Chapter Summaries

Chao Lian left Shang Nan after confirming Gu Ren’s family was safe, while Qi Shan advised Shen Tang to grant Gu Ren’s honorary title to his eldest son. Meanwhile, Liao Jia met Yun Ce on the road and discovered that Yun Ce was eager to see the female Mohist traveling with them.

• Gu Ren’s widow told Chao Lian she would not remarry and would raise Gu Ren’s children, and Chao Lian prepared to leave for his worried brothers.
• Gu Ren’s eldest son asked Chao Lian whether he would serve Shen Tang, and Chao Lian sent a message that Shen Tang would understand.
• Qi Shan read Shen Tang’s question about honoring Gu Ren’s family and advised her to give the inheritable title to Gu Ren’s eldest son.
• Liao Jia’s party stopped on Xingyang Road when Yun Ce appeared and identified himself as the general sent to meet them.
• Yun Ce asked about the female Mohist, and Zhoukou leaned out of a carriage to greet him and complain about his nickname for her.

Bei Jiu reunited with Yun Ce and revealed that her unusual cultivation let her bring mechanisms from Shen Tang’s blueprints to life. After seeing Bei Jiu’s self-propelled excavator, Shen Tang immediately tried it herself.

• Yun Ce reunited with Bei Jiu and learned she had found a place at the government office, where her unusual ability to cultivate remained unexplained.
• Yun Ce worried that Bei Jiu’s cultivation might harm her, but Liao Jia assured him she was formidable and described how she had fought bandits and a wild boar.
• Bei Jiu showed Yun Ce an excavator she had created from Shen Tang’s blueprints, explaining that a strange dream had changed her meridians and let her turn designs into working mechanisms.
• Shen Tang received Qi Shan’s letter, met Bei Jiu, and asked her to make an excavator; a quarter hour later, Shen Tang drove it wildly around the training field.

Shen Tang tested Bei Jiu’s independently functioning excavator and asked about the dream that followed her study of the blueprints. Bei Jiu recounted reaching a palace identified as the Mohist School’s Sacred Hall, where she was welcomed as a Mohist.

• Shen Tang drove Bei Jiu’s excavator, then tested its durability by striking it with her sword.
• Chu Yao asked Yun Ce to destroy the excavator, and they realized it remained independent of Bei Jiu’s control and energy.
• Shen Tang asked Bei Jiu to describe the vivid dream she had after studying the blueprints.
• Bei Jiu recalled following flying tools, absorbing the words of Tian Gong Kai Wu, and climbing steps through scenes of inventions and engineering.
• Bei Jiu reached a palace whose doors opened, and an unseen voice welcomed her to the Mohist School’s Sacred Hall.

After Bei Jiu awakened from a three-day sleep, Shen Tang discovered that she had opened the Mohist Sacred Hall and gained the Mohist tokens Non-Aggression and Universal Love as unusual containers for her qi. Shen Tang ordered Wuhui to recruit Mohists across the territory, then learned that several artisans had suddenly fainted after Bei Jiu secretly invited impoverished Mohists to come work in Sibao Prefecture.

• Bei Jiu woke after sleeping for three days and four nights, ate an enormous meal, and told Shen Tang about her dream of the Mohist Sacred Hall.
• Shen Tang examined Bei Jiu's qi, triggering the appearance of Non-Aggression and Universal Love, which Bei Jiu recognized as both Mohist tokens and containers for her qi.
• Shen Tang reassured Bei Jiu about the usefulness of her new abilities and ordered Wuhui to draft a notice recruiting every Mohist in their territory.
• A soldier reported that several artisans had fainted and could not be woken, though the physician could not identify the cause.
• Bei Jiu admitted that she had secretly contacted other Mohist branches and invited their members to come work in Sibao Prefecture.

Bei Jiu confessed that she had recruited Mohists using Shen Tang’s resources, and Shen Tang forgave her with a warning to test the artisans. Shen Tang visited the Mohists and then returned to the headaches of governing, where endless questions about land allocation and recruitment forms drove her to rage.

