Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng locks onto his own “Intent” as a phantom’s power floods his mind. The vision transports him to ancient Heaven-Bearing Temple, where he witnesses Duke Dan of Zhou during the aftermath of Yin-Shang’s defeat.
• In the vision, Duke Dan and his forces enter the abandoned Kiln. Zhou soldiers kill Yin-Shang priests, and Duke Dan later helps contain a powerful surviving priest inside a pagoda tree at Heaven-Bearing Temple.
• Lin Feng recognizes the sorrowful figure as Duke Dan of Zhou, the younger brother of King Wu and a determined force behind the Zhou effort to erase Yin-Shang’s influence.
• Back in the present, Duke Dan’s lingering Intent warns Lin Feng not to cross a broken section of the Heaven-Ascent Steps. The gap is more than a physical obstacle: the “path” itself has been severed, and the surrounding area is saturated with dangerous Intent, obsessions, and the remains of sacrificed experts.
• Duke Dan’s Intent advises Lin Feng that pursuing the thunder and its knowledge will only make him a captive of Heaven-Bearing Temple. It mentions that Lin Feng could instead wake Slender Shadow by striking the Ritual Bell and make a wish.
• Lin Feng realizes the Intent is a residue of Duke Dan’s battle, corrupted by malice rather than deliberately left as guidance. As he turns, Slender Shadow appears behind him and asks what he wishes for.

Character developments

• Lin Feng demonstrates stronger mental discipline, resisting the phantom’s overwhelming Intent and keeping his identity intact. He also applies his knowledge as a Qi-Observing Historian to interpret the ruins and recognize Duke Dan.
• Duke Dan of Zhou emerges as resolute and uncompromising: he devoted himself to ending Yin-Shang’s legacy and personally fought to contain its remaining power. His lingering Intent retains his stern, sorrowful character, though Lin Feng realizes it has been tainted.
• Slender Shadow shifts from a distant presence to an immediate potential source of aid—or danger—by offering to grant a wish.

Significant themes

• Identity and mental resistance: Lin Feng must preserve his sense of self against powerful, invading Intent.
• History and its revision: Duke Dan’s efforts to reshape the past reveal how historical memory is contested and how witnesses complicate efforts to control it.
• The cost of knowledge: Heaven-Bearing Temple’s knowledge can enslave those who pursue it, turning curiosity into permanent captivity.
• Sacrifice and lingering consequences: Yin-Shang’s final offering left powerful priests and corrupted forces behind, while the temple’s construction involved horrific human sacrifices.
• Resolve and burdensome duty: Duke Dan’s determination helped establish a new age, but his battle left dangerous traces that continue to affect later generations.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng confronts Duke Dan’s lingering Intent, resisting its emotional pressure and questioning whether its warning is genuine.
• Duke Dan treats Lin Feng gently after recognizing him as a Qi-Observing Historian, but his Intent cannot fully explain the malice attached to it.
• Duke Dan’s soldiers act decisively against Yin-Shang’s priests, while Duke Dan himself accepts the long-term burden of suppressing the Kiln.
• Slender Shadow addresses Lin Feng directly at the chapter’s end, inviting him to state a wish.

Key plot points

• Inside the Heaven-Bearing Temple, Lin Feng refuses the Ghost Shadow’s invitation to make a wish. He distrusts an offer that could grant power beyond his ability to handle and chooses not to risk a dangerous shortcut.
• Lin Feng senses that the temple’s thunder is powerful but not inherently hostile. He stays near the Broken Staircase to listen, though he gains little from it himself.
• His Demon-Binding Rope responds to the thunder and absorbs its techniques, gaining spirituality and becoming his strongest magical artifact.
• As Lin Feng prepares to leave, a piece of Parchment clings to his boot and evades his attempts to remove it. The Ghost Shadow begins to stir, so Lin Feng escapes through the temple’s main gate.
• Once Lin Feng is outside, the Ghost Shadow awakens and expands to engulf the temple. The distant Iron-Crowned Daoists turn toward the disturbance, and Lin Feng flees, realizing he has attracted attention.

Character developments

• Lin Feng shows caution and self-awareness: he recognizes that his ambitions and abilities do not yet justify a wish for immortality, and he avoids testing the temple’s unknown powers.
• Though personally unable to benefit much from the thunder, Lin Feng’s artifact gains a major upgrade, giving him a powerful new asset—and causing his own speech to carry a trace of thunder.
• The Ghost Shadow is revealed to be composed of distinct parts with separate roles and thoughts. Its wish-granting offer seems potentially dangerous, even if its motives are not clearly malicious.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: Great rewards can become calamities when someone’s ability or virtue cannot match their position.
• Caution over reckless ambition: Lin Feng prefers steady growth and survival to a tempting but uncertain shortcut.
• Opportunity beyond humanity: The thunder’s benefits go to a magical artifact rather than Lin Feng, showing that nonhuman objects can also gain from chance encounters.
• The ambiguity of supernatural intentions: The Ghost Shadow neither attacks Lin Feng nor appears wholly trustworthy, making restraint essential.

Character interactions

• The Ghost Shadow repeatedly prompts Lin Feng to make a wish; Lin Feng refuses and keeps his distance.
• Lin Feng approaches the Ghost Shadow’s bell and mallet but chooses not to disturb it.
• The Parchment attaches itself to Lin Feng, resists his efforts to remove it, and triggers the Ghost Shadow’s awakening—forcing Lin Feng to flee.

Key plot points and events

• The awakened Ghost Shadow spreads across Heaven-Bearing Temple, but fails to catch Lin Feng and soon becomes still again.
• Lin Feng escapes with a written Parchment that appears to contain Slender Shadow’s research and lucid notes. It has somehow acquired a will of its own and attached itself to Lin Feng.
• The game gives Lin Feng no further reward for the first act of the Soul Summoning mission, only permission to continue. He accepts the limit and leaves.
• Lin Feng draws the Iron-Crowned Daoists’ hostility away from others and leads them on a long chase, using his speed and occasional clues to keep them following him. He calls the tactic “kiting”—or, less politely, “walking the dogs.”
• Reaching Jin Family Town, Lin Feng finds it already absorbed into the Underworld: its dead residents wander unaware that they have died, while dense yin energy hangs over the town.
• He places prepared items in the unoccupied City God and Earth God temples, claiming both posts and establishing a base. He hopes the town’s violent, unsavory dead can become forces under his command.
• With that foothold secured, he turns back to Zong Yang, the Parchment, and his plan to make his enemies fight one another.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains pragmatic and quick-thinking. He helps others when doing so also advances his objectives, exploits his speed to manipulate pursuit, and prioritizes securing a strategic base before confronting greater threats.
• Slender Shadow briefly reacts when the Parchment disappears, then returns to stillness. His restrained response contrasts with Lin Feng’s expectation that he would be furious.
• The Parchment shifts from being a written record to something seemingly autonomous, choosing Lin Feng over its original keeper.
• The Iron-Crowned Daoists become Lin Feng’s pursuers, their attention diverted from other targets. Their dependence on sacrifices to the North Wind God limits their speed.
• Lin Feng’s relationship with the Jin Family Town’s dead is not yet direct, but he views them as potential subordinates rather than merely victims.

