Chapter Summaries

Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu helped Meng Yan investigate a suspected trafficking case, and Meng Yan explained how Medicine Granny’s folk-healing reputation had shielded her from scrutiny. After Medicine Granny arrived at the station, Yang Lijuan identified her as the woman who had abducted her, while Medicine Granny denied knowing her.

• Meng Yan took Shi Dazhuang’s statement and said Yang Lijuan and Xiaoqin would remain at the station as witnesses while police investigated the traffickers.
• Meng Yan ordered Han Bo detained and quietly summoned Medicine Granny, whom he suspected of trafficking women and children.
• Meng Yan told Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu that Medicine Granny was widely respected for treating the sick and bringing vulnerable women and children to Mangdian.
• Meng Yan confronted Medicine Granny about breaking her promise to stop trafficking, but she denied understanding his accusation.
• Yang Lijuan entered the reception room, identified Medicine Granny as her abductor, and Medicine Granny said she did not know her.

Meng Yan questioned Medicine Granny over abducting Yang Lijuan and Xiaoqin, but she used an uncanny influence to make witnesses deny her crimes and nearly sway Meng Yan. Shi Dazhuang snapped Meng Yan out of the trance, and Qingmu was told that Medicine Granny was a worthy opponent.

• Yang Lijuan recounted how Medicine Granny drugged and abducted her in Shenzhou before she was sold to Letuolie in Kuaziba.
• Medicine Granny denied abducting Xiaoqin, while Yang Lijuan accused her of selling Xiaoqin to Han Laizi.
• Han Bo and Han Laizi initially protested their innocence, but Medicine Granny questioned them until they denied that she had sold women.
• Medicine Granny questioned Yang Lijuan and Xiaoqin, prompting both to deny that she had forced or abducted them.
• Medicine Granny's influence nearly made Meng Yan release her, but Shi Dazhuang grabbed Meng Yan's arm and broke his trance.
• Shi Dazhuang told Qingmu that he had met his match in Medicine Granny.

Qingmu confronted the medicine woman after she tried to evade Meng Yan’s questions, and she transformed into the Medicine Buddha of Glazed Radiance to test and recruit him. Qingmu’s irreverent list of supposed illnesses shattered her serene vision and left her bleeding.

• The medicine woman recognized Shi Dazhuang as the man who killed Mu Kuo and praised him as a hero.
• Qingmu exposed the medicine woman’s influence over Han Bo, Han Laizi, Yang Lijuan, and Xiaoqin, who admitted their affairs involved her.
• The medicine woman and Qingmu challenged each other, then she led him into a vision where she appeared as the Medicine Buddha of Glazed Radiance.
• The medicine woman offered to cure Qingmu and take him as her disciple, but he asked whether she could cure a list of invented modern ailments.
• The medicine woman spat blood as Qingmu named his final supposed illness, and the cranes around her fell from the sky.

Qingmu revealed that he had entered Medicine Granny’s dream and challenged her claim that she could teach him. He exposed her as a trafficker and rejected her, leaving her terrified and trapped in her own dream.

• Medicine Granny realized Qingmu could control dreams and offered to make him her disciple, calling him a natural spirit adept.
• She explained how dreams draw on memories and described using dream control to uncover thoughts and manipulate people.
• Medicine Granny admitted she abducted women for money and defended it by claiming she helped her own people.
• Qingmu pointed out that the herbs in the dream were unfamiliar to him, revealing that he was in Medicine Granny’s dream instead.
• Qingmu told Medicine Granny that she would have to take him as her master, then refused to accept her as a disciple.

Qingmu trapped Medicine Granny in her dream and forced her to reveal her master, Duwa, and confess the people she had abducted and trafficked. He stripped away her dream-controlling power and left her to face punishment under human law as her dream collapsed.

• Qingmu held Medicine Granny inside her collapsing dream and tortured her with wind blades until she revealed that her master was Duwa, who lived in Mianyue and contacted her through Masuba.
• Medicine Granny saw Duwa appear in the form she remembered, and Qingmu questioned her about her master’s age and awakening.
• Qingmu demanded that Medicine Granny name the people she had abducted, and she confessed the details of her trafficking crimes.
• Medicine Granny guessed that Qingmu might be Situ, but he denied it.
• Qingmu declared that the wind blades had stripped away Medicine Granny’s excess consciousness and her ability to control dreams, then left her crimes to human law as her dream collapsed around her.

