Chapter Summaries

Wang Shouzhe defeated his younger siblings and niece after they ambushed him to avoid a year of Clan School, then sent them away with the wager enforced. Wang Luoqiu set training goals for the others and declared that she would rise to become Ancestor Luoqiu.

• Wang Luojing secretly poisoned Wang Shouzhe with a tiny Variegated Spider and rallied the others to attack him.
• Wang Luoqiu, Wang Shouyong, Wang Shoulian, and Wang Lici joined the assault, but Wang Shouzhe used the Willow Catkin Movement Technique and his strong cultivation to defeat them.
• Wang Shouzhe reminded the defeated group that they had to honor their wager and study properly for a year.
• Wang Luoqiu assigned cultivation and combat-training goals to Wang Luojing, Wang Shouyong, and Wang Shoulian, while telling Wang Lici to handle logistics.
• Wang Luoqiu set herself the goal of reaching the high stage of the third level of the Qi Refining Realm and boasted that she would one day become Ancestor Luoqiu.

Wang Shouzhe reflected on the Wang Clan’s growing younger generation, then treated the venomous bite he had sustained and visited his elder sister Wang Luoyi. He encouraged her to cultivate harder before joining her and Wang Luomiao for a meal, where his little sister teased him about his poor ability to charm girls.

• Wang Shouzhe secretly watched his younger siblings and decided he needed to cultivate harder after hearing Wang Luoqiu boast about surpassing him.
• Wang Shouzhe considered how the Wang Clan’s past poverty had limited the younger generation’s cultivation, despite their potential.
• Wang Shouzhe met Wang Gui, cut open his swollen arm, and forced out the Variegated Spider’s venom.
• Wang Shouzhe visited Wang Luoyi, refused the fifty Qian Gold she offered him, and urged her to keep cultivating despite her doubts about reaching the Spirit Platform Realm.
• Wang Shouzhe joined Wang Luoyi and Wang Luomiao, but Wang Luomiao rejected his dried fish and teased him for failing to think of a better way to amuse girls.

Wang Shouzhe ate with his family, learned that Chen Fangjie had sent Wang Luoyi rare food and wine, and was urged to show Liu Ruolan more consideration. He turned the meal into a chance to punish Wang Luomiao for reading romance stories, leaving her facing a hundred copies of an obscure ancient text.

• Wang Luoyi served spirit-fruit wine and Iron-Back Savage Pig meat that Chen Fangjie had sent after the Chen Clan hunted the beast.
• Wang Luomiao urged Wang Shouzhe to follow Chen Fangjie's example and show Liu Ruolan his feelings, and Gongsun Hui advised him to send her the finest cuts of his Spirit Fish with a letter.
• Wang Shouzhe scolded Wang Luomiao for reading romance stories, and Gongsun Hui ordered her to hand over her books.
• Wang Shouzhe suggested that Wang Luomiao copy and recite Chronicles of the East Town Heaven Pavilion a hundred times, and Gongsun Hui agreed that she needed the discipline.

Wang Shouzhe used a Spirit Stone to accelerate his cultivation, then resumed training and reflected on the Wang Clan’s inherited techniques and their strict rules. The chapter ended with Wang Luoqiu pushing her relatives to train while proclaiming her grand ambitions.

• Wang Shouzhe and Wang Luoyi teased Wang Luomiao with delicious food until she called him Good Big Brother, and he let her join the meal.
• Wang Shouzhe cultivated with a Spirit Stone, strengthening and purifying his Profound Qi before stopping when his meridians reached their limit.
• Wang Shouzhe assessed the Spirit Stone’s benefits and expense, then thought with satisfaction about Wang Lici’s growing ambition and appetite.
• Wang Shouzhe practiced his movement technique and combat arts, while considering the Wang Clan’s inherited techniques and the rules governing their secrecy.
• Wang Luoqiu urged Wang Luojing, Wang Shouyong, and Wang Shoulian to train and declared that she would defeat the Heavenly Prodigies of her generation.

Wang Shouzhe watched the grain crisis deepen as the Ping'an Wang Clan paid its taxes and learned that the Liu and Zhao Clans planned to profit from the disaster by annexing farmland. At a Liu Clan council meeting, Liu Yongzhou proposed a way to avoid relying on the Changning Sun Clan, beginning with the story of a distressed young lady his fishing boat had rescued.

