Chapter Summaries

Summary

Lin Feng, a Bilibili gaming creator, receives an unexplained game console addressed to him under his real name. It resembles a PS5, but its sender is also listed as Lin Feng, and he can find no sign that it is a sponsorship or prank. When he connects it to his television and puts on the headset, he is transported into an extraordinarily realistic scene set in the Ming dynasty.
In a cutscene, Lin Feng witnesses Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang question Zhang Zhengchang, a Celestial Master from the Zhang family, about why Daoists are called “Celestial Masters” when Heaven itself supposedly needs no teacher. Zhang reacts with alarm and kneels. A historical narration then recounts Zhang’s later return to Dragon-Tiger Mountain and the emperor’s order for the Western Hunan chieftain Peng Wanli, the Celestial Master’s Mansion, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard to handle affairs in the region. The sequence culminates in the blood-red title Western Hunan Blood God, accompanied by eerie suona music.
Curious despite realizing that the console is impossible, Lin Feng chooses to enter the game. He selects one of five roles—Daoist, Embroidered Uniform Guard, yamen runner, veteran soldier, or guide—and chooses Daoist, reasoning that a religious character may be best equipped to face whatever the “blood god” is. The game locks his character’s name to his real one and gives the Daoist his own face. The first mission is to reach Clear Spring Stockade alive by the next day. Lin Feng has only one life, though the beginner mission can be retried without a cooldown; completing it promises a permanent skill and five qian.

Character development and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from bemused suspicion to fascinated participation. His gaming instincts lead him to analyze the roles and choose what he assumes will be the safest class, even as the game’s realism makes the danger feel increasingly real.
• Zhu Yuanzhang is portrayed as forceful and curious, challenging the authority implied by the title “Celestial Master.”
• Zhang Zhengchang responds deferentially and fearfully to the emperor’s question, underscoring the risks of speaking openly in court.
• Their exchange is the chapter’s central interaction; Lin Feng watches as an apparent outsider, unable to influence the scene.

Significant themes

The chapter establishes the uneasy blend of history, folklore, and supernatural horror. Its impossible technology blurs the boundary between game and reality, while the emperor’s question about Heaven having a master introduces themes of religious authority, power, and belief. Lin Feng’s choice to proceed despite his misgivings sets up the tension between player curiosity and genuine peril.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng wakes on a mountain path inside a game, apparently inhabiting a powerful Daoist character. His character panel shows extensive combat and ritual skills, strong equipment, and a destiny to join the Celestial Master’s ranks.
• A guide is escorting him to Clear Spring Stockade, an eight-hour journey away. The guide mentions that travelers have recently vanished in the mountains.
• The guide lights a candle made from human fat to hide their scent from spirits. Lin Feng disapproves but allows it, reasoning that killing the guide would cause trouble.
• A scaled hand bursts from a muddy pit and reaches for the guide. Lin Feng cuts it off, but its poisonous green blood splashes onto the guide, who dissolves into pus. The mission fails because the guide dies.
• Refusing to accept the failure, Lin Feng restarts. This time he suppresses both their human auras, takes the lead, and avoids the muddy pit. They proceed safely.
• The guide explains that Clear Spring Stockade is an isolated Raw Miao settlement. Embroidered Uniform Guard agents previously found its entrance marked by a smashed pot and fallen gong, and the stockade completely deserted. The entire community appears to have died, and outsiders are warned away.

Character development

• Lin Feng begins alarmed by being trapped in the game, but confidence grows when he discovers his formidable character and abilities.
• His gaming instincts lead him to treat the guide’s dialogue as clues and the first disaster as a challenge to overcome. His competitiveness drives him to restart rather than quit.
• After the failure, he acts more cautiously: he uses his own abilities instead of relying on the candle or letting the guide lead.
• The guide is wary and nervous throughout, serving as Lin Feng’s source of local knowledge.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: Lin Feng is exceptionally capable, but his first intervention fails to protect the guide from a danger he did not anticipate.
• Learning through failure: Restarting lets him adapt, revealing the journey as a trial that rewards observation and tactical adjustment.
• Outsider danger and isolation: The stockades’ hostility toward outsiders, the missing travelers, and the abandoned settlement establish a threatening, mysterious setting.
• Folk belief and occult practice: Human-fat candles, spirits, hidden auras, and supernatural creatures blend everyday travel with dangerous ritual customs.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng initially follows the guide’s instructions but questions his methods, especially the human-fat candle.
• The guide supplies warnings about the road and information about Clear Spring Stockade, though his nervousness and limited knowledge leave much unexplained.
• After restarting, Lin Feng takes charge of the journey, suppressing both men’s auras and leading them around the trap—shifting their dynamic from guide-and-traveler to a more cautious arrangement led by Lin Feng.

Key events

• Lin Feng learns that Clear Spring Stockade has become a realm of death and wonders whether it is connected to the Western Hunan Blood God.
• The journey to the stockade becomes a brutal test: supernatural dangers repeatedly kill the guide whenever Lin Feng misses a cue or fails to act in time. Although Lin Feng’s character has powerful spells and sword skills, his awareness initially cannot keep pace with them.
• After many failed attempts, Lin Feng adapts. He protects the guide with layered spells, seals his mouth to prevent him from answering dangerous voices, and clears hazards before they can threaten him. They reach Clear Spring Stockade safely before dawn.
• The stockade is deserted and eerie, with broken pots and gongs, ghostlike winds, and a shrine at the spring’s source. Lin Feng senses someone—or something—inside the shrine.
• The mission ends, and Lin Feng receives five qian of fortune and a permanent passive skill: Swordsmanship Mastery. During the reward sequence, the mountains briefly appear to form a huge, hideous face watching him.

