Chapter Summaries

Zhao Jingya recovered enough to walk, but ignored the nameless man's warning when strange sounds drew her to the lake at midnight. There, she saw the man turn around and reveal a wolf's head.

• Zeng Mu and Yao Chun hid near the cottage and watched the nameless man, while Zeng Mu admitted he could not identify him.
• The nameless man brought Zhao Jingya lunch, refused to give her his name, and warned her not to answer strange sounds or leave her bed at midnight.
• Zeng Mu and Yao Chun continued watching the cottage as night fell and the rain moved toward Green City.
• Zhao Jingya dreamed of a shadowy figure approaching her with a red spear, then woke when the stone beside her pillow glowed blue.
• After hearing a scraping sound, Zhao Jingya ignored the warning, walked to the lake, and saw the man turn to reveal a wolf's head.

Zeng Mu and Yao Chun rescued Zhao Jingya from a Werewolf that resisted Zeng Mu’s attacks before vanishing when he used the Four-Sided Porcelain Venerable. The battered man from the thatched hut returned and claimed he had brought the Werewolf forth from a dream, asking whether they had heard of the werewolf curse.

• A Werewolf attacked Zhao Jingya, but Zeng Mu and Yao Chun arrived in time to save her.
• The Werewolf shattered Yao Chun’s golden shield and withstood Zeng Mu’s blows, prompting Zeng Mu to summon the Four-Sided Porcelain Venerable.
• Zeng Mu fired a beam combining four kinds of elemental power, and the Werewolf vanished in black vapor.
• Yao Chun carried Zhao Jingya to safety, and Zeng Mu said he could no longer sense the Werewolf nearby.
• The battered man from the thatched hut returned, and Zeng Mu stopped Yao Chun from attacking him.
• The man apologized and said the Werewolf had emerged from his dream, then asked whether they had heard of the werewolf curse.

Fu Ping explained how a white light struck him and how his recurring nightmares seemed to summon a werewolf that killed people near him. After hearing his account, Zeng Mu and Yao Chun kept him at the cave with Zhao Jingya until she recovered, planning to return to Green City afterward.

• Fu Ping recounted wandering into a swamp on Green Mountain, where one of two white lights struck him and left him unconscious in a boundless darkness.
• Fu Ping said he woke at the mountain’s foot and later linked his nightmares to werewolf attacks in Green City, which occurred after each dream.
• Fu Ping explained that he left the city, moved through the mountains, and discovered the werewolf could not travel more than a hundred meters from him; he also gained unusual speed and a keen sense of taste.
• Zhao Jingya asked about the second white light, while Yao Chun asked whether Fu Ping had touched anything in the darkness; Fu Ping said he had not.
• Zeng Mu and Yao Chun told Fu Ping to remain at the cave with them and Zhao Jingya until she recovered, then return with them to Green City.

Fu Ping returned to Green City with Zhao Jingya, Zeng Mu, and Yao Chun despite fearing that sleep would summon the Werewolf and endanger its residents. They reached the city unnoticed and headed for the Wang Family Residence, where Wang Quande waited in a tense calm.

• Zeng Mu and Yao Chun told Fu Ping to return to Green City, and Zeng Mu promised to keep him awake at night.
• Fu Ping, Zeng Mu, and Yao Chun carried the recovering Zhao Jingya toward Green City in a woven chair, taking five hours to cross the difficult mountain paths.
• The group found Green City crowded with people searching for Zhao Jingya after notices offered rewards for clues about her disappearance and her safe return.
• Zhao Jingya disguised herself, and the four entered Green City unnoticed before heading toward the Wang Family Residence.
• Wang Quande sat in his study, unable to focus on his book as the quiet inside the residence felt like the calm before a storm.

Wang Quande welcomed Zhao Jingya to his residence ahead of their wedding, and the two seemed pleased with each other. Meanwhile, Zeng Mu and Yao Chun explained to Fu Ping that they had brought him to Green City to find the other person struck by the curse’s split white light, possibly linked to the Soul-Returning Cult.

• A servant told Wang Quande that Zhao Jingya had arrived, and Wang Quande hurried to meet her and her three escorts.
• Wang Quande hosted Zhao Jingya, Zeng Mu, Yao Chun, and the others in the tea room, and he promised Zhao Jingya a splendid wedding the next day.
• Wang Quande arranged luxurious guest rooms for Zhao Jingya and her escorts, who rested at the residence.
• Yao Chun and Zeng Mu summoned Fu Ping and discussed curses, explaining that his unusual curse might have affected another person as well.
• Fu Ping learned that Zeng Mu and Yao Chun had brought him to Green City to find the other person cursed by the white light and investigate the Soul-Returning Cult.

