Chapter Summaries

Tang Yu attended a Joyous Union Sect lecture, mastered the Joyous Union Yin-Yang Art, and advanced from Qi Refinement to Golden Core in just over a day by using pills. Liu Yanlan stopped him from pushing his cultivation further and ordered him to study the four arts with the other disciples.

• Xiao Rou brought Tang Yu to Enlightenment Hall, where Elder Liu taught him and the other disciples the basics of cultivation and the Joyous Union Yin-Yang Art.
• Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai visited Tang Yu at Cluster Jade Pavilion and offered to serve him after revealing they were both early Golden Core disciples.
• Tang Yu mastered the cultivation technique, reached Foundation Establishment within moments, and then used pills to accelerate his progress.
• After a day, Tang Yu broke through to Golden Core, prompting Liu Yanlan to arrive and reprimand him for cultivating recklessly.
• Liu Yanlan restricted Tang Yu's storage ring to prevent him from taking more pills and told him to study qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting starting the next day.

Liu Yanlan concealed Tang Yu’s unprecedented one-day breakthrough to the Golden Core stage, while Tang Yu headed to the Four Arts Academy with Xiao Rou. At the Painting Academy, he noticed a long-legged, white-haired girl painting beside a lotus pond.

• Liu Yanlan worried that Tang Yu’s rapid, extravagant cultivation could destabilize his foundation, but she considered his Golden Core breakthrough a blessing and ordered the sect to keep it secret.
• Tang Yu wondered why he still could not see his senior sister’s face and reluctantly prepared to study the four arts.
• Xiao Rou escorted Tang Yu to the Four Arts Academy, where he gave her a flying sword magical treasure after finding that his senior sister had restricted access to the pills in his storage ring.
• Xiao Rou accepted the treasure and went to practice music, while Tang Yu chose to visit the Painting Academy.
• Tang Yu observed the painting instructor teaching more than thirty disciples and noticed a long-legged, white-haired girl painting the lotus pond as several male disciples painted nearby.

Tang Yu met Nangong Ying, a beautiful and relentlessly money-minded senior sister, and offered her advice on painting figures. After his suggestions improved her painting, she agreed to talk with him for free and began massaging his shoulders so he could demonstrate further.

• Tang Yu approached Nangong Ying, paid her spirit stones to smell her fragrance and speak with her, and learned she was a descendant of Patriarch Heartless’s Nangong Clan.
• Nangong Ying charged Tang Yu for their handshake and conversation, then explained that she painted female disciples to sell her work to lecherous buyers.
• Tang Yu criticized Nangong Ying’s formulaic figures and advised her how to emphasize each woman’s distinct features and appeal.
• Nangong Ying followed Tang Yu’s advice, completed an improved painting, and agreed to let him chat with her for free.
• Tang Yu claimed his shoulders hurt, and Nangong Ying gave up her seat and began massaging him as nearby male disciples left in dismay.

Tang Yu impressed Nangong Ying with a vivid, colored painting and used her desire to learn his techniques to draw closer to her. He left for Cluster Jade Pavilion without agreeing to teach her, while Nangong Ying went to seek Liu Yanlan.

• Tang Yu summoned Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai to fetch pigments, then painted three lifelike women playing beside a lotus pond.
• Nangong Ying admired Tang Yu's painting, accepted it as payment for his accidental touch, and asked him to teach her.
• Tang Yu returned Nangong Ying's spirit stones and embraced her, claiming they were family and inviting her to visit Cluster Jade Pavilion.
• Tang Yu refused to share his supposed family art secrets, despite Nangong Ying's repeated pleas, and headed back to Cluster Jade Pavilion.
• Nangong Ying watched Tang Yu leave, then flew to the sect master's palace to see Liu Yanlan.

Tang Yu learned that the Joyous Union Sect was struggling financially and resolved to find ways to earn money. When Nangong Ying visited him, he decided that selling black stockings would be his first business.

• Nangong Ying asked Liu Yanlan to persuade Tang Yu to teach her painting, and Liu Yanlan suggested she become his Dao companion.
• Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai brought Tang Yu painting supplies, and he reimbursed them for the five high-grade spirit stones they had spent.
• Tang Yu questioned Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai about the sect's finances and learned that it was the poorest of the seven great sects and relied partly on tribute from eight secular nations.
• Tang Yu concluded that the sect needed new sources of income, then saw Nangong Ying arrive with spirit fruits and decided to sell black stockings using her as a leg model.

Tang Yu persuaded Nangong Ying to model for his new business in exchange for one hundred high-grade spirit stones, then began measuring her for pantyhose. The chapter ended with him asking her to lift her skirt so he could measure her legs.