Significant themes

• Life, death, and awareness: Jin Family Town’s dead continue ordinary routines without realizing they have died, while Lin Feng reflects that staying alive can bring unimaginable experiences.
• Power and jurisdiction: The City God’s office bridges the Underworld, Heavenly Court, and the living world, illustrating overlapping forms of authority.
• Pragmatic morality: Lin Feng is willing to help, but openly weighs kindness against personal goals and rewards.
• Uncanny agency: The Parchment’s apparent independence blurs the line between an object, a record, and a living entity.

Key events

• Lin Feng examines the Slender Shadow’s Parchment, a supernatural scripture written in Ghost Script. Though he can copy it through Intent, he cannot understand it, so he seals it safely in the Clay Jar.
• He finds a group of exhausted Daoists sheltered from Old Mother of Mount Li’s Wraith Children by his presence. When Iron-Crowned Daoists arrive to seize them, they clash with Old Mother of Mount Li. Lin Feng takes the sleepless Little Daoist Boy into the Yellow Millet Dream Realm to avoid the battle.
• There, Lin Feng brings the boy to Daoist Ji, whose remaining life force is sustained by corrupted devotional flames. Seeing the boy, Daoist Ji realizes he is the last hope for his Dharma Lineage and teaches him the Quanzhen method Golden Lotus Grown in Fire.
• Daoist Ji’s strength fades after he passes on his teachings. He uses his final resentment to help the boy establish his foundation, then dies. The boy is now his successor and is renamed Daoist Ji.
• Outside, Lin Feng’s plan to set the Iron-Crowned Daoists against Old Mother of Mount Li succeeds: the Daoists are reduced to ash and Old Mother loses her soul. However, the unique Source Seed is gone. Lin Feng spreads his Intent through Old Mother’s enormous body, and it begins to move under his control.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains composed and pragmatic, protecting the boy while pursuing his own goals. He treats Daoist Ji’s final wishes with respect but also recognizes the old Daoist’s shrewdness in sharing his teachings with him.
• The Little Daoist Boy moves from fearful, uncertain novice to the heir of his lineage. Lin Feng’s calm presence reassures him, while Daoist Ji tests him, names him successor, and entrusts the Dharma Lineage to him.
• Daoist Ji shifts from a warrior prepared to die fighting to a relieved teacher once he discovers a possible successor. His final act is to preserve his teachings and strengthen the boy.
• Lin Feng’s lightning chain acts independently, destroying a charging Corpse Demon before Lin Feng can intervene, hinting at its growing power and temper.
• Lin Feng tells the newly named Daoist Ji to check on his fellow disciples, framing him as their eldest senior brother and giving him immediate responsibility.

Significant themes

• Inheritance and continuity: Daoist Ji’s greatest concern is preserving his Dharma Lineage; the boy’s survival gives him a final chance to do so.
• Preparation and hard-won skill: Lin Feng’s apparent ease at navigating the Dream Realm is presented as the result of repeated practice and tempering.
• Life, death, and legacy: Daoist Ji cannot overcome death, but he can pass on his knowledge and use his last strength to aid the next generation.
• Pragmatism amid danger: Lin Feng treats alliances, threats, and survival strategically, exploiting conflict between enemies while protecting the people he chooses to save.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng travels through plague-ravaged villages as a Daoist healer and exorcist. He charges only a peck of rice per village, treats the sick, comforts the dead, and establishes shrines to “Zuan Wangye.” His growing reputation draws a large procession of people—and spirits—around him, effectively creating a new deity and a source of spiritual power.
• Zong Yang encounters Lin Feng and assumes he is a dangerous sorcerer who might be building a rebel movement. Lin Feng demonstrates his uncanny knowledge of Zong Yang, captures him and his bodyguard, and brings them along. At night, Zong Yang sees Lin Feng’s ghostly followers and fears he is plotting rebellion. Lin Feng explains that sorcery alone cannot overthrow a government: armies, legitimacy, and public support matter more.
• Lin Feng says he intends to confront the Jin Family’s supernatural threat, while arranging for Zong Yang to receive credit. He gathers roughly seven hundred Yin Soldiers, but further recruitment risks becoming uncontrollable.
• Lin Feng encounters groups of ritual masters and monks traveling toward Jin Family Town. Most are unprepared outsiders, some driven by conscience after witnessing evil. Knowing they would likely die, he sends them away, claiming his spirits are Ghost Kings acting under Zuan Wangye’s orders. Larger groups prove difficult to bypass, so he heads for the town first.
• The game’s next objective is to destroy the “Divine Husk” and prevent anyone—including Lin Feng—from possessing it, while protecting civilians if possible. The reward, “Auspicious Official Career,” could provide a powerful official identity and access to greater knowledge and influence. Lin Feng’s immediate concern, however, is surviving the mission and containing the dangerous Source Seed he took from the Old Mother of Mount Li.
• Lin Feng reflects that the City Gods and Land Gods have disappeared as institutions, but their lingering traces—and the Heavenly Court’s remaining protection—still offer some aid. The collapse of worldly order has allowed ancient forces such as the Old Mother of Mount Li to seek power and titles.
• On arriving at Jin Family Town, Zong Yang mistakes its orderly appearance for good governance. Lin Feng reveals that many residents and workers are actually dead or tied to disturbing practices sheltered by the Jin Family. He tells Zong Yang to act with confidence and hints that he will soon have to undergo a dangerous ordeal himself, providing him with magical artifacts to improve his chances.

