Chapter Summaries

Su Jiu visited South City’s Elegant Tales pavilion, where Yili shared rumors about the Water Moon School and Bright Moon School’s escalating conflict. She also realized the storyteller recognized her and was probably another Enforcement Hall cultivator.

• Su Jiu observed that the Bright Moon School patrolled South City while suspicion about the Water Moon School remained unproven.
• At Elegant Tales, Yili disguised as a short man told the listeners that Shui Rao'er had agreed to give Qian Ling some secret manuals after a dispute over the Misty Immortal Sect’s techniques.
• Yili revealed that the two Qian Ling School disciples who reported the techniques were found dead the next day, and Su Jiu recognized him and understood the clue he was passing along.
• Su Jiu inferred that Qian Ling and Shui Rao'er’s feud had reached a boiling point, with Qian Ling holding leverage over Shui Rao'er and both sects nursing grievances.
• The storyteller noticed Su Jiu, and she suspected he was also from the Enforcement Hall before listening to his tale.

Su Jiu learned the hidden history of the Enforcement Hall’s destruction of the Spirit-Draining Stone vein and the Soulguiding Sect, then returned to the clinic to check on her recovering friend. She evaded the maidservant’s attempt to push her, leaving their confrontation unresolved.

• Su Jiu heard Yili recount how Feng Qi led the Enforcement Hall to burn the Spirit-Draining Stone vein and destroy the Soulguiding Sect, while the Ghost Market was spared.
• Su Jiu thanked Yili and left; Feng Qi revealed himself as the storyteller, and Yili charged him for a broken teacup.
• Su Jiu returned to the clinic, where the maidservant accused her of using her friend’s injuries to approach the master and tried to bar her entry.
• Su Jiu challenged the maidservant’s authority, entered the clinic, and checked that her friend’s condition had improved.
• The maidservant tried to push Su Jiu out, but Su Jiu turned aside and evaded her hands.

Su Jiu took the unconscious girl away from Qi Song’s clinic after confronting A Cen, then left the girl protected at an inn in South City and returned to North City. A message talisman and a fleeting sensation left her uncertain, and she ended the chapter by noticing her Junior Granduncle watching from an inn window.

• Su Jiu threatened A Cen with Ice Spikes, took the unconscious girl from the clinic, and paid Qi Song with spirit stones.
• Qi Song sensed A Cen’s malice, confronted her, and forbade her from entering his room or turning away guests, but did not send her away.
• Su Jiu carried the girl to an inn, set up protections around her room, and received a Message Talisman.
• Su Jiu returned to North City at night because she suspected the girl’s condition was connected to the Water Moon School.
• At the inn, Su Jiu sensed a gaze and saw her Junior Granduncle standing by a window above her.

Su Jiu pieced together how Ming Yun had been manipulated by the leaders of the Heavenly Dawn Sect and Water Moon School, and suspected she was now searching for someone who could expose her secrets. After comparing their findings about the disappearances in Xi He City, Su Jiu and the others concluded the problem was confined to North City and considered approaching the Bright Moon School.

• Yun Huanling booked the inn for a private meeting, and Lan Fang Ziyi placed a barrier around it.
• Su Jiu connected Ming Yun’s breakthrough and rise in the Heavenly Dawn Sect to a possible Water Moon School scheme, and concluded both sect leaders had used her for their own benefit.
• Yun Huanling told Su Jiu that Ming Yun and Li Yishi had been searching for someone, reinforcing Su Jiu’s suspicion that an outer gate disciple in Xi He City had leverage over Ming Yun.
• Su Jiu reported what she had learned in South City, including that cultivators disappeared only after crossing the wall into North City.
• Chu Luohen concluded that the disappearances occurred only in North City, and Su Jiu proposed discussing the matter with the Bright Moon School while warning that the Azure Tide Sect should not provide the forces for a war.

