Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “The Door”

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng, Hong Ni, and the dog enter a fortified, foul-smelling building. Its low doorway is part of a sorcerous “Fortune Snatching” curse: anyone who bows to enter risks losing fortune and weakening their soul. Lin Feng burns away the talisman above it and clears the room with wind.
• Inside, Lin Feng finds a strange metal seal, a black-stone deity statue perforated with wax-sealed holes, and papers listing birth dates from many eras. He suspects the statue is a wind instrument and that the room is part of an old sacrificial system.
• Outside, spider grannies perform a ritual that transforms captives into insects and spiders. The creatures devour one another; the surviving spiders approach the statue, which releases blue-green fluid and produces “insect jade.”
• The dog digs through the floor, exposing a hidden space. A surge of black, living, oil-like matter rises from below, carrying immense baleful energy. The Bronze Urn and the shipwreck brothers contain it. Lin Feng sees more deity statues beneath the room, their holes still open, and realizes the wind has reached them.
• Elsewhere, Mr. Luo’s party survives the outbreak, though Black Vajra’s group suffers heavy losses. Mr. Luo confronts John, who reveals letters connecting the site to a prehistoric civilization and King Mu of Zhou. They discuss the possibility of immortality and agree to use Black Vajra’s people as expendable scouts, planning to kill Black Vajra and make it look accidental.
• Back underground, Lin Feng protects the lower statues, melts brass to seal them, and follows a strange concentration of qi. He discovers a wax-like corpse in a Gold-Thread Jade Suit made from insect jade. Its face resembles a Sanxingdui mask, and it kneels before another door.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains analytical and decisive. He protects Hong Ni from the doorway’s curse, investigates the room and ritual, and acts quickly to contain the threat below—even though he admits he does not understand what the statues are.
• Hong Ni is physically resilient but increasingly disturbed by the gore, insects, and supernatural events. She follows Lin Feng’s lead, keeps her distance when warned, and is bitten—not visibly injured—by the dog as the black matter erupts.
• The dog proves unusually purposeful: it leads the group, digs through the floor, and seems to anticipate danger.
• Mr. Luo and John form a wary, transactional alliance. Mr. Luo uses the threat of his Tianpeng Ruler to force cooperation; John yields information but bargains over what he will reveal. Their agreement to sacrifice other people shows their ruthlessness.
• Black Vajra becomes frightened and angry after the losses, suspecting that the foreigners regard his people as expendable. John briefly calms him, while Mr. Luo and John privately decide to eliminate him.
• The spider grannies are revealed not as predators simply seeking food, but as ritualists carrying out a transformation and sacrifice.

Significant themes

• Knowledge versus danger: Lin Feng can interpret clues, but the deeper mystery remains beyond his understanding—and investigating it may unleash greater threats.
• Ritual, belief, and control: Doorways, statues, instruments, and offerings are tools for manipulating fortune, souls, and bodies.
• Exploitation and expendability: The spider ritual treats captives as sacrificial material, while Mr. Luo and John similarly treat their companions as pawns.
• The pursuit of immortality: The characters’ interest in eternal life links the ancient site to present-day greed and moral compromise.
• Thresholds and hidden worlds: The cursed doorway and the final door frame the chapter’s movement into increasingly dangerous, concealed spaces.

Key plot points

• Lin Feng investigates a kneeling Corpse Woman and an unusual stone door fused into the mountainside. The woman appears to move without registering to his spiritual senses, and black deity statues emerge from her body.
• The door cracks open and releases six ancient syllables resembling the Land God’s Six Tones. The sound shakes Lin Feng’s corresponding artifacts and causes the statues to crumble. The Corpse Woman then attacks through an invisible, cicada-like presence, but retreats when Lin Feng’s Thunderclap frightens her. She escapes through solid rock, revealing an underground river.
• Lin Feng recognizes that the door and the Corpse Woman are linked. He suspects the ancient tones may be an older or altered version of the tradition he knows.
• Hong Ni and the golden retriever join him. The dog remains wary of the door. When air reaches the chamber, murals appear, then rapidly oxidize and burst into flames.
• Lin Feng reads the murals before they vanish. They depict a campaign by a Zhou king—probably King Mu—against the Dog Rong. After a battle, a great gate opens and the king’s army is devastated; he later meets a human-faced owl-like figure, wins another battle, and orders the gate carved from the mountain.
• Footsteps approach through the underground watercourse, suggesting someone—or something—is entering the chamber.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng stays analytical under pressure, using his vertical eye, spiritual senses, wind, and Thunderclap to investigate and defend himself. He revises his understanding as the chamber repeatedly defies ordinary perception.
• The Corpse Woman shifts from a motionless ritual figure into a dangerous, seemingly “glitching” creature. She attacks Lin Feng, then flees rather than face his Thunderclap.
• Hong Ni arrives unharmed and responds with casual curiosity to the murals, reflecting her protected, childlike composure.
• The golden retriever senses danger and wants to explore the river passage, but keeps its distance from the door.
• The door functions almost like a living part of the mountain, and its ancient voice appears to affect the chamber and its inhabitants.

Significant themes

• Unreliable perception: Sight, spiritual awareness, and sound give conflicting evidence; even Lin Feng cannot tell what is moving or where danger lies.
• Tradition altered by transmission: The six tones suggest that religious practices and sacred knowledge may change over time through copying, suppression, and reinterpretation.
• History and myth intertwined: The murals mix a possible historical Zhou campaign with supernatural beings and an inexplicable gate.
• The limits of control and understanding: Lin Feng can react and reason, but the chamber’s rules remain beyond him.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng and Hong Ni encounter Teacher Xun Yanyu emerging from an opening. Xun urgently warns them not to open a nearby door because it contains lethal “shrouding vapor.” Lin has already withdrawn his hand.
• Xun initially fails to recognize Lin and is confused by his mention of Professor Han. Lin explains that Han is Xun’s student, and that time may be nonlinear: Han could have lived nearly twenty years after Xun’s era and become a professor.
• Xun learns that the year outside is 2134, leaving him to confront the possibility that he has crossed into the distant future. Hong Ni feels excluded from their cryptic discussion and sees Xun as a figure from an older world.
• In a separate expedition, Black Vajra falls from a mountain path and dies under suspicious circumstances. Xiao Qi suspects an invisible force pulled him down.
• John tries to keep the group together, but the men accuse him of leading them to their deaths. He draws a concealed pistol and uses the threat of force, then argues that cooperation is necessary for survival.
• Mr. Luo performs a brief funeral rite, then pushes the group onward, warning that the corpse may attract wild animals. Xiao Qi notices that the path is not the one he remembers; Mr. Luo appears to expect this and is waiting for an anomalous beast.
• A man in the group twitches strangely and is shot in the head. John and Mr. Luo react to a threat ahead. An unseen voice orders them to remove their clothes or be shot.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains composed and guides Xun through the unsettling implications of time’s discontinuity. He also shields Hong Ni.
• Xun Yanyu shifts from alarm about the dangerous door to shock at discovering the future and the fate of his student.
• Hong Ni is bewildered by the men’s time-related conversation and recognizes Xun as distinctly out of his era.
• Xiao Qi grows fearful and suspicious after witnessing Black Vajra’s death and the group’s changing path, but ultimately agrees to move on.
• John uses both persuasion and armed intimidation to prevent the expedition from splintering.
• Mr. Luo remains enigmatic: he appears connected to Black Vajra’s death, performs ritual actions, and seems to understand that the mountain route is being altered.

