Chapter Summaries

Li Yan and Zhao Min considered whether hidden passages between realms could offer a way off the Lost Continent, then agreed to cultivate quietly. After refining the Undying Underworld Phoenix blood essence during a two-year seclusion, Li Yan reached the peak of the early Golden Core stage and learned Zhao Min had found leads, but he secretly resumed his plan; eight months later, Su Yuan visited the prospering shop.

• Li Yan agreed that records of other passages between realms might have been erased, and Zhao Min left to investigate the leads in the damaged jade slip.
• Li Yan told Zhao Min he would enter seclusion and urged her to investigate quietly; after she left, he activated the Great Dragon-Elephant Array and refined the blood essence.
• Two years later, Li Yan emerged with his cultivation at the peak of the early Golden Core stage and his Qiongqi Purgatory Art at the peak of the early third level.
• Li Yan decoded Zhao Min's message that she had found leads and learned from Xingming that Old Dragon Wyrm had resurfaced, collected pills, and disappeared again.
• Li Yan decided not to reply to Zhao Min or Xingming and silently left the shop to carry out his plan without telling Zhao Min.
• Eight months later, Su Yuan visited the rear courtyard as the shop's business continued to thrive through its ties with the Holy Devil Palace.

Su Yuan delivered a message from the sect master to Zhang Ming, who had disappeared from his room, while Zhao Min received a transmission that left her distressed. A stooped old man in a bamboo hat entered Saint Demon City and secretly sent a message from an alley, leaving Zhao Min gripping her talisman in the Holy Devil Palace.

• Su Yuan recalled the sect’s growing profits, his reward with Xie Tongyi, and their search for a lean-faced cultivator before bringing the sect master’s jade slip to Zhang Ming.
• Su Yuan found Zhang Ming’s room empty and returned to the shop without delivering the message.
• Zhao Min received a voice transmission, read it, and murmured in distress about her junior brother.
• A stooped old man in gray entered Saint Demon City through its southern gate and paid for a temporary token.
• The old man reached a secluded alley near the eastern gate and sent a voice transmission talisman.
• Zhao Min stared toward a direction inside the Holy Devil Palace and repeatedly tightened her grip on the talisman.

Zhao Min secretly met a disguised old man in Holy Demon City while Zuo Qing followed her. Zuo Qing tried to capture the man, but the man escaped using his true form and a defensive treasure, leaving him to flee toward the eastern city gate.

• Zuo Qing learned that Zhao Min had left the Holy Demon Palace and personally followed her out of the city.
• Zhao Min evaded pursuit through the city and exchanged messages with a hunched old man in a remote alley using a jade slip.
• After Zhao Min left, Zuo Qing confronted the old man and tried to seize him for questioning.
• The old man escaped Zuo Qing's grasp by revealing a black flood dragon form and using a defensive magic treasure.
• The injured old man disguised himself again, concealed the blood he had spat out, and hurried toward the eastern city gate.

Li Yan fled Holy Demon City after Dongli Qing wounded him and pursued him, using a piece of the True Essence Pill to heal his shattered sea of consciousness. Once he escaped on Cloud-Piercing Willow, Dongli Qing abandoned his original suspicions and pursued him out of greed for the flying treasure.

• Dongli Qing pursued the stooped old man in gray toward the east gate, convinced he was hiding a secret connected to Zhao Min.
• Li Yan left Holy Demon City on Cloud-Piercing Willow and used a small piece of the True Essence Pill to heal his soul and sea of consciousness.
• Li Yan resolved to continue his plan against the powerful cultivator who had disrupted his connection with Zhao Min.
• Li Yan drove Cloud-Piercing Willow at full power and rapidly pulled away from Dongli Qing.
• Dongli Qing recognized Cloud-Piercing Willow as a Nascent Soul-grade flying treasure and chased Li Yan out of greed.

Zhao Min followed Li Yan’s plan to draw Dongli Qing away while Li Yan fled into a trap-filled cave. Dongli Qing broke through the cave’s concealment and pursued him, but the chapter ended as the traps continued to slow him.