Qingmu forced Medicine Granny to confess to decades of human trafficking, leaving Meng Yan responsible for pursuing justice. Shi Dazhuang then revealed that Yu Meiren was Yu Gang’s daughter and that Yu Gang was soon to be recognized as a martyr.

• Qingmu intervened as Medicine Granny’s influence over the others faded, and Meng Yan saw her confess to abducting and selling people over many years.
• Medicine Granny finished her confession, then knelt before Qingmu and begged him to give something back.
• Qingmu left the case to Meng Yan, who promised to handle it impartially and give the victims justice.
• Shi Dazhuang told Meng Yan that he had come to take Yu Meiren, Yu Gang’s daughter, and that Yu Gang would soon receive a martyr’s certificate.
• Meng Yan realized that Yu Gang had once been second-in-command of the Mu Kuo Group and admitted that he had fired a burst at him; Han Bo and Han Laizi were also shocked by the news.

Meng Yan, Shi Dazhuang, and Qingmu shared a meal while Yu Meiren showed kindness to a mad beggar outside the restaurant. Their gathering was interrupted when an officer reported that Medicine Granny, Han Bo, and Han Laizi had escaped custody.

• Meng Yan took Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu to a restaurant and told the station officers to keep Medicine Granny, Han Bo, and Han Laizi in custody while their case was checked.
• Qingmu and Shi Dazhuang recognized the mad beggar outside, and the restaurant owner chased him away before Shi Dazhuang asked him to leave the beggar alone.
• Yu Meiren saw the yellow dog steal the beggar's meal, then brought him rice and food from the restaurant.
• A uniformed officer rushed in and told Meng Yan that Medicine Granny, Han Bo, and Han Laizi had escaped.

After Han Bo escaped, Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu took Yu Meiren back to the hotel, where Shi Dazhuang delighted in seeing her enjoy the ordinary comforts of a childhood. A search of Medicine Granny’s shop uncovered a hidden storeroom full of ephedrine medicines, but an explosion then set fire to Yu Meiren’s hotel room, and Qingmu rushed into the flames.

• Meng Yan learned that Han Bo had escaped the station after injuring Xiao Zhang and returned to investigate.
• Shi Dazhuang bought Yu Meiren snacks and watched her marvel at the hotel, convinced her psychological problems had been cured.
• Meng Yan summoned Shi Dazhuang to Medicine Granny’s shop, where he found a concealed room stocked with medicines containing ephedrine and ordered the narcotics squad to be notified.
• An explosion sent Shi Dazhuang and Meng Yan running toward the hotel, where Yu Meiren’s room on the third floor was burning.
• Qingmu raced up the hotel’s exterior and disappeared into Yu Meiren’s room through the flames.

Qingmu and Shi Dazhuang searched the burning hotel for Yu Meiren, then helped evacuate guests and contain the fire. Yu Meiren reappeared unharmed and explained that the mad beggar had led her outside, but the beggar and Qingmu had vanished.

• Shi Dazhuang entered the burning room and found Qingmu, who confirmed Yu Meiren was not inside.
• Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu searched the hotel, rescued trapped children, helped evacuate guests, and then joined the people outside fighting the fire.
• Meng Yan organized the evacuation and coordinated efforts to contain the blaze while the fire department and a water truck were on the way.
• Shi Dazhuang spotted Yu Meiren in the crowd beside the mad beggar and joyfully embraced her.
• Yu Meiren explained that she had left with the beggar after security tried to remove him from the hotel, then noticed he had disappeared; Qingmu was gone too.

After a fire caused by a homemade time bomb, Shi Dazhuang, Peng Jiahu, and Meng Yan investigated the likely drug-trafficking links behind the attack and realized Beauty’s kindness had helped save several lives. The chapter left them wondering who had planted the explosives, as Shi Dazhuang suspected another madman.

• Firefighters extinguished the blaze, and investigators determined a timed homemade bomb had exploded beneath Beauty’s bed.
• Peng Jiahu took over Mangdian Police Station as a temporary base and joined Shi Dazhuang and Meng Yan in discussing the case.
• Peng Jiahu and Shi Dazhuang told Beauty about her father Yu Gang’s nickname, the Jade-Faced Emperor, and Beauty recited a poem Qingmu had taught her.
• Shi Dazhuang explained that Qingmu had gone after the escaped suspects, while he focused on keeping Beauty safe.
• Peng Jiahu, Shi Dazhuang, and Meng Yan suspected Medicine Granny and Han Bo were tied to the drug cartel and that the bomb might have been retaliation against Yu Gang.
• Shi Dazhuang recalled that the bomb was likely planted while they ate breakfast and wondered whether another madman had placed it.