• Wang Shouzhe learned from Wang Shouyi's letters that Changning Guard faced grain shortages, profiteering, executions, and spreading rumors.
• The Wang Clan submitted its grain taxes and collected grain on behalf of the authorities, while Wang Shouzhe worried about the hardships facing local farmers.
• Wang Shouzhe watched the Liu and Zhao Clans' tax caravans and concluded that they had a major plan to take advantage of the crisis.
• Liu Shengye learned that the Changning Sun Clan would only lend grain in exchange for fifteen hundred mu of Liu Clan farmland.
• Liu Shengye decided to target three thousand mu for annexation, confident that the Liu and Zhao Clans could keep the Wang Clan from interfering.
• Liu Yongzhou proposed a way for the Liu Clan to avoid cooperating with the Sun Clan and said his fishing boat had rescued a distressed young lady.

Liu Yongzhou learned that the Liu Clan was preparing to help Liu Shenghao advance to the Spirit Platform Realm, while Wang Shouzhe discovered the same secret through Wang Mei’s scheme. He weighed the danger posed by the Liu and Zhao Clans and sent Wang Mei a sealed order, leaving the Wang Clan’s response uncertain.

• Liu Yongzhou told Liu Shengye that the Sun Clan’s grain deal might be an opportunity to buy grain through Miss Zhong Luoxian.
• Liu Shengye revealed that Liu Shenghao had obtained a Heaven Spirit Pill and needed two auxiliary spirit pills before attempting to advance.
• Chen Fanghua reported to Wang Shouzhe that the plan using Zhong Luoxian’s disguised retainers had lured Liu Yongzhou and Zhao Dingtian into the next stage.
• Wang Shouzhe reread Wang Mei’s letter and realized Liu Shenghao was close to advancing to the Spirit Platform Realm.
• Wang Shouzhe worried that the Zhao Clan might also have a hidden Spirit Platform candidate and sent Wang Mei a sealed secret order.

Wang Shouzhe examined Wang Shouye, rewarded him for his diligent studies, and took him to visit Wang Dinghai at Xingsheng Farm. On the journey, Shouzhe considered papermaking and a vast plan to reclaim the marshlands, but recognized the scale of the work would be enormous.

• Wang Shouzhe questioned Wang Shouye about his studies and praised him for passing the examination, giving him ten Qian Gold.
• Wang Shouzhe told Chen that Wang Shouye would accompany him to Xingsheng Farm to visit Wang Dinghai, and Chen agreed to let him go.
• Wang Shouzhe traveled by water with Wang Shouye and noticed farmers harvesting reeds in the marshes.
• Wang Shouzhe realized that papermaking could be a promising enterprise because the technique was monopolized and paper was expensive.
• Wang Shouzhe considered dredging Zhuwei Lake and using its silt to fill the marshlands, improving flood storage and creating farmland, but saw that the project would demand immense resources and time.

Wang Shouzhe visited Xingsheng Farm while considering a grand plan to develop Zhuwei Lake and reflecting on the Wang Clan’s hidden history. He told Wang Xiaohan that he had come to say farewell because he was about to die, leaving his grand-uncle shocked and furious.

• Wang Shouzhe calculated the cost of dredging Zhuwei Lake and considered expanding it into a large aquaculture enterprise and several thousand mu of farmland.
• Wang Shouzhe and Wang Shouye arrived at Xingsheng Farm, where Wang Xiaohan tended the Spirit Fields established by Ancestor Zhouxuan.
• Wang Shouzhe wondered whether Ancestor Longyan and his late father Wang Dingyue had secretly gone to the Outer Domain to seek a Spirit Platform opportunity.
• Wang Xiaohan asked whether Wang Shouzhe had come to persuade him to try for the Spirit Platform Realm again, and Wang Shouzhe said he had come to bid farewell because he was about to die.
• Wang Xiaohan erupted with an astonishing aura and demanded to know why Wang Shouzhe was talking nonsense.

Wang Shouzhe forced Wang Xiaohan to confront the Liu and Zhao Clans’ threat, restoring his resolve to protect the family. Wang Xiaohan revealed a hidden mid-grade Spirit Field at Xingsheng Farm, where the Wang Clan cultivated valuable spirit herbs, including a regular harvest of fifty-year Purple Leaf Fleeceflower.

