Chapter Summaries

Jin Shanyao attended a welcoming banquet at the Ji Residence, where Master Ji tried to hire her and then demanded her support in exchange for his connections. After she refused, he had her expelled, but Qiao Qingran stopped her from leaving and invited her to stay at her residence in the capital.

• Jin Shanyao attended a banquet with Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci, where Master Ji praised her supposed mystical skills and asked her to protect the Ji Household.
• Master Ji implied Jin Shanyao would need his connections to establish Anzhi Hall in the capital and offered help in exchange for her support.
• Jin Shanyao recognized Master Ji's offer as a demand for protection money and refused, angering him.
• Master Ji ordered Jin Shanyao to leave the Ji Residence, and she waited outside with the children and their ox cart.
• Qiao Qingran apologized, invited Jin Shanyao and the children to stay at her capital residence, and rode away with them in the cart.

Jin Shanyao captured assassins sent by the Ji Household and warned Qiao Qingran that her father-in-law was borrowing lifespans from his descendants. Qiao Qingran fled with her family, then offered Jin Shanyao ten thousand taels to deal with the threat.

• Jin Shanyao defeated dozens of assassins, compelled one to reveal that Master Ji had ordered her death, and loaded the unconscious men onto the ox cart.
• Jin Shanyao hung the assassins upside down at the Ji Household's gates and told Qiao Qingran that her father-in-law was borrowing lifespans, with her son next.
• Jin Shanyao explained that the first victim was Qiao Qingran's husband's elder brother and that the borrowed years had been distributed among the descendants.
• Qiao Qingran decided to have the evil presence cleared out, rushed inside, and woke her children and husband to flee the residence.
• Jin Shanyao warned Qiao Qingran that an array bound the family's birth dates and times, so running away would not protect them.
• Qiao Qingran offered Jin Shanyao ten thousand taels to kill her father-in-law, and Jin Shanyao asked whether the corpse needed to remain intact.

Jin Shanyao spent the night outside the Ji Residence after foiling an assassination attempt, then confronted Master Ji the next morning as Lu Chi arrived to seize the household’s property. She accused Master Ji of using an array to steal his descendants’ allotted years and charged into the residence.

• Jin Shanyao called Fu Congzhao out of hiding and asked him to find Lu Chi and have the Ji Household’s property confiscated.
• Fu Congzhao fled after Jin Shanyao told him to take off his tight clothes, then secretly watched over her and the children through the night.
• Master Ji found the captured assassins hanging outside his residence and accused Jin Shanyao of a crime, while she insisted he had challenged her to a duel.
• Lu Chi arrived with his men and tied up the assassins again before Master Ji could release them.
• Jin Shanyao dressed as an exorcist and accused Master Ji of using an array to extend his life with his descendants’ allotted years.
• Jin Shanyao charged into the Ji Residence, and Old Madam Ji ordered a maid to stop her.

Jin Shanyao exposed Master Ji’s life-borrowing scheme, leading to his arrest and turmoil in the Ji Household. She then accepted Old General Fu’s praise and collected the ten thousand taels Qiao Qingran had promised.

• Jin Shanyao destroyed the Life-Borrowing Incantation, revealing the Ji descendants’ stolen years and causing Master Ji to rapidly age and suffer backlash.
• First Madam Ji and Second Madam Ji discovered their family members’ tablets, while Ji Xiansong confronted Master Ji about borrowing his sons’ lives.
• Master Ji defended his actions by claiming his children owed him filial obedience, and Jin Shanyao explained to Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci that not all parents loved their children.
• Lu Chi took Master Ji into custody, and Old General Fu had Fu Congzhao praise Jin Shanyao and give her banknotes, prompting them to declare their fondness for each other.
• Jin Shanyao asked Qiao Qingran for five thousand taels, but Qiao Qingran honored their original ten-thousand-tael agreement and paid her in full.

After the emperor ordered Lu Chi to investigate life-borrowing, the Third Prince plotted to kill Jin Shanyao and warned Shen Yan to stop investigating. Jin Shanyao set up her divination and consultation stall in the Fu Household, where Lu Chi sought her help but balked at her price.

• The emperor ordered Lu Chi to investigate life-borrowing and search the capital’s official residences for evil arts.
• The Third Prince learned Jin Shanyao had thwarted his plan and ordered Lu Mingche to arrange her death when she returned to Qingzhou Prefecture; he also warned Shen Yan to stop investigating.
• Lu Chi returned to the Ji Residence, learned Jin Shanyao had gone to the Fu Household, and ordered everyone in the Ji Household imprisoned before rushing after her.
• Fu Congxi tried to keep Lu Chi out of the Fu Household, but he tricked her and ran inside to find Jin Shanyao working alongside Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci.
• Lu Chi introduced Fu Congxi as his fiancée and asked Jin Shanyao to help investigate officials, but he left when she quoted fifty taels per divination.

