Chapter Summaries

Su Jiu arrived at a death-haunted village near the border of the Savage Wilderness and the Vast Heaven Continent, where she suspected an evil force was responsible for the villagers’ suffering. A frightened couple finally let her inside, leaving her facing their wary hospitality.

• Su Jiu found a village filled with funeral lanterns, coffins, and a stone statue, and suspected the statue was connected to the village’s ruin.
• Su Jiu knocked on a house and offered help, but the terrified husband and wife refused to speak with her.
• Su Jiu told the Snow Sprite she could not ignore possible demons or followers of the outer dao harming mortals.
• The husband decided to trust Su Jiu rather than wait for the village’s people to die, and persuaded his wife to agree.
• The couple opened the door and invited Su Jiu inside, then the husband locked it with three locks and avoided looking at her.

Su Jiu questioned a villager about the demon statue, and he recounted how it trapped and terrorized the village over ten years. The villagers began worshipping it to survive, but illness and mysterious deaths continued.

• Su Jiu learned that the villager knew nothing about cultivation and asked him what had happened in his village.
• Ten years earlier, the villagers found a hideous stone statue that returned whenever people carried it away, while the carriers disappeared and were later found dead and drained of flesh and blood.
• The statue approached the village as strange rain sickened the villagers, and smashing the statue was followed by dead elders returning as monsters before it reappeared intact.
• Villagers who tried to leave found themselves back in the village, so they began offering sacrifices and worshipping the statue to protect themselves.
• The strange rain stopped, but the gloom deepened, the dead became dried corpses overnight, and the village’s elderly and then its young people fell ill.

Su Jiu investigated a dried corpse in the village and learned that its people had been trapped for ten years by a demonic beast that hunted on the fifteenth of each month. On the way back, she discovered that the village had eighteen double-hours in each day and realized that fifty years had passed because time flowed differently between the Hongsheng Heavenly Road and the Azure Realm.

• Su Jiu agreed to help the villagers deal with the monster but asked to inspect a dried corpse before deciding how to act.
• The Zhang Family couple took Su Jiu to a household where a widow had left her husband's coffin outside, hoping the beast would spare her.
• Su Jiu found that the corpse had no wounds or signs of decay, though its flesh and blood were gone, and asked Little Pearl to search for information about demons.
• Su Jiu noticed that barely any time seemed to have passed, but the Zhang Family couple told her that the village had observed eighteen double-hours a day for fifty years.
• The man recalled that fifty years earlier the Sun and moon had shone together and plants had grown rapidly, leading Su Jiu to connect the event to a surge of spiritual qi and the two worlds joining.

After awakening decades later in the Azure Realm, Su Jiu confronted a female cultivator who used a flute to control a demonic beast puppet and a graveyard full of corpse puppets. As the woman’s formation raised the dead around them, Su Jiu recognized the corpses from Huo Yun’s death and demanded to know the woman’s connection to Hong Ming.

• Su Jiu learned that fifty years had passed in the Azure Realm while she was unconscious for five years, then waited for midnight to confront the village’s demonic beast.
• A female cultivator played a flute, sending demonic qi from a stone statue to form a controllable beast puppet, and Su Jiu attacked her.
• The female cultivator fled toward the village graveyard, where she activated a formation that raised intact corpse puppets from the earth.
• Su Jiu pressed the female cultivator with basic sword techniques as the formation strengthened under the full moon and the corpse puppets emerged.
• Su Jiu recognized the corpse puppets from Huo Yun’s death and asked the woman about Hong Ming, whom the woman dismissed as a useless fool.

Su Jiu defeated the corpse puppets summoned by a female cultivator, who escaped with the black miasma from the village’s stone statue. Su Jiu met Wenren Qingtang, a Spirit Transformation cultivator from Wenren Manor, and left the female cultivator alive because she hoped to trace her connection to Hong Ming and the person behind him.

