Chapter Summaries

Wei Cheng visited Yun Da, who suspected he was the reincarnation of Yun Da, and then sought out Bei Jiu about Wei Sheng’s research. Elsewhere, Qi Miao met Yu Zi at an orphanage, where Yu Zi admitted she had dreamed of someone from her past while discussing her work and a potential suitor.

• Yun Da explained that his Martial Gall Tiger Tally and Yun Ce’s treatment had led him to suspect he was Yun Da’s reincarnation, and Wei Cheng described the former Yun Da as a ruthless survivor.
• Wei Cheng teased Yun Da about Gongyang Yongye winning his fundoshi, and Yun Ce intervened when Yun Da attacked him.
• Wei Cheng visited Bei Jiu to ask about Wei Sheng’s research into the Sacred Halls, and Yun Ce learned the visit concerned the child’s homework rather than factional politics.
• Qi Miao brought an abandoned newborn to an orphanage and ran into Yu Zi, who was investigating a case and revising the Criminal Law.
• Yu Zi told Qi Miao she had dreamed of Zheng Xiuchi and visited the orphanage hoping for news, but she had not seen him and had already moved on.
• Yu Zi discussed her demanding work and an uninspiring suitor with Qi Miao, who diagnosed her with depleted kidneys and recommended tonics.

Yu Zi uncovered that local officials had concealed a condemned woman’s past as a student and reviewed the massacre case, deciding to seek a way to spare her. Meanwhile, Kang Shi fell ill with an epidemic after visiting a gambling den, and Fang Yan isolated him and began investigating the disease.

• Yu Zi told Qi Miao that her blind date’s contempt for abused prisoners and the woman convicted of murder had enraged her.
• Yu Zi explained that the condemned woman had been forced from the academy, imprisoned after resisting marriage, and driven to kill ten people; local officials had hidden her identity.
• Yu Zi completed her review and resolved to try to keep the woman alive, while Qi Miao urged her to consider the prisoner’s wishes.
• Kang Shi took sick leave, and Fang Yan suspected an epidemic, sealed off his residence, and traced the infection to a gambling den Kang Shi had visited.
• Fang Yan made Kang Shi a subject of medical investigation, while Kang Shi complained about work pressure and his brother’s demands that he marry.

Kang Nian confronted Kang Shi about his feelings for his student and his reluctance to marry, while also worrying that Junqiao might be left in an awkward position over the agreement to carry on both family lines. Kang Shi admitted his feelings had begun after the Perfection Ritual but resolved to keep their relationship unchanged until they were both free to choose.

• Kang Nian scolded Kang Shi for refusing to consider marriage and explained his concerns about Junqiao fulfilling the agreement to carry on both family lines.
• Kang Shi argued that Junqiao’s family could decide the matter themselves, and Kang Nian beat him after the argument escalated.
• Kang Nian challenged Kang Shi about his feelings for a young woman and left angrily when Kang Shi refused to make a decision.
• Fang Yan returned with medicine, learned that the woman was Kang Shi’s student, and questioned him about his feelings and the Perfection Ritual.
• Kang Shi told Fang Yan that he had developed feelings after the Perfection Ritual but planned to carry on as usual and wait until they were both free of their official duties.

Liao Jia explained that his talk of pulling Chu Wuhui down had only been a complaint about his workload, then revealed he wanted leave to pursue the Transcendent realm. After celebrating his birthday, he prepared to depart with Liao Gong’s young daughter, leaving the family’s tensions unresolved.

• Liao Qian overheard Liao Jia say he needed to pull Chu Wuhui down, but Liao Jia clarified that he was only grumbling about the work she left him and Lin Ling De.
• Liao Jia told Liao Qian he had glimpsed the threshold of the Transcendent realm, and Liao Qian suggested he seek help from Luan Xin.
• Liao Jia told Luan Xin he wanted two years of leave to cultivate, and she accepted his plan after hearing he had a thirty-percent chance of success and little danger to his life.
• After his birthday celebration, Liao Jia said he would set out the next day and invited Liao Gong to travel with him, but she declined.
• Liao Jia agreed to take Liao Gong’s five-year-old daughter with him, despite the visible displeasure of Liao Qian’s wife.

