Chapter Summaries

Su Liuyun began a Soul Search on Jin Zhiyuan, triggering a hidden restriction that made the captive self-detonate and nearly kill Su Liuyun, Su Hong, and Li Yan. With Jin Zhiyuan dead before they could obtain evidence against Lin Fengshan and Xu Li, Su Hong deduced that he had deliberately provoked the search to activate the restriction.

• Su Liuyun ignored Jin Zhiyuan's threats and began searching his soul while Li Yan stood nearby.
• Li Yan pulled Su Hong behind him as Su Liuyun raised a black leaf barrier in response to a sudden danger.
• Jin Zhiyuan's hidden restriction activated during the Soul Search, causing him to self-detonate and devastate the prison chamber.
• Li Yan helped shield Su Hong, and the arriving guards positioned themselves in front of Su Liuyun as the explosion subsided.
• Su Liuyun explained that the Soul Search had triggered the blast, and he assured Li Yan that Commander Chu had not tampered with Jin Zhiyuan.
• Su Hong concluded that Jin Zhiyuan had deliberately provoked them because a hidden restriction triggered a self-detonation when someone searched his soul.

After Jin Zhiyuan self-destructed during Su Liuyun’s Soul Search, Li Yan reasoned that the hidden agents had an undetectable restriction and advised against immediately capturing Lin Fengshan and Xu Li. The group pursued other leads, but by nightfall their attempt to capture Jin Zhiyuan’s shop clerks had also failed.

• Jin Zhiyuan’s soul vanished after his self-destruction, and Su Liuyun, Su Hong, and Li Yan concluded that he had been protected by a sophisticated restriction against Soul Search.
• Su Liuyun agreed to report the failure and proposed having stronger experts examine Lin Fengshan and Xu Li if they were captured later.
• Li Yan advised keeping Lin Fengshan and Xu Li under secret surveillance, using Jin Zhiyuan’s death as possible bait for the hidden agents’ contacts.
• Li Yan suggested that Jin Zhiyuan’s shop clerks might be accomplices, while Su Hong arranged surveillance of sixteen places where Jin Zhiyuan had stopped.
• Su Hong and Su Liuyun later received news in the palace that their attempt to capture the shop clerks had failed.

Su Hong’s team investigated Jin Zhiyuan’s five shop clerks and arranged a quiet raid to capture them alive. The plan appeared to go smoothly at first, but only one of the three clerks inside the warehouse came out, leaving Jin Thirty-One and the others wary of what had happened.

• Su Liuyun and Su Hong reported to their allies after learning of Jin Zhiyuan’s death, and Su Hong described the investigation into his shop.
• Su Hong’s team identified Guo Gongming and Wan Kongshan as key surveillance targets among the five clerks, though the records revealed no clear evidence against them.
• Jin Thirty-One and Jin Nineteen decided to capture all five clerks inside the shop, while other members watched their homes and families.
• Jin Thirty-One’s group slipped into the shop after closing and waited for its formation to activate before making their move.
• Jin Nineteen and another member subdued two clerks at the front, but after three clerks entered the warehouse, only one emerged, prompting Jin Nineteen and Jin Thirty-One to prepare to act.

Jin Thirty-One and the Gui Xi Army captured a shop attendant, then found that the other two attendants had escaped through a poisoned secret passage into a neighboring shop. They captured the young cultivator there and learned something that astonished them.

• Jin Thirty-One silently subdued a shop attendant outside the storeroom and used the Bewitching Soul Technique to learn that the other two attendants were still inside.
• After waiting and growing suspicious, Jin Thirty-One, Jin Nineteen, and their companion entered the storeroom, where they found no one.
• Jin Thirty-One and the others discovered a secret passage rigged with poison and carefully removed its seal before pursuing the attendants.
• The passage led into a neighboring demon-beast-materials shop, where the three captured a young cultivator after he failed to call for help.
• Jin Thirty-One used the Bewitching Soul Technique on the young cultivator, and the three interrogated him after hearing his surprising answers.

Jin Thirty-One’s group learned how Zeng Jiyuan’s shop assistants escaped through a concealed passage, while Su Hong and Su Liuyun reported the failed Soul Search to the Purple-Robed Youth. He identified a Brain-Twining White Corpse Gu as the cause of Zeng Jiyuan’s death and warned that the enemy’s important agent network remained a serious threat.

• Jin Thirty-One’s group Soul Searched the captured shopkeeper, discovered the secret passage, and realized Zeng Jiyuan’s two assistants had escaped through a concealed wall into an alley.
• Su Liuyun accepted responsibility for the captive’s death and described the Soul Search to the Purple-Robed Youth.
• The Purple-Robed Youth identified a Brain-Twining White Corpse Gu fused with Zeng Jiyuan’s soul, explaining that it had triggered the fatal backlash when Su Liuyun attempted Soul Search.
• The Purple-Robed Youth concluded that the gu protected an important enemy agent and that the escaped assistants would likely expose the failed operation.
• The Purple-Robed Youth asked whether the fugitives had been traced and how they had discovered that the shop was under surveillance.

