Chapter Summaries

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue traveled north with the caravan, exchanged information about Hu Seventeen, and dealt with the trouble Li Mingyue’s beauty attracted along the way. After reaching Oroqen territory in the Greater Khingan Range, they began searching the market for a Mitaha roe-deer-head hat.

• Li Mingyue and Cui Jiuyang shared what they knew about Hu Seventeen and discussed how his reputation concealed his defeats.
• The caravan followed the Nen and Gan rivers north, selling and buying goods as it traveled toward the Greater Khingan Range.
• Bandits tried to abduct Li Mingyue at a market, but she followed them into the mountains and returned alone after killing them.
• Cui Jiuyang advised Li Mingyue to disguise herself, then transformed himself into a towering bald man to accompany her when she ignored the advice.
• At an Oroqen market, Niu Ergan explained how Mitaha hats were made and used, and Li Mingyue and Cui Jiuyang searched for one to buy.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue left the caravan and crossed the Greater Khingan Range, following the warming Crane Feather toward Mount Heming. After several days in the old-growth forest, Li Mingyue spotted the mountain ahead.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue bought Roe Deer Head Hats before leaving the caravan and heading into the Greater Khingan Range alone.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue traveled through the freezing forest, while Li Mingyue showed him the region and guided them around powerful demons’ territories.
• Cui Jiuyang felt the Crane Feather grow warmer as they went deeper into the mountains.
• At a fork, Cui Jiuyang chose the route to Mount Heming first, hoping to fulfill He Feixu’s last wish before visiting the Full Moon Pool Grand Formation.
• After several more days of travel, Li Mingyue pointed out Mount Heming ahead.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue found Mount Heming deserted and its mountain-protecting formation badly damaged, then entered the dangerous maze after divination warned them not to delay. The chapter left them disoriented inside the formation, with the fate of Mister Danyang and the manor still unknown.

• Li Mingyue told Cui Jiuyang about Mister Danyang, Mount Heming’s healing and lectures, and her past encounters with He Feixu.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue reached Mount Heming and found its usually busy entrance eerily deserted.
• Cui Jiuyang divined that someone was concealing what had happened and warned that they needed to enter the mountain without delay.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue discovered that at least seventy percent of Mount Heming’s grand formation had been destroyed.
• Cui Jiuyang took Li Mingyue into the damaged formation, where its maze-like paths left her unable to tell direction, orientation, or even where she could step.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue crossed White Crane Manor’s treacherous maze formation, surviving a sudden spear attack from a lingering soul. At the silent manor entrance, they found two dead attendants, and Cui Jiuyang concluded that a powerful outside force had badly damaged the mountain-protecting formation.

• Cui Jiuyang warned Li Mingyue that the One Inch, a Thousand Miles formation distorted distance and direction, then charted a safe route through it.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue held hands and followed his footprints through the maze until iron spears suddenly attacked them from every direction.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue blocked the spears with their artifacts and took cover beneath Li Mingyue’s shell; Cui Jiuyang identified the attack as the final obsession of a fading soul.
• Li Mingyue recognized the spear technique as Danhu’s Mountain-Splitting Spear and feared that White Crane Manor’s inhabitants had been killed.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue entered the silent manor and found two dead white marten attendants beside its entrance.
• Cui Jiuyang examined the corpses and concluded that a violent external force had damaged the mountain-protecting formation, causing a spiritual-energy shock wave that killed them.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue investigated White Crane Manor and found its residents dead after the mountain-protecting Grand Formation shattered. Their examination of the main hall suggested a powerful fiend had attacked while seeking treatment, and the chapter ended with them noticing that Mister Danyang’s desk held none of his usual aura.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue entered White Crane Manor, found corpses throughout the grounds, and collected useful magical implements and elixirs.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed that the bodies in the main hall bore expressions of terror and that many had looked toward the Internal Injury Treatment Area.
• Li Mingyue identified the dead disciple as He Feiwu, a leading practitioner of Mister Danyang’s medical legacy.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue reasoned that a powerful fiend had likely come for treatment and attacked, while He Feiwu had tried to look toward Mister Danyang as he lay dying.
• Cui Jiuyang concluded that Mister Danyang may have been unable to protect He Feiwu after finding drag marks in the blood beneath the disciple’s head.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue found that Mister Danyang’s desk lacked even the faintest trace of his aura.

Cui Jiuyang discovered Mister Danyang sealed inside a Demon Soul Cocoon and prepared a modified Phoenix Nirvana Formation to awaken him. As he activated the formation, a phantom white crane appeared above a sea of clouds, and the clouds began to split.

