Chapter Summaries

Ye Yan abandoned Phantylia’s staged rescue, then reunited with Qingque at his milk tea shop on the Luofu. As Welt and the others entered the Xianzhou and planned their next steps, Qingque explained how she had turned minding the shop into an excuse to slack off while still meeting her sales target.

• Phantylia posed as Tingyun and called for help, but Ye Yan ran away; he later dropped a bag of church specialties on the Mara-Struck soldiers and gave Phantylia white jade soap.
• Welt entered the Luofu with the Astral Express crew, and Dan Heng noticed that his appearance resembled Chair Blake.
• Welt laid out the crew’s priorities: investigate the Stellaron, cooperate with the authorities, and follow the Trailblaze.
• Ye Yan returned to his milk tea shop and found Qingque lounging inside while supposedly looking after it.
• Qingque explained that her limited daily sales and shop sign attracted repeat customers, letting her finish her work quickly and spend the rest of the day playing Imperial Jade.

Stelle and her companions rescued Tingyun on the Xianzhou, while Phantylia recognized Dan Heng and feared he might be the Eternity Emanator Blake before deciding to keep her disguise. Meanwhile, Ye Yan visited the Sleepless Earl teahouse with local specialties after Qingque left, and Mengming recognized him.

• Ye Yan offered Qingque wages for watching his shop, but Qingque asked him to learn Imperial Jade and play tiles with her instead.
• Stelle, March 7th, Dan Heng, and Welt defeated the mara-struck soldiers surrounding Tingyun at Cloudford.
• Phantylia sensed danger from March 7th's modified weapon and mistook Dan Heng for the Eternity Emanator Blake before realizing he was someone else.
• Tingyun introduced herself and asked why the Astral Express crew had entered the sealed Xianzhou, and Welt explained that someone had opened the Jade Gate for them.
• Stelle noticed soap among Tingyun's local specialties as Phantylia tried to redirect the conversation.
• Ye Yan brought Jarilo-VI specialties to the Sleepless Earl and ordered Immortal's Joy Tea from Mengming, who recognized him.

Ye Yan returned to the Luofu and found Blake disguised as Mr. Xiyan, while Phantylia guided the Astral Express crew to Starskiff Haven under the guise of Tingyun. The crew grew wary of their guide and paused outside the Palace of Astrum, as a girl in priestly robes waited anxiously for Ye Yan.

• Ye Yan gave Mengming Belobog specialties, and she warned him about the disaster on the Luofu.
• Ye Yan recognized Blake as an Emanator of Eternity disguised as Mr. Xiyan, spreading Eternity through storytelling while protecting Mengming.
• Phantylia brought Stelle, March 7th, and the others to Starskiff Haven and offered them Ye Yan's Church specialties.
• Stelle and the others questioned Tingyun's haste, then decided to wait outside the Palace of Astrum while she announced them to Yukong.
• Dan Heng warned the crew to stay alert without Ye Yan's blessing of Eternity, while a girl in priestly robes waited outside Ye Yan's milk tea shop.

Yukong and Jing Yuan continued their plan to let the impostor posing as Tingyun maintain her act while the Astral Express party arrived at the Luofu. Stelle spotted the real Tingyun near Ye Yan’s milk tea shop, where Tingyun was reunited with Ye Yan, who had been disguised as Blake.

• Yukong and Jing Yuan reviewed the fake Tingyun’s messages and agreed to keep up the act while they investigated the Lord Ravager’s identity.
• Yukong recalled learning that the real Tingyun was safe with the Church of Eternity and that Ye Yan had left the Luofu; she planned to thank him when he returned.
• Welt prepared the Astral Express crew for Yukong’s questions, while Kafka declined to explain the script and said she would answer when needed.
• Phantylia led the Astral Express party into the Palace of Astrum, but Stelle stopped after she thought she saw Tingyun below.
• Tingyun waited outside Ye Yan’s milk tea shop, where Ye Yan appeared disguised as Mr. Xiyan, revealed himself, and invited her inside to talk.

