Chapter Summaries

Key events

• In the Ninefold Nether, Yalita reflects on how completely the Blood Saint Ritual has changed her.
• At the Torch Dragon Residence, Shangguan Yun tells Grandmother that the new Acting President may be connected to the vanished Xu Jingchen. Grandmother arranges for Shangguan Yun to travel to the Mortal World and assist the All Things Unity Society.
• Back at school, Xu Yuan tries to sleep after returning from the Second Dark Crown Ritual. Xi, his increasingly powerful attendant, urges him to complete four ordinary-life tasks required by Fate’s Deception: eat in the cafeteria, attend two classes attentively, train at the Martial Arts Arena for two hours, and eventually finish last on an exam. Failure to maintain this ordinary routine could expose his secrets and bring a week of bad luck.
• Xi massages Xu Yuan and uses her “Plausible Disregard” ability to avoid being noticed by Zhang Pengcheng. She also quietly drives away a student carrying a love letter.
• Yang Xiaobing and Jiang Xueyao arrive to get Xu Yuan training. As he leaves the dorm, they discover that the sky has been replaced by vast, moving gray muscle. Xu Yuan realizes that the Mortal Realm itself is falling through an incomprehensible space.
• Despite the terrifying sight, Xu Yuan insists they continue to the Martial Arts Arena. He spars with Jiang and Yang, then Zhang Pengcheng and the Longxi Three Heroes join in. Their training inspires other students to focus on what they can control and join the sparring match.
• Fu Xiuyi sees the students training and approves, then heads on to inspect other places before going to the Imperial Palace.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan is exhausted and reluctant to train, but Fate’s requirements force him to act. Even amid a world-threatening anomaly, he keeps up the appearance of an ordinary student, encouraging others through his calm resolve.
• Xi is attentive and devoted, caring for Xu Yuan while managing interruptions and concealing herself through her new ability. Her protective instincts are strong, though she briefly considers killing his visitors before recognizing them as friends.
• Shangguan Yun moves from grief and uncertainty toward action, accepting a dangerous opportunity to search for answers in the Mortal World.
• Jiang Xueyao and Yang Xiaobing come seeking training and are impressed by Xu Yuan’s composure. Their sparring with him becomes the starting point for a broader group exercise.
• Zhang Pengcheng, initially envious of Xu Yuan’s apparent discipline, joins the fight after recognizing his own shortcomings. The Longxi Three Heroes follow, turning the spar into a spirited group battle.
• Fu Xiuyi approves of the students’ response and credits Xu Yuan with setting the example.

Significant themes

• Fate versus routine: Xu Yuan’s mundane tasks are not trivial; following them protects his secrets from supernatural forces.
• Composure amid the unknowable: The students cannot affect the cosmic crisis, so they choose to train and improve rather than surrender to panic.
• Found family and care: Xi’s devotion and the friends’ willingness to train alongside Xu Yuan provide support amid danger.
• A world in upheaval: The falling Mortal Realm and the strange gray tissue overhead signal that the crisis extends far beyond the characters’ immediate lives.

Key events

• Xu Yuan returns to ordinary student routines: breakfast, martial-arts practice, and classes. He learns that Zhao Afei has passed the Single-Move Challenge and will soon enroll, pleasing the group.
• In Alchemy class, Xu Yuan impresses the teacher by answering advanced questions despite rarely attending. He later works with Zhang Pengcheng in Spirit Plant class, successfully cultivating Golden Blade Grass.
• Xu Yuan completes his ordinary-life tasks. His next assignment is to finish last in an upcoming examination.
• Jiang Xueyao warns him that the Formation Arts class has an in-class test. Xu Yuan admits he has not studied and resolves to come last.
• During the test, an Imperial Palace guard arrives with a summons from the Emperor. Xu Yuan turns in a blank paper, insisting the teacher grade it fairly. He receives a zero, which the teacher interprets as admirable acceptance of responsibility.
• Xu Yuan returns to his dorm, where Xi reveals she impersonated the guard to get him out of the test. She had knocked out the real guard, intending to kill her until Xu Yuan stopped her.
• After Xu Yuan revives the guard and invents an excuse, she delivers a message from Commandery Princess Lu Yiyi: Yang Xiaobing is in serious trouble, and Xu Yuan should find a way to help her.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan shows genuine academic ability and diligence when engaged, but deliberately seeks the lowest score to satisfy his task. He also tries to restrain Xi’s violence and handle the guard’s arrival without exposing the truth.
• Jiang Xueyao stays practical and observant, warning Xu Yuan about the test. Her reaction to his plan is skeptical.
• Zhang Pengcheng remains a friendly companion, joining Xu Yuan in class activities.
• Xi is fiercely protective but dangerously quick to use violence. Xu Yuan sets a clear limit: she may kill only with his permission.
• The teacher praises Xu Yuan’s knowledge and later mistakes his deliberately blank test for principled humility.
• The guard’s unexpected message shifts the focus from student life to Yang Xiaobing’s predicament.

Significant themes

• The contrast between Xu Yuan’s extraordinary power and his attempts to live an ordinary student life.
• The gap between outward appearances and reality: Xu Yuan’s zero looks like integrity, while the guard’s “summons” is actually Xi’s deception.
• Responsibility and restraint, especially in Xu Yuan’s effort to curb Xi’s lethal instincts.
• Ordinary routines are repeatedly interrupted by hidden dangers and obligations.

Key plot points and events

• A maid relays the Commandery Princess’s warning: Yang Xiaobing’s powerful Law of Fusion and lack of influential family backing have made her a target for ambitious young men. Xu Yuan vows to protect her by openly spending time with her.
• When Xu Yuan calls Xiaobing, a man interrupts and ends the call. Sun Changfei checks the school surveillance and finds two students cornering her in a classroom. He disables the surveillance and allows Xu Yuan to intervene, warning him not to kill anyone.
• Xu Yuan attacks the two boys. He drives one away and pins the other to the Bell Tower with a Flying Sword, then has Xiaobing escorted to the Cafeteria by Jiang Xueyao.
• The injured boy repeatedly tries to leave or seek help, but Xu Yuan secretly pins him up again. Sun Changfei and a disciplinary teacher help conceal Xu Yuan’s involvement.
• Xu Yuan and Sun Changfei agree to remove the Concealment Array and leave the boy exposed on the Bell Tower as a public warning.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan shifts from quiet concern to calculated, forceful protection of Xiaobing. He conceals his role, uses repeated attacks to intimidate her harassers, and begins viewing the incident as part of a wider conflict with Aristocratic Clans.
• Yang Xiaobing rejects the boys’ advances and avoids naming Xu Yuan because she does not want to endanger him. After he intervenes, she worries he will be punished.
• Jiang Xueyao helps Xiaobing get away and reassures her, while privately wondering whether Xu Yuan would protect her with the same devotion.
• Sun Changfei supports Xu Yuan, uses his authority and access to help him act without being caught, and openly sympathizes with his punishment of the arrogant students.
• The harasser embodies the entitlement of powerful clan scions: he blocks Xiaobing’s way, dismisses her wishes, and later threatens revenge despite receiving repeated warnings.

