Chapter Summaries

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress watched the purple flower grow and bloom, drawing closer as they shared a quiet, affectionate life in the Demon Domain. Their peaceful routine was interrupted when Granny Song arrived at Wujou Hall and asked if the Snow Empress was the one.

• Yin Wujou admitted that he wished the Snow Empress would still be with him after the flower bloomed, and she promised she was not going anywhere.
• Four days later the flower began to open, and Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress watched its petals unfold together each morning and evening.
• On the seventh day, the flower bloomed fully; the Snow Empress took Yin Wujou's hand, and he teased her rather than explaining what he had thought when he planted the petal.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress shared sugar cakes, then continued caring for the flower and playfully scuffling in the courtyard.
• On the thirty-third day, the Snow Empress returned to Wujou Hall and met Granny Song, who scrutinized her and asked Yin Wujou if she was the one.

Granny Song examined the Snow Empress and gave her medicine to clear the cold Qi in her meridians. The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou grew closer, while Granny Song’s visit continued into an overcast third day.

• Yin Wujou introduced Granny Song to the Snow Empress, and Granny Song checked her pulse and gave her pills to take for forty-nine days.
• Granny Song teased Yin Wujou about the hundreds of paintings he had burned, and the Snow Empress learned he had painted the same woman in green.
• Yin Wujou confessed that he had always painted the Snow Empress, and they kissed.
• Yin Wujou told the Snow Empress he had wanted to kiss her at the Ziwei Sect and regretted not doing so.
• During Granny Song’s visit, she inspected the purple flower and recalled how Yin Wujou had cried after killing her crimson orchids.

Granny Song told the Snow Empress how Yin Wujou survived a violent childhood, reclaimed the Demon Domain, and spent years trying to bring her back after the Absolute Abyss. The Snow Empress grieved over what he had endured and remained alone in the pavilion, touching the porcelain bottle in her sleeve.

• After Yin Wujou left to handle a spirit beast riot, Granny Song took the Snow Empress to the stone pavilion and recounted how Yin Wujou was left vulnerable as a child while the Demon Domain's tribes fought for power.
• Granny Song described how ten-year-old Yin Wujou killed an intruder who tried to seize him, then later fought for ten years to reunite the twenty-eight tribes under his rule.
• Granny Song said Yin Wujou fell for the Snow Empress after visiting the Ziwei Sect and spent years painting her, then returned from the Absolute Abyss gravely injured after she sacrificed herself to destroy a formation core.
• Granny Song revealed that Yin Wujou searched the Demon Domain for materials to nurture a purple flower, hoping it would bring the Snow Empress back, and cried while burying a dried petal.
• The Snow Empress wept as Granny Song urged her not to let Yin Wujou bear his burdens alone; after Granny Song left, the Snow Empress gazed toward the city and touched the porcelain bottle in her sleeve.

The Snow Empress learned how deeply Yin Wujou had cherished his first glimpse of her, and the two shared a tender reunion as she began recovering from her injuries. Three days after Granny Song left, Daoist Yun visited Wujou Hall and met the Snow Empress.

• Yin Wujou told the Snow Empress that, after seeing her once at the Ziwei Sect, he had tried and failed to paint her and regretted not looking at her more closely.
• The Snow Empress embraced and kissed Yin Wujou, telling him he could look at her for as long as he liked.
• The Snow Empress began taking Granny Song's medicine, and Yin Wujou visited each morning to watch over her recovery.
• Daoist Yun arrived at Wujou Hall seeking Yin Wujou, who recognized him and brought the Snow Empress to meet him.
• Daoist Yun remarked that he had heard Yin Wujou was hiding a beauty and expressed surprise that the Snow Empress was alive; she introduced herself to him.

Daoist Yun warned Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress that a widening fissure at Soul-Severing Gorge was releasing a foul variant of Chaotic Demonic Qi. After they found signs of something living inside it, Yin Wujou decided to descend, and the Snow Empress insisted on going with him.

• Daoist Yun told Yin Wujou that the underground demonic veins were stirring and traced the disturbance to Soul-Severing Gorge in the Demon Domain.
• Yin Wujou agreed to investigate the gorge with the Snow Empress the next morning, while Daoist Yun accompanied them.
• At Soul-Severing Gorge, Daoist Yun showed Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress a sample of the foul odor, and the Snow Empress recognized a diluted variant of Chaotic Demonic Qi.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress descended to a ledge and found a fissure coated in dark green slime that released Chaotic Demonic Qi and the smell of a living creature.
• Yin Wujou said he had to go down the fissure, and the Snow Empress insisted on accompanying him.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress discovered a living creature beneath a pool of contaminated demonic vein essence in Soul-Severing Gorge, then returned to Wujou Hall with Daoist Yun to consider what it might be. That night, Yin Wujou began telling the Snow Empress what he had thought when she caught his wrist, but the chapter ended before he finished.

• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress descended through a fissure into a cavern where a dark red pool pulsed beneath writhing green growth.
• The Snow Empress identified the liquid as demonic vein essence contaminated by a living creature’s bodily fluids, and Yin Wujou’s blade drew a scaled tentacle from the pool.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress withdrew, and Daoist Yun warned that the mass below might be an ancient thing stirring from a long slumber.
• Yin Wujou, the Snow Empress, and Daoist Yun rode back to Wujou Hall and agreed to discuss the matter the next morning.
• After dinner, Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress quietly read and polished her sword, then Yin Wujou began telling her what he had thought when she caught his wrist.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress discovered that the formation around Wujou Hall was failing as a dangerous presence seeped from a nether spring beneath Soul-Severing Gorge. At dawn, Yin Wujou, the Snow Empress, and Daoist Yun prepared to investigate the old records and slow the seepage.

• The Snow Empress noticed the formation weakening, and Yin Wujou found that ordinary Spirit-Stabilizing Sand could no longer hold back the presence from below Soul-Severing Gorge.
• Yin Wujou explained that his master's notes warned against disturbing the dormant nether spring and that probing it with his saber had triggered a stronger reaction.
• Yin Wujou planned to visit the main city's scripture repository with the Snow Empress while Daoist Yun laid a temporary sealing formation near Soul-Severing Gorge.
• Yin Wujou stayed up copying his master's notes, then rose at dawn and prepared talisman supplies.
• The Snow Empress and Daoist Yun joined Yin Wujou at Wujou Hall to discuss their plans for the day.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress discovered that a creature beneath Soul-Severing Gorge was likely an ancient demonic flood dragon that had completed seven molts and could assume human form. They returned to the gorge, where Daoist Yun was building a sealing formation, and prepared to descend below.

• Daoist Yun took Yin Wujou’s formation flags and went to seal the outskirts of Soul-Severing Gorge.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress entered the scripture repository and found an earth-vein map marked with seven molts beneath the gorge.
• Yin Wujou read a warning that a demonic flood dragon descendant could take human form, beguile minds, and crave spiritual Qi.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress realized the creature might already know them, and Yin Wujou decided to go down into the gorge with her.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress reached Soul-Severing Gorge and saw Daoist Yun planting the third formation flag.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress returned to the cavern beneath Soul-Severing Gorge and found the Demonic Flood Dragon Remnant awakening. After Yin Wujou’s Fuxi Trigrams Mirror provoked it, they retreated as the creature watched them from the darkness.

• Daoist Yun examined Yin Wujou’s scroll, identified the creature as a Demonic Flood Dragon Remnant, and gave Yin Wujou three copper coins carved from lightning-struck wood.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress descended into the cavern while Daoist Yun stayed above to watch the formation flags.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress found the red pool expanded, the purple wall slime writhing, and a huge scaled form with an opening slit hanging overhead.
• Yin Wujou activated his Fuxi Trigrams Mirror and aimed its golden light at the creature, causing the cavern to shake and black mist to attack them.
• The black mist recoiled from the mirror’s light but cracked it, and Yin Wujou retreated with the Snow Empress as the creature watched them through its slit.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress discovered that a living Demonic Flood Dragon was rising beneath Soul-Severing Gorge and would break through to the surface in about seven days. After returning to Daoist Yun, they learned its corruption was already seeping through the soil and began examining the earth-vein map for a way to stop it.

• Yin Wujou stirred the corrosive pool with a silver cord and sensed many creatures swimming beneath it.
• Yin Wujou sent a paper crane into the fissure and saw a Demonic Flood Dragon coiled in a shaft below the cavern.
• Yin Wujou told the Snow Empress that the Demonic Flood Dragon was rising and could reach the surface in about seven days.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress left the cavern, and purple liquid burned and blistered the back of Yin Wujou's neck.
• Daoist Yun showed Yin Wujou that purple corruption had seeped into the soil and warned that it would spread further within three days.
• Yin Wujou spread out the earth-vein map and explained that the pool formed from demonic vein essence and the dragon's bodily fluids served as its source of nutrients.

