Recaps

Shen Le used his improved inner power to study the Makeup Box’s lacquer layers and carefully opened the Porcelain Mirror Box, uncovering a preserved family photograph. He discovered Mountain Lord’s demonic aura was protecting the photograph but clashed with his warmth, and the chapter left him wondering whether the Copper Fragment’s yellow mist could remove the aura safely.

• Shen Le sensed the Makeup Box’s pigments and Gold Powder through his warmth and practiced lacquer carving, struggling to reproduce its layered designs.
• Shen Le carefully removed rust and adhesive from the Porcelain Mirror Box, then opened it to find a broken mirror and an intact family photograph.
• When Shen Le touched the photograph, it blackened and crumpled as his warmth clashed with the demonic aura clinging to the box and its contents.
• Shen Le photographed the image and tested his warmth on a hinge, but the resulting explosions convinced him that he could not safely use it on the fragile photograph.
• The Copper Fragment released yellow mist while Shen Le meditated, prompting him to consider using it to drive out the demonic aura.

Shen Le used the ley-line’s yellow mist to remove the demonic energy and restore A-Xin’s Porcelain Box and its contents, then entered the memories stored inside. He watched A-Xin choose duty over returning home and was left witnessing A-Xin’s fatal battlefield wound and his request that Fang Yu deliver the box to his family.

• Shen Le drove the demonic energy from the Makeup Box’s parts with yellow mist, preserved the family photograph, and carefully restored the Porcelain Box.
• The restored box drew Shen Le into A-Xin’s memories of wartime service, hardship, and the eventual victory over the invaders.
• After victory, A-Xin studied his family’s photograph and told Fang Yu he would not return home because his underground work could endanger them.
• A-Xin and his comrades headed north for another campaign, and Shen Le watched as A-Xin collapsed with a fatal chest wound.
• A-Xin gave the Porcelain Box to Fang Yu and asked him to escape and take it to A-Xin’s family.

Shen Le used clues from the Mountain Lord’s lair to help identify two fallen soldiers and confirmed that A-Xin had owned Professor Lin’s Makeup Box. Professor Lin learned that her adoptive mother had been waiting for her family to return and asked Shen Le to visit A-Xin’s grave with her.

• Shen Le asked Old You to have the Special Affairs Bureau investigate two soldiers whose belongings he had found in the Mountain Lord’s lair.
• The Special Affairs Bureau identified Fang Yu and found records and comrades’ memoirs confirming that A-Xin had carried a mirror box with a family portrait.
• Shen Le brought Professor Lin the investigation documents and a photograph of A-Xin’s burial site, confirming that the mirror box had belonged to him.
• Professor Lin explained that her adoptive mother had kept the Makeup Box and hoped her family would recognize the porcelain items she had given away.
• Professor Lin asked Shen Le to accompany her to A-Xin’s grave so she could see him and tell her mother the news.

Shen Le tried to stop Professor Lin from traveling north to visit her mother's grave, then rushed her to the hospital after she coughed up blood. After doctors found and treated an early-stage condition, he stayed by her side and returned home to repair her Makeup Box before she recovered enough to travel.

• Shen Le urged Professor Lin to postpone her trip to A-Xin's grave and secretly used the Copper Fragment to strengthen her as he tried to persuade her to wait.
• Professor Lin refused to delay, but suddenly coughed up blood, so Shen Le called for an ambulance and alerted Chen Guohua.
• Chen Guohua and other relatives and university staff gathered at the hospital, where doctors diagnosed Professor Lin with an early-stage condition that could be treated with a minimally invasive operation.
• Shen Le stayed with Professor Lin for three days and used the Copper Fragment to help stabilize her, but she sent him away on the fourth day.
• Shen Le returned home, urged Old You to keep tracing the Powder Boxes, and practiced repairing Professor Lin's Makeup Box before her recovery and planned journey.

Shen Le practiced gold-tracing and other inlay techniques for the makeup box restoration, spending a month ruining lacquer panels before Professor Lin approved his progress. He moved on to restoring the Hundred-Treasure Inlay, using his memories to identify missing materials and arranging for master carvers to make replacement pieces.

• Shen Le bought lacquer panels and practice gold powder, then spent a month learning gold-tracing techniques through repeated practice.
• Professor Lin reviewed Shen Le’s practice panels, praised his progress, and warned him to keep his hands steady when using real gold powder.
• Shen Le practiced mother-of-pearl, gold-and-silver foil, and Hundred-Treasure Inlay techniques while studying the makeup box’s damaged panels.
• Shen Le cleaned and sealed the corroded silver wire and cracked amber, then sketched missing designs using images from his memories.
• Shen Le asked Old You to buy suitable materials and sent a parcel to Chen Guohua’s jade carvers, who made replacement pieces under the peregrine falcon’s watch.

