Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng credits his door camera to Brother Chen, who installed it after fans tracked down his home. The two trade favors in their usual irreverent way: Chen gets Lin Feng to help film episodes without paying him, and Lin Feng takes two pairs of Chen’s new shoes.
• Reviewing the footage, Lin Feng sees a silver-haired old woman approach his door late at night. The motion-activated light does not detect her, and the camera cannot identify her face. She calls Lin Feng her “precious darling” and “sweet grandson,” peers through the peephole, licks the door, and promises to find him.
• The camera glitches after she looks directly at it. Lin Feng checks with viewers who attended the story session, but none report seeing anything unusual. He concludes the entity is coming specifically for him and wonders how it spreads and why it has appeared now.
• Rather than hide, Lin Feng buys a feather duster, eats, and later walks toward his home through dark, unlit alleys. Carrying a utility knife, he prepares the duster as a weapon. A breeze carries the smell of incense and cigarette ash; Lin Feng recognizes the old woman’s arrival and enters an alley to confront her.
• His Qi-Observing Eye fails to work on the figure ahead, suggesting the old woman—or whatever she is—is not alive.

Character developments

• Lin Feng remains pragmatic, irreverent, and unusually calm in the face of supernatural danger. His curiosity about the entity outweighs his fear, and he takes practical steps to arm himself before confronting it.
• His lost teeth have rapidly grown back and are beginning to take shape, an unexplained physical change.
• Brother Chen is revealed to be protective but also a shamelessly transactional friend, drawing on the trauma of having his home exposed by obsessive fans.

Significant themes

• Modern technology versus the supernatural: A security camera records the old woman, but cannot properly identify her and eventually malfunctions.
• The consequences of stories: Lin Feng suspects that hearing an uncanny tale may have brought the “Maternal Grandma” to him.
• Preparedness and hard-won caution: Brother Chen’s experience emphasizes learning from past dangers, while Lin Feng applies that lesson by watching the footage and arming himself.
• Fear mixed with humor: Lin Feng treats a potentially lethal haunting with curiosity, complaints, and practical jokes, creating a contrast between ordinary life and supernatural threat.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng and Brother Chen exchange advice, favors, and goods in a teasing, mutually exploitative friendship.
• The old woman addresses Lin Feng as her grandson despite his absence, behaving with disturbing affection and menace.
• Lin Feng contacts premium subscribers and longtime viewers to see whether the threat has affected them; their lack of experience reinforces his suspicion that he is the target.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng confirms the “Maternal Grandma” figure is not alive. He tries to question her by pretending she resembles his late grandmother, but she ignores his questions and repeatedly offers him a protective talisman.
• When the deception yields no answers, Lin Feng attacks. A single burst of his [fa] technique sends the old woman flying and burns her to ash.
• The only remnant is a slimy lock of hair. It reacts to Lin Feng’s dragon-tiger qi, then burns intensely when he tests it. He seals the small amount of residue and stores it in the refrigerator.
• Lin Feng returns home, transfers money to his mother as an apology for having briefly invented a new relative, and gives her a vague reassurance when she asks what he has done.
• He resumes cultivation, practicing the Mystic Sustenance Method: Feasting on Wind and Drinking Dew through a dance in the moonlit courtyard.
• Meanwhile, the elderly man who previously told Lin Feng his story lies hospitalized overseas after having blood drawn. He hears ritual recitations, wakes in a foggy, twilight-like realm, and is led away by an old woman who welcomes him as her long-missed “sweet child.”

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng is pragmatic and quick to switch from bluffing to violence when he cannot get information. He remains irreverent, treating the fight as a minor inconvenience, but shows a small sense of guilt by sending money to his mother.
• Maternal Grandma pretends to be affectionate and offers a talisman, yet evades Lin Feng’s questions. Her apparent threat proves short-lived against his technique.
• Lin Feng and his mother exchange comic messages: she accepts his transfer but suspects he has done something guilty; he avoids explaining.
• The hospitalized man is physically and emotionally diminished, while the old woman’s appearance in the mist suggests that the supernatural danger from the alley may be connected to his earlier story.

Significant themes

• Deception and failed communication: Lin Feng and the old woman both perform false affection, but neither convincingly engages with the other.
• The supernatural intruding into ordinary life: A bizarre encounter is followed by routine messages to his mother and continued cultivation, while the hospitalized man’s dreamlike experience hints that the threat persists elsewhere.
• Unease around family and mourning: The old woman’s supposed grandmotherly bond, burial clothing, ritual texts, and final welcome blur affection with death and danger.

Key plot points

• In the Underworld, Lin Feng dreams of dead Confucian scholars chanting around a Corpse and burning incense. Meanwhile, a wet-haired apparition enters his room and prepares to hang him as he sleeps.
• On the Uncanny path, the gravely ill Li Gao is lured away from safety by a grotesque spirit posing as his Maternal Grandma. Its touch drains his lifespan and infects him with black hair.
• A distant, rhythmic “fa” interrupts the spirit’s spell and brings Li Gao to his senses. He screams, collapses near death, and Lin Feng arrives.
• Lin Feng recognizes Li Gao from an earlier encounter, uses “fa” to kill the spirit, and finds that it leaves behind a paper figure. He takes both the figure and Li Gao with him.
• Terrified, Li Gao asks Lin Feng, “What are you? What kind of thing are you?”

Character developments

• Lin Feng appears increasingly capable in the Underworld: despite being unable to sense qi in his lungs, his “fa” and hand seals remain effective against spirits. His sleep and strange bodily resonance also suggest he may be vulnerable—or undergoing some unusual change.
• Li Gao is shown as severely ill and dangerously susceptible to supernatural deception. His affection for the false “Maternal Grandma” makes him willingly accept the spirit’s touch until the chanting breaks its hold.
• The spirit exploits family longing and confusion to drain its victim’s life, but it is vulnerable to Lin Feng’s intervention.

Significant themes

• Grief and memory as supernatural vulnerabilities: the spirit weaponizes the comfort of a familiar family figure.
• Ritual, sound, and belief: chanting, funeral music, incense, and Lin Feng’s repeated “fa” shape events and can either ensnare or protect.
• The uncertain boundary between human and monstrous: Lin Feng rescues Li Gao, yet his eerie presence and powers make Li Gao fear him.
• Death and decay: the Underworld’s setting and the spirit’s bodily corruption emphasize the constant threat of losing life and identity.

