Recaps

Jiang Jingnian asked Elder Lei to describe the factions gathered near the Baobai Mountain Ruins, including three forces with Half-Step Grandmasters. After Jiang Jingnian dismissed Yun Yuanchi as no threat, the others wondered whether powerful Dao Lords were backing him, while Elder Lan grew more fearful and resentful.

• Jiang Jingnian asked Elder Lei to report how many Regional Domain-level Factions had gathered around Baobai Mountain, and Lei Chengshu described the forces and the war spreading across nearby prefectures.
• Elder Lei identified Yun Yuanchi of Panshan Martial Academy, ranked twentieth on the Heavenly Prodigy Ranking, as the Half-Step Grandmaster they needed to watch most closely because of his faction's conflict with Jiang Jingnian.
• Jiang Jingnian said he had acted against the Qian Household and Panshan Martial Academy to protect his relatives, then declared that Yun Yuanchi would die if he came for him.
• Hong Yufang and the others wondered whether Jiang Jingnian had the backing of one or more Dao Lords, and Elder Lei and Elder Lan grew increasingly nervous.
• Elder Lan feared Jiang Jingnian would use the Mysterious Mountain Dao Lineage as cannon fodder and silently resolved to betray him.

Jiang Jingnian followed a Miao Borderlands gu insect to a meeting with A-Lin and the Corpse Venom Sect, refusing their offer to join forces and returning to camp. Three days later, Westerners led by Lord Philo arrived at the black lake, where a knight killed a Chen State martial artist before Philo entered the Gou Wu Ruins.

• Jiang Jingnian destroyed a gu insect, followed its strange fragrance into the forest, and met A-Lin and other Corpse Venom Sect experts by a stream.
• A-Lin offered Jiang Jingnian an alliance against the Qian Household and Panshan Martial Academy, but he demanded Yun Yuanchi's head and then left.
• A-Lin stopped her followers from attacking Jiang Jingnian and planned to exploit the conflict around the Gou Wu Ruins.
• Jiang Jingnian returned to camp, considered whether the Miao Borderlands Demon Sect and Panshan Martial Academy were baiting their enemies, and fell asleep on his rope.
• Three days later, a Western expedition party arrived at the black lake, and a knight killed a Chen State martial artist who mocked them.
• Lord Philo dismissed the incident and leapt into the black lake.

Foreign nobles opened the Gou Wu Ruins with the Sky-Crow Heartbright Jade, transforming the Black Lake and scattering entrants throughout the changing ruins. Jiang Jingnian was separated from his companions and, after hearing Eastern Wu raiders threaten Chen State martial artists, went to investigate.

• Yun Yuanchi recognized Lord Philo and the foreign force as a serious threat, while foreign nobles demanded that local factions limit their entrants and surrender thirty percent of their gains.
• Lord Philo used the Sky-Crow Heartbright Jade to open a silver path among the terracotta soldiers, and the Black Lake turned golden as the ruins changed.
• Hong Yufang led the Mountain Cloud School into the Golden Lake after Protector Wen confirmed that people could still enter and leave, and Jiang Jingnian followed.
• The fully unsealed ruins shifted, leaving Jiang Jingnian alone beside a bamboo grove with no matching map or visible companions.
• Jiang Jingnian heard Eastern Wu raiders threaten Chen State martial artists and women, recognized their language as Japanese, and headed toward the fighting.

Jiang Jingnian rescued Qu Chuanheng, Chen Qinghua, and two disciples from Japanese swordsmen in the Gou Wu Ruins. He offered to protect Qu Chuanheng from the forces using him as bait, then threatened the survivors into keeping their plans secret.

• Qu Chuanheng and two disciples struggled against the Japanese swordsman Kimura while Yamashita Kuro and Miyazaki Shigeo poisoned and overwhelmed Chen Qinghua.
• Jiang Jingnian arrived and killed Kimura with a palm strike and blue fire, drained the elderly Yamashita Kuro with his Life-Shortening Age-Stealing trait, and burned Miyazaki Shigeo to death.
• Jiang Jingnian gave Qu Chuanheng and the disciples Azure Jade Pills, then forced pills into Chen Qinghua and used True Fire Within Wood to restore her clarity.
• Jiang Jingnian suspected the Qian Household had arranged for Severing Blade Dock to send Qu Chuanheng into danger, and offered to keep him safe in the ruins.
• Jiang Jingnian placed healing flames in the survivors’ Cinnabar Fields and falsely warned that speaking recklessly would make the flames kill them.