Character development and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from confident, talkative bravado to exhausted silence, then to stubborn determination. By learning from repeated failures, he becomes more observant and methodical, successfully keeping the guide alive.
• The guide sees Lin Feng as an astonishing Daoist master, praising his skill and following his lead. Lin Feng’s sardonic manner confuses the guide, who wonders if he has somehow offended him.

Significant themes

• Skill versus awareness: Lin Feng’s overwhelming abilities are useless without attention and sound judgment.
• Persistence and learning through failure: Repeated setbacks drive him to adapt rather than quit.
• Hidden supernatural danger: The road and abandoned stockade suggest a larger mystery tied to the Blood God and the uncanny forces watching Lin Feng.

Key plot points and events

• After completing the first mission, Lin Feng permanently keeps Swordsmanship Mastery, a passive skill that had already helped him handle dangers with extraordinary swordplay.
• The skill’s activation appears to transform him physically: energy surges through his body, and his character panel shows him reduced to a blank-slate character with only the retained skill and five qian of Fortune.
• A new mission appears: Act Two, “Gestation.” Lin Feng must find a map of the thirty-six stockades while keeping himself and at least one teammate alive. The mission introduces a team of four at Clear Spring Village Shrine: an Embroidered Uniform Guard, a Five Poisons Sect woman, a local official, and a monk.
• Lin Feng exits the game to investigate. Seven hours have passed without his noticing. The helmet looks like an ordinary, inexpensive motorcycle helmet, while the game’s historical details largely check out—though the Western Hunan Blood God has no real-world counterpart.
• Later, Lin Feng instinctively throws a chopstick and pins a cockroach to the floor, driving it into the baseboard. He discovers he is unusually fit and strong, and that sword techniques now seem ingrained in his memory. He brings up the same character panel outside the game, confirming that the skill’s effects are real.

Character development

• Lin Feng is disappointed to lose his powerful Daoist-priest abilities, but quickly recognizes the game’s apparent “trial account” tactic and responds with irritation rather than fear.
• His curiosity and enthusiasm for supernatural subjects shape his response: he investigates the helmet and game instead of panicking.
• The skill gives him a stronger body and instinctive weapon mastery, making the boundary between game and reality increasingly uncertain.

Significant themes

• Game and reality blur: Skills acquired in the game affect Lin Feng’s real body.
• Power and loss: Lin Feng gains sword mastery but loses his former character’s high-level status and abilities.
• Mystery and skepticism: Historical accuracy lends the game credibility, yet its supernatural premise and inexplicable effects remain unexplained.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng’s main interactions are with the game’s characters: the impatient Peng Tianli greets him at the shrine, while the other three teammates are introduced by name and affiliation.
• Outside the game, Lin Feng has no direct conversation with anyone; his reactions to the helmet and its apparent effects drive the chapter.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng discovers that the swordsmanship from Western Hunan Blood God has carried over into real life, along with detailed memories of how to perform it. He records a routine and uploads it after deciding to skip his planned livestream.
• He returns to the game, unsettled by its blood-red title screen and eerie, possibly Miao-like whispers hidden in the suona music.
• Lin Feng reappears at the Clear Spring Village Shrine, where Peng Tianli questions why the imperial court sent an inexperienced young man to the village and suggests he may have been dispatched to die.
• Lin Feng checks his character panel and realizes he has been reset to a fresh account. His advanced equipment, cultivation arts, and talismans are gone; only a basic sword, rations, and water remain. His swordsmanship mastery is still available as a permanent passive skill.

Character developments

• Lin Feng is thrilled by his real-world swordsmanship and enjoys the confidence and striking presence it gives him, but quickly finds that his poor fitness limits how long he can practice.
• He remains impulsive and easily tempted: despite worrying about his streaming income, he skips his stream to return to the game.
• In the game, he recognizes that he is now far less powerful and better understands why Peng Tianli treats him with contempt.

Character interactions

• Peng Tianli openly mocks Lin Feng’s youth and apparent inexperience, while hinting that the authorities may have sent him to his death. His tone suggests hostility and an attempt to sow distrust.
• Lin Feng responds internally with irritation and checks his status rather than confronting Peng Tianli directly.

Significant themes

• Power and limitation: Supernatural skill can transfer to reality, but physical conditioning remains essential; in the game, Lin Feng’s mastery persists even as his equipment and other advantages disappear.
• Progress and reset: The fresh-account restart strips away Lin Feng’s hard-earned resources, forcing him to face vulnerability and begin again.
• The uncanny: The disturbing music, blood-soaked title, and desolate village maintain an atmosphere of supernatural menace.
• Temptation and responsibility: Lin Feng chooses immediate enjoyment over his work obligations, balancing his enthusiasm for gaming against the need to maintain his audience.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng delays setting out, reasoning that the act requires him and at least one teammate to survive and to find the map of the Thirty-Six Stockades. He wants to learn the factions’ motives, their abilities, the local dangers, and what the map looks like before risking the journey.
• The game’s title, “Gestation,” makes him suspect that staying in Clear Spring Stockade too long could be dangerous, even though the mission has no stated time limit.
• Lin Feng identifies two uneasy camps: he and Hundred-Household Officer Zhu represent the Central Plains court, while Peng Tianli, Liao Chi, and Third Lady serve the local chieftain. The guide, a local caught between powerful authorities, keeps out of the dispute and likely leans toward the chieftain.
• The shrine hall offers a clue: a small shrine once stood on its altar table but was recently removed.
• Zhu explains that his original imperial party suffered heavy losses: only he remains from a group that included other officers, soldiers, and a constable. Peng Tianli reveals that his own party also lost six of its nine members on the way.
• Peng demands the map and urges the group to leave before night, when yin spirits supposedly pass through. Zhu explains that the map was to be supplied by Clear Spring Stockade’s grand elder, whom the court had bribed—but the stockade’s inhabitants were massacred before it could be handed over.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng proves cautious and analytical, treating the mission as both a survival challenge and a political puzzle. Rather than being discouraged by its difficulty, he finds the added challenge exciting.
• Hundred-Household Officer Zhu emerges as Lin Feng’s natural ally: both serve the imperial court, and Zhu shares the party’s history and the failed map arrangement. He remains restrained when Peng provokes him.
• Peng Tianli is openly antagonistic toward the Central Plains officials, mocking their losses and pressuring Lin Feng and Zhu to produce the map.
• The guide stays silent and avoids taking a visible position, reflecting his vulnerability between the imperial authorities and the native chieftain’s power.
• Lin Feng’s questioning and Zhu’s answers establish how badly both groups were weakened, while Peng’s interruptions reveal the mistrust between them.