• Bei Jiu confessed to recruiting Mohists and benefiting from Shen Tang’s resources, while Yun Ce pleaded for leniency on her behalf.
• Shen Tang forgave Bei Jiu with a warning that the Mohists would be tested, then encouraged her to cultivate and carry on the Mohist legacy.
• Shen Tang and Liao Jia visited the Mohists, where the workers relaxed after seeing their lord and gathered around Bei Jiu to watch her demonstrate her abilities.
• Shen Tang complained about aristocratic clans repeatedly asking for clarification on land measurements and allocations.
• Shen Tang erupted over the many questions people had submitted about filling out recruitment résumés.

Kang Nian became the clans’ reluctant intermediary with Shen Tang and endured her fury over résumé rules, then delivered the families’ New Year greetings with twenty young men they hoped she would employ. The chapter ended with Kang Nian asking Shen Tang to keep all twenty so they could learn from a Sixteenth Rank Grand Shang Zao.

• The great clans pressured Kang Nian to approach Shen Tang, while Ning family head avoided the assignment by pretending to be ill; Kang Nian sought advice from Kang Shi, who warned him that Shen Tang’s calm, dark smile was dangerous.
• Kang Nian questioned Shen Tang about résumé details, driving her to demand exhaustive records of candidates’ parents, ages, work histories, and criminal accusations.
• After three days of dealing with Kang Nian, Shen Tang approved a résumé guide for applicants, and Kang Nian concluded that she was as gentle as Kang Shi had described.
• Kang Nian returned to offer early New Year’s greetings and presented around twenty young men from distinguished families as potential recruits.
• Shen Tang greeted the young men and gave them brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones; when Kang Nian asked whether she would keep them all, he praised the chance for them to learn from a Sixteenth Rank Grand Shang Zao.

Shen Tang accepted the clans’ young martial artists as apprentices, while Kang Nian waited to reunite with Kang Shi and mistook the youths’ arrival for evidence that Shen Tang desired them. After the brothers argued over family wounds and Shen Tang’s reputation, Kang Shi returned to report on his assignment and asked about the young men.

• Shen Tang accepted the clans’ young martial artists and planned to put them to work while occasionally offering guidance.
• Kang Nian stayed to meet Kang Shi, who returned late, described killing the people who had caused trouble during his assignment, and refused to promise he would attend the family death anniversaries.
• Kang Nian criticized Shen Tang after hearing she had accepted more than twenty handsome young men, but Kang Shi insisted his lord would not take them as lovers and wagered that his brother misunderstood her.
• Kang Shi reported that his assignment was settled, and Kang Nian arrived as he asked Shen Tang about the more than twenty young men she had recruited.

Shen Tang discovered that the young martial artists sent by the great clans had mistaken her training arrangements for a chance to become her inner consorts, while the awakened Mohists offered a far more useful opportunity. She left to visit them, envisioning Mohist-made farming machines that could boost agricultural production across her territory.

• Shen Tang took Kang Shi and Kang Nian to Yun Ce’s camp, where she learned that Zigu had beaten the young martial artists into submission and that Xianyu Jian had punished them after a brawl.
• One young martial artist claimed Xianyu Jian had no authority to punish the sovereign’s inner consort, prompting Shen Tang to realize he mistakenly thought she desired him.
• Shen Tang ordered Xianyu Jian to keep correcting the young martial artists and told Gu Chi to reprimand the man’s Patriarch as a warning to the clans.
• Gu Chi told Shen Tang that the unconscious Mohists had awakened and all possessed qi, so she went to see them.
• Shen Tang explained that the Mohists’ real value lay in making agricultural machines such as plows, seeders, and harvesters, which could work alongside Martial Gall Warriors to increase food production.

Shen Tang met with the fifty-six Mohists who had awakened with qi and offered them the excavator blueprints, winning their trust and excitement. She left them imagining how their inventions could help ordinary people reclaim wasteland.

