Recaps

Zhou Wanwan offered to cure Miss Xu and secured a contract requiring the Xu family to refuse a proposal from Zhou Yi or pay her sixty thousand taels. The next morning, matchmakers arrived to announce that Zhou Yi wanted to marry Miss Xu.

• Yinggu blamed Li Youcai for the thefts, then agreed to let him and Mother Li live at her residence under her rules.
• Zhou Wanwan told Master Xu she could treat Miss Xu and made a contract tying her fee to whether the Xu family accepted Zhou Yi's proposal.
• Zhou Wanwan examined Miss Xu, treated her with acupuncture and medicine, and saw her wake.
• Master Xu and Xu Fengjiao doubted Zhou Yi would ever propose, given her poor health.
• Two matchmakers arrived at the Xu household on Zhou Yi's behalf and praised his intention to marry Miss Xu.

Old Master Xu learned that Juren Zhou had proposed to Xu Fengjiao, who admitted she wanted to marry him despite her father's reservations. After treating Xu Fengjiao and collecting the promised payment, Zhou Wanwan warned Old Master Xu that Juren Zhou and Yaoniang were conspiring to gain the Xu family estate, but Xu Fengjiao rejected her accusation.

• Old Master Xu told Xu Fengjiao that Juren Zhou had sent matchmakers to propose, and Xu Fengjiao confessed she had taken a fancy to him.
• Zhou Wanwan said Xu Fengjiao's health could recover in about half a year, but warned that strong emotions could bring her illness back.
• Zhou Wanwan told Zheng Xing'an she suspected Xu Fengjiao would marry Juren Zhou because she had fallen for him.
• After hearing Xu Fengjiao was going to marry Juren Zhou, Zhou Wanwan visited the Xu Family and accepted sixty thousand taels of silver and medicinal ingredients from Old Master Xu.
• Zhou Wanwan warned Old Master Xu that Juren Zhou and Yaoniang were having an affair and planned to marry Xu Fengjiao to get the family estate.
• Xu Fengjiao called Zhou Wanwan's accusation nonsense and insisted Juren Zhou valued her virtues and improved health.

After learning that Zhou Yi and Yaoniang were having an affair, Xu Fengjiao asked Zhou Wanwan to help expose them. The villagers caught the pair embracing in the woods, and Xu Fengjiao publicly accused Zhou Yi and the Zhou Family of betraying her.

• Old Master Xu limited Xu Fengjiao's dowry to one shop and one estate, warning her not to reveal the family's wealth.
• Yaoniang urged Xu Fengjiao to bring a larger dowry to help Zhou Yi, but Xu Fengjiao grew suspicious when Yaoniang appeared pregnant.
• Xu Fengjiao asked Zhou Wanwan to catch Zhou Yi and Yaoniang in the act, and arranged for more than a hundred people to hide in the woods.
• Zhou Wanwan watched as Zhou Yi and Yaoniang met in the woods and became intimate.
• The village chief and villagers caught Zhou Yi embracing Yaoniang, who admitted that she was three months pregnant.
• Xu Fengjiao wept and accused Zhou Yi and the Zhou Family of treating her unfairly.

Xu Fengjiao rejected Zhou Yi after exposing his affair with Yaoniang, and the Xu family ended the engagement and left the prefecture. Zhou Yi then lost his teaching position at the academy, despite protesting that he was a juren.

• Xu Fengjiao refused to marry Zhou Yi after his family proposed that he take Yaoniang as an equal wife, and Old Master Xu rejected the arrangement.
• Zhou Yi insulted Xu Fengjiao and accused her of being unable to bear children, while she accused the Zhou Family of plotting to seize the Xu family's property.
• The Zhou Family returned the engagement token and paid five thousand taels in compensation, which Xu Fengjiao gave to Zhou Wanwan.
• Zhou Wanwan warned the Xu family that the Zhou Family might retaliate, so Old Master Xu sold his shops and estates and moved to another prefecture that night.
• Zhou Wanwan said Zhou Yi's prospects were ruined, and Zhou Yi was dismissed from his academy teaching post despite protesting that he was a juren.

