Chapter Summaries

Qiu Wuji and Chu Ge settled into domestic life as their new home underwent renovations, while Chu Ge finished preparing the Netherworld plot and began setting up Chu Tiange’s return to Heaven Beyond Heaven. The chapter ended with Chu Tiange learning that the Emperor wanted to discuss Heaven Beyond Heaven, suggesting the next conflict was near.

• Qiu Wuji brought home a kitten and groceries, then explained to Chu Ge how the Mortal World had shaped the World Within the Book.
• Qiu Wuji told Chu Ge she was waiting for him to connect the Two Worlds and bring her True Body out as his bride, then initiated an intimate encounter in the kitchen.
• The kitten, revealed to be White Tiger, grumbled about being neglected but gradually found comfort in its new life and watched Zhu Mengmeng train with Vermilion Bird.
• Qiu Wuji oversaw the villa renovations while Chu Ge completed his groundwork for the Netherworld and began writing Chu Tiange’s summons to the Emperor.
• Chu Tiange learned that the Emperor wanted to discuss Heaven Beyond Heaven and wondered whether the battle with the Dao Venerable was about to begin.

Chu Tiange realized that a battle in North America was imminent and that he needed to settle matters in the Heavenly Realm first. The Heavenly Emperor sent him to negotiate with the Dao Venerable over integrating Daoist teachings into imperial rule, and Chu Tiange recognized the deeper conflict was over control of the Heavenly Dao.

• Chu Ge foresaw that changes involving the White Tiger would soon spark a battle in North America, so he pushed Chu Tiange to handle unfinished matters in the Heavenly Realm.
• Chu Tiange visited the Heavenly Emperor and reported that his cultivation had advanced after inheriting the White Tiger's legacy.
• The Heavenly Emperor explained that the Dao Venerable had gained influence as Buddhism weakened and that their interests could still be negotiated.
• The Heavenly Emperor asked Chu Tiange to negotiate for the right to appoint Divine Offices and assign officials to govern the corresponding laws.
• Chu Tiange realized the Heavenly Emperor was not merely opposing the Dao Venerable but competing with the Heavenly Dao for control.

Chu Tiange entered Heaven Beyond Heaven as the Heavenly Emperor’s envoy and met the Four Heavenly Kings, who agreed to report his proposal for an alliance to the Dao Venerable. He began exploring the unfamiliar heaven while awaiting a possible audience.

• Chu Tiange passed through the Heavenly Emperor’s spatial passage and arrived before a gate guarded by four generals.
• Chu Tiange presented his Heavenly Observance Envoy token, and the Four Heavenly Kings invited him into their hall for a welcoming feast.
• Chu Tiange proposed an alliance involving trade and cultural exchange, then hinted that a greater external threat might exist.
• The Four Heavenly Kings said they would report Chu Tiange’s proposal to the Dao Venerable, though they could not promise him an audience.
• Virupaksha encouraged Chu Tiange to explore the different worlds of the Daoist School’s Thirty-Six Heavens.

Chu Ge questioned whether the Four Symbols were truly the source of the world’s spiritual energy and reconsidered Sandru’s motives for targeting them. He left with Qiu Wuji suspecting that gathering the Four Symbols served another, still-unknown objective.

• Chu Ge explained to Qiu Wuji that the Heavenly Realm’s distortions came from the Heavenly Demon invasion and that he hoped Chu Tiange and Qiu Wuji would restore the original setting.
• Chu Ge and Qiu Wuji visited Azure Dragon beneath the East Sea, where Azure Dragon confirmed his bones had healed and described the incomplete state of the other Four Symbols.
• Chu Ge noted that the spiritual energy had not receded even though the Four Symbols were no longer leaking it, aside from White Tiger’s body possibly leaking a little.
• Chu Ge questioned why Sandru’s faction focused on controlling the Four Symbols instead of targeting him, and Azure Dragon agreed that collecting them likely served another central objective.

