Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• A huge White Tiger confronts Li Xiang’s traveling group, prompting him to organize the party into defensive positions. Miao Xiyue approaches the beast and discovers it is friendly.
• The tiger, which calls itself Tiger Million, is the Mountain Lord of a nearby village. It asks for help against Ghost Clan creatures. Though its impressive size suggests great strength, Miao learns that a magical fruit enlarged its body without giving it matching power; it is only barely at the first realm and has already been wounded by the ghosts.
• Li Xiang agrees to help, judging that the tiger is trying to protect its villagers. The group sets out, with Tiger Million reluctantly pulling their supply cart up the mountain.
• Near the village, Li Xiang’s Qi Observation reveals a shroud of ghost qi. The party encounters several Ghost Clan creatures, including a Gold-Swallowing Beast—once a greedy merchant, now a ghostly monster.
• Li Xiang charges first and kills the Gold-Swallowing Beast with his blade. He discovers that killing Ghost Creatures grants yin virtue, which provides experience to several esoteric Professions.
• The group fights the remaining ghosts. Li Xiang’s martial skills and the Demonkin’s strength, Hua Jingshan’s needles, and the Five Poisons members’ toxins make the battle largely one-sided.
• As Li Xiang kills more ghosts, the yin virtue rapidly raises his Fortune Teller experience to its maximum. The chapter ends with the Fortune Teller Profession reaching Lv10 and revealing its advancement ritual: “Knowing Heaven Is Easy, Defying Heaven Is Hard!”

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang demonstrates calm leadership, caution, compassion, and strong combat ability. He accepts the tiger’s appeal, but first rests and organizes the party before entering the village. Discovering the experience gained from killing ghosts also gives him a new incentive to fight.
• Miao Xiyue shows confidence and unusual rapport with monsters, communicating with Tiger Million and persuading the group to help. She treats the tiger affectionately as “Big White.”
• Tiger Million is revealed to be less powerful than its size suggests, yet determined to protect its village. Li Xiang’s practical humor turns the dignified Mountain Lord into a cart-puller.
• Wang De initially suspects a trap and objects to helping strangers, but quickly reverses himself when Miao supports the plan. In battle, he and the other Demonkin fight fiercely.
• Hua Jingshan backs the rescue on ethical grounds and cautions Wang De when he speaks disrespectfully about a legendary fox.
• Dong Zhao and Tang You support Li Xiang’s decision and take responsibility for guarding the noncombatants and supplies.

Significant themes

• Compassion across boundaries: Humans and monsters may be allies; moral character matters more than species.
• Duty and protection: Tiger Million accepts danger and humiliation to defend the villagers, while Li Xiang’s group chooses to help despite their own risks.
• The gap between appearance and reality: The tiger’s massive body conceals limited strength, while the seemingly modest party proves capable through cooperation.
• Growth through action: Combat provides Li Xiang with experience and yin virtue, turning the rescue mission into a major step in his professional advancement.

Plot points and events

• During the fight against ghosts attacking Tiger Family Village, Li Xiang’s Book of a Hundred Trades reveals the advancement ritual for his Fortune Teller profession. He must save someone blessed with fortune from a certain-death calamity using guidance or mystical methods—not direct martial force. He scans the battlefield but finds no suitable candidate.
• A Sick Ghost poisons Li Xiang’s hand. He kills it with a punch, and Hua Jingshan uses silver needles to stop the poison from spreading. The demonkin, who had underestimated Li Xiang, are impressed by his fighting ability.
• Li Xiang targets the powerful Starving Ghost attacking the City God Temple, where villagers are sheltering. He dodges its corrosive venom with a small feng shui formation and wounds it, then uses his Painter’s ability to locate its ghost core inside its throat.
• To expose the core and stop the ghost from spraying venom, Li Xiang uproots a pine and thrusts it into the Starving Ghost’s mouth. He leaps along the trunk and drives his blade into the core, killing it. Its death breaks the lesser ghosts’ coordination; the surviving fighters rout them.
• Li Xiang gains swordsman experience, substantial yin virtue, and a Ghost Pearl. He keeps the pearl despite the Great Treasure Toad and other poison creatures eyeing it.
• The survivors emerge from the temple and initially thank Tiger Million, their Mountain Lord. Wang De corrects them, crediting Li Xiang for killing the Starving Ghost. Li Xiang deflects their thanks and asks what happened.
• The village elder explains that the ghosts appeared about half a month earlier, killed most of the adults, and drove the survivors into the ruined temple. The Temple Keeper’s dwindling prayer power and Tiger Million’s intervention helped them hold out. Li Xiang notices the Temple Keeper’s corpse before the City God statue and asks about it; the elder identifies the dead man as the Temple Keeper.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang demonstrates resourcefulness as well as combat skill, combining martial arts, feng shui, and perception abilities to defeat a much stronger enemy. He also learns the practical value of having a Medicine Cultivator in the group.
• Hua Jingshan proves his worth by quickly treating Li Xiang’s poison and later tending to the wounded.
• The demonkin, especially Wang De, shift from viewing Li Xiang as an unproven human relying on connections to respecting his strength. They rally to his aid and defend his credit before the villagers.
• Tiger Million is recognized by the villagers as their protector, though he signals that Li Xiang deserves the real credit.
• The villagers are traumatized and weak after the attack; their initial gratitude toward their traditional Mountain Lord shifts when they learn who actually killed the leader.

Significant themes

• Skill and adaptability: Li Xiang wins through observation and improvisation, not brute force alone.
• Respect earned through action: The demonkin and villagers revise their judgments of Li Xiang after witnessing what he does.
• Faith and practical protection: The villagers’ worship, the City God’s fading prayer power, and Tiger Million’s guardianship offer limited protection, while survival ultimately depends on people acting to defend one another.
• Destiny and intervention: Li Xiang’s new advancement ritual introduces the challenge of changing someone’s fate through guidance rather than force, though he has not yet found a candidate.

Plot points and events

• At Tiger Family Village’s City God Temple, Li Xiang and the group find the Temple Keeper murdered by a precise, single sword strike. The terrified villagers deny responsibility, and Li Xiang tells them to stand and speak without kneeling.
• Li Xiang uses his Embalmer ability, Revolving Lantern, to witness the Temple Keeper’s final memory. Four Eastern Seas swordsmen, apparently from the Yagyu Style, questioned him about Immortal Destiny and a hidden cave on Tiger Lord Mountain. After he revealed its location, their leader killed him. Before dying, the Temple Keeper activated a protective formation to shield the village.
• Li Xiang conceals the memory’s details from the others, revealing only that an expert killed the Temple Keeper. He orders a proper burial and helps search the temple, where they find more survivors.
• The villagers’ supposed mountain sacrifices are exposed as human murders. They had sent women to Tiger Million; when he returned them, the villagers killed them as “ill omens.” Tiger Million had instead sheltered several women in his cave and now wants help relocating them.
• Li Xiang condemns the practice as illegal and cruel. The village chief insists it is tradition, prompting Hua Jingshan to connect such superstition to the Former Dynasty’s policy of keeping people ignorant. The villagers will face judgment once the roads reopen.
• With the blizzard worsening, the group camps at the temple. Li Xiang helps prepare food, earning progress toward his Taste of Happiness ritual; his cooking comforts the hungry villagers and impresses the Demonkin, who discover that human food is delicious.
• Li Xiang persuades Tiger Million to take him into the mountains the next morning by offering Demon Grain Pills. He plans to find the sheltered women and a route out of the mountains.
• Miao Xiyue joins Li Xiang on the tiger’s back, saying Zhang Yunshang told her to stay with him. The two, with Dabao, set off into the snowy mountains.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang shows compassion toward both the villagers and the dead, but also caution: he withholds sensitive information about the Eastern Seas swordsmen and Immortal Destiny. He confronts the villagers’ abuses and uses food and bargaining to make progress.
• Tiger Million is revealed to be gentle and unwilling to harm people, despite the villagers’ belief that he demands human sacrifices. His reluctance to serve Li Xiang gives way when offered Demon Grain Pills—and when he fears being replaced by Dabao.
• Miao Xiyue acts as Tiger Million’s interpreter and joins Li Xiang on his expedition, citing Zhang Yunshang’s instruction to stay close.
• The villagers are frightened and deeply bound to harmful customs; their gratitude for Li Xiang’s meal contrasts with their defense of human sacrifice as tradition.
• Wang De and the other Demonkin initially suspect their own kind, then enthusiastically embrace Li Xiang’s cooking, complicating assumptions about divisions between humans and demons.
• Hua Jingshan and Dong Zhao contribute to the investigation and support Li Xiang’s leadership, though the group remains unaware of the full clue he uncovered.

