Chapter Summaries

Chu Xingchen welcomed Ning Kun and Ning Qianqian, who had come to thank him for saving their lives and were now working on the sect’s construction. After sharing a meal, they departed, and Chen Baiqing told her master she sensed they were good people.

• Li Yingling introduced Ning Kun and Ning Qianqian, and Chu Xingchen confirmed Ning Kun had the Loyal and Devoted and Ingenious Craftsmanship traits.
• Ning Qianqian explained that her father was working on the sect construction to earn money for a smithy and promised he would oversee the work carefully.
• Chu Xingchen invited Ning Kun and Ning Qianqian to stay for a meal while Li Xingtian went to buy food and Li Yingling took Chen Baiqing to buy sweets.
• Chen Baiqing gave Ning Qianqian a sugar painting, then offered one to Chu Xingchen, who told her to eat it herself.
• After eating a little, Ning Kun and Ning Qianqian said goodbye, and Chen Baiqing watched them leave and told Chu Xingchen they were good people.

Chu Xingchen pressured the Clearwind Sect into approving another costly batch of construction materials, while Jiang Zhiming was reprimanded for helping him. At the new sect grounds, Xie Lingyu quietly departed after ordering Zheng Xiaofeng to tie up loose ends, and Chu Xingchen wondered whether she knew he had reached the Nascent Soul Realm.

• Chu Xingchen brought Jiang Zhiming to Elder Wang, whose objections to costly material requests were overcome by Chu's pressure and Jiang's persuasion.
• The Clearwind Sect leader questioned Jiang Zhiming about the approved list, then let him go with a warning not to support Chu Xingchen again.
• Chu Xingchen built a friendship with Jiang Zhiming over wine and stories, then returned when another materials batch needed approval.
• Chu Xingchen pressured Elder Wang to approve an unaffordable materials list and promised the Clearwind Sect would be repaid in Spirit Stones.
• Xie Lingyu watched the construction, told Zheng Xiaofeng to tie up the loose ends, and flew away on her sword.
• Chu Xingchen looked toward the peak Xie Lingyu had left and wondered whether she knew he was already at the Nascent Soul Realm.

Chen Baiqing successfully began qi refining, and Chu Xingchen taught her to value the family bonds within the sect. The group then spotted Yuankong heading out of Yuzhou City with a bundle and staff, apparently fleeing Chanwood Temple.

• Li Xingtian guided Chen Baiqing through her first cultivation session, and she reached the first level of qi refining.
• Li Yingling praised Chen Baiqing and took her into Yuzhou City for a treat.
• Chu Xingchen ate Chen Baiqing's entire sugar painting to teach her to think carefully about trust and relationships.
• Chen Baiqing accepted Li Yingling's sincere affection and began to respond to Chu Xingchen's lesson.
• Li Xingtian spotted Yuankong walking toward the city gates with a yellow bundle and wooden staff, and Li Yingling suggested asking him what had happened.

Yuankong persuaded Chu Xingchen to help him find the Jialan Buddha Ruins and its Heart Lotus, hoping to save the abbot. Their expedition reached the mapped location, where Chu Xingchen revealed that the apparent river concealed something other than what Yuankong expected.

• Yuankong told Chu Xingchen and the others that he planned to save his senior brother, the abbot, with a Heart Lotus from the Jialan Buddha Ruins.
• Yuankong offered Chu Xingchen everything in the ruins except the Heart Lotus, and Chu Xingchen agreed to join the expedition.
• Chu Xingchen left Li Xingtian behind to watch Chen Baiqing, while Li Yingling accompanied Chu Xingchen and Yuankong.
• Yuankong explained that he had left the abbot a letter claiming he had gone to do good deeds and cultivate wish power.
• After half a day of travel, Yuankong found a broad river where his map showed a towering mountain and asked whether Buddhist scriptures lied.
• Chu Xingchen swept the area with his Divine Sense and said that Yuankong's eyes and common sense were deceiving him.

Chu Xingchen used Yuankong’s Buddhist Scripture clues to find a Guanyin statue hidden beneath the river and remove the cloth covering its eyes. The statue’s angry declaration triggered a transformation of the surroundings, apparently revealing the inner realm.

• Chu Xingchen brought Li Yingling and Yuankong underwater to search the riverbed, then used a spiritual mirror to locate a hidden hill.
• Chu Xingchen blasted apart the hill and uncovered a Guanyin statue with a yellow cloth band over its eyes.
• Yuankong tried to remove the cloth and recited its inscriptions, but dark energy repelled him both times.
• Chu Xingchen used his spiritual techniques to tear off the cloth and reveal Guanyin’s furious face.
• The statue declared that only killing could stop war, and the surroundings changed as the inner realm appeared.

