Chapter Summaries

After inheriting Su Mei Island and taking charge of his struggling household, Tang Wen discovered a mysterious space that transported him to a modern parallel world. There, he intervened when a fleeing criminal threatened a child.

• Tang Wen recalled his family's decline and learned that his mother, Liu Qingmei, had declared Su Mei Island his and entrusted him with the household.
• Tang Wen let Liu Mu and Wu Yuan leave with their indentures and travel money, while the other servants pledged to stay.
• A system message revealed Tang Wen had gained 14 points of human presence and activated the great landlord space, which transported him to the Great Eastern Republic.
• Tang Wen evaded police checking identity cards and told a couple he was an extra wearing a costume.
• When a dagger-wielding fugitive tried to seize the boy Luo Lin as a hostage, Tang Wen kicked him into a car.

After rescuing Luo Lin, Tang Wen befriended the Luo family, obtained identity documents and supplies, and returned to Su Mei Island with silver and provisions. He began improving the island settlement, but on the way to Yanling Commandery, he and his companions were confronted by men demanding a toll at the bridge.

• Tang Wen rescued Luo Lin from a criminal, then joined Luo Tiesheng's family for lunch and gave Luo Jun pills that increased his strength.
• Luo Jun arranged Tang Wen's identity documents, and the Luo family provided him with a phone, money, and credit.
• Tang Wen learned about Water Blue Star, bought silver and supplies, and returned to Su Mei Island after the system required him to gather thirty units of human presence.
• Tang Wen and the islanders built six tents to replace their fragile thatched huts.
• Tang Wen took Li Quan and Zhang Kui toward Yanling Commandery to exchange silver for gold, but refugees at the bridge demanded payment and then attacked after Tang Wen refused.

Tang Wen used a prop gun to stop refugees from blocking his bridge, then recruited sixty-two people into the Tang household. Their popularity empowered him to break through his acupoints and reach the middle stage of the ninth rank.

• Tang Wen frightened the refugees with a prop gun, and their leader Zhan Dongwen explained that hunger had driven them to block the bridge.
• Tang Wen offered the refugees food, shelter, and wages in exchange for joining the Tang household, and sixty-two people came with their families.
• Zhan Dongwen’s family agreed to become bonded servants if Tang Wen cured their ill father, Zhan Shifeng, and the other refugees also signed bonds.
• The great landlord system awarded Tang Wen sixty-two streams of popularity, raising his popularity index to 76 and making a second journey through space and time available.
• Tang Wen guided the popularity energy through his body with the Lineage's Six Profound Return-to-Truth Art, broke through several acupoints, and reached the middle stage of the ninth rank.

Tang Wen brought refugees and supplies to Yanling Commandery, tested Zhan Dongwen’s loyalty, and arranged sales of Western novelties before returning to Su Mei Island. He insisted that everyone be fed, reassuring his mother that he had enough gold to provide for them.

• Tang Wen exchanged silver for gold, gave Zhan Dongwen money to buy clothing and transport, and trusted him to return with the purchases.
• Tang Wen asked Li Chun’er to sell mirrors, lipstick, and perfume, then bought pills and martial techniques at a martial arts hall.
• Zhan Dongwen returned with the goods and a detailed account of his spending, and Tang Wen praised his trustworthiness.
• Back on Su Mei Island, Tang Wen ordered a feast despite concerns about the famine and told Liu Qingmei he had gold to support the household.
• Tang Wen’s group cooked a meal, served the elderly, women, and children first, and ate together.

Tang Wen organized an estate guard on Su Mei Island and discovered that his damaged system could open only its first gate. After crossing to the Great Eastern Republic, he met Luo Jun and his associates to arrange blades and discuss selling more pills.

• Tang Wen told Zhan Dongwen to form an estate guard, and Li Quan distributed refined-steel sabers to the men.
• Zhan Dongwen assigned guards to patrol Su Mei Island, while Tang Wen refused Zhan Junru's offer to serve as his personal maid.
• At midnight, Tang Wen saw that his popularity index was 76 and learned that he needed 1,000 points to open the next gate.
• Tang Wen crossed to Yunhai City, returned Luo Jun's call, and met him at the Orchid Pavilion Club with Song Qingyang and Zhang Zhongjing.
• Luo Jun introduced Song Qingyang as a blade-factory owner, while Zhang Zhongjing asked Tang Wen to sell him more pills.

Tang Wen sold pills and cultivation techniques in the Great Eastern Republic, bought supplies and weapons, then returned to the Chu Kingdom. There, he found Zhan Junru shivering outside his tent and began teaching her about his modern belongings while she insisted on serving him.

