Chapter Summaries

Yan Qingchen tricked four fellow disciples into feeding their spiritual power to his dark-gold bowl, which drained their essence blood and strength. He rescued Liu Siyu from the bowl’s light and stored her away as she lost consciousness, leaving the other three trapped.

• Yan Qingchen asked Liu Siyu and three other disciples to channel their spiritual power into the dark-gold bowl so he could gather the five elements and break the formation.
• Liu Siyu urged the others to stop holding back, and the group poured more spiritual power into the bowl as its black and white pillars began to form green and red lights.
• After drawing the four disciples’ power into the bowl, Yan Qingchen flipped it over and trapped them beneath its pillars, which drained their essence blood and spiritual power.
• The trapped disciples pleaded with and cursed Yan Qingchen, but he ignored them as their bodies weakened and aged.
• Yan Qingchen pulled Liu Siyu out of the white pillar and stored her in his storage ring; she briefly regained consciousness, smiled at him, and then passed out.

Yan Qingchen sacrificed three cultivators to force open the Dark Reef Array and entered through the small breach. Six days later, Mingqi and Mingyu, still searching the radiant river for an exit, detected an unusual spatial fluctuation and flew toward it in concealment.

• Yan Qingchen knocked Liu Siyu unconscious and drained the remaining three captives, then destroyed their bodies and collected their storage artifacts.
• Yan Qingchen used the dark-golden alms bowl to make a bowl-sized opening in the Dark Reef Array and followed it inside before the breach could close.
• Six days later, Mingyu told Mingqi that their search along the endless river had found no exit, and Mingqi urged them to keep searching.
• Mingyu detected an unusual spatial fluctuation downstream, and Mingqi left a marker before deciding they should investigate it.
• Mingqi and Mingyu flew toward the fluctuation while concealed and separated by about a li, but Mingqi suddenly stopped as they neared it.

Ming Qi and Ming Yu discovered a strange restriction beneath the river and encountered Yan Qingchen, who had launched a hidden attack on them. Yan Qingchen concealed his purpose as all three faced one another across the river.

• Ming Qi and Ming Yu approached a stretch of river where a restriction concealed powerful activity beneath the riverbed.
• Ming Qi sensed danger and warned Ming Yu to hide, and both sisters dodged an assassination attempt from the opposite bank.
• Yan Qingchen revealed himself, and Ming Qi asked why he was in the secret realm.
• Yan Qingchen recalled that he had found the riverbed entrance three days earlier and had been trying to break its restriction with a dark-gold alms bowl.
• Yan Qingchen suspected the sisters might have followed him, then decided they had entered through a separate entrance.
• Yan Qingchen apologized for his strike and greeted the sisters, while Ming Qi secretly warned Ming Yu to be careful of him.

Yan Qingchen fought Ming Qi and Ming Yu with his powerful magic wheels, using pure opposing forces to keep the sisters at a disadvantage. The sisters charged through his attacks, but the wheels’ forces suddenly changed as they drew closer.

• Yan Qingchen ambushed Ming Qi and Ming Yu, but the sisters joined forces and drove him out of hiding with a fist-and-palm strike.
• Yan Qingchen summoned his red and black wheel-shaped magic treasures and sent one toward each sister.
• The sisters caught the wheels with their pale green sashes, but Yan Qingchen’s attacks sent freezing and scorching forces along the sashes toward their hands.
• The sisters’ yellow defensive dresses protected them, and they pressed forward while Ming Qi warned that they could not let Yan Qingchen keep his distance.
• As the sisters charged closer, the forces attacking their sashes suddenly changed, shocking them.

Yan Qingchen overwhelmed the Ming sisters with attacks that switched between fire and ice, leaving them badly injured and preparing a desperate escape. Before their plan could unfold, an unseen attacker ambushed Yan Qingchen, and the sisters sensed an opening as his dharma wheels stalled.

• Yan Qingchen repeatedly switched the attributes of his dharma wheels, injuring the Ming sisters and preventing them from escaping.
• Ming Qi planned to use “Condensing Marrow into Gang” to knock back Yan Qingchen’s magic treasures while Ming Yu fled.
• Yan Qingchen sensed a sudden threat and tried to dodge an attack from behind.
• An attacker emerged from the void and punched through Yan Qingchen’s protective barrier, but Yan Qingchen blocked the blow with his overlapping dharma wheels.
• The force on Yan Qingchen’s dharma wheels stalled, and Ming Qi immediately sensed the opening.

Mingqi and a hidden gray-robed elder caught Yan Qingchen in a sudden pincer attack, badly injuring him before he escaped with a transmission talisman. Mingqi and Mingyu were left facing the elder, unsure of his identity and motives.