• Dongli Qing pursued Li Yan, intent on capturing him and discovering the source of his treasures, while Zhao Min hid her concern and acted as though they were strangers.
• Zhao Min remembered how Li Yan had persuaded her to follow the plan, promising he could escape or hide in a special space.
• Li Yan led Dongli Qing into a forest, where Dongli Qing found and destroyed the concealed entrance to a cave.
• Dongli Qing raced through the cave, breaking its weak formations and evading crude traps as he tracked Li Yan.
• Dongli Qing reached a bend and grabbed the stone wall for support after flicking away a hanging vine noose.

Li Yan’s poison overwhelmed Dongli Qing, who became convinced the Black Devil Race had set a trap for him before losing his reason to murderous rage. Li Yan escaped deep underground while Dongli Qing’s rampage brought down the mountain range.

• Li Yan noticed Dongli Qing’s condition worsening as the poison spread through his body and damaged his nascent soul.
• Dongli Qing blamed the Black Devil Race for the attack and realized he needed to report the plot to his race.
• The poison clouded Dongli Qing’s mind and filled him with an urge to kill every living creature nearby.
• Li Yan tossed an inanimate object aside and used earth escape to burrow deep underground.
• Dongli Qing attacked a spider, and the resulting explosions and collapse drew the attention of nearby cultivators.

Shangguan Changge and three other Holy Devil Palace Nascent Soul cultivators investigated a violent disturbance near Holy Devil City and discovered that Dongli Qing had died from Li Yan’s poison trap. They found no attacker nearby and wondered whether a powerful cultivator had escaped or concealed themselves.

• Cultivators rushed toward the collapsed mountain range, but Senior Brother Yang warned them away by revealing the power of Holy Devil Palace’s Nascent Soul cultivators.
• Shangguan Changge and three White Devil Race Nascent Soul cultivators searched the devastated area and sensed Dongli Qing’s aura fading.
• Dongli Qing, poisoned by Li Yan’s trap and left without enough power to escape, wrote “Black Devil... flood dragon... flee...” before dying.
• Shangguan Changge and the others identified Dongli Qing’s ruined corpse and feared that his killer had been powerful enough to prevent his Nascent Soul from escaping.
• The four searched the area but found no other Nascent Soul cultivator, and Shangguan Changge dismissed the possibility that a Spirit Transformation cultivator had appeared.

Four Nascent Soul cultivators investigated Dongli Qing’s poisoned corpse, interpreted his last message as implicating the Black Devil Race and a flood dragon, and ordered a broad search. Zhao Min sensed a Spirit Transformation elder’s fury and worried about Li Yan, unaware that he had killed Dongli Qing.

• The four Nascent Soul cultivators examined Dongli Qing’s corpse and concluded that a carefully timed ambush had killed him with poison.
• They verified that Dongli Qing had written the bloodied message, then interpreted “Black Devil... flood dragon... fled...” as a clue to his attackers.
• Shangguan Changge identified the nearby Ghost Flood Dragon Clan as especially suspicious and proposed reporting to the Dongli branch, preserving the scene, and investigating the area.
• The handsome young man proposed seizing and Soul Searching nearby cultivators, and the four divided their tasks before a Spirit Transformation elder’s fury erupted from the Sacred Devil Palace.
• Zhao Min sensed the outburst from the Dongli branch and worried that Li Yan had been injured or captured, not realizing he had killed Dongli Qing.

Shangguan Changge realized Dongli Qing’s dying clue could expose Zhao Min, so she manipulated the investigation and concealed Zhao Min’s connection to him. She left to report Dongli Qing’s death, determined to protect Zhao Min and preserve her own plans.

