Chapter Summaries

Su Jiu encountered a powerful woman’s divine sense, who revealed that Senior Wunian’s last wisp of divine soul had been living inside her and passed on lost Void Talisman Drawing methods. The woman sent Su Jiu away without revealing her name.

• Su Jiu urged Jin Chen to accept responsibility for Mian Mian and tell her his feelings when she woke, and Jin Chen vowed to make her his only wife.
• When Su Jiu tried to leave, a woman’s divine sense appeared and drew a tiny ball of light from between Su Jiu’s brows, identifying it as Senior Wunian’s last wisp of divine soul.
• The woman explained that her divine soul had been sealed in the door’s runes and clarified that the other doors’ talismans were made from a lifeless, disgusting substance.
• The woman poured long-lost Void Talisman Drawing methods into Su Jiu’s sea of consciousness as thanks for helping Wunian.
• When Su Jiu asked the woman’s name, she instead stroked Su Jiu’s head and told her it was time to go.

Su Jiu discovered that the separate doors led to a shared destination, where a group of cultivators had ruined their chance to escape by fighting over a magic treasure. She found a hidden mechanism in her own chamber and accused Zhu Jie of taking the missing piece.

• Su Jiu emerged from the door and learned that the people beyond a yellow membrane had fought over a magic treasure.
• She realized that the treasure had fit a recess in the other chamber and that the victors had likely destroyed their way out.
• Su Jiu used her otherworldly eyes to search the candle-lined chamber and found three hidden mechanisms, one of which had been emptied.
• Su Jiu demanded that whoever took the missing mechanism return it, warning that she would kill the culprit.
• Wei Xin remembered Zhu Jie had knocked over the candlestick covering the empty recess and accused her of stealing what was beneath it.

Su Jiu activated the stones needed to reveal a Teleportation Array, exposing Zhu Jie’s theft and allowing the group to escape. Left behind unconscious, Zhu Jie became the vessel for the entity inside a Black Stone, while the survivors facing the Immortal Sword watched a monstrous plant emerge from the Sword Casket.

• Su Jiu found and activated two stones, connecting them as Zhu Jie’s Storage Ring began to shake.
• Zhu Jie attacked Su Jiu, but Chu Luohen disarmed her, and her shattered Storage Ring spilled the stolen stone onto the floor.
• The three stones formed a Teleportation Array, and the group left Zhu Jie behind unconscious.
• A Black Stone in Zhu Jie’s belongings sent black mist into her brow, marked her, and declared her a suitable vessel before she stirred.
• In the Immortal Sword chamber, the spiritual qi feeding the Sword Casket snapped, and a monstrous plant detached from it.
• As cultivators retreated from the plant, Wei Qian noticed that it only moved on the steps.

Wei Qian convinced the surviving cultivators that his Spirit-Absorbing Box could weaken the Celestial Orchid Vine and help them escape. He opened it despite their warnings, unleashing sinister black mist and provoking the cultivators to fear he was turning to heretical cultivation.

• Wei Qian offered to help the survivors escape in exchange for sparing his life, and a refined cultivator agreed to hear his plan.
• Wei Qian identified the plant as a Celestial Orchid Vine and claimed the escape mechanism was beneath the platform it guarded.
• Wei Qian revealed a black Spirit-Absorbing Box that could draw spiritual qi from living beings, and the cultivators let him use it on the vine.
• A cultivator recognized the box and warned that prolonged use could taint Wei Qian's divine soul.
• Wei Qian opened the box, releasing sinister black mist, and a cultivator shouted for him to put it down before he became a Heretical Cultivator.

Su Jiu confronted Wei Xin about her scheme against Jin Chen and secured her help in retrieving the Magic Treasure. Wei Xin agreed to the terms, leaving her and her brother cut off from Jin Chen and Mian Mian.

