Chapter Summaries

Cui Jiuyang confronted Hu Seventeen over his plan to detonate the Spiritual Vein, challenging the injustice and possible manipulation behind his decision. As Li Mingyue’s actions began thawing the sealed Spiritual Energy, Hu Seventeen broke down and declared that Cui Jiuyang had only robbed him of witnessing his revenge.

• Cui Jiuyang realized the mysterious manuals had caused Hu Seventeen’s Spiritual Power to reverse and his Divine Soul to freeze, and suspected their hidden influence had driven Hu Seventeen toward detonating the Spiritual Vein.
• Hu Seventeen defended his hatred by describing the injustices he had witnessed throughout the world and accusing Cui Jiuyang of benefiting from the same unfairness.
• Cui Jiuyang explained why he had killed Spirit Medium Wei and Gray Erniang, argued that injustice did not justify destroying the world, and questioned whether the voice behind the papers had guided Hu Seventeen’s plan.
• Surging Spiritual Energy and spreading cracks in the Profound Ice showed that Li Mingyue had found King Hanli and begun thawing the sealed Spiritual Vein, undermining Hu Seventeen’s preparations.
• Cui Jiuyang challenged Hu Seventeen to a fight to the death, but Hu Seventeen turned from him, laughed in anguish, and said Cui Jiuyang had deprived him of seeing his plan succeed.

Cui Jiuyang tried to stop Hu Seventeen from destroying the spiritual vein, but Hu Seventeen detonated himself and ignited it. As the first ripples of a catastrophic chain reaction formed, Cui Jiuyang gambled that he could use the Nine Apotropaic Coins to weaken it.

• Hu Seventeen broke Cui Jiuyang’s divine-sense lock and raced to the spiritual vein’s core to detonate himself.
• Cui Jiuyang sent a warning talisman to Li Mingyue and the Cold Li King, then hurried after Hu Seventeen.
• Hu Seventeen detonated above the spiritual vein, freezing the surrounding spiritual energy before his blast ignited the vein and shattered the crystalline mountains.
• Cui Jiuyang realized the spiritual vein had caught fire and decided to use his Nine Apotropaic Coins to counter the coming shock waves.
• Cui Jiuyang poured his spiritual power into the coins and focused on the first ripples spreading through the spiritual vein.

Cui Jiuyang tried to contain the Spiritual Vein’s escalating shock waves by detonating his Apotropaic Coins and the Little Golden Gong. After the eighth wave overwhelmed him, he began reversing all the Spiritual Power in his body, apparently preparing to stop the Spiritual Vein from exploding at a terrible cost.

• Cui Jiuyang detonated the Kan Palace Canglang Dragon-Repelling Coin and the Gen Palace Mountain Spirit Demon-Subduing Coin to weaken the first two shock waves, suffering severe backlash.
• He detonated four more Apotropaic Coins against the third, fourth, and fifth shock waves while using a Wind-Stabilizing Spell and relying on the Little Golden Gong for protection.
• Cui Jiuyang used the Central Palace Taiyi Soul-Seizing Coin to weaken the sixth wave, then detonated the Little Golden Gong against the seventh after exhausting his remaining coins.
• The eighth shock wave shattered the cavern, swept Cui Jiuyang through the underground space, and sent muddy water, rocks, and strange fish surging through the devastation.
• Cui Jiuyang decided that only reversing his Spiritual Power could stop the Spiritual Vein from exploding, and began forcing it backward through his meridians toward his Dantian Qihai.

Cui Jiuyang survived the Spiritual Vein’s imminent collapse after King Hanli froze the rampaging energy and rescued him with Li Mingyue. Heaven pardoned their greatest offenses but ordered King Hanli to serve in the Heavenly Court and Cui Jiuyang to quell unrest in Southern Heaven; three days later, Cui Jiuyang awoke and began recovering.

