Chapter Summaries

Chen Mo and Song Xiaotian confronted Tao Xiaoyu with evidence of her infidelity, but she accused Chen Mo of harassing her and Meng Yifan sided with her despite the proof. After Chen Mo and Song Xiaotian left, they discovered the man Tao Xiaoyu had met was an influential figure connected to Du Ruhai’s Weihai Group.

• Tao Xiaoyu showed Meng Yifan fabricated chat screenshots and accused Chen Mo of seducing her, but Meng Yifan defended Chen Mo.
• Song Xiaotian showed Meng Yifan photos of Tao Xiaoyu meeting another man, and Tao Xiaoyu claimed the man was her boss who was pursuing her.
• Tao Xiaoyu threatened to leave Meng Yifan, then he apologized and persuaded her to stay.
• Meng Yifan apologized to Chen Mo but continued to believe Tao Xiaoyu’s explanation, and Chen Mo and Song Xiaotian left to show clients properties.
• Song Xiaotian showed Chen Mo a news article identifying Tao Xiaoyu’s companion as a powerful figure connected to Du Ruhai’s Weihai Group.

The narrator and Song Xiaotian investigated Tao Xiaoyu’s affair with Xiang Kai, the chairman of the Jiangling Group, and brought Meng Yifan to catch them together. Meng Yifan saw Tao Xiaoyu in a hotel room with Xiang Kai and erupted in rage.

• The narrator learned that Xiang Kai’s Jiangling Group was competing against the weakened Weihai Group for a major Lanjiang City project.
• The narrator and Song Xiaotian decided to expose Tao Xiaoyu’s affair and watched her meet Xiang Kai at a five-star hotel for two days.
• On the third day, the narrator and Song Xiaotian tricked Meng Yifan into coming to the hotel and prepared him for bad news.
• Song Xiaotian claimed they were police to get Xiang Kai to open the room, then brought Meng Yifan inside.
• Meng Yifan found Tao Xiaoyu in a bathrobe and shouted that he would kill the cheating pair.

Meng Yifan learned that Tao Xiaoyu had betrayed him, but his friends stopped him from attacking her and Xiang Kai. Days later, Tao Xiaoyu was found dead and police took Meng Yifan in for questioning, leaving the narrator afraid that Meng Yifan might have killed her while drunk.

• Meng Yifan confronted Tao Xiaoyu and Xiang Kai after catching them together, but Song Xiaotian and the narrator restrained him and took him away.
• Song Xiaotian and the narrator comforted Meng Yifan, helped him clear Tao Xiaoyu’s belongings, and stayed close while he recovered.
• Xie Peng called the narrator to report that police had taken Meng Yifan in as a suspect after Tao Xiaoyu was found dead.
• The narrator recalled that his divination had predicted Tao Xiaoyu’s death between eleven at night and one in the morning.
• The narrator realized Meng Yifan had been drinking the night before and might have returned home late, prompting him to fear that Meng Yifan had killed Tao Xiaoyu.

The narrator and Song Xiaotian sought Brother Liu’s help after Meng Yifan was taken to the South City Precinct over Tao Xiaoyu’s death. Brother Liu agreed to help after the narrator used a hexagram to predict details about his mother’s illness.

• The narrator worried that Meng Yifan might have killed Tao Xiaoyu and confessed to Song Xiaotian that his divination had predicted Meng Yifan would go to prison.
• The narrator and Song Xiaotian learned that Meng Yifan was being held at the South City Precinct and asked Brother Liu to meet them.
• Brother Liu refused to help because the narrator and Song Xiaotian had threatened him before.
• The narrator offered to divine something Brother Liu wanted to know and cast a hexagram about his mother’s illness.
• The narrator predicted that Brother Liu’s mother did not have bowel cancer but had another significant intestinal illness, and Brother Liu agreed to help them.

The narrator and Song Xiaotian feared Meng Yifan had killed Tao Xiaoyu and Xiang Kai after Brother Liu revealed that Meng had been near the murder scene. Seventh Master examined the narrator’s divination and said it could not determine Meng Yifan’s ultimate fate, leaving his guilt unresolved.

