Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “A Mere Two Taels of Flesh”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yue Li, a transmigrated young woman living in a remote village, reflects on her parents’ deaths and her determination to avenge them.
• She has spent three years hiding in the village while training her body, despite having no special transmigration advantage or cultivation cheat. Her injuries reflect her belief that strength is essential in a dangerous cultivation world.
• Shen Qing’an finds her by the lake and tells her that cultivators from the Azure Moon Sect have arrived to test the villagers’ Spiritual Bones.
• Yue Li becomes excited at the possibility of entering the cultivation world and immediately heads to the village entrance.
• Along the way, she promises to repay Shen Qing’an for his past help if she becomes an immortal.
• At the testing site, two Azure Moon Sect cultivators explain that those under twenty may test their aptitude. Spiritual Bones range from Mortal Bones and low- or high-grade bones to Immortal Bones and the extremely rare Supreme Heavenly Bones.
• The cultivators intimidate the villagers by releasing their spiritual pressure, demonstrating the vast difference between mortals and cultivators.
• Most village youths fail the test. Only a few possess Mortal Bones, while the blacksmith’s second daughter has a Low-grade Spiritual Bone.
• Shen Qing’an is tested and shows no Spiritual Bone, a result he appears to have expected.
• The chapter ends as Su Yue Li prepares to step onto the testing platform, encouraged by both Shen brothers.

2. Character Developments

• Su Yue Li: Reveals her determination, practicality, and intense desire for power. Her goals are driven by survival and revenge rather than romance. She remains grateful to those who helped her and intends to repay them if she gains status.
• Shen Qing’an: Demonstrates quiet concern for Yue Li, worrying about her injuries and accompanying her to the test. Although he does not desire cultivation, he supports her dream while recognizing that becoming an immortal may separate them permanently.
• Shen Huai’an: Shows enthusiastic and affectionate concern for Yue Li by bringing her freshly steamed meat buns. His openly devoted behavior contrasts with his older brother’s restrained attitude.
• The villagers: Represent ordinary mortals’ hope that cultivation will transform their lives. Their excitement quickly becomes fear when confronted with the cultivators’ overwhelming power.
• The Azure Moon Sect cultivators: Are portrayed as detached and impatient, treating the villagers as insignificant while possessing unquestionable authority over them.

3. Significant Themes

• Power and vulnerability: The chapter emphasizes that mortals are helpless in a world where cultivators can determine life and death effortlessly.
• Ambition and survival: Yue Li’s pursuit of cultivation is presented as a necessity, not merely a dream; without strength, she risks remaining powerless and vulnerable.
• The cost of transcendence: Shen Qing’an understands that entering the immortal path may create an irreversible divide between Yue Li and ordinary people.
• Social inequality: The villagers’ reverence toward cultivators reflects the rigid hierarchy between mortals and immortals.
• Gratitude and repayment: Yue Li repeatedly promises to repay the Shen brothers, showing that her ambition does not erase her loyalty.
• Contrasting approaches to life: Yue Li seeks danger and power, while Shen Qing’an prefers peace and an ordinary existence.

4. Character Interactions

• Shen Qing’an gently scolds Yue Li for constantly injuring herself, revealing his concern beneath his detached manner.
• Yue Li tells him she will reward him with immortal pills and carry him through the skies if she succeeds, highlighting their familiarity and her sincere gratitude.
• Shen Qing’an responds with humor and resignation, while privately fearing that cultivation will separate them.
• Shen Huai’an gives Yue Li meat buns and openly encourages her, while Shen Qing’an silently hides the wild fruit he had gathered for her, suggesting a subtle contrast between the brothers’ feelings and personalities.
• Both brothers support Yue Li before her test, urging her to believe she possesses a rare Heavenly Bone.

Chapter Summary: You Will Become an Immortal

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli, a transmigrated girl who has spent three years hoping to cultivate, undergoes a Spiritual Bone test conducted by an immortal cultivator.
• The formation reveals that she is completely without Spiritual Bone, crushing her hope of entering the cultivation world.
• Another rejected villager challenges the result, claiming heavenly omens marked his birth. The cultivator violently blasts him away, and he later dies from his injuries, demonstrating the brutal power imbalance between immortals and mortals.
• Shen Huai’an then takes the test and manifests a rare Supreme Heavenly Bone, an extraordinary talent seen only once in ten thousand people. The cultivator immediately treats him with respect and insists on bringing him back to the sect.
• Shen Huai’an and his elder brother, Shen Qing’an, recall their agreement: one brother would remain behind to protect Su Yueli while the other pursued cultivation. Huai’an leaves with the cultivator but promises Su Yueli that he will return for her after mastering great powers.
• The cultivator takes Huai’an and four other youths with Spiritual Bones away on a flying boat. Huai’an is recognized as a supreme genius, while the others enter the sect as lower-ranking disciples.
• Su Yueli is left behind, devastated and bitter. She reflects on her previous life, her parents’ deaths at the hands of cultivators, and the helplessness of mortals in a world ruled by strength.
• That night, Shen Qing’an tries to comfort her, arguing that ordinary mortal life may be safer than cultivation. Su Yueli rejects this, insisting that mortals remain vulnerable to demon beasts and the whims of immortals.
• When she admits that she desperately wants to cultivate, Shen Qing’an confidently tells her, “You will become an immortal,” though he does not explain how.
• The next morning, Su Yueli discovers that Shen Qing’an has also left for Fengling City to take over his family’s business. He leaves her two warm buns, a sacred healing medicine, and a letter filled with practical concern and joking promises to buy her a marrow-cleansing immortal pill once he becomes wealthy.
• Although she doubts his promise, Su Yueli treasures the letter and begins to regain her determination. The chapter ends with her focusing on her hands, apparently preparing to seek another path to power.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Falls from confident hope into despair after learning she cannot cultivate naturally. Her anger at the unfairness of the cultivation world deepens, but she ultimately refuses to surrender and begins considering alternative methods of becoming strong.
• Shen Huai’an: Revealed as a once-in-ten-thousand Supreme Heavenly Bone genius. Despite his extraordinary opportunity, he remains emotionally attached to Su Yueli and his brother, promising to return for her.
• Shen Qing’an: Shows himself to be protective, practical, and quietly devoted. He sacrifices the chance to pursue cultivation, comforts Su Yueli, leaves her medicine and food, and departs to build wealth that might eventually help her cultivate.
• The immortal cultivator: Represents the arrogance and ruthlessness of the cultivation world. He dismisses mortals, uses overwhelming force against anyone who questions him, and becomes ingratiating only after discovering Huai’an’s exceptional talent.

Significant Themes

• Fate versus determination: Su Yueli believes transmigration should give her a special destiny, but reality denies her even the ability to sense qi. Her struggle becomes one of overcoming a fate she was not prepared to accept.
• Class and power inequality: Spiritual Bone determines access to cultivation, while mortals are treated as disposable and powerless. The chapter emphasizes that strength, rather than justice, governs the world.
• The danger of immortality: Cultivation offers status and power but also exposes disciples to deadly risks. Even Huai’an’s path to immortality may be dangerous despite his talent.
• Family, loyalty, and sacrifice: Huai’an leaves reluctantly, while Qing’an stays behind and later departs for the sake of improving Su Yueli’s future. Their relationships provide emotional support amid the harsh world.
• Hope amid despair: Shen Qing’an’s promise and Su Yueli’s final return to determination suggest that her story is not over, despite her apparent lack of talent.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli and the immortal cultivator: Their interaction humiliates her and establishes her exclusion from the cultivation world.
• Shen Huai’an and Shen Qing’an: The brothers honor their promise to protect Su Yueli, with Qing’an encouraging Huai’an to leave and pursue his opportunity.
• Shen Huai’an and Su Yueli: Huai’an expresses affection and asks her to wait for his return, while Su Yueli views his promise skeptically but does not reject his concern.
• Shen Qing’an and Su Yueli: Their nighttime conversation reveals their differing views: Qing’an values safety and acceptance, while Su Yueli demands the power to control her own fate.
• Shen Qing’an and Su Yueli through the letter: His practical gifts and teasing words reveal deep care beneath his mercantile personality, giving Su Yueli renewed emotional warmth and motivation.