• Cui Jiuyang used the Nine Apotropaic Coins to reveal an invisible Demon Soul Cocoon surrounding the table.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue realized that Mister Danyang was sealed inside the cocoon after the manor’s attack.
• Cui Jiuyang began setting up a formation to awaken Mister Danyang, despite admitting he could not guarantee the old crane’s survival.
• Cui Jiuyang used He Feixu’s Natal Crane Feather as the core of a modified Phoenix Nirvana Formation.
• Cui Jiuyang entered the formation, saw He Feixu’s phantom white crane, and summoned spiritual light that split the sea of clouds.

Cui Jiuyang brought He Feixu’s remaining soul to Mister Danyang in the Demon Soul Cocoon, but Mister Danyang’s rebirth failed and he vanished after leaving Cui Jiuyang a spiritual rain and a Numinous Treasure. Back in the outside world, Cui Jiuyang told Li Mingyue what happened and found a written sheet on the table.

• Cui Jiuyang placed He Feixu’s final soul traces into the Demon Soul Cocoon and waited for Mister Danyang to awaken.
• Mister Danyang emerged as a red-crowned crane, but his spiritual and divine soul power continued to disperse despite Cui Jiuyang’s pleas.
• Mister Danyang flew into the sky and vanished, leaving behind a spiritual rain that strengthened Cui Jiuyang and a crane feather he had refined into a Numinous Treasure.
• Cui Jiuyang bowed farewell to Mister Danyang, then awoke and told Li Mingyue that the rebirth had failed.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed a sheet of paper on the table, picked it up, and turned it over.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue left White Crane Manor with a cryptic note from Mister Danyang and learned the history of the Great Expansion Command Flags. They decided to investigate Full Moon Pool, where the turmoil in the Greater Khingan Range had begun.

• Cui Jiuyang found a sheet bearing the word “stop” in the great hall and kept it as a possible clue to White Crane Manor's destruction.
• Cui Jiuyang fed the demons’ bodies to his broken sword, which grew longer and regained its sword energy as Li Mingyue asked about it.
• Cui Jiuyang refined the command flags and learned that they were Great Expansion Command Flags made by descendants of Duke Yuanxu.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue left White Crane Manor, troubled by the danger facing the Greater Khingan Range.
• Cui Jiuyang chose to go with Li Mingyue to Full Moon Pool, where the region’s turmoil had begun.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue reached Full Moon Pool and found it unnaturally silent and cold, despite the intact formation. As they investigated the abandoned grounds, Cui Jiuyang discovered Hu Seventeen’s aura on a broken stone.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue traveled through the Greater Khingan Range, detouring around demonic battles and finding Li Mingyue’s friends’ homes deserted.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed there were no demons around Full Moon Pool and reasoned that its stillness was suspicious, so he and Li Mingyue approached under the Invisibility Mudra.
• Li Mingyue explained how visitors once waited in the stone guesthouses for the scarce Moonlight Dew.
• Cui Jiuyang sensed a strange aura on a broken stone, examined it, and identified it as Hu Seventeen’s.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue followed Hu Seventeen’s fading blood aura to Full Moon Pool, where they found no one and learned about the pool’s depths and Full Moon Cave-Heaven. Cui Jiuyang realized Hu Seventeen’s spiritual energy was dangerously out of control and might cause him to self-detonate, so he began a Heavenly Mechanism divination.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue tracked Hu Seventeen’s blood aura from stones toward Full Moon Pool, noticing the aura grew stronger near the water despite the lack of visible blood.
• Li Mingyue explained that moonlight dew collected in a hollow on a stone beam a hundred feet underwater and that Grandmother had once descended seven hundred feet into the pool.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue searched the chambers and Full Moon Cave-Heaven, found no one, and discovered traces of battles by several groups of demons.
• Cui Jiuyang compared two stones and determined that Hu Seventeen’s aura was rapidly dissipating because his spiritual energy was abnormally active and seemed to be burning.
• Cui Jiuyang suspected Hu Seventeen was on the verge of self-detonation and used the stones’ lingering aura to begin a Heavenly Mechanism divination.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue descended into Full Moon Pool to search for Hu Seventeen, but Cui Jiuyang was caught in the pool’s hidden formation and fell under its illusions. After activating the formation jade token, they reached the stone beam a hundred feet below, where Hu Seventeen’s trail still led deeper into the pool.