• Wang Shouzhe warned Wang Xiaohan that Liu Shenghao and Zhao Daoyuan might soon reach the Spirit Platform Realm and threaten the Wang Clan.
• Wang Xiaohan abandoned his despair and vowed to risk another attempt at the Spirit Platform Realm, while refusing to sell the Zhouxuan Sword.
• Wang Xiaohan revealed that the Wang Clan had preserved a hidden foundation at Xingsheng Farm and led Wang Shouzhe to a concealed cavern.
• Wang Shouzhe discovered two mu of mid-grade Spirit Fields filled with spirit herbs and learned that one mu produced about eighty mature Purple Leaf Fleeceflowers every ten years.

Wang Shouzhe learned how the Wang Clan maintained its concealed mid-grade Spirit Fields and discovered that the clan’s nearly five-hundred-year-old Nine-Leaf Spirit Ginseng was still decades from maturing. He refused to let Wang Xiaohan sell the treasured ginseng for a Heaven Spirit Pill and said he would find another way, leaving him intent on recovering wealth from the Liu and Zhao Clans.

• Wang Shouzhe questioned the hidden accounts for the Purple Leaf Fleeceflower, and Wang Xiaohan explained how the Spirit Field’s proceeds entered clan supplies under the guise of old debts being repaid.
• Wang Shouzhe and Wang Xiaohan agreed to train younger clan members to succeed Wang Xiaohan in cultivating the Spirit Fields, rather than entrusting them to Wang Zongwei.
• Wang Xiaohan showed Wang Shouzhe a Nine-Leaf Spirit Ginseng transplanted from the Outer Domain by the Ancestor when it was nearly five hundred years old.
• Wang Xiaohan explained that the ginseng had gained only about seven years of age in seventy years and would likely need another twenty years to mature.
• Wang Xiaohan offered to sell the ginseng to help obtain a Heaven Spirit Pill, but Wang Shouzhe told him to keep it and focus on recovering and advancing to the Spirit Platform Realm.
• Wang Shouzhe said he would try to secure the Heaven Spirit Pill another way and considered taking back the wealth the Liu and Zhao Clans had gained from the Wang Clan’s ancestors.

Wang Shouzhe toured Xingsheng Farm and learned how the Wang Clan was building its long-term reserves, then visited Ancestor Longyan and saw that her health had greatly improved. He agreed to train Wang Lici, while secretly considering a future of fieldwork and study for his promising, food-loving grandniece.

• Wang Shouzhe praised Wang Xiaohan’s long-term cultivation of Nine-Leaf Spirit Ginseng and toured the clan’s hidden foundation at Xingsheng Farm.
• Wang Shouzhe drafted a system panel on the boat ride back, then caught Wang Lici trying to visit Ancestor Longyan and told her to begin training with him at dawn.
• Wang Lici admitted she hoped to become powerful by eating and drinking, prompting Wang Shouzhe to take back her melon and head into Longyan Residence.
• Ancestor Longyan welcomed Wang Lici and allowed her to visit freely, while Wang Shouzhe presented fresh sweet melons and celebrated her improved health.
• Wang Shouzhe resolved to develop Wang Lici through fieldwork and study, leaving her uneasy as she ate her third melon.

Wang Shouzhe secured Ancestor Longyan’s agreement to remain a backup for his plan against the Liu and Zhao Clans, sent Wang Lici to Xingsheng Farm for a month of discipline, and began developing Cement with help from the Gongsun Clan. The chapter ended with two young men facing off aboard a luxurious boat near Dingpu Ferry, while a beautiful woman watched them.

• Wang Shouzhe persuaded Ancestor Longyan to follow his plan and preserve her strength as a hidden trump card.
• Wang Shouzhe sent Wang Lici to Xingsheng Farm with Wang Ju and Wang Zhu to temper her for a month.
• Gongsun Zhong brought Wang Shouzhe assorted stones and materials for developing Cement, and Wang Shouzhe assigned the work to Wang Jingyuan and a branch family of kiln workers.
• Wang Shouzhe handed Wang Gui a Cement Development Guide and reflected on his plans for papermaking and the coming ambush of the Liu and Zhao Clans.
• Two young men stared at each other aboard a luxurious pleasure boat outside Dingpu Ferry as a beautiful woman watched them.

