Chapter Summaries

The White Bone Cult learned that Pig Mask had completed his task but then died in Jia City, prompting Zhang Linchuan to send Snake Mask to investigate. After Jiang Wang returned with Hu Shaomeng’s head and Zhu Suyao’s keepsake, he killed the mine’s dogs for eating human flesh.

• The Rabbit Bone Masked One reported that Pig Mask had completed his task in Yang State before losing contact while pursuing someone from Maple Forest City.
• Lu Yan sensed that Pig Mask had died, and Zhang Linchuan decided to send Snake Mask to watch Jia City.
• Zhang Linchuan and Lu Yan discussed the White Bone Cult’s Holy Lord and ended their chess game with Zhang calling to slay the great dragon.
• Jiang Wang returned to the mine with Hu Shaomeng’s head and gave Zhu Biqiong the purse embroidered by her sister.
• Jiang Wang killed the two black dogs that had eaten human flesh and ordered Xiang Qian to kill the yellow dog as well.

After resolving the Hu Family Mine crisis, Jiang Wang secured the mine for the Chongxuan Family and reviewed his rewards, while Mo Zichu returned to face his father over the Mo Family’s losses. Mo Munan revealed the personal cost of the disaster and left Mo Zichu confronting the death of his great-uncle.

• Jiang Wang restored operations at the Hu Family Mine, organized its resources, and arranged for Chongxuan Sheng to send people to take it over.
• Jiang Wang assessed his gains, including the Azure Cloud Sheep, Dao Essence Stones, the Treasure Light Art, and Red Makeup, and decided to wait before absorbing the sheep.
• Xiao Xiao confessed that she had fed Hu Shaomeng and the monster’s flesh to dogs, and Jiang Wang warned her not to call him Master if she did it again.
• Mo Zichu returned to the Mo household and found his father, Mo Munan, meeting with the city’s officials and influential elders.
• Mo Zichu admitted responsibility for the Mo Family’s losses at the mine, and Mo Munan lamented that his great-uncle had been killed and his body could not be recovered.

Mo Munan rebuked Mo Zichu for underestimating his enemies and failing to protect the Mo Family, then ordered him out. Jiang Wang recruited Xiang Qian to stay and work for him, and Xiang Qian revealed that he cultivated the art of the Flying Sword.

• Mo Munan accused Mo Zichu of misjudging Jiang Wang and Hu Shaomeng and of being manipulated into staying in the city during the Mine crisis.
• Mo Zichu argued that his plans had been sound and blamed Mo Munan’s caution for the loss of the Azure Cloud Sheep, but Mo Munan told him he had disappointed him and sent him away.
• Jiang Wang visited Zhang Hai before going to Xiang Qian’s lodgings to ask about his plans.
• Jiang Wang offered Xiang Qian paid work and told him he would have the chance to pursue his own goals by working with him.
• Xiang Qian agreed to stay for the same pay as Zhang Hai, while reserving the right to choose how much effort he gave.
• Xiang Qian told Jiang Wang that his cultivation was the art of the Flying Sword.

Jiang Wang persuaded Zhu Biqiong to stay and work for him, while reflecting on the cultivation paths of Du Yehu and the people he hoped to protect. He turned his attention to building up the Hu Family Mine and Green Sheep Town, hoping his new recruits would bring a harvest the following autumn.

• Jiang Wang recognized the exceptional killing power of the pure Flying Sword art and thought Du Yehu would be valuable if he pledged himself to him.
• Jiang Wang reflected on how Ye Qingyu and Zhu Biqiong had been protected from the world's hardships, and considered how Zhu Biqiong might have struggled after Zhu Suyao's death.
• As Zhu Biqiong prepared to leave, she offered Jiang Wang the Fortune and Misfortune Orb, but he refused to take the keepsake from her sister.
• Xiao Xiao reminded Zhu Biqiong that she had promised to teach her martial arts, and Zhu Biqiong agreed to stay another month.
• Jiang Wang offered Zhu Biqiong twice Zhang Hai and Xiang Qian's pay to work for him for half a year, and she accepted.
• Jiang Wang treated the Hu Family Mine and Green Sheep Town as his first lands to develop, recruiting farmers and planting seeds for the following autumn.

Jiang Wang spent a quiet month cultivating and managing the Chongxuan Family’s businesses in Yang State, while reflecting on his Heaven and Earth Gate and the Underworld Candle’s recent movement. The chapter ended with a neighbor discovering that Old Li had died and a funeral banner hanging at his home.