After Jiang Jingnian’s group recovered a coastal defense map from slain Japanese swordsmen, he warned that Chen State’s internal divisions left it vulnerable to foreign powers. Elsewhere in the Gou Wu Ruins, Lord Philo pursued the tomb’s lingering spirituality, and a shifting landscape placed Jiang Jingnian directly in Elder Lan’s path.

• Qu Chuanheng searched the Japanese swordsmen’s bodies and found a Dongjiang Prefecture Coastal Defense Map, which Jiang Jingnian examined for signs of foreign involvement.
• Jiang Jingnian dismissed the map’s implications as beyond his control, while Qu Chuanheng vowed to kill any Japanese experts he encountered.
• Elder Lan joined forces with Guard-One Pavilion and headed toward the palace complex, insisting that their combined strength would let them kill Jiang Jingnian.
• Lord Philo entered the ruined palace with a musket squad, seeking Sky Crow’s lingering spirituality and hoping to advance along the Path of Legend.
• The Gou Wu Ruins shifted and brought Jiang Jingnian’s group near the Golden Crow Phantom, then placed him face-to-face with Elder Lan and his allies.

Jiang Jingnian was surrounded by Mysterious Mountain Dao Lineage elders and Guard-One Pavilion experts, who expected to kill him in the Gou Wu Ruins. He slaughtered their forces, including a Half-Step Grandmaster, and the chapter ended with Chen Qinghua and Qu Chuanheng stunned by the scale of his swordsmanship.

• Lan Tingbai and the Mysterious Mountain group confronted Jiang Jingnian, while He Zhinian of the Guard-One Pavilion suppressed his companions with his Martial Soul.
• Jiang Jingnian drew his sword and killed He Zhinian with one strike, then used his traits and True Fire Within Wood to kill Lan Tingbai and numerous other attackers.
• Xie Miao and the remaining Mysterious Mountain disciples panicked as Jiang Jingnian cut down their allies and pursued those who fled.
• Jiang Jingnian caught Lei Chengshu, refused his offer of wealth and service, and killed him after destroying his Mudball Palace aperture.
• Chen Qinghua and Qu Chuanheng examined He Zhinian’s body and marveled that Jiang Jingnian had killed a Half-Step Grandmaster with a single sword strike.

Jiang Jingnian killed the Mysterious Mountain Dao Lineage’s attackers, strengthened his cultivation, and considered retaliating against their lineage after leaving Gou Wu Ruins. Elsewhere, Tao Xiangsheng attacked Mountain Cloud School disciples, foreign and local forces clashed over the Sky Crow Feather, and three Grandmasters watched the ritual unfold.

• Jiang Jingnian refined two special items, raising his Inner Qi Realm progress to 77% and increasing his Inner Qi Crystals to thirty-five.
• Qu Chuanheng gave Jiang Jingnian the spoils from the corpses, and Jiang Jingnian learned that Guard-One Pavilion came from Nanwan Prefecture before deciding to settle accounts with the Mysterious Mountain Dao Lineage.
• Tao Xiangsheng left a side room after finding no clues to the True Record, while Xue Xiuxiu emerged from her Ironstone Puppet disguise and continued searching.
• Tao Xiangsheng killed the Wa swordsmen fighting Hong Yufang and demanded the golden jade she had found before revealing he belonged to the Dou'a Sect.
• Lord Philo ordered his guards to use a portable cannon as foreign forces battled local martial artists over the Sky Crow Feather, while Yun Yuanchi suffered a corrupted mutation from a Western weapon.
• A black force descended into the crater, killing weaker fighters and making the Sky Crow Phantom more solid, as three Grandmasters discussed who would claim the Sky Crow Legacy.

Yun Fengyou killed A Hekai and used the completed Sky Crow Ritual to attempt to advance to Martial Celestial, while Jiang Jingnian strengthened his inner qi by refining the phantom sun’s influence. As Jiang Jingnian led Qu Chuanheng and the others toward an exit, they ran into fleeing foreign nobles.

