Chapter Summaries

Lin Ke’s farewell preface created a powerful wind-and-snow manifestation, and the Assistant Director of the Children’s Education Bureau tried to repair the bureau’s reputation by blaming a subordinate. Lin Ke then asked him to appraise the phrase “a harsh household,” leaving the assistant director unable to respond.

• The Assistant Director rebuked the bureau official for acting without authorization, causing the official’s literary qi to collapse and making him vanish.
• Lin Ke absorbed the farewell preface’s wind-and-snow manifestation with the Bamboo Staff, while the Assistant Director praised him and thanked him for the work.
• The Assistant Director blamed the incident on a scoundrel acting out of jealousy and promised to distribute Lin Ke’s preface throughout the realm.
• Lin Ke asked the Assistant Director to appraise the preface, drawing attention to its phrase “a harsh household.”
• The Assistant Director’s expression changed because he did not dare appraise the phrase.

Lin Ke forced the Assistant Director of the Children's Education Bureau to appraise his preface and explain what he thought of the phrase “a harsh household.” The Assistant Director praised Minister Lin’s harsh discipline as the source of Lin Ke’s achievements, and Lin Ke challenged him for glorifying suffering.

• Lin Ke offered the Assistant Director of the Children's Education Bureau an opening to distance himself from the Rites Department by asking for his appraisal.
• The Assistant Director translated Lin Ke’s preface without judging the phrase “a harsh household” and tried to leave.
• Lin Ke stopped the Assistant Director and demanded his opinion of the harsh household described in the preface.
• The Assistant Director claimed Minister Lin’s strict rules and discipline had produced Lin Ke’s achievements, drawing approval from the onlookers.
• Lin Ke asked whether the Assistant Director was glorifying suffering and argued that the person who endured it, not the suffering itself, deserved praise.

Lin Ke challenged the idea that suffering itself deserved praise, arguing that people’s will and circumstances mattered more, and told the Meng Family that his argument supplemented rather than rejected Mencius’s teachings. The gathered figures debated his words, while his teachers defended him and Lin Ke felt grateful for their support.

• Lin Ke argued that people’s resolve, not suffering, allowed them to endure hardship and achieve greatness.
• Thought projections across the Capital City reacted with alarm and debated whether Lin Ke was challenging the Sacred Path.
• A thought projection from the Meng Family asked Lin Ke why he believed Mencius’s words were wrong.
• Lin Ke bowed and said he was supplementing Mencius’s teachings, adding that even Confucius was not infallible.
• Academy Head Fang Yun and Lin Ke’s other teachers spoke up in his defense, and Lin Ke warmly appreciated their support.

Lin Ke faced the Mencius Sage Family after challenging parts of the Way of Mencius, while his teachers and Butcher Zhang rallied to protect him. The family’s elder arrived and declared that his daughter must marry Lin Ke because Lin Ke had helped complete their ancient sage’s Way.

• Lin Ke’s teachers argued over where to take him for safety and whose granddaughter should marry him, while the spectators and vendors watched the commotion.
• Butcher Zhang arrived, learned that the Meng Family might target Lin Ke, and promised to fight for him.
• Lin Ke said he could not agree with something fundamentally mistaken, and the Assistant Director of the Children's Education Bureau explained that Confucius had used force as well as words to teach others.
• Lin Ke worried that his challenge to the Way of Mencius might damage the Sacred Paths of its followers, then considered how to respond to the Meng Family.
• An elder from the Mencius Sage Family arrived with a young girl and declared that his daughter must marry Lin Ke because Lin Ke had helped complete the Way of Mencius.

After Lin Ke advanced Mencius’s Sacred Path, the Meng Family head offered him his youngest daughter, and other powerful families rushed to propose matches. Lin Ke learned they were trying to claim him for his literary talent, while Li Chungang offered to help him escape and marry Li Feiyu.

• The Meng Family head explained his oath to marry his youngest daughter to whoever completed his ancestor’s Sacred Path, prompting other big shots to argue over proposing their descendants to Lin Ke.
• Lin Ke worried about the Great Confucians’ matchmaking pitches as they traded insults and competed to offer daughters, granddaughters, and even sons dressed as women.
• Butcher Zhang told Lin Ke that the powerful families wanted to claim him because his poetry and Exhortation to Learning showed talent beyond a fleeting burst of inspiration.
• Li Chungang told Lin Ke he would take him away if the proposals turned dangerous and urged him to marry Li Feiyu, while Lin Ke privately rejected the idea.