Significant themes

• Power and social hierarchy: The boys claim that cultivation strength determines one’s place, while the chapter shows how powerful families exploit that belief to pursue people and resources.
• Protection and loyalty: Xu Yuan’s actions, Xiaobing’s concern for him, and Jiang Xueyao’s assistance reveal the group’s growing personal bonds.
• Justice versus vigilantism: The school’s rules leave room for coercion, while Xu Yuan and his allies impose their own punishment—hidden at first, then intended as a visible deterrent.
• Aristocratic arrogance: The confrontation hints at a broader struggle with influential clans, which Xu Yuan now seems willing to engage.

Key plot points and events

• In a snowbound frontier town, Demon Race soldiers round up humans under a supposed ceasefire. An apparently ordinary, injured hunter suddenly transforms into a five-headed black monster. Its beams dissolve humans and demons alike into mist, which it absorbs. In agony, the monster seeks more power, believing it needs to return to an ancient nest and reunite with its companions; it heads toward Demon Race territory.
• At Luofu, a student is found injured after being pinned to the bell tower. He accuses Xu Yuan, but teachers confirm Xu was in the cafeteria. Sun Changfei gives the student a protective jade pendant, then learns he is Ouyang Yu, a notorious bully who has harmed classmates and escaped punishment. Sun suspects Ouyang is hiding something and resolves to confront him if he targets Xu again.
• Ouyang Yu approaches Xu Yuan and Yang Xiaobing in the cafeteria, insisting he has a right to pursue Yang despite her rejection. Yang challenges his claim that he is strong and defeats him with one palm strike, breaking his arm and sending him through a wall.
• Xu Yuan’s mysterious system reveals Yang used the Law of Cooking to combine her Spiritual Power with Xu’s and Jiang Xueyao’s, briefly raising the trio’s power to Nascent Soul Middle Stage before striking. Xu is impressed by her tactical use of the Law.

Character developments

• The five-headed monster is revealed as a suffering being driven by the need to regain enough power to return to its home and companions; its actions are both horrifying and tied to a longing for belonging.
• Sun Changfei shifts from publicly handling an apparent assault to privately investigating Ouyang’s history. He becomes more openly protective of Xu Yuan and determined to stop Ouyang.
• Ouyang Yu is exposed as a persistent harasser with a record of cruelty and a carefully prepared excuse to implicate Xu. His confidence collapses when Yang defeats him.
• Yang Xiaobing asserts her independence and strength, refusing to let Xu fight in her place. Her clever use of the Law of Cooking reveals both her formidable ability and tactical ingenuity.
• Xu Yuan stays alert to Ouyang’s suspicious motives but allows Yang to handle the confrontation herself.

Significant themes

• Power and vulnerability: The helpless hunter becomes a devastating monster, while Ouyang’s social confidence proves no match for Yang’s actual strength.
• Justice and accountability: Ouyang has evaded consequences through lack of evidence and influential allies; Sun is willing to act despite that system.
• Consent and respect: Yang’s rejection should be enough, and her confrontation exposes Ouyang’s entitlement.
• Belonging and loss: The monster’s violence is fueled by pain and its desire to return to its companions.
• Cleverness in conflict: Yang wins not just through strength, but by creatively combining abilities.

Character interactions

• Demon soldiers intimidate the townspeople, but the hunter’s transformation abruptly reverses the balance of power.
• Sun reassures Ouyang after the supposed attack while quietly investigating him; his exchange with the thick-browed Cultivator reveals Ouyang’s history and Sun’s protective resolve.
• Ouyang tries to provoke Xu and dismiss Yang’s rejection. Xu challenges his notion of fairness, but Yang stops Xu from intervening and settles the matter herself.
• Jiang Xueyao and Xu remain supportive of Yang after the fight, while Yang reassures them and returns to their meal.

Key plot points and events

• Yang Xiaobing defeats Ouyang Yu, demonstrating that she can apply Laws creatively and has reached the Golden Core Realm. Xu Yuan publicly proves his own Golden Core strength when Ouyang calls her achievement fake.
• Ouyang refuses to accept defeat and threatens that his powerful Lineage will eventually prevail. Xu Yuan realizes the threat may be more than sour grapes: Xiaobing’s rare Laws could make her valuable to Ouyang’s family.
• Xu Yuan summons Crown Prince Lu Qingxuan, who reviews a recording of the confrontation and expels Ouyang from Luofu. Xu then warns Ouyang to leave, but Ouyang departs promising revenge.
• Concerned that Ouyang may be part of a larger scheme, Xu decides to investigate personally and tells Xi to look into him, authorizing her to kill anyone involved.
• Disguised as a teapot, Xi follows Ouyang onto a ferry. There, his uncle and other relatives reveal a plot: they intend to murder Ouyang, blame Xu, exploit the resulting political fallout, and abduct Yang Xiaobing to obtain her Law of Cooking for their Lineage.
• Xi considers saving Ouyang as a witness, but decides to let him die so she can pursue the conspirators afterward—and because she is bored and interprets Xu’s order to “kill them all” broadly.

Character developments

• Yang Xiaobing shows growing confidence and practical mastery of her Laws, emerging as a fighter with the potential to stand independently.
• Xu Yuan moves from amused encouragement to protective resolve. He distinguishes ordinary romantic rivalry from genuine intimidation and becomes prepared to eliminate a wider threat to Xiaobing and his allies.
• Ouyang Yu is exposed as both entitled and dangerous: despite public humiliation and expulsion, he remains intent on retaliation. His own family ultimately treats him as expendable.
• Lu Qingxuan acts decisively against abuse of power, imposing serious consequences on Ouyang rather than accepting his claim that the threats were a joke.
• Xi shows loyalty and formidable capability, but also a playful, morally unsettling streak: she prioritizes her own amusement and interprets her master’s command in the most lethal way.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: Xu and Lu Qingxuan use their influence to protect ordinary students from aristocratic intimidation.
• Ambition and exploitation: Ouyang’s Lineage sees Xiaobing’s talent as a resource to seize, even at the cost of a family member’s life.
• Appearances versus reality: Ouyang dismisses danger as a bluff, while Xi’s harmless teapot disguise conceals her presence and intentions.
• Justice and vigilantism: The chapter contrasts official punishment with Xu and Xi’s willingness to use lethal force when they suspect a deeper conspiracy.