• Jiang Wang took over coordinating the Chongxuan Family’s businesses in Yang State and helped improve life in Green Sheep Town.
• Jiang Wang advanced in the Great Void Illusion Realm and examined the Heaven and Earth Gate that his cultivation had made difficult to open.
• Jiang Wang recalled the Underworld Candle’s past interventions and grew wary after noticing it move within his Heaven-Connecting Palace.
• Old Li returned to his home in northern Yue City and stayed there, leading neighbors to believe his household was wealthy.
• Old Li’s wife hired Old Master Qin to treat him, and the next morning a neighbor found a funeral banner outside the Li family home.

Old Li fell gravely ill and died, while Old Master Qin identified the disease as the Black Plague and warned Yue City's City Lord to seek extraordinary help. The City Lord left to obtain talisman water as Old Master Qin mourned in isolation.

• Old Li fell sick three days earlier and, fearing death, told his wife to summon the best physician; Old Master Qin examined him and fled without payment.
• Old Li realized he was dying and worried that his wife would be left behind, unaware that Hu Shaomeng had already been killed.
• Old Li died, and his wife wept while soldiers guarded the Li family home and ordered a visiting neighbor to remain indoors.
• Old Master Qin described Old Li's symptoms to the City Lord of Yue City and declared that the Black Plague had killed him.
• Old Master Qin urged the City Lord to mobilize extraordinary cultivators, perform rites, and seek help from the court or suzerain state.
• The City Lord left to obtain talisman water, and Old Master Qin wailed alone in the courtyard.

Old Master Qin died after warning his family to spread word of the heretical cult’s calamity, while Yue City’s City Lord chose to keep the danger secret and seal the clinic. Later, Jiang Wang wandered through Green Sheep Town with Xiao Xiao and paused to watch three puppies nursing.

• Old Master Qin ordered Qin Nianmin to warn the people, nearby authorities, and the State Monarch about the calamity, then spat blood and died.
• Qin Nianmin found Old Master Qin’s written demand that his corpse be burned and his ashes buried, under threat of being called unfilial and disloyal.
• The City Lord dismissed the guard commander’s suggestion to seek help from the suzerain state, but decided to ask East King Valley to investigate and ordered the clinic sealed for half a month.
• Jiang Wang walked through Green Sheep Town with Xiao Xiao, reflecting on the town and her growing role in managing the Mine.
• Jiang Wang stopped to watch three puppies nursing beside their white mother.

Jiang Wang investigated two mysterious deaths in Green Sheep Town and hurried to Jia City to trace their connection to the city. Meanwhile, Mo Zichu wandered Jia City in disguise, troubled by his father’s disappointment and his own recent defeat.

• Jiang Wang teased the puppies and fled with Zhu Biqiong and Dugu Xiao when the mother dog threatened him.
• Chief Hu told Jiang Wang that two young men had died with matching symptoms, and Xiao Xiao discovered that both had recently visited Jia City.
• Jiang Wang sent Xiao Xiao and Zhu Biqiong to investigate in Green Sheep Town and set off for Jia City to seek Mo Zichu’s medical help.
• Mo Zichu wandered Jia City in disguise and brooded over his failure at the Hu Family Mine and his father Mo Munan’s harsh judgment.

Mo Zichu discovered that the City Guard had been sending people afflicted with Black Plague to a mass grave without proper precautions. Jiang Wang returned to Jia City and began investigating whether the disease had spread there.

• Mo Zichu stopped two City Guard soldiers who were taking a dying patient and several corpses to the mass grave.
• Mo Zichu recognized that all the people on the cart had Black Plague and learned that soldiers had been ordered to bury such cases since at least the fourth month.
• Mo Zichu left after learning that reports of cases were increasing and that the soldiers did not know who had issued the orders.
• Jiang Wang returned to Jia City and decided to visit its major medical clinics before meeting Mo Zichu.

Mo Zichu confronted Master Liu and Mo Munan over their response to the Black Plague, then learned his father was keeping the crisis secret to protect the Mo Family’s control of Jia City. Mo Munan placed Mo Zichu in charge of combating the plague without changing the family’s strategy, and Mo Zichu began issuing orders.

• Mo Zichu confronted Master Liu, who admitted that he and Mo Munan knew the Black Plague was a cult calamity and had mobilized the City Guard.
• Mo Munan entered and rebuked Mo Zichu for wanting to reveal the crisis, explaining that the Mo Family feared panic and court intervention while searching for the demons and a way to counter the plague.
• Mo Zichu urged his father to seek help from the court and Qi State, but Mo Munan refused, insisting Jia City and the Mo Family had to face the danger themselves.
• Mo Munan put Mo Zichu in charge of the city’s physicians and supernatural forces, while requiring him to preserve the Mo Family’s strategy and keep Master Liu excluded from his command.
• Mo Zichu ordered a curfew of at most a month and a half, gathered supernatural forces under his command, and secured authority to kill.