Fu Ping agreed to help Zeng Mu and Yao Chun search Green City for the other person who shared his curse, hoping they could break it. After the three gathered information, Yao Chun dismissed their findings and presented his own clues, including a mysterious purple fish.

• Zeng Mu and Yao Chun explained that Fu Ping's curse had split between him and another person, and promised to break it after searching Green City.
• Fu Ping agreed to help them investigate, and the three split up to question people around the city.
• Zeng Mu and Fu Ping collected several strange reports, but Yao Chun dismissed them as ordinary explanations and pranks.
• Yao Chun shared his investigation notes, which described how he bought an unidentified purple fish from an old fisherman.

Yao Chun identified the bitten Netherleap Fish as belonging to the Wang Family, leading Zeng Mu, Yao Chun, and Fu Ping to search the Wang Residence after dark. They found no culprit, but Fu Ping sensed darkness directly beneath them.

• Yao Chun showed Zeng Mu and Fu Ping a Netherleap Fish worth two hundred gold coins, whose bite marks appeared to have been made by a human.
• Yao Chun pointed out the fish's Wang Family pin pearl, and the three concluded that someone in the Wang Residence had bitten it before it was thrown into the river.
• Zeng Mu, Yao Chun, and Fu Ping returned to the Wang Residence and waited until night to investigate, while Fu Ping used an Elemental Sub-Mark to stay awake.
• The three searched the residence and found two more Netherleap Fish but no sign of who had bitten the first one.
• Fu Ping sensed darkness beneath the floor, and Zeng Mu vanished down the corridor to pursue it.

Zeng Mu, Fu Ping, and Yao Chun chased a mysterious octopus-faced man, who escaped through an underground river, then returned to the Wang Residence. On Zhao Jingya and Wang Quande’s wedding day, the three men stole herbs from Green City’s medicine shops and prepared a drug to take effect during the banquet, intending to use the chaos to find the escaped monster.

• Yao Chun gave up chasing the impossibly fast man after falling far behind Zeng Mu and Fu Ping.
• Fu Ping told Yao Chun that the octopus-faced man escaped into a pond and fled through an underground river after fighting Brother Nameless.
• Zeng Mu checked on Wang Quande, then discussed plans with Yao Chun and Fu Ping at the Wang Residence.
• On the day of Zhao Jingya and Wang Quande’s wedding, the three men searched nine herbal medicine shops and stole eighty-nine jin of ingredients.
• The three men prepared medicine designed to take effect at the wedding feast and planned to use the commotion to search for the escaped monster.

On the day of Zhao Jingya and Wang Quande’s wedding, Zeng Mu, Yao Chun, and Nameless carried out a plan to drug the banquet guests and draw out a monster hidden in the Wang Residence. As the guests began eating, strange visions and confusion spread, while the bride and groom remained locked in separate rooms.

• A dark figure secretly put something into the kitchen pots and the well while the cooks worked.
• Zeng Mu, Yao Chun, and Nameless discussed their plan to use medicinal herbs to drug the wedding crowd and expose the monster.
• The wedding ceremony was delayed, and the master of ceremonies told the guests that Zhao Jingya and Wang Quande were unwell and asked everyone to begin the feast.
• The guests ate the dishes, while the three plotters watched from upstairs and waited for the drugs to take effect.
• Someone knocked out the steward and the servants who were trying to get Zhao Jingya and Wang Quande out of their rooms.
• About half an hour into the banquet, guests began seeing strange things and speaking incoherently.

Zeng Mu, Yao Chun, and Fu Ping drugged the Wang Residence and waited for everyone to fall asleep so they could draw out the escaped Octopus Monster. When the creature emerged from a sleeping guest’s nightmare, Nameless pursued it and fought it, leaving Yao Chun trapped in the darkness of its spreading mist.

• Zeng Mu and Yao Chun patrolled while Fu Ping struggled to stay awake as the drug took effect across the Wang Residence.
• Zeng Mu sharpened his perception with elemental power, and Yao Chun listened for signs of the monster.
• Black mist filled a sleeping guest’s room, and the Octopus Monster burst through the window.
• Nameless chased the creature across the rooftops, and Yao Chun followed to find them fighting in the street.
• Nameless attacked with a golden spear while the Octopus Monster spat ink, and their clashing energy battered Yao Chun and the surroundings.
• Cracks spread across the Octopus Monster’s face before black mist engulfed Yao Chun, leaving only Nameless’s golden light visible.

