Recaps

Hong Yin and Li Yan examined the Stone Gate and discovered that it was protected by Red Buddha Temple’s Vajra Gourd Seal, a trap that could enclose and imprison anyone who attacked it from within the open space. Hong Yin began searching the rock wall for the seal’s hidden clue, while Li Yan suspected her long search had brought her close to Red Buddha Temple’s true secrets.

• Hong Yin and Li Yan approached the Stone Gate and found that their divine senses triggered no attack but could not penetrate its restriction.
• Li Yan noticed a faint shadow on the rock wall, and Hong Yin recognized it as the Vajra Gourd Seal.
• Hong Yin explained that the seal would spread a barrier around intruders and make escape difficult, especially for anyone trapped inside.
• Hong Yin concluded that the hidden mark was likely left for the original sect’s disciples to find and use to open the Stone Gate.
• Hong Yin searched the rock wall for a way to proceed, while Li Yan watched and reflected that her search might have uncovered the true clues to Red Buddha Temple.

Hong Yin tested the Stone Gate’s Vajra Gourd Seal and concluded that the Red Buddha Temple barrier could be opened with the right sequence of Buddhist mudras. After more than seven months of attempts, she formed a mass of thought-power flames and sent it toward the gate.

• Hong Yin used a Buddhist mudra on the Stone Gate and confirmed that its seal was related to Red Buddha Temple, but she could not find the point where it could be broken.
• Hong Yin reasoned that the seal tested the visitor’s identity and could be opened by finding the correct position with Buddhist techniques, so she asked Li Yan to guard her.
• Li Yan agreed and waited in the passage while Hong Yin spent more than seven months testing different methods.
• Hong Yin combined more than thirty mudras and formed a mass of red thought-power flames.
• Hong Yin pushed the flames toward the Stone Gate, and Li Yan opened his eyes as the heat reached him.

Hong Yin opened the Stone Gate, and she and Li Yan entered a vast, scorching red desert enclosed by stone walls. They flew toward a palace behind another gate, but swarms of venom-spitting snakes attacked them along the way.

• Hong Yin used a Fearless Seal to trigger a hidden point on the Stone Gate, causing it to rise without launching an attack.
• Li Yan advised Hong Yin to recover, and after two hours they entered the vast underground desert through the open gate.
• Hong Yin and Li Yan chose a palace behind a grand Stone Gate as their destination and flew low across the desert.
• Li Yan and Hong Yin discovered red, ringed snake-like Demon Beasts beneath the sand, but judged them too weak to pose a serious threat.
• As Li Yan and Hong Yin crossed the desert, the snakes spat sticky, corrosive venom at them, and the swarm's combined attack hindered their spells.

Li Yan and Hong Yin crossed the Red Desert cautiously, avoiding a hidden formation that could have killed them if they had flown too quickly. Beyond the Stone Gate, Hong Yin recognized the Red Buddha Temple and wept as she returned to her long-lost home, while Li Yan sat quietly behind her.

• Hong Yin sensed that a hidden Buddhist formation beneath the Red Desert would attack cultivators who flew too fast, so she and Li Yan advanced cautiously through the red snakes.
• Li Yan and Hong Yin reached the desert's far edge, where the pursuing snakes stopped and retreated.
• After checking the area beyond the Stone Gate, Hong Yin and Li Yan entered a desolate hall filled with Buddha statues.
• Hong Yin recognized the Red Buddha Temple's mark beneath the great Buddha, knelt, and tearfully announced her return to her elders and abbot.
• Hong Yin began chanting while kneeling before the altar, and Li Yan listened, reflected on the meaning of home, and sat cross-legged behind her.

Hong Yin found the remains of Red Buddha Temple in the Immortal Spirit Realm, but its former foundation now belonged to the Huafu Sect and its inheritance seemed largely lost. After searching the site with Li Yan, she left with scriptures and a share of Pills, while Li Yan offered possible reasons why the temple’s valuables were missing.