Jiang Wang warned Mo Zichu that two people had died from a mysterious illness and urged him to investigate a possible plague. He locked down Green Sheep Town and organized its defenses, then focused on cultivation while establishing the town as his base.

• Jiang Wang visited two quiet clinics and concluded that the lack of patients suggested a serious problem in Green Sheep Town.
• Jiang Wang told Mo Zichu that two people who had visited Jia City had died with black spots and a foul stench, and urged him to prepare for the worst.
• Mo Zichu identified the Black Plague as the worst possibility and promised to gather Jia City's transcendent forces to investigate, suspecting a connection to the White Bone Sect.
• Jiang Wang returned to Green Sheep Town, ordered a lockdown, and assigned the mine's ordinary guards and local constables to patrol.
• Jiang Wang planned to build Green Sheep Town into a secure base for the Chongxuan Family's businesses and spent the following seven days cultivating.

Jiang Wang rushed to Green Sheep Town after learning that a strange illness had killed dozens, then discovered Jia City’s Peace-Ensuring Proclamation concealed the danger from the public. He recognized the proclamation as a death sentence for ordinary people and ended the chapter furious at the City Lord’s Mansion.

• Jiang Wang stopped cultivating after sensing dread and hurried to Green Sheep Town with Dugu Xiao.
• Dugu Xiao reported that fifty-three people had died from an illness that caused black spots, while Hu Laogen admitted he had failed to report the village deaths promptly.
• Jiang Wang confronted Hu Laogen over neglecting the crisis and learned that townspeople refused to heed his warnings.
• Hu Laogen showed Jiang Wang Jia City’s Peace-Ensuring Proclamation, which blamed the murders on evil cultists and imposed a curfew without mentioning the illness.
• Jiang Wang concluded that Jia City was suppressing the outbreak and condemned the proclamation as a death-inducing notice.

Jiang Wang discovered that the Black Plague might be spreading through Green Sheep Town after Hu Laogen failed to enforce his orders, and he launched an urgent response. Hu Laogen warned the townspeople and then threw himself from a roof, leaving the town shaken.

• Old Man Li defied Constable Wang’s street restrictions and went out for a stroll.
• Jiang Wang blamed Hu Laogen for ignoring his orders, suspected the White Bone Sect was spreading the Black Plague, and assigned Xiao Xiao and others to coordinate containment.
• Jiang Wang went alone to inspect the villages while Xiao Xiao took over the Town Hall’s response and Hu Laogen left in disgrace.
• Hu Laogen warned townspeople that a deadly plague had struck and urged them to stay indoors and avoid crowds.
• At the western marketplace, Hu Laogen confessed that the deaths were his fault, begged forgiveness, and jumped from a roof.

Jiang Wang led Green Sheep Town’s limited cultivators in a ten-day effort to contain the Black Plague, locating 130 infected people and quarantining them while awaiting medical help. With the immediate crisis contained, he left Town Hall through Yue Gate as his exhausted companions rested and Xiang Qian watched him with killing intent.

• Li Jin recalled Hu Laogen’s suicide, drove the crowd away from the corpse, and warned them that the Black Plague had arrived.
• Jiang Wang devised a plan to search Green Sheep Town’s households, isolate infected residents, and purify the streets, then used force to make the villagers of Liu Family Village cooperate.
• Jiang Wang examined villages across the territory, gathered infected people in the woods, and punished two patients who fled by cutting off a toe from each.
• Jiang Wang, Zhu Biqiong, Xiang Qian, Zhang Hai, and Dugu Xiao worked for ten days to find and quarantine all 130 patients in West Town District and contain the plague.
• Jiang Wang requested medical cultivators through the Great Void Illusion Realm and, after the containment work was done, left Town Hall through Yue Gate while his companions slept or watched him.

Jiang Wang entered plague-ravaged Jia City and confronted Master Liu, a Confucian disciple who had helped conceal the city’s failures. He killed Master Liu and continued holding Jia City’s rulers accountable.

• Jiang Wang passed through Jia City’s closed gates after snapping the guards’ swords.
• Master Liu confronted Jiang Wang and admitted he had written the city’s Peace-Ensuring Proclamations.
• Jiang Wang declared he was holding Master Liu accountable as Green Sheep Town’s ruler and attacked him.
• Jiang Wang broke Master Liu’s righteous qi, restrained him with Tiger Binding, and beheaded him.

Jiang Wang completed the Four Spirits Body Refining Technique and absorbed half of the Azure Cloud Sheep, greatly strengthening his body and Wood Element arts. After killing Master Liu, he confronted Mo Munan and Jia City's remaining forces at the inner-city gates, standing alone before the city.

