Chapter Summaries

Qiaoqiao tricked a fake Saint Pill seller into believing Ning Xuan had sold her and Bai Fu counterfeit medicine, prompting him to spread the accusation. By the next morning, rumors had spread through the inter-sect tournament, and attendees began linking the fake pills to the sinister pills from Envy Fish City.

• Qiaoqiao and Bai Fu showed Aqi their supposed Saint Seals and claimed Ning Xuan had sold them real Saint Pills.
• Aqi revealed that Ning Xuan had supposedly said there were only two real Saint Pills, and Qiaoqiao got him to let slip that the pills were fake.
• Qiaoqiao thanked Aqi and gave him a Spirit Stone, leading him to decide to spread rumors that Ning Xuan sold fake pills.
• Qiaoqiao pulled Bai Fu away and playfully stepped on his shadow as they walked through a moonlit alley.
• The next morning, tournament attendees discussed the rumors that Ning Xuan sold fake Saint Pills and speculated that they were connected to the sinister pills from Envy Fish City.

Qiaoqiao faced Ning Xuan in the sect tournament as the crowd cheered her and his supporters urged him on. The match began with Ning Xuan bringing three spirit beasts, while Qiaoqiao entered unarmed and challenged his reliance on the rules.

• Ning Xuan arrived at the venue expecting admiration, but the crowd turned its attention to Qiaoqiao when she appeared.
• Ning Xuan's subordinates encouraged him to defeat Qiaoqiao, and he declared that he would give her a few moves before she refused his offer.
• Ning Xuan entered the martial arena with three spirit beasts, and Fu Fengyuan explained that the rules allowed beast tamers to command them.
• Qiaoqiao reassured her companions that she would win and went to the arena, still hoping to take first place before her master returned.
• The Flowing Cloud Sect elder pointed out that Qiaoqiao had brought no weapon as Ning Xuan questioned her choice to fight bare-handed.
• Qiaoqiao called Ning Xuan's spirit beasts kitties and doggies, then taunted him for arguing about whether the rules were fair.

Qiaoqiao turned Ning Xuan’s spirit beasts against each other by feeding them meat, then used a protective sword formation to stop his poisoned darts. Ning Xuan was left exposed to the crowd’s jeers as he demanded to know what the meat was.

• Ning Xuan unleashed his tiger and gray wolf on Qiaoqiao, while the spectators feared she would be torn apart.
• Qiaoqiao fed the gray wolf and tiger meat, making both beasts ignore her and compete for more.
• Qiaoqiao offered one final plate to whichever beast could claim it, and the tiger and wolf attacked each other over the food.
• Ning Xuan accused Qiaoqiao of using a trick, but she mocked him by asking whether he wanted meat too, drawing the beasts’ threatening attention.
• Ning Xuan hurled poisoned darts at Qiaoqiao, but her protective sword formation blocked them, and she pointed out that he had brought three spirit beasts.
• The spectators booed Ning Xuan, who asked Qiaoqiao what the meat was.

Qiaoqiao exposed Ning Xuan’s cruelty toward disciples and spirit beasts, then revealed his involvement in refining people into pills. Ning Xuan was stunned that she knew the words he had spoken in secret.

• Qiaoqiao explained that the food the spirit beasts fought over had been made by Immortal Venerable Changyun, leaving Ning Xuan with only his small beast to face her.
• Qiaoqiao’s inner thoughts revealed that Ning Xuan had exploited disciples, arranged for spirit beasts to attack them, and tortured beasts while trying to create a powerful battle beast.
• Qiaoqiao revealed that Ning Xuan’s spirit beasts secretly retaliated by contaminating his food and replacing his nourishing pills with grime.
• Qiaoqiao explained that battle beasts were created through starvation and bloody slaughter, and that releasing one could cause an uncontrollable disaster.
• Qiaoqiao accused Ning Xuan of secretly selling fake medicine and quoted his private justification for using human lives to refine pills.
• Ning Xuan recognized the quoted words as his own, wondered how Qiaoqiao knew them, and angrily called her claim slander.