• As Cui Jiuyang prepared to detonate his dantian, King Hanli froze him and subdued the Spiritual Vein’s energy, then carried him and Li Mingyue out of the collapsing underground space.
• A Bright Yellow Silk Edict declared that King Hanli was released from imprisonment and must report to the Heavenly Court, while Cui Jiuyang was pardoned from his heavenly tribulation and ordered to reach Southern Heaven within a month.
• King Hanli gave Cui Jiuyang Twelve Dragon Scales for his Dragon-Transformation Wall and urged him to cultivate before departing for the Heavenly Court.
• Li Mingyue sheltered the frozen Cui Jiuyang in a stone dwelling and watched over him for three days and nights.
• Cui Jiuyang’s ice melted, and he awoke, placed the Crane Feather Numinous Treasure against his dantian, and began meditating as his aura steadily rose.

After surviving the Spiritual Vein crisis, Cui Jiuyang discovered that the Five Immortals Ancestral Land had been destroyed and restored his broken sword by absorbing its remains. He and Li Mingyue set out for Southern Heaven, stopping first at Cui Jiuyang’s hometown so he could speak with Great-Grandfather.

• Cui Jiuyang reached the peak of the fifth level and received twelve dragon scales from Li Mingyue, who relayed King Hanli’s words.
• Li Mingyue recognized that they were standing at the devastated former site of the Five Immortals Ancestral Land, where the Spiritual Energy shock wave had killed its inhabitants and destroyed its defenses.
• Cui Jiuyang used the broken sword hilt to absorb demon corpses and shattered magical implements from the ruins, restoring it into a treasure sword.
• Li Mingyue reminded Cui Jiuyang that heaven’s edict required him to reach Southern Heaven within a month, and he decided to visit his hometown and consult Great-Grandfather first.
• Li Mingyue chose to accompany Cui Jiuyang, and the two departed across the snowy plain toward his hometown and Southern Heaven.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue returned to the village, where Cui Jiuyang discovered that his Great-Grandfather had left and found a cryptic note in his room. The note showed that Great-Grandfather had anticipated Cui Jiuyang’s questions about the Heavenly Court, leaving him marveling at his power.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue returned to the village after ten days of travel, and the villagers watched them arrive together.
• Cui Jiuyang opened the locked ancestral residence, where the Six Ding Six Jia Divine Generals recognized him and said Great-Grandfather had been gone for over a month.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue searched Great-Grandfather’s tidy room, and Cui Jiuyang found a complex restriction covering the desk.
• Cui Jiuyang used his Five Extremes cultivation to unravel the restriction and reveal a note that read, “Ask Not How High the Heavens Are.”
• Cui Jiuyang realized Great-Grandfather had anticipated his questions about the Heavenly Court months earlier and wondered when he would reach the Eight Extremes.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue traveled south by train and riverboat, stopping in Teng County before reaching Shanghai. The chapter ended with Li Mingyue marveling at the city’s lights as their ship entered the Huangpu River.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue left Teng County after buying tickets for a southbound train and spent the night eating vegetable pancakes.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue traveled by train to Pukou, crossed the Yangtze River by ferry, and boarded a passenger ship at Nanjing Xiaguan Wharf.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue sailed down the Yangtze River and entered the Huangpu River as dusk fell.
• Li Mingyue went onto the deck and excitedly admired Shanghai’s brightly lit shore, while Cui Jiuyang watched with less enthusiasm.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue explored Shanghai, where Cui met students Wang Jinshan and Yu Xiubai and secretly gave them forty-nine silver dollars to support their work. As they continued south by ship, the story looked ahead to the students’ preserved donation record and the remaining fifteen days before Heaven’s deadline.