• Chen Wenyu offered Xu Xuanchong and A Hekai two dark gold veins for the Sky Crow Feather, but both refused, and Xu Xuanchong blocked her from intervening when A Hekai attacked Yun Yuanchi.
• Yun Fengyou arrived and revealed that Yun Yuanchi had served as bait to lure A Hekai into an ambush; Qian Baosan then trapped A Hekai, and Yun Fengyou killed him with a Solar Divine Art.
• A Hekai’s death completed the Sky Crow Ritual, and Yun Fengyou used the Sky Crow Feather to shift from the Solar Yang path toward Metal Virtue and attempt to become a Martial Celestial.
• Jiang Jingnian refined his spoils as the phantom sun accelerated his inner qi growth from thirty-five crystals to forty-five, then decided to leave the ruins because Yun Fengyou might succeed.
• Jiang Jingnian led Qu Chuanheng and the others toward an exit passage, but they encountered several foreign nobles fleeing from the palace complex.

Jiang Jingnian tried to escape the relic’s spreading Metal Virtue, but Qian Zhenghong joined forces with Jason Beaufort and his Western attendants to ambush him. After Jiang Jingnian killed several attackers, Qian Zhenghong trapped him in a Golden Stone Cage and threatened his family, just as Jiang Jingnian unleashed Mind Plague.

• Jiang Jingnian abandoned the chance to attack the Westerners and carried Qu Chuanheng away while searching for an exit from the relic.
• Qian Zhenghong met Jason Beaufort and offered to let him test his spiritual secret art on Jiang Jingnian, then led the group to ambush him.
• Jason’s attendants and Karenna attacked Jiang Jingnian with Silverlight Bullets and Mind Silver Arrow, but he resisted the spiritual attack and killed Karenna and several knights.
• Qian Zhenghong used a Golden Stone Cage to imprison Jiang Jingnian and threatened to purge his relatives and friends.
• Jiang Jingnian activated Mind Plague, causing its first lotus petal to explode within Qian Zhenghong’s eyes.

Jiang Jingnian escaped Qian Zhenghong’s Treasure-Dropping Cage, killed Qian Zhenghong and the fleeing Qian Household fighters, then set off with Chen Qinghua and Qu Chuanheng as the Gou Wu Ruins continued turning to gold. At the ruins’ core, Yun Fengyou’s transformation toward becoming a Metal-Virtue Celestial neared a crucial stage, but a solar phantom suddenly lit up in the west.

• Qian Zhenghong trapped Jiang Jingnian in the Golden Stone Cage, but Jason fled after the Qian Household was struck by the Impure Lotus’s Mental Pollution.
• Jiang Jingnian smashed through the cage, ambushed Qian Zhenghong from behind, killed him, and pursued the fleeing Qian Household members.
• Jiang Jingnian killed the Qian Household fighters, returned with spoils, and found Chen Qinghua and Qu Chuanheng near the withered forest.
• Jiang Jingnian told Qu Chuanheng to have the Qu Household support him and the Mountain Cloud School, then stressed the need to become strong enough to survive.
• At the core of the Gou Wu Ruins, Yun Fengyou’s Sky Crow Phantom began descending toward the half-formed Halt-War Gold as the Grandmasters watched.
• Just as Qian Baosan anticipated Yun Fengyou completing the next stage of his transformation, the solar phantom lit up again in the west.

The Sky-Crow Heartbright Jade transformed Yun Fengyou’s breakthrough into the birth of the blood-red [Misty Sun Sword], driving Grandmasters into violent frenzy across the Gou Wu Ruins. As the ruins began to collapse, Jiang Jingnian escaped with Chen Qinghua and Qu Chuanheng, while Lord Philo left believing the disaster would strengthen the Aofei Duchy’s control.

