Chapter Summaries

Cui Jiuyang learned that the Directorate of Astronomy was helping Zhang He create a false dragon by capturing Snake Demons, and he resolved to disrupt their scheme. He deduced how their plan might work and began considering the conditions and methods involved.

• Chen Yun told Cui Jiuyang that Queue Army recruiters had brought his master and him to help catch snakes, and that Directorate of Astronomy experts were working behind the scenes.
• Cui Jiuyang realized the Directorate of Astronomy and Zhang He were trying to create a false dragon to claim the mandate of heaven.
• Cui Jiuyang recalled historical attempts to fabricate auspicious signs and create false dragons, including Li Zicheng's failed rise.
• Cui Jiuyang concluded that the Queue Army was likely gathering Snake Demons to refine their Dragonkind blood into a false dragon and give its dragon qi to Zhang He.
• Cui Jiuyang decided to thwart the scheme and began examining the conditions required to create a false dragon.

Cui Jiuyang transformed himself into Bai Susu and persuaded Chen Yun and Zhang Dadao to carry him into the Queue Army camp as their captured snake demon. The men reached camp before nightfall, where they had to present their captive to the Directorate of Astronomy for inspection.

• Cui Jiuyang concluded that the Queue Army was creating a false dragon and suspected it had sought Bai Susu as a pure dragon soul.
• Cui Jiuyang used Bai Susu's hair and blood essence to transform into her likeness and voice.
• Cui Jiuyang convinced Chen Yun and Zhang Dadao to report that they had captured Jade-Illuminated Cold, and threatened them with Meridian-Breaking Talismans to secure their cooperation.
• Cui Jiuyang gave Bai Susu Xuansheng's Evil Ghost Pearl, ordered the Yin Soldier to protect her, and concealed the cave with a formation.
• Cui Jiuyang transformed into a small white snake, and Zhang Dadao wrapped him in his robe as Chen Yun and Zhang Dadao carried him toward camp.
• Chen Yun and Zhang Dadao arrived at the Queue Army camp before nightfall, battered and muddy, and prepared to present their captive to the Directorate of Astronomy for inspection.

Cui Jiuyang posed as a captured Jade-Illuminated Cold and was delivered to the cave holding the Snake Demons. After he fell asleep while feigning unconsciousness, the mysterious old Snake Demon woke him and demanded to know why he had come.

• Chen Yun and Zhang Dadao presented Cui Jiuyang to Liangxing, who examined him and used seven silver needles to seal his apparent Demonic Power.
• Cui Jiuyang secretly sealed his own meridians to imitate the needles’ effects, and Liangxing sent Chen Yun and Zhang Dadao to have Xu Laonong apply snake medicine.
• Xu Laonong recognized the Jade-Illuminated Cold and had Chen Yun coat Cui Jiuyang in ointment before they took him to the Snake Demon cave.
• Chen Yun placed Cui Jiuyang in an empty gooseneck bottle among the imprisoned Snake Demons, and Cui Jiuyang decided to wait until night to investigate.
• Cui Jiuyang unintentionally fell asleep, and the old Snake Demon woke him and asked what he had sneaked into the cave to do.

Cui Jiuyang questioned the ancient snake demon in the Gooseneck Bottle, then left the cave to investigate the camp and steal a nun’s Golden Gong. He entered her tent and reached the weapon, but had not yet taken it.

• Cui Jiuyang coaxed the old snake demon into explaining that the Queue Army had threatened him with explosives to make him cooperate, but the demon shut himself inside the bottle when Cui mentioned his wife.
• Cui Jiuyang left the cave under an Invisibility Spell, suspecting the old demon’s secrets were tied to the Queue Army’s plan to create a false dragon.
• Cui Jiuyang searched the sleeping cultivators’ tents with his Divine Sense and located the nun who possessed the Golden Gong.
• Cui Jiuyang slipped through a hole in the nun’s tent and approached the Golden Gong in its wooden box, considering its restrictions and potential as a Magical Treasure.

