Chapter Summaries

Zhao Wanqing joined Chu Xingchen to continue investigating the evil cultivators after the Bureau’s response was delayed. Chu Xingchen brought her to a smuggling dock, where its boss eagerly pointed them toward a rival criminal, leaving the investigation poised to follow that lead.

• A Nian examined Zhao Wanqing’s rapidly healing hand and told her to rest, but Zhao Wanqing hurried away after hearing Chu Xingchen was waiting.
• Zhao Wanqing told Chu Xingchen the Bureau’s investigation would take about half a month, and she agreed to accompany him because she had no leads of her own.
• Chu Xingchen took Zhao Wanqing to a secluded Canal Gang dock, where smugglers unloaded crates and guards challenged them.
• After seeing Zhao Wanqing’s Bureau badge, the dock guard fetched the boss, who denied wrongdoing and offered to lead them to Wang Er, accusing him of human trafficking, usury, and forcing women into prostitution.

Chu Xingchen and Zhao Wanqing pressured Guan Quan for information about the buyers of Ritual Foundation Stones and uncovered the Spirit Evil Cult’s connection to the blood sacrifices. Guan Quan revealed that the cult members came from Central Province.

• Chu Xingchen checked Guan Quan’s traits, then forced him to help investigate the Ritual Foundation Stone buyers.
• Guan Quan admitted that a group had bought many Ritual Foundation Stones at high prices, and Chu Xingchen had Zhao Wanqing take him aside for questioning.
• Guan Quan revealed that the buyers were evil cultivators planning a major ritual, using a grand mystery stone as the formation eye’s core.
• Guan Quan said Wang Ermazi had sold the grand mystery stone, then identified the group as the Spirit Evil Cult.
• After Chu Xingchen threatened Guan Quan with his spirit sword, Guan Quan revealed that the Spirit Evil Cult members came from Central Province.

Chu Xingchen and Zhao Wanqing learned that the Central Province evil cultivators might be targeting nearby sects for blood sacrifices. After Zhao Wanqing decided to keep investigating, she followed Guan Quan back to the docks and witnessed the black-robed man kill him.

• Guan Quan told Chu Xingchen and Zhao Wanqing that the evil cultivators' mortal sacrifices were likely a cover for attacks on nearby sects.
• Guan Quan injured himself to make clear where he stood, and Zhao Wanqing let him go.
• Zhao Wanqing decided to continue investigating, and Chu Xingchen offered to help if she paid more.
• Guan Quan returned to the docks and warned the black-robed man that the Demon-Suppression Bureau had discovered them, but the man refused to flee.
• The black-robed man attacked Guan Quan, then brutally smashed his head apart in front of the arriving Zhao Wanqing.

Zhao Wanqing watched Chu Xingchen drive off the black-robed evil cultivator, unaware that the fight had been staged by Chu Xingchen and Li Xingtian. After finding a Blood Qi Spirit Stone on Guan Quan’s corpse, she realized the evil cultivators had already sacrificed a sect and prepared to alert the Demon-Suppression Bureau.

• Zhao Wanqing watched Li Xingtian, disguised as a black-robed evil cultivator, kill Guan Quan before Chu Xingchen charged in and chased him away.
• After pursuing Li Xingtian for half an hour, Chu Xingchen met him in private and learned Zhao Wanqing had not suspected their staged fight.
• Chu Xingchen explained that he and Li Xingtian had investigated the smugglers’ wharves and used a real evil-cultivator identity to stage the encounter.
• Chu Xingchen returned to Guan Quan’s wharf, where Zhao Wanqing showed him a Blood Qi Spirit Stone she had found on Guan Quan’s corpse.
• Chu Xingchen concluded that the evil cultivators had likely already sacrificed a sect, and Zhao Wanqing set out to report the discovery to the Demon-Suppression Bureau.

Chu Xingchen told Yaoqin he would stay out of the Clearwind Sect matter after she warned him about the Blood Qi Spirit Stone and promised to repay Zhao Wanqing’s debt. He took Li Yingling and Li Xingtian to Yuzhou City’s temple fair, where the chapter explained how Zen Grove Buddhist Temple turned the Lantern Festival into a profitable event.

• Yaoqin warned Chu Xingchen to avoid the Clearwind Sect investigation and said Central Province specialists would handle the Blood Qi Spirit Stone.
• Yaoqin told Chu Xingchen she would repay Zhao Wanqing’s spirit stone debt, and he promised to stay out of trouble.
• Li Yingling and Li Xingtian returned after completing their mission, and Chu Xingchen announced they would attend the temple fair instead of continuing their preparations.
• Chu Xingchen took his disciples to the temple fair at Zen Grove Buddhist Temple in Yuzhou City.
• The chapter explained how Zen Grove Buddhist Temple attracted visitors and vendors during the Lantern Festival to earn money.