Significant themes

• Time and historical discontinuity: The chapter suggests that people and events may not follow a single linear chronology.
• The uncanny and the unexplained: Invisible forces, altered paths, strange deaths, and supernatural phenomena unsettle ordinary expectations.
• Power, fear, and cooperation: The expedition’s fragile unity depends on weapons, practical necessity, and the threat of danger.
• Disorientation and mistrust: Characters struggle to understand where they are, what era they inhabit, and whom they can trust.

Key plot points and events

• An armed group opens fire on Mr. Luo, John, and their companions. During the chaos, one attacker’s body breaks apart into tiny yaksha-like creatures, which swarm and kill people. The survivors fight back; Mr. Luo uses Yellow Silk, blood, and incantations to protect wounded Spirit-Writing Mediums.
• Afterward, Mr. Luo notices clues on the dead—obsolete equipment and a dated train ticket—suggesting they came from the past. He concludes that time is distorted on the mountain, but keeps the discovery to himself.
• That night, Mr. Luo and John follow a corpse-eating beast to a cave identified from Xun Yanyu’s notes. The beast attacks, and John’s decayed body is exposed: he is a corpse demon sustained by the Fountain of Blasphemy. The other creatures kill and devour him.
• Mr. Luo continues alone. A sweet scent in the cave reveals the source of the earlier transformations: excessive vitality from a wine associated with an “Ambrosia” pool. He takes a pill and presses deeper into the mountain.
• He reaches a vast lair filled with dormant Spider Grannies and crawls into a dense, dark insect nest, carefully avoiding injury that could draw the spiders to him.

Character developments and interactions

• Mr. Luo remains composed and resourceful under pressure. He understands more than he lets on, trusts his family’s inherited knowledge, and pursues the cave’s secrets with confidence. His calm concealment of information contrasts with the danger around him.
• John is revealed to be hiding a body already reduced to decay, kept moving by an unnatural potion. His pursuit of “eternal life” ends when the cave beasts kill him.
• The Spirit-Writing Mediums prove unusually resilient, charging into gunfire and later acting as part of Mr. Luo’s larger plan.
• Mr. Luo and John cooperate in following the beast, but their alliance is built on self-interest. Mr. Luo shows no surprise when John is exposed and leaves him to die.

Significant themes

• Immortality and its cost: John’s unnatural survival and the Luo family’s longevity both come with disturbing consequences.
• Time and the past: The mountain appears to bring people from different eras together, turning legends about distorted time into immediate reality.
• Deception and self-interest: Mr. Luo withholds what he knows and treats companions as expendable; the apparent cooperation between him and John masks separate motives.
• Corruption of life: Vitality becomes monstrous, causing bodies to fragment and living people to become prey.

Key plot points and events

• Mr. Luo crawls through a passage while suffering the effects of his family’s elixirs: gradual “corpse transformation.” He relies on the life-filled environment and a stolen Tianpeng Ruler, a pure-yang object, to hold the change back.
• He emerges near a sacrificial altar, where Lin Feng, Teacher Xun, and Hong Ni are waiting. Lin Feng’s enormous Yin God and living hair overpower him before he can attack.
• The group has reached the site by following an underground river, avoiding the dangers that trapped others. Teacher Xun explains that the place is King Mu of Zhou’s former testing ground and treasure vault, connected to a mysterious, seemingly world-containing door.
• Teacher Xun recognizes Lin Feng from an earlier encounter and worries that time has been disrupted. He has not visited the Mount-Viewing Kiln Factory, though he knows people who have; Lin Feng warns that its operators experiment on people in an effort to escape their fate.
• Lin Feng links the site to the “Mother of Heaven.” Teacher Xun identifies it as a shattered “Jade Pool,” arguing that ancient people mistook surface appearances for deeper truths.
• Lin Feng questions the captured Mr. Luo, whose body is already being harmed by the Yin God’s attack. Unaffected by its poison, Lin Feng forces him to answer: he came seeking the Salvation Elixir.

Character developments and interactions

• Mr. Luo is driven by desperation: his family’s elixir use brings wealth and power but also an inherited transformation that can only be delayed, not escaped. His confidence in his disguise and weapon collapses when Lin Feng captures him.
• Lin Feng demonstrates formidable, unsettling abilities. His living hair can control bodies, and his resistance makes the Yin God’s attack ineffective. His growing power alarms both Teacher Xun and Hong Ni.
• Teacher Xun shifts from wary guide to deeply concerned investigator, connecting the site to ancient beliefs, failed “corpse-release immortals,” and the apparent distortion of time. He prepares a talisman when Lin Feng’s hair reveals its unnatural nature.
• Hong Ni is visibly shocked to discover how alive and dangerous Lin Feng’s hair is.
• The encounter sets up a tense alliance: Teacher Xun shares knowledge with Lin Feng but remains cautious, while Lin Feng treats Mr. Luo as a captive whose motives he intends to uncover.