Yin Wujou discovered an old formation that could suppress the Demonic Flood Dragon and found a way to repair it without harming the creature. He planned to lure the dragon into the formation with concentrated water spiritual Qi from Green Needle tea.

• The Snow Empress pointed out an unmarked branch passage on the earth-vein map, where Yin Wujou found a damaged ancient formation that could suppress the Nether Spring for a hundred years.
• Yin Wujou considered using part of the Demonic Flood Dragon to repair the formation, but the Snow Empress warned that cutting it would enrage the creature and put them in danger.
• Yin Wujou returned to Wujou Hall with the Snow Empress and Daoist Yun, and they searched ancient records for another way to repair the formation.
• Yin Wujou found a parchment instructing them to lure the dragon into the old formation with a foreign thing rather than kill it or take its flesh and blood.
• Yin Wujou found a record that Demonic Flood Dragons were drawn to pure water spiritual essence and proposed steaming first-flush Green Needle tea to create concentrated water spiritual Qi.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress prepared a plan to use Green Needle tea and Spirit-Gathering Guides to draw water essence Qi toward the old formation before something emerged in seven days. After the Snow Empress bought most of the city’s spring tea, Yin Wujou found a sun kindler to dry it overnight.

• The Snow Empress left at night with Yin Wujou’s spirit stones to buy Green Needle spring tea, while Yin Wujou and Daoist Yun continued working on the formation diagram.
• The Snow Empress returned with two baskets of tea after buying seventy percent of the city’s spring supply.
• Yin Wujou explained that he would fill twelve Spirit-Gathering Guides with dried tea powder and place them along the route to the old formation.
• When drying all the fresh tea seemed too slow, Daoist Yun prompted Yin Wujou to search his master’s belongings for a device.
• Yin Wujou found a sun kindler and began drying the tea overnight with help from the Snow Empress and Daoist Yun.

Yin Wujou, the Snow Empress, and Daoist Yun prepared tea-filled bronze spheres to guide Water Spirit Qi toward the old formation beneath Soul-Severing Gorge. As they laid the spheres through an underground tunnel, Yin Wujou found a warning scratched into the rock: “Danger. Stop.”

• Yin Wujou explained that his master had gathered knowledge about the formation and the demonic flood dragon while traveling alone after his wife died.
• Yin Wujou, the Snow Empress, and Daoist Yun roasted Green Needle spring tea, filled twelve bronze spheres, and planned to reach Soul-Severing Gorge before noon.
• The three entered the narrow fissure at Soul-Severing Gorge and found a tunnel where Yin Wujou sensed an underground pulse in the earth veins.
• Yin Wujou began placing the bronze spheres twenty zhang apart, linking them with silver wire to create a guiding path for Water Spirit Qi.
• At the seventh sphere, Yin Wujou uncovered the words “Danger. Stop.” carved into the tunnel wall.

Yin Wujou, the Snow Empress, and Daoist Yun reached an ancient underground formation and discovered that its central stone pillar had broken, weakening the formation that suppressed something beneath it. Yin Wujou decided to use the final bronze sphere to temporarily reconnect the broken node, but the danger below remained.

• Yin Wujou followed his master's blood-carved warning deeper into the passage, where the earth's pulses grew stronger and the stone warmed beneath his feet.
• Yin Wujou and his companions found a vast cavern containing an ancient formation and a circular pit with a broken stone pillar at its center.
• Yin Wujou touched the pillar's fracture, triggering a violent pulse from underground, and the Snow Empress pulled him away.
• Daoist Yun identified the formation as one designed to suppress something below and explained that the broken pillar had caused its power to collapse outward.
• Yin Wujou decided to embed the final bronze sphere in the broken pillar so its water spirit Qi could draw the formation's power back toward the center.

Yin Wujou, the Snow Empress, and Daoist Yun devised a way to lure the Demonic Flood Dragon by restoring the formation diagram with water spirit Qi. The Snow Empress took the dangerous place at the formation eye, and the formation began to reactivate.