• Nangong Ying gave Tang Yu Immortal Dew Fruits, then privately charged Zhao Dashun and the other man five mid-grade spirit stones apiece for theirs.
• Tang Yu refused to teach Nangong Ying his painting skills and offered her either ten percent of his business profits or one hundred high-grade spirit stones to serve as a model.
• Nangong Ying chose the fixed payment, accepted a deposit of twenty high-grade spirit stones, and hugged Tang Yu in delight.
• Tang Yu told Nangong Ying he planned to sell socks and began measuring her feet to make silk stockings.
• Tang Yu explained that he was making pantyhose and asked Nangong Ying to lift her skirt so he could measure her legs.

Tang Yu made Nangong Ying model his black stockings, then sold them across major cities, where they quickly became a fashion sensation. After discovering the stockings, Fang Meiyun banned them throughout the Jade Maiden Sect and stormed away in anger.

• Tang Yu measured Nangong Ying’s legs, made her a pair of black stockings, and drew her wearing them as a promotional portrait.
• Tang Yu priced the stockings at one mid-grade spirit stone per pair and sent a thousand pairs to clothing shops in major cities.
• Customers flocked to buy the stockings, and all one thousand pairs sold out within two days as female cultivators adopted them as a trend.
• Fang Meiyun emerged from her failed breakthrough and questioned Ning Qingyan about the black stockings she was wearing.
• Fang Meiyun tore Ning Qingyan’s stockings and ordered the Jade Maiden Sect to forbid their use, wear, and sale.

After Fang Meiyun banned black stockings across the Jade Maiden Sect, Tang Yu learned that the decree had disrupted his business and began preparing a response. He then persuaded Liu Yanlan to consider the profitable stockings, and she appeared wearing a pair.

• Ning Qingyan passed Fang Meiyun's order to ban black stockings throughout the Jade Maiden Sect and its territories.
• A Fire Spirit Sect cultivator wearing black stockings was expelled from a Jade Maiden Sect-controlled city, attacked the city with spells, and insulted Fang Meiyun before fleeing.
• Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai told Tang Yu about the ban, and Tang Yu drew nearly sixty comics to retaliate against the Jade Maiden Sect.
• Tang Yu visited Liu Yanlan and reported that his first thousand pairs of black stockings had earned about nine hundred and sixty mid-grade spirit stones in net profit.
• Tang Yu explained how to wear the stockings, and Liu Yanlan disappeared before returning in a pair.

Tang Yu proposed a black-stocking business for the Joyous Union Sect and gained Liu Yanlan’s approval, then showed her a provocative comic targeting the Jade Maiden Sect’s Fang Meiyun. He went to the Artifact Refining Hall to reproduce the comic on recording jade slips, leaving Elder Hu eager to see the next installment.

• Tang Yu explained his plan for countries protected by the sect to produce black stockings while the sect handled sales, and Liu Yanlan agreed to the plan and offered him thirty percent of the profits.
• Tang Yu showed Liu Yanlan a comic depicting Fairy Meiyun, based on Fang Meiyun, and explained that he wanted revenge for her insults and interference with the sect’s business.
• Liu Yanlan approved the comic but forbade Tang Yu from going down the mountain until he reached the Nascent Soul Realm, warning that Fang Meiyun would retaliate.
• Tang Yu went to the Artifact Refining Hall and asked Elder Hu to procure at least five hundred thousand recording jade slips to copy the comic.
• After reading the unfinished comic, Elder Hu begged Tang Yu for the rest, and Tang Yu promised to let him see the next part first.

Elder Hu’s illustrated jade slips became a sensation, prompting Fang Meiyun to confront Tang Yu at the Joyous Union Sect. Heartless Patriarch drove her away, and Liu Yanlan told Tang Yu that the Patriarch’s death-seclusion left the sect facing a grim future if he failed to break through within five hundred years.

• Elder Hu produced and distributed seven hundred thousand jade slips containing Tang Yu’s comic, which sold out as cultivators clamored for a sequel.
• A Jade Maiden Sect disciple showed the comic to Ning Qingyan, who brought it to Fang Meiyun after seeing it portrayed Fairy Meiyun.
• Fang Meiyun stormed the Joyous Union Sect and demanded Tang Yu, but Heartless Patriarch struck her down and warned the Jade Maiden Sect’s patriarch not to threaten his disciple.
• Tang Yu thanked Heartless Patriarch and went to find Liu Yanlan, who explained that the Patriarch had entered death-seclusion to break through from the Body Integration Realm.
• Liu Yanlan told Tang Yu that if the Patriarch failed to break through within five hundred years, the sect would face a serious crisis.

