Chapter Summaries

Xiao Yi broke Xiao Ning’s sword and stopped Xiao Yan from rushing home after learning that Nalan Yanran had come to break off their engagement. Xiao Yi proposed that they sneak back to find out what was happening, hinting that he had foreseen the crisis.

• Xiao Yi mocked Xiao Ning for damaging a tree, and Xiao Ning insulted him and threatened him with the Wind-Splitting Sword.
• Xiao Yi caught Xiao Ning’s sword between his palms, broke it, and dismissed Xiao Ning’s demand for compensation.
• Xiao Yan asked about Xiao Yi’s technique, and Xiao Yi claimed it was Israeli Krav Maga.
• Xiao Ning revealed that Nalan Yanran had arrived with the Misty Cloud Sect to break off her engagement to Xiao Yan.
• Xiao Yi restrained Xiao Yan, stopped him from rushing home, and suggested they sneak past the guards to investigate.
• Xiao Yan questioned how Xiao Yi knew about the crisis, and Xiao Yi said he had divined it.

Ge Ye and Nalan Yanran arrived at the Xiao Clan to dissolve her engagement to Xiao Yan, offering gifts and a recommendation letter as compensation. Nalan Yanran explained her reasons, but her remarks about the clan’s decline enraged Xiao Zhan, just as Xiao Yan burst into the hall.

• Ge Ye and Nalan Yanran arrived at the Xiao Clan and were bewildered by the missing gate half turned into a crude greatsword.
• Ge Ye presented Qi Gathering Powder, a Wind-Howling Sword, and a recommendation letter while asking Xiao Zhan to end Xiao Yan’s engagement to Nalan Yanran.
• Xiao Zhan suspected the Misty Cloud Sect had learned about Xiao Yan’s recent circumstances and challenged Ge Ye’s timing.
• Nalan Yanran said she wanted control over her own destiny and asked the Xiao Clan to dissolve her childhood engagement.
• Nalan Yanran said the Xiao Clan’s decline made the marriage alliance inappropriate, provoking Xiao Zhan’s fury.
• Xiao Yan burst into the Council Hall, glaring at Nalan Yanran with clenched fists.

Xiao Yan entered the Council Hall as Nalan Yanran tried to end their engagement, agreed that it should end, and demanded to repudiate her publicly at the Misty Cloud Sect. When Nalan Yanran attacked him, he caught her sword barehanded and snapped it, leaving everyone stunned.

• Xiao Yan and Xiao Yi sneaked into the courtyard and overheard Nalan Yanran arguing that breaking the engagement would benefit both families and Xiao Yan.
• Xiao Yan burst into the Council Hall, mocked Nalan Yanran’s condescending concern, and agreed to end the engagement.
• Xiao Yan declared that he would visit the Misty Cloud Sect in a few days and repudiate Nalan Yanran before the entire sect.
• Nalan Yanran, furious at the humiliation, drew her sword and lunged at Xiao Yan to force him to back down.
• Xiao Yan caught Nalan Yanran’s blade with his bare hand, pulled her forward, and broke the sword between his hands.

Xiao Yan broke the sword with his bare hand, wrote a repudiation letter in blood, and annulled his marriage agreement with Nalan Yanran. When she challenged him to a duel, Ge Ye intervened and tried to calm the Xiao Clan by postponing the engagement dispute and offering gifts as an apology.

• Xiao Yan knelt before Xiao Zhan, apologized for acting on his own, and wrote a blood-soaked letter of repudiation on a strip of his robe.
• Xiao Yan declared that he was repudiating Nalan Yanran and annulling their marriage agreement.
• Nalan Yanran flew into a rage and challenged Xiao Yan to a duel, and Xiao Yan accepted.
• Ge Ye stepped between them, rebuked Nalan Yanran, and stopped the confrontation from escalating.
• Ge Ye apologized to Xiao Zhan, proposed setting aside the engagement dispute, and offered the Xiao Clan gifts as an apology.