Chapter Summary: “No Talent? Then Do It Again and Again!”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli cannot cultivate because she lacks spiritual roots, leaving her unable to gather qi or enter the Immortal Dao.
• Refusing to remain an ordinary mortal, she chooses the alternative path of mortal martial arts, which strengthens vital energy, blood, and the physical body.
• Although martial artists are far weaker than cultivators and have limited lifespans, Su Yueli is determined to pursue martial power through sheer persistence.
• She begins practicing the most basic horse stance and punches repeatedly in the courtyard, completing thousands of punches in a single morning despite exhaustion and uncertainty.
• News spreads that an injured martial artist has fallen into the village. Su Yueli rushes to the village chief’s house, hoping he can teach her about martial arts.
• The villagers are excited because martial arts may offer a path to strength for those without cultivation talent. However, the village chief reveals that the martial artist is gravely wounded and likely cannot be saved.
• Su Yueli realizes that losing him would mean losing her only accessible connection to the Martial Dao. She produces a healing pill previously given to her by Shen Qing’an and claims she can save the man.
• Inside the house, she finds the unconscious martial artist suffering from a severe abdominal wound and gives him the pill.
• She asks the village chief to calm the villagers and remains behind to watch the injured man, openly acknowledging that she saved him primarily to gain access to martial arts knowledge.

2. Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Demonstrates extraordinary determination, discipline, and pragmatism. Though isolated and lacking talent, she refuses to surrender and commits herself to relentless training. Her decision to save the martial artist shows both resourcefulness and a clear understanding of her own goals.
• The injured martial artist: Introduced as a powerful but mysterious figure. His wounds and unconscious state conceal his identity, abilities, and potential role in Su Yueli’s future.
• The village chief: Acts cautiously and responsibly, concerned both for the dying stranger and the safety of the village. Though skeptical of Su Yueli, he allows her to try saving the man when no other option remains.
• The villagers: Their excitement reveals their frustration at being excluded from cultivation. They quickly place their hopes in martial arts, especially for children and family members without innate cultivation talent.
• Shen Qing’an: Though absent, he influences the events through the healing pill he previously gave Su Yueli.

3. Significant Themes

• Persistence overcoming lack of talent: The chapter centers on the belief that determination and repetition can compensate for innate limitations.
• Alternative paths to power: The Immortal Dao is not the only route to strength; martial arts offers a harsher but accessible alternative.
• Hope and desperation: The villagers and Su Yueli cling to martial arts because cultivation has rejected them.
• Pragmatism over sentimentality: Su Yueli saves the man not merely from compassion but because she needs his guidance. In a dangerous world, survival and opportunity take priority over idealized kindness.
• The cost of strength: Martial artists can gain formidable physical power but sacrifice longevity, emphasizing the unequal advantages of cultivation.
• Isolation and self-reliance: Su Yueli’s lack of talent, money, connections, and social standing forces her to create her own path through effort and calculated risks.

4. Character Interactions

• Su Yueli questions two village women about the injured stranger and learns that he may be a martial artist.
• At the village chief’s house, villagers compete to have their talented-but-noncultivating relatives considered for martial training.
• The village chief doubts Su Yueli’s ability to help but ultimately permits her to administer the mysterious pill.
• Su Yueli asks the chief to manage the crowd while she privately monitors the wounded man, establishing her first direct connection to a possible martial arts mentor.

Chapter Summary: “Taking a Master, Entering Martial Dao”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Lu Chen, a severely injured martial artist found in a mountain ravine, awakens after Su Yueli gives him a healing pill.
• He explains that the pill—a defective Spring Return Pill—saved his life but left his meridians badly damaged, making further advancement in Martial Dao nearly impossible.
• Su Yueli asks Lu Chen to teach her martial arts. Although she has no spiritual roots and has failed to improve despite throwing countless punches, Lu Chen examines her and identifies the real problem: her meridians are blocked, and she has only been “scattering qi.”
• Lu Chen teaches her a basic Martial Dao breathing technique: three long breaths followed by one short breath, forcing qi into the lower abdomen.
• The training causes severe pain and makes Su Yueli cough up blood. Lu Chen orders her to swallow it, explaining that Martial Dao requires enduring and refining hardship through the body.
• Su Yueli successfully gathers blood qi almost immediately, entering the Martial Dao despite having no spiritual roots. Her astonishing talent shocks Lu Chen, who had needed twenty-three days to achieve the same breakthrough.
• Su Yueli formally becomes Lu Chen’s first disciple and asks to learn fist techniques.
• The village chief learns of the apprenticeship and accepts it, recognizing that martial strength may protect Su Yueli more reliably than the distant possibility of cultivating immortality.
• News spreads through the village, and the villagers gossip that martial arts are unsuitable for a young woman and may prevent her from marrying. Su Yueli ignores them, determined to pursue an extraordinary life rather than accept ordinary mortal expectations.
• Three days later, after recovering enough to walk, Lu Chen takes Su Yueli into the mountains to train her qi and blood by fighting wild beasts and enduring dangerous conditions.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Moves from frustrated, powerless experimentation to genuinely entering the Martial Dao. Her determination, ability to endure pain, and exceptional talent are confirmed. She openly rejects traditional expectations of marriage and domestic life, choosing strength and self-improvement instead.
• Lu Chen: Initially wary and resigned to his damaged future, he becomes grateful to Su Yueli and accepts responsibility for passing on his martial legacy. He is deeply impressed by her rapid progress and begins to view her as a possible successor.
• Village Chief: Continues to show concern for Su Yueli and supports her new path, understanding that her apprenticeship is a valuable opportunity.
• Villagers: Their conservative attitudes highlight the social pressure Su Yueli faces, particularly as a woman pursuing martial power instead of marriage.

Significant Themes

• Determination versus innate limitations: Although Su Yueli lacks spiritual roots, she finds another path to power through discipline, endurance, and Martial Dao.
• The value of perseverance: Martial training is presented as the refinement of suffering and the ability to endure pain rather than relying on external spiritual energy.
• Breaking social expectations: Su Yueli rejects the belief that women should only marry, bear children, and live ordinary lives.
• Legacy and repayment: Lu Chen repays Su Yueli’s life-saving kindness by teaching her, while also preserving his martial inheritance through a talented disciple.
• Different paths to strength: The chapter contrasts Immortal Dao, based on spiritual roots and heaven-and-earth qi, with Martial Dao, based on the body’s own blood and physical potential.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli and Lu Chen develop a teacher-disciple relationship built on mutual benefit: she saves his life, and he gives her access to Martial Dao.
• Lu Chen tests Su Yueli’s abilities, explains her failure, and guides her through the dangerous breathing exercise.
• Su Yueli formally addresses Lu Chen as “Master,” while Lu Chen proudly recognizes her as his first disciple.
• The village chief accepts the arrangement after speaking with Lu Chen and seeing the opportunity it offers Su Yueli.
• Su Yueli hears the villagers’ criticism but chooses not to confront them, reinforcing her independence and resolve.

Chapter Summary: “Spring Gives Way to Autumn, Twenty Years of Passing Time”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Lu Chen and Su Yueli settle in a mountain cave, where Lu Chen guards the entrance while Su Yueli begins learning martial arts.
• Lu Chen explains the difference between immortal cultivation and the Martial Dao:
  • Immortal cultivators rely on spiritual roots to absorb external spiritual energy.
  • Martial artists strengthen their own flesh, bones, organs, and vitality.
• He reveals that Martial Dao has ten realms, from Skin Tempering to Martial God. These realms are not necessarily the absolute limit of martial power, but rather the limit imposed by mortal lifespans.
• Lu Chen teaches Su Yueli his five-form combat technique:

Mountain Splitter

Bone Entangler

City Crusher

River Severing

Life Burning

• The fifth form burns blood and vitality to produce desperate, explosive strength and is intended only for situations where one is prepared to die alongside the enemy.
• Su Yueli begins an extraordinarily intense training regimen, practicing the forms thousands of times each day.
• Twenty years pass in the mountains. Su Yueli reaches completion in the Second Realm, Bone Forging, masters the first three forms, and gains minor mastery of the fourth.
• Lu Chen grows visibly old during this period, while Su Yueli remains physically unchanged, still appearing around seventeen or eighteen.
• Su Yueli becomes troubled by her agelessness and wonders whether she might be a sealed immortal, but Lu Chen dismisses the idea since she has no spiritual roots.
• Lu Chen admits that he has never encountered anything like her condition. He ultimately encourages her not to obsess over its cause, but to live as long as possible and experience the wonders of the world.

2. Character Developments

Su Yueli

• Moves from merely wanting access to supernatural power to becoming a disciplined and highly capable martial artist.
• Displays extraordinary perseverance, repeating techniques for twenty years until they become instinctive.
• Integrates the breathing method into every movement instead of treating it as separate cultivation, greatly enhancing her combat ability.
• Her ageless appearance becomes a major mystery and separates her from ordinary mortals.
• She develops concern and affection for Lu Chen, especially as she notices his aging and begins taking care of him.

Lu Chen

• Takes on a genuine mentor and guardian role, patiently explaining cultivation and personally refining Su Yueli’s technique.
• Reveals pride in his own Third Realm, Blood Exchange cultivation, though his confidence contrasts with the limits of mortal martial artists.
• Ages substantially over the twenty-year period, becoming stooped, white-haired, and physically weakened.
• Remains kind and pragmatic, accepting that Su Yueli’s condition may never be explained and urging her to make the most of her life.

