Chapter Summaries

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.

Shen Tang learned that Chu Yao had survived his Perfection Ritual and reached the Supreme Realm, then heard the likely power of his Way of the Scholar. Chu Yao woke with his hair changed and warned her that a distinguished guest would arrive in a night raid.

• Gu Chi revealed that the funeral banners had been hung for Chu Yao, and Shen Tang rushed off before learning that Wei Shou and Chu Jie had put them up because they thought Chu Yao was dying.
• Shen Tang ordered the mourning decorations removed and said Chu Yao could receive a Yellow-wood Mound if he wanted one, since the royal court could grant the burial arrangement.
• Luan Xin examined Chu Yao and discovered that he had reached the Supreme Realm, beyond the stage Luan Xin could read; the group guessed that Chu Yao could see and rewrite a favorable future.
• Shen Tang worked through memorials by candlelight until Chu Yao woke near the third watch, with his hair now black streaked with gray.
• Chu Yao told Shen Tang that a distinguished guest was coming to call in a night raid.

Shen Tang learned that the Central Allied Army mistook her for dead and had come to mourn her, while Chu Yao explained how the rumor arose. After Shen Tang helped Chu Yao escape his fixation on a vision of the future, she and her army staged a funeral to receive the unexpected guests.

• Chu Yao told Shen Tang that Yuanyuan's rush to buy cypress for a Yellow-wood Mound had led the Central Allied Army to believe she had died.
• Shen Tang reassured Chu Yao that seeing the future did not make it inevitable, helping him break free from his obsession with the vision.
• Shen Tang ordered her troops to welcome the allied army as mourners without changing their night-watch arrangements.
• Shen Tang, Wei Shou, Gu Chi, and the others set up a mock funeral with mourning banners, a coffin, and exaggerated wailing.
• Shen Tang climbed out of the coffin to demonstrate how everyone should mourn at her funeral.

Xiang Zhao regained control of her body, escaped the Central Allied Army, and warned Luan Xin and Gongyang Yongye about an ambush using blue-faced, fanged monsters. She also revealed that the Allied Army planned a night raid and believed Shen Tang was dead, while the Kang Kingdom prepared to respond to the threat.

• Lin Su doubted the Central Allied Army's claim that Shen Youli had died and learned from the phantom that Xiang Zhao had left camp.
• Xiang Zhao secretly signaled Gongyang Yongye after discovering that the Allied Army had buried monsters and wounded soldiers in an underground pit for an ambush.
• Gongyang Yongye and Luan Xin arrived, killed the escort, and helped Xiang Zhao escape with the Allied Army's plans and intelligence.
• Xiang Zhao told Luan Xin that an Allied Army Literary Scholar had declared the Kang Kingdom's Imperial Star dead, and Luan Xin assured her that Shen Tang was safe.
• Xiang Zhao learned that her warning about the ancient plagues had not reached Luan Xin, raising the possibility that someone had intercepted her message.

Gongyang Yongye helped Xiang Zhao and Luan Xin burn the infected corpses before returning to Shen Tang’s mourning hall, where a hostile crimson figure attacked her coffin. Yang Ying and Lu Ji intervened, and Yang Ying drove the attacker back after the tortoiseshell defense shattered.

• Xiang Zhao reassured Luan Xin that Gongyang Yongye’s continued support gave her room to negotiate their deal, while Luan Xin worried their cooperation might become romantic.
• Gongyang Yongye inspected the underground pit and found that the corpses’ minds and seas of consciousness had been destroyed, so Luan Xin ordered them burned.
• Gongyang Yongye used martial-energy flames to burn the monsters underground and then returned with Luan Xin and Xiang Zhao to Shen Tang’s mourning hall.
• A crimson newcomer streaked toward Shen Tang’s coffin and shattered the tortoiseshell barrier surrounding it.
• Yang Ying struck the crimson attacker with golden light and forced him back as Lu Ji watched in disbelief.

Shen Tang’s forces captured an invading general after Yang Ying used the Time Arrow, paid for with Kang’s National Fortune, to weaken him. Yang Ying’s secret technique was revealed to the assembled allies, and the general’s fate was left in Shen Tang’s hands.

• Lu Ji and Yang Ying attacked the invading general at night, exploiting the poor night vision of his Green Swallow Martial Gall Totem.
• Lu Ji trapped the general in tortoiseshell and chains while Gongyang Yongye prepared to fight him, but Yang Ying’s arrow stopped Gongyang Yongye’s charge.
• Shen Tang steadied Luan Xin and Xiang Zhao, and Chu Yao knocked Xiang Zhao unconscious before Luan Xin could question him.
• Yang Ying’s Time Arrow pierced the general’s palm, sent him sixty years into his youth, and weakened him enough for Lu Ji’s chains to restrain him.
• Yang Ying shot a second arrow through the chains, dropped the general to the ground, and knelt before Shen Tang to report his capture.
• Shen Tang had arranged for National Fortune to pay the Time Arrow’s cost, sparing Yang Ying’s lifespan.