• Tang Wen sold Zhang Zhongjing pills and cultivation arts, earning a large sum while Luo Jun and Song Qingyang watched.
• Song Qingyang took Tang Wen to his blade factory, where Tang ordered custom blades, crossbows, and daggers.
• Tang Wen sold gold, bought silver and supplies, and crossed back to the Chu Kingdom after the weapons were completed.
• Tang Wen found Zhan Junru shivering outside his tent because she had been told to attend to him, and he brought her inside and lent her warm clothes.
• Zhan Junru promised to keep Tang Wen's secrets and tried modern food as he taught her to use several household items.
• Tang Wen furnished and divided his tent into guest and sleeping rooms for Zhan Junru and himself.

Tang Wen planned to win over Su Mei Island’s residents by providing food and improving irrigation, then discovered a silver mine hidden beneath the Tang family’s ruined residences. He suspected Steward Jiang Chang had conspired with pirates to conceal the mine, while Li Quan and Zhang Kui returned with the exchanged gold.

• Tang Wen gave Li Quan eight thousand taels of silver to exchange for gold and assigned Zhan Dongwen to organize construction and investigate the island’s residents.
• Tang Wen told Zhan Dongwen to recruit people gradually, repair roads, rebuild the dam at Crouching Dragon Lake, and distribute porridge to attract starving refugees.
• Sun Ping reported that workers had uncovered a hidden cave, and Tang Wen and Zhan Dongwen explored its passage and vast cavern.
• Tang Wen recognized the rocks as silver ore and suspected Jiang Chang had secretly mined the Tang family’s silver with help from the pirates.
• Li Quan and Zhang Kui returned from Yanling City with eight hundred taels of gold.

Tang Wen recruited refugees into his household, absorbed their human energy, and made another journey to the Great Eastern Republic to obtain supplies and engineering plans. He returned to Crouching Dragon Lake ready to rebuild its dam, but arrived amid a battle.

• Tang Wen distributed swords, sabers, and crossbows to his guards and had them train.
• Tang Wen used staged refugees to draw people to his free porridge, then recruited servants and laborers by offering food, pay, and shelter.
• Zhao Du sold himself and brought his family to Tang Wen’s household, while dozens of other men followed.
• The human energy from the seventy-two new household members raised Tang Wen’s martial arts realm to late ninth grade and enabled another journey.
• Tang Wen sold gold in Yunhai City, bought supplies and hydraulic plans, and returned with three hundred tons of cargo, including cement for rebuilding Crouching Dragon Lake’s dam.
• The system announced that Tang Wen needed one hundred strands of human energy for his fourth journey, and he heard fighting as he returned.

Tang Wen repelled a nighttime attack on the Tang household camp, but two servants died and the attackers escaped. He planned stronger defenses and promised the bereaved families support and revenge, as the camp’s people rallied behind him.

• Tang Wen used his ability to distinguish household servants from intruders and killed several attackers with his crossbow, driving the rest away.
• Zhan Dongwen reported five or six wounded and two servants dead, while Zhao Du said one attacker had escaped into the sea.
• Tang Wen rejected a search that would split up his small force and proposed fencing in the camp with wire mesh and building watchtowers.
• Tang Wen addressed the gathered residents, honored the dead servants, and offered their widows silver and the option to leave the island.
• Tian Xiuer and Zhou Xue chose to join the Tang household with their children and asked Tang Wen to avenge their husbands, while Zhao Du and Zhan Dongwen urged the crowd to unite behind him.

Tang Wen organized construction, clothing production, and guard training while learning that war with Great Qin was worsening and refugees were arriving in Yanling. Sun Ping then revealed that more than a hundred refugees were hiding nearby after hearing rumors that Tang Wen would enslave and abuse them.

• Tang Wen arranged construction work, continued distributing porridge, and sent Li Quan to exchange silver for gold in Yanling.
• Tang Wen gave Zhan Junru fabric and made her head a sewing team to prepare clothes for the workers and their families.
• Li Quan returned with 3,000 taels of gold and reported that fighting with Great Qin was escalating, prices were rising, and refugees were moving south.
• Tang Wen ordered Zhao Du to recruit and train more guards, then learned from Sun Ping that over a hundred refugees were hiding nearby and feared being enslaved by the Tang family.
• Tang Wen asked Sun Ping to investigate the refugees and rewarded him with three packets of instant noodles for his family.

Tang Wen developed plans for a clothing business, a larger lake, and recruiting refugees while strengthening his camp. After learning that the rival Gu Family was weakened by its sick mistress and rumors about Tang Wen, he decided to keep feeding refugees and wait for its people to defect.