Character development and interactions

• Lin Feng combines genuine compassion with theatrical, manipulative methods. He helps the suffering, protects inexperienced practitioners, and uses the public’s faith to strengthen his influence. He is also pragmatic: he understands the limits of supernatural power, manages political appearances, and plans to use Zong Yang as the legitimate face of the coming judgment.
• Zong Yang shifts from stern suspicion to fear and uncertainty as he witnesses Lin Feng’s supernatural abilities and the town’s hidden corruption. Though intimidated, he remains conscious of his own limitations and reluctant to assume the role Lin Feng imagines for him.
• The honest monk and other ritual practitioners represent ordinary people trying to resist evil despite lacking the strength to do so. Lin Feng’s decision to send them home shows respect for their sincerity and concern that the few righteous practitioners left should not be wasted.
• Lin Feng and Zong Yang’s relationship is an uneasy mix of captor and adviser: Lin Feng restrains and frightens him, but also teaches him about governance, lends him protection, and pushes him toward responsibility.

Significant themes

• Faith as power and performance: Lin Feng’s charitable work builds both public devotion and supernatural strength, blurring the line between sincere religious service and the deliberate creation of a deity.
• Legitimacy versus force: Sorcery may frighten or gather people, but lasting political change requires strategy, public support, and a recognized authority.
• A collapsing moral and spiritual order: The disappearance of established divine institutions leaves ordinary people exposed and creates openings for ancient, ambitious powers.
• Conscience amid helplessness: Honest people still try to confront evil, even when the odds are overwhelming; protecting their lives can matter as much as fighting.
• Appearance versus reality: Jin Family Town looks prosperous and well governed, but its apparent order conceals a society entangled with ghosts, death, and corruption.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng persuades the reluctant county chief, Zong Yang, to stay in Jin Family Town and restore order despite the town being threatened by Ghosts within and demons outside. He frames the crisis as Zong’s chance to become a respected official.
• Lin gives Zong a military tally and a Fire Lance, urging him to punish troublemakers and stabilize the town. Armed guards bring in accused sorcerers and kidnappers, backed by witnesses and evidence; Lin leaves Zong to decide how to deal with them.
• Lin confronts Bird, a bald member of the Bird Family, and compels him to help investigate the strange spatial art at the Jin Family residence. Bird is threatened with being made into a puppet if he refuses.
• Lin takes Bird to the Jin Family pit and descends to its bottom, where he finds a decaying Divine Husk and grave-marker steles. He begins a dangerous process of refining his body with Kiln Clay, using the Husk’s lingering power and the surrounding supernatural “Intent” as a force for tempering.
• Lin opens jars containing demons and Ghosts. Under the chaotic Intent, they transform into rotting officials, apparently becoming vessels for consciousness associated with the Mount Tai Yamen. Lin then sets a vast sacrificial fire that spreads toward the mountain.

Character developments and interactions

• Zong Yang shifts from fear and disillusionment to a tentative willingness to act. He recognizes that, in practice, the City God has more authority over the town than he does, but Lin’s speech appeals to his ambition and sense of duty.
• Lin Feng shows himself as a persuasive, pragmatic leader: he motivates Zong while also using pressure and threats to secure Bird’s cooperation. He is willing to take extreme risks in his cultivation and in challenging the town’s existing powers.
• Bird is alarmed by Lin’s unusual position as a living person directing Underworld affairs. His habitual sarcasm conflicts with his instinct for self-preservation, and he submits to Lin’s demands.
• Lin and Zong’s relationship is notably unequal: Lin encourages Zong’s independence as magistrate while directing him toward the actions Lin wants. Lin’s relationship with Bird is openly coercive.

Significant themes

• Ambition, chance, and legacy: Lin argues that meaningful achievement requires effort and luck, and urges Zong to seize a rare opportunity.
• Authority and responsibility: The chapter contrasts Zong’s formal Yang World office with the City God’s practical control, while Lin insists that borrowed authority must be used to serve the people.
• Order amid crisis: Lin prioritizes stability and decisive punishment as threats gather, presenting harsh measures as necessary to prevent chaos.
• Transformation and power: The pit, the Divine Husk, Kiln Clay, and the changing demons suggest that identity and bodies can be reshaped through supernatural forces.
• Risk and uncertainty: Lin acts despite the possibility of future consequences, arguing that no one can reliably predict what lies ahead.

Key plot points and events

• Teacher Qie realizes that history’s events are being confirmed through the actions of those caught up in them. Dying in the Underworld, he tries to pass on what he knows about the Ran Yi Fish and the origins of the bone ash, while absorbing the dangerous Kiln Clay so it cannot harm others.
• The Corpse of Nü Chou enters the Guesthouse, takes Teacher Qie, and continues pursuing Professor Han.
• In severe pain and confusion, Han clings to Qie’s instructions: treat the world as unreal, ignore what he sees, and follow the road. His single-minded goal is to reach the psychiatric hospital and fulfill Xie Shiba’s request by bringing Xie Shiba’s skin to Xie An’an.
• Han encounters a frightened couple in an RV. The woman recognizes him, but the man believes the face-covered woman following Han is a ghost and drives off in panic. Han’s desperate wish to escape in the vehicle makes him appear inside it, startling the driver and causing the RV to crash.
• The Corpse catches Han, but a ballpoint pen lodged in her arm briefly disrupts her pursuit and opens a way out. Han follows the alternate road and reaches the county seat by dawn.
• After waking in the county hospital, Han contacts an old friend, who helps him reach a local archive. A retiring staff member begins consulting the county gazetteer, setting up a search for historical information.

Character developments and interactions

• Teacher Qie faces death with a sense of purpose, seeing himself as part of history rather than a bystander. His final act—carefully containing the Kiln Clay—shows his compassion and willingness to protect others.
• Professor Han is nearly reduced to a few fixed thoughts by pain and supernatural pressure. His determination to fulfill Xie Shiba’s request keeps him moving, though his instinctive attempt to escape in the RV makes the danger worse.
• The Corpse of Nü Chou is revealed as a relentless pursuer who can make parts of the Underworld’s uncanny environment vanish. A small interruption, however, is enough to let Han slip away.
• The RV couple react differently to the crisis: the woman recognizes Han and tries to make sense of what is happening, while her boyfriend’s terror and suspicion drive him to flee recklessly. Their flight inadvertently leads to a crash and Han’s brief, uncanny appearance inside the vehicle.

Significant themes

• History and agency: Teacher Qie wonders whether individual actions are merely confirming events already embedded in history.
• Belief and perception: Han’s escape depends on believing that the world is unreal, while the couple’s fear shapes their interpretation of what they see.
• Sacrifice and responsibility: Qie’s care for others persists even as his body and senses fail.
• The supernatural intruding on ordinary life: A routine vehicle, a missing-person search, and a local archive all become entangled with the Underworld’s distortions.