Wang Shouzhe arrived aboard Chen Fangjie's borrowed ship and learned why Chen had taken part in the grain-trade plan. After sending Chen away, Wang Shouzhe prepared to discuss confidential matters with Wang Mei, leaving Chen with a mistaken suspicion about their relationship.

• Wang Shouzhe confronted Chen Fangjie about joining the plan and asked Wang Mei whether Chen had behaved improperly toward her; she said he had only stared for three breaths.
• Chen Fangjie explained that he had volunteered to play a powerful clan's young master after hearing about Luoxian and borrowed the ship from Tantai Heyu of the Tantai Clan.
• Chen Fangjie described his alliance with Tantai Heyu and defended his decision to impersonate a Tantai descendant in the trade scheme targeting the Liu Clan and Zhao Clan.
• Wang Shouzhe thanked Chen Fangjie for his help, then asked him to leave so he could discuss confidential matters with Wang Mei.
• Chen Fangjie went to the bow and wrongly concluded that Wang Shouzhe and Wang Mei were meeting secretly as lovers, worrying that the Liu Clan's young lady might discover it.

The Liu Clan sailed to meet Zhong Luoxian, believing she was a daughter of the Zhong Clan’s Celestial Aristocratic branch, and discovered that her grain seller was connected to the Tantai Clan. The meeting ended with a Tantai young master insulting the Liu Clan, while Wang Shouzhe’s plans involving Wang Mei remained in motion.

• Chen Fangjie worried that Wang Shouzhe’s relationship with Zhong Luoxian could provoke the Liu Clan, though his suspicions were based on imagination.
• Wang Shouzhe confirmed that Wang Mei understood the risky plan against the Liu Clan and Zhao Clan, then asked her to use her real voice.
• Liu Shengye led Liu Yongzhou and other Liu Clan members to meet Zhong Luoxian, believing she was a young lady of the Zhong Clan of Baidao Guard.
• The Liu Clan boarded a luxurious tower ship bearing the emblem of the Tantai Clan, the King of the East Sea, and met the lavishly dressed grain seller.
• The Tantai young master questioned Zhong Luoxian for doing business with a bottom-tier aristocratic clan, angering Liu Yongzhou.

Wang Shouzhe and Chen Fangjie staged a harsh grain-loan negotiation to make Liu Yongzhou believe Zhong Luoxian was trapped by Tantai Heyu’s marriage plans. After the Liu Clan accepted the costly terms and left, Chen Fangjie praised his own performance, and Wang Shouzhe prepared to meet another group of guests.

• Chen Fangjie, disguised as Tantai Heyu, offered the Liu Clan a grain loan with steep interest and asset-transfer conditions while Wang Shouzhe played his retainer.
• Liu Yongzhou demanded twenty thousand dan of grain to save face, and Liu Shengye negotiated the terms with Chen Fangjie.
• Zhong Luoxian pleaded for leniency, prompting Chen Fangjie to reduce the interest and require an estate to be transferred temporarily into her name.
• Liu Yongzhou overheard Chen Fangjie threaten to arrange a marriage with Zhong Luoxian and left believing she faced an insurmountable obstacle.
• Chen Fangjie asked Wang Shouzhe how he had performed, and Wang Shouzhe told him to prepare for another group of guests.

Wang Shouzhe broke through to the Seventh Layer of the Qi Refining Realm and learned how the Liu Clan was exploiting the insect-plague famine to seize farmland. He ordered the Wang Clan to begin its interception plan, then went to Dingpu Ferry to welcome his future brother-in-law Liu Yuanrui, where an unfamiliar young girl greeted him as “Brother-in-law.”

• Wang Shouzhe broke through to the Seventh Layer of the Qi Refining Realm and tested his improved strength at the Martial Arts Arena.
• Wang Shouzhe read reports describing how the Liu Clan used coercion and violence to force farmers to mortgage their land for grain.
• Wang Shouzhe ordered Wang Zhong to begin the interception plan and directed the clan to locate the rogue cultivators who had killed a household.
• Wang Shouzhe traveled to Dingpu Ferry to welcome Liu Yuanrui, the Liu Clan's second young master and his future brother-in-law.
• A young girl accompanying Liu Yuanrui called Wang Shouzhe “Brother-in-law” and said he was better-looking than she had imagined.

