Recaps

Emperor Ying visited the ailing Xu Xixi, and the two reflected on Xu Xixi’s lifelong service to the people and the Four Admonitions left by the White-Clad One. Xu Xixi remained content with his life and continued waiting for the White-Clad One to return.

• Emperor Ying arrived alone at the Xu Residence and asked Xu Xixi’s eldest son about his father’s health.
• Emperor Ying visited the bedridden Xu Xixi, and they acknowledged that they had both grown old.
• Xu Xixi explained that he had entered government service to repay the White-Clad One but had come to serve the people as his life’s purpose.
• Emperor Ying praised Xu Xixi’s service, while Xu Xixi said the realm’s true blessing was the Four Admonitions.
• Emperor Ying departed, and Xu Xixi closed his eyes, content to wait for the White-Clad One.

Su Mo visited the dying Xu Xixi and learned that Xu Huanhuan had died quelling a rebellion centuries earlier. He revealed that he had brought reincarnation to the world, then personally sent Xu Xixi through the Road of Rebirth.

• Su Mo quietly met Xu Xixi in the Xu Residence and asked about his elder sister, Xu Huanhuan.
• Xu Xixi told Su Mo that Xu Huanhuan had died in battle while leading troops to suppress a rebellion.
• Su Mo confirmed that he had created the possibility of rebirth because he did not want the world to end in extinction.
• Xu Xixi realized that he had died and saw his own body lying in bed as his family wept.
• Su Mo gave Xu Xixi a flower of the other shore and opened a stone gate to the Road of Rebirth.
• Xu Xixi bowed to Su Mo and entered the gate, while the Reincarnation Mirror illuminated Su Mo before onlookers in the void.

After Xu Xixi crossed the River of Forgetfulness, Su Mo returned to the Academy and concealed his return while the world stopped producing new births and fell into despair. He met the souls of Cheng An'an and Dao Hua, who had died early because they could no longer bear the world’s hopeless decline.

• Su Mo watched Xu Xixi depart, then returned to the Academy and made it his home with Emperor Ying, Emperor Ying Consort, Little Girl, and his friends.
• Su Mo spent ten years at the Academy without revealing his return, while Emperor Ying continued ruling in his stead.
• The world discovered that no one could become pregnant and no children were born, unrest spread, and Su Mo silently watched as the population dwindled.
• Gu Yu and Luo Yin discussed why Su Mo kept his return secret, as he sought a chance for the world to survive without seeking recognition or gratitude.
• The souls of Cheng An'an and Dao Hua entered Su Mo’s Spirit Sea, where they explained that despair over the world’s lack of new births had made life seem pointless.

Cheng An'an and Dao Hua crossed the River of Forgetfulness, leaving Su Mo burdened by regret as the world downstream continued toward extinction. Years passed without new births, until the last mortal crossed the river and the remaining cultivators faced an empty Mortal Realm.

• Cheng An'an promised to meet Su Mo again in rebirth, then crossed the River of Forgetfulness, leaving a flower of the Other Shore.
• Dao Hua urged Su Mo not to repeat his past failures before crossing the Stone Bridge himself.
• Su Mo remained unable to let go of his regrets as the world grew quiet and people chose death and crossed the river.
• Little Girl stayed with Su Mo in the Academy as the Mortal Realm lost its people and fewer souls crossed the River of Forgetfulness.
• After heavy snow fell, the final mortal crossed the river, and the surviving cultivators entered the empty Mortal Realm in despair.

After the Mortal Realm emptied, despair drove cultivators across the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths to end their lives, while Su Mo and the Academy watched. The Academy members tried to restore a little daily life by planting flowers, and Du Pingsheng finally closed his eyes, saying it was their turn to ferry a lifetime.

• The cultivators searched the empty Mortal Realm for surviving mortals, then succumbed to despair and began performing Liberation by Violence upon themselves.
• Su Mo, Emperor Ying, his consort, Little Girl, and the Academy watched the lights of the cultivators' suicides as Luo Yin played the zither.
• Over several years, more cultivators chose Liberation by Violence until scarcely anyone remained alive in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths.
• Gu Yu suggested that the Academy members plant flowers, and they busied themselves with gardening while Luo Yin played and Emperor Ying Consort embroidered.
• Du Pingsheng watched the Academy members from the pavilion, closed his eyes, and murmured, "Our turn... Ferrying... a lifetime..."