Tang Yu reflected on cultivation with Liu Yanlan, then comprehended the Dao at the Golden Core stage and advanced to Nascent Soul, drawing the attention of sect patriarchs and Immortal Emperor Jia Chenyang. After creating his Thoughtless Punch divine ability, he returned to the Joyous Union Sect’s garment enterprise with a new episode of The Misfortunes of Fairy Meiyun.

• Liu Yanlan told Tang Yu how the deaths of her family shaped her understanding of cultivation, and his promise to accompany her on the Great Dao sparked a new resonance before she entered seclusion.
• Tang Yu selected a memory fragment from a past transmigration and used its insights to comprehend the Dao, advancing from Golden Core to Nascent Soul.
• Heartless Patriarch mistook the Great Dao aura for his own breakthrough, while Jia Chenyang visited Tang Yu and welcomed him as a fellow traveler who had entered the Dao through shit.
• Tang Yu created the Thoughtless Punch divine ability, whose aura pressured male cultivators below Divine Transformation, and the Joyous Union Sect elders congratulated him.
• Tang Yu drew the second episode of The Misfortunes of Fairy Meiyun and brought it to the Artifact Refining Hall, where Elder Hu was overseeing production of looms for the sect’s garment industry.

Tang Yu released the second installment of Fairy Meiyun's Misfortune, which sold out and made the Joyous Union Sect's products wildly popular. When counterfeit copies appeared, he arranged for the Jade Maiden Sect to hear about them, and Fang Meiyun led a bloody crackdown on the pirates.

• Tang Yu gave Elder Hu the second installment and told him to sell it for ten low-grade spirit stones, using half the proceeds to expand the Artifact Refinement Hall.
• Elder Hu produced one million jade slips, which sold out in two days as readers eagerly followed the protagonist's encounter with Fairy Meiyun and the cliffhanger in the secret realm.
• The story's success spread across the Nine Heavens Continent, while Tang Yu's cheongsams and white stockings became popular and stirred debate among readers.
• After merchants began producing pirated copies, Tang Yu told Elder Hu to report the counterfeiters to the Jade Maiden Sect.
• Fang Meiyun ordered Jade Maiden Sect cultivators to destroy the pirate workshops, kill their owners, and hang their heads from city gates.

Fang Meiyun remained furious at Tang Yu and let Meng Zihao go after him, hoping to avoid responsibility for any killing. Tang Yu emerged from seclusion to find Nangong Ying waiting to pamper him.

• The Jade Maiden Sect crushed sixteen merchants dealing in pirated goods and forced two implicated sects to pay compensation, but Fang Meiyun stayed angry at Tang Yu.
• Meng Zihao arrived to pursue Fang Meiyun, who rejected his advances but learned he wanted to kill Tang Yu for insulting her.
• Fang Meiyun let Meng Zihao leave to attack Tang Yu while making clear she would deny sending him if he got into trouble.
• Tang Yu studied new divine abilities based on the Dao of Shit and sneezed as he emerged from seclusion in the Cluster Jade Pavilion.
• Nangong Ying greeted Tang Yu with spirit fruits and began massaging his shoulders.

Tang Yu charmed Nangong Ying while teaching her to draw, persuading her to move into Cluster Jade Pavilion so she could learn his craft. The chapter leaves Nangong Ying preparing to predict the plot of the third episode of Fairy Meiyun's Misfortune.

• Nangong Ying cleaned Tang Yu's ears, and he returned the favor by cleaning her ears and massaging her shoulders and neck.
• Nangong Ying asked Tang Yu to teach her drawing so she could earn money, and he convinced her to move into Cluster Jade Pavilion for lessons.
• Tang Yu taught Nangong Ying his drawing techniques, and she quickly produced a copy that closely resembled his work.
• Tang Yu told Nangong Ying to work out what would happen in the third episode of Fairy Meiyun's Misfortune and explain her ideas in detail.

Tang Yu helped Nangong Ying develop a revenge-romance plot, then rewarded her and taught Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai a powerful joint divine ability. The two disciples successfully used the technique and were dubbed the Dung-Scouring Duo.

• Nangong Ying proposed a romance between the protagonist and Fang Meiyun, and Tang Yu coached her toward a more manipulative plot.
• Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai brought Tang Yu about thirteen hundred high-grade spirit stones collected from merchants.
• Tang Yu gave Nangong Ying eighty high-grade spirit stones, and she hugged him in delight.
• Tang Yu taught Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai the Dung-Scouring Creation Palm and adjusted it into a joint technique they could use together.
• Zhao Dashun and Liu Facai successfully unleashed the enormous palm, and Tang Yu named them the Dung-Scouring Duo.

