Recaps

After the demon army withdrew, Great Witch Xingchuan arrived at the Thirty-Fourth Post Station and questioned how its Book of Cause and Effect judged the Witch Clan. Wu Yue attacked a wounded demon across the boundary, but Mysterious Abyss stopped and returned the Bone Spear; Xingchuan accepted the post station’s rules, leaving the Witch Clan and demon army facing each other outside as they waited for the wounded to emerge.

• Northern Sea cultivators discussed Mysterious Abyss’s killing of Black Crow as the demon army retreated five hundred li away.
• Great Witch Xingchuan arrived, acknowledged that Kua Yue had deserved death, and asked Lan Shuang how the Book of Cause and Effect could judge the Witch Clan without primordial spirits.
• Lan Shuang explained that the book examined traces left by vital energy, weapons, and the surrounding world, not just primordial spirits.
• Wu Yue threw his Bone Spear at a wounded demon inside the post station, but Mysterious Abyss stopped it and sent it back, gravely injuring Wu Yue.
• Xingchuan accepted responsibility for the Witch Clan’s actions and ordered its warriors not to strike first within the boundary stele.
• Xingchuan agreed that the Witch Clan would follow the post station’s rules, while the Witch Clan and demon army remained outside and waited for the wounded to come out.

Mysterious Abyss clarified that the Thirty-Fourth Post Station offered only temporary refuge, prompting the Witch Clan and Demon Clan to withdraw rather than fight. The post station remained intact, but reports of the confrontation were already heading to the leaders of both sides.

• Xingchuan and a demon general questioned how long armies could shelter at the Three Lives Post Station, and Mysterious Abyss set rules limiting refuge to recovery and escape from immediate danger.
• Mysterious Abyss said anyone seeking permanent residence had to undergo Causality Illumination and enter the Register of Ten Thousand Tribes, while those who left bore responsibility for their own causality.
• Xingchuan ordered the Witch Clan's War Department to withdraw, and the Demon Clan's commanders likewise pulled their soldiers back.
• Lan Shuang recorded the new rules in the Book of Cause and Effect as Northern Sea clans emerged from hiding and Abyss cultivators began repairing the post station.
• Lu Chen withdrew his divine sense, while a message from the Northern Demon Division and Xingchuan's returning force carried news of the incident toward the leaders of both clans.

After Black Crow died attacking the Three Lives Post Station despite knowing the Demon Court’s orders, Di Jun refused to retaliate against Mysterious Abyss and reaffirmed the post station’s rules. The Northern Demon Division received orders to honor the boundary and not seek vengeance, leaving Black Crow’s death as a warning about the Three Lives Boundary Stele.

• Gui Che learned that Mysterious Abyss had killed Black Crow after Black Crow disobeyed orders, attacked the Three Lives Post Station, and injured a Abyss Healer.
• Gui Che reported Black Crow’s death to Di Jun and Taiyi, who confirmed that Black Crow had provoked Abyss despite the Demon Court’s warning.
• Di Jun ruled that Black Crow’s death was deserved and rejected Taiyi’s offer to travel to the Northern Sea.
• Di Jun ordered the Northern Demon Division to appoint a new commander, forbid revenge, and require Demon Clan members to obey the Three Lives Post Station’s rules.
• The Northern Demon Division received the new military orders, and its generals recognized the authority of the Three Lives Boundary Stele.

After Xingchuan reported the deaths of Kua Yue and Black Crow, Di Jiang decided the Witch Clan would respect Mysterious Abyss’s Three Lives Post Station rules. The Witch Clan and Demon Clan both marked the stations as neutral areas on their military maps, leaving the region blank except for warnings.

• Xingchuan told the Ancestral Witches how Mysterious Abyss killed Black Crow from hundreds of thousands of miles away and spared Wu Yue after returning the Bone Spear.
• Di Jiang concluded that Mysterious Abyss remained neutral in the witch-demon war and that neither clan gained an advantage from respecting the post station rules.
• Di Jiang ordered the Witch Clan divisions not to fight within the Boundary Steles and to wait outside if pursuing Demon Clan members.
• A Witch Clan Priest left the Three Lives Post Stations blank on the Northern Sea Battle Map and wrote, “End Hostilities Upon Entering the Post Station.”
• A Demon Clan cultivator similarly marked the post stations as neutral with the warning, “Boundary Stele for a Thousand Miles, rein in the blades of war.”