Lin Ke turned the aftermath of his dispute with the Assistant Director into a public pitch for his writings and his devotion to the sacred path. He then stunned the gathered scholars by inviting them to become his masters, complete with an apprenticeship gift and discount coupon.

• Lin Ke thanked the Assistant Director and urged him to publish his Encouragement to Study Preface throughout the land, along with details about Lin Ke's other works and milk tea shop.
• After the Assistant Director left, Lin Ke proclaimed his devotion to the sacred path and said he would avoid romantic entanglements until reaching the sage realm.
• Meng Xueshi told Lin Ke that his words about avoiding marriage were not binding unless he swore a Sacred Path Oath.
• Lin Ke told Meng Xueshi he could become his disciple, then invited all the gathered elders to accept him as a student.
• Lin Ke offered each prospective master an Apprenticeship Gift Pack and a ten-percent-off coupon, limited to the first hundred sets.

Lin Ke turned a crowd of powerful visitors into a rush to take him as their disciple, eventually registering 216 fifth-realm masters. After Butcher Zhang and Li Chungang escorted him home, they discovered Ning Caichen whispering to Lin Ke’s plum tree, from which a little girl emerged and called him “Sonny!”

• Kongtongzi and Master Pudu offered to take Lin Ke as their disciple, and Lin Ke accepted both invitations.
• Experts from many schools and factions converged on Lin Ke, who had Butcher Zhang help register them and warmly handled their requests.
• Fifth-realm experts joined the queue, and Lin Ke ended the day with 216 masters recorded on his tally.
• Butcher Zhang and Li Chungang escorted Lin Ke home and asked how he had learned his persuasive sales pitches.
• At Lin Ke’s courtyard, they found Ning Caichen whispering to the plum tree, and a little girl sprang from it and called Lin Ke “Sonny!”

Lin Ke learned that his plum tree had become a sacred path tree tied to his growth, then decided to take disciples in imitation of Confucius. The chapter ended with Li Chungang and Butcher Zhang teasing him for his shameless plan to overwhelm opponents with masters and disciples.

• Lin Ke discovered that the plum tree spirit called him “sonny” because he had often called the tree “Mommy,” and Butcher Zhang collected her tree spirit fluid.
• Li Chungang explained that the plum tree was a sacred path tree that would grow alongside Lin Ke’s sacred path and benefit from his insights.
• Li Chungang and Butcher Zhang urged Lin Ke to take disciples and pass on his knowledge and skills.
• Lin Ke decided to take two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine disciples in admiration of Confucius and joked that they would help him win group fights.
• Li Chungang and Butcher Zhang compared Lin Ke’s shamelessness to Wang Lin’s.

Lin Ke chose to keep the little girl as a companion rather than turn her into a Supreme Treasure, then returned to his chores and training. Meanwhile, Qi Ye prepared to challenge him in a best-of-three contest, confident in the martial and miscellaneous rounds but wary of Lin Ke’s poetry.

• Lin Ke reassured the little girl that he would keep her rather than make her a Supreme Treasure, and Li Chungang praised the potential of a mature sacred path tree.
• Lin Xuanji, Qi Ye, and an elderly man discussed Lin Ke’s unusual act of taking hundreds of masters and his Manifestation poetry.
• Qi Ye reviewed his strengths in the miscellaneous and martial contests but worried that Lin Ke might have more Manifestation poems in reserve.
• Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist supporters urged Qi Ye to punish Lin Ke, and Li Feiyu offered to kill him for Qi Ye.
• Qi Ye refused their help and said he would defeat Lin Ke himself, insisting that Lin Ke was only of servile status.

Li Feiyu hired a crippled woman to cripple Lin Ke, while Chaoyang Street opened Lin Ke’s frightening new Escape Room. The Great Elder of Soul Hall praised Lin Ke’s creation as a demon’s den, and a Featherfolk arrived to challenge him and declare that the Six Clans would set the world’s fortune in order.

• Li Feiyu paid a one-armed, one-legged woman to break Lin Ke’s legs and cut out his tongue.
• Chaoyang Street drew enormous crowds, and Lin Ke’s Escape Room opened in the renovated courtyards of Butcher Zhang’s shop and Li Chungang’s workshop.
• The Great Elder of Soul Hall visited the Escape Room with his disciples and called Lin Ke’s creation a fitting gift from his new disciple.
• A Featherfolk arrived and objected that the Escape Room had no demonic energy, while bystanders identified the visitor as one of the Northern Yi Featherfolk.
• The Featherfolk claimed that the Six Clans would set the world’s fortune in order, and the Great Elder mocked the claim and boasted that Lin Ke could defeat them.