• Su Jiu used her ice arts to stop the corpse puppets from rising again, then dissolved them into ash as the female cultivator questioned her.
• The female cultivator fled while the corpse puppets held Su Jiu back, but Su Jiu destroyed the remaining puppets after she escaped.
• Su Jiu found Wenren Qingtang hiding nearby with a spent Concealment Breath Talisman, and he introduced himself as the Twelfth Elder of Wenren Manor.
• Su Jiu and Wenren Qingtang returned to the village and found the stone statue shattered and its black miasma gone.
• Su Jiu told Wenren Qingtang she had let the female cultivator escape to avoid stirring the grass and startling the snake, then considered the woman’s connection to Hong Ming.

Su Jiu broke the barrier trapping the village and left with Wenren Qingtang to pursue the female cultivator. The villagers began to escape the village, which would soon be abandoned.

• Su Jiu explained that she had let the female cultivator go so she could follow the leads and investigate the Heavenly Music Pavilion.
• Su Jiu promised the villagers they would be free to leave, then spent about twelve hours dismantling the barrier.
• The barrier fell, spiritual qi and sunlight returned, and the villagers gathered around Su Jiu as their savior.
• Su Jiu tracked the female cultivator northeast with help from the wind spirit, while Wenren Qingtang insisted on traveling with her.
• The couple left that night, and the villagers soon discovered they could leave too; over the following days, everyone moved away.

Su Jiu and Wenren Qingtang arrived in a town, where they encountered a flamboyant man rumored to be engaged to Wenren Qingtang. Su Jiu reunited with her old friend Yun Chao, and they began catching up over tea.

• Su Jiu and Wenren Qingtang entered a town, where Li Rong'er spread word that Senior Luo had become engaged to Wenren Qingtang.
• A carriage carrying a flamboyant man passed through town as women showered him with flowers and handkerchiefs; Wenren Qingtang emphatically denied knowing him.
• Su Jiu and Wenren Qingtang went to an inn, where Yun Chao recognized Su Jiu and greeted her after more than fifty years apart.
• Su Jiu, Wenren Qingtang, and Yun Chao talked over tea, and Yun Chao explained that he had no interest in becoming the next sect master of the Flowing Radiance Sword Sect.

Su Jiu learned about the Five-Sect Alliance and why the Azure Tide Sect’s relations with the Vast Righteousness Sect had grown strained. The Vast Righteousness Sect had invited the Azure Tide Sect to Luo Ge’s Dao Companion ceremony, offering a chance for reconciliation.

• Yun Chao told Su Jiu that the Five-Sect Alliance would attend Luo Ge’s Dao Companion ceremony, and that the Azure Tide Sect would likely send a representative.
• Yun Chao explained that the Five-Sect Alliance united the Azure Tide Sect, Heavenly Secret Sect, Jade Sword Sect, Zen Sound Temple, and Flowing Radiance Sword Sect under a strict treaty.
• Yun Chao said Luo Ge’s heart-demon tribulation began when she tried to advance from Nascent Soul late stage to great perfection, because she still thought about Chu Luohen.
• The Vast Righteousness Sect blamed Chu Luohen for Luo Ge’s failed advancement and damaged foundation, straining relations between the sects.
• Twenty years later, Luo Ge planned to marry someone else and invited the Azure Tide Sect; the alliance agreed to send someone and treat the invitation as a reconciliation signal.

Su Jiu and Yun Chao discussed the Vast Righteousness Sect’s unusual arrangements for its Dao Companion ceremony before a boisterous entourage arrived to claim the inn. Wenren Qingtang recognized their leader as one of his estate’s Village Masters, and the group was allowed to stay after the innkeeper refused to clear out the other guests.

• Yun Chao explained that the Vast Righteousness Sect housed ceremony guests in Anping Town to guard against demon seeds, and Su Jiu wondered whether the ceremony had another purpose.
• Su Jiu asked Yun Chao whom Luo Ge was marrying, but he did not know.
• A steward and two young women demanded that the innkeeper clear the inn for their Village Master, threatening him when he refused.
• Su Jiu teased Wenren Qingtang about the entourage’s connection to one of his estate’s Village Masters.
• The Fifth Village Master told his steward to prepare the room and accept staying alongside the other guests, and the innkeeper let the group remain.

