Chapter Summaries

After Zhao Layue agreed to enter the Dao Battle, she and Jing Jiu left the Plum Gathering to see whether Luo Huainan was visiting Heaven Near Person. On the mountain path, Jing Jiu warned her that the battle meant facing her own death, then they heard an overwhelming qin performance that he recognized as coming from the Water-Moon Convent.

• Zhao Layue confirmed to Nan Wang that she would enter the Dao Battle, despite her disadvantage against Luo Huainan.
• News spread that Luo Huainan and Tong Yan might be visiting Heaven Near Person, and Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue left the cold terrace to investigate.
• Jing Jiu told Zhao Layue that the Dao Battle involved real death, but she said she still wanted to fight.
• A disjointed but commanding qin performance silenced the birds, wind, and stream, moving Jing Jiu and startling Zhao Layue.
• Jing Jiu identified the performer as someone from the Water-Moon Convent, and Zhao Layue's Dao heart grew unsettled.

Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue sought Heaven Near Person, and the Curtain Rollers told them he was staying at the Old Plum Garden. As they approached the site, they saw an arrogant young man defeating chess players and forcing them away.

• Jing Jiu took Zhao Layue to a Curtain Rollers clinic and asked for Heaven Near Person’s whereabouts.
• The clinic’s doctor named the Old Plum Garden as Heaven Near Person’s residence.
• Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue walked toward the Old Plum Garden, where Jing Jiu recalled the Plum Gathering’s history.
• A young man defeated a chess-stall owner and ordered him to leave.
• The young man solved another stall’s endgame puzzle with one move, leaving its owner pale and sweating, then headed for a third stall.

Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue passed a chess-stall street where a youthful cultivator challenged its players and threatened to drive them all away. They continued to the Old Garden, where the sound of bells revealed that someone had broken through the Plum Grove’s formations, and Jing Jiu suspected the little girl had arrived to question Heaven Near Person.

• A young cultivator solved a concealed endgame puzzle, then threatened the stall owners and challenged them to chess matches, wagering that losers would leave and he would die if he lost.
• Mr. He confronted the young man, who declared that none of the chess players were worthy and that he intended to drive them from the street.
• Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue watched briefly; Jing Jiu recognized a resemblance between the young man's chess-playing and an old acquaintance's way of killing, then decided to leave.
• Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue reached the Old Garden, where bell sounds from the Plum Grove showed that someone had broken its lingering formations.
• Zhao Layue identified the sound as coming from the Hanging Bell Sect, and Jing Jiu guessed that the little girl had come to ask Heaven Near Person something.

Zhao Layue and Jing Jiu entered the old Plum Garden after interrupting a standoff between the Hanging Bell Sect and palace guards. They reached the nunnery and came face to face with the favored Noble Consort Hu.

• Zhao Layue and Jing Jiu followed the bells to the lake, where a Hanging Bell Sect envoy and her young companion were arguing with an old eunuch and palace guards.
• Zhao Layue challenged the guards, and the eunuch recognized her and Jing Jiu before stepping aside.
• The young girl greeted Zhao Layue, and they entered the plum grove with Jing Jiu without waiting for the eunuch to announce them.
• The girl teased Zhao Layue about her violent reputation, and Zhao Layue admitted she could not change because many people deserved to die or wanted to die.
• The group reached the nunnery, where they learned the woman beneath the flowering tree was Noble Consort Hu; Zhao Layue and the consort met eyes.

Zhao Layue faced Consort Hu’s veiled insults and answered with the authority of a Green Mountain Peak Master, while Se Se argued with the consort over access to Heaven Near Person. A young man arrived and challenged Consort Hu, and the exchange ended with Jing Jiu and the young man teasing Se Se about her name.

• Consort Hu mocked Zhao Layue by comparing her unfavorably with her mother, and Zhao Layue replied that she would tell her mother not to visit the palace again.
• Consort Hu tried to question Se Se, who accused her of keeping others out so the nunnery’s visitors would choose her.
• Se Se mocked Consort Hu for wanting a child with the Divine Emperor, and Consort Hu responded with her alluring charm.
• A young man arrived, told Consort Hu that his father already had children, and then asked whether Zhao Layue was from Green Mountain Sect.
• Jing Jiu asked Se Se which character her name used, and the young man and Jing Jiu made jokes about its meaning.

Jing Jiu ignored the Brocade-Clad Young Man’s hostility and promised Se Se that he would do one thing for her, trusting her to choose wisely. After Luo Huainan warned Se Se to set limits on the promise, he threatened to break Jing Jiu’s sword, and Zhao Layue made her willingness to fight him clear.