• Shangguan Changge steered the other three Nascent Soul cultivators toward a harmless explanation of Dongli Qing’s final message and volunteered to report his death to the Dongli lineage.
• Shangguan Changge questioned Dongli Qing’s five disciples and learned that he had pursued Zhao Min outside the palace.
• Shangguan Changge used a divine ability to alter the disciples’ memories, making them believe Dongli Qing had pursued a suspected Black Devil Race spy.
• Shangguan Changge entered the Dongli lineage’s forbidden grounds, where boundless fury erupted, then flew out of Holy Devil City after the aura.
• Shangguan Changge resolved to protect Zhao Min, believing she was no spy and that her safety was essential to her own future plans.

Shangguan Changge investigated Dongli Qing’s death and concealed Zhao Min’s traces while Li Yan hid underground and reviewed his assassination plan. Over the following years, Li Yan prepared an ambush near Holy Devil City and tested his illusion poison on powerful cultivators, leaving a string of disappearances unnoticed.

• Shangguan Changge concluded that Zhao Min’s identity was not a problem, erased traces linking her to Dongli Qing’s death, and decided to investigate Zhao Min further in secret.
• Li Yan hid inside Tuban underground near the ambush site and checked his actions for anything that might endanger himself or Zhao Min.
• Li Yan recalled how he had planned to poison and ambush Dongli Qing, then spent more than two years refining Undying Nether Phoenix blood essence before proceeding with the plan.
• Li Yan surveyed three possible ambush locations near Holy Devil City’s east gate and studied the gates and devil guard army’s arrangements.
• Li Yan spent over four months testing illusion poison on Golden Core and false Nascent Soul cultivators, narrowly surviving several battles with backup poisons.
• Li Yan secretly challenged powerful cultivators across the Lost Continent, and none of his opponents survived or left behind a trace.

Li Yan completed his years-long poison ambush and killed Dongli Qing, but the Holy Devil Palace blamed the Ghost Flood Dragon Clan and exterminated it. Far away on another continent, a figure emerged from two ice peaks laughing.

• Li Yan prepared a vast cave ambush with hidden traps and carefully tested poisons, then persuaded Zhao Min to help lure Dongli Qing into it.
• Li Yan triggered the illusion poison as Dongli Qing approached, endured the backlash, and used Cloud-Piercing Willow to reach the cave.
• Dongli Qing unknowingly contacted the traps and poisons throughout the cave, and the toxins overwhelmed him and killed him.
• Shangguan Changge found a tattered corpse in the mountains, while the Holy Devil Palace accused the Ghost Flood Dragon Clan of colluding with the Black Devil Race and exterminated the clan.
• Shangguan Changge questioned whether the Black Devil Race assassin had truly existed, while Zhao Min’s identity remained absent from the clan’s memories.
• On a distant continent, a figure surged out between two ice peaks and laughed aloud.

A gray-robed old man escaped an ancient deathtrap and wondered about the fate of Li Yan and the Gui Water Immortal Sect’s other possible successors. Meanwhile, Li Wei’s family worried over Li Yan’s long absence, and Li Yan returned to Holy Demon City after learning that Dongli Qing had died and the Ghost Flood Dragon Clan had been wiped out.

• The gray-robed old man reached a new world after being trapped for three hundred and ten thousand years and planned to search for exceptional spirit roots and an heir.
• Li Wei and Li Wenwu unloaded the final cart of rice, and Wenwu told his father that Grandpa Guoxin had been injured by a deer while hunting.
• Li Wei warned Wenwu not to mention Li Yan because the subject distressed Li Wei’s parents, then privately wondered whether his missing brother was dead or alive.
• Xiao Yu told Li Wei that their children were visiting his parents, whose health and grief over Li Yan had worsened.
• Li Yan returned to Holy Demon City after evading pursuit and heard that Dongli Qing had died and the Ghost Flood Dragon Clan had been destroyed.
• Li Yan returned to the shop, where his expression shifted as he sat deep in thought.

Li Yan left Holy Demon City to return to his sect after receiving Star Mantis's summons, while Zhao Min remained trapped inside the sealed city and could not contact him. On the road, Li Yan noticed a distant battle involving human cultivators and stopped when he recognized them.

