Chapter Summaries

On the plane, Gao Jian pieced together how far the enemy had infiltrated governments and how mind-state cultivators were resisting them, while assessing the dangers facing the world. He concluded that he was likely the world's only orthodox immortal cultivator and resolved to shoulder his responsibilities by protecting everyone.

• Gao Jian recalled that the White House, the Houston consulate, and China were places the monsters could not infiltrate, and suspected mind-state cultivators guarded them.
• Gao Jian considered the enemy’s role in the moon landing, geomagnetic storm, missile interception attempt, and other crises, and worried that it had infiltrated powerful institutions and armed forces.
• Gao Jian reviewed what Tang Jide and Elon Musk had revealed, concluding that the enemy could replace people and manipulate memories while mind-state cultivators opposed it.
• Gao Jian reasoned that China was safe for now, that Officer Liu had likely screened him, and that his grandfather might soon reach the delusion breaking realm.
• Gao Jian concluded that he was probably the world’s only orthodox immortal cultivator and vowed to follow the precept of safeguarding the survival of all.

Gao Jian returned to CNSA headquarters after preparing supplies and planning how to resume cultivation and reach the moon. As he reunited with his colleagues, an emergency broadcast announced that a country had launched a high-yield missile toward the moon, with only minutes until it was expected to explode.

• Gao Jian spent three days at home buying and storing supplies, then checked into a hotel near CNSA headquarters to plan his return to work.
• Gao Jian concluded that his three spirit stones were inadequate for cultivation and decided to seek a way to visit the moon and investigate its mysteries.
• Gao Jian considered persuading CNSA to restart its lunar program, with a possible fallback of going to the United States to work with SpaceX.
• Gao Jian returned to CNSA headquarters, where his colleagues gathered to welcome him back.
• A breaking-news broadcast reported that a country had launched a high-yield conventional missile toward the moon, and Gao Jian realized it was due to explode in three minutes.

Gao Jian watched international leaders condemn Russia after a Borei submarine launched an intercontinental missile toward the Moon and suspected the missile could escape Earth’s gravity. Song Yaozu pressed Gao Jian for inside information, then pointed out that Director Dan Zhongde was watching him.

• A live broadcast showed a Russian intercontinental missile climbing past the Kármán Line as the United States, France, and the United Kingdom condemned the launch.
• Gao Jian realized the missile might travel beyond Low Earth Orbit and reach the Moon if the Lorentz Force Spiral still existed in the Van Allen Radiation Belt.
• Song Yaozu asked Gao Jian what he knew about the launch, and Gao Jian said Musk had used him to expose secrets.
• Song Yaozu warned Gao Jian that Director Dan Zhongde was looking at him, and Gao Jian turned to meet the director’s gaze.

Gao Jian tried to persuade CNSA leaders not to suspend the moon program, then suggested that the Russian nuclear missile might be affected by anomalous gravity. He asked how China’s lunar probes had landed despite Elon Musk’s claim that gravity along orbital trajectories made it impossible.

• Director Dan and Old Li told Gao Jian that safety concerns and political circumstances could delay the moon landing program for eight or ten years.
• A livestream notice said the Russian missile’s detonation would be delayed by about five minutes, prompting CNSA staff to rush to the roof to watch.
• Song Yaozu’s warning that a nuke was about to explode sent neighboring defense bureau staff scrambling for the underground shelter.
• Gao Jian suggested the missile might reach the moon if gravity stopped working, and asked Director Dan, Deputy Director Bian, and Old Li how China’s lunar probes had landed under anomalous gravity.

Gao Jian learned from Director Dan, Deputy Director Bian, and Old Li that gravitational failures made much of space beyond 499 kilometers dangerous, and that China, Russia, and the United States had kept the phenomenon secret. The leaders explained how safe regions and lunar laser reflectors helped protect spacecraft and detect anomalies, leaving Gao Jian stunned that the Apollo Moon landings had really happened.

• Gao Jian told Director Dan, Old Li, and Deputy Director Bian that Elon Musk had revealed the orbital anomalies to him.
• Deputy Director Bian explained that the United States had warned China about gravity failures before Yang Liwei's mission, and Soviet records later confirmed the danger.
• Old Li said Dongfanghong 1 had been flung far beyond its orbit by repeated anomalies, while China's Shenzhou 5 orbit was lowered to keep Yang Liwei safe.
• Director Dan explained that high-orbit satellites used fixed safe spots where gravity remained normal, and said gravity failures had become more frequent in recent years.
• Director Dan and Deputy Director Bian described how lasers and lunar corner reflectors could detect gravitational anomalies before launches.
• Gao Jian asked whether the Apollo crewed Moon landing was real, and the leaders stared at him as though he were an idiot.