While restoring Peilan’s Makeup Box, Shen Le awakened its memories and discovered the hardships her family endured after A-Xin left. The memory ended with Peilan’s granddaughter Tingting killed in a robbery during a worsening period of unrest and hunger.

• Shen Le finished restoring the Makeup Box with historically appropriate materials, replacing missing inlay and repairing its lacquer, goldwork, and fittings.
• Shen Le harmonized the box’s energy and asked it what had happened to A-Xin’s family after he left.
• The Makeup Box’s spiritual energy swept Shen Le into a memory of an older Peilan living in poverty with teenage Linlin.
• Tingting’s mother grieved over the child’s body, while the family realized Tingting had been killed after going out to buy rice.
• Shen Le watched the family hold a funeral and report the robbery, but the police offered no help as food prices spiraled out of control.

Shen Le learned how the old woman had been separated from her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, then decided to trace A-Xin’s descendants. He was writing his lacquerware thesis when Old You reported that they had found them and that they planned to visit the graves.

• Shulan left Binhai with Linlin and A-Li after the old woman gave her jewelry and family heirlooms, while the old woman stayed behind to wait for A-Xin.
• Shulan’s family migrated overseas, and the old woman never reunited with her son or grandchildren; she adopted and raised an orphan while keeping her past secret.
• As an old woman, she found her Makeup Box empty and died alone, leaving Shen Le shaken after he experienced her memories.
• Shen Le sent names, dates, and places to Peregrine Falcon and asked Old You to find the family’s graves and trace A-Xin’s descendants.
• Shen Le worked on his thesis about the lacquerware trunk until Old You called to say they had found the descendants, who planned to visit the graves.

Shen Le accompanied Professor Lin and her family to visit A-Xin’s grave, where Professor Lin shared her adoptive mother’s story and paid tribute to her brother. As they prepared to leave, A-Xin’s descendants arrived, bringing the two families together after more than eighty years apart.

• Shen Le revised his paper with Professor Lin’s guidance, and she praised its quality and planned to show his restoration work to expert colleagues.
• Shen Le traveled with Professor Lin and her family to A-Xin’s burial site, where she approached the grave and paid her respects.
• Professor Lin placed food, keepsakes, and the restored Makeup Box at the grave and told A-Xin about her adoptive mother and their family’s life.
• Shen Le used his warm current to help Professor Lin endure the cold as she stayed beside the grave to speak with A-Xin.
• As Professor Lin’s children helped her prepare to leave, A-Xin’s descendants arrived, and the two families reunited after more than eighty years.

Shen Le endured senior restorers’ critiques before Professor Lin asked whether they would support his appointment as a Special Affairs Bureau External Expert. They approved and immediately competed to recruit him, with one professor tempting him with the chance to hold a panda cub.

• Shen Le accepted detailed criticism of his bronze mirror, porcelain, and lacquer restoration from senior experts.
• Professor Lin asked the experts whether Shen Le could serve as an External Expert after the Special Affairs Bureau had confirmed his abilities.
• The experts agreed that Shen Le could take the position and welcomed the prospect of a reliable specialist helping protect archaeological workers from unclean relics.
• A Qinchuan professor invited Shen Le to learn restoration and work at excavation sites, while a Shudu professor offered to show him giant pandas and let him hold a cub.
• A Capital City professor also tried to recruit Shen Le, leaving him surprised at how eagerly the experts wanted him.

After returning to Zhuxi Town, Shen Le delayed taking assignments while he watched the repaired Makeup Box and cultivated with the Copper Fragment’s energy. Opening all twelve regular meridians triggered a powerful transformation, and the chapter left him beneath a Taihu Stone he had hurled into the air.

• Shen Le asked the Lacquer Art Group teacher why he could not restore a guqin without understanding its music, and learned that restoration required judging how the instrument sounded.
• Gu Yulin told Shen Le that he had received his External Expert certificate and asked him to take assignments at several strange sites, but Shen Le chose to rest at home first.
• Shen Le watched the Makeup Box for signs of consciousness and absorbed the Copper Fragment’s yellow energy while practicing his techniques.
• Shen Le opened the remaining four regular meridians, completing all twelve, then pushed through the resulting heat and discomfort by repeatedly performing the Five Animal Frolics.
• Shen Le’s strength and agility surged, and he leaped across the mansion before throwing a huge Taihu Stone into the air, where it began crashing back toward him.