Qiaoqiao exposed Ning Xuan’s monstrous battle beast and accused him of using spirit beasts in his pill experiments, while a witness came forward to testify against him. Ning Xuan began chanting an evil incantation, threatening Qiaoqiao and everyone present.

• Ning Xuan transformed his spirit beast into a foul battle beast that swallowed two Golden Core spirit beasts and advanced on Qiaoqiao.
• Qiaoqiao used a mirror to show the battle beast Liu Xiu’s secret rendezvous with Elder Bing, stunning it with a mental attack.
• Qiaoqiao revealed through the Zhaowu Mirror that Ning Xuan’s battle beast was made from countless spirit beasts and accused him of learning to refine pills from living beings.
• Aqi identified himself as a Profound Heaven Sect disciple, showed his severed arm, and testified that Ning Xuan had plotted to refine pills and ordered a gray wolf to bite him.
• Ning Xuan lost control and began chanting an evil incantation to kill Qiaoqiao and the crowd.

Qiaoqiao won her match after Commandant Nangong crushed Ning Xuan’s rampaging battle beast and arrested him over the Envy Fish City case. After Shen Ji lost because a barrier-ignoring broken blade disrupted his strike, Qiaoqiao advanced to the final by bye and was set to face Liu Yu, the Holy Maiden of the Glazed Sea.

• Commandant Nangong crushed Ning Xuan’s rampaging battle beast, silenced and arrested him, while Madam Rushui purified the wronged souls surrounding it.
• Qiaoqiao won the match, and the crowd celebrated her as a champion of justice while Profound Heaven Sect disciples slipped away.
• Shen Ji returned from his match and explained that a broken blade from a neighboring match had knocked his sword strike off course and caused his loss.
• Qiaoqiao comforted Shen Ji, but her thoughts revealed that she was glad his loss meant one fewer opponent in her path to first place.
• Qiaoqiao received a bye after her next opponent withdrew due to injury, advancing to the final against Liu Yu, the Holy Maiden of the Glazed Sea.

Qiaoqiao celebrated her victory by telling Bai Fu about the tournament and painting his portrait, while he remembered the day he returned from seclusion and saw how much she had grown. The chapter left Bai Fu reflecting on their first reunion after his fifteen years in seclusion.

• Shen Ji said Liu Yu had held back in their previous fight, and the elder and disciples accepted that Qiaoqiao might have to settle for second place.
• Qiaoqiao rested at the inn before the final and wondered whether Bai Fu would be happy about her latest win.
• Bai Fu arrived in the courtyard, and Qiaoqiao stopped him so she could paint him, then kept the portrait secret from him.
• Qiaoqiao told Bai Fu about her tournament match while sitting by the window, and he recalled returning from seclusion to find her grown up and playing with A Xue.

Qiaoqiao recalled a playful moment with Bai Fu from fifteen years earlier before asking him to help her prepare for the tournament final. Bai Fu gave her his former sword, Remnant Snow, and guided her through its sword techniques; the chapter left the Flowing Cloud Sect disciples arriving at the finals to friendly greetings.

• Fifteen years earlier, Qiaoqiao offered Bai Fu a sour green pear, and she realized he had knowingly tricked her into tasting it.
• In the present, Bai Fu confirmed that he had arranged for Aqi to come, and Qiaoqiao asked him to help her prepare for the next day's match.
• Bai Fu gave Qiaoqiao his former sword, Remnant Snow, and guided her through its sword techniques in the courtyard.
• On the day of the tournament finals, Flowing Cloud Sect disciples received friendly greetings instead of ridicule from the other sects.

Qiaoqiao faced Liu Yu in the tournament final and, after struggling against the Golden Core cultivator, awakened a golden origin core and unleashed the third strike of the High Antiquity sword form. She defeated Liu Yu, leaving the Flowing Cloud Sect’s disciples celebrating her victory.