Significant themes

• Justice versus superstition: Tradition is no excuse for murder, and Li Xiang insists the villagers must answer under the law.
• Ignorance as inherited harm: The chapter links cruel customs to deliberate historical manipulation, showing how oppressive ideas can outlast the regime that created them.
• Compassion across boundaries: The Temple Keeper protects the village, Tiger Million shelters women, and Li Xiang treats the dead and living with care.
• Knowledge, secrecy, and survival: Li Xiang’s discovery of the Eastern Seas swordsmen and their search for Immortal Destiny creates a dangerous lead he chooses not to share openly.
• Food as a universal bond: A shared meal briefly bridges class and species, bringing comfort, gratitude, and unexpected cultural discovery.

Plot points and events

• Li Xiang and Miao Xiyue ride Tiger Million to his secluded mountain lair. Li Xiang uses Qi Observation and recognizes the valley as an excellent Feng Shui site that helps explain the tiger’s unusual growth.
• Tiger Million’s “miserable life” proves to be a welcoming household of women who regard him as their husband. They refuse to return to Tiger Family Village, where they were sent to the mountain as sacrifices.
• With Miao Xiyue interpreting, Tiger Million explains that he cannot build a human life with them and offers them Spirit Ginseng. Li Xiang persuades them that he will leave the mountain and that they can be resettled in Linjiang County. The women reluctantly agree to wait for him to cultivate a human form.
• Li Xiang asks Tiger Million to guide him around the mountain, promising a Demon Grain Pill in return. He leaves Miao Xiyue behind with the women and Great Treasure Toad.
• Before exploring the mountain’s shaded side, Li Xiang disguises himself as Lu Jin with a Human-Skin Mask. He finds a cave surrounded by dense yin baleful qi, but also detects a faint purple treasure aura—the likely “Immortal Destiny” sought by people from the Eastern Seas.
• Tiger Million refuses to approach the cave, where he once found the fruit that awakened his intelligence and later nearly froze to death. As Li Xiang considers entering, a mysterious voice invites him inside. He readies his knives and tosses three copper coins onto the ice.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang shows practical compassion by arranging a safe future for the women, while also pursuing the dangerous secret of the cave. His disguise reflects his caution.
• Tiger Million is revealed as a gentle, reluctant “husband,” overwhelmed by the women’s affection and eager to escape their demands. Despite his fear of the cave, he helps Li Xiang for the promised pill.
• Miao Xiyue serves as Tiger Million’s interpreter, softening his blunt words and helping negotiate the women’s departure.
• The women are wary of returning to the village because they were treated as disposable sacrifices. Their loyalty to Tiger Million stems from his kindness, though they finally accept resettlement and hope he will one day join them as a human.

Significant themes

• Kindness versus appearance: The frightening tiger is kinder to the women than the villagers who sent them away.
• Freedom and attachment: The women’s devotion comforts and burdens Tiger Million; their separation requires acknowledging that affection cannot erase their different lives.
• Compassion and responsibility: Li Xiang helps the women find safety rather than simply forcing them back to the village.
• Hidden danger and promise: The cave’s oppressive deathly aura conceals a pure purple treasure radiance, suggesting that something valuable lies within peril.

Key plot points and events

• Li Xiang consults a divination hexagram before entering the ominous cave, interpreting it as a warning that danger accompanies opportunity. He gives Tiger Million a Demon Grain Pill and tells the frightened beast to stay outside and flee if necessary.
• Inside, Li Xiang withstands the soul-chilling cold and discovers a vast cavern surrounding a pool of black water. Numerous factions have gathered there: the Yagyu Dojo, Tianjin Four Gentlemen, Northern Shaolin, Songshan Sword Sect, Celestial Master Mansion, Beggar Gang, and Kong Mansion.
• Disguised as Lu Jin, Li Xiang convincingly plays the part of a spoiled, Westernized family outcast, deflecting mockery with careless humor. A physiognomy cultivator with Yin-Yang Eyes studies him but does not expose his identity.
• The old cultivator reveals that the gathering concerns the Spirit Ruins Blessed Land, a sealed cave heaven that opens once every hundred years. Participants will enter in rearranged groups, fend for themselves, and have their strength suppressed to the First Realm.
• Li Xiang is grouped with the Kong Mansion, Yagyu Dojo, and Tianjin Four Gentlemen—a potentially volatile mix. After the old cultivator activates the entrance with a jade seal, the gathered factions enter the water vortex.
• Li Xiang passes through and arrives in a lush primeval forest, where the chapter ends.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang shows caution and resolve: despite the danger, he commits to entering, protects his cover, and quickly assesses the factions around him. Learning that everyone will be reduced to the First Realm reassures him, since his abilities make him exceptionally strong at that level.
• Tiger Million is terrified of the cave, but Li Xiang’s gift of a pill and concern for the tiger’s escape show their bond.
• Luo Yunpeng and another martial artist mock Lu Jin’s foreign studies and unusual profession. Li Xiang answers with a pointed quip, making the group wary of insulting the Lu Family.
• Kong Qiuji behaves politely toward Li Xiang while privately looking down on him, and hints that the group may need his help inside.
• Yagyu Kitet​​su formally introduces himself and expresses interest in Li Xiang, while Cai Yan guides him to join the group.

Significant themes

• Disguise and social perception: Li Xiang uses the reputation of a useless, eccentric heir to make others underestimate him.
• Risk and opportunity: The hexagram foreshadows the danger hidden within the promise of the blessed land.
• Factional rivalry and uneasy cooperation: Old enmities and differing loyalties are forced into a shared expedition.
• Power and fairness: Realm suppression levels the contestants’ cultivation, potentially changing who holds the advantage.

Plot points and events

• Li Xiang and the others enter the Spirit Ruins Blessed Land, where an oppressive law suppresses everyone’s abilities to the First Realm. Li Xiang’s blood and qi are greatly restricted, but his exceptional physical strength remains largely intact.
• The group heads through the Withered-and-Blooming Forest toward a central medicinal garden. Li Xiang detects chaotic, clashing energies and spots a dangerous ghost-face flower—an extinct plant associated with the Ghost Dynasty. Identifying it raises his Physician skill to Level 2.
• Yagyu Kitetsu probes Li Xiang about the Lu Family’s martial arts and rumored ancestral map. Li Xiang hides his lack of knowledge behind the identity of “Lu Jin”; Kong Qiuji interrupts, ostensibly defending him but also insisting that any discoveries should be shared.
• A rock python ambushes the group. The Tianjin Four Gentlemen’s techniques prove ineffective under the suppression, while Yagyu Kitetsu kills the beast with a precise sword strike and claims its valuable blood-crest mushroom.
• Purple mist suddenly thickens, and Li Xiang senses that the terrain’s feng shui has reversed from mostly favorable to overwhelmingly deadly. He realizes the blessed land may be an awakened predator.
• Elsewhere, a second group led by the physiognomist Golden Ghosthead becomes lost in the mist. A rogue cultivator is attacked by a towering, intelligent crimson Ghostman, which kills him and turns its attention to the survivors.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang remains observant and cautious, using his Feng Shui and Physician skills to interpret the environment while concealing his real identity and capabilities. The suppression favors his unusually powerful body.
• Yagyu Kitetsu emerges as an exceptionally skilled and ruthless swordsman. His probing questions reveal his interest in the Lu Family’s secrets, while his easy victory over the python humiliates the Four Gentlemen.
• Kong Qiuji tries to maintain group cohesion and restrain Yagyu’s attempts to claim exclusive advantages, though his intervention is also politically self-serving.
• The Tianjin Four Gentlemen are badly disadvantaged because their arts depend on spiritual projection; their failed attacks leave them exposed and embarrassed.
• Golden Ghosthead reassures the suspicious Liao San that he knows the way, but the group’s confidence collapses when the Ghostman appears. The chapter ends with the humans facing a new and terrifying threat.

