Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• With only two Ritual Bell minutes remaining, a brutal battle rages on Bull-Head Mountain among Lin Feng, the Blood Bodhisattva A Lu Hun, the corpse Uncanny Corpse, and the Great Exorcist’s Immortal Embryo. Each maintains a small “Pure Land” against the encroaching blood sea, while alliances repeatedly shift.
• Lin Feng uses the Chi You Hide to summon Chi You, whose savage power holds back the blood sea. But the effort drains Lin Feng’s vitality and the mountain’s life force; his arm and Life Seed are nearly spent.
• Corpse is badly wounded and tainted by A Lu Hun’s Red-Line Worms, forcing it onto the defensive. Meanwhile, A Lu Hun grows stronger by consuming Corpse’s offerings and begins transforming its corrupted Buddhist ritual into a means of birthing a demon child.
• The Immortal Embryo, revealed to be a living being that struggles for control with the Great Exorcist, escapes through a costly prayer to the Big Dipper, leaving behind its skin.
• With 57 seconds left, A Lu Hun and Corpse both turn on Lin Feng, hoping to consume him. Lin Feng uses the finger bone he had kept from the Immortal Embryo to strike at A Lu Hun’s source, draining vitality from the Bodhisattva and reviving himself and Chi You. Corpse joins the attack on A Lu Hun, and Lin Feng commits to a final blow, aided by Master Yang Wazi’s Buddhist light.
• At the climax, Zhang Zhuoen appears with a rare third-grade Shangqing Firmament True Fire Talisman. He praises Lin Feng’s courage and loyalty, then unleashes True Fire against the Blood Bodhisattva.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng proves both resourceful and resolute: despite being near death, he uses the finger bone at the decisive moment and keeps fighting to protect his chance of survival. He also learns why the Shamans withheld the Chi You Hide: its power can drain a human user to death.
• A Lu Hun shifts from struggling among several opponents to dominating the battle, but Lin Feng’s strike exposes a vulnerability and draws both Lin Feng and Corpse against it.
• The Immortal Embryo is established as an independent, scheming being—not merely the Great Exorcist’s tool—and retreats while planning future revenge.
• Corpse moves from defending itself against A Lu Hun’s influence to attacking it once Lin Feng’s sacrifice creates an opening.
• Zhang Zhuoen enters as an unexpected ally, recognizing Lin Feng’s bravery and supporting the final assault.

Significant themes

• Power has a price: Chi You’s strength consumes Lin Feng’s vitality and threatens the land sustaining him.
• Trust and shifting alliances: The combatants repeatedly cooperate and betray one another, guided by immediate survival.
• Courage under impossible odds: Lin Feng continues fighting despite exhaustion and near-certain death, earning Zhang Zhuoen’s praise.
• Corruption and transformation: A Lu Hun twists sacred Buddhist practices toward demonic ends, while the Immortal Embryo’s escape demonstrates the dangerous cost of supernatural power.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng survives his final clash with Chi You, though his Intent is nearly overwhelmed. His swordsmanship carries on by instinct, while the sounds [fa][bo] and Master Yangwazi’s blessing protect his True Spirit.
• Under this pressure, Lin Feng awakens the virtue [Unyielding]: he can recognize negative influences such as pain, terror, or beguilement and locate their source.
• Daoist Zhang Zhuoen arrives, subdues Lin Feng when the injured man keeps attacking blindly, and has the Six Ding and Six Jia Divine Generals guard the area. He wards against the dangerous Ascension Stockade and tends to Lin Feng.
• Zhang reports driving off the Five-Powers Immortal, or Corpse, and Bodhisattva A Lu Hun. He has gravely wounded Corpse, removed all of A Lu Hun’s Anchors, and burned Lin Feng’s exhausted Chi You Hide.
• Lin Feng wakes to find the rest of his companions gone. He grieves that he could not save them, though Zhang assures him he did everything he could.
• Zhang explains that Corpse and A Lu Hun are beings pursuing immortality through dangerous heterodox methods—ultimately blood gods or evil ghosts, not true immortals or bodhisattvas.
• Their conversation turns to Lin Feng’s shamanic arts and the eccentric scholar who authored them. Zhang recognizes the description and reveals that the thunder over the Ascension Stockade is the residue of that scholar’s magical battle.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng is physically devastated but has endured Chi You’s attempt to seize his Intent, showing the resolve that awakens his new virtue. He also confronts the limits of his efforts and mourns his fallen companions.
• Zhang Zhuoen appears as a powerful, practical Daoist, but also as a candid mentor. He reveals that he reincarnated after narrowly missing immortality in a previous life and has attained it in this one. His account reflects both humility about how rare such success is and skepticism toward shortcuts.
• Zhang tends Lin Feng with water, explains what happened, and reassures him; Lin Feng asks about his enemies and the nature of the shamanic arts. Their exchange shifts from rescue and grief to spiritual history and a surprising connection to Lin Feng’s teacher.

Significant themes

• Conviction under spiritual assault: Lin Feng’s new virtue emerges from resisting an attack on his mind and identity.
• The cost and limits of heroism: Lin Feng tried to save everyone, but survival and outcomes are not always controlled by effort alone.
• Safe discipline versus shortcuts: Zhang argues that inherited precepts protect practitioners, while the pursuit of unrestrained, easy paths leads to corruption.
• True transcendence versus false divinity: Powerful supernatural beings may claim sacred titles, yet remain bound to flawed methods and harmful appetites.
• Unexpected connections: Lin Feng’s supposedly obscure teacher is linked to the great magical conflict whose effects still shape the region.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng learns that the [Shaman Priest’s Art] belongs to a living master, making him that man’s disciple—an unexpected bond that carries serious duties and risks.
• Daoist Zhang Zhuoen explains the history of the Ascension Stockade: Song rulers’ relentless mining damaged local Earth Veins and unearthed malign forces. Lin Feng’s master, once an idealistic official, failed to persuade the court to stop the destruction. After the Jingkang Humiliation and further political disappointments, he entered the mountains to make one final attempt to help the people. He survived, though he is now neither truly alive nor free to help Lin Feng.
• Zhang advises Lin Feng not to become a Mountain God. Such a role would limit his future, and the Western Hunan Mountains will not receive another appointed deity.
• Lin Feng asks about the Tusi’s creation of a Yangtongzi, a Mountain God’s son, and about the Sheep-Boy Mage’s fate. Zhang warns that Jiangnan Sangge’s methods likely make the Mage impossible to save.
• Before leaving to investigate the mountains, Zhang promises to teach Lin Feng two arts and begins with the True Form Diagram of the Five Sacred Mountains.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng accepts the reality of his new master-disciple tie, feeling burdened but also looking for whatever advantage he can gain from it. He remains wary of becoming a Mountain God and uses humor to mask how outmatched he feels beside Zhang.
• Zhang alternates between teasing, guarded explanations, and genuine instruction. His familiarity with Lin Feng’s master hints at a deeper connection, though he brushes it off by calling him a friend.
• Their conversation shifts from practical questions and comic banter to a somber reflection on failed ideals and the fate of good people.