After Du Pingsheng crossed the River of Forgetfulness, Su Mo reunited with Yuan Yuan after she refined the Divine Stele and freed herself from the Divine Mountain. Seeing the Long River fissure beneath it, Su Mo realized he could send Flowers of the Other Shore upstream to retrieve the Life Souls of those who had died in the past and bring them into reincarnation.

• Su Mo watched Du Pingsheng cross the River of Forgetfulness and leave his thoughts blooming as Flowers of the Other Shore.
• Yuan Yuan refined the Divine Stele, which became a Divine Rune within her and opened a fissure into the Long River.
• Su Mo arrived at the Divine Mountain, took Yuan Yuan by the hand, and explained why he had waited for her to refine the Divine Stele.
• Su Mo realized he could send a Flower of the Other Shore upstream to retrieve the Life Souls of the dead, including Xuanji and others from the past.

Su Mo realized he had to travel to the Long River’s upper reaches to retrieve the life souls of those who had died before his return and complete reincarnation. He and Yuan Yuan devised a way to preserve his memories and guide the Flower of the Other Shore, ending with Yuan Yuan forming a peach pit as a token for the Divine Stele.

• Su Mo realized that he had caused the Heavenly Dao to strip away life souls and that retrieving them from the Long River’s upper reaches was necessary for complete reincarnation.
• Su Mo remembered that Little Girl had preserved her memories in a little white stone and condensed all his own memories into one for the Flower of the Other Shore to carry.
• Yuan Yuan proposed that the Divine Stele could scoop the Flower of the Other Shore out of the Long River if it sensed the little stone and heard a plea for help from the Divine Race.
• Su Mo used the power of law to make the little stone’s memories and plea perceptible only to the Divine Race.
• Yuan Yuan gathered the peach blossoms on Divine Mountain and condensed them into a peach pit that could serve as a trusted token for the Divine Stele.

Su Mo and Yuan Yuan Remnant Soul sent Little Stone and a peach pit into the Long River so the Flower of the Other Shore could carry life souls to the Upper Reaches. The chapter revealed how Granny Heavenly Secrets received them in the past and gave Little Yuanyuan the peach pit, setting her on the path to meet her little brother.

• Yuan Yuan Remnant Soul explained that the Flower of the Other Shore could store life souls in Little Stone and hide it in the Upper Reaches for them to find later.
• Su Mo chose the secluded valley where Little Girl had been born as the hiding place and sent Little Stone and the peach pit inside a Flower of the Other Shore through the rift.
• The Flower of the Other Shore entered the Long River and traveled toward the Upper Reaches, while a drop of river water imbued Little Stone with its aura.
• In the distant past, Granny Heavenly Secrets found the flower beneath the Divine Stele and saw the memories and plea for help sealed inside Little Stone.
• Granny Heavenly Secrets returned the flower to the world with its memories, then gave Little Yuanyuan the peach pit and promised her little brother would come when the mountain bloomed with peach blossoms.

The White-Clad One arrived tens of thousands of years before Little Xuanji’s era and sought a way to wait until he could seize his junior brother’s life soul. After the Nine Heavens alchemy cultivators’ attempt to create eternal life produced mind-stripping red mist, he entered the Longevity Stele to seal it and delay its eruption.

• The White-Clad One hid Little Stone in a cave and bound it so the life souls he seized would be sent there and sealed.
• The White-Clad One went in search of the Divine Maiden, hoping she could help him wait for Little Xuanji.
• More than a dozen alchemy cultivators sacrificed themselves to create the rules of eternal life on the Longevity Stele.
• The eternal-life red mist spread and stripped people of their minds, while the surviving old man failed to reverse or destroy the rules and died.
• The White-Clad One arrived after the old man’s death and merged with the Longevity Stele, sealing the red mist and postponing its eruption.

Su Mo and Yuan Yuan left the Divine Mountain to retrieve the little stone, but the Reincarnation Mirror showed how Little Girl had kept it safe and sent it upstream through time. Su Mo realized the stone had been with him all along, then released its life souls to be guided through reincarnation.

• Su Mo and Yuan Yuan left the Divine Mountain and searched the cave behind the waterfall for the missing little stone.
• The Reincarnation Mirror showed Little Girl safeguarding the stone, filling it with her memories, and sending it with Flower of the Other Shore into the Long River.
• Su Mo realized the white little stone had remained with him since Little Girl's incarnation died.
• Su Mo released the countless life souls from the stone, and flowers of the other shore guided them across the Stone Bridge over the River of Forgetfulness.

Hundreds of years after Su Mo left the Immortal Furnace, Bai Zhi attended a gathering of young cultivators in the Immortal Domain but remained uninterested in their discussions. When asked about her title as the Immortal Furnace’s Flower Wonder, she insisted that her senior brother was the true Wonder and explained that he had rejected the title because it sounded too girly.