• Su Yuan delivered Star Mantis's jade-slip summons, and Li Yan decided to return to his sect while keeping his room ready for Zhao Min.
• Li Yan sent Zhao Min a coded message that he would be away, but she could not reply because Holy Demon Palace had sealed its exits after Dongli Qing's death.
• Li Yan passed the guards' checks and left Holy Demon City, then traveled south on the Cloud-Piercing Willow.
• Li Yan sensed a fight six hundred li away, recognized the combatants as human cultivators, and stopped to observe.
• Shuang Lianzhou tried to protect his unconscious wife and return to help a wounded gray-robed elder fighting two men and a tiger.

Li Yan appeared during the cultivator Ma and his companion’s attack on Old Ghost Shuang’s family, interrupting their attempt to force him to surrender the Divine Ju Technique. The two attackers could not discern Li Yan’s cultivation, and Ma cautiously addressed him while hoping to retain his advantage.

• The gray-robed old man’s lapse let the green-robed cultivator kill the red tiger, while Shuang Lianzhou returned to fight beside his father and the Three-Legged Azure Luan carried away his pregnant wife.
• Ma sealed the gray-robed old man’s spiritual power and threatened his family, while the green-robed cultivator wounded and subdued Shuang Lianzhou.
• Ma returned with Shuang Lianzhou’s pregnant wife and threatened to torture her and her unborn child as the green-robed cultivator began cutting Shuang Lianzhou’s neck.
• Li Yan’s voice interrupted the attackers, and he emerged from the darkness beside the gray-robed old man.
• Ma and the green-robed cultivator failed to detect Li Yan’s cultivation, and Ma cautiously asked whether he knew the Shuang family.

Li Yan exposed the value of the Divine Puppet Art while recognizing that Old Ghost Shuang was concealing the full strength of his puppet craft. Ma and the tall, thin cultivator launched a coordinated attack on Shuang Lianzhou’s family, but the chapter ended as Li Yan’s power suddenly slowed their spiritual energy.

• The gray-robed old man explained that the Divine Puppet Art was his family’s puppet-making inheritance and that the red tiger and Three-Legged Azure Luan were his creations.
• Li Yan saw through the old man’s attempt to hide the red tiger puppet’s true strength and judged that its combat power could approach the Golden Core Realm.
• Ma and the tall, thin cultivator realized the art’s value had been exposed and decided to kill Shuang Lianzhou’s family before fleeing.
• Ma attacked the pregnant woman and sent his broad-bladed saber toward Li Yan while the tall, thin cultivator struck at Shuang Lianzhou and the gray-robed old man.
• As the two cultivators launched their attack, the space around them tightened and their surging spiritual power slowed.

Li Yan killed the two cultivators who had attacked the gray-robed elder’s family, then restored the elder’s spiritual power and gave him an antidote. After learning that the elder and his son belonged to the rare Duye spirit-plant race, Li Yan asked why the dead cultivators had been pursuing them, leaving the family wary that he wanted the secret of the Divine Deception Art.

• Li Yan appeared beside the gray-robed elder’s family and killed the cultivator surnamed Ma and the tall, thin cultivator in green robes with a swift attack.
• The pregnant woman vomited from shock, while Shuang Lianzhou supported her and the gray-robed elder feared Li Yan would use Soul Search on him.
• Li Yan identified the elder’s poison as Water Flowing East, gave him an antidote, and restored his spiritual power before waiting silently as he recovered.
• The gray-robed elder and Shuang Lianzhou’s family knelt to thank Li Yan, who asked whether only the pregnant woman belonged to the Human Race.
• The elder explained that he and Shuang Lianzhou belonged to the rare Duye spirit-plant race, and Li Yan asked why the two dead cultivators had pursued them.

Shuang Chongshan explained to Li Yan how his family inherited the Duye Clan’s Divine Ju Art and became targets because of it. He recounted how Ming Ling’s accidental display of Shuang Lianzhou’s newly made puppet drew the attention of two cultivators, before an unknown man abruptly took it.

