Recaps

Sena found excuses to share Su Li’s blanket and bed, then told him a story that revealed her feelings for him. After they went to sleep, Sena moved beneath the blanket in the middle of the night.

• Sena came into Su Li’s room and claimed her blanket was still drying, so Su Li offered to share his.
• Sena complained that the floor was hard and persuaded Su Li to carry her to his bed.
• Sena told Su Li a story about a country girl who treasured the handsome man she had found, even if their time together might be only a dream.
• Su Li understood that Sena’s story revealed her feelings, gently patted her through the blanket, and went to sleep beside her.
• In the middle of the night, Sena shifted beside Su Li and lifted a corner of the blanket.

Su Li and Sena spent the night together, and the next morning Su Li asked Old Buck and Aunt Martha for permission to marry her. Old Buck accepted, leaving Su Li and Sena holding hands as they began their life together.

• Sena climbed onto Su Li and told him to push her away if he did not want her, but Su Li embraced her and they spent the night together.
• Su Li woke with Sena sleeping in his arms, and she hid under the blanket when she remembered what had happened.
• At breakfast, Su Li told Old Buck and Aunt Martha that he wanted to marry Sena and promised to care for her for the rest of his life.
• Aunt Martha enthusiastically approved, and Old Buck accepted while warning Su Li not to mistreat his daughter.
• Sena quietly took Su Li's hand beneath the table and held it tightly.

Su Li and Saina settled into married life in Wading Village, where their affection grew amid village gossip and their modest daily routine. After Saina proposed sharing a bath to save water, they spent the night together, and Su Li woke aching but content with his peaceful life.

• At their wedding, villagers mocked Saina as an unsuitable match for the handsome Su Li, but he reassured her and showed no shame in marrying her.
• Saina tended to Su Li while he worked at the forge, admiring his strength and admitting she wanted to keep him to herself.
• Saina suggested bathing together to save firewood and water, and Su Li joined her in the cramped tub.
• After their bath, Saina pursued Su Li in bed and said she wanted to give him a son, prompting him to agree in hopes of improving his evaluation.
• Su Li woke the next morning with an aching back and reflected that his simple married life was peaceful and warm.

Ten years later, Su Li ran Buck Blacksmith Shop with Saina and their son Su Xiaochui, while Old Buck had grown frail. The chapter left Su Li at work in the forge as Old Buck returned to check on him.

• Ten years passed, and Su Li carved a new sign for the blacksmith shop and took over its daily work.
• Su Li forged farm tools while his ten-year-old son Su Xiaochui complained and showed off the physics Su Li had taught him.
• Saina brought Su Li tea and food, wiped his face, and urged him to change his sweat-soaked clothes.
• Old Buck returned from outside, now white-haired and stooped, and asked Su Li how the work was going.

Su Li refused Old Buck’s suggestion to hire apprentices, preferring to work alone and keep his blacksmithing craft to himself. After dinner, he and Saina went to their soundproofed private house and shared an intimate night, hoping to have another child.

• Old Buck praised Su Li’s forged hoe and suggested hiring apprentices to help with the growing workload.
• Su Li firmly rejected the idea, saying he could manage the work alone.
• After dinner, Xiao Chui went to read while Su Li and Saina retired to their private house.
• Saina teased Su Li about his stamina and their lack of another child, and Su Li responded by pulling her into an intimate embrace.

Su Li spent the family’s savings to send Su Xiaochui to the Saint George Knight Academy so he could pursue knighthood. Ten years later, Su Li was still running the forge in Wading Village, where his daughter Su Na had become a skilled blacksmith.

• Su Xiaochui knelt and asked Su Li to let him attend the Saint George Knight Academy in the Baris Empire.
• Su Li agreed to fund his son’s journey and retrieved the family’s savings from beneath the floorboard.
• Su Li reassured the tearful Saina that Su Xiaochui could protect himself with the greatsword he had forged.
• Su Xiaochui left Wading Village with the family’s savings and the greatsword, traveling in a merchant caravan.
• Ten years later, Su Na practiced forging iron while Su Li watched and corrected her technique.

Su Li passed his master hammer to Su Na as his son Su Xiaochui’s long absence weighed on the family. After opening a letter from the Knight Academy, Su Li learned that Su Xiaochui had enlisted and was heading to the front lines at Graystone Fortress.

