Chapter Summaries

Qi Gu reunited Fang Yuanwang’s soul and warned everyone about soul loss, while Wan Wei sought help for Zhuang Youzhi’s sudden strange behavior and found a suggestion to ask Qi Gu. The chapter left Wan Wei considering whether Qi Gu could help her husband.

• Fang Heng asked whether Fang Yuanwang could be saved, and Qi Gu reassured him that he would wake after his soul was restored.
• Qi Gu drew two halves of Fang Yuanwang’s soul from the Paper Tombstone and his body, then used incense and an incantation to merge them and return the complete soul to his body.
• Qi Gu said Fang Yuanwang should wake in about half an hour and warned viewers about soul-loss symptoms, advising them to seek medical care if anything seemed wrong.
• Wan Wei found Zhuang Youzhi wearing her clothes and acting strangely, took him to a hospital, and asked Weibo users for advice after doctors could not identify the cause.
• Wan Wei saw a comment suggesting that Zhuang Youzhi’s symptoms resembled the soul loss Qi Gu had described and that she should ask Qi Gu for help.

Wan Wei asked Qi Gu for help when Zhuang Youzhi became ill, despite worrying about the effect on his image. As Zhuang Youzhi’s fans attacked her and Qi Gu, Qi Gu remembered that he had predicted Zhuang Youzhi would have no children and recalled why the fans had abused him.

• Zhuang Youzhi’s parents arrived, urged Wan Wei to ask Qi Gu for help, and criticized her hesitation.
• Wan Wei entered the Investigating the Strange livestream, donated, and asked Qi Gu to help Zhuang Youzhi.
• Zhuang Youzhi’s fans flooded Wan Wei’s social media with abuse, while his parents pressured her to donate more for Qi Gu’s attention.
• Qi Gu interrupted his planned trip to Huai Shui Village’s graveyard to respond to Wan Wei’s request.
• Qi Gu asked who Zhuang Youzhi was, then remembered his prediction and joked that he had thought Zhuang Youzhi was called Zhuang Buzhi.
• Zhuang Youzhi’s fans attacked Qi Gu and defended Zhuang Youzhi’s marriage and child.

Wan Wei continued seeking Qi Gu’s help after Zhuang Youzhi was hospitalized, and Qi Gu explained that Zhuang had lost his soul and exposed desires he usually concealed. Wan Wei freed Zhuang and checked their home surveillance, discovering him cross-dressing and having an affair with his married best man.

• Wan Wei drove her in-laws from the hospital room and connected to Qi Gu’s live call for help.
• Qi Gu confirmed that Zhuang Youzhi had lost his soul and explained that the condition revealed his hidden desires; he also warned Wan Wei that Zhuang liked men.
• Wan Wei removed Zhuang Youzhi’s restraints, and he dressed in a woman’s clothing and accessories in front of the live audience.
• Qi Gu suggested checking the home surveillance, so Wan Wei opened the living room feed after she had left home.
• Wan Wei watched footage of Zhuang Youzhi returning with his best man and discussing their affair, including the camera and their respective marriages.

Wan Wei called Li Fu’s wife, Du An, and lured Li Fu to the hospital while Zhuang Youzhi was being livestreamed. Du An arrived with her father, ready to confront the men and expose the truth.

• Wan Wei called Li Fu while pretending to be a nurse and told him Zhuang Youzhi was in the hospital.
• Wan Wei contacted Du An, who understood that the time had come to reveal Li Fu’s relationship with Zhuang Youzhi.
• Du An and Li Fu left for the hospital separately, and Du An called her father to join her.
• Wan Wei had Zhuang Youzhi’s parents removed from outside the ward, then waited as Li Fu arrived and kissed Zhuang Youzhi on the livestream.
• Du An and her father reached the ward, where Du An insisted on going inside to make Li Fu and Zhuang Youzhi tell her the truth.

Wan Wei exposed Zhuang Youzhi and Li Fu’s affair during a livestream, divorced Zhuang Youzhi, and watched their reputations and fortunes collapse. Du An offered Wan Wei a leading role in Director Bai’s film, while Qi Gu left to help the people of Huai Shui Village.

• Du An's father confronted Li Fu and Zhuang Youzhi over their livestreamed kiss, and Du An demanded a divorce from Li Fu.
• Wan Wei asked Qi Gu to restore Zhuang Youzhi’s missing soul, then demanded their home, earnings, and child in their divorce.
• Zhuang Youzhi signed Wan Wei’s divorce agreement, learned the livestream had exposed his affair and career connections, and was rejected by Li Fu.
• Du An revealed she had known about the affair and offered Wan Wei the lead role in Director Bai’s new film.
• Wan Wei’s acting career flourished, while Zhuang Youzhi died in poverty and Li Fu went bankrupt.
• Qi Gu finished his snacks and set out for Huai Shui Village before dawn.