• Hong Yin thanked Li Yan for helping her find Red Buddha Temple’s secret realm and lamented that its original foundation was now occupied by the Huafu Sect.
• Li Yan congratulated Hong Yin but acknowledged that reclaiming the sect site would be difficult for her and the temple’s few remaining members.
• Hong Yin and Li Yan searched the halls and rooms, found Pills but no magic treasures or spirit plants, and divided the few valuable Pills between them.
• Hong Yin collected the scriptures they found as possible foundations for rebuilding Red Buddha Temple.
• Li Yan proposed that the temple’s people had taken its treasures when they left, that the pair had missed a hidden chamber, or that another secret realm remained undiscovered.

Li Yan and Hong Yin searched Red Buddha Temple for the hidden inheritance, then expanded their search outside the great hall. Li Yan spotted a possible mechanism on the Buddhist niche’s “Red Buddha” characters and discovered that the character “Red” could turn.

• Hong Yin judged Li Yan’s theory that the temple’s former inhabitants had taken or destroyed its contents more likely and agreed to search again.
• Li Yan and Hong Yin searched the side halls and rooms separately for more than a day but found no clues.
• Hong Yin realized the treasure might be hidden outside the great hall and went to inspect the rock walls, while Li Yan continued searching inside.
• Li Yan left the hall and began inspecting the rock wall on the opposite side of the Stone Gate from Hong Yin.
• Li Yan noticed that the “Red Buddha” characters were on the shrine rather than above the Stone Gate, then twisted the character “Red” and found that it turned like a knob.

Li Yan realized the words on the Buddhist niche were a mortal mechanism concealing a trigger for the secret chamber, and Hong Yin searched her temple’s history for a clue to its operation. Hong Yin recalled the founding ancestor’s interest in craftsmanship and proposed why the mechanism had been placed there, but they had not yet opened it.

• Li Yan noticed that the words “Red Buddha” on the Buddhist niche were slightly crooked and discovered that one character could be rotated, revealing a hidden mechanism.
• Li Yan summoned Hong Yin and explained that the niche’s mechanism likely triggered an array elsewhere, warning that careless tampering could destroy it.
• Hong Yin recalled that Red Whisk Divine Nun had been a wealthy mortal girl who enjoyed making mechanical devices, though the temple’s records offered no specific instructions.
• After considering the ancestor’s history and possible Buddhist allusions, Hong Yin proposed that the mechanism concealed the chamber and would be recognized by someone who understood Red Buddha Temple.

Hong Yin deciphered the shrine’s hidden mechanism and used Red Buddha Temple’s technique to break the Great Wheel Wisdom King Array behind the Buddha statue. She and Li Yan reached the opening in the statue’s shoulder, where they sensed no further arrays or restrictions.

• Hong Yin deduced that the character “Red” had to be turned six times to the left and “Buddha” pulled upward, then operated the shrine’s mechanism.
• A red point of light appeared at the Buddha statue’s base, and Hong Yin recognized it as Red Buddha Temple’s Great Wheel Wisdom King Array.
• Hong Yin invoked the Great Wheel Wisdom King and used a golden lasso and sword to capture the moving light and break the array.
• A crack opened at the Buddha statue’s right shoulder, and Hong Yin recovered after using her full strength to break the array.
• Hong Yin and Li Yan flew to the opening and sensed no further arrays or restrictions inside.

Li Yan and Hong Yin descended into the hidden chamber of the Red Buddha Temple and found a beautiful female nun’s corpse beside a red jade slip. Hong Yin cautiously entered the jade slip with her divine sense and began discovering its contents, leaving Li Yan waiting tensely for what she would learn.

• Hong Yin and Li Yan followed a long staircase into a chamber where the Wind God Continent’s aura grew stronger and their divine sense was restricted.
• They found a lifelike but lifeless female nun in a red kasaya, with a red jade slip and several spatial rings beside her.
• Li Yan warned Hong Yin that the corpse, jade slip, and rings could hide poison or a soul-based attack, and both searched for danger without finding any.
• Hong Yin cautiously touched the red jade slip with her divine sense, then entered it after detecting no attack or abnormality.
• Hong Yin studied the jade slip for several breaths as her expression shifted through realization, sorrow, and shock, while Li Yan watched for danger.