• The Sky-Crow Heartbright Jade resonated with the phantom sun, and Yun Fengyou’s Sky Crow and Halt-War Gold mutated into the blood-red [Misty Sun Sword].
• Chen Wenyu warned the Grandmasters that the sword magnified their inner darkness, but Qian Baosan attacked her after its influence overcame him.
• Xu Xuanchong fled the fighting, then became consumed by greed for the gold-foil clue and leaped into the chaotic battle among the Grandmasters.
• Lord Philo led his surviving men out of the ruins and anticipated using the casualties to tighten the Aofei Duchy’s hold over Peace City.
• Jiang Jingnian dragged the frenzied Chen Qinghua and Qu Chuanheng through the exit, knocked them unconscious outside Golden Lake, and carried them away.
• More experts escaped as Golden Lake collapsed inward toward its center an hour later.

After escaping the Gou Wu Ruins, Jiang Jingnian tracked down Jason and his Western Ocean companions, killed them, and survived Jason’s deadly spiritual trump card. He then discovered that two map fragments held the Sky Crow Golden Canon, devoured them, and witnessed a vision of a colossal Sky Crow being swallowed by an abyssal maw.

• Jiang Jingnian sensed Jason’s Western Ocean perfume across the Yunsong River and left two unconscious companions protected beside the bank.
• Jiang Jingnian ambushed Jason’s group, killed a guardian knight, and pursued the fleeing Westerners as they tried to shield Jason.
• Jiang Jingnian killed the remaining knights and struck Jason, but Jason’s ring unleashed a sure-hit spiritual secret art that contaminated Jiang Jingnian’s eyes.
• Jiang Jingnian gouged out his infected eyes, burned away the contamination, healed, and searched the bodies for spoils.
• Jiang Jingnian identified two map fragments as pieces of the Sky Crow Golden Canon, learned of their bloodline-based dangers, and devoured them.
• Jiang Jingnian witnessed a vision of a giant Sky Crow being devoured by an abyssal maw and awoke with a faint golden glow around his hands.

Jiang Jingnian fused a True Record fragment, gaining Metal Virtue essence, a greatly strengthened technique, and the Indestructible Golden-Flame Body. After returning to Peace City with Qu Chuanheng and Chen Qinghua, he left Qu Chuanheng to report the ruins’ events to his family, while Du Haichen returned to Cloudpool Cliff with Bai Wuming’s broken Demon Blade and received Xie Wuchen’s favor.

• Jiang Jingnian absorbed the True Record fragment, extending his lifespan and transforming his cultivation into the Sky-Metal Western Extremity Five-Chapter True Canon.
• Jiang Jingnian demonstrated his Indestructible Golden-Flame Body, discovered his strength had surged, and recognized that his spiritual defenses still lagged behind.
• Jiang Jingnian returned across the river and told Qu Chuanheng and Chen Qinghua that he had dealt with the foreigners; both became convinced of his extraordinary power.
• Qu Chuanheng returned to the Qu Household ancestral residence and recounted the ruins’ events to Qu Beijiang and Qu Yingshui, urging his father to stop probing Jiang Jingnian.
• Du Haichen presented Xie Wuchen with Bai Wuming’s damaged Three-Corpse Yin Talisman Blade, and Xie Wuchen told him to cleanse and reforge it.
• Xie Wuchen praised Du Haichen’s achievements and hinted that he would elevate him to a standing comparable to Xie Shanhai, who he said could not bear the sect’s future responsibilities.

Jiang Jingnian returned from the Gou Wu Ruins, reported the events to Xie Wuchen, and received Merit Points that he spent on supplies. After reuniting with Duan Xiaodie, he prepared to simplify the Advancement Ritual required to reach the Late Inner Qi Realm, whose original method demanded that he die in a grave and form three yin fires.

• Xie Wuchen learned that Jiang Jingnian had returned before Zhou and summoned him after Du Haichen also came back to Cloudpool Cliff.
• Du Haichen learned that Jiang Jingnian had become a True Disciple and that Liu Qingzhi had taken Jiang as her Dao companion, then concealed his disappointment and left.
• Jiang Jingnian reported the ruins and the deaths of Elder Lan and others to Xie Wuchen, who verified his account with the Discipline Profound Mirror and noted Jiang’s withering Life Essence.
• Jiang Jingnian collected his mission rewards and spent nearly all his Merit Points buying assorted items at Life Bloom Hall.
• Jiang Jingnian reunited with Duan Xiaodie, then began preparing the simplified ritual to advance from the completed Mid Inner Qi Realm.
• Jiang Jingnian reviewed the original Advancement Ritual, which required him to lie in a grave, extinguish his vitality, and form the Wood Corpse, Earth Corpse, and Metal Corpse through three yin fires.