Tingyun met Ye Yan and Blake at the Church, while Yukong rejected the Astral Express's offer to help with the Stellaron and questioned their connection to the Stellaron Hunters. Jing Yuan intervened before Yukong could decide what to do with the crew.

• Ye Yan tried to put Tingyun at ease by giving her milk tea, and she drank the entire cup at once, confusing him and Blake.
• Yukong refused the Astral Express's offer to help contain the Stellaron, saying the Xianzhou Alliance could handle the crisis itself.
• Welt argued that the Stellaron's effects might still be reversed if the crew found and contained it soon.
• Yukong stopped the crew from leaving the Sky-Faring Commission after revealing that Silver Wolf had hacked the Jade Gate and guided the Astral Express to the Luofu.
• Yukong questioned how Ye Yan, an Emanator of [Eternity], had become associated with the Astral Express, and Stelle defended their relationship.
• Jing Yuan appeared in a hologram, challenged Yukong's suspicions, and said the Astral Express could not be allied with the Stellaron Hunters.

Jing Yuan recruited the Astral Express crew to capture Kafka, but they revealed they had already apprehended her. Meanwhile, Ye Yan told Tingyun how Phantylia had stolen her life, and Tingyun resolved to take something back from the Lord Ravager.

• Jing Yuan declined the Express crew’s help with the Stellaron crisis and asked them to draw out and capture Kafka instead.
• Ye Yan reassured Tingyun and explained that Phantylia had impersonated her and endangered the Whistling Flames merchant guild.
• Tingyun vowed to demand repayment from Phantylia, and Ye Yan suggested they reclaim the life that should have been taken.
• Stelle and Welt revealed that the Express crew had already captured Kafka, and Dan Heng and March 7th brought her before Jing Yuan.
• Kafka dispelled her disguise and addressed Stelle, leaving Jing Yuan wondering whether Ye Yan had planned the whole turn of events.

After Kafka’s capture, Jing Yuan discussed the Astral Express and the Stellaron investigation with Fu Xuan, then warned Yanqing to wait before acting. Yanqing sought out Ye Yan, mistook him for a shop thief, and left believing Immortal’s Joy Tea might make him stronger.

• Yukong gave the Astral Express crew access credentials, while Jing Yuan assured Fu Xuan that the Express had no part in Kafka’s capture and left the next steps to her.
• Fu Xuan pressed Jing Yuan about the Stellaron Hunters and her succession, while Jing Yuan reflected that she could not see the truth hidden by Eternity.
• Jing Yuan told Yanqing not to confront Silver Wolf recklessly and pondered how the Stellaron had evaded the Luofu’s inspections and divinations.
• Yanqing went to Ye Yan’s milk tea shop, mistook him for a bandit, and challenged him after Ye Yan’s claim that the shop was his.
• Ye Yan demonstrated his strength with a milk tea cup, told Yanqing that anything could be a sword, and rejected his request to become his master.
• Ye Yan gave Yanqing a cup of Immortal’s Joy Tea, leaving him wondering whether drinking it could make him stronger.

Stelle and March 7th investigated the mystery of two Tingyuns and stumbled into Ye Yan's milk tea shop, where the real Tingyun discussed opposing Phantylia. The group realized that one of the Tingyuns was an impostor, but they had not yet learned who she was.

• March 7th and Stelle split from Welt and Phantylia after Tingyun offered them rooms at the Dusty Inn.
• Stelle told March 7th that she had seen two Tingyuns, and the pair began investigating.
• Tingyun discussed Phantylia and her plan to make the Lord Ravager suffer with Ye Yan in his milk tea shop.
• Stelle and March 7th entered the shop, and Stelle recognized Ye Yan as an Aeon while March greeted him as her teacher.
• Stelle realized that the Tingyun who had left with Welt was different from the Tingyun in the shop, while Tingyun checked her disguise on her phone.

