Chapter Summaries

After collecting the Wang Household’s reward, Yu Chen discovered that his Heavenly Eye of Minute Insight could reveal people’s weaknesses. On his way back to Qingfeng Mausoleum, he spotted a trace of vital blood beneath the Weishui and heard a ghostly voice rise from the river.

• Xie Qing waited in the old Zhengqing Gang loft with the reward chest and wondered how Yu Chen had known about the private discount.
• Yu Chen appeared beside Xie Qing undetected, testing the Heavenly Eye and discovering that it revealed Xie Qing’s meridians, vital blood, and weak points.
• Yu Chen took the chest, realizing Xie Qing had added silver beyond the promised hundred taels.
• Yu Chen examined the Zhengqing Gang martial artists with his Heavenly Eye, then left town and followed the Weishui toward Qingfeng Mausoleum.
• Yu Chen noticed faint vital blood beneath the frozen river, and a pale, water-soaked ghost appeared as a resentful voice lamented its fate.

Yu Chen brought the river ghost Jiang Sanyu back to Qingfeng Mausoleum and learned that Jiang Sanyu had been murdered by his adulterous wife and her lover. The chapter ended with Yu Chen discovering how the frozen Weishui River and his chance encounter had disrupted their attempt to conceal the crime.

• Yu Chen brought the shivering river ghost into his hut, drew its soul into the Scripture of Deliverance, and counted the two hundred taels Xie Qing had given him.
• The Scripture of Deliverance revealed a wish to bring a criminal to justice within ten days, and Yu Chen learned the ghost was Jiang Hui, known as the cook Jiang Sanyu.
• Jiang Sanyu had married a tavern girl, but she began an affair with a wastrel and kept her husband unaware of their betrayal.
• After Jiang Sanyu caught them together and forgave his wife, the pair drugged him, let him witness their affair, and threw him into the Weishui River.
• The river froze overnight, preventing Jiang Sanyu's body from drifting away, while Yu Chen happened to cross the river as Jiang Sanyu drowned.

After learning Jiang Sanyu’s final wish, Yu Chen sent his ghost to tell Constable Lin Yi where his body lay and how he had been murdered. Lin Yi followed the ghost’s account to the frozen river and found a corpse in his net.

• Yu Chen watched Jiang Sanyu’s life reel, learned that his wife and her lover had murdered him, and resolved to help expose them.
• Yu Chen sent Jiang Sanyu’s ghost to visit Lin Yi, a disillusioned constable who had been drinking alone.
• Jiang Sanyu told Lin Yi that he had been drugged and thrown into the Linshui River by his wife and her lover.
• The next morning, Lin Yi remembered the dream and went to the riverbank with two boatmen to search for the body.
• Lin Yi and the boatmen broke through the ice, dragged up a net, and found a dead man inside.

Constable Lin Yi solved Jiang Sanyu’s murder after Yu Chen used a paper figure to reveal the crime, and the adulterous pair were executed. Jiang Sanyu’s final wish was fulfilled, allowing his ghost to cross the Yellow Springs, while Yu Chen gained strength from a golden pill.

• Lin Yi found Jiang Sanyu’s body in the river and arrested Jiang Sanyu’s wife and her lover after uncovering evidence of their murder.
• The pair confessed to drugging Jiang Sanyu and throwing him into the river, and the court sentenced them to beheading.
• Stories spread that Jiang Sanyu’s ghost had appeared in Lin Yi’s dream, earning Lin Yi the nickname Dream-Sleeping Constable.
• Yu Chen revealed that he had used a paper figure to pose as Jiang Sanyu’s ghost and tell Lin Yi what he had learned from the carousel of memories.
• After the pair were executed, Jiang Sanyu’s final wish disappeared, and he crossed the Yellow Springs as Yu Chen received and swallowed a Strengthen the Foundation and Cultivate the Origin pill.
• A yamen clerk buried the pair’s bodies at Qingfeng Mausoleum, and Yu Chen reflected on the destruction of Jiang Sanyu’s Household.

After discovering that the tavern woman’s unfulfilled wish was revenge on Constable Lin Yi, Yu Chen refused to kill him because the constable had lawfully punished her for murder. Refusing the wish brought no penalty, and Yu Chen realized that he—not the Scripture of Deliverance—decided whether to fulfill the dead’s wishes.

• The tavern woman’s ghost entered the Scripture of Deliverance, which revealed that she wanted revenge on Constable Lin Yi for exposing her and her lover’s murder of Jiang Sanyu.
• Yu Chen considered killing Lin Yi but rejected the wish because Lin Yi had only enforced the law and the tavern woman showed no remorse.
• Yu Chen refused the wish, and the tavern woman’s ghost vanished without the scripture punishing him.
• Yu Chen realized that he could choose whether to use the Scripture of Deliverance and was not its tool or puppet.