• Su Li recalled how Su Na had become a skilled blacksmith despite his original plans for her to study and cook.
• Saina worried that Su Li would tire of her as she aged, and he reassured her that he had chosen her for life.
• Su Na complained about marriage proposals and said she would rather marry a knight like her absent brother, Su Xiaochui.
• Su Li approved Su Na’s hundred-refined steel and gave her his master hammer, placing the forge in her hands.
• Su Li opened the thick letter bearing the Knight Academy seal and found Su Xiaochui’s military badge and note saying he was going to fight at Graystone Fortress.

At seventy, Su Li lived with his aging wife Saina and their daughter Su Na while grieving the son who had been missing in the war for fifteen years. He spent the evening playing Xiangqi with Old Kanlun, holding on to the hope that Su Xiaochui might still return.

• Su Li comforted Saina when she asked whether they had heard from Su Xiaochui, who had been missing since the defense of Graystone Fortress.
• Su Na arrived with dinner alongside her husband Kanlun, and Su Li agreed to visit Old Kanlun for wine and Xiangqi.
• Su Li brought his handmade Xiangqi set to Old Kanlun's courtyard, where the two men played several games and traded insults.
• Old Kanlun spoke of his hope for a grandson and reassured Su Li that Su Xiaochui might return, though both men knew he had been missing for fifteen years.
• Su Li insisted he was content, then challenged Old Kanlun to another game as the moon rose over the courtyard.

At seventy-eight, Su Li visited Saina’s grave, watched his daughter’s family from afar, and returned to the Old Locust Tree to die peacefully. Afterward, a scarred, black-robed figure carrying a greatsword found his body and bowed to him in grief.

• Su Li reflected on his life and shared a final drink with Saina at her grave.
• Su Li watched Su Na and her family from outside their courtyard without revealing himself.
• Su Li lay beneath the new Old Locust Tree where he had met Saina and died peacefully.
• A black-robed figure carrying a massive greatsword found Su Li’s body, arranged his hands, and bowed three times.
• The figure’s hood shifted to reveal eyes like Su Li’s, while a dark-red glow seeped from the greatsword.

Su Li settled the results of his life as a village blacksmith and learned that his son had become the feared Bloody Hand Butcher. He combined his traits to gain an incomplete Sword Spirit Root, leaving him with extraordinary cultivation talent but no way to hide his presence.

• Su Li received an overall D rating for his life, while his son Su Xiaochui earned him a C+ for becoming the Bloody Hand Butcher of the Baris Empire.
• The reward wheel gave Su Li the Sword Dao Leader trait, which let him learn sword arts with exceptional speed.
• Su Li chose to combine Sword Dao Leader with Introvert, permanently giving up the trait that helped him blend into crowds.
• The combination created the incomplete Sword Spirit Root, allowing Su Li to absorb aether and cultivate a hundred times faster while retaining his sword talent and striking appearance.
• Su Li recognized that his new power gave him an advantage over knights and mages, though his charisma would now attract trouble.

Su Li woke beneath the Old Locust Tree in Wading Village, where he discovered that Saina had also returned to her youth with memories of their life together. The system explained that their bond had shifted his rebirth anchor, and the reunited pair faced their first night back in their younger bodies.

• Su Li woke beneath the Old Locust Tree and questioned the system after finding himself in Wading Village instead of Grey Gull Port.
• Saina recognized Su Li, rushed into his arms, and revealed that she remembered their past life together.
• The system explained that their profound bond had corrected Su Li’s rebirth anchor and that Saina retained memories from the life in which their bond formed.
• Su Li learned that his [Sword Spirit Root] had revealed his handsome appearance, while Saina wondered whether Heaven had given her a handsome husband.
• Su Li pointed out that he was starving, and Saina tested whether she was truly alive by pinching herself.

After being reborn with Saina, Su Li stayed in Wading Village and chose a life with her over pursuing immortality. Sixty years later, he mourned her at her grave and reflected on the strength, limits, and sacrifices brought by his [Sword Spirit Root].

• Saina recognized that she and Su Li had been reborn, and the two reunited with their old familiarity as she ran home to bring him roast chicken.
• Su Li felt his [Sword Spirit Root] absorbing spiritual energy and restoring his strength, then decided to remain with Saina in the village.
• Over the following decades, Su Li became a remarkably strong blacksmith, but his cultivation stalled at a bottleneck when he was thirty.
• Su Li declined to leave the village to seek greater power, choosing instead to care for Saina as she had cared for him in their previous life.
• Sixty years later, Su Li drank the liquor Saina had brewed and mourned her at the grave stele he had carved.
• Su Li recalled that they had no children because his powerful body could not safely bear a child with a mortal woman, and he comforted himself that they had avoided the worry of raising one.