Significant themes

• Survival through caution: understanding the setting and its dangers may matter as much as combat.
• Political tension and divided loyalties: the apparent alliance between the court and local chieftains masks a long struggle over regional control.
• Mystery and ominous foreshadowing: the missing shrine, massacre, approaching night, and title Gestation suggest a greater threat is developing.
• Loss and uncertainty: both parties have suffered unexplained deaths, and it remains unclear whether the massacre and failed map handoff were coincidence or something deliberate.

Key plot points

• Peng Tianli discovers that the map is missing—and that the person meant to meet the group has vanished. Furious at Hundred-Household Officer Zhu for not admitting this sooner, he draws his saber, nearly provoking a fight.
• Zhu and Lin Feng prepare to defend themselves, but Liao Chi intervenes and calms Peng Tianli. Peng, Liao, and Third Lady leave; the guide remains behind.
• From the shrine doorway, Lin Feng sees Third Lady release a brightly colored spider that scatters tiny spiders through the stockade. Liao Chi looks back with entirely black eyes, briefly giving him a demonic impression.
• Zhu reveals that the broken pots and gongs around Clear Spring Stockade were placed by a second group of Embroidered Uniform Guards. He explains that the stockade’s grand elder had feared something and offered information in exchange for having his family sent to safety. The stockades supposedly guard a shared secret; after the grand elder’s latest letter, a Thousand-Household Officer and his companions went to the stockade and disappeared.
• Zhu abruptly senses an attack and throws his saber behind Lin Feng. A grotesque, water-swollen creature crawls toward the window, while Buddhist chanting rises outside. The guide is decapitated by a blood-red attacker, which Lin Feng pierces with his sword—but red threadworms spill from it and invade his face.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains outwardly cautious and observant, treating the tense standoff as a chance to learn more. He notices the characters’ unsettling traits and the stockade’s eerie, almost living atmosphere. When attacked, he reacts instinctively and successfully strikes the creature, though the parasites’ attack leaves him in horror.
• Hundred-Household Officer Zhu shifts from guarded and threatening to candid with Lin Feng, revealing the mission’s hidden history. His sudden alarm and quick attack show his battlefield instincts.
• Peng Tianli is hot-tempered and quick to accuse Zhu, but accepts Liao Chi’s intervention and withdraws rather than fight.
• Liao Chi acts as a mediator, yet his unnaturally black eyes make him seem sinister. Third Lady stays silent during the dispute and later releases the spiders, suggesting she has dangerous abilities.
• The conflict between Zhu and Peng reflects mutual distrust; Liao’s intervention prevents it from becoming a fight. Zhu then treats Lin Feng as a trusted fellow officer by confiding in him.

Significant themes

• Hidden threats and unreliable appearances: Missing people, secretive officials, strange creatures, and unsettling behavior make danger difficult to identify.
• Distrust and factional tension: Both sides insult and suspect each other, even as a greater danger approaches.
• Survival through observation and adaptability: Lin Feng uses his limited knowledge to assess the situation and responds quickly when the attack begins.
• The stockade as something living and corrupt: Lin Feng imagines Clear Spring Stockade as a body, with the shrine as its head and the surrounding houses as tumors—a metaphor for an environment consumed by menace.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng dies in the first attempt when red threadworms invade his body and brain. The game offers him two remaining lives, with a choice to revive in place or restart.
• The memory of dying fades within seconds, leaving behind an instinctive fear of the worms. Lin Feng suspects the game blunts the trauma to protect players’ minds.
• Reviewing what he learned, Lin Feng concludes Clear Spring Stockade hides a larger secret tied to the Thirty-Six Stockades and powerful Ming officials. He also realizes the attack came within roughly twenty minutes of his arrival, giving him a brief window to investigate.
• Lin Feng chooses to restart. Back at the shrine, he immediately recruits Hundred-Household Officer Zhu, tests his strength with the heavy altar table, and heads out with him—ignoring the chieftain’s three representatives.
• Lin Feng identifies the Divine Spring as the likely source of the waterlogged, pale monsters and asks Zhu to lead him there. As they enter a narrow, wooded path, Zhu warns that something is watching them.

Character developments

• Lin Feng shifts from shocked survivor to deliberate investigator. He uses his first death to plan a more purposeful second attempt, prioritizing the spring and the stockade’s hidden danger.
• Zhu is established as a formidable, composed fighter. He follows Lin Feng without questioning his knowledge, and demonstrates keen awareness of their surroundings.
• Lin Feng recognizes that the people in the shrine may not be a unified group: Liao Chi is still an unknown, and Third Lady’s Five Poisons Sect ties may place her outside the chieftain’s faction.