Cui Jiuyang stole a spiritually awakened bronze gong from a Queue Army nun and searched the camp’s ledgers for clues about the Directorate of Astronomy’s false-dragon plan. He found that ninety-seven Snake Demons had been captured and suspected the Directorate wanted 108, but discovered no record of the crazed old Snake Demon before returning to the cave as dawn approached.

• Cui Jiuyang subdued the nun, learned how to undo the bronze gong’s restrictions, knocked her unconscious, and preliminarily refined her into a Yin Soldier.
• Cui Jiuyang pocketed the gong and abandoned his plan to investigate the Directorate of Astronomy because too much of the night had passed.
• Cui Jiuyang searched a senior officer’s ledgers and found that Bai Susu’s capture had earned an unusually large bounty of eighty silver dollars.
• Cui Jiuyang counted ninety-seven captured Snake Demons and suspected the Directorate planned to gather 108, but found no records about the crazed old Snake Demon.
• Cui Jiuyang returned to the cave before dawn and hid in his gooseneck bottle while the old Snake Demon remained withdrawn.
• A young Daoist acolyte fed scraps of meat to the imprisoned Snake Demons and left the cave.

Cui Jiuyang questioned the old Snake Demon and discovered that his Demonic Qi resembled Bai Susu’s, though the old man’s grief over his wife left him baffled. As he continued investigating the captured Snake Demons and refining a new Yin Soldier, Cui Jiuyang began secretly searching the military camp each night.

• Cui Jiuyang learned that the old Snake Demon had been threatened through his wife’s younger sister and coaxed him into speaking about his long-missing wife.
• The old Snake Demon insisted his wife was present, erupted in despair, and released icy Demonic Qi that Cui Jiuyang recognized as resembling Bai Susu’s.
• Cui Jiuyang watched the old Snake Demon retreat into his bottle after weeping, while camp cultivators searched unsuccessfully for the missing nun.
• Cui Jiuyang spent the following days checking the Snake Demons against a ledger and refining the nun into a Yin Soldier he named Xuanyun.
• Cui Jiuyang found that Xuanyun was better suited to magical support than close combat, then began thoroughly investigating the military camp at night.

Cui Jiuyang infiltrated the Directorate of Astronomy’s camp to investigate its cultivators and chose to enter the tent of the second-most powerful one. He bypassed the tent’s restrictive spell and found its owner asleep, leaving his investigation poised to continue.

• Cui Jiuyang avoided the Directorate of Astronomy’s three strongest cultivators and targeted the second-most powerful one, whose tent’s modest size suggested low status.
• Cui Jiuyang studied the Daoist robe hanging outside and imitated the spiritual fluctuations lingering on it to fool the tent’s restrictive spell.
• Cui Jiuyang transformed into a little white snake, slipped through a tiny opening, and entered the tent without triggering its defenses.
• Cui Jiuyang spotted the tent’s owner sleeping soundly in a sparsely furnished room and compared its plainness with the lavish tents he had investigated earlier.

Cui Jiuyang discovered that the Directorate of Astronomy camp was operating through the Otherworldly Dream, a magical implement that let its dream people act in the real world while remaining insulated from real harm. He concluded that killing the Daoists would be useless and left the dream maker’s hidden location in the Capital as the central obstacle.

• Cui Jiuyang searched the sleeping Daoist’s tent and found breathing notes, ordinary ritual tools, and no obvious magical implements.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed that the Daoist’s steady breathing did not disturb a loose thread on the quilt and deduced that a concealed dream-birthing jade pillow was part of the Otherworldly Dream.
• Cui Jiuyang understood that the Otherworldly Dream let companions act freely in a shared dream while their bodies remained in reality, and that they could awaken unharmed even after dying in the dream.
• Cui Jiuyang divined that the dream maker was somewhere in the Capital and likely had greater cultivation than he did.
• Cui Jiuyang rejected assassinating the camp’s Daoists because they were dream people, and considered the dangers of finding the dream maker or entering the dream himself.