• Immortal Emperor Rouyun reopened the Path to Immortality, and Mortal Realm Sages formed Peach Blossom Haven on Heavenly Secrets Mountain, a power that governed the Mortal Realm alongside the Immortal Domain’s great cave heavens.
• Bai Zhi attended a gathering of young cultivators, where an imposing young man invited her to join the conversation, but she declined.
• A young woman asked Bai Zhi to share what she learned from comprehending the floral essence of plants and becoming the Immortal Furnace’s Flower Wonder.
• Bai Zhi denied being the Flower Wonder and said her senior brother was the Immortal Furnace’s true direct disciple and true Wonder.
• Bai Zhi explained that her senior brother rejected the title because it sounded too girly.

Bai Zhi learned that Su Mo had gone with Rouyun and others to investigate the unknowable place, while Nameless secretly shared stolen resources with her. At the Realm Gate, White-Clad One reunited with its armored guardian, who explained that the gate had not changed—only White-Clad One’s perspective had.

• Bai Zhi dismissed the younger generation’s questions about her senior brother’s alchemy and watched them leave.
• Nameless arrived and negotiated with Bai Zhi over stolen resources, which she accepted to pass on to Su Mo.
• Nameless told Bai Zhi that Su Mo had gone with Rouyun and others to the unknowable place, and he revealed that another Immortal Emperor was with them.
• Bai Zhi left the gathering, troubled by how far her senior brother had surpassed her.
• White-Clad One reached the Realm Gate with several companions and recognized its armored guardian.
• The guardian told White-Clad One that the Realm Gate had always looked the same, but its appearance changed with the viewer’s realm and perspective.

Su Mo learned that the Divine Race had two branches: one guarded against the world's annihilation, while the other fought enemies from Beyond the Realm at the Realm Gate. As the Giant God explained how the Divine Race might have formed from drifting strands of Heaven and Earth Consciousness, Su Mo asked whether he had encountered a sleeping consciousness beyond the world tens of thousands of years ago.

• Su Mo realized the Giant God and the Realm Gate belonged to a world beyond the Nine Heavens, and that only Immortal Emperors could see the river and bridge.
• The Giant God explained that one Divine Race branch guarded within against annihilation, while the other guarded beyond the world against recurring calamities.
• Su Mo connected the Giant God's account of enemies arriving every ten thousand years with the calamity that struck the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths.
• The Giant God described the Divine Race as possibly having formed from strands of Heaven and Earth Consciousness that gained form after traveling through the River of Time.
• Su Mo asked the Giant God whether he had encountered a sleeping consciousness drifting beyond the world tens of thousands of years earlier.

Su Mo learned that Su Eternal Life and the Divine Maiden had originated as drifting consciousnesses, then faced the cost of creating a new reincarnation: someone had to remain outside it to set it in motion and guard the Realm Gate. He separated his Divine Race self from his Immortal Dao self and entrusted the Divine Maiden with guiding the souls into reincarnation while he stayed behind.

• Su Mo understood how Su Eternal Life had entered the Third Heaven and how the Divine Maiden had followed his lost incarnation to the Nine Heavens.
• The Giant God revealed that creating reincarnation was not enough: someone had to remain outside it, fulfill the existing destiny, and guard the Realm Gate.
• The Divine Maiden offered to set reincarnation in motion after Su Mo entered it, but Su Mo explained that she could not control reincarnation and needed to help him instead.
• Su Mo used the Divine Race Inheritance Technique to sever his cultivation and Spirit Sea Gate from his other self in the Nine Heavens, leaving one Su Mo with Divine Race power and the other with Immortal Dao cultivation.
• Su Mo gave the Spirit Sea Gate to the Divine Maiden and asked her to guide the dead across the River of Forgetfulness and enter reincarnation with the other Su Mo, while he stayed behind to set reincarnation in motion and guard the Realm Gate.

Su Mo remained at the Realm Gate after the others left, and the Giant God revealed that the Divine Race’s apparent indifference concealed deep feelings. Their conversation ended with the Giant God admitting that guarding the gate alone had made him lonely.