Shi Dazhuang, Meng Yan, and Peng Jiahu suspected Mu Ka was behind the attack and began preparing to track Medicine Granny’s group. Medicine Granny’s men took a mad beggar to their hidden mountain house, where she revealed the failed bombing had been arranged with Mu Ka, before the bird’s-nest-haired man appeared outside.

• Shi Dazhuang, Meng Yan, and Peng Jiahu discussed the organized drug operation and suspected that Mu Ka had returned.
• The mad beggar was abducted from Mangdian and taken to a hidden wooden house deep in the mountains.
• Medicine Granny praised one mad beggar for escaping her control and ordered Han Bo to lock the other in a pig cage.
• Han Bo asked whether Mu Ka would blame them for failing to blow up Shi Dazhuang and the girl, and Medicine Granny said she had only acted at her junior sister’s urging.
• The remaining mad beggar heard clip-clopping and saw the bird’s-nest-haired man leaning against the van outside the house.

Qingmu confronted Medicine Granny and the amnesiac madman at the mountain house, where a familiar fragrance hinted at someone hiding upstairs. He used Medicine Granny’s careless revelation to contact Shi Dazhuang, and the madman remembered that he was Yao Binghui before attacking her.

• The madman struggled to remember who he was while Qingmu watched and noticed the familiar fragrance coming from upstairs.
• Medicine Granny warned Qingmu that he would learn nothing from the madman unless he cured him and broke her junior sister’s spell.
• Medicine Granny revealed that she had a satellite phone and let slip its password, allowing Qingmu to take it.
• Qingmu called Shi Dazhuang and asked him to trace the satellite phone while heading toward the wooden house.
• When Qingmu asked who he was, the madman remembered his name as Yao Binghui and attacked Medicine Granny.
• Medicine Granny called for her junior sister to save her, but no one answered from inside the wooden house.

Qingmu entered the mountain house and found a woman whose powerful natural fragrance seemed to tempt anyone nearby. She recognized his clearheadedness and approached him, challenging him to resist her longer than the last man had.

• Qingmu left his connected phone in a tree fork and entered the wooden house as the narcotics squad split up to search the area.
• Qingmu climbed to the upstairs room, where he found a woman watching the madman attack Medicine Granny outside.
• Qingmu recalled the bar woman's Fragrant Hypnosis and realized the upstairs woman's scent was genuinely coming from her body.
• The woman told Qingmu he was the third man to stay clearheaded near her and said the last man had lasted twenty minutes before she made him her queen.
• The woman draped her arms over Qingmu's shoulders and asked how long he could resist her.

Qingmu resisted Du Juan’s seductive fragrance and hypnosis while questioning her about the men she had failed to conquer. He revealed that he knew her name and her master’s, startling her as the wooden house began to transform under her influence.

• Du Juan explained that years of exposure to medicinal brews and herbs had created her natural fragrance, while Qingmu sneezed and criticized its smell.
• Du Juan tried to seduce Qingmu, who smoked and teased her about failing to conquer him within twenty minutes.
• Du Juan told Qingmu that Mu Ka had lasted twenty minutes and that Situ had been immune to her beauty and fragrance.
• Qingmu identified Du Juan and named her master as Duwa, causing Du Juan to leap away and demand to know how he learned her name.
• Du Juan resumed approaching Qingmu as grass, vines, flowers, and butterflies appeared throughout the wooden house, and Qingmu recognized the scent of blooming poppies.

Qingmu broke Du Juan’s Incense Art by setting the wooden house alight, trapping her in a dream of intimacy and fire. Du Juan escaped the burning house, but Qingmu then walked out of the ruins unharmed.

• Du Juan lured Qingmu among the poppies and used her Incense Art to draw him into a seductive vision.
• Qingmu’s cigarette ignited dead leaves, and the fire spread through the wooden house, withering the poppies.
• Du Juan realized Qingmu had trapped her in a dream and escaped her sleep paralysis by calming herself and waking up.
• Du Juan fled through a rear window as the wooden house collapsed, then assumed Qingmu had burned to death.
• Qingmu emerged from the burning ruins with a cigarette in his mouth and flames flickering in his hair.

