Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• A powerful Thunderclap restrains Lin Feng’s enormous, Flame-shaped manifestation, while the Flame spreads through the Kiln and burns its spectral contents. The real Lin Feng lies on the Altar, divided into five parts and inscribed with patterns through which Flame gathers at his Vertical Eye.
• Within the Heavenly Fire, Lin Feng witnesses the Root Teacher’s ancient memories and learns how he united with Heavenly Fire, abandoned his flesh, and made his enduring “Intent” the core of his being. The Root Teacher’s knowledge is passed on to Lin Feng, but it carries the risk of overwhelming or remaking anyone who encounters it.
• Lin Feng recognizes that, despite having played many identities, he remains himself. He descends beneath the lake of his own heart, entering a perilous life-or-death seclusion: he must emerge or remain trapped there forever.
• Afterward, the game console presents a new scenario, [New Grudges and Old Feuds], set at Crane-Cry Mountain in Shuzhong. Lin Feng is now Sixth Rank, powerful enough to risk rejection by the world.
• Lin Feng meets Libationer Green Mountain, a high-ranking Celestial Masters’ Way Daoist. Green Mountain reveals that “Green Mountain” is an organization and a legacy: its members, including Lin Feng, are all Green Mountain. Its mission is to seek a history in which humanity and nature can coexist, adapting to each era rather than trying to force history’s course.
• Green Mountain explains that the Historians eventually took on new identities as Green Mountain. He has joined the Celestial Masters’ Way to engage with the era’s dominant movements.
• The pair arrive at Zhang Daoling’s place of seclusion on the day he emerges. Green Mountain announces their visit, and Zhang Daoling responds that Green Mountain has kept him in the dark.

Character developments

• Lin Feng resists being defined by the Root Teacher’s powerful legacy. His clarity about his own identity becomes central to his inward trial.
• His Sixth Rank status marks major advancement, but also leaves him vulnerable to being expelled from the world.
• The Root Teacher is revealed as a human who chose to merge with Heavenly Fire and preserve his knowledge and will as “Intent.”
• Green Mountain emerges as both an individual and the representative of a multigenerational organization. He is candid about uncertainty over why he was chosen and treats Lin Feng as a fellow member.
• Zhang Daoling is poised to confront the concealed identities of Green Mountain and its associates now that he has attained the Dao.

Themes

• Identity and self-knowledge: Lin Feng can inhabit other roles without becoming those people.
• Powerful knowledge and its dangers: The Root Teacher’s wisdom offers opportunity but may overpower a recipient’s own will.
• Will and transformation: The Root Teacher’s “Intent” survives beyond the body and can shape those who encounter it.
• History and adaptation: Green Mountain seeks the best possible outcome by moving with historical change, not resisting it.
• Humanity and nature: Green Mountain’s long-term aim is peaceful coexistence and shared development.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng observes the Root Teacher’s memories and receives his knowledge, while maintaining enough self-awareness to avoid simply becoming him.
• Green Mountain challenges Lin Feng’s assumptions about the game console, explaining its human and organizational dimensions and welcoming Lin Feng into the legacy.
• Green Mountain guides Lin Feng through Crane-Cry Mountain and prepares him for their revelation to Zhang Daoling.
• Zhang Daoling’s opening remark signals that he recognizes Green Mountain’s concealment and sets up a coming confrontation or reckoning.

Summary

“Behold Green Mountain” is identified as the final, all-encompassing arc of Folk Customs. The author says the novel will conclude soon—probably this month, with at most a few extra days next month—and assures readers that it will receive an ending.
Reflecting on why the book faltered, the author explains that they emphasized atmosphere too heavily at the beginning and lost sight of the story. In their view, a successful web novel needs both atmosphere and a sustained plot, but they struggle to balance the two: focusing on atmosphere makes the story too short, while extending the plot weakens the atmosphere. They distinguish this failure from that of an earlier book, whose plot stalled when its characters’ driving emotions faded.
The note also recommends a new book by fellow author Night-Peeking Window: This Humble Daoist Knows Only Killing Swordsmanship. Its advertised elements include gods and ghosts, the dynasty’s final years, ruthless killing and arson, and reimagined face-reading and schools of thought.

Character developments and interactions

There are no fictional character arcs or interactions in this note. The author speaks directly and candidly to readers, acknowledging another professional setback, reassuring them about the ending, and recommending a colleague’s work.

Significant themes

• Balancing atmosphere and plot: Mood alone cannot sustain a long-form story.
• Creative shortcomings and failure: The author openly reflects on another kind of “flop.”
• Commitment to finishing: Despite the book’s problems, its ending is already planned.
• Persistence: The author intends to continue writing under the same pen name.

Key plot points and events

• Zhang Daoling emerges from seclusion on Crane-Cry Mountain, prompting celebration among the Daoists. Libationer Green Mountain and Lin Feng meet him; Lin senses that Zhang and his Yin-Yang swords possess power on a level close to nature.
• Zhang invites them into his palace. Green Mountain wipes away Lin’s usual on-screen text and explains that Lin is now capable of acting independently. He then demonstrates his preferred lesson: obtaining magical treasures from wealthy patrons.
• Green Mountain tries to borrow Zhang’s treasured swords, but Zhang refuses. Instead, Zhang shows them a magical map divided into the Twenty-Four Dioceses, outlining his organized plan to govern through the Celestial Masters’ Way.
• Zhang reveals that he knows why Green Mountain came: a flame appeared at the boundary of yin and yang, and the answer may lie with Old Ghost Yang, master of a vast Ghost Market. He gives Green Mountain a command token and orders him to question Yang, threatening to destroy Yang’s realm and lineage if he refuses.
• Green Mountain takes the token and several talismans and seals. Zhang permits the borrowing, though he watches the pair leave with some suspicion.
• On the way down the mountain, Green Mountain acquires still more artifacts, including an auspicious cloud from Zhang Heng. He explains that the world is dangerous because yin and yang have mingled, so they travel by cloud with a Celestial Master talisman as protection.
• As they head toward Old Ghost Yang’s territory, Lin sees Ghost Markets stretching across the landscape below.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhang Daoling appears youthful and newly empowered, but beneath his calm, scholarly manner is a ruthless leader willing to use force to protect his plans. He recognizes Green Mountain’s maneuvering and supplies him with authority and weapons for the mission.
• Libationer Green Mountain remains a cheerful, shameless opportunist, using his reputation and flattery to obtain treasures. His apparent weakness is balanced by social cunning and a knack for persuading powerful figures.
• Lin Feng observes Zhang’s abilities and political organization, learns that he must now rely on his own judgment, and accompanies Green Mountain into a perilous world.
• The exchanges between Zhang and Green Mountain mix cordiality with exasperation: Zhang refuses to give up his swords but allows other aid, while Green Mountain turns a serious assignment into another opportunity to borrow valuables.

