Chapter Summaries

Xiao Hua visited Fan Yueguan’s family and gave Old Madam Zhu two Wutuodan to treat the illnesses afflicting Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi'er. After examining Zhu Xi'er and Old Madam Zhu, he learned that the family’s chronic ailment came from a talismanic curse, and Old Madam Zhu offered him the Zhu family’s heirloom booklet, which held a long-hidden cultivation secret.

• Old Madam Zhu and Fan Yueguan’s family knelt to thank Xiao Hua, who helped the elderly woman up and gave her two Wutuodan for Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi'er.
• Xiao Hua shared spiritual fruit with Zhu Xi'er and examined her and Old Madam Zhu, then told Fan Yueguan to take his wife and daughter inside to take the medicine.
• Old Madam Zhu explained that her family’s illness came from a talismanic curse and showed Xiao Hua their heirloom booklet about the curse and the family’s history.
• Old Madam Zhu revealed that the booklet contained a cultivation secret left by her ancestors and gave it to Xiao Hua as thanks.

Xiao Hua accepted the Zhu family’s ancient book after realizing Old Madam Zhu’s words about karma explained their encounter. When Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi’er suddenly suffered the talisman curse’s backlash, he restrained them and said the curse was gradually breaking, though they still had to endure the pain.

• Old Madam Zhu told Xiao Hua how the generational talisman curse had devastated the Zhu family and how her family’s filial devotion led them to give him the book.
• Old Madam Zhu persuaded Xiao Hua to accept the book, and he promised to return if he could uncover its secrets.
• Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi’er began bleeding and screaming in pain, and Xiao Hua rushed into the hall to help them.
• Xiao Hua examined Zhu Feng, recognized that the curse was diminishing but causing a painful backlash, and tapped acupoints to stop both women from struggling.
• Xiao Hua told Old Madam Zhu and Fan Yueguan that Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi’er would need to endure the pain until the curse-breaking process passed.

After healing Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi'er, Xiao Hua studied the Zhu family's book and explored the mysterious trace in his space. He accidentally experienced the starry sky's profound trajectories, found that his spiritual power had greatly increased, and realized the experience could speed up his cultivation.

• Xiao Hua finished treating Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi'er, then accepted Fan Yueguan's thanks and went to rest in a room prepared for him.
• Xiao Hua read Old Madam Zhu's book and found a history of the Zhu family's curse alongside failed methods to break it, each of which had cost a human life.
• Xiao Hua sensed the faint trace associated with karma in his space but could not perceive it clearly enough to comprehend it.
• Xiao Hua turned his consciousness toward the starry sky in his space and experienced its profound trajectories until dawn.
• Xiao Hua awoke, discovered that his spiritual power had increased dramatically, and suspected that experiencing the starry sky could make his cultivation far faster.

After helping Fan Yueguan’s family with the Zhu family’s curse, Xiao Hua returned to Jingbo City and resumed cultivating through Heavenly Dao comprehension. He went to the market fair, where he found cultivators gathering among rows of stalls.

• Xiao Hua checked Zhu Feng and Zhu Xi'er and told Fan Yueguan that their condition matched Old Madam Zhu's, while Fan Yueguan believed the curse had likely been broken.
• Xiao Hua left town with Fan Yueguan, crossed the formation protecting the lakeside area, and warned him to keep the pills secret before they parted.
• Xiao Hua rented a room at a more upscale inn, examined the high-grade talisman paper gifted by the Talisman Refining Sect, and cultivated through the night.
• Xiao Hua asked an attendant for directions and walked to Jingbo City's market fair, where he saw a large square crowded with cultivators and stalls.

Xiao Hua visited a market for the first time and watched Fu He sell cheap Mihuan by persuading a female cultivator to buy one. Fu He ultimately gave Xiao Hua a Mihuan in exchange for four top-grade Fireball Talismans, and the two exchanged names before Fu He resumed selling.

• Xiao Hua arrived at the market and hurried to Fu He's stall after hearing that Mihuan cost only ten high-grade spirit stones.
• Fu He defended his inexpensive Mihuan against skeptical cultivators and convinced a female cultivator to buy one for five high-grade spirit stones.
• Xiao Hua examined a Mihuan and told Fu He that he had no spirit stones, but could offer a trade.
• Fu He gave Xiao Hua a Mihuan after saying he sympathized with his hardships, and Xiao Hua offered four Fireball Talismans in return.
• Fu He recognized the talismans as top-grade, accepted them, and learned that Xiao Hua was named Xiao Hua before calling out to another customer.

Xiao Hua bought talisman-crafting supplies by trading old spirit herbs, then found a stall offering a flawed Confinement Talisman method for ten Qi Nurturing Pills. A cultivator who inspected the method revealed that it lacked the rune-inscription instructions, leaving Xiao Hua to judge whether the offer was worthwhile.