Ye Yan told March 7th and Stelle that Tingyun had been replaced by the Lord Ravager Phantylia, while Phantylia discovered that Blake had tracked her down. Fu Xuan delayed Kafka’s interrogation because trouble had struck the Divination Commission and assigned Qingque to guide the Astral Express crew later.

• Ye Yan explained to March 7th and Stelle that Phantylia had replaced Tingyun, and March 7th panicked about a Lord Ravager being on the Luofu.
• Stelle reassured March 7th that the Xianzhou Alliance and Ye Yan could handle Phantylia, while Ye Yan stayed behind at the milk tea shop.
• Phantylia settled Welt into the Dusty Inn and worried that Blake had nearly exposed her disguise.
• Blake confronted Phantylia in Tingyun’s former bedroom, and she fled in fear, realizing she could neither defeat nor escape him.
• Fu Xuan told Dan Heng that trouble at the Divination Commission prevented them from taking Kafka there and delayed the interrogation for a day.
• Fu Xuan assigned Qingque to guide the group, then discovered her playing tiles in the Exalting Sanctum plaza.

Dan Heng shared that Fu Xuan had taken Kafka for questioning, while March 7th and Stelle reported finding Ye Yan and the real Tingyun. The group headed to Exalting Sanctum Plaza, leaving Tingyun to run Ye Yan’s shop, and Ye Yan explained the Divination Commission and Elio’s rumored ability to foresee possibilities.

• Dan Heng told the Astral Express Crew that Fu Xuan had taken Kafka and would interrogate her the next day, while March 7th reported that Tingyun had been Phantylia in disguise and that she and Stelle had found Ye Yan and the real Tingyun.
• Dan Heng and Welt arranged to meet the others at Exalting Sanctum Plaza, and Stelle and March 7th made Ye Yan rejoin the team after he had been enjoying a day off.
• Ye Yan tossed the shop keys to Tingyun, who agreed to mind the shop; Yanqing arrived looking for his teacher and cautiously accepted Tingyun’s explanation for being there.
• As the group walked to the plaza, Ye Yan told March 7th that his shop was for convenience and explained that the Divination Commission used the Jade Abacus to make calculations and predictions.
• Stelle wondered whether Kafka had anticipated being captured, and Ye Yan described Elio’s rumored power to foresee possibilities before saying that everyone’s choices shaped the future.

Ye Yan, Stelle, and March 7th waited at the Exalting Sanctum while wondering about Kafka’s surrender and the Stellaron Hunters’ plans. A scream interrupted them, and they helped Bailu subdue mara-struck Cloud Knights before learning she was a registered physician from the Alchemy Commission.

• Stelle questioned why Kafka had surrendered and what future the Stellaron Hunters had foreseen, while March 7th complained about waiting and suggested shopping.
• A scream from a nearby plaza drew Stelle, March 7th, and Ye Yan toward a Cloud Knight who had become mara-struck.
• Bailu rushed in and knocked the soldier down, then found herself surrounded by more mara-struck Cloud Knights.
• Stelle fought the soldiers while March 7th tried to help, and Bailu thanked them for stabilizing her patients with blunt-force anesthesia.
• Bailu explained that she was a Vidyadhara and a registered physician, then revealed a bottle of ointment she said could treat the mara-struck.

Bailu used Ye Yan’s ointment to restore a mara-struck Cloud Knight, prompting March 7th and Stelle to question Ye Yan about it. Dahao then asked Stelle to help investigate the spreading mara-struck crisis and the vanished Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, while Welt and Dan Heng were still traveling by Starskiff.

• Bailu applied Ye Yan’s ointment to a mara-struck soldier, and golden light restored him to his earlier state.
• March 7th and Stelle found Ye Yan and learned that he had given Bailu the ointment, while Bailu confirmed it worked well.
• Bailu noted that the soldier’s recent enlistment and age made his mara-struck condition unusual, then asked Ye Yan for more ointment.
• Dahao invited Stelle to the Earth-Balance Commission’s chancery and explained that mara-struck cases had become more frequent and monstrous since the Stellaron disaster.
• Stelle agreed to share any clues she found, and Dahao asked her to look into the vanished Disciples of Sanctus Medicus.
• Welt and Dan Heng continued toward the Luofu aboard a Starskiff.