Plot points and events

• Professor Han, recovering in the hospital, calls a near-retirement archive worker to consult a three-hundred-year-old, unofficial County Gazetteer. Compiled by Daoist Ji with help from local gentry and County Chief Zong, the book is useful as a historical source but mixes local history with supernatural claims.
• The chapter explains that Zuan Wangye is a locally celebrated deity associated with fire, thunder, and wind, and with elements of the Kitchen King, Land God, City God, and Taoist tradition. Though few locals seem deeply religious, his temple still draws visitors and hosts an annual fair.
• The archive worker reads the gazetteer aloud. Professor Han focuses on its section about rituals, learning that Daoist Ji and Zuan Wangye supposedly arrived with County Chief Zong during a period of bandit violence and that Zuan Wangye protected the town.
• The gazetteer’s grand claims include that Zuan alone follows the righteous way and preserves humanity’s “kindling flame.” The archive worker treats these assertions as typical temple rhetoric, but notes that independent records confirm real events behind the legends.
• Those records corroborate a devastating fire near Jin Family Town and County Chief Zong’s campaign against the Jin Family bandits. The gazetteer’s afterword describes the fire in stark, frightening terms: it lasted three days, the town was full of ghosts, day and night became indistinguishable, and people were devoured.

Character development and interactions

• Professor Han is courteous and attentive, asking the archive worker to concentrate on the ritual records and listening closely for details.
• The archive worker proves patient, knowledgeable, and proud of his years of reading local records. Professor Han’s compliments make him feel valued, and he becomes even more helpful, adding his own interpretations.
• Their respectful exchange helps Professor Han access a rare source while revealing the archive worker’s familiarity with the county’s history.

Significant themes

• History and folklore: Supernatural accounts may distort events, yet preserve fragments of real local history.
• The uncertain boundary between fact and legend: Multiple records confirm the fire and the bandit campaign, but not their supernatural explanations.
• Faith, authority, and local identity: Zuan Wangye’s cult blends religious traditions and civic memory, while also serving as a focus for community festivals and tourism.
• Horror through restraint: The afterword’s plain, matter-of-fact description makes the supposed catastrophe especially unsettling.

Summary

• Recovering in the hospital after a minor car accident, Professor Han calls an old staff member to ask about records of the great fire described in Daoist Ji’s county gazetteer. He wants a more grounded account, but believes confirming the fire’s outcome may show that the people involved survived—and that their mission succeeded.
• Han reflects on Teacher Qie’s warning not to keep speaking of the uncanny events. He understands the danger of drawing attention to them, yet can no longer ignore what he has witnessed. He believes Teacher Xun was not mad, and sees himself as bound by the same fate as his teachers. His fear gives way increasingly to curiosity, especially about Zuan Wangye: who he was, how his worship spread, and whether he was the remarkable young fighter Han saw.
• The old staff member offers to visit Zuan Wangye Temple himself, despite Han’s protests that this would be too much trouble. He obtains leave from his superior and rides to the mountain temple to take photographs.
• At the temple, he documents its unusual layout and imagery: a first courtyard with five masked, color-coded Divine Generals, a second hall containing a veiled figure in imperial robes, and a final hall dedicated to Zuan Wangye. The arrangement does not follow ordinary religious or social hierarchies, and outside experts have criticized the buildings as presumptuous.
• A mysterious young man joins the staff member and listens closely as he explains the temple. The staff member feels at ease with him and grows talkative, while people nearby unconsciously gather around the young man. The stranger speculates that the halls may represent past, present, and future rather than rank, and wonders whether the veiled deity might be the Lord of Mount Tai.
• The staff member recounts the great fire, saying temple followers led the effort to extinguish it. When the stranger describes legends of a brutal battle, demons, a tornado, rivers of blood, the dead appearing, and two suns, the staff member dismisses them as folklore and invokes scientific explanations such as a sun dog.
• Others join the conversation, debating whether the ancient king Xia Jie’s claim to be like the sun was metaphorical or literal. The mysterious young man expands the discussion, suggesting ancient people might have understood the sun differently—as a fireball, a mythic being, or even a source of future vitality.

Character developments and interactions

• Professor Han is caught between caution and the need for answers. His concern shifts from mere survival toward understanding Zuan Wangye and the events surrounding the fire.
• The old staff member acts generously on Han’s behalf and becomes animated by the temple’s history. His friendly exchange with the stranger contrasts with his firm skepticism toward supernatural explanations.
• The mysterious young man is calm, compelling, and intellectually provocative. He encourages speculation without insisting on any conclusion, and his presence seems to draw people together.
• Themes: fate and historical inevitability; the tension between folklore and rational explanation; the power of belief and remembrance; and the limits of what different eras can know.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng tells an old local scholar that he has come to collect materials buried centuries ago. His compelling presence draws the villagers, animals, and supernatural beings around him.
• As he recounts a tale of Daoist Ji, Zong Yang, and the Jin Family, Lin Feng uses the listeners’ attention and a burned lock of hair to lure supernatural creatures toward the temple.
• Lin Feng describes Jin Family Town three hundred years earlier: the Jin Family’s attempt to attain immortality had left many residents dead but unaware of it, blurring the boundary between living and dead and threatening to turn the area into a ghost domain.
• Zong Yang, a young official, took charge amid the chaos. With help and treasures from Zuan Wangye, he established authority by publicly killing sorcerers and evil ghosts.
• Lin Feng shows the villagers a portrait of Zong Yang, linking the image to his story and to local memory. He hopes Zong Yang will be remembered and eventually honored at the local school, where he might quietly nurture students’ literary spirit.
• The account reaches the town’s descent into a full ghost domain after a mountain fire blocked daylight. The old scholar asks why Zuan Wangye’s Yin Soldiers did not intervene. Lin Feng explains that Zuan Wangye did intervene, holding off the greatest threats; the town’s calamity was only the aftermath of a greater conflict.

Character developments

• Lin Feng displays a gentle but powerful charisma that attracts people and animals and can command their attention. He also shows skill in shaping collective memory and using storytelling as part of a supernatural hunt.
• The old scholar shifts from amused skepticism to rapt engagement. His knowledge of local history lets him recognize the real people behind Lin Feng’s tale, deepening his fascination.
• Zong Yang is presented not as a flawless strategist but as a brave, ambitious young man with limited experience who chose to act despite the risks. His legacy matters to Lin Feng even if it never makes him a god.
• Zuan Wangye is revealed to have been actively confronting the larger supernatural threat, rather than standing aside during the town’s disaster.