• Xiao Hua argued with an arrogant young Xunyan Sect disciple, then put on his Mihuan and left.
• Xiao Hua traded old spirit herbs to two Rogue Cultivators for talisman ink, paper, and a brush, and learned that talisman-making methods were difficult to obtain.
• Xiao Hua discovered a stall offering a flawed Confinement Talisman crafting method in exchange for ten Qi Nurturing Pills.
• A male cultivator inspected the method and left, complaining that it lacked instructions for inscribing the talisman runes and could not be used to refine the talisman.

Xiao Hua learned why a Confinement Talisman crafting method without its inscription method was incomplete, then traded two-hundred-year-old spirit herbs for the booklet. He continued through the market and found a small stall displaying unfamiliar spirit herbs.

• Xiao Hua asked an elderly cultivator about the flaw in the Confinement Talisman method and learned that high-grade yellow talismans required a specific inscription method.
• Xiao Hua approached the female cultivator and offered two-hundred-year-old Spirit Gathering Fruits and Zhe Wu Grass in exchange for her Confinement Talisman crafting booklet.
• Xiao Hua completed the trade and asked whether the female cultivator had an Ice Thorn Talisman method, but declined her price of a hundred high-grade spirit stones or a Foundation Establishment Pill.
• Xiao Hua searched more market stalls for cultivation, alchemy, and talisman methods but found none.
• Xiao Hua noticed a small stall with many unfamiliar spirit herbs and greeted its owner, who offered each herb for one low-grade spirit stone.

Xiao Hua met Ling Zongyu of the Grass Spirit Sect and arranged to buy spirit herb seeds, then returned to his inn to practice drawing a low-grade Fireball Talisman for entry into Heaven Abandon. The chapter ended with Xiao Hua beginning to draw the talisman.

• Xiao Hua approached Ling Zongyu to ask about buying spirit herb seeds, and the two introduced themselves after discussing their shared interest in herbs.
• Ling Zongyu showed Xiao Hua his Herbal Codex, and Xiao Hua recognized Blazing Sun Grass as Sun Grass despite having no clear source for the name.
• Ling Zongyu agreed to request seeds from his sect and told Xiao Hua to return in three days, while Xiao Hua asked him to bring every kind of seed, even ones that could no longer sprout.
• Xiao Hua left the market, returned to his inn, and booked a room for five days.
• Xiao Hua prepared talisman ink and paper and began drawing a low-grade Fireball Talisman to meet Heaven Abandon's joining requirement.

Xiao Hua struggled to draw talismans with a brush but discovered that coordinating both hands let him refine a high-grade Immobilization Talisman. After three days of cultivation and talisman-making, he left the inn and entered the market, still intending to seek spiritual herb seeds and improve his brush-drawing skills.

• Xiao Hua failed twenty times to draw a Fireball Talisman with a talisman brush, then successfully refined one using his fingers.
• Xiao Hua experimented with the Immobilization Talisman's complex runes and discovered that drawing them with both hands kept the spiritual qi from dispersing.
• Xiao Hua completed and refined an Immobilization Talisman, finding that the process also increased his spiritual power.
• Xiao Hua spent three days in the inn cultivating and refining all his talisman paper and ink into Fireball and Immobilization Talismans, though he still could not draw a Fireball Talisman with a brush.
• Xiao Hua entered the market in disguise and recognized the young cultivator selling Daoist robes.

Xiao Hua collected the spirit herb seeds he had ordered from Ling Zongyu and planted them in his space. He then discovered a sparsely attended area of the gathering market, where a cultivator was selling demonic artifacts, and watched with curiosity as the other buyers rejected them.

• Xiao Hua spoke with Zhao Yan, who explained that the robes and Mihuan were crude magical artifacts and that the Seven Wonders Sect was known for artifact refining.
• Ling Zongyu gave Xiao Hua a storage pouch filled with spirit herb seeds, and Xiao Hua paid him the agreed spirit stones.
• Xiao Hua placed the seeds in his space and directed the puppets to plant them in the medicinal fields.
• Xiao Hua found a quiet part of the market where a black and gaunt cultivator set up a stall and paid Jingbo City’s ten-spirit-stone entrance fee.
• The black and gaunt cultivator announced that he was selling demonic artifacts for one supreme-grade spirit stone each, but the nearby cultivators examined the items and walked away.
• Xiao Hua watched the dark artifacts from a distance, curious because he had never seen demonic artifacts before.

Xiao Hua was coerced by a dark, skinny cultivator into trading away the contents of his storage pouch for a demonic artifact. After the cultivator took his belongings and returned the empty pouch, Xiao Hua had to choose an artifact from the stall.

