Chapter Summaries

Qian Renxue, disguised as Xue Qinghe, privately warned Lin Yi to be cautious about joining Spirit Hall, but he had no intention of joining any faction. She then claimed in front of Shui Qingyue that Lin Yi wanted to share her carriage on the return journey.

• Lin Yi accidentally addressed Xue Qinghe as Qian Renxue, but she denied the implication and maintained her disguise.
• Qian Renxue discussed a possible marriage alliance between the Heaven Dou Imperial Family and Spirit Hall, and Lin Yi played along.
• Qian Renxue warned Lin Yi that Spirit Hall's offers might conceal deeper intentions and urged him to consider his choices carefully.
• Lin Yi agreed politely while privately deciding he would join neither the Pope Palace nor the Worship Hall.
• After asking about Lin Yi's plans in Heaven Dou City, Qian Renxue announced to Shui Qingyue that Lin Yi wanted to ride in her carriage.

Qian Renxue persuaded Lin Yi to ride with her by promising to answer his questions about Qian Renxue. As their carriage set off, she invited him to ask anything, leaving Lin Yi unsure what to ask.

• Qian Renxue privately offered to tell Lin Yi about Qian Renxue, and Lin Yi agreed to ride in her carriage.
• After Lin Yi left, Xiao Wu, Ning Rongrong, and the other girls complained about him going with Xue Qinghe, while Ning Rongrong urged them to keep him away from the Crown Prince.
• Shui Qingyue told the girls to stop gossiping and prepare to leave, and they packed and boarded their own carriage.
• Xiao Wu, Ning Rongrong, Zhu Zhuqing, and the other girls passed Lin Yi without greeting him, prompting him to plan to explain himself later.
• Qian Renxue joined Lin Yi in the carriage and promised to answer anything he wanted to know about Qian Renxue, leaving him at a loss for words.

Lin Yi and Qian Renxue tested each other with questions about Qian Renxue’s character, a possible marriage alliance, and the coming conflict between Spirit Hall and the Heaven Dou Empire. Qian Renxue ended by probing whether Lin Yi had discovered her identity.

• Lin Yi asked Qian Renxue what Qian Renxue was like, and she described her as proud, self-reliant, and lonely.
• Qian Renxue said she was concerned about Qian Renxue because she might marry her someday, and Lin Yi questioned whether she was serious about the alliance.
• Qian Renxue asked whether Lin Yi would side with Spirit Hall or the Heaven Dou Empire, and suggested he might establish a third faction of his own.
• Qian Renxue asked why Lin Yi had mistaken her for Qian Renxue, and Lin Yi said Qian Renxue had visited him just before she arrived.
• Qian Renxue asked whether Lin Yi had learned something about her.

As Lin Yi and Qian Renxue tested each other’s knowledge of her secret, Lin Yi decided not to reveal what he knew. After the Heaven Dou convoy left Spirit City, Qian Daoliu arranged to have Lin Yi watched and quietly protected, then asked about Tang Hao.

• Qian Renxue asked Lin Yi what other identity she had, and Lin Yi answered that she was Ning Fengzhi’s disciple.
• Lin Yi asked how Qian Renxue would treat someone who learned her secret, and she warned that she might kill someone who planned to reveal it.
• Qian Daoliu watched the Heaven Dou convoy leave and explained that forcing Lin Yi to stay would backfire.
• Qian Daoliu told Guang Ling to have their people secretly follow the convoy and keep their distance.
• Qian Daoliu ordered his people in Heaven Dou to shield Lin Yi from trouble without telling him, then asked whether Tang Hao had been active.

Lin Yi and Qian Renxue completed their uneventful journey from Spirit City to Heaven Dou City, where Qian Renxue returned to the Eastern Palace. Ning Fengzhi then arranged for Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong to visit the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect the next day.

• Guang Ling reported that the hidden sentries had found no trace of Tang Hao, and Qian Daoliu left without showing a reaction.
• Lin Yi and Qian Renxue traveled together in silence for more than twenty days while the convoy crossed several provinces without incident.
• The convoy reached Heaven Dou City on the twenty-third day, and Qian Renxue said goodbye to Lin Yi before riding toward the imperial palace.
• Shui Yue'er and Ning Rongrong teased Lin Yi about his time with Qian Renxue, then Xiao Wu asked whether the group would return home.
• Ning Fengzhi met the group and invited Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong to stay at the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, with a pickup arranged for the following day.
• Shui Yue'er complained that Ning Fengzhi had invited only Lin Yi, and Ning Rongrong retorted that Shui Yue'er was not qualified for the invitation.