Nalan Yanran and Xiao Yan agreed to fight at the Misty Cloud Sect Summit in three years, then Xiao Yi prepared another oversized sword to exorcise the supposed Qi-Sucking Ghost draining Xiao Yan’s Dou Qi. Xiao Yan was left horrified as Xiao Zhan revealed the plan to use something bigger.

• Xiao Zhan tried to smooth over the dispute, but Nalan Yanran challenged Xiao Yan to a duel in three years at the Misty Cloud Sect Summit.
• Xiao Yan accepted the agreement and vowed to settle their grievances, while Nalan Yanran warned him not to lose.
• Nalan Yanran and Ge Ye left the Council Hall, leaving the offered gifts behind as the Xiao Clan elders watched Xiao Yan with concern and doubt.
• Xiao Yan spotted Xiao Yi attaching talismans to a huge sword made from a door panel and suspected he was planning another bizarre scheme.
• Xiao Zhan told Xiao Yan that the Qi-Sucking Ghost had returned and that Xiao Yi needed a bigger weapon to drive it away.

Xiao Zhan and the elders mistook Xiao Yan’s fluctuating Dou Qi for a possession and let Xiao Yi carry out an exorcism with a talisman-covered piece of the Xiao Clan’s front gate. Outside, Xun’er confronted Nalan Yanran before Xiao Yi’s bizarre ritual and Xiao Yan’s scream startled them and sent Ge Ye hurrying Nalan away.

• Xiao Zhan decided to use the talisman-covered front-gate panel to exorcise Xiao Yan, while the First Elder and Third Elder restrained him.
• Xiao Yi charged at Xiao Yan with the door-panel greatsword, and Xiao Yan screamed as the ritual began.
• Xun’er stopped Nalan Yanran and warned her that she might regret her decision, but Nalan insisted she never regretted her choices.
• Xiao Yi and the door panel soared above the courtyard wall, followed by a heavy thud and Xiao Yan’s muffled whimpers.
• Ge Ye mistook the scene for a powerful clan curse and urged Nalan Yanran to leave with him.

After Xiao Yan woke with an enormous lump on the back of his head, he swore revenge on Xiao Yi and eagerly seized on Yao Lao’s Heavy Mysterious Ruler as a weapon. He could barely lift it, and Yao Lao ordered him to carry it constantly as training.

• Xiao Yan woke up, discovered the lump caused by the door panel, and vowed that he and Xiao Yi would not rest until one of them died.
• Yao Lao appeared and offered Xiao Yan the Heavy Mysterious Ruler, explaining its weight and suppressive effect on Dou Qi.
• Xiao Yan imagined using the ruler to take revenge on Xiao Yi and tried unsuccessfully to lift it by its handle.
• Xiao Yan barely hugged the Heavy Mysterious Ruler off the floor, and Yao Lao told him to carry it at all times.
• Xiao Yan suspected Yao Lao had chosen a weapon too cumbersome for a sneak attack, then pretended he was only talking nonsense.

Xiao Yi visited Xiao Yan and offered him a tub of instant noodles instead of a direct apology. The familiar aroma overwhelmed Xiao Yan’s anger and brought back memories of his previous life.

• Xiao Yi entered and joked about Xiao Yan’s Heavy Mysterious Ruler and his talk of saving Seria.
• Xiao Yan confronted Xiao Yi over the lump on his head and vowed not to let him off.
• Yao Lao questioned Xiao Yi about dragon hunting and asked whether he had come to apologize.
• Xiao Yi took a steaming tub of braised-beef instant noodles from his Angel Halo and gave it to Xiao Yan.
• Xiao Yan recognized the noodles and, overcome by homesickness and memories of his past life, forgot his anger.

Xiao Yan devoured instant noodles from Xiao Yi, overwhelmed by their familiar taste, then eagerly accepted a box of nostalgic snacks. Xiao Yi left with a wicked smile as he began plotting another way to make Xiao Yan suffer happily.