Character interactions

• Xu praises and backs Xiaobing, while she provides the recording that allows Lu Qingxuan to act.
• Lu Qingxuan confronts Ouyang directly and removes him from school; Xu follows with a calm but unmistakable threat.
• Xu and Xi communicate privately: he sends her to investigate, and she eagerly accepts.
• Ouyang seeks reassurance from his uncle, only to discover that his own relatives plan to sacrifice him for political leverage and access to Xiaobing. Xi secretly watches the betrayal unfold.

Plot points and events

• Xi kills Ouyang Yu and the members of his household who were staging the scene to frame Xu Yuan. She then burns Ouyang Yu’s body, making the murder real rather than fabricated.
• Two powerful Ouyang elders arrive through a spatial disturbance. Xi freezes time and destroys them with a huge pillar of fire, drawing attention from Mount Luofu. She escapes by diving into the river.
• Lu Qingxuan tells Xu Yuan that Ouyang Yu is dead and that the Ouyang Household suspects Xu Yuan. A wanted notice featuring Xi confirms that a camera recorded her on the boat. Xu Yuan denies knowing her and agrees to remain in Luofu while Lu Qingxuan investigates why the household had so many people stationed nearby.
• Xi reports what happened. Xu Yuan realizes Yang Xiaobing could be targeted again, so he buys her a protective pendant and secretly empowers it with a curse that will afflict anyone who looks at it with disorientation, mental chaos, and terror for three hundred years.
• Xu Yuan meets Xi in the countryside and warns her that she has been identified because she didn’t understand cameras. Their conversation is interrupted by a masked visitor from the Outer Heavens, who asks Xu Yuan to release Ming He, warning that otherwise the world will fall into chaos.

Character developments and interactions

• Xi is enthusiastic about killing in Xu Yuan’s service and confident in her powers, but her unfamiliarity with human technology exposes her. She remains eager to face further enemies.
• Xu Yuan maintains a public alibi while privately directing Xi’s actions. Concerned for Xiaobing’s safety, he takes an extreme precaution by giving her a magically empowered pendant.
• Yang Xiaobing shows affection by giving Xu Yuan a chicken leg; his suggestive teasing embarrasses her. She accepts the pendant without questioning him.
• Jiang Xueyao reacts with exasperation to the couple’s flirtation.
• Lu Qingxuan protects Xu Yuan from immediate suspicion while pursuing an investigation into the Ouyang Household.
• The Outer Heavens envoy makes a dramatic, rambling approach before delivering a direct demand, shifting the story toward a larger crisis.

Significant themes

• Protection and responsibility: Xu Yuan’s fear that Xiaobing could be attacked drives him to safeguard her beyond what ordinary precautions can offer.
• Power and consequence: Xi’s overwhelming strength makes her lethal, but her lack of worldly knowledge leaves evidence that may trigger wider conflict.
• Secrecy and suspicion: Xu Yuan’s alibi and Xi’s exposure create tension between what authorities can prove and what actually happened.
• Escalating stakes: The dispute with the Ouyang Household gives way to a threat involving Ming He and possible chaos beyond Luofu.

Key plot points and events

• Ming He’s subordinate offers Xu Yuan a silver shard—a fragment of a holy relic—in exchange for her release. Xu accepts and sends the subordinate through the Nibelung, then dismisses it. Ming He does not immediately return to attack him.
• A crimson man warns Xu that keeping Ming He imprisoned is the only way to stay alive. Xu traps him in a two-second time loop with the Nibelung and kills him, earning a message identifying him as a “Monster in the Competition.”
• Xu discovers a new Competition: “Stealing the Three Realms.” He must lead a team expedition to the Mist Sea, recover ancient treasures, and prepare for another decisive battle against the Demonic Beasts from the Outer Heavens. As master of the White Jade Capital, its growth will strengthen him.
• Xu uses the Sun-Moon Crown and Nibelung to give Ouyang Yu a second life, returning him to the moment of his earlier humiliation at school. Ouyang, remembering his former death, abandons the plan to provoke Xu and instead appeals to Crown Prince Lu Qingxuan.
• Under the cover of an urgent private report, Ouyang reveals that the Aristocratic Clans intend to overthrow the Lu dynasty. An Immortal Lord hidden in the Inner World has ordered them to mobilize and bring everyone who has obtained a “Rule” to serve him.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan remains pragmatic: he bargains for the relic shard, uses the Nibelung to neutralize threats, and accepts the new Competition. His act of granting Ouyang a new life draws the Universe’s recognition, as he perceives that he has performed an act associated with the cosmic Origin of “birth.”
• Ouyang Yu changes dramatically after rebirth. Once a pawn in the Lineage’s scheme, he chooses survival and revenge over loyalty, publicly claims he only wanted Xu’s swordsmanship advice, apologizes to Yang Xiaobing, and privately exposes the conspiracy.
• Lu Qingxuan is wary of Ouyang’s sudden change and tests his honesty, but gives him a private audience with Xu present.
• Xi helps Xu understand the bargain and the relic shard; Xu plans to have her learn about human society, while Fate Deception’s memory-erasing effect helps protect her identity.

Significant themes

• Rebirth and agency: Ouyang’s return gives him the chance to reject the role assigned to him and choose his own course.
• Betrayal and revenge: Ouyang’s treatment by his own Lineage turns obedience into a desire to destroy it.
• Life and cosmic order: Xu’s use of the Nibelung to create a new life earns the Universe’s acknowledgment.
• Converging threats and political upheaval: The new Competition links the Mist Sea and Outer Heavens to a looming conflict within the Three Realms, including a potential dynastic collapse.