Lin Yi prepared for Ning Fengzhi’s invitation to the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, while Ning Rongrong privately warned him not to feel pressured by her father. Ning Fengzhi planned to win Lin Yi’s trust patiently and even raised the possibility of betrothing him to Rongrong.

• Lin Yi suspected Ning Fengzhi wanted to recruit him, and Ning Rongrong hoped he would not join any faction.
• At the hotel, Ning Rongrong warned Lin Yi that he could ignore anything Ning Fengzhi said if he felt pressured.
• Lin Yi reflected on his growing troubles with Spirit Hall, the Heaven Dou Empire, and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect while he ate.
• Ning Fengzhi told Chen Xin and Gu Rong that he would not rush Lin Yi and would make the sect the first place Lin Yi thought of when he needed something.
• Ning Fengzhi asked whether betrothing Ning Rongrong to Lin Yi would bring him into the sect, and Gu Rong warned that Rongrong might overturn the table if she heard him.

Lin Yi visited the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect with Ning Rongrong after Ning Fengzhi invited him to discuss some matters. Ning Fengzhi welcomed him warmly and left the real conversation for dinner, while Ning Rongrong began showing him around the sect.

• Ning Fengzhi suggested that Ning Rongrong should stay close to Lin Yi, but Chen Xin and Gu Rong objected because Lin Yi already had many girls around him.
• Lin Yi woke early, ate breakfast with Shui Qingyue and the girls, then left the inn with Ning Rongrong in a carriage sent by Ning Fengzhi.
• Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong arrived at the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, where Ning Fengzhi, Chen Xin, and Gu Rong greeted them without a grand reception.
• Ning Fengzhi hosted Lin Yi in a pavilion, mentioned that he wanted to discuss some matters, and postponed the conversation until dinner.
• Ning Fengzhi asked Lin Yi to call him Uncle Ning, then sent Ning Rongrong to show Lin Yi around the sect.

Lin Yi visited the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect with Ning Rongrong, toured its mountain grounds, and attended a banquet with Ning Fengzhi, Chen Xin, and Gu Rong. After they questioned him about his spear and strength, Ning Fengzhi asked what Lin Yi planned to do at Skywater Academy.

• Ning Rongrong led Lin Yi around the sect’s back mountain, where they rested and talked about her childhood training and his role as a support Soul Master.
• Servants invited Ning Rongrong and Lin Yi to a banquet prepared by Ning Fengzhi, where Chen Xin and Gu Rong joined them.
• Ning Fengzhi congratulated Lin Yi on winning the tournament and asked how he had broken Spirit Hall’s Demonic Charm.
• Lin Yi named his weapon the Sun God Spear and said he had used about seventy percent of his strength in the strike.
• Ning Fengzhi praised Lin Yi and asked what he planned to do next at Skywater Academy.

Lin Yi declined Ning Fengzhi’s offer to join the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, saying he wanted to remain free and focus on raising his strength. He privately planned to go to Slaughter City, while Ning Fengzhi left the sect’s invitation open and shifted the conversation to Ning Rongrong’s improvement.

• Lin Yi told Ning Fengzhi he wanted to digest his tournament gains, while privately planning to go to Slaughter City for combat training.
• Ning Fengzhi explained that the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect lacked combat-oriented successors and offered Lin Yi safety and resources in exchange for returning whenever the sect needed him.
• Lin Yi questioned what the sect would expect from him and said he did not want to be bound by rules or join any side for now.
• Ning Fengzhi accepted Lin Yi’s refusal and said the sect’s doors would remain open to him.
• Ning Fengzhi praised Ning Rongrong’s recent maturity, making her blush while Gu Rong playfully stopped her from interrupting.

Ning Fengzhi arranged for Chen Xin to test Lin Yi’s spear skills, while Lin Yi suspected the spar might also be another attempt to recruit him. Chen Xin’s precise swordplay exposed weaknesses in Lin Yi’s technique, and Gu Rong then asked whether he could take his turn.

• Ning Fengzhi invited Lin Yi to spar with Chen Xin in the back mountain, and Lin Yi accepted.
• Ning Rongrong warned Lin Yi that Chen Xin’s intentions might be more than a simple spar, but Lin Yi said he already knew.
• Chen Xin asked Lin Yi to summon the Sun God Spear and sparred with him using only sword intent, without Soul Rings.
• Chen Xin spent half an hour identifying flaws in Lin Yi’s wrist control, footwork, and breathing, and Lin Yi thanked him for the guidance.
• Gu Rong praised Lin Yi for lasting so long against Chen Xin and asked if he could train Lin Yi next.

