the Nectar of Immortality.
• The young "Tan Qu" tested whether the corpse could obey him and discovered he could hear its pleas for help.
• Yu Hai pulled the boy away from the convulsing corpse and warned that he might have been trying to draw its disease into himself.
• At the Kang Country Medical Bureau, Dong Dao rejected an Xinglin Physician’s proposal to test cowpox inoculation, while another physician suggested driving the pathogen out.
• Medical Bureau investigators reported living organisms in contaminated water and patients, which drained vitality, suppressed consciousness, and made infected bodies crave raw food.

Dong Dao uncovered a possible solution to the mysterious illness, but the outbreak spread through Fengluo and forced Ning Yan to seal the city. As officials and the Ning family tried to flee, Ning Yan’s daughter used her authority to stop them, leaving a standoff at the gates.

• Dong Dao condemned the pursuit of immortality, arranged for patients to be fed through tubes, and found an ancient manuscript suggesting the illness had ravaged the land thousands of years earlier.
• After a clue in the manuscript gave Dong Dao a possible solution, he learned that the illness had spread to the eastern market and brought hundreds of patients to the Medical Office.
• Ning Yan sealed Fengluo and refused to let her elder brother’s family leave, while Dong Dao told her that he had a possible solution requiring her approval.
• Officials and wealthy households tried to flee, but the garrison stopped them at the city gates, where Ning Yan’s father demanded that his family be allowed out.
• Ning Yan’s daughter arrived, killed a retainer who drew a sword, declared the gathering an act of rebellion, and ordered the gathered family members to submit.

Ning Yan and her daughter subdued the Ning Clan’s attempt to flee Fengluo and suppressed conspiracies against the Four Divisions Office while the epidemic worsened. As infected people appeared beyond the city, Miao Ne urged Ning Yan to kill them, but an emergency at the temporary medical station interrupted her decision.

• Ning Yan’s daughter persuaded her maternal grandfather to lower his sword and escorted the Ning Clan back to its residence, thwarting officials who had hoped to use the family to pressure Ning Yan.
• Ning Yan’s daughter explained why the Ning Clan had to share the city’s burden, then reunited with Ning Yan and promised to stand by her despite the political enemies she would make.
• Conspirators tried to turn the Four Divisions Office against Ning Yan, but its soldiers remained loyal to Shen Tang and their attempt left evidence against them.
• Half a month later, more than twelve hundred patients were at Fengluo’s temporary medical station, and thirty-seven infections had appeared outside the city after people escaped.
• Miao Ne urged Ning Yan to kill the patients outside Fengluo, but Ning Yan refused to hear the proposal again before an emergency was reported at the temporary medical station.

A medicinal auspicious omen spread across the capital, curing illnesses and helping the patients at the temporary medical office recover. Ning Yan revealed that Dong Dao and fourteen Xinglin Physicians had drawn the plague’s pathogens into themselves, risking their lives as vessels while the Medical School Sacred Hall intervened to support them.

• Miao Ne and Ning Yan saw an auspicious omen appear over the temporary medical office and hurried there as scholars and martial artists gathered outside.
• The omen’s medicinal fragrance cured illnesses across the capital, while Ning Yan realized its benefits were meant for physicians.
• Ning Yan and Miao Ne entered the medical office and found that the chained patients were recovering and their blue skin was fading.
• Ning Yan led Miao Ne to an illusory apricot grove, where hundreds of physicians recited beneath a giant tree and Dong Dao sat with fourteen Xinglin Physicians.
• Ning Yan explained that the starlike pathogens were the source of the plague and that Dong Dao and the other physicians had drawn them away from the patients into their own bodies.
• Dong Dao’s fellow physicians and the Medical School Sacred Hall stood behind his dangerous attempt, and the Sacred Hall’s consciousness intervened as the physicians began to falter.

The Medical School Sages rescued Dong Dao and the other Xinglin Physicians after they sacrificed themselves to contain the epidemic, and the doctors awoke with the epidemic source tamed inside their Dantians. Ning Yan organized continued treatment and eased Fengluo’s lockdown cautiously, while Shen Tang explained that the Medical School Sacred Hall had intervened because personally guiding physicians was its tradition.

• Miao Ne and Ning Yan witnessed the Medical School Sages’ phantoms pass into the apricot tree and restore the physicians’ presence.
• Dong Dao and the other Xinglin Physicians awoke after dreaming of an enormous medical examination, and the ordinary physicians also regained consciousness.
• The Xinglin Physicians discovered that their transformed Dantians could safely contain the epidemic source, which now appeared docile and vital.
• Ning Yan ordered the recovered physicians to examine patients, transferred patients from other areas to the royal capital, tightened border surveillance, and began gradually easing Fengluo’s restrictions.
• Shen Tang told Gu Chi that the Medical School Sacred Hall had likely intervened because it personally taught and supported physicians, unlike the other schools’ Sacred Halls.

Shen Tang learned that Chu Yao had entered a Perfection Ritual in his dreams, leaving him dangerously weak while the army remained on campaign. As she kept watch and worried about the ritual’s difficulty, Kang Shi summoned her to discuss Chu Yao’s condition and whether Gu Chi had seen anything unusual.

