Recaps

The narrator and Zhang Rong investigated Bai Qinian’s death and suspected Wang Zhenhui had murdered him for control of the family company. After Wang Zhenhui died in a suspicious car crash, they concluded Wang Meilan may have arranged her brother’s killing because she had begun questioning her son’s death.

• The narrator and Zhang Rong fled Bai Qinian’s house after seeing the corpses of Bai Qinian and a girl at the window, then asked Zhang Rong’s senior fellow disciple to identify the girl and the three girls named in Bai Qinian’s love letters.
• The narrator and Zhang Rong spent the night at a small hotel, where Zhang Rong later received a call about Wang Meilan’s childbirth records.
• Zhang Rong told the narrator that Wang Meilan’s younger brother, Wang Zhenhui, had died in a car crash after his brakes failed.
• The narrator and Zhang Rong suspected Wang Zhenhui had killed Bai Qinian to gain control of the company, then considered whether Wang Meilan had paid someone to kill Wang Zhenhui.
• The narrator concluded that Wang Meilan may have ordered her brother’s death because she had begun to suspect him of killing Bai Qinian.

After discovering that Wang Meilan had given birth shortly after Bai Qinian’s death, Zhang Rong and the narrator investigated the hospital footage and identified the man who accompanied her during labor as Hu Shide. His connection to the group that practiced Seven Deaths for a Life complicated their suspicions about Wang Meilan’s pregnancy.

• Zhang Rong suggested that the man who fathered Wang Meilan’s baby might have had a motive to kill Bai Qinian and access to his home.
• The narrator and Zhang Rong learned from Wang Meilan’s medical records that she had become pregnant about a month after Bai Qinian died and given birth prematurely two months earlier.
• Zhang Rong and the narrator went to the hospital and persuaded its security guard to let them inspect footage from the day Wang Meilan went into labor.
• They photographed the man accompanying Wang Meilan and learned that he was Hu Shide, who had previously been investigated for spreading feudal superstition.
• Zhang Rong and the narrator connected Hu Shide and the man they had seen at Wang Meilan’s home to the Seven Deaths for a Life organization, leaving Zhang Rong baffled about how Hu Shide had fathered her baby.

The narrator proposed that Hu Shide may have murdered Bai Qinian and manipulated Wang Meilan into having his child to gain control of her estate. The theory remained unproven, and the narrator and Zhang Rong planned to track Hu Shide through the car involved in Wang Zhenhui's death.

• The narrator reasoned that Wang Meilan might have slept with Hu Shide because he promised that having a child was necessary to bring Bai Qinian back.
• The narrator theorized that Hu Shide had killed Bai Qinian, blamed Wang Zhenhui, and arranged Wang Zhenhui's death so Hu Shide's baby could inherit Wang Meilan's estate.
• Zhang Rong agreed the theory made sense but noted they lacked evidence, and the narrator said they would need to catch Hu Shide to learn the truth.
• The narrator and Zhang Rong decided to use the car from the previous night as a lead, and Zhang Rong called his junior fellow disciple in the traffic police.

The narrator and Zhang Rong captured a man from Hu Shide’s gang while he was targeting Yu Xiaoxiao, then forced him to reveal the truth about Bai Qinian’s death and the gang’s hideout. The man agreed to take them to a restaurant the gang used as a base.

• The narrator and Zhang Rong waited outside a bar and caught Hu Shide’s associate trying to take the drunk Yu Xiaoxiao to his car.
• They drove the man to a deserted place, questioned him, and tortured him after he denied knowing anything about the murders.
• The man admitted that he belonged to a sixteen-member group and that Hu Shide had arranged Bai Qinian’s death to get Wang Meilan’s fortune.
• The narrator learned that Wang Zhenhui had been killed unjustly and that Hu Shide, not Wang Zhenhui, had killed Bai Qinian.
• The man revealed that the gang used an unopened restaurant as its base and offered to lead the narrator and Zhang Rong there.

After passing Grandmaster’s first test, the narrator went with Zhang Rong and Xiang Yifeng to raid Hu Shide’s hideout and personally kill Hu Shide and Wang Meilan. They found the gang slaughtered by a rival group, learned Hu Shide had escaped, and the narrator killed a wounded survivor to steel himself for the test.

