Chapter Summaries

Su Jiu explained the Heavenly Star Rotation Technique’s requirements to her companions, then confronted Qi Song about why he wanted to investigate the Immortal Pool Spring. Qi Song admitted he sought answers about a friend who had betrayed him, and Su Jiu allowed him to join them despite warning him of the danger.

• Yun Huanling explained that the Heavenly Star Rotation Technique required three mirror fragments, spiritual qi, and two people born at the same time for a successful fate exchange.
• Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, Yun Huanling, and Lan Fang Ziyi hid when Qi Song approached, then revealed themselves to him.
• Su Jiu questioned Qi Song’s decision to leave A Cen and investigate North City, and Qi Song said a puppet was standing in for him at the clinic.
• Qi Song said he wanted to learn the truth about the Immortal Pool Spring, and Su Jiu deduced that he was searching for the friend who had betrayed him and blinded him.
• Su Jiu warned Qi Song that people had entered the formation without returning, but allowed him to follow the group if he accepted the risk.

Su Jiu escaped through a Teleportation Array after destroying it to prevent pursuit, while Mu Ran discovered that her companions could not receive her message and feared they had been captured or killed. On the Water Moon School’s Back Mountain, Ming Yun led chained captives toward a cave as she prepared to use them as bait to draw out her target.

• Su Jiu destroyed the Teleportation Array as she entered it, then a concealed figure appeared where she had been.
• Mu Ran’s Message Talisman returned to her, suggesting her companions were dead or inside a Barrier, and she vanished from her hiding place.
• A female cultivator leading chained captives beat a rebellious youth until Ming Yun stopped her and warned her not to kill the prisoners.
• Ming Yun told Li Yishi she was using the captives as hostages to force a hidden woman to appear, promising to release them afterward.
• The procession reached a cramped cave in the Water Moon School’s Back Mountain, and the female cultivator stopped and looked toward Ming Yun.

Ming Yun used the Bright Lamp to open a barrier around a cave and led Li Yishi and the others to a Teleportation Array. She secretly forced Li Yishi into it, leaving the female cultivator trapped with her.

• Ming Yun used the Bright Lamp to open the Water Moon School's barrier and led the group into the cave.
• Li Yishi and the female cultivator discovered a Teleportation Array that the female cultivator believed led to the school's secret realm.
• A sudden gale and the chained captives shoved Li Yishi onto the array, transporting him away as Ming Yun lunged after him.
• The female cultivator realized Ming Yun had deliberately set events in motion, and Ming Yun told her the barrier had closed and she could not escape.

Ming Yun killed the female cultivator and used the Netherworld Lamp to harvest the souls of the chained captives, hoping to draw Mu Ran out. After receiving a message that Su Jiu was approaching, Ming Yun entered the array, and Mu Ran arrived later to find the captives dead.

• Ming Yun killed the female cultivator and sealed her soul inside the Netherworld Lamp, saying she did not trust heart-demon oaths.
• Ming Yun sent the Netherworld Lamp among the Spirit-Locking Chain captives and extracted their souls, revealing that they had once lost their Heart Discernment to her.
• Ming Yun shattered the barrier and entered the array after receiving a Message Talisman about Su Jiu, intending to deal with Su Jiu and Mu Ran together.
• Mu Ran followed the clues to the site an hour later and found the captives dead, including the youth whose body she checked.
• Mu Ran vowed that she and Ming Yun could not live under the same sky.

Su Jiu and her companions entered a gloomy forest where the Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl drove away yin qi and demonic beasts. Following a wounded cultivator's blood trail, they found a woman who mistook Su Jiu for Ming Yun, the person she appeared to fear or resent.

• Su Jiu released the Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl, which dispersed the yin qi and frightened away nearby demonic beasts.
• Qi Song recognized the pearl and revealed his knowledge of the sacred relic, while Su Jiu noticed that he and Lan Fang Ziyi seemed to be concealing something about their backgrounds.
• Chu Luohen found a bloodstained jade pendant carved with a Hell Three-Headed Hound, and Qi Song determined that the blood belonged to its owner.
• Su Jiu traced the blood trail north, and the group followed it after Chu Luohen decided to take the risk.
• The group found an injured woman who recognized Su Jiu as someone other than Ming Yun and reacted with hostility.

Su Jiu and her companions found the wounded Mu Ran, who revealed that Ming Yun had stolen her pill-refining talent and her brother’s ice-element spirit root as part of the Water Moon School’s experiments. Mu Ran warned Su Jiu that Ming Yun and a Water Moon School ritual were targeting her, leaving Su Jiu’s group to investigate the mirrors and the sect’s schemes.