Dahao asked Stelle to investigate the resurgent Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, and she recruited March 7th, Ye Yan, and Dan Heng to help identify the cultists. After Ye Yan and Dan Heng scared off Green Phoebe with slaps instead of undercover work, Stelle prepared to take her turn as Green Phoebe returned in a makeshift Cloud Knights helmet.

• Dahao told Stelle that the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus were resurfacing and might be targeting outworlders near the Exalting Sanctum, so she agreed to investigate undercover.
• Stelle asked March 7th, Ye Yan, and Dan Heng to help, but they decided to gather information one at a time while Welt left to handle other matters.
• March 7th put on reflective glasses and identified a man in green as suspicious, and Ye Yan approached him as a passerby.
• When Green Phoebe pitched immortality and the Antimatter Legion, Ye Yan slapped him and warned him not to mention the Legion.
• Dan Heng also slapped Green Phoebe when he tried to promote the Abundance, and Green Phoebe fled before Stelle could question him.
• After Stelle said she would take over, Green Phoebe returned wearing a crude toy Cloud Knights helmet.

Stelle went undercover among the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus to investigate Green Phoebe, who brought her to a recruitment trial. There she encountered Blake, whose meddling raised her copying assignment from five hundred pages to five thousand.

• Stelle convinced Green Phoebe that she wanted immortality and power, then followed him away from the Exalting Sanctum while Ye Yan, March 7th, and another companion followed.
• Green Phoebe revealed that he was a Medicaster of the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus and explained the group’s beliefs and recruitment trials to Stelle.
• Green Phoebe discovered that Blake had used The Thousand-Armed Compassionate Medicine King's Salvation to prop up a table leg while copying it from memory.
• Green Phoebe told Stelle to copy the scripture five hundred times as her initiation trial, and Blake’s remark prompted him to increase the assignment to five thousand.
• Ye Yan’s group listened from outside the wall as Stelle faced the daunting copying task.

Stelle exposed Screwllum, a Church of Eternity deacon disguised as Blake, and persuaded him to help finish the scriptures. After Stelle and a Cloud Knight passed the first recruitment test, Violet Rose demanded they duel to the death for admission, leaving them trapped unless they fought.

• Stelle discovered that the apparent Blake was copying the Book of Eternal Virtues and exposed him as Screwllum, a deacon of the Church of Eternity.
• Screwllum explained how Priest Fulisina had modified him and tried to recruit Stelle, but she refused because she belonged to the Astral Express.
• Screwllum copied the five hundred scriptures in a minute, and Stelle brought him to Green Phoebe, who accepted their work as passing the first test.
• Green Phoebe introduced Violet Rose, who said Stelle and the Cloud Knight had to duel, with the survivor becoming a Medicaster.
• Stelle protested the deadly test, but Violet Rose said they could refuse only if neither of them left; Stelle and Screwllum asked for time to prepare.

Stelle learned that Screwllum had come to the Xianzhou to help draw out a Lord Ravager, but had run out of money and been surviving on favors. When Violet Rose exposed Stelle as an undercover agent and began chanting, Stelle knocked him out and stopped Green Phoebe from escaping.

• Screwllum explained that the Church of Eternity gave him food and hot-spring access but no wages, and that he had lost his phone and had no money.
• Screwllum told Stelle that Tingyun had been taken to the Church after a Lord Ravager attacked her, and that he had come to the Xianzhou hoping to help catch the enemy and earn a bonus.
• Screwllum recounted impersonating Tingyun at a teahouse and receiving free milk tea from its proprietress, then warned Stelle that an Emanator was hiding among the Xianzhou's people.
• Violet Rose recognized Stelle's baseball bat and accused Green Phoebe of letting an undercover agent join the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus.
• Violet Rose began chanting a prayer to the Compassionate Medicine King, but Stelle knocked him unconscious and hit the fleeing Green Phoebe with a trash can lid.
• Screwllum offered Stelle the Church's specialty machine oil, but she declined.