• The dark, skinny cultivator saw through Xiao Hua’s disguise and called him over, promising to reveal his name if Xiao Hua helped him.
• The cultivator demanded that Xiao Hua buy one of his demonic artifacts, while the other shoppers had disappeared from the area.
• Xiao Hua protested that he could not afford an artifact and had no use for one, but the cultivator threatened him if he left without buying.
• The cultivator took Xiao Hua’s storage pouch, selected its spirit herbs and spirit stones, and returned the pouch empty.
• Xiao Hua reluctantly examined the demonic artifacts and settled his gaze on a broken spearhead.

Xiao Hua traded his belongings to Xi Wuming for a strange, extraordinarily heavy spearhead that could break through formation restrictions, then secured it in the space in his mind. He went on to replenish his alchemy supplies at an Imperial Pill Sect stall, exchanging aged spirit herbs for talismans, saltpeter, and medicinal pills.

• Xi Wuming took Xiao Hua's talisman-making supplies and gave him a cracked demonic spearhead, then vanished after introducing himself as Xi Wuming of Mingcui Mountain.
• The spearhead fell from Xiao Hua's hand and broke the market's ground restrictions, revealing its tremendous weight and giving him an idea about breaking techniques with brute force.
• Xiao Hua lifted the spearhead easily, found it too heavy for his worn storage pouch, and moved it into the space in his mind.
• Xiao Hua left the market area and sought replacement alchemy supplies at a stall run by a brother and sister from the Imperial Pill Sect.
• Xiao Hua exchanged several spirit herbs more than two hundred years old for alchemy talismans and saltpeter, then offered another herb to obtain one of each kind of medicinal pill.

Xiao Hua struggled to obtain pill formulas and pay for talisman-making supplies, then discovered a way to use less ink while refining talismans and earned hundreds of mid-grade spirit stones. As he continued trading in Jingbo City and wondered whether Heaven's Abandonment would recruit him, an unknown cultivator began following him into the fair.

• Xiao Hua failed to exchange for pill formulas, then spent a used mid-grade spirit stone on talisman-making supplies after learning it was worth only eighty low-grade spirit stones.
• Xiao Hua reduced the ink needed for Fireball Talismans, increasing his ink efficiency by thirty percent and improving his spiritual power control.
• Xiao Hua spent several days refining and trading talismans, earning several hundred mid-grade spirit stones, while worrying that revealing his spiritual herbs might attract the Hundred Herbs Sect.
• Xiao Hua considered giving up on Heaven's Abandonment and relying on himself, but left the decision open while heading to the trading fair.
• A Qi Cultivation fourth layer cultivator watched Xiao Hua enter the fair and followed him as Xiao Hua headed toward its deeper stalls.

Xiao Hua sold 230 Binding Talismans to the black, skinny old man for 290 mid-grade spirit stones and considered whether pill formulas could be traded for future batches. After Xiao Hua left, a disguised cultivator noticed the talismans and began calculating how much profit they could bring.

• Xiao Hua bought talisman materials and sold 230 Binding Talismans to the black, skinny old man for 290 mid-grade spirit stones.
• Xiao Hua asked whether the old man could provide pill formulas, then left the stall and watched it from a secluded spot.
• The black, skinny old man put the Binding Talismans on display and offered them to a disguised cultivator and other customers at a higher price.
• The disguised cultivator left without looking back, then circled around and searched the area while thinking about Xiao Hua’s spirit stones.
• Xiao Hua followed a familiar voice to a crowd gathered around a stall piled with assorted objects.

Xiao Hua intervened when a Rogue Cultivator and his accomplice tried to trick a young Xunyan Sect disciple into trading away his storage pouch for an ordinary jade pendant. He seized the boy’s wrist just as the boy was about to surrender it, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

• A Rogue Cultivator falsely claimed that the boy’s ordinary jade pendant was a valuable jade talisman and demanded a top-grade spirit stone or valuable goods for it.
• The Rogue Cultivator pressured the boy to trade sect belongings, pills, or pill formulas, while the boy refused and insisted the pendant was not a talisman.
• A second cultivator offered his storage pouch for the pendant and helped the Rogue Cultivator persuade the boy to give it up.
• The boy finally began to untie his own storage pouch, but Xiao Hua seized his wrist and scolded him for lingering at the stall.
• Xiao Hua recognized the second cultivator as the Rogue Cultivator’s accomplice and intervened to stop the boy from being deceived.

Xiao Hua intervened when Xiao Mao was being deceived at a market stall, then learned that Xiao Mao’s senior brother Zhuo Qingyuan had been watching the boy’s test of character. Zhuo Qingyuan struck Xiao Hua for hitting Xiao Mao, but Xiao Hua left angrily as Zhuo sent a crimson streak of light after him.

