Chapter Summaries

Xue Fuyao brought Jiang Zuo to the Black Market entrance, where they waited for enough people to gather before the teleportation array could take them to the trade fair. While they waited, they overheard Tiance Sect disciples discussing the Yuanji Sect’s visit to the Tang Household.

• Elder Zhao warned Xue Fuyao to stay safe as he left to escort Tang Yi back to the sect.
• Xue Fuyao led Jiang Zuo to a hidden entrance in an ordinary herbal medicine shop and gave the old man the password, “Black Market Trade Fair!”
• The old man told them the teleportation array needed fifty people before it could activate, and Xue Fuyao explained the Black Market’s concealment rules to Jiang Zuo.
• Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo put on cloaks that concealed their appearances and auras, then waited as a dozen Tiance Sect cultivators arrived.
• A Tiance Sect disciple told his Eldest Senior Brother that Yuanji Sect members had gone to the Tang Household, prompting their Master to visit Elder Tang in anxious haste.

Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo entered the Black Market and prepared for its auction, but Xue Fuyao first set up a stall to trade surplus spirit medicine. She exchanged a thousand-year-old Root-Replenishing Grass for a piece of golden ore Jiang Zuo wanted.

• Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo arrived at the Black Market with a group that included Tiance Sect disciples.
• Xue Fuyao explained that Black Market vendors usually bartered, and Jiang Zuo asked her to buy an auction scroll for him.
• Xue Fuyao set out surplus spirit medicine, which she had rejected while cultivating single spiritual roots for the returned Dark Guard members.
• A cloaked man offered his possessions for Xue Fuyao's thousand-year-old Root-Replenishing Grass.
• Jiang Zuo told Xue Fuyao to take the man's golden ore, and she traded the grass for it.

Xue Fuyao traded spirit-washing grass at the Black Market, then exchanged it for a fresh sprig of the long-lost Enlightenment Tea Tree. She secretly settled the sprig in her inner space and warned Jiang Zuo against using hidden weapons in the Black Market.

• Xue Fuyao offered spirit-washing grass in exchange for anything that interested her, but rejected the belongings brought by a cultivator.
• The cultivator accused Xue Fuyao of fraud and threatened her, then collapsed after she told him to get lost.
• A cloaked trader offered a Jade Box for the spirit-washing grass, and Xue Fuyao accepted the trade after recognizing its contents.
• Xue Fuyao discovered the Jade Box held a fresh sprig from the Enlightenment Tea Tree and settled it in her inner space to grow.
• Xue Fuyao noticed Jiang Zuo fiddling with hidden weapons and warned him not to be impulsive because fighting was forbidden in the Black Market.

At the Black Market, Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo were threatened by a child named Dongdong after his search for two spirit medicines failed, and Xue Fuyao discovered they had been marked for pursuit. They rested and then attended the evening auction, where the first lot appeared to be a golden core taken from a living cultivator.

• Xue Fuyao opened a Jade Box and revealed a damaged, thousand-year-old Ginseng Fruit as a red-clad child and his demonic-qi guards approached.
• Dongdong learned that the root-reforming grass and spirit-washing grass had already been traded away, then tried to coax Xue Fuyao into exchanging them before threatening her.
• Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo laughed at Dongdong, who threatened to kill them and left after Xue Fuyao dismissed him.
• Xue Fuyao found a tracking insect hidden beneath her Cloak and told Jiang Zuo that several hostile parties had marked them as targets.
• Xue Fuyao put away her stall and planned to rest before leaving the Black Market, while Jiang Zuo looked forward to the danger ahead.
• That evening, Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo took seats near the front of the auction, where the booklet showed a golden core as the first lot.

At a Black Market auction, Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo realized the crowd was setting them up to seize Xue Fuyao’s rare spirit medicines. They played along and bought nearly every item, including a black scroll, as they prepared to rob the conspirators in turn.

• Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo noticed that demon cultivators and other watchers had surrounded them at the auction.
• Two people at their table revealed the Golden Core’s seller wanted lifespan-extending medicine, so Xue Fuyao traded an Incomplete Ginseng Fruit for it.
• Xue Fuyao figured out that the Black Market, the auction-item owners, and the watchers had colluded to target her spirit medicines.
• Xue Fuyao told Jiang Zuo they would keep playing along and rob the plotters after they tried to rob them.
• Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo bought nearly every auction item, including the black scroll, with Xue Fuyao winning the scroll for one spirit medicine.

Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo turned the Black Market’s predators into prey, trapping and defeating a group of cultivators who tried to rob them. After collecting their spoils, they saw a blaze light up the sky, leaving the source of the fire unknown.

