Chapter Summaries

Key plot points

• Two wounded ambushers beg Li Shouyi for mercy, claiming to belong to the Missing One Sect, one of the Five Great Sects. They offer to summon their masters for ransom, but Li kills them anyway, then tells his disciples to stab suspicious strangers first.
• Li orders Wu Suowei to search the bodies, then threatens to roast Su Wan’er and Pei Zhujiu. In reality, he and the two women share the captured money, wine, and roasted birds—though the disciples’ screams leave the others believing Li carried out his threat.
• At the Missing One Sect, the eighth elder learns that the ambushers’ lifebound tokens have shattered. The sect sends an executor to investigate, but soon all the eighth elder’s disciples die, and the matter is mysteriously dropped.
• Meanwhile, Su Wan’er’s breakthrough—and then breakthroughs by the eldest and third senior sisters—trigger heavenly tribulations. The women withstand nine lightning bolts unharmed, while Li is repeatedly struck. The system announces gains in his disciples’ comprehension and raises his cultivation to peak Nascent Soul, but makes his next recruitment mission much harder.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Shouyi shows ruthless pragmatism: he refuses to trust the ambushers’ offer, kills them, and uses the moment to instill fear and caution in his disciples. His greed for money and wine, however, softens his resolve to punish Su Wan’er and Pei Zhujiu.
• The disciples become increasingly wary of Li, whose threats and apparent cruelty earn him a reputation as a devil of a master. They also share in the spectacle of his comic misfortune under the tribulations.
• The Missing One Sect’s eighth elder is alarmed by the deaths and by the executor’s arrival, but the subsequent deaths of his disciples suggest a larger, unexplained purge or cover-up.
• Li’s disciples and master are caught in an increasingly comic cycle: their breakthroughs benefit Li through system rewards, while their tribulations physically punish him.

Significant themes

• Pragmatism in a dangerous cultivation world: Li treats apparent enemies as threats and teaches his disciples not to hesitate around ambushes.
• Cruelty versus comic hypocrisy: Li’s terrifying image contrasts with his willingness to bargain over food, money, and wine.
• Power gained at a cost: His disciples advance safely, but their heavenly tribulations strike Li instead.
• Unanswered intrigue: The Missing One Sect’s sudden silence and the executor’s journey foreshadow a wider conflict.

Plot points and events

• Su Wan’er interrupts Li Shouyi to tell him that Bai Feixue, famed as the cultivation world’s greatest beauty, is appearing in Phoenix City. After a comic chase in which Li threatens to set her on fire, he announces that he will take his senior disciples there to buy cultivation manuals and supplies.
• Li travels to Phoenix City with Su Wan’er, Bao’er, and the other women. At Bai Feixue’s performance, he notices that her magical power is immense despite her being only at Qi Refining. She has been unable to reach Foundation Establishment despite years of cultivation and extensive treatment.
• The group goes to a restaurant. Li learns that Su Wan’er’s father gives her effectively unlimited funds through a pair of linked storage rings.
• A young man offers the group Spirit Stones to vacate their private room so he can dine with Bai Feixue. Li accepts the money and leaves, then stops Bai Feixue and offers to help with her cultivation problem. She responds with interest.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Shouyi remains stern but protective toward his disciples: he gives them practical survival advice and plans to buy manuals for their training. His curiosity about Bai Feixue’s unusual condition prompts him to approach her.
• Su Wan’er is playful and impulsive, teasing Li about being captivated by Bai Feixue and revealing her unusual financial arrangement. She nearly reacts angrily when the stranger demands their room, but Li restrains her.
• Bao’er is small and physically frail after childhood malnutrition. Li carries and cares for her, trying to make sure she eats and showing a doting, fatherly attachment.
• Bai Feixue is revered for her beauty but frustrated by her inability to advance in cultivation. Li’s offer gives her a possible path forward.
• The disciples and Li share a familiar comic dynamic, with their banter and Li’s exasperation adding humor to the journey.

Significant themes

• Appearance versus ability: Bai Feixue’s beauty contrasts sharply with her stalled cultivation and mysterious surplus of magical power.
• Care and responsibility: Despite his complaints about having disciples, Li takes their safety and development seriously, and he is especially protective of Bao’er.
• Comedy and affection: Teasing, exaggerated threats, and misunderstandings show the group’s close, lively relationships.
• Wealth and privilege: Su Wan’er’s access to her father’s shared storage ring highlights the resources that support her carefree lifestyle.