• Brother Liu told the narrator that Meng Yifan would be detained for 48 hours, and the narrator asked him to urge Meng to confess if he was guilty.
• The narrator and Song Xiaotian returned to Meng Yifan’s home and worried about how they would help him if he had killed someone.
• Brother Liu reported that Meng had appeared outside Tao Xiaoyu’s villa at 11:35 p.m., near the time she and Xiang Kai were killed, and that both victims had suffered more than twenty chop wounds.
• The narrator and Song Xiaotian suspected Meng, called Seventh Master, and showed him the narrator’s divination notes.
• Seventh Master said the Day Tomb could correspond to Meng’s 48-hour detention rather than prison, but warned that the reading could not reveal Meng’s ultimate outcome.

Seventh Master’s Yin Pan Qimen reading showed Meng Yifan trapped in an uncertain situation, so the group decided to summon Tao Xiaoyu’s spirit for clues about her murder. They met Xiao Qing near Tao Xiaoyu’s villa compound but realized they had no way to get her inside.

• Seventh Master explained that his reading about Meng Yifan was compromised by his involvement and described a Dragon-Trapped Formation with an uncertain outcome.
• Seventh Master said Meng Yifan might be guilty but lack evidence against him, or innocent but unable to clear suspicion.
• The narrator decided to summon Tao Xiaoyu’s Yin Soul, and Seventh Master agreed to hire Xiao Qing as the Spirit Medium.
• The narrator assigned work at the shop, told Xie Peng to recruit more staff, and paid Xiao Qing her full ten-thousand fee.
• Song Xiaotian, Seventh Master, the narrator, and Xiao Qing met near Tao Xiaoyu’s villa compound and wondered how to get past its guards.

The narrator and his companions used fake food deliveries to enter Tao Xiaoyu’s villa compound and summoned her soul. Tao Xiaoyu possessed Xiao Qing, but her terrified reaction suggested she still believed she was alive and that someone was trying to kill her.

• The narrator sent Song Xiaotian and Xiao Qing through the compound entrance by claiming they were delivering food to Villa 23, then frightened the guards into fleeing with a fabricated order for them.
• The narrator, Seventh Master, Song Xiaotian, and Xiao Qing entered the villa by climbing over its perimeter wall and prepared a summoning formation.
• The narrator recited the invocation while burning joss paper, and the living-room candles turned green as Tao Xiaoyu’s soul arrived.
• Tao Xiaoyu possessed Xiao Qing, then panicked, hid under the table, and begged not to be killed.
• Seventh Master concluded that Tao Xiaoyu did not know she was dead and that her reaction proved Xiao Meng was not the murderer.

Chen Mo realized Meng Yifan had not killed Tao Xiaoyu, but when he questioned her spirit, she accused him of causing her death and lunged at him. The blow to Chen Mo’s head showed him Tao Xiaoyu’s memory of Du Yunting hacking Xiang Kai to death, revealing Du Yunting as the killer.

• Chen Mo and Song Xiaotian concluded that Meng Yifan was not Tao Xiaoyu’s killer because she had reacted to her attacker like a stranger.
• Chen Mo asked the possessed Xiao Qing who had tried to hurt her, but Tao Xiaoyu became enraged at hearing his name and accused him of getting her killed.
• Tao Xiaoyu lunged at Chen Mo, knocking him down and leaving him dazed as he saw a memory from before her death.
• Chen Mo watched Du Yunting visit Xiang Kai to demand that he withdraw from a bidding contest, while Xiang Kai mocked and refused him.
• Du Yunting put on gloves, retrieved a cleaver, and attacked Xiang Kai, hacking him to death as Tao Xiaoyu watched from behind a door.

After witnessing Du Yunting kill Xiang Kai in a vision, the narrator realized Du Ruhai had returned by taking over his nephew’s body. The group took Xiao Qing to the hospital, where they learned she had only about a month to live, and worried that Meng Yifan would be framed because they had no evidence against the powerful Du Yunting.