Significant themes

• Master-disciple bonds and responsibility: In this world, inheriting a tradition creates obligations and shared consequences.
• Idealism versus political failure: Lin Feng’s master devoted his life to helping people but was repeatedly thwarted by a collapsing court.
• Power and constraint: Becoming a deity may offer strength but can also permanently restrict one’s path.
• The cost of goodness: The chapter questions whether virtue is rewarded, especially when powerful institutions fail to protect the righteous.

Key plot points and events

• Zhang Zhuoen teaches Lin Feng the Mount Tai portion of the True Form Diagram of the Five Sacred Mountains. Rather than memorizing its strange lines and script, Lin is told to grasp the mountain’s essence and draw the diagram in one breath.
• While Lin studies, Zhang speaks to his master through a Thousand-Li Voice Transmission artifact, denying that he deliberately interrupted the connection and defending his decision to help Lin as a favor to an old friend. The nearby Six Ding and Six Jia officers pretend not to hear.
• Lin’s insight completes the diagram in his mind. The system confirms he has permanently learned the Mount Tai True Form Diagram, which can draw on Mount Tai’s power for suppression, expulsion, protection, and artifact refinement.
• Zhang then gives Lin a second permanent skill: his self-created soul-refinement art, Taiyin Plain Body. Its effects are unknown, even to Lin.
• Lin wonders whether receiving Zhang’s secret art makes him Zhang’s disciple and whether he must choose between Zhang and his existing master. Before he can ask, Zhang leaves, warning that their next meeting may not be friendly.
• Lin logs out of the game and heads to the train station, pleased with the two permanent arts he has gained. On the train, he reads that a debris flow in Western Hunan has badly injured an archaeological team. They are being sent to the Provincial Key People’s Hospital—the hospital where Xu Nian works, prompting Lin to suspect a coincidence.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains eager to collect permanent skills, but the transmission also leaves him with a stronger sense of wonder and an emotional reluctance to leave the game. He takes Zhang’s gift seriously as a possible bond of lineage, showing loyalty to his current master.
• Zhang Zhuoen acts like a generous but evasive mentor: he patiently teaches Lin, secretly arranges to give him extra help, and then abruptly departs after warning of a future conflict.
• Zhang’s master appears only through their conversation. Zhang’s defensive, candid replies suggest a close relationship and a master who knows his disciple’s habits well.
• The Six Ding and Six Jia silently avoid involvement, wary of Zhang’s status and future standing.
• Lin’s brief return to the real world reconnects the supernatural events to his journey and to Xu Nian, through the news of the injured archaeological team.

Significant themes

• Understanding over rote memorization: Lin learns the diagram by grasping its meaning and spiritual essence, not by simply copying it.
• Lineage, loyalty, and obligation: Zhang’s gift raises questions about what makes someone a disciple and whether accepting new teachings conflicts with existing loyalties.
• Coincidence and fate: The chapter ends by linking Lin’s journey through the game to a real-world emergency that may involve someone he knows.
• Humor alongside mystery: Zhang’s absurdly transparent excuses and Lin’s game-like focus on rewards contrast with the ominous warning about their next meeting and the unexplained events surrounding the disaster.

Key plot points and events

• On a high-speed train, Lin Feng connects a series of ominous clues: an archaeological team’s disaster, tomb robbers, and a gathering of people at a major hospital. He fears something dangerous may have been unearthed and could spread through the hospital’s large, mobile population—especially children seeking treatment. He speculates about several supernatural threats, but has no confirmation.
• Despite his fears, Lin Feng takes comfort in ordinary life: sunshine, a friendly train attendant, and the dried fruit he buys. He reflects that he prefers the present to returning to the past.
• Earlier that night, at a township clinic near the Western Hunan mountains, a nurse spots muddy footprints outside her window and realizes someone had been watching her. The duty doctor, Xie, emerges wearing muddy leather shoes that match the signs outside. Frightened, she tests him with an excuse to leave and then hurries away without her bag.
• Xie seems confused and forgetful, and returns to sleep. After the clinic lights go out, its door opens and chanting begins inside.
• A rescue-team captain, already troubled by a strange sound he heard after passing out in the mountains, sees the nurse walking alone in the rain. He notices her unnatural, sickly-sweet smell and hears an uncanny sound from her throat.
• In the truck, the captain hears driver Xiao Yang make the same strange sound he remembers. Though Xiao Yang appears normal, the captain compares maps and discovers that the team’s route included a stretch of road that does not exist on either map. The team had rescued people by traveling along an impossible road. Alarmed, he tries to open the truck door, triggering its warning beep.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng is observant and increasingly convinced that several incidents are connected. His anxious speculation contrasts with his appreciation for simple, peaceful moments. He unknowingly unsettles a fellow passenger, who avoids him.
• The nurse shifts from assertive and combative—cursing the unseen watcher and gripping a shovel—to genuinely afraid once she recognizes the doctor’s shoes. She chooses to flee rather than confront him.
• Doctor Xie appears exhausted, detached, and strangely forgetful. His muddy shoes implicate him in the nurse’s encounter, while the chanting after he returns to his room suggests something is seriously wrong at the clinic.
• The rescue captain becomes more suspicious as sensory details echo his earlier experience. He checks Xiao Yang’s identity and consults maps, moving from uncertainty to recognition that the rescue route was supernatural.
• Xiao Yang behaves casually and reassuringly, offering the captain a bath, but his strange throat sound intensifies the captain’s fear.