• The Flowing Cloud Sect’s disciples rallied behind Qiaoqiao, while the Glazed Sea expected Liu Yu to take first place.
• Qiaoqiao and Liu Yu began their final match, and Qiaoqiao drew Bai Fu’s sword, Remnant Snow.
• Qiaoqiao traded blows with Liu Yu for over a hundred exchanges but began to run low on Spiritual Qi.
• Qiaoqiao recalled Bai Fu’s guidance and comprehended the third High Antiquity sword strike, Ask the Heavenly Limit.
• A bead in Qiaoqiao’s Dantian expanded into a golden origin core, empowering her strike to knock away Liu Yu’s spear and put Remnant Snow against her chest.
• Qiaoqiao won the match, and the Flowing Cloud Sect’s disciples erupted in cheers.

Liu Yu began transforming into the Ear-Eating Beast after losing to Qiaoqiao, and Glazed Sea sect leader Liu Xian appeared to take her away. Shen Ji attacked Liu Xian while Xiao Tingyu used a sword formation to hold back her ocean wave, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

• Liu Yu’s glazed hairpin jingled as black mist surrounded her and her body began transforming, prompting Shen Ji to rush to protect Qiaoqiao.
• Shen Ji and the other Ethereal Peak disciples stepped onto the stage, while Liu Xian appeared and announced that the Glazed Sea conceded the match to Qiaoqiao.
• Qiaoqiao asked Liu Xian what was happening to Liu Yu, but Liu Xian dismissed the transformation as a minor ailment and tried to take her away.
• A Glazed Sea disciple recognized the hairpin’s jingling as the sound of the Ear-Eating Beast, and the crowd realized the beast was emerging from Liu Yu.
• Shen Ji attacked Liu Xian, who unleashed a tide to sweep the disciples from the stage, but Xiao Tingyu’s Spirit Stone sword formation held it back.

Xiao Tingyu and the others learned how Liu Xian had been controlled by Elder Bing, lost her pregnancy, and uncovered the cruelty of Elder Bing’s brother. Liu Xian seized power in the Glazed Sea, but the origins of Liu Yu and the Ear-Eating Beast remained unclear.

• The group learned that Elder Bing had forced Liu Xian to become dao companions with her brother so she could control the Glazed Sea through them.
• Liu Xian fell in love with a scholar surnamed Wen and became pregnant, but Elder Bing forced her to abort the child by withholding a life-saving spirit pill.
• Liu Xian discovered Elder Bing’s brother with his lover, and he shoved the pregnant woman toward the Ear-Eating Beast before fleeing.
• The injured woman begged Liu Xian to save her child, and Liu Xian sheltered her in the Wading Immortal Abode and let her give birth.
• Liu Xian exposed her husband’s deeds, divorced him, weakened Elder Bing’s faction, and took control of the Glazed Sea; afterward, the woman killed him and herself.
• Xiao Tingyu and the others wondered whether Liu Yu was the woman’s child and how she had become the Ear-Eating Beast.

Elders from the various sects intervened as Liu Xian declared that the black mist housed the Demon God, and Glazed Sea disciples began worshipping it. As the group feared the Demon God’s apocalyptic legend might be true, Qiaoqiao’s senior brothers discovered that she had advanced to the Golden Core Early Stage.

• Shen Ji’s sword formation broke, but the elders from the various sects arrived and blocked the waves before demanding that Liu Xian hand over the beast.
• Liu Xian rejected their claim that the mist contained a ferocious beast and proclaimed that it was the Demon God.
• A one-eared Glazed Sea True Person knelt before the mist, and more Glazed Sea disciples followed him in worshipping the Demon God.
• Shen Ji suspected that the Ear-Eating Beast had possessed Liu Yu and influenced Liu Xian, while Qiaoqiao realized the beast had used Liu Yu’s divine oracles to spread its will through the Glazed Sea.
• Fu Fengyuan explained the legend that the Demon God would destroy the three realms, alarming the group as they considered whether the prophecy was real.
• Xiao Tingyu and Fu Fengyuan noticed that Qiaoqiao had advanced from the Foundation Establishment Early Stage to the Golden Core Early Stage.