• Bei Jiu explained that her sect's Mohists had awakened with qi through their connection to Shen Tang and shared her cultivation experience with them.
• The Mohists eagerly discussed learning to conjure excavators, but hesitated to request Shen Tang's blueprints because they feared overstepping.
• Shen Tang entered the tent, reassured the Mohists, and agreed to give them the excavator blueprints.
• A senior Mohist described the group's traditions of sharing knowledge and their decline amid war, disasters, and the loss of cultivators.
• Shen Tang praised Bei Jiu and told the Mohists she had many more designs, then described how excavators could help ordinary people reclaim wasteland.

Shen Tang inspired the Mohists to design labor-saving agricultural and construction machinery, then accepted their request to become their Grand Master. The Mohists left the meeting united behind her, binding their future to hers.

• Shen Tang explained how excavators could be adapted for different fields and farming tasks, including plowing, sowing, and harvesting.
• The Mohists argued fiercely over designs for sowing tools until Shen Tang urged them to test their ideas through practice.
• Shen Tang proposed adapting machinery to lift heavy building materials and reduce labor in construction.
• Bei Jiu asked Shen Tang to become the Mohists' Grand Master, and Shen Tang agreed.

Shen Tang accepted the Mohists’ title of Grand Master and backed their work, while learning how their craft-based qi and naming customs operated. As the year ended, she weighed possible sites for the royal capital and received a fox-fur cloak from Qin Li, sent by Xu Xie.

• Shen Tang accepted the Mohists’ request to become their Grand Master and learned that their previous leader had moved away, leaving contact with that group mostly lost.
• Shen Tang promised resources for projects that benefited the people, and the Mohists explained that making and understanding tools increased their qi.
• Shen Tang allowed the Mohists to choose talented children as successors, while Liao Jia’s remaining artisans were left short-handed for the secret task of preparing a royal capital’s foundations.
• Chu Yao and others argued against establishing the capital in Sibao Prefecture or Longwu Commandery, while Shen Tang favored Yanzhou over the alternatives in Ganzhou.
• Qin Li delivered Shen Tang a red fox-fur cloak from Xu Xie and explained that Xu Xie had supplied the extra pelts from his own stores.

Shen Tang discussed Heyin’s situation, land reform, recruitment, and the still unfinished seed drill with Qin Li and Gu Chi. After they left, Qin Li recognized the lord’s token on a young visitor and suspected the visitor was an old acquaintance, so he stopped Gu Chi to approach him.

• Shen Tang learned from Qin Li that Xu Wenshi had foiled Wu Xian’s attempt to use disguised soldiers in Fugu, keeping Heyin peaceful.
• Qin Li reported that land surveys and household registration were progressing so land could be leased to commoners before spring plowing.
• Shen Tang told Qin Li that the Mohist craftsmen were still arguing over the seed drill’s plans, while Qin Li and Gu Chi both tried to secure future access to one.
• Gu Chi complained that Shen Tang’s recruitment forms had overwhelmed the reviewers, then presented the first batch of candidates who had passed preliminary screening.
• After Qin Li and Gu Chi left, they saw an unfamiliar young man carrying Shen Tang’s token, and Qin Li stopped Gu Chi to go greet him as an old acquaintance.

Qin Li confronted Qi Shan, who had disguised himself as Tan Shao, and Shen Tang learned that Qi Shan had secretly been a member of the Assembly of Gods for years. Qi Shan revealed that the Assembly planned a nearby regional meeting and asked to borrow several people, only to run into an angry Qin Li outside the tent.