Plot points

• Ouyang Yu tells Xu Yuan and Lu Qingxuan that powerful aristocratic families secretly worship an Immortal Lord, which he claims recently awakened. He then reveals that the Immortal Lord personally killed former Crown Prince Lu Chaoxian—but explodes before he can explain further.
• Xu Yuan accepts a newly imposed daily task connected to the Ruin Gate. Nibelung resets time, erasing the public’s memories of the event.
• Back at the cafeteria, Ouyang Yu remembers dying and concludes that he can repeatedly return after death. He changes tactics, sincerely apologizes for harassing Yang Xiaobing, and swears never to do so again. Lu Qingxuan grants him a chance, with Xu Yuan agreeing.
• Ouyang Yu meets two relatives in a concealed grove. When he realizes they are recording him and intend to take over his mission, he kills one and binds and repeatedly stabs the other, declaring that he will kill the family members he sees as betrayers.
• Xu Yuan and Xi observe from above. Xu Yuan declines to warn Ouyang Yu about an unseen assassin, who soon decapitates him. Another reset follows, this time adding a Daoist arts class to Xu Yuan’s schedule.
• Ouyang Yu awakens at an earlier point, just before university, in the middle of an incident he remembers. He laughs, believing his powers have grown strong enough to send him much farther back in time.

Character developments and interactions

• Ouyang Yu shifts from a family agent seeking revenge to someone emboldened by repeated resurrection. He hides what he has learned, adjusts his behavior around Lu Qingxuan, then turns violently against his relatives.
• Xu Yuan learns the possible truth behind Lu Chaoxian’s death, doubts the Imperial Family can help, and uses Ouyang Yu’s reset-linked revelations while keeping his intentions concealed. He shows calculated indifference when Ouyang Yu is killed.
• Lu Qingxuan is shocked by the allegation about his predecessor but later accepts Ouyang Yu’s oath and offers him leniency.
• Xi watches Ouyang Yu’s attack and reports the approaching assassin to Xu Yuan; Xu Yuan chooses not to intervene.
• Ouyang Yu’s meeting with his two relatives exposes resentment and mistrust within his family, which escalates into murder.

Significant themes

• Rebirth and time manipulation: Each death triggers a reset, while Ouyang Yu’s final return suggests the process may reach progressively farther into the past.
• Secrecy and unreliable knowledge: Ouyang Yu’s revelations are fragmentary and dangerous, and resets erase public memory.
• Family loyalty versus betrayal: Ouyang Yu rejects his lineage’s authority and treats violence against its members as justified.
• Power and moral detachment: Repeated returns make Ouyang Yu feel above ordinary consequences, while Xu Yuan pragmatically allows events to unfold.

Key plot points and events

• Ouyang Yu, returned to a year earlier, again intends to assault a young woman and harm her companion rather than change his ways.
• Xi intervenes on Xu Yuan’s orders. She kills Ouyang Yu before he can commit his planned crimes, destroys his soul so he cannot be reborn again, and kills and burns his accomplices. She takes the rescued couple to safety.
• Xu Yuan understands that the Universe approves: ending Ouyang Yu’s unchanged path prevents future harm and gives his victims a chance at new lives. He tries to ask the Universe for a reward, but his stated claim that he wants to help more people is rejected as unconvincing.
• Instead, his use of the Crown grants him deeper insight into “Lord of Silent End Times.” Its Divinity Collapse power now lets a designated target inspect Fate Threads in advance and ensures that outcomes from “Creation from Nothing” have plausible explanations.
• A palace guard delivers the Commandery Princess’s message: Xu Yuan and his companions are regarded as the “Vanguard” who saved Yanmen; Zhang Pengcheng is from an Aristocratic Clan, while Yang Xiaobing is singled out. Xu Yuan and Xi infer that the larger scheme is continuing, though its target has changed.
• Xi proposes attacking the Ouyang Household immediately. Xu Yuan agrees to do it after his packed schedule: class, work at the All Things Unity Society, and duty at the Ruin Gate.
• Meanwhile, students are heading toward Xiao Bing’s classroom. Believing their approach is part of a dangerous conspiracy rather than ordinary rivalry, Xu Yuan uses Heaven-Stealing to scatter them into different locations, calmly describing the gruesome result.

Character developments

• Xu Yuan emerges as a deliberate judge of fate: he distinguishes harmless youthful competition from a plot with no limits, and acts decisively when he sees a threat. He also treats cosmic approval with playful pragmatism, seeking more power while reflecting that he should not be so focused on “playing.”
• Xi remains fiercely loyal and enthusiastic about violence, but the chapter also shows her awe of Xu Yuan’s unconventional methods. She sees herself as having much to learn from him.
• Ouyang Yu is given a chance to change but proves remorseless, repeating his old behavior; his death is portrayed as the final end of his path.
• The rescued couple receive a chance to live safely, while Xiao Bing remains the focus of a suspected ongoing plot.

Significant themes

• Rebirth and moral change: A second chance matters only if a person chooses to change; Ouyang Yu does not.
• Fate and new lives: Altering one person’s course reshapes the futures of those connected to them, and the Universe approves of interventions that open new possibilities.
• Justice and prevention: Xu Yuan acts before the threatened crimes occur, framing decisive violence as protection against a larger conspiracy.
• Power, play, and cosmic judgment: Xu Yuan’s playful attitude toward his abilities sits alongside the serious consequences of using them.
• Appearance versus intent: The Universe rejects Xu Yuan’s claim that he wants to help others, suggesting that motives—or how they appear—matter.

Character interactions

• Xi reports the mission’s completion to Xu Yuan, who reflects on its cosmic significance.
• The palace guard’s briefing leads Xu Yuan and Xi to conclude that the conspiracy has shifted targets rather than ended.
• Xi urges an immediate assault on the Ouyang Household; Xu Yuan schedules it around his obligations.
• Xi questions whether Xu Yuan will intervene at Xiao Bing’s classroom. He explains why ordinary rivalry would not concern him, but a conspiracy does—then acts.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yuan receives a lunch invitation from Yang Xiaobing and enjoys a brief taste of ordinary university life.
• Students report unexplained disappearances at the school. The defensive Grand Array activates, and Xu Yuan secretly uses Heaven-Stealing to teleport the Ouyang Household’s boat into the campus Square, where Luofu’s Enforcement Cultivators surround it.
• In class, Sun Changfei teaches defensive and concealment techniques from the Five-Element Arts. Afterward, he takes Xu Yuan aside to discuss the growing crisis and the power of Imagos.
• Sun Changfei plans to go to Yanmen to undertake the three Executors’ tasks and acquire a Law. Xu Yuan gives him a Gold Coin token and advises him to trust the people at the Bar, accept their requests, and treat them as allies.
• Xu Yuan senses an inhuman presence in the cafeteria. A black substance is targeting a student, but those nearby mistake it for a prank. Xu Yuan identifies it as a parasitic Malice Gaze: it absorbs people’s malice, evolves, and transforms its host into a Man-Demon.
• As the crowd mocks and fears the student, the Gaze absorbs enough malice to reach stage one. The transformation begins.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan balances his desire for a normal student life with his hidden responsibilities. He acts covertly to redirect the boat, advises Sun Changfei, and recognizes the cafeteria threat before anyone else.
• Sun Changfei trusts Xu Yuan’s knowledge and seeks his guidance on obtaining a Law. Their exchange shows their close, supportive senior-junior bond.
• Yang Xiaobing and Jiang Xueyao share a friendly moment with Xu Yuan, while Jiang later offers a serious assessment of the mysterious boat.
• The cafeteria crowd treats the afflicted student’s distress as entertainment, unwittingly feeding the supernatural threat with their malice.