Li Yan read Great Elder Qing Yun’s jade slip and learned that it mixed truthful last words with a hidden warning. Hong Yin revealed Red Buddha Temple’s secret account of its conflict with a stronger rival, leaving the temple’s fate tied to the war that eventually erupted.

• Li Yan examined Qing Yun’s jade slip and recounted its apparent story of Red Buddha Temple’s destruction and her final request to protect the Buddha statues.
• Hong Yin explained that the jade slip was both a trap and a record of last words, with most of its surface meaning false and its secret language revealing the truth.
• Hong Yin said Qing Yun had been an eminent nun whose temple’s inheritance in the Immortal Spirit Realm had been destroyed long before Hong Yin’s birth.
• Hong Yin revealed that Qing Yun had nearly reached the Tribulation Crossing realm and fled the battle to preserve Red Buddha Temple’s inheritance rather than unleash her full power.
• Hong Yin described how Red Buddha Temple avoided provoking a greedy neighboring force with a Tribulation Crossing cultivator, until that force eventually attacked and a prolonged war began.

Hong Yin explained how Qing Yun’s hidden safeguards could destroy the secret chamber and its intruders if they took her storage treasure, and Li Yan realized they had narrowly avoided the trap. Hong Yin then revealed that Red Buddha Temple’s true inheritance was hidden elsewhere, and that its location might explain why the temple refused to leave and why her disciple went to the Desolate Moon Continent.

• Hong Yin recounted how Qing Yun’s injuries and fading origin led her to prepare a concealed array that would destroy the chamber, the great hall, and anyone who took her storage treasure.
• Li Yan understood that the jade slip was designed to guide outsiders toward triggering Qing Yun’s trap, while Red Buddha Temple disciples could recognize the warning and avoid it.
• Li Yan questioned why Red Buddha Temple had chosen to fight to the death instead of migrating, and Hong Yin took the red jade slip while asking whether he suspected Qing Yun’s character.
• Hong Yin revealed that the storage treasures held only part of Red Buddha Temple’s inheritance; its core treasures, including the Red Lotus Burning Fire Scripture, were hidden elsewhere.
• Hong Yin said the hidden location might explain both Red Buddha Temple’s decision to stay and why her disciple left the Wind God Continent for the Desolate Moon Continent.

Hong Yin explained that Red Buddha Temple had secretly occupied the region because its strange wind and flame might be connected to the Wind God Continent’s deadly winds. She revealed that Jingting had left the lower realm to seek a way to end the wind-beast calamity, and Li Yan was left admiring her resolve.

• Hong Yin told Li Yan that a Red Buddha Temple Great Elder had discovered a mysterious flame surrounded by wind resembling the wind of the Wind God Continent.
• Li Yan realized the wind might share a source with the Wind God Continent’s deadly storms and considered whether studying it could stop the calamity.
• Hong Yin explained that Red Buddha Temple had made the region its secret core area, concealed it by moving spirit veins, and researched the wind and flame for generations.
• Hong Yin recounted that Jingting had left the lower realm to investigate possible wind beasts on the Desolate Moon Continent and followed a clue to the Immortal Spirit Realm.
• Hong Yin concluded that Jingting had sought to end the wind-beast scourge at its root, and Li Yan admired her willingness to sacrifice Red Buddha Temple’s survival for that goal.

Hong Yin safely dissolved Qing Yun’s body and revealed that Red Buddha Temple’s true treasures were hidden in a mechanism within the stairs. She carefully prepared to open it, then launched attacks at eighty-one points as Li Yan watched.

