Chapter Summaries

The Yu family discovered that all 36 of its estates had been stripped bare, while Zhou Wanwan’s spiritually cultivated produce sold out amid a craze for goods said to prolong life. As nobles bought white corn through Xiao Jiu, Princess Jing'an proposed hiring the Jianghu Alliance to find the thieves who robbed the Yu estates.

• The stewards told the Yu family head that every one of the 36 estates had been looted, and he fainted after seeing the emptied mountain estate.
• Zhou Wanwan learned that customers had bought out her shops and ordered the remaining supplies divided equally among the shopkeepers.
• Xiao Jiu told Zhou Wanwan that Xie Cheng'en and Princess Jianing had made him an imperial merchant after officials demanded her white corn and other produce.
• Princess Jing'an and Princess Ningyuan bought white corn from Xiao Jiu, while Princess Jianing took the remaining sacks.
• The Yu family head told Princess Ningyuan and Princess Jing'an that his estates had been robbed, and Princess Jing'an suggested hiring the Jianghu Alliance to investigate.

The Yu Family head paid the Thousand Mechanisms Pavilion to identify who had stolen from their estates, and Zhou Wanwan falsely blamed the Xie Family. After finding Yu property on a Xie estate, the Yu Family head confronted the Xie Family head, who denied stealing anything.

• Prince Consort Jing'an led Princess Jing'an and the Yu Family head to the Jianghu Alliance's Thousand Mechanisms Pavilion, where they paid fifty thousand taels to investigate the thefts.
• Zhou Wanwan learned of the order and told the pavilion to blame the Xie Family, while planning to bring news of Old General Xie's defeat to the palace.
• The Yu Family head received the pavilion's answer, “Xie Family,” and told Princess Jing'an and Princess Ningyuan.
• Princess Jing'an sent hidden guards to investigate Xie Family estates, where they found cattle from Yu estates and other apparent similarities.
• The Yu Family head brought estate managers to a Xie Family estate, and they identified cattle they had raised.
• The Xie Family head arrived and denied stealing from the Yu Family as the Yu Family head demanded an explanation for the cattle, fruit trees, and poultry.

The Yu Family head accused the Xie Family head of having the goods stolen from more than thirty estates moved onto his estate, but neither could explain how it happened. An urgent border report then revealed that Old General Xie had been defeated and captured, and Qin Shan was summoned to lead the poorly equipped border defense army to the front.

• The Yu Family head found goods from his estates on the Xie Family's estate, while the Xie Family head denied taking them.
• The Yu Family head and the Xie Family head brought their dispute before the emperor, and Noble Consort Ning insisted her family had no need for the goods.
• Eunuch Hai delivered news that Old General Xie had been defeated and captured, and Noble Consort Ning urged the emperor to send Qin Shan with the border defense army.
• Qin Shan objected to being sent against Great Qi with just over ten thousand men, but went to the palace to hear the emperor's orders.
• The emperor told Qin Shan to defend the fallen border and bring Old General Xie back.

Qin Shan secured full command authority and supplies for the campaign to rescue the trapped forces at Yannan Pass, then consulted Zhou Wanwan about fighting Great Qi. Zhou Wanwan decided to travel to the border pass with the main force, leaving the army's preparations and promised supplies uncertain.

• Qin Shan demanded authority over the troops, equipment and provisions, and the emperor agreed to his conditions after Qin Shan warned that the rescue could not succeed otherwise.
• Shen Xiao told Qin Shan that the Border Pass Army had gone three years without pay or supplies, and the emperor ordered the missing pay investigated and made up.
• Qin Shan visited Zhou Wanwan, who supported fighting Great Qi and said she wanted to see the border pass.
• Master Zhu could not dissuade Zhou Wanwan from going to the battlefield, while Zhao Muyuan supported the trip.
• Zhou Wanwan decided to set out that night with the main force, and Qin Shan worried that Noble Consort Ning might not send the promised supplies.

Zhou Wanwan prepared to travel to Great Qi while arranging shelter and meals for candidates affected by the imperial examination delay. As Qin Shan's army marched toward the border, Noble Consort Ning plotted to divert its supplies, Eunuch Hai escaped an assassination attempt and left the capital with his house, and Qin Shan questioned whether the court would send provisions.