Significant themes

• Ordinary life versus hidden duty: Xu Yuan longs for a simple university experience, but danger and secret obligations repeatedly intrude.
• The power of collective malice: Mockery, contempt, and fear are not harmless; they directly strengthen the Gaze and endanger its target.
• Laws, Imagos, and trusted allies: The chapter emphasizes that a cultivator’s Law and fighting potential can be as important as cultivation, while reliable companions are essential in a looming crisis.
• Appearances can deceive: What looks like a prank is actually a real, evolving supernatural attack.

Plot points and events

• Zhang Jun’s accumulated fear and hostility transform him into a five-meter Man-Demon in the school cafeteria. As onlookers’ malice pours in, he rapidly advances to Stage 2 and gains a dangerous weapon.
• Xu Yuan teleports Zhang Jun to a remote island before the arriving authorities can see what happened. He has a senior broadcast a cover story: the incident was a school demon-invasion drill, and Zhang Jun performed heroically. The students accept the explanation, and Xu Yuan redirects their conversation with Jiang Xueyao’s help.
• On the island, Xi tries to keep Zhang Jun contained until the malice in him fades. But further hostility from people elsewhere pushes him into becoming a Demon General’s host. The General attacks Xi with a paralyzing Gaze, but her ability to be overlooked while motionless lets her evade it. She counters with the power of the Subordinate Crown and destroys the General’s head; its body dissolves into black blood.
• The threat spreads far beyond the island: people across the world are marked “demon,” and the malice those labels provoke creates Man-Demons everywhere. Black water then reforms the defeated creature into a featureless Monster, which traps Xi with a vast Gaze.
• Xu Yuan arrives and fights the Monster. It grows stronger by absorbing humanity’s ongoing malice, eventually reaching Spirit Transformation. Xu Yuan uses Fate Deception to hide his threatening aura by accepting a task to eat and drink an assortment of ordinary foods and beverages. He then manifests a star-filled Imago and batters the Monster into black water—but it regenerates, stronger than before. As the Monster attacks again, Xu Yuan’s Crown begins to form above him.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan shows quick judgment and composure: he saves Zhang Jun, invents a convincing public cover story, and faces a world-threatening enemy with both tactical deception and overwhelming sword technique. His willingness to accept an absurd “ordinary life” task adds comedy to his otherwise serious resolve.
• Zhang Jun shifts from frightened student to monster and then unwilling host. His transformation is driven not just by his own emotions but by the malice directed at him; he initially hopes Xi can help him return to normal.
• Xi is firm and capable, first trying to restrain Zhang Jun and then confronting the Demon General. Her confidence and unusual concealment ability let her turn the General’s Gaze against it, though the regenerated Monster later overpowers her.
• Jiang Xueyao backs Xu Yuan’s cover story by steering the cafeteria conversation toward the Demon Bureau’s benefits. Xu Yuan and she work together to calm the students without revealing the real danger.
• The Demon General and Xu Yuan briefly exchange threats and assessments. The later Monster openly explains that humanity’s malice sustains its growth, dismissing Xu Yuan’s attempt to make it leave.

Significant themes

• Malice becomes material and self-reinforcing: prejudice, fear, and resentment literally transform people and empower demons.
• Labels can create the danger they claim to identify: calling people “demon” isolates them and provokes the hostility that helps make them monstrous.
• Humanity’s greatest threat may be humanity itself: the Monster’s power depends on people’s inability to stop turning malice against one another.
• Appearance and truth diverge: the school’s reassuring drill story hides a genuine catastrophe, while Xu Yuan masks his own power to survive.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yuan uses his Time-Type Crown to rewind the Monster’s attack, then reveals that Xi was never truly helpless: she had been able to use her abilities while apparently trapped by the Monster’s Gaze.
• Xi freezes the Monster with Time Stop, and Xu Yuan kills him. The demonic eye in the sky disperses, though they know the Monster may revive through human Malice.
• A swarm of silver insects arrives from the Outer Heavens, devouring space itself. Nearby, a huge shadow attacks and incinerates Cultivators with green fire.
• The Monster revives and warns that the Mortal Realm is falling toward the Corrosive Nebula Devil Master, who may destroy the world within three hours. He wants humans to survive because he needs their Malice to grow stronger.
• Xu Yuan senses that threats from the Outer Heavens are multiplying. He uses Mystic Arts to send his soul to Ming He and proposes an alliance.
• Ming He explains that humanity has been preserved as food for an ancient god. Xu Yuan offers to use his time power to prevent her from undergoing corruptive mutation, in exchange for her protecting the Mortal Realm.
• Ming He says she cannot defeat the Devil Master and sends Xu Yuan back. Privately, she concludes that Xu Yuan and the Crown are dangerous and that avoiding him is safest.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan shows confidence in his new Crown powers, but his attention shifts from testing the Monster to the larger danger facing the Three Realms. He seeks cooperation even with Ming He, offering her a practical bargain.
• Xi is revealed to have trusted Xu Yuan’s plan and deliberately played along with the Monster’s apparent restraint. She remains loyal and ready to act on his orders.
• The Monster proves more pragmatic than his earlier hostility suggested. His survival depends on humanity, so he warns Xu Yuan and abandons their fight to seek other allies.
• Ming He moves from contempt for humanity to taking Xu Yuan’s offer seriously, but refuses the alliance because she believes the Devil Master is beyond her power. Her private thoughts reveal deep suspicion of Xu Yuan and his Crown.

Significant themes

• Survival and self-interest: Even enemies may cooperate when their fates are linked, but shared danger does not guarantee trust.
• Time, change, and preservation: Xu Yuan frames time as a means to prevent Ming He’s corruption, while the chapter repeatedly emphasizes mutation and decay.
• Humanity’s vulnerability: The Mortal Realm is caught among vast Outer Heavens forces, and humanity may be only a resource in an ancient being’s plans.
• Uncertainty and hidden control: The chapter hints that the Three Realms’ apparent freedom may be shaped by forces humans do not understand.

