Chapter Summaries

Tang Yan demanded compensation from the three great families for their threats against Reach the Summit, then helped Qianyun Chen leave his family. After settling with the Ye and Zhuo Families and sparing the Qianyun Family because of Chen, Tang Yan turned to confront the Zhong Family Head.

• Tang Yan secured ten seventh-tier medicinal herbs and a further hundred sixth-tier herbs from the Ye Family, with Shen Shan backing his demands.
• Tang Yan made Zhuo Feng agree to provide a hundred sixth-tier medicinal herbs for the Zhuo Family's designs against Reach the Summit.
• Tang Yan offered to waive the Qianyun Family's compensation if Qianyun Chen joined Reach the Summit, and he corrected Qianyun Zhi when he called Chen a servant.
• Qianyun Chen thanked his family for raising him, declared he was leaving the Qianyun Lineage, and Qianyun Zhi accepted his decision.
• Tang Yan accused the Zhong Family Head of secretly inciting the three great families against Reach the Summit.

Tang Yan forced Zhong Qingheng to compensate Reach the Summit and welcomed Shen Shan, Feng Chenye, and Lan Guiwei to the base. After Feng Chenye asked for another poem to impress his beloved, Tang Yan recited “Rainy Alley,” leaving the listeners lost in memories.

• Tang Yan threatened the Zhong Family with ruin unless it delivered two hundred fifth-tier medicinal herbs to Reach the Summit, and Zhong Qingheng accepted the demand.
• Tang Yan learned that Shen Shan and Feng Chenye had come to check on him after hearing Mingyou Valley was hunting him.
• Feng Chenye asked Tang Yan for more Youth-Preserving Pills and a poem to share with his beloved, Fairy Meng Yao of the Moon God Hall.
• Feng Chenye offered Tang Yan a seventh-tier Flying Roselle Grass, and Tang Yan agreed to compose a poem.
• Tang Yan recited “Rainy Alley,” moving Fire Phoenix, Elder Fan, Shen Shan, and the others to reflection.

Tang Yan turned down Shen Shan’s offer of help and visited the Gao Family to propose a path to strengthen their clan. The Gao Family’s elders backed his proposal, setting the stage for a move against the Zhong Family.

• Feng Chenye forgot most of Tang Yan’s poem and asked him to write it down so he could memorize it.
• Tang Yan explained Mingyou Valley’s actions against him, but declined Shen Shan’s offer to resolve the matter on his behalf.
• Tang Yan told Shen Shan he planned to deal with Mingyou Valley, establish himself in the Southern Wilderness, and grow the Reach the Summit Pill Shop.
• After Shen Shan and the others left, Tang Yan went to the Gao Family, where Gao Bufan welcomed him with great ceremony.
• Tang Yan urged Gao Bufan to become the first leader in generations to strengthen the Gao Family, and the clan’s elders approved his proposal.

Tang Yan directed the Gao Family to ally with Reach the Summit, consolidate Southern Wilderness City, and prepare to destroy the Zhong Family within a week. The Zhong Family learned that Mingyou Valley had placed a bounty on Tang Yan and sent Third Master Zhong to report his whereabouts, while the Gao Family continued gaining support.

• Tang Yan urged Gao Bufan to announce the alliance with Reach the Summit and secretly prepare to defeat the Zhong Family in a week.
• Gao Bufan ordered the Gao Family to recruit neutral lineages, assess its forces, and begin preparations for war.
• The Zhong Family learned that Mingyou Valley had placed a five-billion-tael bounty on Tang Yan, and Zhong Qingheng sent Zhong Batian to Mingyou Valley to reveal Tang Yan's location.
• Neutral lineages joined the Gao Family, which grew stronger as other lineages distanced themselves from the Zhong Family.
• Zhong Qingheng waited anxiously in his study, expecting Zhong Batian to have reached Mingyou Valley.