Shen Le accidentally demonstrated his newfound strength by hurling an artificial hill into a pond, then asked the landlady to repair the damage. The copper fragment taught him that he needed more energy to advance and gave him two practical spells, leaving him better able to sense danger and escape.

• Shen Le leaped across the pond and threw the artificial hill into the water while testing his improved strength, then worried that others might discover what he could do.
• The landlady restored the artificial hill and pond bank with her vines, and suggested Shen Le seek human spells while agreeing to find a private place to test his abilities.
• Shen Le meditated and learned from the copper fragment that he needed more energy, preferably from repairing old objects, to open the eight extraordinary meridians.
• After Shen Le asked for usable spells, the copper fragment showed him powerful attacks that would exhaust and injure him, then taught him diagrams for detection and increased speed.

Shen Le struggled to draw the Copper Fragment’s spells and exhausted himself trying different methods. The awakened Makeup Box then used Cinnabar Ink to create a working talisman, leaving Shen Le amazed that it was better at talisman-making than he was.

• Shen Le ordered talisman-making supplies and failed to draw the designs with his consciousness, inner energy, and ordinary tools.
• When Shen Le’s inner energy went awry and caused severe pain, the Copper Fragment absorbed the turbulence but took a fifth of his energy.
• Shen Le repeatedly ruined talisman paper because he could not control the warm current flowing through the rabbit-hair brush.
• The Makeup Box spoke to Shen Le, thanked him for reuniting its master’s descendants, and offered to draw the design.
• The Makeup Box traced the design with powder, then used Cinnabar Ink to produce a talisman whose power Shen Le could feel.

Shen Le welcomed the Makeup Box’s new spirit, Lan Zhuang, and experimented with her weak talismans until he found a way to empower one with his inner heat. The activated talisman expanded his senses across the area, where he detected demons and a rapidly approaching presence.

• The Makeup Box named herself Lan Zhuang, and Shen Le introduced her to Zheng Mo and Qing Deng.
• Shen Le tried several ways to activate Lan Zhuang’s talismans, but the attempts failed and exhausted her, so he set up a Spirit Gathering Array for her.
• Shen Le pressed a talisman against his hand and infused it with inner heat, successfully activating its power.
• Shen Le used the talisman’s effect to sense the Doll Cabinet marking a location, Ah Lu chasing off birds, nearby food, and several Flower Demons in a building.
• Shen Le sensed a sharp, chaotic presence approaching him at high speed.

Old You tried to recruit Shen Le for a sea-turtle cultivation-bed commission, but Shen Le hesitated to travel into the open sea while he was still learning talisman-drawing. The Special Affairs Bureau then summoned him to investigate illnesses connected to a sunken ship restoration in Guangdong, where Old You immediately asked if he could meet the Old Sea Turtles.

• Old You showed Shen Le the pearls and shell offered by the Old Sea Turtles and asked him to make a shell-inlaid cultivation bed.
• Shen Le judged the commission feasible but hesitated to meet the sea turtles, while Old You urged him to take the job and offered to help source talisman-making supplies.
• Shen Le spent half a month studying talisman-drawing and found that Lan Zhuang could not provide support across different regions.
• A senior Special Affairs Bureau official asked Shen Le to investigate abnormal activity and widespread illness at a sunken ship restoration site in Guangdong Province.
• Shen Le flew to Guangdong with Qing Deng and the Makeup Box, and Old You called to ask if he could meet the Old Sea Turtles.

Shen Le went to the museum to investigate the illness affecting its experts, students, and visitors, then used Little Oil Lamp’s electric net to clear the harmful aura from the hall and its workers. The museum’s Special Affairs Bureau agents remained to be treated, and Shen Le prepared to sweep the ghost-raiser after he secured his little ghost in a bamboo tube.

• Shen Le suspected Old Sea Turtle might be connected to the museum trouble, but decided to inspect the patients, shipwreck, and Sea Turtle before drawing conclusions.
• Shen Le arrived at the museum and found it nearly empty, with students working while ill and the restoration rooms sealed behind patterned barriers.
• Shen Le used Little Oil Lamp’s electric net to clear the hall, though the sweep made the protective Talismans crack and damaged a glass window.
• Shen Le swept the students three times, easing their symptoms and restoring color to their faces.
• The Daoist and Buddhist agents let Shen Le clear some of their accumulated aura, while the ghost-raiser put his little ghost into a bamboo tube to protect it from the electric net.

Shen Le used the Electric Net and the Copper Fragment to drive evil energy out of museum-afflicted patients, but he had to treat a professor with a pacemaker cautiously. Back at the museum, his scan revealed an extraordinarily powerful source of black mist, and Little Oil Lamp stopped working because it was hungry.