• Hong Yin used a golden scripture and an invisible thread of will to dissolve Qing Yun’s body without triggering the underground array, then respectfully bid farewell to her.
• Hong Yin gathered the storage treasures and told Li Yan that the true valuables were hidden elsewhere; Li Yan agreed to follow her.
• Hong Yin led Li Yan to the stairs and identified the seventh step from the bottom as the hidden treasure’s location.
• Hong Yin explained that opening the mechanism required striking eighty-one positions in precise coordination, with nine opened slightly later and in sequence.
• After studying the steps for more than fifty breaths, Hong Yin sent eighty-one specks of starlight toward the mechanism’s scattered opening points.

Hong Yin and Li Yan passed through the Great Wheel Wisdom King Array and reached the Red Buddha Temple’s hidden repository, where a fierce wind tunnel and a small, dangerous flame blocked their way. Hong Yin began searching the temple’s spatial treasures for inherited scriptures and records about the tunnel while Li Yan kept his promise not to claim the treasures and remained focused on investigating the wind.

• Hong Yin dismantled another Great Wheel Wisdom King Array with the Burning Fire Red Lotus Sutra, revealing a passage between the steps.
• Hong Yin and Li Yan entered a chamber shaped like the upper half of a gourd, where spatial bracelets floated near a powerful wind tunnel.
• Hong Yin and Li Yan probed toward the tunnel but withdrew when the flame at its entrance burned their divine senses.
• Hong Yin explained that the tunnel was suspected to be the source of the wind on the Wind God Continent and proposed examining the spatial treasures before investigating it.
• Li Yan asked Hong Yin to search the treasures for records about the wind tunnel and declined to take any of the Red Buddha Temple’s legacy for himself.
• Hong Yin broke the simple seals on the spatial treasures and began searching their contents for scriptures, cultivation methods, and useful records.

Li Yan and Hong Yin examined records about the wind cave and found that previous investigators had been unable to explore far inside. They tested the strange flame at its entrance, then prepared to investigate the cave themselves.

• Hong Yin finished searching Red Buddha Temple's spatial bracelets and offered Li Yan a copy of the Red Lotus Burning Fire Scripture and a choice of treasures.
• Li Yan asked Hong Yin for jade slips about the wind cave, and she gave him six records of earlier investigations.
• Li Yan learned that Great Elder Qing Yun had reached only eighteen or nineteen zhang into the cave and that the flame might be a seal suppressing its winds.
• Li Yan sent a wind blade at the flame, which shattered the blade and revealed exceptionally pure fire-element laws.
• Hong Yin tested the flame with her own fire, cutting off her spell as it touched the cluster and burst into sparks.

Li Yan and Hong Yin investigated the flame sealing the wind cave, then tested the cave’s deadly winds and found they could not reach its depths. They remained outside to consider other ways to investigate before deciding whether to reseal it.

• Li Yan tested the flame and found it attacked anything approaching the cave mouth, then reasoned that it might be possible to pass around it.
• Li Yan entered first, confirmed that he and Hong Yin could communicate by sound transmission, and used a fire defense to pass the sealing flame.
• Li Yan advanced several zhang into the cave before the penetrating wind rapidly drained his magic power and forced him to retreat.
• Li Yan told Hong Yin the wind resembled the source of the Heavenly Eye Wind, and Hong Yin entered briefly before retreating as well.
• Hong Yin concluded that the temple’s research had only measured how far cultivators could endure the wind, and she and Li Yan stayed to consider other methods of investigation.

Hong Yin explained why she intended to rebuild Red Buddha Temple in the Immortal Spirit Realm before addressing the wind cave, while Li Yan revealed that his Broken Red Handheld Lantern reacted near it. After confirming the lantern had no known connection to her temple, Li Yan prepared safeguards and brought it out to investigate.