Zhong Batian brought Mingyou Valley information about Tang Yan and asked for help against the Gao Family, but Mingyou Valley killed him and planned to destroy both Southern Wilderness City families. Tang Yan and Gao Bufan prepared a large coalition against the Zhong Family while watching for Mingyou Valley’s suspicious silence.

• Zhong Batian told Ming Wenshan that Tang Yan was running the Reach the Summit pill shop and asked Mingyou Valley to help wipe out the Gao Family.
• Ming Xin proposed letting the Zhong and Gao families weaken each other before Mingyou Valley destroyed both, and Ming Wenshan ordered Zhong Batian killed.
• Ming Wenshan accused the Zhong Family of trying to assassinate Elder Ming Chen and dispatched the Grand Elder and Fourth Elder with separate forces to attack Southern Wilderness City.
• Gao Bufan told Tang Yan that seventeen families had assembled a force of three Xiantian experts and more than a thousand Heaven Tier fighters against the Zhong Family.
• Tang Yan warned Gao Bufan that Mingyou Valley’s lack of visible movement was suspicious and ordered him to keep watch.

Tang Yan and Gao Bufan prepared to destroy the Zhong Family, then launched a midnight attack and used promises of safety and rewards to persuade its people to surrender. As nearly half the Zhong Family’s forces abandoned the fight, Zhong Qingheng faced the collapse of his family’s unity.

• Tang Yan told Gao Bufan to offer pills to the participating families and announced that their cooperation prices would return to market rates before they agreed to attack the Zhong Family the following night.
• At midnight, Gao Family forces converged on the Zhong Family compound, where Zhong Qingheng rallied his clansmen with promises of rewards for fighting.
• Tang Yan announced the attackers’ superior numbers and offered the Zhong Family’s non-direct-line members safe surrender and Reach the Summit Association pills for their contributions.
• Two martial artists surrendered first, prompting many others to follow and gather beneath the Bai Xi Tree.
• Zhong Neng accused Zhang Danian of betraying the Zhong Family, but Zhong Qingheng let him leave and Tang Yan urged the remaining people to choose their families’ survival over loyalty.

Tang Yan led the destruction of the Zhong Family, then prepared for Mingyou Valley’s approaching force by concealing the victory and planning to impersonate Zhong Family members. Meanwhile, Zi Yun and her companions encountered Su Ruyan after defeating a pack of Earth Wolves.

• Tang Yan ordered the remaining Zhong Family members killed, and the Gao Family divided the spoils while Tang Yan claimed the medicinal ingredients.
• Tang Yan told Gao Bufan to consolidate the Gao Family’s forces and watch Mingyou Valley, then learned its Grand Elder was approaching with seventy experts.
• Tang Yan ordered the Gao Family to hide the Zhong Family’s destruction and arrange for Gao Grand Elder to impersonate Zhong Qingheng before he began refining a Spirit-Raising Pill.
• Zi Yun, Fang Xuan, Yu Juechen, Jing Wuhen, and Yang Jiayi defeated an Earth Wolf pack and collected its Beast Cores.
• Su Ruyan arrived with more than ten people and asked Zi Yun’s group to give her the Earth Wolves.

Fang Xuan refused to hand Su Ruyan the Earth Wolves for free, so she took them and he proposed a bet to win their full value back. He began a contest of copying six poses, leaving Su Ruyan surprised by the first pose’s difficulty but confident she could outlast him.

• Fang Xuan refused Su Ruyan’s request for the Earth Wolves and demanded an exchange of equal value.
• Su Ruyan’s companion seized the Earth Wolves, and Fang Xuan proposed a bet to settle their value.
• Fang Xuan challenged Su Ruyan to imitate six movements and hold each pose as long as he did.
• Fang Xuan performed the first form of the Extreme Six Forms, and Su Ruyan discovered the contorted posture made it difficult to use her true qi.

Fang Xuan defeated Su Ruyan in a contest of endurance using the Extreme Six Forms and accepted her Earth Tier Upper Grade Scour Heaven Whip manual as his reward. He realized the whip suited him, while Su Ruyan left without learning why his anger had suddenly faded.