Significant themes

• Death and its cost: Death feels horrifyingly real, but the game’s fading memories soften its psychological impact.
• Learning through failure: Lin Feng turns a failed run into information and a strategy for the next life.
• Suspicion and hidden dangers: The stockade’s missing officers, secret political ties, monsters, and unseen observer suggest threats beyond the immediate attack.
• Time pressure: Lin Feng’s short safe window makes investigation urgent.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng deliberately approaches Zhu instead of engaging with Peng Tianli and the others, showing whom he considers useful.
• Zhu responds to Lin Feng’s commands and questions with calm cooperation, then quietly alerts him to the presence watching them.
• The three representatives of the chieftain’s side are left confused by Lin Feng and Zhu’s abrupt departure.

• The group enters the woods: Lin Feng warns Hundred-Household Officer Zhu that danger is ahead and advises using blunt weapons rather than blades. Zhu trusts him without demanding an explanation, and they proceed cautiously. Peng Tianli, Liao Chi, and Third Lady follow, each preparing their own weapons or supernatural abilities.
• The guide’s desperate escape plan: Left behind, the guide decides the threat is beyond ordinary protection and may be a “heavenly disaster.” Using blood, ox-blood wine, human-fat candles, and a ritual, he summons flies and maggots, then covers himself with them and appears completely dead. He hopes this disguise will conceal his life-force and buy him time.
• The spring is corrupted: Lin Feng and Zhu reach Clear Spring Stockade’s water source. The pool has turned blood-red, a rotting buffalo head floats in it, and the stream above has dwindled to blood. Lin Feng suspects corpses are blocking the water upstream and leads Zhu up the mountain.
• The monsters attack: A waterlogged, skinned-looking creature erupts from the pool—the same kind of monster that killed Lin Feng before. Having learned from repeated deaths, Lin Feng deflects it with a controlled, quick strike. Zhu proves even more forceful, smashing several monsters apart with a low table before their parasites can reach the pair.
• The others are overwhelmed: Liao Chi arrives and mistakes Lin Feng’s technique for swordsmanship; Peng Tianli urges him to stay close to Lin Feng. But Liao Chi’s eyes turn black and blood seeps from his pores as he begins a spell. Peng turns to attack a creature behind them, but red threadworms swarm over him and burrow into his body. His tiger-shaped protective aura fails to stop them, and he dies. Liao Chi’s bloody aura forms the outline of a Buddha, while Third Lady releases a swarm of venomous insects.
  Character developments and interactions: Lin Feng’s repeated deaths have sharpened his combat instincts, making him more capable against the monsters. Zhu’s disciplined trust and quick action make him a strong partner. Peng’s confidence and battlefield power prove insufficient against the parasites. The guide, meanwhile, shows cunning and occult knowledge by attempting to survive through ritual concealment.
  Themes: The chapter emphasizes adaptation through painful experience, the limits of strength and supernatural defenses, and the terrifying corruption of nature and sacred protection. Trust and cooperation offer some advantage, but survival remains precarious.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng and Hundred-Household Officer Zhu flee uphill while Liao Chi and Third Lady fight the pursuing “Worm Thralls.” Their strange powers prove effective against the creatures: Liao Chi’s Blood Buddha drains them, while Third Lady’s spiders and secret medicine kill or repel them. Peng Tianli is overwhelmed and dies.
• At the front plaza of the Clear Spring Stockade Forbidden Ground, Lin Feng and Zhu find the stockade’s villagers dead in a mass. Their bodies have no visible injuries, but their swollen bellies are full of red threadworms.
• Lin Feng suspects the worms came from the drinking water. Third Lady’s medicine lets the group pass safely among the corpses.
• A stone tablet warns that outsiders who enter the forbidden ground will bring death to ten clans. Beyond it, banyan trees form a doorway. Third Lady senses something inside that frightens the worms.
• When Lin Feng approaches, the banyan’s roots attack. He wounds the tree, revealing corpses—including Zhu’s Thousand-Household Officer—hanging from its roots. Zhu spots a pouch that may contain the stockade map.
• A familiar fragrance makes Lin Feng dizzy. As he succumbs, he throws his sword, pinning the Thousand-Household Officer’s body to the tree. Green blood splashes onto the banyan, and the hanging corpses scream.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains observant and pragmatic: he treats every discovery as useful information, delegates the examination of bodies to Zhu, and acts decisively when the banyan attacks.
• Zhu is cautious and capable, identifying the dead villagers and recognizing his superior among the hanging corpses. He supports Lin Feng throughout the investigation.
• Third Lady’s abilities and knowledge become clearer, but she admits she has never seen the red threadworms before and fears what lies within the forbidden ground.
• Liao Chi and Third Lady cooperate with Lin Feng and Zhu after catching up, though their powers remain mysterious. Peng Tianli’s quick death underscores the danger of the creatures.

Significant themes

• Hidden infection and bodily horror: The worms’ apparent connection to the water turns the village’s death into a possible parasitic disaster.
• Forbidden knowledge and escalating danger: Each clue—the curse, the hidden corpses, the map pouch, and the familiar fragrance—deepens the mystery while making investigation more perilous.
• Unorthodox power and limited control: The group’s unusual abilities can counter some threats, but none offers complete protection; Lin Feng is still overcome by the fragrance.
• The uncanny transformation of nature: The banyan is not merely a landmark but a living, bleeding, screaming threat that incorporates the dead.