Significant themes

• Power at a cost: The Luo family’s elixirs grant status but bring an inescapable bodily curse.
• Unstable time and history: Teacher Xun’s changing encounters with Lin Feng suggest that events and timelines may be out of order.
• Misunderstood mysteries: The Jade Pool and “Mother of Heaven” point to ancient people interpreting profound forces through incomplete, surface-level beliefs.
• Appearance versus reality: The deceptive goblin hide, the strange door, and the hidden nature of the treasure vault all emphasize how unreliable appearances can be.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng and Teacher Xun explore an underground complex built around an artificial ecosystem, with an altar whose grooves drain blood into a hidden waterway.
• Teacher Xun explains the legends behind the site: King Mu of Zhou sought an immortality diagram after a dream, launched expeditions against the Dog Rong, and supposedly stored nine treasures here. Later accounts are fragmentary and unreliable, shaped by generations of retellings.
• Lin Feng discovers a Historian’s corpse sealed into the ceiling above the altar. The man’s eyes had been preserved, apparently to make his observations—and the deaths he witnessed—permanent. The rituals of the old women outside helped sustain him in a “Life-Support Pod.”
• When the Historian weeps blood and a strand of hair pierces him, Lin Feng cuts the body down and destroys what remains. He realizes there are likely many Historians in the complex, used to make events irreversible, and unleashes his wind to wreck the pod.
• Teacher Xun continues recounting how a Fangshi’s account of the site survived through later copies and annotations. The mysterious Queen Mother of the West may actually have been the “Mother of Heaven.”
• Near the complex’s “Liver,” Lin Feng stops short of the next section, where Teacher Xun’s crew has encountered deadly traps, Yin Gods, and other spirits. The survivors remain trapped inside.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from cautious investigation to fierce anger after seeing a Historian tortured and exploited. He recognizes a kinship with the victim and fears that he, too, could be used as a tool. His interest in immortality deepens, especially after hearing about Mr. Luo’s family history.
• Teacher Xun acts as guide and historian, sharing his research while trying to reach and rescue his crew. He had previously avoided the site because of its sinister aura.
• Hong Ni reacts with horror to Mr. Luo’s presence and is confused by Lin Feng’s identification of the corpse as a Historian. She then notices the corpse crying blood.
• Mr. Luo accompanies the group, and Lin Feng questions him about his ancestor’s rise and the family’s connection to immortality.
• Lin Feng’s decision to stop before the most dangerous area contrasts with his earlier destructive urgency: he judges that going farther would bring needless danger.

Significant themes

• The abuse of knowledge and witnesses: The Historian’s sight is weaponized to fix events and deaths as unchangeable facts.
• Immortality and the cost of survival: The supposed elixirs and life-support system suggest that continued existence may mean prolonged suffering rather than salvation.
• History as uncertain record: Teacher Xun’s account emphasizes how documents are copied, altered, interpreted, and sometimes deliberately suppressed.
• Fate versus change: The complex’s apparent purpose is to make events permanent, while Lin Feng’s destruction of the pod represents resistance to that imposed certainty.
• Moral limits: Lin Feng’s anger stems not merely from death, but from the denial of death and the reduction of a person to an instrument.

Chapter summary

Lin Feng and Teacher Xun’s group encounter a gathering of Yin Gods. Lin Feng stays behind to hold them off with the Land God’s tones while Teacher Xun, Hong Ni, and Mr. Luo move ahead. When their magically created “Golden Retriever” suddenly rots into flame and vanishes, Lin Feng realizes the danger is escalating. He uses sound-based attacks to fight the Yin Gods, but an enormous spider-bodied female entity appears and attacks him. [Unyielding] and [Sword Heart Clarity] warn him of a greater threat, so he orders the others to run.
Destroying the Life-Support Pod has destabilized the entire site. Lin Feng learns that King Mu of Zhou’s supposedly eight captured “auspicious beasts” were actually eight treasures—and that a ninth, concealed object was the reason for building the complex. A Fangshi who uncovered the secret tried to record and send information outside, leaving behind a curse against King Mu’s line. The site’s protective anchors fail, the earth veins shift, and a massive earthquake tears the hidden structure open.
Outside, the group finds the true landscape: stitched-together dragonlike creatures fighting beneath layered skies, while tornadoes of the murdered workers’ resentment sweep through the area. The storms destroy one creature and swallow Yin Gods. Lin Feng must choose a route through the danger, with a slightly open door—the same door associated with a new version of the Land God’s Six Tones—blocking the shortest way. He also senses a giant white wolf, possibly one of the Dog Rong’s “auspicious beasts.”
The group is pursued by the increasingly uncanny “Sanxingdui merchandise lady,” whose face and movements skip like corrupted video. Lin Feng protects Hong Ni and Teacher Xun as they flee, using his powers to fend off the entity. Hong Ni’s Sky Pearl and Di Ting pendant appear to guard her, so the pursuer turns toward Teacher Xun. Before it can reach him, Lin Feng is suddenly plunged into total darkness, losing all sensation and awareness. His Flame and the character “Zuan” grant him one final moment, which he uses to open his Vertical Eye.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains quick-thinking and protective, repeatedly directing the group’s escape while confronting threats himself. His heightened danger-sensing abilities help him recognize that the earthquake and pursuit are more urgent than the Yin Gods.
• Teacher Xun trusts Lin Feng’s warnings and leads the others onward, though his limited explanation of the site’s history leaves Lin Feng without crucial context.
• Hong Ni is shaken by the upheaval but reports seeing the giant white wolf. Her protective talismans make her a difficult target for the pursuing entity.
• Mr. Luo, now a puppet, follows Lin Feng’s commands without hesitation and is carried along during the escape.
• The Fangshi’s account reveals the betrayal and resentment of the builders and workers, whose unresolved anger now threatens everyone.

Significant themes

• Hidden history and deception: The site’s official story conceals its true purpose and the danger of the ninth object.
• The cost of suppressing the past: Destroyed anchors release the dead workers’ resentment, turning buried injustice into an active force.
• Escalating, uncontrollable danger: Human-built protections cannot contain the supernatural forces they were designed to restrain.
• Trust and responsibility: Lin Feng’s decisions and protection are central to keeping the group alive as the situation collapses.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng realizes the Dog Rong gate opens into a timeless, spaceless region of the Underworld—the place where King Mu of Zhou’s army vanished. Because the gate has manifested in the living world, it can now be perceived and resisted.
• Using the Yellow River Stone Man, the Young Shrine Attendant Talisman, the Fire Lance, and other spiritual forces, Lin Feng pushes into the gate’s dark interior. His presence awakens forgotten temples and imprisoned supernatural beings, which try to seize him as a means of escape.
• An iron-crowned, mummified figure drains the Buddhist and imperial energy around Lin Feng and throws him a scroll. Lin Feng hesitates, then takes the figure’s cured bamboo slips after noticing an eye-shaped pattern of cryptic inscriptions on its body. Another ancient figure tries to block him, but Hong Ni’s Sky Pearl and the Ksitigarbha mantra drive it back. Lin Feng escapes the gate and heads toward the traps where Teacher Xun’s people are stranded.
• Meanwhile, Teacher Xun’s surviving team and members of the Xie family are trapped in a bronze-built passage. Many have died to traps and living creatures encased in bronze armor. A coughing, unseen pursuer drives them onward; those who turn back are killed and displayed ahead.
• The group reaches a larger chamber filled with preserved corpses, skeletal remains, watching-eye imagery, banners, and evidence of craftsmen being hung up and drained of blood. Their assumptions about the site prove wrong, and the corpses begin to twitch.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng acts with greater confidence than before, relying on instinct and his accumulated supernatural resources rather than simply watching powerful figures fight. He remains wary of accepting mysterious objects, but ultimately takes the bamboo slips when their significance becomes apparent.
• The trapped expedition members are frightened but pragmatic. They obey the unseen pursuer because retreat has failed, and they cling to the hope that Teacher Xun will return with help. Their exchanges reveal tension between the Xie family and Teacher Xun’s men, though neither side has a viable alternative.
• The Xie family member uses divination to assess the group’s situation, but his “excellent fortune” is met with little confidence; survival, not the result, is what matters.
• The supernatural beings are revealed as captives of the Underworld, eager to use Lin Feng as a route back to the living world. Their attempts show both their desperation and the danger Lin Feng faces.