Su Hong and Su Liuyun reported the shop assistants’ escape and continued plans to watch Lin Fengshan and Xu Li as bait. Their parents lifted the restrictions on Li Yan, and Su Hong soon asked him to help investigate Jin Zhiyuan’s shop; the chapter ended with Li Yan, Su Hong, and Su Liuyun searching the sealed shop at night.

• Su Hong explained that the two shop assistants had escaped, described the citywide search and gate inspections, and said Lin Fengshan and Xu Li were still being watched as potential bait.
• The Purple-Robed Youth ordered Lin Fengshan and Xu Li captured if they showed signs of fleeing, and said he would personally inspect the prisoners in the secret prison.
• The woman in azure palace robes allowed Li Yan to move around the main altar with a token, while instructing Su Hong and Su Liuyun to conceal his identity.
• Su Liuyun suggested bringing Li Yan into their trading company, but Su Hong said Li Yan had already refused her earlier offers.
• Su Hong invited Li Yan to investigate Jin Zhiyuan’s shop, and he went there with her and Su Liuyun to search it after nightfall.

Li Yan Soul Searched the captured shopkeepers and assistants, then proposed releasing most of them and keeping both shops open with replacements so they could remain bait. He suspected Jin Zhiyuan’s assistants had discovered danger through a hidden system of Soul Lamps or life plaques, and returned to the shop to search for where those records might be kept.

• Li Yan Soul Searched the captured people and found that the assistants had been ordinary hires, while the young shopkeeper had served as a puppet for the mysterious force.
• Li Yan persuaded Su Hong and Su Liuyun to release the assistants and their families, erase the young shopkeeper’s memories, and keep the shops open with people disguised as the missing staff.
• Li Yan argued that Jin Zhiyuan’s assistants had likely been added to help him rather than monitor him through Soul Lamps or life plaques, and proposed investigating the escape route and nearby locations.
• Li Yan searched Jin Zhiyuan’s shop and reasoned that the warehouse might conceal a place where Jin Zhiyuan and the assistants could check their Soul Lamps or life plaques.

Li Yan questioned Jin Sanshiyi about the Return Army’s surveillance and concluded that the enemy may have used both visible and hidden safeguards around Jin Zhiyuan. He left the group with a new theory about how the enemy discovered the surveillance, though he had not yet explained the hidden method.

• Li Yan searched Jin Zhiyuan’s rooms and the shop but found no soul lamps, life plaques, or other clues explaining how the shop assistants learned of the danger.
• Li Yan asked Su Liuyun to summon Jin Sanshiyi and questioned him about where the Return Army had watched the shop.
• Jin Sanshiyi described how his group rotated disguises while observing from two shops across the street and a nearby street corner.
• Li Yan said he believed he had identified how the enemy discovered Jin Sanshiyi’s group, but cautioned that it was only a guess.
• Li Yan reasoned that the neighboring shop had served as an obvious layer of protection for Jin Zhiyuan and that the enemy had likely arranged a concealed safeguard as well.

Li Yan explained how hidden sentries watching the street could have detected the group’s surveillance and warned Jin Zhiyuan’s assistants to escape. After Jin Thirty-One left to investigate whether the sentries had fled, Li Yan and Su Hong went to inspect the secret passage.

• Li Yan reasoned that hidden sentries in nearby buildings had observed the unusual activity around Jin Zhiyuan’s shop and arranged for the assistants to flee.
• Su Hong realized the sentries might have withdrawn too and worried that the assistants’ absence could expose what had happened.
• Su Liuyun ordered Jin Thirty-One to investigate, and Jin Thirty-One departed to search for the hidden sentries.
• Su Hong concluded that Lin Fengshan and Xu Li were unlikely to have been protected by sentries in the same way.
• Li Yan asked Su Hong to inspect the secret passage with him, and they entered its narrow, moonlit tunnel.

Li Yan, Su Hong, and Su Liuyun investigated the poisoned escape passage and analyzed the pink mist left there. Su Liuyun collected a sample of a possible Dawn White Lotus mutation, and the three continued into the storeroom at the passage’s far end.

• Su Hong explained how Jin Thirty-One and the others had trapped the lethal pink poison and asked Li Yan to identify it.
• Li Yan examined the passage’s damaged arrays and concluded that the poison’s vivid color was meant to frighten pursuers and delay them.
• Su Hong recalled her secret investigation into Li Yan’s past and renewed her suspicions about his abilities and the Fragmented Poison Body.
• Su Liuyun sensed the mist and found it resembled Dawn White Lotus but had a pungent quality, then collected a sample for further testing.
• Li Yan, Su Hong, and Su Liuyun left the passage and inspected the young shopkeeper’s storeroom, finding shelves of spirit plants but nothing unusual.

