Chapter Summaries

After Shen Jun’s fear snapped the red cord, the reanimated old man fled the mourning hall and ran to his mother’s grave. There, he comforted his remorseful son before collapsing, leaving the family to face his final farewell.

• Shen Simian promised to report anyone responsible for his grandfather’s death, but Shen Jun’s sobbing broke the red cord and the old man attacked Zhang Rong and the narrator before fleeing.
• Zhang Rong led the family in a search, and the narrator learned that the old man’s mother was buried nearby.
• The group found the old man at his mother’s grave, where he hissed as though telling her about the abuse he had suffered from his sons.
• The narrator ordered Shen Jun and his family to kneel, and the brothers and grandchildren wept and apologized to the old man.
• The old man wiped Shen Jun’s tears without hurting him, then collapsed.

After Shen Jun apologized to his father, the old man stopped moving and was cremated, settling the haunting. Zhang Rong and the narrator collected their fees, then learned that a pockmarked man was teaching dark arts and offering a life-extension ritual, possibly as part of the organization they were investigating.

• The old man stopped moving after hearing Shen Jun apologize, and Zhang Rong and the narrator returned his body to the coffin.
• Shen Jun argued with his parents, and the group waited until the old man was cremated and his urn buried.
• Zhang Rong charged Shen Jun ten thousand yuan for a sham feng shui adjustment, while the narrator took money for false fortune-telling; they earned thirty-five thousand yuan in total.
• The narrator pressured Shen Jun into revealing that a feng shui master named Huang Zhang had connected him to a pockmarked man who taught dark arts and supplied the Talisman.
• Shen Jun said the pockmarked man offered Life Extension and paid referral fees, and Zhang Rong and the narrator suspected he was linked to Seven Deaths for a Life.
• Zhang Rong split the money evenly with the narrator, and they wondered whether the pockmarked man's group had previously dealt with Liu Haicheng.

After five months of training at Qingyang Temple, the narrator learned Ancient Bajiquan and grew stronger while wondering whether Zhang Rong had killed Huang Zhang. Grandmaster then asked him to take about thirty young disciples down the mountain to play.

• The narrator read a police bulletin about a man surnamed Huang who had been hacked to death and suspected the victim might be Huang Zhang, linking the death to Zhang Rong's return to Qingyang Temple.
• The narrator stayed at Qingyang Temple and trained until his master began teaching him Ancient Bajiquan, explaining that it preserved the style's complete fighting techniques.
• The narrator practiced basics, learned Bajiquan, and sparred with his master for two months, becoming stronger as five months passed.
• Grandmaster gave the narrator ten thousand yuan and asked him to take about thirty young disciples down the mountain to play.
• The narrator led the children out of Qingyang Temple.

The narrator took his senior brothers and sisters to an amusement park, where they rescued two siblings from thugs, then learned that the brother and his father had been murdered and their Three Souls taken. Grandmaster assigned the narrator and Zhang Rong to investigate the deaths, while the surviving little girl remained safe.

• The narrator brought his senior brothers and sisters to an amusement park and noticed a brother and sister collecting bottles.
• The narrator's senior brothers and sisters beat up two thugs who were threatening the siblings, and the narrator stopped them before they killed the men.
• The narrator offered the boy money, but the boy bowed and fled with his sister.
• Grandmaster summoned the narrator and Zhang Rong and showed him photographs of a murdered father and son.
• The narrator recognized the boy as the bottle collector and learned that the killer had taken the Three Souls of both victims.
• Grandmaster explained that the little girl survived by hiding under a bed, while her brother left his hiding place to protect her.

After learning that a poor family’s father and son had been murdered and their souls taken, I and Zhang Rong visited the funeral and questioned Master Yan. The little girl had been left traumatized, and the revelation that the victims were both born in the Year of the Dragon pointed toward a possible pattern.

• I asked Grandmaster whether the murdered father and son shared a birthday, then went with Zhang Rong to meet Master Yan.
• I and Zhang Rong attended the funeral, where the little girl recognized me and clung to my finger in shock.
• Master Yan told us the family’s history: the siblings’ deaf-mute mother had died in a construction accident, leaving their father to raise them.
• Master Yan explained that the older boy had come out of a wardrobe and distracted the killer long enough for his sister to survive.
• Master Yan said the father and son did not share a birthday, but both had been born in the Year of the Dragon.

After investigating the murdered deaf-mute father and son, the narrator suspected their deaths were part of another version of Seven Deaths for a Life, possibly targeting people born in the Year of the Dragon. Grandmaster revealed that Pockmarked Face, a man linked to the area, had already been killed.