Zeng Mu fought the Eight-Eyed Red-Eyed Octopus in its black mist, but the Werewolf returned and merged with it in a wine jar. Their combined attack struck Zeng Mu’s elemental barrier and sent a thunderclap across Green City, leaving the outcome uncertain.

• Zeng Mu used metal, lightning, and fire elemental power to sever the octopus monster’s limbs, but it escaped by turning into black smoke.
• Zeng Mu found the octopus hiding in a wine jar and attacked it with a Three-Light Treasure Sword, but the Werewolf blocked his strike.
• Yao Chun realized the Werewolf had returned and cursed it for leaving Zeng Mu and Nameless in danger.
• Zeng Mu recognized that the monsters were merging through a Two-Element Curse, and the Werewolf plunged into the jar’s black water.
• Yao Chun collapsed as the wine jar burst apart and eight tentacles attacked Zeng Mu from every direction.
• Zeng Mu raised a gold, purple, and red energy barrier, and the collision produced a thunderclap that woke people across Green City.

Zeng Mu used his six-element power to destroy the fused Werewolf and Octopus Monster, removing Fu Ping’s curse. He and Yao Chun then found their assassination target, Wang Quande, dead in bed, leaving them to wonder how he died.

• Zeng Mu fought the fused monster, discovered that its red eyes affected its speed, and unleashed the three-element artifact he had spent years refining.
• Zeng Mu used six kinds of elemental power to purify the monster’s cursed beam and cleave the monster in two, dispersing the black mist and ending the curse.
• Yao Chun and Zeng Mu whipped Fu Ping, who realized that he could feel pain again because his curse had been removed.
• Fu Ping thanked Zeng Mu and left, while Zeng Mu and Yao Chun entered Wang Quande’s room in the deserted Wang Residence.
• Zeng Mu found that Wang Quande was dead and wondered how he had died.

After leaving Green City, Zeng Mu received his sixth secret letter and set out for Fei City to kill Feng Gu, a poison master and gu cultivator who threatened the Knights' Order. He chose a river route and began the journey by boat, where the boatwoman slipped under his quilt as he drifted off.

• Zeng Mu and Yao Chun left Green City after completing their mission, then parted beneath a maple tree as Yao Chun continued his espionage assignment.
• Zeng Mu read the sixth secret letter, which ordered him to kill Feng Gu in Fei City, and studied Yao Chun's map of the routes there.
• Zeng Mu chose the water route, hired a boat with its crew, and began sailing east that night.
• The boatwoman told Zeng Mu about soldiers who had abused her and refused to pay for a previous trip, then offered to keep him company.
• Zeng Mu grew drowsy and lay down, and the boatwoman slipped beneath his quilt beside him.

Zeng Mu traveled by boat through the waterways and continued cultivating, sensing that a breakthrough might be near. After disembarking, he crossed a dangerous, humid forest and reached Fei City, a remote settlement known as the Forgotten City.

• Zeng Mu woke beside the boatwoman, learned that the sophora tea had helped him sleep, and refused to drink it or share her canopy again.
• Zeng Mu ate a meal of freshly caught fish and crabs aboard the moving boat as it traveled from the mountains into a broad plain of waterways.
• Zeng Mu meditated through the night and sensed the beginnings of a possible elemental breakthrough, though he did not advance.
• Zeng Mu disembarked two hours after daybreak and walked alone through a dense forest full of thorns, pools, and venomous snakes.
• Zeng Mu emerged from the forest after three hours and arrived at Fei City, the Han Kingdom's forgotten border city.

Zeng Mu entered the Azure Mystic Hermitage intending to assassinate Feng Gu, but poison on the handrail knocked him unconscious before he could find him. Feng Gu’s assistant Xuan treated him, and Zeng Mu woke to discover that she had begun working for Feng Gu at thirty, despite looking much younger.

• Zeng Mu learned that Feng Gu lived at the Azure Mystic Hermitage north of Fei City and went there to kill him.
• Zeng Mu entered the dark hermitage without announcing himself and was poisoned by the air and handrail.
• Feng Gu found the unconscious Zeng Mu and told Xuan to take him for treatment because his necklace showed he was important.
• Xuan treated Zeng Mu, who woke in her room and asked how long she had been with Feng Gu.
• Xuan explained that she had worked for Feng Gu for eight years, beginning when she was thirty, shocking Zeng Mu with her youthful appearance.