Significant themes

• Power and governance: Zhang’s Twenty-Four Dioceses and chain of command show the Celestial Masters’ Way developing into a disciplined political and military force.
• Pragmatism and coercion: Zhang’s offer to Old Ghost Yang combines a chance at cooperation with an explicit threat of annihilation.
• Resourcefulness and reputation: Green Mountain compensates for limited strength through negotiation, audacity, and borrowed power.
• A world out of balance: The mingling of yin and yang has made travel and ordinary life dangerous, setting the stage for the journey ahead.

Key plot points and events

• Libationer Green Mountain explains that the age is rife with unrest, demons, and competing religious forces. Zhang Daoling has only recently emerged from seclusion and is preparing to challenge a formidable ancient spirit to establish his authority.
• Green Mountain takes Lin Feng to a vast Nether Market ruled by an old ghost, reportedly a Grand Steward from the Zhou Dynasty who once lived in Laozi’s era. The spirit disapproves of both Zhang Daoling and Laozi’s scholarship.
• Lin Feng asks how the Historian school is organized. Green Mountain explains that they and Teacher Xun and Professor Han belong to different lineages, but remain part of the same broader tradition.
• At the market, Lin Feng and Green Mountain walk unchallenged through a city whose precise layout follows the Rites of Zhou. They reach the Grand Steward’s residence, where uncanny guardians and ancient bones reveal the site’s dangerous, otherworldly nature.
• Green Mountain announces that they have come on Zhang Ling’s command to summon the old ghost to guard the gate. When the spirit does not respond, Green Mountain urges Lin Feng to fight.
• Lin Feng traps the guardians in his Clay Jar and invokes the ominous Soaring Serpent through his flames. The resulting nightmare-like spectacle forces Old Ghost Taipu to agree to meet them. As the scene shifts, talismanic seals strike toward Lin Feng, and Green Mountain steps in to block them.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains composed and capable, relying on his tools and supernatural power rather than bargaining with the Forgotten Things. He also seeks clarity about the divisions within the Historian tradition.
• Libationer Green Mountain is revealed as a worldly, irreverent observer who enjoys spectacle. He talks confidently about the market and its rules, but leaves the fighting to Lin Feng—until he intervenes to shield him at the end.
• Their relationship is playful but trusting: Green Mountain teases and directs Lin Feng, while Lin Feng questions his plan and ultimately handles the danger.
• Old Ghost Taipu is established as powerful and proud, but Lin Feng’s display of force compels him to engage.

Significant themes

• A collapsing dynasty and social disorder: Ghosts, demons, abandoned settlements, and mass death reflect the Great Han’s decline.
• Tradition and contested authority: Zhang Daoling’s challenge to an ancient Zhou official highlights conflict between religious and scholarly legacies.
• Historical divisions and shared roots: The Historian lineages disagree, yet Green Mountain insists they remain family.
• Power, negotiation, and danger: The Forgotten Things can be reasoned with only at a cost; Lin Feng instead uses force, though the confrontation is far from over.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng and Green Mountain’s Libationer visit the Zhou Dynasty Grand Coachman, a decaying, near-inhuman being absorbed into the nether soil. He gives them a tortoiseshell bearing the location they seek, then expels them from the Ghost Market.
• Reading the tortoiseshell, Lin Feng discovers that reaching the place requires yin roadwalking. He and Green Mountain discuss Lin Feng’s past “resurrections”: when Lin Feng dies, Green Mountain usually loses the intervening memories and guides him onto a new course of life. Green Mountain also recounts a perilous rescue from the depths of the underworld, where Yu Lei helped retrieve Lin Feng.
• Green Mountain takes Lin Feng back to Crane-Cry Mountain to secure help. Celestial Master Zhang agrees to assign three powerful Libationers—Zhang, Qian, and Zhou—to accompany them and protect Lin Feng, with orders to recover the “Defeated Soldiers and Fallen Generals.”
• Zhang Daoling opens a passage into underworld territory with a wooden sword. Lin Feng and the three Libationers set out, while Zhang secretly keeps watch through a strand of awareness.
• In a separate scene, a group in a realm of luminous bones and black mountains decides to “offer sacrifices to the dragon.” Among them are Fangxiangshi, a Flesh Mask associated with a Yin-Shang priest’s bid for godhood, and abstract entities embodying time.

Character developments

• Lin Feng shows increased ability to interpret the tortoiseshell and accepts the danger of proceeding without Green Mountain, trusting that his companion may be able to rescue him if necessary.
• Green Mountain’s Libationer reveals more about the mechanics of Lin Feng’s repeated returns and his own past efforts to save him. His joking, opportunistic manner persists, but his concern for Lin Feng is clear.
• The Grand Coachman is shown as almost wholly assimilated by the nether soil, with his fading human form and consciousness signaling his likely eventual transformation into one of the Forgotten Things.
• Celestial Master Zhang demonstrates growing political and military ambition, while also showing unusual regard for Green Mountain and a strong commitment to protecting Lin Feng.

Character interactions

• The Grand Coachman’s intense hatred and disgust contrast with Green Mountain’s breezy politeness; he gives them the clue but quickly drives them away.
• Lin Feng and Green Mountain have a candid, tense conversation about death, memory, and the risks of their journey.
• Green Mountain persuades Zhang Daoling to provide support through theatrical farewell and flattery. Zhang scolds him for trying to steal discarded paperwork, then gives him a seal anyway.
• Zhang’s three Libationers accept their orders together, and Zhang’s private vigilance underscores his concern for the expedition.