Li Yingling and Li Xingtian visited Chanlin Temple’s fair, where they found Chu Xingchen surrounded by women. Yaoqin approached after hearing Chu flirt with one of them and confronted him about how he read a career line.

• Li Yingling and Li Xingtian walked through Chanlin Temple’s fair while Li Xingtian carried candied hawthorns for his senior sister.
• Li Yingling spotted Chu Xingchen surrounded by young women and told Li Xingtian not to warn him when Yaoqin appeared.
• Yaoqin noticed Chu Xingchen with the women and headed toward him after Li Yingling pointed him out.
• A woman asked Chu Xingchen to read her career line, and he teased that it was not read from the hand.
• Yaoqin confronted Chu Xingchen, asking if that was how he read a career line.

At the temple fair, Chu Xingchen reunited with Yaoqin, who explained that the Waterwood Dharma Assembly gathered wish power and described its costs. The group remained at the assembly, with Chu Xingchen still hoping to earn the spirit stones Yaoqin had promised him.

• Yaoqin found Chu Xingchen surrounded by women, sent them away, and asked why he had claimed to be visiting the temple fair with his disciples.
• Chu Xingchen joked with Yaoqin about his new clothes, while Li Yingling and Li Xingtian joined them.
• Yaoqin mentioned the Waterwood Dharma Assembly, and Chu Xingchen immediately asked whether it had anything special to offer when she threatened his promised spirit stones.
• Yaoqin explained that Chanwood Temple gathered wish power at the assembly and that people who used it became dependent on it and had to fulfill their believers' wishes.

Chu Xingchen, Li Yingling, Li Xingtian, and Yaoqin visited the Chanwood Dharma Assembly to see how the temple was using wish power and to witness its abbot’s enormous spirit tablet. After enjoying the temple fair, they entered Chanwood Temple, where Li Yingling decided the abbot was even more shameless than Chu Xingchen.

• Chu Xingchen explained that wish power acted like counterfeit cultivation pills, and Yaoqin said the Chanwood Dharma Assembly seemed to be testing new uses for it.
• The four agreed to visit Chanwood Temple after hearing that donors had paid in spirit stones for an enormous spirit tablet to be placed on the abbot.
• At the temple fair, Li Yingling bought masks for everyone, and the group joked about their place in one another’s rankings.
• Li Yingling enjoyed the performers, especially a fire-breather, as the group made their way through the crowded fair.
• With Yaoqin’s help, the four entered Chanwood Temple, where Li Yingling looked toward the center and apologized for calling Chu Xingchen the most shameless person in the world.

Chanwood Temple prepared for the Waterwood Dharma Assembly, where abbot Yuanjing honored a paid promise by holding up a humiliating plaque. After the young novice Yuankong broke his vows at the plaque’s wording, he approached Yaoqin and her companions at the assembly.

• Yuanjing explained to Yuankong that accepting the assembly’s arrangement was not greed if he acted for others, then told Yuankong to lead the chanting.
• Yuankong recited the Heart Sutra until he heard that a plaque had arrived for Yuanjing, then cursed when he saw its insulting message.
• At the Waterwood Dharma Assembly, Yuanjing held up a plaque reading, “Don't fight this old monk over the nun,” while the monks endured the crowd’s mockery.
• Yuankong approached Yaoqin and her companions, addressed her as Benefactor Yaoqin, and revealed that he could see through her illusion.

Yaoqin and her companions met Yuankong, Chanwood Temple’s Buddhist Child, while waiting for the Waterwood Dharma Assembly to begin. After Chu Xingchen discovered Yuankong’s unusual traits, he bet Yaoqin that the day’s wish power was intended for the novice.

• Yuankong welcomed Yaoqin, Chu Xingchen, Li Yingling, and Li Xingtian into the Side Hall and explained that the abbot had not yet allowed him to practice Chanwood Temple’s Dharma Method.
• Yuankong said he had to lead his martial nephews in chanting and left the guests to wait for the Dharma Assembly.
• Chu Xingchen used the system to inspect Yuankong and found a gold Born Buddhist Child trait, several other traits, and a black cultivation-impaired constitution trait; the system briefly gave conflicting recruitment results.
• Chu Xingchen said he believed the day’s wish power was meant for Yuankong, but Yaoqin argued that using it could harm his future as a Buddhist Child.
• Chu Xingchen wagered that he was right, and Yaoqin accepted, agreeing that he would owe her double the spirit stones if he lost.

At the Waterwood Dharma Assembly, Yaoqin and the other guests grew suspicious when Yuankong began chanting a Buddhist Heart Sutra rather than a funeral scripture. The abbot Yuanjing and two monks seized Yuankong during the chant, but Yuanjing covered the boy’s eyes and promised to teach him spells.