Significant themes

• Storytelling and memory: Stories can make historical figures vivid, shape how communities remember them, and preserve a legacy across generations.
• Desire and survival: Lin Feng says his story is about desire—not moral reward or punishment—and his own nature embodies a deep human and animal yearning to survive.
• The boundary between life and death: Jin Family Town’s disorder shows the danger of the dead and living sharing the same space.
• Courage and imperfect action: Zong Yang’s heroism comes from choosing to act despite inexperience, not from being an infallible planner.
• The unseen supernatural: Strange beings gather openly, yet the listeners remain unaware, showing how ordinary perception can be shaped or obscured.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng and the old scholar begin with playful debate, but the scholar gradually becomes an eager listener and finally challenges the story with a question about Zuan Wangye.
• Lin Feng addresses the villagers as an audience, guiding their attention and emotional response while subtly linking Zong Yang’s story to his portrait.
• Lin Feng acknowledges Zong Yang’s presence in the supernatural gathering and treats him with quiet respect, framing the story as a way to sustain his memory.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng’s story shifts to a town plunged into supernatural darkness. Bloodied corpses fill the streets, people vanish, and ordinary fire is dangerous: its light attracts monsters. The Zuan Wangye and Land God temples are the only relatively safe places.
• County Chief Zong Yang leads a small search party to find survivors, hoping both to rescue people and keep deaths—and the number of Ghosts—from increasing. He has already lost most of his men to the Flaying Craftsman, a corpse-like figure who skins anyone in his path.
• Zong Yang’s group enters a house and encounters Grudge Girl, a vast, bloodied robe that feeds on human remains. The old hand recognizes her and pulls Zong Yang away, abandoning the search.
• Their escape is blocked by the Flaying Craftsman. Zong Yang’s Fire Lance, previously powerful against demons, is stopped by a robe of human faces. A gunshot draws a giant, floating house centipede carrying corpses, with an enormous tiger and the Iron-Crowned Daoist nearby.
• The Flaying Craftsman abandons the group to pursue the centipede. Grudge Girl takes possession of a flayed man, restoring his skin and transforming him into her likeness.
• A roar shakes the monsters. The mountain’s fire turns cold and green, and its strange scent triggers Zong Yang’s memory of his family’s New Year sachets. He realizes he is hallucinating.

Character developments and interactions

• Zong Yang remains determined to protect people and maintain order despite exhaustion, fear, and mounting losses. He relies on his Fire Lance but discovers that it cannot overcome every threat.
• The old hand, an experienced former tomb robber, proves pragmatic and quick-thinking. He recognizes Grudge Girl, urges retreat, and drags Zong Yang to safety, though his motives also include staying close to the County Chief, whom he sees as his best chance of survival.
• Zong Yang and his guards share a desperate, increasingly fragile bond: the guards obey and protect him, while successive encounters leave their party nearly wiped out.
• The monsters behave according to eerie, fixed purposes rather than ordinary malice: the Flaying Craftsman skins whatever he encounters, while Grudge Girl feeds, possesses victims, and brings danger wherever she goes.

Significant themes

• Duty versus survival: Zong Yang risks himself to search for survivors, while the old hand prioritizes escape.
• Order amid catastrophe: Zong Yang tries to preserve public safety even as familiar authority and normal rules lose their power.
• Humanity and horror: The supernatural beings act with disturbing routine, making their violence feel both senseless and inevitable.
• Memory and longing: The scent of the green flames connects Zong Yang to his stern father and the warmth of family reunion, suggesting how personal memories can surface amid terror—and may be used to deceive.

Summary

• Plot and future direction: The author says they intend to finish the novel and gradually resolve earlier loose ends. They outline a likely Song Dynasty arc, in which Xia Song takes office in Hongzhou and elsewhere, dismantles Wild Temples and God Shrines, and deals with local problems. This arc would also address mysteries involving Heaven-Bearing Temple and the Bronze Vessel in Shuzhong.
• Planned ending: A final arc—or one shortly before the end—would follow, though the overall plan may span two or three more arcs. Possible material for a concluding arc includes monks and the suppression of Evil Soil on the Plateau, the Corpse of Nü Chou, or temple keepers in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan sacred mountains during the era of the Six Heavens’ Old Qi.
• Character development and interactions: There are no story scenes or character interactions in this author’s note. Xia Song is mentioned only as the central figure of the proposed Song Dynasty arc.
• Themes: The note emphasizes the author’s commitment to completing the story despite uncertainty, the gradual resolution of mysteries and loose ends, and the challenge of turning many imagined stories into effective writing. It closes with holiday wishes and a brief mention of a planned reader bonus and prize draw.

• The green Flame and growing danger: The Flame on the mountain turns green, spreading a corrupt, rotting aura that infects Yin Objects. The people sheltering nearby are terrified. Young Daoists beat their Deity Drums and chant the Golden Light Divine Mantra. Though their ritual skill is limited, the chant drives back the lurking Uncanny beings and gives the survivors a sense of protection.
• Little Daoist Ji’s foreboding: Ji suspects Lin Feng may be his grandmaster and privately recognizes him as a kind of savior, but says nothing. He experiences an unusually powerful “Sudden Heartbeat,” signaling danger. Ghosts flee as immense, broken-Mirror-like walls rise outside. Ji steadies himself through prayer and familiar rites, while the people sincerely worship Zuan Wangye, whose divine light seems to guard the temple.
• Zong Yang returns: The county chief staggers out of the darkness, bloodied and seemingly cut into countless pieces, with his fragments held together by flesh and blood. He warns everyone not to look into the Mirrors, then enters the temple despite their attempts to react. His appearance prompts a listener to interrupt Lin Feng’s story by asking how Zong Yang could be dead if he had just appeared alive.
• The story’s audience and Lin Feng’s work: The interruption breaks the horror’s hold on the listeners, who realize how frightened and drained they had become. Lin Feng pauses and replenishes their energy through an illusion, while figures outside—now recovering memories and faces—dig up old buried materials. They collect the accumulated “yield” and Longevity Worm powder in Clay Jars, and use the Fire Pit to make more jars and an Anchor. Lin Feng reveals that his arrival completes a plan begun a century earlier; he has also grown bold enough to challenge the Five-Powers Immortal.
• The enemy and Zong Yang’s sacrifice: Lin Feng identifies Zuan Wangye’s opponent as an ancient queen and original leader of the Old Mother of Mount Li tribe, whose people have committed substantial forces to obtain something. When asked how she could have cut Zong Yang apart, Lin Feng compares her to legendary figures whose apparent deaths or unnatural survival depended on deception and on others recognizing the truth. He concludes that Zong Yang’s importance lies in using his life to warn everyone else.
  Character developments and interactions: Ji’s fear reveals both his sensitivity to supernatural danger and his reliance on ritual for composure; his respect for Lin Feng deepens. The crowd moves from panic to temporary reassurance, then becomes absorbed in Lin Feng’s tale. Lin Feng manages both his audience and the supernatural work outside the temple, calmly answering questions while withholding the full story. Zong Yang’s warning and apparent self-sacrifice make him a tragic figure whose final act may protect others.
  Themes: Faith and communal ritual can offer comfort even when their power is limited; survival depends on recognizing danger and warning others; supernatural identities and apparent realities are unstable; and inherited traditions endure imperfectly amid disaster.