Chu Xingchen, Li Yingling, and Yuankong entered the horrifying Peach Blossom Village, where Yuankong mistook its undead inhabitants and grisly surroundings for a peaceful Buddhist kingdom. At the village tavern, Chu Xingchen stopped Yuankong from eating a bowl of worms as the undead waiter threatened him.

• Li Yingling questioned Yuankong's idea of peace after seeing a blood-soaked landscape, but Yuankong saw beautiful scenery and children playing.
• Yuankong asked the heads hanging from a tree about the village and learned from their curses that it was called Peach Blossom Village.
• Yuankong led Chu Xingchen and Li Yingling into the village and identified a decrepit funeral hall as a tavern.
• Yuankong asked the upside-down corpse proprietor about Buddhist temples and ordered vegetarian food, misunderstanding its threats as ordinary responses.
• An undead waiter served worms and raised a saber at Yuankong, who prepared to eat one before Chu Xingchen stopped him and cursed at the waiter.

Chu Xingchen and Li Yingling encountered undead inn staff that appeared as disabled people to Yuankong, who translated their words while Chu Xingchen restrained and questioned them. They learned that the village chief held authority and lived in the biggest house on the village’s east side.

• The rotten waiter attacked Chu Xingchen, who pinned him to a coffin with incense sticks and immobilized the other staff as they emerged.
• Chu Xingchen explained that Yuankong saw the good while he and Li Yingling saw the evil, and that they needed to combine their perceptions to judge danger.
• Chu Xingchen questioned the pinned waiter, who repeatedly shouted insults that Yuankong translated into useful information.
• After Chu Xingchen cut off the waiter’s hands, Yuankong relayed that the village chief had the final say and lived in the biggest house on the east side of the village.

Chu Xingchen, Li Yingling, and Yuankong found the Village Chief and learned that taking Jialan Bodhisattva’s Buddha heart would collapse the realm. Chu Xingchen decided to try changing the Buddha heart and took charge of the village, beginning with the Village Chief.

• Chu Xingchen and Li Yingling left the bloodied tavern with Yuankong and searched the ruined village for the Village Chief.
• The Village Chief revealed Jialan Bodhisattva’s black Buddha heart and told them the Dharma Treasures were at Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain.
• The Village Chief explained that the Buddha heart could be restored only when others saw the world as he and Yuankong did.
• Chu Xingchen asked the Village Chief to help interpret and said he would try to change the Buddha heart, while Yuankong agreed to go to Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain if the attempt failed.
• Chu Xingchen returned to the tavern, declared himself in charge, and told the Village Chief he would start with him.

Li Yingling and Yuankong rounded up Peach Blossom Village’s walking corpses and brought them to Chu Xingchen, who laid down rules for rebuilding the village and demanded that its people choose whether to live as humans. The corpses rejected his offer with threats, but Chu Xingchen ordered anyone willing to be human to gather at the village entrance and begin clearing ruins.

• Li Yingling threatened and cut down walking corpses until they followed her to the tavern, while Yuankong failed to translate for her.
• Li Yingling brought the last group to the tavern, where Yuankong found the tavern keeper hanging over a wok and the village chief subdued.
• Chu Xingchen had the village chief read his management regulations to the assembled walking corpses.
• Chu Xingchen condemned the tavern keeper for oppressing the villagers and declared that he would support those seeking peace and punish those seeking evil.
• When some walking corpses threatened Chu Xingchen, he told anyone willing to be human to gather at the village entrance and clear the ruined houses, while the unwilling could join the tavern keeper in the wok.

Chu Xingchen forced the walking corpses of Peach Blossom Village to rebuild their home and reform through labor, and the village gradually recovered. As the Village Chief questioned why the approach worked, Chu Xingchen explained that good conduct needed both the right conditions and firm restraints, leaving the Village Chief to recognize the truth.

• Chu Xingchen made the walking corpses clear rubble and rebuild the village, using an iron wok of hot oil to punish those who disobeyed or caused trouble.
• Li Yingling and Yuankong searched for wandering walking corpses, while Chu Xingchen organized the workers, buried skeletal remains, and rewarded the best performers with housing.
• After three days, three walking corpses began speaking in simple words, and the river near the village entrance changed from dark red to pale red.
• Chu Xingchen appointed the three recovered villagers as team leaders, expanded their duties, and later replaced the oil wok with an iron rod as the workers improved.
• By the seventh day, many walking corpses had nearly become normal people, the village was flourishing, and the Village Chief asked Chu Xingchen why his method had succeeded.
• Chu Xingchen told the Village Chief that good intentions needed the right conditions and firm restraints, and the Village Chief saw a faint white light in his once-black heart.