• Shen Le retracted the Electric Net after it caused a ghost-keeper severe pain, then went with the Special Affairs Bureau to help the museum's hospitalized patients.
• Shen Le tested the Electric Net on a Bureau member and discovered it disrupted and destroyed her pulse oximeter.
• Shen Le removed the evil energy from several elderly professors, but used the Copper Fragment to treat the professor with a pacemaker instead of risking an electric shock.
• Shen Le returned to the museum and swept the Electric Net through its corridors without touching the artifacts.
• Little Oil Lamp halted the scan and demanded food after Shen Le's search uncovered an immense mass of black mist.

Shen Le used the museum’s power supply to help Little Oil Lamp cleanse the restoration area, then examined the Ancient Ship’s relics with the museum researchers. He entered the human remains hall, where a Special Affairs Bureau agent warned that the seal was failing, and Qing Deng attacked the darkness behind her.

• A museum electrician connected Little Oil Lamp to one of the museum’s 10-kilovolt power lines, allowing it to finish cleansing the restoration area in two days.
• Shen Le told the conservation researchers that his purification method might affect relics’ physical and chemical properties, and agreed to examine them for a safer approach.
• A doctoral student guided Shen Le through the Ancient Ship exhibit, explaining its damaged structure and the more than 180,000 catalogued artifacts.
• Shen Le headed into the human remains hall, where a Special Affairs Bureau agent ran out and warned that the seal could no longer hold.
• Shen Le called Qing Deng to help, and Qing Deng surged past the agent to attack the black aura with a net of silver light.

Shen Le and Little Oil Lamp drove the black fog back into the shipwreck’s bone cabinets, while Shen Le searched the museum for artifacts he might be allowed to restore. When Old You reported that the Old Sea Turtle had returned, Shen Le saw the same black qi around it as in the museum and suspected it had caused the illnesses.

• The Temple Keeper of Mazu Temple calmed the black fog by invoking Mazu, then left to pay her respects before trying to speak with the spirits another day.
• Shen Le ordered Little Oil Lamp to keep the black fog inside the cabinets, and it battered the fog with electric attacks until it retreated into the bones.
• Shen Le noticed the black qi was strongest around certain bones and artifacts, but the Doctor Senior Brother refused to let him restore the precious Star-Guiding Board.
• The Doctor Senior Brother went to plan an experiment and file a report, while Shen Le wrote to the Special Affairs Bureau requesting permission to restore artifacts.
• Old You called to say the Old Sea Turtle had returned, and Shen Le saw the same black qi around it as in the museum.

Shen Le suspected Old Sea Turtle was connected to the sinister aura at the museum, so he stalled him while the Special Affairs Bureau prepared to investigate and potentially capture him. During their meeting, the Temple Keeper questioned Old Sea Turtle, who revealed he had come to return a friend's belongings, including a Compass heavily covered in the dark aura.

• Shen Le sensed the same sinister aura on Old Sea Turtle as on the museum remains and belongings, but concealed his suspicion while asking about the spirit formation.
• Old Sea Turtle shrank to a palm-sized turtle and absorbed moonlight through Shen Le's pearl formation, then asked him to build a three-dimensional formation into a shell bed.
• Shen Le sent the Special Affairs Bureau photos and his suspicions, and the members coordinated with the navy and prepared to intercept Old Sea Turtle at a meeting three nights later.
• The Temple Keeper joined Shen Le on the beach, used a Compass to identify a dangerous dark aura on Old Sea Turtle, and asked what had happened.
• Old Sea Turtle said he had come to see an old friend and return the friend's belongings; when he produced a Compass, Shen Le saw that it carried an even heavier dark aura, while Old Sea Turtle's own aura faded.

Shen Le persuaded the Special Affairs Bureau to suspend its operation against Old Sea Turtle after the Compass’s energy readings changed, then took the Compass to study and repair it. He left determined to build a research team, and the Bureau agreed to fund his work with Old Sea Turtle’s pearls.

• The Temple Keeper examined the Compass while Shen Le distracted Old Sea Turtle, and the Special Affairs Bureau’s instruments showed that the energy readings had shifted toward those of an ordinary monster.
• The director suspended the operation and signaled Shen Le; Old Sea Turtle gave Shen Le pearls and left for the sea, while Shen Le took the Compass.
• Little Oil Lamp warned Shen Le that the Compass was heavily tainted, but Shen Le carefully shielded it from his power so it could be studied without interference.
• Shen Le told the Bureau members he might find answers by repairing the Compass, then asked the Doctor Senior Brother for a studio and equipment.
• Shen Le offered Old Sea Turtle’s pearls to cover the research costs, and the director agreed to fund the equipment and coordinate with the museum.