Wenren Jing’s arrival in Anping Town sparked a commotion when he revealed that he had come to become Luo Ge’s Dao Companion, while the crowd blamed Luo Ge and Wenren Manor. Su Jiu learned that demon seeds had spread across the sects and that a traitor in the Enforcement Hall had helped Yi Feng Chen escape, but she suspected a recent female cultivator’s actions pointed to heresy rather than demonic possession.

• Wenren Jing confirmed that he had come to the Vast Righteousness Sect to become Luo Ge’s Dao Companion, and the gathered women blamed Luo Ge and Wenren Manor while comforting him.
• Wenren Qingtang denied that his family was as the crowd described, and Yun Chao told Su Jiu that her Dao Companion ceremony would likely be lively.
• Su Jiu recounted her recent experiences to Yun Chao and asked what had happened at the Heavenly Music Pavilion during her absence.
• Yun Chao explained that demon seeds had spread among many sects and could be trapped or put to sleep with several magic treasures.
• Yun Chao warned Su Jiu that Yi Feng Chen had escaped because of a traitor in the Enforcement Hall.
• Su Jiu suspected that the female cultivator they had encountered was a heretical cultivator, since she had used spiritual qi while her puppets emitted demonic and yin qi.

Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Wenren Qingtang traveled to the Vast Righteousness Sect for Luo Ge’s Dao Companion ceremony, where the sect’s rules made arriving guests walk up the mountain. Meanwhile, Luo Ge confronted the person responsible for the ceremony’s arrangements and revealed her anger over the marriage and the humiliation she had suffered from Chu Luohen.

• Wind Spirit reported that the woman Su Jiu was investigating had gone to the Vast Righteousness Sect, and Su Jiu asked Yun Chao whether guests could attend the Dao Companion ceremony.
• On the day of the ceremony, Wenren Qingtang joined Su Jiu and Yun Chao with his own invitation.
• Vast Righteousness Sect cultivators stopped the three at the mountain gates and required them to walk up, while other guests complained about the rule.
• Su Jiu suspected the sect was using the entry rules to put guests in their place, unaware that one person had imposed them on her own authority.
• Luo Ge confronted that person, protested that the ceremony would invite ridicule over her marriage to Wenren Jing, and was reminded that she had accepted the arrangement herself.
• Luo Ge recalled that Chu Luohen had rejected her and that her later attempt to seek his agreement had brought her further humiliation and damaged her foundation during a heart-demon tribulation.

Luo Ge recalled accepting a dual cultivation arrangement with Wenren Jing to repair her damaged spirit root, then reconciled with her brother and withdrew her order. At the Vast Righteousness Sect’s ceremony, Su Jiu entered with Yun Chao and Wenren Qingtang while searching the crowd for someone, and she suddenly looked up after taking her seat.

• Luo Ge remembered how her damaged spirit root led her elder brother to propose dual cultivation with Wenren Jing, and she agreed despite her lingering feelings for someone else.
• Luo Ge’s elder brother warned her to hide her feelings from Wenren Jing, and Luo Ge admitted her order had been wrong and said she would not disgrace him.
• Su Jiu and her companions reached the Vast Righteousness Sect after seeing other visiting disciples frustrated by the journey and the sect’s conduct.
• Su Jiu asked the wind spirit to locate the person she sought, but Yun Chao urged her to take their seats before looking further.
• Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Wenren Qingtang joined the guests at the ceremony, and Su Jiu suddenly raised her head.

Feng Qi attended the Vast Righteousness Sect’s Dao Companion ceremony, where he discovered Su Jiu had come while pursuing a cultivator using heretical arts. He told her the sect was seeking to borrow the Heavenly Demon-Subduing Pestle, leaving them to wonder what demonic threat required that specific treasure.