Lu Chen chose to standardize the rules across all sixty-seven Three Lives Post Stations, and boundary steles carrying the Ceasefire Dao Pattern appeared at every station. The new network deterred Witch and Demon forces, but the chapter ended as the fugitive Bloodbone Daoist entered the Fifty-First Post Station to escape Abyss pursuers.

• Lu Chen rejected expanding the post stations into a kingdom or closing them and chose to place boundary steles at all sixty-seven stations.
• The steles appeared across the Northern Sea, and Lan Shuang confirmed that their Ceasefire Dao Patterns had merged with the stations’ formations.
• Demon Clan and Witch Clan groups obeyed the new rules, while station guards used Black Crow’s death to warn those who might challenge them.
• An unaffiliated cultivator noticed a drop of water fall onto the year-round ice in the Northern Sea.
• Bloodbone Daoist killed twelve Azure-Pattern Tribe cultivators over a Profound Yin Blood Ginseng and fled as Abyss realm patrol cultivators pursued him.
• Bloodbone Daoist crossed the boundary into the Fifty-First Three Lives Post Station, and the pursuing leader ordered him to come out.

Bloodbone Daoist tried to use the Three Lives Post Station’s rules to evade justice for killing twelve Azure-Pattern Tribe cultivators, but Mysterious Abyss explained that the station did not erase karma incurred before entry. Bloodbone Daoist was killed inside the station, and the Profound Yin Blood Ginseng was recovered for the Azure-Pattern Tribe.

• Bloodbone Daoist entered the Three Lives Post Station and argued that its End Hostilities Upon Entering the Post Station rule protected him from the Border-Patrolling Youth.
• The steward had Bloodbone Daoist place his hand on the Cause and Effect Mirror, which revealed his twelve killings of Azure-Pattern Tribe cultivators.
• Mysterious Abyss appeared through the Three Lives Mirror and explained that the station protected people after entry but did not erase prior karma.
• Bloodbone Daoist tried to flee and offered compensation, but Mysterious Abyss’s Death Wheel drained his life and reduced him to ash.
• The steward recovered the Profound Yin Blood Ginseng, while a Water Clan elder explained that the station could shelter people from outside threats but not from Abyss blood debts.

After Bloodbone Daoist’s death revealed that the Three Lives Post Stations would not protect those with unresolved evil karma against Abyss, cultivators across the Northern Sea began obeying the stations’ rules without enforcement. Han Jue and Ao Lie inspected the stations, while Lu Chen reviewed reports showing that serious incidents had nearly vanished.

• The Three Lives Boundary Stele added a warning that those with unresolved evil karma against Abyss received no protection, and an independent cultivator turned away from the station.
• A wounded Demon Clan squad entered the Nineteenth Three Lives Post Station as Witch Clan pursuers arrived; the pursuers waited outside until an urgent summons called them away thirty years later.
• At the Thirty-Second Post Station, a Demon Clan caravan and Witch Clan warriors detoured around each other rather than fight near the Boundary Stele.
• At the Forty-Fourth Post Station, an independent Golden Immortal stopped at the boundary and let his wounded enemy remain inside without attacking.
• Han Jue and Ao Lie visited nearby stations and found no serious clashes, while Lan Shuang reported only three minor boundary crossings across all sixty-seven stations in over a hundred years.
• Lu Chen read the incident-free reports, concluded that decisive action had brought peace, and returned to cultivation.

Life in Abyss remained peaceful as Lu Chen strengthened his life-and-death cycle in cultivation, believing he could avoid the Great Tribulation by staying out of outside affairs. Reports of warming water and melting ice began arriving from across the Northern Sea, and a cultivator went to inform Ao Lie.

• The Thirty-Fourth Post Station and Abyss Academy continued to operate peacefully while the Witch-Demon War raged elsewhere.
• Han Jue reported to Lan Shuang that his inspection had found no conflicts, and he and Ao Lie agreed that the Northern Sea's quiet life was comfortable.
• Lu Chen deepened the connections among his body, primordial spirit, laws, and Inner Realm of the Abyss, completing a new life-and-death cycle.
• Sea patrolmen noticed the Cold Tide Waters warming and recorded the melting ice in a Sea-Patrol Jade Slip.
• More reports arrived of warming seas, melting mystic ice, slower-growing cold-aspected herbs, and fish migrating to deeper waters.
• The cultivator compiling changes in the Northern Sea gathered the Jade Slips and headed to the Water Vein Hall to find Ao Lie.