Song An doubled Qi Gu’s appearance fee, and Qi Gu led Lin Hanzhi, Mu Xingchen, Miao Yue, Pubu Gesang, and a weasel toward Huai Shui Village’s graveyard. Along the way, the weasel revealed that the ghost had moved the graveyard to a flooded area and that villagers were being turned into its puppets through nightly Water Sacrifices.

• Song An offered to double Qi Gu’s appearance fee, and Mu Xingchen and Lin Hanzhi volunteered to film the group.
• Qi Gu arranged rain gear for the group, and the weasel asked to guide them through the graveyard.
• The weasel explained that a wandering expert had persuaded the village to move its graveyard to a waterlogged area after strange disturbances began at the old site.
• Qi Gu suspected the expert had been Cunning Ghost Bai Yu and that the relocation helped the ghost cultivating the water corpses.
• The weasel revealed that villagers performed nightly Water Sacrifices and drank the ritual liquids, gradually losing their humanity and becoming the ghost’s puppets.

Qi Gu and the others worried that the water corpses might spread beyond Huai Shui Village, while the Anomalous Affairs Bureau prepared the public for the supernatural truth. On the mountain path, they found villagers performing a bloody ritual, and Qi Gu decided to capture one and observe it.

• Qi Gu and Lin Hanzhi reasoned that transformation took at least two years and that authorities could trace Huai Shui Village residents through their records.
• An Anomalous Affairs Bureau staff member said online discussions showed that its gradual public-awareness campaign was working.
• Qi Gu ordered everyone to hide when they heard irregular footsteps approaching the mountain path.
• A group of villagers, including the contaminated little girl, passed by while kneeling and striking their bloody heads against the ground at every step.
• Lin Hanzhi said the villagers had not fully transformed and might still be saved, while Qi Gu planned to leave one behind to study the ritual.
• Miao Yue mistook the chain Qi Gu produced for a Soul-Hooking Lock, and he explained that it was an old chain from his Daoist temple.

Miao Yue and Qi Gu restrained the villagers to stop them from attending the Water Sacrifice, then brought the little girl to the flooded ground. The group discovered that its vines carried people toward the main tree, and Qi Gu and the others took a ride while the weasel sought a path around the water.

• Miao Yue returned with the villagers, and Qi Gu had her tie them to a tree before putting them to sleep and keeping them warm with talismans.
• Miao Yue carried the little girl toward the flooded ground with Qi Gu, Lin Hanzhi, Mu Xingchen, Pubu Gesang, and the weasel.
• The little girl stepped into the water, and a vine carried her toward the main tree.
• Qi Gu explained that the vines served as transport, and the weasel offered to find a route that avoided wading.
• Qi Gu, Lin Hanzhi, Miao Yue, and Pubu Gesang entered the water and let the vines carry them toward the main tree.

Qi Gu identified the banyan tree as the source of the Water Sacrifice and the Water Corpses, and the group fought back as the tree attacked them. The Water Corpses were temporarily immobilized, but the banyan and its siege still surrounded the vine platform.

• A banyan shoot pierced the little girl’s belly, and after Miao Yue cut it, the girl drank the flooded water mixed with her blood and the tree’s sap.
• Qi Gu explained that the Water Sacrifice transformed villagers into vessels for banyan sap and deduced that the banyan was the ghost controlling Huai Shui Village.
• Miao Yue and Pubu Gesang attacked the banyan, but their strikes barely damaged its thick branches.
• The banyan turned the sky and floodwater red, produced Water Corpses from its fruits, and sent them toward the platform.
• Pubu Gesang used a Buddhist chant to immobilize the Water Corpses while Miao Yue praised his new crowd-control skill.

Mu Xingchen and Weasel encountered a powerful Water Corpse that identified itself as a former village chief of Huai Shui Village. The Old Village Chief revealed that he had planted the banyan tree where the village’s troubles began, then recalled why he had planted it and how he watched it grow.

• Mu Xingchen and Weasel were startled by a Water Corpse that blocked their path and spoke to them.
• The Water Corpse explained that he was a former village chief, not the current village chief, and Mu Xingchen used his phone to communicate with him in writing.
• The Old Village Chief wrote that he had planted the banyan tree and that he was where everything began.
• The Old Village Chief recalled how he planted the banyan sapling to provide shade for Huai Shui Village’s villagers.
• After failing to protect villagers from dishonest grain buyers, the Old Village Chief found comfort in seeing the banyan grow and continued visiting it over the years.