Gao Jian learned why China had suspended its moon program after the geomagnetic storm and gravitational anomalies, then witnessed a nuclear missile detonate high above Earth. He realized a beam from the moon had destroyed the missile’s warhead, leaving him shaken by the moon’s mysterious power.

• Old Li, Director Dan, and Deputy Director Bian corrected Gao Jian’s doubts about the Apollo landings and explained that space agencies were concealing gravitational and radiation anomalies.
• The directors explained that the geomagnetic storm had disabled many satellites, damaged the space environment, and forced China to suspend the Chang'e Program and rule out a moon landing.
• Old Li refused Gao Jian’s offer to become an astronaut and told him to focus on theoretical work for his own safety.
• Song Yaozu mistook his popular Douyin video for an explosion in the sky, before the group spotted a fleeting flash from a nuclear detonation.
• Gao Jian used his divine sense to see that a beam from the moon had struck and shattered the nuclear missile’s warhead before it detonated.

Gao Jian reflected on his stalled cultivation and the mysterious force on the moon that had intercepted a nuclear missile, then ordered food after deciding not to investigate the major powers himself. He opened the door to find Song Yaozu delivering his enormous takeout order.

• Gao Jian lamented that intermittent cultivation had kept him at the peak of early Foundation Establishment for a month.
• Gao Jian reasoned that someone on the moon had destroyed Russia's nuclear missile and wondered whether a Deification cultivator or aliens were responsible.
• Gao Jian considered asking President Vance or President Medvedev what they knew, but rejected the dangerous idea.
• Gao Jian ordered food before dawn and went to collect it when the delivery driver called.
• Gao Jian opened the door and was shocked to find Song Yaozu struggling to carry his takeout.

Gao Jian discovered that Song Yaozu had been working exhausting overnight delivery shifts to earn extra money and made him stop to rest and eat. Song Yaozu learned that Gao Jian had also tried crowdsourced delivery, while Gao Jian explained that he had been studying geomagnetic storms with Old Li.

• Song Yaozu accepted a large delivery order, but Gao Jian canceled it after pointing out how heavy and far away it was.
• Gao Jian brought Song Yaozu into his apartment, used spiritual energy to ease his fatigue, and asked why he was delivering food despite his day job.
• Song Yaozu explained that he wanted to earn more because of expenses and his parents’ hopes that he would buy a home and marry.
• Gao Jian noticed Song Yaozu’s exhaustion and insisted he eat from the breakfast spread.
• Song Yaozu described his overnight delivery schedule, and Gao Jian said he had been studying geomagnetic storms with Old Li.

Gao Jian learned about Song Yaozu’s exhausting logistics job and let him sleep on his sofa after he delivered food overnight. Meanwhile, Dan Zhongde and the other Space Administration leaders realized that Song Yaozu and Gao Jian belonged to rival Song and Ming factions, and they scrambled to prevent a political marriage alliance.

• Song Yaozu told Gao Jian he had worked overnight shifts sorting packages for two years, leaving him with severe back pain, and planned to focus on food delivery.
• Gao Jian offered Song Yaozu the sofa to sleep on, magically laid him down, and brushed off the Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Bamboo Sword’s suspicions about their relationship.
• Dan Zhongde and Bian Xia saw Gao Jian’s message requesting leave for Song Yaozu and worried that the two had become close.
• Old Li and Director Liu joined Dan Zhongde and Bian Xia, and they discussed the rivalry between the Song and Ming factions and the danger of arranging a match between their representatives.
• Dan Zhongde agreed to keep Gao Jian busy to limit his meetings with Song Yaozu, while Director Liu tried to propose his daughter before the others told him to leave.

Gao Jian received an invitation from Wan Hu, who sent a USB drive and an expensive neural simulation helmet to his residence. After a delivery rider was accidentally knocked unconscious by Song Yaozu, Gao Jian healed her and collected the items, then wondered whether Wan Hu wanted to meet him in a virtual world.

• Gao Jian considered ways to reach the moon, including persuading the state to restart the Moon Landing Program or stealing the Long March 10 rocket.
• Wan Hu contacted Gao Jian through an internal-network email and offered him five hundred thousand US dollars to meet.
• Gao Jian used his divine sense to locate Wan Hu's delivery rider, who was knocked unconscious when Song Yaozu collided with her outside Gao Jian's residence.
• Gao Jian stopped Song Yaozu's rough CPR and healed the rider's concussion before collecting the delivery pouch and a heavy helmet from her scooter.
• Gao Jian identified the helmet as a noninvasive electrical-signal virtual brain-computer helmet and wondered whether Wan Hu intended to meet him in a virtual world.