Significant themes

• Adaptation under constraint: The realm’s suppression weakens refined, outward-facing techniques while rewarding physical toughness and practical combat skill.
• Self-interest and uneasy cooperation: The group agrees to travel together, but each member watches for personal advantage.
• A hostile, living environment: The forest’s deadly plants, shifting formations, and reversed feng shui suggest the blessed land is actively hunting its visitors.
• The return of buried history: The ghost-face flower and Ghostman hint that the Ghost Dynasty’s horrors—and its legacy—remain present.

Plot points and events

• The Crimson Ghost King devours the souls and life energy of a group of cultivators, then complains that they are too weak to satisfy him. Golden Ghosthead, the sole survivor, flatters him and offers to lead him to stronger prey; the Ghost King agrees to honor their arrangement.
• Elsewhere, Northern Shaolin monks kill a Snow-Eyed Spirit Ape and take its inner core, intending to use it to help their Martial Uncle break through a bottleneck. They frame the killing as compassionate, righteous service.
• The Crimson Ghost King appears before the monks. Their leader, Yan Kong, dismisses him as a mere monster and orders the powerful Yan Shen to capture him.
• Yan Shen’s attack cannot even reach the Ghost King. The Ghost King effortlessly kills him, takes his Śarīra, and finds it disappointing.
• The remaining monks panic and flee. The Ghost King sends ghostly tendrils after them, declaring that escape is futile in the Daoist-sealed realm.

Character developments

• Crimson Ghost King: Revealed as a powerful, arrogant predator who judges people chiefly by the quality of their souls and bodies. His casual slaughter establishes the overwhelming danger he poses.
• Golden Ghosthead: Shows himself to be a cowardly opportunist, surviving by groveling and offering the Ghost King access to more victims.
• Yan Kong: His confident, self-righteous authority collapses when confronted with a genuinely superior threat; he abandons his monks and runs.
• The Shaolin monks: Their proclaimed compassion and courage prove superficial: they kill for useful resources, then discard their ideals when their own lives are at stake. Yan Shen’s confidence in his physical defenses is shattered instantly.

Significant themes

• Hypocrisy and self-interest: Both Golden Ghosthead and the monks use flattering or religious language to disguise selfish motives.
• Power and predation: The Ghost King’s contempt for weaker beings reflects a brutal hierarchy in which the vulnerable become food.
• False righteousness: The monks call killing the ape an act of mercy while harvesting its core, exposing the gap between their moral claims and actions.
• Terror dissolves authority: Rank, discipline, and religious prestige offer no protection when confronted with overwhelming force.

Character interactions

• Golden Ghosthead appeases and bargains with the Ghost King, who mocks human hypocrisy but keeps their agreement.
• The Shaolin monks cooperate to corner the spirit ape, then praise one another’s supposed virtue.
• Yan Kong tries to steady his group and sends Yan Shen to confront the Ghost King; Yan Shen’s failure and death trigger the monks’ panic.
• The Ghost King treats the fleeing monks as prey, taunting them while his ghostly tendrils hunt them down.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Beggar Gang’s secret mission: Elder Li Jingtao leads his followers away from the supposed spirit-herb expedition, abandoning the rogue cultivators they had brought along as cover. He finds a golden Sacred Beast Egg nestled between the skull’s tusks of a fallen Demon Sage. The egg has been hidden for centuries to absorb the site’s earth qi.
• The Songshan Sword Sect attacks: Sha Qianchen and his men ambush the Beggar Gang and claim the egg by force. Li Jingtao is badly wounded, but later escapes into the mysterious fog.
• The fog gathers the factions: Li Xiang, Kong Qiuji, Yagyu Kitetsu, Luo Yunpeng, and others find themselves drawn together. Zhang Qichen explains that the fog is an ancient protective formation, activated because the blessed land is a prison for a dangerous being.
• Betrayal breaks the protection: Yan Kong and the elderly physiognomy cultivator—revealed as Golden Ghosthead—deliberately damage the formation to serve their own interests. The mist collapses, exposing the group to the threat it had been shielding them from.
• The Crimson Ghost King appears: The Ghost King reveals himself and kills Cui Jing, then swiftly slaughters the other three members of the Tianjin Four Gentlemen. Zhang Qichen’s powerful pure-yang attack appears useless: the Ghost King simply absorbs the fire.
• The survivors divide: Zhang Qichen identifies the Ghost King’s ability to absorb magical energy and urges physical combat, but few dare approach him. Kong Yaji and Yagyu Kitetsu kneel and pledge allegiance; their followers follow suit. Sha Qianchen refuses to submit and is killed. Kui Jingtao also defies the Ghost King and is beheaded, though his body remains standing with his staff.

Character developments

• Li Jingtao is shown to be ruthless and ambitious: he knowingly abandons the rogue cultivators to secure the egg. After the Songshan attack, he seeks refuge among the gathered factions and exposes the egg’s existence.
• Zhang Qichen takes charge as the crisis escalates. Though initially proud and combative, he acts decisively, attacks the Ghost King, then quickly assesses the enemy’s ability and warns others against wasting their lives on spells.
• Kong Yaji abandons the moral posture associated with the Kong Mansion and submits to the Ghost King, hoping to gain the title of Duke Yansheng and power over Confucian scholars.
• Yagyu Kitetsu likewise chooses survival through submission, persuading the Eastern Seas warriors to kneel with him.
• Sha Qianchen is both cunning and shameless in trying to disguise his pursuit of the egg as a private feud. Despite his tactics, he refuses to surrender and dies challenging the Ghost King.
• Kui Jingtao is exposed as a eunuch and answers Sha Qianchen’s slander with furious defiance. At the final confrontation, he refuses to kneel and faces death standing.
• Li Xiang remains observant and wary, particularly of the Kong Mansion and Golden Ghosthead, and avoids committing himself as the crisis unfolds.

Significant themes

• Survival versus integrity: The group’s responses to the Ghost King divide them between those who submit to live and those who would rather die than surrender.
• Betrayal and self-interest: Li Jingtao sacrifices outsiders for his mission, while Yan Kong and Golden Ghosthead knowingly destroy the protective formation to preserve themselves.
• Power and moral hypocrisy: Powerful lineages and professions offer no guarantee of virtue; characters invoking morality may still act selfishly, while others reveal their principles only under mortal threat.
• The limits of conventional strength: Zhang Qichen’s strongest magical weapon is swallowed effortlessly, demonstrating that the Ghost King’s unique ability overturns the group’s usual assumptions about combat.
• Ambition and contested inheritance: The Sacred Beast Egg and the Ghost King’s promised spiritual titles show how factions are tempted by the promise of lasting power and authority.

Character interactions

• Li Jingtao’s followers question abandoning the rogue cultivators, but he silences their objections by insisting that survival and the mission come first.
• Sha Qianchen and Li Jingtao argue over ownership of the Sacred Beast Egg before their dispute becomes a violent fight.
• Luo Yunpeng and Kong Qiuji compare what their lineages know about the fog, while Zhang Qichen explains its protective purpose; Cai Yan’s challenge to him nearly sparks a fight.
• Yan Kong and Golden Ghosthead act in concert to break the formation, revealing their willingness to betray the gathered survivors.
• Zhang Qichen tries to unite the group against the Ghost King, but Kong Yaji and Yagyu Kitetsu instead lead others into submission.
• Sha Qianchen and Kui Jingtao openly defy the Ghost King, becoming examples of the deadly cost of resistance.