• Master Yan described how fraudsters invented spells and noted that the father and son’s shared birth year might point to an occult method.
• The narrator and Zhang Rong left Master Yan, agreed to investigate whether leaked personal information revealed the victims’ birth years, and considered checking the hospital and the boy’s school.
• Zhang Rong planned to ask a computing student at Qingyang Temple to look into possible information leaks, then took the narrator back to the temple.
• Grandmaster heard the narrator’s theory that the murders involved another version of Seven Deaths for a Life and was asked to make inquiries about Pockmarked Face.
• Grandmaster told the narrator that Pockmarked Face was already dead and had been killed by someone.

Grandmaster tested Chen Mo’s willingness to join a group that carried out extrajudicial justice, then persuaded him with a martial arts manual and the promise of stronger allies. Chen Mo agreed to join, and Grandmaster gave him his first test: uncover the true culprit behind the incident and everyone connected to that culprit.

• Grandmaster told Chen Mo that Huang Zhang and Pockmarked Face had been murdered and questioned whether evil people deserved to die.
• Chen Mo said he would kill someone dangerous if doing so protected more innocent people, and agreed he would obey the group’s leader unconditionally.
• Grandmaster offered Chen Mo a copy of Eighteen Routes of Sanshou and assured him he could leave after seven months.
• Chen Mo agreed to join Grandmaster’s group, which included Zhang Rong and Xiang Yifeng and had eliminated Huang Zhang and Pockmarked Face.
• Grandmaster set Chen Mo’s first test: uncover the true culprit behind the incident and everyone connected to the culprit.

Bai Qinian’s records led Zhang Rong and the narrator to suspect that his mother, Wang Meilan, had kept his unburied body after his death. They planned to investigate her remote villa that night.

• Zhang Rong showed the narrator Chen Xingze’s medical records and explained how he narrowed down cochlear implant patients with interrupted rehabilitation.
• Zhang Rong identified Bai Qinian, whose rehabilitation had stopped less than two months after his implant, and revealed that Bai had died ten months earlier.
• Zhang Rong told the narrator that Bai Qinian’s death had no known cause and that there was no record of his cremation.
• The narrator recalled Du Yuwei’s preserved body and suspected Wang Meilan had kept Bai’s body rather than burying him.
• Zhang Rong explained that Wang Meilan had moved from the city villa to a remote villa on the outskirts, and the narrator proposed investigating it that night.

The narrator and Zhang Rong spied on Wang Meilan and discovered she was using a Yin-Gathering Talisman to reanimate her deceased son, Bai Qinian, as part of a Life Extension ritual. After sneaking into Bai Qinian’s room, they found another corpse behind the narrator.

• The narrator and Zhang Rong entered Wang Meilan’s villa complex at night and watched her speak with a man who collected stacks of cash.
• After the visitor left, Wang Meilan carried a baby upstairs, then helped Bai Qinian, her deceased son, stand and walk with a Yin-Gathering Talisman on his back.
• The narrator recognized the talisman’s effect and concluded that Wang Meilan was performing Life Extension on Bai Qinian.
• When the upstairs lights went out, Zhang Rong and the narrator climbed into Bai Qinian’s room and found him lying motionless in a chair.
• Zhang Rong checked Bai Qinian and said only two of his souls remained inside him, allowing him to move when Wang Meilan ordered him.
• Zhang Rong suddenly stared in terror behind the narrator and warned that another corpse was there.

The narrator and Zhang Rong discovered a young woman’s corpse in Bai Qinian’s room and found love letters suggesting she might have been one of the girls he liked. Examining Bai Qinian’s neck led them to suspect he had been strangled and staged as a suicide, and that Wang Meilan knew how he had died and may have been involved in his killing.

• The narrator and Zhang Rong found a young woman’s corpse surrounded by dolls and photographed her for a computer-savvy senior fellow disciple to identify.
• The narrator suspected the man collecting money downstairs or one of his accomplices had helped Wang Meilan abduct the girl, and noted that the car outside might belong to him.
• The narrator found three identical love letters Bai Qinian had written to three different girls, prompting Zhang Rong to fear Wang Meilan might have abducted the other two as well.
• The narrator examined Bai Qinian’s neck and found a ligature mark, showing that he had been strangled.
• The narrator reasoned that the killer had strangled the murdered father and son and hung their bodies to imitate Bai Qinian’s death, implying Wang Meilan knew how Bai Qinian had died.
• The narrator concluded that Wang Meilan had either killed Bai Qinian herself or knew who had killed him.

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.