Yu Chen remembered his parents’ mysterious execution and discovered that the Corpse Mover possessed astonishing blood and vitality, likely making him an Innate Realm grandmaster. He joined the Corpse Mover at the Wang Household’s public tiger feast, where a gaunt old man reacted to Yu Chen with terror.

• Yu Chen recalled his parents’ graves, their execution, and the letter warning him not to investigate their past.
• The Corpse Mover brought Yu Chen a bucket of black dog’s blood and told him about the public tiger feast.
• Yu Chen used the Heavenly Eye of Minute Insight to see that the Corpse Mover had extraordinary blood and vitality and was likely an Innate Realm grandmaster.
• The Corpse Mover led Yu Chen down to Skybridge Street, where the Wang Household served tiger meat to the city’s residents.
• At the feast, Yu Chen noticed a gaunt old man staring at him, and the old man looked horrified when their eyes met.

Yu Chen learned that Deadmouth had been an honest, renowned coroner before witnessing the old man die at the Tiger Banquet. After burying him, Yu Chen accepted his ghost’s wish and saw in Deadmouth’s life lantern that he had once lied about a case involving twelve corpses.

• Corpse Mover told Yu Chen that Deadmouth had been a celebrated yamen coroner who had trained many others before becoming destitute and confused.
• Yu Chen and Corpse Mover ate at the Tiger Banquet, where Xie Qing arrived with Zhengqing Gang members and drew the crowd’s attention.
• Deadmouth choked on tiger tendon and died; yamen officials ruled it an accidental death and ordered Corpse Mover to carry the body to Qingfeng Mausoleum.
• Yu Chen and Corpse Mover buried Deadmouth, and Yu Chen summoned the old man’s ghost into the Scripture of Deliverance, where it kowtowed beside the Yellow Springs River.
• The Scripture of Deliverance revealed Deadmouth’s unfulfilled wish, and Yu Chen saw that the former coroner had broken his lifelong rule against lying when he examined twelve corpses in a case more than ten years earlier.

Deadmouth’s memories revealed how masked men coerced him into altering an autopsy record, helping frame Yu Tiesheng and Madam Yu for a massacre. After Deadmouth died without confessing, Yu Chen realized the condemned constables were his parents and that he had been implicated as their descendant.

• Fifteen years earlier, two masked men threatened Deadmouth’s family and forced him to change his autopsy finding from wolf-toothed clubs to mace-type weapons.
• Deadmouth learned that Yu Tiesheng and Madam Yu were the only people in Weishui who wielded Mandarin-Duck Bronze Maces.
• At a secret hearing, the altered record helped convict Yu Tiesheng and Madam Yu of murdering twelve people, and they were executed while their descendants were punished.
• Deadmouth lived in guilt and fear for years, then choked to death after seeing a youth who resembled Yu Tiesheng at a Tiger-Head Grand Feast.
• Yu Chen emerged from the memory and realized the framed constables were his parents and that he was their implicated descendant.

After learning his parents had been framed, Yu Chen vowed to find those responsible and began pursuing leads through Xie Qing and the Zhengqing Gang. He returned to Qingfeng Mausoleum, where the Corpse Mover sensed a profound change in him.

• Yu Chen burned spirit money at his parents' graves, vowed to find those who framed them, and sent Dead Man's Mouth's ghost to the Yellow Springs River after its final wish was fulfilled.
• The Scripture of Deliverance granted Yu Chen a Strengthening Foundation and Nourishing Origin pill, which further tempered his body and increased his Internal Force.
• Yu Chen visited Xie Qing and asked him to investigate a list of people who had been in Weishui fifteen years earlier, along with a household-extermination case in which twelve people died.
• Xie Qing ordered the Zhengqing Gang to begin investigating, while Yu Chen returned to his ordinary grave-watching life and bought food in the Hanging Bridge market.
• Yu Chen returned to Qingfeng Mausoleum and saw the Corpse Mover burying a corpse; the Corpse Mover noticed a profound change in Yu Chen.

Yu Chen learned how Zhang San'er had been murdered after seeking justice for his wife, and accepted the Scripture of Deliverance’s task to resolve the dead man’s grievance. The chapter ended with Zhang San’er’s final struggle revealing that he had seized Eldest Ji’s boot before drowning.

• The Corpse Mover offered to use his connections to keep Yu Chen from being exiled to Mobei, while Yu Chen treated exile with indifference.
• After the Corpse Mover left, Yu Chen drew the lingering ghost into the Scripture of Deliverance and received a ten-day task to settle its grievance.
• The Scripture revealed that the ghost belonged to Zhang San'er, a tea-shop owner whose wife had died by suicide after the Ji Family's Three Brothers assaulted and slandered her.
• Zhang San'er attacked the brothers at his wife's funeral, but they beat him, carried him away, and threw him into the frozen Weishui River.
• Zhang San'er briefly awoke in the river and clutched Eldest Ji's boot before he drowned.

