Chapter Summaries

Luo Bin found an Ascended Corpse in Primordial Calculation and discovered it had belonged to a Six Yin Mountain disciple who had died holding a box. He took the black pill inside and recovered some strength, while the cause of the disciple’s death and the dangers in the room remained unknown.

• Luo Bin realized that the Spirit Hexagram’s life force had caused the corpse to ascend in the yang residence.
• Fourth Master Gray burrowed into the corpse, dislodged a Six Yin Mountain Bronze Club and a Calling Bell, and found no wound on the body.
• Luo Bin inferred that the corpse had died holding an unopened brocade box and wondered whether poison or a hidden mechanism had killed the disciple.
• Luo Bin searched the corpse for a Corpse Core but found none, then opened the box and discovered a black pill.
• Luo Bin swallowed the pill, felt warmth restore his strength, and left Fourth Master Gray fuming over being denied a taste.

Luo Bin returned with pills from the Ascended Corpse and found Xu Lu watching the unconscious Bai Xian. When darkness brought the Primordial Calculation Yin Residence to life, Luo Bin hid with Xu Lu and Bai Xian, then discovered a hidden floor opening and ordered them inside.

• Luo Bin collected boxes of pills while Fourth Master Gray and Little Gray Spirit ate the Ascended Corpse's flesh and carried an eyeball away.
• Luo Bin gave Xu Lu a pill, and Xu Lu saved it for Bai Xian as the sky abruptly darkened.
• The desiccated corpse at the entrance began moving, so Luo Bin led Xu Lu, who carried Bai Xian, into the [Concealment] courtyard and hid beneath a bed.
• As moonlight filled the residence, the corpse regained its flesh and opened the gate for a crowd of revived residents who resumed their old routines.
• Luo Bin told Xu Lu that the yin residence was assimilating the yang residence, then recognized the hiding place and found a ring that opened a square hatch in the floor.
• Luo Bin told Xu Lu to crawl into the hatch with Bai Xian, and Xu Lu followed.

Luo Bin and Xu Lu discovered that the Yang Residence’s rules could kill anyone who touched its belongings, and realized the bronze mirror and Copper Awl might be the missing objects suppressing the residence. They planned to return the artifacts, while elsewhere Dai Xingjie forced Shangguan Xingyue to swallow his pills and urged her not to disappoint him or Mr. Fang Jinyan.

• Luo Bin and Xu Lu found a scaled corpse whose notebook described deaths caused by breaking Primordial Calculation’s rules and an ancient inhabitant who reclaimed stolen objects.
• Luo Bin tossed pills and collected belongings outside the room, and a silent Tang-suited man retrieved them before waiting by the door to strike anyone who emerged.
• Luo Bin and Xu Lu concluded that damaged or missing suppression objects had made the Yang Residence unsafe and planned to repair its formation or leave at daylight.
• Xu Lu suspected that Luo Bin had removed the Yang Residence’s Fate-Suppressing Objects, and Luo Bin handed him the bronze mirror and Copper Awl to examine.
• Dai Xingjie forced a dark golden pill into Shangguan Xingyue and told her to recover for him and Mr. Fang Jinyan.

Dai Xingjie forced Shangguan Xingyue to take pills and ordered Fang Jinyan to tend the grotesque flower made from Che Che. Meanwhile, Luo Bin and Xu Lu stayed with Bai Xian as she regained control of herself, and the chapter ended with them confronting the danger of removing her human-skin garment.

• Dai Xingjie blamed Shangguan Xingyue for disappointing him, demanded that she take medicine, and urged her to lure the pursuing Taoists into a deadly formation.
• Fang Jinyan reported a Red-Robed Taoist outside the Mountain God Temple, then left to bury Che Che, who had been mutilated and planted as a flower.
• Luo Bin and Xu Lu waited anxiously until Bai Xian awoke and mourned her Granny, then Bai Xian admitted she believed the Abbey Master had been wrong.
• Xu Lu encouraged Bai Xian to return to the Talisman Arts lineage and stand against the Abbey Master, while Luo Bin asked her to remove her human-skin garment so they could find the formation eye.
• Bai Xian feared that removing the garment would release insects from her body, and Luo Bin realized they might need Xu Lu's talismans to contain them.

Luo Bin and his companions restored Primordial Calculation’s protective treasures, revealing a chamber of dried corpses and a feathered coffin beneath the pool. After finding all sixteen rooms stripped of ritual artifacts, Luo Bin left barefoot in despair, while Bai Xian stopped Xu Lu from following and let him seek his own way through his disappointment.