Ao Lie and Abyss investigated the Northern Sea’s gradual warming and traced it to increasingly active solar true fire, while Lu Chen suspected the Golden Crow Princes might be involved. After decades of rising temperatures across the Primordial World, a second sun appeared beside the first, immediately intensifying the heat.

• Ao Lie discovered that the Northern Sea was warming across vast regions, found ice melting near the Cold Tide Waters, and sensed that the heat was coming from the Sun Star.
• Lan Shuang, Han Jue, and Lu Chen investigated the growing solar true fire, and Lu Chen suspected that the ten Golden Crow Princes might be connected to a coming event.
• Lu Chen ordered the Northern Darkness Dao Palace to inspect its stations, move cold-natured herbs, and prepare vulnerable tribes to migrate as the warming spread across the Primordial World.
• Over the following decades, northern tribes relocated and Abyss stockpiled supplies while Lu Chen chose to watch rather than intervene.
• Near the Thirty-Fourth Post Station, Water Clan cultivators saw a bright point beside the rising sun grow into a second golden disc, and the Northern Sea’s temperature surged.

A second Golden Crow appeared in the sky, and Lu Chen recognized that a Golden Crow Prince had left Tang Valley as the Witch-Demon Tribulation began to change. More suns quickly followed, and as a fourth emerged, Lu Chen focused on protecting the Northern Sea and its formations.

• The second sun appeared, alarming the creatures of the Northern Sea and prompting Lan Shuang to order defenses and evacuations.
• Ao Lie identified the second sun's aura as belonging to a Golden Crow, and Lan Shuang ordered the Northern Sea's post stations and shallow-water clans to prepare.
• Lu Chen received system warnings that a Golden Crow Prince had left Tang Valley and realized the Ten Suns Across the Sky had begun.
• A third sun appeared, raising the world's temperature and affecting its water fortune, while Lu Chen assessed how much heat the Northern Sea could withstand.
• A fourth sun began to emerge as Lu Chen focused on protecting the Northern Sea, the Three Lives Post Stations, and Abyss's perimeter formations.

As ten Golden Crows brought devastating heat to the Primordial World, Lu Chen chose to protect the Northern Sea’s refugees without joining the Witch-Demon conflict. He sent the Ninefold Netherworld Cold Spring to Abyss and the Three Lives Post Stations, where the Feather-Scale Tribe spotted a refuge as flames pursued them.

• As the blazing suns multiplied, Ao Lie and Lan Shuang directed threatened Water Clan tribes to gather at the Three Lives Post Stations before retreating to Abyss.
• After the tenth sun rose, the Feather-Scale Tribe fled north as fire engulfed the mountain forest and their chief’s water treasure began to fail.
• Lu Chen rejected choices to hunt the Golden Crows or shelter them and chose to strengthen the Northern Sea’s protection against solar true fire.
• The Ninefold Netherworld Cold Spring emerged in Abyss, and Lu Chen sent streams of its water and profound yin dao patterns to all sixty-seven Three Lives Post Stations.
• The stations’ defenses cooled under the cold spring’s power, and the fleeing Feather-Scale Tribe spotted a glowing blue post station and hurried toward its open gates.

As the ten suns scorched the Primordial World, Abyss’s Three Lives Post Stations sheltered growing numbers of fleeing tribes and wandering cultivators. Lu Chen found his network could manage the crisis without his constant intervention, until a Demon Court official confronted refugees at the Fifty-Sixth Post Station.

• The Feather-Scale Tribe passed the Cause and Effect Mirror’s inspection and entered the Fifth Three Lives Post Station, where the cold mist shielded them from the solar heat.
• Refugees arrived at stations across the Northern Sea, where Abyss cultivators registered them, treated the wounded, and provided water and shelter.
• Lan Shuang directed aid from the Northern Darkness Dao Palace, while Han Jue and Abyss Academy disciples helped at overwhelmed stations.
• At the Thirty-Fourth Post Station, a Black-Shelled Turtle Tribe boy and clinic cultivators helped scorched wandering cultivators recover beneath the station’s protective curtain.
• Lu Chen sensed that Abyss’s staff could handle the influx, but a golden-feathered Demon Court man arrived at the Fifty-Sixth Post Station and challenged Demon Clan refugees for fleeing to the Northern Sea.