Jin Shanyao gave Fu Congheng outrageous advice about pursuing the married woman he loved, then formed an enthusiastic bond with Fu Congxi. After the Fu family sent Jin Shanyao and Meng Anzhi away to the Top Scholar Tower, Old General Fu admitted he was relieved they had left.

• Old General Fu paid Jin Shanyao fifty taels to tell Fu Congheng’s fortune and arranged for his grandson to come home.
• Jin Shanyao revealed that Fu Congheng had loved the girl who saved him from drowning and urged him to take her from her husband.
• Fu Congheng admitted the woman was married, while Fu Congzhao tried to stop Jin Shanyao from encouraging him to pursue her.
• Fu Congxi declared her admiration for Jin Shanyao, and Jin Shanyao enthusiastically returned it before Old Madam Fu had her removed.
• Meng Anzhi took Jin Shanyao to the Top Scholar Tower, and Fu Congxi went with them after Old General Fu shut the gates behind them.
• Old General Fu confessed that Jin Shanyao had terrified him, and Old Madam Fu joked that they were simply old.

Jin Shanyao, Fu Congxi, and the Meng children spent a day in the capital watching a shadow play and eating hot pot. Jin bought the children the shadow puppets, and Fu Congxi shared her hurt over being judged as wild before Jin reassured her.

• Fu Congxi invited Jin Shanyao ice-skating, but agreed to take her and the Meng children to a shadow play instead.
• The group watched a martial shadow play, and Meng Anci cheered enthusiastically as the young general defeated his enemy.
• Jin Shanyao bought the shadow puppets for the children, and Meng Anci played with them as the group walked to a restaurant.
• At the restaurant, Jin ordered several hot pot broths and a large variety of ingredients while Fu Congxi chose sour broth.
• Fu Congxi told Jin that other women avoided her for being wild, and Jin reassured her that people could enjoy different interests and be happy in their own way.

Fu Congxi took Jin Shanyao and the Meng siblings to see the imperial palace and visit the capital’s night market, where Meng Anzhi won a lantern for her aunt. The sight of sky lanterns bearing the name Shi Dun led them to learn about General Shen Yan’s continued investigation into the deaths of twenty-eight soldiers.

• Fu Congxi treated the group to seafood and showed them the imperial palace, where Jin Shanyao noticed faint black threads in the golden light surrounding it.
• Fu Congxi led them to the lantern-lit night market, where Meng Anzhi repeatedly landed arrows in a bronze pot and won the coiled-dragon lantern king.
• Meng Anzhi gave the lantern to Jin Shanyao as a New Year’s gift, prompting Meng Anci to worry that his sister had won their aunt’s favor.
• Jin Shanyao saw sky lanterns marked Shi Dun rising over the river and recognized the man releasing them as someone they had seen at the courier station.
• Fu Congxi identified the man as Shen Yan and explained that he was still investigating how a landslide had buried the twenty-eight soldiers under his command more than a year earlier.

Jin Shanyao gave Song Zhiyan a fortune reading while his father tried to arrange a match, then accompanied Lu Chi and Fu Congxi shopping, where Wei Mingzhu provoked a confrontation. The chapter left Wei Mingzhu fleeing after Lu Chi warned her about insulting his mother’s spirit tablet.

• Song Henian brought Song Zhiyan to Jin Shanyao for a reading, hoping to arrange a match, but Jin Shanyao charged him fifty taels for the fortune-telling.
• Song Zhiyan realized his father had brought him to a matchmaking meeting and hurriedly pulled him away.
• Jin Shanyao advised Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci to stay alert whenever money was involved.
• Fu Congxi bought silver bracelets as gifts for Qing He and Qing Yang while Lu Chi accompanied her and Jin Shanyao.
• Wei Mingzhu mocked the bracelets and threatened Fu Congxi and Lu Chi, who retorted that Wei Mingzhu’s aunt’s spirit tablet would be placed behind his mother’s.
• Lu Chi reminded Wei Mingzhu that his mother was the empress’s elder sister, and Wei Mingzhu fled without collecting her jewelry.

Jin Shanyao and the children left the capital at speed, evaded the hidden guards sent by Lu Mingche, and stopped at a farmhouse for the night. There, they found the badly wounded Shen Yan, whom Jin Shanyao brought inside and had Meng Anzhi treat.

• Jin Shanyao gave Fu Congzhao oversized clothes and two Talismans of Safety before departing the capital with the children.
• The hidden guards Lu Mingche sent failed to intercept Jin Shanyao's fast-moving ox cart and pursued it toward Qingzhou Prefecture.
• Jin Shanyao and the children spent the night at a farmhouse, where the farmer's family found an unconscious man beside the woodpile.
• Jin Shanyao identified the wounded man as Shen Yan and offered to buy the farmhouse if he died in her room.
• Jin Shanyao carried Shen Yan inside, while Meng Anzhi treated his wounds and Jin Shanyao used acupuncture to protect his heart meridian.
• Jin Shanyao told the children to sleep and stayed up to keep watch over Shen Yan.

