Chapter Summaries

Qin Geng’s team discovered that the Foreigners’ underground boats were unmanned, and he reported the finding to the Dragon-Guard Office. Jia Xincun organized a response while Qin Geng returned home with no merit or blame and renewed his resolve to improve his skills.

• Qin Geng, Tiger Cub, Xia Jingyi, and Zhao Yuanji searched the flooded crater and found wreckage but no bodies, then realized the boats had been controlled by mechanical cores.
• Qin Geng returned to Jinmen City before dawn and reported the unmanned fleet and missing cargo to the Dragon-Guard Office.
• Jia Xincun ordered the creation of an Underground River Department, recruitment of specialists, and study of the Foreigners’ machinery, while Shen Yi was told to train the troops.
• Jia Xincun ruled that Qin Geng’s mission earned no merit and no blame, and Qin Geng returned to his team with the decision.
• Qin Geng went home and resolved to advance his Feng Shui Master, Martial Artist, and Physician professions.

Qin Geng convinced Zheng Tonghe to let him treat patients at Hundred Herb Hall after proving his medical knowledge, and he unlocked the Physician profession. Ye Lanzen then explained that Qin Geng would need to face life-and-death battles to advance toward Embracing the Elixir, leaving Qin Geng resolved to enter the Underground Dark River and fight the Foreigners there.

• Qin Geng recited medical texts and answered Zheng Tonghe's increasingly difficult questions, earning permission to see patients under supervision at Hundred Herb Hall.
• Qin Geng diagnosed and treated a laborer's back pain, earning his first Physician experience and unlocking the profession.
• Qin Geng treated several patients while Zheng Tonghe gave free medicine to a poor woman and her sick child.
• Qin Geng reached Physician level two, then left Hundred Herb Hall to train with Ye Lanzen.
• Ye Lanzen explained that Qin Geng could cultivate Embracing the Elixir quickly only by facing deadly combat, including challenges against martial arts schools or battles with Foreigners.
• Qin Geng resolved to enter the Underground Dark River and use its dangers and Foreigners as a proving ground for his martial arts.

Qin Geng received a promotion to Inspector Envoy of the Underground River Department and joined a team tasked with mapping the Underground Dark River. Before the team’s descent, he recruited Li Gou to gather intelligence for him and offered his old carriage-depot companions a path toward official positions.

• Zhou Dawei informed Qin Geng that he would keep his existing posts and become an Inspector Envoy of the Underground River Department, earning five hundred silver dollars and ten merits each month to map the Underground Dark River.
• Zhou Dawei warned Qin Geng that the mission was dangerous and advised him to recommend trusted men to help manage his other duties.
• Qin Geng met Daoist Chi Song, Tiger Cub, Xia Jingyi, Zhao Yuanji, Cao Xiaoliu, Jingkong, and Miao Xiaolan, and Daoist Chi Song ordered them to obey commands during their two-day underwater exploration.
• Qin Geng visited the carriage depot and then shared food and liquor with Xu Chun, Jin He, Li Gou, Ma Laifu, and the other carriage pullers in Clothes-Washing Lane.
• Qin Geng offered Li Gou twenty silver dollars a month to gather intelligence for the Truth-Hearing Guard and promised to recommend him for an official post if he earned merit.
• Li Gou and his mother tried to kneel in gratitude, but Qin Geng lifted them up and pledged to protect his old companions from being bullied.

Qin Geng joined Daoist Chi Song and the others to map the Underground Dark River, where the Copper Lotus Seed strengthened his ability to sense the waterway. The group reached a Dragon-Locking Gate built by the Foreigners, and a huge creature stirred behind it as they prepared for battle.

• Qin Geng told Zhou Dawei that he had given Li Gou his Truth-Hearing Guard badge, and Zhou arranged for two officers to cover Qin Geng's river duties.
• Daoist Chi Song led Qin Geng and the others into the Underground Dark River, where they took their assigned roles and began surveying the route.
• The group fought and destroyed dozens of Living Corpses, which Cao Xiaoliu identified as soldiers from the missing Bandit-Suppression Army.
• Qin Geng used the Copper Lotus Seed's heightened connection to the river to guide the group safely past a misleading fork in the passage.
• Qin Geng sensed machinery and rust ahead, and Daoist Chi Song identified an iron sluice gate as a Dragon-Locking Gate that trapped Yin Mountain's dragon qi.
• The Dragon-Locking Gate began to open, revealing two blood-red lights behind it as Daoist Chi Song ordered the group to prepare for battle.