• Su Jiu explained that eight cultivators with different spirit roots had to cast arts together to retrieve the golden ring, and Si Lin agreed to help if Wei Xin consented.
• Su Jiu revealed that she knew Wei Xin had approached Jin Chen with ulterior motives and planned to steal the Magic Treasure, leaving Jin Chen hurt and disillusioned.
• Su Jiu forced Wei Xin to choose between keeping her family safe and betraying Jin Chen, and Wei Xin said she would not break their agreement.
• Wei Xin asked Su Jiu to spare her brother if he survived, and Su Jiu agreed on the condition that neither sibling ever see Mian Mian or Jin Chen again.
• Wei Xin accepted the terms and recognized that Su Jiu had used Jin Chen's love for Mian Mian to make refusal impossible.

Si Que and the others reached a chamber where inscriptions revealed that passing through its three doors required deaths, though Gu Ningyun realized the middle door had another solution. Si Que offered to send them through one at a time.

• Si Que opened the middle door but refused to spend time unsealing the two doors beside it, and the group entered a corridor lined with murals.
• The group found a chamber filled with skeletons, where inscriptions explained that the left door required two deaths, the right door five, and the middle door allowed only one person to live.
• A man killed two people to satisfy the left door’s requirement, and the rest of the group followed him through.
• Qin Ming recognized something familiar in the sword depicted in a mural, while Si Que said Su Jiu was likely more skilled at talisman arts than he was.
• Gu Ningyun, Lie Wushuang, Liu Zhiyan, Qin Ming, and Si Que found the inscribed doors, and Si Que offered to send them through the middle door one at a time.

Su Jiu and the others began breaking the formation around the golden bracelet, but intruders arrived as it neared completion. Wei Qian appeared possessed by demonic qi and attacked, while Wei Xin struggled to keep her focus on the formation.

• Su Jiu, Qin Ming, Gu Ningyun, Jin Chen, Liu Zhiyan, Wei Xin, Lie Wushuang, and Si Lin formed a ring and channeled spiritual qi into the formation.
• Su Jiu sensed that someone was about to emerge from a gray formation and warned everyone to prepare.
• More than a dozen cultivators appeared and eyed the golden bracelet, intending to seize it after the formation broke.
• Zhu Jie and Wei Qian emerged, and Chu Luohen and Si Que recognized that demonic qi had taken hold of Wei Qian.
• Chu Luohen trapped Wei Qian in an ice cage, but Wei Qian broke free and charged toward Wei Xin.
• Su Jiu ordered Wei Xin to focus as her distraction destabilized the formation, while Chu Luohen and Wei Qian began fighting.

Su Jiu and her companions completed the formation while Chu Luohen and Si Que fought the corrupted Wei Qian and the Demonic Sword. Chu Luohen used the Blood Condensation Ritual to protect Su Jiu, but was struck by demonic qi just as the formation yielded a golden bracelet to Jin Chen, and Wei Qian died.

• Wei Qian attacked wildly under the Demonic Sword’s influence, forcing Chu Luohen and Si Que to draw him away from the formation as his demonic qi injured the others.
• Chu Luohen saw through Zhu Jie’s ambush, and the Demonic Sword swallowed her black-smoke escape after she abandoned her body.
• The demonic qi overwhelmed most of the others, killing or transforming them into puppets that Chu Luohen and Si Que subdued.
• Chu Luohen performed the Blood Condensation Ritual, using his blood and lifespan to empower the Scarless Sword and stand against Wei Qian without yielding.
• Su Jiu and the others broke the formation, and the golden bracelet fell into Jin Chen’s hand.
• Su Jiu turned to see Chu Luohen struck by demonic qi as Wei Qian died completely.

Su Jiu led the group out of the collapsing Secret Realm and treated Chu Luohen after the Demonic Sword nearly killed him. Chu Luohen awakened as the exit opened, purged the last demonic qi from his body, and reassured Su Jiu as she blamed herself for his injuries.