Liao Jia hired Luo Sha to protect him while he pursued Perfection, then led him to Lü Jue and Mei Meng, revealing that he needed their cooperation. He offered to return the Perfection Ritual he had stolen from Mei Meng if she helped him, leaving her furious but with the means to regain her lost progress.

• Liao Jia asked Luo Sha to guard him as he sought Perfection, and Luo Sha accepted for payment.
• Liao Jia brought Luo Sha to Lü Jue's camp, where Luo Sha defeated Lü Jue in a spar and helped Liao Jia take him along.
• Liao Jia brought Luo Sha and Lü Jue to Mei Meng's academy and explained that he needed her cooperation to reach Perfection.
• Mei Meng confronted Liao Jia, and he offered to return the Perfection Ritual he had stolen from her if she helped him complete his own.

Liao Jia persuaded Mei Meng to cooperate in a ritual that could let him reach the pinnacle of the Way of the Scholar, though doing so would also pit her academy against Quqing Academy. The chapter ended with Liao Jia explaining that their ritual would take place in Mountain Sea Sacred Land.

• Mei Meng cursed Liao Jia for asking her to help after he had taken her fruit of success, while Lü Jue tried to calm her.
• Students found Mei Meng’s new warning sign barring Liao Jia, dogs, and Luo Sha from the academy, and Luo Sha worried that he had lost her favor.
• Qi Cang explained that Liao Jia had likely won Mei Meng over by offering money and resources for her struggling academy.
• Liao Jia told Luo Sha that Mei Meng and Quqing Academy were rivals, and that helping her had earned him political enemies among Quqing Academy’s supporters.
• Liao Jia revealed that he and Mei Meng had to work together on their respective rituals in Mountain Sea Sacred Land to let him pursue the pinnacle.

Ji Sun Yin returned to the Gongxi Clan Land after learning that tomb raiders had disturbed the coffin and awakened Shen Tang, whom the clan revered as their Holy Sovereign. Shen Tang woke with amnesia, accepted the clan’s hospitality, and began learning about the people who believed she had returned to guide them.

• Gongxi Yu confronted Ji Sun Yin about whether he had revealed the Clan Land’s location, then told him that tomb raiders had stolen the coffin and awakened Her Highness.
• Gongxi Yu delivered the High Priest’s summons, and Ji Sun Yin agreed to return to the Clan Land with a few trusted retainers despite his duties to his people.
• Shen Tang woke beside the opened coffin with a head injury and no memories, while Jimò Bai and the others welcomed her as their awakened Highness.
• Shen Tang accepted Jimò Bai’s invitation to stay, heard how the tomb raiders had accidentally opened her coffin, and settled among the Gongxi Clan.
• Shen Tang met Jimò Cong and her young relative, then asked whether the child went to school or had homework.

Shen Tang learned that the Gongxi Clan wanted her to lead them in conquering the world, while Ji Sun Yin returned with his attendants and the clan prepared to intervene in the outside world. After hearing Wei Lou describe the suffering beyond the clan lands, Shen Tang was invited to learn more, and Ji Sun Yin finally emerged from a meeting with news that the Gongxi Clan planned to fight.

• Shen Tang discovered that Jimò Cong wanted her to become the Human Lord and lead the Gongxi Clan in unifying the world, but she considered escaping instead.
• Ji Sun Yin brought his attendants into the hidden clan lands, where Wei Cheng, Qin You, and Yun Da worried about whether the Gongxi Clan would interfere with their lord's power.
• Jimò Cong welcomed Ji Sun Yin's attendants and told Wei Lou that Ji Sun Yin was known to the clan as Gongxi Yin.
• Shen Tang met Wei Lou at a window and asked about the outside world; he described its poverty and suffering, while Jimò Cong invited them both to share Gu Wine.
• Ji Sun Yin returned the next day with meat buns and reported that the elders had questioned him about the outside world and that the Gongxi Clan intended to go fight.