Key plot points and events

• Zong Yang reaches Zuan Wangye Temple mortally wounded and warns that the “Mirror” outside is dangerous: everyone who looks at it is severed into pieces. He dies moments later, his body breaking apart.
• The temple’s divine light preserves the last trace of his spirit. Little Daoist Ji realizes the towering, shattered mirrors are supernatural projections surrounding the town—not ordinary objects.
• Ji has also glimpsed the mirrors and is attacked by hostile reflections embodying extreme human emotions and desires. Divine light drives them off.
• Keeping his fear in check, Ji orders everyone to lower their heads and look only at their immediate surroundings. He leads them in chanting, hoping the temple’s drum and offerings will protect them.
• A blood-red-robed Ghost enters the temple and consumes the remains of a victim, suggesting the temple’s defenses have been breached.
• Outside, the mirrors’ power has severed people and objects with absolute precision, while immense walls rise around Jin Family Town, sealing it in.
• The narration explains that the severing draws on an ancient spatial-divination method associated with the “Old Mother of Mount Li” clan, distinct from the spatial practices of the Yin-Shang civilization. The clan has dealt with the other demons and monsters, but its pursuit of the Shed Remains—and possibly the Source Seed—continues.

Character developments

• Little Daoist Ji shifts from shock and helplessness to taking responsibility. Though frightened and unable to fight the supernatural threat, he deliberately steadies himself and acts as a leader.
• Zong Yang dies after delivering a crucial warning.
• Lin Feng is absent from the temple, and Ji’s inability to locate or even think about him deepens Ji’s sense of helplessness.

Significant themes

• The limits of human power: Facing overwhelming supernatural forces, the townspeople have little defense beyond obedience, ritual, and shelter.
• Leadership under terror: Ji suppresses his panic to keep others calm and alive.
• Dangerous perception: Looking at the mirrors is itself fatal; knowledge and sight become threats.
• Ancient rival systems of power: The account contrasts different civilizations’ approaches to space, divination, and access to divine realms.
• Ritual as fragile protection: The temple’s rites and divine light offer only a narrow chance of survival.

Character interactions

• Zong Yang’s final warning gives Ji the information needed to protect the crowd.
• Ji commands the townspeople to keep their heads down and guides them in chanting, attempting to coordinate their survival.
• The temple’s divine light protects both Zong Yang’s remaining spirit and Ji from the hostile emotional reflections.
• A Ghost’s intrusion and the approaching barriers undermine the temple’s safety, heightening the threat to everyone inside.

Plot and key events

• Lin Feng reflects on Source Seeds, ancient artifacts disguised as legendary objects. He realizes that the Gold-Banded Cudgel and Breath Soil may be connected to the Xia Dynasty’s secret bronze technology.
• He concludes that Xia’s bronze vessels embodied the civilization’s understanding of the world—and that the Yin-Shang feared them because Xia’s rulers may have been experimental “mad scientists” or theologians. Their secrets were tightly guarded and later obscured by history.
• As Lin Feng’s thoughts spread through Jin Family Town, Deity Tablets burn to ash, and the Old Mother of Mount Li is consumed. A powerful thought forces those present to “synchronize” with Lin Feng’s deductions.
• The shared understanding reveals that Xia bronze-making relied on Evil Soil, made from Ran Yi Fish bone ash. This substance could assimilate living things, helping explain the danger and uncanny effects surrounding it.
• Lin Feng draws on the collapsed Shaman Divine Kingdom’s lingering order and malice as fuel for tempering a Source Seed. The Old Mother of Mount Li clan detects its aura and rushes toward him.
• Using his Qi-Observing Dharma Eye, Lin Feng sees the Old Mother’s true form: No-Gap, a being that cannot exist physically and appears in the mortal world as a mirror.
• The Divine Husk revives, receives an ancient eyeball as a third eye, and the Source Seed settles into that position. The Husk rises and takes Lin Feng’s Dharma Sword.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng moves from historical speculation to a deeper grasp of Xia’s technology and its connection to his own transformation. He uses his Intent to impose his thoughts across Jin Family Town and advances the tempering of the Source Seed.
• Little Daoist Ji struggles to stay calm as the Deity Tablets burn. The Little Daoist Boy tries to chant but is overwhelmed by the force synchronizing everyone’s thoughts.
• The Old Mother of Mount Li is revealed not as an ordinary entity but as No-Gap; her clan responds to the Source Seed’s aura.
• The Divine Husk shifts from a dormant relic to an active presence, linked to Lin Feng through the Source Seed and restored eyeball.

Significant themes

• Myth as historical residue: Legendary objects and stories may preserve traces of real ancient technologies and events.
• Knowledge and erasure: The Yin-Shang’s dominance concealed Xia’s civilization so thoroughly that its history survives mainly as myth.
• Power through understanding: Lin Feng’s deductions become a shared, supernatural force, turning knowledge into “Intent.”
• Dangerous creation: Xia’s advances blurred the boundaries between matter and life, while the use of bone ash and sacrifices reflects the perilous costs of such experiments.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng’s altered body and power trigger an ancient curse and unleash a chaotic set of laws associated with the Shaman-era Divine Kingdom. His phantom, armed with a bell, whip, drum, and medicinal sprout, causes severed bodies and shattered beings to regrow flesh and stitch themselves together into grotesque, corpse-like puppets.
• Black and White Impermanence arrive to confront the phantom, accompanied by an unseen, more powerful Underworld enforcer. Their presence brings the threat of death and soul seizure.
• Little Daoist Ji and a group of survivors hide nearby. He recognizes a troubling connection between the phantom and the figure they sought—Zuan Wangye—but sees that it has become an uncanny, instinct-driven power rather than a benevolent deity.
• The survivors’ escape follows the temple’s collapse into supernatural danger. Grudge Girl survives “No-Gap,” goes mad, and becomes a bloodstained robe that devours people. Zuan Wangye’s temple offers no simple refuge: its space divides people impossibly, bodies rot, and a familiar True Scripture is chanted by a face appearing behind a Daoist.
• Ji flees the temple, leaving those who refuse to follow. Meanwhile, the unseen Underworld presence tracks Lin Feng’s aura underground and takes Fu Hao from the mirror, exploiting her position between life and death.
• Lin Feng reflects that ancient powers may have been discarded because they were uncontrollable or incompatible with their age. As the Jin family’s sacrificial fire burns away their souls, he reshapes his body but lacks a core. Recalling Daoist Ji’s True Scripture, he finally forms an inner elixir.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng pushes his transformation further by drawing on the Lord of Mount Tai’s life-and-death authority and Daoist Ji’s scripture, culminating in the formation of an inner elixir.
• Little Daoist Ji moves from uncertainty about Zuan Wangye to recognizing the danger of the power tied to him. He acts pragmatically, choosing escape over a futile confrontation with Black and White Impermanence.
• Grudge Girl changes from a surviving ghost into a mindless, predatory bloodstained robe, attacking people by instinct.
• Fu Hao is seized by the Underworld presence because her liminal state leaves her vulnerable to either realm’s jurisdiction.
• The Daoists and other survivors are forced to choose whether to remain in the temple or risk the dangers outside.