Significant themes

• The unknown and misjudgment: The explorers’ assumptions about the traps, their pursuer, and the site’s history repeatedly prove inadequate.
• Survival under coercion: The group is forced onward by an unseen enemy, while Lin Feng must press forward despite the risk of falling into the true Underworld.
• The past intruding on the present: Forgotten temples, ancient beings, and long-dead craftsmen remain active threats rather than mere relics.
• Faith and spiritual power: Mazu’s incense, Buddhist power, imperial qi, and protective mantras provide Lin Feng with a means to resist forces that ordinary weapons cannot stop.

Key plot points and events

• The group realizes the suspended, animated corpses in the tomb could not plausibly be the work of the Western Zhou or Ancient Shu, and panic as an unknown liquid drips from above.
• Lin Feng breaks through a stone barrier into a dangerous, distorted space. He suspects Historians have been used as living anchors to make something beyond time into “established history.”
• He fixes a route through the unstable space with formation flags and follows it with Hong Ni, while Teacher Xun studies bamboo slips written in Ancient Shu script. The text appears to tell a sacrificial story, though its details are unclear.
• Hong Ni’s Sky Pearls react violently to something ahead. Lin Feng takes them from her and suppresses their heat with a clash of supernatural forces.
• The group passes through a silk-lined corridor containing lifelike insect sculptures and countless carved Vertical Eyes. As they approach the center, the air grows saturated with unnatural vitality, and insects devour Lin Feng’s wind and Intent.
• They find richly dressed corpses apparently fleeing the heart of the place, though none show injuries and their cause of death is unknown. Nearby Historians remain alive despite insects burrowing through their bodies.
• Lin Feng realizes the many Historians may all be copies of one person. Following one Historian’s glance, he passes through an opening and sees an immense, exquisitely constructed realm resembling an uninhabitable immortal paradise.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng becomes more certain that the site targets Historians and that his own status puts him in immediate danger. He remains cautious, uses his powers to stabilize a path, protects the group, and takes responsibility for the Sky Pearls.
• Hong Ni is overwhelmed by the experience and depends on Lin Feng’s support. Her Sky Pearls respond strongly to the force ahead, suggesting a connection to the mystery.
• Teacher Xun recognizes the Ancient Shu script and works to interpret the sacrificial narrative even while traveling through the frightening passage. He also notices they are no longer following their original route.
• Lin Feng reassures Hong Ni and Teacher Xun when the sculptures and watching eyes frighten them, while Teacher Xun contributes his historical expertise.

Significant themes

• History and its construction: The Historians’ eyes appear to anchor events in time, raising the question of what someone is trying to make permanently real.
• Human exploitation and sacrifice: Historians are treated as tools and living materials, while the tomb’s elaborate ritual imagery suggests systematic sacrifice.
• The limits of historical certainty: The group’s assumptions about the tomb’s builders prove unreliable, and the Ancient Shu text offers only an incomplete account.
• Discovery at a cost: The closer the group gets to the truth, the more threatening and physically hostile the environment becomes.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng reaches a vast, insect-filled sinkhole that he calls an “immortal realm.” The space is hundreds of meters deep, with Jianmu trees growing from its walls and vivid, dangerous creatures feeding on one another.
• The place’s intense vitality rapidly fills Lin Feng’s second life seed, producing solidified “fruit” on the trees. He realizes that ordinary bodies—and anything parasitic within them—could be overwhelmed by this energy.
• Teacher Xun and Hong Ni are nearly overcome by instinctive terror. Lin Feng knocks them unconscious and places them in the Guesthouse, then equips himself with Hong Ni’s artifacts and his remaining weapons. Two of his own artifacts have already been destroyed or exhausted.
• Lin Feng sees the Mastiff Hounds trapped in the trees and disappearing, apparently attacked in a way that can harm souls as well as bodies. He also notices other openings in the sinkhole, like pores in a giant’s face, and spots a person watching from one.
• He crosses to the neighboring opening and encounters Xu Miao, a skeletal, near-silent Fangshi who communicates through his soul. After briefly exchanging attacks, the two recognize each other as human. Lin Feng kills a Historian left behind in his original cave before entering Xu Miao’s shelter.
• Xu Miao explains that he came to this place during the Huanglong era while seeking a way to survive old age and escape his enemies. After taking poisonous medicinal herbs, he experienced what seemed to be an Immortals’ Banquet.
• The banquet was an illusion: when Xu Miao smelled the medicinal corpse nearby and began to weep, he saw that the apparent feast was actually a grotesque insect-filled environment. The insects were devouring prey, and Xu Miao believed he was trapped in the Land of the Dead.
• Xu Miao survived partly because his preparations had left little in his body for parasites to consume. The insects later withdrew, revealing a lower area where ancient, mummified figures in Gold-Thread Jade Suits were holding a real banquet. Xu Miao says that “below” is not a fixed direction or distance here; it depends on where “below” chooses to be.

Character developments

• Lin Feng becomes more cautious and recognizes that this realm may be beyond his ability to control. He prioritizes survival, protects his companions by removing them from the danger, and investigates alone.
• Xu Miao emerges as a survivor shaped by desperation and past violence. Though physically ruined, he retains knowledge of the place and the presence of mind to distinguish illusion from reality.
• Teacher Xun and Hong Ni are overwhelmed by the realm’s instinctive, biological terror and must rely on Lin Feng for protection.

Significant themes

• Illusion and perception: A heavenly banquet can conceal a scene of predation, and what seems like a hallucination may reveal a deeper reality.
• Survival and bodily vulnerability: The realm’s life-giving vitality is also lethal, feeding parasites and threatening to overwhelm living bodies.
• The limits of human understanding: The sinkhole defies ordinary measurements and directions; even “below” is unstable.
• Immortality’s grotesque cost: The supposed immortal realm is less a paradise than an ecosystem of endless consumption, alongside a macabre banquet of ancient corpses.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng protects Teacher Xun and Hong Ni by knocking them unconscious and storing them safely away.
• Lin Feng approaches Xu Miao cautiously; they initially test one another with palm strikes, then establish that they are both human.
• Xu Miao recounts his experience, while Lin Feng listens, compares it with his own understanding of the Immortals’ Banquet, and questions how the realm is structured.