After Gu Rong trained Lin Yi in spatial movement and exposed weaknesses in his footwork and spear combat, Ning Rongrong led him to her private cultivation room to recover in a medicinal bath. She left him alone in the steaming pool, blushing as she hurried upstairs.

• Gu Rong used his spatial movement to outmaneuver Lin Yi and taught him that his frontal fighting style left him vulnerable to faster opponents who avoided direct combat.
• Gu Rong praised Lin Yi's spear and promised to test it again after Lin Yi obtained a Soul Ring, while Chen Xin argued with Gu Rong over their training methods.
• Ning Rongrong led Lin Yi away from the bickering elders and told him that she had learned to listen to herself rather than either of them.
• Ning Rongrong took Lin Yi to her hidden underground cultivation room and offered him a medicinal bath made with Bluestone Grass.
• Ning Rongrong assured Lin Yi that no outsiders would enter, then blushed and hurried upstairs, leaving him to soak alone.

Lin Yi soaked in Ning Rongrong’s medicinal pool while she tried to conceal him from Chen Xin and Gu Rong. After the elders admitted Ning Fengzhi had asked them to win Lin Yi over, Ning Rongrong urged them to let events unfold naturally, saying Lin Yi would help the sect if needed.

• Lin Yi worried that Chen Xin and Gu Rong might find him in the medicinal pool, then decided to finish soaking before dealing with them.
• Ning Rongrong told Chen Xin and Gu Rong that Lin Yi had gone to sleep, but they suspected he was inside her cultivation room.
• Ning Rongrong admitted that Lin Yi was taking a medicinal bath and defended letting him use the room because he had helped her Pagoda evolve.
• Chen Xin confirmed that Ning Fengzhi had asked them to teach Lin Yi in hopes of keeping him in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
• Ning Rongrong said Lin Yi would join the sect if he wanted to, and that otherwise their gifts would not persuade him; she urged them to let nature take its course.

Chen Xin and Gu Rong warned Ning Rongrong about the horrors of Slaughter City after she asked about Lin Yi’s plans, and she resolved to help him prepare. Lin Yi finished his medicinal bath and toured the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect with Ning Rongrong, hoping to find a chance to enter its library.

• Chen Xin and Gu Rong agreed to stop pressuring Ning Rongrong about Lin Yi, then warned her that Slaughter City was a place few people survived.
• Ning Rongrong worried that Lin Yi would go to Slaughter City and considered asking Chen Xin and Gu Rong to give him special training.
• Lin Yi finished soaking in the medicinal pool and joked with Ning Rongrong about paying for the bath.
• Ning Rongrong told Lin Yi that Chen Xin and Gu Rong had visited, and she had sent them away by saying Lin Yi had gone to sleep.
• Lin Yi toured the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect with Ning Rongrong and wondered how he could get permission to enter its Seven-Layer Glazed Library Tower.

Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong toured the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, and Lin Yi endured two more days of training from Chen Xin and Gu Rong before leaving with her. On the way back to Heaven Dou City, Lin Yi overheard that Xue Qinghe had supposedly died in Sunset Forest and suspected she had staged her death.

• Ning Rongrong took Lin Yi to the Starwatch Platform, where they talked about her childhood visits with her father.
• Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong returned to the sect, ate dinner, and rested before his next day of training.
• Chen Xin explained training theory to Lin Yi, then he and Gu Rong trained him throughout the day.
• Two days later, Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong left the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, with Chen Xin escorting them outside Heaven Dou City.
• On the carriage ride through Heaven Dou City, Lin Yi heard people say Xue Qinghe had died protecting Xue Beng from a powerful Soul Beast in Sunset Forest.
• Lin Yi doubted the story and suspected Xue Qinghe had faked her death.

Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong discussed reports that Xue Qinghe had died, while Lin Yi suspected Qian Renxue was using the news to fake her death. At the inn, Qian Renxue appeared with She Long and Ci Xue, claimed she would avenge Xue Qinghe, and asked Lin Yi to accompany her.

• Ning Rongrong asked Lin Yi whether he believed the reports that Xue Qinghe had died, and Lin Yi said he did not know what had happened.
• Lin Yi and Ning Rongrong arrived at the inn and found Qian Renxue sitting with She Long and Ci Xue.
• Qian Renxue told Lin Yi that She Long and Ci Xue were Spirit Hall elders and said they had come to discuss a marriage alliance with the Heaven Dou Imperial Family.
• Qian Renxue said a fifty-thousand-year-old Shadow Thorn Wolf had injured Xue Qinghe in Sunset Forest and declared that she would avenge him.
• Qian Renxue asked Lin Yi to go with her to Sunset Forest.