After learning that Cheng Xiao and Jiang Wu were targeting the Xu Family, Zhou Wanwan prepared the family’s courtyard to repel the bandits she expected to attack. The Xu Family survived the raid and agreed to follow her, and Zhou Wanwan began considering how to improve their weaving business.

• Zhou Yi suspected that the Xu Family had trapped him and asked Cheng Xiao where they had moved, but Cheng Xiao sent him away; Jiang Wu then suggested targeting the wealthy Xu Family, and Cheng Xiao assigned him the task.
• Zhou Wanwan learned that Cheng Xiao was after the Xu Family and decided to use their courtyard to ambush the bandits expected to attack it.
• Zhou Wanwan traveled to Dachang County, set traps and hidden weapons around the Xu Family courtyard, and told Old Master Xu that thieves would come that night.
• Hundreds of bandits attacked after midnight, but Zhou Wanwan’s traps and explosives routed them, convincing Old Master Xu and his family to seek her protection.
• Zhou Wanwan agreed to take the Xu Family to Black Wind Stronghold and asked to see their looms so she could help improve their weaving business.

After moving the Xu Family to her mountain stronghold, Zhou Wanwan learned that Cheng Xiao and Jiang Wu planned to transport two boatloads of goods and seized them with her people. She made pills from the medicinal herbs, drew three loom blueprints, and went to Luban Village, where she found prefectural yamen runners.

• Zhou Wanwan brought Old Master Xu and the Xu Family to the mountain stronghold, where Old Master Xu recognized their relocated home and urged Xu Fengjiao to obey her.
• Jiang Wu told Cheng Xiao that the Xu Family had vanished and the bandits had been killed or captured; Cheng Xiao revealed that two boatloads of goods would arrive that night.
• Plants and birds relayed Cheng Xiao's plans to Zhou Wanwan, who decided to seize the shipment and help poor people when she could.
• Zhou Wanwan and her people took both boatloads of goods, and she organized more than thirty people to make pills from the medicinal herbs.
• Zhou Wanwan drew blueprints for three types of looms from memory and went with her companions to Luban Village, where they found prefectural yamen runners.

Zhou Wanwan rescued Luban Village from bailiffs who planned to enslave its skilled craftsmen, and agreed to take the villagers in after they offered to sign deeds of sale. She brought them to Black Wind Stronghold, where their excitement over the valuable trees immediately provoked the forest.

• Bailiffs gathered Luban Village's people and threatened to enslave them for their craft skills and force them to make tools and weapons.
• The village chief urged the villagers to resist, but Zhou Wanwan incapacitated the bailiffs with falling powder and rescued them.
• A villager asked Zhou Wanwan to take in Luban Village, and she agreed on the condition that everyone sign deeds of sale and stop cutting trees on her mountain.
• The village chief accepted Zhou Wanwan's terms, and Liu Xiuyuan was told to arrange the deeds and lead the villagers up the mountain.
• The trees mocked Luban Village as the villagers passed, and the Old Scholar Tree led Zhou Wanwan away from them.
• At Black Wind Stronghold, the villagers admired the precious trees and imagined what they could make from them, so the trees knocked them to the ground with their roots.

Zhou Wanwan brought the carpenters from Luban Village to Black Wind Stronghold, where the trees had beaten them for threatening to chop them down. Tie Niu and his people asked to become her subordinates, and she accepted while planning to requisition their land for greenhouses.

• The trees in the woods beat the carpenters from Luban Village after they threatened to chop them down, and Zhou Wanwan found them and warned them not to provoke the trees.
• Zhou Wanwan met Tie Niu at Black Wind Stronghold, where he knelt and asked her to take in him and his people because they could no longer feed themselves.
• Tie Niu agreed that the stronghold would belong to Zhou Wanwan, and she told him she would requisition its farmland and require the people to listen to her.
• Zhou Wanwan took Tie Niu and the others to see her greenhouses, where they were astonished to find vegetables growing inside.
• Zhou Wanwan offered them a basket of vegetables and several chickens, while noting that she would need to feed nearly three thousand people as conditions outside worsened.