Character interactions

• The false Maternal Grandma uses intimate, reassuring behavior to draw Li Gao away from the safe path and feed on him.
• Lin Feng’s “fa” breaks the spirit’s influence, after which he kills it and takes Li Gao into his care.
• Their rescue ends not in gratitude but in fear: Li Gao sees Lin Feng as another possible supernatural threat.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng confronts Li Gao, who mistakes him for a supernatural being and fears that Lin Feng is asking the folkloric question used by spirits seeking human recognition.
• Lin Feng discovers that, in Li Gao’s eyes, his skin, teeth, fingers, and nails are translucent. He realizes these features appeared in parts of his body regenerated through the Mystic Sustenance Method, but cannot tell whether they are beneficial or dangerous.
• The paper figure at Lin Feng’s feet tries to escape. Suspecting that they are on the Yin Road from the game, Lin Feng keeps it pinned and wonders whether events in the game—and a larger supernatural revival—are becoming real.
• The old woman returns, desperate to retrieve the figure, which she calls her Clone. She offers Lin Feng an elixir containing three years of lifespan in exchange.
• Using the Land God Seal, Lin Feng forces her to answer questions. She explains that the Li family has carried her master’s mark since its ancestors incurred a debt in the late Qing dynasty, and that she collects lifespan from their descendants.
• The old woman admits she has no claim on Lin Feng: she found him because the supernatural “cage” around the mortal world is loosest near him and his magical artifact, the game console.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains curious and pragmatic despite looking frightening. He tests Li Gao’s perception, investigates his own strange appearance, and takes control of the encounter with the old woman. He also grows uneasy at the possibility that he and the console are creating a breach between worlds.
• Li Gao is overwhelmed by fear and interprets Lin Feng’s question through supernatural folklore. He answers that Lin Feng looks human, though Lin Feng’s reflection reveals why Li Gao was frightened.
• The old woman shifts between arrogance and submission. She initially invokes her master’s claim over the Li family, but Lin Feng’s seal forces her to confess that she targeted him out of greed and opportunity.
• Lin Feng and the old woman negotiate over the Clone, but his warning strike establishes that she has no leverage. His questioning reveals the connection between her attacks, the Li family’s inherited debt, and the weakened boundary near him.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty about identity and the body: Lin Feng’s translucent, regenerated features blur the line between human and supernatural.
• Folklore becoming reality: Yin Roadwalking and supernatural beings appear to be crossing from the game or legend into the real world.
• Debt and inherited consequences: The Li family’s ancestors’ bargain condemns later generations to the old woman’s collections.
• Power and vulnerability: Lin Feng can dominate the old woman with the Land God Seal, yet may unknowingly be weakening the barrier between worlds.
• Dark humor amid danger: Lin Feng’s jokes about being a “gatekeeper” contrast with the growing threat he faces.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng realizes the attack came from a traitor close to home, but stays calm now that he understands the danger.
• The old woman explains that they are in the Yellow Millet Dream, an unstable projection of the sealed Underworld, not the Underworld itself.
• Sensing that the woman is stalling for time, Lin Feng attacks immediately with Merciless Iron Hand, turning her to ash.
• In the waking world, Lin Feng’s body is also being strangled by an invisible noose. The Sacrificial Chant wakes him before it can kill him, and he strikes the hair-covered face above him, badly injuring it.
• Lin Feng accidentally completes a rudimentary sacrifice using the Longevity Worm as an offering. The ritual’s effects reach beyond the room: the enormous Ghost face in the dream realm and an iron-blue corpse elsewhere both suffer severe damage.
• Lin Feng and Li Gao disappear from the dream realm as their bodies wake. The iron-blue corpse is left confused, unable to identify the unseen attacker.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng shifts from uncertainty to decisive action. He treats the old woman’s evasiveness as a warning, uses his strength without hesitation, and even looks for a practical use for the creature’s remains.
• The old woman tries to placate Lin Feng and keep him talking, apparently hoping for time or help. Her attempt fails; after her defeat, she can only threaten him from a distance.
• Li Gao is caught in the attack’s aftermath but survives and wakes when Lin Feng’s grip disturbs him.
• The iron-blue corpse becomes an unwilling victim of Lin Feng’s accidental sacrifice and is bewildered by the injury.
• Lin Feng and the old woman’s exchange is marked by sarcasm and intimidation: she tries to control the conversation, while he demands direct answers and watches for signs of deceit.

Significant themes

• Threats close to home: Lin Feng recognizes that betrayal by someone nearby is harder to guard against than an outside enemy.
• Action over delay: When he suspects his opponent is buying time, Lin Feng chooses to strike rather than risk waiting.
• Unintended consequences: His improvised actions trigger a sacrifice whose effects reach enemies he cannot see.
• Power and vulnerability across realms: The dream realm is fragile, but events there and in the waking world remain linked—allowing Lin Feng’s awakening and attack to affect multiple targets.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng’s sacrifice of the Wild God’s hair releases an enormous surge of vitality into him, focused at the point between his brows. The experience is briefly agonizing, as though his brain is splitting, before the pain fades.
• The sacrifice awakens a passive skill, Mystic Sustenance Method: Life Seed, and opens his Second Life Palace. Its vitality can repair his body and soul—even after vital injuries—and the fuller the seed is, the faster and more completely it heals. Lin Feng’s seed is charged to 470%.
• The chapter explains why ancient sacrifices were so important: they gave deities rapid, reliable power. It also recounts how the declining Shang Dynasty, short of prisoners and slaves, prompted King Di Xin to restrict sacrifices. Those reforms angered nobles and were later used to portray him as impious.
• Lin Feng pieces together that he must have used the Wild God’s hair as an offering. He tests his new healing by cutting his arm; the wound closes rapidly without lowering the seed’s charge.
• Seeing his unusually tough skin and powerful regeneration, he wonders whether the skill could let him survive decapitation or regrow a head—but does not try it yet.