Demon Court Sun Patrol Envoy Yanlan tried to force the Azurewing tribe out of the Three Lives Post Station, then accidentally sent Solar True Fire across its boundary and burned Qinghe. The Cause and Effect Mirror recorded Yanlan’s karmic link to the injury, and Lu Chen saw the incident as he received the report.

• Yanlan arrived at the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station and demanded that the Azurewing tribe return to Demon Court territory, but the steward refused to let him take them.
• Yanlan kept Solar True Fire hovering outside the boundary to pressure the refugees, while the Azurewing Chief explained that their lands had burned and their children could no longer endure the heat.
• The flames were pulled by the ten suns overhead, and a fire feather crossed the Boundary Stele and burned Qinghe’s arm as he carried an unconscious casualty.
• The Cause and Effect Mirror linked Qinghe’s injury to Yanlan, and the steward sent its images to the Northern Darkness Dao Palace.
• Lu Chen saw Qinghe’s charred arm and Yanlan in the mirror, then asked who had struck first.

Mysterious Abyss killed Yanlan, a Demon Court Sun Patrol Envoy, after Yanlan’s solar true fire injured Qinghe at the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station. Mysterious Abyss healed Qinghe, while a far stronger Golden Crow aura turned toward the Northern Sea.

• Yanlan admitted that he had injured Qinghe with solar true fire, but Mysterious Abyss attacked him with the Death Wheel instead of accepting compensation.
• Yanlan invoked the Golden Crow Princes and pleaded for his life, but Mysterious Abyss killed him and destroyed his primordial spirit.
• Mysterious Abyss used the Life Wheel to heal Qinghe’s burns, restore his arm and meridians, and purge the solar fire poison.
• Yanlan’s twelve Demon Soldiers put away their weapons and left to report his death to a prince.
• Lu Chen let the Demon Soldiers go and prepared to restore the Fifty-Sixth Post Station’s depleted Profound Yin Light Curtain.
• A Golden Crow aura far stronger than Yanlan’s changed direction and headed for the Northern Sea.

The Seventh Prince came to the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station to question Mysterious Abyss about Yanlan’s death, then tested the Boundary Stele and was crushed when he crossed it. After Mysterious Abyss forced him to retreat and weakened his Solar True Fire, the prince accepted that the rules applied to him and flew around the post station.

• The Seventh Prince arrived at the post station and asked Mysterious Abyss why he had killed Yanlan.
• Mysterious Abyss showed how Yanlan’s Solar True Fire crossed the boundary and injured Qinghe, and the Seventh Prince acknowledged that Yanlan knew the rules.
• The Seventh Prince pushed a wisp of Solar True Fire across the Boundary Stele despite Mysterious Abyss’s warning.
• Mysterious Abyss struck the Seventh Prince down into the Northern Sea and the boundary’s death Dao patterns began wearing away his Solar True Fire.
• The Seventh Prince agreed not to cross the boundary again, withdrew beyond its range, and said he would report Yanlan’s death accurately.
• The Seventh Prince transformed into his Golden Crow True Form and flew in an arc around the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station.

After the Seventh Prince returned with a damaged wing, the other Golden Crow Princes set out to confront Mysterious Abyss, but Di Jun stopped them and ordered them to treat him as a senior. The princes detoured around the Northern Sea, and Di Jun then greeted Mysterious Abyss directly.

• The Seventh Prince reunited with his brothers, told them Yanlan had died, and admitted Mysterious Abyss had injured him.
• The Sixth Prince led the Golden Crow Princes toward the Northern Sea, while the Seventh Prince warned them that Mysterious Abyss had shown restraint and might kill them if they attacked.
• Di Jun stopped the ten princes and explained that Yanlan had violated the Three Lives Post Station rules, the Seventh Prince had been warned, and Mysterious Abyss discussed the Dao as an equal with Di Jun and his brother.
• Di Jun told the princes to address Mysterious Abyss as Emperor or Senior, and the ten Golden Crows turned aside without entering the Northern Sea.
• Di Jun sent his divine sense before Mysterious Abyss and greeted him as a fellow Daoist.