• Cui Jiuyang met Wang Jinshan and Yu Xiubai aboard the ship and learned they planned to stay in Shanghai to seek new ideas and serve their country.
• Cui Jiuyang took Li Mingyue ashore to explore Shanghai, then left forty-nine silver dollars for the two students as support for their activities.
• Wang Jinshan and Yu Xiubai recorded Cui Jiuyang’s donation in a list that they carried and preserved over the following years.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue departed Shanghai aboard a Swire & Sons ship bound for southern ports, with about fifteen days left before Heaven’s deadline.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue attended a ball aboard a Swire liner, but a sudden impact and the demonic qi beneath the ship drew them onto the deck. They watched the captain summon a Chinese man, whose arrival left them poised for a new development.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue went to the ballroom, where Li Mingyue ordered northern daqu and Cui Jiuyang asked for Want Want before settling for honey water.
• A violent jolt struck the ship during a dance performance, and a waiter claimed it had scraped a submerged reef.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue sensed demonic qi beneath the liner, turned invisible, and left the ballroom for the bow.
• Cui Jiuyang overheard the captain and first mate arguing about a Chinese person and money, though he could barely understand their English.
• The captain ordered a waiter to bring a thin Chinese man in a coarse jacket and long queue onto the deck.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue discovered that Mr. Wang was a demon fetus whose blood drove away a great fish, then followed him and learned he was desperate to save his younger sister. Cui Jiuyang revealed himself and questioned Mr. Wang, who denied having any supernatural ability, leaving their conversation unresolved.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue recognized Mr. Wang as a demon fetus and suspected his ability could help with the creature beneath the sea.
• Mr. Wang accepted twelve silver dollars from the captain, cut his wrist, and fed his black blood to the great fish, which swam away.
• Cui Jiuyang followed Mr. Wang and trapped him in an endless corridor with a restrictive spell.
• Mr. Wang broke down and begged unseen captors to let him see his sister, saying he had saved over a hundred silver dollars and feared they were exploiting her ability.
• Cui Jiuyang revealed that the corridor was his illusion, but Mr. Wang dismissed him and asked to be left alone.
• Cui Jiuyang identified Mr. Wang as a demon fetus and asked him to answer questions about his origins.

Cui Jiuyang paid Wang Tong to learn why Divine Path Heaven had taken his sister, Wang Lu, and kept him earning money. After hearing their story, Cui Jiuyang revealed that he had come to Tiannan to quell the unrest and asked Wang Tong for a token he could use to gain Wang Lu’s trust.

• Wang Tong explained that he and Wang Lu were natural-born demon spawn who had lived together as siblings since meeting in their teens.
• Wang Tong described his Sacrificial Feast ability and Wang Lu’s Sincere Words ability, which could make listeners believe her.
• Wang Tong said Divine Path Heaven had abducted Wang Lu seven years earlier and used her ability to influence powerful people and grow its sect.
• Wang Tong explained that he stayed alive and earned money so Wang Lu could track him through his demon-spawn aura, while she served as Divine Path Heaven’s holy maiden to protect him.
• Cui Jiuyang asked Wang Tong for a token that would help Wang Lu trust him, then disclosed that he had been ordered to quell the disaster in Tiannan.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue arrived in Guangzhou with two days remaining before Heaven's deadline. After suspecting a dockside girl and a smoking man were involved in something sinister, Cui Jiuyang followed the girl toward her family’s lodging to investigate.

• Wang Tong gave Cui Jiuyang a worn flint as a way to help him identify Wang Tong’s sister, and Cui Jiuyang agreed to reunite them if he could.
• Wang Tong believed Cui Jiuyang because Cui Jiuyang seemed interested in Divine Path Heaven rather than exploiting him and his sister.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue reached Guangzhou and discussed eating Cantonese food before a little girl approached them.
• The girl said her family offered cheap lodging to students arriving for Mr. Sun’s Constitutional Protection Movement and invited Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue to wait beneath a camphor tree.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed young Yin Souls around a smoking man and suspected the man’s tobacco contained corpse oil, so he chose to investigate the girl’s lodging.
• The girl returned with three young people who looked like students and invited Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue to go with them.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue followed Xiaohua to her family’s lodging courtyard, where Cui Jiuyang discovered signs that young travelers had recently been buried there. The chapter leaves them suspicious of Xiaohua’s father and the courtyard’s secrets, after Cui Jiuyang enjoys a dinner cooked by Xiaohua’s mother.