• Hong Yin told Li Yan she understood his wish to investigate the wind cave and believed Red Buddha Temple had guarded it to prevent powerful forces from controlling the Wind God Continent.
• Li Yan explained that his Broken Red Handheld Lantern had reacted near the cave entrance but weakened as he went deeper, and he admitted he could not predict what might happen if he investigated further.
• Hong Yin asked where Li Yan had obtained the lantern, and he said he bought it in a North Pasture Realm market after ascending from the Tianli Clan.
• Hong Yin said Red Buddha Temple had no foothold in the North Pasture Realm, and Li Yan set up an array around the chamber with a one-way opening toward the wind cave.
• Li Yan summoned the Broken Red Handheld Lantern using a spiritual power rope, and Hong Yin sensed only faint spiritual power and no familiar aura from it.

Li Yan and Hong Yin watched the red handheld lantern ignite a candle flame as the Wind Tunnel’s strange winds vanished, then explored the tunnel. After finding only a sealed cave wall and no further anomalies, they prepared to leave and discuss what they had found.

• Li Yan’s red handheld lantern glowed, strained forward, and suddenly revealed a tiny candle flame inside it.
• The flame at the Wind Tunnel’s mouth vanished, and the wind inside the tunnel rapidly died away.
• Li Yan and Hong Yin entered the now-calm tunnel with the lantern and walked about five li to a sealed cave wall.
• Li Yan and Hong Yin probed beyond the wall with their divine senses and found only underground stone, with no continuing passage or strange wind.
• Hong Yin searched the nearby cave again and found no other anomalies, then told Li Yan they should leave and talk.

Li Yan and Hong Yin examined the red hand lantern after its flame merged with it, concluding that the lantern had grown sturdier but remained damaged. Hong Yin proposed drawing the weakened flame back out to see whether the Wind Tunnel's strange wind would return, leaving them poised to test the idea.

• Li Yan explained how he had bought the red hand lantern and described his earlier examinations, while withholding details about the Polar Ice Plains and the ancient cultivator relic city.
• Hong Yin inspected the lantern and found that its flame had shrunk, no longer attacked her divine sense, and caused only slight pain when touched.
• Li Yan and Hong Yin concluded that the flame and lantern might once have been one treasure, and that the flame's power had strengthened the lantern as it merged with it.
• Li Yan warned that the lantern's damaged exterior had not been repaired, so nurturing it might not be enough to restore it.
• Hong Yin asked whether drawing the flame out could bring back the Wind Tunnel's strange wind and let them investigate its depths again.

Li Yan and Hong Yin tried to separate the candle flame from the Red Handheld Lantern, but neither their divine senses nor spells could do so without risking the lantern and flame. Hong Yin let Li Yan take the lantern and asked him to investigate whether it could help Wind God Continent, leaving her to rebuild Red Buddha Temple.

• Li Yan found that his divine sense could not pull the candle flame out of the Red Handheld Lantern without damaging it.
• Li Yan’s spell and Hong Yin’s Buddhist powers also failed to separate the flame from the lantern.
• Hong Yin viewed Li Yan’s arrival and the lantern’s bond with the flame as a matter of Buddhist affinity and asked him to take the lantern and report any useful discoveries.
• Li Yan agreed to study the lantern and help Wind God Continent if it could ease the continent’s calamity.
• Li Yan urged Hong Yin to keep the resources she had gained for rebuilding Red Buddha Temple, and she accepted his sincerity.

Li Yan and Hong Yin left the ruined Red Buddha Temple site after agreeing that Hong Yin would rebuild the sect and entrusting the temple’s future aid to her. More than ten years later, Li Yan returned to the Wangliang Sect without Hong Yin and told Gong Chenying and Zhao Min what had happened.

• Hong Yin accepted Li Yan’s decision not to divide the treasures, and Li Yan sealed the Red Handheld Lantern away with his other wary-making artifacts.
• Hong Yin collected what she could, restored or replaced the site’s defenses, paid her respects at the stone wall, and left with Li Yan.
• Hong Yin gave Li Yan a jade slip containing all nine layers of the Red Lotus Burning Fire Scripture for Chen Ying and declined his offer to stay at the Wangliang Sect.
• Hong Yin said she would remain in the Cangxuan Realm to search for a place to rebuild the Red Buddha Temple, then parted from Li Yan and flew away.
• More than ten years later, Li Yan returned to the Wangliang Sect, where Gong Chenying and Zhao Min welcomed him; he later told them about Hong Yin and the Red Buddha Temple.