3. Significant Themes

• Mortality versus transcendence: Immortal cultivators can live for centuries or millennia, while martial artists remain constrained by mortal bodies and time.
• Persistence and mastery: Su Yueli’s progress comes from relentless repetition and discipline rather than innate spiritual gifts.
• The passage of time: Twenty years transform Lu Chen and the natural world, but leave Su Yueli untouched, emphasizing the mystery of her existence.
• Limits imposed by mortality: Martial Dao may have realms beyond the tenth, but ordinary martial artists usually die before they can discover them.
• Acceptance of the unknown: Lu Chen advises Su Yueli to stop searching for an answer she cannot currently find and to focus instead on living fully.
• Mentorship and companionship: Their relationship grows from master and student into a bond marked by mutual care and emotional dependence.

4. Character Interactions

• Su Yueli asks Lu Chen thoughtful questions about the differences between immortals and martial artists, prompting his explanation of the Martial Dao’s limitations.
• Lu Chen demonstrates his deadly fist technique, while Su Yueli immediately memorizes and begins practicing it with extraordinary determination.
• Over the years, Lu Chen guides Su Yueli’s training, occasionally correcting her and demonstrating the forms again.
• After returning from training, Su Yueli notices Lu Chen’s decline and takes over preparing their food, showing her growing concern for him.
• Their conversation about her agelessness balances humor and tenderness: Lu Chen jokingly rejects her theory that she is a sealed immortal, then sincerely tells her to live as long as fate allows and witness the world’s wonders.

Chapter Summary

• Lu Chen’s declining health: Lu Chen, Su Yueli’s master and father figure, admits nothing directly but privately recognizes that his shattered heart meridians and reliance on a defective pill have left him near death. He has endured mainly to pass on his martial legacy to Su Yueli. He encourages her to continue pursuing martial arts and jokingly says he wants to see her “shatter the void.”
• Su Yueli returns to the village: Lu Chen tells Su Yueli that Second Pebble has been waiting to speak with her. After twenty years of secluded cultivation, she agrees to descend the mountain. She suspects the reason involves another letter from Shen Qing’an, a childhood friend she has not heard from directly in fifteen years.
• Su Yueli’s reflections on time: Unable to sleep, Su Yueli thinks about how ordinary people have continued living—marrying, having children, growing old—while she has remained physically unchanged and isolated on the mountain. She feels envious and alienated from the passage of time, especially because her martial training has left her without the ordinary life others enjoy.
• News of the village chief’s death: At the mountain’s foot, Second Pebble is astonished that Su Yueli looks almost identical to the girl he knew twenty years earlier. She explains that martial artists can delay aging. He tells her that the elderly village chief died the previous morning. Saddened, Su Yueli remembers the chief’s kindness and decides to attend his funeral, reflecting on how quietly mortal lives come to an end.
• The delayed letters: At the village entrance, Su Yueli finds three letters from Shen Qing’an, delivered over the previous fifteen years but never brought to her because villagers feared the mountain’s dangers. The letters reveal Shen’s changing life:
  • Fifteen years earlier, he had become a successful manager in Fengling City and proudly planned to buy a home and bring Su Yueli to the city.
  • Ten years earlier, he had taken control of the trading company but was already burdened by social obligations and poor health. He urged her to abandon martial arts, believing mortal martial artists could never rival cultivators.
  • Five years earlier, he had returned to the village searching for her. He had grown heavier and suffered aching legs, while noting that Su Yueli might still be unmarried and devoted to martial arts.
• Character developments and relationships: Lu Chen’s role shifts toward that of a dying master preparing for the end, while Su Yueli remains devoted to him but is forced to confront mortality. Second Pebble has become a weathered middle-aged farmer, contrasting sharply with Su Yueli’s unchanged appearance. Shen Qing’an has progressed from an ambitious young man into a wealthy but aging businessman. Su Yueli still cares deeply for Shen and his brother, remembering them as her only close friends and feeling genuine happiness that they appear to have lived well.
• Major themes: The chapter emphasizes the contrast between cultivation and mortal life, the relentless passage of time, aging, death, loneliness, and the cost of pursuing strength. Su Yueli’s unchanged appearance makes her question whether she has achieved a form of immortality, but the chapter leaves uncertain whether true immortality exists—and whether remaining unchanged is truly a blessing.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• After twenty years, Su Yueli returns to her former village to attend the funeral of the old village chief, who had cared for her during her earlier years there.
• She helps bury him and expresses gratitude for the peaceful shelter he once provided.
• On the way back, Second Pebble awkwardly asks about her life and whether she is married. When she says she is not, he becomes excited and decides he wants to marry her.
• Second Pebble tells his father, Stone Father, about his feelings. Stone Father angrily dismisses them, accusing him of merely lusting after Su Yueli and warning that she may be a supernatural creature because she has not aged.
• The villagers also notice that Su Yueli looks exactly as she did twenty years earlier. Their fear and suspicion grow, with many whispering that she is a monster or fox spirit.
• Realizing that the village can no longer accept her, Su Yueli decides to leave for Fengling City to visit Shen Qing’an, who has written her four unanswered letters.
• She departs before Second Pebble can find her. He arrives at the village entrance too late and is forced to accept that their lives belong to different worlds.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Reflects on the passage of time, her unresolved enmity, and her separation from those who once knew her. She remains emotionally restrained but is hurt by the villagers’ suspicion. Her decision to leave marks her recognition that the village is no longer a place where she belongs.
• Second Pebble: Reveals that he has remembered and loved Su Yueli for twenty years. His hopeful excitement quickly turns into heartbreak when he realizes he cannot bridge the gap between their lives.
• Stone Father: Acts as a practical, suspicious father who distrusts Su Yueli’s unnatural youth and worries that marriage to a martial artist would burden the family.
• The Old Village Chief: Though deceased, he remains important as a symbol of Su Yueli’s lost refuge and the peaceful life she once experienced.
• Shen Qing’an and Shen Huai’an: Neither appears directly, but both represent Su Yueli’s connection to the wider immortal and cultivator world. Su Yueli prepares to reconnect with Shen Qing’an.

Significant Themes

• The gap between mortals and cultivators: Twenty years means little to cultivators but represents an entire generation to ordinary villagers.
• Alienation and impermanence: The village has changed, its older residents have died, and Su Yueli no longer fits into the place that once sheltered her.
• Fear of the unfamiliar: The villagers interpret Su Yueli’s unchanging appearance as evidence that she is a monster rather than trying to understand her.
• Unrequited love and unequal worlds: Second Pebble’s feelings are sincere from his perspective, but Su Yueli’s immortality, strength, and burdens make a relationship impossible.
• The passage of time: Su Yueli remains unchanged while the village and its people age, emphasizing the loneliness of living beyond ordinary human years.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli pays her respects to the old village chief, showing gratitude for his past kindness.
• Her brief conversation with Second Pebble exposes his long-held affection and her emotional distance.
• Second Pebble’s confrontation with Stone Father creates a humorous but painful contrast between romantic idealism and practical rural concerns.
• The villagers’ whispered accusations isolate Su Yueli and reveal their distrust of those who defy ordinary human limitations.
• Second Pebble’s final search for Su Yueli ends in silent acceptance that she is “a cloud in the sky,” while he remains tied to the mortal world.

Chapter Summary

Plot and key events

Su Yueli travels for two days and one night to Fengling City in search of Shen Qing’an, an old acquaintance she has not seen in twenty years. After entering the bustling city, she asks a scholar for directions to Fuyuan Trading Company and politely rejects his attempt to escort and entertain her. At the trading company, she discovers that Shen is no longer the chief manager. An elderly accountant secretly explains that Shen once managed the business successfully but later abandoned everything to pursue immortality. He sold his wealth and property, borrowed heavily, and even misused company funds. After his creditors broke his legs and cast him out of the city, he disappeared into poverty.
Su Yueli realizes that Shen’s letters describing a comfortable, prosperous life were fabricated. In reality, he had likely been suffering in extreme poverty and cold while desperately searching for a way to gain spiritual roots and become a cultivator. Following directions to the poor district, she reaches a ruined temple. An old beggar tells her that Shen—now called “Blind Shen”—froze to death three nights earlier and that his body remains inside. Shocked and emotionally numb, Su Yueli opens the temple door.

Character development

Su Yueli begins the chapter with quiet anticipation, wondering what Shen has become and hoping to reconnect with a surviving friend. Her composure breaks as she learns of his ruin and recognizes the sacrifices concealed behind his letters. Her grief turns into anger and self-reproach, shown when she tears out her hairpin and heads into the slums. Though immensely powerful, she is helpless before the consequences of Shen’s choices and the suffering he endured.
Shen Qing’an is revealed through others’ accounts as formerly capable, ambitious, and ruthless in business, but later consumed by the hope of immortality. His supposed prosperity was a lie intended to reassure Su Yueli, while he endured debt, broken legs, hunger, and freezing conditions for years.