Tang Yu sent Zhao Dashun and another Joyous Union Sect member to gather gambling-business data before accepting Treasure Pavilion Pavilion Master Amber’s invitation and setting out with Nangong Ying. During their journey, a swordsman emerged from a spatial rift and confronted Tang Yu.

• Tang Yu ordered Zhao Dashun and the other man to survey gambling establishments and collect the Joyous Union Sect’s casino account books.
• A golden message-bearing flying sword delivered Amber’s invitation and five hundred high-grade spirit stones to Tang Yu.
• Nangong Ying persuaded Tang Yu to take her to meet Amber, agreeing to scrub his back in exchange.
• Tang Yu and Nangong Ying set off for the Treasure Pavilion aboard a treasure ship, and Tang Yu thought about preparing for a future fight with a Son of Luck.
• A swordsman stepped through a spatial rift onto the ship, fixed Tang Yu with an icy gaze, and asked whether he was Tang Yu.

Meng Zihao arrived to kill Tang Yu for supposedly humiliating Fang Meiyun, but Tang Yu talked him into a plan to win her over. Meng Zihao left for the Jade Maiden Sect to begin the scheme, while Tang Yu gained his flying sword and promise of help.

• Meng Zihao mistook Tang Yu for the man in his portrait and demanded to know why he had drawn Fairy Meiyun's Misfortune.
• Nangong Ying prepared to defend Tang Yu, but Tang Yu stopped Meng Zihao and asked whether he was Fang Meiyun's Dao companion.
• Tang Yu learned Meng Zihao had pursued Fang Meiyun for over four hundred years and offered to help him win her affection.
• Tang Yu proposed that Meng Zihao pretend to be gravely injured, then orchestrate Fang Meiyun's disgrace so she would rely on him.
• Meng Zihao gave Tang Yu a flying sword and left for the Jade Maiden Sect after seriously injuring himself as the first step of the plan.

Meng Zihao failed to kill Tang Yu because Nangong Heartless’s avatar intervened, and Fang Meiyun let the injured cultivator recover at the Jade Maiden Sect. Tang Yu and Nangong Ying then continued to the Treasure Pavilion, where they arrived with Pavilion Master Amber’s invitation.

• Meng Zihao told Fang Meiyun that Nangong Heartless’s avatar had thwarted his attack on Tang Yu, and Fang Meiyun arranged for him to recover in the sect.
• Nangong Ying joined Tang Yu and praised him for driving Meng Zihao away, then asked how he had persuaded him to leave.
• Tang Yu tricked Nangong Ying into turning around and kissed her, claiming it was a lesson in getting someone to become a Dao companion.
• Tang Yu asked whether Pavilion Master Amber was pretty, and Nangong Ying briefly grew jealous before praising her own beauty.
• Tang Yu and Nangong Ying reached the Treasure Pavilion’s vast city, presented Amber’s invitation, and were escorted inside by its disciples.

Tang Yu and Nangong Ying visited Treasure Pavilion, where they met its Pavilion Master, Amber. Amber welcomed them to the top floor of the Star-Picking Tower, a rare honor that left Nangong Ying astonished.

• Nangong Ying admired Treasure Pavilion's wealth as she flew there with Tang Yu, and Tang Yu described how Starmoon Flowers could become valuable through speculation.
• A Treasure Pavilion disciple led Tang Yu and Nangong Ying to the Star-Picking Tower, the Pavilion Master's residence and a place where higher floors signified greater business.
• Amber came out to greet Nangong Ying and Tang Yu, having heard of Tang Yu's exceptional talent as a merchant.
• Tang Yu praised Amber's qipao and white stockings, and Amber thanked him for creating the clothes and asked to hear about future styles.
• Amber transported Tang Yu and Nangong Ying to the tower's top floor, surprising Nangong Ying because she had never heard of guests being brought there.

Tang Yu and Amber negotiated a partnership between the Joyous Union Sect and Treasure Pavilion to sell clothing and jade-tube paintings across the Nine Heavens Continent. After signing a contract, Tang Yu proposed launching a lottery business with Amber.

• Nangong Ying marveled at the Treasure Pavilion's wealth while Amber welcomed her and Tang Yu to the top floor.
• Amber explained that Tang Yu's money-making methods were feasible but unsuitable for Treasure Pavilion's own business, and Tang Yu offered to cooperate through other channels.
• Amber proposed providing sales channels for Tang Yu's clothing and jade-tube paintings in exchange for working with Treasure Pavilion.
• Tang Yu and Amber agreed to split the profits seventy-thirty and signed a blood-bound contract.
• Tang Yu presented his lottery business model, and Amber praised its potential for large returns.