• Daoist Yun warned that the copper sphere at the formation eye would be the first target of the Demonic Flood Dragon, and Yin Wujou proposed staying there to maintain the water spirit Qi.
• The Snow Empress objected to Yin Wujou risking himself, and Daoist Yun suggested that she sit at the formation eye and gather the water spirit into a focused stream.
• The Snow Empress agreed to take the position, explaining that her water spirit body would make her better suited and safer there, and Yin Wujou reluctantly accepted.
• Yin Wujou fitted the final copper sphere into the broken pillar, causing the formation diagram to flash and release jade-green mist.
• The Snow Empress sat in the round pit, absorbed the water spirit Qi, and channeled it through the formation diagram.

Yin Wujou and Daoist Yun finished setting the copper balls and silver wire to lead the Demonic Flood Dragon toward the ancient formation while the Snow Empress condensed water spirit Qi. The creature began following the path and probing the rock above them, leaving the group waiting for its next move.

• Yin Wujou worried that he had been rash to bring the Snow Empress into Soul-Severing Gorge and place her at the formation eye, and Daoist Yun reminded him that his master had worked alone because no one was waiting for him at home.
• Yin Wujou and Daoist Yun adjusted the remaining copper balls and silver wire until dawn, completing the water spirit Qi path.
• The Snow Empress continued channeling water spirit Qi into the formation and sensed the Demonic Flood Dragon moving upward along the fork toward them.
• Yin Wujou confirmed that the creature's pulses were shifting toward the passage as it followed the water spirit Qi.
• The ground shook as the Demonic Flood Dragon struck and probed the rock layer, while Yin Wujou plucked the silver wire and felt the last copper ball tremble.

Yin Wujou and Daoist Yun watched as the Demonic Flood Dragon entered the cavern and approached the Snow Empress at the formation eye. After inhaling the water spirit Qi from the jade-green orb, the creature began to retreat toward the passage.

• The Snow Empress asked Yin Wujou whether she could leave after suppressing the Demonic Flood Dragon, and he assured her she could withdraw once the formation activated.
• Yin Wujou and Daoist Yun hid at the cavern’s edge as violent tremors shook the cavern and the Demonic Flood Dragon emerged from the passage.
• The Demonic Flood Dragon approached the formation eye, stopping with its snout near the Snow Empress’s jade-green orb.
• The Demonic Flood Dragon inhaled the water spirit Qi from the orb, then lifted its head and retreated toward the passage.

The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou returned to Wujou Hall after the reactivated formation forced the Demonic Flood Dragon back underground. Yin Wujou realized the Snow Empress had paid a dangerous physical price to sustain the formation.

• The Demonic Flood Dragon retreated underground as the formation sealed the branching passage, and the Snow Empress emerged from the formation eye exhausted.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress returned to Wujou Hall with Daoist Yun, intending to record the formation lines they had learned.
• Yin Wujou urged the Snow Empress to rest, but she insisted that she could still recall the formation’s flow and asked him to spread out the hide.
• Yin Wujou confronted her about the formation draining her blood Qi, and he noticed unnatural blue-gray skin spreading along her neck.

Yin Wujou examined the Snow Empress's formation backlash and secretly mapped a branch that could redirect the formation's power. He revealed that the branch would pull whoever stood at the formation's eye into the depths beneath the earth.

• Yin Wujou saw blue-gray discoloration spreading from the Snow Empress's neck to her shoulder, and she explained that formation backlash would fade in three to five days.
• Yin Wujou drew the formation lines from memory while the Snow Empress rested nearby.
• The Snow Empress noticed a branch ending in a cinnabar-filled circle on the parchment and realized Yin Wujou had drawn it in the cavern before she entered the formation's eye.
• Yin Wujou admitted he had drawn the branch and explained that it would gather the formation's power and drag whatever occupied the eye deep beneath the earth.

The Snow Empress explained that the formation diagram’s living eye had bound its power to her meridians, and she planned to use herself as an anchor to trap the creature beneath the forked passage. She revealed that she had about three days left before the formation began draining her Water Spirit Qi, leaving Yin Wujou to face the cost of completing the funnel structure.

• Yin Wujou admitted that the formation eye could be a living thing, and the Snow Empress told him he had drawn the funnel structure correctly.
• The Snow Empress revealed that the creature’s residual power had entwined with her Water Spirit Qi and that she had deliberately remained in the formation eye.
• She explained that the current suppression would last at most half a year without a stable anchor and said she intended to become that anchor.
• The Snow Empress estimated she had about three days before the residual power reached her heart and the formation began drawing her Water Spirit Qi into the diagram.
• She instructed Yin Wujou to complete the funnel structure in three days, explaining that it would pull the creature deep underground while consuming her Water Spirit Qi as fuel.