• The narrator told Grandmaster he had passed the first test, and Grandmaster ordered him to deal personally with Hu Shide and Wang Meilan.
• Zhang Rong called for help, and Xiang Yifeng arrived with five Qingyang Temple disciples before leading the narrator and Zhang Rong into the restaurant.
• The group found fourteen bodies inside the hideout but could not find Hu Shide.
• A wounded gang member said a rival group had attacked over competition and confirmed that Hu Shide had escaped.
• The narrator killed the wounded survivor after reminding himself that he was carrying out heaven’s justice.

The narrator and Zhang Rong went to Wang Meilan’s villa to find the wounded Hu Shide, while Zhang Rong waited outside. After a desperate fight, the narrator killed Hu Shide and avenged the murdered father and son.

• The narrator guessed Hu Shide would go to Wang Meilan’s home and set out with Zhang Rong, determined to face him alone.
• Zhang Rong waited outside the villa while the narrator entered through the kitchen and found Hu Shide threatening and beating Wang Meilan.
• The narrator attacked Hu Shide, and they fought until both were badly wounded and exhausted.
• Hu Shide lunged for the dropped knife, but the narrator used a second switchblade to stab him repeatedly.
• The narrator showed Hu Shide the murdered father and son’s photograph and declared that he had avenged them.

Chen Mo killed Hu Shide and Wang Meilan, then refused Grandmaster’s order to kill Wang Meilan’s newborn son. His master warned him that the child had to die for a reason, but Chen Mo stood by his decision, leaving his relationship with his elders strained.

• Chen Mo killed Hu Shide and told Wang Meilan that he was avenging the deaf and mute father and son she had killed.
• Chen Mo stabbed Wang Meilan, removed the Yin-Gathering Talisman from Bai Qinian, and called Grandmaster to report that he had passed the test.
• Grandmaster ordered Chen Mo to kill Wang Meilan’s sleeping newborn, but Chen Mo refused because the baby was innocent.
• Grandmaster gave Chen Mo five minutes to reconsider, then Chen Mo’s master called and urged him to trust Grandmaster’s judgment.
• Chen Mo again refused to kill the baby, saying he could find nothing sinister about him, and his master coldly said they would talk when Chen Mo returned.

After refusing to kill Wang Meilan's baby, Chen Mo returned to Qingyang Temple and faced Grandmaster and Master, believing they might kill him for defying them. He stood by his conscience through a staged execution, only to learn that Grandmaster had been testing him and approved of his choice.

• Chen Mo returned to Qingyang Temple with Zhang Rong and went to the Steward's Office, where Grandmaster and Master were waiting.
• Chen Mo knelt and told Grandmaster he could not agree that killing Wang Meilan's innocent baby was right.
• Grandmaster gave Master the Seven-Star Demon-Subduing Sword and ordered him to purge Chen Mo from their ranks.
• Master offered Chen Mo a chance to admit his mistake, but Chen Mo insisted he was not wrong and said, "This heart is bright, what more is there to say?"
• Master held the sword to Chen Mo's neck, then sheathed it, and Grandmaster revealed that Chen Mo's refusal to obey had passed the final test.

After killing Hu Shide and Wang Meilan, the narrator passed Grandmaster’s final test by challenging the order to kill an innocent person and affirming his commitment to justice. Grandmaster gave him a martial arts manual, and the narrator moved into Zhang Rong and the other senior brothers’ dormitory, where he revealed he had recognized the test’s true purpose.

• Grandmaster and Master explained that their test measured whether the narrator could question authority and refuse to commit an injustice, then invited him to join their fight against evil.
• The narrator apologized, knelt, and pledged to seek justice; Grandmaster cited Fu Tun’s punishment of his own son as an example of leaders enforcing their own rules.
• Grandmaster gave the narrator the Eighteen Routes of Sanshou manual and warned him not to grow arrogant after defeating the injured Hu Shide.
• Grandmaster ordered Master to have the narrator’s injuries treated and moved him into Zhang Rong and the other senior brothers’ dormitory.
• Zhang Rong and the others praised the narrator for arguing with Grandmaster, and the narrator explained that he had realized the final test was designed to make him oppose an unjust command.

After recovering from his injuries, Chen Mo met the Qingyang Temple disciples and learned how their Mohist group had formed to fight those harming people. Zhang Rong welcomed him into Team Two, where he would join a much larger organization operating across the country.