Jin Shanyao sheltered the wounded Shen Yan and revealed that his twenty-eight missing soldiers had become Earthbound Spirits. Shen Yan planned to meet them the next night, while the arrival of hoofbeats outside the courtyard left the household facing a new possible threat.

• Shen Yan woke and recognized Jin Shanyao as the fortune-teller from the relay station, then saw Shi Dun among the Earthbound Spirits even though he could not see the ghost himself.
• Shen Yan gave Jin Shanyao a piece of broken jade and asked her to find his twenty-eight missing brothers and let him learn their wishes.
• Jin Shanyao told Shen Yan the soldiers had become Earthbound Spirits and that their provisions escort would pass the courtyard at midnight the next night.
• Meng Anci called Shen Yan a hero for defending the Sheng Dynasty, and Shen Yan reflected on how the ordinary soldiers under his command had also been heroes.
• When hoofbeats sounded outside, Shen Yan grabbed a stool and went to confront whoever was approaching, while Jin Shanyao warned the children to judge their enemies and flee if necessary.

Jin Shanyao defeated the shadow guards sent by Lu Mingche on the third prince’s secret orders, then persuaded them to return with excuses instead of risking their lives. After tending Shen Yan’s wounds, she left him waiting outside in the winter as Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci reflected on how little help they had been.

• The shadow guards attacked Jin Shanyao, but she knocked them over the courtyard wall with her whip and captured their leader.
• Jin Shanyao used Hand Seals to make the guard reveal that Lu Mingche had sent them on the third prince’s orders because Anzhi Hall had harmed the Wei Household’s herb business.
• Jin Shanyao tossed the final guard over the wall, then accidentally dropped Shen Yan while trying to carry him and bandaged his wound.
• Jin Shanyao advised the shadow guards to report failure and return with minor injuries, and they left after the farm woman confirmed they had run away.
• Shen Yan sat outside watching the road, while Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci admitted they had only been getting in the way and Jin Shanyao encouraged them to learn by seeing more.

Shen Yan learned that his twenty-eight brothers had been buried beneath an official road after being sacrificed in a formation, and Jin Shanyao revealed where their remains lay. He left to recover them, while Jin Shanyao promised to help their souls pass on.

• Jin Shanyao showed Shen Yan the twenty-eight Earthbound Spirits as they delivered grain, and Shen Yan broke down at seeing his living brothers.
• Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci gave Shen Yan their money, and Jin Shanyao used her Spiritual Power to discover how the soldiers had died.
• Jin Shanyao revealed that the soldiers had been trapped and buried beneath the official road as a sacrifice to Heaven.
• Shen Yan thanked Jin Shanyao and the siblings, then left to retrieve his brothers' remains and asked Jin Shanyao to help their souls pass on.
• Jin Shanyao told Meng Anci to remember the unjustly dead and prevent those who harmed others from running rampant.

Xuanjizi fled the Third Prince’s residence after his formation was destroyed, while Jin Shanyao prepared to send twenty-eight fallen soldiers to the Underworld. The soldiers’ spirits arrived and learned of their deaths as Pei Zheng vowed to avenge them and care for their families; a ghost gate opened to receive them.

• Xuanjizi suffered backlash when his formation was destroyed, feared the Third Prince would make him a scapegoat, and fled with his belongings.
• Pei Zheng and Shen Yan brought twenty-eight coffins to Jin Shanyao and asked her to perform rites for the fallen soldiers.
• Jin Shanyao accepted the task and told Pei Zheng and his soldiers to remain silent during the rites.
• Shen Yan gave the farm couple a pouch of silver, and Jin Shanyao realized the soldiers had pooled their money to honor their fallen comrades.
• Jin Shanyao summoned the spirits of the twenty-eight soldiers, who recognized Pei Zheng and remembered being buried alive.
• Pei Zheng promised to avenge the soldiers and care for their families, and Jin Shanyao opened a ghost gate for them.

Jin Shanyao returned to Qingzhou Prefecture with Meng Anzhi and reopened Anzhi Hall, where she welcomed familiar customers and prepared to divine a young man’s romantic prospects. The chapter ended with the man asking whether he could trust her after discovering that every fortune stick was the luckiest one.

• Shi Dun accepted Jin Shanyao’s advice, entered the Ghost Gate, and hoped to reunite with his wife and child in the Underworld.
• Pei Zheng’s men carried the coffins away, and Jin Shanyao gave Shen Yan medicine and invited him to visit Anzhi Hall for future rites.
• Jin Shanyao and the children returned to Qingzhou Prefecture, where shopkeepers and Jiang Jinshu welcomed them back.
• Jin Shanyao reopened Anzhi Hall while Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci settled back into familiar routines.
• A young man drew a lucky fortune stick and asked whether he had a future with a young lady he liked.
• Jin Shanyao urged him to confess his feelings, but he noticed every stick in her container showed the luckiest fortune and asked whether he could trust her.