• Jing Jiu disregarded the Brocade-Clad Young Man and asked Se Se her name, while Se Se offered Zhao Layue and Jing Jiu two precious Heart-Clearing Bells.
• Zhao Layue accepted her bell and said she would give Se Se a sword later; Jing Jiu promised to do one thing for Se Se whenever she asked.
• Luo Huainan emerged from the Old Nunnery and told Se Se not to ask Jing Jiu to commit evil, violate the way of immortal heroes, or harm himself.
• The Brocade-Clad Young Man challenged the meaning of Jing Jiu’s promise, and Jing Jiu replied that Se Se would trust him because he trusted her.
• Luo Huainan said he would break Jing Jiu’s sword to avenge Guo Nanshan, and Zhao Layue answered with a clear will to fight and kill him.

Luo Huainan left the Plum Grove after suspecting that Jing Jiu possessed the innate Formless Sword Body, while Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue weighed whether to seek a reading from the Heavenly Master. The young man in brocade and Consort Hu were both refused readings because their questions concerned Heaven’s mandate, and each interpreted the refusal as a sign of what the future held.

• Luo Huainan noticed Zhao Layue’s keen Sword Heart and Jing Jiu’s influence over her, then left while wondering whether rumors about Jing Jiu’s Formless Sword Body were true.
• The young man in brocade mocked Jing Jiu, but Jing Jiu ignored him and asked Zhao Layue whether she was worried about the Heavenly Master reading her secrets.
• A young attendant told the young man in brocade that the Heavenly Master could not read matters concerning Heaven’s mandate, and the young man left smiling.
• Se Se explained that the refusal implied Heaven’s mandate lay with the young man in brocade, while Consort Hu realized she could not have a son who became crown prince.
• The attendant gave Consort Hu the same refusal, and she left the Plum Grove overjoyed; Jing Jiu, Zhao Layue, and the woman from the Hanging Bell Sect considered the implications for the imperial dynasty.

Jing Jiu dismissed Heaven Near Person’s fortune-telling, but stopped when the blind master revealed he might know Jingyang’s whereabouts. In the hermitage, Heaven Near Person asked Jing Jiu why he had come if he cared nothing for the world.

• Jing Jiu challenged the boy’s claim that Heaven Near Person’s answers held profound meaning, while Se Se learned her mother would not remarry for at least ten years.
• The boy told Jing Jiu that Zhao Layue had left, then offered him a rare chance to meet Heaven Near Person, but Jing Jiu started to leave.
• A voice asked Jing Jiu whether he truly did not want to know Jingyang’s whereabouts, and Jing Jiu stopped and decided to meet its owner.
• Jing Jiu entered the hermitage and saw the blind Heaven Near Person writing with rested ink, then praised his calligraphy.
• Heaven Near Person asked Jing Jiu why he had come if he cared nothing for the world.

Jing Jiu visited Heaven Near Person in the Old Plum Garden and used his first question to learn what others had asked. After giving up his remaining questions, he faced Heaven Near Person’s attempt to see through him, and their silent gaze left the encounter unresolved.

• Jing Jiu asked Heaven Near Person what questions the other visitors had asked, and Heaven Near Person told him that Luo Huainan’s questions had been strange.
• Heaven Near Person recalled that Luo Huainan had asked what he saw when he looked at people and how long the Snow Nation’s cold weather—and hotpot’s popularity in the Nether Capital—would last.
• Heaven Near Person said Zhao Layue had hesitated but ultimately asked nothing.
• Jing Jiu declined to use his last two questions and pointed out that Heaven Near Person had let him in to ask him questions instead.
• Heaven Near Person challenged Jing Jiu by claiming he could see through him, and Jing Jiu asked whether he could withstand what he would see.
• Heaven Near Person raised his blind eyes to look at Jing Jiu, who returned his gaze as time in the room seemed to stop.

Heaven Near Person used a fragment of Divine Sense to probe Jing Jiu, but Jing Jiu detected the danger and destroyed it with his sword intent. Injured by the backlash, Heaven Near Person asked who Jing Jiu was, and Jing Jiu left without answering.

• A boy guarding the Old Nunnery recognized the eerie silence from an earlier visit by the Sect Master of the No-Grace Gate and wondered what Heaven Near Person was doing.
• Heaven Near Person’s Divine Sense slowed Jing Jiu’s thoughts and secretly traveled to his Dao Tree, threatening his cultivation and risking discovery of his secret.
• Jing Jiu deduced that leaving the fragment inside him was too dangerous, then sent more than three hundred strands of sword intent to destroy it.
• The fragment’s destruction caused an invisible thunderbolt that left Heaven Near Person trembling and bleeding.
• Heaven Near Person asked Jing Jiu who he was, and Jing Jiu said the answer was beyond him before taking the white paper and leaving the Nunnery.