• The Divine Maiden took the Spirit Sea Gate and left to send everyone into reincarnation, planning to meet Su Mo again afterward.
• Rouyun asked Su Mo whether they would meet again, and he promised they would in a new reincarnation before she departed.
• Su Mo asked the Giant God about thirteen people who had come from the world, and the Giant God said they had left through the Realm Gate and likely died.
• After everyone else left, the Giant God told Su Mo that Divine Race members still had feelings and only hid them to protect their resolve.
• Su Mo sat with the Giant God on the Stone Bridge and asked whether he felt lonely guarding the Realm Gate; the Giant God admitted that he did.

Su Mo watched his parents and companions enter Reincarnation as wandering souls, but their many attachments made it difficult for him to cross the River of Forgetfulness himself. He returned to the empty world and buried their bodies, remaining alone as he watched over their graves and sensed his other self at the Realm Gate.

• Su Mo's parents asked him to send them across the River of Forgetfulness, and he agreed, entering the Spirit Sea Gate ahead of them.
• Little Girl, the Academy's senior disciples, Luo Yin, and the others arrived as wandering souls and revealed they had chosen to cross together so their separate departures would not burden Su Mo with repeated attachments.
• Little Girl comforted Su Mo and asked to meet again in the new Reincarnation; she crossed the Stone Bridge with Emperor Ying and his wife, followed by the others.
• Su Mo's companions crossed the River of Forgetfulness, leaving their attachments behind and making the Flowers of the Other Shore barriers to Su Mo's own crossing.
• Su Mo returned alone to the Academy, buried everyone's bodies in the Duanbei mountain range, and kept watch over their graves for years as he sensed his other self at the Realm Gate.

As the Mortal Realm and Immortal Domain fell to Annihilation, Su Mo and Su Jingyan confronted the monk Hui Kong’s claim that reincarnation was only a book being read again. The Divine Maiden, Xiaoyueyue, and Rouyun sensed a hidden truth, while Su Jingyan was left facing the cost of changing the karma that created Little Girl.

• The aged monk Hui Kong told Su Mo that building a new reincarnation would only mean rereading the same book, then crossed the River of Forgetfulness.
• After the Divine Maiden sent the last people into the River of Forgetfulness, only Su Jingyan, Su Mo, the Divine Maiden, Xiaoyueyue, and Rouyun remained.
• The Divine Maiden recalled unfamiliar scenes, Xiaoyueyue struggled to say Su Mo’s name, and Rouyun remembered the Flower of the Other Shore as they looked toward Su Mo.
• The white-robed Scholar told Su Jingyan that changing the karma of West City would erase Little Girl, because Tongtong’s death and Prince Ying and his wife’s bond with Su Jingyan led to her birth.
• Su Jingyan admitted he could not let go, but the Scholar warned that a daughter born under different circumstances would not be Little Girl.

The white-robed Scholar warned Su Jingyan that changing reincarnation’s destiny would make the people he wanted to save into different people, while repeating it unchanged could leave them trapped in the same cycle. As the Divine Maiden, Rouyun, and Xiaoyueyue revealed signs that they had experienced this reincarnation many times, Su Jingyan’s own power dragged them toward the Other Shore of the River of Forgetfulness.

• The white-robed Scholar told Su Jingyan that a new reincarnation had to follow its former destiny or the people in his memories would cease to exist.
• The white-robed Scholar showed Su Jingyan the Little Tree Spirits trapped in repeated reincarnation and asked what would distinguish an unchanged new cycle from their torment.
• The white-robed Scholar asked Su Jingyan how he knew this was his first time replaying the reincarnation, and Su Jingyan realized an identical cycle could have happened before.
• Rouyun told Su Jingyan that she was not the one trapped in White Paper Reincarnation, while Xiaoyueyue said she seemed to have lived through the same events many times.
• The Divine Maiden said everyone was trapped between existence and nonexistence, repeating the same experiences, and recalled making her gesture before the Longevity Stele countless times.
• A distortion bearing Su Jingyan’s aura dragged the Divine Maiden, Rouyun, and Xiaoyueyue toward the Other Shore, as the Divine Maiden said his unrelenting obsession had trapped him.

Su Jingyan realized that he had repeated the same reincarnation countless times because he could not bear to let go of the people and regrets he had lost. As the world neared its end, he remembered his mother giving him the courtesy name Jing Yan.

• The white-robed Scholar explained that Su Jingyan had repeatedly lived the same reincarnation and could not change its destined course without losing those he remembered.
• Su Mo looked at the Long River and the Divine Race sword while Su Jingyan named the many people and regrets he could not let go of.
• The white-robed Scholar said Su Jingyan’s attachment had trapped all living beings in endless reincarnation, and questioned whether this was kindness or cruelty.
• As the world reached its final moment, Su Jingyan saw his mother and asked her to give him a courtesy name.
• The Woman named him Jing Yan, drawing inspiration from brush and ink.