Character development

• Lin Feng moves from confusion and shock toward a practical understanding of what has happened. His curiosity quickly turns into speculation about the limits of his new ability.
• He remains cautious enough to test the power with a small wound first, though his thoughts about decapitation show that he is tempted to push it much further.
• His experience hints that he may no longer be entirely human, a possibility he finds unsettling.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng’s new power is tied to the Wild God’s hair, though he does not understand exactly how the sacrifice worked.
• He recalls that viewer Li Gao’s creepy story and mention of “Maternal Grandma” brought his long-absent relative from the Yellow Millet Dream Realm to him. He suspects burning a hole through the realm may have helped her escape.
• The chapter also contrasts Lin Feng’s personal sacrifice with the historical relationship between rulers, nobles, and deities: Di Xin’s limits on offerings provoke conflict with the nobility.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and power: Offerings benefit the deity, while the cost and consequences fall on those who provide them.
• Tradition versus reform: Di Xin’s attempt to curb wasteful rites is politically unpopular and later distorted into a charge of impiety.
• Life, death, and identity: Lin Feng’s regenerative ability blurs the boundary between survival and death, raising questions about what kind of being he has become.
• Power and temptation: A seemingly generous gift invites Lin Feng to test increasingly dangerous limits.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng tests the Life Seed by cutting off his little finger. It consumes one percent of his vitality, then regrows and perfectly reattaches the finger in six seconds, restoring its nerves, bone, movement, and sensation without a scar.
• He reflects on the Li Family’s bargain with supernatural beings: their ancestors gained wealth in exchange for descendants’ lifespans. Lin Feng regards the present crisis as the supernatural collectors enforcing the agreement, not a problem he can readily solve.
• Worried that the Blood God may have advanced unexpectedly, Lin Feng calls Xu Nian. Her mother answers and explains that Xu Nian is hospitalized and unconscious with a fever after her archaeological team was caught in severe mountain weather, including mudslides and flash floods.
• Lin Feng decides to go to her despite the storms. He books the earliest high-speed train, gathers his belongings, and heads to the station.
• While waiting in the station’s VIP lounge, he discovers that the unsettling game console works without a power source. He puts on its helmet and enters the game’s final chapter, titled “The Western Hunan Blood God: Staking Everything on Waiting for Rescue.”

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng’s successful test reveals the extraordinary regenerative power of the Life Seed and raises questions about how difficult he may be to kill.
• His concern for Xu Nian overrides his earlier focus on supernatural threats: once he learns she is unconscious, he promptly prepares to travel to her.
• Lin Feng speaks with Xu Nian’s exhausted mother, who provides the first account of the mountain disaster and Xu Nian’s condition.

Significant themes

• The danger of supernatural bargains: A deal that appears fair may bind later generations to consequences they did not choose.
• Uncertainty and powerlessness: Lin Feng recognizes that ordinary human systems may offer little protection against the truly uncanny.
• Responsibility and urgency: Even amid supernatural dangers and difficult travel conditions, Lin Feng acts quickly when someone close to him may be in danger.

Key plot points and events

• Rescue crews battle violent weather and dangerous mountain trails. The exhausted captain collapses while being carried into the mountains, but his consciousness remains trapped between sleep and waking.
• In that state, he hears ritual chanting and senses a colossal supernatural force awakening. The protective, righteous voices he hears seem far weaker than the ritual’s power.
• Hours later, rescuers reach the camp and find a massacre: workers hang dead from banyan roots, survivors crawl blindly into the forest, and blood has been drawn toward a single point.
• An ancient ritual altar has been exposed by the rain. Its Taoist and Buddhist protections have decayed; cracked Exorcism Jade leaks blood, and the altar’s offerings appear freshly burned.
• Professor Han survives but has lost both eyes. Clutching a USB drive, he repeatedly apologizes to his teacher and admits he was wrong. Xu Nian’s senior fellow student and several students are dead or dying.
• Rescuers, relieved to have found the camp after unexpectedly passable roads, are overwhelmed by the horror of what they see.

Character developments and interactions

• The captain is revealed as unusually sensitive to the supernatural, but his exhaustion leaves him powerless before the awakening presence.
• Professor Han is physically devastated and consumed by remorse. His repeated apology suggests a grave mistake tied to the USB drive, though the chapter does not explain it.
• The rescuers show determination and mutual care, switching teams and pressing forward despite exhaustion and danger. Their arrival brings help, but not an immediate resolution.

Significant themes

• Human fragility before the supernatural: Even brave, capable people are helpless against forces beyond their understanding.
• Exhaustion and sacrifice: The captain and the man who blocked the blood’s path both perish or collapse from pushing themselves past their limits.
• Failed safeguards and fading traditions: Ancient rituals, talismans, and sacred incantations have lost their power, leaving the camp exposed.
• Guilt and consequences: Professor Han’s final, repeated confession points to responsibility for events whose full cause remains unknown.
• The unknown awakening: The chapter closes on the sense that something immense has already begun to stir, while the survivors and rescuers grasp only fragments of what is happening.

Key plot points and events

• At the ruined camp, rescuers find people alive but gravely injured and behaving violently. Suspecting poison, hallucinogens, or dangerous fumes, they enter cautiously in gas masks to search for survivors.
• In the game’s rain-soaked Western Hunan mountains, Lin Feng leads the guide, Li Pusa, and Hundred-Household Officer Zhu toward a Mountain Spider’s nest, hoping to find tinder and shelter.
• Black Birds and Buddhist chants threaten the group. Lin Feng uses the Land God Seal—voiced as the syllable “fa”—to break the chants’ hold on the guide and scatter the birds.
• Lin Feng’s display of power also frightens the White-Bone Mage, who watches from the forest. Lin Feng challenges it, but the creature backs down and withdraws.
• Lin Feng explains that his power is currently limited to a small area. He believes killing Ironhead Viper and obtaining a Mountain God Fragment would let him extend it across the mountain and eventually confront the White-Bone Mage.
• As they travel, Li Pusa insists that mortals cannot use the ancient Land God Seal. He reveals that it was once the Land God’s Six Tones, a power that could harm Underworld beings. After the Heavenly Court stripped land gods of their roles, many fell into the Underworld and became fearsome uncanny entities.
• Li Pusa then sees the enormous Mountain Spider behind Lin Feng and concludes that only terrifying Underworld entities can wield the Six Tones—suggesting Lin Feng may no longer be entirely human.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng shows growing confidence: rather than flee the White-Bone Mage, he confronts it, relying on his strengthened divine power. He also carefully gauges its limits and plans how to grow stronger.
• Li Pusa shifts from skeptical explanation to terror as Lin Feng’s power—and the Mountain Spider—undermine his belief that the Taoist is an ordinary human.
• The guide is rescued from the chants’ influence by Lin Feng’s “fa” and follows his lead, though he remains shaken.
• Hundred-Household Officer Zhu silently stands ready to protect Lin Feng, trusting his abilities even without understanding them.
• The White-Bone Mage and Lin Feng engage in a tense standoff; each recognizes the other’s threat, and the Mage chooses retreat over a fight.

Significant themes

• Power and identity: Lin Feng’s supernatural abilities raise the question of whether he is still human.
• The old and new divine orders: The chapter contrasts ancient land gods with the Heavenly Court’s later system and the consequences of stripping gods of their duties.
• Predator and prey: Humans are treated as sources of valuable bodily “treasures,” while Lin Feng increasingly reverses the balance by confronting monsters.
• Knowledge and fear: Li Pusa’s lore helps explain the danger, but what he witnesses makes that knowledge terrifyingly immediate.