• Xu Lu placed talismans on Bai Xian, and Luo Bin warned that Primordial Calculation’s strange ascension was likely corpse poison.
• Luo Bin found the heart of Primordial Calculation’s estate, where he and Bai Xian fitted the Copper Awl and Eight-Trigram Mirror into their places.
• Luo Bin sank beneath the pool and saw dried corpses, the last people of Primordial Calculation, and a feathered coffin whose feathers receded under the light.
• Luo Bin and Xu Lu searched all sixteen rooms for ritual artifacts but found only empty display stands.
• Luo Bin walked barefoot away from the courtyard, and Bai Xian stopped Xu Lu from chasing him while Xu Lu urged him to stay optimistic.

Luo Bin realized that Yuan Yinxin had left a path to the burial goods and decided to enter Primordial Calculation’s tomb residence with Xu Lu and Bai Xian. They reached the great coffin of a major figure, and Xu Lu urged Luo Bin to risk opening it for the sect’s earliest ritual artifacts.

• Xu Lu found an air vent beneath a room’s threshold and realized it led to the tomb chamber below.
• Luo Bin recalled the pills and a booklet, recognized that Yuan Yinxin’s group had left burial goods behind, and returned to the Heaven Direction courtyard.
• Luo Bin announced that he would enter the tomb residence, and Xu Lu and Bai Xian agreed to accompany him.
• The three waited until night, left the Primordial Calculation residence, and approached the tomb entrance despite the deadly wind.
• Xu Lu used a talisman and Bai Xian remained unaffected as they squeezed through the tomb door and found the corpses bowed before a great coffin.
• Xu Lu warned Luo Bin that opening the coffin was dangerous but could yield Primordial Calculation’s first ritual artifacts.

Luo Bin decided to open the great patriarch’s coffin in search of a powerful inheritance, and he and Xu Lu prepared to suppress the corpse and avoid its poison. Meanwhile, Yuan Yinxin lost track of Luo Bin and Shangguan Yuexingguan and grew uneasy, but he wrongly blamed Taoists for concealing them.

• Xu Lu urged Luo Bin to open the largest coffin and offered his final dragon-suppressing talisman, and Luo Bin agreed.
• Luo Bin deciphered the hexagrams holding the coffin’s occupant down and concluded they had to move the coffin to a different position before opening it.
• Luo Bin sent Fourth Master Gray to gather Mountain Rats to carry the coffin, then coated it with ascended-corpse blood to ward off poison.
• Luo Bin told Bai Xian she would not need to occupy a hexagram position because they would not harm the corpse, and she bowed to him in gratitude.
• Yuan Yinxin wondered why he could no longer sense Luo Bin or Shangguan Yuexingguan and suspected Taoists had hidden them.

Luo Bin opened the patriarch’s coffin and discovered a trove of Primordial Calculation artifacts and a book bearing the sect’s name. After a lantern drew his soul from his body and then faded, the patriarch reanimated and seized Luo Bin’s leg, leaving him trapped at the coffin’s edge.

• Fourth Master Gray and the mountain rats moved the coffin to the Great Stellar Convergence, where Xu Lu placed a talisman on it and helped Luo Bin open it.
• Luo Bin and Xu Lu found a Cinnabar Tortoise, a Hanging Tortoise Mirror, a Jade Star Qimen Compass, talismans, and a thick book titled Primordial Calculation inside the coffin.
• A lantern lit inside the coffin, causing Luo Bin’s soul to leave his body as two old monks and He Lianxin appeared; when the lantern went out, his soul returned.
• Luo Bin found a wooden sword and a small box in the coffin, then tried to climb out with the box tucked away.
• The patriarch reanimated and grabbed Luo Bin’s leg, and Luo Bin stopped Fourth Master Gray from charging at its hand.

Luo Bin took Primordial Calculation’s ritual treasures from the Patriarch’s tomb and realized the Patriarch had let him go because he wanted the sect’s traitors purged. A corpse barred the group from returning to the residence, forcing them off the mountain, where Luo Bin prepared to study his gains and worried that Shangguan Yuexingguan might be in danger.