Key plot points and events

• After dying among the corpses on the great banyan tree, Lin Feng realizes that their fragrance is Five-Organs Incense, a hallucinogen used in ancient sacrificial rites. He suspects it explains why the corpses are dangerous and decides to restart, determined to clear the level with one life.
• On his new attempt, Lin Feng immediately organizes the group: Zhu takes a table as a weapon, Peng Tianli carries the Shrine door as a shield, Third Lady applies insect-repelling medicine, and Liao Chi prepares his Blood Buddha Aspect.
• Lin Feng leads them past the deep pool before its Worm Thralls emerge, then uphill through a square filled with people killed by poisoned water and infested with Gu Worms. Liao Chi’s technique drains the corpses, though it appears to consume his own blood.
• At the banyan tree, Lin Feng has Peng use his Striped Tiger to retrieve the Thirty-Six Stockades Map from the Thousand-Household Commander’s corpse without touching it. The plan fails when Five-Organs Incense affects the tiger too: it disappears, and Peng dies through their mysterious bond.
• Third Lady’s spiders successfully recover the map. The survivors flee as the Worm Thralls emerge; Liao Chi and Zhu hold them off long enough for the group to reach the stockade gate. A howl sounds behind them, followed by the message “Blood God, Phase One.”

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng returns with knowledge from his previous death and takes charge decisively, revealing that he knows the group’s abilities and the dangers ahead. His confidence proves useful, but his assumption that the incense only threatens people costs Peng his life.
• Peng Tianli shifts from skepticism to cooperation once he sees Lin Feng’s knowledge. He eagerly offers his tiger’s retrieval ability, but dies when the tiger is affected by the incense.
• Liao Chi is exposed as possessing a Blood Buddha technique. He uses it to clear a path and protect the group, while Lin Feng notices its apparent personal cost. Liao asks how Lin Feng knew his secret; Lin Feng promises to explain if they survive.
• Third Lady quietly follows instructions and ultimately saves the mission by using her spiders to retrieve the map.
• Zhu supports the escape with the table, while the guide is left behind and resumes his familiar attempt to play dead.

Significant themes

• Death as learning: Lin Feng turns a failed attempt into practical knowledge, treating each life as a chance to uncover the level’s rules.
• The limits of preparation: Careful planning helps the group bypass several threats, but the incense’s unexpected effect on spirits shows that not every danger can be predicted.
• Power and sacrifice: Liao Chi’s ability protects the others but seems to transfer its cost to him, while Peng and his tiger share a fatal connection.
• Escalating danger: Securing the map does not end the crisis; the Blood God’s appearance signals a larger threat has begun.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng barely clears the game’s second act, realizing that his swordsmanship skill is limited by his own physical power and cultivation: the skill is not enough without a strong “mana pool.”
• The stronghold’s true creation is revealed as the Blood God, a powerful, skinless living zombie. Third Lady wounds him with a blow dart before he kills her; the venomous insects released from her body weaken him but cannot kill him.
• Lin Feng and Hundred-Household Officer Zhu exploit the opening. Zhu’s battle-hardened saber work and Great Ming national fortune prove especially effective, while Lin Feng’s sword strikes nearly finish the Blood God.
• Liao Chi restrains the Blood God with a blood Buddha for six breaths, but the technique consumes Liao Chi’s own blood and qi. He dies after passing a demon seed to Lin Feng.
• The seed greatly enhances Lin Feng’s body, giving him extraordinary strength and agility. Lin Feng then beheads the Blood God with one stroke.
• Afterward, Lin Feng reviews the fight critically rather than celebrating, recognizing missed openings and weaknesses in his awareness, timing, and use of his weapon. The game awards him two qian of fortune and unlocks an exchange listing skills and abilities associated with surviving teammates.

Character developments

• Lin Feng grows stronger through the demon seed and the battle, but his main development is his sharpened competitive self-awareness. He understands that clearing a stage is not the same as playing well and resolves to improve.
• Third Lady makes a consequential final contribution by wounding the Blood God, though her death unleashes the insects within her.
• Hundred-Household Officer Zhu is shown as a formidable veteran whose direct, lethal saber techniques and national-fortune-enhanced weapon can burn the Blood God.
• Liao Chi sacrifices himself to restrain the enemy and bequeaths Lin Feng the power that enables the final victory.

Character interactions

• Zhu and Lin Feng coordinate their attacks against the weakened Blood God.
• Third Lady’s dart wound and the insects from her corpse create an opening for the others.
• Liao Chi’s restraint gives Lin Feng and Zhu time to act, while his self-sacrifice ultimately empowers Lin Feng.
• Lin Feng reflects on what he could have learned from his teammates, treating the battle as a lesson rather than a simple victory.