Plot and events

• Lin Feng learns that the Land God Seal has six tones, each with a different effect. The familiar [fa] is a repelling tone, not a killing one, and he becomes eager to find the Land God’s temple and uncover the other powers.
• Suspecting that Li Pusa knows more than an ordinary Corpse Driver should, Lin Feng keeps him talking while pretending not to notice the Mountain Spider attacking from behind.
• Lin Feng dodges the spider’s strikes using Sword Heart Clarity, then stuns it with [fa], exploiting its lack of spiritual cultivation. He repeatedly suppresses it until it submits and becomes the group’s mount.
• The party rides toward the spider’s lair. Lin Feng uses [fa] to deter other threats, while pursuing Butterfly Women are destroyed whenever they approach.
• Li Pusa identifies the pursuing beings as Five-Powers Immortals, a danger familiar to Corpse Drivers. He warns that the Butterfly Women cannot all be killed without exhausting Lin Feng’s magical power. Lin Feng dismisses the warning, insisting that neither their numbers nor his mana will stop him.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng grows more confident after discovering a reliable weapon against Underworld Uncannies. He is strategic and controlled: he uses Li Pusa’s fear to draw out information, then turns the Mountain Spider into an asset rather than simply killing it.
• Li Pusa becomes increasingly terrified. He interprets Lin Feng’s changed demeanor and extraordinary abilities as signs that Lin Feng has become an Uncanny being, and loses faith in the god that had been behind him.
• The Mountain Spider shifts from predator to unwilling servant after Lin Feng repeatedly attacks its soul. Its submission shows Lin Feng’s growing ability to dominate supernatural creatures.
• Lin Feng’s calm mockery contrasts with Li Pusa’s despair, while the guide and Zhu are unnerved by the spider mount and its swarming offspring.

Significant themes

• Knowledge as power: Li Pusa’s unusual command of sacred history and texts makes him suspicious, while Lin Feng sees the Land God’s hidden techniques as a vast store of potential power.
• Fear of the unknown: Li Pusa’s terror reflects the Corpse Drivers’ dread of uncanny transformations and threats that cannot be understood or escaped.
• Mastery through preparation and force: Lin Feng’s new ability changes the balance of power; enemies that once drove the group into panic can now be confronted directly.
• Ancient horrors and buried history: The Western Hunan mountains preserve both divine relics and the dangerous legacy of old sacrificial traditions.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng, traveling toward the Land God Temple on the back of a Mountain Spider, asks Li Pusa to explain the Five-Powers Immortal. Li describes it as a derogatory Buddhist name for Underworld beings with extraordinary abilities but without the wisdom needed to escape death. He notes that later storytellers recast the Butterfly Women’s master as a Daoist who fled into the Underworld.
• At the temple, Lin Feng hears an eerie funeral-like chant. Most of it is indistinct, but the lines “In utter stillness, reaching the source of nothingness” and “The perfected one’s virtue is supreme, an immortal through every lifetime” are clear. The final line carries a powerful yearning that threatens to disturb his mind, so he uses the Land God Seal to protect himself.
• Lin Feng spots a grotesque face in a cave near the temple but cannot catch it, even with Fleeting Glimpse. He waits outside rather than enter before he is strong enough, hoping to combine the Mountain God’s power with his own.
• Ironhead Viper finally arrives, already badly wounded. A swarm of Butterfly Women attacks it, draining its lifespan. Lin Feng kills the viper and takes its fragment of Mountain God power.
• With that power, Lin Feng strikes into the cave. His blow shakes Bull-Head Mountain, and a storm of wind and blades tears through the cave, driving the grotesque face away and silencing it.
• Lin Feng then sends wind into the temple and discovers that its interior is far larger than its exterior suggests. He enters, senses that he is still within the Western Hunan Mountains, and locates the Deity Statue and a stele.
• Though his wind detects no one behind him, an icy hand lands on his shoulder. A decaying presence speaks in an unfamiliar language, and overlapping voices repeat, “You’ve come.” Lin Feng responds with the Land God Seal and the God-Dispelling Incantation.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains cautious and pragmatic: he waits until he has enough power before entering the temple, then attacks the cave entity decisively. The Mountain God’s strength proves far greater when rooted in a tree than when previously drawn through a snake.
• Li Pusa is terrified and resigned to likely death, but still explains the Five-Powers Immortal when questioned. Hundred-Household Officer Zhu stays comparatively composed, though he privately despises the guide’s relentless flattery.
• The guide continues praising Lin Feng, who enjoys the flattery enough to lend him clothes—but remains focused on the danger ahead.
• The Butterfly Women, previously pursuing Lin Feng, attack Ironhead Viper and appear unwilling or unable to approach the temple itself, forming a barrier outside it.
• The chapter ends with Lin Feng confronted by a presence inside the temple, shifting the danger from the visible cave creature to an unseen, more powerful entity.

Significant themes

• Power versus liberation: The Five-Powers Immortal possesses immense supernatural abilities yet remains unable to escape death.
• Uncertainty of religious history: Buddhist and Daoist accounts contradict one another, and Lin Feng distrusts both sides’ claims.
• Fear, vigilance, and restraint: Lin Feng recognizes when he is underpowered and waits for a better chance rather than entering blindly.
• The uncanny and the hidden: The temple’s impossible interior and the unseen hand suggest that perception and ordinary physical boundaries cannot be trusted.