• Cui Jiuyang checked Xiaohua for sinister magic and found no sign that she was anything but an ordinary child.
• Xiaohua led Cui Jiuyang, Li Mingyue, and three students through gambling-filled streets to her family’s courtyard inn.
• Cui Jiuyang gave Xiaohua a silver dollar, prompting her to assume he wanted her mother’s companionship and leaving Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue embarrassed.
• Cui Jiuyang sensed residual yin qi and several recently buried bodies in the courtyard, and he warned Li Mingyue that Xiaohua’s father and the courtyard were suspicious.
• Xiaohua’s mother cooked Cui Jiuyang a Cantonese meal, which he ate with satisfaction as night fell.

Cui Jiuyang learned that Chen A'ba had rescued Xiaohua's mom from Divine Path Heaven and that the sect’s dark arts had left her unable to control her sexual desires. He examined her and discovered that Divine Path Heaven had lodged a living beast soul inside her souls.

• Cui Jiuyang confronted Chen A'ba about the corpse oil, buried bones, and Yin Souls, and Chen A'ba explained that Divine Path Heaven had cursed him and the young men he brought to the courtyard.
• Chen A'ba recounted how he had destroyed a Cultivation of the Heart Hall, rescued Xiaohua's mom and other women, and fled Divine Path Heaven after the rescued women died from their curses.
• Chen A'ba asked Cui Jiuyang to treat Xiaohua's mom, and Cui Jiuyang agreed to examine her.
• Xiaohua's mom broke down in tears after Chen A'ba told her Cui Jiuyang might be able to cure her.
• Cui Jiuyang examined Xiaohua's mom, drew her souls from her body with the Soul Seizing Formula, and found a living soul taken from an animal in heat lodged within them.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue cured Xiaohua’s mother by replacing the rabbit soul afflicting her with a paper rabbit soul. The rabbit soul’s influence then affected Li Mingyue, who clung to Cui Jiuyang after they returned to their room.

• Cui Jiuyang found that a rabbit soul had merged with Xiaohua’s mother’s soul, making it unsafe to remove by force, and accepted Father Chen’s family talisman plaque.
• Cui Jiuyang proposed replacing the rabbit soul with another soul of the same species, and Li Mingyue recognized it as a rabbit and volunteered her demon soul.
• Li Mingyue’s demon soul pushed the rabbit soul out while Cui Jiuyang made a paper rabbit and sent its smoke into Xiaohua’s mother to fill the gap.
• Cui Jiuyang told Father Chen that Xiaohua’s mother would recover after resting, and Father Chen tenderly cared for her.
• Li Mingyue clung to Cui Jiuyang in their room after the rabbit soul’s lustful influence resonated with her demon soul.

Cui Jiuyang resisted Li Mingyue’s Enchanting Technique, and his refusal to take advantage of her helped awaken her love tribulation. The next morning, they followed a slick-haired man who promised students a role in the Constitutional Protection Movement, but he left them waiting outside an imposing courtyard.

• Li Mingyue’s Enchanting Technique overwhelmed Cui Jiuyang until he used the Crane Feather’s purifying light to halt her and escape.
• Li Mingyue regained her reason, and Cui Jiuyang explained that he had refused because her actions did not come from her own heart; her love tribulation stirred in response.
• The next morning, Li Mingyue brought breakfast to Cui Jiuyang, and the two went out to seek clues about Divine Path Heaven.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue followed a slick-haired middle-aged man who recruited young students by promising them fame and service to the nation.
• The middle-aged man led the group to an imposing courtyard, went inside to announce them, and left the students waiting outside as they began to suspect him.