Qiaoqiao’s unspoken thoughts revealed that Liu Xian had saved her child and sent him away with a scholar, whose descendants included Wen Zhi. Wen Zhi accepted that Liu Xian was her great-grandmother but chose to live her own life and pursue alchemy.

• Fu Fengyuan invented a story about a scholar and a female cultivator after Wen Zhi prompted him to cover up their questions.
• Qiaoqiao guessed that the scholar had taken the child away, and her thoughts confirmed that he had raised the child outside the Glazed Sea.
• Qiaoqiao revealed that the child survived in a thousand-year-old mother clam and later died after reaching adulthood, leaving descendants who included Wen Zhi.
• Wen Zhi realized Liu Xian was her great-grandmother and decided she would not become entangled in her ancestors’ past.
• Wen Zhi said the people in the story should choose their own lives, just as the scholar had chosen to leave.

Qiaoqiao learned that the Flowing Cloud Divine Lamp had helped her form a Dao Seed, which awakened during the battle and advanced her to the Golden Core realm. Meanwhile, Liu Xian used a forbidden technique to escape with the Ear-Eating Beast and the Glazed Sea disciples, and Nangong Gua arrived after the crisis had passed.

• Qiaoqiao confirmed she had formed a Golden Core, and Shen Ji explained that her Dao Seed had awakened when she unleashed ancient sword might.
• The Ear-Eating Beast appeared on the martial arena, and its chimes and whispers affected the disciples and Ning Xuan.
• Liu Xian unleashed a forbidden technique, swept away the arena with a massive tide, and escaped with the beast and the Glazed Sea disciples.
• The elders realized Liu Xian's escape would leave the Glazed Sea weakened and summoned the sect leaders to discuss the crisis.
• Nangong Gua arrived late and dismissed the Ear-Eating Beast incident as Liu Xian pretending at the supernatural, angering the Flowing Cloud Sect elders.

After winning the four-sect tournament, Qiaoqiao received a supposedly divine prize from Commandant Nangong and privately anticipated learning his juicy gossip. The chapter then shifted to the Cultivation World’s uproar over the sealed Glazed Sea and the Ear-Eating Beast, while Qiaoqiao’s tournament victory drew widespread attention.

• Commandant Nangong announced Qiaoqiao’s prize: five hundred thousand Spirit Stones, five Profound Grade cultivation methods, and a Heaven Grade Law Artifact.
• Nangong presented the Divine Maiden’s Sword Scabbard as a divine artifact, but Qiaoqiao questioned its usefulness and accepted it while planning to uncover Nangong Gua’s gossip.
• Xiao Tingyu laughed at Qiaoqiao’s private thoughts about Nangong and looked forward to hearing the gossip herself.
• The three sects found that the Glazed Sea was sealed by a massive barrier and concluded that the Ear-Eating Beast’s illusion had put its inhabitants under the Demon God’s influence.
• The three sects agreed to destroy the beast, but their formation masters estimated that breaking the barrier would take several months.
• Cultivators flooded the Jade Slip Forum with praise, jokes, and love confessions about Qiaoqiao after her tournament victory.

After Qiaoqiao won the inter-sect tournament, the Flowing Cloud Sect celebrated her victory while rumors made her a symbol of hope for the Cultivation World. That night, the Divine Maiden’s Sword Scabbard led her to a dream encounter with the divine sword, which claimed it did not know where it was.

• Flowing Cloud Sect disciples celebrated Qiaoqiao’s tournament victory as Ethereal Peak’s reputation rose, while discussion boards speculated about her ability to uncover opponents’ secrets.
• A poster argued that the Cultivation World was doomed because its rising talents and sect leaders were corrupt or villainous, and commenters panicked before rallying around Qiaoqiao as their hope.
• Qiaoqiao went to bed after Second Senior Sister treated the city to a feast, then noticed the Divine Maiden’s Sword Scabbard and felt it had resonated with something inside her.
• In a dream, Qiaoqiao followed a golden light that identified itself as the divine sword and eagerly asked where it was hidden.
• The divine sword admitted it did not know its own location, leaving Qiaoqiao suspecting she had been duped.