After years of quiet cultivation, Li Yan emerged from a lengthy seclusion still unable to break through from the Void Refinement Realm to the Body Integration Realm. He reflected on his unresolved research into the Red Handheld Lantern and the bottleneck in his cultivation, leaving his next step uncertain.

• Li Yan gave Gong Chenying the complete Red Lotus Burning Fire Scripture, and Zhao Min told him that Li Zhaoyan had given birth to a son, making him a maternal grandfather.
• Li Yan spent decades cultivating and secretly researching the Red Handheld Lantern, but it showed no new powers or increase in grade, so he sealed it inside Tuban again.
• After more than sixty years of seclusion, Li Yan emerged when growing irritation warned him that he was stuck at a bottleneck and risked qi deviation.
• Li Yan sat in the rear garden and considered how he had failed to form the Heaven and Earth Five-Element Wheel needed to reach the Body Integration Realm.

Li Yan emerged from more than sixty years of seclusion without finding a path to the Body Integration Realm, though his cultivation had grown stronger. After spending peaceful days with Zhao Min, he learned that two old friends surnamed Pei and Ping had arrived to see him.

• Li Yan reflected on his stalled breakthroughs and learned that his strength had increased by about ten percent during his decades of cultivation.
• Zhao Min visited Li Yan and told him that she had reached the middle stage of Spirit Transformation, Li Wuyi had reached Spirit Transformation, and their other companions had made progress or entered seclusion.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min spent several days together, and Li Yan sent a message inviting Li Zhaoyan and her husband to bring their child to visit.
• A gate disciple reported that two visitors surnamed Pei and Ping claimed to be Li Yan's old friends.
• Li Yan recognized the visitors and prepared to meet them, while Zhao Min asked whether they were ascended cultivators.

Li Yan welcomed Ping Tu and Pei Buchong to the Wangliang Sect, where he reunited with his old friend and met his senior brother for the first time. After privately greeting them, he revealed that his cultivation had reached the late stage and learned that Ping Tu had advanced to the early stage of the Void Refinement Realm.

• Li Yan reassured Zhao Min that the two visitors were male friends he had met while traveling, then left to greet them.
• Ping Tu and Pei Buchong waited outside the Wangliang Sect and discussed Li Yan and the reasons Pei Buchong had never joined a sect.
• Li Yan appeared at the mountain gate, welcomed Ping Tu and Pei Buchong, and led them into the sect.
• Li Yan activated a formation in his courtyard, greeted Ping Tu and Pei Buchong formally, and sat with them to talk.
• Ping Tu asked whether Li Yan was concealing his cultivation, and Li Yan said he had reached the late stage and had recently emerged from seclusion.
• Li Yan remarked that Ping Tu had likely advanced again, while the two visitors displayed cultivation realms of early and middle Void Refinement.

Li Yan reunited with Ping Tu and Pei Buchong and learned that both had reached the Body Integration Realm. After greeting them, he asked how the Five Immortals Sect was faring and why they had come to see him.

• Li Yan considered how Ping Tu and Pei Buchong might conceal their cultivation, then revealed that he had reached the Late Void Refinement Realm and was pursuing the Body Integration Realm.
• Pei Buchong listened in surprise and reflected on Li Yan’s solitary, dangerous path of cultivation, which he deeply admired.
• Ping Tu told Li Yan that he and Pei Buchong had both advanced to the Body Integration Realm and concealed their cultivation with treasures like the Wing Guard.
• Li Yan recovered from his surprise, congratulated Ping Tu and Pei Buchong, and bowed to them.
• Pei Buchong returned Li Yan’s bow and called him the true leader of their generation.
• Li Yan asked about the Five Immortals Sect’s situation and the reason for their visit.