Recaps

Zhou Wanwan built up Black Wind Stronghold, rescued displaced people, and used the trees to expose corrupt officials and punish those who harmed others. After taking in the Zheng sisters and stripping the Li household, she left the sisters with a place in her growing community and planned to deal with Miss Xu next.

• Tie Niu welcomed Zhou Wanwan’s people to Black Wind Stronghold, and Big Scholar Tree brought Azure Dragon Mountain Stronghold’s old friends to help build houses and greenhouses.
• Zhou Wanwan took Liu Su'e and Liu Xiuyuan to the city, where wanted notices and Cheng Xiao’s collusion with Eunuch Hai revealed dangers surrounding her family and the county.
• Zhou Wanwan used the trees and their medicinal powder to seize the county yamen, its buildings, and a shipment of grain and iron intended for the Snow Khanate.
• Zhou Wanwan revived the stolen medicinal herbs, learned that Xie Cheng'en and the Xie Family had sought them for Noble Consort Ning, and took the Xie courtyard and its possessions back to Black Wind Stronghold.
• Cheng Xiao and Jiang Wu used Old Madam Zhou’s advice to raid Zheng Yuanbao’s family, but Zhou Wanwan helped Zheng Yuanbao recover his father’s savings and reunite with his sisters.
• Zhou Wanwan rescued the Zheng sisters and their maids from Azure Dragon Mountain Stronghold, then had the trees carry the entire stronghold to her home.
• Zhou Wanwan took the Zheng sisters to their fiancés, where Eldest Miss Zheng learned Scholar Li had married someone else and been cheated of her family’s jade pendant.
• Zhou Wanwan moved the Li family’s house and possessions to the mountain stronghold, while Eldest Miss Zheng declined her jewelry and offered the sisters’ skills in return for a place with Zhou Wanwan.

Zhou Wanwan built Black Wind Stronghold into a refuge, gathering families, craftsmen, guards, and tree spirits while defeating the prefect’s forces. After rescuing enslaved Great Xia people and taking resources from Khotan, she returned to find the stronghold under attack and turned the prefect’s weapons against his soldiers.

• Zhou Wanwan exposed Zhou Yi and Yaoniang’s affair, helped the Xu Family escape the Zhou Family’s retaliation, and brought them under her protection at Black Wind Stronghold.
• Zhou Wanwan defeated bandits, rescued the craftsmen of Luban Village, and accepted Tie Niu and his people into the growing stronghold.
• Zhou Wanwan recovered the Zhou Family’s hidden grain and repelled an attack by prefectural troops, then prepared for worsening hardship as officials seized people’s goods.
• Zhou Wanwan recruited guards whose families the prefect had taken hostage, rescued those families, and set out for Khotan to retrieve them and confront the prince.
• Zhou Wanwan defeated Cheng Xiao’s pursuers, reached Khotan, and took valuables, seeds, grain, and tree spirits from the second prince’s residence.
• Zhou Wanwan freed Great Xia slaves from a jade mine and used desert wormwood roots to bring up its ore.
• Zhou Wanwan returned to Black Wind Stronghold, healed burned trees, and used the trees and sabotaged poison-smoke kites to defeat the prefect’s 3,000 elite soldiers and seize their catapults.

Zhou Wanwan expanded her allies and resources by taking over Lion Camel Ridge, rescuing exiles and prisoners, and settling thousands of people there. She returned to find Black Wind Stronghold burned, healed its injured residents, resolved Liu Fugui’s marriage dispute, and put captured bailiffs to work farming.

• Zhou Fusheng showed Zhou Wanwan that his leg had healed, recited the Three Character Classic, and decided to study for the examinations while Zhou Wanwan planned more classrooms for the crowded school.
• Zhou Wanwan took Feng Jiao in after Cheng Xiao arrested her, welcomed Feng Yunting and his family for a hundred thousand taels, and equipped the stronghold with fire extinguishers.
• Zhou Wanwan traveled with Feng Yunting to Lion Camel Ridge, drugged and defeated its mountain king, and chose to keep the bandits alive as farmers while freeing the women they had abused.
• Zhou Wanwan seized the stolen cargo and supplies, then rescued Feng Jiao’s father and other prisoners from the logging camp and recruited exiles, soldiers, and former officials from Ningguta.
• Zhou Wanwan accepted Zhao Muyuan and his family from the village atop Soul-Severing Cliff, then settled fifty thousand newcomers at Lion Camel Ridge and returned toward Black Wind Stronghold.
• Zhou Wanwan found Black Wind Stronghold ablaze, healed Liu Fugui and Liu Shugen’s burns, and helped Liu Fugui learn that Xiugu had been the one who saved him as a child.
• Zhou Wanwan arranged Xiugu and Liu Fugui’s wedding, then defeated the cousin and bailiffs who accused her group of being bandits and sent the captives to farm.
• Zhou Wanwan discovered that Lingbao’s rootlets could grow into ginseng seedlings when cultivated with her energy, and she planted more than fifty seedlings near the village.

Zhou Wanwan claimed treasure, aided famine-struck villages, and showed the Zhou family how prosperous Black Wind Stronghold had become. Pei Yong and Shen Chaoge joined her, while the Zhou family stayed in the stronghold and plotted to uncover its secrets for the county magistrate.

• Zhou Wanwan ransomed the second prince of Khotan, claimed his cannons and goods, and made him remove the wanted notices for her and her people.
• Zhou Wanwan found hidden gold and grain on Long Live Mountain, then gave grain and aid to starving villagers in exchange for control of their land and produce.
• Zhou Wanwan confronted Cheng Chao at a brothel, while Cheng Xiao discovered that his hidden treasure was gone and the Zhou family began seeking access to Black Wind Stronghold.
• Zhou Fusheng visited his grandparents, and Zhou Wanwan later welcomed the Zhou family and villagers to the stronghold, where they saw its fine homes, school, and abundance.
• Pei Yong arrived with sixty thousand soldiers and 2,652 survivors of the Shen Clan Army, explained the court’s order to attack, and offered to join Zhou Wanwan with knowledge of a gold mine.
• Zhou Family Village visitors tried to fish in the stronghold’s pond and were attacked by its creatures, then pleaded to stay as Zhou Fusheng rejected their past mistreatment of him.
• Qian Huihui led the visitors to investigate the stronghold’s forbidden area, where Zhou Wanwan’s trees terrified them with animated bones and corpses.
• After the visitors awoke shaken, Qian Huihui paid Zhou Wanwan for food and clothing, then persuaded Old Madam Zhou to continue exploring so they could report back to the county magistrate.