Chapter summary

• Zhang Qichen and Li Xiang challenge the Crimson Ghost King’s apparent form. Both step forward rather than kneel, despite the crowd’s belief that resistance is hopeless. Zhang recognizes that Lu Jin—Li Xiang’s alias—is genuinely a first-realm cultivator with unusually refined physical strength. The Ghost King allows them to attack together.
• The pair struggle to overcome the Ghost King’s defenses. Zhang’s sword and Li Xiang’s fists barely leave marks. Li Xiang switches to his twin knives, uses his anatomical insight to find a weak point, and lands a series of close-range blows. Their instincts and complementary styles let them briefly coordinate effectively. Under the pressure of the fight, Li Xiang’s Boxer and Swordsman experience rise rapidly.
• The Ghost King takes Yagyu Kitetsu’s Demon Blade and gives it to Li Xiang. Li Xiang accepts the cursed weapon and subdues its bloodthirsty spirit through sheer physical force, including punching it into submission. With the blade, he and Zhang begin to wound the Ghost King and force him onto the defensive.
• Li Xiang’s Boxer advancement ritual activates. At Boxer level 10, he must defeat a stronger opponent within the same realm. Seeing the Ghost King as an ideal candidate, Li Xiang attacks with greater determination. He and Zhang exploit an opening together; Li Xiang endures the Ghost King’s lightning and delivers a decisive Rising Slash that appears to split him in two.
• The apparent victory proves disastrous. Li Xiang’s Boxer ritual remains incomplete, revealing that the slain figure was not the true Ghost King but a physical seal. Its destruction breaks the Blessed Land’s restrictions, restoring everyone else’s cultivation while leaving Li Xiang unchanged. The true Crimson Ghost King descends through a rift and reveals that he manipulated outsiders into breaking his prison.
• The Ghost King’s promise of immortality is a trap. He gives seven people—among them the Physiognomy Cultivator, Kong Qiuji, Yan Kong, and Yagyu Kitetsu—drops of his essence blood. They transform into monstrous aberrations that embody their corrupted professions and desires. The Ghost King then devours them, strengthening his newly freed form.
• The Ghost King targets Li Xiang. He admires Li Xiang’s exceptionally pure, well-tempered body and attempts to possess him, offering power in exchange for Li Xiang’s memories and consciousness. As the Ghost King invades Li Xiang’s mind, the Golden Cicada within him emits a powerful white light. A mysterious woman’s voice addresses the Ghost King by name, “Chihong,” and announces that she has finally caught him and will settle an old debt.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang moves from wary underdog to relentless combatant, combining his Boxer, Swordsman, Painter, and Feng Shui abilities. His confidence and skill grow during the fight, but the incomplete ritual forces him to recognize that appearances can be deceptive. He ends the chapter possessed—or nearly possessed—yet protected by a mysterious power within the Golden Cicada.
• Zhang Qichen proves to be a capable and cooperative ally. He fights beside Li Xiang, follows his tactical instructions without hesitation, and later tries to protect him despite knowing they are outmatched.
• The Crimson Ghost King shifts from amused opponent to revealed manipulator and predator. His apparent form was only part of his prison; once freed, he exploits people’s ambitions and seeks Li Xiang’s body.
• Yagyu Kitetsu loses his arm and blade, then watches Li Xiang master the weapon he revered. His humiliation and resentment deepen, though fear keeps him submissive.
• Kong Qiuji, Yan Kong, and the other transformed figures become grotesque embodiments of their professional failings. Their supposed reward of eternal life becomes a loss of humanity, followed by being eaten.
• The crowd’s judgment of Li Xiang changes: those who dismissed him as reckless or foolish witness his prowess, only to see the fight’s apparent victory trigger a far worse crisis.

Significant themes

• Courage and growth through adversity: Li Xiang’s advancement depends on challenging an acknowledged stronger foe, and the deadly battle accelerates his development.
• The danger of false victory and manipulation: the group mistakes a seal for the enemy, and their hard-won triumph helps free the real threat.
• Corruption disguised as reward: the Ghost King’s promise of immortality transforms his followers into monsters and ends in their consumption.
• Power, identity, and possession: Li Xiang’s body is coveted as a vessel, raising the threat of losing not just his life but his consciousness.
• Allegiance and trust: Zhang’s partnership with Li Xiang contrasts with the others’ submission to the Ghost King’s promises.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• The Crimson Ghost King enters Li Xiang’s body, but panics when he senses Lingxu’s presence and flees. The Golden Cicada emerges from Li Xiang as well, drawing in the rules and ghost qi of the Spirit Ruins Blessed Land and manifesting True Person Lingxu.
• Lingxu is revealed as the Daoist corpse of the legendary Patriarch Lingxu, who pursued the forbidden path of Three Corpse Slashing. He fights the Crimson Ghost King, using Dao-slaying swordsmanship and the Golden Cicada—also called the Spring-Autumn Cicada—to weaken him.
• Lingxu manifests his Daoist, Buddhist, and sword corpses, while the Ghost King opens a gate to Skinning Hell in a desperate counterattack. Lingxu ultimately destroys him and absorbs his remaining essence into Li Xiang’s Demon Cutter, transforming it into a powerful ghost-slaying blade.
• Lingxu explains that he is only an obsessive remnant of the long-dead original. He returns the Golden Cicada to Li Xiang, entrusts him with a ten-thousand-year-old Sacred Beast Egg, gives him three valuable texts, and erases Zhang Qichen’s and others’ memories of the battle. Lingxu then disperses, restoring vitality to the blessed land and sending warmth into the blizzard-stricken world.
• At Blackwater Pool, the Black Sky Lord learns that the Crimson Ghost King—the Ghost Clan’s invasion anchor—has fallen. Unable to invade effectively without him, he orders the Ghost Clan army to withdraw. The exhausted defenders celebrate their survival, though Kong Changkong remains cautious.
• Li Xiang leaves the blessed land and returns to his companions. He arranges for the rescued women from Tiger Family Village to be escorted to safety and ensures the village’s human sacrifices will be reported. Tiger Million chooses to join him in exchange for regular meals.
• Elsewhere, Zhang Yunshang suffers a dangerous fever caused by the powerful heart transplanted into her. Her body begins to burn, and Lin Xuanshu recognizes the condition as a tribulation rather than an ordinary illness.

Character developments

• Li Xiang gains a transformed ghost-slaying blade, the Golden Cicada, the Sacred Beast Egg, and three major inheritances: the Yellow Court Scripture, Twelve Essentials of the Beast-Taming Heart Sutra, and Sword Dao True Exposition. He also begins studying beast-taming principles, and the [Book of a Hundred Trades] reveals a new page.
• True Person Lingxu is shown as a formidable, self-sacrificing remnant who has guarded the world for ten thousand years. After fulfilling his final purpose, he willingly dissolves and renews the land.
• The Crimson Ghost King goes from arrogant confidence in his immortality to despair and destruction.
• Tiger Million shifts from a loyal companion in the mountains to Li Xiang’s enthusiastic new mount and prospective ally.
• Miao Xiyue feels an unexplained pull toward Li Xiang, mistakenly attributing it to attraction; the Sacred Beast Egg is actually drawing her Beast-Taming Saint Body.
• Zhang Yunshang’s condition worsens, hinting that her new heart carries a perilous power.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and release: Lingxu’s long vigil ends only when he gives his remaining existence back to the world.
• Power and hidden costs: The Golden Cicada subtly altered Li Xiang’s perceptions, and Zhang Yunshang’s heart proves too powerful for her body.
• Legacy and responsibility: Lingxu’s gifts offer Li Xiang immense potential, but also bind him to the task of confronting supernatural threats.
• The fragility of victory: The Ghost Clan retreats, but its broader invasion ambitions remain, and the defenders have suffered heavy losses.

Character interactions

• Lingxu refuses the Ghost King’s offer of alliance and defeats him; afterward, he speaks candidly with Li Xiang, compensates him, and protects him by erasing witnesses’ memories.
• Li Xiang entrusts the rescued women to Dong Zhao and insists they be treated safely; Tiger Million’s playful “threat” to protect them becomes a moment of comic misunderstanding.
• Miao Xiyue interprets Tiger Million’s speech for the others and grows increasingly aware of her attraction to Li Xiang, without understanding its true cause.
• At Blackwater, the Ghost Clan’s retreat brings the battered defenders together in relief, while Kong Changkong’s concern keeps the victory from feeling entirely secure.