• The narrator woke after Song Xiaotian and the Seventh Master revived him and told them Du Ruhai had possessed Du Yunting and killed Xiang Kai.
• The group learned that Xiao Qing had been injured after Tao Xiaoyu’s Yin Soul was driven from her body, so they carried her to the hospital.
• Xiao Qing refused to contact her family, and the Seventh Master told her that she had about a month to live.
• Song Xiaotian warned that Meng Yifan would likely take the blame because the police had named him their prime suspect despite Du Yunting being at the scene.
• The group realized that Du Yunting’s gloves and Du Ruhai’s precautions left them without conclusive evidence to prove the murders.

After visiting Xiao Qing in the hospital, the narrator, Song Xiaotian, and Seventh Master searched for a way to prove Meng Yifan’s innocence. The narrator noticed that the murder timeline and the villa’s surveillance footage could undermine the case against Meng Yifan.

• Seventh Master and the narrator urged Xiao Qing to stop working and spend her remaining time with her family, while Song Xiaotian helped Zhang Bin collect her medication.
• After leaving the hospital, the narrator said they had to keep looking for a way to save Meng Yifan from execution.
• The narrator questioned why Du Yunting would leave the lights off while searching the villa and why he would slash Tao Xiaoyu repeatedly if he had killed her only to silence her.
• The narrator pointed out that Du Yunting’s time inside the villa could conflict with the police’s theory that Meng Yifan committed the murders, since the two men might have encountered each other.
• The narrator proposed obtaining surveillance footage from the villa complex and nearby roads to establish when Du Yunting and Meng Yifan entered and left, and Song Xiaotian agreed they had to find it.

Chen Mo tried to obtain surveillance footage that could help prove Meng Yifan’s innocence, bribing Brother Liu to make a copy after Song Xiaotian failed to get access. Meng Yifan was released after forty-eight hours but was immediately taken away again for a drunk-driving investigation, leaving Chen Mo and Song Xiaotian desperate to save him.

• Chen Mo met Brother Liu and insisted that Du Yunting, not Meng Yifan, had killed Tao Xiaoyu and Xiang Kai.
• Brother Liu refused to help at first, but Chen Mo offered him three hundred thousand for a copy of the villa surveillance footage, and Brother Liu agreed to consider it.
• Song Xiaotian told Chen Mo he could not obtain any surveillance footage, even with his father’s help.
• After Meng Yifan was released from detention, traffic officers took him back for questioning over suspected drunk driving on the night Tao Xiaoyu and Xiang Kai were killed.
• Meng Yifan pleaded with Chen Mo and Song Xiaotian to save him, and they promised they would find a way as the officers drove him away.

After reviewing surveillance footage, the narrator, Song Xiaotian, and Seventh Master realized Du Yunting had only been inside the villa for thirty-one minutes, too little time to kill both Xiang Kai and Tao Xiaoyu. They concluded there may have been a second killer and suspected Xiang Kai’s wife had arranged Tao Xiaoyu’s murder.

• Brother Liu obtained surveillance footage showing Du Yunting entering the villa at 11:20 p.m. and leaving at 11:51 p.m., while Meng Yifan appeared at the entrance and then left.
• The narrator, Song Xiaotian, and Seventh Master reasoned that Du Yunting could not have killed both Xiang Kai and Tao Xiaoyu in the thirty-one minutes he was inside.
• The narrator proposed that a second killer had killed Tao Xiaoyu and inflicted multiple wounds to disguise the fact that there were two killers.
• Song Xiaotian argued that the second killer was more likely targeting Tao Xiaoyu, since the villa was a secret place where she met Xiang Kai.
• The narrator, Song Xiaotian, and Seventh Master suspected Xiang Kai’s wife had hired someone to kill Tao Xiaoyu.

The narrator and Song Xiaotian went to confront Xiang Kai’s wife, Pan Xiaorou, after deducing that she had hired the second killer. Song Xiaotian accused her of arranging Tao Xiaoyu’s murder and threatened to expose her, leaving Pan Xiaorou facing the risk of losing her position.