Significant themes

• Coincidence versus hidden patterns: Lin Feng and the captain both notice details that suggest separate events may be connected.
• The uncanny invading ordinary life: A clinic, a hospital, a rescue truck, and a train become settings for unsettling supernatural signs.
• Unreliable perception and memory: The captain’s lost time, the nurse’s uncanny behavior, and Xie’s forgetfulness leave characters unsure what they can trust.
• Fear and survival: The nurse relies on toughness to protect herself, while the captain responds to danger by investigating and trying to escape.
• Appreciation of the present: Lin Feng’s calm enjoyment of sunshine and everyday comforts stands against the growing threat.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng travels urgently from Fog City to visit Xu Nian in hospital, arriving despite a long journey and carrying luggage.
• At the hospital, he notices that everyone—from patients’ relatives to doctors and nurses—has the same ominous fortune: “Black Clouds Pressing Down, Blood Qi Entwining the Body.” He concludes that something supernatural is affecting the entire hospital.
• Xu Nian’s mother lets him into her ward after questioning him about his relationship with her daughter. Lin Feng detects the smell of Five-Organs Incense on Xu Nian and, when he checks her with his qi, she convulses and begins coughing.
• Lin Feng discovers three unusual influences on Xu Nian: a blood-red seed in her Divine Sense, hidden worm eggs in her abdomen, and a burned-down divine effigy pendant that is protecting her by suppressing the sinister qi. He judges that she is in danger but is not about to die.
• A masked, heavily disguised person watches the ward, then leaves after seeming to notice Lin Feng’s unseen companions. The person’s black-and-red aura makes Lin Feng suspect they may be connected to what happened to Xu Nian.
• Lin Feng persuades Xu Nian’s exhausted mother to get food and rest, promising to call if anything changes. After she leaves, he sits beside Xu Nian and begins to act.

Character development

• Lin Feng is shown as observant, resourceful, and remarkably composed under pressure. Rather than panic when Xu Nian worsens, he calmly investigates her condition and plans his next move.
• Xu Nian’s mother is anxious and protective, and initially wary of Lin Feng’s apparent closeness to her daughter. Her exhaustion eventually outweighs her hesitation, and she accepts his help.
• Xu Nian remains unconscious, but the revelations about the seed, worm eggs, and protective pendant show that her illness is supernatural and deliberately imposed.

Character interactions

• Xu Nian’s mother scrutinizes Lin Feng as a possible romantic interest, while Lin Feng tries to reassure her and conceal the seriousness of what he has discovered.
• Lin Feng uses his unseen companions to observe the disguised watcher and to keep his belongings guarded.
• When Xu Nian’s mother panics during Xu Nian’s episode, Lin Feng steadies and comforts her, then gains her trust enough to stay with Xu Nian alone.

Significant themes

• Hidden danger beneath ordinary life: A busy, routine hospital conceals a supernatural threat.
• Composure in crisis: Lin Feng’s calmness allows him to recognize clues and act effectively.
• Protection and vulnerability: Xu Nian is being harmed by unseen forces, while the pendant offers limited protection and her mother and Lin Feng try to safeguard her.
• Suspicion and investigation: The ominous fortunes, strange scents, and masked observer point toward a deliberate culprit and a larger mystery.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng studies Zhang Enzhuo’s Great Yin Plain Body, a moon-powered art that strengthens the soul and can affect both spirits and physical beings. He sees it as a valuable addition to his abilities, though its nighttime cultivation and increasingly inhuman feel concern him.
• He removes Xu Nian’s rhinoceros-horn amulet to expose the supernatural forces inside her. The Seven Warlords of the Sea extract a Divine Sense seed from her brain, then—with replacements for the exhausted spirits—remove a Worm Egg from her abdomen.
• Xu Nian’s fever breaks, and her mother rejoices. Lin Feng believes he has resolved her immediate danger.
• An ambulance brings in the archaeological team. Their captain, injured and terrified, insists that people around him have been replaced by inhuman impostors. Lin Feng’s Qi-Observing Dharma Eye shows ominous signs of danger around the captain and others.
• Lin Feng learns that the captain jumped from Xiao Yang’s moving vehicle the previous night, apparently after seeing something behind him. Lin Feng secretly adds Longevity Worm powder to liquor.
• Soon afterward, the captain, archaeological team members, and security personnel abruptly struggle free and rush toward Lin Feng, as if summoned. Lin Feng pours out the liquor and leaves the restroom as chaos erupts.

Character developments

• Lin Feng remains pragmatic and unsentimental about supernatural power: he treats the Land God’s Six Tones as a weapon, not a healing art. He also expands his own capabilities by studying soul cultivation and demonstrates confidence in handling the Divine Sense and Worm Egg.
• Xu Nian recovers physically after the two entities are removed; the rhinoceros-horn amulet had helped protect her.
• The captain is psychologically shattered by what he encountered and is convinced that the rescue team brought back horrors disguised as people.
• Xiao Yang and the rescue team are distressed by the captain’s behavior, especially because their close bonds make his terror and accusations deeply painful.

Significant themes

• Power as transaction: The Land Gods protect those who pay tribute; their aid is conditional rather than compassionate.
• The supernatural requires supernatural countermeasures: Lin Feng relies on the Seven Warlords to remove entities that ordinary medicine cannot address.
• Fear and unreliable appearances: The captain’s seemingly insane warnings gain credibility through Lin Feng’s ominous observations and the later outbreak.
• Useful knowledge can be dangerous: Lin Feng’s new techniques and Longevity Worm powder offer practical solutions, but their effects also bring new risks.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng directs the Seven Warlords in extracting the entities from Xu Nian, while physically restraining her and removing her protective amulet.
• Xu Nian’s mother expresses relief to Lin Feng after her daughter’s fever breaks.
• The captain clashes with the hospital staff and Xiao Yang, pleading with them to believe that people have been replaced.
• Lin Feng secretly listens to Xiao Yang’s account, then uses the liquor and powder as the supernatural disturbance begins.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng assesses the hospital outbreak with Longevity Worm powder. The danger remains localized and manageable, though the captain with the broken leg, Professor Han, and several surviving camp members are affected. He decides the threat must be exorcised, but rejects a conventional religious ceremony and instead resolves to “serve up a feast.”
• Xu Nian wakes in hospital. Lin Feng visits after her mother calls, and Xu Nian asks to speak with him privately.
• Xu Nian recounts the strange events from the expedition: she suspects her senior, Ran Zhihui, followed the group into the mountains and may now be watching her. She asks Lin Feng for a weapon and wants to know what happened to her professor and fellow students.
• Officials question Xu Nian, but she gives them little new information. They tell her that Professor Han and three students survived, while the others died despite efforts to save them.
• Lin Feng leaves the hospital and meditates in a hotel. He notices that the hospital is unusually free of the invisible beings he expected to find, leading him to suspect they may be drawn by his presence.
• After gathering enough qi, Lin Feng uses Cursecraft on a Divine Sense and Worm Egg. Through their connection, he glimpses the Flesh · Priest Mask—an entity he recognizes—and burns it before it can respond. A dried corpse gives a mournful cry and is destroyed.