Plot points and events

• Li Xiang unlocks the Beast Tamer profession. Its basic trait lets him sense beasts’ emotions and calm them; he uses it to bond with Tiger Million, whose main concern is finding a reliable source of food.
• In the Spirit Ruins Blessed Land, Zhang Qichen and other Celestial Master Mansion disciples wake with missing memories and injuries. His attempt to divine what happened triggers a frightening backlash, and an image-recording artifact is destroyed by a blinding force. Outside, he finds the landscape transformed by renewed spiritual energy, suggesting a Sage’s death has nourished the land.
• In Linjiang County, Zhang hears rumors that Lu Jin—now being praised as Lu Zongheng—persuaded the Demon City to send troops. The Lu Family’s absence from the gathering makes Zhang suspect they may know more about the blessed land’s mysterious events.
• Aboard the journey, Li Xiang considers True Person Lingxu’s long-hidden plan to use him as bait to kill the Crimson Ghost King. He feeds Tiger Million a Demon Grain Pill, raising his Beast Tamer profession to level 2, and considers the demanding ritual required to advance to Beast-Spirit Walker.
• The group encounters Ye Qingyao, Qin Zhong, Cai Jin, and their companions battling lesser ghosts while protecting refugees. Li Xiang charges into the fight on Tiger Million and uses the modified Ghost-Slaying Blade to destroy the ghosts. The blade absorbs ghost qi and helps raise Li Xiang’s profession experience.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang grows more capable as a beast tamer and demonstrates his strength in battle, coordinating confidently with Tiger Million. His successful charge astonishes the people who knew him.
• Tiger Million responds eagerly to Li Xiang and the Demon Grain Pills, showing that their bond is rooted as much in appetite as in trust.
• Zhang Qichen shifts from confusion to alarm as he realizes the incident in the blessed land involved forces beyond his ability to investigate. He decides to report it to the Celestial Master.
• Ye Qingyao remains composed and tactical, directing the defense. Qin Zhong, absorbed in fighting, nearly mistakes Li Xiang and Tiger Million for enemies until Ye identifies them.
• Miao Xiyue affectionately worries that her Five Poison Treasures are going hungry and offers to let them go with Li Xiang; they refuse, remaining loyal to her.
• Cai Jin is stunned by Li Xiang’s unexpected arrival and combat prowess.

Significant themes

• Hidden power and incomplete knowledge: Zhang’s missing memories, failed divination, and destroyed recording device show how thoroughly the blessed-land incident has been concealed.
• Growth through bonds and trials: Li Xiang’s connection with Tiger Million develops alongside his profession, while the advanced Beast Tamer path demands a genuine test of wills.
• The cost and aftermath of sacrifice: The blessed land’s renewed vitality implies that a Sage’s death has transformed the surrounding world.
• A new generation facing danger: The battle against the remaining ghosts serves as a trial for the survivors, while Li Xiang’s intervention signals the emergence of a formidable new fighter.

Key plot points and events

• Li Xiang arrives at the besieged convoy riding Tiger Million and quickly kills the lesser ghosts attacking it.
• He confronts a powerful ghost monk whose mind-bending chants lure refugees into its belly. Li Xiang resists the spell, beheads the monk, then destroys its body by driving his blade into its chanting mouth. The lesser ghosts lose control and are wiped out.
• The group resumes its journey toward Blackwater Ancient Town, expecting tougher battles ahead. During the trip, Li Xiang explains that Miao Xiyue is a Five Poisons Gate inheritor bound by contract not to use gu against others without cause.
• When asked why Demon City has sent unusually capable reinforcements, Li Xiang conceals his own involvement and credits Lu Jin—now supposedly “Lu Zongheng”—with persuading the demonkin. Qin Zhong recognizes the story’s likely connection to Shopkeeper Sun but keeps quiet.
• At an abandoned relay station, the convoy stops to aid gathered refugees. Li Xiang treats wounded soldiers alongside Hua Jingshan, then helps prepare and serve porridge.
• The refugees’ gratitude completes the Cook profession’s “taste of happiness” ritual. Li Xiang breaks through its mortal bottleneck, gains the basic trait masterful hearthfire, and learns to turn his qi and blood into yang fire effective against ghosts.
• Ye Qingyao calls Li Xiang over and throws a pair of Eight-Cutting Knives at him, inviting him to use everything he has against her.

Character developments

• Li Xiang reveals formidable combat ability, strong resistance to spiritual attacks, and growing medical skill. His Cook profession advances through serving others, giving him a new anti-ghost capability.
• Ye Qingyao trusts Li Xiang’s judgment and respects his privacy, choosing not to question his blade or his strength. She remains focused on the mission and appears ready to test his new abilities.
• Miao Xiyue is accepted into the group after Li Xiang explains her contract and circumstances.
• Qin Zhong admires Li Xiang and envies Tiger Million, while privately realizing Li Xiang’s account of Lu Jin is likely a cover.
• Tiger Million shows his loyalty and protectiveness, but his unfamiliarity with human customs becomes a source of comic danger.

Significant themes

• Service and compassion: Treating the wounded and feeding refugees are as important to the mission as fighting ghosts; acts of care also enable Li Xiang’s advancement.
• Trust and discretion: The group accepts Miao Xiyue through clear guarantees, while Ye Qingyao respects Li Xiang’s secrets.
• Power and responsibility: Li Xiang’s strength is used to protect the convoy and civilians, not merely to defeat enemies.
• Humor amid danger: Banter about Tiger Million, Qin Zhong’s suspicions, and Li Xiang’s unlikely explanations lighten the grim journey.

Character interactions

• Li Xiang and Tiger Million fight in close coordination; afterward, the tiger blocks Qin Zhong’s attempted embrace but warms to him when praised.
• Ye Qingyao questions the demonkin’s unusual support, and Li Xiang redirects suspicion by crediting Lu Jin.
• Miao Xiyue explains that Tiger Million understood the drivers’ talk about using tiger parts as medicine, prompting Cai Jin to silence them.
• Hua Jingshan praises Li Xiang’s developing medical abilities, while the kitchen staff welcomes his help.
• The chapter ends with Ye Qingyao challenging Li Xiang directly, setting up a test of his capabilities.

1. Key plot points and events

• Ye Qingyao invites Li Xiang to spar, explaining that the ghosts leaking from the front line are deliberately being used as a trial for the younger generation. She warns that survival depends on real combat, not sheltered training.
• Li Xiang and Ye Qingyao fight intensely. His growing skill and ability to combine several professions let him withstand her attacks, read her movements, and counter her ultimate first-realm technique with Qi Observation and Vibration Blade.
• Ye Qingyao unleashes Divine Dragon Power, overwhelming Li Xiang’s abilities. He wisely concedes before the spar turns deadly. She reveals that it belongs to Hong Tianbao’s profession sequence: Boxer → Warrior → Martial Daoist → the legendary Divine Dragon Venerable. She also mentions mythic professions beyond the legendary tier.
• Ye Qingyao cautions Li Xiang against making Physiognomy Cultivator his main path, since its practitioners are said to suffer disastrous fates. She urges him to complete his Boxer breakthrough rather than waste time fighting opponents too weak to challenge him.
• The scene shifts to the main war at Blackwater Ancient Town. The Black Sky Lord sows suspicion by claiming there is a traitor among the defenders, but a Tianjin military Grandmaster rallies the line with the Black Tiger Army. Lin Xuanguang and Wang Shuo fight desperately to protect civilians.
• A Fourth Realm Greater Ghost breaks through toward the wounded. Hong Tianbao kills it instantly and tells Tang Youwei not to risk her life needlessly. Ye Wanqing cuts down lesser ghosts with her Severing Fate Scissors.
• Ghosts spill toward the mass-grave forest and threaten the Shocking Heron Martial Hall’s relay station. Ye Qingyao organizes the evacuation of the vulnerable while able-bodied people defend the station.
• Li Xiang and Tiger Million fight through the night, killing ghosts and gaining experience. Wounded and exhausted, Li Xiang keeps returning to battle, driven both by the crisis and his need to complete his Boxer breakthrough ritual.
• By dawn, the first reinforcements—the Eight Trigrams Gate and True Martial Gate—arrive. Li Xiang is sent to welcome them.

2. Character developments

• Li Xiang proves he has advanced far beyond a novice: he combines multiple professions effectively, adapts to Ye Qingyao’s techniques, and shows battlefield endurance and resolve. His ambition to pursue the strongest profession path—and ultimately the Divine Dragon Venerable sequence—sharpens.
• Ye Qingyao shifts from instructor to genuine opponent, bringing out her full strength and acknowledging Li Xiang’s potential. Her stern care shows in her warnings about Physiognomy Cultivator and her insistence that he seek meaningful challenges.
• Qin Zhong is stunned by Li Xiang’s progress and recognizes that Ye Qingyao’s full power is extraordinary. He remains a comic, admiring companion.
• Hong Tianbao is shown as a formidable protector, but his gentle advice to Tang Youwei contrasts with his overwhelming battlefield strength.
• Lin Xuanguang and Wang Shuo appear hardened by war: Lin has lost his youthful idealism, while Wang fights on despite severe injuries.
• Tiger Million grows through combat alongside Li Xiang, recovering quickly with a Demon Grain Pill and eagerly returning to battle.