Gao Jian examined and activated the powerful external brain-computer interface, discovering that it could directly stimulate his cerebral cortex and simulate sensations beyond ordinary VR. After the helmet welcomed him back, it pulled his consciousness through layers of strange imagery toward another world.

• Gao Jian inspected the heavy helmet and its support frame, identifying its intricate components as an external brain-computer interface.
• Gao Jian connected the encrypted USB drive and the power supply, then put on the helmet as it fitted itself around his head.
• Gao Jian endured the helmet's electrical signals as they reached his cerebral cortex, while his divine sense kept him aware of his surroundings.
• Gao Jian saw the helmet render a model of reality and display the messages "Model loaded. Rendering in progress," "Rendering complete," and "Welcome back."
• Gao Jian experienced simulated weightlessness, then watched numbers, star charts, bronze gears, and seal script rush past as the interface pulled his consciousness toward another world.

Gao Jian arrived in an immersive virtual version of Ming-era Beijing, where steam engines and mechanical defenses had transformed the city. He met Zheng He, who began explaining the city’s technology as they descended the wall.

• Gao Jian regained his senses atop a Beijing gatehouse and discovered that his supernatural powers did not work normally in the virtual world.
• Gao Jian recognized steam locomotives, railway tracks, and a Railway Manufacturing Bureau beneath the smoggy sky.
• Ma Sanbao introduced himself as Zheng He and welcomed Gao Jian.
• Zheng He showed Gao Jian the City Mechanism, which used Fire Wheel Engines to raise cannons and move ammunition along the city wall.
• Gao Jian asked whether the setting was a steampunk alternate Ming Dynasty, and Zheng He agreed with a dimming gaze.

Gao Jian explored the steam-powered Ming capital with Zheng He and learned how the dynasty obtained rubber from the Great Yin State. The conversation ended when Zheng He insisted that Gao Jian had made up the name Australia.

• Zheng He led Gao Jian into the city, where Gao Jian saw rail carts, steam machinery, and signs of industrial pollution.
• Gao Jian discovered that his divine sense could scan the virtual Ming world and briefly overlay it with the modern world.
• Zheng He explained that the Ming’s inefficient steam engines relied on oil-soaked flax or rock pitch for seals because rubber was scarce.
• Zheng He told Gao Jian that descendants of Yin-Shang lived in the New World as the Great Yin State and gathered rubber in South America.
• Zheng He described the Ming’s far-reaching territory and steamships, then told Gao Jian that Australia was a word he had made up.

Gao Jian learned from Zheng He how the Yongle Revolution began and heard that the Yongle Encyclopedia had recorded secrets including a lost cultivation method. Zheng He revealed that Tao Wan Hu planned to launch himself to the moon that night, leaving Gao Jian stunned.

• Gao Jian and Zheng He crossed Beijing while arguing over whether Australia existed, and Zheng He continued to deny it.
• Gao Jian asked how Great Ming’s Industrial Revolution began, and Zheng He explained how court factions debated it before the Yongle Revolution gained support.
• Zheng He said the Yongle Encyclopedia recorded the Fire Wheel Engine, the Seven Voyages, and a legendary Mind-State Immortal Cultivation Method that was believed lost.
• Gao Jian realized the cultivation method still existed in the real world and asked whether Wang Yangming could explain it, but Zheng He said Wang had not logged in for a long time.
• Zheng He told Gao Jian that Tao Wan Hu was the last Director of the Skyward Bureau and planned to launch himself to the moon that night using 102 Flying Dragon Rockets.

Gao Jian examined Lord Wan Hu’s rocket-powered Flying Chair and questioned whether it could reach the moon, but the launch preparations and Wan Hu’s confidence left him facing an imminent, dangerous experiment. Wan Hu declared that he would travel to the moon in his Ming Dynasty official robes because he considered it Star Han territory.

• Gao Jian doubted Zheng He’s claim that the Ming Dynasty could reach the moon, and Zheng He invited him to inspect the Flying Chair at the plaza.
• Gao Jian recognized that a soldier’s dialogue came from a locally deployed language model, then pushed through the guards to reach the launch platform and tried to warn them.
• Wan Hu allowed Gao Jian onto the platform, where Gao Jian examined the Flying Chair and its 102 Black-Powder Rockets, noticing features that might let it fly.
• Gao Jian asked why Wan Hu was not dressed as an astronaut, and Wan Hu insisted that his Ming Dynasty official robes were the finest spacesuit for returning to the moon, which he claimed belonged to Star Han.

Gao Jian attended Wan Hu’s rocket-chair moon launch and discovered that the craft had been sabotaged. As Wan Hu’s chair lurched skyward, Gao Jian shot after it to try to save him.