• Mingqi attacked Yan Qingchen as his spiritual barrier failed, while a hidden assailant struck from behind.
• Yan Qingchen shattered Mingqi’s first attack with a sonic shriek, but her follow-up broke his ribs as the hidden assailant damaged his natal magical treasures and consciousness.
• Yan Qingchen crushed a transmission talisman and vanished before Mingyu’s sweeping kick could reach him.
• Mingqi and Mingyu questioned the gray-robed elder, whose displayed Spirit Transformation cultivation concealed far greater power.
• The elder asked whether Mingqi and Mingyu belonged to the Undying Nether Phoenix clan.

Li Yan revealed how he had deduced that Mingqi and Mingyu were Undying Underworld Phoenixes after watching their battle with Yan Qingchen. The sisters remained wary and asked whether he knew them, leaving his identity and their true forms unconfirmed.

• Li Yan explained that the sisters’ yellow robes concealed their true forms and that their speed and white light exposed their use of Phoenix Soaring and Undying Underworld Phoenix power.
• Li Yan recounted how he had followed Yan Qingchen into the secret realm because he suspected the man belonged to the Yin-Yang Chaos Sect and wanted to learn what he sought beneath the river.
• After the Ming sisters joined the fight, Li Yan attacked Yan Qingchen, but Yan Qingchen evaded their pincer attack and blocked Li Yan’s strike with a treasure.
• Li Yan concluded that Mingqi and Mingyu were likely Undying Underworld Phoenixes after recognizing their movements and the power in Mingqi’s palm strike.
• Mingqi asked Li Yan whether he knew the sisters, while remaining cautious about who he really was.

Li Yan questioned the Ming sisters about their origins and their connection to the Undying Nether Phoenix clan, then revealed that he was a Human Race cultivator. The sisters suspected he intended to capture them for their blood essence, but his sudden attack left them confused about what he actually wanted.

• Li Yan told Ming Qi and Ming Yu to leave, while Ming Qi hinted that she had recognized silver light in his earlier attack.
• Ming Qi suggested Li Yan had driven Yan Qingchen away so he could keep the sisters and refine their blood essence.
• Li Yan said he would not provoke powerful races but could keep the sisters if he wished, then appeared to vanish.
• Ming Qi and Ming Yu launched a full-force counterattack, but a gust of wind left them dizzy and unable to control their power.
• The sisters' kicks shattered the void and struck empty air, while Li Yan remained standing where he had been.

Li Yan subdued Mingqi and Mingyu with a targeted strike, then chose not to kill them or tamper with their memories because he hoped to make contact with the Undying Nether Phoenix clan. Mingqi and Mingyu realized he had shown mercy and began explaining why they had entered Huangqi Valley, while privately deciding to ask whether he had obtained what their clan sought.

• Li Yan used his knowledge of the Undying Nether Phoenix to disrupt Mingqi and Mingyu's qi circulation before they could react.
• Li Yan decided against killing the sisters or searching their souls because he hoped to establish ties with their clan and feared their experts would detect altered memories.
• Mingqi and Mingyu recovered and thanked Li Yan for sparing them, then said they had entered Huangqi Valley for matters concerning their clan.
• The sisters secretly weighed whether Li Yan was an ancient cultivator, a Huangqi Valley guardian, or another sect figure, and decided to ask if he had found the item they sought.

Ming Qi and Ming Yu explained that their mixed-blood phoenix clan had sent them to Yellow Qi Valley seeking an Undying Nether Phoenix inheritance, and Li Yan agreed to bring them to a possible hidden passage beneath the river. At the riverbed, he revealed a purple shell concealing a formation and demanded that the sisters try to break it, leaving them confused about why he needed their help.

• Ming Qi told Li Yan that her clan descended from an Undying Nether Phoenix and an Azure Phoenix, and that they had come to Yellow Qi Valley following clues to a possible inheritance.
• Ming Qi asked Li Yan to let her and Ming Yu inspect the inheritance, while Ming Yu argued that they sought it to preserve their clan rather than avenge an unrelated clansman.
• Li Yan questioned what inheritance they expected to find, then agreed to take them to a possible passage beneath the river.
• Li Yan retrieved Yan Qingchen's warning formations before returning and leading the sisters underwater to a faded purple shell embedded in the river wall.
• Li Yan told Ming Qi and Ming Yu to break the formation they sensed around the shell, and they were stunned that he wanted them to open it despite having already obtained an immortal opportunity.

Li Yan, Ming Qi, and Ming Yu signed a blood contract and used the sisters’ clan artifact to open the formation around the purple shell. They entered a sunlit stone chamber and then a bamboo-filled courtyard, where a force blocked their Divine Sense at what appeared to be a dead end.

