Chapter Summaries

Stranded in a ruined temple, Zhang Qingyuan met Zhang Junbao, a grieving former Shaolin lay disciple who had been expelled after defeating a monk in a tournament. Recognizing the name and suspecting Zhang Junbao’s future importance, Zhang Qingyuan offered him companionship and decided they would make their way together.

• Zhang Qingyuan, a penniless transmigrant, left the city to seek martial arts training and sheltered in a ruined temple for the night.
• Zhang Qingyuan shared half his flatbread with the hungry traveler Zhang Junbao, who said he had once been a lay disciple at Shaolin Temple.
• Zhang Qingyuan asked about Master Jueyuan, and Zhang Junbao revealed that Jueyuan had died after taking punishment to protect him from the temple authorities.
• Zhang Junbao explained that he had won a Shaolin tournament through unarmed martial arts, but the Dharma Hall chief accused him of secretly learning internal cultivation and expelled him.
• Zhang Qingyuan comforted Zhang Junbao, promised they would support each other, and decided that having Zhang Junbao meant he no longer needed to seek another martial arts master.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao settled in Sanhe Town, where Zhang Qingyuan planned for Zhang Junbao to improve his martial arts while he earned money. After seeing Zhang Junbao shatter a table with his palm, Zhang Qingyuan realized that he had unknowingly developed internal power, and the brothers planned to investigate it further.

• Zhang Qingyuan rented a courtyard in Sanhe Town, bought necessities, and spent all their silver settling in with Zhang Junbao.
• Zhang Qingyuan told Zhang Junbao to focus on martial arts and Taoist scriptures while he looked after their safety and finances.
• Zhang Qingyuan learned that Zhang Junbao had never studied internal cultivation, despite his remarkable strength and victory over a Shaolin monk.
• Zhang Junbao demonstrated his fighting technique, then shattered a table with a palm strike after Zhang Qingyuan asked him to use his strongest move.
• Zhang Qingyuan concluded that Zhang Junbao had developed internal power through years of training without recognizing it, and planned to buy books on meridians and an internal cultivation method.

Zhang Qingyuan began training under Zhang Junbao while earning money by telling fortunes in town. After memorizing Zhang Junbao’s original fist technique with uncanny precision, he wondered whether he had a special talent for martial arts.

• Zhang Junbao taught Zhang Qingyuan stance training and demonstrated an unnamed fist technique he had created himself.
• After collapsing from the horse stance, Zhang Qingyuan remembered Zhang Junbao’s moves and ate a large breakfast before heading to town to earn money.
• Zhang Qingyuan charmed a vegetable seller into paying for a fortune and predicted her son would return within three days.
• Zhang Qingyuan gathered information about the dockside community from the stallholders and returned home with flour and cabbage.
• Zhang Qingyuan reproduced Zhang Junbao’s fist technique perfectly during their evening practice and suspected he had a special martial arts talent.

Zhang Qingyuan earned money with fortune-telling, bought scriptures and a meridian chart, and trained with Zhang Junbao while considering how to obtain an internal cultivation manual. After witnessing a gang expert’s display at the docks, he realized he had found a way to get one.

• Zhang Pengju returned to Sanhe Town, and Auntie Li praised Zhang Qingyuan for predicting his arrival.
• Li Guan and the River Crocodile Gang’s adviser discussed the threat of Sun Zhenjiang and Zhao Pengju joining forces, and the adviser said he had requested help from the Blood Lump Sect.
• Zhang Qingyuan earned three strings of coins, bought rice and three scriptures, then returned home with cabbages collected with Zhang Junbao.
• Zhang Qingyuan sparred with Zhang Junbao and saw how quickly his own martial skills improved.
• Zhang Qingyuan bought pork and a meridian chart, then watched a martial arts expert break up a gang fight at the docks.
• Zhang Qingyuan realized he could obtain an internal cultivation manual through the martial artists and gangs.

Zhang Qingyuan tried to persuade Zhao Pengju to help Zhang Junbao learn internal cultivation, using his friendship with Auntie Li to draw Zhao closer. Zhao Pengju confronted him over his scheming, then followed him to meet the supposed martial arts fanatic junior brother.

• Zhang Qingyuan named Zhao Pengju's newborn son Zhao Yun, with the courtesy name Zilong, and Zhao Pengju accepted the name.
• Zhang Qingyuan decided Zhang Junbao needed a teacher to explain internal cultivation and meridians so he could develop his martial arts sooner.
• Zhang Qingyuan grew close to Auntie Li and told her about his junior brother, a supposedly clueless martial arts fanatic who studied meridian charts.
• Auntie Li urged Zhao Pengju to teach Zhang Qingyuan and his junior brother martial arts, prompting Zhao to confront Zhang Qingyuan with a sword.
• Zhang Qingyuan denied seeking Zhao Pengju's martial arts and invited him to meet his junior brother, so Zhao grabbed his collar and made him lead the way.