3. Significant themes

• Growth through danger: Real combat, risk, and hardship are presented as essential to becoming stronger.
• Power and its cost: Some paths, especially Physiognomy Cultivator, offer exceptional abilities but carry grave long-term risks.
• Ambition and destiny: Li Xiang aims to unite many professions and follow an unprecedented path toward legendary power.
• War’s human cost: The battle damages bodies and spirits alike, while ordinary people and professionals alike fight for survival.
• Trust under pressure: The Black Sky Lord’s claim of a traitor exploits the defenders’ vulnerability and shows how easily fear can weaken solidarity.
• Practical courage: Characters repeatedly balance bravery with survival, as seen when Li Xiang concedes the spar and Hong Tianbao warns Tang Youwei not to overreach.

4. Character interactions

• Li Xiang and Ye Qingyao: Their spar combines mentorship, rivalry, and mutual respect. She tests his limits, he surprises her, and she ultimately reveals the profession sequence behind her power.
• Li Xiang and Qin Zhong: Qin praises Li Xiang, jokes about needing to train harder, and is immediately wary of Ye Qingyao’s temper.
• Hong Tianbao and Tang Youwei: He rescues her from the Greater Ghost and urges her to protect herself; she suspects he is concealing something, but prioritizes treating the wounded.
• Li Xiang and Tiger Million: They fight as a coordinated team, share a brief recovery, and return to the battlefield together.
• Ye Qingyao and the defenders: She gives clear evacuation and defense orders, acting as a decisive commander amid the expanding threat.

Plot points and events

• The Eight Gates Martial Hall clears its stretch of the Official Road amid brutal fighting. Ma Teng, stung by news that Ye Qingyao’s Shocking Heron Martial Hall arrived first and wiped out a Ghost Tide, throws himself into battle and consumes pills recklessly to keep fighting.
• Chu Tian kills Ghost Creatures with uncanny precision. The Yin Virtue released by their deaths gradually repairs his damaged soul and restores his clarity. Lü Baichuan watches over him while also worrying about Ma Teng.
• At the Relay Station, the leaders of the Eight Trigrams Gate and True Martial Gate arrive: Fang Jingnian and Guo Kai. They trade barbs over their schools’ rivalry, but their meeting is interrupted by Li Xiang, arriving on Tiger Million, both drenched in Ghost blood. Mistaking him for a Ghostman, Fang nearly attacks before Li identifies himself; Tiger Million shakes off the gore and reveals his white fur.
• Guo Kai recognizes Li Xiang as Hong Tianbao’s disciple and explains that his father once studied alongside Hong. Li accepts Guo as an old family connection, though he privately suspects his master has many troublesome acquaintances.
• Ye Qingyao briefs the assembled leaders on the crisis. A black moon hangs over Blackwater Ancient Town, where the decisive battle is underway and a Grandmaster confronts the fearsome Black Heaven. Ye warns that the lesser fighters must handle their own battles rather than be distracted by the Grandmasters’ clash.
• Scout Cai Jin reports eleven nearby Ghost Clan strongholds: four Ghostmen and seven intelligent Greater Ghosts. He presents photographs identifying several unusual monsters, including a Treasure Chest Ghost and a three-headed hound that Li recognizes as the fused remains of the Huang brothers’ dogs.
• Li claims the three-headed hound as his target and says he will not face it alone, pointing outside just as the chapter ends.

Character developments and interactions

• Ma Teng channels wounded pride and rivalry with Ye into reckless combat. His determination is genuine, but his pill use and fixation on proving himself expose his desperation and physical strain.
• Chu Tian finds a possible path to healing through the Yin Virtue of slain ghosts; the battle is restoring both his soul and his awareness.
• Lü Baichuan serves as a watchful protector, balancing concern for Chu Tian with alarm at Ma Teng’s unstable state.
• Fang Jingnian and Guo Kai reveal contrasting temperaments: Fang is proud and provocative, while Guo is genial, tactful, and politically adept. Both become notably deferential around Ye Qingyao.
• Li Xiang remains composed and wry amid danger. He defuses Fang’s mistaken attack, accepts Guo’s connection to his master, and volunteers to confront a dangerous creature tied to his past.
• Ye Qingyao commands the room through directness and authority, moving everyone from spectacle and banter to practical planning.

Significant themes

• Pride and rivalry: Ma Teng’s competition with Ye drives him forward but also pushes him toward self-destructive choices.
• Survival and responsibility: With the strongest fighters occupied elsewhere, the gathered martial artists must protect their own ground.
• Transformation and lingering identity: Ghost Creatures retain traces of their former lives, while Chu Tian’s own damaged nature makes him vulnerable to—and sustained by—the supernatural.
• Reputation, lineage, and connection: The rivalry between schools and Guo Kai’s inherited ties to Hong Tianbao show how martial-world relationships shape both conflict and cooperation.

Plot and key events

• Ye Qingyao finalizes the purge of the Ghost Clan around Blackwater Ancient Town. Li Xiang is assigned the three-headed mutated dog, though others mistakenly assume he depends on his imposing tiger companion, Tiger Million.
• Before heading out, Li Xiang helps Hua Jingshan treat the flood of wounded at the relay station. The intense work quickly raises his Physician Profession to Level 4, bringing him closer to unlocking the Warrior Profession.
• After the infirmary’s worst cases are stabilized, Li Xiang leaves to fight. He casts a hexagram that predicts danger followed by success, then rides Tiger Million into Ghost Mist Forest.
• Li Xiang and Tiger Million cut through groups of lesser ghosts, gaining Yin Virtue and experience across several Professions. The forest grows increasingly corrupted as Netherworld rules overtake the land.
• They encounter the Curse Fetus, a vast monster born from the backlash of Fortune-Transferring Women’s curses and the resentment of unborn children. It attacks nearby fighters with contaminating spores and flesh-born creatures, killing and absorbing some of them.
• Li Xiang uses a Ghost-Wall Maze Formation to hold off the monster’s tentacles and orders the survivors to retreat. He then confronts the Curse Fetus alone with Tiger Million.
• Drawing on his Cook Profession, Li Xiang ignites his blood and vitality as blue Kitchen Fire, a powerful yang force that burns spiritual corruption. Combined with the Ghost-Slaying Blade, it cuts through the monster’s tentacles and drives it into agony. The battle is still ongoing at the chapter’s end.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Xiang shows both practical compassion and strong ambition: he tends the wounded, values the experience gained, and then returns to combat. His confidence is grounded in his many Professions, not merely his tiger’s apparent might. He also demonstrates tactical judgment by protecting the survivors before engaging the Curse Fetus.
• Hua Jingshan admires Li Xiang’s surgical skill and encourages him to devote himself to medicine. Li Xiang respects the work but sees the Physician Profession as one part of a broader path toward combining the hundred trades.
• Ye Qingyao keeps Li Xiang’s true abilities—and his trump cards—private, reflecting her protectiveness and belief that concealed strength helps one survive.
• Tiger Million serves as Li Xiang’s mount and fighting partner. His intimidating roar frightens the man-faced bats, while Li Xiang’s training helps their teamwork.
• The retreating students and patrol members recognize Li Xiang’s authority; one student promises to seek Ye Qingyao’s help rather than remain and become a burden.

Significant themes

• Growth through crisis: Battle accelerates both professional advancement and personal tempering.
• Compassion and violence as complementary forms of protection: Li Xiang first saves lives through medicine, then argues that, in a crisis, a blade may save more.
• Hidden strength and layered perception: Others underestimate Li Xiang by attributing his power to Tiger Million, while his real abilities come from a combination of Professions and specialized techniques.
• Corrupted ambition and its consequences: The Curse Fetus embodies the monstrous cost of trying to seize fortune through curses and exploitation of one’s own children.
• Life and home against spiritual corruption: Kitchen Fire represents the warmth and vitality of human households, making it a natural counter to the Curse Fetus’s deathly resentment.