Shen Le brought the Navigation Compass into the museum and discovered that it could draw in the black qi haunting the exhibits, though it quickly became too full to absorb more. The Bureau arranged a workshop for him, and he began investigating how to repair the waterlogged compass.

• Shen Le refused to let the researchers touch the filthy Navigation Compass and asked everyone to leave the museum while he tested its reaction to the exhibits.
• Shen Le entered the Human Skeletons room with the director and the Mazu Temple's Temple Keeper, where the compass's black qi resonated with the exhibits' resentment.
• Shen Le used Qing Deng's lightning net to hold back the black qi as the compass absorbed a large mass of it, reducing the instruments' danger readings.
• Shen Le learned that the compass was full and could not absorb more black qi, then secured a repair workshop with the director's approval.
• Shen Le examined the compass's rusted gimbal rings, waterlogged wooden body, and submerged needle, but Senior Martial Brother explained that ordinary moisture meters could not measure shipwreck wood.

Shen Le studied and restored the Compass, identifying its wood and treating its corroded copper parts. When he reassembled the metal components and touched the Copper Ring, an overwhelming memory nearly drowned him.

• Shen Le learned from the elderly professor to cut thin wood samples by hand and practiced on several kinds of wood.
• Shen Le took three tiny samples from the Compass, and students examined them to identify the wood as likely Hopea.
• Shen Le measured the Compass’s components, and the students estimated its moisture content at 85% to 95%.
• Shen Le and the museum team cleaned, desalinated, dried, and protected the Compass’s Copper Hoop and Copper Ring before reassembling them.
• Shen Le touched the Copper Ring beside the wooden groove, and a powerful memory nearly overwhelmed him.

Shen Le re-entered the Compass’s memory and endured the child’s ordeal at sea until Old Sea Turtle rescued him and brought him to a fishing village. The memory fast-forwarded through Tianbao’s childhood, ending as the Red Flag Gang’s ships approached the village.

• Shen Le discovered that the Compass’s energy had increased slightly and grown less gloomy after he died in the memory, so he entered it again.
• Shen Le kept paddling until Old Sea Turtle rescued him, gave him rainwater and fish, and carried him to shore.
• The village’s oldest granny decided the villagers would raise the boy and named him Tianbao.
• Tianbao grew up in the fishing village, learning to swim, fish, dive for shells and pearls, and face sharks.
• The Red Flag Gang’s ships approached the village, and the villagers shouted that the gang was recruiting.

Shen Le learned that the Compass might be connected to the pirate Zhang Baozai, then used it to absorb dark energy from the ancient ship’s bones. He secured help from the museum’s researchers to test a faster restoration method and obtained shipwreck wood for his experiments.

• Shen Le searched for Red Flag Gang and Tianbao, learned about pirate Zhang Baozai, and wondered whether the ship and Compass had belonged to him.
• Doctor Senior Brother explained that the ship’s identity was difficult to establish because its records and identifying artifacts had not survived.
• Shen Le and the Special Affairs Bureau tested the Compass in the Bone Chamber, where it absorbed dark energy and reduced the energy in the bones by a fifth.
• Shen Le proposed restoring the Compass quickly to improve its ability to absorb abnormal energy, and the museum professors offered to adapt a two-day supercritical CO2 method.
• Shen Le asked for shipwreck wood with similar properties for experiments, and a senior professor approved his request for a large piece.

Shen Le tested how to dispel the resentment from the ancient ship’s wood while minimizing damage, then presented Old Sea Turtle with a pearl-covered shell fitted with a Spirit Gathering Formation. As Shen Le and the Temple Keeper chatted with Old Sea Turtle, Shen Le asked whether he knew why the ancient ship’s resentment had surged near the Compass, leaving the Special Affairs Bureau waiting for his answer.

• Shen Le tested different Electric Net settings on a piece of the ship’s bottom board and settled on 12 volts and 5 amps as the best balance for removing its evil aura while minimizing changes to the wood.
• Shen Le received a giant replica shell and arranged pearls inside it to create three Spirit Gathering Formation designs.
• Old Sea Turtle tested the first design by raising a controlled wave that carried the shell into the sea and returned it to shore, then asked to see the other designs.
• The Temple Keeper joined Shen Le and Old Sea Turtle, and Old Sea Turtle complained about destroyed homes, frightening drills, and a lack of beaches for the children to lay their eggs.
• While Shen Le adjusted the remaining designs, he asked Old Sea Turtle why the ancient ship’s resentment had surged near the Compass, as Special Affairs Bureau personnel listened tensely.