Significant themes

• Humanity and assimilation: Losing a recognizable human form threatens the consciousness that preserves one’s identity.
• Death, memory, and continuity: Lin Feng’s “resurrections” are not straightforward returns; they involve lost memories and alternate paths of life.
• Political power and preparation: Zhang Daoling is consolidating control around Crane-Cry Mountain and preparing for conflict even as he dispatches forces on a distant mission.
• The persistence of the uncanny: The underworld, Forgotten Things, and abstract remnants of history show how entities and forces can endure beyond ordinary physical or historical limits.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng and three Libationers travel through the Underworld on the route opened by Celestial Master Zhang, expecting danger deeper in.
• Lin Feng senses a disturbance from the altar within him and stops the group. The road has merged with an unknown ancient Underworld route, drawing them toward a ruined Yin-Shang capital regardless of which way they try to go.
• Lin Feng recognizes the city as an ancient royal capital and senses the presence of the Shang Dynasty’s Heavenly Emperor. The group understands that they cannot safely avoid it, so they enter together, bound by a golden Flood Dragon tendon to prevent anyone from becoming separated.
• Inside, they find an orderly, deserted city marked by fresh-looking flood silt. Lin Feng suspects a great flood forced the capital to be abandoned or relocated.
• The Ancient Road cuts through the city, passing from the commoners’ district through the royal residence and toward the ancestral and sacrificial precincts. Lin Feng warns that the sacrificial grounds are likely to be the most dangerous area and says they may have lost contact with Celestial Master Zhang.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng demonstrates caution and perceptiveness: he detects the road’s change, identifies the capital, and weighs the risks of the known danger against the Underworld’s more frightening unknowns. He takes responsibility for keeping the group together.
• Libationer Zhang openly asks Lin Feng for information and proposes trying to avoid the city. When that fails, he accepts Lin Feng’s assessment and agrees to enter.
• The three Libationers trust Lin Feng and follow his lead, reflecting Celestial Master Zhang’s confidence in him. Their teamwork becomes literal when Lin Feng binds them together before they enter.
• Celestial Master Zhang is absent from the group’s immediate communication, raising concern that the Underworld’s depths have disrupted their connection.

Significant themes

• The danger of the unknown: In the Underworld, an unfamiliar threat may be more frightening than a known evil presence.
• History and forgotten things: The city—and its long-vanished gods and rulers—embodies the Underworld’s power to preserve what the living have forgotten.
• Uncertainty and limited knowledge: Even experienced practitioners cannot predict every supernatural threat, and the group must make decisions without knowing what lies ahead.
• Trust and cooperation: The characters rely on Lin Feng’s judgment and take practical steps to stay united as they face danger.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng and Libationers Zhang and Zhou enter a house along the strange underworld route, using its door as a possible “passageway” under unknown rules. Inside, they find piles of remarkably preserved remains, including young soldiers.
• The bodies bear repeated fatal wounds infused with the power of Yin-Shang’s Heavenly Emperor. Lin Feng concludes that the killers were likely Yin-Shang nobles and that the scene points to an internal royal conflict—possibly the Rebellion of the Nine Generations.
• The group finds more remains as it moves toward the ancestral sanctuary, suggesting the fighting ended there. They cannot establish why the route has led them to this ancient capital or what awaits them.
• Lin Feng suspects the detour may be connected to him and his Sacrificial Apotheosis Method, which may have originated with Yin-Shang priests. He wonders whether this is an inheritance—or a setup for sacrifice.
• At Crane-Cry Mountain, Celestial Master Zhang realizes that Lin Feng and the others have vanished from his perception and that his route has merged with an ancient underworld road. He traces events backward through time, eventually glimpsing a joyous funeral procession carrying a bronze coffin.
• One of the procession’s strange, inhuman figures senses Zhang watching and shoots an arrow at him. The impact shakes Crane-Cry Mountain and forces Zhang back, but he orders everyone to hold position and refuses to yield.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng takes charge of the expedition, carefully interpreting the evidence and warning the others of the danger. His suspicion that the journey targets him adds a personal stake to the mystery.
• Libationers Zhang and Zhao try different methods to question the dead—summoning soul fragments and using candle flames—but neither succeeds. The group works together while acknowledging the limits of what they know.
• Celestial Master Zhang shifts from waiting to forceful intervention when he realizes his companions have been diverted. His confidence and authority remain firm even after the supernatural counterattack.
• Libationer Green Mountain searches Zhang’s study and observes his technique with curiosity, but obeys immediately when Zhang gives emergency orders.