Chu Ge and Qiu Wuji discussed the Azure Dragon’s warning about the Heavenly Emperor and asked it to teach Qiu Wuji its laws. The Azure Dragon passed its inheritance to Qiu Wuji and agreed to await Chu Ge’s orders.

• Chu Ge concluded that Sandru had ambitions of his own and that Chu Ge’s book had only helped him pursue them.
• The Azure Dragon questioned Chu Ge about ruling the modern world, and Chu Ge explained that he sought transcendence but would still defend his home and country.
• The Azure Dragon revealed that the Heavenly Emperor had tried to persuade it and warned that he might become powerful enough to cross into Chu Ge’s world after unifying the Heavenly Realm.
• The Azure Dragon explained that rebuilding its body could drain the world’s spiritual energy, and Chu Ge said the time was not right.
• Chu Ge asked the Azure Dragon to pass its laws to Qiu Wuji, who explained why she preferred learning insights over accepting the White Tiger’s inheritance.
• The Azure Dragon enveloped Qiu Wuji in azure light and passed its laws to her.

Qiu Wuji returned to the book to face the coming war, while Chu Ge continued writing and monitoring the unfolding contest with the Heavenly Emperor. Chu Tiange reached Tusita Heaven and was summoned to meet the Dao Venerable in the Pill Hall.

• Qiu Wuji told Chu Ge she wanted to take part in the upheavals of the World Within the Book rather than be sidelined, then returned to the book that night.
• Chu Ge wrote as he considered how the Heavenly Emperor was cooperating with the Heavenly Dao while pursuing his own aims.
• Chu Tiange traveled toward Tusita Heaven with the Four Heavenly Kings and questioned them about the heavens’ mixture of Daoist and Buddhist realms.
• The Four Heavenly Kings escorted Chu Tiange to Tusita Heaven, where the boys Jinling and Yinling greeted him.
• The Dao Venerable invited Chu Tiange into the Pill Hall to talk and taste a Nine-Turn Pill.

Chu Tiange met the Dao Venerable in the Pill Hall and discussed the Dao Venerable’s past conflicts and a proposed alliance with the Heavenly Emperor. The Dao Venerable offered Chu Tiange a newly completed Nine-Turn Golden Elixir, leaving him unsure whether to accept it.

• Chu Tiange entered the Pill Hall and sat with the Dao Venerable, who explained that he had fought over the Vermilion Bird and White Tiger to prevent the Buddha Ancestor from gaining too much power.
• The Dao Venerable acknowledged that he had once intended to kill Chu Tiange, while Chu Tiange said he had come as an envoy to discuss an alliance.
• Chu Tiange explained that the Heavenly Emperor wanted to cooperate with the Dao Venerable, potentially unifying the Heavenly Realm under political rule and religious branches.
• The Dao Venerable questioned what the Heavenly Emperor and Heavenly Dao intended for him, then completed his Nine-Turn Golden Elixir and offered it to Chu Tiange.
• Chu Tiange stared at the elixir and wondered whether he dared to taste it.

Chu Tiange rejected the Dao Venerable’s Nine-Turn Golden Elixir and learned why the Dao Venerable refused an alliance with the Heavenly Emperor. As the Dao Venerable upheld the stalemate, Chu Ge began writing Qiu Wuji’s move to establish the Way of Zhenwu, which abruptly changed the Dao Venerable’s expression.

• The Dao Venerable offered Chu Tiange the Nine-Turn Golden Elixir, but Chu Tiange declined it and tied accepting such a treasure to the alliance being formed.
• The Dao Venerable explained that he and Chu Tiange both feared the dangers and loss of control that came with accepting an enticing offer, and he refused to risk an alliance with the Heavenly Emperor.
• The Dao Venerable said an alliance would disrupt the stalemate and create a race to break through, while he preferred to preserve the status quo.
• Chu Ge realized Qiu Wuji could force change by proclaiming her Dao at the Hall of Zhenwu.
• Chu Ge wrote Qiu Wuji absorbing the Four Symbols’ accumulated power, reviving the Tortoise and Snake, transforming the desert into an oasis, and establishing the Way of Zhenwu.
• The Dao Venerable’s composed expression changed drastically as the Way of Zhenwu was established.