Su Jiu and the others decided to wait for the Bright Moon School to approach them while investigating the dividing wall and North City. After discovering hints of a hidden formation and possible watchers near the wall, they split into two groups to approach it from different directions.

• Su Jiu rejected negotiating with the Bright Moon School and said they would wait for it to make contact.
• The group discussed North City, and Su Jiu told Chu Luohen she had sensed the Mirror's aura briefly to the south.
• Chu Luohen said he had detected a faint formation near the wall and described concealed cultivators watching the area.
• Lan Fang Ziyi suggested the watchers were connected to the Water Moon School and that investigating the formation was their priority.
• Yun Huanling drifted into a daydream, and Lan Fang Ziyi slapped him back to attention.
• Lan Fang Ziyi arranged for Yun Huanling to join him and for Su Jiu to join Chu Luohen as they approached the wall from separate directions.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen settled the expedition groups, while the chapter shifted to Qian Ling’s troubled history with Shui Rao’er and the Bright Moon School. Qian Ling and the Bright Moon School elders discussed how to respond before Shui Rao’er could crush their sect.

• Yun Huanling objected to the group assignments, but Chu Luohen paired himself with Yun Huanling and Su Jiu with Lan Fang Ziyi.
• Su Jiu accepted the arrangements and left the inn, followed by Lan Fang Ziyi, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen.
• The chapter described how Qian Ling built up the Bright Moon School after the Misty Immortal Sect split and its cultivation methods were taken.
• Qian Ling recalled that Shui Rao’er had received the inheritance and Main Peak allotted to Qiu Yinong’s missing Personal Disciple, who was still alive.
• Qian Ling investigated the Nascent Soul Cultivators who had appeared at the Water Moon School and learned they had gone to the Wuyi Tribe, where nearly all reportedly died.
• Qian Ling and the Bright Moon School elders discussed Shui Rao’er’s growing threat and the deaths of two of their disciples.

Qian Ling and the elders of her school discussed how to deal with the Water Moon School, whose recovered cultivation methods and secret manuals had turned out to be junk. The Seventh Elder warned that the Azure Tide Sect’s Enforcement Hall had a specific mission and urged cooperation, leaving the group alarmed that the Water Moon School might retaliate against them after the Enforcement Hall withdrew.

• Qian Ling asked the Seventh Elder for his thoughts, and he said someone had already moved ahead of them.
• Qian Ling suspected the Azure Tide Sect’s Enforcement Hall was targeting Shui Rao’er and hoped it would kill her, while the Seventh Elder reasoned that the Hall was investigating something instead.
• Qian Ling proposed waiting until the Azure Tide Sect weakened the Water Moon School before moving in to claim its resources.
• The Seventh Elder urged Qian Ling to share information with the Enforcement Hall and seek its protection, explaining that the Azure Tide Sect had little need for the Water Moon School’s resources.
• The Seventh Elder said Xia Jue, Ning Fan, and Feng Qi would likely complete their mission and withdraw without wiping out the Water Moon School, which could then turn its anger on Qian Ling’s group.
• The elders realized the Enforcement Hall might be sparing the Water Moon School partly to protect it from their own plans.

Gong Wusheng waited for the Enforcement Hall to discover the problem in the Southern Woods while Qiu Yinong revealed his plans for the Misty Immortal Sect and his eventual disappearance. Meanwhile, Su Jiu and Lan Fang Ziyi approached the wall in North City and encountered signs of Water Moon School disciples nearby.

• Gong Wusheng told Qian Ling to wait two days for the Enforcement Hall to notice the Southern Woods, while Qian Ling failed to learn which disciples the Hall had sent.
• Qiu Yinong confronted Gong Wusheng about protecting Ling'er, and the two discussed Shui Rao'er, the Enforcement Hall, and their plans for Qian Ling.
• Qiu Yinong said he would not return to the continent after everything was over, then vanished after entrusting Ling'er to Gong Wusheng.
• Su Jiu and Lan Fang Ziyi traveled toward the wall using Concealment Breath Talismans, and Su Jiu noticed unfamiliar cultivators she suspected were Water Moon School disciples.