• Yuankong led the monks in chanting at the ceremony while sitting before the spirit tablets and his senior brother Yuanjing.
• Yaoqin recognized the chant as a secret Buddhist art and warned the guests, but Li Xingtian judged it to be the Buddhist Heart Sutra.
• Chu Xingchen suggested striking first, though Yaoqin persuaded everyone to wait and observe.
• Chu Xingchen inspected Yuanjing’s traits and saw that the abbot was kindhearted and near the end of his life.
• Yuanjing shouted that their Buddha was merciful, and the two white-bearded monks seized Yuankong’s arms as golden light shone around them.
• Yuanjing covered Yuankong’s eyes and told him that his senior brother would teach him spells.

Five-year-old Yuankong, a born Buddhist Child who could not cultivate, collapsed from the cold while washing clothes, prompting Yuanjing to summon an Arhat for help. The Arhat left after attending to Yuankong, who remained unconscious as Yuanjing sat silently beside him.

• Yuankong complained that Yuanjing would not teach him to cultivate, then went outside to wash clothes after wiping his nose on his sleeve.
• Yuanjing reflected that Yuankong was a born Buddhist Child who rejected all cultivation energy, and that the Heart Sutra had produced no reaction in him.
• A monk reported that Yuankong had fainted while washing clothes, and Yuanjing found him cold to the touch despite his pulse seeming healthy.
• Yuanjing crushed a golden Śarīra to summon an Arhat, then sent the other monks away and wiped Yuankong down himself.
• The Arhat arrived, questioned Yuanjing about using the Śarīra, and left after Yuanjing asked him to help Yuankong.

At the Waterwood Dharma Assembly, Yuanjing used the Wish Power accumulated through years of secretly helping others to break the Arhat’s seal and save Yuankong. As Yuankong absorbed the power, Yuanjing finally challenged the claim that his fate was predestined.

• After Yuankong fell ill, Yuanjing began taking jobs and organizing the Waterwood Dharma Assembly, secretly giving away the earnings to help people.
• Yuanjing and the monks revealed scenes of his and their great-grandmaster-uncle’s good deeds, which had gathered Wish Power in the Jade Purifying Bottle and the Eight-Treasure Canopy.
• Yuanjing chanted Buddhist scriptures as the Wish Power flowed into Yuankong and broke the Arhat’s seal.
• Yuankong absorbed the remaining Wish Power, while Yuanjing recalled the Arhat’s prediction that Yuankong could not be saved.
• Yuanjing quietly asked why anyone should practice Buddhism if everything was predestined.

Yuanjing used Chanwood Temple’s wish power to save Yuankong, whose cultivation remained limited and dependent on wish power. He then publicly expelled Yuankong to sever the temple’s ties to him, but Yuankong understood that Yuanjing still meant to care for him.

• Chu Xingchen scanned Yuankong and found that his cultivation-impaired trait had changed to wish power cultivation, while he remained in the late Qi Refining stage.
• Yuanjing announced that the Chanlin Temple Fair would be held for the last time and that the temple’s income would be donated.
• Yuanjing told the invited guests that he had saved Yuankong, who had been suffering from a strange ailment and could only cultivate with wish power from then on.
• Yuanjing declared that Yuankong was expelled from Chanwood Temple and that the temple had no further connection to him, separating him from the Central Province Buddhist sects.
• Yuanjing returned to Yuankong and offered him a choice between staying with him or returning to his room, and Yuankong realized the expulsion was not genuine abandonment.

Li Yingling studied while Chu Xingchen went to the Brothel, where he learned that crowds had flocked to Chanwood Temple after the abbot’s charitable donations were revealed. Zhao Wanqing found Chu Xingchen and brought him to treat her gravely injured brother, Zhao Zhengyang, whose alarming reaction to the medicine left everyone wondering whether he was truly unconscious.

• Li Yingling insisted on studying after Chu Xingchen teased her, and he left the Courtyard House for the Brothel.
• At the nearly empty Brothel, Wanyun told Chu Xingchen that people had gone to Chanwood Temple after learning the abbot had secretly aided Yuzhou City and nearby cities.
• Zhao Wanqing arrived at the Courtyard House seeking Chu Xingchen because Zhao Zhengyang’s condition had worsened, and Li Yingling sent her to the Brothel while searching outside the city herself.
• Zhao Wanqing found Chu Xingchen at the Brothel and offered him a hundred Spirit Stones to come treat her brother, so he immediately went with her.
• At the Demon-Suppression Bureau, Chu Xingchen refined medicine in a clay pot and gave it to the unconscious Zhao Zhengyang, while Li Yingling and A Nian watched.
• Zhao Zhengyang grimaced, began trembling, and clawed at his throat, prompting Chu Xingchen to question whether he was really unconscious.