Cui Jiuyang abandoned plans to attack the Directorate of Astronomy’s cultivators and drew the old Snake Demons into talking by pretending to grieve for his missing wife. The old man accepted his improvised love story and began recounting how he met his own wife, starting with his life beside a great lake fifteen hundred years earlier.

• Cui Jiuyang decided that disrupting the Counterfeit Dragon Ritual would be safer than entering the Otherworldly Dream or assassinating its cultivators.
• Cui Jiuyang counted 104 snakes in the cave and resolved to uncover the old Snake Demons’ secrets before the ritual began.
• Cui Jiuyang feigned grief over a missing wife to provoke the old Snake Demons into emerging from his porcelain bottle.
• The old Snake Demons remembered Cui Jiuyang’s earlier disguise, but invented a story in which the rescued girl had become his wife and been captured again.
• Cui Jiuyang asked about the old Snake Demons’ wife, and the old man began telling how his story started fifteen hundred years ago beside a great lake.

The old man recounted how he fell in love with a kind young woman who lent him an umbrella during a rainstorm. After waiting for her at the lakeside pavilion, he saw her again, returned the umbrella, and learned that she lived across the lake and had come to gather medicinal herbs.

• The young man sheltered from heavy rain in a lakeside pavilion, where two sisters arrived and the older sister offered him an umbrella.
• He became infatuated with the older sister and kept the umbrella in his study as a reminder of her.
• He repeatedly waited at the pavilion to return the umbrella until his mother took it and questioned him about his behavior.
• The young man lied to his mother about waiting to meet an Insect Immortal, then recovered the umbrella and returned to the pavilion the next rainy day.
• The sisters came back, and the older sister teased him about waiting for them; they talked, and he learned that she lived across the lake and gathered medicinal herbs with her sister.

Xu Xian recounted how Bai Suzhen pursued him through hardship and became his wife, then described their years together as war repeatedly displaced them. After Bai Suzhen left for the Divine Capital to treat General Liu, Xu Xian discovered the general was healthy and suspected the old monk had used him to force her to go.

• Xu Xian said he and Bai Suzhen fell in love, but war destroyed his home and his parents died before he could propose marriage.
• Bai Suzhen found Xu Xian among refugees, confronted him for abandoning his promise, and married him beside the lake.
• Xu Xian and Bai Suzhen opened a clinic, fled renewed fighting into the mountains, and returned to the city after an old monk announced peace.
• The old monk persuaded Bai Suzhen to travel alone to the Divine Capital to treat General Liu, while Xu Xian stayed behind to run the clinic.
• Xu Xian grew suspicious, followed Bai Suzhen to the Divine Capital, and learned General Liu was healthy and the old monk was his powerful chief strategist.

After Su Zhen died saving her husband, he returned to their clinic and struggled to leave the place where they had lived together. Xiao Qing learned what happened and later attacked Golden Light Temple, where the abbot subdued her.

• The husband escaped the burning estate after Su Zhen died and returned to their hometown clinic.
• He stayed in the clinic for several days, unable to leave the reminders of Su Zhen behind.
• Xiao Qing came looking for her elder sister, and the husband told her what had happened.
• Xiao Qing called him a useless coward and left before he could catch up with her.
• Half a month later, Xiao Qing attacked Golden Light Temple and was subdued by its abbot.

Xu Xian recounted how his wife sacrificed herself to save him and how centuries of demonic power left him trapped in a confused, painful existence. After learning the Queue Army planned to use snake demons in a false-dragon ritual, Cui Jiuyang resolved to stop them, but discovered Bai Susu had been captured and could not find where her captors had gone.

• Xu Xian explained that he had endured centuries of confusion and suffering while hoping the Queue Army would kill him.
• Cui Jiuyang told Xu Xian that the ritual that killed his wife had been meant to create a false dragon, and Xu Xian lamented how innocent people and demons were repeatedly sacrificed to ambition.
• Cui Jiuyang sensed that the Five Emperors' Coins spell protecting Bai Susu had been broken, and Xuansheng's shattered Evil Ghost Pearl flew to him.
• Cui Jiuyang raced to Bai Susu's cave and found signs that powerful cultivators had overwhelmed Xuansheng and taken her.
• Cui Jiuyang searched for Bai Susu's captors but found no trace of them, despite expecting them to be heading back toward the army camp.