Key plot points and events

• Fangshi Xu explains that corpses below are steadily rising, spreading a sinister force that drains the land’s vitality. A persistent medicinal fragrance has protected him and marks a route upward.
• The fragrance comes from Kuai, an ancient “Medicine Person” chained in a cavern. Vents bored through the surrounding stone carry it through the area.
• Kuai’s surviving manuscripts reveal that he came from the State of Yan and led more than three hundred people from Qi into Shu, supposedly to help a troubled ruler create Medicine Persons. They descended into the site while Kuai volunteered to remain behind.
• Lin Feng questions this account and notices Snake’s distinctive mark on Kuai, signs of a struggle, and restraints that would have made writing impossible. He concludes that Xu’s story is false: Kuai was likely restrained and killed, and Xu has been hiding his real identity.
• Xu drops the pretense and calls Lin Feng a member of the Yin-Yang School. He warns that a final event is approaching: unless the pair of eyes below—the Historian—are destroyed, the rising dead will complete their feast and return to life.
• Xu produces a mysterious, moving twelve-sided die, seemingly a countdown device. He says a prophecy already depicts a blue-green-clad man leading others into the site and completing the final link in an Ascension to Immortality, causing the whole world to “ascend.”

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from investigating the site’s history to actively testing Xu’s honesty. He uses clues in the manuscripts, Kuai’s body, and Xu’s reactions to expose the deception.
• Fangshi Xu is revealed as an unreliable, deeply isolated survivor who has concealed his identity and knowledge. His resignation suggests he believes events are already fated, though he still warns Lin Feng about the danger.
• Kuai emerges as more than a preserved corpse: he was a Snake-affiliated figure who appears to have resisted his captors and died under brutal restraint.
• Lin Feng confronts Xu directly, accusing him of treating a fellow Snake as an enemy while praising him as a “perfected man.” Xu’s reply confirms that Lin Feng’s suspicions have struck a nerve.

Significant themes

• History and hidden origins: The site may predate the Zhou era and be connected to Yin-Shang, challenging Lin Feng’s assumptions about what earlier rulers built and why.
• Deception and unreliable accounts: Xu’s fabricated story contrasts with the physical evidence Lin Feng uncovers.
• Fate versus agency: Prophecy suggests the characters’ actions have been arranged, yet the possibility of destroying the eyes leaves open a chance to intervene.
• Immortality turned horrific: The promised ascent is bound to corpses, decay, and a spreading force that destroys life, making “immortality” sinister rather than transcendent.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng confronts the surviving “Fangshi Xu,” who insists that the future is fixed and Lin Feng’s arrival was already anticipated. Lin Feng rejects this: the man is not a Historian, and foreknowledge does not prove that events cannot be changed. To Lin Feng, the future contains many possibilities, and people can still choose among them.
• Lin Feng discovers that the pit’s abundant life above conceals a lower region of death. Bronze nails pin corpses to the walls, while his Formation Banners begin warping under the strain of the earth qi. He estimates they have only about fifteen minutes before failing.
• A grotesque woman Lin Feng previously encountered descends alongside him. He learns that she is “Silkworm,” a native of the region whose tribe was defeated by a Zhou expedition led by Fangshi. Her soul was divided, with part of it sealed in a gate. The site had been inhabited first by the Lei Tribe, then by Silkworm’s people; later, King Mu of Zhou established a treasury there and destroyed her tribe.
• At roughly seven hundred meters down, Lin Feng finds a vast, frozen banquet: more than four hundred dead people arranged by rank, from richly dressed elites to decaying bodies and bones. A female corpse encased in insect jade rests on a raised platform, and two enormous sacrificial pits contain nonhuman remains.
• Lin Feng sees a path through the frozen scene that seems visible only to him. He and Silkworm follow it to a huge screen, where the Sky Pearl’s trail ends. Above, Fangshi Xu’s twelve-sided die begins turning again, and he declares that the time has come.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains skeptical of claims that destiny is unavoidable. He sees the Historians’ treatment as tools—“nails” used to hold the realm in place—as exploitation, and is determined to prevent the inhabitants from ascending to immortality. Under pressure from the failing banners, he moves quickly and uses his abilities without conserving energy.
• Fangshi Xu is a defeated, fatalistic survivor. He tells Lin Feng to give up, but does not try to stop him; he seems to want company more than confrontation.
• Silkworm shifts from apparent threat to uneasy companion. She communicates directly through her soul, reveals her history, and follows Lin Feng for her own purpose. Though neither fully trusts the other, they cooperate for now.

Significant themes

• Fate versus agency: Prophecies and apparent foreknowledge may describe only one possible future; Lin Feng refuses to treat them as certainty.
• Exploitation and resistance: The realm uses Historians as expendable materials, prompting Lin Feng to oppose it.
• Beauty and horror: The banquet’s formal, elevated arrangement contrasts with its corpses, decay, and grotesque immortals.
• Buried history and uncertain truth: The site’s layered past—from the Lei Tribe to Silkworm’s people and the Zhou expedition—remains only partly understood, as do the forces operating beneath it.

Key plot points and events

• The Twelve-Sided Die reaches its intended position, and Xu Fangshi accepts what he believes is certain death, reciting a poem as the earth veins surge.
• The Deathly Aura destroys Jianmu and the insects above. Below, the ground splits, and gunfire from the arriving Xie Family members and Teacher Xun’s men seems to awaken the buried site.
• A screen shatters, revealing hundreds of supposedly “Immortal” Historians. Their bodies split open, releasing Mothmen—failed products of the transformation promised by the Heavenly Mother Banquet.
• The Mothmen attack the living and one another, especially once their own blood is spilled. Lin Feng recognizes this as part of the ritual: the “Immortals” are sacrifices, not beneficiaries.
• Blood reaches the platform, awakening the Mother of Heaven and breaking the Insect Jade. Lin Feng exploits the brief loss of the platform’s protection, using his final Formation Banners and the Giant Alligator Demon-Subduing Art to strike her.
• Lin Feng exposes the Mother of Heaven’s true form: a human who has become a gigantic insect queen, carrying eggs that will hatch into more Mothmen. He tears a Historian’s corpse from her body, then flees as ominous darkness begins consuming the area.
• The Witch Cult’s people seize the Xie Family and Teacher Xun’s men. Silkworm and the Ghosts rush into the Mother of Heaven’s body, while Lin Feng escapes with the corpse. Xu Fangshi is also swept away by the wind, along with his scrolls.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng reveals that his apparent calm masks intense tension. His knowledge of the ritual lets him identify the Mother of Heaven’s weakness, strike at the right moment, and realize that a greater danger is approaching.
• Xu Fangshi moves from resignation to an unexpected reprieve when the wind carries him away.
• Silkworm loses control and rushes toward what lies within the Mother of Heaven; the Ghosts follow her.
• The Xie Family and Teacher Xun’s men are forced to retreat from the insects, then witness the awakening and chaos. The Witch Cult’s followers ultimately take them into custody.
• The Mothmen’s emergence reveals that the “Immortals” were never true immortals, but victims of a grotesque human-insect transformation.