• Xiao Hua seized Xiao Mao, exposed the stall owner’s scheme, and stopped him from handing over his belongings.
• Xiao Mao threatened Xiao Hua, then realized the stall owner and another cultivator had been working together and began to understand Xiao Hua’s warning.
• Zhuo Qingyuan appeared, reprimanded Xiao Mao for failing his test, and ordered him to return to Xunyan Mountain.
• Zhuo Qingyuan questioned Xiao Hua’s motives, then struck him and noticed that his power exceeded what his apparent second-layer cultivation suggested.
• Xiao Hua left in anger, and Zhuo Qingyuan sent a crimson streak of light after him.

Xiao Hua learned that obtaining a pill furnace as a Rogue Cultivator would be difficult, then hurried with Zhang Zhihao to meet Tianqi members about his possible admission. At a secluded mountain hollow, Xiao Hua realized Zhang Zhihao might have lured him into a trap, but Zhang attacked before he could react.

• Xiao Hua bought supplies and asked a female cultivator where he could obtain a pill furnace, but she said Rogue Cultivators could not compete for one.
• Zhang Zhihao found Xiao Hua outside the market and said Ma Dengsheng had sent him to bring Xiao Hua to meet Tianqi members.
• Xiao Hua worried about his Fireball Talisman skills as he followed Zhang Zhihao out of Jingbo City toward the meeting place.
• Zhang Zhihao and Xiao Hua arrived at a desolate mountain hollow, where no Tianqi members were waiting.
• Xiao Hua suspected Zhang Zhihao had chosen the isolated place to rob or kill him, but Zhang launched a Confinement Talisman at him.

Zhang Zhihao immobilized Xiao Hua and tried to rob and kill him, but Xiao Hua broke free and fought back with talismans. The fight continued in midair as Xiao Hua revealed his strength as a body cultivator and struck Zhang Zhihao from behind.

• Zhang Zhihao immobilized Xiao Hua, stole his storage pouch, and demanded to know where his talismans came from.
• Xiao Hua claimed he had refined the talismans and broke the Immobilization Talisman while Zhang Zhihao laughed at him.
• Xiao Hua used an Ice Spike Talisman to weaken Zhang Zhihao's fireball, then rushed at him while Zhang Zhihao countered with more talismans.
• Zhang Zhihao trapped Xiao Hua in a sea of fire with a Fire Net Talisman and assumed he could not escape.
• Xiao Hua appeared behind Zhang Zhihao and struck the back of his neck, nearly breaking his Iron Cloth Talisman.
• Zhang Zhihao recognized Xiao Hua as a body cultivator and activated another Iron Cloth Talisman and a Fire Net Talisman.

Xiao Hua struggled to overcome Zhang Zhihao’s talisman defenses while preventing him from escaping and revealing Xiao Hua’s abilities. After Zhang Zhihao nearly killed him with a Flying Sword Talisman, Xiao Hua used a hidden demonic spearhead to pierce Zhang Zhihao’s abdomen, leaving his fate uncertain as the spearhead drew blood from his heart meridian.

• Xiao Hua repeatedly attacked Zhang Zhihao with his fists, but Zhang Zhihao used Iron Cloth and Fireball Talismans to keep him at a distance.
• Xiao Hua decided Zhang Zhihao could not be allowed to escape and reveal his secrets, then pursued him as he fled toward Jingbo City.
• Zhang Zhihao unleashed a Flying Sword Talisman, which pierced Xiao Hua’s Weak Water Talisman and forced him to evade while fire engulfed him.
• Xiao Hua emerged from the flames and stabbed Zhang Zhihao in the abdomen with a demonic spearhead, piercing his Iron Cloth Talisman.
• As Zhang Zhihao reached for medicinal pills, a black gleam from the spearhead entered his heart meridian and began drawing out his true blood.

Xiao Hua killed Zhang Zhihao with the demonic spear tip and returned safely to Jingbo City after using an inn talisman to gain entry at night. He reflected on the battle’s risks and his new tactics, and resolved to be more cautious in the dangerous cultivation world.

• Xiao Hua tested Zhang Zhihao with a Fireball Talisman, confirmed he was dead, and burned his body to ashes.
• Xiao Hua collected the demonic spear tip and his belongings, discarded Zhang Zhihao's storage bag, and flew toward Jingbo City.
• At the city gate, Xiao Hua learned that the gates had closed, then showed the guard his inn talisman as proof of entry and entered the city.
• Xiao Hua reflected on how the spear tip, his strength, and his flight speed had helped him defeat Zhang Zhihao, and considered how to improve his tactics.
• Back at the inn, Xiao Hua concluded that the Cultivation World was cruel and that he needed to stay cautious because his victory had depended on unexpected methods.