Qin Geng and his companions blasted open the Dragon-Locking Gate and fought the foreign cultivators guarding the Underground Dark River platform. After Qin Geng overwhelmed the foreign fighters, Daoist Chi Song summoned Purple Firmament Divine Thunder to destroy the Bloodskin Rakshasa, leaving the group facing the aftermath of his exhausted victory.

• Zhao Yuanji planted Mountain-Shaking Thunder at the Dragon-Locking Gate, and the blast opened the way to a platform guarded by foreigners and a chained Bloodskin Rakshasa.
• Daoist Chi Song took on the sixth-tier Bloodskin Rakshasa while Qin Geng and his companions fought the foreign cultivators.
• Qin Geng defeated Andrei with Half-Step Crushing Fist, then killed the fat Food Cultivator and the other foreign fighters to rescue his companions.
• The Bloodskin Rakshasa battered Daoist Chi Song and began breaking its chains, forcing him to invoke the ancestral master and summon Purple Firmament Divine Thunder.
• Purple Firmament Divine Thunder annihilated the Bloodskin Rakshasa, and Daoist Chi Song collapsed after his Black-Gauze Lantern shattered.

After destroying a foreign stronghold beneath Yin Mountain, Qin Geng and his companions returned to the Wave-Quelling Bureau and received merit for their victory. Qin Geng spent most of his reward on the Tiger Descending the Mountain Painting to cultivate restraint and prepare for the next descent into the Underground River.

• Daoist Chi Song ordered the group to withdraw after they looted the stronghold, collected the Bloodskin Rakshasa's ashes, and learned Qin Geng had reached transforming force in just four months.
• The group returned to the Wave-Quelling Bureau, where Zhao Jinglie praised their victory and promised merit awards.
• The group received merit points, and Daoist Chi Song recommended items suited to each companion's weaknesses from the Heaven-Character Vault.
• Daoist Chi Song advised Qin Geng to study the Tiger Descending the Mountain Painting to temper his fierce killing aura, and Qin Geng spent one hundred merit points to obtain it.
• Daoist Chi Song told the group to rest for two days before descending into the Underground River again in three days, and Qin Geng left to study the painting.

Qin Geng studied the Tiger Descending the Mountain Painting and learned to conceal his strength, then treated wounded escorts and saw how demons and disasters were spreading. At the Wave-Quelling Bureau, he encountered starving refugees fleeing Shandong’s catastrophe and ordered food distributed while directing guards to watch for grain ships serving the Foreigners.

• Qin Geng used the sick tiger in the painting to practice drawing his force, blood, qi, and spirit inward, refining his control and understanding of embracing the elixir.
• Qin Geng treated wounded guards from the Shunwei Escort Agency, whose leader described a monstrous, calf-sized weasel attacking them near Jinghai.
• Qin Geng learned that spirits and demons were growing active as the dragon vein leaked qi and formation eyes were destroyed, and his Physician profession advanced to level 6.
• Qin Geng caught and ate part of a Red-Whiskered Fire Carp in the Xun River, absorbing its heat into his body.
• Qin Geng found several thousand refugees from Shandong blocked at the docks and learned that disasters, monsters, and grain profiteering had driven them from their homes.
• Qin Geng ordered food and hot porridge for the refugees and told Company Officer Wang to watch for unflagged grain ships, while resolving to become stronger.

Qin Geng organized emergency rice-water relief for thousands of starving refugees at Tianjin’s docks, then helped relocate and screen them at Cold Mountain Temple. There, he reunited with his aunt Qin Xiu and discussed the worsening crisis with Zheng Tonghe.

• Qin Geng ordered Xu Chun and the Ping'an Cart Company to distribute rice water, while the Dragon King Society kept the refugee boats together.
• Qin Geng explained that the refugees needed thin rice water first, and Zhao Jinglie arrived and authorized continued relief, supplies, medical screening, and relocation to Cold Mountain Temple.
• Qin Geng escorted the refugees to Cold Mountain Temple, where he and Zheng Tonghe screened them and found no signs of a major epidemic.
• Qin Geng recognized his aunt Qin Xiu tending to refugees, and the two exchanged respectful bows without discussing their past.
• Zheng Tonghe told Qin Geng that dysentery remained a danger, and Qin Geng said blades and guns were needed to cure the world's sickness.