• Xiao Yan snatched the instant noodles from Xiao Yi and ate them tearfully, while Yao Lao asked to try some and learned they could not be offered to him.
• After finishing the tub, Xiao Yan begged for more, but Xiao Yi said he had to pay.
• Xiao Yan argued that a customer should get samples, so Xiao Yi gave him a box filled with instant noodles, drinks, and spicy strips.
• Xiao Yan hugged the box and dismissed Xiao Yi, caring more about the food than how Xiao Yi had obtained it.
• Xiao Yi walked away laughing to himself as he began planning his next scheme for Xiao Yan.

Xiao Yan abandoned weighted training for an obsessive milk-drinking regimen but still regained his Dou Zhe strength, while a rumor about Xiao Yi and the Xiao Clan’s gate turned the repaired entrance into a bizarre pilgrimage site. Xiao Zhan struggled to manage the crowds and the damage as Wutan City’s people repeatedly battered their heads against the gate.

• Yao Lao scolded Xiao Yan for indulging in snacks and warned that he might spend his life looking up at Xiao Yi, so Xiao Yan threw aside the Heavy Mysterious Ruler and began drinking enormous amounts of milk to grow taller.
• Despite his stomach troubles and lack of weighted training, Xiao Yan’s Dou Qi continued to rise, and he became a Dou Zhe again while emerging from the privy.
• News of Xiao Yan’s restored strength spread through the Xiao Clan, where the younger generation focused on his diarrhea and Xiao Zhan reflected on why he had torn down the clan’s gate.
• A rumor spread that Xiao Yi had used the gate to smash an evil spirit out of Xiao Yan, and people across Wutan City began treating the repaired gate as a sacred place.
• Xiao Zhan repeatedly dealt with visitors who bumped or charged the gate for luck, while head-injury medicine sales soared and the gate became stained and damaged.

Xiao Yi turned the door panel that had struck Xiao Yan into a paid shrine, provoking Xiao Yan to confront him and receive two more blows. The next morning, Xiao Yan resumed training with the Heavy Mysterious Ruler, while Yao Lao considered ways to keep him and Xiao Yi connected.

• Xiao Zhan ordered Xiao Yi to deal with the trouble caused by the dismantled front gate, and Xiao Yi agreed to take responsibility.
• Xiao Yan found people praying to the talisman-covered door panel for blessings and charged toward Xiao Yi's courtyard in anger.
• Xiao Yan woke at night with two new lumps on his head and realized Xiao Yi had struck him with two door panels.
• Yao Lao mocked Xiao Yan from inside the ring, and Xiao Yan angrily told him to shut up.
• Xiao Yan resumed running with the Heavy Mysterious Ruler on his back, and Yao Lao resolved to find a way to bind him and Xiao Yi together.

After Xiao Yan became a Dou Zhe, Yao Lao presented him with two cultivation techniques, but every attempt to choose led him to the dangerous Flame Mantra. Despite learning that it began as a low-grade technique and required devouring heavenly flames, Xiao Yan chose it and resolved to test his destiny.

• Exhausted from training with the Heavy Mysterious Ruler, Xiao Yan asked Yao Lao to teach him a cultivation technique.
• Yao Lao repeatedly shuffled two boxes, but Xiao Yan's choices kept revealing the Flame Mantra, while the other box held the black tier high grade Wind Scroll Technique.
• Yao Lao explained that the Flame Mantra began at yellow tier low grade but could evolve by devouring heavenly flames, a perilous process that had killed every previous cultivator.
• Xiao Yan recognized how difficult it would be to obtain heavenly flames and agreed to use a coin toss for one final choice.
• After the coin landed flat, Xiao Yan took the Flame Mantra anyway and resolved to see whether he could reach the Emperor's Throne as a Child of Destiny.