Plot points

• Zhang Weiwu celebrates winning a date with Bai Feixue, believing a physician’s pill can help her overcome the obstacle blocking her cultivation breakthrough.
• Li Shouyi interrupts their meeting and humiliates Zhang, who backs down after realizing Li is a Nascent Soul expert.
• Li pressures Bai to trust him. When she doubts his claim, he threatens her with a sword and has his three disciples guard the door.
• Alone with Bai, Li pretends he intends to assault her. She resists but is overpowered and faints.
• The system reveals that Bai’s breakthrough is blocked by inner demons caused by her arrogance. Li’s task is to provoke her intensely so she can break through herself.
• Li stages the scene with torn clothing and blood, then gives the unconscious Bai a pill. He leaves her behind a barrier and tells his disciples the Bai family will likely thank him.
• Once released, Zhang flees and loudly claims Bai has been taken hostage, plunging Phoenix City into confusion for the night.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Shouyi shifts from casually confrontational to calculating: he uses the appearance of a threat to carry out the system’s plan, though he has no intention of truly violating Bai.
• Bai Feixue begins skeptical and composed, but becomes frightened and furious when Li appears to attack her. Her pride and distrust are central to her predicament.
• Zhang Weiwu moves from arrogant boasting to fearful submission, then escapes and spreads an alarming account of events.
• Li’s disciples, especially Pei Zhujiu, worry about the danger of antagonizing the powerful Bai family. They trust Li when he tells them to guard the door, unaware of what he is doing.
• The chapter contrasts Li’s private plan with the public impression: his disciples believe he cured Bai, while Zhang’s cry for help makes it seem she was kidnapped.

Significant themes

• Appearance versus reality: Li’s apparent assault is a staged provocation, while his true goal is to help Bai break through.
• Pride and inner obstacles: Bai’s arrogance is identified as the root of her cultivation problem.
• Power and vulnerability: Li’s overwhelming strength leaves Bai helpless, while Zhang’s status proves useless against a stronger cultivator.
• Comic misunderstanding: The characters interpret the same events differently, culminating in citywide chaos.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• Bai Feixue wakes in pain and initially believes Li Shouyi has violated her. Furious, she unleashes her magical power, which triggers a breakthrough to Foundation Establishment.
• After calming down, she discovers her protective membrane is intact and finds Li Shouyi’s note demanding several million spirit stones. She realizes he had helped her rather than harmed her, though she still considers him a scoundrel.
• Two of Bai’s household elders arrive, mistakenly describing her as violated. She reprimands them, confirms her breakthrough, and orders them to tell the pursuers not to hurt Li Shouyi.
• Meanwhile, Li Shouyi is still being chased despite completing his mission. He turns on the pursuers with a powerful sword technique, scattering or defeating many of them.
• The surviving group’s leader, Zhang Weiwu, admits he relied on a family magic treasure to pursue Li. Li promptly declares that he is robbing him.

Character developments

• Bai Feixue moves from rage and humiliation to relief and embarrassment when she learns she was not harmed. Her breakthrough marks a major cultivation advance, and her concern that Li not be injured suggests her feelings toward him may be softening.
• Li Shouyi remains irreverent and self-interested: he helps Bai, leaves her a bill, and responds to the pursuit with overwhelming force before trying to rob Zhang.
• Zhang Weiwu quickly shifts from pursuing Li to cowering before him once Li demonstrates his strength.
• Su Wan’er and Lin Shuishui, Li’s disciples, misunderstand the situation and tease or question him, adding to his frustration.

Significant themes

• Misunderstanding and comic irony: Bai, her elders, the pursuers, and Li’s disciples all misread what happened.
• Power and cultivation: Bai’s emotional crisis precipitates a breakthrough, while Li’s superior realm lets him effortlessly overwhelm lower-level pursuers.
• Moral ambiguity: Li acts as Bai’s rescuer but behaves like a shameless opportunist, demanding payment and robbing his pursuer.
• Emerging affection: Bai’s blushing and insistence that Li be spared hint at a change in her attitude toward him.

Character interactions

• Bai angrily condemns Li, then privately reconsiders him after finding his note and realizing he helped her.
• Bai scolds Elder Bai for his crude assumptions and instructs both elders to protect Li from harm; Old Hei interprets her concern as possible affection.
• Li snaps at his disciples when they insinuate that he harmed Bai.
• Li confronts Zhang Weiwu’s group, defeats many pursuers, and intimidates Zhang into revealing his magic treasure—giving Li an excuse to demand compensation.