• Tang Wen gave Zhan Dongwen instant noodles for his family and ordered scouts to investigate the war and prices in Yanling Commandery.
• Tang Wen supervised workers setting tree trunks in cement for wire fencing, while casual laborers traded their wages for rice.
• Tang Wen found Liu Qingmei, Li Lanyue, and other women making clothes, then put Zhan Junru in charge of a future clothing workshop.
• Tang Wen discussed raising the dam to expand Crouching Dragon Lake and turning it into a fish- and lotus-filled lake.
• Sun Ping reported that Gu Hanyan was gravely ill, the Gu Family was unsettled, and rumors were discouraging people from joining Tang Wen.
• Tang Wen told his men to continue distributing porridge and add meat, planning to wait for Gu Family members to defect before confronting them over the fields.

Tang Wen discovered Zhan Junru’s natural appearance and oversaw the growth of his camp before gaining enough popularity to make another traversal. After returning with supplies and plans, he organized security, training, and construction of a fortified dam.

• Tang Wen found Zhan Junru asleep without her disguise and learned that medicine from a martial arts school had changed her appearance.
• Tang Wen’s camp gained fencing, watchtowers, and organized tents, while more workers joined the Tang household for better food, clothing, and shelter.
• Tang Wen accumulated enough popularity to trigger his fourth traversal, and his cultivation, strength, and luggage capacity increased.
• Tang Wen returned to Yunhai City, purchased weapons, construction materials, loaders, and other supplies, and brought them back to the Great Chu Kingdom.
• Tang Wen appointed Zhao Du chief guard, tasked Li Quan with buying pills and martial arts manuals, and assigned Zhan Dongwen to construct a reinforced dam according to his plans.

Tang Wen received a visit from Ge Ziyun and a formidable Gu family fighter, who challenged his claim to the island. After the fighter displayed his strength, Tang Wen countered with a concealed crossbow and left the confrontation unresolved.

• Tang Wen gave Li Quan eighty thousand taels to exchange for gold and kept twenty thousand in reserve, while recognizing that his household still needed a trusted chief steward.
• Ge Ziyun arrived with a dozen Gu family members, and his bamboo-hatted companion knocked aside Tang Wen's guards before Tang Wen allowed both men into his tent.
• Ge Ziyun questioned Tang Wen's noble title and his claim to the island, while his companion dismissed him as a penniless noble on an abandoned island.
• The bamboo-hatted man split Tang Wen's solid-wood tea table with a palm strike, revealing himself as an eighth-grade martial artist.
• Tang Wen fired his compact crossbow to shatter the teacups, then challenged the man to test whether his iron hat could stop the bolts; the man refused, and Tang Wen told him he could leave.

Tang Wen used his crossbow to establish his authority, then examined the bedridden Gu Hanyan despite her companions’ suspicions. He diagnosed her with malaria and claimed treating her would cost tens of thousands of taels, while Ge Ziyun warned that the man must not go to Yanling Commandery because the Six Fan Gate had been seen there.

• Tang Wen riddled Flying Cat’s iron hat with crossbow bolts, showed Ge Ziyun the deed to Su Mei Island, and insisted Gu Hanyan be brought to him for examination.
• Ge Ziyun returned with Gu Hanyan carried on a door panel, and Tang Wen’s medical examination provoked protests from her companions.
• Tang Wen measured Gu Hanyan’s temperature at forty degrees and diagnosed her with malaria after hearing about her recurring chills and fever.
• Tang Wen said treating Gu Hanyan would cost several tens of thousands of taels, and the man offered to seek the money despite Ge Ziyun’s warning about the Six Fan Gate in Yanling Commandery.

Tang Wen agreed to save Gu Hanyan’s family from illness in exchange for the Gu group joining his household and Gu Hanyan becoming his personal maid. After recruiting them, he strengthened his guards and returned to Yunhai City to acquire supplies and equipment for building a modern fighting force.

• Qiao Xiao and Ge Ziyun pleaded for Tang Wen to pay the silver needed to save Gu Hanyan, and Tang Wen offered to help if the group entered his service.
• Tang Wen warned that Gu Hanyan’s family had contracted the same illness, and she agreed to become his personal maid so he would save them.
• Ge Ziyun wrote the contracts, and the Gu Family’s group joined the Tang household, raising Tang Wen’s Popularity enough to improve his cultivation and travel capacity.
• Tang Wen appointed Qiao Xiao chief instructor and reorganized his household guards into a force of forty men.
• Tang Wen traveled to Yunhai City for money, supplies, and military equipment, then returned with five hundred tons of supplies.

Tang Wen expanded his island’s defenses and infrastructure while waiting for enough popularity points to reactivate the Great Landlord System. After his mirror, lipstick, and perfume trade became a sensation in Yanling Commandery, he began the Crouching Dragon Lake dam project and explained that a stepped reservoir system would supply the camp with water.