Significant themes

The chapter explores the destructive gap between mortals and immortals: cultivators view ordinary people as insignificant, while mortals see immortality as a path to heaven and escape from suffering. It also emphasizes the cost of false hope, the cruelty of social indifference, and the contrast between outward appearances and hidden pain. Shen’s letters represent love and sacrifice disguised as lies, while Su Yueli’s journey exposes the truth beneath the city’s prosperous surface.

Character interactions

Su Yueli briefly encounters a flirtatious scholar, whose confidence disappears under her cool gaze. At the trading company, the dismissive shopkeeper contrasts with the compassionate old accountant, who reveals Shen’s downfall in private. In the poor district, the frostbitten beggar gives Su Yueli the final, devastating piece of information: Shen has died and lies unburied in the ruined temple.

Chapter Summary: The Wooden Box Never Delivered

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli enters a ruined temple outside Fengling City and discovers the frozen corpse of Shen Qing’an beneath a straw mat.
• Shen, who had falsely claimed in his letters that he was wealthy and living comfortably, had actually lost his business, had both legs broken, and died in poverty and illness.
• He is found clutching a black wooden box containing a glowing stone and a letter addressed to Su Yueli.
• In the letter, Shen explains that he spent ten years and his family’s entire fortune purchasing what he believed was an immortal jade slip from an Azure Cloud Sect cultivator. He believed it could grant Su Yueli an Acquired Spirit Root and allow her to cultivate immortality.
• Su realizes the “jade slip” is only worthless fluorite, a common glowing mineral with no power to create spiritual bones. Shen had been deceived and died believing he had fulfilled his promise to her.
• Overwhelmed by grief and rage, Su carries Shen’s body onto her back. Her Second Realm Bone Forging power erupts, destroying the ruined temple.
• She rejects the path of immortality and vows to continue along the Martial Dao, eventually destroying the heavens and forcing the Azure Cloud Sect’s immortals to pay for her parents’ deaths and Shen’s suffering.

2. Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Her previously controlled emotions break open when she discovers Shen’s body and reads his letter. Her sorrow transforms into fierce hatred toward the immortal world. Rather than seeking spiritual bones or becoming an immortal, she recommits herself to Martial Dao and resolves to confront the powerful directly through her own physical strength.
• Shen Qing’an: His true character is revealed as selfless and devoted. Although unsuccessful and impoverished, he spent everything he had trying to give Su Yueli the future he believed she wanted. His lies about wealth were intended to spare her worry, and his final act demonstrates enduring love and loyalty.
• The Azure Cloud Sect and immortals: They are portrayed as exploitative and contemptuous toward mortals. Their willingness to exchange a worthless stone for Shen’s fortune exposes the enormous inequality between immortals and ordinary people.

3. Significant Themes

• Self-sacrifice and devotion: Shen gives up his wealth, health, and dignity for Su Yueli, showing love through action rather than words.
• The cruelty of social hierarchy: Immortals possess overwhelming power and treat mortal lives, hopes, and emotions as insignificant commodities.
• Illusion versus reality: Shen’s imagined “immortal treasure” is merely fluorite, symbolizing the false promises and deceptive glory associated with the cultivation world.
• Grief transformed into resolve: Su’s mourning does not leave her helpless; it becomes the foundation of her determination to challenge the immortal order.
• Martial Dao versus immortality: Su rejects dependence on spiritual talent and chooses to rise through physical effort, resistance, and perseverance.
• Revenge and justice: Her vow to confront the Azure Cloud Sect links Shen’s death with the earlier deaths of her parents and establishes a major future conflict.

4. Character Interactions

• Su Yueli and Shen Qing’an: Though Shen is already dead, their relationship dominates the chapter. His letter reveals the depth of his affection and the sacrifices he made for her, while Su’s reaction confirms that she still cared deeply despite their twenty-year separation.
• Shen Qing’an and the Azure Cloud Sect: Their interaction is represented through Shen’s purchase of the supposed jade slip. The sect’s agents exploit his ignorance and desperation, reducing his sincere devotion to a transaction for a worthless object.
• Su Yueli and the immortal world: The chapter shifts Su from someone who once considered gaining spiritual bones to an opponent of the immortals themselves. Her final declaration directly challenges the Azure Cloud Sect and the entire hierarchy that has oppressed her and those she loves.

Chapter Summary: “Severing Mortal Ties”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli buries Shen Qing’an on a sunny mountainside overlooking Fengling City rather than returning him to the village. She reflects on his contradictory identities: the dishonest shopkeeper and the “madman” who sacrificed his fortune for her.
• Mourning Shen’s death, Su Yueli contemplates the loneliness of immortality and the endless farewells it brings. Despite her grief, she vows that immortals who treat mortals as insignificant will one day be defeated by her.
• Two Foundation Establishment cultivators fly toward the mountain village on a secret mission ordered by their sect’s Grand Elder.
• Their objective is to eliminate the Young Sect Master’s mortal attachments, particularly the villagers and the mortal woman connected to him. The sect intends to kill everyone in the village, destroy the woman, and blame the massacre on demonic cultivators.
• The villagers mistake the arriving cultivators for benevolent immortals who have come to test children for spiritual roots. They kneel, kowtow, and eagerly offer up their children, unaware that the cultivators intend to slaughter them.
• As the younger cultivator prepares to attack with a poisonous flying sword, Lu Chen senses the murderous spiritual energy from the mountains. Though physically frail and unable to see clearly, his battle-hardened instincts identify the threat as cultivators targeting the village.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli experiences a rare moment of vulnerability while burying Shen Qing’an. His death forces her to confront the emotional cost of long life and the repeated loss of mortals.
• Her grief transforms into renewed determination. Rather than fearing cultivators, she develops open defiance toward them and resolves to become strong enough to kill those who oppress mortals.
• Shen Qing’an is characterized posthumously through Su Yueli’s uncertainty over how to remember him: as a liar or as someone who willingly ruined himself for her.
• The young cultivator is shown to be arrogant, cruel, and envious of the Young Sect Master. He looks down on mortals and takes pleasure in the prospect of killing helpless villagers.
• The middle-aged cultivator is colder and more disciplined, acting as the mission’s enforcer. He justifies mass murder as a necessary means of protecting the sect’s future.
• Lu Chen demonstrates that, despite his declining body, his instincts and combat awareness remain formidable. His reaction suggests he may intervene to protect the village.

Significant Themes

• The pain of immortality: Su Yueli recognizes that a long life can mean repeatedly watching beloved mortals die.
• Mortal–immortal inequality: The cultivators view ordinary people as livestock, exposing the brutality beneath the reverence mortals show toward “immortals.”
• Sacrifice and remembrance: Shen Qing’an’s ambiguous legacy emphasizes how complicated love, loyalty, and personal sacrifice can be.
• Defiance against oppressive power: Su Yueli’s vow marks a shift from mourning to resistance against cultivators who abuse their strength.
• Institutional cruelty and hypocrisy: The sect claims to be safeguarding its Young Sect Master’s future while secretly ordering an indiscriminate massacre and planning to frame demonic cultivators.
• False hope: The villagers’ excitement over the supposed arrival of immortal examiners contrasts sharply with the danger actually descending upon them.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli’s farewell to Shen Qing’an is intimate but unresolved, revealing gratitude, sorrow, and uncertainty about his true nature.
• The two cultivators’ conversation exposes their differing attitudes: the younger complains and mocks the Young Sect Master, while the elder insists on obedience and emphasizes the sect’s interests.
• The villagers respond to the cultivators with worshipful desperation, kneeling and presenting their children, while the cultivators silently regard them as targets.
• Lu Chen does not yet confront the cultivators, but his awareness of their killing intent establishes him as the first potential defender of the village.

Chapter Summary: “I Accept This Karma”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Lu Chen realizes that the attack on the remote village is not a spiritual test but an extermination ordered by the Azure Moon Sect. He connects it to Su Yueli’s friend, Shen Huai’an, a genius with a Heavenly Bone, whose sect may be trying to sever his mortal ties.
• Two Foundation Establishment cultivators arrive in the village demanding to know Su Yueli’s whereabouts. When the villagers hesitate, the white-robed cultivator wounds one of them with Sword Qi.
• Second Pebble reveals that Su Yueli has been living and training with Lu Chen in the mountains. The cultivators immediately pursue them.
• At Blackwind Ridge, Lu Chen confronts the cultivators. He correctly identifies their mission and warns them that if Shen Huai’an eventually discovers that they murdered his old acquaintances, he may punish them rather than the powerful figures who issued the order.
• Lu Chen offers a solution: he will pretend to slaughter the village after suffering a martial cultivation deviation, then kill himself. The cultivators can report that Su Yueli and the villagers died by his hand, allowing them to complete the “severing of mortal ties” without directly killing her.
• The cultivators accept the bargain, prioritizing their own safety and convenience.
• Lu Chen returns to the village, remembering that its people once saved him when he was near death. Despite his moral revulsion, he unleashes his strength and massacres all 134 households, including the animals, while the cultivators watch.
• He kills Second Pebble as part of the deception, then declares that he will bear the resulting karma. Using his last strength, Lu Chen kills himself.
• The cultivators leave, satisfied that the mission has been covered up. Lu Chen dies looking toward Fengling City, silently urging Su Yueli to survive and reach the end of the Martial Dao.