• The narrator and Song Xiaotian reviewed their suspicions overnight and decided to approach Pan Xiaorou.
• Song Xiaotian and the narrator went to Jiangling Group and secured a meeting with Pan Xiaorou by claiming to be police officers.
• After dismissing her assistant, Pan Xiaorou asked them for an update on her husband’s case.
• Song Xiaotian revealed that he was not a police officer and accused Pan Xiaorou of hiring someone to kill Xiang Kai and Tao Xiaoyu.
• Song Xiaotian said Pan Xiaorou’s hired killer had killed Tao Xiaoyu after another killer killed Xiang Kai, then staged the scene to implicate the first killer.
• Song Xiaotian warned Pan Xiaorou that exposing her could cost her the chairwoman’s position.

Song Xiaotian pressured Pan Xiaorou with evidence of her involvement in Tao Xiaoyu’s death and revealed that Du Yunting had killed Xiang Kai. He persuaded Pan to consider helping expose Du Yunting, leaving her with the task of pressuring the police to release the scapegoat and name Du as a suspect.

• Song Xiaotian used Pan Xiaorou’s reaction and the threat of implicating her in Xiang Kai’s death to gain leverage over her.
• Pan Xiaorou denied knowing who killed her husband, so Song Xiaotian told her Du Yunting had hacked Xiang Kai to death after an argument over a major project bid.
• Pan Xiaorou asked whether Song Xiaotian’s group intended to use her against Du Yunting, and he confirmed that they did.
• Song Xiaotian asked Pan Xiaorou to pressure the police to name Du Yunting as a suspect, explaining that they first needed to get the scapegoat released.

Song Xiaotian persuaded Pan Xiaorou to help get Meng Yifan released and keep Du Yunting from attending the bidding. That night, Pan Xiaorou called to say she had seen her dead husband, Xiang Kai, leaving Song Xiaotian and Chen Mo alarmed.

• Song Xiaotian showed Pan Xiaorou surveillance footage and convinced her to pressure the police to release Meng Yifan and detain Du Yunting before the bidding.
• Pan Xiaorou agreed to partner with Song Xiaotian and Chen Mo, and Song Xiaotian flirted with her before they left.
• Song Xiaotian told Chen Mo that Pan Xiaorou's hatred of Du Yunting would make their alliance stronger.
• Chen Mo reported the partnership to Seventh Master, who praised Song Xiaotian.
• Pan Xiaorou called Song Xiaotian and said she had seen Xiang Kai, so Song Xiaotian told Chen Mo to call Seventh Master.

The narrator and Song Xiaotian investigated signs that Xiang Kai’s soul had returned to Pan Xiaorou’s home. They found Xiang Kai’s freshly written bidding proposal and evidence he had opened their safe, leaving Pan Xiaorou to wonder whether he intended to move their assets before divorcing her.

• The narrator called Seventh Master, who explained that Xiang Kai’s soul might have returned to his former home and warned that his violent death could make him aggressive.
• Song Xiaotian and the narrator drove to Pan Xiaorou’s villa after she reported that the television had turned on, a cigarette had been smoked, and someone was turning pages in the study.
• Pan Xiaorou led them inside, where the house was cold and the lights repeatedly went out; the narrator told her to guide them because Xiang Kai might recognize her as the lady of the house.
• The narrator found a freshly written bidding proposal in Xiang Kai’s handwriting in the study, suggesting he had been working on the important bid.
• The narrator noticed gold bars and bank cards scattered beside the open safe, then found two divorce agreements and suggested Xiang Kai planned to move the couple’s assets.

After discovering Xiang Kai’s plans to divorce Pan Xiaorou and transfer his assets, Chen Mo and the others encountered his ghost in the dark house. Xiang Kai possessed Chen Mo and attacked Song Xiaotian, but Song Xiaotian used his own blood to weaken the spirit and bring Chen Mo down.