Qiu Wuji transformed the northern desert into fertile land and gained a hundred thousand followers as Great Emperor Zhenwu. When the Dao Venerable attacked, she matched his strike with the power of the land and its formation, while Chu Tiange intervened on her behalf; the Dao Venerable withdrew, leaving the crowd to see the clash as the start of Zhenwu’s nation.

• Qiu Wuji transformed ten thousand miles of desert into fertile land and raised Zhenwu’s palace complex there.
• Room Fire Pig revealed himself as a Stellar Mansion, and he and the City Lord led a hundred thousand people in saluting Qiu Wuji as Great Emperor Zhenwu.
• The Dao Venerable sent an ancient sword strike at Qiu Wuji, who met it with Zhenwu’s Sword and the power of the palace formation.
• Chu Tiange attacked the Dao Venerable, declaring that Qiu Wuji was his teacher and that he would not let her be harmed.
• The Dao Venerable’s sword withdrew, and the onlookers believed Zhenwu had driven him back with one strike.

Chu Tiange secured the Dao Venerable’s agreement to an alliance and carried his offer of a seat in Upper Purity Heaven to Qiu Wuji, who refused to submit to either power. After reporting back, Chu Tiange saw the Heavenly Emperor appoint him Emperor of Purple Tenuity, recognizing the move as an attempt to sow discord.

• The Dao Venerable accepted the Heavenly Emperor’s alliance and asked Chu Tiange to offer Zhenwu a seat in Upper Purity Heaven.
• At Zhenwu Hall, Qiu Wuji welcomed Chu Tiange as her disciple and declared that she would bow to no one as a subject.
• Chu Tiange and Qiu Wuji agreed that Xiao Zhu should remain in the Mortal Realm until the danger had passed, and Chu Tiange departed for the Heavenly Court.
• Chu Tiange reported the alliance to the Heavenly Emperor and admitted that seeing his old teacher had made him happy.
• The Heavenly Emperor appointed Chu Tiange Emperor of Purple Tenuity of Central Heaven and allowed him to establish his own divine kingdom.

The Heavenly Emperor appointed Chu Tiange as the Violet Star Great Emperor, hoping to set him against Qiu Wuji. Chu Ge and Qiu Wuji dismissed the threat and agreed to support Chu Tiange, leaving the new appointment as a potential foundation for his future role in the Heavenly Realm.

• The Heavenly Emperor promoted Chu Tiange to Violet Star Great Emperor and offered him a palace and the freedom to choose officials.
• Chu Tiange accepted the appointment but suspected the Heavenly Emperor meant to provoke conflict between him and Qiu Wuji.
• Chu Ge visited Qiu Wuji in her sleeping quarters, and she dismissed the appointment as an attempt to sow discord.
• Chu Ge explained that Qiu Wuji and Chu Tiange might worry about one another's suspicions even though neither wanted to compete for power.
• Chu Ge and Qiu Wuji agreed to congratulate Chu Tiange the next morning.

Chu Tiange moved into the Violet Star Palace and received support and congratulations from Qiu Wuji, Yan Qianlie, the Buddha Kingdom, and the Daoist School. As visitors from across the Heavenly Realm gathered, Chu Ge secretly named Chu Tiange’s great hall Erkang Hall.

• Chu Tiange arrived at the Violet Star Palace and found Qiu Wuji waiting with officials she had reassigned to serve under him.
• Qiu Wuji pledged her support, and Chu Tiange welcomed her officials as family.
• Yan Qianlie arrived with wine to congratulate Chu Tiange, followed by Patriarch Dabei and the Buddha Kingdom, then envoys bearing gifts from the Dao Venerable.
• Immortals from across the Heavenly Realm joined the gathering, while some began to suspect that the Heavenly Dao was backing the four regional emperors against the Heavenly Emperor.
• Chu Ge asked Chu Tiange’s permission to name the great hall and secretly placed a plaque reading “Erkang Hall.”