Character Developments

• Lu Chen: Revealed as deeply compassionate and principled despite his violent past. He deliberately sacrifices his reputation, soul, and life to protect Su Yueli, choosing to become remembered as a murderer rather than allow her to be hunted. His final act shows both his devotion as a master and his belief that Su Yueli may be the key to overcoming the Martial Dao’s lifespan limit.
• Su Yueli: She does not appear directly, but her importance becomes clearer. Her ageless appearance and mysterious illness suggest that she possesses extraordinary potential, possibly making her the only person capable of reaching the ultimate realm of martial cultivation.
• The two cultivators: Initially arrogant and ruthless, they become unsettled when Lu Chen points out the danger of being used as scapegoats by their sect. Their decision to accept his plan exposes their cowardice, self-interest, and willingness to let a mortal bear their sins.
• Second Pebble: Represents the village’s trust in Lu Chen. His confusion and betrayal at seeing Lu Chen become a killer make the massacre especially tragic.
• Shen Huai’an: Though absent, he drives the conflict. His immense potential and the sect’s fear of his unresolved mortal attachments motivate the extermination.

Significant Themes

• Sacrifice and unconditional protection: Lu Chen gives up his honor, moral purity, and life to save his disciple.
• The cruelty of the cultivation world: Powerful sects treat ordinary people as disposable tools and view a mortal lifetime as insignificant.
• Karma and responsibility: Lu Chen consciously accepts the karmic burden of a crime he does not morally commit, while the cultivators evade responsibility by hiding behind hierarchy and orders.
• Mortal lives versus cultivation ambitions: The chapter contrasts the villagers’ ordinary human bonds with the sect’s cold belief that emotional ties must be destroyed for the sake of a genius’s advancement.
• Reputation and moral identity: Lu Chen knowingly allows history to remember him as a monster, showing that genuine virtue may require accepting infamy.
• The cost of the Martial Dao: His death emphasizes both the limits of martial cultivation and his hope that Su Yueli can surpass those limits.

Character Interactions

• The villagers plead with the cultivators, but the visitors respond with contempt and violence, establishing the oppressive gap between mortals and cultivators.
• Second Pebble tries to protect Su Yueli by giving the cultivators truthful information, unaware that this leads to the village’s destruction.
• Lu Chen verbally confronts the cultivators, using their fear of future retribution from Shen Huai’an to undermine their confidence and force them into negotiation.
• Lu Chen and the cultivators reach a morally grotesque agreement: he will perform the massacre and die, while they claim the mission was completed.
• Lu Chen’s final interaction with Second Pebble is tragic. Though Second Pebble cannot understand his transformation, Lu Chen kills him to preserve the illusion and quietly wishes that he could be reborn as a cultivator.
• Lu Chen’s final “interaction” is with Su Yueli from afar: his dying gaze and last thought urge her to live and pursue the ultimate path of the Martial Dao.

Chapter Summary: “The Death of Her Master”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli spends the day mourning Shen Qing’an at his unmarked grave before leaving Fengling City.
• On the road, she buys a gourd of strong wine from a merchant caravan, intending to let her master, Lu Chen, taste it despite his usual abstinence.
• Returning to Blackwind Ridge, she reflects on how the village and its people have become unfamiliar to her, while Lu Chen remains her only true family.
• At the cave, Su Yueli finds Lu Chen absent and discovers a farewell letter.
• In the letter, Lu Chen claims that his declining qi and blood caused him to succumb to qi deviation. He says he slaughtered the nearby village and then killed himself out of shame.
• He instructs Su Yueli to seek out his old friend Tie Tu in Azure Province City, who can guide her beyond the third martial realm. He also urges her to pursue the highest levels of martial arts and avoid being burdened by his fate.
• Refusing to believe Lu Chen could massacre innocent villagers, Su Yueli rushes to the village.
• She finds the settlement transformed into a bloody ruin, with men, women, and villagers she once knew brutally murdered.
• Lu Chen’s corpse lies in the center of the village, his skull crushed and his eyes still fixed toward Fengling City.
• Overwhelmed by grief and confusion, Su Yueli collapses beside him. The wine she bought spills into the blood surrounding his body, symbolizing the farewell she never got to give.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Her grief deepens after losing both Shen Qing’an and Lu Chen in quick succession. She shows fierce loyalty and emotional attachment to her master, but also begins to question the official explanation of his death. Her determination to investigate what happened replaces the hope of returning to a peaceful life.
• Lu Chen: Through his letter, he reveals his declining condition, regret, and concern for Su Yueli’s future. He presents himself as a fallen martial artist who has become a monster, though his final gaze toward Fengling City suggests that the truth may be more complicated than his confession.
• Shen Qing’an: Though already dead, his recent death continues to shape Su Yueli’s emotional state and reinforces the pattern of loss surrounding her.

Significant Themes

• Loss and the destruction of belonging: Su Yueli loses the last people she considered family, leaving her isolated in a hostile world.
• The burden of martial arts: Lu Chen’s qi deviation suggests that years of violence, killing, and physical decline can corrupt even a disciplined martial artist.
• Truth versus appearance: Lu Chen’s letter offers a simple explanation, but Su Yueli’s disbelief and the details of his death hint that the massacre may conceal a deeper mystery.
• Inheritance and legacy: Lu Chen’s final instructions push Su Yueli toward the next stage of martial development, forcing her to carry on his teachings after his death.
• Symbolic farewell: The wine, purchased as an act of affection, mixes with Lu Chen’s blood, representing Su Yueli’s failed attempt to share one final moment with her master.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli briefly interacts with the merchant caravan when she purchases the wine.
• Her relationship with Lu Chen is shown through her memories, her eagerness to share the wine with him, and her anguished reaction to his letter and corpse.
• Her memories of Shen Qing’an and the villagers emphasize the emotional ties she has lost.
• Lu Chen’s letter serves as his final direct interaction with Su Yueli, combining affection, apology, instruction, and farewell.

Chapter Summary: “Burials, Farewell”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli buries her master, Lu Chen, on Cliff Plateau after finding his body. She refuses to believe his claim that he died from qi deviation, suspecting that his letter concealed the truth.
• She spends a month burying more than four hundred villagers slaughtered in the nearby village, becoming the gravekeeper of the ruined mountain.
• For five years, she remains in Blackwind Ridge, training obsessively during the day and speaking to Lu Chen’s grave at night.
• In the fifth year, she discovers a split bluestone millstone bearing a perfectly smooth cut and lingering Sword Qi. She realizes that immortal cultivators—not Lu Chen—were responsible for the massacre.
• Su Yueli concludes that Lu Chen likely took responsibility for the killings and ended his own life to protect her from the cultivators pursuing him.
• After years of training, she breaks into the Third Martial Realm, the Blood-Exchange Realm. Though immensely powerful by mortal standards, she knows she remains insignificant compared with immortal cultivators.
• She decides to leave Blackwind Ridge and travel to Azure Province City to find Lu Chen’s friend, Tie Tu, hoping to uncover the truth.
• Before leaving, she visits Shen Qing’an’s neglected grave outside Fengling City and vows to make the Azure Cloud Sect and the unknown immortal cultivators pay for their crimes.
• She departs into the night, determined to pursue the highest levels of Martial Dao and eventually bring the immortals down.

Character Development

• Su Yueli transforms from a grieving disciple into a hardened, purpose-driven warrior. Her mourning becomes discipline, and her isolation fuels relentless training.
• Her suspicion of Lu Chen’s supposed qi deviation develops into certainty after she finds evidence of an immortal cultivator’s sword attack.
• She accepts that she has effectively stopped aging and has become immortal in lifespan, but views this not as a blessing, but as a source of alienation and loneliness.
• Su Yueli confronts her inability to live an ordinary life or form romantic relationships, recognizing that her unusual body and soul leave her permanently isolated.
• Her grief evolves into a broader vendetta against the immortal world, especially the Azure Cloud Sect and those responsible for the village massacre.