Significant themes

• History’s unresolved violence: The bodies expose the brutal cost of Yin-Shang’s internal power struggles, while the historical record remains shrouded in gaps.
• Ritual, belief, and power: Heavenly Emperor energy, ancestral worship, sacrifice, and Lin Feng’s ritual method connect the present danger to ancient religious practices.
• Limits of knowledge and control: Divination and investigation fail to reveal the full truth; even Zhang cannot initially detect the road or its travelers.
• Defiance against the unknown: Both Lin Feng’s group and Zhang press onward despite uncertainty, with Zhang’s final refusal to retreat underscoring the chapter’s confrontational tone.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng, Libationer Zhao, Libationer Zhou, and their companions explore the ruined Yin-Shang capital. Flood damage, collapsed buildings, and a seemingly bottomless abyss make clear that the city is dangerous; they decide not to investigate the abyss.
• In a mansion, they find the remains of a Yin-Shang Slave Owner and his slave warriors, including Qiang people wearing ritual sheep skulls. The slaves appear to have fought fiercely to protect their master. Their wounds bear traces of the “Heavenly Emperor.”
• The group reaches the solemn, forbidden sacrificial district, where the bodies of Yin-Shang ancestors were kept and rulers sought their ancestors’ judgment. Lin Feng reflects that the dead were believed to rule the living—and could punish even their descendants.
• Libationer Zhao uses a Mirage Dragon Pearl to protect the party as they cross the area. The surroundings distort their senses; Libationer Zhou becomes violently ill, and Lin Feng uses his hair to help steady him.
• They learn that the Ancient Road is the only relatively safe route: stepping off it could expose travelers to wildly distorted time or unknown supernatural beings. Lin Feng takes the lead, relying on his experience with uncanny phenomena.
• At a breach, Lin Feng realizes why the road follows its particular course: earlier travelers took the Yin-Shang gods’ virtues—such as wisdom, humanity, and restraint—away from them. The gods may therefore remain as bodies without reason or order, making them profoundly dangerous.
• Lin Feng warns the others not to expect help or benevolence from the gods; at best, they could be treated as sacrifices, food, or servants. Libationer Zhang responds that he would rather fight than submit.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng becomes the group’s practical leader, recognizing the dangers of the road and taking charge with calm, hard-earned expertise. He protects Zhou and interprets the evidence about the gods.
• Libationer Zhao shows caution by using the Mirage Pearl and consulting Lin Feng when the magic behaves unpredictably. His confidence falters as the group encounters unfamiliar forces.
• Libationer Zhou, the least cultivated of the group, is the first to suffer from the road’s sensory distortion. He trusts Lin Feng and recovers with his help.
• Libationer Zhang meets Lin Feng’s bleak assessment with defiance, openly rejecting the prospect of serving the gods. Lin Feng admires his courage, even while privately questioning whether he grasps the danger.
• The companions increasingly defer to Lin Feng’s expertise rather than relying on their treasures or attempting to demonstrate their own power.

Significant themes

• The dead ruling the living: Yin-Shang ancestors are portrayed as demanding, punitive powers whose authority even rulers cannot escape.
• The danger of lost order: The gods’ virtues have been removed, leaving potentially powerful beings without reason, restraint, or humanity.
• Experience and humility: Survival depends on recognizing limits, following the safest route, and trusting the person with relevant knowledge.
• Courage versus recklessness: Zhang’s refusal to submit is brave, but the group’s situation remains perilous and uncertain.
• The Underworld’s unforgiving rules: Those who walk its roads may fail only once; caution and luck are as essential as strength.

Key plot points and events

• As Lin Feng and the Libationers climb the Underworld’s Ancient Road, the surroundings grow increasingly threatening. The Mirage Pearl is somehow contaminated, and an unseen force steals Libationer Zhou’s soul. A lifesaving seal from Zhang Daoling brings Zhou back, though he remains badly shaken.
• Libationer Zhang activates a powerful Fortune Treasure. A claw attacks it, and Lin Feng drives the assailant away with spells and sword qi. He identifies the creature as Tubo, but Tubo has been reduced to a mindless beast.
• The attack shatters the scene and throws the group into a darkness filled with dismembered flesh and drifting fragments of time. Lin realizes they have left the Ancient Road’s protection and entered an unknown realm connected to Yin-Shang’s transformed gods and ancestors.
• Zhou begins murmuring, apparently carrying something back with him. A hidden entity hunts through Libationer Zhang’s sight; Lin tries to shield him, but Libationer Zhao is injured and loses a soul.
• Lin realizes Libationer Qian has become almost nonexistent: he is pale, barely breathing, and holding Zhou, yet vanishes from perception when noticed. Lin uses the Body-Fixing Technique to pin Qian and the approaching time fragments in place.
• The group finds a massive bronze mask and the Bronze Gate. Lin recognizes the gate from suppressed memories and understands that they are trapped amid dangerous temporal disorder, possibly the remains of a Dao-Proving Battle. A devouring monster rises below them as flesh pushes through the mask: the original Flesh Mask of the Yin-Shang Sacrifices.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains composed under pressure, combining rapid diagnosis, protective spells, time-related abilities, and careful observation. He begins to grasp the scale of the threat and the limits of his power.
• Libationer Zhou survives the soul theft but may have brought an entity back with him, making him a continuing danger as well as a victim.
• Libationers Zhao and Zhang rely on protective artifacts; Zhao is wounded, while Zhang’s Fortune Treasure proves useful against Tubo. Zhang also eagerly memorizes Lin’s Body-Fixing Technique.
• Libationer Qian becomes a disturbing anomaly, seeming to disappear from existence and then reappear behind Lin.
• The Libationers look to Lin for direction, while Lin repeatedly intervenes to protect them and assess their injuries.

Significant themes

• The unknowable nature of the uncanny: These beings do not follow human logic, and familiar protections may fail.
• The instability of identity, body, and soul: Souls can be stolen or transformed into flesh, while a person can become nearly nonexistent.
• Time as both danger and prison: Temporal fragments can trap parts of a person in different moments, and the Bronze Gate appears tied to a vast conflict beyond Lin’s understanding.
• The limits of control: Lin’s knowledge and techniques help the group survive, but the realm contains forces far beyond his certainty or command.

I only received a note about a possibly garbled chapter, not the chapter text itself. Please upload or paste the chapter, and I’ll summarize its plot, character development, themes, and interactions.

Key plot points and events

• On Crane-Cry Mountain, Zhang Daoling fights an unseen Underworld force amid a spreading cloud of decay. He identifies his opponents as “god-headed, ghost-faced” beings—once gods, now abandoned—and becomes visibly furious.
• Zhang summons rice from his Five Pecks of Rice Dao pouch. Its grains, infused with offerings and incantations, become a devastating meteor shower in the Underworld. The beings shield a bronze coffin with a huge bronze umbrella.
• Zhang nearly reaches the coffin, but it opens slightly and wounds his hand. Recognizing its occupant, he calls it arrogant. The Ancient Underworld Road abruptly vanishes before he can strike again.
• Elsewhere, Lin Feng and Libationer Zhang approach the Bronze Gate while fleeing a rising, monstrous presence. Lin’s Body-Fixing Technique fails, so he uses the New Moon Realm. Its unfamiliar talismanic seals suppress the writhing flesh and keep it from consuming them.
• The Bronze Gate bears an overwhelming mass of human “intent.” Its disordered voices suggest a history of discovery, obsession, sacrifice, and madness, including references to Di Xin and a mysterious object. A figure emerges through a crack, beckoning Lin Feng and the others inside and calling them “Source Seeds.”