Yu Chen vowed to fulfill Zhang San'er's final wish by bringing the Ji Family's Three Brothers to justice. After Zhang San'er's ghost identified his killers to Lin Yi, Lin Yi found the brothers with the missing boot and arrested them, warning that no one could release them without cause.

• Yu Chen promised Zhang San'er's ghost that he would make the Ji Family's Three Brothers lose their heads.
• Lin Yi examined the murderer's missing boot in the evidence room, where Zhang San'er's ghost appeared and recounted how the brothers killed him.
• Lin Yi recognized Eldest Ji as a former offender and led constables to arrest the brothers.
• The Ji Family's Three Brothers discussed burying the boot and laughed about their crimes until Lin Yi's men burst in and found it on the table.
• Lin Yi bound the brothers, took them to the constabulary, and threatened anyone who tried to release them.

Yu Chen ensured Lin Yi arrested Ji Family's Three Brothers for Zhang San'er's murder, but the chief constable tried and failed to secure their release. That night, several figures pursued their own secret plans, and the Corpse Mover warned a powerful fat man about the chief constable's ties to the Blackwater Gang.

• Yu Chen told Lin Yi about Zhang San'er's murder, and Lin Yi arrested Ji Family's Three Brothers using the matching boots as evidence.
• Ji Family's Three Brothers denied the murder, but Lin Yi refused to release them when Weishui's chief constable demanded it and mocked the chief constable with the evidence.
• Lin Yi searched for witnesses while a masked figure entered the constabulary, the chief constable visited an unmarked residence, and Yu Chen awaited news at Qingfeng Mausoleum.
• The Corpse Mover visited a fat man in a northern manor, discussed a young man's fate and the coming provincial inspection, and reported the chief constable's ties to the Blackwater Gang.
• The fat man reacted coldly to the report, and Weishui greeted the next day with clear skies after the storm.

After the boot evidence was secretly switched, Lin Yi was forced to release the Ji Family's Three Brothers and confessed his failure to Yu Chen. Learning that Zhang San'er’s killers remained free, Yu Chen resolved to deliver justice himself.

• Lin Yi discovered that the boot taken from Zhang San'er had been replaced with an unrelated white boot during the interrogation.
• The chief constable ordered the Ji Family's Three Brothers released, and Lin Yi was restrained as they left the constabulary.
• Yu Chen saw the brothers strutting through Hanging Bridge Market and later visited Lin Yi, who tearfully explained how the evidence had been switched.
• At Qingfeng Mausoleum, Yu Chen told Zhang San'er's ghost that the yamen could not provide justice and vowed to punish the brothers himself.

A ghost-masked man attacked the Ji Family's Three Brothers and brought them to Madam Zhang's mourning hall to punish them for what they had done to Zhang San'er and his wife. Meanwhile, Lin Yi awoke at the Weishui Clerk Office and set out with his saber, determined to act against the injustice.

• Qinghong entertained the Ji Family's Three Brothers at their home until a ghost-masked man broke in and subdued them.
• The masked man told Qinghong to keep her eyes closed until dawn, then beat the brothers and dragged them to Zhang San'er's former residence.
• At Madam Zhang's mourning hall, the masked man asked whether the brothers had begged when Zhang San'er and his wife pleaded with them, then killed Third Ji.
• The masked man told Eldest Ji that he had chosen a new way for the brothers to die so Qinghong would not be implicated.
• Lin Yi woke from his drunken stupor at the Weishui Clerk Office, remembered Zhang San'er's ghost, took his saber, and walked out.

Lin Yi set out to kill Ji Family's Three Brothers after the law failed to deliver justice, but found their residence in chaos and Qinghong too traumatized to explain what had happened. The next morning, he discovered the brothers dead, kneeling before Madam Zhang's coffin with their own heads in their hands, while Xiao Zihua had been arrested by the Inspection Bureau.

• Lin Yi resolved to punish Ji Family's Three Brothers himself and went to their residence, but found it deserted except for the frightened Qinghong.
• Lin Yi took Qinghong back to Huaqing Tower and stayed with her while the Inspection Bureau arrested Xiao Zihua for possessing unexplained wealth.
• A vegetable farmer discovered a brutal scene at Zhang San'er's residence and alerted the authorities.
• Lin Yi arrived at the scene and recognized Ji Family's Three Brothers among three headless corpses kneeling before Madam Zhang's coffin.
• Lin Yi saw that the brothers were holding their own heads and that the words “We three deserve ten thousand deaths!” had been written in blood.