• Seven powerful incarnations sealed the Black Market entrance, trapping the would-be robbers inside, while Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo left Wan City by climbing its wall.
• Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo waited outside the city and prepared a cage for the ambushers pursuing them.
• Dozens of cultivators surrounded the pair and demanded their belongings, but Jiang Zuo exposed their scheme to lure bidders into later robberies.
• Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo activated a formation that trapped the cultivators, then Jiang Zuo attacked them with hidden weapons.
• Xue Fuyao shot the apparently defeated cultivators with a poison-coated crossbow, collected their souls in the Heavenheart Bottle, and dismantled the formation.
• The pair searched the cultivators’ Storage Bags, then a blaze lit up the sky around them.

Zhang Hui cornered Xue Fuyao and Jiang Zuo, revealed that he knew she was a princess, and threatened to turn her into a puppet. Xue Fuyao sent Jiang Zuo away and summoned a powerful puppet and a group of fighters, forcing Zhang Hui to flee as they moved to capture him.

• Zhang Hui descended through the flames, identified Xue Fuyao as the little princess, and said he would keep her alive to make her his puppet.
• Xue Fuyao challenged Zhang Hui about the destruction of her lineage, while he refused to explain why he was pursuing her.
• Xue Fuyao pressed a hand to Jiang Zuo's shoulder and made him vanish, startling Zhang Hui.
• Xue Fuyao summoned a white-haired puppet whose aura reached the middle stage of Void Refinement, along with more than a dozen late-stage Spirit Transformation fighters.
• Zhang Hui tried to escape, but Xue Fuyao's puppets pursued him under orders to capture him.

Xue Fuyao brought Jiang Zuo into the Inheritance Grounds and searched the area while he pursued the inheritance. After finding Spirit Ginseng and forming a Contract with the Enlightenment Tea Tree, she thought of the person who had brought the tree to the Black Market.

• Xue Fuyao arranged to weaken the Zhang Family gradually while waiting for Jiang Zuo to wake.
• Jiang Zuo awoke, and Xue Fuyao led him off a cliff into the Inheritance Grounds, where he discovered he could not use his cultivation.
• Xue Fuyao explained that they had three months to obtain the inheritance and that the place would disappear if a hundred entrants failed; Jiang Zuo went to study the scroll.
• Xue Fuyao searched the grounds, found a patch of Spirit Ginseng, and transferred the plants and soil to her Portable Medicinal Garden.
• Xue Fuyao dried and brewed Spirit Ginseng tea, formed a Contract with the Enlightenment Tea Tree, and thought of the person who had brought it to the Black Market.

Xue Fuyao carried the injured Jiang Zuo away after his cultivation triggered strange runes in the cliff, then confronted the crippled Zhang Hui. She refused his offer to reveal the truth, saying she had no attachment to the Xue Kingdom or its lineage.

• Jiang Zuo spat blood as golden runes appeared on the cliff, and he warned Xue Fuyao to leave.
• Xue Fuyao carried Jiang Zuo to Qiaolin Town, hid their traces, and left a puppet to guard him at an inn.
• Xue Fuyao met the puppets she had awakened and found their condition had worsened during the three-month wait.
• Zhang Hui offered to reveal everything if Xue Fuyao swore to spare him, but she rejected his plea and said she did not want his truth.
• Xue Fuyao told Zhang Hui that she had been only five when he acted against the Xue Kingdom and felt no loyalty to the country, her family, or the lineage.

Xue Fuyao forced her way into Zhang Hui’s damaged soul and learned part of the Zhang Family’s secrets before ordering her puppet to turn him into a weapon. Back at the inn, she found Jiang Zuo acting strangely and accidentally gave him a Prank Pill, leaving him to endure its awful taste.

• Xue Fuyao enraged Zhang Hui to create an opening, then used the Soul-Seizing Technique to invade his soul and glimpse fragments of the real secrets.
• Zhang Hui failed to detonate his soul, and Xue Fuyao ordered her puppet to take him away and refine him into her first weapon against the Zhang Family.
• Xue Fuyao returned to Qiaolin Town and learned from the innkeeper that Jiang Zuo had awakened but was behaving strangely.
• Xue Fuyao found Jiang Zuo grinning foolishly, mistook a bottle of Prank Pills for healing pills, and gave him one by mistake.
• After the pill’s taste finally began to fade, Jiang Zuo opened his eyes to Xue Fuyao asking if he was all right.

After helping Jiang Zuo secure Zhong Ying’s inheritance, Xue Fuyao returned to the Central Continent to investigate the Zhang Family’s movements. There she spotted a lotus petal on a fleeing man named Zhang Qi and followed him into an alley, where three pursuers demanded his belongings.