• Shen Tang received news that the patients in Fengluo were out of danger and the Medical Office had identified the epidemic, then sent word to Chu Yao.
• Shen Tang found Chu Yao gravely weakened by his Way of the Scholar and learned that he had fallen asleep after entering a Perfection Ritual.
• Shen Tang stayed near Chu Yao’s tent, while Gu Chi warned that his ritual might be exceptionally difficult and urged her to prepare for danger.
• A messenger summoned Shen Tang to Kang Shi, who said Chu Yao’s situation resembled what had happened to him and asked whether Gu Chi had noticed anything unusual.

Shen Tang learned that Chu Wu Hui’s Perfection Ritual could cost him his True Spirit and erupted against the force controlling her trial. She discovered that the Investiture of the Gods could preserve Chu Yao’s True Spirit, then learned she already held a fragment of it and could interfere with his ritual.

• Kang Shi told Shen Tang that his nightmare showed plague victims surrounding Fengluo City, though he had awakened before seeing what happened.
• Jimò Qiu explained that Chu Wu Hui’s failed Perfection Ritual would extinguish his True Spirit, and Shen Tang rushed outside to defy the heavens.
• Kang Shi touched Shen Tang and saw seals binding her; Jimò Qiu explained that breaking them would end her trial in failure, while he would bear the cost if she failed.
• The benevolent consciousness suppressed the power straining against Shen Tang’s seals, and Shen Tang used the Investiture of the Gods to write Chu Yao’s name on its list.
• Jimò Qiu revealed that Shen Tang already held a fragment of Chu Yao’s True Spirit and was the only person who could interfere with his Perfection Ritual.

Shen Tang entered the Perfection Ritual’s flower-field illusion to find Chu Yao, only to discover that each flower led to a different version of his life. After meeting a Chu Yao who did not know her, she returned to the fields and found another version living as a celebrated Chancellor; the chapter ended as she asked whether he recognized her.

• Kang Shi and Jimò Qiu warned Shen Tang that the Perfection Ritual’s dreamscape could trap her, but she entered to rescue Chu Yao.
• Shen Tang arrived in a vast field of flowers and learned that choosing the wrong blossom would lead to eternal calamity.
• After examining a flower, Shen Tang appeared in a war-torn Xiaocheng and learned that Chu Yao served warlord Chu Jie.
• Shen Tang fought her way into Chu Jie's military camp, met a middle-aged Chu Yao who did not recognize her, and borrowed Chu Jie’s horse before returning to the flower field.
• Shen Tang entered another flower’s illusion and found a successful Chu Yao serving as Chancellor, surrounded by his family and allies at his adoptive father’s birthday banquet.
• Shen Tang called out to Chu Wuhui and asked whether he found her familiar, while the banquet guests reacted in shock.

Shen Tang searched a field of flower worlds for Chu Yao, meeting versions of him who lived wildly different lives and collecting moonlight from some of them. After dozens of illusions, she still had not found her Chu Yao and suspected the ritual was mocking her.

• Shen Tang entered a birthday banquet illusion, subdued Chu Jie, and left after realizing the Chancellor was not the Wuhui she sought.
• Shen Tang found a landlord Chu Yao in a mountain village, but he mistook her for someone trying to seduce him, and she received a speck of moonlight from the flower.
• Shen Tang found an elderly Chu Yao dead in the ruins of Xiaocheng, buried him, and slaughtered most of Tang Guo's troops before leaving the illusion.
• Shen Tang met a scarred musician Chu Yao and a dying Chu Yao who served Zheng Qiao, but neither recognized her as someone familiar, and the latter refused her offer before killing himself.
• Shen Tang found a modern, overweight Chu Yao who recognized her as familiar, then searched dozens more illusions and found many versions of him, none of whom were her Chu Yao.

As Chu Yao’s True Spirit dwindled in the Perfection Ritual, Jimò Qiu explained that the only real answer lay outside the illusions, where Shen Tang was searching for him. Chu Yao endured false lives and near-total memory loss until Shen Tang finally found him in the mirrored flower field.

• Fang Yan and Jimò Qiu told Qi Shan that Chu Yao’s True Spirit was nearly extinguished despite their attempts to save him.
• Jimò Qiu explained that Chu Yao’s ritual offered only false worlds and that Shen Tang’s real presence outside the illusions was the answer.
• Shen Tang cursed Heaven’s will, then entered another illusion as the flower field began to vanish and reappear in a mirrored world.
• Chu Yao resisted the tempting lives offered by Heaven’s will, but his memories and True Spirit gradually faded as he searched the flower field for someone important.
• In a false life as a forgotten old man at Moonlit Pavilion, Chu Yao waited in vain for the person he expected to meet and died beneath the moon.
• Shen Tang appeared before Chu Yao as the moon and told him she had finally found him.

Shen Tang found Chu Yao in the Perfection Ritual and brought him back, allowing him to reach the final stage of perfection. After Shen Tang woke from three days of unconsciousness, she discovered the camp had hung mourning banners for someone.

• Shen Tang searched countless illusions, gathered light spots, and finally found Chu Yao lying in a dark alley in Xiaocheng.
• Chu Yao recognized Shen Tang, and the illusion collapsed as she pulled him into the flower field; he regained his memories and said his Perfection Ritual was ninety-nine percent complete.
• Shen Tang left Chu Yao to sort through lingering false memories and woke in camp, immediately asking where Gongyi was so he could reveal the ability Chu Yao had gained.
• Jimò Qiu gave Shen Tang bitter witchcraft medicine, while Gu Chi explained that Chu Yao had been near death and Wei Shou and Chu Jie had prepared a funeral for him.
• Shen Tang opened the tent, saw the white mourning banners, and demanded to know who had died.