Significant themes

• Ancient power is not necessarily safe or controllable: age and divine status do not guarantee wisdom, benevolence, or usefulness.
• Life and death are unstable boundaries: bodies regrow grotesquely, souls are burned away, and beings caught between realms can be claimed by either.
• Survival amid uncertainty: Ji’s escape reflects the chapter’s emphasis on making pragmatic choices when the rules of danger are unknowable.
• Transformation through inherited knowledge: Lin Feng’s breakthrough comes from combining physical change with Daoist Ji’s True Scripture.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng reflects on how “elixir” can mean very different things, and on the responsibility and generosity involved in passing down a true Daoist art. He then uses the Internal Alchemy method to refine his essence, qi, and spirit toward a golden core.
• A terrifying White-Bone Jianmu appears, embodying an ancient being’s concentrated Intent. Made from at least a million Evil Ghosts, it begins devouring Fu Hao and exerts a crushing force on everything nearby.
• The Divine Husk reacts to the Jianmu’s arrival, absorbing the Jin family’s preparations and manifesting a powerful, unstable rune. Its presence reverses the boundary between life and death, making dead things seem alive.
• The rune and the Jianmu clash. Caught between them, Lin Feng’s body is repeatedly crushed and restored, accelerating his cultivation while threatening to destroy him. He survives by clinging to his Intent and sense of self.
• The clash exposes the conflict as one between an old god and a new god—and between old and new arts. The Jianmu’s fallen branch turns into peach wood, suggesting a connection to Fengdu. An Underworld deity tries to curse the Divine Husk, but cannot affect it: the Husk has no soul, and Lin Feng’s Third Eye is only a passive presence within it.
• No-Gap’s aura enters after the Jianmu removes Fu Hao’s defenses. Meanwhile, the mysterious parchment attacks the Jianmu’s Intent, freeing a headless Uncanny being before returning to Lin Feng.
• The parchment merges into Lin Feng and grants him the Fengdu Ghost-Cursing Sutra, a developing magical artifact that uses Evil Ghosts as writing and grows more powerful by killing or cursing them.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng endures near-total bodily destruction but keeps his identity intact through sheer Intent. The violent clash also teaches him how he may refine karmic fire. He gains a dangerous new scripture and immediately recognizes that its nature and origins are not as he had previously understood.
• The Divine Husk acts independently of Lin Feng, responding angrily to the Jianmu’s challenge and striking it. It is powerful but unstable, and apparently has no soul.
• The White-Bone Jianmu is a predatory, overwhelming presence that devours Fu Hao and resists both the Divine Husk and No-Gap.
• The parchment reveals itself as more than an ordinary sheet: it feeds on the Jianmu’s Intent, frees a captive Uncanny being, then binds itself to Lin Feng.
• Old Mother of Mount Li, associated with No-Gap, sees the Divine Husk and Source Seed as a chance to gain immense power and greedily presses her attack.

Significant themes

• Inheritance and responsibility: A transmitted art creates a lineage—and passes moral responsibility along with power.
• The instability of labels and knowledge: Words such as “elixir,” “scripture,” and “god” can conceal radically different realities; Lin Feng repeatedly discovers that familiar names do not explain what things truly are.
• Identity under pressure: Lin Feng’s ability to remain himself amid supernatural forces depends on holding fast to his Intent and name.
• Life and death as reversible boundaries: The Divine Husk’s rune turns death into life and life into death, while the Fengdu scripture uses ghosts as both text and power.
• Predation and power: The major forces seek to consume, dominate, or exploit others, and even seemingly passive objects—like the parchment—can be dangerous participants.

Key plot points and events

• The Fengdu official Yu Lei loses patience with the “Bronze Mirrors” and the forces of Old Mother of Mount Li. His White-Bone Jianmu spreads Underworld power through Jin Family Town, suppressing its uncanny beings, and he launches a series of binding spells.
• Yu Lei’s rites immobilize Old Mother of Mount Li and expose her true form. He drives his sword into a precise weak point, shattering many of the uncanny mirrors—but the strike also disrupts the balance, loosens the threads anchoring him in the mortal world, and leaves him vulnerable to the Divine Husk’s blows.
• Lin Feng watches the battle while adapting to its crushing pressure. His body and golden core grow stronger, and he gains a clearer sense that he—not the wind—is directing the wind’s behavior. His cultivation advances from Seventh Rank toward Sixth Rank.
• Yu Lei recognizes Lin Feng, explaining that Fengdu once rescued him after he was cast into the netherworld. He also identifies Green Mountain as the place or organization that sent Lin Feng, though its nature remains unclear.
• Unable to take or destroy the Lord of Mount Tai’s Divine Husk himself, Yu Lei asks Lin Feng to witness its destruction. Lin Feng agrees, knowing his presence will preserve the event in history.
• Yu Lei traps the Husk in a Water Prison and Fire Prison, then petitions Marshal Tianpeng for aid. As he is dragged underground, divine lightning descends and strikes the Husk.

Character developments

• Lin Feng grows stronger under extreme pressure and becomes more perceptive about his cultivation and abilities. Though he enjoys watching the powerful forces clash, he recognizes his limits and cooperates when Yu Lei needs him.
• Yu Lei shifts from restrained duty to fierce action after being provoked. He demonstrates disciplined magical skill, tactical precision, and a strong sense of official responsibility. His recognition of Lin Feng reveals a prior connection between Lin Feng and Fengdu.