Shi Dazhuang and Peng Jiahu traced Qingmu’s satellite phone and organized a raid, while Shi warned that Mu Ka might be behind the danger. Mu Ka arrived at Medicine Granny’s hideout, killed the madman who had attacked her, and headed for Mangdian as his men prepared to ambush the police.

• Shi Dazhuang ordered Peng Jiahu to trace Qingmu’s satellite phone and investigate its recent calls, while warning him that Mu Ka could be involved.
• The communications department traced several matching satellite phones around Ruihekou, and Peng Jiahu sent Meng Yan to secure the perimeter before leading officers into the mountains.
• Mu Ka arrived at Medicine Granny’s hideout and found the madman biting her corpse.
• Mu Ka shot the madman, searched the wooden building, and identified Paramount cigarette remains as a clue.
• Mu Ka ordered some men to accompany him to Mangdian and told the rest to ambush the police or flee across the Nangou River.

Han Bo brought a madman to the hidden cave and locked him in one of its water-filled pig cages beside Han Laizi and his relatives. As Han Bo and his men returned to check on the suddenly silent prisoners, they became lost in the dark and saw a strange woman with long silvery-white hair.

• Han Bo led the madman through an iron door into a cave lined with waterlogged cages and locked him inside one.
• Han Laizi and his relatives begged Han Bo to release them, and Han Bo explained that Medicine Granny had ordered their imprisonment.
• Han Bo told his men that the cages were old Japanese prisoner-of-war cages and described how rising water made them unbearable.
• When the cave fell silent, Han Bo and his men turned back to check the cages but could not find their way.
• Their flashlight went out, and Han Bo's lighter revealed a scantily clad woman with long silvery-white hair standing in the darkness.

Qingmu followed Du Juan into a dreamlike limestone cave, where he found Han Bo and three men bleeding from their orifices. He realized the dream’s power exceeded Du Juan’s, and as Du Juan challenged him, Qingmu suspected an unseen force was constraining his consciousness.

• Han Bo became transfixed by a woman in the cave, bled from his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, and collapsed as footsteps approached.
• Qingmu recalled how Du Juan had escaped his layered dreams by biting her tongue and reaching the cave, then followed her inside despite suspecting he was dreaming.
• Qingmu found the cave gate shut behind him and reasoned that the dream was neither his nor likely Du Juan’s, so he continued deeper to seek Duwa.
• Qingmu found Du Juan standing near Han Bo and three other unconscious men, and demanded that she summon her master.
• Du Juan claimed that special environments and formations strengthened consciousness, then challenged Qingmu to test his power as the cave’s space resisted his control.

Qingmu discovered that the cages beside the underground river belonged to a collective dream that trapped real consciousnesses and drove its captives mad. He confronted Du Juan about using the dream to turn madmen into tools for crime, but she had not yet answered.

• Du Juan led Qingmu to an underground river lined with cages, where he recognized the mad beggar, Han Laizi, and Han Laizi’s family.
• Han Laizi begged Qingmu to free him and confessed that he had bought a woman and attacked Qingmu and Officer Shi.
• Qingmu realized that Han Laizi and the other prisoners were real people sharing a collective dream, whose rules their unconscious minds had accepted.
• As the river rose and the prisoners struggled for air, Qingmu concluded that the dream’s cages gradually erased captives’ sense of self and made them compliant.
• Qingmu accused Du Juan of using the resulting madmen to transport drugs, keep watch, and commit murder and arson while evading the police.

Qingmu questioned Du Juan about the dream-space prison and learned that Situ had helped her activate it when she was thirteen. Du Juan left him locked in a cage as the underground river rose, while Qingmu focused on understanding how the dream affected his real body.

• Qingmu reasoned that Du Juan and Duwa had used Medicine Granny’s trafficking network but could not have created the cave’s underlying spatial rules.
• Du Juan trapped Qingmu in a cage and said she would take him out after he lost self-awareness, then make him love her by planting a seed in his consciousness.
• Du Juan revealed that she had discovered the place and that Situ had helped her activate it when she was thirteen.
• Du Juan said her senior sister had brought the prisoners and that drug trafficking through the route had begun less than two years earlier, after Mu Ka returned.
• As the river rose, Du Juan left Qingmu without food, and he let the water submerge him while considering what his real body was experiencing.