• Gu Chi tried to escape as Qin Li challenged the disguised Tan Shao, who claimed to be a clerk named Tan Qingguang.
• Qin Li used a Heart Peeking Word Spirit, and the disguised man briefly faltered before Shen Tang invited him into the tent.
• Qi Shan revealed himself as Tan Lezheng, admitted his deception, and left after Qin Li sheathed his sword.
• Qi Shan told Shen Tang he had spent over ten years exploiting the Assembly of Gods for resources and had left a Literary Qi Incarnation to oversee Sibao Prefecture.
• Qi Shan revealed that a regional Assembly of Gods meeting would be held nearby and asked to borrow people who had been used as his aliases.
• Qin Li confronted Qi Shan outside the tent with a pipe and threatened to strike him.

Shen Tang learned that Qi Shan had fought Qin Li, then persuaded him to help infiltrate the Assembly of Gods by invoking the threat it posed to her plans. Qi Shan also revealed a possible Assembly method for creating an identical person, leaving Shen Tang wary of his motives as the Assembly’s meeting loomed.

• Kang Shi and Shen Tang discussed Qi Shan’s feud with Qin Li, and Shen Tang predicted that Qin Li would go easy on him.
• Qi Shan arrived bruised and described how he and Qin Li fought, nearly drowned in a creek, and encountered wolves while making their way back to camp.
• Qi Shan told Shen Tang he had secured Qin Li’s help against the Assembly of Gods by reminding him that the Lord could be harmed.
• Qi Shan said he would handle Cui Shanxiao by finding his wife and children, and Shen Tang warned him not to keep her in the dark.
• Qi Shan revealed that he had found a fragment describing a method to create an identical person, and Shen Tang explained that it was cloning rather than resurrection.
• Jiang Sheng and the others grew angry after learning Qi Shan had used their personas, and Xun Zhen demanded that he settle accounts for borrowing his name.

Xun Zhen and the others confronted Qi Shan over stealing identities and targeting Lin Feng, while Chu Yao challenged his plans to involve her in the Assembly of Gods. Qi Shan revealed how the Assembly manipulated National Seals and that it might help the Northern Desert obtain one, but Shen Tang dismissed the threat and declared the Assembly her enemy.

• Xun Zhen accused Qi Shan of stealing his identity and taking credit for the Sovereign’s work, while Jiang Sheng and others condemned him.
• Qi Shan summoned Lin Feng to fill a place at an Assembly of Gods gathering, prompting Chu Yao to attack him and forbid him from involving her.
• Chu Yao questioned Qi Shan about the missing National Seals, and Qi Shan said the inner assembly controlled them and that he did not know where Huang Xiguang’s and Zhang Yongqing’s seals were.
• Qi Shan explained that the Assembly of Gods had collected Calamity Star fragments and might now allow the Northern Desert to obtain a National Seal because Shen Tang’s seal was unrecorded.
• Shen Tang said the Northern Desert posed little immediate danger and called it a slap in the Assembly of Gods’ face.

Shen Tang and her companions prepared to attend the Assembly of Gods’ New Year’s Eve gathering while managing recruitment and preparations in the newly rebuilt town. At a tavern, Gu Chi recognized someone among a group of newcomers, and he and the young man stared at each other.

• Shen Tang told Qi Shan that Mohist artisans had gained Mohist Qi and were developing a seeder, while she rebuked him for alienating colleagues who could help secure seeds.
• Qi Shan distributed elaborate fictional biographies to the Assembly of Gods’ attendees and revealed that its gathering was scheduled for New Year’s Eve, enraging Shen Tang and the others.
• Shen Tang held a brief year-end ceremony, then traveled with Qi Shan, Lin Feng, and Gu Chi to the nearby town, where she had begun rebuilding and recruiting applicants.
• At a tavern, Shen Tang and Lin Feng listened as young scholars debated her intentions, while Gu Chi identified some of the speakers.
• Shen Tang disrupted people secretly probing Lin Feng, then noticed Gu Chi tense as eight newcomers arrived and their young leader recognized him.

Shen Tang and her companions reunited with Gu Chi’s former master, Wu Yuan, and Gong Cheng at a tavern on New Year’s Eve. Wu Yuan reminisced with Gu Chi and tried to learn more about Shen Tang’s government and its crops, while Gong Cheng remained wary of Shen Tang’s group.