Qin Geng advanced his Physician skill and discovered that the refugees’ gratitude was raising his Water Lord level through incense offerings. As Tianjin’s food crisis worsened, he left Cold Mountain Temple to descend underground and seek a way forward for the people above.

• Qin Geng treated hundreds of refugees, reached Physician level 10, and unlocked Herb Recognition.
• Qin Geng identified Zheng Tonghe’s Earth-Lung Fire Fungus and warned that its appearance signaled disorder beneath Origin Mountain and a revival of spiritual energy.
• Zheng Tonghe gave Qin Geng the three-hundred-year-old fungus and confirmed that Qin Geng had reached a higher realm as a Physician.
• Refugees swelled to more than fifty thousand as foreign troops blocked grain shipments, while Zhao Jinglie received no news from the leaders trapped in Yin Mountain.
• Qin Geng realized the refugees’ worship had raised his Water Lord to level 13, instructed Abacus Song to keep the porridge shelter running, and left to descend underground.

Qin Geng tempered his marrow with the Earth-Lung Fire Fungus and began training his intent through painting under Ye Lanzen’s guidance before joining the Underground River Department’s expedition into Yin Mountain. The group found a recently made Soul-Suppressing Terracotta Figure bearing Old Master Su’s face, and Qin Geng saw its eyelids move.

• Qin Geng swallowed a piece of the Earth-Lung Fire Fungus, endured its fire poison, and reached Martial Artist level 32.
• Ye Lanzen told Qin Geng to train intent force by painting tigers, and Qin Geng produced a crooked big cat.
• Daoist Chi Song led the Underground River Department through submerged passages toward Yin Mountain, where Qin Geng killed a Yin-Baleful Salamander and helped the group evade danger.
• The group found a cavern paved with blue bricks and filled with Soul-Suppressing Terracotta Figures that Daoist Chi Song said had been made within the past few decades.
• Xia Jingyi recognized one figure as Old Master Su, and Qin Geng pulled her back when its eyelids seemed to twitch and its neck cracked.

The awakened terracotta figure of Old Master Su devastated the Underground River Department’s group, leaving Qin Geng and the others gravely wounded before Daoist Chi Song teleported them to Xun River Wharf. Zheng Tonghe and Ye Lanzen began treating the survivors, but their chances remained uncertain as a deadly killing intent continued to drain their vitality.

• The terracotta figure of Old Master Su awakened and crippled Xia Jingyi, Tiger Cub, Miao Xiaolan, Zhao Yuanji, Monk Jingkong, and Cao Xiaoliu in a single exchange.
• Qin Geng fought Old Master Su but suffered a shattered arm, a dislocated ankle, and a fatal-looking wound through his chest.
• Daoist Chi Song failed to harm Old Master Su with talismans and lightning, then used a teleportation talisman to carry himself and the wounded group to Xun River Wharf.
• The Wave-Quelling Bureau soldiers recognized the survivors and rushed them to the bureau’s tents while calling for Shopkeeper Zheng.
• Zheng Tonghe treated the wounded and told Ye Lanzen that he had kept them alive for now, but an insidious killing intent was consuming their vitality.

After waking from his near-fatal injuries, Qin Geng recovered rapidly and told Zhao Jinglie that a Corpse-Nurturing Fetus resembling Old Master Su had attacked them underground. Zhao Jinglie moved to surround Su Residence, where Su Loutai was preparing to send children away before the Dragon-Guard Office sealed the estate.

• Ye Lanzen identified the attack on Qin Geng and Daoist Chi Song as internal martial arts by one of their own, while Zhao Jinglie worried about betrayal within the Dragon-Guard Office.
• The Carriage Company brothers and Aunt Qin Xiu kept vigil as Qin Geng and the others remained unconscious for three days.
• Qin Geng woke, practiced Xingyi boxing to aid his recovery, reached Level Thirty-Five, and painted a tiger embodying the killing intent he had witnessed underground.
• Qin Geng told Zhao Jinglie that Old Master Su had emerged from a terracotta figure as a powerful Corpse-Nurturing Fetus and nearly killed the group.
• Zhao Jinglie ordered the City Guard Army to surround Su Residence, while Su Loutai prepared to send the household’s orphaned children to Black Wind Pass.
• Dragon-Guard Office troops arrived at Su Residence and sealed it off under Zhao Jinglie’s order.