The village chief learned that Qiao Banxian had corrupted the banyan after the villagers moved their graves, leaving it twisted and dangerous until he returned and removed the bone controlling it. After the chief died, he visited the banyan once more, and they spoke together beneath its enormous branches.

• The village chief moved the village graves to the waterlogged ground after Qiao Banxian advised him to do so.
• Qiao Banxian returned after the relocation rites, forced a blue-green bone into the banyan, and caused it to grow uncontrolled vines that disturbed the graves and threatened villagers.
• Half a year later, Qiao Banxian removed the bone, restoring the banyan’s control over itself, and it returned the disturbed villagers to their coffins.
• After the village chief died, he returned to see the banyan and discovered that it could speak and had become enormous and twisted.
• The village chief apologized for turning the waterlogged ground into a burial ground, and the banyan acknowledged him as he looked up at its height.

The Old Village Chief told Mu Xingchen how Qiao Banxian and Bai Yu had turned the banyan tree into a Ghost Tree and brought disaster to Huai Shui Village. Mu Xingchen resolved to save the tree and the villagers, then ran into the standing water to reach it.

• The banyan tree explained that Qiao Banxian had used formations and Azure Bone to make it transform corpses, so the Old Village Chief let it turn him into a Water Corpse with his own mind and destroyed the formations.
• Bai Yu restored the formations, trapped the Old Village Chief, drilled a hollow into the banyan tree, and placed Azure Bone inside, causing the tree to lose its reason and create more Water Corpses.
• The Old Village Chief hid from the Ghost Tree and its Water Corpses until he met Mu Xingchen and Weasel during the Water Sacrifice, then told them what had happened.
• Mu Xingchen promised that his shifu would protect the villagers and help the banyan tree, while Weasel reassured the Old Village Chief that the shifu was powerful.
• Mu Xingchen ran into the standing water despite the vines, determined to save the banyan tree.

Qi Gu revealed that the Azure Bone had likely turned the Banyan Tree into a ghost against its will and cast a Life-Protection Formation to preserve the living things inside while he removed it. The formation left him weakened, and he asked Miao Yue and Pubu Gesang to guard its five focal points as he began the extraction.

• Mu Xingchen ran to Qi Gu and begged him not to kill the Banyan Tree, while the Old Village Chief was startled to see that Qi Gu was a young man.
• Qi Gu explained that the Banyan Tree had probably not become a ghost willingly and that the Azure Bone was responding to something nearby.
• Qi Gu cast a vast Life-Protection Formation over the flooded area, leaving him pale and drained.
• Miao Yue and Pubu Gesang took positions beside Qi Gu to guard him.
• Qi Gu told them to protect the formation's five focal points while he extracted the Azure Bone, warning that failure could leave him dead or injured.

Qi Gu activated the Life-Protection Formation and pulled the Azure Bone from the banyan tree while the others fought off its vines and Water Corpses. When Weasel was dragged from its position, Lin Hanzhi saved it with a bone blade, revealing a hidden talent for throwing knives.

• Qi Gu assigned Miao Yue, Mu Xingchen, the Old Village Chief, Pubu Gesang, Weasel, and Lin Hanzhi to protect the formation’s five focal points.
• Vines and Water Corpses attacked the formation, and Miao Yue, Pubu Gesang, Mu Xingchen, and Weasel defended their positions while Lin Hanzhi secretly controlled bone blades underwater.
• Qi Gu struck the banyan tree with a Five Thunder Talisman, exposed the Azure Bone, and used his tongue-tip blood to break the vines binding it before pulling it free.
• Vines overwhelmed Weasel and began dragging it from its focal point, but Lin Hanzhi threw a bone blade that cut Weasel free.
• Mu Xingchen and the viewers were stunned by Lin Hanzhi’s throw, and Lin Hanzhi claimed he had practiced throwing knives while working overtime.

Qi Gu and the others saved the banyan tree from the evil ghost, and the tree promised to protect Huai Shui Village as it recovered. Afterward, Qi Gu found that two pieces of Azure Bone fit together and worried that the scattered pieces could cause disasters elsewhere; as the group left, Weasel carried him away before Lin Hanzhi could.

• Qi Gu completed the Life-Protection Formation, causing the vines and Water Corpses to dissolve while the banyan tree regained its awareness.
• The village chief reassured the remorseful banyan tree, and Qi Gu told it to remain and protect Huai Shui Village as it flourished.
• Qi Gu examined the newly acquired Azure Bone and found that it fit the piece he already had, then warned that other pieces could cause severe casualties if they reached a city.
• Lin Hanzhi checked Qi Gu's tongue wound and tried to carry him, but Miao Yue feigned exhaustion and paired off with Mu Xingchen.
• Qi Gu gave Weasel a pill, and Weasel transformed and carried him out of the flooded area, leaving Lin Hanzhi behind.

