Chapter Summaries

Shen Tang forcibly recruited scholars while transforming her city and providing homes, tools, and livestock for its residents and refugees. As winter deepened, she continued preparing for the growing population by locating underground water.

• The captured scholars refused Shen Tang’s examination, but she graded their papers publicly and offered failed candidates a choice between signing an insulting acknowledgment and paying to go home or signing labor contracts.
• Shen Tang reorganized the city and used Martial Gall Warriors to build homes, moving several thousand residents and nearby villagers into new housing before the first snow.
• Shen Tang distributed agricultural tools, Draft Cattle, Chicken Chicks, ducklings, and goslings to farmers, while Wei Lou’s friend revealed that he had signed a contract with her.
• Luo San glared at Wei Lou when he called his friend a temporary laborer.
• As refugees gathered outside the city and water grew scarce, Jimò Cong located water beneath the ground, and Wei Cheng marked the spot for wells.

Gongxi Yao played with Wei Cheng and began wondering whether she should become a Martial Gall Warrior, while Wei Lou wrestled with Ji Sun Yin’s proposal to use a dangerous Gu Worm to arm refugees. After Shen Tang learned that warlords were massacring refugees, she gathered troops to raid them and bring the refugees under her protection.

• Gongxi Yao took Wei Cheng’s soul flame and a Skeleton Soldier’s head, then asked Jimò Cong whether her family would still love her if she became a Martial Gall Warrior and lost her flesh.
• Wei Lou received Ji Sun Yin’s report about refugees being hunted and Ji Sun Yin’s renewed consideration of using a costly Gu Worm to let them fight back; Wei Lou advised against it.
• Shen Tang noticed Wei Lou’s worry, heard about the massacres, and told him they should establish order among people rather than beasts.
• Shen Tang decided to gather troops and take in the refugees, explaining that she would punish those who refused to reform.
• Luo San assembled fifty personal guards, and Shen Tang’s army rode out before Wei Cheng could join them.

Shen Tang led her forces on an impromptu raid against a northern warlord camp, where they destroyed the enemy command and secured a swift surrender. As Wei Lou reconsidered whether Shen Tang was truly an Evil God, he found her and Luo San dividing the captured treasure and began doubting her again.

• Shen Tang chose the northern route by tossing coins, and Luo San showed her intelligence about a nearby warlord camp.
• Shen Tang and the Gongxi Clan charged into the camp without scouts, destroyed its command banner, and killed the general in a battle lasting less than half an hour.
• Shen Tang demanded the soldiers surrender, while Jimò Cong and the others bound the prisoners and Wei Lou's group seized supplies and valuables.
• Wei Lou identified boxes of dried human flesh among the provisions, and Jimò Cong ordered it buried before agreeing it should be burned.
• Jimò Cong said the prisoners should be given the chance to choose differently, prompting Wei Lou to reconsider his judgment of Shen Tang.
• Wei Lou then saw Shen Tang and Luo San surrounded by captured gold and silver, and again suspected they were acting like bandits.

Shen Tang’s force captured prisoners and considered how to use them, while Wei Lou proposed negotiating with the city’s defenders. After seeing the city’s starving inhabitants and ruined defenses, Shen Tang waited as Wei Lou and Luo San entered to negotiate, hoping to secure the city without a costly assault.

• Shen Tang asked how many prisoners they had captured, and Wei Lou suggested using them to bargain for the city or lure its defenders into an ambush.
• Shen Tang and the others saw the city’s impoverished inhabitants repairing its battered walls, and Wei Lou explained that people could be treated as supplies in extreme circumstances.
• Wei Lou sent a request to negotiate, then entered the city with Luo San while Shen Tang waited outside.
• Shen Tang worried about Wei Lou’s safety, wondered how he planned to persuade the defenders to leave, and said they should repair the city wall once they took the city.

Shen Tang’s forces captured the Warlord Leader and returned to the ruined city, where they began rebuilding and feeding its starving residents. As supplies arrived, Wei Cheng questioned whether the city was worth restoring, but Wei Lou said Shen Tang had already decided to rebuild it.