Key plot points and events

• After robbing Zhang Weiwu, Li Shouyi and his companions leave him naked and without his magical treasures. Su Wan’er had deliberately stripped him to check rumors about his sexual prowess; disappointed by what she saw, she sealed his magical power.
• Zhang’s lackeys arrive and lend him clothes. Bai Feixue sees the naked Zhang and shirtless servants, assumes the worst, and leaves in disgust before he can explain.
• Li Shouyi remains annoyed that Bai Feixue has not paid him for helping her. When she catches up with the group, he jokingly asks for several million spirit stones.
• Bai Feixue slaps his hand and claims she has placed a ten-million-spirit-stone bounty on him through the Night Crow Organization. She pretends to be angry, though she is privately pleased by his reaction.
• After Li Shouyi protests, Bai Feixue insinuates that he has “touched” her. Su Wan’er jokes that he has found them a master’s wife, while Li Shouyi realizes Bai is deliberately trying to tie herself to him.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Shouyi shifts from smugly expecting payment to furious indignation when Bai threatens him. He rejects her insinuations and suspects she has ulterior motives.
• Bai Feixue shows playful, possibly romantic interest in Li Shouyi, teasing him with the bounty and a deliberately ambiguous accusation.
• Su Wan’er is mischievous and impulsive: she stripped Zhang out of curiosity, then jokes openly about Bai becoming Li’s wife.
• Zhang Weiwu is humiliated, first by the robbery and then by Bai’s misunderstanding. His attempt to explain himself goes unanswered.
• Black and White react differently to the tension: Black threatens Li, while White recognizes Bai’s affection and restrains him from interfering.

Significant themes

• Humiliation and comic misunderstanding: Zhang’s nudity and Bai’s mistaken interpretation create farce, as does Li’s inability to understand Bai’s teasing.
• Attraction disguised as hostility: Bai masks her interest with threats and accusations, while Li responds with suspicion and outrage.
• Greed and transactional relationships: Li repeatedly frames his help in terms of payment, while Bai counters with a bounty rather than gratitude.

Plot points

• Li Shouyi escapes Bai Feixue, who vows not to let him get away. His three disciples leave with him, still making ridiculous plans about his supposed future children.
• News spreads that the Fourth Prince, Zhou Kangyong, was nearly made impotent at the Cloud Cliff Sect. When three men mock him in a restaurant, Zhou reveals himself and kills them. He threatens the arriving constable, who recognizes him.
• Zhou Kangyong meets his father, Emperor Zhou Tianlong. Having reached the Golden Core Realm, he demands the promised chance to take revenge on Li Shouyi. His father tells him Li is on Good Fortune Mountain, outside Great Zhou’s jurisdiction, and arranges for him to cooperate with Wu Dalang of the Dao Alliance. He also lends Zhou “Soldier No. 1.”
• Wu Dalang and his grandfather independently prepare to attack Li Shouyi, both furious over Li’s alleged assault on Wu Dalang’s wife.
• Unaware that his enemies are mobilizing, Li returns to the Wastrel Sect and discovers it has been transformed: several palaces and a grand, gold-lettered gate now stand on the mountain.

Character developments and interactions

• Bai Feixue becomes more determined to pursue Li Shouyi after he escapes; Elder Bai and Elder Hei admit they cannot catch him.
• Zhou Kangyong channels his humiliation into rapid cultivation and a thirst for revenge. His father supports his vendetta, while Zhou responds eagerly to the prospect of joining forces with Wu Dalang.
• Wu Dalang and his grandfather share a darkly gleeful desire to punish Li, bonding over their family grievance.
• Li Shouyi remains oblivious to the danger gathering around him, and is instead bewildered by the Wastrel Sect’s sudden construction.

Significant themes

• Revenge and escalation: Personal humiliation and family grievances bring powerful figures together against Li.
• Power and impunity: Zhou uses his royal status to kill mockers and intimidate law enforcement.
• Comic contrast: The chapter balances threats of violence with absurd humor—from the disciples’ matchmaking talk to Li’s exaggerated reaction to the sect gate.

Plot points and events

• Li Shouyi’s sect receives a system reward: each disciple gets a free chance at enlightenment, but he gets nothing. As he grumbles, his three female disciples enter enlightenment.
• Back at the sect, Li Shouyi praises Wu Suowei for the mountaintop renovations and promises to teach him a new technique. Wu admits to himself that he led the work, but Li’s presence keeps him from taking credit.
• Li Shouyi installs ten defensive formations, each capable of resisting Spirit Severing Realm attacks, spending all his savings to protect the sect from Wu Dalang, who has held a grudge against him for ten years.
• After joking that his good looks attract jealous enemies, Li is struck by heavenly lightning.
• Meanwhile, an inner demon tries to exploit Lin Shuishui’s deepest desires. It discovers that she mainly wants to sleep—and hopes Master will stop scolding her—so it gives up and kicks her out of its realm.
• The demon then approaches Su Wan’er, expecting her strong desires to make her an easy target. She demands a gambling match, wins, and becomes furious because she wanted to lose. After enduring her nonstop insults, the demon sends her away too.
• A third soul approaches, leaving the inner demon panicked.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Shouyi remains frustrated with his unfair system, but acts protectively by fortifying the sect. His praise motivates Wu Suowei.
• Wu Suowei shows growing honesty and humility: although he organized the renovation, he does not claim sole credit.
• Lin Shuishui is revealed to be deeply laid-back, with simple wishes centered on sleep and avoiding her master’s scolding.
• Su Wan’er is a compulsive gambler whose desire to lose is so strong that winning provokes her; she overwhelms the inner demon with her anger and sharp tongue.
• The inner demon, normally a terrifying tempter, repeatedly fails against its targets and becomes increasingly exasperated.