Su Jiu and Lan Fang Ziyi reached a guarded area, where they sensed the Mirror's aura and waited for Yun Huanling and Su Jiu's Junior Granduncle. When the pair failed to arrive, Su Jiu decided to search the north side, and Lan Fang Ziyi insisted on going with her.

• Su Jiu and the exhausted Lan Fang Ziyi hid near several Nascent Soul Realm cultivators and searched the area for signs of trouble.
• Su Jiu sensed the Mirror's aura while Lan Fang Ziyi's Compass needle briefly shifted, and they agreed to wait for Yun Huanling and Su Jiu's Martial Uncle.
• Lan Fang Ziyi asked what Su Jiu thought of A Ling, and she called him somewhat slow and cowardly but exceptionally talented.
• After a quarter of an hour passed without Yun Huanling or her Junior Granduncle arriving, Su Jiu suspected they had run into trouble and chose to check the north side.
• Lan Fang Ziyi followed Su Jiu, explaining that they should stay together because he could not manage alone, and Su Jiu apologized for making the decision without discussing it.

Su Jiu learned from Lan Fang Ziyi about the painful price Yun Huanling paid to advance and declared that she would remain his friend unless he harmed others. She then sensed Chu Luohen and Yun Huanling fighting a large group of attackers and hurried toward them.

• Lan Fang Ziyi told Su Jiu that the Heavenly Secret Sect’s talents came at the cost of weaker physiques and arts, and described Yun Huanling’s painful breakthrough to Nascent Soul.
• Su Jiu said Yun Huanling would always be her friend as long as he did nothing that harmed others, while Lan Fang Ziyi mistakenly concluded that she had no romantic interest in him.
• Su Jiu heard fighting and sensed Ice Spiritual Qi, then rushed toward Chu Luohen and Yun Huanling as Lan Fang Ziyi followed.
• Chu Luohen and Yun Huanling were surrounded by dozens of silent attackers who charged them without warning.
• Yun Huanling asked Chu Luohen whether their attackers might be controlled, and Chu Luohen’s sword missed after Yun Huanling called him Martial Uncle.

Yun Huanling used Layered Phantom Images, Startled Swan Steps, and his spiritual qi to evade his pursuers while secretly trapping them in a grand formation. After Chu Luohen finished off the remaining attackers, Su Jiu and Lan Fang Ziyi arrived, and Su Jiu praised Yun Huanling’s formation skill while warning that his success depended on the pursuers’ ignorance.

• Chu Luohen fought the assassins fiercely while Yun Huanling evaded their attacks without harming them.
• Yun Huanling used Layered Phantom Images and Startled Swan Steps to dodge attacks as he traced a formation through his movements.
• The assassins realized they were trapped in fog and one of them recognized that Yun Huanling had built a grand formation while distracting them.
• Yun Huanling watched the trapped assassins from outside the formation and explained that he had used the surrounding space as his formation disk.
• Chu Luohen killed the last attacker, then Su Jiu and Lan Fang Ziyi arrived.
• Su Jiu recognized Yun Huanling’s diskless formation and told him he was fortunate that none of his pursuers understood formation arts.

Su Jiu and Yun Huanling confronted the nearly hundred Nascent Soul Cultivators trapped in Yun Huanling’s formation, and Su Jiu used her Snowfall Domain to suppress them. The assassins realized they were at her mercy, but the chapter ended before the fight began.

• Su Jiu explained that Yun Huanling had likely used himself as bait while inscribing the formation, and Yun Huanling lamented that formations could not be completed as quickly as Void Talisman Drawing.
• Su Jiu ordered the assassins killed, and Yun Huanling released the formation into Su Jiu’s icy Snowfall Domain.
• The trapped cultivators saw Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and their companions, but remained confused about how they had been caught.
• One cultivator tried to attack Su Jiu but found that he could not mobilize his spiritual qi.
• Su Jiu identified her power as a domain, leaving the inexperienced cultivators horrified by the force controlling them.