Significant Themes

• Grief and remembrance: Su Yueli honors the dead through burial, visits to graves, and nightly conversations with Lu Chen.
• Longevity as isolation: Her agelessness separates her from ordinary human life rather than granting happiness.
• Mortals versus immortals: The massacre highlights the immense power imbalance and the apparent disregard immortal cultivators have for mortal lives.
• Justice and revenge: Su Yueli turns personal loss into a lifelong mission to uncover the truth and collect the “debt” owed by the heavens.
• Perseverance through Martial Dao: Though lacking spiritual roots and unable to cultivate immortality, she refuses to accept inferiority and resolves to surpass the limits imposed on mortals.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli and Lu Chen: Their relationship remains central even after his death. She speaks to his grave, follows his instructions regarding his friend, and seeks to uncover the secret behind his death.
• Su Yueli and Shen Qing’an: She visits Shen’s neglected grave with tenderness and regret, recalling his past sacrifices and treating him as another casualty of the world’s injustice.
• Su Yueli and the immortal cultivators: Though they do not appear directly, their actions shape her life. She views them as distant perpetrators responsible for destroying her master and the village.
• Su Yueli and ordinary people: Watching the Lantern Festival, she briefly envies the warmth of mortal family life, but ultimately accepts that she cannot belong to it and continues her solitary path.

Chapter Summary: “Azure Province City, A New Life”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Two months after leaving Blackwind Ridge, Su Yueli arrives in the prosperous Azure Province City.
• She is struck by the city’s size, wealth, and the open presence of cultivators, who are integrated into ordinary society and can even be seen flying through the sky on swords.
• With no money and little worldly experience, Su Yueli asks a jewelry vendor for directions to Tie Tu, an old friend of her deceased master, Lu Chen.
• The vendor tells her that Tie Tu is the hall master of the renowned Ironbone Martial Hall.
• Su Yueli reaches the martial hall and observes its disciples training in basic physical techniques.
• She immediately recognizes that most of them are weak and that their martial arts are flashy but impractical compared with the lethal techniques Lu Chen taught her.
• Her arrival causes a commotion among the male disciples, who are stunned by her extraordinary beauty despite her plain, ragged clothing.
• Tie Tu’s daughter, Tie Ling’er, comes out to investigate and warmly leads Su Yueli to the rear courtyard, where her father is having tea.

Character Developments

Su Yueli

She remains emotionally restrained, practical, and indifferent to conventional femininity. Her lack of money and unfamiliarity with city life reveal her isolation after years in Blackwind Ridge. At the same time, her sharp martial perception shows how far she has advanced under Lu Chen’s brutal tutelage. Seeing Tie Tu’s prosperous, family-centered life also prompts her to reflect on her own lonely upbringing.

Tie Ling’er

She is introduced as lively, friendly, confident, and mischievous. Although young, she clearly has authority within the martial hall, easily scolding the male disciples and restoring order.

Tie Tu

He has not yet appeared, but the chapter establishes him as a respected martial artist who runs a successful martial hall and has raised a cheerful daughter.

The Martial Hall Disciples

They are portrayed as ordinary, somewhat inexperienced martial artists who become awkward and flustered in Su Yueli’s presence.

Significant Themes

• The contrast between the mundane and the extraordinary: Azure Province City blends ordinary society with the world of cultivators, showing that supernatural power is part of daily life in the wider world.
• Isolation versus belonging: Su Yueli comes from a harsh, solitary existence centered on combat and death. Tie Tu’s martial hall, by contrast, represents community, livelihood, and family.
• Appearance versus reality: Despite her ragged clothes and poverty, Su Yueli possesses breathtaking beauty and formidable martial ability. The martial hall’s impressive appearance and vigorous training conceal the weakness and superficiality of its techniques.
• Different philosophies of martial arts: The hall teaches practical but ordinary body-strengthening methods, while Lu Chen taught Su Yueli ruthless killing arts designed for survival and mutual destruction.
• A new beginning: Her arrival in Azure Province City marks the beginning of Su Yueli’s movement into a larger, more social world.

Character Interactions

• A jewelry stall owner attempts to attract Su Yueli as a customer, but Su Yueli declines and asks instead for information about Tie Tu.
• The martial hall disciples react with shock, embarrassment, and fascination when Su Yueli enters, revealing the dramatic impact of her presence.
• Tie Ling’er immediately treats Su Yueli warmly, mistakes her visit as a possible attempt to learn martial arts, and then welcomes her as the disciple of one of her father’s old friends.
• Tie Ling’er scolds the gawking disciples, demonstrating her spirited personality and familiarity with the hall.
• As Su Yueli follows Tie Ling’er, she compares Tie Tu’s warm, stable family life with Lu Chen’s lonely death, deepening her sense of what she herself has lacked.

Chapter Summary: “Disciple of an Old Friend”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli and Tie Ling’er enter the quieter inner courtyard of the Tie family home, where they meet Tie Tu, Tie Ling’er’s father and a Fifth Realm martial artist.
• Su Yueli introduces herself as the disciple of Tie Tu’s old friend, Lu Chen. Tie Tu initially reacts with excitement, expecting Lu Chen to be nearby after many years apart.
• Su Yueli reveals that Lu Chen died five years earlier. Tie Tu is devastated and reacts with anger and disbelief, crushing part of the stone table in his grief.
• After regaining his composure, Tie Tu asks about Su Yueli’s cultivation. He is shocked to learn that she has reached the Third Blood-Exchange Realm despite appearing only seventeen or eighteen.
• Su Yueli demonstrates Lu Chen’s unnamed five-form fist technique. Her opening move, “Mountain Splitter,” immediately confirms her identity as Lu Chen’s disciple.
• Moved by both her talent and her connection to Lu Chen, Tie Tu welcomes Su Yueli as family and promises to protect her in Azure Province City.
• Tie Ling’er takes Su Yueli to a clean guest room beside her own and offers to show her around the city.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Reveals her grief over Lu Chen’s death and shows that, beneath her calm exterior, she understands Tie Tu’s pain. Her exceptional Third Realm cultivation and mastery of Lu Chen’s technique establish her as extraordinarily talented. She also reflects on how her life has been shaped by revenge, loss, and relentless martial training.
• Tie Tu: Changes from a lively, welcoming host into a grieving and lonely old friend upon learning of Lu Chen’s death. His anger masks deep regret that he never saw Lu Chen again. After recognizing Su Yueli’s technique, he accepts her warmly and assumes a protective role.
• Tie Ling’er: Appears carefree, friendly, and inexperienced in martial arts. She admires Su Yueli’s strength and forms an immediate bond with her, helping her settle into the Tie household.

Significant Themes

• Grief and unresolved regret: Tie Tu’s sorrow comes not only from Lu Chen’s death but also from years of separation and the missed chance to say goodbye.
• The value of friendship: Despite Lu Chen’s absence, Tie Tu’s emotional reaction shows that their shared history remains deeply meaningful.
• Martial talent versus ordinary life: Su Yueli recognizes her own unusual ability but suggests that martial cultivation often comes from suffering and desperation. She views Tie Ling’er’s protected, ordinary life as a blessing rather than a weakness.
• Legacy and remembrance: Lu Chen’s fist technique serves as proof of Su Yueli’s identity and allows his influence to continue through her.
• Belonging and protection: By welcoming Su Yueli into his home, Tie Tu gives her a new source of support after years of isolation and loss.

Character Interactions

• Tie Ling’er introduces Su Yueli to her father and later treats her with admiration and sisterly warmth.
• Tie Tu questions Su Yueli about her master, then experiences shock, anger, grief, and finally acceptance when he learns Lu Chen is dead.
• Su Yueli demonstrates her master’s technique for Tie Tu, creating an emotional connection between them and convincing him of her identity.
• Su Yueli and Tie Ling’er discuss martial arts, talent, pain, and the relative safety of ordinary life, revealing their contrasting experiences and personalities.

Chapter Summary: “Ancient Tree Hung with Red Silk, Making Wishes”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli agrees to accompany Tie Ling’er into Azure Province City after settling into the martial arts hall.
• They explore the lively night market, filled with lanterns, music, hawkers, performers, families, and food stalls. The bustling mortal world feels unfamiliar to Su Yueli after twenty-five years of isolated cultivation in Blackwind Ridge.
• Tie Ling’er brings Su Yueli to Azure Province City’s famous Wishing Tree, whose branches are covered in red silk ribbons and wooden wish plaques.
• Though Su Yueli initially dismisses the tradition as meaningless superstition, the ritual forces her to reflect on her life, losses, revenge, and uncertain future.
• Tie Ling’er writes a wish involving her father, Su Yueli, and their becoming a family. Su Yueli gently stops her from saying the wish aloud, warning that it will not come true if spoken.
• Su Yueli ultimately writes her own wish: to develop the Martial Dao to its highest level so that ordinary mortals without innate cultivation talent can resist immortal cultivators and even shatter flying swords with their fists.
• Afterward, Tie Ling’er notices Su Yueli’s worn clothing and takes her to Splendid Embroidery House to choose new clothes, treating them as a welcome gift from Tie Tu.
• Su Yueli rejects the elaborate dresses and skirts, preferring practical, fitted clothing suitable for combat. Tie Ling’er selects an outfit for her to try.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Her cold, revenge-driven outlook begins to broaden. The Wishing Tree makes her question whether revenge alone can define her lifelong path, especially after all her loved ones and teachers have died. She reaches a new conviction: rather than merely pursuing personal revenge or immortality, she will create a powerful Martial Dao for ordinary people.
• Tie Ling’er: She is portrayed as cheerful, innocent, affectionate, and perceptive. She enthusiastically embraces Su Yueli as family and notices Su Yueli’s embarrassment about her poverty without exposing it.
• Tie Tu: Though he does not directly participate in the chapter’s events, Tie Ling’er repeatedly invokes his concern for Su Yueli’s well-being, suggesting that he already regards her as someone deserving of familial care.