• Zhou Wanwan decided to visit Great Qi and offered the family estates as lodging and food for candidates struggling after the examinations were postponed.
• Qin Shan set out for the border with more than twenty thousand soldiers, and Noble Consort Ning arranged for the army's supplies to be traded to the Mobei Uyghurs.
• Noble Consort Ning ordered Eunuch Liu to have Eunuch Hai killed, but Eunuch Hai escaped the attackers with help from the trees.
• Eunuch Hai had the trees carry his and Eunuch Liu's houses toward Dongbei Prefecture, taking his family and valuables with him.
• Zhou Wanwan began her journey, while Qin Shan ordered his troops to rest and questioned Shen Xiao's expectations that court supplies would arrive.

Qin Shan recruited Shen Xiao and his border troops by offering food, equipment, and a deed of sale, then introduced Zhou Wanwan as their master. Zhou Wanwan revealed that she had intercepted Noble Consort Ning’s supplies, and the chapter ended with the Brocade Guard finding no trace of the forest where the shipment vanished.

• Qin Shan offered Shen Xiao and the border troops food, armor, and weapons in exchange for signing deeds of sale, and they agreed.
• Zhou Wanwan arrived, recognized Shen Xiao’s military service, and ordered him and his men to follow Qin Shan.
• Zhou Wanwan told Qin Shan that she had intercepted the supplies Noble Consort Ning planned to sell, and more than three hundred supply-laden trees arrived.
• Eunuch Liu reported that the supplies he had escorted had vanished after his party lost consciousness, but his search of nearby bandit strongholds found no answer.
• Noble Consort Ning sent the Brocade Guard to investigate, and they reported that the forest Eunuch Liu described was nowhere to be found.

Zhou Wanwan reached the border with the Border Pass Army and went undercover to see Great Qi’s military camp, where she and hundreds of captives were imprisoned. There, Mu Qing told her about the suffering caused by the war and Great Xia’s corrupt military supplies.

• Noble Consort Ning ordered the Brocade Guard to find Zhou Wanwan, but learned that she had left on a trip.
• Zhou Wanwan and the Border Pass Army arrived near Yanmen Pass and saw a desolate region filled with corpses.
• Great Qi soldiers captured Zhou Wanwan, Zheng Xing'an, and hundreds of other people, then took them to their military camp.
• Mu Qing tried to protect Zhou Wanwan and urged her to escape, explaining that the border town of Sunset Town was caught between the armies.
• At the camp, Mu Qing told Zhou Wanwan that Great Xia soldiers received moldy rice, ragged clothing, and rusty weapons, and that many had starved or frozen to death.

Zhou Wanwan and Mu Qing witnessed the Great Qi soldiers tormenting captive women, while Old Scholar Tree secretly intervened and stole food for them. Zhou Wanwan silenced Zhao Yue'e and her servants when they threatened her, and Old Scholar Tree later brought the captives more food.

• Mu Qing told Zhou Wanwan that Great Xia was near collapse as Great Qi soldiers whipped a woman who tried to escape, until Old Scholar Tree dragged away her attacker and left him a dried corpse.
• The Great Qi general ordered the corpse burned and forbade the soldiers from speaking about the incident, then told them to guard the captive women.
• Old Scholar Tree stole six roasted sheep, seasoned them for Zhou Wanwan, and Zhou Wanwan shared the meat with the women in the cages.
• Zhao Yue'e threatened Zhou Wanwan after accusing her of stealing, so Zhou Wanwan took back her food and slapped her.
• Old Ancestor sewed Zhao Yue'e's mouth shut, then silenced her servants when they tried to summon help.
• Old Scholar Tree brought Zhou Wanwan and the captive women roast chicken, soy-braised beef, and fruit.

Zhou Wanwan freed the captive women, explored the Great Qi military camp with Mu Qing, and discovered a plan to massacre Yanmen Pass. She then visited Great Xia’s impoverished camp, where Mu Qing warned her father that Great Qi was preparing to attack.

• Zhou Wanwan shared her fruit and roast chicken with the children, then freed the women from the iron cage while Mu Qing stayed with her.
• Zhou Wanwan and Mu Qing explored the Great Qi camp and found its extensive training grounds, supplies, and defenses.
• Zhou Wanwan entered the command tent and found everyone unconscious, then discovered confidential letters revealing a plan to massacre Yanmen Pass the following night.
• Mu Qing said more than a hundred thousand Great Xia soldiers and twenty thousand civilians were trapped at Yanmen Pass, facing over two hundred thousand elite Great Qi troops.
• Zhou Wanwan and Mu Qing went to Great Xia’s shabby camp, where Mu Qing’s father, Mu Daniu, told her to go home.
• Mu Qing warned Mu Daniu that Great Qi was going to attack Yanmen Pass that day.

