Recaps

Pei Ye overcame his grief over Yue Muzhou and defeated Yong Ji in the Scale Trial final, then publicly declared [Unbound] as his sword and Yue Muzhou as his master. The story left Pei Ye standing against the Northern Lands, while the author announced a short break and plans for the next volume.

• Pei Ye recognized that Yong Ji's swordsmanship was not beyond his ability and resolved to surpass Yue Muzhou by succeeding where he had failed.
• Pei Ye wounded Yong Ji repeatedly, caught his decisive sword stroke with his bare hand, and crippled him before the officials intervened.
• Pei Ye threatened Yongbei and, despite the grandmasters guarding Yong Ji, cut off Yong Ji's eye and left ear.
• Pei Ye named his sword [Unbound] and declared himself Pei Ye of Fenghuai, Yue Muzhou's disciple.
• The author announced a brief break, outlined planned closing chapters, and described preparations for the overarching plot and volume four.

After Pei Ye won the Martial Examination, Li Xizhou fastened the champion’s jade belt around him and later discussed the Southern Office’s evidence from Cien Monastery. The chapter ended with Yong Ji waking in a high-security prison and realizing he was awaiting trial for attempting to assassinate the Crown Prince.

• The remaining Martial Examination bouts concluded, with Qin Shang taking third place after no one challenged the top two.
• Li Xizhou fastened the jade belt around Pei Ye and the ritual official proclaimed him chief champion of the Great Tang Martial Examination and the Renwu Year’s Scale Trial.
• Pei Ye rested in a carriage with Li Xizhou, who told him the Southern Office had finished collecting evidence at Cien Monastery and explained the belt’s origins.
• Pei Ye and Li Xizhou joked about his rest and Yong Ji’s case before Pei Ye fell asleep against her shoulder.
• Yong Ji woke in a Southern Office prison cell, spoke with the neighboring prisoner, and understood that he faced trial for attempting to assassinate the Crown Prince.

Yong Ji met Meng Li in the prison, where Meng Li escaped his restraints and strangled a neighboring prisoner. Pei Ye received the jade eye and had it transplanted into his left eye, then woke as the summer rains began.

• Yong Ji watched officials transfer Meng Li to the prison and learned that he was to be beheaded the next day.
• Meng Li broke free of more than a hundred restraints, appeared in Yong Ji’s cell, and gripped his throat.
• Li Xizhou told Pei Ye that the Divine Capital was secure and gave him the jade eye, which had been returned to its rightful owner.
• Pei Ye chose to have the jade eye implanted in his left eye, and Qu Xin and two senior Medicine Lodge members performed the three-day transplant.
• Pei Ye discovered that his new eye let him see the flow of true qi and brought unfamiliar knowledge and sounds into his mind.
• Pei Ye and Li Xizhou drank together, and Pei Ye woke when the summer rains had arrived.

After a year of studying and living in the Divine Capital without Miss Ming, Pei Ye prepared to leave the city as his friends departed as well. At a farewell meal with Yan Feiqing and Yang Zhenbing, he learned that Yan would return to Qingwei and hinted that his own departure was near.

• Pei Ye spent the year studying swordsmanship at the Sword Cultivation Academy, corresponding with He Yaoyao and training with Yan Feiqing.
• Pei Ye told Changsun Jue that he would stop attending classes for a while, though he did not know how long he would be gone.
• At Five Clouds Tower, Pei Ye asked Yan Feiqing about the mysterious eye technique, but Yan reported that no matching artifact or Daoist elder had been found.
• Yan Feiqing said he would leave for Qingwei the next morning, and Yang Zhenbing reminded him to steal his ancestral master's sword practice notebook.
• Pei Ye told Yan Feiqing and Yang Zhenbing that he might leave the Divine Capital within a few days, and Yang admitted he hated to part.

Pei Ye learned that the Heart of the Western Court’s allies planned to send him west to establish the Western Extremity Immortal Court, while Heavenly Mountain called the western sects to form the Jade Pool covenant. The chapter left Pei Ye considering Heavenly Mountain’s influence as he prepared for his journey.

• Pei Ye reviewed the clues about the person who gave Grandpa Yue the Immortal Pupil and reflected on the eye’s sealed memories and mysterious summons from the west.
• Pei Ye connected with the Heart of the Western Court, where Lu Wu and the others assigned him to travel west and establish the Western Extremity Immortal Court.
• Pei Ye slept at the Cultivation Literature Academy, then visited Li Jian on the rooftop the next morning.
• Li Jian showed Pei Ye Heavenly Mountain’s invitation for western sects to gather beneath Yanzi Mountain and form the Jade Pool covenant.
• Pei Ye and Li Jian discussed Heavenly Mountain’s revered reputation and questioned whether its legends explained its influence.

Pei Ye learned that Heavenly Mountain and its leader, Ye Wohan, stood between him and establishing the Immortal Court, then reunited with Li Xizhou after eleven days apart. As they spent time together beneath Phoenix Terrace, the story looked back on their busy lives and the arguments that revealed their growing closeness.