Character developments

• Lin Feng remains calm and confident, treating the hospital crisis as a controlled problem. He keeps his true abilities hidden, presents himself as a curious occult enthusiast, and takes direct action against the entity behind the events.
• Xu Nian is shaken and frightened, but trusts Lin Feng enough to confide in him. She is determined to learn what happened to her professor and suspects her senior is pursuing her.
• Xu Nian’s mother is caring but unable to help with the supernatural danger; Xu Nian deliberately keeps the details from her to avoid causing more anxiety.
• Professor Han is established as a generous, capable mentor who gave Xu Nian a valuable protective pendant and helped her survive.

Significant themes

• Appearance versus reality: Lin Feng’s casual, unemployed persona conceals formidable supernatural power.
• Fear, trust, and isolation: Xu Nian cannot rely on her mother to understand the danger, so she turns to Lin Feng.
• Ritual and practical action: Lin Feng weighs conventional religious rites against his own unconventional methods.
• Localized danger and hidden causes: The hospital seems safe, while Lin Feng’s meditation suggests the supernatural manifestations may be connected to him.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng reassures Xu Nian, listens to her account, and agrees to get her an entrenching shovel, while concealing his deeper knowledge.
• Xu Nian’s mother asks Lin Feng to look after her daughter; Xu Nian sends her away so she can speak privately.
• Officials question Xu Nian and deliver the news of the expedition’s casualties.
• Lin Feng’s final confrontation is indirect but decisive: he reaches the Flesh · Priest Mask through the linked objects and destroys it before it can act.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• A high-level consultation at Provincial Key Hospital examines 22 patients found in an uninhabited mountain region. Their scans suggest a dangerous, unidentified parasitic disease, with parasites appearing in multiple organs and possibly near the brain.
• The specialists judge surgery to be extremely risky but agree it may be the patients’ only chance, and preparations begin.
• Before treatment can proceed, Lin Feng’s sacrificial flames reach the patients and others connected to the curse. The flames remove the parasites, Divine Sense seeds, and memories of the affected period.
• Lin Feng traces the curse to a long-dead, masked Corpse that had become a Ghost. The ritual destroys it, leaving only its mask, and its power feeds Lin Feng’s Life Seed, raising it from 470% to 910%.
• A second, separate power connected to the hospital captain remains dormant after Lin Feng disrupts the first. The captain collapses and later remains conscious but unable to wake.
• Ran Zhihui, a senior fellow disciple connected to Xu Nian, suddenly burns away in public.
• Lin Feng meditates using the Taiyin Plain Body technique, drawing in moonlight after the sacrifice.
• At the hospital, the patients wake and are found to have recovered inexplicably. The captain, still trapped in a sleep-paralysis-like state, sees Little Yang’s apparent human form melt away, revealing something beneath.

Character developments and interactions

• Doctor Qin and the specialists confront the limits of medicine. Despite their expertise, they cannot identify the parasite or offer a safe treatment, and reluctantly prepare for high-risk surgery.
• Lin Feng demonstrates powerful ritual abilities, eliminates the curse’s source, and grows stronger by absorbing its remains. He also senses that the captain is connected to another, distinct power.
• The patients recover without understanding what happened; their memories of the supernatural intervention are erased.
• The captain becomes the unresolved focus of danger: one influence has been removed, but another still affects him.
• Ran Zhihui’s abrupt death suggests Lin Feng’s actions have consequences beyond the hospital and the mountain patients.

Significant themes

• The limits of human medicine: Even the best doctors must face illnesses beyond their knowledge and control.
• Hidden supernatural forces: The apparent disease is part of a curse involving spiritual seeds, witchcraft, and a Ghost.
• Power and sacrifice: Lin Feng’s ritual protects the victims while strengthening him.
• Unfinished threats and altered appearances: The captain’s remaining influence and Little Yang’s revealed nature suggest that the danger is not over.

Key plot points and events

• After neutralizing the shaman’s attack on the archaeological team, Lin Feng realizes he has only treated the symptoms. The underlying danger in the Western Hunan Mountains remains, and more incidents may follow unless its source is dealt with.
• Lin Feng reflects on the shaman’s Cursecraft, which resembles his own use of offerings through a Medium. Because the two wielded related powers—but Lin Feng was much stronger—he traced the connection back and killed the shaman before the attack could succeed.
• He suspects the shaman’s Priest Mask and the archaeological captain’s group represent separate supernatural systems: the mask’s Cursecraft and a Blood God system linked to the Bloodline Worm. The shaman had endured for ages without replenishment, suggesting the mountains contain a hidden realm cut off from ordinary reality.
• Lin Feng connects the team’s disappearance and return to the idea of a hidden place, comparing it to the Peach Blossom Spring—though this realm is far more hostile. He plans to visit Professor Han alongside Xu Nian and investigate what the team uncovered, while remaining wary of the captain.
• After cultivating overnight, Lin Feng discovers the game’s Western Hunan Blood God stage is sealed. The tutorial is complete, but he lacks the balance to enter; other new games are also inaccessible because he fails their unknown requirements.
• A separate door offers a free game in three days. Lin Feng glimpses a crowded, likely southern Qing-era town, with teahouses, shops, a foreign clinic, and people in traditional clothing. The glimpse leaves him curious about the next setting.
• He ends by checking the exchange menu, hoping to see what his latest game rewards yielded. He notes that he gained the Five Sacred Mountains (Mount Tai) True Form Diagram and Taiyin Plain Body from Zhang Zhuoen, but no Fortune.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng grows more alert to the wider threat: he recognizes that defeating the shaman does not resolve the danger and begins planning a cautious investigation of the mountain’s secrets. His cultivation also advances to eleven wisps, bringing the Eighth Rank within reach.
• The shaman is revealed as powerful, disciplined, and near death after surviving for an extremely long time with little sustenance. He had restrained his hunger enough to pursue a larger plan, releasing “seeds” to spread and multiply, but Lin Feng’s intervention thwarted him.
• Li Pusa’s master is recalled as a cruel figure who abducted and orphaned a child to invoke a Wild God. Lin Feng believes the master will eventually face the Uncanny without a disciple to sustain him.
• Lin Feng’s interactions with the game are mostly comic frustration: it blocks him from the old stage and most new ones with cryptic prompts, while offering only a countdown to the free game. He also anticipates speaking with Professor Han and accompanying Xu Nian as a pretext to inspect the archaeological discoveries.