Shen Tang was asked by the Gongxi Clan’s High Priests and Clan Elders how to bring peace to the world, and she proposed unifying the land and improving life for commoners. When Wei Lou warned that powerful landowners would resist reforms, Shen Tang declared she would destroy them, and Jimò Cong pledged the Gongxi Clan’s warriors to her cause.

• Ji Sun Yin ate with Wei Lou and then joined Jimò Cong at a meeting, where she invited Wei Lou and the other guests to attend.
• Shen Tang arrived and took the seat of honor as the High Priests and Clan Elders asked how she would bring peace to the world.
• Shen Tang proposed unifying the land, building a stable base, attracting refugees, and investing in water conservancy and farming.
• Wei Lou explained that local gentry would resist reforms that helped tenant farmers become independent, and Shen Tang vowed to eliminate anyone who obstructed her plans.
• Shen Tang argued that commoners needed land and a stable livelihood to prevent rebellion, and Jimò Cong declared that the Gongxi Clan would clear every obstacle for her.

Zhang Yang awoke in a dismembered body inside a ruined earthen house and used a mysterious system to obtain a needle and thread to sew her limbs back together. As she prepared to escape, she saw a rain-soaked person outside the window.

• Zhang Yang regained consciousness in a bloodied house, realized her head and limbs had been severed, and painstakingly gathered her body parts.
• Zhang Yang discovered a transparent system screen with her name and the status “Shang Yang knows a horse's strength.”
• Zhang Yang unlocked the “Sewing” talent and received a needle and thread from the system.
• Zhang Yang stitched her arms and legs back onto her torso and decided to flee before the killer returned.
• A gust of wind broke open the window, and lightning revealed an indifferent, rain-soaked person standing outside.

Yun Da challenged Shen Tang’s claim that the Gongxi Clan could help unify the realm, but Shen Tang defeated him with unexpected ease and revealed she was a woman. The Gongxi Clan demonstrated how its High Priests could empower ordinary clansmen, while Wei Lou pressed Ji Sun Yin to clarify whether he would join Shen Tang or remain independent.

• Yun Da mocked Shen Tang’s ambitions and challenged her to prove her strength, while Jimò Cong restrained Ji Sun Yin from intervening.
• Shen Tang accepted Yun Da’s challenge, manifested a sword, and defeated him; Yun Da conceded his loss, and the onlookers discovered Shen Tang was a woman.
• Jimò Cong had a seemingly ordinary clansman demonstrate how a High Priest could empower Gongxi believers, showing Wei Lou and the others the source of the clan’s military strength.
• Wei Lou and his companions privately asked Ji Sun Yin whether he belonged to the Gongxi Clan and warned him to choose his answer carefully.

Shen Tang discovered that the Gongxi Clan possessed enormous stores of grain, gold, silver, and two thousand warriors, then began revising her plans to build power. Ji Sun Yin and his companions prepared to return to their territory, while Jimò Shuang revealed that a prophecy had once foretold the clan’s destruction because of Ji Sun Yin.

• Wei Cheng urged Wei Lou to give Ji Sun Yin time to decide whether to stay with the Gongxi Clan or return to his subordinates.
• Shen Tang presented a plan to recruit soldiers and seize land, but Jimò Bai revealed the clan had vast grain reserves and Jimò Cong showed them a solid-gold statue.
• Jimò Bai led Shen Tang and the guests to gold and silver stores, where they saw that the clan’s wealth and two thousand warriors were now at Shen Tang’s disposal.
• Shen Tang went into seclusion to revise her plans, while Ji Sun Yin and his companions discussed their departure and Qin You joked about taking some of the clan’s wealth.
• Ji Sun Yin asked Jimò Shuang why the High Priests would follow Shen Tang into the secular world, and she explained that she had foreseen the clan’s destruction through Ji Sun Yin but believed Shen Tang’s awakening had changed fate.