Di Jun thanked Mysterious Abyss for sparing the Seventh Prince and agreed to keep his sons from attacking the Three Lives Post Stations. As refugees overwhelmed the stations amid the heat, Mysterious Abyss refused to send guides beyond the Northern Sea, while the Abyss organized relief; two bloodied groups then met outside the thirty-first station.

• Di Jun confirmed his sons had passed the Northern Sea, thanked Mysterious Abyss for sparing the Seventh Prince, and agreed to keep the Golden Crows from throwing Solar True Fire at the Three Lives Post Stations.
• Mysterious Abyss dismissed the Demon Emperor’s offer of a favor and returned his attention to the growing number of refugees fleeing the heat for the Northern Sea.
• Lan Shuang, Han Jue, and Ao Lie reported that the Three Lives Post Stations were nearing capacity and asked whether the Abyss should send people out to guide more refugees in.
• Mysterious Abyss decided the Abyss would not go out to seek people, and the Abyss’s departments reorganized station staff, shelter, food, and medicine.
• Two bloodied groups, one surrounded by demonic aura and the other with surging blood energy, encountered each other outside the thirty-first Three Lives Post Station.

The Witch Clan and Demon Clan forces, led by Yanya and Qingya, reached the Three Lives Post Station after fighting each other and agreed to enter under its rules. Their hostility resurfaced when they learned they had to share the only remaining large courtyard.

• Qingya and Yanya recognized each other as the commanders whose forces had fought three days earlier over a spiritual vein, and their warriors prepared to clash again.
• A gray-robed steward told both groups to sheath their weapons before entering and warned them to fight outside the Boundary Stele if they wished.
• Qingya ordered his Demon Soldiers to put away their weapons, and Yanya did the same with the Witch Clan warriors.
• The Cause and Effect Mirror registered both groups, finding battlefield killings but no Abyss-related evil karma in Qingya.
• An Abyss disciple told the groups that only one large courtyard remained, and their killing intent began to rise as they faced the prospect of sharing it.

Qingya and Yanya found the Demon Clan and Witch Clan forced to share a courtyard at the Three Lives Post Station, where the infirmary treated both sides according to the severity of their injuries. Yanya helped remove witch baleful energy from an injured demon, but another mixed group of wounded arrived and left both clans facing the same uneasy arrangement.

• Qingya and Yanya saw that the Demon Clan and Witch Clan had been assigned opposite sides of the same courtyard because the post station was full.
• A middle-aged physician treated injured demons and witches based on the urgency of their wounds, easing both sides' concerns about favoritism.
• When the physician could not suppress witch baleful energy in Qingya's wounded subordinate, Yanya examined the demon and drew the energy from his wound.
• The demon thanked Yanya, and Yanya reminded him that they would still fight once they left the post station.
• An Abyss disciple brought in another group of wounded demons and witches, and the newcomers fell silent when they saw the clans sharing the courtyard.

The Thirty-First Post Station sheltered wounded cultivators and refugees from the scorching ten suns, enforcing peace between Witch Clan and Demon Clan members despite their old grudges. As night came, more refugees approached across the sea.

• The turtle boy distributed cold spring water while Witch Clan and Demon Clan cultivators waited in line without fighting.
• A Witch Clan warrior recognized the demon who had killed his younger brother, but both men held back after an old physician told them to take their fight outside.
• Yanya treated a young demon whose body had been poisoned by Witch Clan blood energy, while the surrounding cultivators watched the enemies cooperate inside the post station.
• More than three hundred refugees arrived, and a Witch Clan warrior reassured a frightened demon girl that no one would fight inside.
• The night watch cultivator spotted more refugees stumbling across the sea and took out the registration Jade Slip.

At the Thirty-First Three Lives Post Station, Qingya and Yanya nearly resumed their fight but backed down when the Solar True Fire made going outside dangerous. Han Jue then inspected the other post stations and returned to the Northern Darkness Dao Palace with urgent reports that they were running out of space.