Character developments and interactions

• Zhang Daoling shows that his contempt for the Underworld beings is matched by caution and serious anger. He uses the rice offering as a powerful weapon, then recognizes the coffin’s occupant—but fails to stop its escape.
• Libationer Green Mountain observes from a safe distance. His knowledge of Daoist history and the Three Mounds and Five Canons helps him interpret the beings and question whether becoming “Pseudonatural” is a true spiritual goal.
• Lin Feng responds pragmatically to danger, abandoning an ineffective technique for the New Moon Realm and guiding the group toward the Bronze Gate.
• Libationers Zhang, Qian, and Zhou depend on Lin’s protection. Their talismanic seals resist the Gate’s invasive intent, but they are vulnerable to having their identities and behavior overwritten.
• Zhang Daoling and Green Mountain’s exchange contrasts the latter’s curiosity with the former’s intense focus; Green Mountain deliberately avoids interfering in the battle.

Significant themes

• Nature and restraint: The chapter questions whether becoming “Pseudonatural” is enlightenment or a perilous, possibly corrupting endpoint.
• Faith and sacrifice: The Five Pecks of Rice Sect’s offerings become literal spiritual ammunition, while the Gate’s voices reveal sacrifice in the pursuit of power or hidden knowledge.
• Identity and madness: The Bronze Gate’s accumulated consciousness threatens to transform people, suggesting that unchecked knowledge or intent can erase the self.
• Ancient mysteries and continuity: The Gate, coffin, and voices connect different eras, while talismans from a later period still exert power in the past.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng rejects the welcoming figures beyond the opening Bronze Gate and approaches the Yin-Shang bronze mask, suspecting that the apparent invitation is a trap.
• The faces on the gate shriek and assault him with alien thoughts. Seals restraining “Nightmare” lose their power, and the dreamlike Underworld begins to invert. Libationer Zhang falls asleep, while Lin Feng remains conscious, protected by his Haunted Village and the five voices of the Dao.
• Lin Feng is drawn into a shifting, black-and-white vision. As “Nightmare” pursues him, sealed forces within him stir, including the Stone Man and other entities.
• He witnesses memories of Xia Dynasty king Di Fa. Defying the Grand Artificers, Di Fa insists they build what he wants: a sun that will make him eternal. He believes he has seen this future and forces the artisans to comply, even as one challenges his vision.
• In the Underworld, Libationer Green Mountain investigates the ancient Yin-Shang route and recognizes a dangerous forgotten secret. The Underworld suddenly upheaves, and a huge gate identified as Fengdu appears behind him.

Character developments

• Lin Feng stays wary and decisive under supernatural pressure, choosing the frightening mask over the inviting figures. His protections hold where Libationer Zhang’s do not, but the experience awakens or agitates the sealed beings within him.
• Di Fa emerges as an authoritarian visionary: utterly convinced of his prophecy and willing to imprison and compel others to realize it.
• Libationer Green Mountain drops his usual humor as he recognizes the scale of the threat. Though cautious about learning the secret, he acts when the Underworld begins to collapse into upheaval.
• Libationer Zhang is unable to intervene directly and falls asleep amid the dream’s influence.

Significant themes

• Appearance and danger: Harmless-seeming invitations may conceal greater peril; Lin Feng trusts suspicion over comfort.
• Knowledge and secrecy: Forgotten truths can remain dangerous even when suppressed, and a secret changes once it is widely known.
• Power and conviction: Di Fa’s certainty turns a private vision into coercion and suffering for others.
• Order versus the uncanny: Historians preserve a workable historical framework, but some forces resist being contained by time, memory, or the Underworld’s structure.

Character interactions

• The gate’s faces try to lure Lin Feng back, then attack him mentally when he refuses.
• “Nightmare” pursues Lin Feng through the shifting vision but cannot reach him.
• Di Fa confronts the Grand Artificers, dismisses their objections, and orders them to build his sun; they curse him but cannot stop him.
• Green Mountain recognizes that Zhang Daoling’s response is driven by their shared interests, then rushes into the Underworld when Fengdu appears.

Chapter summary

• Lin Feng’s summoned Uncanny brings him into a strange sacrificial rite. His body is turning to stone, while the Soaring Serpent Pattern, Heavenly Fire, the Bronze Gate, Nightmare, and the One-Eye Country’s sealed eyeball converge. Their powers mingle into an unstable, pallid force. Lin Feng is overwhelmed by information carried by the Source Seed, which acts like a signal source while he receives its memories.
• In one memory, the Grand Artificer Di Fa has built an enormous, sealed Bronze Gate and waits for it to open, convinced he can bring someone through and alter the past. The other Artificers believe he has gone mad. After realizing his attempt failed, Di Fa concludes that some hidden force anchors history and sets out to find it.
• Lin Feng’s bonds and Incense Offerings pull him back from the flood of memories, allowing him to understand Di Fa’s discovery: unlike the Historians, who seek to preserve a stable course of history, Di Fa wanted to identify and defeat whatever prevents history from changing.
• Later memories show a young Xia Jie speaking with a Historian beside the Bronze Gate. Xia Jie recounts his dying father’s warning: the Historians—or a force connected to them—keep the future fixed, and the Shang people will eventually conquer the Xia capital. He also says his father had discovered a secret tied to enduring rule and immortality. The Historian questions whether these private words need to be recorded, prompting Xia Jie to challenge the Historians’ claim to record everything.
• Years later, Xia Jie examines what appears to be the Grand Scribe’s corpse, suspecting it is an empty substitute and that the Historian has deceived him. Fangxiangshi, a shaman and medical official, examines the body and confirms that the Grand Scribe may not truly be dead. Xia Jie’s hatred of the Historians intensifies, and Lin Feng abruptly realizes that the Historian has been exposed.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from passive reception of the Source Seed’s memories to interpreting them, piecing together the connection between Di Fa, the Historians, and Xia Jie.
• Di Fa emerges as a grief-driven investigator who believes time can be changed and searches for the force keeping it fixed.
• Xia Jie is shown first as a young, probing ruler and later as a furious opponent of the Historians. His conversations with the Historian expose the tension between historical record-keeping and the truth rulers want preserved or hidden.
• Fangxiangshi serves as Xia Jie’s trusted examiner, cautiously confirming the suspicious state of the Grand Scribe’s body.