Plot points

• The Overseer returns as monsters gather over the Mortal Realm, apparently preparing to claim territory before devouring its inhabitants. He reports that the nine Old Gods escaped, but releasing their bodies’ seals will make their bodies and souls fight for control.
• The Overseer reveals that the Three Realms Demon-Suppressing Bow is exhausted. He uses its final arrow to send Xu Yuan through time, showing him the destruction of the Three Realms after the Dark Crown Ritual was sabotaged.
• Xu Yuan witnesses the blue-robed cultivator who became the Demon-Suppressing Heavenly Venerable forging eight treasures and scattering them. The man later pledged himself to the Ancient God, becoming an Immortal Species tasked with preserving the Three Realms as an “orchard” of souls.
• The Overseer reveals that he is that Heavenly Venerable. His soul binds the curse sealing the Old Gods; only his death can lift it. He cannot be saved without allowing the Ancient God’s curse to awaken and take control of his body.
• The Overseer dies, declaring, “Long live the Human Race.” Four hidden pieces of the Truth Set emerge from him. Xu Yuan gathers them with the four he already had, completing the set.
• The completed set activates two powers: it removes the Ancient God’s curse from Xu Yuan and begins a Heart-Imprint Transmission, a link needed between the second and third Dark Crown Rituals.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan accepts the Overseer’s final arrow despite the danger, then offers to let the weary man retire rather than sacrifice himself. After the Overseer’s death, Xu Yuan takes up his mission and inherits the Truth Set.
• The Overseer is revealed as a former human cultivator who sacrificed his freedom to keep the Three Realms alive under Ancient God control. His long service ends in a deliberate death, driven by exhaustion and a final commitment to humanity’s survival.
• Xi offers to take the arrow in Xu Yuan’s place, but Xu Yuan refuses, choosing to face the revelation himself.
• Xu Yuan and the Overseer share a final exchange about sacrifice, hope, and whether the long struggle was worthwhile. The Overseer insists that survival makes continued struggle meaningful.

Significant themes

• Hope and survival: The Overseer argues that even elusive hope is worth fighting for, because a civilization must survive to endure.
• Sacrifice and legacy: The Overseer’s death and the scattered Truth Set carry a warning and a means of continuing the struggle across ages.
• The cost of compromise: The Heavenly Venerable preserved the Three Realms by placing them under the Ancient God’s control, a temporary reprieve with a devastating price.
• Cycles of history and resistance: The revelations connect past failures, inherited burdens, and Xu Yuan’s role in enabling a future attempt to break the cycle.

Plot and events

• With the Ancient God dead and humanity’s curses lifted, Xu Yuan waits for a reaction—but nothing happens. He reflects that the Demon-Suppressing Heavenly Venerable had withheld half of an artifact set because using it while the Ancient God lived could have provoked it.
• The third stage of the Dark Crown Ritual begins through Heart-Imprint Transmission. Illusory Cultivators who once took part in the ritual appear one after another, offering blessings to Xu Yuan.
• Their blessings give him the maximum possible advantage: Immediate Attainment, allowing him to start the stage at once, wherever he is, as long as he can sense Yanmen.
• Asked what he wants from the third Crown, Xu Yuan repeats his longstanding wish: freedom for all living beings. He deliberately chooses the highest difficulty, saying he wants to do better because he feels watched by many people.
• The ritual gives him a two-sided lot revealing his deepest wishes: “Freedom for all living beings” and “Joyful Invitation.” A hidden line then appears beneath the first wish: “I must secure Ming He as an ally.”
• Xu Yuan realizes that the ritual requires him to pursue and fulfill his genuine wishes; ignoring one, failing to pursue it, or being unable to achieve it will make him fail the stage. Since Ming He previously refused his offer, the new requirement leaves him with an urgent problem. He asks Xi to guard his body and departs.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan remains committed to freeing everyone, but the ritual exposes another personal desire: winning Ming He’s alliance. He explains that he has a flaw in his emotions—when people do terrible things, he does not feel anger but something associated with his wish for a “Joyful Invitation.”
• Xi supports and teases Xu Yuan about the unexpected wording on the lot, then listens as he describes his emotional difference. She accepts his instruction to guard him.
• The past participants, including Song Shiwei, offer advice and encouragement, emphasizing that the Ancient God may have weaknesses and urging Xu Yuan to win the third Crown.

Significant themes

• Freedom and self-knowledge: The ritual tests not only Xu Yuan’s public ideal but also wishes he may not have fully acknowledged.
• Obligation and agency: Success depends on acting on his deepest desires, turning private wants into unavoidable tasks.
• Legacy and hope: The blessings of earlier failed participants pass their support and experience to Xu Yuan.
• Emotional difference: Xu Yuan’s lack of anger complicates how he responds to cruelty and shapes the meaning of his “Joyful Invitation.”

• Xu Yuan visits Ming He in the Flesh Palace and uses his Second Crown, Divinity Collapse, to reveal a hidden safe in her study. Inside is the Great Abyss Sacred Favor Staff, a weapon created to counter the Corrosive Nebula Devil Master. It boosts all attributes and greatly strengthens attacks against nebula-type beings.
• Ming He initially claims the staff as her own and sends Xu Yuan back to the Three Realms. But Xu Yuan uses Nibelung to rewind time and remove the staff’s fate-created existence. Finding the safe empty, Ming He assumes Xu Yuan placed the staff there and that it belongs to him.
• Back in the Mortal Realm, Xu Yuan sends Xi into the city to buy food and drinks as a lesson in human society. While he eats instant noodles, Ming He returns and offers to join forces—provided she gets the staff. Xu Yuan asks her to clear the monsters threatening the Mortal Realm. She does so easily, then he tells her where to find the staff.
• The safe and staff reappear in Ming He’s study, and she retrieves the weapon. Reassured by its power, she agrees to protect the Three Realms for now. She warns Xu Yuan that the ancient god’s transformation is an overwhelming process in which even she cannot control her fate. Xu Yuan accepts the danger with wry optimism: surviving each day is already a victory.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan balances strategic use of his extraordinary powers with ordinary routines, using the staff as leverage to secure Ming He’s help. His calm, irreverent response to cosmic peril reveals resilience and an appetite for life.
• Ming He shifts from suspicion and self-interest to cooperation. Though she remains wary of Xu Yuan and uncertain about the future, she recognizes the value of working with him and takes responsibility for defending the Mortal Realm.
• Xi eagerly follows Xu Yuan’s instructions, learning practical aspects of human life through a comically imperfect shopping trip.
• Xu Yuan and Ming He’s relationship is defined by bargaining and distrust, but also growing cooperation: he provides the means for her to fight the Devil Master, while she clears the immediate threat and offers protection.