Significant Themes

• Finding purpose beyond revenge: Su Yueli realizes that vengeance may not be enough to sustain her through an endless life.
• Mortals versus immortals: The chapter emphasizes the injustice of a world where immortal cultivators dominate and ordinary people are powerless. Su Yueli’s new ambition is to challenge this hierarchy through the Martial Dao.
• Hope and companionship: Tie Ling’er’s simple faith in the Wishing Tree contrasts with Su Yueli’s painful skepticism, yet Tie Ling’er’s warmth helps reconnect Su Yueli with family and human affection.
• Identity and adaptation: Su Yueli struggles with both her transformed female body and her new life. Her refusal to wear skirts reflects her lingering attachment to her former identity and her practical warrior nature.
• Mortality and meaning: The wish ritual prompts Su Yueli to consider what she will pursue after achieving revenge and living through countless years.

Character Interactions

• Tie Ling’er guides Su Yueli through the city and eagerly shares its customs with her.
• Su Yueli responds to Tie Ling’er’s innocence with unexpected gentleness, particularly when she covers the girl’s mouth to preserve the secrecy of her wish.
• Tie Ling’er treats Su Yueli as a member of her family and insists on buying her new clothing.
• Su Yueli’s reluctance to spend money reveals her poverty, while Tie Ling’er’s quick intervention demonstrates their growing trust and familial bond.

Chapter Summary: “Master’s Past”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli changes into a pale green and white dress at Splendid Embroidery House. Though she feels uncomfortable wearing it, her striking appearance impresses both Tie Ling’er and the shop proprietress.
• While walking through Azure Province City’s night market, Su Yueli asks Tie Ling’er about how her deceased master, Lu Chen, became friends with Tie Ling’er’s father, Tie Tu.
• Tie Ling’er recounts Lu Chen’s tragic past:
  • Lu Chen and Tie Tu once traveled the martial world together and made many enemies.
  • After Lu Chen started a family, he became drunk one night, allowing his enemies to track him home.
  • His entire family was massacred while he was away.
  • Consumed by grief and revenge, Lu Chen trained obsessively.
  • He eventually left a letter for Tie Tu and single-handedly destroyed the household responsible for his family’s deaths, then disappeared.
• Su Yueli realizes that Lu Chen’s long-term abstinence from alcohol was not merely for martial discipline. He avoided wine because drunkenness had caused the loss of his family, and he punished himself for that mistake for twenty-five years.
• Now settled in Azure Province City, Su Yueli decides she must find work rather than depend entirely on Tie Tu’s household. She needs money to investigate Lu Chen’s death and continue pursuing martial cultivation.
• Two arrogant disciples from the rival Mighty Prestige Martial Hall approach Su Yueli and Tie Ling’er. One attempts to flirt with Su Yueli and offers to escort them home, but she coldly orders him to move.
• When he tries to approach her, Su Yueli releases the pressure of her Third Realm cultivation. Terrified, the two men immediately apologize and flee without a fight.
• Tie Ling’er admires Su Yueli’s strength and learns that Azure Province City strictly forbids private fighting, a rule enforced by the City Lord’s Manor.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Gains a deeper understanding of her master’s suffering and regrets. Her grief becomes more reflective as she recognizes the emotional reason behind Lu Chen’s abstinence. She also begins taking responsibility for her future by planning to earn money and investigate his death independently.
• Lu Chen: His past is revealed as one shaped by tragedy, guilt, revenge, and self-punishment. His silence and rejection of alcohol are reinterpreted in light of his family’s murder.
• Tie Ling’er: Shows warmth, curiosity, and admiration toward Su Yueli. She provides crucial information about Lu Chen’s history and explains the city’s laws and martial rivalries.
• Tie Tu: Though absent, he is characterized as Lu Chen’s loyal sworn companion, willing to help him seek revenge despite their broken wedding-day promise.
• Mighty Prestige Martial Hall disciples: Their arrogant and flirtatious behavior is exposed as cowardly when confronted with Su Yueli’s martial presence.

Significant Themes

• Guilt and self-punishment: Lu Chen’s lifelong abstinence from alcohol reflects his inability to forgive himself for the night his family died.
• Grief and revenge: His transformation from family man to relentless martial artist demonstrates how loss can consume a person and redirect their entire life.
• Legacy and remembrance: Su Yueli seeks knowledge of Lu Chen’s past to understand the man who raised her and preserve his memory.
• Independence and responsibility: Su Yueli recognizes that she must support herself while pursuing justice and martial advancement.
• Strength versus intimidation: Su Yueli resolves conflict without violence, using her presence and cultivation to deter harassment.
• Law and social order: The city’s ban on private fighting creates a controlled environment where martial disputes cannot be settled freely in the streets.

Important Character Interactions

• Su Yueli and Tie Ling’er: Tie Ling’er encourages Su Yueli to appreciate her new appearance, shares Lu Chen’s history, and admires her martial strength. Their friendship grows through trust and emotional openness.
• Su Yueli and Lu Chen: Although Lu Chen is absent, Su Yueli’s thoughts reveal her continuing emotional bond with him and her growing understanding of his hidden pain.
• Su Yueli and the Mighty Prestige disciples: Their attempted harassment ends when Su Yueli’s cold authority and Third Realm pressure frighten them away.
• Tie Ling’er and the rival disciples: Their exchange highlights the rivalry between Ironbone Martial Hall and Mighty Prestige Martial Hall, though Tie Ling’er understands that the men are more irritating than genuinely dangerous.

Chapter Summary: “Starting a Business”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli and Tie Ling’er return to Ironbone Martial Hall after the massacre at Blackwind Ridge. Tie Tu, grieving the death of his close friend, drinks alone in the courtyard.
• Traumatized by the bloodshed and her master’s brutal death, Su Yueli cannot sleep. She practices her boxing through the night to calm her turbulent blood and emotions.
• Tie Ling’er secretly watches her and asks to become her student. Su Yueli agrees to teach her a basic breathing technique, though Tie Ling’er struggles with both the exercises and the physical discomfort.
• The next morning, Su Yueli searches Azure Province City for work. She rejects or is rejected by various jobs because they either require heavy labor, submissive service, or pay too little.
• Remembering the fragrance of wine and her knowledge of beer-making, Su Yueli decides to start her own business by producing beer—an unfamiliar product in this cultivation world.
• She buys several pounds of barley from a grain shop, using nearly all her remaining copper coins.
• Zhao Xiu, the young hall master of Mighty Prestige Martial Hall, recognizes her as the woman who defeated or intimidated his hall’s troublesome disciples the previous night. He approaches under the guise of apologizing.
• Su Yueli responds politely but coldly, gives him no opportunity to court or impress her, and walks away. Zhao Xiu is humiliated but becomes intrigued and possessive, viewing her independent attitude as attractive.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Her trauma is evident, but she copes through discipline and martial practice rather than emotional collapse. She shows unexpected patience and kindness toward Tie Ling’er. She also demonstrates initiative and practical intelligence by deciding to create her own source of income instead of accepting unsuitable work.
• Tie Ling’er: Though frightened of her father’s harsh teaching style and lacking natural martial talent, she becomes fascinated by Su Yueli’s strength and elegance. Her request to learn shows admiration and a desire to grow.
• Tie Tu: He remains devastated by his friend’s death, though he begins to regain emotional control after drinking and grieving.
• Zhao Xiu: Initially confident in his social status and charm, he is unsettled when Su Yueli ignores his prestige. His wounded pride transforms into curiosity and possessive interest.