• Su Jiu used a Teleportation Formation Disk to evacuate the group, sealed the Demonic Sword, and realized its demonic qi resembled that of the Phantom Blood Demon at the Nightfall Cold Pool.
• After the space collapsed, Su Jiu treated the gravely injured Chu Luohen while Jin Chen and the others stood guard; she expelled most of the demonic qi and helped repair his meridians.
• Chu Luohen awakened on the day the Secret Realm exit opened, found a remnant of demonic qi in his meridians, and used Su Jiu's ice spiritual qi to purify it.
• Su Jiu quietly helped Chu Luohen complete two cycles of spiritual circulation before withdrawing her spiritual qi.
• Chu Luohen thanked Su Jiu, and when she apologized for his lost cultivation, he placed a hand on her head and told her not to feel guilty.

After leaving the Secret Realm, Su Jiu and her companions faced painful farewells and learned the truth behind Si Que’s rejection of Gu Ningyun. On their way to the Zen Sound Temple, they encountered Kong Liao, who demanded the Rebirth Bracelet without honoring the promised exchange, and the chapter ended as he vanished to attack.

• Wei Xin thanked Jin Chen and left, grieving her brother Wei Qian’s death and the loss of the person he had once been.
• Gu Ningyun confronted Si Que about his feelings, then left after he refused to explain why he had saved her; Si Que later admitted to Si Lin that he was hiding a painful truth to protect her.
• Si Lin remembered that Zhu Jie had died after a sinister entity possessed her and was absorbed by the Demonic Sword, and he hurried to consult his family.
• Su Jiu, Jin Chen, and Chu Luohen met the monk Kong Liao, who said he had come to collect the Rebirth Bracelet for his ailing master.
• Su Jiu demanded the promised payment before surrendering the bracelet and accused Kong Liao of not truly being the abbot’s disciple; Kong Liao insisted he needed the bracelet and vanished.

Su Jiu discovered that Kong Liao had been possessed by a Demon Seed and that her spiritual qi could suppress his demonic qi. After wounding him, she trapped him in an icy world and left him struggling against its unnatural cold.

• Su Jiu sent Chu Luohen and Jin Chen aside, blocked Kong Liao's demonic qi with a Defense Talisman, and placed them inside a Defensive Formation.
• Kong Liao revealed his demonic qi, and Su Jiu's spiritual qi dissolved it; he realized she possessed innate origin qi that could suppress demons.
• Su Jiu used her Otherworldly Eyes and saw dense demonic qi covering Kong Liao's Dantian, realizing that he had fallen into demonhood after being possessed by a Demon Seed.
• Su Jiu struck Kong Liao with ice-infused sword qi, injuring his arm and causing pain within his body, then stopped him from escaping through black mist with ice spikes.
• Kong Liao abandoned his Magic Treasure and attacked with demonic claws, while Su Jiu changed the surroundings into an icy world that made him grow cold and stiff.

Su Jiu defeated Kong Liao but spared him in exchange for a Brightflower Pill after the abbot revealed that a demon seed possessed him. The group obtained the Pure-Ice Snow Lotus and Rebirth Bracelet, then learned the Demon-Subduing Land might be connected to growing threats across the Azure Realm; they still needed to find the Netherworld Flower.

• Su Jiu trapped Kong Liao in her domain and nearly killed him before the abbot of the Zen Sound Temple rescued and bound him.
• The abbot exchanged a Brightflower Pill for Kong Liao's life and explained that Kong Liao carried a demon seed; Chu Luohen suspected it had transferred to him after its previous host died.
• Jin Chen returned the Rebirth Bracelet, and the abbot exchanged it and a Brightflower Pill for the group's Pure-Ice Snow Lotus and Brightflower Pill.
• As they left the mountain, Chu Luohen explained that Kong Liao's death could cause the demon seed to possess someone nearby and said the Demon-Subduing Land might be in trouble.
• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen considered whether the demon seeds, the Seal Grounds, and the Azure Realm's instability were connected, then focused on finding the Netherworld Flower.