Zhou Wanwan joined Mu Daniu, Mu Qing, and thousands of battered Great Xia soldiers marching toward Yanmen Pass to fight the Great Qi invaders. After hearing that General Qin Shan and the Border Pass Army had returned, Zhou Wanwan began to reconsider her reluctance to take responsibility for Great Xia’s people.

• Mu Daniu planned to march to Yanmen Pass despite the danger, and Zhou Wanwan insisted on going with him and Mu Qing.
• On the journey, Zhou Wanwan told an old soldier she would be their commander, while he promised to protect her.
• The old soldier explained that the volunteers were risking their lives to protect Great Xia’s civilians and their descendants.
• Seeing the soldiers’ resolve, Zhou Wanwan felt a desire to protect them and questioned her choice to avoid becoming emperor.
• As the group reached Yanmen Pass, soldiers heard that General Qin Shan and the Border Pass Army had returned, and Mu Qing tearfully said the border was saved.

Zhou Wanwan arrived at Great Wall Ridge with the surviving border soldiers and was recognized as their master, then ordered grain distributed to the starving town. She gathered Mu Qing and others into her service, while Qin Shan expelled Zhao Cong for insulting her.

• Mu Qing and the other soldiers reached Great Wall Ridge and asked to join its defenders.
• The gate soldiers knelt when Zhou Wanwan registered, and Qin Shan and Shen Xiao also bowed to her as their master.
• Qin Shan told Zhou Wanwan that more than eight thousand people lived in Great Wall Ridge in severe poverty.
• Zhou Wanwan ordered the supplies from the capital distributed as porridge and invited Mu Qing to serve beside her under a contract of servitude.
• Zhao Cong challenged Zhou Wanwan's authority, so Qin Shan slapped him and ordered him expelled from Great Wall Ridge.

Zhou Wanwan distributed porridge and treated the starving people at Great Wall Ridge before setting out with Qin Shan for Yanmen Pass. There, Qin Shan killed Deputy General Du Fei for planning to abandon the civilians, and Zhou Wanwan learned that more than 180,000 people were trapped without food or water.

• Zhao Cong left Great Wall Ridge but hid nearby with his men and planned to kidnap Zhou Wanwan.
• Zhou Wanwan handed out porridge, examined sick disaster victims, and promised the people she would keep them from going hungry.
• The Great Qi army prepared to attack Yanmen Pass while its defenders discussed fleeing and leaving the civilians behind.
• Qin Shan and Zhou Wanwan entered Yanmen Pass, where Qin Shan killed Du Fei after hearing his plan to sacrifice the civilians.
• The trees told Zhou Wanwan that more than 180,000 civilians were trapped at Yanmen Pass, many eating Guanyin soil, and that the city still had 110,000 soldiers.

Zhou Wanwan and Qin Shan purged corrupt generals at Yanmen Pass and used the trees to stop Great Qi’s assault. As Great Qi began ramming all four city gates, Zhou Wanwan sat down to dinner, leaving the city’s defense unresolved.

• Qin Shan killed a defiant general, and Zhou Wanwan used the trees to identify traitors before executing two more generals and imprisoning five.
• Zhou Wanwan accepted six generals as followers and promised the hungry defenders plenty of food if they won the battle.
• Qin Shan led the defense of Yanmen Pass as Great Qi attacked, while trees snatched thousands of climbing soldiers from the walls.
• Great Qi’s generals ordered tens of thousands of troops to ram all four city gates, alarming Shen Xiao and the Great Xia soldiers.
• Old Scholar Tree asked whether Zhou Wanwan was hungry, and she requested dinner as the gates came under attack.

Zhou Wanwan and Qin Shan ate mutton soup while her power wiped out the Great Qi soldiers who entered the city. Meanwhile, Zhou Wanwan emptied the palace inner treasury, and Noble Consort Ning and the emperor failed to discover who had taken everything.

• Old Scholar Tree served Zhou Wanwan, Qin Shan, and Shen Xiao Great Qi imperial dishes while the city was under attack.
• Zhou Wanwan's force pulled tens of thousands of Great Qi soldiers away as they rushed through the city gate, prompting their general to order a retreat.
• Zhou Wanwan told Qin Shan she would rescue Old General Xie that night and make Noble Consort Ning pay for it.
• The emperor and Noble Consort Ning found the inner treasury empty and ordered officials and the Brocade Guard to investigate, but they found no clues.
• Noble Consort Ning suspected Zhou Wanwan, but the officials dismissed the possibility because she was a five-year-old girl supposedly sightseeing at the borderlands.
• Eunuch Liu returned to report that his home had been emptied, and Princess Jianing heard Noble Consort Ning lament the loss of her treasured belongings.