Zhou Wanwan found a deep water source for the mountain stronghold and went to Zhou Family Village, where she uncovered Old Madam Zhou’s hidden wealth and searched for the family’s grain. The village’s elm tree revealed the grain’s location and then pulled up its roots to leave, while Zhou Wanwan kept the clothes her father had worn as a child.

• Zhou Wanwan ordered wells dug after finding a deep water source and decided to visit Zhou Family Village.
• Old Madam Zhou and her family discussed their new wealth and decided Fourth Son could not be allowed to live if his background proved powerful.
• Zhou Wanwan took the childhood clothes her father had worn and used a narcissus to find silver and jewelry hidden in the Zhou house.
• The narcissus and the village trees gave Zhou Wanwan clues to the Zhou family’s hidden grain.
• Zhou Wanwan gave energy to the elm tree, which pulled its roots from the ground and left the village.

Zhou Wanwan recovered grain and houses from Zhou Family Village, then used her energy to grow a remarkable sweet potato harvest at Black Wind Stronghold. Old Madam Zhou and Cheng Xiao investigated the thefts and began to suspect Zhou Wanwan, learning that she was at Black Wind Stronghold.

• The elm tree spirit led Zhou Wanwan to cellars in Zhou Family Village and on a nearby mountain, where she collected the stored grain.
• The trees brought more than ten houses from Zhou Family Village to Black Wind Stronghold, and Tie Niu praised Zhou Wanwan for providing shelter.
• Zhou Wanwan helped crops sprout in the greenhouses and had Liu Xiuyuan dig up sweet potatoes, finding a large harvest and planting four greenhouses with them.
• Old Madam Zhou discovered that her houses, silver, and the village grain had disappeared, but the constables could not identify the thief.
• At the county yamen, Cheng Xiao and Old Madam Zhou suspected they shared an enemy, Jiang Wu named Zhou Wanwan, and Cheng Xiao said he had heard she was at Black Wind Stronghold.

Zhou Wanwan defended Black Wind Stronghold from Cheng Xiao’s iron-armored troops by cutting the suspension bridge, forcing them to retreat. She then learned from Feng Jiao that Eunuch Hai’s growing influence had brought trouble upon Feng Jiao’s brothers and that the emperor had turned away from governing.

• Cheng Xiao and Old Madam Zhou sent more than five hundred prefectural troops to attack Black Wind Stronghold, and the birds warned Lingbao of their approach.
• Zhou Wanwan gathered her people, ordered the suspension bridge cut, and enlisted Old Scholar Tree to help defend the stronghold.
• The bridge collapsed beneath the advancing soldiers, sending half of them into the Black Wind River and driving the rest to flee.
• Zhou Wanwan told Liu Xiuyuan, Zheng Yuanbao, and Tie Niu that Cheng Xiao and the prefect had forced them to fight back.
• Feng Jiao told Zhou Wanwan that all three of her brothers had been implicated in a treason case and blamed Eunuch Hai’s influence.
• Feng Jiao explained that the emperor had become absorbed in alchemy while taxes rose and officials fought among themselves.

Zhou Wanwan sold vegetables, charcoal, and cloth to Feng Jiao, then went to the market with her companions. There, Jiang Wu’s men confiscated merchants’ goods, and Zhou Wanwan followed a woman home to find her feverish son Huzi neglected by his father.

• Zhou Wanwan advised Feng Jiao to stockpile grain and medicinal herbs, while Feng Jiao said the Feng Clan could not safely withdraw from court.
• Zhou Wanwan sold her vegetables, charcoal, and cloth to Feng Jiao’s steward for silver.
• Zhou Wanwan went to the market with Gu Sinian, Zhou Qingyan, Zhou Qinghe, and Zhou Qingchen, reassuring them that they would not be arrested.
• Jiang Wu announced that officials would confiscate merchants’ grain, cloth, and charcoal, and his men seized goods from the stalls.
• Zhou Wanwan followed a woman whose chicken had been taken and saw her husband beat her while refusing to help their feverish son, Huzi.
• Huzi’s father counted his remaining silver and decided to spend it at the gambling house.