• Wei Lou ambushed the Warlord Leader after negotiating away the city, captured him, and ordered the dead gathered and cremated with Jimò Cong’s help.
• Shen Tang returned to the ruined city, ate with her companions, and confronted the Warlord Leader before making him admit he was wrong.
• Shen Tang assigned the Warlord Leader’s able-bodied prisoners to work crews and gave them hot meals, while the wounded were held under guard.
• A loaded convoy arrived the next day, and Wei Cheng entered the city with Wei Lou to discuss the supplies and the proposed rebuilding.
• Wei Cheng questioned the value of restoring the ruins, and Wei Lou told him that Shen Tang wanted to rebuild the city.

Shen Tang defended her city-building projects and explained to Wei Lou that she wanted to secure ordinary people’s survival, not preserve a ruler’s power forever. Wei Lou was shaken by her beliefs and bowed to her, while Luo San interpreted his gesture as a declaration of devotion.

• The Warlord Leader questioned Shen Tang’s costly construction projects, and Wei Lou defended her after the man wondered if she had a problem.
• Shen Tang rejected the idea that possible destruction made building sturdy homes pointless and argued that her territory needed long-term investment.
• Wei Lou pressed Shen Tang about founding a country that could last ten thousand years, and she argued that dynasties could not last forever but ordinary people deserved security and a say in their future.
• Shen Tang told Wei Lou that she was willing to let ordinary people rise against rulers and that gods were only gods because people gave them that identity.
• Wei Lou bowed to Shen Tang, and Luo San interpreted his words as meaning she had become the clay figure in his heart, prompting Shen Tang’s confusion and Ji Sun Yin’s suspicion.

Ji Sun Yin considered aligning with Shen Tang and sending people to work in her territory, while Shen Tang rescued a girl named Jiao and brought her into the Gongxi Clan as Gongxi Feng. The chapter ended with Shen Tang arranging winter aid and village schools, then wondering why Wei Lou had stopped calling her Shen Jun.

• Ji Sun Yin received a letter from Wei Lou that omitted any discussion of Shen Tang and questioned what his strategist’s silence meant.
• Ji Sun Yin learned that his subordinate admired Shen Tang’s kindness and decided that sending workers to her territory could ease future resistance to an alliance.
• Shen Tang rescued Jiao, a young girl whose parents had died, and decided to raise her after feeling an unexplained connection to her.
• Shen Tang brought the girl into the Gongxi Clan and named her Gongxi Feng, while Wei Lou personally instructed the child in respectful conduct.
• Shen Tang arranged grain and winter clothing for refugees and proposed building village halls where residents could keep warm and learn to read.
• Wei Lou agreed to Shen Tang’s plan with a sarcastic remark, and Shen Tang wondered why he had begun addressing her only as Virtuous Lord.

After Luo San suspected a child’s apparent death by wild beasts was staged by enemy scouts, Shen Tang’s forces exposed and defeated the infiltrators. Shen Tang then assigned their captured men to restore mountain habitats, while Wei Lou began preparing Gongxi Feng to govern.

• Luo San pointed out that the child’s corpse and the scene lacked beast fur and showed signs of struggle, leading him and Wei Lou to suspect enemy scouts had disguised a killing as a beast attack.
• Shen Tang agreed to narrow the investigation and signed a contract with Wei Lou so he could use mind-reading methods; Wei Lou also instructed Gongxi Feng to study governance.
• Wei Lou captured and interrogated the spies, then used their intelligence to organize an ambush that succeeded with few losses and captured more than two thousand enemy laborers.
• Shen Tang ordered the captured men to help restore mountain vegetation so wildlife and local livelihoods could recover.

Shen Tang tried to ease her loneliness by taking Gongxi Feng skiing, then spent the night clearing snow and capturing enemy scouts. After Wei Lou told her Gongxi Feng had developed a high fever, he asked whether Shen Tang found the world dull.