• Tang Wen established the War Fox intelligence unit under Bu Feng, arranged special operations training facilities, and had Ge Ziyun lead workers in widening the island’s main road.
• After the road was completed, Tang Wen worried that he had recruited only about fifty people and still lacked the two hundred popularity points needed to reactivate the Great Landlord System.
• Gu Hanyan told Tang Wen she was ready to fulfill her duties as his servant, and he arranged for their tent to be divided into three rooms.
• Li Quan returned with two hundred taels of gold and reported that Li Chun'er had sold all three batches of mirrors, lipsticks, and perfumes; Tang Wen sent him to deliver the remaining goods at the same prices.
• Tang Wen began the Crouching Dragon Lake dam project and showed Zhan Dongwen and Ge Ziyun the stepped concrete reservoirs he had built to supply the camp with household water.

Tang Wen completed a system of filtered running water, latrines, and showers for the camp, astonishing its residents. As Gu Hanyan and her companions speculated about his strange abilities and discussed her hidden identity, Tang Wen noticed his popularity had fallen and learned the space would reward him with a popularity eye at higher thresholds.

• Tang Wen directed over a hundred workers as they installed pipes, latrines, laundry troughs, and showers, then dammed the stream to supply the camp with running water.
• Zhan Dongwen, Zhan Junru, and the other residents praised the new facilities, while Gu Hanyan, Ge Ziyun, and Qiao Xiao wondered whether Tang Wen knew the Mountain-Moving Art or belonged to the Gongsun Lineage.
• Gu Hanyan told Ge Ziyun and Qiao Xiao that she intended to seek revenge and protect her younger siblings, and the three quietly dispersed to avoid arousing suspicion.
• Tang Wen received a notice that his popularity had dropped by three, from 388 to 385, and wondered whether recruits had betrayed him.
• The Great Landlord Space announced that it would grant Tang Wen a tenth-rank popularity eye at 600 popularity and upgrade it to ninth rank at 1,000.

Tang Wen recruited more than 180 disaster refugees, fed them, and began evaluating them for sale contracts and service in his estate. Their contracts gave him enough popularity to advance his cultivation and activate his sixth crossing, and he formed a tenth-rank popularity eye.

• Tang Wen failed to see anyone’s popularity and told Zhang Kui and Li Quan to watch for suspicious behavior and protect his mother.
• Tang Wen cultivated with the Origin-Harvesting Return-to-Truth Art and a Foundation-Nourishing Pill while reflecting on his servants’ martial progress and trustworthiness.
• Li Quan brought Tang Wen news that Bu Feng had recruited more than 180 disaster refugees, and Tang Wen welcomed them with food.
• Zhan Zhao demonstrated his strength and agreed to sell himself to the Tang family if Tang Wen would try to cure his sick cousin Luo Yue.
• After the refugees signed sale contracts, Tang Wen gained more than 200 strands of popularity, advanced to early eighth rank, and activated his sixth spacetime crossing.
• The space announced that Tang Wen had formed a free tenth-rank popularity eye.

Tang Wen used his newly awakened Popularity Eye to identify three guards plotting against him and forced two of them to reveal a plan to open the rear gate for intruders. He prepared an ambush, and when dozens of attackers entered at night, his men illuminated the camp and struck them with crossbows.

• Tang Wen discovered that his Popularity Eye revealed people's changing loyalties, then lost sight of the wisps when his internal energy ran out.
• Tang Wen learned that Li Yu, Liu Dang, and Zhang Sheng were plotting to open the rear gate in exchange for silver.
• Tang Wen interrogated the three men, and Li Yu and Zhang Sheng confessed that they had been paid to let the intruders in.
• Tang Wen ordered Li Yu and Zhang Sheng to act as bait while his men prepared an ambush, and he had Liu Dang bound and gagged when his loyalty still pointed away from him.
• At one in the morning, Li Yu and Zhang Sheng opened the rear gate for a group of about sixty or seventy men in black.
• Tang Wen's men lit torches and fired crossbows, bringing down more than half of the intruders.

Tang Wen defeated the attackers on Su Mei Island, punished the traitors, and strengthened his defenses before returning to Yunhai City to establish a trading company and buy supplies. The chapter ended with the system requiring 250 Popularity for his seventh crossing.

• Tang Wen’s guards defeated the attackers, though more than a dozen of his men were injured, and the surviving enemies killed themselves rather than surrender.
• Tang Wen ordered the estate guard expanded to sixty men and sent Bu Feng to report the attack to Yanling Commandery.
• Tang Wen spared Li Yu and Zhang Sheng but handed Liu Dang over to the authorities for colluding with pirates.
• Tang Wen met Luo Jun in Yunhai City, sold pills to him, and took over Hengjiang Trading Company to legitimize his gold and silver transactions.
• Tang Wen sold gold, paid taxes, and bought weapons, medical equipment, construction materials, and other supplies for his estate.
• The system announced that Tang Wen needed to accumulate 250 points of Popularity for his seventh crossing.