After Saina died peacefully at eighty, Su Li left Wading Village to fulfill her wish that he see the wider world. As he rode away, his Sword Spirit Root began circulating faster, suggesting the village had been holding back his cultivation.

• Saina told Su Li before her death to leave the village, see the world, and not search for her in another life.
• Su Li mourned at Saina’s grave, then decided to leave Wading Village after sixty years there without advancing past his cultivation bottleneck.
• Su Li set out with a small bundle, his iron hammer, and the fortune he had earned selling divine weapons.
• Su Li told the village elders he was leaving to find out whether the ocean went on forever.
• As Su Li rode away from Wading Village, his heart felt lighter and his Sword Spirit Root circulated faster.

Su Li left Wading Village and found his spiritual energy moving more freely as he traveled through war-ravaged lands. When five bandits tried to rob him, he quickly defeated them and turned the robbery around, though they had little worth taking.

• Su Li rode away from Wading Village and noticed that his spiritual energy flowed more freely beyond its boundaries.
• He traveled through ruined villages and desolate countryside devastated by the war between the Orenda Kingdom and the Baris Empire.
• The One-Eyed Dragon and four bandits stopped Su Li and demanded his horse, money, and clothes.
• Su Li kicked Skinny Monkey unconscious and swiftly injured the three other lackeys without drawing his sword.
• Su Li demanded the One-Eyed Dragon's money, rejected the meager pouch, and searched the groaning bandits himself.

Su Li arrived at Grey Gull Port and sought a forged identity from the city’s underworld. He found a shopkeeper named Little Jack, who claimed to have the noble identity Su Li wanted.

• Su Li spared One-Eyed Dragon and his companions after taking their coins and dagger.
• Su Li reached Grey Gull Port and bribed a gate soldier with a gold coin to enter the city.
• Su Li followed a secret underworld mark to Old Blind Man's Grocery.
• Su Li asked the shopkeeper for a clean identity belonging to a fallen noble and offered him gold.
• The shopkeeper introduced himself as Little Jack and said he had the identity Su Li wanted.

Su Li obtained a forged freeman identity and saw how war had left Grey Gull Port full of vulnerable civilians. Soldiers stopped him in the street, took his papers, and treated him as an easy target.

• Su Li accepted Little Jack's forged identity as a freeman from Blue Leaf Town, though he doubted the old forger's explanation.
• Su Li wandered through Grey Gull Port and saw that able-bodied men were scarce amid the war's devastation.
• Su Li bought grilled squid from an elderly vendor and let her keep the extra money.
• Two soldiers stopped Su Li, demanded that he remove his hat, and inspected his papers.
• The bearded soldier read Su Li's identity, took the parchment, and sneered that Su Li was only a commoner.

Su Li let himself be conscripted into the army so he could learn about the world’s Breathing Methods and battle aura. At the western training ground, he told the one-armed officer that he could forge metal, and the officer considered what to do with him.

• Su Li decided to accept the forced enlistment to study the kingdom’s military and seek a Breathing Method.
• The bearded man threatened Su Li into joining, promised training after three battles, and confiscated his black horse.
• Su Li went to the western training ground, where hundreds of ragged recruits waited under armed overseers.
• Su Li told the one-armed registration officer that he could forge metal, and the officer scrutinized his delicate, callus-free hands.

Su Li was registered as a blacksmith and confined with other recruits before being marched out of Grey Gull Port toward Blackstone Fortress. After he beat back a camp bully, Pete asked him to look out for him on the dangerous journey ahead.

• Su Li accepted a blacksmith registration and received tag number 1111 before settling into the filthy recruit camp.
• A burly camp bully tried to rob and assault Su Li, but Su Li struck him down with a single slap and sent him away.
• At dawn, the bearded soldier drove the recruits from the camp and led them out of Grey Gull Port with only black bread for rations.
• Su Li learned from Pete that the recruits were headed to Blackstone Fortress, where Baris magic cannons made the fighting fierce.
• Pete told Su Li he had been seized while emptying nightsoil and asked Su Li to look out for him; Su Li gave him a vague reply.

Su Li reached Blackstone Fortress and was ordered to prove his worth as a blacksmith by forging a usable sword. He crafted a blade powerful enough to slice through a reinforced practice dummy, leaving the officer stunned.