Significant themes

The chapter explores whether history can be changed or is fixed by an unseen force, the danger of knowledge that destabilizes reality, and the Historians’ power to shape the record. It also links the attempt to control history with fear, deception, political downfall, and the pursuit of immortality.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng awakens amid a fractured, chaotic environment near the Bronze Gate. He senses that the immense “mouth” and nearby forces exist in disconnected slices of reality, and suspects he may be trapped in a fragment of time.
• He discovers that Nightmare may not simply be a monster: it appears to be a real world or dream taking shape, perhaps even a rule in the process of emerging. The insight floods him with unfamiliar knowledge about power.
• Signals reveal that the Fangxiangshi became Historical Remnants during the Xia Dynasty, later than Lin Feng had assumed. He also receives fragments of Xia Jie’s furious thoughts.
• Lin Feng deliberately channels his fear and other negative emotions into the Soaring Serpent to stay conscious, but then loses awareness and enters Xia Jie’s past.
• In the vision, Xia Jie tortures and kills a Grand Artificer, convinced that the artisans and their allies concealed the secret of time and sabotaged the Xia Dynasty. The Grand Artificer warns that time has corrupted Xia Jie, but Xia Jie refuses to listen.
• The scene recalls how Di Fa built the Bronze Gate at enormous cost: the project exhausted the state, killed countless workers, exposed Xia’s secrets, and may have provoked supernatural opposition. Xia Jie later abandoned the site and called the Gate inauspicious, yet eventually returned to it.
• After Xia Jie leaves, the Gate seems to begin opening. Lin Feng wakes near it in the present and finds it slightly ajar; the Source Seeds that had beckoned him are gone. The darkness beyond the gap carries the same disturbing presence that had corrupted Xia Jie.
• Lin Feng’s instincts warn him away. He notices a message carved on the Gate—“I am the sun!”—but cannot understand it and recognizes it as the ravings of a madman.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains resourceful under extreme danger, using the Soaring Serpent to resist unconsciousness. His curiosity about the Gate and Nightmare is tempered by a growing willingness to trust his Spirituality and retreat from a threat he cannot understand.
• Xia Jie is shown as increasingly paranoid, violent, and possibly physically transformed. He blames the Grand Artificers for his father’s downfall and for blocking the Xia Dynasty’s advancement, while his shadow and voice suggest something has changed him.
• The Grand Artificer tries to warn Xia Jie that time has tainted him and reminds him that Xia’s ancestors had agreed to keep the secret. Xia ignores the warning and kills him.
• Di Fa is recalled as a ruler whose ambition to create the Bronze Gate devastated the Xia Dynasty, despite the immense sacrifice and risk involved.
• Lin Feng and Xia Jie never meet directly, but Lin Feng experiences Xia Jie’s memories or signal as a warning of what the Gate’s influence might do to him.

Significant themes

• Ambition and its cost: The Bronze Gate represents extraordinary human ingenuity, but its creation consumes lives and weakens the state.
• Corruption by power and time: Xia Jie’s deterioration suggests that contact with time or the Gate can alter both body and mind.
• Secrets and mistrust: Xia Jie’s fury grows from believing that others have withheld the truth, while the Grand Artificer frames secrecy as an ancestral agreement.
• The limits of knowledge: Lin Feng gains startling insight into Nightmare, yet cannot comprehend the Gate’s inscription or what lies beyond it.
• Instinct versus obsession: Xia Jie pursues the Gate despite warnings; Lin Feng chooses caution when his own instincts signal danger.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng confronts the Bronze Gate, whose inscriptions carry the Mad King Xia Jie’s overwhelming, delusional Intent. To resist being reduced to Xia Jie’s “shadow,” Lin Feng repeatedly affirms his own identity.
• When Lin Feng touches and pushes the gate, the contact unleashes immense pain, Heavenly Fire backlash, and a flood of information. Libationer Green Mountain cannot reach him, and Lin Feng vanishes.
• Lin Feng experiences the past as an observer at the gate’s casting site, years after Xia Jie’s final outburst. The once-living mountain has become barren and oppressive, and the gate appears coated in a dark, greasy substance.
• Shang Tang, Yi Yin, and the Grand Artificer visit the site after Xia Jie’s defeat. The Grand Artificer explains that Xia believed bronze vessels were living beings and that he heard answers from beyond the gate. The gate, identified as a Source Seed, seems to be “sweating.”
• Shang Tang reflects on Xia Jie’s secrecy and tyranny, intending to preserve the lesson for future rulers. Lin Feng then realizes something impossible: Shang Tang speaks a phrase drawn from much later historical texts, at the exact moment Lin Feng thinks it.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng actively protects his sense of self from Xia Jie’s madness. His disappearance shifts him into an apparent observer’s perspective—possibly identifying with the Bronze Gate itself—and he becomes increasingly alert to distortions in the historical vision.
• Shang Tang is wary of the gate and acknowledges how Xia Jie’s arbitrary violence united enemies against him. He resolves to turn the past into laws and guidance for his successors.
• Yi Yin is presented as more than a former slave: he is Shang Tang’s powerful ally, shares religious authority, and possesses unusual means of survival.
• The Grand Artificer reveals what little he knows while admitting that those who understood the gate were killed by Xia Jie.
• Libationer Green Mountain tries to respond to the supernatural upheaval but is unable to save Lin Feng, then must deal with the Underworld manifestations.