Zhou Wanwan rescued a poor mother and child, saved a village chief in exchange for medicinal herbs, and agreed to lead a group of martial artists to Black Wind Stronghold. The group struggled to climb the mountain while Zhou Wanwan and her companions were pulled upward by the trees.

• Zhou Wanwan took the silver pouch from a gambling husband and invited his sick child and the child's mother to live and work on her mountain.
• Zhou Wanwan treated the village chief with gathered herbs and acupuncture, then promised the villagers a cartload of grain in exchange for their medicinal herbs.
• Zhou Wanwan told Gu Sinian that she could not right every injustice but still wanted to help the villagers, whose livelihood had been suppressed by the county magistrate.
• More than a hundred martial artists stopped Zhou Wanwan's group and demanded directions to Black Wind Stronghold; she offered to guide them by a back path for silver.
• Zhou Wanwan and her companions climbed with help from the trees, while the martial artists struggled and the leader questioned how they were making it look easy.

Zhou Wanwan captured a group of escort guards sent by the prefect to kill everyone in Black Wind Stronghold and made them join the stronghold by clearing wasteland. She put them to work turning the soil on the back of the mountain.

• Zhou Wanwan questioned the climbing guards and learned that the prefect had paid them a thousand taels of silver to attack Black Wind Stronghold.
• Zhou Wanwan revealed that she was the stronghold’s boss, and Little Pine Tree disarmed the leader and captured the guards.
• The guards confessed they belonged to the Heaven and Earth Escort Agency and the Four Seas Escort Agency, and Zhou Wanwan ordered them to stay and work instead of killing them.
• Zhou Wanwan promised the guards a share of the grain they grew and said they could bring their families to the stronghold.
• Zhou Wanwan led the guards to the back of the mountain to clear wasteland, where one guard complained that they were used to holding weapons, not turning soil.

Wang Quan joined Zhou Wanwan’s mountain stronghold after revealing that the prefect was secretly selling iron to Khotan. When the prefect forced Wang Quan and his men to transport another iron shipment there and held their families as leverage, Zhou Wanwan decided to bring the families into the stronghold and travel to Khotan herself.

• Wang Quan swore loyalty to Zhou Wanwan and told her about the prefect’s iron mine and illicit trade.
• Wang Quan and the escorts formally joined Zhou Wanwan’s mountain stronghold, and she allowed them to leave the mountain.
• The prefect ordered Wang Quan to take iron goods to Khotan and exchange them for jade and silk, then kept the men’s families at his residence as leverage.
• Wang Quan and the escorts returned to the mountain stronghold and asked Zhou Wanwan what to do.
• Zhou Wanwan said she would bring their families to the stronghold and accompany them to Khotan, despite Wang Quan warning her of the danger.

Zhou Wanwan prepared to travel to Khotan with Wang Quan and his men, after reassuring them that their families were safe in her stronghold. She expanded plans for the stronghold by relocating timber from a forest and asking Luban Village to build a bridge between the mountain ranges.

• Wang Quan warned Zhou Wanwan that the Khotan mission was dangerous because the second prince commanded more than a hundred thousand soldiers, but Zhou Wanwan insisted on going.
• Wang Quan's men worried that their families had been seized, and Zhou Wanwan led them to the stronghold, where their families had been rescued from the mines and gathered together.
• Tie Niu worried that the stronghold would run out of room, so Zhou Wanwan proposed clearing a neighboring mountain for livestock and crops and connecting it with a bridge.
• Old Scholar Tree led Zhou Wanwan to a forest where loggers were cutting timber, and Zhou Wanwan heard the cries of the spiritually aware trees.
• Zhou Wanwan and the trees moved tens of thousands of logs into the stronghold overnight, and Zhou Wanwan asked the people from Luban Village to build a wooden bridge between the mountain ranges.

Zhou Wanwan traveled toward Khotan for jade, but Zhou Fuyu tried to arrest her and she escaped with her group. The prefect and Cheng Xiao sent forces after her, whose pursuit ended in traps as Zhou Wanwan continued on her way.