Significant themes

• Skill versus capacity: A powerful technique is only as effective as the user’s underlying strength.
• Learning through failure: Lin Feng sees a narrow win as evidence of mistakes to correct, not a reason for complacency.
• Sacrifice and inheritance: Liao Chi’s death both restrains the Blood God and passes on the strength that completes the fight.
• Victory with a cost: Lin Feng defeats the Blood God, but the deaths of his companions make the win feel like a loss.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng finishes Act Two by defeating the Blood God. Liaochi dies without managing to speak, while Company Commander Zhu survives with apparently minor injuries. Lin Feng exits the game rather than continuing into Act Three, frustrated by how powerless his Daoist character felt.
• With time for more runs, Lin Feng reviews the redemption options. Most skills and items are either unappealing, costly, or burdened with dangerous side effects. He discovers that his permanent Swordsmanship Mastery would cost an enormous 500 liang of fortune to purchase, making him realize he may not understand the value of what he already has.
• The Miscellaneous category proves more useful. Lin Feng learns that classes can be purchased and stacked, and buys Embroidered Uniform Guard and Wild Fox Chan. The former grants bonuses against sinister beings and people without official qi; Wild Fox Chan’s benefits come with unsettling drawbacks. Lin Feng also discovers that, despite choosing Daoist in Act One, his current class field was empty—he has not actually retained a Daoist class.
• He cannot afford the statuses Dragon-Tiger Qi Protection or Yaksha’s Gaze. With two qian of fortune remaining, he re-enters Act Two rather than trying Act Three. When Peng Tianli starts to speak, Lin Feng interrupts with a blunt declaration that he has offended someone and been sent there to die, leaving Peng Tianli confused.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from frustration to practical curiosity as he investigates the redemption system, then becomes excited when he finds purchasable class traits that might give him useful advantages. His discovery that he is effectively a “fake Daoist” deepens his irritation.
• Liaochi’s skills reveal the grim costs of his Wild Fox Chan practice: his abilities involve ghost bones, a Yaksha King, and the eventual surrender of his body and soul. His death after the Blood God appears underscores how little his supposed supernatural favor protected him.
• Lin Feng’s abrupt response to Peng Tianli shows he is increasingly willing to take control of familiar scenes instead of letting events unfold as before.

Significant themes

• Power and its price: Skills and supernatural abilities often demand fortune, lifespan, or horrifying personal sacrifices.
• Identity versus appearance: Lin Feng thought he was a Daoist, but the game did not preserve that class; labels alone do not guarantee real power.
• Frustration turned into strategy: Rather than simply endure the game’s humiliations, Lin Feng studies its systems and seeks advantages for future runs.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng arrives at the stockade and cuts off Peng Tianli’s complaints before they can begin. Liao Chi senses that Lin carries an unusual mix of Wild Fox Zen and dragon-tiger qi, but cannot identify his background.
• Lin tells Peng that the Thirty-Six Stockades Map is on the mountain where the locals fetch water. After Liao Chi privately speaks with him, Peng accepts the lead, though he threatens Lin if it proves false.
• Lin leaves with Hundred-Household Officer Zhu to investigate the stilt houses. He suspects the missing Embroidered Uniform Guard commander and his men were killed and turned into sacrificial “Five-Organs Incense,” rather than being used in a scheme ordered by the emperor.
• Zhu reveals that the guards are not searching for something in the stockade; they are trying to stop the locals from finding it. Before Lin can learn more, a scream sounds from the forest, and Peng dies again.
• Lin barricades himself and Zhu inside a stilt house and sends Zhu to search for clues while he holds off the Worm Thralls. Lin dies repeatedly and revives, fighting on until combat becomes a means of honing his swordsmanship.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng is observant, self-assured, and increasingly absorbed in sword practice. He reads others’ intentions, pushes past Peng’s bluster, and remains calm through repeated death and revival.
• Peng Tianli is suspicious and quick to threaten Lin, but Liao Chi’s counsel persuades him to accept Lin’s information.
• Liao Chi recognizes Lin’s strange spiritual aura and becomes intrigued and wary, unable to reconcile its Zen-like and exorcistic qualities.
• Hundred-Household Officer Zhu is guarded but eventually shares the mission’s real purpose with Lin, then searches the house at Lin’s direction.
• Lin’s exchanges with Peng are tense and dismissive; with Zhu, they are increasingly direct and cooperative.

Significant themes

• Hidden truths and mistrust: Both the imperial guards and stockade leaders conceal their aims, while Lin investigates the disappearances and the secret beneath the mission.
• Death as persistence: Lin’s repeated revivals turn danger into opportunity, strengthening his resolve rather than frightening him.
• Growth through discipline: The battle shifts from a mission objective to a test of skill, with Lin’s swordsmanship advancing through relentless practice.

Plot points and events

• After using all three lives in the Qingshan Game Console, Lin Feng dies in the stronghold before the blood god appears. The game enters a one-hour cooldown.
• His repeated combat has begun to fuse sword techniques with instinct. The sword feels like part of his body, and he senses that a “sword soul” is taking shape within him—an early step toward [Swordsmanship Mastery], though he remains far from true mastery.
• Back in the real world, Lin Feng notices his mind and body feel stronger. He tests his control and speed by moving silently through his home, then discovers that his game-honed footwork and physical power seem to have carried over.
• Unable to re-enter the game, he plans to sleep briefly before continuing. But remembering a cockroach he killed in his takeout, he searches online for parasites cockroaches can carry. Horrified by the results, he abandons sleep, buys poison bait, and then goes out to eat.
• The pest-control shop owner remarks that Lin Feng looks unusually lively. At the restaurant, strangers glance at him; his new bearing is sharp and striking, “like a sword.”

Character development

• Lin Feng becomes calmer and more focused through repeated exposure to danger. Even as he dies, he can face it without panic, and combat has turned swordsmanship from abstract knowledge into instinct.
• He begins to show heightened physical control, agility, and strength in the real world, suggesting that the game’s training is affecting his body as well as his mind.
• Despite his newfound composure in battle, he remains very human: the thought of parasites and cockroaches quickly unsettles him and ruins his plans to sleep.

Character interactions

• The pest-control shop owner, an old acquaintance, notices Lin Feng’s changed energy and asks whether something good has happened.
• At the hot-pot restaurant, women give Lin Feng a second look, responding to the confidence and sharp presence he now carries.