Su Jingyan uncovered his plan to use the Ink Marks preserved in the Flowers of the Other Shore to carry people’s past selves into a new Reincarnation, allowing them to live different Destinies without losing who they were. With the Chess Player agreeing to bear the lingering thoughts across the River of Forgetfulness, Su Jingyan unleashed the power of Liberation by Violence.

• Su Jingyan realized that the repeating Reincarnation had been his plan and that accumulated Ink Marks could survive Reincarnation’s power to erase them.
• By recalling Du Pingsheng and Hui Kong’s words, Su Jingyan understood that picking up the past made both lives within and beyond Reincarnation real.
• Su Jingyan explained that he would bring the Ink Marks preserved in the Flowers of the Other Shore into a new Reincarnation, where people could choose whether to recover their memories.
• Su Jingyan said he would arrange for Girl to be born again, and the white-robed Scholar questioned how the Flowers and their lingering thoughts could cross the River of Forgetfulness.
• Su Jingyan and the Su Mo beneath the Realm Gate agreed that the Chess Player would carry everything across the river.
• The white-robed Scholar vanished, and Su Jingyan released the power of Liberation by Violence in a blaze of radiance.

Su Mo reunited with Su Jingyan and crossed the River of Forgetfulness with the help of the Divine Race’s lingering thoughts, beginning a new reincarnation. In the Imperial City, he woke before the twins Girl and Tongtong, who recognized him as their older brother.

• Su Mo carried the Book of Life and Death and the white flower across the stone bridge, but the River of Forgetfulness Law strained him and cracked the bridge.
• The Divine Race’s lingering thoughts appeared on the Boundary Gate Battlefield and used their inheritance to unite Su Mo with Su Jingyan and help them reach the Other Shore.
• The lingering thoughts took Su Mo’s place in reincarnation, and the world dissolved before flowers bloomed again beside the River of Forgetfulness.
• In the Imperial City, Girl and Tongtong found a white-clad youth asleep in a rocking chair on a painted boat.
• The youth woke, spoke the twins’ names, and both girls called him Older Brother.

In a dream, a boy saw the Heavenly Secrets Old Man recover a memory of his senior brother, then awoke and wondered whether the senior brother had brought Xuanji home. In Jiangnan, a woman in white reunited with the white-clad shopkeeper through a poem they remembered together.

• The Heavenly Secrets Old Man remembered Xuanji and called the white-clad youth his senior brother before the dream ended.
• The boy awoke beneath an ancient pine in Heavenly Secrets Grotto-Heaven and asked whether his senior brother had brought Xuanji home.
• A woman in white entered the white-clad shopkeeper’s store and asked him to complete a poem she partly remembered.
• The shopkeeper wrote the poem’s missing lines, and the woman recognized him and wept in his arms.
• The ink brush covered the Bronze Ancient Mirror with paper so it would not watch the pair.

You Ziyin thanked readers, reflected on the novel’s flaws and completion, and said the next book would follow after a rest. In a bonus scene, the White-Clad One sensed something beyond the world as a Sealing Immortal Decree named Su Jingyan Fengdu Emperor Immortal, presiding over Reincarnation and known as Eternal Life.

• You Ziyin thanked readers for supporting the novel and described the world and characters he had hoped to create.
• You Ziyin acknowledged criticism of the early prose, emotional writing, and plot, and said he would not revise the first volume’s plot.
• You Ziyin said he felt lost after finishing the book, planned to rest, and would later write another story in the same traditional mythology series.
• The White-Clad One heard the warning that Eternal Life had been noticed and looked beyond the world toward the Realm Gate.
• A brocade scroll descended into the world and unfurled as a Sealing Immortal Decree naming Su Jingyan Fengdu Emperor Immortal, presiding over Reincarnation and known as Eternal Life.

In the Imperial City, a scholar repaid a wandering swordsman with a flask of Apricot Blossom Village, stirring memories of a past the swordsman chose to let go. The scholar then received silver from a woman who seemed to recall another life, but vanished before she could speak with him again.

• A swordsman complained about the price of wine and met a strange scholar in the rain.
• The scholar gave the swordsman a flask of Apricot Blossom Village, explaining that he had owed it to him from another past.
• After smelling the wine, the swordsman remembered something, drank the flask, and left without dwelling on the past.
• The scholar waited in the rain, and a richly dressed woman gave him silver to help him find lodging.
• The woman remembered a rainy night, but when she returned to look for the scholar, he had disappeared.