• Su Jiu deduced that Mu Ran was the person the Heavenly Dawn Sect had been searching for and offered her a Great Restoration Pill in exchange for information.
• Mu Ran explained that Ming Yun had stolen her talent and her brother’s spirit root, and that the Water Moon School was using kidnapped cultivators’ souls to make mirrors.
• Mu Ran revealed that the group was in the Water Moon School’s training ground, where the sect’s schemes took place, and said she had returned to avenge her brother.
• When Mu Ran’s grief and hatred threatened to overwhelm her, Su Jiu gave her a Clear-Mind Pill and explained how prolonged contact with the mirrors could affect emotions.
• Mu Ran accepted the Great Restoration Pill and Jade Pendant, then warned Su Jiu that Ming Yun had other targets and that a Water Moon School ritual was connected to her.

Su Jiu and the others realized the supposed Secret Realm might actually be a forbidden area on the Azure Mist Continent, then crossed a corpse-filled forest and entered a grassland attacked by a violent wind spirit. The Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl flew off to speak with it.

• Su Jiu questioned Qi Song about the entrances and concluded that the group’s assumptions about the place being a Secret Realm might be wrong.
• Yun Huanling divined that the stars matched those over the Azure Mist Continent, and Su Jiu explained that the area could be a forbidden space enclosed by a Barrier.
• The group left the Dense Forest and entered a grassland where the breeze turned into sharp Wind Blades and weapon-like grass.
• Lan Fang Ziyi and Yun Huanling had their robes cut apart as they fought off the grass, while Su Jiu asked the Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl why the wind spirit was attacking.
• The Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl said the wind spirits it knew were usually friendly, then flew toward the wind spirit to talk to it.

Su Jiu met the wind spirit, who had attacked Lan Fang Ziyi and Yun Huanling after a masked Taoist tried to capture her. After Su Jiu explained why her group had come, the wind spirit began to reconsider her assumptions about the wider world.

• The Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl shielded Lan Fang Ziyi from the wind spirit’s grass blades and revealed the spirit’s form.
• Su Jiu saw and spoke to the wind spirit, who was surprised that she could see her and suspicious that she had come to capture her.
• The wind spirit identified Lan Fang Ziyi and Yun Huanling as companions who felt like the Taoist she hated.
• The wind spirit told Su Jiu that a masked Taoist had tried to capture her soon after she was born, but she escaped using her speed and ability to hide in the wind.
• Su Jiu explained her group’s purpose and described the wider world, prompting the wind spirit to question her limited view of people and spirits.

Su Jiu and her companions followed a newborn wind spirit to a Water Moon School base where cultivators were being rapidly turned into Nascent Soul cultivators by a strange formation. They discovered the process produced dim, puppet-like nascent souls and followed a newly promoted cultivator deeper into the base.

• Su Jiu learned that the wind spirit had followed her and allowed it to join the group, while the spirit revealed that a masked man had seemed similar to Yun Huanling and Lan Fang Ziyi.
• At the Water Moon School base, Huo Yun listened as Brother Wu deflected rumors about Huo Yun blinding his friend, then wondered when he could leave and whether his friend's eyes had healed.
• Su Jiu and her companions concealed their presence near a large formation and watched a cultivator advance from Golden Core to Nascent Soul without tribulation or apparent pain.
• Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Lan Fang Ziyi determined that the formation combined spiritual gathering with confinement, while the wind spirit explained that troublemakers were taken to a place of mirrors and reduced to empty husks.
• After a newly promoted cultivator passed through the formation's boundary and headed deeper inside, Su Jiu and the others followed him.

Qi Song and Su Jiu explained why Water Moon School disciples had cultivation but little skill with arts, then followed a guide to the Library Pavilion. Su Jiu sensed a strange barrier around the pavilion and tested it, leaving a nearby cultivator’s friend wondering if he had seen a ghost.

• Qi Song explained that Water Moon School recruits beginners, teaches them qi induction, and sends them to cultivate without teaching arts until Nascent Soul formation.
• Su Jiu and the others concluded that the school’s disciples were likely taught quick cultivation methods and crude arts, and they suspected the school concealed the weakness of its recruits.
• The group followed a man to the Library Pavilion, where disciples studied basic texts and a middle-aged newcomer asked an impatient cultivator to teach him how to read.
• Su Jiu noticed that the pavilion was unusually broad at the top and sensed a barrier, while she still detected no trace of the Mirror or the missing souls.
• Su Jiu declined to enter immediately and used Void Talisman Drawing on a cultivator entering the pavilion; his friend saw him vanish at the doorway and reappear moments later.