Zhang Qingyuan persuaded Zhao Pengju to teach Zhang Junbao the principles of internal cultivation, then offered his junior brother a formula that inspired him to develop his own ideas. The brothers ended the night excited about Zhang Junbao’s progress and their mutual admiration.

• Zhang Qingyuan told Zhao Pengju that he had to support his martial-arts-obsessed junior brother, and Zhao Pengju agreed to give Zhang Junbao pointers.
• Zhao Pengju explained how internal force circulated through the meridians, helping Zhang Junbao understand the principles of cultivation.
• Zhang Qingyuan cooked a meal for Zhao Pengju, who continued sharing advice with Zhang Junbao over dinner.
• After Zhao Pengju left, Zhang Junbao told Zhang Qingyuan that he understood internal cultivation and planned to experiment with circulation methods.
• Zhang Qingyuan recited a cultivation formula, and Zhang Junbao drew inspiration from it while Zhang Qingyuan credited the words to a storyteller’s invention.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao exchanged praise and declared that they were both lofty and hard.

Zhang Junbao created and refined several martial arts with Zhang Qingyuan’s guidance, while Zhang Qingyuan cultivated the first internal method and supplied ideas from his past life. The brothers rushed to watch a duel and recognized one of the fighters as Brother Ju.

• Zhang Junbao taught Zhang Qingyuan his new internal cultivation method, and Zhang Qingyuan developed true Qi after cultivating through the night.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao debated names for the method before settling on Supreme Yang Meridian-Concentrating Divine Skill.
• Zhang Qingyuan supplied martial arts concepts and scriptures while the brothers watched local fighters and discussed how to counter their techniques.
• Over six months, Zhang Junbao created six martial arts, including Supreme Yin Meridian-Concentrating Divine Skill, Purple Firmament Thunder Ultimate Sword Technique, Taiji Fist, Nine Yang Palm, and Cloud Ladder.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao went to watch a duel, analyzed the fighters, and recognized the man being beaten as Brother Ju.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao rushed to save Zhao Pengju from a Blood Lump Sect fighter and learned that Auntie Li had been taken by the River Crocodile Gang. They attacked the enemy together, revealing overwhelming martial power and defeating him as they prepared to rescue her.

• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao intervened when they found Zhao Pengju badly injured and outmatched by a Blood Lump Sect fighter.
• Zhao Pengju warned the brothers that the enemy belonged to the Twelve Fiends of Xuetuo and explained that six had been hired to attack him and the Dry Flood Dragon Gang.
• Zhao Pengju revealed that the River Crocodile Gang had taken Auntie Li to threaten him, so Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao resolved to save her.
• The Blood Lump Sect fighter threatened the three, and Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao attacked before Zhao Pengju could lead the charge.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao unleashed powerful blue-white palm strikes that overwhelmed and killed the fighter.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao rescued Zhao Pengju’s family from the River Crocodile Gang after defeating its fighters. With Auntie Li and the others safe, the group escaped and Zhang Qingyuan suggested they travel the jianghu, teasing Junbao about finding a wife.

• Zhao Pengju led Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao to the River Crocodile Gang’s headquarters after Zhang Qingyuan killed one of the Twelve Fiends.
• Zhang Junbao fought off the gang members at the entrance with Taiji Fist while Zhang Qingyuan vaulted into the compound to search for Zhao Pengju’s family.
• Zhang Qingyuan killed the gang’s deputy leader when the swordsman tried to stop him from reaching the woodshed.
• Zhang Qingyuan found Auntie Li, Zhao Pengju’s daughter-in-law, and Zhao Zilong unharmed, then brought them outside to reunite with Zhao Pengju.
• The group fled the headquarters, and Zhang Qingyuan suggested that he and Zhang Junbao travel around the jianghu after settling Auntie Li somewhere safe.
• Zhang Qingyuan teased Zhang Junbao about finding a wife, leaving Junbao flustered.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao turned back toward Sanhe Town to rescue Sun Zhenjiang, while Zhao Pengju stayed behind to protect his family. At the River Crocodile Gang headquarters, the Blood Lump Sect disciples learned that two young Taoists had arrived, and Li Guan was swiftly knocked into the hall.

• Zhang Junbao admitted he wanted to test his martial arts against established fighters, and Zhang Qingyuan agreed to go with him.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao refused Zhao Pengju's request to join them, leaving him with Auntie Li, his wife, and his child.
• The Blood Lump Sect defeated the Dry Flood Dragon Gang, captured Sun Zhenjiang, and had Li Guan torture him as bait for Zhao Pengju.
• The Blood Lump Sect disciples questioned Li Guan about who had killed their brother, and he blamed Zhao Pengju before learning that Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao had arrived.
• Li Guan dismissed the two Taoists as frauds, but Zhang Qingyuan struck him with a flash of blue light and sent him crashing into the hall.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao learned that the Blood Lump Sect had come to Sanhe Town seeking the legendary Water-Parting Sword, but the sect members suspected the brothers had already found it. The chapter ended with both sides facing off over the accusation.

