Chapter Summaries

Zhao Min broke through the Tianlan cultivators’ encirclement and rejoined Li Yan, who had poisoned Wutu and defeated him. As Li Yan fled with Zhao Min, Wutu launched a tracking talisman after them, and the tall woman declared they would not escape.

• Zhao Min damaged the tall woman’s bonded whip, knocked the Bloodfire Divine Crow unconscious, and escaped the mist.
• Bate and Balu attacked Zhao Min with their weapons, but she hurled them back and broke through their encirclement.
• Li Yan realized Zhao Min had defeated four Golden Core cultivators in two breaths and joined her after Wutu succumbed to poison.
• Li Yan shouted for Zhao Min to flee with him using Phoenix Soaring, while Wutu sent a tracking talisman after them.
• Bate and Balu caught the poisoned Wutu, and the tall woman gave them medicine before saying the fugitives would not get away.

Li Yan and Zhao Min escaped the Tianlan Tribe, but a Life-Chasing Talisman marked Li Yan and could not be removed. They decided to flee toward Tingyun Country before the mark expired, while the chapter shifted to the Tianlan Tribe’s central settlement and ended at a deep underground chamber.

• The slender woman realized Nasen had vanished and feared that Li Yan and Zhao Min had killed him.
• Li Yan shattered a talisman sent after him, but a blood-red blade of grass appeared on the back of his hand.
• Li Yan blasted the marked flesh away, but the grass reformed as his hand healed.
• Zhao Min identified the mark as a Life-Chasing Talisman that could track Li Yan for up to seven days and might have been made by a Nascent Soul cultivator.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min chose to fly toward Tingyun Country, hoping to leave the Tianlan Tribe behind before its powerful cultivators could reach them.
• The story shifted to the Tianlan Tribe’s sprawling central settlement and revealed a secret chamber a thousand zhang underground.

The Tianlan Tribe's Grand Heavenly Master explained how he had refined a powerful avatar and sent it to investigate the people who injured Wutu. He appeared on the grassland behind the guards, who welcomed him as he examined Wutu and Tielianggu.

• The purple-robed Grand Heavenly Master ordered his black-robed twin to bring back alive cultivators capable of injuring Wutu, then reflected on his newly refined avatar.
• The chapter detailed the Grand Heavenly Master's years of preparation and the dangers of refining an avatar from a Watercloud Beast.
• The Grand Heavenly Master's avatar reached the late golden core stage and gained formidable strength, though it had to remain close to its original body and undergo regular soul synchronization.
• After the Person-Transporting Talisman activated, the Grand Heavenly Master learned of the events on the grassland and decided to test his avatar.
• The Grand Heavenly Master appeared behind the anxious group and examined the unconscious Wutu and the rotting Tielianggu as the tall, slender woman, Bate, Balu, and the guards knelt to greet him.

Li Yan and Zhao Min were ambushed in the Cloudbillow Mountain Range by a powerful False Nascent Soul cultivator from the Skybillow Clan. Their coordinated counterattack appeared to freeze and pierce him, but the battle remained unresolved.

• The black-robed Grand Celestial Master examined Wu Tu, bottled Tie Lianggu's poisoned Golden Core, and sent Wu Tu back to the clan with the tall woman.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min continued through the Cloudbillow Mountain Range while Li Yan watched for whoever carried the Life-Chasing Talisman.
• A black-robed middle-aged man ambushed Li Yan and Zhao Min, and Li Yan recognized him as an exceptionally powerful False Nascent Soul cultivator.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min attacked together, but Li Yan's strike passed through the man as if he were mist, and a suction force pulled Li Yan toward him.
• Zhao Min chose to protect Li Yan and struck the man with two icy sword attacks, freezing his body and piercing his organs before he realized something was wrong.

Li Yan and Zhao Min fought a middle-aged man in black, whose Watercloud Beast body let him evade their poison and attacks. He bound them with his braids and dragged them to within ten zhang of him, leaving them trapped.