Li Yan and the Su siblings investigated the hidden passage and found no useful evidence, but Li Yan deduced that Lin Fengshan and Xu Li could receive warnings through prearranged signals. The siblings decided to stop using the two as bait and move to capture them, while Su Hong recognized that her desire to outdo Li Yan had unsettled her judgment.

• Li Yan and the other two traced the hidden passage from the young shopkeeper’s storeroom through back alleys, then searched both shops and found no clues.
• Su Liuyun and Su Hong discussed their failed search and hoped Jin Thirty-One and the others would find the hidden sentry or the missing shop clerks.
• Li Yan concluded that Lin Fengshan and Xu Li might already know of the investigation through signals arranged in advance, making them useless as bait.
• Li Yan explained that the hidden sentry and shop clerks could have been told to escape while their superiors received warnings through routine meetings, markers, or other signals.
• Su Liuyun decided they should capture Lin Fengshan and Xu Li before they could flee, and reassured Su Hong that they could establish evidence without extracting the gu worms.
• After Su Liuyun left, Su Hong realized her competitive desire to surpass Li Yan had made her lose her usual composure.

Li Yan identified the poison in the hidden passage as a modified form of Blazing Sun in Panic and explained how its lingering effects could help track the two escaped shop hands. He and Su Hong were left with a possible way to find them by following the poison as it dispersed from their bodies.

• Li Yan asked Su Hong whether the poison in the hidden passage had given her any new ideas, and she argued that Jin Zhiyuan had probably refined it.
• Li Yan identified the poison as Blazing Sun in Panic and explained that its ingredients and fire-based refining requirements made Jin Zhiyuan an unlikely maker.
• Li Yan said the poison seeped into the bodies of anyone passing through the mist and remained difficult to expel even after antidotes were taken.
• Li Yan explained that the poison dispersed from the body over one to three days and became most active at noon, when it could be tracked more easily.
• Su Hong realized Li Yan's explanation might let them locate the two escaped shop hands.

Li Yan proposed tracking the escaped shop assistants by detecting the weakened Scorching Sun poison expelled from their bodies, and Su Hong agreed to try before their remaining time ran out. A deathsworn cultivator tested the method, but Li Yan found the traces nearly indistinguishable from ordinary spiritual energy, leaving the search’s feasibility uncertain.

• Su Hong questioned whether Li Yan could locate the escaped shop assistants in time, and Li Yan suggested they might periodically open their hiding place to disperse the poison expelled from their bodies.
• Li Yan proposed using a volunteer who took the antidote and inhaled pink mist so he could study the expelled poison with his Fragmented Poison Body.
• Su Hong agreed to begin immediately, and a black-clad cultivator swallowed the antidote and inhaled the mist under Li Yan’s observation.
• Li Yan detected faint traces of neutralized Scorching Sun poison, but found them almost indistinguishable from surrounding spiritual energy and difficult to search for without exhausting his Divine Sense.

Li Yan discovered a way to sense the poison expelled by the shop clerks by provoking his Fragmented Poison Body poisons to react, then measured its range. He and Su Hong set out to search Haina City, with Su Hong prepared to handle any trouble from the city’s patrols.

• Su Hong and Li Yan found that Divine Sense could not reliably distinguish the suspicious aura, so Li Yan tested the poisons within his Fragmented Poison Body instead.
• Li Yan identified an intensely yang fire poison that reacted with a desire to devour, revealing the poison he was seeking.
• Li Yan had the black-robed cultivator leave the shop and measured his poison-sensing range at roughly three li when he used his full strength.
• Li Yan told Su Hong they would search the city, and she agreed to accompany him and ward off trouble.

Su Hong arranged the investigation around the two shops and joined Li Yan in heading to inspect a fortified pavilion where hidden sentries might be concealed. Meanwhile, Lin Fengshan remained unaware that Jin Zhiyuan had been exposed and decided he should ask Xu Li about withholding future intelligence to protect themselves.

• Su Hong assigned the black-robed cultivator and others to manage the shops, adjust the city gate inspections, and continue investigating hidden sentries.
• Jin Thirty-One reported that his group had found an apparently empty pavilion protected by powerful formations that they could not break quickly without alerting anyone inside.
• Su Hong told Li Yan they would inspect the pavilion as a chance to find the missing shop assistants, while Li Yan warned that the odds were low and time was short.
• Lin Fengshan reviewed his precautions after transmitting intelligence and checked that no warning marker had changed.
• Lin Fengshan decided to discuss with Xu Li whether they should sometimes ignore suspicious intelligence so they could reduce the risk of being exposed.