A Nian and Zhao Zhengyang both suffered through Chu Xingchen’s effective but dreadful-tasting medicine, while Chu Xingchen teased Li Yingling about making her taste his future pills. Yaoqin then revealed she had purified a Blood Qi Spirit Stone with Wish Power, leaving Chu Xingchen worried about how much Wish Power the process required.

• Zhao Wanqing held Zhao Zhengyang down while A Nian confirmed Chu Xingchen’s medicine was healing his injuries.
• After Chu Xingchen and Li Yingling left, A Nian tasted the medicinal dregs and howled in distress.
• Chu Xingchen threatened to make Li Yingling taste every pill he brewed after she praised his medicine sarcastically.
• Yaoqin showed Chu Xingchen a Blood Qi Spirit Stone she had purified using Wish Power.
• Yaoqin told Chu Xingchen that purifying one Spirit Stone consumed nearly an equal amount of Wish Power.

Yaoqin agreed to study Chu Xingchen’s Blood Qi Spirit Stone without relying on Wish Power, then received orders from her sect to deal with the Evil Cultivators in Central Province. After mobilizing the Bamboo Jade Court, she returned to Chu Xingchen and asked him to help catch the Evil Cultivators.

• Chu Xingchen showed Yaoqin his large stock of Blood Qi Spirit Stones, and she agreed to investigate whether they could be purified without Wish Power.
• Yaoqin returned to the Bamboo Jade Court and read a letter from Bai Xuanling, who authorized her to handle the Evil Cultivators and promised her punishment would end after the mission.
• Yaoqin ordered the Bamboo Jade Court closed and directed its cultivators to search nearby villages, avoid fighting Evil Cultivators, and work with the Demon-Suppression Bureau.
• Yaoqin arrived at Chu Xingchen’s home in martial clothes and asked him to help her catch the Evil Cultivators.

Chu Xingchen and Yaoqin went to the Demon-Suppression Bureau to investigate the Evil Cultivators and learned that their plan involved an Immortal Seed. After reviewing the sect intelligence, Yaoqin chose to investigate the Clearwind Sect and left Zhao Wanqing behind to receive reports.

• Chu Xingchen and Yaoqin recalled the verses that inspired Yaoqin and agreed they would meet again ninety thousand miles above.
• At the infirmary, Chu Xingchen found A Nian suffering after tasting his pills while Zhao Zhengyang recovered from their effects.
• Zhao Zhengyang revealed that the Evil Cultivators bought Grand Mystery Stone at the black-market wharf and sought an objective called the Immortal Seed.
• Yaoqin reviewed the sect intelligence and identified the Clearwind Sect as a likely target, though not the only one.
• Yaoqin told Zhao Wanqing to stay at the Demon-Suppression Bureau and receive incoming intelligence while she and Chu Xingchen went to probe the Clearwind Sect, whose supreme elder was a Nascent Soul.

Chu Xingchen and Yaoqin arrived at the Clearwind Sect to investigate and demand the sect’s cooperation. When the sect leader and elders appeared, Chu Xingchen recognized Shangguan Hong, who feared the visitors had come to settle a score with him.

• Yaoqin and Chu Xingchen decided to visit the Clearwind Sect first and assess whether the whole sect or only certain people were involved.
• The pair reached the Clearwind Sect’s mountain gate and announced that they were from Central Province.
• Zheng Xiaofeng greeted them and became deferential after Chu Xingchen showed him the Heavenly Derivation Sect token.
• Zheng Xiaofeng led Chu Xingchen and Yaoqin into the main hall and summoned the sect leader and elders.
• The sect leader arrived with three elders, and Chu Xingchen fixed his attention on Shangguan Hong, who suspected Chu Xingchen had come to settle a score.

Chu Xingchen challenged Shangguan Hong’s doubts about his Heavenly Derivation Sect identity, and Yaoqin proved it by unleashing the sect’s Divine Ability and destroying the hall. When Chu Xingchen prepared to demonstrate it himself, the Clearwind Sect master stopped him and ordered Shangguan Hong to apologize, leaving the guests’ response unsettled.

• Zheng Xiaofeng introduced Chu Xingchen and Yaoqin as disciples from the Heavenly Derivation Sect, and Chu Xingchen confronted Shangguan Hong over their past encounter.
• Shangguan Hong questioned Chu Xingchen’s identity and agreed to verify it, suspecting he might have been involved in the mine attack.
• Yaoqin used the Heavenly Derivation Sect’s Primordial Spirit Supreme Clarity Sword, splitting the hall apart and shearing the mountain peak behind it.
• Chu Xingchen picked up Yaoqin’s sword and began to prepare his own demonstration, but the Clearwind Sect master stopped him and ordered Shangguan Hong to apologize.
• Zheng Xiaofeng felt relieved that he was no longer being blamed, while Chu Xingchen and Yaoqin’s reaction to the apology order remained unknown.