• Zhang Qingyuan admitted that he and Zhang Junbao had killed the Blood Lump Sect member, but the five sect members declined to fight them.
• A River Crocodile Gang adviser demanded that the Blood Lump Sect attack the brothers, so one of its members killed him.
• A Blood Lump Sect member explained that the Water-Parting Sword had sunk into the riverbed after a duel between the Sword Venerable and Sword God Huang Yue, and that the Hidden Darkness Sword could help locate it.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao realized the martial world's strongest figures were far beyond their current level, while the Blood Lump Sect members ranked only second-rate.
• The Blood Lump Sect members said someone had already obtained the Water-Parting Sword and asked whether Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao had found it, prompting a tense standoff.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao denied having the Water-Parting Sword, but the Blood Lump Sect refused to believe them and attacked. The pair adapted to the fight and killed all five enemies, though Zhang Qingyuan resented Zhang Junbao for stealing his final kill.

• The Blood Lump Sect accused Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao of possessing the Water-Parting Sword, and both denied it.
• Zhang Qingyuan warned the sect members that they could not defeat the pair, then threatened to find and punish whoever had taken the sword.
• The five Blood Lump Sect members surrounded Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao and attacked, with three fighting Zhang Qingyuan and two fighting Zhang Junbao.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao struggled at first, but adapted over about thirty exchanges and began counterattacking.
• Zhang Junbao killed two opponents, while Zhang Qingyuan killed two others and wounded another before Zhang Junbao struck that man down; Zhang Qingyuan resented him for taking the kill.

After rescuing Sun Zhenjiang, Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao left Sanhe Town to travel across Great Qian, while Zhao Pengju headed north and Sun chose to remain. As the brothers planned their route, Zhang Qingyuan asked Junbao what he might have done if they had never met.

• Sun Zhenjiang thanked Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao for saving him, then spoke privately with Zhao Pengju about the heroes’ hidden abilities and his regret over mistaking Zhang Qingyuan for a swindler.
• Sun Zhenjiang chose to return to Sanjiang Town, while Zhao Pengju planned to leave because he feared the Blood Lump Sect would retaliate; Zhang Junbao warned that Sanhe Town would become dangerous, but Sun still would not abandon his property.
• Zhang Junbao gave Zhao Pengju the Purple Firmament Thunder Ultimate Sword Technique, and Zhao decided to head north to seek refuge with his senior brother.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao packed their belongings, bought donkeys, and set out to travel through Great Qian’s nine provinces, with Zhang Qingyuan mapping their route.
• Zhang Qingyuan asked Zhang Junbao what he would have done if they had never met, and Junbao said he might have hidden away somewhere to think.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao stopped at a roadside inn, where they witnessed a youth accuse the eldest young master of the Wang family of Luoyang of killing Xiaohua and her family over a two-mace shortfall in payment for her dog. Zhang Junbao intervened, and the chapter ended with him deciding the young master had to die.

• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao traveled through Central Province while practicing their complementary inner cultivation methods.
• At a roadside inn, Zhang Qingyuan explained why he avoided ordering pork or lamb, and the brothers discussed their dwindling money.
• A youth rushed into the inn and accused the young master of killing Xiaohua and her family after paying two mace less than the agreed price for her dog.
• The young master's guard knocked the youth down and admitted that Xiaohua had been killed after resisting the young master's advances.
• Zhang Junbao stepped forward to confront the young master, who tried to intimidate him by naming his family and his father's bank.
• Zhang Junbao circulated his true Qi and declared that the young master's status made him all the more deserving of death.

After Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao killed Young Master Wang for murdering Xiaohua, they discussed why powerful people abused the poor and resolved to intervene when they witnessed injustice. Their newfound purpose strengthened their mindsets, while Wang Guangxi learned who had killed his son and ordered a citywide search for the two Taoists.

• The boy told Zhang Junbao and Zhang Qingyuan how Young Master Wang reneged on the agreed price for Xiaohua’s dogs, then killed her after she resisted him.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao left the inn and discussed how the powerful treated ordinary people, deciding to oppose injustice within their reach.
• Zhang Junbao declared that he would intervene when he saw people being treated as less than human, and both Taoists experienced a breakthrough in mindset.
• That night, Wang Guangxi learned that two young Taoists had killed his son and might also have killed six of the Twelve Fiends of Xuetuo.
• Wang Guangxi ordered his guards to search all of Luoyang and vowed to torture and kill the two Taoists.