• Shuang Chongshan silenced Shuang Lianzhou and began telling Li Yan about their family’s legacy.
• Shuang Chongshan explained that his branch had fled a massacre by nine Golden Core cultivators who coveted the Divine Ju Art.
• Shuang Chongshan described how he and Shuang Lianzhou hid their lineage and made a living selling low-grade goods and puppets.
• Shuang Chongshan recounted that Shuang Lianzhou crafted a Crystal Snow Jade Spider eighteen years earlier and fell into a deep sleep afterward.
• Ming Ling found the puppet and displayed it in the shop, where a burly man and a tall, thin cultivator both tried to buy it.
• An unknown tall figure entered the shop and swept the Crystal Snow Jade Spider away.

Shuang Chongshan retrieved the Crystal Snow Jade Spider before Ma and Gao could buy it, then concealed the truth from Ming Ling and debated whether the family should flee. Though the family stayed after years of apparent calm, the chapter revealed that Ma and Gao were murderous schemers who had recognized suspicious details from the start.

• Shuang Chongshan took back the Crystal Snow Jade Spider, apologized to Ma and Gao, and compensated them with spirit stones while refusing their requests for more puppets.
• Shuang Chongshan and Shuang Lianzhou concealed the matter from Ming Ling until her unhappiness drove them to explain their origins and worries in a secret chamber.
• Ma and Gao returned to the shop several times, prompting Shuang Chongshan to investigate them as he and Shuang Lianzhou weighed whether to leave or stay.
• Shuang Chongshan learned that Ma and Gao appeared to be ordinary beast hunters, and the Shuang family stayed in the market as five uneventful years passed.
• The narration revealed that Ma and Gao secretly murdered cultivators and stole their possessions, and that they had suspected Shuang Chongshan because Ming Ling seemed unaware of the puppet and the spider bore a tiny mark.

Shuang Chongshan explained how the cultivator surnamed Ma and his companion discovered the Duye Clan mark, uncovered the Shuang family's secret, and poisoned him to seize the Shenju Art. When Shuang Chongshan offered the texts in exchange for his family's safety, Li Yan revealed he had never asked for the inheritance.

• The cultivator surnamed Ma and his companion traced the puppet's mark to the vanished Duye Clan and learned its branch had guarded the Shenju Art.
• They discovered Shuang Lianzhou's Three-Legged Azure Luan was his bonded treasure and concluded the Shuang family had made the puppets themselves.
• Shuang Lianzhou explained that, while exhausted and excited over his first mid-grade puppet, he had engraved the family's mark on the Crystal Snow Jade Spider and later forgot doing so.
• After Ming Ling became pregnant, the two men poisoned Shuang Chongshan with Eastward Flowing Water at a banquet and demanded the Shenju Art.
• Shuang Chongshan begged Li Yan to spare Shuang Lianzhou and Ming Ling, offering to reveal where he had hidden the texts.
• Li Yan lifted Shuang Chongshan without using Soul Search and said he had never asked for the inherited art.

Li Yan rescued Shuang Chongshan, Shuang Lianzhou, and Ming Ling, then offered them refuge at Falling Star Valley in exchange for voluntary work with their Puppet Arts. After they chose to leave, Li Yan returned to the sect, where something unexpected soon drew his attention.

• Li Yan refused to demand the Duye Household's Puppet Arts and offered the Shuang family a choice between leaving or joining Falling Star Valley under its protection.
• Shuang Chongshan declined the offer, and Li Yan left the Three-Legged Azure Luan with Shuang Lianzhou before departing with the Ma cultivators' Storage Pouches.
• Shuang Lianzhou recovered his puppet, and the family left to find a remote place where Shuang Chongshan could recuperate.
• Li Yan traveled back to Falling Star Valley and returned to Starry Cave without disturbing Xing Ming.
• Soon after entering his cave abode, Li Yan's expression changed in astonishment.