Significant themes

• False promises and exploitation: The promised ascension is a deception; the would-be Immortals are merely materials for the Mother of Heaven’s reproductive cycle.
• Knowledge as survival: Lin Feng’s understanding of the ritual gives him a crucial advantage, though it also makes him aware of the larger threat.
• Transformation and corruption: The chapter turns the idea of “emerging with wings” into a horrifying, literal metamorphosis.
• Escalating, unknowable danger: The Mother of Heaven is powerful but not the ultimate threat; the spreading darkness suggests that the catastrophe extends beyond the ritual itself.

Plot and key events

• Lin Feng escapes the collapsing pit with help from the Tiger Tally, Di Ting amulet, and Sky Pearl. He realizes the blackness beneath the pit is alive—and that it, not Mother of Heaven, is what has “ascended.”
• The pit and everything in it disappear, including Mother of Heaven, Silkworm, the Vengeful Spirits, and the others left below. Lin Feng recovers several items, including Mother of Heaven’s eyes, the Twelve-Sided Die, and Fangshi Xu.
• He brings the surviving workers and Xie Family members out, wakes them, and knocks Fangshi Xu unconscious before storing him in the Guesthouse. The survivors are disoriented and wary of Lin Feng.
• Lin Feng explains that an ancient mass of light caused the site’s strange effects. Using his Intent, he reconstructs scenes from Mother of Heaven’s records so Teacher Xun can study them.
• The images reveal that an early Lei Tribe settled near a healing spring, prospered, and raised silkworms. Their sage eventually discovered that they had been living atop a vast insect, with the blackness beneath it as the source of the extraordinary effects.
• Mother of Heaven later returned, convinced that humans could transform like silkworms. The blackness enabled her to make this mistaken belief real, leading to her grotesque experiments and failed plan for ascension.

Character developments

• Lin Feng remains composed after the ordeal. He protects the survivors, explains what he can, and uses his power to preserve the historical record.
• Teacher Xun quickly shifts from confusion to intense scholarly curiosity, treating the reconstructed scenes as invaluable evidence.
• Mother of Heaven is revealed as a determined but dangerously overconfident schemer. Her desire to transcend human limits blinded her to the true nature of the force she was exploiting.
• Fangshi Xu is left stunned by the destruction of the plan he believed would fulfill Mother of Heaven’s vision.

Themes

• Human limits and hubris: Intelligence and planning cannot guarantee control over forces people do not understand.
• Misinterpretation of nature: Mother of Heaven mistakes an insect’s metamorphosis for a path humans can follow.
• Greed and unintended consequences: Her ambition turns a mistaken theory into a catastrophe.
• Knowledge and evidence: Teacher Xun’s careful examination contrasts with Mother of Heaven’s unsupported assumptions.
• Life’s strange origins: The blackness’s influence blurs the boundaries between life, transformation, and the supernatural.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng reassures Teacher Xun and the others, though his calm explanations only partly clarify the events.
• Teacher Xun studies Lin Feng’s reconstructed scenes while those around him react with fear and confusion.
• The survivors’ initial suspicion of Lin Feng eases when they see his connection to Teacher Xun and feel the calming effect of his Intent.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng realizes the predicted “awakening” may not mean the group emerging from cocoons: it may refer to the awakening of the black light, whose timescale spans millennia and may only have stirred.
• He concludes that Historians are being hunted and treated as “materials.” The schemes of Silkworm, King Mu of Zhou, and Qi’s expedition may all be futile attempts to control forces beyond their understanding.
• Lin Feng sees the Lei Tribe’s sage as the only clear-sighted figure: the sage led the tribe away from the Divine Spring, recognizing it as a dangerous power the tribe could neither control nor understand. Applying insect metamorphosis to humans has produced a grotesque mismatch.
• Teacher Xun studies the blackness shown on Lin Feng’s reproduced screen and asks what it is. Lin Feng suggests it may be a natural phenomenon, like thunder—something ancient people might have built a temple to observe.
• The group realizes they are hungry and nearly out of supplies after losing most of their food with the “black tunnel.” With Hong Ni’s approval, Lin Feng provides food, and the others prepare a fire.
• Lin Feng asks Teacher Xun what he uncovered in an earlier Central Plains tomb. Xun recounts excavating a high-status Yin-Shang noble’s multilayered tomb during extraordinary storms. Despite dangerous conditions and objections, he pressed on to salvage the site. His account ends just as the excavators uncover what had been buried.

Character developments

• Lin Feng shows growing confidence in his ability to interpret events. He treats his intuitive thoughts as meaningful products of disciplined reasoning and recognizes that his own kind may have powerful enemies.
• Teacher Xun appears both intellectually driven and vulnerable: he is fascinated by the blackness, yet his hunger and recollection of the excavation reveal the human cost of his past choices. He admits that overriding objections may have been the most regrettable decision of his life.
• Hong Ni works alongside the group and gives Lin Feng permission to share supplies. Lin Feng promises to explain her family’s Sky Pearl later.
• The Lei Tribe’s sage is presented as prudent and self-possessed, choosing survival over attachment to the Divine Spring.

Significant themes

• Human arrogance and limits: People seek to control and know everything, even when facing an abyss beyond their capacity.
• Perspective and time: What counts as a “year” depends on a being’s lifespan and perception; human timescales may be inadequate for understanding the black light.
• Power and incompatibility: A power that works naturally for insects can become monstrous when imposed on humans.
• Knowledge and risk: Curiosity can lead to discoveries, but pursuing knowledge despite warnings may bring disaster.
• Survival through adaptability: The Lei Tribe’s skills, rather than possession of a powerful spring, offer a more reliable path to survival.

Character interactions

• Xun reflects aloud on human foolishness and control while Lin Feng listens, unsure whether the words are directed at the group or at Xun himself.
• Xun seeks Lin Feng’s interpretation of the blackness; Lin Feng offers the natural-phenomenon explanation.
• Lin Feng supports the group materially by providing food and reassures Hong Ni about the safety of making a fire.
• Xun acknowledges that Lin Feng has questions, and Lin Feng directly asks about the excavation that changed Xun’s life.