After Chu Tiange’s playful fight with Chu Ge, the ascenders gathered to discuss how Chu Ge had merged the New and Old Heavenly Realms and why he could not simply create a separate realm. Chu Ge explained that his authority as Heavenly Dao let him define the world despite the Heavenly Emperor’s attempts to isolate it, leaving the group to consider the struggle still underway.

• Chu Tiange wrestled with Chu Ge over the Erkang Hall name, then gave up after realizing Chu Ge’s cultivation had made them nearly evenly matched.
• Chu Ge declared the gathering a meeting of Mortal Realm ascenders, and the group discussed their attachment to the Mortal Realm and their wish to return to Cloudreach Sect.
• Chu Tiange asked whether his appointment as Ziwei Emperor came from Chu Ge’s writing or the Heavenly Emperor, and Chu Ge explained that the old and new versions of the Heavenly Emperor had merged.
• Chu Ge described his original plan to create a separate Heavenly Realm, but said the risk of repeating old conflicts and the Four Symbols’ existing foreshadowing made it unworkable.
• Chu Ge explained that he overlaid new settings onto the Old Heavenly Realm while Qiu Wuji entered it, and said the Heavenly Emperor’s isolation could not remove his authority to define the realm.

Chu Ge explained how his authority as the world’s author let him overwrite the Heavenly Emperor’s setting and how their goals temporarily aligned against Buddhism and Daoism. He concluded that the Heavenly Emperor’s petty attempt to divide Chu Tiange and Qiu Wuji proved he lacked the breadth of spirit to reach Great Luo.

• Chu Ge explained that his setting of the Emperors of the Four Directions gave his authority a stronger claim over the Heavenly Realm than the Heavenly Emperor’s account of its creation.
• Chu Ge said the Heavenly Emperor viewed the other powers as vassals and sought nominal rule over the entire Heavenly Realm as his path to Great Luo.
• Chu Tiange observed that Dabei’s submission and the Dao Venerable’s alliance had ended the conflict between the Heavenly Emperor’s divided selves.
• Chu Ge said the Heavenly Emperor had tried to drive a wedge between Chu Tiange and Qiu Wuji despite appointing Tiange Emperor of the Center and granting him broad authority.
• Chu Ge declared that the Heavenly Emperor’s pettiness meant he would never attain Great Luo.

Chu Ge explained that the Heavenly Emperor’s fixation on reaching Great Luo would likely drive him to attack either the Dao Venerable or Chu Tiange, setting up the final battle in the Heavenly Realm. Back at Zhenwu Palace, Qiu Wuji prepared to break through to Golden Immortal and asked Chu Ge to help her through dual cultivation.

• Chu Ge told the group that the Heavenly Emperor would likely stake everything on a final gamble against the Dao Venerable or Chu Tiange, and Chu Tiange doubted the emperor would target him.
• Qiu Wuji and Chu Ge discussed how Chu Tiange knew he would eventually clash with the Heavenly Emperor but still valued their past bond.
• Chu Ge said the Heavenly Emperor was more likely to target Chu Tiange because he would be an easier opponent than the Dao Venerable.
• Qiu Wuji told Chu Ge that her cultivation had advanced rapidly and that she was close to breaking through to Golden Immortal, but she felt her foundation was unstable.
• Chu Ge explained why Qiu Wuji’s breakthrough was natural, and Qiu Wuji asked him to help her cross the final barrier through dual cultivation.

After Dual Cultivation, Chu Ge realized his cultivation was becoming integrated with the world, while Qiu Wuji prepared to break through and remained in the Heavenly Realm. Back in the Mortal World, Chu Ge learned that Zhong Yi had reported strange events in North America.

• Chu Ge sensed the universe as part of himself and discovered that Dual Cultivation had helped integrate Qiu Wuji’s divided souls.
• Qiu Wuji said her breakthrough was imminent, entered seclusion, and watched Chu Ge return to the Mortal World.
• Chu Ge returned in his True Body and caught a kitten that had tried to sneak up on him.
• The kitten told Chu Ge that his phone had rung all night, and he found a message from Zhong Buli urging him to come to North America because something strange was happening there.