Chu Xingchen and his companions tried to discover how to reach the treasure inside the phantom Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain, but neither Yuankong nor the Village Chief knew how. After Li Yingling proposed making Yuankong formless, Chu Xingchen put him to sleep and sent him into a dream, where Yuankong was left alone before the mountain.

• Chu Xingchen found that Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain was only a phantom, and Yuankong could not touch it despite being the Buddhist Child.
• Li Yingling suspected the Village Chief was hiding information, but the Village Chief had only said that the treasure was inside the mountain and that only the Buddhist Child could take it.
• Li Yingling suggested making Yuankong formless so he could climb the mountain, and Chu Xingchen realized that a dream might help him reach its reality.
• Chu Xingchen used spiritual power to put Yuankong to sleep and told him to find the real Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain in a dream.
• Yuankong awoke alone before the mountain, failed to touch it, then sat down to meditate and realized he had been clinging to appearances.

Yuankong overcame the illusory Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain by trusting his heart, then recited Buddhist Scriptures at the summit and received a Jade Branch. The mountain and bodhisattva statue vanished as he grasped it.

• Yuankong covered his eyes and climbed Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain, realizing he had trusted his vision too much.
• Chu Xingchen used spiritual energy to propel the unconscious Yuankong’s real body onto a platform, causing the illusory mountain to shrink and letting Yuankong reach its summit.
• Yuankong found a stone bodhisattva statue and searched it for the hidden treasure.
• Yuankong sat in the statue’s palms and recited Buddhist Scriptures, drawing forth a white kāṣāya and a śarīra.
• Ten-Thousand-Zhang Mountain transformed into green streams of light that formed a Jade Branch, which Yuankong grasped as the bodhisattva statue dissolved.

Yuankong took the Buddha Heart from the village chief, causing Peach Blossom Village and its villagers to dissolve as he left to save his senior brother. Chu Xingchen returned to the Courtyard House after thirteen days away and reunited with his disciples, only to find Li Xingtian unable to answer how construction on their sect was going.

• The village chief reassured Yuankong that taking the Buddha Heart to save someone real was nothing to regret, and Yuankong removed it as Peach Blossom Village dissolved.
• The villagers watched their world disappear and quietly laughed as they dissolved into streams of light.
• Chu Xingchen parted from Yuankong at a fork in Yuzhou City, sending him toward Chanwood Temple while he returned to the Courtyard House with Li Yingling.
• Chen Baiqing embraced Chu Xingchen and told him he had been gone for thirteen days, while Li Xingtian greeted him with relief.
• Chu Xingchen gave Chen Baiqing a sugar painting and asked Li Xingtian about construction on their sect, leaving his second disciple speechless.

After the Clearwind Sect was dismantled by the Heavenly Derivation Sect, Chu Xingchen learned that the sect’s construction had stalled but that its living quarters were ready. He moved his disciples into their new home and appointed Ning Kun chief engineer of the True Martial Hall.

• Li Xingtian told Chu Xingchen that the Heavenly Derivation Sect had arrested the Clearwind Sect’s implicated elders, taken its Grand Elder for investigation, and halted the supply purchases.
• Chu Xingchen learned that Zheng Xiaofeng, a Golden Core cultivator, had commanded the operation and that five living quarters were complete.
• Chu Xingchen announced that he and his disciples would officially move into their sect, and Chen Baiqing said she wanted her own room while still visiting Li Yingling.
• Chu Xingchen toured the partially built sect and thanked Ning Kun and Ning Qianqian for continuing construction despite the material shortage.
• Chu Xingchen appointed Ning Kun chief engineer of the True Martial Hall and offered him and Ning Qianqian rooms in the nearly finished guest quarters.

As Li Xingtian prepared to break through to the Golden Core realm, Zhao Wanqing invited Chu Xingchen to a commendation banquet in the Black Tortoise Kingdom's capital. Li Yingling feared returning to the home she had fled, and Chu Xingchen and Chen Baiqing promised to stand by her.

• Li Xingtian began preparing to break through to the Golden Core realm and declined Chu Xingchen's offer of a pill.
• Zhao Wanqing invited Chu Xingchen to a commendation banquet for his contribution against the Evil Cultivators in Yuzhou City, but he refused.
• Li Yingling remembered the painful home she had escaped and became overwhelmed with fear and grief.
• Chu Xingchen comforted Li Yingling and promised to fight his way back with her if she wanted revenge.
• Chen Baiqing took Li Yingling's hand and promised that her junior sister would fight alongside her too.