Plot points and events

• Teacher Xun confides in Lin Feng about an earlier archaeological disaster. Beneath an ancient burial site, he discovered a huge bronze ding—identified in the account with the Simuwu/Houmuwu Ding—chained over disturbed earth and filled with burned ox shoulder blades bearing divination inscriptions.
• While climbing into the vessel to examine the oracle bones, Xun was caught in a sudden collapse caused by torrential rain. His students died, while he survived unconscious. His blood mixed with the bones, triggering a sacrificial rite that flooded his mind with information about the suppression and destruction of civilizations.
• Xun says a living piece of “Historian” escaped from beneath the ding, becoming “another possibility.” He also recalls being repeatedly killed, divided up, and eaten, yet remaining alive; nobles eventually imprisoned him beneath a giant ding.
• After waking in hospital, Xun found that the dead students and much of the excavation had no official record, as if the disaster had never happened. He came to believe he was being watched and manipulated by people connected to the ancient Nobility, who may still be alive and want to capture him and Lin Feng.
• Xun warns Lin Feng that he may be targeted after Xun is captured or killed. He plans to decipher the bamboo slips, which contain an encoded diagram or possible Map, and asks Lin Feng to keep the matter secret.

Character development and interactions

• Teacher Xun shifts from guarded, burdened scholar to a vulnerable confessor. He admits the most unbelievable part of his story—that he let Historian escape—and reveals his fear that enemies have infiltrated his circle. Despite his dread, he remains determined to evade them and use what he has learned against them.
• Lin Feng listens calmly and offers to investigate Xun’s associates, but Xun declines. Xun treats Lin Feng as a trusted comrade, entrusting him with both the secret and a warning for the future.
• Their conversation is intimate and cautious: Xun repeatedly stresses the danger and asks for secrecy, while Lin Feng’s composed response gives Xun someone he believes will understand.

Significant themes

• History as something unstable: Historian is expected to record what has already happened, yet it appears capable of living and escaping, creating alternate possibilities.
• Power and control of knowledge: The Nobility monopolize information as a resource and seek to use people as tools.
• Erasure and unreliable memory: The missing records and vanished excavation make Xun doubt what was real, while his memories are incomplete and possibly distorted.
• Survival, secrecy, and solidarity: Xun’s warning reflects the danger surrounding those who share forbidden knowledge, but also the trust between comrades walking the same path.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng agrees not to kill the group or erase their memories, but to alter them so they forget him and Hong Ni. Teacher Xun explains that mysterious, highly skilled assistants repeatedly appear to protect him; he believes they serve a hidden power and that he is safe only until that power gets what it wants.
• As the group camps in the mountains, Lin Feng studies the “Black Light” and the Deathly Aura, trying to understand them through carving and his sense of “intent.” He suspects the hidden force may be connected to the ancient Yin-Shang Nobility.
• Xie Liu approaches Lin Feng to probe him. Lin Feng instead asks about the Snake family and its connection to the Xie Family. Xie Liu reveals that Snake joined the Xies after suffering devastating losses near the end of the Ming dynasty. He also describes generations of misfortune that have driven the family to follow Teacher Xun in search of a way to survive.
• In return, Lin Feng tells Xie Liu that the Xie family’s scattered survivors are alive and have established an auto-repair business. Relieved, Xie Liu shares an ancestral warning: “Beware of Fangxiang.” Lin Feng wonders whether this means the Fangxiang branch or a person named Fangxiang.
• Near dawn, Hong Ni wakes and sees a strange face watching the camp from the woods. Lin Feng’s “intent” should have detected an intruder, so the sight is unsettling. Teacher Xun discreetly slips Lin Feng a note with coordinates while appearing to warn him openly to be careful.
• Lin Feng takes Teacher Xun, Hong Ni, and Xie Liu to the spot Hong Ni indicates. Behind a tree, they find footprints—evidence that someone really had watched the camp through the night.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains controlled and observant, using his unusual abilities to investigate both the ancient mysteries and the people around him. He draws information from Xie Liu by trading a secret for one, and grows suspicious when an intruder seems to evade his “intent.”
• Teacher Xun appears protected by hidden allies but understands that this protection may end once their objective is achieved. His quiet note to Lin Feng suggests he knows more about the nighttime threat than he can say openly.
• Hong Ni is energized by the danger and extraordinary events, but her fear at the strange face is genuine. She helps identify where it appeared.
• Xie Liu begins wary and inquisitive, then becomes candid after Lin Feng’s exchange convinces him. His relief at learning his family’s survivors are safe brings a personal dimension to the Xies’ struggle.

Significant themes

• Protection with a price: Teacher Xun’s apparent safety depends on the hidden power’s unfinished agenda.
• Inherited secrets and survival: The Xie and Snake families carry histories of loss, concealed arts, and warnings passed down across generations.
• Perception and the unseen: Lin Feng’s confidence in his heightened awareness is challenged by an observer he failed to detect.
• Trust through exchange: Lin Feng and Xie Liu establish a measure of trust by trading valuable information rather than offering it freely.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng discovers unnatural footprints and realizes an unseen, highly capable presence is watching the group. He orders everyone to evacuate.
• Teacher Xun warns that the attackers are after him and reveals the location he deciphered: the Min Mountains, where boat-coffin burials and legends of headless spirits are found. He promises to send Lin Feng the rest of his findings.
• Ritual Incense knocks Lin Feng unconscious. When he wakes, the Xie family members and assistants have decayed into corpses, Hong Ni is down, and Teacher Xun is gone.
• Lin Feng uses Longevity Worm Powder to expose and kill a concealed ghoul, then faces a masked, four-meter figure resembling Fangxiangshi. Its supernatural dance traps him in a reality-warping attack.
• Lin Feng breaks free with the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Heart Mantra. He finds Hong Ni safe, six valuable portions of Ritual Incense, and a note from Teacher Xun: “Left for you.”
• The traces of altered time suggest Teacher Xun changed it during the encounter. Lin Feng concludes that he and Teacher Xun resisted the attackers, though Teacher Xun was taken.
• Lin Feng suspects the attackers’ reach has grown because Teacher Xun’s protection is weakening, and that this may explain Professor Han’s troubles and disappearance.
• Lin Feng and Hong Ni return to the Mount-Viewing Kiln Factory. There, Lin Feng retrieves the sleeping Iron-Crowned Daoist and a Historian’s corpse, which he regards as a major treasure.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng responds to danger with caution and resourcefulness, deploying rare tools and spells against enemies that initially evade his senses. He recognizes that he may now be exposed to forces Teacher Xun had kept away from him.
• Teacher Xun shows concern for Lin Feng and shares crucial archaeological and supernatural information before being abducted. His apparent resistance leaves Lin Feng with evidence and valuable supplies.
• Hong Ni survives under the protection of her Di Ting pendant. Dazed afterward, she asks what happened, but Lin Feng keeps the details to himself.
• Lin Feng’s bond with Teacher Xun is marked by mutual trust: Teacher Xun recalls Lin Feng’s earlier words about their different eras and offers to help him if he reaches Lin Feng’s time.