• Li Yan and Zhao Min struck the middle-aged man in black, but he expelled Li Yan's Severance Poison and remained standing.
• The man in black recognized their concealed strength and praised their abilities while the pair secretly discussed how difficult he was to injure.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min concluded that their attacks had not been strong enough, unaware that their opponent was a Watercloud Beast whose organs and isolated cloud-spaces shifted through his body.
• The man in black attacked both with his braids, and Li Yan and Zhao Min's strikes passed through them without effect.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min used fire techniques against the braids, but the braids remained unharmed, bound them, and dragged them toward the man in black.

Li Yan and Zhao Min broke free from the black-robed middle-aged man’s capture attempt and fought him with their full strength, while Li Yan activated Five Elements Return to Primordial Chaos. Zi Kun joined the battle, but his attack was repelled, and he realized their opponent was no ordinary False Nascent Soul cultivator.

• As the black-robed middle-aged man pulled Zhao Min and Li Yan toward him, Li Yan suddenly broke his bindings, struck back, and freed Zhao Min.
• The clash blasted apart the surrounding mountains and left the black-robed middle-aged man’s braid-treasures damaged, while Li Yan and Zhao Min regrouped at a distance.
• Zhao Min asked how long Li Yan could sustain his secret art, and he replied that he would keep it active until he killed their opponent.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min attacked together, but the black-robed middle-aged man turned hazy and used his rapidly restored braids and strange movements to counter them.
• Li Yan summoned Zi Kun, whose tusk-weapons struck the black-robed middle-aged man before being knocked aside.
• Zi Kun recognized that the black-robed middle-aged man was not a normal False Nascent Soul cultivator and warned Li Yan and Zhao Min by voice transmission.

Li Yan and Zhao Min learned from Zi Kun that the black-robed cultivator was a Watercloud Beast avatar whose movable organs and hollow body made it difficult to kill, but whose cloudlike compartments were vulnerable to cold. Their ice attacks disrupted his power and forced him to defend himself, until he completed a mysterious seal and stabbed his own lower abdomen.

• Zi Kun identified the black-robed cultivator as a Watercloud Beast avatar and explained that severe cold could freeze and shatter its internal cloud compartments.
• Li Yan ordered Zi Kun to keep the enemy occupied while he and Zhao Min attacked with ice spells.
• Li Yan froze the moisture around the black-robed cultivator and slowed his braids, while Zhao Min and Zi Kun struck at his body and head.
• The black-robed cultivator struggled to defend against the coordinated attacks, and the cold disrupted his magical power and interrupted his spells.
• Zi Kun warned them to stop the enemy's next technique, but Zhao Min's arrow missed as the man finished his seals and drove a finger into his lower abdomen.

Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Thousand Mechanisms combined soul attacks, gu insects, and Snow Mosquitoes to trap the black-robed middle-aged man, but he escaped by injuring his soul and breaking through their encirclement. Li Yan called off the pursuit and fled south with the others, fearing the man’s true body had sensed the battle.

• Li Yan struck the black-robed middle-aged man with Guiyi Water-Parting Spikes, cracking his spiritual barrier and causing intense soul pain.
• Zhao Min’s Fly-Ice Gu burrowed into the black-robed middle-aged man while he withdrew his braids to shield himself.
• Li Yan summoned Thousand Mechanisms, who used Snow Mosquitoes disguised as ice-crystal swords to freeze and slow the black-robed middle-aged man.
• Li Yan attacked the immobilized man with the Guiyi Water-Parting Spikes, but the man blasted apart the ice and escaped northward.
• Li Yan told Zhao Min and the demons not to pursue, then led them south on the Cloud-Piercing Willow as Thousand Mechanisms recalled the Snow Mosquitoes.

Li Yan and his companions escaped the Yunlan Mountains after badly wounding Amur’s avatar, while Amur withdrew under pressure from a Tingyun Kingdom cultivator. Nearing the mountains’ southern edge, Li Yan planned to investigate Tingyun Kingdom and seek a route home before deciding whether to escort the Giantwood Tribe.

