Recaps

Black Snake endured seasonal changes, discovered new abilities, and grew closer to Chi Ke while unexplained spirits and visitors crossed the mountain. After a flood brought him Tai Sui and a mysterious cultivator warned him about leaking energy, repeated lightning strikes left Black Snake injured beneath debris as dawn arrived.

• Black Snake awakened to fear during a wildfire, then survived by hunting and breathing in rain-laden air.
• Chi Ke settled in the valley to cultivate, and he and Black Snake gradually shared the great rock and practiced breathing beside each other.
• Black Snake hibernated through winter, experienced a strange dim state, and later shed his skin and grew longer.
• Black Snake and a fox drove away a phantom, while Chi Ke struggled with alchemy and asked Black Snake for help against the spirit.
• A tiger approached the boulder, but Black Snake frightened it away, and hunters later drove it from the area.
• Black Snake survived a wild boar attack, and Chi Ke’s hunter fed him meat after the boar died.
• After a flood, Black Snake found edible Tai Sui, and a mysterious man explained that its leakage could harm a cultivator’s foundation.
• Black Snake searched the flood wreckage for more Tai Sui, then breathed the rain-scented air on a hill as lightning struck him repeatedly and left him beneath debris.

Black Snake survived a valley haunted by apparitions, outlived Chi Ke, and watched the mountain folk build a temple in his honor. As people began treating him as a guardian spirit, he practiced shaping his Yin Spirit into a human form while the village faced the departure of its able-bodied men.

• Black Snake and the fox helped Chi Ke survive the valley’s ghostly attack, and Black Snake later destroyed the spectral presence in the deep pool.
• Chi Ke grew old and died peacefully after saying farewell to Black Snake, Fox, and Fat Weasel, while his phantom later bid them goodbye at his grave.
• After a hundred years, Black Snake watched people enter the valley and mountain folk build a shrine that became the Snake Immortal Temple, as Fox and Fat Weasel left for the wider world.
• Black Snake observed newcomers at Lone Crag Courtyard and villagers making offerings, then began practicing how to shape his Yin Spirit into a human form.
• Black Snake visited the village in his Yin Spirit and encountered people who mistook him for a temple or a divine being, while villagers spoke of the Dragon King’s protection.
• Black Snake forged bones and blood vessels for his Yin Spirit and continued cultivating until it took the form of a little boy.
• Five riders escorted able-bodied village men away, and the men offered incense at the Snake Immortal Temple and prayed for their village and safe return.

Black Snake learned from He Ning, cultivated his Yin Spirit, and began speaking through dreams while helping villagers and exploring the world beyond the mountain. After Old Man Lin rebuilt the Dragon King temple, Black Snake discovered someone was impersonating him and set out to investigate.

• Black Snake left his original valley after a Daoist warned him that cultivators would hunt him, then settled near Azure Cloud Temple and began observing its residents.
• Black Snake learned sword forms by watching the Female Daoist and later met He Ning, who taught him to communicate through his Yin Spirit and guided him to help with strange events.
• Black Snake defeated the man who had used a Bone Whistle against him and rescued He Ning from a vengeful ghost in her dream.
• Black Snake helped He Ning search the Great Ox River for people missing after a ferry accident, finding several bodies and encountering the dead man’s Yin Soul.
• Black Snake cultivated through the winter, experimented with Dream Entry and forming limbs, and learned to speak when anger made him shout at Old Man Lin to tear down the Dragon King temple.
• Old Man Lin demolished the temple, then rebuilt it after Black Snake appeared in his dream and supposedly ordered him to do so, while villagers began finding a strange child in their dreams.
• Black Snake recognized that someone was impersonating him and stoking resentment through the new temple, then hurried toward Lin Family Crossing in the rain to investigate.

Black Snake endured supernatural dangers, helped protect the mountain, and continued cultivating as years passed. After discovering a cave tied to a failed cultivator, Black Snake and Xiao Yu defeated a man guarding its secret and wondered whether it offered a path to ascension.

• Black Snake destroyed a Ghost Creature at the New Dragon King Temple, survived the flood’s aftermath, and began cultivating his Yin Spirit while guarding the mountain from displaced spirits.
• Black Snake and He Ning escorted a feng shui master through flood-damaged lands, then later delivered the ailing Chen An to a Daoist temple after Black Snake defeated an uncanny old man and drove off robbers.
• Black Snake visited Xiao Yu and Xu Jin, but returned to Azure Cloud Temple when demon hunters began capturing creatures and plague-ridden ghosts and animals spread danger across the region.
• Black Snake followed a Heretic Cultivator into the Underworld, fought its monsters, and returned to his body before studying the Underworld with He Ning.
• Over the next twenty years, Black Snake cultivated and visited Xu Jin and Xiao Yu, while He Ning aged and Chen An returned as a famous doctor still suffering from his illness.
• Black Snake and Xiao Yu explored a cave containing the remains of a failed cultivator, then fought a man who attacked them to keep the cave’s supposed ascension secret.
• Black Snake poisoned the cave’s guardian after Xiao Yu blinded him, and the two demons returned to the cave to recover and consider whether ascension was possible there.