• Feng Qi attended the ceremony on the Azure Tide Sect’s orders and endured small sect cultivators trying to ingratiate themselves with him.
• Feng Qi recognized Yun Chao and then realized the woman beside him was Su Jiu, whom he had thought missing for fifty years.
• Su Jiu told Feng Qi that she had pursued a female cultivator using heretical arts to the Vast Righteousness Sect.
• Feng Qi explained that the Vast Righteousness Sect was seeking the Heavenly Demon-Subduing Pestle from the Ghost Market’s second-in-command.
• Su Jiu reasoned that the sect must need the treasure for a purpose involving demons, and Feng Qi hinted that the Enforcement Hall had made progress investigating it.

Su Jiu learned that the Ghost Market was still trying to uncover why the Vast Righteousness Sect wanted the Heavenly Demon-Subduing Pestle. At the banquet, her old friends Yun Huanling and Gu Ningyun reunited with her, drawing the guests’ attention to the mysterious beauty.

• Feng Qi told Su Jiu that the Ghost Market was keeping the Vast Righteousness Sect waiting while trying to learn why it wanted the Heavenly Demon-Subduing Pestle.
• Yun Chao asked Su Jiu whether she had been communicating with Feng Qi, and she explained that they had a lot to catch up on.
• The young sect masters of the Heavenly Secret Sect and the Heavenly Music Pavilion arrived, then left their assigned seats to sit beside Su Jiu.
• Yun Huanling greeted Su Jiu excitedly, and Gu Ningyun told her it had been a long time since they had met.
• The banquet guests wondered who Su Jiu was after noticing her friendship with the two young sect masters and learning that she was remarkably young and powerful.

At the Vast Righteousness Sect’s banquet, Su Jiu and her companions investigated Yun Huanling’s troubling divination and the strange control of the Windforest Star River. They learned that the Vast Righteousness Sect had gradually taken over its dangerous suppression posts after other sects withdrew, leaving Su Jiu and Yun Huanling questioning the sect’s apparent selflessness.

• Feng Qi regretted not changing seats as the banquet guests speculated about Su Jiu’s sect, and the Vast Righteousness Sect’s Sect Master realized her cultivation surpassed his own.
• Su Jiu learned that Yun Huanling and Gu Ningyun had traveled together and that Yun Huanling had come to investigate a dangerous anomaly revealed by his divination.
• Yun Chao warned Su Jiu that the Windforest Star River was suppressed entirely by Vast Righteousness Sect cultivators, and Yun Huanling said his divination had ruled out the Demon-Subduing Land.
• A cultivator beside Gu Ningyun explained that other sects withdrew from the Windforest Star River after deadly incidents, leaving the Vast Righteousness Sect to fill the vacant posts.
• The cultivator said the Vast Righteousness Sect had lost many people while other sects grew grateful to it, prompting Su Jiu and Yun Huanling to reflect on the sect’s unusual conduct.

Su Jiu attended the Vast Righteousness Sect’s gathering and watched Wenren Jing’s Dao Companion ceremony with Luo Ge fall apart. Luo Ge accused Su Jiu of stealing her husband, drawing Yun Huanling into the public dispute as the Main Hall fell silent.

• Luo, a Peak Master of the Vast Righteousness Sect, apologized to the guests and gave each one a Tier Five Pill.
• Gu Ningyun told Su Jiu that Luo resembled her younger sister, Luo Ge, explaining why he looked familiar.
• Wenren Jing entered with Luo Ge and searched the audience before noticing Su Jiu, Gu Ningyun, and Wenren Qingtang.
• Wenren Jing began reciting the Dao Companion Contract incantation, but Luo Ge refused to join him.
• Wenren Jing mocked Luo Ge for refusing the contract and said they had agreed it would not bind them for life.
• Luo Ge tore off her veil, demanded an apology, then accused Su Jiu of stealing her husband, prompting Yun Huanling to smash his cup and Luo to roar at her.

At Wenren Jing and Luo Ge’s wedding ceremony, Wenren Jing rejected their marriage contract, ending the alliance and angering both households. As Luo Ge left the hall, a disciple announced that Dao Lord Luo Cheng had met with disaster, leaving her fearful about losing his protection.