Significant themes

• Treating symptoms versus confronting causes: The team is safe for now, but the mountain’s underlying evil remains.
• Hidden realms and reality’s instability: The expedition appears to have entered a place outside ordinary geography and brought its dangers back with them.
• Power, sacrifice, and supernatural “ownership”: Offerings can carry higher-level ties, making divine intervention risky; Lin Feng’s understanding of this system gives him a decisive advantage.
• Restraint and ruthlessness: The shaman’s ability to control his hunger makes him formidable, while his plans and past consumption reveal his brutality.
• Uncertainty and anticipation: The game’s sealed doors and unexplained requirements frustrate Lin Feng, but the glimpse of a new historical setting gives him a fresh mystery to look forward to.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Feng reviews the game console’s redemption lists. Most supernatural arts and items are available, but Zhang Zhuoen’s orthodox teachings are locked behind demanding initiation and training requirements—and even then, success is uncertain. The listed alternative arts are costly, so Lin Feng decides to avoid spending money.
• He recalls how to make a Land God’s scepter, which requires binding it to a piece of land. He reasons that the Heavenly Court is unlikely to punish him directly and that modern laws and surveillance would deter any Daoist who tried to attack him.
• Lin Feng obtains a free offcut of cherry wood from a lumber shop and takes it to the hospital, where he meets Teacher Xu. Teacher Xu recognizes Lin Feng and reveals that he had once supported Xu Nian’s place on Professor Han’s team.
• Professor Han, now suddenly aged and deeply shaken by the expedition’s curse, tells Xu Nian to leave archaeology and urges her to stay safe. He gives her a USB drive, warning her not to view or show its contents, and asks her to preserve it until after his death. He also notes that the Lingguan image Xu Nian wore has nearly worn away.
• Xu Nian leaves troubled but determined to learn what is on the drive. Lin Feng brings her a laptop. Its contents, which seem like strange and unverified stories to Xu Nian, are valuable clues to Lin Feng about the supernatural past.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains pragmatic and resourceful: he seeks free materials, thinks through the risks of making a scepter, and quietly listens to Professor Han’s conversation. His unusual presence still inspires instinctive fear in Han, despite Lin Feng having erased the memories of the people he helped.
• Xu Nian shifts from nervousness about seeing her professor to alarm at his warnings, then resolves to investigate the USB drive rather than accept his secrecy.
• Professor Han is traumatized by the expedition and appears to believe his death is likely. His urgent pleas show how deeply he cares for Xu Nian and fears she will suffer the same fate as her senior.
• Teacher Xu reconnects with his old friend Han and shows a knowing, amused reaction to Lin Feng helping Xu Nian, while Lin Feng carefully keeps a low profile around him.

Significant themes

• Knowledge and danger: Secret arts and forbidden records may offer power or insight, but carry strict barriers and potentially terrible consequences.
• Tradition versus access: Orthodox practices demand authorization, discipline, and uncertain years of effort, while Lin Feng looks for cheaper, more immediate alternatives.
• Protection through secrecy: Han tries to shield Xu Nian by urging her to abandon archaeology and conceal the USB’s contents, while her curiosity pushes her toward the truth.
• The supernatural in the modern world: Lin Feng weighs ancient divine authority against contemporary law, surveillance, and practical constraints.

Plot and key events

• Xu Nian reads Professor Han’s USB research, which proposes that the Shang-era Central Plains, Shu, Western Regions, and Western Hunan had parallel civilizations. She dismisses the material as pseudoscience.
• Professor Xu worries that Han is becoming dangerously obsessed, like his former teacher, Professor Xun. Xun vanished after his own fixation ruined his reputation and family; Lin Feng privately suspects Xun may have pursued something real.
• At his hotel, Lin Feng studies Xun’s work on Yin-Shang sacrifices. He finds a possible explanation for Ritual Incense: it could induce a trance in officiants and strengthen the deity receiving it. He suspects rulers may have tried to claim divine power for themselves.
• Lin Feng memorizes the proposed rituals, intending to test them by sacrificing directly to himself. He also discovers a method for detecting supernatural influence using a rice offering.
• At the hospital, Lin Feng visits the captain and Xiao Yang, pretending to be a grateful former acquaintance. After sending Xiao Yang away, he uses the rice-offering technique. The rice turns black, indicating something is affecting the captain—but it is not an Underworld Uncanny entity. Lin Feng immediately strikes him with a piece of flooring.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng turns obscure archaeological research into practical tools, connecting ancient ritual theories to his own supernatural abilities. He remains guarded about what he knows and takes decisive action when the captain’s condition is revealed.
• Xu Nian is baffled by the USB’s claims and doubts that Professor Han could take them seriously.
• Professor Xu confides his concerns about Han and recounts the tragic precedent of Professor Xun, while remaining skeptical of Lin Feng’s suggestion that Xun might still be alive.
• The captain seems recovered and apologizes for his earlier behavior, but his unexplained thirst and instinctive fear of Lin Feng suggest something remains wrong. He reacts involuntarily to the rice offering.
• Xiao Yang is relieved to find the captain apparently normal and accepts Lin Feng’s false identity without probing.

Significant themes

• The uncertain boundary between madness and discovery: scholarship that appears absurd may point toward real supernatural truths.
• Knowledge put into practice: Lin Feng treats historical research as a source of usable ritual techniques.
• Power and sacrifice: the chapter explores whether offerings can increase divine strength—and whether human rulers might try to take that power for themselves.
• Hidden danger beneath apparent normality: the captain seems well, but the test exposes a continuing supernatural threat.