Key plot points and events

• Li Xiang confronts the Curse Fetus, a peak second-realm ghost formed from a mountain of flesh and the accumulated resentment of its victims. Its psychic assault floods him with despair, but his newly strengthened Dragon Spine and Embalmer’s composure let him resist.
• He combines his professions’ abilities—using vital blood as cooking fire and channeling it through the Ghost-Slaying Blade—to create a violet-blue flame that burns ghostly energy and flesh. With Qi Observation and Bone-Drawing, he locates the Curse Fetus’s infant-spirit core.
• Li Xiang’s first strike cleaves away much of the monster, but its body rapidly regenerates. Recognizing that the infant spirit is trapped and longs for release, he attacks again with a more deliberate, compassionate purpose.
• His blade severs the spirit’s blood-red chains rather than harming it, while his Embalmer’s Rebirth Mantra and a touch of yang energy dissolve the curse runes. Freed, the infant spirit thanks him and vanishes; the Curse Fetus then loses its power and collapses into ash, leaving behind cracked purple-black beads.
• The battle nearly exhausts Li Xiang, but the Book of a Hundred Trades rewards him with profession experience and levels. Most significantly, his Boxer profession breaks through to Tier 1 and unlocks the trait Monkey Mind, Horse Will.
• His companions arrive after the battle. They are stunned to find the Curse Fetus destroyed, and the beads are identified as a rare Ghost Artifact. Their interest raises the risk that someone may try to claim it. Qin Zhong firmly defends Li Xiang’s ownership; Ye Qingyao tells him to step back as the chapter ends.

Character developments

• Li Xiang demonstrates both formidable combat skill and compassion: he defeats the monster but chooses to release its suffering core rather than destroy it. The victory advances his Boxer profession and gives him access to a dangerous, instinct-driven fighting state that makes him resistant to mental control and emotional interference.
• Ye Qingyao reveals concern beneath her stern manner, gently covering Li Xiang with her cloak and criticizing his recklessness. She asks that he involve the group next time.
• Qin Zhong shows loyalty and protectiveness, standing between Li Xiang and those who might covet the Ghost Artifact.
• Miao Xiyue offers Li Xiang restorative Gu worms despite her embarrassment, showing practical concern.
• Tiger Million helps catch the exhausted Li Xiang and, through his prideful reaction, adds a lighter note to the aftermath.

Significant themes

• Mercy amid violence: Li Xiang’s victory comes not only from force but from recognizing the infant spirit’s suffering and helping it find release.
• Power and sacrifice: His new strength is earned through a dangerous cross-level fight, and its cost is severe physical exhaustion.
• Life, death, and duty: Li Xiang’s combined roles as swordsman, physician, and embalmer frame the killing as both battle and funeral rite.
• Greed versus loyalty: The Ghost Artifact’s value immediately tests the group’s trust and highlights the danger of human opportunism.

Character interactions

• Li Xiang’s final exchange with the infant spirit is compassionate: he promises release, breaks its chains, and receives its thanks.
• Ye Qingyao’s restrained tenderness contrasts with her stern words, while Li Xiang accepts her care and agrees to include the others in future risks.
• Qin Zhong challenges the group’s sudden interest in the artifact and insists it belongs to Li Xiang.
• Miao Xiyue helps restore Li Xiang’s strength, while Tiger Million’s prideful claim to having assisted lightly eases the tension.

Key plot points and events

• Ye Qingyao swiftly defeats Fang Jingnian for spreading news that Li Xiang possesses a Ghost Artifact. She warns him that she will hold him responsible if the rumor causes trouble, then orders him and Guo Kai to clean the battlefield and help the injured recover in the Yin Virtue gathering there.
• Guo Kai and Fang Jingnian realize Ye Qingyao has reached the third realm of martial cultivation: she can wield Transforming Force, confirming her exceptional talent and making her a potential contender for Martial Leader.
• In the Ghost Mist Forest, four Netherworld ghostfolk discuss the dead Curse Fetus. They decide its killer is not an immediate concern and proceed with their plan to activate the Ten Thousand Ghosts Devouring Hearts Formation, sacrifice everyone within a hundred li, summon the Black Sky Lord, and destroy humanity’s younger generation.
• Hua Jingshan examines Li Xiang and finds him remarkably healthy, with no lasting injuries or depletion. Li Xiang explains that his temporary weakness has already begun to recover.
• Ye Qingyao apologizes for encouraging Li Xiang to advance quickly, believing that led him to risk fighting the Curse Fetus. Li Xiang reassures her that the encounter was accidental and affirms that she, his master, and Qin Zhong are among the people he would protect.
• Ye Qingyao identifies the Curse Fetus’s dropped Ghost Artifact as Fortune-Transferring Beads: nine beads, each embodying the resentment of an unborn child, that can avert fatal misfortune from the Lower Five Realms. One bead breaks immediately after Li Xiang puts them on, silently preventing a future threat to his life. The source of that threat remains unknown.
• Ye Qingyao begins teaching Li Xiang the fundamentals of Martial Force. As he practices Taizu Long Fist and reaches toward the Martial Stars, he connects with the star of the patriarch who created Martial Force. Its light enters him and forms a seed of Martial Force, which begins absorbing his qi, blood, and understanding of the fist form.

Character developments

• Ye Qingyao demonstrates both formidable authority and deep affection for Li Xiang. Her fierce concern surfaces in her apology and protective advice, even as she maintains her stern senior-sister manner.
• Li Xiang shows pragmatism, trust, and loyalty: he gives Ye Qingyao the valuable artifact without hesitation and openly declares that he would defend those closest to him. He also takes his first major step toward becoming a Martial Cultivator by awakening a Martial Force seed.
• Fang Jingnian is humbled by Ye Qingyao’s strength and recognizes her breakthrough, replacing his earlier confidence with fear and respect.
• Guo Kai shifts from confidence to deference after witnessing Ye Qingyao’s power and learning what her advancement means.
• Qin Zhong remains loyal and protective, guarding Li Xiang and Ye Qingyao’s quarters.

Significant themes

• Power and hierarchy: Ye Qingyao’s victory makes clear how mastery reshapes authority and silences those who covet Li Xiang’s artifact.
• Protection balanced with self-preservation: Ye Qingyao urges Li Xiang to help others without recklessly sacrificing himself; Li Xiang distinguishes between strangers and those he considers family.
• Trust and familial bonds: Li Xiang’s openness with Ye Qingyao and her concern for him strengthen their mentor–junior relationship.
• Inheritance and guidance: Martial Stars preserve the insights of past masters, allowing successors to follow established paths while developing their own strength.
• Hidden danger and fate: The bead’s immediate sacrifice reveals an unseen threat, while the ghostfolk’s scheme points to a wider catastrophe approaching.

Character interactions

• Ye Qingyao punishes Fang Jingnian and directs Guo Kai to organize recovery efforts, establishing her command over the gathered fighters.
• Fang Jingnian and Guo Kai discuss Ye Qingyao’s abilities, with Fang explaining how her Transforming Force exposed her breakthrough.
• Ye Qingyao and Li Xiang share a frank, affectionate exchange: she scolds him for risking his life, and he reassures her of his loyalty.
• Ye Qingyao examines the beads with her special vision, explains their grim origin and protective power, and warns Li Xiang not to remove them.
• Ye Qingyao shifts from caretaker to teacher, guiding Li Xiang through his first attempt to sense Martial Force; her patient instruction helps him connect with the Martial Star.

Key plot points and events

• Li Xiang senses Martial Force after only an hour of practice, astonishing Qin Zhong and impressing Ye Qingyao.
• He forms Clear Force—the first level of Martial Force—and understands it through his Feng Shui perspective as a new landscape within the body, shaped by the meridians, bones, and other physical structures.
• Under Ye Qingyao’s guidance, he channels it through Taizu Long Fist and forms his first Dragon Force, the essential foundation of the Path of Dragon Transformation and its future tribulations.
• He quickly develops Crushing Force from Crushing Fist and Piercing Force from Wing Chun Eight-Cutting Knives. He then connects with the Truth Martial Star and fuses both forces into Dragon Force with remarkable ease.
• Ye Qingyao teaches him practical combat and the importance of conserving Martial Force. After sparring, Li Xiang rests; overnight, the mysterious Golden Cicada produces a golden cocoon around him, which dissolves by morning.
• As more Martial Guild teams gather near Blackwater Ancient Town, Li Xiang decides he still needs to grow stronger. He rides Tiger Million into Ghost Mist Forest to hunt ghosts and train.

Character developments

• Li Xiang proves exceptionally talented, grasping Martial Force, Dragon Force, two other forces, and their fusion far faster than expected. He also develops a clearer understanding of martial power through his Feng Shui abilities and becomes more eager to test it in combat.
• Ye Qingyao remains composed and demanding, but is privately shocked by Li Xiang’s progress. She shifts her expectations upward and emphasizes patience, sound foundations, and practical skill.
• Qin Zhong is first humbled by the comparison, then turns his envy into determination, resolving to train harder rather than concede defeat.