• Chen Mo joked that he would rather die than submit, then met the senior brothers, who argued over which group he would join.
• Zhang Rong's group kept Chen Mo from joining Xiang Yifeng's team and claimed him for Team Two.
• Zhang Rong explained that the group began with Grandmaster and three companions, who fought violence with violence.
• Chen Mo learned that Grandmaster sent his disciples to investigate the organization behind Seven Deaths for a Life and other evil arts, then resumed fighting those who harmed people.
• Zhang Rong explained the group's Mohist rules of Universal Love and Non-Aggression, and Chen Mo became a member of Team Two.

After recovering, the narrator trained at Qingyang Temple while Grandmaster brought a traumatized orphan back to the mountain. Grandmaster explained that the Tang Family was rebuilding the organization to serve powerful people, then gave the narrator a mission to eliminate its scattered members before they could be recruited.

• Grandmaster brought the orphaned, mute little girl to Qingyang Temple after her father and older brother died.
• The narrator trained for nearly a month as winter approached, while Grandmaster sent Zhang Rong and the others down the mountain on errands.
• Grandmaster told the narrator that the Tang Family had recruited members of the organization and was searching for its remaining people.
• Grandmaster explained that the Tang Family intended to use the organization to serve powerful people, not to harm people indiscriminately for profit.
• Grandmaster ordered the narrator to follow a list and kill the identified stragglers before the Tang Family found them.
• The narrator questioned whether they could defeat the Tang Family, and Grandmaster said they had to fight on without knowing the outcome.

Chen Mo volunteered to act as bait in a plan to capture three criminal groups and let himself be abducted. After his kidnappers mistook him for someone else and questioned him, he broke free and killed the five men guarding the captives, then waited for their boss.

• Zhang Rong assigned Chen Mo to lead the charge in a dangerous plan to take down the criminal groups, and Chen Mo agreed.
• Chen Mo abducted Yang Wei from his apartment, hid him under the bed, and waited on the couch to be taken instead.
• Two kidnappers drugged Chen Mo and brought him to a house where several other captives were held.
• The guards suspected Chen Mo was not Yang Wei, took him out of the room, and questioned him when their boss failed to answer his phone.
• Chen Mo admitted he was not Yang Wei, cut one guard's throat with a hidden razor, and killed the other four.
• Chen Mo took a knife downstairs and waited by the door for the boss to return.

The narrator killed the gang leader who had captured him, then joined Zhang Rong and the others in confronting Huang Zhennan, the man who had hired the gang. Huang Zhennan was spared and given a treatment prescription for his son, but the group left him with a knife and a warning to reform.

• The narrator stabbed the gang leader, called Xiang Yifeng to clean up the scene, and escaped to meet Zhuge Ming.
• Zhuge Ming told the narrator that Zhang Rong and the others had gone to abduct Huang Zhennan, who had hired the gang.
• Zhang Rong brought Huang Zhennan to an unfinished building and let the narrator question him.
• The narrator gave Huang Zhennan a prescription for his son and warned him that the group would be watching him.
• The narrator taught Huang Zhennan passages from the Three Character Classic, then the group left him with a knife.

After completing their remaining missions, Chen Mo and his companions were nearly killed by an explosion at Xiang Yifeng’s apartment. Chen Mo’s master warned that someone had betrayed them and sent them to Boss Lei at 133 Hongshi Road, leaving them fleeing while fearing the traitor was one of their own.

• Chen Mo and his companions celebrated completing their missions, then headed back to Xiang Yifeng’s apartment.
• Chen Mo smelled rotten eggs and pulled Zhang Rong away just before a bomb triggered an explosion that engulfed the apartment in flames.
• Zhang Rong suspected someone had rigged an ignition device, while the group found that Xiang Yifeng was not answering his phone.
• Chen Mo’s master warned him that someone had sold them out and that the police were coming to arrest them, then directed them to Boss Lei at 133 Hongshi Road.
• Chen Mo, Zhang Rong, and the others escaped by taxi, fearing the betrayal came from one of the ten people involved and that they faced capital charges.

After their group was attacked and forced to flee, Boss Lei took them to a remote mountain village and supplied them with food and necessities. They set off to hide there, and Zhang Rong wondered who had betrayed them.