• Li Yan offered to divide any treasures equally if Ming Qi and Ming Yu helped break the formation, and the three bound themselves with a blood contract.
• The sisters and Li Yan set up additional formations against Yan Qingchen’s possible return before Ming Qi and Ming Yu began examining the purple shell.
• Ming Qi used a clan artifact to open a passage through the formation for about a quarter-hour, then planned to recover before entering.
• Li Yan and the sisters passed through the opening and emerged in a sunlit stone chamber that appeared to be a cave residence’s main hall.
• The three left the chamber and followed a stone path through a bamboo courtyard until they found a courtyard wall that blocked their Divine Sense.

Li Yan and the Ming sisters explored an isolated courtyard linked to an ancient inheritance site, but found its rooms stripped bare. As they reached a gate opening onto abandoned spirit fields, a strange one-legged scarecrow appeared and blocked their way.

• Ming Qi warned Li Yan that the courtyard wall hid a dangerous spatial boundary, so they decided to search the other rooms first.
• Yan Qingchen returned toward the river after healing, realized he had been trapped in a looping stretch of scenery, and turned back toward the array barrier.
• Li Yan entered the isolated space in his true body, hoping to find the Luminous Moon Clear Immortal Grass for Bai Rou and intending to kill Yan Qingchen.
• Li Yan and the Ming sisters searched the rooms and rear courtyard but found them nearly empty, with only dried pools and overgrown spirit fields beyond the gate.
• A bizarre straw-covered figure appeared in the archway, startling Li Yan and the sisters and blocking their path.

Li Yan and the Ming sisters were caught in a terrifying straw-man assault that vanished, revealing the courtyard was an enclosed magical treasure rather than an ordinary formation. After investigating the boundary, Li Yan returned with a grave expression and led them back toward the main hall, leaving them to face the possibility that they were trapped.

• More than twenty straw men appeared and unleashed a dense barrage of Void Refinement attacks, forcing Li Yan, Ming Qi, and Ming Yu to retreat and raise their defenses.
• The attacks abruptly disappeared without damaging the courtyard, and Ming Qi suspected they had been caught in an illusion.
• Ming Yu tested the ground and concluded that the courtyard was sealed inside a magical treasure, while Ming Qi flew upward and found a powerful barrier about a hundred li overhead.
• Li Yan independently tested the barrier, then secretly used the Heaven-Stealing Kerchief against it while the sisters waited below.
• After half an hour, Li Yan returned and said the place was indeed a magical treasure, then flew toward the main hall as the sisters realized they might be trapped.

Li Yan, Ming Qi, and Ming Yu investigated whether the rear courtyard’s scarecrow attacks were real, testing them while keeping a wary eye on one another. They confirmed the attacks were tangible and confined to the courtyard, but the powerful barrage left them with no clear way to escape or break the trap.

• Ming Qi concluded that the hall might be a one-way trap, while Li Yan suggested the rear courtyard could be part of a sect formation or illusion.
• Ming Yu proposed approaching the circular archway while Ming Qi tested the scarecrows’ attacks from a safe distance, and Li Yan agreed not to interfere.
• Ming Yu triggered the restriction at the archway, where a scarecrow appeared before more scarecrows emerged and attacked her with a storm of straw.
• Ming Yu fled to the front courtyard as Ming Qi cast a spell into the barrage and severed her connection to it; Li Yan retreated with them.
• Ming Qi judged that the attack was real and reached at least the early Void Refinement realm, then warned that escaping after engaging the scarecrows would be difficult.

Li Yan, Ming Yu, and Ming Qi tested answers to the straw man’s question, but every response triggered another attack, leaving them exhausted and trapped in a cycle of false hope. Li Yan finally searched the courtyard’s other boundaries for an exit and began inspecting the southern wall, whose far side seemed to hold endless darkness.

• Li Yan proposed that answering the straw man’s question might prevent its attack, but Ming Yu’s answer was followed immediately by another assault.
• Ming Qi and Li Yan tried many different answers while testing the courtyard’s walls, but each attempt brought another wave of attacks and no escape.
• After three days of repeated failures, Li Yan told Ming Yu and Ming Qi to rest and search elsewhere, warning that the question had become addictive.
• The next day, Li Yan found Ming Yu still returning to answer the question while Ming Qi searched the rooms, so he went to inspect the southern wall.
• Li Yan cleared bamboo from the southern wall and examined it closely, sensing an immense darkness beyond it unlike the visible scenery past the northern archway.