• The Luban Village chief agreed to build Zhou Wanwan a wooden bridge, and she departed for Khotan with her companions and a group of trees.
• Zhou Fuyu stopped Zhou Wanwan and ordered his constables to seize her, but Wang Quan and his men defeated them, and Zhou Wanwan struck Zhou Fuyu before leaving.
• Zhou Fuyu told Cheng Xiao that Zhou Wanwan had the prefect's token, and Cheng Xiao set out after her with more than a thousand men.
• The prefect learned that the escort guards had turned against him and ordered troops to pursue Zhou Wanwan after discovering that they had taken his ironware.
• Zhou Wanwan ignored the pursuers, whose horses and carriages fell into pits, while Zhou Fuyu vowed to catch her.

Zhou Wanwan hunted in the deep woods with Wang Quan and relied on the moving trees to catch porcupines and fish for a feast. As the group finished eating at camp, wolves gathered nearby and more than a thousand riders approached, leaving Zhou Wanwan facing danger from both sides.

• Zhou Wanwan led Wang Quan and the others into the woods, where she heard plants complain about porcupines and foxes.
• The Old Scholar Tree and nearby trees attacked four charging porcupines, and Zhou Wanwan sent Wang Quan back with the catch while she explored deeper with the tree.
• The Old Scholar Tree caught fish from a river, and Zhou Wanwan gathered mushrooms and a little wild shepherd's purse before returning to camp.
• Zhou Wanwan and the others roasted porcupine meat and cooked fish soup, then talked about returning up the mountain the next day.
• Wang Quan warned that wolves had arrived, and Zhou Wanwan saw more than a thousand riders galloping toward the camp.

Zhou Wanwan used the Old Scholar Tree to trap Cheng Xiao’s armed group among a pack of hungry wolves, then gathered the spoils and adopted two wolf cubs with Gu Sinian. After traveling for five days, she reached the capital of Khotan and was escorted to the second prince’s residence, where she began questioning a grapevine about its master.

• The Old Scholar Tree trapped the wolves and Cheng Xiao’s armed group in the woods, where the wolves killed most of the soldiers before Zhou Wanwan knocked the survivors unconscious with powder.
• Zhou Qinghe and Zhou Qingyan confronted Zhou Fuyu over his mistreatment of their father, while Zhou Wanwan mocked him before the group collected the dead wolves and stripped the survivors of their belongings and horses.
• Gu Sinian found two wolf cubs beneath their mother, and Zhou Wanwan decided that they would adopt them.
• After five days of travel, Zhou Wanwan and her group reached the capital of Khotan, where a guard recognized the prefect’s token and led them to the second prince’s residence.
• Zhou Wanwan chatted with a grapevine and asked what kind of person its master was.

Zhou Wanwan and her companions exposed the second prince’s plan to seize their supposed weapons and take the women, then searched his residence for valuables. After gathering seeds and learning about the prince’s fruit trees, Zhou Wanwan heard that her mountain stronghold might have a hot spring.

• The second prince tried to take the carriages and keep Zhou Wanwan and the maids, but Zhou Wanwan knocked him and his men unconscious with powder.
• Zhou Wanwan returned to the second prince’s residence and persuaded a jujube tree to come with them by offering it homemade spring water.
• The jujube tree showed Zhou Wanwan the back courtyard’s many fruit trees, including peach and grape varieties.
• Zhou Wanwan found a storeroom full of seeds and put them in Old Scholar Tree’s house.
• A Chinese arborvitae told Zhou Wanwan that her mountain stronghold had a hot spring.

Zhou Wanwan and the trees recruited hundreds of trees from the second prince’s residence, despite opposition from an old walnut tree. After Lingbao found a warehouse full of jade, Zhou Wanwan energized the trees, preparing them to leave.