• Shen Tang defended her plans to restore forests and let commoners use the mountains, while Qin You advised his colleague to accept the benefits of her generosity.
• When heavy snow covered the city, Shen Tang wrapped Gongxi Feng in a cloak, gave her the courtesy name Lingde, and took her skiing down a mountain.
• Wei Lou and his friend heard Shen Tang and Gongxi Feng shrieking as they skied through the city, and Wei Lou questioned whether their ruler was sane.
• After skiing, Shen Tang swept snow from half the city and captured scouts who were preparing a surprise attack.
• Shen Tang described finding the scouts' concealed mountain hideout to Wei Lou, who then told her Gongxi Feng had suffered a high fever and asked whether she found the world dull.

Shen Tang suspected Wei Lou had fallen for someone after his nephew spread the idea, leaving Wei Lou embarrassed and absent from work. As Shen Tang took Gongxi Feng to the fields for spring plowing, an allied army arrived in overwhelming numbers.

• Wei Lou told Shen Tang that she seemed lonely, but she mistook his concern for an attempt to find her a man and turned him down.
• Shen Tang guessed that Wei Lou had fallen in love, and Wei Cheng reacted so strongly that the rumor spread through the camp.
• Wei Cheng encouraged Wei Lou to pursue the person he liked, after Wei Lou confirmed that Shen Tang had seen through him.
• Wei Lou stayed away for seven or eight days, while gossip claimed he had been rejected and fallen out with Wei Cheng.
• Shen Tang went to the fields with Gongxi Feng to teach her plowing, but a warning firework signaled trouble and she headed out to fight.
• Shen Tang and Gongxi Feng saw that a huge allied army had arrived to attack their small territory.

Shen Tang learned that the Assembly of Gods had joined forces against her because her awakening was killing its Inner Society, and she agreed to strike the allied army before it could unite. She charged into the enemy ranks, killed their alliance leader, and seized their banner, leaving the troops calling for her to be taken down.

• Wei Lou told Shen Tang that the Assembly of Gods was behind the threat and explained its strict ranks and influence.
• Jimò Cong revealed that the Inner Society had betrayed the gods after the great cataclysm and that Shen Tang’s awakening was causing those who had used her Divine Blood to die.
• Wei Lou explained that the Assembly of Gods had learned of Shen Tang through the Gongxi Clan’s emergence and her conspicuous rise, not through a mole.
• Shen Tang chose to launch a decapitation strike against the allied army, while Jimò Cong and Gongxi Yu suggested using Gu Worms to infiltrate and control it.
• Shen Tang broke through the enemy lines, killed the alliance leader, seized the Great Banner, and was recognized by the enemy troops.

Shen Tang’s forces defeated the allied army, and Ji Sun Yin arrived with reinforcements to help capture the fleeing soldiers. Afterward, Ji Sun Yin and Wei Lou discussed the Assembly of Gods, while Wei Lou chose to remain with Shen Tang to unravel the remaining mysteries.

• Shen Tang and the Gongxi Clan charged into the allied army’s disordered ranks, while Wei Lou’s Way of the Scholar disrupted the enemy’s warriors and scholars.
• The defeated allied army tried to retreat, but Ji Sun Yin’s troops ambushed them and killed a general who awakened the Will of the Martial Artist during battle.
• Ji Sun Yin reunited with Jimò Shuang and Gongxi Yu, then arranged to sell his captured prisoners to Shen Tang.
• Ji Sun Yin explained to Wei Lou that the Assembly of Gods’ outer society had approached him and discussed its vast wealth and its conflict with the Gongxi Clan.
• Shen Tang paid Ji Sun Yin for the prisoners, and Wei Lou declined to return with Ji Sun Yin, saying he still had mysteries to unravel.

Ji Sun Yin accepted that he and Wei Lou shared Shen Tang’s goals, while Shen Tang’s forces defeated the allied army and her realm grew into a dynasty. After unifying the land, Shen Tang revealed that its inherited Dynasty Name was Quan E and explained that she had delayed unification to give women time to rise into positions of power.