Wang Shouzhe welcomed Liu Yuanrui and Liu Ruolei to Ping'an Town and impressed them with his judgment and plans for the Wang Clan. The siblings asked to visit Zhuwei Lake, where Liu Yuanrui discovered the scale of Wang Shouzhe's land-expansion project and reconsidered his earlier doubts about his future brother-in-law.

• Wang Shouzhe greeted Liu Ruolei and invited her and Liu Yuanrui to share his carriage to the Wang Clan Main Residence.
• Wang Shouzhe and Liu Yuanrui debated grain-price policy, with Wang Shouzhe warning that unregulated prices would let powerful merchants exploit clans and commoners.
• Liu Yuanrui and Liu Ruolei asked Wang Shouzhe to take them to Zhuwei Lake, and he recalled the Liu Clan's family ties to the lake and Wang Zhuwei.
• Wang Shouzhe explained that the Wang Clan was dredging silt and filling land, and Liu Yuanrui was shocked by the project's estimated cost and scale.
• Liu Yuanrui recognized Wang Shouzhe's ability and ambition, while Liu Ruolei praised him and teased her brother.

Wang Shouzhe brought Liu Yuanrui and Liu Ruolei to see the Wang Clan’s large-scale work-relief project, where commoners received food and wages for labor. Liu Yuanrui came to understand the value of the plan, while Liu Ruolei joined Wang Luoqiu at registration and was embarrassed by the girl’s blunt question about her future marriage to Wang Shouzhe.

• Wang Shouzhe assured Liu Yuanrui that he had arranged funding for the Wang Clan’s development project.
• Wang Shouzhe stopped the carriage as crowds of Ping'an Town commoners arrived to apply for work, and Wang Clan youths registered them for rice wages, meals, and lodging.
• Wang Luoqiu turned away a scholar demanding a high salary and ordered Wang Shoulian to blacklist him.
• Liu Yuanrui asked applicants about their wages and learned that they appreciated the Wang Clan’s relief efforts, then acknowledged Liu Ruolei’s criticism of his earlier doubts.
• Liu Ruolei helped Wang Luoqiu register workers, and Wang Luoqiu recognized her as the Liu family’s young miss before asking how she could have children with Wang Shouzhe when she looked so small.

Wang Shouzhe hosted Liu Ruolei and Liu Yuanrui as the Wang Clan organized relief work during the insect plague, and the Liu siblings witnessed the forceful personalities of his younger sisters. Liu Yuanrui delivered Liu Ruolan’s return gift, leaving Wang Shouzhe with a favorable impression of his fiancée.

• Wang Shouzhe reprimanded Wang Luoqiu for mistaking Liu Ruolei for Liu Ruolan, while Luoqiu continued directing the relief work.
• Wang Luojing captured a burly Profound Warrior who had incited disaster victims to loot the Wang Clan’s grain, terrifying Liu Yuanrui.
• Liu Ruolei stayed behind to help and urged Wang Shouzhe to feed the hungry victims before processing their applications.
• Wang Yuanrui told Wang Shouzhe that Liu Ruolei concealed her cultivation and that Ancestor Xuanfu planned to take her to the Academy in two years.
• Gongsun Hui received Liu Yuanrui at the main residence, where he presented Liu Ruolan’s return gift of three taels of Cloud Mist Spirit Seed to Wang Shouzhe.

Wang Shouzhe welcomed Gongsun Mang, who supported the Wang Clan’s response to the Liu and Zhao Clans, then met with Ancestor Longyan to discuss the scheme against them. The elders praised Shouzhe’s public maneuvers while keeping his more dangerous plans secret, and Longyan looked ahead to settling old scores as her injuries healed.

• Wang Shouzhe recognized Liu Ruolan’s meaning in her return gift and told Liu Yuanrui to pass along that he understood.
• Gongsun Mang arrived secretly, praised Shouzhe’s cultivation and conduct, and offered Liu Yuanrui advice about improving his cultivation.
• Gongsun Hui led Mang, Shouzhe, and Yuanrui to meet Ancestor Longyan, who reminisced about Mang’s mother and welcomed Yuanrui.
• Longyan and Mang discussed how Shouzhe had used grain and public works to thwart the Liu and Zhao Clans’ plans and win the people’s support.
• Longyan revealed through her thoughts that Shouzhe’s more dangerous plans had to remain secret, and she resolved to reclaim old debts as her injuries healed.