• Su Jiu restrained Little Pearl and the Snow Sprite while a Vast Righteousness Sect elder apologized for Luo Ge’s insults, and Yun Huanling reluctantly let the matter drop.
• Wenren Jing refused to form a contract with Luo Ge, declared their match incompatible, and said he wanted to end the arrangement.
• A Wenren Household elder threatened Wenren Jing, but Wenren Jing challenged him and pointed out that Luo Ge also wanted only a transactional relationship.
• Luo Ge left the main hall as the Sect Master reconsidered the promised benefits to the Wenren Household without a binding contract.
• A Vast Righteousness Sect disciple rushed in with a bloodstained object and announced that Dao Lord Luo Cheng had met with disaster, frightening Luo Ge about losing his protection.

After the Dao Companion ceremony was abruptly halted, Su Jiu learned that a woman had left the Vast Righteousness Sect for the northwest and set out with several companions toward Windforest Star River. Gu Ningyun recognized the woman as her suspected Martial Uncle, and Su Jiu began telling her what the woman had done in a sealed village.

• The Sect Master left with the disciple who reported trouble, and Luozi ended the Dao Companion ceremony and dismissed the guests.
• Su Jiu's Wind Spirit reported that the woman had left the Vast Righteousness Sect heading northwest, and Su Jiu decided to pursue her.
• Feng Qi, Yun Huanling, Yun Chao, and Gu Ningyun followed Su Jiu, each explaining why they would continue traveling with her.
• Su Jiu described a purple-clad flute player with a butterfly mark, and Gu Ningyun recognized her as the Martial Uncle she had secretly followed to the Vast Heaven Continent.
• Gu Ningyun explained why she suspected her Martial Uncle and asked Su Jiu what had happened in the village sealed by a Barrier.
• Su Jiu recounted the village incident, including how the flute-playing technique had led her to identify the woman as a disciple of the Heavenly Music Pavilion.

Su Jiu and her companions investigated Gu Ningyun’s dangerous martial uncle and traveled toward Windforest Star River to find her. At the realm’s unstable entrance, Yun Chao explained that an explosion three hundred years earlier had nearly destroyed its seal.

• Feng Qi identified Gu Ningyun’s martial uncle’s puppet technique as a forbidden technique from the Puppet Sect, and Su Jiu warned that the woman was dangerous.
• Gu Ningyun decided to take her martial uncle back to their sect, while Su Jiu cautioned that capturing her would be difficult and risky.
• Su Jiu, Gu Ningyun, Yun Huanling, Yun Chao, and Feng Qi set off southwest toward Windforest Star River, tracking the woman with Su Jiu’s wind spirit.
• Yun Huanling revealed that he could see other people’s spirits, and Su Jiu asked about his recurring chest pain, which he concealed from her.
• The group approached Windforest Star River’s unstable entrance, where Yun Chao explained that an explosion three hundred years earlier had nearly destroyed the secret realm’s seal.

At Windforest Star River, Su Jiu learned that the broken outer seal had left the Secret Realm entrance open and that suppressing its inner seal was deadly. After a Vast Righteousness Sect cultivator died, a dispute over the sect and the Azure Tide Sect erupted, and Su Jiu stopped an attack on a cultivator who had defended the Azure Tide Sect.

• Yun Chao explained that Windforest Star River's outer seal had broken, forcing cultivators to suppress its dangerous Inner Perimeter seal.
• A dead Vast Righteousness Sect cultivator was carried out, prompting onlookers to acknowledge the sect's sacrifices.
• A cultivator criticized the Azure Tide Sect while praising the Vast Righteousness Sect, but another man defended the Azure Tide Sect and silenced him.
• Su Jiu sensed spiritual qi aimed at the man who had won the argument and blocked it with a talisman before it could strike his dantian.
• The blocked attack turned suspicion toward the Vast Righteousness Sect disciples, and someone kicked the attacker out of their ranks.