Qiaoqiao was nearly overwhelmed by a dark resentment in her State of Mind until her master's protective sword formation drove it back. She learned that Bai Fu had left sword intent inside her, and the chapter ended with him asking what she had encountered.

• The Divine Sword tried to warn Qiaoqiao about a demon pillar but lost power before it could finish.
• Darkness and resentment nearly suffocated Qiaoqiao, until silver light burst from her and formed a protective sword formation.
• Qiaoqiao found Bai Fu within the formation and learned that it was her State of Mind and that he had planted protective sword intent in her when she was young.
• Bai Fu explained that the sword intent had taken his appearance, while Qiaoqiao touched his sleeve and hand before withdrawing when he moved away.
• Bai Fu asked what she had encountered in her State of Mind, and Qiaoqiao said she did not know.

After waking from a dream of Bai Fu’s sword intent, Qiaoqiao suspected the divine sword was in the Demon Realm. Meanwhile, Bai Fu killed Elder Wen, and Qiaoqiao gathered her fellow disciples to watch Nangong Gua’s planned prison break that night.

• Qiaoqiao asked Bai Fu whether she could visit his sword intent again, then woke as the dream and her resonance with the divine sword faded.
• Qiaoqiao recalled hearing demons in Envy Fish City mention a divine sword and wondered if it was in the Demon Realm.
• Bai Fu stood over the dead Elder Wen in Heavenly Secrets City, while a Daoist boy discovered the elder’s written confession of crimes.
• Song Wuya arrived at Elder Wen’s cave abode, recognized that Bai Fu had been there, and said he and the fire phoenix would soon see Qiaoqiao.
• Qiaoqiao considered whether Nangong Gua had the Saint Pills needed for his plan to break Elder Bing out and gathered with the other four from Ethereal Peak to watch.
• Second Senior Sister laid down a formation to conceal the group’s presence.

Shen Ji and the others secretly watched Commandant Nangong rescue Elder Bing, then learned how their relationship began: Nangong Gua believed she was his destined partner after she saved him from a snake, while Elder Bing had only thought he was an ugly spirit pet. The chapter left Nangong and Elder Bing together on Moon-Gazing Mountain, unaware of the group listening nearby.

• Commandant Nangong freed Elder Bing and reassured her that he regretted her imprisonment, while she thanked him for delaying her interrogation.
• The group hiding behind the slope suspected Nangong and Elder Bing had a close relationship, and Wen Zhi heard Liu Xiu thrashing inside her storage ring at Elder Bing's voice.
• Xiao Tingyu wondered how Elder Bing and Nangong Gua had met, prompting Qiaoqiao to reveal their conflicting memories of the encounter.
• Elder Bing had killed a snake to retrieve what she thought was treasure, then rejected the golden toad she found inside and rushed off to wash its spit from her hand.
• Nangong Gua had mistaken Bing Yan's departure for a bashful response to his mate-marking, later took human form, assumed a dead Heavenly Secrets Pavilion disciple's identity, and rose to become commandant.

Nangong offered Bing Yan two genuine Saint Pills and proposed that she share some of her cultivation so they could break through and ascend together. Bing Yan considered abandoning him and ascending alone, while Nangong delayed revealing that he was the golden toad she had once saved.

• The group learned that Nangong had become one of Bing Yan’s lovers and that Madam Rushui was a painted-skin demon inhabiting the real Rushui’s body.
• Nangong brought Bing Yan two genuine Saint Pills and explained that Liu Xian had isolated her from her subordinates.
• Nangong proposed that Bing Yan take both pills, then transfer some of her cultivation to help him break through his Mahayana bottleneck so they could ascend together.
• Bing Yan questioned whether she trusted Nangong enough and considered using the pills to ascend without helping him.
• Bing Yan asked whether Nangong’s secret was the Saint Pills, while Nangong decided to reveal his golden toad identity later.