• Fang Xuan used the Extreme Six Forms, and Su Ruyan endured the poses until she stumbled during the fourth form and lost.
• Su Ruyan offered Fang Xuan five Fourth-Tier Pills, but he asked for something else, so she gave him the Scour Heaven Whip manual.
• Fang Xuan felt that the whip was the weapon that suited him and thanked Su Ruyan, who left after refusing to remember his name.
• Su Ruyan secretly overheard Yu Juechen teasing Fang Xuan about falling for her, then listened as Zi Yun asked Fang Xuan why he had stopped resisting when she took the Earth Wolf.
• Fang Xuan asked his friends whether they understood him, but he had not yet explained his change of attitude.

Fang Xuan abandoned the sword to practice the whip, and his rapid progress convinced his friends he had found a weapon suited to him. In Southern Wilderness City, Tang Yan and Gao Jinsong disguised themselves as members of the Zhong Family to ambush Mingyou Valley’s envoys.

• Fang Xuan told Zi Yun and the others that he had always wanted to use a weapon other than the sword and began practicing the Whip Technique with a vine.
• Fang Xuan’s whip skills and cultivation advanced rapidly, stabilizing his Heaven Tier Third Grade cultivation within two days and preparing him to break through to the middle stage.
• Tang Yan and Gao Jinsong changed their appearances, with Gao Jinsong posing as Zhong Qingheng and Tang Yan as Zhong Yu.
• Tang Yan reasoned that Mingyou Valley intended to seek the Zhong Family’s cooperation and planned to use the Zhong Family identity to lure its people into an ambush.
• Tang Yan told Gao Jinsong that their plan could kill dozens of Mingyou Valley’s elites without losing a single soldier.

Tang Yan and Gao Jinsong used a Zhong Family impersonation and poisoned feast to ambush Mingyou Valley’s delegation, killing Grand Elder Ming Xin and his followers. Afterward, Tang Yan warned Gao Jinsong that Mingyou Valley would likely retaliate and urged the Gao Family to watch them closely.

• Gao Jinsong agreed with Tang Yan’s plan to ambush Mingyou Valley’s delegation by pretending to be the Zhong Family.
• Gao Jinsong welcomed Ming Xin and his party to the Zhong Family residence, where Tang Yan served poisoned food and wine.
• Tang Yan revealed that the Zhong Family elders were dead and ordered the disguised Gao Family fighters to attack Mingyou Valley’s people.
• Ming Xin found his true qi sealed by the poison, and Gao Jinsong revealed his identity before killing him.
• Tang Yan divided the captured valuables with Gao Jinsong and told him to warn the Gao Family to monitor Mingyou Valley for further moves.

Tang Yan consumed the last drop of Azure Dragon Blood Essence and advanced to Xiantian Second Grade. Meanwhile, Fang Xuan and his companions encountered Mingyou Valley’s party in the forest and decided to harass them to buy Tang Yan time.

• Tang Yan swallowed the Azure Dragon Blood Essence, endured its violent power, and advanced the qi aspect of the Qi Meridian Transformation to the late middle stage and his strength to Xiantian Second Grade.
• Fang Xuan’s party overheard Mingyou Valley’s Fourth Elder Ming Ge discussing the Grand Elder’s attack on the Gao Family and the order to capture Tang Yan alive.
• Zi Yun worried that Mingyou Valley’s powerful party threatened Tang Yan and Reach the Summit, so Fang Xuan proposed following them and causing trouble.
• Fang Xuan and his companions concealed themselves along the route, and Fang Xuan wailed that everyone in Mingyou Valley would die.

Fang Xuan and his companions frightened Mingyou Valley’s force with ghostly cries, slowing its journey to Southern Wilderness City. When Fourth Elder Ming Ge finally uncovered Fang Xuan, he confronted him, and Fang Xuan pretended that Ming Ge had rescued him.