Xiao Yan resisted Yao Lao’s attempt to tempt him with the Wind Scroll Technique, then described Xiao Yi’s long life and the rapid changes of his home world, Blue Star. Yao Lao compared that changing world to an unknowable, dangerous sea and concluded that Xiao Yi had surfed its waves with remarkable youthful spirit.

• Xiao Yan swatted at the phantom of Xiao Yi as it mocked his grand declaration about controlling fate.
• Yao Lao pretended he would give the Wind Scroll Technique to Xiao Yi, prompting Xiao Yan to guard the scroll and beg him not to.
• Xiao Yan told Yao Lao that Xiao Yi had lived nearly 130 years on Blue Star and stayed engaged with its changing times.
• As they walked toward the river, Xiao Yan explained how quickly technology and everyday life changed in his homeland.
• Yao Lao likened the fear of the unknown to being stranded in a boundless ocean, then admired how Xiao Yi had thrived amid Blue Star’s turbulent changes.

Xiao Yi explained that his cultivation was based on finding a practical fulcrum between constancy and change, and demonstrated how he used it. Xiao Yan and Yao Lao gained a clearer understanding of Xiao Yi’s unusual fighting style, while Xiao Yi ended by recalling how his skills helped him earn food in his former world.

• Xiao Yan found Xiao Yi fishing beside the river with an octopus perched on a floating gourd and complained that Xiao Yi kept appearing wherever he went.
• Xiao Yi summoned a Tai Chi Diagram and transformed its sun-and-moon symbols into a fixed violet North Star and a moon, explaining that his Dao relied on constancy and change rather than perfect balance.
• Xiao Yan realized that Xiao Yi’s off-center approach explained why he fought like an unpredictable, resilient rubber ball.
• Yao Lao interpreted Xiao Yi’s Dao as meeting countless changes with the unchanging, while Xiao Yi noted that constancy and change depended on each other.
• Xiao Yi drew water from the river into a rapidly spinning sphere and said his old-world skills had helped him earn money for food.

Xiao Yi revealed that the talking octopus Paul could knead elements from heaven and earth into pills, and demonstrated its wind power by catching fish. Xiao Yan’s plan to make diamonds fell flat when Xiao Yi said they were not valuable, while Yao Lao questioned Paul about its identity and former master.

• Xiao Yan recognized the octopus as a being from the gourd Supreme Lord Lao had given Xiao Yi, and the octopus complained when Xiao Yan pointed at it.
• Xiao Yi explained that Paul could knead elements into pills, and showed a tiny wind pill creating a whirlwind that carried fish into a basket.
• Xiao Yan proposed compressing carbon into diamonds, but Xiao Yi dismissed diamonds as plentiful and not worth much.
• Yao Lao asked the octopus about its name and Supreme Lord Lao, and Paul said Xiao Yi had renamed it from its former name to Paul.
• Paul said Supreme Lord Lao’s original name was Li Er, then lamented that the past was painful to revisit.

Xiao Yan and Xiao Yi fought with fish after arguing about ambition, then Xiao Yan discovered that Xiao Yi had opened a fast-food shop and charged him ten times the regular price. The chapter ended with Xiao Yan furiously shouting Xiao Yi’s name at the counter.

• Xiao Yi dismissed the idea of pursuing a lofty goal, while Xiao Yan declared that he would become a Dou Di and defeat Nalan Yanran at the Three-Year Agreement.
• Xiao Yan smacked Xiao Yi on the head, and Xiao Yi retaliated by hitting him with a carp, sparking a fish fight that sent every fish escaping into the stream.
• Xiao Yan left the stream exhausted and continued home, where the smell of familiar food drew him to a shop called Xiao Archway.
• Xiao Yan tried to order a Spicy Chicken Leg Burger, but an employee showed him a notice saying he would be charged ten times the regular price.
• Xiao Yan recognized the notice as Xiao Yi’s handiwork and shouted that he could not live under the same sky as him.