• Jiang Zuo recovered after taking several pills and told Xue Fuyao that he had obtained Zhong Ying’s inheritance and at least half the treasures in the hidden weapons inheritance site.
• Xue Fuyao arranged for Jiang Zuo to return to the Western Continent and asked him to make powerful, compact hidden weapons after his seclusion.
• Xue Fuyao arrived in Ning City and used information from Cangling Academy and Zhang Hui’s memories to assess the Zhang Family’s plans.
• Xue Fuyao spotted a green lotus petal hanging from Zhang Qi’s chest and pursued him into an alley.
• Three dark figures cornered Zhang Qi and demanded the belongings his mother had left him, but he refused to hand them over.

Xue Fuyao saved Zhang Qi from his pursuers, learned that the Zhang Family was hunting him for something connected to his missing parents, and took his necklace, which held one of her missing petals. After hiding Zhang Qi and returning to the Teahouse, she considered why the Zhang Family was unusually active around Ning City and its thirteen secret realms.

• Xue Fuyao killed the three men pursuing Zhang Qi and asked him why the Zhang Family wanted him.
• Zhang Qi explained that his parents vanished after entering a secret realm and that the Zhang Family had pressured him to hand over something they left behind.
• Xue Fuyao recognized Zhang Qi's necklace as one of her missing petals and took it, then erased his memories of her and left him in a dilapidated temple.
• Xue Fuyao returned to the Teahouse and absorbed the petal, bringing her collection to roughly three-quarters complete.
• Xue Fuyao recalled that thirteen secret realms had appeared near Ning City in half a year and that the Zhang Family and its connected lineages blocked others from claiming them without claiming them themselves.

Xue Fuyao investigated Secret Realm Thirteen and discovered signs that it had been cut from a larger secret realm. She spotted Ming Cen outside the entrance, and he leaped over to ask why she had not told him she was coming to the Central Continent.

• Xue Fuyao traveled to Secret Realm Thirteen and learned that entrants faced a three-year wait unless they bought a spot from a suspicious youth.
• Xue Fuyao refused the youth’s offer and used the Heavenly Eye from a concealed position to inspect the secret realm.
• Xue Fuyao saw that Secret Realm Thirteen had been stripped bare and noticed cut-and-stitched edges that suggested the thirteen realms were pieces of one larger realm.
• Xue Fuyao spotted Ming Cen in the crowd, and Ming Cen joined her and asked why she had not told him she was coming to the Central Continent.

Xue Fuyao learned that the thirteen secret realms near Ning City might be fragments of one realm and that the Zheng, Nan, and Feng households were searching them for a particular item. After sending two cloaked companions into a realm and arranging searches of the other twelve, she discovered that her Sixth Martial Uncle Han had divided a secret realm into thirteen, and that many things had vanished in the process.

• Xue Fuyao examined Ming Cen’s thirteen maps and fitted them together into a complete secret-realm map.
• Ming Cen told Xue Fuyao that the Zheng, Nan, and Feng households had long prepared a scheme to get people into the realms, where they searched for a specific item.
• Ming Cen explained that he planned to enter the thirteenth secret realm himself and had sent people into the other twelve.
• Xue Fuyao declined to enter with Ming Cen but asked him to take two cloaked companions inside, then arranged for people to search the other twelve realms.
• Xue Fuyao asked her master whether anyone could divide a secret realm, and Xie Yichu told her that Sixth Martial Uncle Han had recently split an unstable realm into thirteen parts.

Xue Fuyao met Wenren Yu, who warned her not to investigate the Forbidden Zone and urged her to withdraw from the secret realms. After leaving Ning City, she followed a lead from Shadow One and Shadow Two to a marsh, where she found signs that someone had recently been there.

• Xue Fuyao met Wenren Yu and asked who had commissioned the thirteen secret realms; he said he suspected a connection to the Forbidden Zone.
• Wenren Yu warned Xue Fuyao that investigating the Forbidden Zone would endanger her and those around her, and told her to withdraw her people from the secret realms.
• Wenren Yu gave Xue Fuyao a Storage Bag as a first-meeting gift and told her to open it somewhere private.
• Xue Fuyao recalled her puppets from the secret realms, warned Ming Cen, and left Ning City after confirming the puppets were safe.
• Three days later, Xue Fuyao reached a marsh and found signs that one person had recently camped there, then hurried to search for the place described in Shadow One and Shadow Two's recovered memories.

Xue Fuyao found the unusual stone she had been seeking and persuaded Dai Mingyue to help uncover it by offering to address the conflict between Dai Mingyue’s two constitutions. Dai Mingyue, who had less than a month to live, was left wondering whether Xue Fuyao could truly save her.