• Ji Sun Yin told his officer that he would not resist joining Shen Tang’s forces, since he, Wei Lou, and Shen Tang pursued the same cause.
• Wei Lou stayed with Shen Tang to teach Gongxi Feng, whose Literary Heart ceremony revealed her new name, Jimò Feng, and marked her as the next High Priest.
• Shen Tang’s forces crushed the Allied Forces, and she rejected factions that sought alliances after the victory.
• Jimò Feng condensed a Second Rank Upper-Middle Literary Heart, and the Heavenly Dao celebrated with signs that boosted the harvest across the four commanderies.
• Shen Tang’s officials learned that the National Seal named their dynasty Quan E, which Shen Tang refused to change, and the dynasty eventually unified the realm eighteen years after her awakening.
• Wei Lou recognized that Shen Tang had delayed unification to make room for women to enter the nation’s power structure and help restore balance.

Shen Tang abdicated in favor of Jimò Feng after revealing that her life was running out, then left the capital and died in secret. Decades later, Jimò Feng ruled the Quan E Kingdom and took Chu Yao as a student while considering the realm’s future.

• Shen Tang announced her plan to abdicate, and Wei Lou learned that she was dying after she coughed blood.
• Shen Tang prepared Jimò Feng to rule and transferred the throne and National Seal to her despite objections from the court.
• Shen Tang left the capital to travel, but she fell gravely ill months later and died; Wei Lou and Jimò Feng mourned her in private.
• Wei Jun helped Jimò Feng through the aftermath, and she ruled for decades without naming a Crown Princess.
• While touring the provinces, Jimò Feng met Chu Yao, whose Second Rank High Literary Heart led her to take him as a student.

Liao Jia’s Supreme Ritual dragged Shen Tang and her colleagues into the Yin-Yang School’s Sacred Hall, where they watched an alternate history of Shen Tang’s early rise after she lost her memories. The ritual’s examination continued as Shen Tang spent the Gongxi Clan’s wealth building her power and confronting the era’s hardships.

• Shen Tang awoke in the Sacred Hall after more than forty years of memories returned, while Liao Jia explained that his Supreme Ritual had made her one of its participants.
• Liao Jia revealed that his Way of the Scholar required others to do the work for him, and his colleagues watched a vision of Shen Tang waking in an unfamiliar past with a head injury and no memories.
• In the vision, Shen Tang met Ji Sun Yin’s retinue, subdued Yun Da, and used the Gongxi Clan’s wealth to fund her campaign, prompting her colleagues to lament her extravagant spending.
• Shen Tang hired Wei Lou and others, dealt with a shortage of capable staff, and decisively killed a local tyrant whose tenants suffered under brutal exploitation.
• Wei Cheng noted that the late Lord had lent Wei Lou to Shen Tang despite her own shortage of civil officials, while the vision of Shen Tang’s alternate past continued.

Shen Tang and her companions recruited workers and began developing a poor city while the scene’s observers compared her methods with their own past. It leaves Wei Lou and Luo San jokingly exposed as day laborers under Shen Tang’s contract system.

• The Gongxi Clan agreed to help Shen Tang’s group, and observers marveled that its High Priests could grow crops from seed to maturity.
• Shen Tang ordered Wei Lou to complete a huge stack of bamboo slips overnight, then asked him to bring his capable friend to help with the work.
• Shen Tang and her companions visited a thatched cottage, learned its master was away, and waited in a nearby city while Shen Tang commissioned an unusual recruitment poster.
• Luo San arrived seeking work as a Martial Master, and Shen Tang hired him and nearly a hundred of his fellow townsmen under written contracts.
• Shen Tang told dissatisfied refugees to leave rather than accept the fields, while the new workers began clearing land.
• Luo San discovered Wei Lou working in the cafeteria, called him a day laborer, and learned that he and Luo San had both signed contracts with Shen Tang.