Key plot points

• Lin Feng uses the Rice Offering Specter-Detection Technique to confirm that a wild God is possessing the captain. He strikes the captain with a wooden plank bearing the carved True Form Diagram of Mount Tai. A supernatural cry escapes the captain, and the entity vanishes before Lin Feng can catch it. The captain is left unharmed and peacefully asleep, with the curse and black qi gone.
• Lin Feng leaves the hospital to investigate the place linked to the captain’s powerful scent: Nuo Village. Before departing, he checks Xu Nian and the others with his Qi-Observing Eye and confirms their dangerous omens have cleared.
• At the hospital, grieving parents arrive to learn that their children have died. Professor Han is visibly devastated, while Teacher Xu remains to speak with him. Lin Feng briefly fools Xiao Yang about a rescue-team member’s visit, then says goodbye to Xu Nian’s mother and drives toward Nuo Village.
• In Nuo Village, Doctor Xie experiences sleep paralysis and a nightmarish vision of a woman who looks like both an Ironhead Viper and Nurse Zeng. Meanwhile, the village falls unnaturally silent, venomous snakes appear everywhere, and nearby mountains seem to loom closer and grow larger. Most villagers appear unaware of the danger.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng demonstrates confidence and decisiveness in confronting the wild God. His interest in capturing it is partly practical: incense made from a wild God is especially valuable. He also shows concern for the hospital patients, leaving supplies for the captain and checking that Xu Nian and the others are safe.
• The captain is freed from the possessing entity and falls into a calm, restorative sleep.
• Xu Nian’s mother is grateful for Lin Feng’s presence and reluctant to lose his help, while Lin Feng reassures her before leaving.
• Professor Han appears overwhelmed by the deaths and the events surrounding them; Teacher Xu stays behind to support or question him.
• Doctor Xie is helplessly trapped between waking and dreaming, unable to move despite recognizing the apparent nightmare.

Significant themes

• Folklore and practical knowledge: Lin Feng’s investigation draws on a regional ritual technique that proves more effective than his talismans.
• The ordinary beside the uncanny: A hospital camera is monitored casually, and a rural clinic’s limited resources contrast with supernatural events unfolding in broad daylight.
• Grief and aftermath: The rescue does not erase the human cost; families arrive to mourn their children.
• An escalating supernatural threat: Nuo Village’s altered silence, snakes, and shifting landscape suggest a growing disturbance connected to the wild God and the earlier incident.

Plot and events

• After ten hours of driving, Lin Feng leaves the highway and finds himself on an unmarked dirt road surrounded by unnatural mist. His phone signal and navigation fail, and he suspects he has reached either a hidden place or Nuo Village itself.
• Hoping to draw out a threat, he lets his living scent spread. When nothing appears, he attempts to carve a Land God’s Scepter from cherry wood, using his blood to inscribe it. The wood cracks before he can finish.
• Lin Feng follows a mountain path through the mist until it becomes a stone-paved road. He hears gongs, drums, and opera, then meets a gentle old carver at Nuo Village’s entrance. The man gives him his last carving knife and says the village is performing Nuo Opera to exorcise demons, though he doubts it has worked.
• Lin Feng enters the deserted village and heads toward its Nuo Temple. He sees masked performers reenacting opera scenes, but each is already dead, their internal organs removed. Even the figures playing famous warriors and underworld officials have been gutted.
• At the temple, Lin Feng finds one surviving performer wearing a Fuxi mask. The mask is cracked, but the man is alive. Only then do Lin Feng’s danger-sensing abilities finally react.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains calm and pragmatic in an unfamiliar, threatening setting. He tests the environment, tries to lure out danger, and proceeds into the village rather than retreating. His failed carving attempt also reveals the increasing toughness of his body from cultivation.
• The old carver is courteous and seemingly frail. He gives Lin Feng his final knife and lets him enter alone; after Lin Feng leaves, the narration reveals that the old man’s heart and other organs are missing, suggesting he is dead—or at least not what he appeared to be.
• Lin Feng and the carver exchange questions about the village, its ceremony, and the knife. Lin Feng offers to enter with him, but the old man says he can no longer walk.

Significant themes

• Deceptive appearances: The village seems empty, its performers seem to act, and the old man appears alive and harmless despite his missing organs.
• Ritual and failed protection: Nuo Opera is being performed to drive away demons, but the gutted performers suggest the ceremony has failed.
• Patience and concealed danger: Nothing attacks Lin Feng at first; the threat becomes apparent only as he reaches the temple, where his instincts finally awaken.
• Cultivation’s uncertain costs: Lin Feng’s growing physical resilience is useful, but he worries that further cultivation could damage his body in unpredictable ways.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng realizes the Nuo Village in the fog is not the present-day village: it may belong to another era or even another dimension. The village’s Nuo Temple contains many masks suppressing jars filled with human heads, but the temple’s central mask, Fuxi, is missing, and the jar beneath it has cracked.
• Lin Feng takes Fuxi and receives an unexpected vision through it: he witnesses the mask’s creation by the master carver Old Qu and his apprentice, followed by a vibrant Nuo Opera performance in a once-thriving village. The villagers urge him to protect Fuxi, which they identify as Old Qu’s life’s work. Lin Feng recognizes Old Qu’s carving knife and learns that the young face behind Fuxi belongs to Old Qu’s apprentice.
• Removing Fuxi disturbs the remaining masks and jars. Lin Feng enters the temple, where his “Seven Warlords” investigate the jars and find that the things once inside have been killed by the masks.
• Lin Feng attacks a masked creature hiding behind the jars. His [fa] and [bo] sound-based abilities badly damage it, and he discovers Bloodline Worms beneath its skin. He then finishes the creature with repeated attacks.
• The creature’s mask falls, revealing the face of the Guide whom Lin Feng believed had died. The Guide, in turn, is horrified that Lin Feng recognizes him and demands to know who Lin Feng is.

Character developments

• Lin Feng shows curiosity and caution as he investigates the village, but he is also resourceful and aggressive in combat. He uses the Fuxi vision to piece together the temple’s history and deliberately draws out the hidden enemy.
• Old Qu emerges through the vision as a demanding but knowledgeable master who takes pride in his craft and ultimately teaches his apprentice how to carve Fuxi.
• The apprentice accepts his master’s harsh treatment and listens closely to his instruction, suggesting both his devotion to the craft and the severe traditions of apprenticeship.
• The Guide is revealed to have survived—or returned in some form—and to be the Blood God Lin Feng has just defeated. His fear at being identified raises new questions about his identity and past.

Significant themes

• Tradition and cultural memory: Nuo masks are presented as works of art and spiritual objects, carrying the accumulated skill and belief of their makers.
• Suppression and decay: The masks once protected the village by containing dangerous beings, but the loss of Fuxi has weakened the system after centuries of deterioration.
• Craft as both skill and spiritual inheritance: Carving a mask requires not just technical rules but experience, insight, and “spiritual resonance.”
• The persistence of the past: The vision brings the village’s former life into the present, while the Guide’s reappearance suggests that buried histories—and threats—can endure.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng respectfully asks Fuxi for protection, and the mask answers by showing him the carver and the village’s history.
• The villagers appeal to Lin Feng to take Fuxi and safeguard Old Qu’s work; he responds by showing them Old Qu’s carving knife.
• Old Qu alternates between scolding and instructing his apprentice, revealing the harsh, intimate master–student relationship behind the mask’s creation.
• Lin Feng’s final confrontation with the Guide shifts from combat to a startling exchange of recognition: Lin Feng names him, while the Guide insists he does not know Lin Feng.