Su Jiu interrogated the Water Moon School assassins inside her domain and learned what little they knew about the immortal pool spring and their origins. The captured man began explaining that the group had different identities, but the chapter ended before he could elaborate.

• Su Jiu froze the assassins in her domain and demanded to know what they knew about the immortal pool spring.
• The assassins tried to bargain for their lives, but Su Jiu killed one and exposed the leader’s attempt to send a Message Talisman for help.
• The man admitted that only Shui Rao'er was rumored to know the spring’s location and said a masked steward supplied them with its water.
• Yun Huanling nearly confronted the man, but his Senior Brother pulled him back and told him to stay quiet.
• The man began to explain that the group members had different identities.

Su Jiu learned how the Water Moon School used Immortal Pool Spring water to cultivate low-aptitude disciples in a sealed space, and heard how dangerous its formation road was. She connected the School’s wanted fugitive to the injured girl she had rescued and learned the girl was called Hu Zheng.

• Su Jiu learned that the Water Moon School sorted disciples who drank Immortal Pool Spring into three groups, including children with spirit roots, families seeking the School’s favor, and cultivators with little hope of advancing.
• The man described a sealed cultivation space reached by a formation-covered road, where disciples received Immortal Pool Spring water and could leave only after reaching Nascent Soul; those who failed died when their lifespans ran out.
• The man told Su Jiu that one disciple who tried to escape was destroyed by a formation, and that a masked man had mentioned demons and time laws on the road.
• Su Jiu asked about the mad girl she had rescued, and the man said the Water Moon School had issued a wanted notice claiming a prisoner had escaped with its secrets.
• The man said he had never seen the girl in the sealed space and identified her as Hu Zheng.

Su Jiu questioned the Water Moon School disciples who had abducted people and killed them inside her domain before continuing toward the formation with Chu Luohen and the others. At the same time, Shui Rao'er learned that every cultivator she had sent to Xi He City was dead and blamed the Azure Tide Sect's Enforcement Hall.

• Su Jiu learned that the Water Moon School disciples had seized passersby on orders and dragged them beneath the city wall, where a formation lay.
• Su Jiu killed the captives in her domain, saying that those who killed others would be killed in turn.
• Chu Luohen told Su Jiu it was time to go, while Lan Fang Ziyi noticed Chu Luohen's feelings for her.
• Shui Rao'er learned that the Soul Tablets of all the cultivators sent to Xi He City had shattered at nearly the same time.
• Shui Rao'er questioned the report, then suspected that the Azure Tide Sect's Enforcement Hall had wiped out her people.

Su Jiu and the others investigated a hidden formation near the wall and found that another Demon Mirror fragment lay within it. Su Jiu identified the formation as a Composite Grand Array, possibly containing spatial and time-based layers, but they still had to find a way inside.

• Shui Rao'er dismissed a disciple who reported that the investigators sent to the scene had not yet returned, then returned to her room and sent a paper talisman fluttering away.
• Su Jiu showed Yun Huanling the Demon Mirror fragment she had taken from a girl earlier that day, and Yun Huanling said they needed to locate a related fragment near the wall.
• Su Jiu traced the faint mirror aura to a crack in the wall, while Chu Luohen used his sword to mark the formation's boundaries.
• Yun Huanling sent spiritual qi toward the crack, but the formation swallowed it before it could reach the formation eye.
• Su Jiu identified the hidden formation as a Composite Grand Array with at least one spatial layer and possibly a time-based layer.

Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, Chu Luohen, and Lan Fang Ziyi identified several layers of a concealed composite formation hiding a Fragment. Su Jiu proposed breaking it together from outside, and Yun Huanling and Chu Luohen agreed to trust her, leaving Lan Fang Ziyi to reluctantly accept their plan.