Qian Renxue took Lin Yi to Sunset Forest under the pretext of hunting a Fifty-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, while Lin Yi suspected she wanted to speak with him privately. Their conversation turned to what he called her and whether he truly wanted to marry her, leaving them walking together in a more relaxed mood with She Long and Ci Xue following.

• Lin Yi agreed to go with Qian Renxue and told Ning Rongrong to inform the others where he had gone.
• On the way out, Qian Renxue told Lin Yi to call her Qianxue or Xue'er instead of Saintess, and asked whether he had meant it when he said he wanted to marry her.
• Lin Yi denied remembering that he had said it, and Qian Renxue clarified by asking whether she was pretty and worthy of him.
• Lin Yi praised Qian Renxue's beauty and status while privately comparing their martial souls, prompting Qian Renxue to wonder about his thoughts.
• Lin Yi and Qian Renxue continued toward Sunset Forest on foot, with She Long and Ci Xue following behind them.

Lin Yi accompanied Qian Renxue to the site of Xue Qinghe’s supposed death, where they found and killed a Shadow Thorn Wolf. After Qian Renxue hinted that she knew Lin Yi had recognized her identity, he worried that she had brought him there to silence him.

• Lin Yi and Qian Renxue reached the clearing where Xue Qinghe had supposedly died and found signs of a battle.
• A Shadow Thorn Wolf emerged, and Lin Yi suspected Qian Renxue had arranged its presence as part of her scheme.
• She Long and Ci Xue swiftly crippled and killed the Shadow Thorn Wolf while Lin Yi watched.
• Qian Renxue thanked Lin Yi for coming and asked whether he remembered where they had first met.
• When Lin Yi said they had met in Sunset Forest, Qian Renxue teased that he really had known, leaving him afraid she had discovered he knew her identity.

Qian Renxue revealed that Xue Qinghe was dead and that she would live openly as the Spirit Hall Saintess. After Lin Yi avoided choosing sides, Qian Renxue asked him to promise something if they met again by chance, and he asked what the Heaven Dou Imperial Family had said about Xue Qinghe's death.

• Qian Renxue told Lin Yi that Xue Qinghe was dead and that she had abandoned her identities in Heaven Dou City and the Heaven Dou Empire.
• Qian Renxue explained that she had recognized Lin Yi knew her identity when he subconsciously called her by name.
• Qian Renxue asked Lin Yi whether he would stand with her if the continent faced upheaval, and Lin Yi refused to choose a side while saying he would not make enemies first.
• Qian Renxue asked Lin Yi to promise her something if fate brought them together again without schemes or prior arrangements, and Lin Yi agreed as long as it did not violate his principles.
• Lin Yi prepared to return and asked Qian Renxue what the Heaven Dou Imperial Family was saying about Xue Qinghe's death.

Lin Yi returned from Sunset Forest after helping Qian Renxue avenge the crown prince, while keeping her identity as Xue Qinghe secret from Shui Qingyue and the others. After a tense reunion and a quiet dinner, he learned that Dugu had urgently come looking for him.

• Qian Renxue told Lin Yi that Xue Beng had survived and then left Sunset Forest with She Long and Ci Xue.
• Lin Yi returned to the hotel and told Shui Qingyue that he had helped Qian Renxue avenge the crown prince, but concealed that she was Xue Qinghe.
• Shui Qingyue warned the Skywater Academy girls to avoid Spirit Hall, especially Qian Renxue.
• Zhu Zhuqing told Lin Yi that Qian Renxue looked at him differently and advised him not to meet her alone again.
• Shui Qingyue told Lin Yi that Dugu had come looking for him with something urgent.

Lin Yi met with Dugu Bo, discussed Qian Renxue’s visit and the upheaval surrounding Xue Qinghe, then left Heaven Dou City with the Skywater Academy group. After several days of travel, they arrived to find a grand welcome waiting at the academy gates.

• Lin Yi visited Dugu Bo, who asked about Qian Renxue, and Lin Yi said she had come because of Xue Qinghe.
• Dugu Bo learned that Lin Yi was returning to Skywater Academy and declined his invitation to visit.
• Lin Yi left Heaven Dou City with Xiao Wu, Ning Rongrong, and the others, and they played cards during the journey.
• After traveling for less than ten days, Lin Yi and the group reached Skywater City.
• Lin Yi and his companions found the academy decorated with lanterns and red silk, where crowds had gathered to welcome the champions home.