Significant themes

• Identity versus inherited influence: Lin Feng resists becoming a vessel for Xia Jie’s madness.
• Power and political collapse: Xia Jie’s arrogance and attacks on both elites and nobility destroy the support on which his rule depends; Shang Tang sees the same pattern repeated in later dynasties.
• History as warning—and its instability: The chapter frames dynastic collapse as cyclical, but the anachronistic phrase attributed to Shang Tang suggests the past may be affected by Lin Feng’s thoughts or by forces beyond ordinary history.
• The unknowable and taboo: The gate’s strange “life,” its apparent sweating, and the dead mountain leave its nature—and the consequences of Lin Feng’s contact—unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng discovers that the Bronze Gate is not merely affecting people’s thoughts: he is the gate itself, and information radiating from it can cross time.
• After Xia’s fall, Shang Tang, Yi Yin, and their allies gather at the gate, treating it as proof of Xia Jie’s madness. They swear an alliance beneath it, binding themselves to its power as a kind of Medium.
• The allies begin calling the defeated ruler “Jie,” a name associated with brutality and madness. Lin Feng recognizes Old Mother of Mount Li among them; unlike the others, she is unafraid and covets the gate’s bronze-making secrets.
• Old Mother secretly strikes the gate with tools. She hears sounds that seem to reveal her future, then leaves before being discovered. Lin Feng concludes that the gate’s influence involves reincarnation and information that transcends time.
• The gate is eventually buried beneath a collapsed mountain. Ages later, people excavate it. Lin Feng can sense and potentially control their minds, but holds back, fearing that acting would alter history.
• The excavators perform Shang rites, including human sacrifice. Lin Feng witnesses ancestor deities manifesting through blood and birds, and sees the deified Shang Tang among the dead.
• Much later, followers of Di Xin locate the gate through old records and seek to take it to Yindu, hoping to recover a path to divine power. Their sacrifices bring no response: the gate cannot be moved because it is nature itself, beyond the deities’ authority.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng moves from suspicion to the startling realization that he is the Bronze Gate. He struggles with the implications, tests his powers, and chooses restraint despite his ability to dominate those nearby.
• Old Mother of Mount Li stands apart from the fearful alliance: her curiosity and greed drive her to investigate the gate, and she appears to receive a glimpse of her future.
• Shang Tang and Yi Yin use the gate as a political and symbolic instrument, rallying former enemies against Xia and sealing their alliance with an oath.
• The later excavators and Di Xin’s loyalists approach the gate with awe and ambition, but cannot command or relocate it. The deified Shang Tang, meanwhile, does not recognize the gate or intervene.

Significant themes

• History as a cycle: Later generations rediscover what their ancestors buried, but lost records and shifting legends make the past difficult to understand.
• Time, reincarnation, and fate: The gate transmits information across eras, including apparent knowledge of future events.
• Power and restraint: Lin Feng’s ability to control people raises the danger of changing history, so he deliberately refrains.
• Nature and divinity: The gate is presented as a force of nature, not an object even the ancestor gods can control.
• Memory and myth: Over centuries, history becomes tangled with rumor, slander, and legend, reshaping how people understand Xia Jie and the gate.

Key plot points and events

• Ominous rain and natural lightning prompt Celestial Master Zhang to perform a divination. He reads the signs as “chaos” and “reopening chaos,” and concludes that Green Mountain—not Zhang himself—is the target of an attack.
• Zhang discovers Green Mountain has vanished from Crane-Cry Mountain’s records and is remembered by no one else. Realizing history itself may be under assault, he consults a dangerous Pseudonatural Map made from a vengeful shaman’s skin.
• The Map reveals a funeral procession of divine heads and ghostly faces. Zhang’s offerings are insufficient to learn more, so he uses the Yangping Governance Seal to open an Ancient Road into the Underworld and goes after Green Mountain personally.
• Green Mountain is being forcibly separated from [Fengdu] as a Divine Path appears beneath him. He recognizes the danger as a trap aimed at a Historian and stays composed, knowing his death could unleash the history he has restrained.
• In another period, Lin Feng observes Shang Dynasty explorers. They uncover and remove a bronze coffin, an unexpected discovery that unsettles him.
• A second group of Yin-Shang nobles arrives, horrified that Di Xin’s people have found the Bronze Gate. They plan to seal it away and erase its history, but their alliance is divided: some want the bronze-working knowledge and power for themselves. Their ambition points toward the ancestor god.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhang Daoling moves from interpreting the signs to decisive action. His calm, methodical nature persists even when he must use dangerous tools and risk entering the Underworld. His bond with Green Mountain is shown by his absolute refusal to let him come to harm.
• Green Mountain is trapped but remains clear-headed. He understands both the plot against him and the catastrophic consequences his death could have for history.
• Lin Feng reflects on how intent and embodiment shape thought, and grows uneasy at the appearance of a bronze coffin where he believes there has only ever been rock and himself.
• The Shang nobles interact through fear and self-interest: they agree on concealing the Bronze Gate, but their competing desires for power undermine their unity.

Significant themes

• History and time: Altering or removing a Historian threatens to release history from its restraints and destabilize the future.
• Nature, fate, and divination: Zhang treats omens as warnings to investigate, not as simple predictions.
• Memory and erasure: Green Mountain’s disappearance from records illustrates how a person—and potentially a stretch of history—can be erased.
• Power and human ambition: The nobles’ fear of the Bronze Gate competes with their desire to exploit it, suggesting that the pursuit of greater power may lead them toward the ancestor god.
• The uncanny and its cost: The Map can reveal hidden knowledge, but demands increasingly costly offerings and exposes Zhang to the dangers of the Underworld.

Key plot points and events

• The chapter explains why Yin-Shang’s ruling elite sought another route to power: in their system, the living depended on the dead, making it impossible to surpass them. They looked to the vanished Xia Civilization and its legendary Bronze Gate, which Xia Jie was said to have tried to open in his final moments.
• A nighttime visitor approaches the gate, drawn by the mystery of what lies beyond it. Flames suddenly engulf the gate, and Lin Feng’s consciousness returns to the present.
• Lin Feng confronts the presence he identifies as Xia Jie, calling it a “sun” and trying to send the dangerous eyeball left by the One-Eye Country Remnants into it. Xia Jie confirms, cryptically, that the sun is himself.
• Meanwhile, Libationer Green Mountain recognizes the coffin’s owner as Di Fa. The Bronze Gate is hauled into the ordinary level of the Underworld, and time resumes its normal flow.
• Green Mountain realizes the events are a trap targeting Historians, designed to draw out Historical Remnants. He deduces that Di Fa—the penultimate Xia king—planned even his own death and funeral procession as part of the scheme.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng continues using his historical insight and powerful “[hong]” spell, but remains uncertain what Xia Jie truly is. His exchange with Xia Jie is tense and cryptic.
• Libationer Green Mountain shifts from observing events to openly resisting the trap. He angrily rejects being used as a tool and confronts the apparent remnants with his deduction.
• Di Fa emerges as a cunning strategist whose influence persists beyond death. His funeral procession appears to be part of a long-laid plan.