Stelle’s undercover operation against the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus ended successfully, while Fulisina returned to the Xianzhou Luofu and rescued Sushang and Luocha from Mara-Struck soldiers and cultists. Fulisina noticed something suspicious about Luocha’s coffin.

• Screwllum tied up the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus cultivators and left after speaking with Stelle, who later carried the unconscious heretics away.
• Stelle and Ye Yan reunited with March 7th, contacted Dahao, and discussed the cult’s sudden return and the Path of Eternity.
• Fulisina told the priestess she had come to the Luofu because the Astral Express was heading there and a Lord Ravager remained a threat.
• Fulisina spotted Sushang and Luocha surrounded by Mara-Struck soldiers and Disciples of Sanctus Medicus Internal Alchemists, then destroyed the attackers with magic projectiles.
• Fulisina thanked Sushang for her bravery and eyed Luocha’s coffin, saying it seemed to contain something interesting.

Sushang met Luocha and Fulisina while evacuating civilians from Cloudford and escorted them toward safety as they discussed the lockdown. The scene then shifted to the Sleepless Earl teahouse, where Phantylia insisted that nothing had happened despite wearing a neck brace.

• Sushang introduced herself to Luocha and Fulisina, then offered to lead them to safety during the evacuation.
• Fulisina accepted Sushang's offer and introduced herself as the Church of Eternity's Holy Maiden.
• Luocha asked Fulisina about her origins, and Fulisina asked where he was from; Luocha described himself as a traveling merchant.
• Sushang told Luocha and Fulisina that the Luofu was locked down after reports of an Antimatter Legion bomb and explained that she had been transferred from the Yaoqing.
• Sushang spoke about her Cloud Knight training and compared the Yaoqing's General Feixiao with the Luofu's General Jing Yuan before the group prepared to leave.
• At the Sleepless Earl teahouse, Mengming noticed Phantylia's neck brace and asked what had happened, but Phantylia said nothing had happened.

Phantylia fled the teahouse after mistaking Screwllum, disguised as Blake, for a threat, while Ye Yan hosted Tingyun, Stelle, and March 7th at his milk tea shop. The next morning, Qingque revealed that she had been ordered to wait for important guests at Exalting Sanctum’s plaza before the Divination Commission interrogated Kafka.

• Phantylia rejected Mengming’s offer of a shoulder massage, then panicked and ran when Screwllum arrived wearing Blake’s face.
• Screwllum mistook Phantylia’s presence for a possible attack on Mengming and prepared to protect the teahouse’s owner.
• Ye Yan returned to his shop and found Tingyun disguised as a priestess waiting for him.
• Stelle and March 7th visited Ye Yan’s shop, suggested adding new milk tea flavors, and lingered while Dan Heng urged them to hurry back.
• The next morning, Qingque arrived early, explained that the Divination Commission had suffered a disaster, and said Fu Xuan had ordered her to wait for important guests at Exalting Sanctum’s plaza.

Ye Yan accompanied Qingque to meet the Astral Express crew and guide them to the Divination Commission, where the group found its main gate locked. Qingque promised she knew another way inside.

• Qingque told Ye Yan that Fu Xuan had assigned her to receive the Astral Express crew and bring them to the Divination Commission.
• Ye Yan followed Qingque to Exalting Sanctum Plaza, where March 7th and the others were waiting for him.
• Qingque offered to tour the group and teach them Imperial Jade, but March 7th reminded Welt that they had business to attend to.
• As the group traveled toward the Divination Commission, Ye Yan explained the history and legends of the Ambrosial Arbor.
• At the Divination Commission, Qingque found the main gate locked and said she knew another entrance they could use.