• Wan Hu offered Gao Jian a brain-computer interface helmet, cash, and ten percent of his LandSpace shares in exchange for the Yongle Encyclopedia page, then explained that he planned to reach the moon in a rocket chair.
• Gao Jian watched Wan Hu strap himself into the chair and learned that dying in the simulation would trigger a lethal brain-computer helmet sequence.
• Wan Hu ordered the launch, and sixteen black powder rockets lifted his chair into the air as the crowd cheered.
• Gao Jian detected discolored exhaust and found a silvery coating in several propellant tubes, realizing someone had tampered with the chair.
• Gao Jian identified the wealthy Pu Clan merchants near the launch frame, then broke free of the soldiers and flew after Wan Hu’s chair.

Gao Jian rescued Wan Hu from the sabotaged rocket chair, but his Immortal Cultivation powers triggered a catastrophic rendering failure that destroyed parts of the Ming Dynasty game world. After the game crashed and ejected him, Gao Jian discovered that his helmet had a mechanism capable of delivering a fatal electric shock, suggesting the organization behind the game used it to enforce secrecy.

• Gao Jian flew after Wan Hu and pulled him from the exploding rocket chair, but an enormous Java error popup appeared over Beijing.
• As error messages spread and parts of the city vanished, Gao Jian found that the other players had disconnected and been replaced by AI-controlled citizens.
• Emperor Hongzhi identified himself as the game's Administrator, but a giant frozen popup appeared and the collapsing world ejected Gao Jian.
• Gao Jian removed his helmet and concluded that using Immortal Cultivation powers had caused the crash.
• Gao Jian inspected the helmet and discovered a fuse, short-circuit mechanism, and voltage booster that could deliver a lethal current to its wearer.

After Steam Ming vanished, Gao Jian examined its clues and began to suspect it reflected a hidden version of real history. He formed a theory about the organized Ming Faction and resolved to learn more and contact Wan Hu.

• Gao Jian tried logging into Steam Ming again, then inspected its encrypted USB drive and the glowing Yongle Encyclopedia fragment.
• Gao Jian compared Ming history books with Steam Ming and found no historical record of the Fire Wheel Engine or the world Wan Hu described.
• Gao Jian considered whether Mount Buzhou, the Starry River Ancient Road, and unusual laws of gravity could explain Wan Hu's plan to reach the moon.
• Gao Jian combined the anomalies into a theory that Steam Ming preserved a suppressed true history of an early Ming Industrial Revolution and a pre-Qin cultivation method.
• Gao Jian identified Emperor Xiaozong, Wan Hu, Zheng He, and their associates as the Ming Faction and considered how their resources, beliefs, and goals fit together.
• Gao Jian questioned how an industrialized Ming Dynasty could have fallen and decided to investigate further, contact Wan Hu, and seek his grandfather's knowledge.

At a secret Rothschild meeting, NASA administrator Jasade reported that their attempt to stop the Artemis lunar mission had failed and that three Astronauts were being held at the White House. Pu Mingyuan proposed using the first lady’s son to create an opportunity to get them out.

• Moses Rothschild waited at a Manhattan gathering for Pu Mingyuan to arrive.
• Pu Mingyuan arrived late, corrected the placement of a fish at the table, and took his seat beside the gathered leaders.
• Jasade explained that their efforts to sabotage the Artemis Program had failed and that Blackwell would be held responsible while Anderson had been removed from the game.
• Jasade said the NASA channel could not be used for now and that the three Astronauts were at the White House, guarded by Chinese soldiers.
• Moses Rothschild asked Pu Mingyuan for advice, and Pu proposed drawing the president’s family out by arranging a hunting trip for the first lady’s eldest son.

The Bavarian Illuminati debated how to obtain the astronauts’ life-extending treatment and how to respond to the people on the moon, then the Zion Elders ordered Pu Mingyuan to lure Gao Jian out of China. Pu Mingyuan also remained responsible for bringing the three astronauts to them.

• Pu Mingyuan proposed luring Vance’s son to secure the three astronauts, and the Illuminati agreed he would try to build trust at the hunting grounds.
• Henry DuPont urged taking the astronauts’ families, but the others rejected the idea as too likely to expose the Illuminati and provoke the United States.
• Howard Mann argued that Russia’s lone missile launch reflected fear of the moon’s inhabitants, and Pu Mingyuan warned that China would not protect the Illuminati from them.
• Elder Abraham and Elder Elisha described Gao Jian’s extraordinary abilities and identified him as the source of the astronauts’ restored health.
• The Zion Elders ordered Pu Mingyuan to get Gao Jian out of China so they could capture him, while Rothschild tasked him with bringing the astronauts as well.