Chapter Summaries

Jinghui found a piece of meteoric iron while the group traveled through the mountains, and Shouyuan read Daoist Yun Su’s travel journal, learning how far she had journeyed despite never reaching Foundation Establishment. Shen Hui recognized a description of Lost Ferry Ridge in the journal and announced that the group would leave the mountains by flying sword the next day.

• Jinghui discovered meteoric iron in a roadside pit and celebrated finding enough to forge a sword embryo.
• Shouyuan read Green Bamboo’s travel journal aloud, including accounts of dangerous places Daoist Yun Su had visited.
• Shouyuan learned that Yun Su had traveled through those perils with only Qi Refining cultivation and praised her.
• Shen Hui recognized the journal’s description of a mountain with a scaled monster and copper coins as Lost Ferry Ridge.
• Shen Hui told the group they would leave the mountains by flying sword the next day.

Shen Hui led the group out of the mountains on his sword and stopped in Great Peace County City so they could rest and explore. As they continued their journey, Green Bamboo encountered the bustling world beyond the mountains, while Shen Hui bought Jinghui safer cosmetics than the shopkeeper’s lead-based powder.

• Shen Hui took everyone into the air on White Skeleton, and the group flew beyond the mountains by afternoon.
• Shen Hui landed outside Great Peace County City so Hu Cheng could recover and everyone could get food and rest.
• Lu Huan and Jinghui showed Green Bamboo the crowded streets, where she watched a man perform a stone-breaking stunt and learned about money.
• Jinghui entered a cosmetics shop with Green Bamboo, and Shen Hui stopped her from buying lead-based face powder.
• Shen Hui chose rouge and Luozi Dai for Jinghui and paid the shopkeeper with a silver ingot.

Shen Hui and his companions bought gourds and enjoyed a lavish meal, where Squire Wang told them that a male servant’s grave at the Mass Grave had been dug up. Realizing he might have overlooked a Sinful Lotus, Shen Hui left the inn to investigate.

• Shouyuan bought a gourd and pressured Shen Hui into coating it red with magic, while Lu Huan bought a tiny gourd of her own.
• The group ordered nearly every dish on the inn’s menu and warmed plum wine.
• Squire Wang recognized Shen Hui, thanked him for saving Great Peace County, and paid for the group’s meal.
• Squire Wang reported that the grave of the male servant who had died after becoming pregnant had been dug up, with the body’s belly badly rotted.
• Shen Hui suspected a Sinful Lotus had survived and left to inspect the Mass Grave west of town.

Shen Hui sent Rotborn to inspect Xu Guanglu’s grave and discovered that the corpse’s bones had been deformed after death. A Fox Spirit and Pig Demon dug up the coffin, mistook Rotborn for the flesh they sought, and carried it away, unaware Shen Hui could see through the sword.

• Shen Hui sent Rotborn to Xu Guanglu’s grave while he watched through the flying sword from the inn.
• Rotborn found disturbed earth and a skeleton with bones deformed from within after death, but no sign of the Sinful Lotus.
• A Fox Spirit and Pig Demon dug open the grave, found Rotborn beneath the bones, and took the sword with them.
• The Fox Spirit said their mission came from above and mentioned a Daoist who had gained a place of honor at a banquet with the True Lord.
• The Fox Spirit cut its finger on Rotborn, and after it wrapped the wound, an eye silently appeared on the finger.

Shen Hui learned that a cunning Fox Demon once escaped capture with the help of its extraordinary senses, and he suspected it might be connected to Lost Ferry Ridge. Before the group left to visit the Mass Grave, he diagnosed and cured Squire Wang’s congenital condition that had kept him from having a son.