• Fang Xuan, Zi Yun, Yu Juechen, and Jing Wuhen used eerie voices to frighten Mingyou Valley’s search parties and send them hurrying toward the city.
• Tang Yan received the Gao Family’s report, guessed that his brothers were behind the ghostly cries, and set out for Southern Wilderness Forest.
• Near Southern Wilderness City, the voices warned Mingyou Valley’s people not to enter, prompting Ming Ge to lead them back to search again.
• Ming Ge kicked apart a rock and exposed Fang Xuan, then angrily accused him of frightening the group.
• Fang Xuan acted delighted and asked Ming Ge whether he had saved him.

Fang Xuan tried to draw Mingyou Valley away from his hidden companions, but Zi Yun and the others emerged to fight beside him and were badly wounded. Just as Zi Yun faced death against nine heaven tier ninth grade experts, Tang Yan arrived, defeated them, and confronted Ming Ge.

• Fang Xuan mocked Ming Ge and fled to draw Mingyou Valley away, but Ming Ge's men struck him down and wounded him.
• Zi Yun, Yu Juechen, Jing Wuhen, and Yang Jiayi left hiding to fight alongside Fang Xuan, but Mingyou Valley quickly overpowered them.
• Ming Ge lusted after Zi Yun and sent his experts against her; she fought desperately and killed one man before nine attackers cornered her.
• Tang Yan appeared as Zi Yun was about to fall, held her up, and left all nine Mingyou Valley men gravely wounded.
• Tang Yan gave Zi Yun and the others pills, mocked Ming Ge for having feared weaker opponents, and provoked Ming Ge into unleashing his aura.

Tang Yan slaughtered the Mingyou Valley fighters after they threatened his brothers, leaving the valley severely weakened. On the way back, he noticed Fang Xuan’s unusual cultivation and learned that Fang Xuan had a romantic connection with Su Ruyan of the Su Family.

• Tang Yan defeated Mingyou Valley’s Fourth Elder and killed several fighters, rejecting the elder’s offer to end their feud.
• When Ming Ge ordered his fighters to seize Zi Yun and the others as hostages, Tang Yan killed everyone from Mingyou Valley.
• Tang Yan explained to Jing Wuhen, Fang Xuan, and the others that he had killed them for their past crimes and because they threatened Reach the Summit’s brothers.
• On the way back, Tang Yan sensed that Fang Xuan had reached a realm of strength within softness and asked whether he had encountered a fortuitous opportunity.
• Yu Juechen, Yang Jiayi, and Jing Wuhen told Tang Yan that Fang Xuan had a romantic connection with Su Ruyan of the Su Family, and Yu Juechen suggested proposing marriage.

Tang Yan teased Fang Xuan over his feelings for Su Ruyan, then returned to Southern Wilderness City and told the Gao Family that he had wiped out Mingyou Valley’s forces. He explained why the city was safe for now, and Gao Bufan asked whether Reach the Summit would buy high-grade medicinal ingredients.

• Yu Juechen, Yang Jiayi, Jing Wuhen, and Zi Yun convinced Tang Yan that Fang Xuan had fallen for Su Ruyan, and Tang Yan praised her fairness and restraint.
• Fang Xuan accepted Tang Yan’s approval of Su Ruyan, while Jing Wuhen and Yu Juechen teased him about the difference in their status and strength.
• Tang Yan brought Ming Ge’s head to the Gao Family and confirmed that he had killed every member of Mingyou Valley’s force.
• Gao Jinsong warned that Ming Wenshan’s higher Xiantian strength remained a threat, but Tang Yan explained that Mingyou Valley’s weakened state and watchful enemies made an attack on Southern Wilderness City unlikely.
• Gao Bufan promised to spread news of Mingyou Valley’s losses, then asked Tang Yan whether Reach the Summit needed high-grade medicinal ingredients.

Tang Yan learned about Southern Heart City's Exchange Convention and prepared to attend with Gao Jinsong, while his companions stayed behind to cultivate and Du Shu unexpectedly reached Heaven Tier. Tang Yan and Gao Jinsong arrived in Southern Heart City aboard the Flowing Cloud Roc, hoping to find valuable goods at the convention.