Zeng Mu recovered from Feng Gu’s poison and searched the residence, discovering a room full of Snake Gu Jars before confronting Feng Gu. He spared Feng Gu to learn how he knew so much about him, and Feng Gu asked him to serve as his bodyguard for one night.

• Zeng Mu used his elemental power to purge the poison, then explored Feng Gu’s residence while shielding himself from further toxins.
• Zeng Mu entered a cold room filled with jars of venomous snakes and realized he was in a Snake Gu rearing room.
• Feng Gu appeared and asked Zeng Mu to hear him out before killing him.
• Feng Gu revealed that he knew Zeng Mu’s identity, connections, and past assassinations, prompting Zeng Mu to pause before striking.
• Zeng Mu spared Feng Gu, revealed his face, and demanded to know Feng Gu’s conditions.
• Feng Gu asked Zeng Mu to guard him for one night and help kill people.

Zeng Mu accompanied Feng Gu through the dangerous forest to a remote cave after discovering that Feng Gu planned to confront the Soul-Returning Cult. The two reached the meeting site, where the chapter left them facing the barren area around the cave.

• Feng Gu explained the coded meeting message, and Zeng Mu deduced that it pointed to a cave south of Zero Tower.
• Zeng Mu spent time in Fei City, pieced together clues about Feng Gu, and grew concerned about the plan.
• Feng Gu arrived at the Azure Mystic Hermitage with a host of venomous creatures, and he and Zeng Mu set out south.
• Zeng Mu guessed that Feng Gu intended to meet the Soul-Returning Cult, and Feng Gu confirmed it while questioning Zeng Mu's hostility toward them.
• Feng Gu and Zeng Mu crossed the perilous forest and reached the remote cave specified by the code.

Feng Gu met two Church envoys in a cave, traded them a bowl of gu-related delicacies, and received the final snake scale he had sought. After securing the scale, he turned on the envoys and ordered them killed.

• Zeng Mu removed the Blackstone Necklace and entered the cave with Feng Gu, posing as his servant.
• Two Church envoys emerged from the black stone wall and questioned Feng Gu about Zeng Mu.
• The envoys praised Feng Gu’s past military success and gave him a map for his next assignment.
• Feng Gu offered the envoys a bowl of black gu-related substance, which one of them tasted and praised.
• The envoys gave Feng Gu the final snake scale he had been missing.
• Feng Gu took the scale, pointed at the envoys, and ordered them killed.

Zeng Mu and Feng Gu killed two Blue-Robed Envoys, but one summoned Haihui Gelin, leader of the Soul-Returning Cult. After Haihui Gelin attacked and the cave collapsed, Zeng Mu confronted him and prepared to fight.

• Zeng Mu and Feng Gu joined forces to kill the two Blue-Robed Envoys, using Zeng Mu’s strength and Feng Gu’s poison.
• As he died, a Blue-Robed Envoy crushed a Blue Molar and summoned Haihui Gelin through a black pool.
• Haihui Gelin revealed himself as the Soul-Returning Cult’s leader and demanded the Blackstone Necklace from Zeng Mu while threatening Feng Gu for betraying the cult.
• Haihui Gelin fired beams from his eyes, and Zeng Mu shielded Feng Gu before carrying him out as the cave collapsed.
• Haihui Gelin stood atop the rubble and vowed to kill them, while Zeng Mu challenged him and activated Three Lights Gather at the Crown.

Zeng Mu and Haihui Gelin fought an escalating battle, matching elemental powers in a destructive waterspout and a rapid close-combat exchange. As Haihui Gelin began to lose ground, he summoned the Snake Soul Fang and vanished into its black mist, preparing a new attack.

• Zeng Mu revealed three elemental marks, and Haihui Gelin recognized that the Divine Soul let him cultivate powers beyond ordinary elemental laws.
• Haihui Gelin attacked with a massive water column, but Zeng Mu used earth, fire, lightning, and metal to withstand it and counterattack.
• Zeng Mu and Haihui Gelin clashed with lightning and then exchanged hundreds of punches and kicks in midair.
• Haihui Gelin spat black light at Zeng Mu, who blocked it and retaliated by tearing open the mountain hollow and hurling rocks, crystals, and roots at him.
• Haihui Gelin produced the Snake Soul Fang, which released black mist as he disappeared and threatened to devour Zeng Mu.