While traveling toward the Yellow River, Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao were ambushed by jianghu men hired to capture them for killing the Wang Family Bank’s eldest young master. They defeated the attackers and searched their corpses for money, leaving Zhang Junbao to reconsider his scruples about taking the dead men’s belongings.

• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao discussed their journey, the missing search for the Water-Parting Sword, and their disappointment at not encountering any duels.
• Zheng Shan and seven or eight jianghu men surrounded them in a ruined temple and demanded they surrender for Master Wang’s reward.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao fought back, using their martial skills to kill the attackers, including Zheng Shan.
• Zhang Qingyuan searched the corpses for money and persuaded Zhang Junbao to help, explaining that their lack of funds made the money useful.

Zhang Qingyuan explained to Zhang Junbao why Zheng Shan and his men had so little money despite their martial skills, drawing on both jianghu realities and his own past. After Zhang Qingyuan found the sword’s maker and price marked on its scabbard, the two agreed they were not entirely free of ordinary desires and flaws.

• Zhang Junbao wondered why Zheng Shan and his men had only three taels of silver between them, and Zhang Qingyuan explained that jianghu workers often spent their earnings on pleasure and freedom.
• Zhang Qingyuan reflected on his own past struggles after graduation, when ambition gave way to exhausting work and spending money to enjoy life.
• Zhang Qingyuan picked up Zheng Shan’s sword and discovered its scabbard was marked with the name Yinghui Sword-Forging Manor and a suggested price of five taels of silver.
• Zhang Junbao praised them as refined men who resisted drink, lust, greed, and temper, but Zhang Qingyuan admitted he could not avoid all of those flaws.
• Zhang Junbao agreed that neither of them wanted to remain a bachelor, and the two joked that they should not pretend to be better than they were.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao fled their pursuers by traveling light, only to be surrounded in an inn by fighters lured by a raised bounty. During the fight, Zhang Junbao improvised a movement technique that Zhang Qingyuan learned and named the Blue Butterfly Cloud-Gliding Wandering Body Steps.

• Zhang Qingyuan explained that Old Wang might raise the bounty and advised Zhang Junbao to abandon their baggage and travel light.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao released their donkeys, took only their manuals, scriptures, clothes, and swords, and traveled three days to a town.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao entered an inn where fighters gathered to claim the three-thousand-tael bounty Old Wang had placed on them.
• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao provoked the fighters with jokes until the crowd attacked them.
• Zhang Junbao tested a movement technique inspired by butterflies, dodging the fighters and striking one who tried to rally them.
• Zhang Qingyuan learned Zhang Junbao's movements, named the technique Blue Butterfly Cloud-Gliding Wandering Body Steps, and joined the fight.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao defeated a group of martial artists hired by the Wang family, then spared most of them and asked them to spread word of their actions. The two left the inn intending to make their names known in the martial world while limiting how many people they killed.

• Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao used their new movement technique to defeat the armed men in the inn without killing most of them.
• Zhang Qingyuan argued that both the brothers and the Wang family had acted reasonably, then asked the injured martial artists to spread a warning about challenging them.
• Wang Hu rejected Zhang Qingyuan's offer and attacked, so Zhang Qingyuan killed him with a Nine Yang Palm strike.
• The remaining martial artists agreed to spread word of the brothers' actions, and Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao went upstairs for their meal.
• Zhang Qingyuan reflected that their new movement technique let them wound opponents without killing them and that they could now enter the martial world ahead of schedule.

Zhang Qingyuan planned to draw more martial artists to Xia County so he and Zhang Junbao could make a name for themselves, unaware that rumors about their extraordinary rise had already spread. Shaolin’s confirmation that Zhang Junbao had once been a furnace-tending boy only deepened the martial world’s confusion about how the pair had become so powerful.

• Zhang Qingyuan told Zhang Junbao that his Supreme Yang Meridian-Concentrating Divine Skill had reached the fifth level and his Supreme Yin Meridian-Concentrating Divine Skill the second, and said they still needed a bigger spectacle to build their fame.
• Zhang Junbao reported that more than a dozen groups had asked about them and that Shaolin, Mount Hua, the Beggar Clan, Heaven Gate, and other sects had sent people to Xia County.
• Zhang Junbao explained that the martial world had already spread their fame after their recent victories, and that investigators traced their origins to Sanhe Town and questioned Zhao Pengju.
• Zhao Pengju told the investigators that the pair had known no martial arts half a year earlier and had developed their skills themselves, but the investigators disbelieved him and beat him.
• Shaolin confirmed that Zhang Junbao had once tended its furnace, knew a few Shaolin techniques, and had been expelled, while the escaped witnesses insisted that the pair used Daoist arts.
• The martial world rejected Zhao Pengju’s account and speculated that Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao had gained their power through a miraculous opportunity.