• The wounded middle-aged man in black fled into the forest, and Amur arrived to retrieve his avatar after a hazy divine-sense figure confronted him over entering the Yunlan Mountains.
• Amur agreed to leave the mountains but planned to retaliate against his opponent by targeting core disciples in Tingyun Kingdom.
• The hazy figure realized Amur had secretly refined an avatar and credited Li Yan and his companions with revealing it.
• Li Yan, Zhao Min, Zi Kun, and Qianji flew for three days without being caught and came within a day of the Yunlan Mountains’ southern edge.
• Li Yan told Zhao Min they would assess Tingyun Kingdom’s attitude toward outsiders, seek a map and a way off the Qingqing Continent, and decide whether to escort the Giantwood Tribe after learning more.

Li Yan and Zhao Min reached Tingyun Kingdom after escaping the Tianlan Prairie and crossing the dangerous Yunlan Mountain Range. At the city gate, they told a guard they had no entry tokens because they had entered from the prairie’s far western edge.

• Li Yan put Zi Kun and Qianji away before reaching Tingyun Kingdom’s inspection point.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min survived repeated attacks by Golden Core Realm cultivators in the Yunlan Mountain Range, killing three attackers.
• Li Yan told Aisang and the Giant Wood Clan members they had left the Tianlan Prairie, and moved them from their spirit storage pouches into Tuban before the inspection.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min reached Tingyun Kingdom’s city gate, where a guard demanded their entry tokens.
• Li Yan told the guard they had entered from the far western edge of the Tianlan Prairie and had no tokens.

Li Yan and Zhao Min entered Tingyun Kingdom after passing invasive identity tests, then searched Yunguan City for information about the Desolate Moon Continent. They discovered a Guiqulaixi shop resembling one Li Yan had visited on another continent and approached it, hoping it could help them find a way back.

• Li Yan and Zhao Min passed Tingyun Kingdom's illusion tests, proved their Human Race bloodlines, and signed a blood pact before entering the city.
• Li Yan bought a detailed map of the surrounding region, and he and Zhao Min learned that the Sparrow Plume Tower Region lay southwest of Yunguan City.
• Zhao Min spotted a Guiqulaixi shop on the map and explained that the organization also had branches on the Desolate Moon Continent.
• Li Yan recognized the shop's name and recalled meeting Su Hong at its branch in Peiyang Market.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min found the Guiqulaixi shop, noticed its familiar design, and approached while hoping it could help them return to the Desolate Moon Continent.
• A shop greeter welcomed Li Yan and Zhao Min and offered to connect them with an attendant who could help.

Li Yan and Zhao Min visited a branch of Returning Home to ask about routes from the Qingqing Continent to the Desolate Moon Continent. They learned that no direct route existed and heard the fastest known journey, which still required lengthy travel between realms and continents.

• Li Yan and Zhao Min entered Returning Home and recognized that its storefront matched the one they had seen in Peiyang Marketplace.
• They met Elder Feng, who explained the shop's information fees and guarantee of accuracy.
• Li Yan asked whether the Qingqing Continent had a direct route to the Desolate Moon Continent and, if not, what the fastest route was.
• Elder Feng said there was no interworld teleportation array to the Desolate Moon Continent and no quick shortcut from the Qingqing Continent.
• Elder Feng described a route through the Qingguang, Tongsha, and Jiajing Minor Realms, followed by travel through the Daishan Minor Realm and Fengshen Continent to the South Bamboo Sea Region.

Li Yan and Zhao Min learned that returning to the Desolate Moon Continent would require a long, dangerous journey, then discovered that the Return Home shop might be connected to Su Hong. They left without confirming whether the shop could send news home and decided to focus on gaining strength, with the Giant Wood Clan’s Wood Essence Pool as their next goal.