Plot points and events

• Inside the Land God’s temple, Lin Feng discovers that the place blocks the natural vitality that normally supports his Land God Incantation. The temple distorts space and perception so thoroughly that neither sight nor wind can be trusted.
• Unseen forces attack him and imitate familiar voices—including those of his family and colleagues—calling him by name. Lin Feng nearly answers but resists, uses a Dispelling Spell, and advances with his eyes closed, concentrating on the incantation and the ground beneath him.
• Despite walking what feels like hundreds of steps, he cannot get closer to the altar. Eventually he collides with a large vessel, apparently full of blood. Its stench and the sounds of grotesquely joyful chanting reveal that the temple contains more than the Land God: lamas or another hostile presence weaken Lin Feng’s incantation.
• Outside, Li Pusa, Hundred-Household Officer Zhu, and the guide wait by a bonfire while Mountain Spiders feed on the slain Ironhead Viper. The spiders’ hunger makes their temporary safety precarious.
• A strange voice possesses the guide and draws him toward the cave. Zhu tries to stop him, then beheads him; when the guide’s body reassembles and keeps moving, Zhu dismembers him. Li Pusa realizes the voice is dangerous and injures his own ears, but the guide’s severed head chants a spell that still compels him to crawl toward the cave.
• A grotesque, skeletal face watches from inside the cave, relishing the violence. It boasts that even the tomb-raider Jiangnan Sangge could not rob the tomb and threatens to turn Zhu’s head into a drinking vessel.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains disciplined under supernatural pressure. He recognizes that familiar voices and distorted perception are traps, refuses to answer them, and relies on focus rather than his usual senses. His confidence is tested when his incantation proves less effective.
• Li Pusa is torn between wanting Lin Feng to survive and fearing the consequences of his return. When the guide is possessed, Li quickly identifies the danger, but his attempt to protect himself by damaging his hearing fails.
• Hundred-Household Officer Zhu acts decisively and brutally, treating the possessed guide as a threat even when he appears human. His declaration that he is authorized to act reinforces the gulf between his official authority and Li’s shock.
• The guide becomes a helpless instrument of the supernatural voice; even decapitation and dismemberment cannot stop him.
• The grotesque face emerges as a malicious observer with apparent knowledge of the temple’s past, taunting the survivors and anticipating their deaths.

Significant themes

• Uncanny forces defy ordinary rules: space, perception, bodies, and even protective measures behave unpredictably.
• Discipline and self-control as survival: Lin Feng resists the voices by refusing to engage with them, while the others find that ordinary defenses—force, blood, or deafening themselves—are inadequate.
• The limits of power: Lin Feng’s familiar incantation is weakened inside the temple, and Zhu’s authority and violence cannot fully control what is happening.
• Fear, uncertainty, and compromised trust: familiar voices become threats, and the characters cannot know whether their senses or assumptions are reliable.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng breaches the Land God Temple’s Dharma Realm and discovers the grisly remains of a failed magical ritual: scattered body parts, ruined Buddhist implements, and a High Monk’s corpse burning a finger as a ghastly green “Butter Lamp.”
• The ritual had involved all eight magical artifacts and five High Monks, who were impaled in place as living anchors. Their blood and souls sustained a formation suppressing a sinister presence beneath the temple. The High Monks appear to have been tricked and stripped of their valuables.
• At the ritual’s center sits an ancient bronze outer coffin, but Lin Feng avoids approaching it and searches the debris instead.
• He finds a High Monk’s weak soul fragment and enters its memory. The vision reveals the monk’s past as Yang Wazi, a celebrated practitioner from Liangzhou.
• Jiangnan Sangge, a powerful monastic official and chancellor’s favorite, pressures Yang Wazi to join an expedition to the Western Hunan Mountains. Sangge claims to have robbed an imperial tomb and found a secret of immortality, as well as a Han-dynasty tomb hidden beneath a Land God Temple in Bull-Head Stockade.
• Yang Wazi initially refuses, recognizing that Sangge’s beautiful attendants are actually lethal zombies. Sangge threatens to destroy the Great Locust Tree Temple and harm the surrounding villages, forcing Yang Wazi to yield.
• The memory ends, and Lin Feng receives a temporary blessing: Sheep Boy Mage’s Blessing.

Character developments

• Lin Feng shifts from investigating and fighting within the temple to cautiously studying its ritual remains. His curiosity leads him to explore the soul fragment rather than approach the coffin.
• Yang Wazi is revealed as a revered, compassionate monk with powerful mantra practice, but also as someone whose devotion to his temple makes him vulnerable to coercion.
• Jiangnan Sangge is exposed as a ruthless, politically powerful figure who disguises threats and greed beneath a courteous manner. His apparent invitation is actually an order backed by violence.

Significant themes

• Religious ritual corrupted by violence: Buddhist artifacts and sacred practices have been turned into instruments of imprisonment and sacrifice.
• Power and coercion: Sangge uses political authority, threats, and Yang Wazi’s concern for others to force obedience.
• Greed and ambition: The promised “wealth and honor,” imperial tomb, and secret of immortality drive the expedition.
• Buried history and lingering danger: The temple’s formation, ancient coffin, and hidden Han-dynasty malevolent object suggest a threat—and a history—still active beneath the ruins.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng examines the dead monks and their ritual remains, then engages with one monk’s memories through the soul fragment.
• In the memory, Yang Wazi rejects Sangge’s proposal and identifies the danger posed by his zombie attendants.
• Sangge counters Yang Wazi’s refusal with praise, personal knowledge, and escalating threats against Yang Wazi, his temple, and nearby villages.
• Yang Wazi ultimately accepts the expedition to protect the Great Locust Tree Temple.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng receives two temporary blessings from the Sheep-Boy Mage: the Person-Reading Eye, which reveals disguises, and three syllables of the Six-Syllable Great Bright Mantra—“Om Mani.”
• His new sight reveals a blood-red infant inside the bronze coffin. The failing ritual seal briefly stirs, but the mantra suppresses the coffin. The weakening seal makes the chamber increasingly dangerous.
• Lin Feng decides to leave rather than confront the coffin. He has no intention of pursuing the full Buddhist mantra, since its spiritual benefits would draw him toward taking refuge in the Three Jewels—something incompatible with his goal of avoiding monastic devotion.
• The Person-Reading Eye exposes the temple’s hidden reality: Chi You Hide, a bloodied skin sustaining the darkness, is bound in a strange symbiosis with a monstrous Land God statue. Above the coffin, Chi You’s head and hooves appear to be suppressing it. Lin Feng also spots a tomb-robber’s tunnel, likely made by Jiangnan Sangge.
• Lin Feng retrieves the stone tablet, a Han-era priest’s writ to the Land God. Its lingering resentment consumes the flesh of his right hand and threatens his life, but the Sheep-Boy Mage’s mantra protects him.
• The game recognizes that the former Land God’s soul has vanished and appoints Lin Feng as successor. The transfer grants him the Xiang Region Land God Seal, the Bo Tone of the Land God’s Six Tones, and knowledge related to the Land God’s Staff. The former Land God’s imprint shatters, and Lin Feng gains nothing further from it.
• The contract also gives him rights tied to the temple: access to Chi You’s Five Weapons, command of the tomb guardian beast, and authority over Han Dynasty troops in the Underworld, along with an Underworld Tiger Tally. Some rights—such as receiving offerings and dragon-tiger qi—can no longer be exercised because the dynasty has changed. The Nether Soil is unavailable because King ? has corrupted it.