• At Blackstone Fortress, a young officer dismissed the ragged recruits but took Su Li to the armory after learning he was a blacksmith.
• The officer ordered Su Li to forge a usable sword or be sent to the mass grave.
• Su Li criticized the furnace's heat, then used his small hammer and Sword Spirit Root to forge a longsword.
• Su Li handed the finished blade to the officer, who tested it by cutting a cowhide-wrapped wooden dummy with an iron core cleanly in two.

Su Li’s sword revealed him as a Magic Forger, and Count Remington decided to secure his services for his own ambitions. Su Li recognized the count’s attempt to win him over as Ryan brought him gold and two women, leaving him to decide how to respond.

• Su Li forged a longsword that impressed Ryan, who took it to Count Remington and revealed its extraordinary aether power.
• Count Remington recognized Su Li as a potential Magic Forger and ordered Ryan to send the Armory’s witnesses to the front-line suicide corps to keep the discovery secret.
• Count Remington ordered gold and two women sent to Su Li, intending to treat him as an honored guest and keep him under his control.
• Su Li enjoyed his private quarters and food, then opened the door to Ryan, who had arrived with the two women and a heavy chest.

Su Li accepted Count Remington’s offer of gold and a meeting at Blackstone Fortress, then discovered that the two women sent to his room were assassins. He dodged their first attack and raced for his iron hammer.

• Ryan delivered a chest of Gold Coins and offered Su Li a monthly chest, two women, and a banquet with Count Remington.
• Su Li agreed to meet the Count but sent the women away, refusing their advances out of loyalty to Saina.
• The women locked the door, drew blue-glinting daggers, and revealed themselves as assassins.
• The taller woman lunged at Su Li, who dodged her attack and threw a rosewood chair at her.
• The taller woman smashed the chair with one punch, and Su Li dashed toward the bundle containing his iron hammer.

Su Li was killed by two assassin knights after discovering their aether-powered combat technique, then returned to the settlement space for his reincarnation evaluation. The system revealed that his sword had made him a rare Magic Forger, though his overall rating was only D+.

• Su Li tried to imitate the women’s Knight Breathing Technique but was overwhelmed by their coordinated dagger attacks.
• The tall woman stabbed Su Li through the heart, and he died beside the chest of gold coins.
• Su Li woke in the familiar settlement space, healed and furious that he had lost the gold.
• The system rated Su Li’s survival, wealth, progeny, and legendary status, then assigned him an overall D+ rating.
• Su Li learned that Count Remington had secretly identified him as one of the kingdom’s three Magic Forgers.

After receiving the Space Ring trait, Su Li reincarnated beneath the Old Locust Tree in Wading Village and reunited with Saina, who remembered their previous life. The chapter ended with Saina urging him to leave the village.

• Su Li drew the D-rank Space Ring trait, which gave him a 27-cubic-meter storage space where time stopped.
• Su Li reincarnated beneath the Old Locust Tree and confirmed that the bronze ring and its storage space had carried over.
• Saina found Su Li and, remembering their previous life, cried and shook him for returning to die in Wading Village.
• Saina groped Su Li and offered to put out his arousal, but he stopped her and said he would settle the score with the people who had killed him.
• Saina grew quiet, then told Su Li to leave Wading Village and go to the city or somewhere else.

After returning from death, Su Li stopped Saina from sending him away and rekindled their marriage. He rejected a return to smithing and showed her that his bronze ring could make objects disappear.

• Saina told Su Li she was unworthy of him and urged him to find a princess or fairy.
• Su Li kissed Saina and reassured her that he wanted her, then they spent the night together.
• Saina asked whether they would return to work at the smithy, and Su Li said he planned to become a wealthy landowner instead.
• Su Li showed Saina his bronze ring and made a fist-sized Stone disappear.

Su Li showed Saina the Space Ring and planned to use it to get rich, but after they sneaked into Old Buck’s kitchen for food, he decided to stay in Wading Village with her instead. Saina was moved by his choice as the chapter ended.

• Su Li made a stone appear from his Space Ring, and Saina mistook him for a mage.
• Su Li and Saina sneaked into Old Buck’s kitchen and ate the leftover roast chicken.
• Su Li stored and retrieved the plate and chicken with the Space Ring, demonstrating that it kept food warm.
• Su Li weighed the dangers beyond the village and decided to remain in Wading Village with Saina.
• Saina dropped the piece of chicken in her mouth when Su Li told her he would stay.