Jiang Jingnian simplified the deadly ritual for advancing to the Late Inner Qi Realm, reducing it to burning two Great Sinners with True Fire Within Wood, and planned to use the requirement to lure out enemies. After learning that Liu Qingzhi was missing and encountering Du Haichen, he sensed she was safe, while Xie Wuchen and Xie Shanhai discussed Jiang Jingnian as a useful but expendable pathfinder.

• Jiang Jingnian spent his remaining special items and Merit Points to simplify the advancement ritual, which now required him to burn two Bodies of Great Sin and complete the remaining True Fires.
• Jiang Jingnian decided to hunt two demonic fiends, using the ritual as bait to draw out hidden enemies and replenish his supplies.
• Jiang Jingnian shared a quiet meal with Duan Xiaodie and encouraged her to use the medicinal ingredients he had given her.
• At Phosphorfire Hall, Jiang Jingnian learned that Senior Sister Hong and the others had not returned from the Gou Wu Ruins, then Du Haichen told him Liu Qingzhi had gone missing and criticized his standing beside her.
• Jiang Jingnian sensed that Liu Qingzhi was safe and likely hunting Bai Xuerou, then set out to deal with the Lotus Intent Sect’s demons.
• Xie Wuchen dismissed the need to investigate Jiang Jingnian and told Xie Shanhai that the sect could use him as a pathfinder, while Xie Shanhai privately doubted how long Jiang would survive.

Qu Lanlan struggled with regret over the rickshaw puller she had once dismissed, then unknowingly awakened a sinister aspect of the Qu Household’s Moon-Calling Form-Shifting True Art. Meanwhile, Qu Chuanheng resolved to stand by Jiang Jingnian as Severing Blade Dock and the Red Gang pressured the Qu Household, and Jiang Jingnian arrived at the reception hall.

• Qu Lanlan remembered the honest rickshaw puller and regretted how she had treated him while reading sensational news about Jiang Jingnian.
• Qu Lanlan studied the Moon-Calling Form-Shifting Martial Master Guide, whose hidden moonlight markings filled her with killing intent until a commotion outside snapped her out of it.
• Qu Chuanheng learned that Hall Master Shen of the Red Gang and Senior Sister Zeng Mingyu had come to demand his shop deeds, but he resolved to remain loyal to Jiang Jingnian.
• Qu Yingshui received Zeng Mingyu and Hall Master Shen, who threatened Qu Chuanheng and criticized his association with people they called mud-legged peasants.
• Qu Chuanheng entered the reception hall, and Jiang Jingnian announced his arrival as a Burning Cloud True Disciple of the Mountain Cloud School.

Jiang Jingnian went to the Qu Household after learning that Qu Chuanheng was under pressure from the Red Gang and Severing Blade Dock, intending to use the conflict as part of his plans to gather special items and clear away enemies. He entered the reception hall and ordered everyone there to leave before he counted to three.

• Jiang Jingnian inspected his flour mill and considered the threats posed by several powerful Peace City families before deciding to visit the Qu Household.
• Jiang Jingnian accepted Qu Chuanheng’s plea for help and went to the Qu Household to broaden his channels for obtaining special items.
• Zeng Mingyu, Hall Master Shen, and Red Gang experts confronted Qu Chuanheng over his properties while the Qu Household failed to protect him.
• Qu Chuanheng explained to Jiang Jingnian that the Red Gang and Severing Blade Dock were demanding his properties and might later target the whole Qu Household.
• Jiang Jingnian entered the reception hall, dismissed the Red Gang members’ introductions, and ordered everyone to leave or die.

Jiang Jingnian attacked the Red Gang and Zeng Mingyu after they dismissed his warning, overwhelming them in the Qu Household reception hall. Zeng Mingyu unleashed her ultimate blade technique and escaped amid the destruction, while Qu Chuanheng found Jiang Jingnian standing in the ruins.