• Gao Bufan told Tang Yan that the Exchange Convention would be held in Southern Heart City in half a month, and Tang Yan arranged to travel with Gao Jinsong.
• Tang Yan's companions declined to attend so they could cultivate, and Fang Xuan and the others asked him to look for weapons, martial skills, and information about pill factions.
• Tang Yan discovered that Du Shu had reached Heaven Tier without realizing it and warned him to stop cultivating if he noticed anything unusual.
• Tang Yan asked Du Shu to provide silver for the convention, then left Southern Wilderness City with Gao Jinsong three days later.
• Tang Yan and Gao Jinsong traveled aboard the Flowing Cloud Roc and arrived in Southern Heart City three days later.

Tang Yan and Gao Jinsong arrived in Southern Heart City, where Tang Yan learned about the costly exchange gathering hosted by the Mo Lineage. While exploring the city, Tang Yan overheard the Fate Pill Sect trying to buy Old Sun Tou’s pill formulas and became intrigued by the old alchemist’s low-cost methods.

• Tang Yan and Gao Jinsong entered Southern Heart City and discussed the Ten Thousand Treasures Garden exchange gathering and its million-tael entrance fee.
• Tang Yan settled at an inn, explored the city alone, and failed to find a whip he wanted at two weapon shops.
• Tang Yan stopped outside the Ordinary Pill Shop after hearing an argument over Old Sun Tou’s unusually cheap pills.
• Old Sun Tou explained that he reduced pill costs by using cheaper ingredients, while a Fate Pill Sect representative accused him of disrupting the market.
• The Fate Pill Sect representative offered Old Sun Tou twenty billion taels for his pill formulas, but Old Sun Tou refused and said he planned to recruit disciples.
• Tang Yan listened from outside and wondered why Old Sun Tou would keep the formulas when he appeared to be a lone third-tier Alchemy Master.

Tang Yan visited Old Sun’s pill shop and identified the ingredients and unusual properties of Old Sun’s supposedly fake Ten Thousand Celebration Pill. Impressed by Tang Yan’s knowledge, Old Sun asked him to examine another pill, leaving Tang Yan to inspect it.

• A man from the Fate Pill Sect pressed Old Sun to sell his pill formulas, but Old Sun insisted he would trade only for a seventh-tier spirit herb that caught his eye.
• Tang Yan entered the shop and asked to buy a Ten Thousand Celebration Pill, then declared that Old Sun’s pill was not genuine because it lacked fire bone grass.
• Tang Yan explained how Old Sun had replaced fire bone grass with six lower-tier ingredients, producing a pill with greater medicinal potency than a genuine Ten Thousand Celebration Pill.
• Old Sun was stunned by Tang Yan’s insight, while the Fate Pill Sect man secretly memorized the formula details.
• Old Sun asked Tang Yan to inspect another pill, and Tang Yan sniffed it twice before setting it aside.

Tang Yan visited Old Sun’s pill shop and deduced the secrets behind his search for a medicinal herb and his hidden past. Old Sun was left astonished by Tang Yan’s insight and uncertain cultivation, while Tang Yan assured him they had no grudge.

• Tang Yan identified the pills as mid-grade Spirit Elegance Pills and said their ingredients had been substituted.
• Old Sun sent the finely dressed man out, then told Tang Yan he needed a seventh-tier medicinal herb that grew in moist places.
• Tang Yan used his perception to discover Old Sun’s soul injury and guessed that he needed spirit baleful orchid.
• Tang Yan laid out nine deductions about Old Sun, including his former alchemy rank, damaged soul, hidden identity, and desire for revenge.
• Old Sun was shocked that Tang Yan had correctly uncovered his secrets but could not discern Tang Yan’s cultivation or background.
• Tang Yan introduced himself and assured Old Sun that they had no prior connection or grudges.