Significant themes

• Comic subversion: A menacing inner demon is defeated by ordinary, absurd, and stubborn desires rather than heroic resistance.
• Humility and recognition: Wu’s restraint contrasts with his former self, while Li’s approval strengthens his commitment to the sect.
• Protection and responsibility: Li spends everything he has on defenses because of the danger posed by an old enemy.
• The mismatch between grand schemes and human nature: The demon seeks world-conquering ambition but encounters disciples who mainly want sleep or a very particular gambling loss.

Key plot points and events

• Pei Zhujiu encounters the Heart Demon, which poses as “Doraemon” and offers to grant her wish. It gives her a bottle of 1982 Sprite, claiming it is fine liquor. She drinks it, recognizes that it is watered down, and attacks the Heart Demon with Flicker Strike, driving it from the strange space.
• Pei’s insight into her Dao earns a system reward for Li Shouyi: three bolts of heavenly lightning and a cultivation increase to peak Nascent Soul. Afterward, he rushes to confront Su Wan’er, who has just reached peak Golden Core.
• Li Shouyi punishes his disciples, eventually giving all three—Su Wan’er, Lin Shuishui, and Pei Zhujiu—three hundred strokes each. Pei suffers especially from having her mouth sealed and being unable to drink for three days. Their fellow disciples watch and bet on how long the punishment will last.
• Wu Jian agrees to cooperate with the Great Zhou Dynasty, partly because of Zhou Tianlong’s lavish gifts. Wu Dalang insults Zhou Kangyong and heads to Good Fortune Mountain to confront Li Shouyi.
• Humiliated, Zhou Kangyong secretly plans to let Wu Dalang face danger without assistance and hopes to see him killed. Wu Dalang, oblivious to the plot, interprets a sneeze as a sign that his wife is thinking of him.

Character developments

• Pei Zhujiu shows that her love of liquor is also central to her personal Dao: she immediately detects the fake drink and retaliates. Her breakthrough comes at the cost of an enforced, miserable spell of sobriety.
• Li Shouyi continues to gain cultivation through his disciples’ progress, but remains a comically harsh and self-justifying master. He insists his punishments are fair because he spreads them among all three disciples.
• Wu Dalang is powerful and determined to settle his grudge with Li Shouyi, yet his arrogance leaves him unaware of Zhou Kangyong’s resentment and scheme.
• Zhou Kangyong shifts from quietly enduring Wu Dalang’s insults to plotting against him, choosing revenge over cooperation.

Significant themes

• The chapter mixes cultivation progress with slapstick: spiritual breakthroughs bring lightning, beatings, and humiliating misfortune.
• Obsession drives behavior, from Pei’s uncompromising devotion to liquor to Wu Dalang’s refusal to let his grudge go.
• Arrogance invites danger: Wu Dalang dismisses Zhou Kangyong, who responds by exploiting the opportunity.
• Misunderstanding and comic self-deception recur, especially in Wu Dalang’s fanciful explanation for sneezing.

Character interactions

• Pei tricks the Heart Demon into revealing its offer, then attacks it when its “liquor” proves to be soda.
• Li Shouyi responds to his disciples’ breakthroughs with punishment, while the disciples and onlookers treat the spectacle as familiar entertainment.
• Wu Dalang openly belittles Zhou Kangyong; Zhou hides his anger behind a smile and orders his followers not to help Wu if he is losing.
• As Wu Dalang flies toward Li Shouyi, Zhou Kangyong follows behind, already plotting against him.