Su Jiu prepared for her journey to the Yin River Continent while Chu Luohen secluded himself to recover, and she arranged for Enforcement Hall disciples to escort Jin Chen back with the Pure-Ice Snow Lotus. The chapter ended with the Shu Family head refusing to retaliate against Su Jiu, warning his wife that she was Chu Mojin’s personal disciple.

• Su Jiu guarded Chu Luohen as he prepared to take a Brightflower Pill and enter seclusion.
• Gu Ningyun and Lie Wushuang departed, and Su Jiu told Jin Chen to return the Pure-Ice Snow Lotus to the sect.
• Su Jiu introduced two Enforcement Hall disciples she had summoned to escort Jin Chen back, and revealed that she and Tong Qi had joined the Enforcement Hall.
• Jin Chen departed after saying farewell to Su Jiu, while she considered the danger of her coming trip to the Netherworld Ravine.
• Shu Li returned crippled and Shu Wugui disappeared, prompting Shu Li to demand revenge against Su Jiu.
• The Shu Family head refused his wife’s plea to target Su Jiu and explained that she was Chu Mojin’s only personal disciple.

The Shu Family head learned that Shu Li had tried to assassinate Lu Shuangshuang and settled the Lu Household’s grievance by paying compensation and ceding land. The Zhu Household then blamed the Si Family for Zhu Jie’s death, was thrown out by Si Lin, and faced arrests over damage to the teleportation array.

• The Shu Family head learned that Shu Li had tried to assassinate Lu Shuangshuang and agreed to compensate the Lu Household by ceding land and paying compensation.
• Madam Shu caused a scene, so the Shu Family head struck her unconscious; she later died mysteriously, Shu Li was cast aside, and the family gained a new mistress.
• The Zhu Household accused the Si Family of responsibility for Zhu Jie’s death, but Si Lin refused the accusation and ordered them expelled and barred from the gates.
• The Enforcement Hall arrested several Zhu Household direct-line descendants for deliberately damaging the teleportation array, enraging the Zhu Household head.

The Zhu Household’s cooperation with the Soulguiding Sect continued after the household was sacrificed to protect other lineages, while the sect’s master plotted against Su Jiu and Xia Jue. At the Water Moon School, Shui Rao’er learned that her disciples admired Qian Ling’s Spirit Moon Sect and feared that her illness had made her useless.

• The Soulguiding Sect man urged Zhu Household Master to hide another spirit-draining stone vein and seek high-level Formation Arts Artists, then considered using Su Jiu to divert the Azure Tide Sect’s attention.
• The Soulguiding Sect man sent a Message Talisman permitting a seductive woman to pursue Xia Jue, and she eagerly accepted the opportunity.
• Water Moon School disciples discussed Shui Rao’er’s seclusion and praised Qian Ling for investing her own resources in the Spirit Moon Sect.
• Shui Rao’er overheard the disciples comparing her unfavorably with Qian Ling, coughed blood, and wondered whether they wanted her to die.

Shui Rao'er learned that Wei Qian's Soul Lamp had gone out, Wei Xin had vanished, and Su Jiu remained alive after the failed mission to retrieve the Rebirth Bracelet. A Yan revealed how Third Senior Brother had manipulated him for years and made him report the failure, leaving him to face Shui Rao'er's anger.

• A disciple told Shui Rao'er that Wei Qian's Soul Lamp had gone out, Wei Xin had vanished after leaving the Secret Realm, and Su Jiu was still alive.
• Shui Rao'er learned that Third Senior Brother had led the failed mission and summoned him with a Message Talisman.
• A Yan recalled how Third Senior Brother had staged a rescue to win his trust and conceal his desire for A Yan's pills.
• A Yan realized Third Senior Brother had used rumors and moral pressure to keep him under control after he tried to distance himself.
• Third Senior Brother assigned A Yan to report the failed mission to Shui Rao'er, leaving him to bear the blame and her anger.