Character developments

• Lin Feng moves cautiously, weighing the danger against his objectives. He rejects the Six-Syllable Great Bright Mantra as a path he does not want to follow, but benefits from its protection. By the end, he unexpectedly becomes the Land God’s successor and the keeper of King ?’s coffin.
• The Sheep-Boy Mage appears as a golden, headless spirit. His blessings prove both perceptive and protective: his eye reveals concealed truths, while his mantra shields Lin Feng from the Land God’s resentment.
• The former Land God is confirmed to have dissipated almost completely, leaving only a fragile imprint and a harmful lingering resentment.
• The Dragon King and Jiangnan Sangge feature in the mage’s past: after the mage forced the Dragon King to bring rain, the Dragon King paid Jiangnan Sangge to break the mage’s powers and kill him.

Significant themes

• Knowledge versus danger: Seeing through illusion helps Lin Feng understand the temple, but also exposes him to its threats.
• The price of spiritual power: The mantra offers immense wisdom and protection, yet its spiritual pull could require devotion Lin Feng refuses.
• Succession and inherited obligations: Lin Feng gains divine authority through a contract, but inherits duties, restrictions, and a dangerous coffin.
• Decay and persistence: The ritual seal, the Land God’s imprint, and old political rights have weakened, while ancient curses and supernatural arrangements endure.

Character interactions

• The Sheep-Boy Mage’s blessings act as Lin Feng’s main support, revealing the hidden temple and protecting him when the stone tablet attacks.
• The mage’s history shows a chain of vengeance: his rainmaking defied the Dragon King, who retaliated through Jiangnan Sangge.
• Chi You’s manifestations and the Land God statue appear connected to the coffin, not simply guarding it but helping suppress it.
• Lin Feng’s contact with the priest’s writ triggers the Land God succession, binding him to the temple and its supernatural powers.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng reflects that he has inherited the Xiang Region Land God’s role—and its dangerous unfinished business. He believes the previous Land God was killed by the king sealed in the bronze coffin, whose resentment can destroy flesh and prevent it from regrowing. A mantra saved Lin Feng from losing more of his right arm, but his hand remains skeletal.
• Lin Feng takes stock of the powers and artifacts left by the Han Dynasty shamans. He gains the [bo] syllable, which can make Uncanny beings explode from within; Chi You’s Sword and a seeking halberd; and a sheep-headed Tomb Guardian Beast.
• The Tiger Tally cannot summon the Han Dynasty’s original Yin Soldiers. Instead, it animates soulless corpses as ghost soldiers. Lin Feng also realizes that the souls of the dead in the area are being taken toward Ascension Stockade.
• The Tally’s influence touches the coffin’s occupant, provoking a violent reaction. Blood erupts, two monks’ remains disintegrate, the Land God’s temple shakes, and the Chi You Hide splits. The formation barely contains the coffin’s presence.
• Corpse aura rises into the sky, forming a vast, bowl-shaped barrier over Bull-Head Mountain—an apparent encirclement hunt. A grotesque cave-dweller retreats in terror, while A Lu Hun and the Five-Powers Immortal head toward Lin Feng. As they approach, Lin Feng pulls off the Chi You Hide and notices the area has grown brighter.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains wary despite his new authority and equipment. He recognizes that the coffin’s occupant is far beyond his strength and focuses on surviving the eight hours he must remain on duty.
• His reaction to the Tiger Tally shifts from hopeful anticipation to disgust when he discovers it raises corpses rather than commanding genuine Yin Soldiers.
• The coffin’s presence responds angrily to the Tally’s attempted control, demonstrating that it is active and extraordinarily powerful.
• A Lu Hun, carrying the Kapala Bowl and the heads of men who summoned him, approaches the temple. The Five-Powers Immortal also moves toward Lin Feng, accompanied by a recitation of the Classic of Filial Piety.
• The cave-dweller is torn between greed for the temple and fear of what happened to his master, Jiangnan Gesang, and ultimately flees.

Significant themes

• Power comes with danger: Inheriting the Land God’s authority gives Lin Feng useful abilities but also makes him responsible for a threat that killed his predecessor.
• Death and the misuse of bodies and souls: Souls are seized and carried toward Ascension Stockade, while Lin Feng’s Tally repurposes soulless corpses as soldiers.
• False expectations and grim pragmatism: Lin Feng’s cynical humor punctures his hopes about the Tiger Tally, but he continues adapting to whatever resources he has.
• Escalating supernatural threat: The coffin’s reaction, the failing formation, and the encircling clouds turn a contained danger into a crisis affecting the whole mountain.

Chapter summary

After Lin Feng tears away [Chi You’s Skin], light enters the Land God Temple and reveals its true nature: the temple is the Land God’s body, which has served as a cage for the Han-Dynasty King’s Corpse. Without the cloak’s protection, the already damaged body crumbles, and the temple collapses, leaving the Coffin restrained only by Jiangnan Sangge’s remaining High Monk formation. Lin Feng realizes the Coffin’s occupant is closer than ever to breaking free—and that he is now trapped within a hundred paces of it.
The cloak heals Lin Feng’s badly injured arm and restores his strength, but its power comes at a terrible cost. Countless vengeful spirits attack his soul, and only the protections he has accumulated keep him from being mentally destroyed. Lin Feng recognizes [Chi You’s Skin] as a shamanic device made by concentrating the life force of enslaved people into their hair. It trades the lives of the powerless for the survival of the powerful, and its removal also means Chi You’s force is no longer helping to suppress the Coffin.
With less than an hour before unknown reinforcements arrive, Lin Feng tries several ways to attack or sacrifice the Coffin’s occupant, but cannot act freely. The strange face then appears, revealing that the guide, Hundred-Household Officer Zhu, and Li Pusa have all died. The face has made a drinking cup of Zhu’s skull. Lin Feng attacks with Chi You’s newly acquired weapon, tracking the face by its aura and hurling a short halberd into the cave after it.
Before he can turn back to the Coffin, A Lu Hun, a dangerous Corpse Demon of the Heavenly Demon Cult, arrives. His arrival brings a foul corpse-stench, and Red-Line Worms crawl from his face. Lin Feng’s readings identify him as a lower Fifth-Rank monster with black fortune and extreme threat. A Lu Hun ignores Lin Feng and focuses on the Coffin, beginning Buddhist incantations and ringing a Vajra Bell to awaken its occupant. Lin Feng strikes at the unnatural shadow beneath A Lu Hun’s feet and begins a counterattack; the chapter ends as their clash begins.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng moves from the disastrous success of removing the cloak to a wary, tactical resolve. He gains healing and renewed strength, but learns that his survival depends on multiple spiritual protections. He recognizes that the Coffin’s release is now imminent and faces two threats in quick succession.
• A Lu Hun is established as an exceptionally dangerous new antagonist. His attention is fixed on awakening the Coffin, not on fighting Lin Feng directly, forcing Lin Feng to intervene.
• The strange face is exposed as responsible for the deaths in the cave and for desecrating Zhu’s remains. Lin Feng responds with immediate hostility and attacks it.
• The guide, Zhu, and Li Pusa are confirmed dead; Li Pusa’s Wild God revives, but cannot save him.