• Li Mingyue led Cui Jiuyang down into the frigid, pitch-black water and told him how frightening the pool had seemed when she first entered it.
• Cui Jiuyang was overcome by sensual illusions from the Flowers in the Mirror, Moon in the Water Grand Formation and accidentally placed his hand on Li Mingyue’s chest, so she slapped him.
• Li Mingyue explained that the formation blended into Full Moon Pool’s natural features and reminded Cui Jiuyang to activate the jade token.
• Cui Jiuyang activated the token, cleared his mind, and sensed Hu Seventeen’s faint aura drifting up from deeper in the pool.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue reached the stone beam a hundred feet down and examined its small natural hollow.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue descended into Full Moon Pool, following Hu Seventeen’s unstable aura through increasingly cold, dark water. When Li Mingyue reached her limit, she clung to Cui Jiuyang so he could shield them both as they sank past five hundred feet toward a powerful pull from below.

• Li Mingyue collected the Moonlight Dew and concluded Hu Seventeen had likely drunk the pool’s previous accumulation before continuing deeper.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue sensed that the water’s abnormal chill and Hu Seventeen’s increasingly violent aura grew stronger as they descended.
• At two hundred feet, Cui Jiuyang took Li Mingyue’s hand to comfort her, and they continued into the darkness together.
• At five hundred feet, Li Mingyue reached her limit but insisted on continuing so they could catch Hu Seventeen.
• Li Mingyue pressed against Cui Jiuyang, and he wrapped them both in a Spiritual Power shield to carry her deeper.
• After passing five hundred feet, Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue were drawn downward by a powerful pull from the pool’s bottom.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue descended into Full Moon Pool’s crushing depths while Li Mingyue reflected on Grandmother’s plans for her and Cui Jiuyang. As Hu Seventeen’s aura froze and they plunged past one thousand feet, Cui Jiuyang suspected Hu Seventeen was using the cold to suppress an imminent self-detonation.

• Li Mingyue recalled that Grandmother had chosen her as Cui Jiuyang’s guide partly to secure the disciples’ future and place her love tribulation in Cui Jiuyang’s hands.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue saw identical blue lights ahead and behind, leaving them unable to tell which way led to the surface as they descended toward Hu Seventeen.
• Cui Jiuyang estimated they were around eight hundred feet deep and noted that Hu Seventeen’s growing aura suggested they were approaching him.
• Cui Jiuyang tested the cold by releasing Li Mingyue’s hair and found it froze almost instantly outside his spiritual power barrier.
• At roughly nine hundred feet, Cui Jiuyang realized Hu Seventeen’s aura had become unnaturally still and guessed the fox was using the pool’s cold to freeze the spiritual energy threatening to make him self-detonate.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue plunged past one thousand feet toward the expanding blue glow.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue discovered that the blue glow at the pool’s bottom came from an enormous dragon’s eye, and Cui Jiuyang spoke with the Cold Li Dragon King. The dragon revealed that Hu Seventeen had entered a hidden passage and let them go inside to kill him.

• The Cold Li Dragon King’s icy gaze froze Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue, then asked Cui Jiuyang about the dragon aura he carried.
• Cui Jiuyang explained the origins of his Dragon-Transformation Wall, Underworld aura, and Yaoxian aura, and described the turmoil above.
• The dragon asked why Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue had come to the pool’s bottom, and Cui Jiuyang said he was pursuing Hu Seventeen over attacks on his allies.
• The Cold Li Dragon King opened a concealed passage, explaining that Hu Seventeen had called in a favor to enter it and ordering Cui Jiuyang to kill him.
• Cui Jiuyang took the frightened Li Mingyue into the passage, and the two disappeared into the darkness.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue learned how King Hanli was punished for freezing a spiritual vein to save mortal lives, then followed Hu Seventeen’s aura through a cave filled with dense spiritual energy. They emerged into a vast underground world of towering profound-ice peaks, with Hu Seventeen still ahead.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue found an Oracle Script inscription describing how King Hanli froze a spiritual vein to protect mortals and was condemned to suffer beneath the pool.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue continued through the cave, where the spiritual energy grew increasingly dense, and followed Hu Seventeen’s aura.
• Li Mingyue developed rabbit ears from the surging demonic qi, and Cui Jiuyang gently straightened one before she retracted them.
• Cui Jiuyang renewed the Invisibility Mudra as he and Li Mingyue approached Hu Seventeen’s increasingly strong aura.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue entered a vast underground expanse filled with immense, deep-blue peaks of profound ice.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue tracked Hu Seventeen to the ancient spiritual vein, where he revealed that he had reached the Five-Tail Realm and could see through Cui Jiuyang’s Invisibility Spell. Hu Seventeen admitted to visiting Mount Heming and ambushing Granny Full Moon, but Cui Jiuyang challenged his claim that he had harmed Mister Danyang.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue explored the frozen Heavenly Earth Spiritual Vein and lost Hu Seventeen’s trail.
• Cui Jiuyang accidentally absorbed a dangerous surge of spiritual energy by touching the profound ice, and Li Mingyue warned him about his recklessness.
• Li Mingyue spotted Hu Seventeen’s five tails inside an ice peak, and the pair followed his reflections through the crystalline mountains.
• Hu Seventeen revealed that he could see Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue despite the Invisibility Spell, and said he had seen Cui Jiuyang outside Changchun City.
• Hu Seventeen admitted that he had gone to Mount Heming, killed those who learned his secrets, and disrupted Full Moon Pool to reach King Hanli.
• Cui Jiuyang accused Hu Seventeen of lying about harming Mister Danyang, arguing that Hu Seventeen could not have defeated him.