As Shen Tang’s past unfolded, she gained Luo San’s support, accepted a banquet invitation, and unexpectedly became a county magistrate after the banquet’s guests were poisoned. The scene then revealed a promising young woman and ended with Shen Tang appearing to fall for Yun Da’s beauty, leaving the onlookers stunned.

• Young Luo San reported clearing land for Shen Tang, and her praise eased his anger and brought him closer to her.
• Shen Tang accepted an invitation to a banquet despite warnings that it might be a trap, and she arrived with a formidable group of allies.
• The banquet’s guests collapsed from poison, and a deputy county magistrate revealed that he had arranged the deaths and offered Shen Tang the county office.
• The deputy county magistrate shaved off his beard at Shen Tang’s request, while Wei Lou wrongly suspected her of plotting against him.
• The next scene showed the deputy county magistrate’s insightful daughter and Marquis Luo, then followed Shen Tang’s work with Yun Da.
• Wei Lou and the onlookers realized Shen Tang admired Yun Da’s appearance after she praised his looks and asked whether he had dressed at her request.

As the watch-along reveals Shen Tang’s past, she recruits clerks by kidnapping them, while Wei Lou’s younger self wrestles with his admiration for her. The chapter ends with the older Wei Lou reacting to his younger self’s feelings and the author adding a personal note.

• Xianyu Jian’s claim that Yun Da used a beauty trap shocks Wei Cheng and the other observers.
• Yun Da tells Wei Lou that Shen Tang seems more like a wise ruler, prompting Wei Lou to insist she will eventually abandon those she supports.
• Shen Tang’s Recruitment Posters receive no replies, so she and her companions break in and abduct the people on the county magistrate’s assistant’s list.
• Shen Tang tests the hostages, sends the unqualified ones home, and keeps those she needs to help build Kang.
• Gu Chi asks whether Wei Lou finds Shen Tang captivating, and the older Wei Lou dismisses the idea while recognizing his younger self’s admiration.
• The author notes that the test results were good and that they planned to visit their uncle at Wenzhou Hospital.

The observers watched Shen Tang’s past, seeing how she and Wei Lou helped establish order after the Wu State Gu Calamity and hearing her reject the idea that any kingdom could endure forever. The scene ended with Shen Tang naming a child Wind, whose appearance reminded Lin Feng of herself.

• Wei Cheng defended the choices made during the brutal era before Kang State, explaining why he had supported Ji Sun Yin’s actions.
• Shen Tang chose an enemy by drawing copper coins, then led her forces against a camp and demonstrated the Gongxi Clan’s strength.
• Wei Lou helped Shen Tang bring more people under her control, while she turned captured enemies into workers and oversaw construction.
• Shen Tang told Wei Lou that human greed and limited resources made an eternal kingdom impossible, and said people could decide whether gods stood above them.
• The observers learned that Ji Sun Yin had received a letter from Wei Lou and saw Wei Lou address Shen Tang as “Virtuous Lord.”
• Shen Tang named a shivering child Wind, and Lin Feng wondered whether the child was connected to her past.

The viewing showed Shen Tang’s possible future, in which Wei Lou raised Gongxi Feng as her successor and she founded Quan E before dying young. Mei Meng revealed that her Way of the Scholar had interfered with the trial, leaving its outcome uncertain, and Shen Tang woke as the others dealt with Liao Jia.

• Wei Lou defended his decision to mentor Gongxi Feng, while the viewers saw him support Shen Tang’s public heating halls and urge the girl to learn governance.
• Wei Lou’s possessive remarks about Shen Tang and his speculation that the past and future could merge alarmed Gu Chi and the other viewers; Lin Su arrived and confirmed that the past might be changeable.
• The image showed Wei Lou confessing his feelings to Jimò Cong and being rejected, then later helping Shen Tang win the war and establish Quan E, with Jimò Feng named Crown Prince.
• Shen Tang grew ill and died after abdicating, entrusting Jimò Feng and Quan E to her ministers, while Wei Lou was devastated.
• Mei Meng revealed that her Way of the Scholar had influenced the trial and that its outcome remained undecided; Shen Tang woke and found the others beating up Liao Jia.