After returning from the Waterlogged Ground, the exhausted group showered and changed at the village chief's house before continuing their work. Qi Gu and Lin Hanzhi shared a bathroom, and their charged, affectionate interactions left their relationship feeling closer as the chapter ended.

• Miao Yue released the people tied beneath the tree and brought them back to the village chief's house for exorcism.
• The group paired off to shower because there was not enough hot water, and Qi Gu and Lin Hanzhi took the downstairs bathroom.
• Qi Gu and Lin Hanzhi tried to keep their distance while showering, but both noticed each other's bodies and grew flustered.
• After dressing in fresh clothes, Qi Gu took Lin Hanzhi's towel and dried his dripping hair himself.

Qi Gu and Mu Xingchen used cultivated incense ash water to treat the villagers, while Mu Xingchen stayed behind to manage their vomiting. When Qi Gu summoned an Underworld Constable to take the captured ghosts, the same towering underworld official from the Wish Temple appeared, leaving Qi Gu visibly moved.

• Qi Gu gave Mu Xingchen incense ash and instructions to recite the Evil-Expelling Chapter and mix the ash with water for the affected villagers.
• Mu Xingchen and Miao Yue gave the villagers the transformed incense ash water, which made them vomit up the filth they had eaten.
• Qi Gu left the livestream running and went upstairs with Lin Hanzhi to summon an Underworld Constable, while Mu Xingchen remained to care for the villagers.
• A towering underworld official emerged from the mist, took the Mini Gourd containing the ghosts, and remarked that returning to an old haunt had a flavor all its own.
• Qi Gu watched the official disappear, with moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes.

Qi Gu mourned his Shifu and received comfort from Lin Hanzhi, then the two shared a quilt and woke in an awkward embrace. In the morning, Qi Gu checked that the villagers had recovered, gave protective items to families with children, and Weasel invited him to eat chicken.

• Qi Gu told Lin Hanzhi about his Shifu and the sour peaches he had tried to grow, and Lin Hanzhi comforted him on the rooftop.
• Qi Gu and Lin Hanzhi returned to their room and shared a quilt because the village house lacked enough bedding.
• Lin Hanzhi woke curled up in Qi Gu's arms, and Qi Gu hurried to the bathroom, embarrassed by their close contact.
• Qi Gu checked that the villagers were lucid, charged Mu Xingchen's phone, and gave incense-ash water and a Good Luck Talisman to families with children.
• Weasel appeared after the villagers left and invited Qi Gu to try the white-cut chicken he had made.

Weasel’s chicken business prospered, and Fang Yuanwang woke and reunited with Fang Heng after three years. As the production crew left Huai Shui Village, the woman in white stole an identity and booked a flight to Fang Yuanwang’s destination.

• Qi Gu praised Weasel’s cooking, and Weasel asked Fang Heng for advice about starting a chicken business with the villagers.
• With Fang Heng’s investment, Huai Shui Village established a chicken farm and Chicken-Flavored Specialty Shop, which brought the villagers substantial dividends.
• On New Year’s Eve, Village Chief Xu and Weasel brought the farm’s account book and food to the Old Village Chief and Banyan Tree, and they shared a toast among the fireworks.
• Fang Yuanwang woke, cried in Fang Heng’s arms, apologized for worrying him, and asked about keeping his promise to pay for Juanjuan’s schooling.
• The production crew left the village after the villagers helped load its equipment, while the woman in white followed the bus to the airport.
• The woman in white stole a young woman’s ID, changed her face to match it, and booked a flight to Fang Yuanwang’s destination.

After Qi Gu’s livestream boosted his popularity, Wei Cai tried to enlist Director Jiang Haojie’s help in reporting the production team to the broadcasting authorities. Jiang agreed to arrange an introduction while secretly abusing his kitten, then publicly portrayed himself as a gentle animal rescuer as online commenters defended him against Qi Gu’s warning.

• Qi Gu’s growing fanbase dismissed rumors about him and recalled his warning that Director Jiang Haojie would have a miserable old age without doing more good deeds.
• Wei Cai contacted Jiang Haojie and asked him to arrange an introduction to Director Mu so Wei Cai could report the Investigating the Strange production team.
• Jiang Haojie beat his kitten Xiao Ben, took it to a veterinary clinic, and falsely claimed it had fallen from a balcony.
• Jiang Haojie brought Xiao Ben home, cared for it tenderly, and posted online that he had rescued the injured kitten.
• Commenters praised Jiang Haojie’s animal-rescue work and rejected Qi Gu’s warning as baseless superstition.