Significant themes

• Power built on exploitation: The cloak’s healing power is revealed to depend on the lives of enslaved people, reflecting the chapter’s focus on slavery and the cruelty of treating human beings as property.
• The cost of supernatural power: Lin Feng benefits from the cloak but nearly loses his mind to the accumulated resentment within it.
• Fragile containment and escalating danger: The Land God Temple, the High Monk formation, and the cloak have all helped restrain the Coffin. As each safeguard fails, Lin Feng is forced into a desperate confrontation.
• Moral unease amid survival: Lin Feng’s practical use of supernatural protections contrasts with his recognition of the violence and human cost embedded in them.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng strikes A Lu Hun with Chiyou’s Sword, destroying an Evil Ghost and a demon tied to him. The attack turns A Lu Hun’s own refined ghosts against his cultivation, and Lin Feng hacks him apart.
• A second A Lu Hun appears and attacks with a monstrous skeletal hand made from infant bones. Master Yang Wazi’s lone, unadorned Buddhist syllable repels it; Lin Feng’s expulsion mantra then breaks the illusion and reveals the real A Lu Hun, wounded but healing.
• A Lu Hun recognizes Yang Wazi’s lingering intermediate-state body and dismisses Lin Feng as insignificant. He boasts of his past brutality against monks and Daoists, and explains his history with his junior fellow disciple, Jiangnan Sangge: both served the same State Preceptor, but Sangge came to rob the Han tomb, while A Lu Hun sought immortality. Sangge eventually tried to use him as a second body and guardian deity.
• A Lu Hun begins a “Cicada Shedding” transformation, casting off his flesh and bringing forth a hostile, shapeless power that drains the Mountain God’s power from the ground.
• The Han Dynasty Coffin, which had been waiting to emerge, is forced to act. Lin Feng cuts free of the skeletal bindings and retreats into a cave as the Coffin, A Lu Hun, and the Five-Powers Immortals clash. Butterfly Women and reanimated Confucian scholars pursue him, while the chapter ends with Lin Feng watching the three predators fight and noting that thirty-one minutes remain.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng proves resourceful: he uses Chiyou’s Sword, recognizes A Lu Hun’s illusion, and chooses to withdraw rather than risk being caught between powerful enemies.
• A Lu Hun is revealed as an ancient, highly accomplished and cruel figure whose apparent defeat was an illusion. His past includes war, manipulation, and attempts to destroy religious practitioners; he now seeks the Coffin and is transforming into something more dangerous.
• Master Yang Wazi demonstrates that even with his cultivation destroyed and only a remnant of Divine Sense remaining, his simple utterance retains extraordinary force. His presence unsettles A Lu Hun.
• Jiangnan Sangge is described through A Lu Hun’s account as a former fellow disciple who pursued the tomb’s riches and sought to turn A Lu Hun into a guardian body; their relationship ended in betrayal and mutual scheming.

Significant themes

• Power and hidden danger: Apparent victories and identities prove deceptive, while ancient beings and artifacts conceal far greater strength than expected.
• Betrayal and ambition: A Lu Hun and Sangge’s history reflects a world in which disciples, masters, and servants exploit one another for power and immortality.
• The persistence of spiritual force: Yang Wazi’s broken body and shattered cultivation cannot erase the power of his remaining spirit.
• Survival through restraint: Lin Feng survives not by confronting every threat, but by recognizing when to retreat and let stronger forces exhaust one another.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng enters the cave ahead of the other factions, following the wind’s guidance to an underground chamber. He is wary but confident, no longer seeing himself as the weakest prey.
• In the chamber, he finds Calamity Tai Sui: a mass of flesh that creates living people by sending pieces of itself into human skins. Its victims are not immortal; they have become a fungal collective driven by lingering obsession.
• The Tai Sui tries first to seize Lin Feng, then to lure him with promises of immortality and warnings that he is injured. His dragon-tiger qi and Master Yangwazi’s Six-Syllable Great Bright Mantra protect him from its attacks and persuasion.
• The iron-blue scholar and the Butterfly Women arrive, creating another three-sided standoff around Lin Feng. He considers using the chaos to perform a sacrifice and gain strength, reasoning that the Tai Sui contains enormous vitality.
• Meanwhile, A Lu Hun abandons his physical body and becomes an intangible, “Emptiness”-like being. He takes control of Lin Feng’s Yin Soldiers, transforming them into copies of himself, and uses three nearby corpses as vessels and ritual attendants.
• The Corpse tries to interfere with A Lu Hun’s transformation, but their contest takes place on a supernatural plane and A Lu Hun repeatedly overcomes it.
• The being inside the coffin begins to emerge. The last monk guarding it disintegrates, embalming fluid spills out, and the coffin’s occupant awakens.

Character developments

• Lin Feng is more strategic and self-assured than before. He stays calm under attack, recognizes the Tai Sui’s nature, and looks for ways to turn the surrounding conflict to his advantage.
• A Lu Hun reveals the full extent of his transformation. His obsession with surpassing his dead junior fellow disciple remains central, but he has become a powerful, disembodied entity who needs vessels to affect the world.
• The Tai Sui’s victims are shown to retain neither ordinary identity nor intelligence—only obsession—and to function collectively as a predatory lure.
• The Corpse is established as an entity that anchors itself in the world through contracts and human agents, setting it apart from A Lu Hun.

Significant themes

• False immortality: The Tai Sui’s “medicine” preserves life in a grotesque, inhuman form rather than granting true immortality.
• Obsession and identity: The Tai Sui’s victims and A Lu Hun are both shaped by fixation, while A Lu Hun’s transformation raises questions about whether anything of his former self remains.
• Emptiness and spiritual transformation: Buddhist ideas of Emptiness are invoked as A Lu Hun becomes something beyond ordinary physical existence, though his state is portrayed as heterodox rather than Buddhist enlightenment.
• Predation and deception: The Tai Sui’s promises of immortality resemble an anglerfish’s lure, making belief itself a trap.
• Power and possession: A Lu Hun’s seizure of Lin Feng’s Yin Soldiers shows how control and allegiance can be overturned in a contest between supernatural forces.