Li Yan discovered that the scarecrows’ question concealed a way out, escaped the courtyard, and gathered ancient medicinal herbs from the spirit fields. He summoned Ming Qi and Ming Yu and began telling them the answer, though they still wondered why he had helped them.

• Li Yan noticed that the southern wall’s bare, cracked earth and the clear sky offered clues, then returned to the rear courtyard to test his answer against the scarecrow.
• Li Yan repeated the question to the scarecrow, waited through its three-breath pause, and passed through the courtyard gate into the spirit fields beyond.
• Li Yan found ancient medicinal herbs in the fields, collected them into Tuban, and confirmed that none was Moonlit Clear Immortal Grass.
• Li Yan called Ming Qi and Ming Yu to the courtyard gate and told them to come outside so he could explain how he escaped.
• When Ming Qi questioned his motives, Li Yan refused to explain and sent both sisters the answer through voice transmission.

Li Yan freed Ming Yu and Ming Qi from the magical treasure by answering the straw men’s question, then explained how the courtyard’s unnatural silence had led him to his answer. The three began searching the surrounding spirit fields together.

• Ming Qi and Ming Yu debated why Li Yan was helping them, while Li Yan weighed the risks of rescuing them against the benefits of leaving them trapped.
• Ming Yu tried Li Yan’s answer at the courtyard gate and emerged from the magical treasure; Ming Qi followed, and both women thanked Li Yan.
• Li Yan led the sisters into the air to search the surrounding spirit fields, where they found weeds but no straw men or treasures.
• Ming Qi asked how Li Yan had discovered the answer, and he explained that the silent bamboo grove and the straw men’s purpose suggested they were meant to drive away intruders and birds.
• Li Yan revealed that he had answered, “Drive away all birds and those who disturb tranquil dreams!”

Li Yan, Ming Qi, and Ming Yu examined the ruined spirit fields and concluded that the courtyard was likely a trap tied to a powerful magical treasure. They flew to the mountain at the edge of the secret realm and began searching it for the realm’s master or an inheritance.

• Li Yan explained that the scarecrows had drawn strength from a magical treasure connected to the secret realm, and the three agreed not to risk taking it.
• Ming Qi noted that the spirit fields had been abandoned and wondered whether the master had belonged to the Undying Nether Phoenix clan.
• Li Yan led Ming Qi and Ming Yu from the spirit fields toward the mountain, where they found barriers that blocked travel east, west, and north.
• Ming Yu reasoned that the courtyard was probably the trap and that the mountain was a more likely place to find the master’s residence.
• Li Yan proposed that they search the mountain from west to east, advancing carefully rather than spreading their Divine Sense widely.

Li Yan and the Ming sisters searched the mountain for clues to Yellow Qi Valley’s hidden sites, then found a deep cave that Li Yan cautiously entered. Elsewhere, Fairy Ning Ke chose a black halo, while Shili Gui examined a thorny plant in a spirit field.

• Li Yan asked Ming Qi whether Yellow Qi Valley had preserved other secret locations, and she admitted they had a clue to a possible site they might investigate later.
• Li Yan, Ming Qi, and Ming Yu searched the mountain, and Ming Yu discovered a cave whose underground passage blocked Divine Sense after thirty li.
• Li Yan blasted away the shrubs covering the cave entrance and sent a gu insect inside to check for danger before entering himself.
• Fairy Ning Ke appeared beside a lake, chose the black halo among five colored halos, and flew toward it.
• Shili Gui studied a patch of dark, thorn-edged leaves covered in white frost in a spirit field.

Shi Ligui and Ning Ke searched for a way to save Miss Bai, tending a damaged Clear Sky Fruit as a fallback while waiting for news of the Moonlit Clear Immortal Grass. At the Phantom Sect, Zhao Min and Gong Chenying received Li Yan’s message that he had infiltrated a second-rate sect and would continue seeking a cure.

• Ning Ke returned and told Shi Ligui that Li Yan had blended into Yellow Qi Valley, while their search for the Moonlit Clear Immortal Grass had found no leads.
• Shi Ligui showed Ning Ke a damaged Clear Sky Fruit seed he had acquired, hoping its fruit could help Miss Bai if their main plan failed.
• Ning Ke and Shi Ligui examined the plant and formed possible treatment approaches, but they could not determine the cause of its illness.
• Shi Ligui told Ning Ke that Li Yan rejected the method that would erase Miss Bai’s memories, and he shared news from Xing Jia and Feng Yu before they discussed sect affairs.
• At the Phantom Sect, Zhao Min and Gong Chenying discussed their inability to help Li Yan until they reached Spirit Transformation and read his message about infiltrating a second-rate sect to find the Moonlit Clear Immortal Grass.