Key plot points and events

• The masked guide is revealed as a former grave robber who discovered Bloodline Worms and, through stolen lore and Nuo practices, developed a crooked method of sacrificing human organs. He became an evil spirit and was once suppressed—not destroyed—by a Nuo performance invoking Fuxi.
• Recognizing Lin Feng as the Daoist he had guided long ago, the guide begs for mercy. Lin Feng refuses and kills him with a single strike, ending their long chain of cause and effect.
• The guide’s death triggers the burning away of the Nuo temple, its masks, jars, and the Bloodline Worms. The ghosts who had gathered there thank Lin Feng before disappearing.
• Lin Feng and the Nuo Opera Masters are left in a strange, silent realm. Following a mysterious pull, Lin Feng chants as he walks, with the Masters and other ghosts trailing behind him.
• He emerges beside his car and returns to the ordinary world. The Masters follow him into the car, seemingly unable—or unwilling—to leave.
• Remembering murals of an Earth God leading the dead, Lin Feng wonders whether he has unknowingly performed Underworld Guiding and become a Land God.

Character developments

• The guide is exposed as lucky rather than brilliant: greed and secret knowledge led him from grave robbery to blood rites and eventual monstrosity. Despite his pleas and claimed repentance, he meets the end Lin Feng believes was inevitable.
• Lin Feng shifts from treating the guide as an old, troubling acquaintance to decisively ending his threat. He also appears to have gained—or accidentally demonstrated—a new spiritual ability, though he is unsure what it means.
• The Nuo Opera Masters go from spirited participants to vacant, unresponsive figures after the temple’s destruction, leaving their fate unclear.

Significant themes

• Cause and effect: Lin Feng frames the guide’s death as the completion of a relationship that began when he first spared him.
• Greed and corruption: The guide’s ambition turns fragments of ancient knowledge into a predatory, self-destructive practice.
• The fading of tradition: The weakened dynasties and declining power of ritual practitioners explain why the guide could be suppressed but not killed.
• Uncertain spiritual transformation: Lin Feng’s accidental journey with the dead suggests he may be crossing into the role of a divine guide.

Character interactions

• The guide recognizes Lin Feng and begs to become his servant; Lin Feng answers with a final message for two figures from their shared past, then kills him.
• The ghosts bow to Lin Feng in gratitude before vanishing.
• Lin Feng attempts to speak with the Nuo Opera Masters, but they do not respond and continue following him.
• Once back at his car, Lin Feng tries to tell the Masters they are going home, only to find they have climbed in after him.

Key plot points and events

• At the foot of the Western Hunan Mountains, Doctor Xie and the villagers drift toward the mountains in a daze. Venomous snakes mass and breed across the village, while mist, moonlight, and distant celebratory sounds signal that something uncanny is awakening.
• Lin Feng arrives outside the village and sees the mountains swelling and breathing. No longer their Mountain God, he feels the mountains reject him as an outsider and judges that entering without a plan would be too dangerous.
• Seeing his ghostly companions growing faint, Lin Feng tries to preserve them. With no proper vessel, he uses the cracked Fuxi Nuo Mask, cigarettes, an apple, and a makeshift written petition, then applies the Five-Ghost Transport Art.
• The mask accepts all nine Nuo Opera masters. Its cracks begin to heal, and the masters reappear dressed and equipped for a performance. They identify themselves through their opening lines: the Ledger Judges, Ox-Head and Horse-Face, the Path-Clearing Vanguard and Mountain-Opening General, the Merit Officers, and Zhong Kui.

Character developments

• Lin Feng is cautious about confronting the revived mountains and recognizes that losing his divine status has made him vulnerable. Though irreverent and improvisational, he feels responsible for the companions who followed him and acts to save them.
• Doctor Xie and the villagers appear under a powerful influence, walking toward the mountains without awareness or alarm.
• The nine Nuo Opera masters demonstrate that they are more than fading spirits: the Fuxi Mask can house them, and they emerge ready to perform.

Significant themes

• Nature’s awakening and spiritual power: The mountains seem alive, possess a forbidding will, and release an unusual substance associated with cultivation.
• Loss of belonging and power: Lin Feng’s former bond with the mountains is gone; once he leaves his role, they treat him as an outsider.
• Improvisation and responsibility: Lin Feng’s makeshift ritual is comic and inelegant, but it reflects his commitment to protecting his companions.
• The uncertain nature of magic: Divine essence and the Five-Ghost Transport Art resist simple explanation, and their effects exceed Lin Feng’s expectations.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng addresses the nine masters apologetically as he offers them an improvised “dorm room” in the Fuxi Mask; they appear unconcerned and respond through a full opera performance.
• Lin Feng’s bond with the masters lets him understand their dialect and recognize each performer.
• The villagers’ blank procession contrasts with Lin Feng’s alert, wary response to the mountain’s danger.

Key plot points and events

• Doctor Xie and the other entranced travelers reach Clear Spring Stockade, where dead trees, mist, strange music, and the smell of cooking conceal a massacre. A sign bearing Zhang Zhuoen’s inscription briefly restores Xie’s memories, but a disguised snake-woman blocks his view; the others are drawn inside and lose their awareness again.
• The apparent villagers are snakes wearing human skins, and they feed people into communal pots. The sign’s inscription exposes and kills one disguised snake, but others keep the travelers from seeing it.
• Beneath the village shrine, an Ironhead Viper—once a powerful spirit and now a False Mountain God—has been pinned for centuries by a bone ritual sword and suppressed by prayer beads. The monk Liao Chi’s actions left her weakened and corrupted by the Yaksha King; she hopes to absorb two Mountain God statues and restore her power.
• To support her plans, she uses Emperor’s Nectar to breed venomous snakes and intends to send the travelers to a mysterious shaman for her own gain. She senses that the world’s changing conditions have weakened both her and the Yaksha King’s influence.
• Someone begins stealing her Emperor’s Nectar. When she realizes the theft is deliberate, the Nectar becomes a beam of light falling toward the land. A divine fire then races along her bond with her descendants and attacks her.
• The Viper abandons her burning body and tries to place her remaining soul in one of the Mountain God statues. Lin Feng’s flames are stopped, for the first time, by an invisible barrier protecting the statues.