Ji Sun Yin and his officers arranged to help Shen Tang transport the Gongxi Clan’s grain, while Shen Tang learned that a local landlord’s abuses were far worse than she had realized. After seeing the tenant farmers’ suffering, she rejected buying the land and arrived at the landlord’s walled estate, where corpses hung from the wall.

• Qin You proposed seizing landlords’ land and selling it to the Gongxi Clan, and Wei Lou suggested carrying out the scheme discreetly to test their strength and remove troublesome forces.
• Shen Tang hired Ji Sun Yin’s troops to escort grain and rent supply vehicles, then discovered that her summoned warhorse was the mule Motorcycle.
• Wei Lou explained that the bandits they encountered enslaved and abused their captives, and Shen Tang agreed they should be punished.
• Wei Lou described how local landlords extorted tenant farmers, abused their families, and took most of their harvest, while Shen Tang argued that their exploitation worsened the effects of famine and drought.
• Shen Tang refused to buy the landlord’s land and reached his walled estate, where Wei Lou noted that seven or eight naked corpses had hung for at least ten days.

Shen Tang seized a powerful landlord’s estate and used the tenant farmers’ grievances to destroy the household’s hold over them. She burned the farmers’ debt records, promised them fair land and rent, and left the estate under her control.

• Shen Tang’s party attacked the estate and captured its people while the absent household head returned to find the gates taken.
• Shen Tang’s followers captured the head of the household and imprisoned him and other prominent relatives in cages for the tenant farmers to confront.
• The tenant farmers attacked the prisoners, and Shen Tang ordered the dead burned and buried and the survivors killed.
• Shen Tang burned the tenant farmers’ debt records and announced that they could keep farming the land for rent capped at thirty percent of their harvest.
• Shen Tang promised each adult a share of land, free farm tools, irrigation works, and lower rents if possible.

Shen Tang organized relief and farming plans for the tenant farmers, recruiting help to build irrigation works and improve the soil. After a promising scholar she sought was away, she posted job openings and hired Luo San, who offered to bring more qualified recruits.

• The tenant farmers wept at Shen Tang’s promises of low rents, free tools, and irrigation works, and she ordered a census that included the children.
• Shen Tang paid Wei Lou to compile the tenant farmer rosters, then proposed using the Gongxi Clan’s two thousand able-bodied men to build a reservoir and canals.
• Shen Tang assigned the High Priests to help reclaim wasteland and proposed using lightning and crop rotation to improve soil fertility.
• Shen Tang traveled to recruit a scholar, learned he was away, and posted notices seeking workers in the nearby city.
• Luo San answered Shen Tang’s notice, met the Martial Master requirements, and accepted a position.
• Luo San offered to invite qualified fellow townsmen to apply, and Shen Tang eagerly agreed.

Shen Tang returned with over a hundred men from Luo San’s hometown and hired them under written contracts, while arranging literacy lessons and labor for her growing settlement. Luo San’s men mistook their comfortable lodgings and meals for an illusion, then learned their new work was clearing land rather than serving as soldiers.

• Shen Tang hired Luo San’s hometown companions with written labor contracts and asked Wei Lou to help prepare materials for literacy classes.
• Jimò Cong told Shen Tang that later-arriving refugees were protesting their poor farmland, and Shen Tang said they could leave if they were dissatisfied.
• The Gongxi Clan hired tenant farmers’ wives to work in the canteen, while the men who objected left without changing the decision.
• Luo San and his companions ate cautiously in the canteen, suspecting the abundant food and comfortable camp were an illusion.
• Luo San asked Shen Tang to assign his men to train as soldiers, but Shen Tang directed them to clear land instead.

Shen Tang continued rebuilding her territory and accepted an invitation to a county banquet, where the guests were poisoned and died before she could act. The county deputy and his soldiers then pledged their loyalty to her and proposed that she become the new county magistrate.