Hu Seventeen revealed how rejection and jealousy within the Five Immortals Ancestral Land shaped him, while Cui Jiuyang suspected the fox’s cultivation method was connected to his own. Hu Seventeen declared they would not leave alive, and Li Mingyue launched a silver bell at him.

• Cui Jiuyang asked whether Hu Seventeen had destroyed Mount Heming, and Hu Seventeen admitted he had done it alone.
• Li Mingyue threatened to report Hu Seventeen to the Five Immortals Ancestral Land, and Hu Seventeen mocked their hypocrisy and claimed his elders would support him.
• After Li Mingyue accused the Five Immortals of making him shameless, Hu Seventeen described being rejected and abused before obtaining the Heavenly Fox Secret Art and growing strong enough to protect himself.
• Cui Jiuyang questioned how Hu Seventeen had grown so powerful, and Hu Seventeen implied Cui already knew the cultivation method behind his transformation.
• Hu Seventeen said he would kill Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue, and Li Mingyue sent a spiritual silver bell flying at him.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue remained locked in a stalemate with Hu Seventeen, whose transformations and spells kept their attacks from reaching him through the profound ice. As Li Mingyue held him in place, Cui Jiuyang began piecing together clues about Hu Seventeen’s secret undertaking and searched for a weakness.

• Hu Seventeen used a succession of transformations and strange abilities to withstand Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue’s attacks from within the profound ice.
• Cui Jiuyang reassured Li Mingyue that they should keep Hu Seventeen occupied until he exposed an opening, while Hu Seventeen sought time to recover and complete his plans in the spiritual vein.
• Cui Jiuyang deduced that Hu Seventeen needed to perform a spell vulnerable to interference and that even their divine sense might disrupt the spiritual energy around him.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed Hu Seventeen’s figure growing fainter and asked Li Mingyue to keep him trapped within their divine sense lock while he examined the clues.
• Li Mingyue resumed attacking Hu Seventeen as Cui Jiuyang protected her with the Little Golden Gong and reviewed what he knew about the fox.

Cui Jiuyang realized Hu Seventeen possessed a supernatural ability to stop spiritual energy, gained from the two old sheets they shared. He concluded Hu Seventeen planned to unleash that power on the enormous spiritual vein, potentially causing a catastrophic shock wave across the Divine Land.

• Cui Jiuyang recalled the two mysterious old sheets and suspected Hu Seventeen had also obtained them.
• Cui Jiuyang showed Hu Seventeen his sheets, and Hu Seventeen revealed that he carried two of his own and offered Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue an hour to escape.
• Cui Jiuyang connected Hu Seventeen’s power to Mister Danyang’s dying word, “stop,” and realized it could halt spiritual energy.
• Cui Jiuyang deduced that stopping spiritual energy explained Hu Seventeen’s rapid cultivation and his destruction of numinous treasures and formations.
• Cui Jiuyang inferred that Hu Seventeen intended to stop the enormous spiritual vein, risking a devastating shock wave across the Divine Land.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue fought Hu Seventeen, who planned to detonate the Spiritual Vein and devastate the region. Cui Jiuyang sent Li Mingyue to seek King Hanli’s help, while he stayed behind to stall Hu Seventeen, who challenged him about the immortal arts manuals.

• Hu Seventeen attacked Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue after they rejected his offer to escape, and Cui Jiuyang defended them while trying to buy time.
• Hu Seventeen trapped Li Mingyue with Demon-Light Chains and nearly killed her with Wind Blades, but Cui Jiuyang destroyed the blades with Apotropaic Coins.
• Cui Jiuyang realized Hu Seventeen’s plan depended on keeping the Spiritual Vein frozen and told Li Mingyue to ask King Hanli to thaw it and help stop Hu Seventeen.
• Li Mingyue fled toward the cave as Hu Seventeen transformed into a giant black fox and attacked her with Demon Thunder, but Cui Jiuyang countered the storm with Heavenly Thunder.
• Hu Seventeen stopped attacking and asked Cui Jiuyang why he resisted despite knowing the danger of the Secret Manual Immortal Arts, then accused him of practicing them while ignoring the voice in his heart.