Cui Jiuyang discovered that the students he had accompanied had mistaken Divine Path Heaven’s recruitment for Sun’s Constitutional Protection Movement and helped them escape safely. After seeing his Great-Grandfather Cui Chengshou’s name on the martial guardians’ list, he registered for the martial competition and prepared to find out whether his Great-Grandfather had come.

• Cui Jiuyang recognized the students’ misunderstanding when the middle-aged recruiter brought them to Divine Path Heaven’s registration courtyard.
• The students learned they were at a religious sect’s recruitment, and Cui Jiuyang advised them to register under false names and slip away.
• Cui Jiuyang saw Cui Chengshou’s name on the martial guardians’ list and released his divine sense, frightening the powerful people in the courtyard.
• Cui Jiuyang registered as a martial guardian with Li Mingyue, while the students left safely.
• Divine Path Heaven announced that martial guardian applicants would compete at the Large South City Well the next day, and Cui Jiuyang left to eat with Li Mingyue.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue traveled to Big Water Well Village for Divine Path Heaven’s martial guardian selection, while Li Mingyue tried to charm him with her new red nails. The chapter ended as circuit Incense Master Wei announced the contest rules, beginning with an examination in military affairs for those seeking military command.

• At a restaurant, Cui Jiuyang noticed Li Mingyue’s mysterious smiles and red nails, which she had chosen to draw his attention.
• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue returned to Chen A'ba’s inn, checked on the recovering Xiaohua Ama, and spent the night in separate rooms.
• The next morning, Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue learned that Big Water Well Village had been sealed off during an epidemic, and its residents had all died.
• At Divine Path Heaven’s selection grounds, Cui Jiuyang found no sign of the Eight Extremes and considered what contest ranking would help him infiltrate the Guardian Corps.
• Circuit Incense Master Wei arrived and announced that candidates for military command must take an examination in military affairs.

Cui Jiuyang entered the Divine Path Heaven guardian competition and quickly qualified by defeating a snake charmer, an evil monk, and a demonic Taoist. He was led to the waiting area beside Incense Master Wei, where two other successful candidates were already seated.

• Cui Jiuyang defeated a snake charmer using Bai Susu and Liu Longtong, earning a red bean while the snake charmer received a black bean.
• Cui Jiuyang killed the evil monk Kongchen with Demon-Subduing Heavenly Thunder and destroyed his skull wooden fish.
• Cui Jiuyang challenged a demonic Taoist, killed him with heavenly thunder, and sent the trapped yin souls through a Ghost Gate toward Master Tiger.
• Cui Jiuyang earned his third red bean and qualified for the guardian corps.
• A Divine Path Heaven follower led Cui Jiuyang to chairs behind Incense Master Wei's Grand Master's Chair, where a spear-wielding young man and a physician were waiting.

Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue traveled with the newly selected guardians to Divine Path Heaven’s sacred grounds, Qidao Mountain. There, the sect’s grandeur and protective spells stunned the group as they continued toward the summit, where Cui Jiuyang hoped to encounter the Holy Maiden Wang Lu.

• Cui Jiuyang and Li Mingyue learned that Divine Path Heaven had turned Big Water Well Village into a secret base and suspected Cui Chengshou might have been among an earlier batch of guardians.
• Incense Master Wei announced that the selected Literary and Martial Guardians would be received by the leader at the sacred grounds, then gave each of them two Night-Walking Thousand-Mile Steed Talismans.
• Incense Master Wei led the guardians through the night to Qidao Mountain, where Cui Jiuyang recognized the spiritual power in the talismans and wondered whether his Great-Grandfather was there.
• Cui Jiuyang and the other guardians entered Qidao Mountain and were awed by its rich spiritual energy, magnificent buildings, and towering hall carved above statues of three sages.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed deterrence spells on the statues, while Li Mingyue clung to his arm and other yao trembled; the group continued uphill past the sect’s many halls and facilities.