Jing Jiu survived Heaven Near Person’s mental attack but left the nunnery injured, then discussed the encounter and the motives behind others’ questions with Zhao Layue. He began to tell her who he was, but she stopped him.

• Heaven Near Person recovered from Jing Jiu’s counterattack and wondered who he was.
• Jing Jiu left the Plum Grove injured, and Zhao Layue asked what had happened inside the nunnery.
• Jing Jiu reasoned that Luo Huainan and the brocade-clad young man knew each other and explained that public questions shaped how others judged the asker.
• Jing Jiu explained that the board-game player had not entered the nunnery because he was clever and proud, while Zhao Layue had stayed away because she feared the risk.
• Jing Jiu began to tell Zhao Layue that he was the person she suspected, but she raised her hand to stop him.

Zhao Layue told Jing Jiu that his identity did not matter to her, and the two walked hand in hand through Chaoge. At a Go stall, a young man challenged them to see whether they could understand his game, just as Scholar Guo prepared to play him.

• Zhao Layue explained that she did not want to know Jing Jiu's identity because she feared the answer, and Jing Jiu promised it would not be bad.
• Zhao Layue told Jing Jiu he was important to her, then took his hand and led him toward the street.
• Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue passed a young man who had driven the Go stalls away from the old Plum Garden by defeating their players.
• Scholar Guo arrived at the stall and challenged the young man, who said the old man could not beat him and that the stallholders would not accept clearing the street.
• The young man paused before playing Scholar Guo and asked Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue whether they wanted to try to understand his Go.

Jing Jiu prevented Zhao Layue from reacting to a young man’s deliberate insult and watched the young man play Go against Scholar Guo. As the celebrated game drew a crowd, Jing Jiu secretly calculated every move alongside the players, though no one noticed he was participating.

• Jing Jiu stopped Zhao Layue from retaliating against the young man and walked over to the Go stall.
• Scholar Guo focused himself while the young man prepared to play, and dozens of Chaoge City Go experts gathered to watch.
• The young man gave Scholar Guo the first move, and the two began a game whose early moves appeared ordinary to the spectators.
• Jing Jiu calculated the game from its first move and realized that following every variation was tiring.
• As the game continued and the crowd grew, Jing Jiu took out his bamboo chair and sat beside the board.

Jing Jiu watched Tong Yan defeat Scholar Guo in a public Go match, drawing attention from the crowd and Zhao Layue. Tong Yan then asked Jing Jiu whether he had understood the game, leaving the spectators wondering what the question meant.

• Scholar Guo invited Jing Jiu to drink Xinyang Maojian while playing Go against a young man.
• As the game continued into the evening, Zhao Layue noticed Jing Jiu moving his hand beneath his bamboo chair as he studied the board.
• Scholar Guo admitted defeat after failing to find a way through the young man's position.
• The crowd recognized the young man as Tong Yan of the Zhongzhou Sect, the world's greatest Go player.
• Tong Yan asked Jing Jiu whether he had understood what he had seen, and Jing Jiu removed his bamboo hat as the crowd recognized him.

Jing Jiu challenged Tong Yan’s belief that Go depended on intuition and the Great Dao rather than calculation. He left Tong Yan and Scholar Guo studying a move that seemed to sacrifice his own stones, while he explained his approach to Zhao Layue.

• Tong Yan criticized Jing Jiu’s calculating style of Go and said calculation could not lead to the Great Dao.
• Jing Jiu argued that Go and mahjong both required calculation and that no player could predict every move an opponent might make.
• Jing Jiu placed a black stone that sealed off many of his own stones, then left with Zhao Layue and challenged Tong Yan to beat him at the Plum Gathering.
• Tong Yan and Scholar Guo studied a different point on the board and acknowledged Jing Jiu’s move as impressive.
• Jing Jiu told Zhao Layue that he had used the unexpected move to show that opponents could not fully anticipate one another and that calculation should guide play.

Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue discussed immortality, Tong Yan, and their own unfamiliarity with the cultivation world before parting. Elsewhere, Yuan Qijing watched the dark well, the Sect Master studied the sword sheath, and a young man reached a hidden entrance in Cold Mountain and called for Sword Evader.