Xiao Yi reflected on his hidden ambition to seek knowledge and power beyond the Dou Qi Continent, determined to protect his small refuge and break the cycle that let the powerful prey on others. He then resumed his walk toward the shop, unconcerned by strange signs in the sky.

• Paul asked Xiao Yi about his enormous goal, but Xiao Yi refused to reveal his plans.
• Paul accused Xiao Yi of scheming against Lord Cthulhu, then sulked back into the gourd when Xiao Yi showed no reaction.
• Xiao Yi gazed at the stars and said the knowledge he needed lay in the abyss and the cracks between time and space.
• Xiao Yi resolved to protect his little bubble and bring down the powerful flesh-eaters and the cycle that fed them.
• The moon seemed to blink and northern stars flickered, but Xiao Yi continued toward the shop to get fried chicken.

Xiao Yan began learning alchemy from Yao Lao and succeeded in purifying medicinal ingredients by using his soul perception. When Yao Lao asked him to devise a pill formula, Xiao Yan conceived a nasty powder to torment Xiao Yi, prompting Yao Lao to warn him about Poison Masters and the Woeful Poison Body.

• Xiao Yan spent his savings on a secondhand Medicine Cauldron and basic medicinal ingredients, then began learning Fire Control from Yao Lao.
• After repeated failures, Xiao Yan followed Yao Lao's instruction to extend his soul power into the cauldron and successfully extracted a murky drop of medicinal liquid.
• Yao Lao praised Xiao Yan's talent and asked him to think of a pill formula of his own.
• Xiao Yan devised Ghost Claw Itching Powder, which would weaken a victim's fingers and make their skin itch, intending to use it against Xiao Yi.
• Yao Lao struck Xiao Yan with the Back Scratcher and scolded him for inventing something poisonous.
• Yao Lao explained Poison Masters and the Woeful Poison Body, then warned Xiao Yan to flee immediately if he ever encountered someone with that constitution.

Xiao Zhan countered the Jia Lie Family’s successful Healing Pill business by relying on the Xiao Archway’s steady income and ordering Xiao Yan to promote its food. Xiao Yan ended the chapter dressed as a display model, resignedly eating a Hamburger while Xiao Yi hawked it to the crowd.

• Xiao Yan promised his master he would avoid anyone with the Woeful Poison Body, while privately continuing to devise ways to get revenge on Xiao Yi.
• The First Elder and Third Elder warned Xiao Zhan that a Jia Lie Family Alchemist and his Healing Pill had taken thirty percent of their Market District business in two weeks.
• Xiao Zhan argued that the Xiao Clan could use the Xiao Archway’s income to outlast the Jia Lie Family rather than compete directly on pills.
• Several days later, Xiao Yi dressed as a clown and promoted Xiao Archway Hamburgers while Xiao Yan stood on a platform as an example of their supposed benefits.
• Xiao Yan accepted a Hamburger and took a large bite, finding comfort in its taste despite his embarrassment.

Xiao Yan delighted Xun'er with a towering ten-layer burger while the Xiao Family Market's success infuriated Jia Lie Bi. Jia Lie Ao proposed stealing the Xiao Restaurant's recipe, and Jia Lie Bi entrusted the job to A Pi the Phantom Thief, whose abacus was apparently his wife.

• Xun'er visited Xiao Yan at the Xiao Archway, and Xiao Yan prepared a ten-layer burger especially for her.
• Jia Lie Bi raged over the Xiao Family Market's popularity and discounted Healing Pills, while Liu Xi dismissed the Xiao Clan's tactics.
• Jia Lie Bi caught Jia Lie Ao eating Han Run and knocked the burger from his hands.
• Jia Lie Ao claimed he was gathering intelligence and introduced A Pi the Phantom Thief as someone who could steal the Xiao Restaurant's recipe.
• Jia Lie Bi assigned the theft to A Pi and learned that the one-eyed thief considered his abacus his wife.