Significant themes

• Power and dependence: In Yin-Shang, the living’s power comes from the dead, raising the question of whether the living can ever surpass their source.
• History as a trap: Historians’ ability to travel through time and recover the past makes them targets for forces seeking to exploit them.
• Knowledge and secrecy: Some historical truths are deliberately withheld because revealing them may revive dangerous remnants.
• Legacy and manipulation: Legends and rituals can be maintained across generations to serve a hidden agenda.

Key plot points and events

• The figure in Di Fa’s coffin emerges, but Green Mountain realizes it is not Di Fa himself. It is a thinking mass of malevolent energy carrying Di Fa’s memories, its body covered in twisted, altered incantations.
• Green Mountain recognizes the markings as possibly derived from Primordial Incantations—powerful and dangerous enough to rival the Primordial Talisman he brings out.
• He deduces that Di Fa had been trying to find the Historian who anchored the history of the Xia Dynasty’s rise and fall, hoping to overturn that history and reshape time. Unable to find the right Historian, Di Fa sought Green Mountain, who was unusually accessible and still mentally intact.
• Green Mountain understands that the force behind the corpse may also have been responsible for the deaths of Historians. He stops watching the Bronze Gate and commits to fighting, trusting Lin Feng to manage his own situation.
• The corpse avoids confronting Green Mountain’s summoned gods and spirits directly. It uses the Underworld soil to produce innumerable threads, turning itself into a spider-like hunter and trapping Green Mountain in a web.

Character developments

• Green Mountain moves from investigation to combat, accepting that the threat is too dangerous to observe from a distance. He remains cautious, but decides to face it directly and rely on Lin Feng.
• Di Fa, though absent as a living person, is revealed as a determined and resourceful figure who pursued a way to rewrite history and prepared extensively for his encounter with Green Mountain.
• The corpse is established as an intelligent, formidable adversary: not the real Di Fa, but a hostile entity with his memories and a potent grasp of natural patterns.

Significant themes

• History and its limits: Historians witness and anchor events, but do not create history; nevertheless, attacking a Historian may allow an enemy to alter the past.
• Will and defiance: Those who believe the world is wrong may seek to remake it, with some possessing the power to do so.
• Knowledge as power: Observations of nature—such as Fuxi’s study of spiderwebs—can become either tools for survival or instruments of predation.
• The danger of distorted knowledge: The corpse’s altered incantations and corrupted use of natural patterns turn ancient wisdom into something menacing.

Character interactions

• Green Mountain and the corpse face off in a direct battle of talismans, summoned beings, and natural-pattern techniques. Green Mountain tries to overwhelm it with supernatural force; the corpse instead uses the web to make him its prey.
• Green Mountain and Lin Feng are separated by circumstance: Green Mountain trusts Lin Feng to handle the Bronze Gate while he fights the immediate threat.
• Di Fa and Green Mountain are connected through Di Fa’s search for a Historian capable of resolving the history-altering crisis; Green Mountain becomes his last available lead.

Key plot points

• Libationer Green Mountain is repeatedly dismembered by the corpse emerging from the Coffin. Each attack rewinds time, but Green Mountain knows these resets are consuming the Primordial Talisman’s protection; when it fails, he may be erased from history altogether.
• To survive, he burns Zhang Daoling’s calligraphic works, hoping the flames will alert Zhang Daoling. When an ordinary sheet of paper fails to save him, Green Mountain burns a rubbing of the original Dao De Jing. The rubbing takes his place, and he is reborn from the flames.
• Green Mountain recalls meeting Li Er (Laozi) before Laozi’s legendary transformation. He also witnessed Laozi disappear after passing through Hangu Pass, a mystery he still cannot explain. Green Mountain has no idea how many times the rubbing can protect him against the corpse.
• Elsewhere, Lin Feng senses that he is in a place where thoughts mingle and intensify. Through another person’s memories, he learns that Di Fa searched the ancient Three Mounds and Five Canons for powers beyond those of the Historians, and passed that conviction to his son, Xia Jie.
• Lin Feng realizes that Xia Jie opened a door and encountered him—or his thoughts—on the other side. He concludes that, while he was hearing Xia Jie’s thoughts, Xia Jie was hearing his as well.

Character developments and interactions

• Green Mountain remains determined to survive as a human, but recognizes that his protection is finite. He turns to Zhang Daoling’s writings and then Laozi’s text as desperate safeguards.
• Lin Feng shifts from receiving strange, intermingled thoughts to actively interpreting them, piecing together how he and Xia Jie are connected.
• Di Fa and Xia Jie are linked by their search for ancient power: Di Fa’s belief in the Three Mounds and Five Canons shaped Xia Jie’s outlook.
• Green Mountain and Zhang Daoling are not shown interacting directly, but Green Mountain relies on the idea that the burning talismans and writings will attract Zhang Daoling’s attention. Green Mountain’s recollection of Laozi underscores how little he understands about the sages’ apparent disappearances.

Significant themes

• Identity and historical erasure: A person can be lost not only through bodily death but through the disappearance of all memory and trace of them.
• The danger of tampering with time: Repeated rewinds can preserve life temporarily while threatening a person’s existence in history.
• Thought as connection: In the shifting realm, minds can cross paths, allowing people to hear and influence one another across apparent boundaries.
• Ancient knowledge and unknowable history: The Three Mounds and Five Canons, Laozi’s departure, and the mysterious door all suggest powers and events beyond ordinary historical understanding.