Significant themes

• Power and limits: Even formidable beings face constraints—Yu Lei’s time in the mortal world is limited, while the Divine Husk’s strength depends on fading instinct.
• Order versus corruption: Fengdu’s rites and petition invoke a bureaucratic supernatural order to punish evil and restore the righteous way.
• Witness and history: Lin Feng’s role as a living witness makes his presence consequential, even when he cannot directly control the battle.
• Growth through suffering: Lin Feng’s physical agony becomes a catalyst for clearer understanding and increased cultivation.

Character interactions

• Yu Lei attacks Old Mother of Mount Li after her provocation, while the Divine Husk counters him with repeated blows.
• Yu Lei confronts Lin Feng as a familiar from his past, questions why Green Mountain sent him into danger, and recruits him as a witness.
• Lin Feng responds with candid cooperation, glad to have found an apparent ally against the Divine Husk.

Plot and major events

• Yu Lei answers Yu Lei’s own petition by summoning heavenly lightning, destroying the Divine Husk and devastating Jin Family Town. The blast kills or scatters most uncanny beings and shatters Grudge Girl.
• A headless uncanny being, the Headless Taoist, emerges after the lightning passes. Mimicking Lin Feng’s appearance, he tears off Grudge Girl’s skin-like robe, kills her, and takes the robe as his own.
• At dawn, Lin Feng’s golden core appears as a second sun. He has successfully “discarded the false and preserved the true,” though he senses the result is troubling: his already-faint human aura has diminished, while he has drawn the dispersed intent of the Lord of Mount Tai into himself.
• Lin Feng saves survivors with healing rain, rescues Bird, gathers souls and fragments of the Old Mother of Mount Li, and finishes his work in town.
• At a hidden complex of tomb-like buildings, Lin Feng learns that the legendary Liu Bingzhong designed underground shelters along the Yellow River. Jin Family members later investigated them and found them empty, suggesting their occupants may have been taken.
• A trapped Jin Family man begs Lin Feng to save children he claims are innocent. Lin Feng concludes there are no children left and kills the man rather than let him awaken to the truth, then burns the site.
• The dead man’s essence adds a brushstroke to Lin Feng’s Fengdu Ghost-Cursing Sutra. Lin Feng absorbs the power he has gathered, then ends the story he has been telling and disperses the lingering shadows at Zuan Wangye Temple. The “game” is complete, but his work outside it is only beginning.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng emerges more powerful, with a golden core and enhanced third eye, but his fading human aura raises questions about what he has sacrificed. He remains practical and compassionate, rescuing people where possible, while making grim choices when he believes mercy requires them.
• The Headless Taoist is revealed as an intelligent, calculating uncanny being who waits out the lightning and exploits the aftermath.
• Little Daoist Ji survives through quick thinking and ingratiating behavior. Lin Feng ignores his flattery but lets healing rain reach him.
• The trapped Jin Family man expresses remorse and helplessness, pleading for the children. Lin Feng refuses to wake him to the likely truth and ends his suffering.
• Lin Feng interacts warmly and playfully with the listeners at the temple, then bids farewell to the shadowy figures he regards as old acquaintances.

Significant themes

• The cost of transformation: Lin Feng’s refinement brings immense power but further erodes his human qualities.
• Mercy and painful truth: Lin Feng’s killing of the Jin Family man is framed as a final kindness, sparing him knowledge of the children’s fate.
• The limits of protection and power: Even elaborate shelters built by a renowned genius failed to keep their occupants safe; heavenly lightning can overwhelm uncanny beings, but not undo all the damage.
• Stories, memory, and endings: Lin Feng closes one chapter by releasing old acquaintances, yet the conclusion is also a transition—the work beyond the “game” has only begun.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• After everyone else leaves Zuan Wangye Temple, Lin Feng reveals that he is its true master. His Divine Temple has been absorbed into a much larger Uncanny village, which replaces the temple grounds and serves as a supernatural domain where the living should not enter.
• Lin Feng has refined the village and the remaining members of the Old Mother of Mount Li clan, giving his former companions a permanent place to live. He plans to preserve and strengthen the village rather than sacrifice it to replenish the Fengdu Ghost-Cursing Sutra.
• His latest game yielded relatively few fortune points, but he gained valuable fragments of supernatural abilities. He used them to develop a spell that merges the Earth Staff Technique with the Uncanny village, though the cost left him with limited funds.
• To bring the village under control, Lin Feng begins carving a Yu Lei Nuo Mask. Yu Lei, a powerful gatekeeper of Fengdu, has offered friendship; Lin Feng hopes the mask will give the Uncanny beings a leader and let him command them.
• Lin Feng turns his attention to future targets for sacrificial refinement: the shadowy forces behind the Kiln’s workers and officials, and the Five-Powers Immortals tied to Li Gao’s family. He believes his knowledge of curses and their required mediums gives him an advantage.
• He also intends to use the Source Seed’s “Seventy-Two Transformations” to become stronger before confronting those threats.
• Finally, Lin Feng examines a picture left by the absent Teacher Qie: a huge fish with a snake’s head, six legs, and donkey-like eyes. He has been searching for it, and Wandu Yizhi identifies it as the Ran Yi Fish.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from simply surviving supernatural events to actively building power, managing his own domain, and planning new hunts. He is both protective of his former companions and pragmatic about acquiring sacrifices and strength.
• Yu Lei has proposed friendship rather than a subordinate relationship. Lin Feng accepts the possibility and uses Yu Lei’s supernatural “essence” as the model for a mask, though he has never seen Yu Lei’s actual appearance.
• Little Daoist Ji has chosen to remain as keeper of the temple. Lin Feng reflects on Ji’s later life and peaceful death, recognizing the value of his long, steady service.
• Teacher Qie is absent after the game but leaves behind drawings that point Lin Feng toward another creature.
• Li Gao remains linked to the Five-Powers Immortals; Lin Feng helped his family before and now intends to confront the forces behind their danger.
• Wandu Yizhi helps identify the mysterious creature in Teacher Qie’s drawing.

Significant themes

• Memory and preservation: People forget, and stories alone cannot reliably anchor the dead across generations. Lin Feng’s village offers his companions a more lasting home.
• Power through understanding: Lin Feng studies fragments of supernatural abilities, curses, and mediums to turn dangerous forces to his advantage.
• Friendship and influence: Relationships with powerful beings like Yu Lei may provide a safer, more effective path than direct conflict.
• The cost of ambition: Lin Feng gains valuable abilities but spends heavily, leaving him with limited resources as he prepares for greater threats.
• The boundary between protection and exploitation: Lin Feng shelters the Uncanny beings while also seeking other entities as sacrifices for his plans.