• Luo Bin took the Moon-Shaped Stone from the Patriarch’s hand, then knelt and vowed to purge Primordial Calculation’s traitors as the corpses knelt with him.
• Luo Bin refused Xu Lu’s suggestion to explore the lower burial grounds, and the group left the burial dwelling without disturbing the other tombs.
• A corpse blocked the entrance to Primordial Calculation’s residence, so Luo Bin, Xu Lu, and Bai Xian left the mountain and searched for a cave to rest.
• In the cave, Luo Bin examined the Cinnabar Tortoise, talismans, ritual implements, compass, lantern, and sword he had taken from the tomb.
• Luo Bin said they needed to leave the mountain quickly and worried that Shangguan Yuexingguan might be in danger while holding off Zhou Sanming; Xu Lu questioned whether they could abandon her.

Luo Bin studied the primordial calculation inheritance and learned that the Primordial White Flower Lantern could reveal yin spirits and destroy ghosts with its attached sword, but it required great ghosts as lamp oil. When he tested it, the lantern revealed several spirits around his companions before its oil ran out, leaving him to consider how to refill it before confronting Zhou Sanming.

• Xu Lu and Bai Xian volunteered to help save Shangguan Xingyue, while Luo Bin searched the inheritance for instructions on the lantern.
• Luo Bin found the Primordial White Flower Lantern’s instructions, which called for a great ghost as oil and a blood peachwood sword to destroy revealed ghosts and fiends.
• Luo Bin carried the lantern toward the cave, where its glow revealed the Old Monks, He Lianxin, the Bright Consort deity, and ghosts within Bai Xian’s Human-Skin Garment.
• Xu Lu shouted for Luo Bin to slay the Bright Consort deity, but the lantern went out after only a few seconds.
• Luo Bin realized the lantern had exhausted its lamp oil and considered whether the Bright Consort deity, the Old Monks, or the Five-Prison Ghost could refill it.

Zhou Sanming waited for a chance to reenter Elephant Mountain while Dai Xingjie tried to persuade Shangguan Xingyue to lure the Taoists into the Primordial Outer Abbey’s traps. Shangguan Xingyue and Fang Jinyan managed to shake Dai Xingjie’s resolve, but an enemy arrived at the temple, leaving Dai Xingjie poised to confront them.

• Zhou Sanming waited in the Mountain God Temple for the mountain qi to fluctuate so he could enter Elephant Mountain again.
• Dai Xingjie urged Shangguan Xingyue to let the Taoists into the abbey, claiming its traps could kill them and improve their strength.
• Shangguan Xingyue condemned Dai Xingjie for his treatment of her and wounded her tongue, prompting him to panic.
• Fang Jinyan confronted Dai Xingjie and persuaded him that Shangguan Xingyue was heartbroken because she still hoped he could change.
• When a practitioner accused Shangguan Xingyue of manipulating Dai Xingjie, she warned him of danger, and Dai Xingjie freed her restraints before turning toward the outer gate.

Zhou Sanming and the Taoists confronted Dai Xingjie in the Outer Observatory, where Dai Xingjie sacrificed himself in a violent attack that struck many practitioners. At the foot of Elephant Mountain, Luo Bin sensed Shangguan Xingyue more clearly as Bai Xian suddenly stepped in front of him and Xu Lu.

• The mist revealed the decayed Outer Observatory, and Zhou Sanming entered with Red-Robed Taoists and a purple-robed Taoist, prompting Dai Xingjie to try to flee with Shangguan Xingyue.
• The newcomers’ presence suppressed the practitioners, while Taoists’ Bronze Swords wounded Dai Xingjie and Zhou Sanming explained that Dai Xingjie had escaped being made into a lifespan person.
• Dai Xingjie fought the Red-Robed Taoists, then warned Shangguan Xingyue to move before stabbing himself with a rusty sword and cutting his corpse into pieces.
• Dai Xingjie’s remains exploded, injuring Taoists and practitioners; those struck rose and shouted, “I, the Way of the Immortals!” in Dai Xingjie’s voice.
• At Elephant Mountain’s foot, Luo Bin sensed Shangguan Xingyue more strongly as Xu Lu and Bai Xian discussed the blood mist and thunderous sounds.
• Bai Xian’s expression turned cold, and she stepped in front of Luo Bin and Xu Lu.

Luo Bin, Xu Lu, and Bai Xian ran into Bai Zihua and Divine Firmament Mountain’s Taoists near Elephant Mountain, where a confrontation broke out over Bai Xian’s actions and clothing. As Bai Xian used Taoist arts to raise her strength, Bai Zihua stopped to watch her, and Luo Bin prepared to help her advance further.