Pan Jinlian confronted a Featherfolk youth who had disparaged Lin Ke’s Escape Room, but he fled in terror shortly after entering. The Soul Hall’s Grand Elder recognized the fear Lin Ke’s creation produced as nourishment for Demonic Cultivation and praised Lin Ke as a genius of the Demonic Path.

• Pan Jinlian made the Featherfolk youth pay to enter the Escape Room, then insisted he wear a Spell-Sealing Bracelet.
• Pan Jinlian recalled how the Sage Emperor had devastated the Featherfolk and other races after they preyed on humanity, and defended Lin Ke’s work.
• Pan Jinlian announced rewards for the first hundred people to achieve a perfect clear, prompting a crowd to rush toward the Escape Room.
• The Featherfolk youth screamed inside the Escape Room, then fled without completing the task and was fined by an Inspector for speeding.
• The Soul Hall’s Grand Elder gathered the youth’s fear and told his disciples that Lin Ke’s creations generated emotional power suited to Demonic Cultivation.

The Soul Hall grand elder’s twin disciples entered separate Painting Path Spaces to experience the mirror task. The left disciple followed its instructions but grew unsettled by his reflection, and the chapter ended as he wondered whether he had developed schizophrenia.

• The Soul Hall grand elder left for the Demon Department while his twin disciples praised their junior brother’s suitability for the true demon path.
• The twins paid Pan Jinlian, put on Spell-Sealing Bracelets, and entered separate paintings.
• The left disciple read the task instructions and began smiling at his reflection every fifteen minutes.
• As he stared into the mirror, the left disciple became uncertain about his identity and whether he had completed a required smile.
• The left disciple wondered if he had developed schizophrenia, then saw his reflection smile again.

Two Soul Hall disciples emerged from Lin Ke’s Escape Room transformed by a terrifying encounter and advanced to the middle stage of the second realm. As the crowd rushed to try the room, Lin Ke and Butcher Zhang questioned Wang Lin’s suspicious claims about her family background.

• Onlookers heard the twin disciples scream inside the Escape Room, and the terrified brothers stumbled out before recovering their demonic qi and reconnecting through a Secret Technique.
• Lin Ke arrived to welcome Master Number Eighty-Eight, while Butcher Zhang and Li Chungang watched the brothers’ strange state.
• The twin disciples opened their eyes and revealed they had advanced from the early to the middle stage of the second realm, prompting the crowd to rush toward the Escape Room.
• Lin Ke asked Butcher Zhang whether Li Chungang could manage the Escape Room and whether they had found Wang Lin’s paintings.
• Butcher Zhang questioned Wang Lin’s convoluted claim about her relatives, and Lin Ke realized that the current Dao Sect leader had no wife.

Lin Ke watched Escape Room visitors emerge exhilarated after venting their fear and stress, while two Soul Hall disciples absorbed the fear energy and thanked him for helping them break through. He began planning to expand his businesses across the Divine Land by recruiting masters, and ended by asking the two disciples to introduce him to more potential masters for a commission.

• Lin Ke watched the first Escape Room visitors leave excited and relieved after screaming away their negative emotions.
• Senior Brothers Left and Right absorbed the Escape Room's fear energy and thanked Lin Ke, explaining that it had helped them break through to the middle stage of the second realm.
• Lin Ke and Butcher Zhang discussed the Escape Room's appeal, including its potential links to role-playing games, novels, and comics.
• Lin Ke imagined recruiting thousands of masters to run businesses across the Divine Land and considered giving them work in his novel, comic, and milk tea ventures.
• Lin Ke asked Senior Brothers Left and Right to introduce him to suitable masters and offered five copper coins for each successful introduction, leaving them bewildered.

Lin Ke and the Great Elder of Soul Hall agreed to open Escape Rooms throughout the Divine Land, while crowds gathered to try the new Basketball Babe Arena. Bai Zhantang entered the arena and watched ten women play basketball.

• Lin Ke proposed opening Escape Rooms throughout the Divine Land to help people relieve stress, and the Great Elder of Soul Hall agreed to handle the expansion.
• Crowds flocked to the Escape Room, shops, and Song-Listening Entertainment House after hearing that the Basketball Babe Arena had opened.
• Bai Zhantang left the busy milk tea shop and joined the queue for the arena, where a familiar young gentleman offered to pay his admission.
• Bai Zhantang entered the arena and saw ten women running around a basketball court as spectators cheered.
• Bai Zhantang watched the players and wondered whether he had entered a Heart Demon illusion.