• Lan Fang Ziyi reflected on Yun Huanling's growth and Su Jiu and Chu Luohen's exceptional formation skills.
• Su Jiu identified the formation as a seven-layer composite array, while Chu Luohen detected a time formation and Yun Huanling detected a Teleportation Array.
• Su Jiu concluded they needed to break the formation without triggering the Teleportation Array and proposed that several people perform Formation-Breaking from Outside together.
• Lan Fang Ziyi warned that the method required precise coordination and trust, but Su Jiu maintained that multiple people could succeed where one could not.
• Yun Huanling and Chu Luohen both agreed to proceed, and Yun Huanling said he trusted A Jiu.
• Lan Fang Ziyi reluctantly gave them permission to try, though Su Jiu understood that he could not fully trust her.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling began breaking a hidden Composite Grand Array, with Lan Fang Ziyi watching from outside. After they shattered its Concealment Array layer, they encountered simultaneous time and space formations, which Yun Huanling struggled to help with.

• Lan Fang Ziyi agreed to join the effort, and Su Jiu asked Yun Huanling whether his senior brother knew Formation-Breaking from Outside.
• Yun Huanling claimed he had mastered the technique through talent, though he had secretly spent two years studying and improving his low success rate so he could keep up with Su Jiu.
• Yun Huanling suddenly clutched his chest in pain, then joked that he missed Su Jiu; she suspected his body concealed a secret.
• Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling worked together, following the flow of spiritual qi she guided to break the array.
• Su Jiu found and destroyed the first layer’s formation eye, exposing the array’s location to Lan Fang Ziyi.
• The three encountered a second layer containing both time and space formations, which Yun Huanling could not readily help break.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen dismantled the interwoven space and time formations, revealing the Mirror hidden behind a crack and discovering that the time formation’s creator had exceptional skill. Su Jiu and Yun Huanling broke the remaining layers while Chu Luohen recovered, and the final formation appeared after all six layers were dismantled.

• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen worked together to separate and dismantle the space and time formations while Yun Huanling watched.
• Su Jiu broke the space formation’s False Formation Eye and shattered its Magic Treasure formation eye, widening the crack and revealing the Mirror’s aura.
• Chu Luohen told Su Jiu that the creator’s understanding of time laws might rival his own, and Su Jiu suspected the events surrounding the Water Moon School were part of a larger scheme.
• Su Jiu identified the next layer as a simple confinement formation and asked Chu Luohen to rest while she and Yun Huanling dismantled it.
• Su Jiu and Yun Huanling broke the next two layers, and after all six formations were dismantled, the final layer appeared at the wall’s corner.

Su Jiu and the others discovered that a hidden Teleportation Array and matching mirror fragments were connected to the Heavenly Secret Sect’s forbidden Heavenly Star Rotation Technique. Yun Huanling determined the technique could be performed in seven days, but the array’s destination and the identity of the person whose fate would be changed remained unknown.

• Chu Luohen woke as Yun Huanling found a mirror fragment matching Su Jiu’s, and Yun Huanling recognized the Heavenly Star Rotation Technique.
• Lan Fang Ziyi sent a Message Talisman to the Heavenly Secret Sect while Su Jiu considered whether the technique was connected to Ming Yun’s murdered parents and the Water Moon Sect.
• Chu Luohen told Su Jiu that the Heavenly Star Rotation Technique switched two people’s destinies, but he avoided explaining how he knew about it.
• Lan Fang Ziyi questioned whether the technique could have originated outside the Heavenly Secret Sect and said their journey was meant to uncover the truth.
• Yun Huanling explained that the technique required celestial conditions and mirror fragments steeped in resentful qi, and he identified the mirrors’ role in collecting cultivators’ negative emotions.
• Yun Huanling calculated that the technique would have a high chance of success in seven days, when yin qi peaked, and the group suspected the Teleportation Array led to a nearby altar.