Significant Themes

• Trauma and recovery: Su Yueli’s nightmares and relentless training reveal the psychological cost of violence, while Tie Tu’s drinking shows another form of grief.
• Discipline versus superficial admiration: Tie Ling’er admires the heroic appearance of martial arts, while Su Yueli emphasizes the painful foundation of breath, blood, and qi.
• Independence and self-reliance: Su Yueli refuses work that compromises her dignity or wastes her abilities, choosing entrepreneurship instead.
• Social status versus personal strength: Zhao Xiu expects his identity as a prominent hall master to command respect, but Su Yueli treats him as an ordinary person.
• Gender expectations: Su Yueli rejects jobs requiring her to appear delicate, submissive, or ingratiating, reinforcing her unconventional and strong-willed character.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli and Tie Ling’er: Their relationship begins shifting from acquaintances to teacher and student. Su Yueli’s patience contrasts with Tie Tu’s intimidating teaching style.
• Su Yueli and Tie Tu: Su Yueli offers quiet emotional support to the grieving elder but avoids intruding on his sorrow.
• Su Yueli and Zhao Xiu: Zhao Xiu attempts to use courtesy, status, and apology to attract her attention. Su Yueli remains detached, accepts his apology without encouragement, and leaves him frustrated.
• Zhao Xiu and his disciples: Though absent from the scene, Zhao Xiu claims to have punished the disciples who harassed Su Yueli, using their misconduct as an excuse to initiate contact with her.

Chapter Summary: “Selling Beer”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli spends ten days in the martial hall’s back courtyard experimenting with primitive brewing methods. She sprouts, dries, crushes, and boils barley into wort, then uses a bitter herb as a substitute for hops.
• She successfully produces a fresh, amber-colored beer with white foam and decides to sell it to earn her own money.
• Tie Ling’er practices breathing techniques under Su Yueli’s guidance. Though clumsy and afraid of pain, Ling’er makes modest progress in absorbing qi and blood.
• Su Yueli continues training during the brewing process and advances the fourth fist technique, River Severing, to complete grand mastery.
• Tie Tu tastes the beer and is impressed by its refreshing, mildly bitter flavor. However, the drink reminds him of his deceased friend Lu Chen, creating a brief somber atmosphere.
• Tie Tu initially objects to Su Yueli selling alcohol publicly, offering to support her as his own daughter. Su Yueli insists on becoming financially independent because she must pursue clues about immortal cultivators, the limits of the Martial Dao, and the powerful Azure Cloud Sect.
• Tie Tu tests Su Yueli’s combat ability, suppressing himself to her Third Realm before being forced to release Fifth Realm power after she uses River Severing. Her attack is strong enough to numb his arm despite the difference in realms.
• Tie Tu recognizes that Su Yueli has mastered all four of Lu Chen’s killing techniques and admits he has little left to teach her in fist arts or combat.
• After filling wooden barrels with beer, Su Yueli leaves the martial hall and sets up a stall at Eastern Market to begin selling.

Character Developments

• Su Yueli demonstrates exceptional ingenuity, patience, and self-reliance through brewing. Her successful experiment gives her a practical source of income and greater independence.
• Her martial talent becomes even more evident: she reaches complete grand mastery in River Severing and proves capable of challenging a much stronger opponent through technique and ruthlessness.
• Tie Tu continues to act as a protective father figure toward Su Yueli, offering unconditional support while respecting her determination. His assessment confirms that she has inherited Lu Chen’s formidable fighting style and temperament.
• Tie Ling’er makes slight progress in martial training and develops even greater admiration for Su Yueli after witnessing her fight.
• Tie Tu’s grief for Lu Chen remains present beneath his outward composure, especially when he wishes that his old friend could have tasted Su Yueli’s beer.

Significant Themes

• Independence and self-determination: Su Yueli refuses to depend entirely on Tie Tu and seeks her own financial resources for the dangerous path ahead.
• Talent and mastery: Her rapid advancement highlights her extraordinary martial aptitude and the influence of Lu Chen’s teachings.
• Tradition versus innovation: Su Yueli combines martial precision with practical experimentation to recreate beer without modern equipment.
• Family and emotional support: Though not related by blood, Tie Tu treats Su Yueli as a daughter, while Su Yueli’s relationship with Tie Tu and Ling’er provides warmth and belonging.
• Grief and remembrance: Lu Chen’s absence continues to shape the characters, linking their memories of him to both martial achievement and everyday life.

Character Interactions

• Su Yueli teaches Tie Ling’er breathing techniques while supervising the brewing process.
• Tie Tu and Su Yueli share beer, allowing him to recognize its quality before discussing her plans to sell it.
• Tie Tu warns Su Yueli against appearing publicly as a seller but ultimately accepts her decision.
• Their martial test reveals Su Yueli’s overwhelming offensive style and earns Tie Tu’s astonished respect.
• Tie Ling’er praises Su Yueli and teases her father after witnessing the fight, creating a playful father-daughter moment.
• Tie Tu shyly asks Su Yueli to leave him a barrel of beer, showing both his enthusiasm for the drink and his growing affection for her.

Chapter Summary

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Su Yueli begins selling her newly brewed beer at a street corner for ten copper coins per bowl. Its refreshing taste quickly attracts customers, and she sells out within half an hour.
• A polite young cultivator from the Crimson Flame Sect arrives. Unlike the arrogant cultivators Su Yueli has encountered or heard about, he respects the rules, waits in line, and treats the mortals courteously.
• Impressed by the beer, the cultivator buys the entire remaining stock, paying fifty taels of silver as a deposit for approximately fifty barrels to be brewed over the next seven days. He also demonstrates the use of a storage treasure by making the empty barrel disappear before flying away on his sword.
• Zhao Xiu, the young hall master of Mighty Prestige Martial Hall, arrives too late to buy any beer. Su Yueli accepts his deposit for the next batch, bringing her total earnings to nearly one hundred taels of silver.
• With her new capital, Su Yueli purchases over a thousand jin of barley and medicinal herbs and hires workers to transport them to Ironbone Martial Hall.
• Over the following week, she oversees the fermentation process while continuing her martial training. Tie Ling’er steadily practices her breathing technique, and the martial apprentices remain secretly fascinated by Su Yueli’s beauty and strength.
• After seven days, the new batch of beer is successfully fermented and ready for delivery.
• That night, Tie Ling’er unexpectedly enters Su Yueli’s room and cheerfully announces that she wants to sleep with her, leaving Su Yueli startled and uncomfortable.

2. Character Developments

• Su Yueli: Demonstrates strong business sense, quickly recognizing the popularity and profitability of her beer. She becomes more financially independent and begins considering how to use her business connections to learn about the cultivation world. Her continued martial practice reinforces her discipline and growing strength. Despite her composed exterior, she is easily flustered by Tie Ling’er’s unexpected intimacy.
• The Crimson Flame Sect disciple: Is introduced as a courteous and practical cultivator. His willingness to line up with mortals challenges Su Yueli’s assumptions about immortal sect disciples and makes him someone she may be able to trust as a source of information.
• Zhao Xiu: Shows clear interest in Su Yueli and her beer, but also proves himself willing to conduct business directly and pay in advance. His enthusiasm and possible personal intentions remain ambiguous.
• Tie Ling’er: Continues making slow but meaningful progress in cultivation and no longer suffers as severely during practice. Her playful, affectionate behavior toward Su Yueli becomes more pronounced in the final scene.
• The martial apprentices: View Su Yueli with a mixture of admiration, attraction, and fear because of her exceptional beauty and overwhelming martial ability.

3. Significant Themes

• The divide between mortals and cultivators: Cultivators and martial artists occupy a world largely inaccessible to ordinary people. Su Yueli recognizes that information and resources are controlled by this divide.
• Commerce as a bridge between worlds: Beer, an ordinary mortal product, allows Su Yueli to gain wealth and potentially establish contact with cultivators.
• Prejudice versus individual character: Su Yueli expects cultivators to be arrogant and cruel, but the Crimson Flame disciple’s courtesy complicates her view of the cultivation world.
• Self-reliance and opportunity: Su Yueli uses her skills, labor, and business instincts to build wealth rather than depending solely on martial power.
• Affection and boundaries: Tie Ling’er’s innocent desire for closeness contrasts with Su Yueli’s insistence that men and women should maintain proper distance, creating a light comedic tension.

4. Character Interactions

• Su Yueli and the Crimson Flame disciple: Their exchange is respectful and businesslike. He praises her beer, purchases the remaining stock, and leaves a favorable impression that encourages her to question him later about cultivation.
• Su Yueli and Zhao Xiu: Zhao Xiu attempts to secure future supplies and openly offers to pay. Su Yueli responds pragmatically, accepting his deposit without engaging with his implied personal interest.
• Su Yueli and Tie Ling’er: Their relationship is affectionate but unevenly expressed. Tie Ling’er treats Su Yueli with childlike familiarity, while Su Yueli, though caring, becomes embarrassed and wary when Tie Ling’er climbs into her bed.
• Su Yueli and the martial apprentices: Their interactions are mostly indirect; the apprentices admire her from a distance but are too intimidated by her strength to approach her romantically.