• Li Yan and Zhao Min heard that the route to the Desolate Moon Continent passed through eleven minor realms and required several perilous crossings of chaotic spatial currents.
• Li Yan asked the gray-robed steward about Su Hong, and the steward offered to pass along Li Yan’s message, “old friend in wind and snow.”
• After they left the shop, Zhao Min questioned Li Yan about his connection to Su Hong, and he claimed they had known her in Peiyang Market.
• Li Yan suggested that Su Hong might help them send word to the Phantom Sect, but he warned Zhao Min not to trust the shop without confirmation.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min agreed to gather information and strengthen themselves before pursuing their return, and Li Yan named the Giant Wood Clan’s Wood Essence Pool as their next goal.

After escaping Yunguan City, Li Yan confirmed that the map led to the Giantwood Clan’s ancestral region and continued toward the Wood Essence Pool with Zhao Min and the rescued clansmen. The group traveled through Tingyun Country’s primeval forest, where Aguxi, Aini, and Aisang marveled at the unfamiliar scenery.

• Li Yan flew for four days, changing course until the Life-Pursuing Talisman’s aura vanished, then brought Aguxi out to confirm the map’s route to the Sparrow Feather Tower Region.
• Aguxi said the map matched the clan leader’s account and that the Wood Essence Pool and Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Tree should still exist.
• Li Yan decided to travel more slowly and let Aguxi reassure the clansmen in the spirit storage pouches, then brought Aini and Aisang out to see the forest.
• Li Yan set off with Zhao Min, Aguxi, Aini, and Aisang, and also released Zi Kun and Qianji while concealing Zi Kun’s true cultivation.
• Qianji wondered why the three ragged Giantwood clansmen were staring at the forest, while Zi Kun admitted he did not know either.

Li Yan and Zhao Min’s group welcomed Aguxi, Aini, and Aisan, but the newcomers’ battle-honed instincts nearly led them to kill Qianji. Zhao Min gave Aini new robes and helped her dress, leaving Aini transformed and overjoyed as she rejoined her companions.

• Aini, Aisan, and Aguxi instinctively attacked Qianji when he approached, and Li Yan restrained them while Zi Kun pulled Qianji out of danger.
• Li Yan recognized that the three had reacted from years of surviving ambushes and released them after calming Qianji and Zi Kun.
• Zhao Min summoned Aini and gave her a set of dark teal robes, then shielded her with a light barrier so she could wash and change in private.
• Aini admitted that she did not know how to wear the undergarments, so Zhao Min entered the barrier and helped her dress.
• Aini emerged in her new robes, drawing Aisan’s astonishment and Aguxi’s grateful smile as she hurried back to them.

Li Yan and his companions traveled southwest while Aguxi, Aini, and Aisang grew closer to Qianji and Zi Kun. In Yunguan City, Su Hong learned that Li Yan had asked about returning to the Desolate Moon Continent, recognized him as the young cultivator from the snowbound cave, and began wondering how he had reached the Qingqing Continent.

• Li Yan and Zhao Min released their Golden Core Realm auras as they traveled southwest, keeping demon beasts and cultivators from approaching.
• Aguxi, Aini, and Aisang listened as Qianji and Zi Kun boasted about their adventures, and Aini and Aisang longed to fight unfamiliar demon beasts.
• Mi'er told Su Hong that Li Yan and a female cultivator had visited Steward Zheng in Yunguan City and paid eight thousand spirit stones to learn that reaching the Desolate Moon Continent required crossing the void.
• Mi'er relayed Li Yan's message asking whether Su Hong remembered an old acquaintance from the wind and snow, and Su Hong recalled the young cultivator in the snowy cave.
• Su Hong examined the jade slip, recognized Li Yan, and questioned how an early-stage Golden Core cultivator had arrived on the Qingqing Continent.

Li Yan helped Aguxi devise a plan to approach the Giantwood Clan and learn its true circumstances, while Aini and Aisang waited anxiously for news. Ten days after Aguxi departed, two visitors arrived with word that he had met the clan chief and that the clansmen could now go to the Giantwood Clan.