• Shen Tang identified the disguised young man as Gu Chi’s former master, Wu Yuan, and urged Gu Chi to approach him and learn what he could.
• Wu Yuan recognized Gu Chi, and the two exchanged New Year’s greetings before sitting together to catch up on the years since Xiaocheng fell.
• Wu Yuan removed his human-skin mask, introduced himself to Shen Tang and her companions, and reminisced with Gu Chi about their separation and his return to the Northern Desert.
• Wu Yuan asked about Shen Tang’s past connection to Gong Cheng, but Gu Chi evaded his questions while Shen Tang invited Gong Cheng and his companions to join the meal.
• Wu Yuan questioned Lin Feng about cotton and maize, but Lin Feng disclosed no useful details and told him that her office did not sell grain seeds.

Lin Feng refused Wu Yuan’s request to buy grain seeds, though she left room for a deal at the right price. Bai Su confronted Wu Yuan’s group over their conduct and possible spy work, and both groups later arrived at the same residence with invitations.

• Lin Feng refused to provide grain seeds to Wu Yuan, then said Shen Tang might consider a sale if the price was right.
• Gu Chi overheard two women in Wu Yuan’s party mock the idea of buying seeds only temporarily before Northern Desert marched south, and noticed their confidence about cultivating despite their gender.
• Gu Chi deflected Gong Cheng’s suspicion with a joke, while Shen Tang and the others confronted Wu Yuan’s party after the women mocked them.
• Bai Su accused the women of insulting her soldiers and challenged Wu Yuan’s explanation that he had brought them to register as relatives, warning that the group might be planting spies.
• Bai Su left after asking Gu Chi to keep watch, and Shen Tang’s group and Wu Yuan’s group met again at the entrance to the same residence with invitations.

At the Assembly of Gods, Shen Tang’s group learned that Gong Cheng’s remarkable strength came from a Martial Gall Warrior’s forbidden [Anointing], which had transferred the cultivation of a 20th Rank Che Hou. Shen Tang considered killing Gong Cheng before he became a threat, but Gu Chi warned that the Che Hou may have left protections behind.

• Shen Tang’s group entered the Assembly of Gods without an inspection after Qi Shan presented his token, and Wu Yuan’s group followed after showing another token.
• Wu Yuan warned the two women traveling with him to avoid Bai Su and Shen Youli’s forces, then exchanged a tense encounter with Gu Chi, who told him to get lost.
• Shen Tang asked Gu Chi how Gong Cheng had risen so quickly, and Gu Chi explained that a 20th Rank Che Hou had used [Anointing] to pass his cultivation to Gong Cheng.
• Gu Chi said Gong Cheng had likely promised the Che Hou something benefiting the Northern Desert and could rise to the Eighteenth Rank as he absorbed the transferred power.
• Shen Tang considered killing Gong Cheng, but Gu Chi warned that the Che Hou might have left protections behind, and Qi Shan reminded her that her own strength was hard to predict.

Shen Tang and Qi Shan attended the Assembly of Gods’ election meeting, where Shen Tang defeated a member who attacked her during an illusion and Qi Shan gathered votes. The chapter left them discussing the Assembly’s mysterious attendants as they waited for the meeting to begin.

• Qi Shan led Shen Tang through an illusory passage, where a disguised attacker threatened to bury them; Shen Tang broke his mask and wounded him with a torch.
• After the illusion ended, Shen Tang dismissed the attacker’s complaint, while Qi Shan accused him of acting on someone’s orders and challenged the Assembly’s head.
• Qi Shan collected ballots supporting his election as deputy head and explained that the passage illusion had separated the group to test their vigilance.
• Shen Tang asked Qi Shan about attendants with deformed hands, and he said the Assembly modeled them after ancient peoples described in its records.
• Qi Shan explained that the attendants served as the inner branch’s unbribable puppets and revealed that one had silver-white, metal-like metacarpal bones.