Lin Yi investigated the Ji Family's Three Brothers' gruesome deaths while learning that his master, the Corpse Mover, had followed him and warned him not to pursue the Ghost-Faced Man alone. As the story of Yu Chen's execution spread through Weishui, Yu Chen pondered Madam Zhang's missing final wish and examined the Proxy Doll, a reward that could take one fatal injury in his place.

• Lin Yi questioned Qinghong and learned that a masked, black-clad man had taken the Ji Family's Three Brothers, whose heads had been twisted off by immense force.
• The Corpse Mover visited Lin Yi, explained that the killer had punished the brothers in the yamen's stead, and warned him not to investigate the Ghost-Faced Man alone.
• The tale of the Head-Taking Ghost spread through Weishui, prompting Xie Qing to silence the jianghu witnesses and frightening Li Er into behaving politely.
• Yu Chen learned from the Corpse Mover that the case had caused an uproar and gained him the name Head-Taking Ghost.
• Yu Chen wondered why Madam Zhang had left no final wish, then examined the Proxy Doll and learned it could absorb one fatal injury for its blood donor.

Yu Chen uncovered the story of Wang Hai, a porter whose reward for saving a Golden Sun Merchant Guild executive led the Blackwater Gang to torture him to death for his six Gold Zhu. The gang killed Wang Hai without learning where he had hidden the money.

• A Corpse Mover brought a burned corpse to Qingfeng Mausoleum, and Yu Chen summoned its ghost after burying it.
• Yu Chen used the Scripture of Deliverance to learn that the dead man was Wang Hai, a porter supporting his sick wife, young daughter, and elderly mother.
• Wang Hai saved a Golden Sun Merchant Guild executive from wolves and received six Gold Zhu as a reward, choosing money over work in the prefectural capital so he could return to his family.
• Word of Wang Hai's reward spread among the caravan's Weishui men, and the Blackwater Gang took him to the south of the city to seize the Gold Zhu.
• Wang Hai refused to reveal where he had hidden the money, so the Blackwater Gang beat him to death.

Yu Chen used the Infernal Ghost Mask’s new transformation ability to recover Wang Hai’s hidden Gold Zhu, exchange them for silver, and leave the money for Wang Hai’s family. Wang Hai’s wish then changed to Bone-Deep Hatred, leaving Yu Chen with a second last wish to fulfill.

• Yu Chen learned that Wang Hai had hidden six Gold Zhu beneath a locust tree and wished for the money to reach his family, not for revenge.
• Yu Chen discovered that the Infernal Ghost Mask could transform his appearance after absorbing blood and used it to take on his former-life appearance.
• Yu Chen retrieved the Gold Zhu, exchanged them for loose silver, and left the money inside Wang Hai’s home while his family slept.
• Wang Hai’s ghost shed its charred appearance but continued wandering beside the Yellow Springs River instead of crossing it.
• The Scripture of Deliverance revealed Wang Hai’s new wish, Bone-Deep Hatred, with a ten-day time limit.

Yu Chen avenged Wang Hai by killing the Blackwater Gang members who had murdered him and threatened his family, then burned their pavilion. The deaths sparked rumors of a vengeful ghost and turmoil among gangs across southern Weishui City.

• Yu Chen understood Wang Hai’s hatred and went to the Blackwater Gang’s territory in Southside Old Street to seek vengeance.
• Five Blackwater Gang men discussed taking Wang Hai’s family hostage and forcing them to reveal where the six Gold Zhu were hidden.
• Yu Chen killed Scarface Third Brother and the other four men by twisting their necks.
• The pavilion caught fire, and a night-soil carrier saw the blaze and the figures inside.
• News spread that five charred Blackwater Gang corpses had been found kneeling, prompting ghost rumors and unrest among gangs throughout southern Weishui City.

Yu Chen received Spirit Ox Tears and the Soul-Shaking Bell as rewards for fulfilling Wang Hai’s wish, then discovered that the Corpse Mover carried an astonishing amount of Blood Aura. After burying five Blackwater Gang members, Yu Chen went down the mountain to seek news from Xie Qing.

• Yu Chen tested Spirit Ox Tears, which revealed Blood Aura, and stored the Soul-Shaking Bell, which could stun those who heard it.
• The Corpse Mover brought five charred Blackwater Gang members to Qingfeng Mausoleum and asked Yu Chen to help bury them.
• Yu Chen used Spirit Ox Tears to see that the Corpse Mover had far more Blood Aura than anyone he had encountered, despite his pious talk against murder.
• Yu Chen reflected that he had killed the Blackwater Gang members himself because the authorities lacked evidence and the gang’s influence could protect them.
• After practicing punches, Yu Chen went down the mountain to look for news from Xie Qing about the matter he had asked her to investigate.