Cui Jiuyang realized the Queue Army had likely lured him away from camp to begin the false-dragon ritual, but he suspected they had trapped the cave entrance. He tested it with a paper decoy and found several costly defenses blocking his way out.

• Cui Jiuyang sensed the Dragon-Making Ritual beginning at the military camp and suspected Bai Susu's capture was part of a plan to lure him away.
• Cui Jiuyang noticed faint spiritual fluctuations around the cave entrance and used a talisman-paper figure disguised as himself to investigate.
• The paper figure triggered a Ten Thousand Arrows Pierce the Heart spell and was riddled with silver arrows.
• A Demon-Refining Pill Fire Technique engulfed the entrance and burned the paper figure to smoke.
• A Heaven-Locking Earth-Caging Formation sealed the entrance with fifteen pillars of golden light, and Cui Jiuyang recognized how much gold the formation had cost.

Cui Jiuyang escaped the trapped cave and raced to stop the Counterfeit Dragon Ritual, only to discover that it was already underway atop the cliffs. He reached the clifftop and found a vast formation drawing the Snake Demons’ Essence Blood through an ancient cypress, while three Directorate of Astronomy cultivators maintained the ritual.

• Cui Jiuyang shifted the earth-qi channels to misalign the formation’s golden bars, escaped the cave, and hurried toward the military camp.
• Cui Jiuyang sensed the counterfeit dragon taking shape and realized he had to reach the clifftop to stop the ritual.
• Cui Jiuyang spotted the dragon phantom above the cliffs and changed course from the camp to climb toward the summit.
• Cui Jiuyang discovered a sacrificial formation built into the cypress and cliff, with its runes drawing Essence Blood from the Snake Demons below.
• Cui Jiuyang saw three Directorate of Astronomy cultivators casting spells beneath the cypress while others maintained the formation’s foundation in the cave.

Cui Jiuyang reached the summit and tried to disrupt the Directorate of Astronomy’s ritual to create a dragon, discovering that it was draining Bai Susu’s soul power and feeding Xu Xian. After confronting Liang Chen over the ritual’s purpose, Cui Jiuyang faced the Daoists’ defenses, and Liang Chen began preparing to fight him.

• Cui Jiuyang found Bai Susu and Xu Xian unconscious atop the Giant Cypress as the formation drew essence blood and soul power from them.
• Cui Jiuyang approached the cypress, but the False Dragon controlled its branches and forced him to dodge repeated attacks.
• Cui Jiuyang used Apotropaic Coins to stabilize Bai Susu’s soul and restrain Xu Xian’s demonic energy, then launched Fire Talismans at the cypress and the three Daoists.
• The Daoists countered with three powerful artifacts, while Liang Chen told Cui Jiuyang that their ritual sought a dragon emperor to reunite the country.
• Cui Jiuyang accused Liang Chen and the Directorate of Astronomy of seeking wealth and status, and Liang Chen ordered his junior brothers to shoulder more of the ritual while he fought Cui Jiuyang.

Cui Jiuyang fought Liang Chen and Liang Ji while they maintained a blood-sacrifice formation extracting the Snake Demons’ Essence Blood. After Xuanyun held Liang Ji at bay with the Golden Gong, Cui Jiuyang attacked the formation’s core and began summoning Heavenly Thunder.

• Cui Jiuyang used the Kan Palace Surging Waves Battle-Jiao Coin and the Gen Palace Mountain Spirit Demon-Subduing Coin to repel Liang Chen’s Solar True Fire and yin wind.
• Cui Jiuyang shattered Liang Chen’s Yin-Yang Double-Sided Treasure Mirror with the Qian Palace Heavenly Mandate Black Tortoise Coin, forcing Liang Chen to send Liang Ji to fight while he continued controlling the formation.
• Liang Ji attacked Cui Jiuyang with a resentment-filled Jade Ruyi, and Cui Jiuyang summoned Xuanyun and gave her control of the Golden Gong to block it.
• Xuanyun used the Golden Gong to purify the Jade Ruyi’s Yin Qi and resentment, holding Liang Ji in check as they exchanged attacks.
• Cui Jiuyang sent seven Apotropaic Coins to bombard the ancient cypress at the formation’s core and began forming seals to summon Heavenly Thunder.