• Li Jian told Pei Ye that unrest had spread through Jianghu and that he needed to climb Heavenly Mountain and reach the Jade Assemblage Pavilion to establish the Immortal Court.
• Li Jian warned that Ye Wohan was exceptionally strong and advised Pei Ye to act as circumstances required in the west, using the Immortal Platform in the Two Longs if he needed help.
• Li Xianfang collected Pei Ye from the Immortal Platform and brought him to Phoenix Terrace, where Li Xizhou waited in a secluded spot.
• Pei Ye and Li Xizhou reunited after eleven days apart, embraced, and kissed beneath the flowering trees.
• Pei Ye recalled how their demanding schedules kept them apart and how they sometimes quarreled, including over Changsun Jue and Li Xizhou's suggestion that they return to how they had been before he confessed his feelings.

Pei Ye and Li Xizhou spent a tender night together before his departure, and Li Xizhou revealed the present she had prepared: news of a Famous Sword. The chapter ended with an exchange about a dead little bird that was still hopping and glaring at Pei Ye.

• Pei Ye and Li Xizhou spoke about his letters to Ming Qitian and his plans to leave at dawn.
• Li Xizhou shaved Pei Ye, then surprised him by dancing on the blanket she had spread for him.
• A gust of wind sent blossoms swirling around Li Xizhou as she danced, and she and Pei Ye laughed together.
• Li Xizhou reminded Pei Ye of a New Year’s present and revealed that she had news of a Famous Sword for his journey west.
• Pei Ye and Li Xizhou discussed a little bird that was dead but still hopping, fluttering, and glaring at him.

Pei Ye prepared to travel to Xilong with a kingfisher artifact that could detect traces of Famous Swords, while Li Xizhou explained how she had found a way to track one. The story then shifted to Lu Yuque, wounded and disguised as a beggar in Colorless City, where she sought shelter and overheard Jianghu travelers discussing a mysterious silence from their sects.

• Li Xizhou explained that she had used the Spirit Profound trails of flying Famous Swords to locate one in Xilong and commissioned a kingfisher artifact to detect its traces.
• Pei Ye prepared to leave for Xilong with Black Cat and the kingfisher, and Li Xizhou teased him about courting the sword if it did not want him.
• Lu Yuque woke injured and disguised at the end of an alley, struggling with hunger and remembering her father's lessons about disguise.
• Lu Yuque used a silver ingot to buy meat buns and a room at an inn in Colorless City, avoiding attention from the Jianghu travelers.
• Lu Yuque overheard Sect Master Xu and Chief Cheng say that their sects had given no word, before Xu began to mention a rumor.

After Jiandu Villa was massacred, Lu Yuque concealed the Unsolved Sword-Release Scripture and fled toward Lushan, hoping to rally allies and learn how her father had found a way to curb the Snow Lotus shoots. At an inn, a masked White-Robed Woman appeared to be searching for her, leaving Lu Yuque in immediate danger.

• A disciple told Sect Master Xu and Cheng Yun that Jiandu Villa had been wiped out, Sect Master Lu had been beheaded, and Xilong's Immortal Platform had sealed off Suiye City.
• Lu Yuque recalled escaping the massacre with the Unsolved Sword-Release Scripture, whose Snow Lotus shoot had stopped growing, and struggled to remember her father's method for curbing it.
• Lu Yuque disguised herself, left her belongings behind to mislead pursuers, and set out for Lushan to seek support from the Jianghu.
• At an inn, Cheng Yun said the Flowery Wound Tower alone could not have killed Villa Master Lu, while Lu Yuque tried to bargain for a horse.
• A masked White-Robed Woman appeared and asked Cheng Yun and Sect Master Xu whether they had seen a pretty woman or a filthy, skinny beggar.

After the White-Robed Woman killed Lu Yuque’s father, Lu Yuque fled toward Lushan and met Elder Hu and Li Li, who tried to hide her from pursuit. She recounted a terrifying encounter in which a ghostly figure with her mother’s face slaughtered the assassins and took the Unsolved Sword-Release Scripture.

• The White-Robed Woman killed Lu Yuque’s father, and Lu Yuque escaped by stealing a horse and racing toward Lushan.
• Lu Yuque met Elder Hu, Li Li, and Zhu Quan on the road; Elder Hu carried her away while Zhu Quan sent decoy horses to mislead their pursuer.
• Elder Hu and Li Li brought Lu Yuque to Great Moon Lake and planned a detour toward Lushan as the White-Robed Woman followed their trail.
• Elder Hu asked Lu Yuque how she had escaped, prompting her to recall Flowery Wound Tower assassins catching her shortly after she fled.
• A ghostly figure with Lu Yuque’s mother’s face killed the assassins and took the Unsolved Sword-Release Scripture from her.

Lu Yuque discovered that Elder Hu and Li Li intended to take the Martial Scripture for Lushan, and she fled with it rather than surrender it. As Li Li lay helpless in the reeds, an unknown figure confronted him beside Elder Hu’s bloody head.

• Lu Yuque recounted how a strange being had appeared after the Snow Lotus bud vanished and asked where “Sword Unbound, the Scripture of No Solution” had gone.
• Elder Hu asked to keep the Martial Scripture, and Lu Yuque realized he and Li Li had likely been pursuing it since her father announced his method for restraining the Snow Lotus buds.
• Elder Hu sensed someone approaching and ordered Li Li to take Lu Yuque away while he stayed behind.
• Li Li carried the bundle toward Lushan, but Lu Yuque struck his Dantian, took back the Martial Scripture, and fled into the reeds.
• Li Li struggled to free his blocked meridians as an unknown figure crouched before him beside Elder Hu’s bloody head and asked what the man had been to him.