• Pan Xiaorou learned that Xiang Kai had planned to divorce her and transfer his assets, then feared he might still harm her as a ghost.
• Chen Mo heard someone filling a cup in the dark living room and brought Pan Xiaorou and Song Xiaotian back into the study.
• Chen Mo discovered Song Xiaotian had accidentally washed Seventh Master’s Ghost-Striking Talisman and ruined it.
• Xiang Kai knocked on the study door, accused Pan Xiaorou of cheating, and possessed Chen Mo when he claimed he could see them.
• Xiang Kai used Chen Mo’s body to attack Song Xiaotian and Pan Xiaorou, while Song Xiaotian fought back with a chair.
• Song Xiaotian cut his palm and threw his blood at Chen Mo’s face, making Xiang Kai shriek and causing Chen Mo to collapse.

After Song Xiaotian helped drive Xiang Kai out of the narrator’s body, Seventh Master secured Pan Xiaorou’s villa with talismans and bagua mirrors and advised her to bury Xiang Kai’s remains. Pan Xiaorou planned to bail Meng Yifan out and rewarded Seventh Master with a gold bar, while her growing interest in Song Xiaotian left the men teasing him.

• Song Xiaotian forced Xiang Kai out of the narrator’s body, leaving both men injured as Pan Xiaorou rushed to tend Song Xiaotian’s wound.
• The narrator fetched Seventh Master, who explained that Xiang Kai’s unburied remains kept his spirit returning home and urged Pan Xiaorou to arrange a burial.
• Song Xiaotian told Pan Xiaorou to bail Meng Yifan out before collecting Xiang Kai’s remains, and she agreed to handle it the next day.
• Seventh Master put talismans on the villa’s doors and had the narrator hang bagua mirrors at its windows, then completed a final rite at the entrance.
• The narrator and Seventh Master teased Song Xiaotian about Pan Xiaorou’s attention, and she offered Seventh Master a gold bar as thanks.

After Song Xiaotian stayed overnight to protect Pan Xiaorou, the narrator and the Seventh Master speculated about her interest in him and spotted a hostile man watching her villa. The next day, Pan Xiaorou secured Meng Yifan’s release on bail for tomorrow, while Song Xiaotian planned to save the chance to have Du Yunting detained until just before the bidding.

• Pan Xiaorou asked one of the men to stay with her, and the narrator persuaded Song Xiaotian to keep her company.
• The narrator and the Seventh Master noticed a hostile man in a Mercedes-Benz watching Pan Xiaorou’s villa and warned Song Xiaotian about him.
• The Seventh Master guessed that Pan Xiaorou was drawn to Song Xiaotian, who had flirted with her, and called the situation his peach blossom tribulation.
• The narrator went to sleep after returning to Meng Yifan’s place, then found Song Xiaotian dozing at the shop the next day.
• Song Xiaotian took a call from Pan Xiaorou and learned that Meng Yifan could be released on bail tomorrow, while they planned to delay having Du Yunting detained until the day before the bidding.

The narrator learned that Pan Xiaorou had helped secure Meng Yifan’s release, while Song Xiaotian struggled with her romantic attention and the Peach Blossom Tribulation Seventh Master warned about. That night, Pan Xiaorou called to report that Xiang Kai’s soul had returned, and Song Xiaotian and the narrator hurried to investigate.

• Song Xiaotian told the narrator that Pan Xiaorou’s video had persuaded the police to release Meng Yifan, and that Xiang Kai’s body had been sent to the funeral home.
• Song Xiaotian admitted Pan Xiaorou had invited him to dinner, and the narrator teased him about her affection while he insisted he would never marry a widow.
• The narrator and Seventh Master discussed Song Xiaotian’s dinner with Pan Xiaorou, and Seventh Master warned that rejecting her could bring Song Xiaotian romantic misfortune.
• The narrator told Seventh Master that Meng Yifan would be released the next day, and they agreed to pick him up from the detention center.
• Song Xiaotian returned home drunk after dinner with Pan Xiaorou and fell asleep, but her call soon woke him.
• Pan Xiaorou told Song Xiaotian that Xiang Kai’s soul had returned, so he and the narrator prepared to go to her villa.