Character interactions

• The Tai Sui attempts to overpower and tempt Lin Feng, but his protections and skepticism defeat both approaches.
• Lin Feng watches the scholar and Butterfly Women arrive, weighing whether their confrontation can provide an opportunity for him.
• A Lu Hun challenges the Corpse over access to the world; the Corpse’s contract-based foothold clashes with A Lu Hun’s need for a vessel.
• A Lu Hun takes Lin Feng’s soldiers and uses the guide, Li Pusa, and Hundred-Household Officer Zhu as manifestations of his power, while the awakened being in the coffin becomes a new looming presence.

Key plot points

• Lin Feng escapes the cave with Butterfly Woman and the Iron-Blue Scholar, then hides while Corpse and A Lu Hun’s forces clash. The pregnant-looking man in the coffin notices him but remains occupied.
• Lin Feng has just sacrificed the Calamity Tai Sui, destroying it and absorbing its power. His Life Seed rises to 3,700%, while his appearance and aura become increasingly inhuman and menacing.
• The A Lu Huns perform a ritual that invokes a terrifying “Thousand-Eyed, Hundred-Armed Blood Bodhisattva.” Its worm-like, eye-covered arms infect onlookers, draining their blood, vitality, and souls. Corpse struggles to control the chaos.
• The pregnant man offers Lin Feng a bargain: help destroy the two manifestations, and he will teach him how to refine an “immortal embryo,” along with witchcraft and Gu Poison Arts. Lin Feng accepts and puts away the man’s finger-bone token.
• As they agree on a plan, Corpse’s side reshapes the surroundings into an ancestral-worship dream. The gathering appears to honor the Blood Bodhisattva and the “immortal embryo.”

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains wary and opportunistic, hoping his powerful enemies will weaken one another. Though newly strengthened by the Tai Sui, he recognizes the danger of his altered, increasingly monstrous state. He negotiates with the coffin-dweller because he now has enough strength to play a role in the conflict.
• The coffin-dweller shifts from ignoring Lin Feng to recruiting him, offering forbidden knowledge in exchange for help. His claim to have cursed powerful nobles to death suggests formidable abilities.
• Corpse and A Lu Hun are powerful but constrained by the need for Anchors to affect the mortal world. Their struggle escalates as rituals and manifestations threaten everyone nearby.

Significant themes

• Anchors, memory, and existence: Transcendent beings need names, rituals, or writing to remain connected to the world; what is forgotten may eventually vanish.
• Humanity versus power: Lin Feng’s growth brings strength but also pushes him toward an inhuman form.
• Opportunism amid chaos: Lin Feng survives by observing, bargaining, and letting stronger forces exhaust one another.
• The horror of corrupted religion and immortality: The Blood Bodhisattva’s grotesque manifestation and the bargain to create an “immortal embryo” make spiritual power appear predatory rather than benevolent.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• During a Double Ninth ancestor-worship rite, the Ancestral Hall burns the vitality of the surrounding trees to fuel an immense grievance. The sacrifice weakens the power supporting Lin Feng’s opponents and makes the Hall itself appear ancient and decayed.
• The rite destroys the corpse-based A Lu Huns, preventing their resurrection—but new ones emerge from the Blood Bodhisattva’s eyes to keep him anchored. Meanwhile, the Immortal Embryo attacks the Ancestral Hall with the Sun-Shooting Method, injuring the Corpse through the worshippers and causing the Hall to bleed.
• As the battle intensifies, Lin Feng waits for a chance to act. Wearing the [Chi You Hide] strengthens him and gives his wind a baleful, blood-soaked quality, though the hide consumes vitality and carries the danger of possession. His abundant Life Seed lets him withstand the cost.
• The Immortal Embryo’s own power turns against him: his embryo begins to emerge, and A Lu Hun attacks while he is vulnerable. Lin Feng intervenes, using his final short halberd to blast the Blood Bodhisattva and then sacrificing his own vitality to burn away part of the Corpse Curtain.
• The strike exposes the Corpse’s face. Lin Feng sees something he cannot remember, and his eye begins gestating an unknown being. He expels it with a surge of wind and spirits, temporarily holding back the Blood Bodhisattva.
• The Immortal Embryo tries to seize Lin Feng and asks to use the Corpse to suppress his “precious Qilin son.” Lin Feng counters by striking the Immortal Embryo and demanding the chance to draw blood from that son. The four-way struggle—Lin Feng, the Immortal Embryo, the Corpse, and the Blood Bodhisattva—continues, with five minutes remaining.
• In a separate Underworld scene, Daoist Zhang Zhuoen and Judge Cui encounter an uncanny village blocking their way. Zhang first tries courtesy and offers gifts, but when the village refuses to yield, he erupts in purple-gold True Fire and summons a gigantic Wang Lingguan to crush it.

Character developments

• Lin Feng shifts from cautious observer to an active and disruptive combatant. He accepts the risks of the Chi You Hide, exploits the moment when his enemies are vulnerable, and makes clear that he intends to claim a share of the spoils rather than let anyone else prevail.
• The Immortal Embryo is revealed to be powerful but not in control of his own condition: his embryo reacts violently to repeated use of the Sun-Shooting Method, leaving him exposed to A Lu Hun and Lin Feng.
• Zhang Zhuoen shows two sides of his nature. His initial politeness is genuine enough, but he ultimately embraces his fierce temper, declaring that it is part of his truth rather than something he must suppress.
• The Corpse is badly hurt when Lin Feng’s sacrificial strike burns away part of the curtain concealing his face, though the exposure also triggers a dangerous effect in Lin Feng.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and its cost: The ancestral rite consumes forest vitality, while Lin Feng spends his own vitality to damage the Corpse. Power is repeatedly gained or applied through something being depleted.
• Control, vulnerability, and opportunism: Each powerful being has a weakness or competing need, and Lin Feng survives by watching for openings and preventing anyone from gaining an advantage.
• Identity and self-acceptance: Zhang Zhuoen’s declaration that his temper is part of his truth contrasts with the chapter’s many attempts to transform, possess, or control others.
• The uncanny and the unknown: The exposed face, the being gestating in Lin Feng’s eye, and the Corpse’s hidden nature emphasize that glimpsing the truth can itself be dangerous.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng observes the clash between A Lu Hun, the Immortal Embryo, and the Corpse, then intervenes when A Lu Hun threatens to take the Immortal Embryo.
• The Immortal Embryo attempts to recruit Lin Feng by offering the Corpse as a tool; Lin Feng responds with his own demand, turning the negotiation into another attack.
• Zhang Zhuoen treats Judge Cui as a trusted companion, telling him to stand back before confronting the uncanny villagers himself. His courteous negotiation with the village ends in a furious display of force.