Commander Chu waited through the night near the storerooms before setting out to capture Lin Fengshan, while other forces moved against targets across Haina City. After dawn, a black-robed steward entered the valley and arrived at the silent pavilion where Lin Fengshan had gone.

• Commander Chu subdued the four guards at a concealed post and waited there under Su Liuyun's orders to capture Lin Fengshan alive.
• Commander Chu learned that Jin Zhiyuan had died and that an attempt to seize the shop assistants had failed, while another commander was assigned to capture Xu Li.
• Jin Thirty-One quietly opened the formation around a pavilion, Li Yan and Su Hong investigated across the city, and Su Liuyun tightened security at the city gates.
• A watcher remained outside Xu Li's cave, waiting for dawn rather than acting at night.
• After dawn, Commander Chu awakened the four guards and entered the valley, while they mistook him for an authorized shop steward.
• The black-robed man passed through the formation and appeared before the silent pavilion in the valley.

Steward Zhu secretly took Lin Fengshan from the storeroom and delivered him to Su Liuyun for interrogation. Elsewhere, a gray-robed young man reported that Jin Zhiyuan had vanished after being lured into a trap, while his captors still did not know how he had been exposed.

• Steward Zhu used an elder’s order to collect rare demon-beast bones from the storeroom while Lin Fengshan handled the registration.
• Steward Zhu changed course after leaving the valley and secretly brought Lin Fengshan to Su Liuyun’s prison.
• The fat monk reported that he had replaced Lin Fengshan with a puppet at the storeroom, then bound the real Lin Fengshan to the prison pillar.
• Su Liuyun began searching Lin Fengshan’s body for an abnormality and prepared to interrogate him before his father arrived.
• A gray-robed young man told a shadowed superior that Jin Zhiyuan had disappeared after being lured to a trap by someone impersonating Shopkeeper Hu.
• The gray-robed young man reported that Jin Zhiyuan may have been exposed at the Ghost Market or while transmitting intelligence, but the cause remained unknown.

A shadowy superior ordered the gray-clad young man to continue checking on two sleeper agents after Jin Zhiyuan was captured, while Li Yan and Su Hong searched Haina City for a person connected to unusual poison. Li Yan sensed a suspicious courtyard in a poor district, and the search party moved to investigate it.

• The shadowy superior questioned whether Jin Zhiyuan's superior had been compromised and ordered the gray-clad young man to verify both sleeper agents indirectly.
• The shadowy superior told the gray-clad young man to arrange for two shop assistants to leave the city and work in other market districts.
• Li Yan, Su Hong, and the black-clad cultivators searched Haina City aboard a concealed flying boat, but the poison traces they found at first came from other sources.
• Li Yan sensed a strong reaction from a courtyard in a poor district and noticed that a room's restrictive formation had just been activated.
• A transparent phantom flew out from the flying boat toward the courtyard Li Yan had indicated.

Li Yan expanded his search and uncovered two Spirit Transformation cultivators hiding in a courtyard, while the chief altar master interrogated Lin Fengshan and Xu Li in the secret prison. Lin Fengshan’s testimony confirmed Li Yan’s deductions and revealed how the hidden force had evaded Return Home’s investigations.

• Li Yan extended his Severing Poison perception as the sun rose, and a black-clad cultivator reported that two Spirit Transformation cultivators were inside a courtyard.
• The chief altar master discovered Mind-Wrapping White Corpse Gu inside Lin Fengshan and Xu Li but abandoned attempts to remove it because their souls were fused with the insects.
• The chief altar master questioned Lin Fengshan, who revealed that he had passed intelligence to the Ghost Market.
• Lin Fengshan explained that the hidden force tracked Criminal Hall investigators through their appearances and warned its agents, helping them avoid capture.
• After the Criminal Hall failed to root out the network, Return Home deployed the Homecoming Army, which uncovered some of the hidden agents.

Su Liuyun questioned the captured agents Lin Fengshan and Xu Li, learning that they knew only a few exposed operatives and could not identify the force behind them. Jin Thirty-One then reported a likely lookout had vanished from an attic near Jin Zhiyuan’s shop, leaving the investigation with a new suspect but no confirmed capture.

• Lin Fengshan named Xu Li, Jin Zhiyuan, Guo Gongming, and Wan Kongshan as the hidden agents he knew, but said he did not know who had ordered their work.
• Su Liuyun concluded that Lin Fengshan and Xu Li had likely been recruited without knowing the mysterious force’s background and might have had their memories altered.
• The main altar master left to investigate the factions that had helped the two agents enter the main altar and gain access to its warehouse grounds.
• Jin Thirty-One reported that a solitary itinerant artifact refiner who had lived in an attic beside Jin Zhiyuan’s shop had disappeared after the shop assistants fled.
• Su Liuyun suspected the artifact refiner had used his shop as a lookout and asked whether the search of the attic had uncovered any clues.