Bai Zhantang and the green-robed young man spent the afternoon watching women play basketball, while Lin Ke reflected on how his businesses could challenge social prejudice against people of servile status. After the green-robed young man visited Lin Ke with a request, he attacked him from behind and demanded his tongue and legs.

• Bai Zhantang and the young gentleman watched three basketball games, placed bets, and won fifteen copper coins, while Shopkeeper Tong later beat Bai Zhantang for being gone nearly four hours.
• Lin Ke and Butcher Zhang watched two games, and Lin Ke considered how sports and entertainment could help people recognize the humanity of those of servile status.
• Lin Ke returned home, prepared to practice dancing, and answered a knock at the door from the green-robed young man, who said Bai Zhantang had referred him.
• The green-robed young man entered Lin Ke's home and attacked him from behind, demanding Lin Ke's tongue and legs.

Lin Ke was ambushed by a Third Realm Confucian Path assassin, but he fought back with the Bamboo Staff and convinced her he was a Martial Path mighty expert. The assassin tried to flee, and Lin Ke intercepted her before drawing a golden feather and a xiao flute.

• The scantily clad woman attacked Lin Ke inside a barrier that prevented outsiders from detecting what happened, while Ning Caichen and the little girl tried to stop her.
• Lin Ke blocked the assassin's blade with the Bamboo Staff and struck back with enough speed to make her mistake him for a Fourth Realm Spirit-Communing practitioner.
• The assassin fled toward the gate, but Lin Ke used Ballet-Ballonné to land in her path.
• Lin Ke withdrew a glowing golden feather and a cylindrical xiao flute as the wary assassin watched him.

Lin Ke survived an assassin’s attack after summoning Jingang, and his allies killed the woman before she could escape. As they considered who had hired her, another attacker arrived claiming to act for Lord Qiu and found himself surrounded by Lin Ke’s companions.

• Lin Ke summoned Jingang with a heated feather, and Jingang burst into the courtyard, knocking the fleeing assassin back.
• Li Chungang immobilized the woman, Butcher Zhang dislocated her jaw and questioned her, and Lin Ke ordered her killed.
• Butcher Zhang found a short blade and pendant on the woman, and Lin Ke used his Bamboo Staff to turn her corpse to ash.
• Jingang revealed that the assassin had been an early Third Realm cultivator, while Li Chungang suspected the attack had been carefully prepared.
• Jingang wondered whether the Left Office of the Prefect of the Capital had arranged the assassination, but the group had no proof.
• A man stormed into the courtyard, threatened to kill Lin Ke on Lord Qiu’s behalf, and froze when he saw everyone watching him.

After a disguised agent from the Left Office of the Prefect of the Capital tried to abduct Lin Ke, Li Chungang killed him, and Lin Ke considered the danger posed by hidden enemies. Li Chungang left to seek protective artifacts while Butcher Zhang began teaching Lin Ke, Ning Caichen, and the little girl martial arts.

• The beggar revealed that Lord Qiu of the Left Office of the Prefect of the Capital wanted Lin Ke as a spouse, then tried to flee before Li Chungang pinned and killed him.
• Lin Ke and the others concluded that the earlier female assassin had not been working with the Left Office, and Lin Ke worried that his existing defenses were inadequate.
• Butcher Zhang offered to teach Lin Ke martial arts, and Jingang took his leave after promising to return if Lin Ke needed him.
• Li Chungang offered to obtain a Literary Heart Jade Pendant and Heart-Guard Mirror, which together could withstand a Fourth Realm strike and cost about twenty thousand taels of gold.
• Li Chungang examined Lin Ke's pendant, called it an unusual treasure, and left to consult an old friend about it.
• Butcher Zhang invited Lin Ke, Ning Caichen, and the little girl to train, as Wu Daozi arrived to ask his master questions.

After an assassin attacked Chen An, Chen Pingping killed him but collapsed and could not be saved. Grieving and determined to avenge his father, Chen An prepared to use a secret treasure to create a Novel World and trap his enemies.

• Wu Daozi asked Lin Ke about drawing comics, and Lin Ke began explaining paneling.
• Chen An arrived and told Lin Ke that an assassin had attacked his family and his father was dying.
• Lin Ke went with Chen An and found Chen Pingping gravely weakened after killing the assassin who had attacked them.
• Lin Ke tried to heal Chen Pingping with his power of reform, but it had no effect.
• Lin Ke offered Chen An a place to stay, but Chen An refused and resolved to wait for his enemies in a Novel World.
• Chen An revealed that Yu Chu's Miscellaneous Tales was a secret treasure written by Sage Yu and said he would use it to kill enemies below the fifth realm.