Significant themes

• Protection and its limits: Teacher Xun’s protection has shielded Lin Feng and possibly Professor Han, but its weakening allows hidden enemies to strike.
• Knowledge and memory: Teacher Xun’s deciphering and memorization preserve information even when written records are destroyed.
• Hidden realities and time: Concealment, hallucination, and time manipulation make perception unreliable, while Lin Feng’s observations help him infer what happened.
• Power and cost: The attackers use rare, powerful Ritual Incense, and Lin Feng must spend precious resources to survive.
• Uncertainty and escalation: Teacher Xun’s abduction and Professor Han’s disappearance suggest a broader conspiracy whose reach is growing.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng interprets the screen’s details more precisely than Teacher Xun: the Black Light did not crash from the sky but burrowed into the earth, and the Mother of Heaven’s group had deliberately lured a Historian to the site.
• The Historian was a powerful fighter, and the effort to capture him cost the group heavily. Lin Feng realizes that the Historian’s apparent resurrection is only a final illusion—a mental trick meant to frighten enemies.
• To protect the group at the sinister kiln, Lin Feng offers Gongyang Bo ritual incense to the Tiger Tally. Yu Lei manifests as a protective Peach Tree, shielding the factory grounds from harmful forces.
• Lin Feng reaches into the Historian’s corpse and retrieves his heart, which contains a destructive contingency capable of ruining the Mother of Heaven’s plans and preventing her followers from attaining immortality.
• The Historian’s heart recognizes Lin Feng as a “Qi-Observing Historian.” Though its damaged legacy cannot be fully passed on, Lin Feng receives two fragments of the Qi-Observing Dharma Eye and access to the bound Heavenly Fire.
• The system warns that both powers fall outside its predictions and disclaims responsibility. Lin Feng gathers the Heavenly Fire but has yet to decide whether to undergo the transformation.

Character developments

• Lin Feng demonstrates meticulous observation, practical reasoning, and composure. He distinguishes illusion from reality, handles the corpse despite its disturbing appearance, and carefully weighs the risks of accepting the Historian’s legacy.
• Teacher Xun remains driven by the pursuit of complete stories and hidden knowledge, while Lin Feng’s focus is on the small clues that reveal how events actually unfolded.
• Hong Ni is revolted by Lin Feng’s gruesome act but moves instinctively to protect him when the corpse stirs. She is also astonished by Yu Lei’s manifestation.
• The Historian is revealed to have died long ago. His surviving power and identity were preserved through the Qi-Observing Dharma Eye, and he left behind both a deception and a final safeguard.

Significant themes

• Observation and interpretation: Small visual details can overturn an accepted account; investigation matters more than assumption.
• Knowledge, inheritance, and loss: The Historian’s legacy survives, but history has damaged it, leaving Lin Feng with fragments rather than a complete transmission.
• Protection and reciprocity: Lin Feng’s generous offering secures Yu Lei’s protection, illustrating the mutual obligations between people and gods.
• Illusion versus reality: The Historian’s apparent return is a deliberate trick, while the system’s warnings leave uncertain whether the new powers are opportunity or danger.
• Ambition and sacrifice: The Mother of Heaven’s pursuit of immortality and followers is countered by the Historian’s destructive contingency; the chapter also considers how sacrifice can serve a deity’s desire for attendants and status.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng must choose whether to accept the ancient Historian’s [Qi-Observing Dharma Eye] fragment, which is bound to [Heavenly Fire]. The game warns that it cannot guarantee his safety. He decides to accept it.
• Before that, Lin Feng questions “Fangshi Xu,” whose body is rapidly aging after leaving the pit. Xu wants his soul preserved and agrees to serve as a Temple Keeper at Zuan Wangye Temple. Lin Feng destroys his body and transfers his soul to the Haunted Village.
• The Temple Keeper reveals the true story behind the Qi State expedition. “Snake” was the Yan-state fangshi; the Temple Keeper had served a Qi scholar-official. King Wei’s expedition was driven by a strange, seemingly prophetic book and Snake’s claims about a heavenly reward.
• The group’s suspicions of Snake grew as the expedition suffered losses. A screen showing their journey and apparent fate drove them into despair; they later found Snake had killed those left behind and imprisoned him. In the final confrontation, Snake unexpectedly saved the Temple Keeper, killed another fangshi, and taught him to use the Twelve-Sided Die.
• The die, created by several schools for King Wei of Qi, was intended for prediction. Its faces show four signs—Noble, Divine General, Soaring Serpent, and Great Yin—but the Temple Keeper knows little about them. It currently displays Soaring Serpent, which Snake associated with the party’s destruction.
• After installing the Temple Keeper in the Haunted Village, Lin Feng sees his spiritual flames spread among the village’s retainers, marking their masks and talismans with ink-like script. He records the Temple Keeper’s knowledge and alters Mr. Luo’s memories.
• Lin Feng leaves Hong Ni supplies and instructions in case Peach Wood disappears, then goes alone to the real Kiln to gain strength. As the larger conflict worsens and the defenders struggle, he chooses to accept the fragments and [Heavenly Fire]. Two presences enter his brow, breaking a Shackle in his Blood Seal as flames engulf him.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng moves from hesitation to a deliberate choice to embrace risk and change. He makes practical use of the Temple Keeper, protects Hong Ni, and seeks power independently rather than waiting for the conflict to ease.
• The Temple Keeper/Fangshi Xu trades his former identity for continued existence as an uncanny servant. His story reveals he is a survivor of the ancient expedition and a skilled practitioner of a shamanic Yin Ghost tradition.
• Snake emerges as an enigmatic, manipulative but ultimately ambiguous figure: he concealed his knowledge and killed members of the expedition, yet saved the Temple Keeper and passed on the die’s use.
• Hong Ni is uneasy about Lin Feng’s departure, but he leaves her with resources and an escape plan.
• Lin Feng and the Temple Keeper form a new relationship of service and trust: Lin Feng grants him a place in the Haunted Village, while the Temple Keeper contributes his knowledge and awakens a deeper spiritual connection among its retainers.

Significant themes

• Fate and prediction: The screen appears to reveal the expedition’s predetermined course, while the Twelve-Sided Die offers an uncertain means of forecasting disaster.
• Memory and identity: Xu abandons his name for survival, and Lin Feng alters Mr. Luo’s memories, showing how identity can be reshaped.
• Change and risk: Lin Feng accepts the unknown power despite the game’s warning, treating change as necessary in a worsening struggle.
• Survival and loyalty: Characters make morally complicated choices to endure, while Snake’s final aid complicates the expedition’s betrayal and violence.