• Boss Lei told the group that Xiang Yifeng and the others had been attacked and that they all needed to go into hiding, then collected their phones.
• Boss Lei drove the five men to an abandoned village in the mountains and gave them emergency supplies.
• The group carried the supplies up the mountain while the narrator tried to comfort the others by explaining how much loss he had endured.
• After walking for over an hour, the group stopped to rest and eat, and Zhang Rong asked who had sold them out.

Chen Mo argued that the Tang Family had likely coerced an important Qingyang Temple disciple with a wife and children, rather than Xiang Yifeng’s group betraying them. After the group reached an abandoned village and settled into a ruined house, rhythmic knocking came from outside in the darkness.

• Zhang Rong rejected the idea that Xiang Yifeng had betrayed them, and Chen Mo warned that suspecting the other group could be an enemy tactic to sow discord.
• Chen Mo reasoned that the traitor was likely a married Qingyang Temple disciple with an important position who had been threatened through his family, and Zhang Rong agreed the theory could help identify him.
• The five disciples continued to an abandoned village and found a small, damaged house to shelter in.
• They covered the windows with windproof fabric, propped the fallen door in place, and prepared to sleep by candlelight.
• After Zhang Rong blew out the candle, rhythmic knocking sounded from outside, and the group sat up in alarm as the knocks continued.

The narrator and his companions settled into a deserted mountain village, where a strange figure knocked on their door at night. They caught a child who claimed to live in a distant village and had come looking for food, but he denied being the one who knocked the previous night.

• Zhang Rong stopped the group from chasing a small figure after the first night’s knocking and suspected it was an animal spirit.
• The group repaired their shelter, built a stove, and gathered wild vegetables and fish to prepare for a longer stay.
• When the knocking returned the following night, the narrator and the others chased down and pinned a child to the ground.
• Zhang Rong treated the child’s forehead wound, and the child said his name was Gou Dan and that he lived in a distant village.
• The child said he had come out to find food, then denied being responsible for the previous night’s knocking.

Chen Mo and Zhang Rong discovered that the child who had appeared near their shelter lived in a distant, impoverished village and brought him home. After the child returned to them again at night despite claiming he had visited during the day, the group remained unsure why he could not find them.

• The child said an animal had knocked on the shelter the previous night, and Zhang Rong gave him compressed biscuits.
• Chen Mo and Zhang Rong walked with the child for an hour and a half to his village, where they told him to visit during the day and keep their presence secret.
• Chen Mo and Zhang Rong returned to the Abandoned Village and told Zhuge Ming and the others about the remote settlement.
• The group hunted a pheasant and saved some food for the child, but he did not arrive during the day.
• The child knocked on their door in the latter half of the night and said he had looked for them during the day.
• Zhang Rong warmed chicken soup for the child and promised to stay home the next day so he could find them.

Zhang Rong and the narrator learned that Goudan’s parents had been killed in the village, then discovered that he saw their room as it had been before they arrived. The chapter ended with Goudan pointing out a tree where the group found only a lightning-scarred stump.

• Zhang Rong and the narrator walked Goudan home and learned that his parents had been killed by villagers and that he lived with his sister and many younger children.
• Zhang Rong told Goudan to visit during the day, but he returned after midnight, saying he had come earlier and found nobody there.
• Goudan described seeing discarded belongings that the group had removed from their room, though the objects were no longer there.
• Goudan said the house looked older at night and that a tree stood nearby during the day.
• The narrator took Goudan to the tree's location, where they found a stump bearing scorch marks.

Chen Mo and the others discovered that Gou Dan’s daytime world belonged to a different time and space, possibly many years in the past, and investigated his village. The chapter ended after Gou Dan revealed that different men visited his sister at night.

• Chen Mo concluded that Gou Dan saw a past time and space during the day while the group remained in their own present.
• The group suspected Gou Dan’s village was cut off from the outside world and decided to investigate it with him.
• Chen Mo went to Gou Dan’s home and heard intimate sounds from inside, then returned without speaking to his sister.
• Chen Mo guessed that Gou Dan’s sister sent him out at night to keep him from seeing the men who visited her.
• Gou Dan confirmed that his sister sent him out because uncles came to see her, and said they were not always the same uncle.