• Jing Jiu told Zhao Layue that immortality could not be proven and said Tong Yan had sought him out because of his skill at chess and Go.
• Zhao Layue regretted that her words at the Four Seas Banquet had set later events in motion, then said she would ask her family about Tong Yan; Jing Jiu said he would ask his family too.
• Zhao Layue was astonished to learn Jing Jiu had once been forced to play mahjong.
• Yuan Qijing stood watching the bottom of the well in his cave abode, while the Sect Master examined the sword sheath embedded in a stone stele and the Origin Turtle watched him.
• A young man riding a yak crossed the snowy plains of Cold Mountain, received a letter by paper crane, and mocked Little Four for planning to use a charlatan against Jing Jiu.
• The young man found a sheer cliff, knocked on its solid rock face, and called for Sword Evader.

A young man confronted the Third-Generation Patriarch of the Profound Yin Sect, who remained hidden in a cliff, and asked him to become a mahjong partner. In Chaoge City, Jing Jiu studied the Go match and learned that Tong Yan was unwilling to marry Bai Zao because Luo Huainan was the Zhongzhou Sect Master's preferred son-in-law.

• A young man challenged the hidden Third-Generation Patriarch of the Profound Yin Sect to come out, but only a faint tremor answered him.
• The young man said he wanted to reclaim his mahjong tiles and asked the patriarch to be his new playing partner.
• Jing Jiu asked the Jing Household Eldest Brother whether he played mahjong, then asked if he could recover the bet on the Go match; he later requested books about Go.
• Jing Jiu replayed the game from the Old Plum Garden and found he could finish slightly ahead of Scholar Guo, though the effort made him cough.
• The Duke of Lu told Jing Jiu that Tong Yan was the Zhongzhou Sect Master's wife's chosen son-in-law for Bai Zao, but Tong Yan was unwilling because Luo Huainan was the Sect Master's choice.

Jing Jiu told the Duke of Lu that Heaven Near Person had tried to kill him and identified Fang Jingtian as responsible, then asked to enter the palace. After meeting the Divine Emperor, Jing Jiu returned to the residence, read books on Go through the night, and received the news he had been waiting for.

• Jing Jiu told the Duke of Lu that Heaven Near Person had tried to kill him at the Old Plum Garden and said Fang Jingtian was responsible.
• The Duke of Lu warned that Heaven Near Person was difficult to deal with and discussed the Divine Emperor's invitations to Heaven Near Person and the Zen Child.
• Jing Jiu asked to enter the palace immediately, and the Duke of Lu escorted him through a side gate.
• The Divine Emperor received Jing Jiu in the great hall while the Duke of Lu waited outside.
• Jing Jiu returned to the residence, read the Duke of Lu's books on Go through the night, and received the news he had been waiting for.

Heaven Near Person met the Zen Child at Pure Enlightenment Temple, where they discussed the Divine Emperor’s concerns about Fang Jingtian and Jing Jiu. The Zen Child revealed that he would intervene because Jing Jiu was also descended from an old friend, then left Heaven Near Person contemplating whether he would survive.

• The Zen Child invited Heaven Near Person to Pure Enlightenment Temple after receiving a letter from the Divine Emperor.
• Heaven Near Person said he had come to calculate the fate of their race, while the Zen Child asked about his prediction of a hundred-year span.
• The Zen Child said the Divine Emperor was worried about an old friend's descendant and asked if Fang Jingtian was involved.
• The Zen Child explained that he would intervene because Jing Jiu was also the descendant of an old friend.
• The Zen Child left white lotuses blooming with every step, and Heaven Near Person wondered if he would leave alive.

Heaven Near Person challenged the Zen Child’s illusion at Pure Enlightenment Temple, but realized too late that the visions were bound to his own thoughts and suffered a grievous injury. After he left Chaoge City, Jing Jiu and Zhao Layue discussed the rumors surrounding his departure, then learned that His Majesty was going to watch the game.

• Heaven Near Person used ancient copper coins and his cultivated intent to resist the illusions of lotuses, dancing women, and gods and Buddhas left by the Zen Child.
• As Heaven Near Person pressed his attack, he realized that his visions existed only because he could see them, and the illusion vanished.
• Heaven Near Person awoke bloodied and barely alive, then left Pure Enlightenment Temple with the boy and departed Chaoge City, unable to calculate heaven’s secrets for ten years.
• Rumors spread about Heaven Near Person’s departure, while Jing Jiu knew the truth and found the speculation troublesome.
• Zhao Layue told Jing Jiu that His Majesty was going to watch the game.