Li Xingtian successfully formed a dark red Golden Core and learned that Chu Xingchen and Chen Baiqing were preparing to avenge Li Yingling against her birth family, the Li Household. After Li Yingling agreed to confront her painful past, the group traveled toward the capital, determined to make a dramatic impact.

• Li Xingtian formed a Golden Core whose dark-red color made him wonder whether he was practicing an evil art.
• Li Xingtian found Li Yingling troubled and learned that Chu Xingchen and Chen Baiqing had gone out.
• Chu Xingchen returned with Chen Baiqing, gave Li Xingtian a saber, and said they would avenge Li Yingling against her original family.
• Li Yingling recalled her mother's life in the Li estate and, after Chu Xingchen offered to stand up for her, agreed to go.
• Chu Xingchen, Li Xingtian, Li Yingling, and Chen Baiqing traveled toward the capital in a luxurious mutant beast carriage, and Li Xingtian agreed they should talk tough, hit hard, and swear filthily.

Chu Xingchen brought Li Yingling to the Li Marquis's Residence so she could return home, while the Black Tortoise Kingdom officials escorted them through the capital. Li Yingling entered through the main gates, and Li Xingtian silenced the residence's steward and servants as she faced the people who had mistreated her.

• Li Xingtian presented the invitation, and Wen Qing and Qiu Ling escorted Chu Xingchen's group into the capital.
• Chu Xingchen told the officials to take them to the Li Marquis's Residence on Guiyi Street so Li Yingling could visit her family.
• At the residence, Li Xingtian blasted apart the vermilion gates, and Li Yingling entered through the main entrance for the first time.
• Li Xingtian used his Golden Core pressure to force the servants to the ground and cut out the steward's tongue after he insulted them.
• Li Yingling looked at the silent steward who had once abused her and her mother.

Li Yingling returned to Marquis Li's Residence and demanded to know where her mother was buried. After learning her mother had been left in an unmarked grave, she left to find it while Chu Xingchen ordered Marquis Li to gather everyone who had wronged them.

• Li Xingtian used Golden Core pressure against the steward after the steward angered Li Yingling, then Li Yingling dismissed the pressure.
• Marquis Li came out to meet Li Yingling, who demanded to know where her mother was buried.
• Marquis Li admitted that her mother was buried in an unmarked grave west of the city.
• Li Yingling left with Li Xingtian and Qiu Ling, while Chu Xingchen stayed behind with Wen Qing.
• Chu Xingchen told Marquis Li to summon everyone who had bullied Li Yingling and her mother, along with Minister Wang, and to say they had come to turn themselves in.

Li Yingling returned to the Li Marquis's Residence hoping to find her mother's remains, but left after failing and choosing not to take revenge on the people who had hurt her. She watched them plant orchids at the mass grave, then found comfort with her master and fellow disciples before leaving the mountain hollow.

• Chu Xingchen waited with Chen Baiqing as the Li Marquis's Residence knelt before them, and Li Yingling returned with Li Xingtian in tears because she could not find her mother.
• Li Yingling asked Chu Xingchen to leave, then told Marquis Li to plant orchids all over the mass grave before departing with her master and fellow disciples.
• The next morning, Li Yingling watched the residence sow orchid seeds at the mass grave and wondered whether she had failed her mother by letting go of her anger.
• Chu Xingchen, Chen Baiqing, and Li Xingtian joined Li Yingling, comforted her, and left the mountain hollow together.
• At the capital's right-hand market, Li Yingling bought candied fruit for Chen Baiqing, and Li Xingtian unexpectedly asked Chu Xingchen to share a meal sometime.

Zheng Xiaofeng worried that Chu Xingchen might cause trouble in the Capital City and sought help keeping matters under control. Meanwhile, Li Xingtian decided to leave after the banquet, and Chu Xingchen gave him Spirit Stones and reassured him of his affection.

• Zheng Xiaofeng reviewed reports about Chu Xingchen and Li Yingling, then decided to take precautions in accordance with Xie Lingyu's instructions.
• Zheng Xiaofeng asked the two Black Tortoise Kingdom Golden Core cultivators to handle several matters.
• Qiu Ling tried to brief Chu Xingchen on the banquet proceedings, and he asked her to write down the important points instead.
• Chu Xingchen asked Li Xingtian about his plans, and Li Xingtian said he would leave after the banquet.
• Chu Xingchen gave Li Xingtian a Spatial Ring of Spirit Stones and privately told him he was the person closest to his master.