• Bai Zihua confronted Luo Bin’s group and accused Bai Xian of defending Elder Bai Qingjin’s murderer and wearing clothing made from human skin.
• Xu Lu attacked Bai Zihua with a talisman but was blasted away, while Bai Xian fought Bai Yi and the six Red-Robed Taoists to keep them from reaching Xu Lu.
• Bai Zihua struck Fourth Master Gray with his Bronze Sword and a talisman as Luo Bin dodged using Hexagram Positions.
• Luo Bin directed Bai Xian into the final position, and she performed the Four Spirit Summoning Incantation, causing her aura to surge.
• Bai Zihua halted Bai Yi’s attack so he could watch Bai Xian, who then used another empowering Taoist art.
• Luo Bin recognized Bai Xian’s new position and recited the Mountain Hexagram verses to raise her momentum.

Luo Bin and Bai Xian fought Bai Zihua and the Red-Robed Taoists, briefly weakening Bai Zihua with hexagram techniques before the Taoists overwhelmed Bai Xian. Fourth Master Gray and the mountain rats interrupted Bai Zihua’s attack on Luo Bin, leaving Bai Zihua holding him by the throat but choosing not to strike.

• Bai Xian summoned the Thunder Gate generals and charged Bai Zihua, while Luo Bin used Yuan Yinxin’s fingers to weaken Bai Zihua and let Bai Xian batter him with Palm Thunder.
• Bai Yi and Bai Zihua attacked together, piercing Bai Xian’s shoulder and ending her assault, while Xu Lu fled into Primordial Calculation Mountain.
• Luo Bin tried to use the Golden Silkworm Gu and another hexagram technique against Bai Zihua, but Bai Zihua resisted and advanced on him.
• Fourth Master Gray and the mountain rats opened a pit beneath Bai Zihua, and Fourth Master Gray sprayed him with urine, drawing his furious attack.
• Bai Zihua struck Fourth Master Gray aside, seized Luo Bin by the throat, and raised his other palm, but stopped when Bai Yi called out.

Yuan Yinxin possessed Luo Bin and nearly crushed Bai Zihua’s skull, but Bai Zihua drove the spirit away with a talisman and thunder ritual before Luo Bin could escape into Elephant Mountain. As Bai Zihua and Bai Yi moved to capture the injured Luo Bin, a massive landslide began tumbling down Primordial Calculation Mountain.

• Yuan Yinxin possessed Luo Bin and attacked Bai Zihua, while Luo Bin silently hoped Yuan Yinxin would not notice the White Flower Lantern.
• Bai Yi’s sword attack gave Bai Zihua enough room to chant an incantation, and Luo Bin fled toward Elephant Mountain’s misty entrance.
• Bai Zihua struck Luo Bin’s back with a command-arrow talisman, and his thunder ritual blasted Luo Bin away from the mountain entrance and injured him.
• Yuan Yinxin realized that Divine Firmament Mountain’s ritual artifacts could threaten him and worried that Luo Bin and Shangguan Xingyue would remain beyond his reach.
• Bai Zihua and Bai Yi approached the fallen Luo Bin, but a huge landslide began crashing down Primordial Calculation Mountain toward them.

Xu Lu used talismans to trigger a devastating rockfall that crippled Divine Firmament Mountain’s forces, but Bai Zihua survived and went after him. As Bai Yi and the Red-Robed Taoists prepared to take Luo Bin, Luo Bin used the Black-Gold Toad to rot one Taoist’s arm, and Bai Yi severed the shoulder to stop the decay.

• Xu Lu rescued Bai Xian with the Gray Immortal, then used talismans to unleash successive rockfalls on Bai Zihua and the Red-Robed Taoists while protecting Luo Bin indirectly.
• The rockfall injured nearly all of Divine Firmament Mountain’s party, left two Red-Robed Taoists with severed limbs, and exhausted Xu Lu until he collapsed unconscious.
• Bai Zihua released Luo Bin and rushed toward the slope, while Bai Yi explained that Divine Firmament Mountain intended to use Luo Bin as a vessel for the Yin Spirit Patriarch.
• Luo Bin tried to escape, but Bai Yi and the Red-Robed Taoists restrained him and said he should die for Divine Firmament Mountain.
• Luo Bin pressed the Black-Gold Toad against a Red-Robed Taoist’s arm, and Bai Yi cut off the Taoist’s shoulder to stop the rotting.

Luo Bin unleashed a deadly Gu tide against Bai Yi and the other Divine Firmament Mountain disciples, but Bai Yi subdued him and Bai Zihua captured the survivors. After the group seized Luo Bin’s artifacts and discovered the primordial Moon-Shaped Stone, a horde of corpses from the Heaven Divination Sect arrived and confronted Bai Zihua.