Zhong Yi searched California for signs of the White Tiger while waiting for results from Chu Jiangliu’s investigation. His old acquaintance Carl contacted him and revealed that his organization had suffered unexplained deaths and disappearances, then said he suspected Zhong Yi was involved.

• Zhong Yi reflected on California’s varied and dangerous landscapes as promising places to search for the White Tiger’s remains.
• Zhong Yi recalled that Chu Jiangliu had focused the search on California after Tang Jinyan found Broken Fang there, but the investigation had yielded no results.
• Zhong Yi met Bill Carter, recognized him as Carl, and exchanged familiar jokes with him at a bar.
• Carl explained that he changed identities and cities to hide that he never aged, and that his current organization protected him from the police.
• Carl told Zhong Yi that people in his organization had been killed or gone missing amid conflict with the Mafia, then said he had seen Zhong Yi and doubted the Mafia was responsible.

Zhong Yi met Carl, who revealed that meeting Sandru meant either dying or joining his organization, and arranged for Zhong Yi to meet one of Sandru’s skeletons the next day. Zhong Yi reported the meeting to Chu Jiangliu, who planned preparations and asked him to bring Chu Ge because White Tiger was involved.

• Zhong Yi denied that his entertainment company was a cover for another purpose, while Carl warned that he knew how terrifying Zhong Yi was.
• Carl guessed that Zhong Yi had come to find Sandru, and Zhong Yi asked him to arrange a meeting to learn about Sandru’s undead ability.
• Carl said Sandru could be contacted through skeletons and warned that anyone who met him either died or joined his organization.
• After Zhong Yi left, Carl told a waiter that they could not capture Zhong Yi without Sandru and expected Zhong Yi to walk into their trap the next day.
• Zhong Yi called Chu Jiangliu and reported the planned meeting, and Chu Jiangliu asked him to notify Chu Ge and said Chu Ge should attend because White Tiger was involved.

Zhong Yi traveled to Sandru’s Los Angeles headquarters to seek answers about death and his immortality, while Chu Ge promised to come. He met one of Sandru’s skeletons and offered to consider joining Sandru if it restored its flesh and blood for him to examine.

• After Chu Ge replied that he was on his way, Zhong Yi told Chu Jiangliu he would lure Sandru out, insisting he had his own reasons for going.
• Chu Jiangliu reflected that Zhong Yi’s investigation into immortality was tied to his former lover’s death and his search into the origins of esper abilities.
• Zhong Yi met Carl at an entertainment company and rode the elevator with a pop diva who was secretly Carl’s blood thrall.
• Carl left Zhong Yi to enter Sandru’s office, where a crystalline skeleton explained that it was one of Sandru’s many bodies.
• Zhong Yi clarified that he wanted to understand death, and told the skeleton he might consider joining Sandru if it restored its flesh and blood for him to inspect.

Zhong Yi negotiated with the skeleton and uncovered that the Undead Legion had planted him as a pawn nearly a century ago. As the skeleton tried to control him, the Vermilion Bird shielded Zhong Yi while Chu Ge tracked the soul link to its source.

• The skeleton refused to restore Zhong Yi's flesh and blood and offered secrets about death in exchange for information on Chu Jiangliu.
• Zhong Yi challenged the skeleton's priorities, arguing that its real problem was Chu Jiangliu and the deaths of its people.
• The skeleton revealed that many company workers were dead and that it had approached Zhong Yi because Chu Jiangliu trusted him.
• The skeleton claimed Zhong Yi had been planted as a pawn nearly a hundred years earlier and used blue light to attack him.
• Zhong Yi resisted and proposed that he might be a corpse controlled by someone whose abilities had grown alongside his own.
• The Vermilion Bird shielded Zhong Yi, and Chu Ge followed Sandru's soul link back to its source.