Jin Shanyao advised a nervous scholar to confess his feelings and sent two repentant bandits to seek help from Su Wenqian. A toddler named Xiao Huzi then came to her shop for a consultation about his sharp tongue, but Meng Anzhi arrived and took him away.

• Jin Shanyao told a timid scholar to confess his love rather than live with regret, and he thanked her before leaving.
• Two bandits paid Jin Shanyao for a fortune and she told them to report everything they had seen to Su Wenqian, the prefect of Qingzhou Prefecture.
• The bandits realized they did not know who Su Wenqian was, so Jin Shanyao identified him and they set off for the prefectural yamen.
• A toddler named Xiao Huzi asked Jin Shanyao to examine his mouth and explained that his parents hit him after he threatened to beat them when he grew up.
• Meng Anzhi entered, picked up Xiao Huzi, and said his mother was frantic with worry looking for him.

Jin Shanyao visited Xie Chao on Hat Mountain, brought him a jade lingzhi and food, and promised they would remain friends even after she left Qingzhou Prefecture. At Wang Xiaohua’s bride’s farewell banquet, Jin Shanyao was surrounded by women giving her unsolicited marriage and childbearing advice, leaving her unable to speak up.

• Jin Shanyao heard Xiao Huzi reunite with his mother, then learned from Meng Anzhi that Wang Xiaohua planned to use her rouge for her wedding.
• Jin Shanyao gave Xie Chao a jade lingzhi and told him she and Meng Anzhi would eventually leave Qingzhou Prefecture for the capital.
• Jin Shanyao brought Xie Chao food from the capital and reassured him that they would stay friends and she would return to visit.
• Jin Shanyao and Meng Anzhi attended Wang Xiaohua’s bride’s farewell banquet, where Meng Anzhi saved food for her.
• The women at the banquet questioned Jin Shanyao about being unmarried, urged her to have children, and offered to introduce her to a nephew.

After Jin Shanyao fled the Wang Household’s wedding feast, Qing He stood up for her by outtalking the aunties and making sure she and Meng Anzhi got food. Jin Shanyao prepared to face another feast the next day, only to learn that the groom’s family hosted it, leaving her practiced lines useless.

• Jin Shanyao returned from the Wang Household’s wedding feast hungry after the aunties’ nonstop chatter drove her away.
• Qing He went to the feast with Jin Shanyao and Meng Anzhi, claimed food for them, and used pointed questions to silence the women at their table.
• Qing He led Jin Shanyao and Meng Anzhi back to the shop after telling the crowd to mind its own business.
• Jin Shanyao looked up feast advice in the Record of Seeking Evil and learned to use quick chopsticks and provocative conversation.
• Jin Shanyao practiced her lines for Wang Xiaohua’s wedding feast, then discovered that the groom’s family would host it instead.

After Wang Xiaohua married, Jin Shanyao learned the meaning of the water-pouring custom, while Meng Anzhi took on the family business and Shen Yan visited the shop. In May, Jin Shanyao told fortunes for money and met a well-dressed young man who had come seeking help with a troubling matter.

• Wang Xiaohua left for her husband's home, and Qing Yang explained the custom of her mother pouring out a basin of water after her departure.
• Jin Shanyao joked that Anzhi would carry meat when she married, and Qing Yang proposed sending a live pig to the groom's family.
• Meng Anzhi treated patients at the shop, where Shen Yan visited and offered to help Jin Shanyao if she ever needed him.
• Jin Shanyao returned from a wedding feast with Meng Anci, and the family passed from April into May.
• Jin Shanyao told a woman where to find her husband with a young widow, then offered fortune-telling to a handsome stranger.
• The young man paid Jin Shanyao ten taels and said he had a troubling matter he could not resolve.

Jin Shanyao dealt with a young man seeking advice about his supposed love for his sister-in-law, only to learn he was a madman speaking about a storybook. She forced the old servant to pay for the consultation before the pair left Anzhi Hall.

• Jin Shanyao charged the young master for advice, and he asked how to hide his fondness for his sister-in-law from his brother.
• Jin Shanyao proposed finding women for the brother and showing the sister-in-law special attention, prompting the young master to accuse her of shamelessness and reveal his distress.
• An old servant arrived and explained that the young master had gone mad during the provincial examination and was discussing storybook characters.
• Jin Shanyao demanded payment, and the young master and old servant began offering to strip instead of paying.
• Zhou Xiaosi warned the pair to pay, and the old servant left the silver before taking the young master away.