Significant themes

• Talent and perseverance: Li Xiang’s exceptional aptitude inspires both admiration and rivalry, but discipline and continued training remain essential.
• Foundations before advancement: Dragon Force must be formed correctly to enable the Path of Dragon Transformation; power without control or combat skill is inadequate.
• Synthesis and transformation: Martial Force fusion turns distinct strengths into something more powerful, reflecting the chapter’s broader idea of growth through integration and repeated renewal.
• Learning from predecessors: The Martial Ancestor’s legacy and the Martial Star let later cultivators build upon discoveries made by earlier generations.

Character interactions

• Ye Qingyao carefully guides Li Xiang from sensing Martial Force through forming and fusing it, correcting his approach and then testing him in sparring.
• Li Xiang credits Ye Qingyao’s clear teaching for his rapid progress, while she conceals her astonishment and cautions him against overconfidence.
• Qin Zhong watches Li Xiang’s breakthrough from outside, privately compares their progress, and leaves determined to catch up.
• Li Xiang ends the chapter by setting out with Tiger Million, choosing field combat as the next stage of his training.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Li Xiang and Tiger Million carve through the ghost horde, with Li using the Ghost-Slaying Blade’s crushing force to break ghostly defenses and piercing force to destroy their cores. His Swordsman profession reaches Lv9, while his Feng Shui Master gains experience and levels up.
• A second Fortune-Transferring Bead breaks, leaving seven of the original nine. Li suspects that some grave danger is targeting him—or that the battlefield itself is bringing relentless misfortune.
• A red flare signals that the Eight Gates Martial Hall is under attack. Li consults the coins; the favorable hexagram persuades him to go to their aid.
• At the Eight Gates’ position, Lü Baichuan’s group is trapped in a coordinated ambush. Ma Teng fights a formidable three-headed great ghost, which the students recognize as Huang Shendu’s father and uncles transformed into a monster.
• Ma Teng unleashes his two-mark Overlord Aura and risks everything in a desperate attack, but the hound catches his spear and bites into his shoulders. As he faces defeat, Li arrives on Tiger Million and cuts off one of the beast’s heads.
• Li pursues the fleeing hound and removes its other two heads in successive strikes. The battle seems won, but his Book of a Hundred Trades records no experience, suggesting the creature has not truly died.
• A far more dangerous enemy appears: a One-Horned Ghostman, who severs Lü Baichuan’s arm and identifies Li as the human who killed the Curse Fetus. He claims that someone named Fu Da had ordered Li killed and threatens him.

Character developments

• Li Xiang demonstrates increasingly refined combat skill, control under pressure, and a willingness to aid allies beyond his own martial hall. He also passes on Hong Tianbao’s practical advice about survival to a wounded student. His growing strength contrasts with his persistent concern about bad luck and the mysterious breaking beads.
• Ma Teng fights with courage and determination but is held back by his fixation on proving himself and achieving glory. His near-defeat humbles him; Li’s effortless intervention leaves his assumptions about Li—and his own place in the world—shaken.
• Chu Tian, a powerful figure whose soul remains damaged, recognizes that Ma Teng is unlikely to win and considers escaping with Lü Baichuan. Seeing Li’s remarkable strength makes him reconsider distancing himself from Li and the others.
• Huang Shendu is horrified to recognize his family in the three-headed hound. His grief and desperation are checked when Lü Baichuan forcibly pulls him back from danger.
• Lü Baichuan continues to lead his students under extreme pressure, but the Ghostman’s sudden attack leaves him severely wounded.

Significant themes

• Growth through battle: Li’s experiments with different kinds of force show him turning combat into a means of developing technique and power.
• Resolve versus ambition: Ma Teng’s will is formidable, but Chu suggests that his desire for recognition undermines the purer, steadfast spirit required to advance his Overlord Aura.
• Survival and responsibility: The chapter emphasizes knowing one’s limits, while Li’s decision to answer the flare shows that survival does not mean abandoning others.
• The horror of the Ghost Clan: The transformation of Huang Shendu’s relatives into a speaking monster blurs the boundary between human and beast, turning a family tragedy into a battlefield threat.
• Hidden danger and incomplete victories: The broken beads, the suspected traitor, the hound’s apparent survival, and the Ghostman’s arrival all suggest that visible victories may conceal larger threats.

Character interactions

• Li gives the wounded Shocking Heron student directions to seek treatment and shares Hong Tianbao’s advice about preserving his life.
• Li and Tiger Million maintain a playful bond: Li calls him “Little Brother Tiger,” while Tiger Million protests but still carries him into danger.
• Lü Baichuan saves Huang Shendu from charging toward the hound, striking him to bring him back to his senses; Huang then points out the gold tags that reveal the beast’s identity.
• Li rescues Ma Teng at the last moment, then jokingly demands the fare Ma Teng owes him for an earlier ride. Ma Teng responds with disbelief and gratitude.
• The chapter ends with the One-Horned Ghostman directly confronting Li, linking the current ambush to the earlier Curse Fetus and raising the possibility of a broader plot against him.

Key plot points and events

• The One-Horned Ghostman arrives on the battlefield, overwhelming the wounded Lü Baichuan and terrifying the Eight Gates Martial Hall survivors. Li Xiang arrives on his white tiger and steps in to protect them.
• The Ghostman reveals that Ghost Clan members regard humans as livestock and valuable food; he even boasts that humans are traded and raised in the Netherworld. The revelation enrages Lü Baichuan, Chu Tian, and the others.
• Ma Teng suspects that corrupt City Gods or Demonkin may be trafficking people across the boundary between the living world and the Netherworld. He recognizes the scale of the possible threat and resolves to become stronger after feeling ashamed of his dependence on Li Xiang.
• Li Xiang and the Ghostman begin fighting. Li Xiang’s Yang-infused blade cuts through the Ghostman’s powerful ghost-horse attack, and he relentlessly pursues him. The Ghostman discovers that the Ghost-Slaying Blade absorbs ghost qi.
• Forced to reveal his true form, the Ghostman becomes a Fear Unicorn and unleashes a Ghost Law that makes people’s fear ignite them from within. Ma Teng resists by inflicting pain on himself and urges others to do the same; some survive, while others burn to ash.
• Chu Tian and Li Xiang remain unaffected. Li Xiang’s resistance unsettles the Ghostman, who charges him. Li Xiang combines Dragon, Crushing, and Piercing Force, then counters with precise, punishing strikes that exploit weaknesses in the Ghostman’s defenses. The chapter ends mid-fight, with Li Xiang landing a heavy blow beneath the creature’s ribs.

Character developments

• Li Xiang demonstrates calm confidence, formidable strength, and strategic judgment. He treats the Ghostman as a threat to eliminate rather than an enemy to test, and his resistance to the Fear Law reveals the strength of his mind as well as his martial skill.
• Ma Teng shifts from pride and resentment toward humility and resolve. Though frightened, he uses his knowledge of the Fear Unicorn’s Ghost Law to help others and vows to grow stronger if he survives.
• Lü Baichuan moves from despair to relief when Li Xiang arrives, then burns with anger at the Ghost Clan’s treatment of humans.
• Chu Tian shows his unusual, fearless outlook: even under a terrifying supernatural rule, he responds with a faint smile and readiness to fight.
• The One-Horned Ghostman begins with predator-like arrogance but grows alarmed when Li Xiang counters his attacks, resists his Ghost Law, and absorbs his ghost qi.

Significant themes

• Predation and dehumanization: Ghostmen treat humans as livestock, while Li Xiang sees Ghost Clan members as sources of Yin Virtue and useful materials—an exchange that underscores the brutal logic of mutual survival.
• Betrayal and moral collapse: The possibility that people within human society are trafficking their own kind makes the threat more disturbing than the Ghost Clan alone.
• Courage through pain: Ma Teng’s response suggests that physical pain can preserve agency when supernatural fear threatens to overwhelm the mind.
• Power, resistance, and growth: Li Xiang’s mastery, Ma Teng’s determination, and the others’ struggle to endure show different responses to overwhelming danger.
• Knowledge as protection: Ma Teng’s familiarity with Ghost Clan lore helps the group resist a killing rule that brute strength alone cannot prevent.