Shui Rao'er sent her Third Senior Brother and A Yan to capture Bai Su, hoping the woman’s treasures might save her. Meanwhile, Bai Su realized her memories of her former life were fading, while rumors about Xie Liang spread through the Heavenly Dawn Sect.

• Shui Rao'er gave her Third Senior Brother one final chance to find Bai Su and ordered A Yan to accompany him.
• Bai Su reflected on her past hostility toward the Azure Tide Sect and noticed that memories of her former life and the jade bracelet’s origins were fading.
• Vermilion Beauty noticed Bai Su’s distress and told her to return and rest.
• The Heavenly Dawn Sect’s leader entered seclusion with Xie Liang after obtaining a Longevity Fruit and an Eighth-Rank Spirit Pill.
• A rumor that the sect leader was using Xie Liang as a furnace cauldron was suppressed after several disciples were arrested.

After Chu Luohen recovered and advanced to the Nascent Soul Late Stage, Su Jiu learned from a Zen Sound Temple monk that weakening barriers threatened the Azure Realm and that finding the Heaven-Connecting Tower could mend them. The monk vanished, and a masked group arrived at the Teleportation Array with the mineral vein as its target.

• Su Jiu learned that the Soulguiding Sect and Azure Tide Sect had begun covert clashes after Xia Jue killed the disciple who tried to seduce him.
• Chu Luohen emerged from seclusion after consuming the Brightflower Pill, recovered his cultivation, and advanced to the Nascent Soul Late Stage.
• At the Teleportation Array, a Zen Sound Temple monk recognized Little Pearl as the Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl and warned Su Jiu to treat it well.
• The monk told Su Jiu and Chu Luohen that the barriers could hold for only twenty to fifty years and that finding the Heaven-Connecting Tower could mend them and prevent the Devil Race from arriving.
• After Su Jiu and Chu Luohen departed, the monk vanished, and a masked group arrived at the Teleportation Array to target the mineral vein.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen arrived on the Yin River Continent and learned how its Ghost Cultivators had made part of the land hospitable to Dao Cultivators. Meanwhile, Yin Yin and A-Yu were confronted by ghosts demanding Yin Yin’s Soul-Draining Jade, and Yin Yin tried to secure A-Yu’s safety before surrendering it.

• Su Jiu found the Yin River Continent full of life, and Chu Luohen explained that Ghost Cultivators had changed the land to support trade and accommodate visiting families.
• Su Jiu learned that the continent was isolated by the dangerous Nine Nether Sea, home to the Merfolk and deadly shifting undercurrents.
• Yin Yin and A-Yu settled on the Yin River Continent, where Yin Yin joined the Ghost Refining Sect and cultivated until she could form a physical body.
• Yin Yin and A-Yu spent a day shopping in the market, but a group of ghosts confronted them and demanded the Soul-Draining Jade.
• Yin Yin offered to hand over the jade only if the ghosts swore a Heart-Demon Oath not to attack her or A-Yu afterward.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen found Yin Yin and A-Yu under attack by ghost cultivators who practiced the forbidden Netherfire Art. Yin Yin drew the enemy’s deadly flames away from A-Yu, while Su Jiu’s group approached the fight.

• Su Jiu recognized Yin Yin among the fighters and hurried forward with Chu Luohen to save her.
• Yin Yin identified the attackers’ black ghost fire as the forbidden Netherfire Art, but her own ghost fire shattered after she overtaxed her yin energy.
• A-Yu urged Yin Yin to escape, while Yin Yin refused to abandon her.
• One of the ghost cultivators defied his leader and hurled a powerful ball of black fire at Yin Yin and A-Yu.
• Yin Yin ran to draw the black fire away from A-Yu as A-Yu desperately struck the formation barrier, unable to help her.