Su Jiu used talismans to provoke two Library Pavilion gatekeepers into fighting, drawing attention away from the barrier. As the fight continued, Su Jiu and her companions slipped away, while she noticed the dark-skinned middle-aged man seemed close to awakening a pupil art.

• Yun Huanling wondered whether the Library Pavilion hid a secret, but Lan Fang Ziyi and Chu Luohen explained that bypassing its barrier unnoticed would be difficult.
• Su Jiu proposed distracting the three gatekeepers and used Void Talisman Drawing to make two of them increasingly agitated.
• A burst of flame scorched a table, and the two male cultivators argued before launching into a fight that sent nearby disciples scrambling for cover.
• Su Jiu noticed the dark-skinned middle-aged man quietly withdraw from the commotion and suspected he was close to awakening an innate pupil art.
• Su Jiu and her companions vanished from the entrance while the gatekeepers remained distracted, and the barrier rippled faintly.

Su Jiu and her companions investigated the haunted upper floors of the Library Pavilion and discovered that the third-floor door had been sealed by the Water Moon School with four talismans. After Su Jiu purified the resentful qi guarding it, the group entered, while she privately feared that her ability to suppress her emotions came at a terrible cost.

• Su Jiu and Yun Huanling sensed resentful qi in the Library Pavilion, and Qi Song shared that disciples considered the third floor and above haunted.
• Su Jiu recognized the third-floor door's runes from the Far North Secret Realm and found four talismans maintaining a newer seal.
• Su Jiu drew the black resentful qi from the talismans and purified it with her Ice Spiritual Qi.
• Chu Luohen asked whether Su Jiu was all right, but she entered the third floor without explaining what she had felt.
• Su Jiu realized she could shut off her emotions around resentful souls, yet doing so left her feeling hollow and afraid.

Huo Yun and Brother Wu joined a search for the person who destroyed the teleportation point, while Huo Yun suspected the culprit might be connected to the Azure Tide Sect. Su Jiu and her companions found prisoners in a hidden room, but the captives mistook their rescue attempt for another Water Moon School trick.

• Huo Yun and Brother Wu were assigned to search with an arrogant Water Moon School cultivator after the teleportation point in central Xi He City was destroyed.
• Brother Wu told Huo Yun that the intruder had killed over a hundred Water Moon School disciples and left traces of ice spiritual qi and formation runes.
• Huo Yun considered whether the intruder might be a gifted disciple from the Azure Tide Sect’s Ice Veil Peak and reflected on his own wish to escape the forbidden grounds.
• Su Jiu entered a room on the third floor, concealed its entrance, and found cages holding wounded cultivators bound with Spirit-Locking Chains.
• Su Jiu freed a female prisoner, but the woman accused her of repeating a Water Moon School deception and said killing them would be easier.
• Su Jiu told Yun Huanling to stand aside and watch as she examined the prisoners and continued investigating why they all behaved with identical indifference.

Su Jiu freed the cultivators held by the Water Moon School and learned that their souls were being bound to mirrors, which were later strengthened in the Immortal Pool Spring. The group learned that the fifth floor of the Treasure Pavilion might offer an escape, though reaching it meant passing through a dangerous fourth floor.

• Su Jiu explained that the Water Moon School tormented captives to draw out their hatred and make their souls suitable for mirrors.
• A female cultivator said the mirrors would bind imprisoned souls and that they were reportedly soaked in the Immortal Pool Spring; she added that they were used to collect resentful qi for three special mirror fragments.
• Su Jiu asked for the exit, and the female cultivator said the only known route was through the formation-filled southern forest, though a masked person had mentioned an exit via the fifth floor.
• The female cultivator explained that the fourth floor was filled with dense yin evil qi and allegedly held dangerous evil souls that even Water Moon School disciples could not control.
• Su Jiu and her companions freed the other captives, and Lan Fang Ziyi and Qi Song treated two badly wounded cultivators while the female cultivator said they were not responsible for strangers.

Su Jiu and her companions decided to leave the Library Pavilion for the day after Yun Huanling divined that remaining could bring danger, while Qi Song reluctantly abandoned his search for someone he hoped to find. Jiang Yan and the other injured cultivators prepared to escape below, carrying Su Jiu's quiet kindness with them.

• Su Jiu left a Formation Disk and pills for the two immobilized cultivators, then Yun Huanling used his Compass and advised the group to leave for the day.
• Su Jiu agreed to let the female cultivator and her companions accompany them upstairs, making clear that her group would not promise to protect them.
• Qi Song lamented that he might never see the person he sought again, but Yun Huanling reminded him that their retreat was temporary.
• Jiang Yan realized Su Jiu had secretly given her a Formation Disk and pills, while her companion criticized the cultivators who had abandoned them.
• Jiang Yan and her companion used Concealment Breath Talismans to leave, and Jiang Yan allowed another injured pair to follow them.