• Luo Bin used the Black-Gold Toad to poison two Red-Robed Taoists, then summoned venomous creatures and poisonous mist in a desperate Gu attack.
• Bai Yi dispelled the miasma, killed the approaching Gu, and subdued Luo Bin, while Bai Zihua returned carrying Xu Lu and Bai Xian.
• Bai Zihua pinned Fourth Master Gray, confiscated Luo Bin’s artifacts, and took the Moon-Shaped Stone, which Bai Yi recognized as primordial calculation’s inheritance symbol.
• Bai Zihua ordered Bai Xian released but prepared to take Luo Bin away with the stolen artifacts and book of primordial calculation.
• At least a hundred corpses from the Heaven Divination Sect emerged among the rocks and raised divination hexagrams as Bai Zihua formed a lightning seal.

Luo Bin used the Primordial Calculation corpses’ Hexagram Speech Manifestation to suppress Bai Zihua and escape with Bai Xian and Xu Lu. As Bai Zihua prepared to summon a Patriarch, the three entered Elephant Mountain’s mist and encountered a hungry mountain demon.

• The Primordial Calculation corpses used successive hexagrams to injure Bai Zihua, and Bai Yi worsened his condition by pulling him from the boulder.
• Bai Yi offered Luo Bin Bai Zihua’s ritual artifacts and the Primordial White Flower Lantern in exchange for dispersing the corpses, but Luo Bin refused and explained that he could not control them.
• The corpses’ hexagrams forced Bai Yi to retreat and knocked the two Red-Robed Taoists unconscious, allowing Luo Bin to recover the Golden Silkworm Gu and carry Xu Lu while helping Bai Xian toward Elephant Mountain.
• Bai Zihua pressed the Divine Firmament Four Sovereigns Mirror to his chest and took out a Command Talisman to summon a Patriarch, while Bai Xian warned Luo Bin what he intended.
• Luo Bin glimpsed the Grandmaster of Primordial Calculation Mountain through the clouds, then entered the mist with Bai Xian and Xu Lu and found a mountain demon waiting ahead.

Zhou Sanming rejected Shangguan Xingyue’s appeal and began draining her and the remaining Yin-Yang Practitioners, while Luo Bin, Bai Xian, and Xu Lu survived an encounter with the Nightmare Fiend by offering it their essence. The Nightmare Fiend left them alive, but the group remained weakened as Xu Lu regained consciousness.

• Zhou Sanming deduced that Cabinet Mountain’s disciples had damaged Primordial Calculation Mountain and wondered why Shangguan Xingyue had released him.
• Shangguan Xingyue explained that she and Luo Bin had fled Yuan Yinxin and asked Zhou Sanming to treat them as fellow victims, but he refused to trust anyone from Cabinet Mountain.
• Zhou Sanming immobilized the Yin-Yang Practitioners, cut Shangguan Xingyue, and used her blood to draw a talisman that slowly drained her life.
• Luo Bin knelt before the Nightmare Fiend and let it consume his essence; the creature then drained Xu Lu and Bai Xian before vanishing into the forest.
• Luo Bin and Bai Xian remained alive but weak, and Xu Lu regained consciousness and asked Bai Xian for help.

Bai Zihua’s Patriarch Bai Ling possessed him and crippled Bai Yi, then pleaded with Primordial Calculation to spare Divine Firmament Mountain’s disciples. The Corpse Horde rejected the appeal and transformed Bai Zihua and Bai Yi into mountain-guarding corpses as the surviving Daoists fled.

• After Luo Bin and the others escaped, Bai Zihua summoned Patriarch Bai Ling, and Bai Yi urged him to attack the Primordial Calculation disciples.
• Bai Ling struck Bai Yi with lightning, then asked the silent Corpse Horde to allow Bai Yi and the Abbey Master to undergo Corpse Liberation.
• The Primordial Calculation disciples advanced and began ascending, while Bai Zihua’s own soul demanded that Bai Ling fight back and resist Corpse Liberation.
• Bai Ling ordered the surviving Daoists to tell Bai Xiaoshan to become Divine Firmament Mountain’s new Abbey Master, then pushed them away from the encroaching Corpse Horde.
• The Corpse Horde transformed Bai Zihua and Bai Yi into feathered, scaled corpses that stood guard over the path up Primordial Mountain, while the surviving Daoists fled.