• Jiang Jingnian counted down before attacking the Red Gang experts, killing the Blueflower Deacon and the maid with a thrown head.
• Jiang Jingnian burned Zeng Mingyu’s broad saber, kicked her through the hall wall, and beat Shen Tianxiong despite his Nether Poison and protective treasure.
• Jiang Jingnian dragged back two fleeing Red Gang experts and pounded them into the floor before blocking Zeng Mingyu’s attempt to retrieve her blade.
• Zeng Mingyu used her Silver-Adorned Narrow Blade and Jade Cloud Shatter, turning the reception hall to jade and destroying it.
• Qu Chuanheng and Qu Yingshui watched from a neighboring courtyard as golden flames erupted and a white blade-thread escaped; Qu Chuanheng then found Jiang Jingnian amid the ruins.

Jiang Jingnian defeated Zeng Mingyu and secured the Mingyu Blade, then strengthened his ties with the declining Qu Household. After Qu Lanlan approached him and he rejected her, he prepared to refine the blade and its Cold Jade Flowing Shadow trait.

• Jiang Jingnian stopped Zeng Mingyu from escaping, but her Grandmaster-backed trump card let her vanish after marking him with jade-colored contamination that he began purifying.
• Jiang Jingnian kept the Mingyu Blade, scorched its spiritual nature, and resolved to refine it somewhere secluded.
• Qu Chuanheng thanked Jiang Jingnian, offered him property deeds and treasures, and pledged the Qu Household's support; Jiang Jingnian promised to protect the family.
• Qu Beijiang and the Qu Household elders welcomed Jiang Jingnian, while he showed respect to Qu Yuzhi and entered the household with him.
• At the banquet, the Qu Household showered Jiang Jingnian with gifts and arranged for Qu Xiangxiang, Qu Ke, and Qu Yingshui to attend him; afterward, Jiang Jingnian coldly told Qu Lanlan to get lost when she approached him.
• Jiang Jingnian examined the Mingyu Blade's Cold Jade Flowing Shadow trait and began tempering it with Wood Fire so he could devour and refine it.

Jiang Jingnian tempered and devoured the Mingyu Blade, awakening the enhanced [Inexpressible Nobility] trait and cleansing the pollution in his palm. After leaving the Qu Household, he went to the Qian Family estate to collect a debt, while the Zeng Family contained Zeng Mingyu after she went mad from cultivation.

• Jiang Jingnian burned and tempered the Mingyu Blade, then devoured it and witnessed a vision of Duke Cold Jade's fall.
• Jiang Jingnian fused Cold Jade Flowing Shadow into [The Nobleman Is Like Jade], creating [Inexpressible Nobility], which rapidly erased the True Astral Force pollution in his palm.
• Zeng Mingyu broke into the Zeng Family estate and attacked two clansmen before Zeng Qiuqing subdued her, healed the injured men, and ordered them to keep the incident secret.
• Jiang Jingnian accepted the Qu Household's gifts, including the Bright Flame Flower, and left to pursue his plans.
• Jiang Jingnian arrived at the Qian Family estate to collect a debt as the Qian Household discussed its recent setbacks.

Jiang Jingnian visited the Qian Household to demand repayment, while its members suspected he was being used as a vanguard in the Mountain Cloud School’s plans. When the negotiations turned hostile, he overpowered the household’s younger members, and Qian Kai arrived to offer a settlement.

• Qian Wanli, Qian Qixing, and Qian Yingrong reasoned that Jiang Jingnian might be a decoy for the Mountain Cloud School and that Xie Shanhai was the likely power behind him.
• Qian Xinyu escorted Jiang Jingnian to a side hall, where he demanded thirteen thousand silver dollars and several antiques as repayment for money he said he had lent the Qu Household’s Fifth Branch.
• When Qian Household juniors challenged Jiang Jingnian, he knocked them down and forced them to kowtow, then repelled the guards who rushed to help.
• Qian Xinyu prepared to use a Gold-Jade Gourd capable of unleashing part of a Grandmaster’s power, but Jiang Jingnian continued assaulting the juniors as he waited to draw out the household’s elders.
• Qian Kai arrived with Qian Wanli and offered Jiang Jingnian five thousand silver dollars, then praised him and identified himself as Qian Xinyu and Qian Ningning’s father.