Significant themes

• Growth through danger: Repeated combat and death temper Lin Feng’s instincts and will.
• Mind–body integration: Swordsmanship becomes an embodied skill, and lessons from the game begin to manifest in real life.
• Discipline versus instinct: Lin Feng has gained control and calm, but still struggles to “keep his sword sheathed”—to contain the intensity and force awakened within him.
• The ordinary alongside the extraordinary: His profound transformation contrasts with mundane concerns such as sleep, food, and household pests.

Key events

• At 1 a.m., Lin Feng eats hot pot and notices that more people have been asking for his contact details. He wonders whether practicing swordsmanship has made him more handsome, but remains uninterested in romance.
• While browsing Moments, he spots a photo of his former high-school classmate Xu Nian in traditional Tujia clothing, tagged in Fenghuang, Western Hunan.
• Lin Feng messages Xu Nian and learns she is there with her archaeology team. They are conducting a salvage excavation after tomb robbers uncovered an ancient tomb deep in the mountains.
• Xu Nian describes the dangers and discomforts of the fieldwork: harsh, unpredictable weather, swarms of insects, and remote terrain. The team has also found unusual sacrificial burial pits, with bones that appear deformed and tangled in tree roots.
• Xu Nian reports that a senior colleague claims to have seen a blood-red figure watching the team in the forest and heard someone call him by his childhood nickname. Lin Feng takes the story seriously, unsettling Xu Nian, and wonders whether the sighting was real.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains detached from romantic attention and uses social media to keep up with classmates. His interest sharpens when Xu Nian’s location and the excavation connect with the supernatural possibilities he has encountered through Western Hunan Blood God.
• Xu Nian comes across as determined, tough, and experienced in demanding fieldwork, though the remote mountain environment and eerie reports have unnerved her.
• The former classmates banter freely, trading insults and jokes about archaeology being tomb-robbing. Their familiarity makes the exchange affectionate, even when Xu Nian threatens to “smash” Lin Feng’s head for teasing or scaring her.
• Lin Feng’s suggestion that the senior colleague might be telling the truth turns their casual conversation ominous.

Significant themes

• Reality and the supernatural: Lin Feng’s game has begun affecting reality, making him more willing to believe in the blood-red figure.
• The danger of nature: The mountain setting is portrayed as threatening even without supernatural forces.
• The past intruding on the present: The newly uncovered tomb, strange burials, and possible apparition hint at an unsettling history beneath the excavation site.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng dismisses Xu Nian’s suggestion that he travel to Western Hunan, judging that he is not yet strong enough for a dangerous wilderness expedition. After eating hotpot, he goes home to deal with cockroaches and books a hotel room so he can sleep elsewhere while the poison takes effect.
• At six the next morning, he enters the game. His sharpened presence alarms Peng Tianli and surprises Zhu, Liao Chi, and Third Lady, who sense a mixture of sword intent, wild-fox Zen, and Dragon-Tiger Qi.
• Lin Feng leads the group toward the mountain shrine to retrieve the map. Zhu warns that something inside is watching them; Lin Feng confirms the danger and explains that the insect thralls inside release bugs when wounded.
• Peng, Third Lady, and Liao Chi choose to accompany him despite the risk. Lin Feng warns them to avoid piercing the thralls, then fights through the creatures with remarkable speed and precision.
• In combat, Lin Feng briefly experiences a state like the Inner Breath Realm, with his breathing and sword movements flowing as one. Becoming distracted by the experience breaks his concentration; an insect thrall overwhelms and kills him.
• The game reports that he has two lives left and awards him Sword Heart Clarity, a permanent, unupgradeable perception skill that improves his combat instincts and awareness of otherwise imperceptible information.

Character developments

• Lin Feng becomes more assured in his aggressive, forward-moving sword style, learning that the sword is not only for defense. His near-mastery falters when he focuses on the experience instead of remaining present, but the fight produces a lasting perceptual ability.
• Peng Tianli treats Lin Feng with new caution and respect, though he still does not trust him enough to let him enter the shrine alone.
• Zhu, Liao Chi, and Third Lady each recognize Lin Feng’s unusual abilities and join him into danger for their own reasons.

Significant themes

• Growth through failure: Lin Feng gains a permanent skill even though the encounter ends in death.
• Focus and composure: His swordsmanship flourishes when he moves without distracting thought, then collapses when he becomes self-conscious.
• Advancing rather than retreating: Lin Feng deliberately chooses an offensive path, reflecting his refusal to concede.
• Trust, duty, and risk: The group proceeds together despite suspicion, danger, and competing purposes.

Character interactions

• Xu Nian and Lin Feng exchange teasing messages before she goes to sleep; his concern for her mission shows through his warning.
• Lin Feng gives his companions practical information about the insect thralls, while Peng insists on accompanying him and the others prepare to follow.
• The group’s wary respect for Lin Feng contrasts with his insistence on taking the lead.