• Su Hong told Mi'er to notify the branches that she was waiting for her old friend of wind and snow.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min reached a mountain valley in the Peacock Feather Tower Region with Aguxi, Aini, and Aisang, then sent Zi Kun and Qianji into Tuban to cultivate.
• Aguxi resolved to approach the Giantwood Clan alone, and Li Yan advised him to pose as a lost branch relative while concealing his ties to the Tianlan Grasslands.
• Li Yan gave Aguxi gray robes to wear, and Aguxi left for the Giantwood Clan as Aini and Aisang stayed behind.
• On the tenth day after Aguxi departed, two figures arrived and told Aini and Aisang that Aguxi had met the clan chief and they could bring their clansmen to the Giantwood Clan.

Agu Xi confronted the Giant Wood Clan Chief over the abandonment and slaughter of the Tianlan Prairie clans, exposing that he had come under a false identity to demand answers. After two Golden Core Realm cultivators attacked him, the Clan Chief rescued him and heard his account of the clans’ suffering.

• Agu Xi arrived at the Giant Wood Clan disguised as a descendant seeking his ancestors, and the clan accepted his identity after testing his bloodline and strength.
• Agu Xi waited five days before meeting the Clan Chief and four Golden Core Realm experts, then challenged them over abandoning their clansmen on the Tianlan Prairie.
• Agu Xi revealed that he belonged to the Giant Wood Clan branch on the Tianlan Prairie and condemned the clan for leaving its kin to be slaughtered.
• Two Golden Core Realm cultivators attacked Agu Xi, but the Clan Chief shielded him, restrained the hall, and took him to a secret chamber.
• Agu Xi recounted the suffering of the seven clans, and the Clan Chief’s aura grew increasingly cold as he listened.

After learning that the Tianshu Clan had engineered the disappearance of the seven clans’ grassland branches, the Giant Wood Clan chief exposed the betrayal and helped the seven clans retaliate against the traitors’ descendants. Aguxi’s surviving branch returned to the Giant Wood Clan, while Li Yan and Zhao Min appeared before the chief and two Golden Core cultivators.

• The Giant Wood Clan chief trapped four Golden Core cultivators, then secretly summoned the leaders of the other six clans and revealed the history of the missing branches.
• The seven clan leaders confirmed that the Tianshu Clan had bribed and threatened traitors, who helped stage a false story to conceal the grassland branches’ disappearance.
• The seven clans ordered the traitors’ descendants killed, and the Giant Wood Clan chief displayed the heads of the two cultivators who had attacked Aguxi.
• Aini and Aisang brought Aguxi’s surviving clansmen back to the Giant Wood Clan, where officials settled them apart from the ordinary towns.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min appeared in the great hall before the Giant Wood Clan chief and the two Golden Core cultivators who had not attacked Aguxi.

Li Yan and Zhao Min met with Giant Tree Clan Chief Ting Bixiao after rescuing Agu Xi and the other survivors, and Ting Bixiao offered them Snow-Covering Clarity Tea. Li Yan drank his cup despite Zhao Min’s warning, and the tea’s icy effects began to course through him.

• Ting Bixiao introduced himself and elders Ting Shan and Wusitu, then thanked Li Yan and Zhao Min for saving the clan’s people.
• Zhao Min confronted Wusitu for repeatedly probing her with Divine Sense, and Wusitu apologized after Ting Bixiao’s warning look.
• Ting Bixiao served Snow-Covering Clarity Tea and offered Agu Xi’s cup as compensation for his people; Agu Xi asked to share it with Ai Sang and Ai Ni.
• Ting Bixiao promised cups for Agu Xi’s more than thirty survivors, including smaller portions for the mortals, and explained the tea’s effects and limits.
• Li Yan cautioned Zhao Min not to drink hastily, then drank from his own cup and felt its icy chill tighten his sinews, bones, and spiritual power.