• Jiang Wang completed the White Tiger Chapter after killing Master Liu, bringing all four chapters of the body-refining technique to mastery.
• The Azure Cloud Sheep infused Jiang Wang with pure wood energy, deepening his Wood Element understanding and improving his Daoist arts.
• Jiang Wang kept half of the Azure Cloud Sheep for Chongxuan Sheng and continued toward the inner city.
• Jiang Wang saw how the Black Plague had emptied Jia City's streets while the inner city had been protected and the outer city's people left to suffer.
• Mo Munan gathered Jia City's available extraordinary cultivators at the closed gates as Jiang Wang approached with his sword.

Jiang Wang confronted Mo Munan over the Black Plague ravaging Jia City and fought the city lord’s forces. After Jiang Wang defeated Mo Munan’s elite guards, Mo Munan used the Jia City Lord Seal to strike him with a deadly thunder edict.

• Jiang Wang asked Mo Munan whether killing him would satisfy the carp flag, and Mo Munan ordered his guards to attack.
• Fifteen Transcendence Guard cultivators formed an arrowhead battle formation and charged Jiang Wang through his sea of flowers.
• Jiang Wang broke the formation with Sun Moon Star River, knocked Mo Munan back with Mountains and Rivers, and killed all fifteen guards with a flurry of sword strikes.
• Mo Munan used the Jia City Lord Seal to wither Jiang Wang’s sea of flowers and then invoked the edict Your Crime Deserves Death.
• Jiang Wang’s seven Flame Flowers and Vine Snake Wall failed to stop the thunderbolt as it struck down toward him.

Jiang Wang confronted Jia City Lord Mo Munan over his abuses and survived a direct strike from the Jia City Lord Seal through the power of the Underworld Candle and Four Spirits. He defeated Mo Munan, whose seal shattered and whose family’s fortune returned to Jia City.

• Five days earlier, Jiang Wang told Chongxuan Sheng he would kill Mo Munan after containing the Black Plague in Green Sheep Town, and Chongxuan Sheng promised to raise the flag for him.
• Mo Munan struck Jiang Wang with Sin-Punishing Thunder through the Jia City Lord Seal, leaving him charred and seemingly dead.
• The Underworld Candle’s Flesh-Regenerating Soul-Returning Technique and the Four Spirits revived Jiang Wang and restored his body.
• Jiang Wang attacked Mo Munan and cracked the Jia City Lord Seal, explaining that the people’s lost support had broken Jia City’s fortune.
• Mo Munan used the Carp Pattern Red Flag to meet Jiang Wang’s sword, but Jiang Wang split the flag and wounded him with a strike backed by the people’s anger.
• Mo Munan’s City Lord Seal shattered, and its scattered light returned the Mo Family’s fortune to Jia City.

Jiang Wang found Mo Zichu treating victims of the Black Plague and spared him, urging him to lead Jia City’s response after Jiang Wang killed Mo Munan. He gave Mo Zichu the Carp Pattern Red Flag and left, promising to wait for his revenge after Mo Zichu had saved the city.

• Jiang Wang crossed Jia City after killing Mo Munan and searched for Mo Zichu, passing a soldier who insisted Mo Zichu was trying to protect the city.
• Jiang Wang found Mo Zichu treating plague victims in a crowded courtyard and sheathed his sword, abandoning his plan to kill him.
• Jiang Wang told Mo Zichu that he had killed Mo Munan and urged him to seek help from the Yang Court and eradicate the Source of Calamity.
• Jiang Wang gave Mo Zichu the Carp Pattern Red Flag and restrained him when he tried to attack, demanding that he choose between revenge and saving Jia City.
• Mo Zichu vowed to kill Jiang Wang, and Jiang Wang released him and left, promising to wait for him in Green Sheep Town.

Jing Ye contained the Black Plague in Yinguang City, but the epidemic ravaged three Yang State prefectures as the court reacted too late. In the Zhuang Kingdom, Zhang Linchuan spoke with Miao Yu about the White Bone Sect’s hidden plans and the God Lord’s attempted descent, while the sect’s surviving leaders remained under pursuit.

• Jing Ye identified the Black Plague in Yinguang City, sealed the city, and traced the outbreak to an old man from Yue City, limiting local deaths to five.
• The Rong Kingdom publicized Jing Ye’s findings and closed its border with the Yang State, while the Yang Court initially dismissed the accusation before discovering the plague had spread across three prefectures.
• The White Bone Envoy told the Holy Lord that the plan to spread the plague in a distant Eastern Domain country was nearly complete, and Zhang Linchuan concealed his amusement as he withdrew.
• Zhang Linchuan contacted Miao Yu through a bone mirror, and they discussed Wang Changji, Zhu Weiwu, and the God Lord’s failed attempt to descend without interference.
• Miao Yu and Zhang Linchuan discussed how the Dao Child had served as the God Lord’s vessel, while Zhang Linchuan said he had to care about the truth.