• Lin Feng discovers a new skill: After dying, he obtains [Sword Heart Clarity], a perception ability that lets him sense danger. He uses it to race toward the Clear Spring Stockade Forbidden Ground, suspecting it is connected to the Blood God.
• He encounters the Blood God: On his first attempt, Lin Feng enters too late: the Blood God has awakened and kills him instantly. On his next run, he reaches the forbidden ground before the awakening is complete and finds the Blood God lying inside a chamber formed by a banyan tree. The chamber is covered in uncanny red inscriptions and face-like knots.
• He kills the unawakened Blood God: Lin Feng beheads the figure, whose body burns under his dragon-tiger qi. He then reaches for the Clear Spring Village Shrine, a root carving identified as a divine object. Touching it pulls him into a vision of the past.
• He witnesses a poisoned meeting: In the vision, an imperial envoy confronts an elderly stockade leader for handing over the Thirty-Six Stockades Map under pressure from Chieftain Peng’s Yangtongzi. Both men suddenly cough up red threadworms. Lin Feng suspects the water poisoned them, though neither man appears to know how it happened. The vision ends as ghostly old faces close in on him.
• He receives the Mountain God’s gift: The faces enter Lin Feng, and the game announces that he has gained Mountain God’s Blessing. He can now wield a small portion of the Mountain God’s authority in Western Hunan, has received the Mountain God’s experience and a complete nine-rank cultivation path, and may practice the Shaman Priest’s method. The blessing also lets him randomly deal critical hits to things that do not belong to the mountains.
  Character developments and interactions: Lin Feng grows bolder and more methodical, using his new perception skill to avoid hazards and exploit the Blood God’s awakening process. His encounter with the shrine shifts him from investigating the stockade’s secrets to receiving supernatural power. The vision reveals a tense, distrustful exchange between the envoy and the old leader: the leader pleads that he was coerced, while the envoy condemns his betrayal of the court’s trust.
  Themes: The chapter emphasizes the value of perception and timing, the hidden costs of political coercion, and the unsettling overlap between human history and supernatural forces. The Mountain God’s blessing also introduces a strong connection between spiritual power and belonging to the land.

Key plot points and events

• After defeating the Mountain God, Lin Feng receives two status effects—one improving survivability and another critical hits—as well as the Shaman Priest’s Cultivation Method. Before he can properly explore his reward, the banyan tree attacks him through the game’s skylight, killing his character.
• In the game’s dark waiting space, Lin Feng reads the method. Its creator condemns the hypocrisy and ambition of established Buddhist, Taoist, and reclusive cultivators. The method offers independence from religious institutions and their rules, but leaves its practitioner without allies or support.
• Lin Feng is drawn to this solitary path because it suits his own independent way of life. With fifty minutes until the next act becomes playable, he watches its opening cutscene.
• Three people survive the escape from Clear Spring Stockade: Lin Feng, Hundred-Household Officer Zhu, and their guide. Using a map, they learn that Bull-Head Stockade is forty li away and must be reached before nightfall. The guide identifies a nearby Jixi Inn as a stop used by corpse drivers, though he knows little about it.
• As the group departs, Lin Feng’s viewpoint remains behind. It shifts only after a series of explosions: at the forbidden ground, the corpses burst and release red threadworms that swarm into the banyan tree. The Mountain God has lost, and the transformed tree is revealed as the Blood God, phase two.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng accepts death as routine but becomes intrigued by the Shaman Priest’s independent cultivation path. He questions the guide about the map and inn, relying on him for local knowledge.
• Hundred-Household Officer Zhu is exhausted but survives alongside Lin Feng and listens as they consult the guide.
• The guide also escapes, though his strange stench and falling dead flies make his condition unsettling. He explains the route and the Jixi Inn but admits he does not know the inn’s secrets.
• The Mountain God’s defeat overturns Lin Feng’s assumption that the Blood God is simply a skinned corpse: the threat can take the form of a living, enormous tree.

Significant themes

• Freedom versus institutional backing: The cultivation method offers personal independence at the cost of protection and community.
• Hypocrisy and ambition: Its creator criticizes spiritual practitioners who pursue status and power while claiming virtue.
• Uncertainty and misjudgment: Lin Feng’s assumptions about the Blood God prove wrong, emphasizing the danger of an unfamiliar world.
• Death and transformation: Lin Feng treats repeated deaths as ordinary, while the corpses and banyan tree undergo grotesque transformations.

Key plot points and events

• After reviewing the mountain god’s memories, Lin Feng concludes that Clear Spring Stockade was already deserted when the second group of Embroidered Uniform Guards arrived. The elder, residents, and first group had apparently died in a gu-related incident, leaving the map behind. How the second group later died—and who turned them into Five-Organs Incense—remains a mystery.
• Lin Feng exits the game, then tries the Shaman Priest’s cultivation method. By entering a calm meditative state, he successfully begins the ninth-rank practice known as qi gathering and attracts the spirit of the wind.
• While his awareness travels with the wind, Lin Feng sees a face beneath his desk. On a second attempt, he confirms that a pair of bloody eyes is watching his body. He avoids disturbing the entity and leaves the room.
• Once the thirty-minute wait ends, Lin Feng returns to the game. His guide reports that the mountain has collapsed, forcing them to take a detour.

Character developments

• Lin Feng becomes more capable and curious: his sword practice helps him achieve the stillness needed for cultivation, and he quickly makes contact with a natural spirit.
• He also shows growing caution. Rather than confront the strange presence beneath the desk, he recognizes it as something that may not belong in his world and quietly withdraws.
• Despite that encounter, his enthusiasm for the game outweighs his brief interest in cultivation.

Significant themes

• Mystery and hidden histories: The stockade’s deaths, the second group’s fate, and the making of Five-Organs Incense remain unexplained.
• Spiritual forces in the ordinary world: Cultivation draws Lin Feng into contact with spirits, suggesting that supernatural beings can intrude into everyday spaces.
• Stillness and self-control: Lin Feng’s training and composure let him enter qi gathering and remain calm when faced with the bloody-eyed presence.
• Risk and restraint: His decision to leave rather than investigate reflects a practical response to an unknown threat.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng interacts indirectly with the wind, which responds to his invitation and carries his awareness through the room.
• He and the unseen, bloody-eyed presence regard one another, but neither approaches; Lin Feng chooses to leave.
• Back in the game, Lin Feng’s guide informs him of the blocked route and the need to detour.