Significant themes

• Fate, time, and creation: Xu Yuan’s Crowns can manipulate time and bring objects into existence, though those powers have strange consequences.
• Survival amid cosmic forces: Even powerful beings are vulnerable within the ancient god’s immense transformation.
• Ordinary life as a triumph: Noodles, shopping, and daily routines matter precisely because survival is uncertain.
• Pragmatism and uneasy cooperation: Xu Yuan and Ming He make a temporary alliance without resolving their mistrust.

Plot points and events

• Xu Yuan offers Ming He an alliance and proves the power of the First Crown by restoring an egg that died ten years ago. He places the rotten egg inside a time segment and brings its living past self into the present.
• Ming He agrees to deal with monsters outside the Three Realms while Xu Yuan handles those within. They make no formal contract; Ming He recognizes that Xu Yuan could use time travel to undo any betrayal.
• Back in the Mortal Realm, Xu Yuan’s Fortune Stick produces cryptic instructions that he interprets as a need to keep working, confront the world’s dangers, and silence everyone who acts with malice. Xi suspects this violent interpretation reflects Xu Yuan’s real wish, despite his denials.
• Xu Yuan receives a call from Niu Sheng, who has been kidnapped by masked monsters seeking to use him as leverage. Though busy, Xu Yuan uses Nibelung and Void of Authority to return five minutes into the past, arrive before the kidnappers’ call, and kill them with his swords.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan demonstrates the First Crown’s extraordinary time-manipulation abilities and uses them both to win Ming He’s trust and to solve the hostage crisis without losing time. He is practical and resourceful, though he frames his apparent desire to kill the malicious as duty rather than personal inclination.
• Ming He moves from skepticism to awe after witnessing the egg’s restoration, then accepts a division of responsibilities with Xu Yuan.
• Xi questions Xu Yuan’s interpretation of the Fortune Stick and quietly concludes that his supposed duty may also be his genuine wish. She offers to rescue Niu Sheng herself, but Xu Yuan acts without answering.
• Niu Sheng is captured after boasting about his supposed closeness to Xu Yuan, and his predicament prompts Xu Yuan’s intervention.

Significant themes

• Time as power and protection: Xu Yuan can restore the past, reverse events, and fit urgent tasks into limited time.
• Trust and coercion: Ming He’s alliance rests not on a contract but on the knowledge that Xu Yuan could undo betrayal.
• Duty versus desire: Xu Yuan presents violence as necessary work, while Xi suspects it is also what he wants.
• Malice and silence: The Fortune Stick’s cryptic message links Xu Yuan’s work to a vision of a world made peaceful by eliminating those who threaten it.

Plot and key events

• Niu Sheng leaves after thanking Xu Yuan for saving him, joking that he will kill Xu Yuan off in his next chapter.
• Xu Yuan learns that the Man-Demon remains active because its lair lies within the Mortal Realm, making it his responsibility rather than Ming He’s.
• At the hospital, Xu Yuan finds Demons erupting from people and attacking the city. Xi helps contain the immediate outbreak, and Xu Yuan arranges for his recovering mother, Zhao Shulan, to relocate to the Su Clan’s care.
• A Demon General evolved from the Man-Demon confronts Xu Yuan. Xu Yuan traps them in a barren Nibelung set shortly before the previous era’s destruction, where there are no humans and therefore no Malice to sustain the creature. With Xi’s help, he kills it.
• Back in the city, another Demon General murders people to provoke Xu Yuan. Xu Yuan rewinds time, retrieves a “Holy Water Gun”—a weapon said to destroy Demons born from humanity’s dark side—and advances on the creature. The chapter ends as he opens fire.

Character developments

• Xu Yuan grows more decisive and ruthless. Though he usually wants to understand an opponent fully, he chooses to end the first fight quickly because his Dark Crown Ritual is too important. He also refuses to accept blame for killings committed by the Demon General itself.
• Xi remains loyal and perceptive, protecting Xu Yuan in battle and executing the first Demon General when it is immobilized.
• Zhao Shulan continues recovering, while Xu Yuan takes practical steps to protect her.
• The Demon Generals are shown to depend on human Malice, but their confidence makes them underestimate Xu Yuan’s abilities and judgment.

Themes

• Responsibility and blame: Xu Yuan rejects the idea that he is responsible for violence carried out by an enemy simply to provoke him.
• Power and restraint: Xu Yuan’s immense abilities—from shaping a world without Malice to rewinding time—contrast with his awareness that he cannot personally save everyone.
• Humanity and Malice: The Demons’ dependence on human suffering links their survival to violence and despair.
• Duty amid catastrophe: Xu Yuan keeps moving toward his meeting and protecting his family even as the world collapses around him.

Character interactions

• Xu Yuan and Niu Sheng part on affectionate, teasing terms.
• Xu Yuan consults Xi about the remaining threat and relies on her in both battles.
• Xu Yuan arranges his mother’s evacuation and reassures her about the Su Clan.
• In the final confrontation, the Demon General tries to shame Xu Yuan for allowing its victims to die; Xu Yuan counters that the deaths were the Demon’s choice, then prepares to fight it on his own terms.

Plot points and events

• Xu Yuan and Xi defeat a Demon General that repeatedly resurrects through black streams of energy. Xi conceals their fight, while Xu Yuan discovers his endless ammunition and relentless attacks can keep the creature trapped in a cycle of dying and reviving.
• The Demon General tries to bargain by claiming Xu Yuan is the wrong target, then by declaring its affection for him. Xu Yuan kills it anyway, using Void of Authority to send it to the moment the Previous Era ended, where it cannot return.
• A second Demon General appears, assuming Xu Yuan’s gun is gone. Xu Yuan summons a powerful rocket launcher and destroys it; this time, the black resurrection streams scatter and do not return. He dismisses the creature’s professed affection as “fake fan” behavior.
• At the Heavenly Palace Arts Company, Jiang Xueyao tells Xu Yuan that the world is shifting and may be falling through the universe. She explains that the spreading Demons are a method of the Immortal Lord, whose past intervention saved the Mortal Realm when the Divine Realm collapsed and the Ninefold Nether shattered.
• Jiang suggests the Immortal Lord may now be trying to reclaim control of the Mortal Realm. Xu Yuan connects this threat to the wider cosmic crisis and resolves to complete the third stage of the ritual before the Nine Old Gods can turn their attention elsewhere.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan remains calm and sardonic under pressure. He experiments with his powers, recognizes that the Demons may feed on human malice, and shows confidence in his second Crown and its practical abilities.
• Xi assists Xu Yuan by hiding the fight and responds to his violence with cheerful loyalty. Her curiosity about whether affection counts as malice gives the confrontation a comic note.
• Jiang Xueyao speaks openly with Xu Yuan about the world’s danger and the Immortal Lord. Privately, she admires his talent and physical appearance, while recalling the romantic lessons taught to her by her nanny.
• Xu Yuan treats Jiang warmly as a trusted ally and Guest Retainer, listens closely to her account, and uses it to reassess the political and cosmic threats.