• Xue Fuyao followed the sounds of battle to find Dai Mingyue killing a giant crocodile beside the stone she had been seeking.
• Xue Fuyao examined and cleaned the stone but could find no way to open it, then considered bringing Shadow One and the others to help.
• Xue Fuyao asked Dai Mingyue to help uncover the buried part of the stone and offered to let her join, but demanded whatever Dai Mingyue brought out.
• Xue Fuyao revealed that she had identified Dai Mingyue’s medicine spirit body and poison spirit body, whose opposing powers were damaging her.
• Dai Mingyue questioned whether Xue Fuyao could help, knowing her body was failing and that she had less than a month before adulthood.

Xue Fuyao demonstrated that she could reduce the poison in Dai Mingyue’s body, and Dai Mingyue agreed to help her in exchange for a cure. While Dai Mingyue dug up a buried rock, Xue Fuyao’s investigation suggested her condition began around the time her spiritual roots were tested, and Xue Fuyao noticed something that prompted her to call the others over.

• Dai Mingyue demanded proof that Xue Fuyao could resolve her constitution, so Xue Fuyao sent a white butterfly to draw toxins from her body.
• Dai Mingyue confirmed that the poison had genuinely decreased and agreed to help Xue Fuyao in return for having it removed.
• Xue Fuyao told Dai Mingyue to dig out the rock while she prepared and asked Shadow One and the others to investigate Dai Mingyue’s identity.
• Shadow One reported that Dai Mingyue was the Dai Lineage Patriarch’s third child and had rarely appeared in public since falling ill as a child.
• Xue Fuyao suspected Dai Mingyue’s abnormality had been discovered during her spiritual root test, then saw something near the exposed rock and summoned the others.

Xue Fuyao escaped a memory illusion that revealed an unfamiliar scene from her time in the Snow Dynasty’s Imperial Palace, then waited for Dai Mingyue to emerge from the stone. Dai Mingyue came out unconscious, and Xue Fuyao discovered that her Medicine Spirit Body had awakened while her Poison Spirit Body had become more dangerous.

• Xue Fuyao activated the stone with her blood and was drawn into an empty expanse, where an illusion showed her a woman who felt like her mother and a figure she recognized as the Snow Dynasty’s ruler.
• Xue Fuyao broke the illusion with a burst of golden light, exhausted her Spiritual Power, and left the stone chamber carrying something she could not yet use.
• Shadow One reported that all 131 people who entered had returned safely, and Xue Fuyao asked whether anyone had tampered with her memories; Shadow One said he knew nothing.
• Xue Fuyao waited until nightfall for Dai Mingyue, who was thrown out when the stone shattered.
• Xue Fuyao examined the unconscious Dai Mingyue and found that her Medicine Spirit Body had come alive, but her Poison Spirit Body would kill her within three days if left untreated.

Xue Fuyao saved Dai Mingyue and let her choose whether to keep her poison spirit body or become an ordinary cultivator. After Dai Mingyue chose the poison spirit body and set off to find a place to cultivate, Xue Fuyao learned that the Forbidden Zone search had yielded nothing and the plan against the Zhang Family had stalled.

• Xue Fuyao used Starry Sky to neutralize some of Dai Mingyue’s toxins, and Dai Mingyue woke with the Pink Skull in her hand.
• Xue Fuyao explained Dai Mingyue’s two options for treating her damaged spirit bodies, and Dai Mingyue chose to keep her poison spirit body.
• Xue Fuyao treated Dai Mingyue, who woke the next morning and decided not to return to her family.
• Xue Fuyao recommended that Dai Mingyue go to Ten Thousand Poisons Valley in the Western Continent to cultivate.
• Shadow One reported that the Zhang Family and other lineages had stopped acting and were secretly seeking information about the Forbidden Zone, but had found nothing.
• Xue Fuyao learned that the Zhang Family had killed the people sent against them and stopped its disciples from traveling alone, forcing her to suspend the plan.

Xue Fuyao returned to Yuanji Sect after recovering eleven petals, and the resulting surge of life-filled Spiritual Power drove her into a long seclusion that greatly increased her cultivation. After she reunited with Xie Yichu and explained some of her secrets, he warned her to keep her face concealed and told her she could not compete in the upcoming Faction Grand Competition, though she could attend as a spectator.

• Xue Fuyao opened Sixth Martial Uncle's Storage Bag, absorbed its eleven petals, and hurried to Green Bamboo Peak when the energy within her began surging.
• Xie Yichu sealed Green Bamboo Peak with a Formation and increased its Spiritual Power to help Xue Fuyao cultivate in seclusion.
• After a long time, Xue Fuyao emerged at the Nascent Soul Middle Stage, with both her Cultivation Methods at the fourth layer and nearing the fifth.
• Xue Fuyao knelt before Xie Yichu, admitted she had concealed her cultivation, and told him about her origins and the Zhang Family while omitting several secrets.
• Xie Yichu told Xue Fuyao to conceal her face and explained that she could not compete in the Faction Grand Competition because it had no Nascent Soul division, but she could go and watch.