Jiang Jingnian negotiated a payout from the Qian Household after their confrontation, while the Qian clan discussed the Mountain Cloud School’s plans and the threat posed by Xie Shanhai. The chapter ended with Chen Tang learning that Jiang Jingnian had arrived near the Snowgate Grand Theater.

• Qian Kai offered Jiang Jingnian five thousand silver dollars and three antique secret treasures to settle the conflict, and Jiang Jingnian bargained for seven treasures.
• Jiang Jingnian accepted the payment and left the Qian Household estate with his winnings.
• Qian Xinyu warned Qian Wanli and the others that Xie Shanhai’s rise to Grandmaster could transform the Mountain Cloud School and alarm its rivals.
• Chen Tang watched an opera at the Snowgate Grand Theater while thinking about Shen Tianxiong’s death and his lost goods.
• A-Bing told Chen Tang that Jiang Jingnian had arrived in the area.

Chen Tang refused to flee when Jiang Jingnian arrived at Snowgate Grand Theater, while Qi Yin discussed the Dou'a Sect’s losses and suspicions in a private room. Jiang Jingnian stormed the theater to hunt a fiendish cultivator, confronted the Red Gang, and then advanced toward Li Xuanming’s private room.

• Chen Tang rebuked A-Bing for urging him to hide and ordered his subordinates to alert the theater’s overseers and guests that Jiang Jingnian had arrived.
• Qi Yin reviewed the Dou'a Sect’s setbacks with Lin Feng, questioned the Tao Family and Xu Family, and sent Lin Feng to investigate.
• Lin Feng left through the theater’s back door as an explosion blasted open the main entrance, revealing Jiang Jingnian among the fallen guards.
• Jiang Jingnian declared that he had come to hunt a fiendish cultivator and brushed aside Hall Master Xie Huaiyi and Hall Master Han Nanrong when they tried to stop him.
• Li Xuanming insulted Jiang Jingnian from a second-floor private room, and Jiang Jingnian called the Li Family foreign dogs before heading up the stairs toward him.

Jiang Jingnian fought his way through the Snowgate Grand Theater, defeating several martial experts and revealing strength far beyond what his enemies expected. After killing Li Xuanming and two foreign knights, he left the theater in ruins, while the larger forces behind the conflict remained hidden.

• Yu Sishan and Li Chuanzhong confronted Jiang Jingnian at the theater, and Li Chuanzhong attacked him with the Three-Bitter Heart-Drowning technique.
• Jiang Jingnian defeated Li Chuanzhong and fought Yu Sishan, Hall Master Xie, and Han Nanrong, severely wounding them and damaging the theater.
• Jiang Jingnian refused to stop investigating the demonic fiends and pursued Li Xuanming as he tried to escape with two foreign knights.
• Jiang Jingnian killed Li Xuanming despite the knights' intervention, then fought the two Fifth-Tier Knights after they activated their legion-granted armor.
• Jiang Jingnian unleashed Gold Flame, overcame the knights' light and shadow attacks, and burned both foreign knights to death.

Jiang Jingnian killed the Li Family’s foreign protectors, then tracked the demoness Yin Qingzhu to a theater box and fought her through her poisons and illusions. He answered her ultimate move, Spring Blossoms in a Dream, with a Gold Flame strike as their battle escalated.

• Jiang Jingnian reflected on the foreign nobles’ use of local families as proxies, cleansed the pollution from his body, and used a broken wooden hairpin to locate a demoness in the theater.
• Jiang Jingnian broke into Liu Yuanwu’s private box, knocked out the old man in black, and blasted the bewitched Liu Yuanwu into the seating below.
• The dancer revealed herself as Yin Qingzhu of the Harmonious Joy Sect, and Jiang Jingnian accused her of killing people across several provinces.
• Yin Qingzhu attacked Jiang Jingnian with poisons, contaminations, and the Phantom Passion Spear, but his Wood Fire and fists countered her techniques.
• Yin Qingzhu unleashed her ultimate move, Spring Blossoms in a Dream, and Jiang Jingnian fought through illusions of Duan Xiaodie and Liu Qingzhi before striking with Gold Flame.