• Luo San and his men cleared wasteland, and Shen Tang praised their work and explained how settling refugees with land would help them build lasting livelihoods.
• Wei Lou told Luo San that his contract made him a hired laborer rather than Shen Tang’s subject, leaving Luo San offended by the distinction.
• Shen Tang accepted the county magistrate’s banquet invitation despite Wei Lou’s warning that local families might try to reclaim the Great Landlord’s seized assets.
• At the banquet, the guests suddenly suffered poisoning and accused Shen Tang, but she, Luo San, and Wei Lou were unaffected.
• The county deputy and his armed men entered, praised Shen Tang for eliminating local evildoers, and pledged to follow her; the deputy proposed making her the new county magistrate.

Shen Tang took control of the County Office and struggled to organize its finances, staff, and preparations for winter. When Ji Sun Yin’s forces asked to borrow grain, Shen Tang agreed in exchange for workers, leaving Wei Lou increasingly unsettled by her treatment of handsome men.

• The county deputy pleaded allegiance to Shen Tang, shaved off his beard at her request, and was accepted into her service as she took over the County Office.
• Luo San shaved his beard to save time, while Wei Lou misunderstood Shen Tang’s request and grew irritated when she admitted she liked the deputy’s clean-shaven appearance.
• Shen Tang spent days sorting out the County Office’s debts and staffing, relying on Gongxi Yu to help manage the work.
• As winter approached, Shen Tang decided to arrange heated kang beds and secure firewood and charcoal for the county’s impoverished residents.
• Yun Da arrived with Ji Sun Yin’s request to borrow grain, and Shen Tang agreed in return for workers; Wei Lou suspected Yun Da’s good looks were part of why he had been sent.
• Yun Da asked Wei Lou whether he planned to leave Shen Tang for a wiser ruler, and Wei Lou stared at him in disbelief.

Yun Da came to understand how Shen Tang’s rule gave vulnerable people a chance to survive, while Wei Lou remained troubled by the possibility that her support was temporary. Shen Tang continued feeding and organizing her workers, then learned that neither she nor Ji Sun Yin had enough scholars to meet the County Office’s growing needs.

• Yun Da explained how Shen Tang restored a peasant woman’s family fields and concluded that her rule gave the weak a way to survive.
• Wei Lou argued that Shen Tang’s care might not last and that people could become dependent on her, but Yun Da asked whether he had ever spoken frankly with her or questioned what a true god was.
• Wei Lou admitted he had never considered that distinction, then refused to leave Ji Sun Yin’s service when Yun Da asked whether he wanted to go.
• Ji Sun Yin’s subordinates grew accustomed to Shen Tang’s work and generous meals, and Shen Tang found them crying over their two boiled eggs.
• Shen Tang ordered Jimò Cong to supply workers with eggs from his rapidly raised poultry, while Wei Lou misread her remarks about the eggs as concern over embezzlement.
• Wei Lou suggested recruiting more clerks and civil servants, but he and Shen Tang discovered that neither side had scholars to spare.

Shen Tang decided to force talented scholars into her service after her Recruitment Posters went unanswered, while the county deputy brought his daughter to reveal that she had developed literary qi. The chapter ended with Shen Tang abducting scholars and ordering them to take exams, confident that strength and temptation would make them stay.

• Shen Tang dismissed Wei Lou’s objections to her recruitment methods and told the county deputy to find unattached scholars in neighboring commanderies.
• The county deputy’s daughter urged him to secure Shen Tang’s trust and then asked to serve, revealing that she had developed literary qi after Shen Tang took office.
• Shen Tang summoned the Gongxi Clan’s aides to protect other possible cases, while her Recruitment Posters continued to receive no replies.
• Shen Tang recruited Ji Sun Yin’s people and abducted the scholars on the county deputy’s list, including an acquaintance of Wei Lou’s.
• Shen Tang silenced the protesting scholars, crushed a gold goblet to intimidate them, and ordered them to take exams without supervision.
• Shen Tang told Wei Lou that she needed the scholars’ labor, not their sincerity, and argued that they would remain once they realized she offered the best rewards.