Plot points

• Wu Suowei wakes Li Shouyi to report that Zhang Daoling of the Heavenly Sword Sect has arrived. Li Shouyi only gets out of bed when Wu pretends the visitors have brought millions of spirit stones.
• Li Shouyi had given Wu the Evil-Warding Sword Manual, but Wu has made no progress: its first page says the technique requires castration.
• Li Shouyi arrives late and blames Wu with an absurd excuse. Wu and Zhang Daoling’s disciple, Zhuo Yifan, bond over their mistreatment by their masters, while Li and Zhang exchange equally shameless flattery.
• Zhang asks Li to take in his nephew, Zhang Chulan, an eighteen-year-old former genius whose spiritual root was stolen, leaving him an exceptionally useless cultivator. The system confirms this, and Li eagerly agrees to teach him.
• Their discussion is interrupted by Wu Dalang, who attacks the sect’s defensive formation with two companions and accuses Li of pursuing his wife.
• Zhang Daoling stops Wu Dalang’s hammer with one finger and warns him that Li is under his protection. Wu backs down, but insists he still resents Li.
• Zhang explains that Wu mistook a brief conversation between Li and Wu’s wife more than ten years earlier for an affair. He also reveals that Wu and his grandfather are perverts who extract souls, turn them into puppets, and jealously guard them. Li realizes he has truly crossed paths with dangerous people.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Shouyi is lazy, greedy, and boastful, but delighted to accept Zhang Chulan because the system describes him as unusually useless. His encounter with Wu Dalang leaves him uneasy.
• Wu Suowei is intimidated by Li and conceals why he has not studied the manual. He finds a kindred spirit in Zhuo Yifan.
• Zhang Daoling is a powerful, irreverent protector who supports Li while candidly exposing Wu Dalang’s disturbing nature.
• Wu Dalang begins as an aggressive attacker but immediately becomes deferential once he recognizes Zhang Daoling. His long-held grudge against Li is based on a misunderstanding.
• Li and Zhang quickly establish a friendly, mutually flattering relationship; their disciples, meanwhile, bond through shared frustration with their masters.

Significant themes

• Absurd comedy and hypocrisy: grandiose praise, fake excuses, and shameless behavior undercut the sects’ prestige.
• Misunderstanding and distorted motives: Wu Dalang’s decade-long hatred rests on a brief, innocent encounter.
• Power and vulnerability: Zhang Daoling’s strength ends the attack instantly, while Zhang Chulan’s stolen spiritual root makes him a promising challenge for Li’s teaching.
• Cruelty beneath comedy: the revelation about soul-stealing and puppet-making darkens the otherwise farcical conflict.

Key plot points and events

• Zhang Daoling intervenes in Li Shouyi’s impending fight with Wu Dalang. He offers Wu a choice: lower his cultivation to match Li’s current peak Nascent Soul realm, or be killed. Wu agrees, and Zhang seals his power down from Spirit Severing to that level.
• Li’s disciples arrive and check on him. Su Wan’er gets too handsy, so Li scolds her and seals her mouth with a spell.
• Zhou Kangyong, the Fourth Prince of the Great Zhou, recognizes Su Wan’er and challenges her to a duel to the death, seeking revenge for their past encounter. Li removes the spell, and Su accepts.
• Zhou believes his month of intense training has made him strong enough to defeat her. Instead, Su kills him with a single slap, leaving even her briefly stunned.
• Zhou’s soldier escapes with the prince’s body after Li signals his disciples not to pursue. The group then turns its attention to the still-unresolved fight between Li and Wu, who face off at the cliff’s edge.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Shouyi relies on Zhang Daoling to level the odds against Wu, but remains confident and provocative. He disciplines Su Wan’er while also letting her accept Zhou’s challenge.
• Zhang Daoling acts as Li’s formidable protector, casually restraining Wu and revealing that his own master once killed Zhou Kangyong’s grandfather.
• Su Wan’er shows her usual shamelessness toward Li, then unexpectedly dispatches Zhou with ease. She quickly turns the victory into an occasion to bask in her fellow disciples’ praise.
• Zhou Kangyong is consumed by revenge and overestimates what his training has achieved; his challenge ends in his death.
• Wu Dalang accepts the imposed cultivation restriction and remains focused on fighting Li, showing little concern for Zhou’s fate.
• Li’s disciples admire Su’s victory, while Pei Zhujiu corrects her mistaken claim that Zhou was trying to fake an accident.

Significant themes

• Comic reversals and overconfidence: Zhou’s dramatic preparation and challenge are undercut by his instant defeat.
• Power and intimidation: Zhang’s overwhelming authority forces Wu to fight on Li’s terms, while Li’s group avoids pursuing Zhou’s Spirit Severing Realm escort.
• Shamelessness and bravado: Li and Su both display cheeky, irreverent confidence, even amid serious threats.
• Rising tension: The chapter’s final cliffhanger shifts focus to the anticipated clash between Li and Wu.