Chen Mo and the others watched a village vanish as dawn broke, taking Gou Dan with it. They returned to their abandoned hideout shaken, and Chen Mo realized Gou Dan had lived decades in the past and should already be dead in their era.

• Zhang Rong proposed that dawn would reveal whether the village shared their spacetime, and Chen Mo agreed while privately doubting that seeing it would prove anything.
• Chen Mo and the others noticed that the village’s largest house had become impossible to see, though Gou Dan’s home and its lights remained visible.
• As dawn approached, Gou Dan became frightened, then ran into the village after the lights in his home went out.
• The village buildings, farmland, and Gou Dan disappeared as daylight spread, leaving only a stretch of wasteland.
• Chen Mo and the others fled back to their hideout, where Chen Mo concluded that Gou Dan had been someone from decades earlier and was already dead in their era.

Chen Mo and the others concluded that Gou Dan came from decades in the past, after which Zhang Rong recounted a similar tale of people separated by different space-times. Chen Mo used divination to investigate the abandoned village and found a clue pointing to the villagers’ buried bodies southeast of it.

• Zhang Rong told Chen Mo and the others how his Grandmaster once visited Zhu Family Village, where daytime and nighttime belonged to space-times more than ten years apart.
• Zhang Rong said Gou Dan was likely dead and proposed feeding him when he visited, while Zhuge Ming worried that other people from Gou Dan’s village might follow him.
• Chen Mo and the others salted food and prepared for the coming snow.
• Chen Mo cast a hexagram and learned that the abandoned village’s people were in a tomb to the southeast, which he interpreted as their bodies being buried.
• Chen Mo found an unusually lush grove less than a kilometer southeast of the village and began to understand the clue.

Chen Mo and the others uncovered a mass grave in the deserted village and suspected its inhabitants had been poisoned, possibly by people from Gou Dan’s village. When Gou Dan returned that night with bruises, the group learned he feared what would happen if he stayed away from his own time and realized they could not take him with them.

• Chen Mo’s group dug in the woods until Zhuge Ming uncovered human bones in a pit, revealing that dozens of villagers had been buried there.
• Chen Mo concluded that someone had poisoned and killed the villagers, and Zhuge Ming suggested Gou Dan’s village might have been responsible.
• The group reburied the bones, performed a simple rite, and arranged to take turns keeping watch at night.
• Gou Dan returned after one in the morning with bruises and told Zhang Rong that men in his village had beaten him.
• Chen Mo asked why Gou Dan had run away at dawn, and Gou Dan said he had felt that something bad would happen if he did not return.
• Chen Mo and the others realized Gou Dan could not leave his own time, since he had likely died decades earlier in their timeline.

Gou Dan told Chen Mo and the others how the villagers abused his sister, Shen Zhiyi, and the group debated whether they could help them escape. Chen Mo proposed killing the village’s young and able-bodied adults, but footsteps nearby interrupted them.

• Gou Dan explained that the villagers had killed his parents, confined Shen Zhiyi, starved both siblings, and forced her to wash clothes and bear children.
• Zhang Rong and Zhuge Ming argued about rescuing the siblings, and Zhang Rong stopped Zhuge Ming from proposing to kill the villagers.
• Chen Mo reasoned that Gou Dan and Shen Zhiyi might be able to escape during the day in their own time and space.
• Chen Mo proposed that they kill all the young and able-bodied adults in the village at night.
• Chen Mo and Zhang Rong heard footsteps nearby, drew their blades, and called out to whoever was there.

Chen Mo and Zhang Rong planned to rescue Shen Zhiyi and Gou Dan while avoiding unjustified violence. Chen Mo secretly reached Shen Zhiyi and told her he had come to get her and her brother out of the village.

• Zhuge Ming and two senior brothers joined Chen Mo and Zhang Rong, and they debated whether they could fight the village men without proof of their crimes.
• Chen Mo proposed entering the village to rescue the siblings and using the villagers’ response to determine whether force was justified.
• Zhang Rong agreed to delay the rescue until the next night, when they could return prepared, and asked Zhuge Ming and the others to watch Gou Dan.
• Chen Mo and Zhang Rong crept toward Gou Dan’s home, and Zhang Rong sent Chen Mo inside alone so Shen Zhiyi would not be startled.
• Chen Mo entered Shen Zhiyi’s room, reassured her, and explained that he knew Gou Dan and had come to rescue them both.