• Qingya and Yanya met after recovering from their injuries and agreed to continue their unfinished fight outside the post station.
• The station steward explained that fighting was forbidden inside the post station but allowed beyond the Boundary Stele, so the two clans gathered to watch.
• A returning unaffiliated cultivator warned that the ten suns had made the sea outside dangerously hot, and Qingya and Yanya hesitated at the Boundary Stele.
• Yanya and Qingya blamed their unhealed injuries and bedridden comrades, postponed the fight, and returned inside.
• Han Jue inspected the other post stations and found many full or nearly full, then brought more than a dozen urgent Jade Slips to Lan Shuang at the Northern Darkness Dao Palace.

With the Three Lives Post Stations nearing capacity as refugees fled the ten suns, Mysterious Abyss approved a plan to connect them through the Northern Sea’s water veins. Ao Lie began mapping the routes, leaving the stations poised to become a connected network.

• Lan Shuang reported rising populations and injuries at several Three Lives Post Stations and warned that at least fifteen would soon reach capacity.
• Mysterious Abyss rejected building stations beyond the Northern Sea and directed that refugees be moved to less crowded stations within it.
• Ao Lie proposed connecting the stations’ water veins with stabilized passages anchored by the Ninefold Netherworld Cold Spring.
• Mysterious Abyss approved a trial of several routes, while Lan Shuang mobilized the Formation Office, Spirit Field Office, and Bureau of Cause and Effect.
• Han Jue left to inspect the Fifth Post Station, and Ao Lie began tracing routes linking the stations across the Northern Sea.

Ao Lie and the Water Vein Hall built a stable underwater route linking the Thirty-First Post Station to the Ninth Post Station, allowing wounded cultivators to make the journey in half a day. After the first relocation succeeded, Ao Lie began planning more routes, and a vast network connecting the sixty-seven Three Lives Post Stations started to take shape.

• Ao Lie inspected the Northern Sea undercurrents and warned his workers that a water vein could reverse its flow and break the passage if they placed a formation flag there.
• The Water Vein Hall and Formation Office spent decades building a route from the Thirty-First Post Station through the Ninefold Netherworld Cold Spring to the Ninth Post Station, using large quantities of materials.
• Ao Lie and the workers completed the first route, which kept out the Abyss's gray mist and carried travelers safely through stable water.
• Qingya, Yanya, and sixty other wounded cultivators traveled from the Thirty-First Post Station to the Ninth Post Station in half a day and were welcomed by its staff.
• Han Jue and Lan Shuang received news of the successful relocation, while Ao Lie mapped further routes and the first lines of a network between all sixty-seven Three Lives Post Stations began to appear.

Ao Lie and the Formation Office completed waterways linking all Sixty-Seven Three Lives Post Stations, making travel and refugee placement across the Northern Sea much easier. As the network finished, the Redscale Clan arrived at the Fifth Post Station with valuable treasures and asked for its people to be given priority.

• Ao Lie’s waterways helped post-station staff distribute refugees among less crowded stations, and people began calling the routes the Mysterious Abyss Tribulation-Avoidance Route.
• Lan Shuang told Mysterious Abyss about the name, and he allowed people to keep using it.
• More than a thousand years later, Ao Lie and the Formation Office connected the final branch routes, linking all Sixty-Seven Three Lives Post Stations into a network.
• Lu Chen received a notification that the Northern Sea’s tribulation refuge system and the Abyss’s control over waterborne transport had improved.
• The Redscale Clan arrived at the Fifth Post Station with chests of treasures and asked the steward to arrange a place for its clansmen first.

The Redscale Clan offered treasures to enter the Three Lives Post Station early, but the Post Station Keeper refused and upheld equal treatment based on cause and effect. After a badly injured small clan received immediate medical care, Qi Feng of the Demon Court arrived to bring back several clans under its rule.

• The Redscale elder offered mystic crystals, spirit medicines, and other treasures for early entry, but the Post Station Keeper told the clan to join the queue and follow the same rules as everyone else.
• The Redscale elder recalled his clansmen from the offer and ordered them to wait their turn.
• The Post Station Keeper sent healers to treat an unconscious child from a poor, badly burned small clan before the group completed registration.
• The Redscale Clan's young cultivator reconsidered his demand to enter first after seeing the injured child receive care.
• Qi Feng arrived with Demon Court soldiers, stopped outside the Three Lives Boundary Stele, and announced that he had come under orders to bring back several clans under the Demon Court's rule.