Cui Jiuyang and Xuanyun attacked the clifftop barrier while the Directorate of Astronomy Daoists struggled to protect the Grand Formation’s core. As the heavenly lightning gathered overhead, Liang Gu took over the Mountain-Suppressing Seal, leaving the barrier under siege and Cui Jiuyang poised to unleash Fourth Extremity-level lightning.

• Liang Gu activated the damaged Mountain-Suppressing Seal to shield the giant cypress, while Cui Jiuyang recognized it as a valuable Magical Treasure.
• Liang Gu feared his barrier could not withstand the gathering heavenly lightning, so Liang Chen called Liang Ji back to help operate the Grand Formation.
• Xuanyun used his Golden Gong to hinder Liang Ji, and Cui Jiuyang’s Apotropaic Coins broke Liang Ji’s Jade Ruyi and wounded his shoulder before Liang Ji reached the barrier.
• Liang Ji resumed feeding spiritual power into the Grand Formation, allowing Liang Gu to devote himself fully to the Mountain-Suppressing Seal.
• Cui Jiuyang and Xuanyun relentlessly attacked the barrier as Cui Jiuyang’s Demon-Exorcising and Monster-Refining Formation finished gathering lightning powerful enough to rival Fourth Extremity spells.

Cui Jiuyang's lightning assault weakened Liang Gu's barrier, but Liang Chen detonated the Yin-Yang Double-Sided Mirror, devastating both sides and leaving Cui Jiuyang badly injured. As Bai Susu and Xu Xian recovered from the blast, Xu Xian warned her that the cypress branch had pierced her with sharp twigs.

• Cui Jiuyang struck the Mountain-Suppressing Seal's barrier with eighteen bolts of heavenly lightning while Liang Chen and Liang Ji strengthened the Grand Formation and formed a False Dragon.
• Xu Xian and Bai Susu awoke, and Bai Susu warned Cui Jiuyang about the Yin-Yang Double-Sided Mirror just as it began to glow with destructive energy.
• Xuanyun shielded Cui Jiuyang from the detonating mirror with the Golden Gong, but the blast destroyed her spirit body and sent the gong crashing into Cui Jiuyang.
• The blast shattered the barrier, knocked Liang Gu unconscious, and left Liang Chen and Liang Ji struggling to maintain the Grand Formation.
• Bai Susu and Xu Xian recovered with their hearing impaired, and Xu Xian gestured urgently to warn Bai Susu that sharp cypress twigs had pierced her body.

Bai Susu escaped the Giant Cypress’s branches with Xu Xian’s help and found Cui Jiuyang gravely injured, while Liang Chen prepared to kill them. A blood-soaked Message Talisman burst into flame just as Liang Chen thrust his Coin Sword toward Bai Susu.

• Bai Susu tore free of four branches to reach Cui Jiuyang, but Xu Xian broke the branch supporting her and let the remaining roots wither so she could escape.
• Bai Susu found Cui Jiuyang covered in blood with bones broken throughout his body and wept, blaming herself for his condition.
• Liang Chen gave control of the Dragon-Creation Grand Formation to Liang Ji, then approached Bai Susu with his Coin Sword while she grieved.
• A charred Crane Feather and a blood-soaked Message Talisman emerged from Cui Jiuyang’s robe, and the feather’s light sank into his body.
• Liang Chen recognized the objects as a life-bound feather and a talisman, then raised his Coin Sword to stab Bai Susu and pierce Cui Jiuyang’s neck.
• The Message Talisman suddenly exploded as Liang Chen began his thrust.