• The arborvitae told Zhou Wanwan about a warm, sulfur-rich forest north of Black Wind Stronghold, and several trees said they wanted to go there.
• The jujube tree described the second prince’s lavish residence and its vast rooms and jade collection, prompting Old Scholar Tree to suggest recruiting more trees.
• An old walnut tree refused to leave, while a younger walnut tree agreed to go and Zhou Wanwan gave him energy so he could walk.
• The old walnut tree insulted Zhou Wanwan, and Old Scholar Tree and the other trees attacked him, eventually snapping his trunk.
• Old Scholar Tree brought several hundred trees from the woods, and Lingbao found a warehouse filled with jade for Zhou Wanwan.
• Zhou Wanwan sat on a piece of Hetian jade and energized all the recruited trees in half an hour.

Zhou Wanwan’s group escaped the Western Regions with the second prince’s valuables, buildings, and trees, leaving him furious and eager for revenge. After the second prince joined forces with Cheng Xiao to hunt Zhou Wanwan, his death warriors tracked her group as they traveled home.

• The second prince woke in an empty grove, returned to find his residence stripped of its buildings and trees, and ordered the surviving old walnut tree chopped into firewood.
• Zhou Wanwan and her group headed home with gold, valuables, grain, and wheat taken from Khotan.
• Cheng Xiao arrived in the Kingdom of Khotan seeking the second prince, was arrested, and explained that Zhou Wanwan had repeatedly made buildings and warehouses disappear.
• The second prince showed Cheng Xiao the empty foundations of his golden houses and agreed to join forces against Zhou Wanwan, demanding that she be handed over when captured.
• The second prince sent his death warriors after Zhou Wanwan, and the old locust tree warned her that riders were approaching.

Zhou Wanwan decided to raid the second prince’s jade mine to gather jade and strengthen Black Wind Stronghold, explaining her plans to survive the coming drought and protect others. At the mine, she witnessed enslaved Great Xia people being abused, and the workers threatened to eat a child and assault her mother.

• Zhou Wanwan overheard the second prince’s men mention a nearby jade mine and decided to investigate it with Lingbao.
• Zhou Wanwan told Gu Sinian and her brothers that she would take wealth from the second prince and prepare Black Wind Stronghold for a prolonged drought.
• Zhou Wanwan explained that building a larger community could protect people and the treefolk from famine and attacks.
• Zhou Wanwan reached the jade mine and saw enslaved Great Xia people being forced to work under brutal conditions.
• Mine workers seized a one-year-old child and threatened to eat her, while a man ordered the child’s mother to be washed for him.

Zhou Wanwan rescued more than two hundred Great Xia slaves from the mine bosses and sent them away with Wang Quan. She then searched the mine for ore, empowered desert wormwood plants to haul it out, and invited them to come home with her.

• The mine bosses threatened to kill a child and abuse her mother, while boasting that Great Xia would become a vassal of Khotan.
• Lingbao used powders to knock out the mine bosses, and Zhou Wanwan freed the slaves and told Wang Quan to escort them to safety.
• Zhou Wanwan asked the camelthorn plants where the ore was stored, and one pointed her to a nearby house while warning that more ore remained underground.
• Zhou Wanwan entered the mine with Old Scholar Tree and discovered that its roots could not safely dig out the ore.
• Zhou Wanwan gave water and energy to the desert wormwood plants, enabling their underground roots to pry the ore loose.
• Zhou Wanwan invited the desert wormwood plants to come home with her, imagining how they could defend Black Wind Stronghold.

Zhou Wanwan returned to Black Wind Stronghold and found its trees and houses badly damaged by attacks. She repelled the prefect’s latest assault with the help of the birds, then took the soldiers’ weapons and armor back to the stronghold.

• Zhou Wanwan returned to Black Wind Stronghold and healed the trees whose bark had been burned off.
• Tie Niu told Zhou Wanwan that six houses had burned down, while Liu Su'e reported that two people had been injured and urged her to move the stronghold.
• Liu Xiuyuan warned that the prefect’s forces had returned with poison-smoke kites and catapults, backed by 3,000 elite soldiers.
• Lingbao sent pigeons and other birds to seize the kites and carry them back over the soldiers, where their powder exploded.
• Zhou Wanwan revealed that she had switched the kites’ powder, leaving the military adviser and soldiers incapacitated by the smoke.
• Zhou Wanwan led people across a bridge formed by the trees, took all ten catapults and stripped the elite soldiers of their armor.