Significant themes

• Resurrection and escalation: The Demon Generals’ repeated returns initially seem unstoppable, but Xu Yuan’s powers can ultimately end their cycles.
• Malice, affection, and hypocrisy: The Demons appear interested in Xu Yuan’s lack of malice, yet their claims of liking him do not stop him from killing them.
• A world in cosmic collapse: The shifting planet, ruined realms, and ancient gods’ crisis place the immediate battles within a much larger struggle.
• Duty and hidden desire: Jiang Xueyao’s disciplined public role contrasts with her private romantic fantasies and uncertainty about whether she will ever use what she has learned.

Key plot points

• Jiang Xueyao tells Xu Yuan that several Aristocratic Clans are being approached by the Ninefold Nether on behalf of the Immortal Lord. She believes the Jiang Residence must choose a side, and warns that once the Demon spreads far enough, the Immortal Lord will arrive, kill the Human Emperor and his heir, and take control of the human world.
• Xu Yuan agrees to investigate before advising the Jiang Residence. Xueyao decides to stall the Immortal Lord’s envoys by claiming the family is still considering its response, buying Xu Yuan time.
• Xu Yuan contacts Qi Canghai, hoping to get work. Before Qi’s people arrive, two Ruin Gate envoys appear and give him a dangerous mission. Xu Yuan insists on doing it himself; the envoys, impressed by his record, offer to accompany him.
• Bai Yuanze arrives with a separate assignment from the All Things Unity Society: vet Mortal Realm Lineages seeking to join and decide whether to grant them contact Talismans. Xu Yuan accepts and heads to Meisha Dock with the Ruin Gate envoys.
• There, masked as an envoy, Xu Yuan meets representatives of the Xiangdong Luo and eastern Ouyang households. They claim loyalty to the Ninefold Nether and propose proving it by assassinating Imperial Family members. Their suggested targets include Commandery Princess Lu Yiyi—and Xu Yuan himself, whom they accuse of being her lover and of manipulating several powerful women.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuan is increasingly pulled between his duties to multiple organizations while investigating the Immortal Lord. He is eager to work, takes assignments seriously, and remains composed even when a group of prospective allies names him as a target.
• Jiang Xueyao trusts Xu Yuan’s judgment enough to delay her household’s decision. Though outwardly composed and politically decisive, she privately finds herself dwelling on him.
• Father Jiang questions Xueyao’s confidence in Xu Yuan but ultimately leaves the decision to her. Their exchange shows her authority as Household Head and their familiar, teasing dynamic.
• The Ruin Gate envoys admire Xu Yuan for his past service and offer to protect him. Their zeal becomes comically apparent when they hide in his wardrobe, ready to intervene if they think he is threatened.
• Bai Yuanze treats Xu Yuan casually while conveying the Society’s assignment, reinforcing their easy rapport.
• The prospective recruits’ extravagant accusations about Xu Yuan’s supposed romantic influence contrast sharply with his confusion and disbelief.

Significant themes

• Political uncertainty and survival: Powerful families must choose between the Human Emperor and the Immortal Lord, with delay and intelligence-gathering becoming crucial strategies.
• Loyalty and competing obligations: Xu Yuan serves several factions at once, making each new assignment part of a broader, precarious balancing act.
• Trust and judgment: Xueyao’s willingness to wait rests on her faith in Xu Yuan, while the Society asks him to assess whether new allies are trustworthy.
• Irony and mistaken assumptions: Xu Yuan’s eagerness to “go to work” leads him into overlapping missions, and the recruits’ dramatic image of him as a womanizer is far removed from his own understanding of events.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yuan negotiates with the Luo and Ouyang Households, who want to join a powerful organization. They propose killing Xu Yuan to prove their loyalty, unaware that he is present under an assumed identity.
• Xu reveals he represents the Ruin Gate and makes the households choose between it and the All Things Unity Society. They claim to choose the Ruin Gate, but their offer seems self-serving.
• Xu orders the households’ representatives killed, sparing two to deliver a warning: they may return with better terms. Xi swiftly carries out the order.
• Xu tells the Ruin Gate Envoys he rejected the households because they are insincere and bring more risk than benefit. He reports the situation to Lu Qingxuan and Bai Yuanze, who each take over the next steps.
• After completing his daily work and cover actions for “Fate Deception,” Xu considers the unfinished requirements of his third Dark Crown ritual.
• Ruin Gate Envoys ask Xu to return with them. He initially refuses, wary of exposing himself, but Ruin Gate members soon arrive and greet him as their former “Boss.” Zang Ling leads them, setting up a reunion.

Character developments

• Xu Yuan demonstrates careful judgment and strategic flexibility. He refuses to accept the households merely to gain influence, and prefers to stay out of the ensuing political conflict.
• The Luo and Ouyang elders reveal their opportunism: they shift their allegiance to suit their audience and try to use the Ruin Gate’s influence for their own purposes.
• Xi appears as an exceptionally capable ally, dispatching the household representatives with ease.
• Zang Ling and the arriving Ruin Gate members are revealed to be Xu’s former protégés from the Nine Nether Prefecture, now reunited with him after more than a decade.

Significant themes

• Loyalty versus self-interest: The households claim allegiance but are exposed as seeking advantage.
• Deception and hidden identities: Xu’s disguises let him maneuver among rival factions while remaining protected.
• Power and political maneuvering: Xu’s actions help set the Imperial Family and Aristocratic Clans against each other without requiring him to take the lead.
• Old bonds and reunion: The chapter shifts from tense negotiations to the unexpected return of people from Xu’s past.

Character interactions

• Xu turns the elders’ plan to kill him into a test of their sincerity, while the Ruin Gate Envoys watch his decisions closely.
• He coordinates with Lu Qingxuan and Bai Yuanze, sharing intelligence and allowing them to handle the political fallout.
• The chapter closes with Xu’s former followers crowding around him and greeting him affectionately as their boss, while calling Zang Ling “Boss Zang Ai.”