Character developments

• Doctor Xie briefly regains his identity and recognizes that the stockade is not the place he knows. The same strange scent that lures the others soon clouds his mind again.
• The Ironhead Viper is revealed as calculating and desperate: she has spent centuries trying to survive, multiply her kind, and claim the statues’ power. Her confidence gives way to panic when her hoard is stolen and Lin Feng’s fire reaches her.
• Lin Feng, though largely offstage, becomes an active threat through his theft of the Nectar and his attack with divine fire.
• Zhang Zhuoen and Liao Chi are revealed through their past actions: Zhang left a warning sign while occupied with other threats; Liao Chi subdued the Viper but failed to destroy her and exploited her body.

Significant themes

• Deception and perception: Mist, scent, disguises, and blocked sight keep people from recognizing danger; clear knowledge is fleeting.
• Survival and exploitation: The Viper treats travelers, descendants, and even other supernatural beings as resources in her struggle to regain power.
• The limits of control: Centuries of planning cannot protect the Viper from shifting conditions, theft, or an unexpected attack.
• Lingering consequences: The Viper’s present condition—and the danger in the stockade—stems from old acts of violence and incomplete attempts to suppress her.

Character interactions

• The disguised snake-women manipulate the travelers’ attention and lure them into the stockade, while Xie’s brief recognition of the inscription sets him apart from the others.
• The Viper’s relationship with her descendants is both sustaining and exploitative: their growth feeds her strength, while her bond with them also allows Lin Feng’s fire to reach her.
• The Viper’s centuries-old conflict with Liao Chi and the Yaksha King shapes her current corruption and imprisonment.
• Lin Feng’s theft and attack force the Viper into a desperate attempt to transfer her soul to the statues, but an unseen barrier blocks his flames.

Key plot points and events

• The Ironhead Viper Mountain God escapes her body by sending her soul into a Deity Statue, but this triggers a sacrifice prepared long ago. The awakened statue consumes her soul, while both Mountain God statues drain the vitality from her body.
• The revived Front Mountain God absorbs the Bull-Head Mountain God’s statue and spreads its influence through the mountain. Its fog and enchantment draw people toward the shrine, where they risk becoming offerings.
• Zhang Zhuoen arrives and rebukes the Mountain God for preying on people, declaring it an unlawful “wild God.” He strikes its fog-formed face with a small flame; the God does not retaliate, and the fog and stockade vanish, freeing the enchanted villagers.
• Elsewhere, Lin Feng practices the [Taiyin Plain Body] while transformed into a Celestial Dog, absorbing unusually potent moonlight and forming a mysterious symbol in his left eye.
• Zhang Zhuoen finds Lin Feng and questions his unconventional cultivation. After checking his pulse, he is astonished that Lin Feng has suffered no ill effects.

Character developments and interactions

• Ironhead Viper loses the freedom she had pursued for a century, her soul and body becoming fuel for the statues.
• The Front Mountain God emerges strengthened and takes control of the shrine’s surroundings, but submits when Zhang Zhuoen confronts it.
• Zhang Zhuoen shows his forceful, impatient manner toward both gods and people. Though he expects Lin Feng’s practice to be dangerous, he is bewildered to find the young man unharmed.
• Lin Feng remains irreverent and emotionally attached to ordinary concerns, despite consuming a large amount of Emperor’s Nectar and cultivating a method meant to encourage detachment. His game-like view of cultivation helps explain why he can practice it in an unusual way.

Significant themes

• Sudden reversals and impermanence: Ironhead Viper’s long-planned escape collapses just as success seems near.
• Power and legitimacy: Zhang Zhuoen distinguishes sanctioned gods from “wild” gods, condemning those who prey on humans.
• Cultivation and human nature: The chapter warns that spiritual practice can damage the mind, while suggesting Lin Feng’s unusual system may work differently.
• Irony and humor: The grand supernatural events contrast with Lin Feng’s mundane grudges and Zhang Zhuoen’s comic disbelief.

Plot and events

• The Written Spirit of Daoist Zhang Zhuoen explains that he is a fading magical projection, created to suppress demons. He rescued the people from Nuo Village, erased their memories to sever their supernatural connections, and used up his remaining power confronting the Mountain God.
• The Mountain God survived being split into six parts and is gradually reuniting, nourished by the demons and Yin Gods that fought over him. The Written Spirit cannot stop him, but believes he will eventually emerge.
• With the village’s immediate danger dealt with—and Lin Feng’s hoped-for Wild God gone—Lin Feng agrees to accompany the Written Spirit into Western Hunan’s deep mountains, hoping to find other supernatural creatures or artifacts and learn more from his guide.
• Lin Feng reveals that his practical resources are limited: a cracked bowl, incense remnants, and a spirit-detection ritual, plus a group of immature ghost companions. The Written Spirit doubts these are enough, but Lin Feng insists on going despite the stated fifty-fifty odds.
• The pair discover that the mountains are a Sealed Land, invisible to satellites and ordinary sight. The Written Spirit says it can be seen only by someone with a “devoted heart,” though he cannot explain the concept further.
• Elsewhere, Professor Han hides his distress while planning for his students, wife, and son. In a dream, he reunites with his late teacher, Xun Yanyu, and breaks down over the deaths of his students and his past doubts about his teacher’s research.
• Xun comforts him, then vanishes amid a violent sandstorm. Han wakes in the hospital with fine yellow sand on his forehead, suggesting the dream may have been more than a dream.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng remains curious, determined, and willing to take risks. He treats the Written Spirit respectfully and persuades him to continue into the mountains through companionship rather than promises of safety.
• The Written Spirit Zhang Zhuoen is candid, philosophical, and accepting of his approaching end. Though he initially proposes going their separate ways, he responds warmly to Lin Feng’s sincerity and agrees to guide him.
• Professor Han appears composed to others but is still burdened by guilt and grief. His reunion with Xun lets him finally confess his remorse and mourn the students he could not save.
• Teacher Xun is gentle and reassuring, though his brief appearance leaves Han—and the reader—uncertain about his true status.

Significant themes

• Mortality and duty: The Written Spirit accepts dissolution after centuries of service, while Han feels bound to settle his responsibilities before confronting his pain.
• Memory and supernatural connection: Erasing memories is presented as protection from entities that exploit human ties to gain influence.
• The limits of knowledge and power: Lin Feng and the Written Spirit both lack complete understanding of the forces around them; even powerful traditions may be weakening.
• Grief, guilt, and consolation: Han’s dream provides an outlet for emotions he has suppressed, while its mysterious physical trace blurs the boundary between dreams and reality.