• Shen Hui questioned Shouyuan about Lost Ferry Ridge and fox spirits that could hear sounds from a thousand miles away.
• Shouyuan recounted how the Fox Demon that devoured two hundred thousand people in Cangzhou repeatedly evaded its pursuers until Feng Zhiwei baited it into being captured and refined into pills.
• Shen Hui wondered whether the Fox Demon had survived and grown into a demon king, and decided to stay cautious until he reached Nascent Soul.
• Shen Hui declined Squire Wang’s offer of lodging because the group still needed to visit the Mass Grave.
• Shen Hui found and cleared the obstruction in Squire Wang’s seminal duct, prompting Squire Wang to thank him as a living immortal.

Shen Hui led his companions to the Mass Grave to investigate the Sinful Lotus and found a Ghost Market that opened at midnight. The group entered and began browsing, while the ghosts watched them without interfering.

• Green Bamboo noticed two ghostly old men following the group, and Hu Cheng reassured her that Shen Hui and the others had already noticed them.
• At the manservant's grave, Shen Hui explained that monsters had taken his Flying Sword and said he had come to ask about the Sinful Lotus.
• Shen Hui led the group along an overgrown path to an archway marked Night Market and waited until midnight.
• The Ghost Market filled with crowds after its lanterns lit, and Shen Hui warned everyone to follow the market's rules.
• Shen Hui and his companions entered the market, where ghosts sold food, clothing, and goods while watching the living visitors.

Shen Hui and his companions explored the Ghost Market, where they learned that a woman had crawled from a grave at the Mass Grave and headed north. The crow spirit who ran the market invited Shen Hui to read a book, and the group reached his cluttered home beneath a locust tree.

• Shen Hui explained Blood Baleful Intent and Evil Baleful Intent to Lu Huan, Hu Cheng, and the others as they watched a butcher's stall.
• Shen Hui found a celadon cup inscribed with a date from the previous dynasty and bluffed the stallholder into revealing that the Ghost Market was run by a crow spirit called Seventh Master.
• Shen Hui asked Seventh Master about strange events at the Mass Grave, and the crow recalled a naked, emaciated woman crawling from a grave last year and heading north.
• Seventh Master asked Shen Hui to read a book he had found, then led the group through the Ghost Market and told them about its history.
• Seventh Master brought Shen Hui and the others to his cluttered home in a locust tree, and the group suggested talking in his nest instead.

Shen Hui examined a crow spirit’s demon-subduing manual and explained why its partial human transformation had harmed its cultivation. He taught the crow spirit how to begin correcting its transformation, leaving it with a long practice ahead.

• Shen Hui read the Ghost Market rules and inspected the crow spirit’s heavily annotated Hun-yuan Demon-Slaying Three-Five Dūgong Register, recognizing it as a genuine demon-subduing art.
• The crow spirit explained that it had found the manual with a dead Daoist over two hundred years earlier, and Shen Hui warned that it could practice the art only after taking human form.
• After the crow spirit transformed into a partial human shape, Shen Hui explained that its shortcut had caused disharmony between its form, spirit, Qi, Blood, and meridians.
• Shen Hui told the crow spirit that it needed to cultivate a complete transformation and explained the risks of continuing in its unstable form.
• The crow spirit begged Shen Hui for guidance, and he advised it to visualize itself as human and conduct its daily life entirely in that form until its soul accepted the body.

Shen Hui rewrote and explained the demon-slaying manual, teaching the crow spirit and the others its internal refinement, external methods, and mnemonics. The group gathered to learn the arts, while Shen Hui also learned that a Land God near Green Terrace Town might know the woman’s whereabouts.

• The crow spirit gave Shen Hui a piece of Crow Azure and told him that the Land God outside Green Terrace Town might know where the woman was.
• Shen Hui began rewriting the manual in plain language and asked the crow spirit’s permission before teaching the others.
• Shen Hui taught the group the internal refinement steps of Visualization, Qi ingestion, and Forging Courage, including their rules and taboos.
• Shen Hui explained how to consecrate demon-slaying artifacts and demonstrated the Demon-Slaying, Demon-Binding, and Demon-Suppressing hand instructions.
• Shen Hui wrote and explained the three mnemonics, clarifying for Jinghui where a demon’s Yao Qi gathered.