Su Jiu and the others examined the advanced seal on the door to the fourth level while Li Gou proposed a reckless way to break through it. Su Jiu exposed the danger beneath the seal and directed her companions to carefully separate its formations and runes.

• Yun Huanling and Su Jiu recognized that the door’s layered seal required great skill to unravel without triggering its hidden restriction.
• Li Gou interrupted their work and claimed he could help, then proposed breaking the outer layers and smashing through the weakened door.
• Yun Huanling mocked Li Gou’s method, and Su Jiu instructed Yun Huanling and Lan Fang Ziyi to clear the formation patterns while she and Chu Luohen guided the runes.
• Su Jiu warned Li Gou that the seal ended with a burning talisman and an explosive restriction, making his plan dangerous.

Su Jiu explained that Li Gou’s plan to break through a door would have triggered an explosive restriction, and Yun Huanling and Chu Luohen wounded him after he insulted her. Elsewhere, Ming Yun searched for Mu Ran with Li Yishi, who intervened when two Water Moon School disciples fought in a bloodlust.

• Su Jiu warned that breaking through the door would activate an explosive restriction and reprimanded Li Gou for failing to notice it.
• Li Gou accused Su Jiu and her companions of conspiring and made a lewd insinuation, so Yun Huanling and Chu Luohen attacked him.
• After a companion advised Li Gou to avoid a fight, he retreated into the crowd and stayed silent.
• Ming Yun discussed the corpses and demonic qi with Li Yishi, while concealing her belief that the Water Moon School was responsible.
• Ming Yun and Li Yishi found two Water Moon School disciples fighting, and Li Yishi separated them and gave each a pill to calm them.

Li Yishi and Ming Yun encountered Qian Xin after he exposed doubts about the Water Moon School’s supposed training base. Qian Xin hinted that the place concealed darker internal affairs, but Ming Yun’s attack interrupted him before he could reveal more.

• Li Yishi silenced the two bickering cultivators, then heard a female cultivator claim the site trained high-level Water Moon School disciples.
• Qian Xin arrived with several dozen Water Moon School cultivators and exchanged barbed remarks with Li Yishi.
• Ming Yun urged Li Yishi to leave and find Mu Ran, but Qian Xin taunted him about being kept ignorant of the sect’s internal affairs.
• Qian Xin questioned the female cultivator’s story about elite training and Nascent Soul disciples, while Ming Yun tried to stop him from speaking.
• Ming Yun unleashed an ice spiritual-qi attack at Qian Xin, who dodged it and warned her that they were bound to the same powerful interests.

Qian Xin exposed Ming Yun’s suspected scheme to Li Yishi, who chose to believe her denial, while Huo Yun and Brother Wu anticipated trouble on the day of the sacrifice. At the tower, Su Jiu and the others reached the final rune on the sealed door as she feared the Water Moon School disciples were closing in.

• Qian Xin accused Ming Yun of bringing Li Yishi secretly to uncover the Water Moon School’s hidden secrets, and Li Yishi stopped Ming Yun’s attack.
• Li Yishi asked Ming Yun to tell him the truth, but she denied that other secrets were hidden there or that she had deliberately led him into the place.
• Li Yishi said he believed Ming Yun, and she left with him looking pale and unsteady.
• Huo Yun warned Brother Wu that the Water Moon School would cause more trouble on the day of the sacrifice, and they considered it a possible last opportunity.
• Qi Song sensed something outside the tower as Su Jiu and the others finished removing the door seal’s markings and faced its final rune.
• Su Jiu wanted to suppress the restriction herself while the others extracted the rune, but Chu Luohen offered to help her and told the others to proceed quickly.

Su Jiu began breaking the seal despite the danger, while Qian Xin and his men arrived outside the Library Pavilion. As the trapped cultivators argued over whether to trust Su Jiu, Li Gou betrayed them and filled the room with dense fog.

• Su Jiu injected spiritual qi into the restriction, and Chu Luohen and Yun Huanling restrained its runes to keep it from detonating.
• The cultivators on the third floor saw Qian Xin arrive with his men, and Li Gou blamed Su Jiu and her companions for their predicament.
• Qi Song challenged the formation arts artist for stirring up resentment, and the red-robed female cultivator realized Li Gou was up to something and ordered him stopped.
• Li Gou shouted to the people outside that the cultivators were trying to escape, then fought off those who tried to seize him.
• Li Gou threw a black pellet into the crowd, and it burst into dense fog.