Zhou Wanwan looted the defeated soldiers and Yanmen Pass, then decided the city belonged to her and needed rebuilding. She traveled with Old Scholar Tree and a large group of trees to Suiyuan City in Great Qi, where she considered taking the prosperous city for Great Xia.

• Noble Consort Ning and Princess Jianing lamented that their jewelry was gone, while Zhou Wanwan admired the treasure taken from Great Qi's soldiers and resumed grain distribution.
• Zhou Wanwan persuaded the trees around Yanmen Pass to reveal valuables buried by their former masters, and she recovered coins, silver, gold, and other treasures.
• Zhou Wanwan planned to open a bank and an escort agency, then learned that Yanmen Pass's shops were nearly worthless and that the city was hers to claim.
• Zhou Wanwan surveyed Yanmen Pass's ruined buildings and walls and decided to improve the city rather than leave it as it was.
• Old Scholar Tree led Zhou Wanwan into Great Qi, where they found prosperous Suiyuan City and brought more than three thousand trees to help take it.

Zhou Wanwan and the trees dismantled Suiyuan City's walls and houses and rebuilt Yanmen Pass into a much larger, sturdier city, exhausting themselves in the process. She fell asleep at an inn, while Suiyuan City's lord woke to find his mansion gone and demanded to know where it was.

• Zhou Wanwan empowered the trees, who tore down Suiyuan City's walls and persuaded the local trees to join them.
• The newly mobile trees ran around the city at night before returning to demolish the remaining walls and move Suiyuan City's houses to Yanmen Pass.
• The trees demolished Yanmen Pass's old houses and rebuilt them, expanding the city and constructing strong cement walls.
• After spending the night replenishing the trees' spiritual power, Zhou Wanwan drank ginseng soup and went to sleep at a luxurious inn.
• Suiyuan City's lord woke in mud, discovered his mansion was missing, and asked where it had gone.

Suiyuan City’s buildings and walls vanished overnight, while Yanmen Pass gained new houses and Zhou Wanwan received the allegiance of trees carrying supplies. With porridge supplies dwindling as more people arrived, Zhou Wanwan planned to bring water from the distant Heaven-Reaching River to reclaim wasteland.

• Suiyuan City’s lord discovered that the entire city had disappeared and asked the governor for help, but investigators found no trace of where it had gone.
• People in Yanmen Pass woke to find new brick-and-tile houses, and Old Scholar Tree explained that Suiyuan City’s lord had been wealthy and well-connected.
• Zhou Wanwan welcomed trees from Suiyuan City, accepted their offerings, and gave them spiritual energy in exchange for their pledge of allegiance.
• Zheng Xing'an told Zhou Wanwan that distributing porridge required more than 800 sacks of rice a day and might not be sustainable as outsiders kept arriving.
• Zhou Wanwan proposed reclaiming wasteland by digging a waterway from the Heaven-Reaching River and planned to buy estates to establish its route.

Zhou Wanwan cured five plague victims and learned that they had fled Crushed Sand Fort, where the people were to be burned alive. She hurried there with Qin Shan and the trees, arriving to find Zhao Zilong in charge of the fort.

• Qin Shan warned Zhou Wanwan that plague had reached the city, and trees told her that Lin Bahu of Great Qi had deliberately spread it.
• Zhou Wanwan entered a sickroom despite Qin Shan's objections and worked with Old Scholar Tree and Old Ancestor to draw the toxins from five patients.
• One cured patient told Zhou Wanwan that Crushed Sand Fort was sealed and its people were to be burned, while his children remained there.
• Zhou Wanwan, Qin Shan, and more than a dozen trees raced to Crushed Sand Fort, where Qin Shan identified himself to the soldiers.
• Zhao Zilong greeted Qin Shan, and trees explained that Great Qi had targeted Zhao because he treated his soldiers and the common folk well.

Zhou Wanwan entered Crushed Stone Fort and cured the villagers suffering from the plague with help from Old Scholar Tree, Old Ancestor, and other trees. She then sent Old Scholar Tree to Lin Bahu’s camp, where he stole the general’s treasures and infected him with the plague.

• Zhao Zilong refused to open the gate to Crushed Stone Fort, fearing the plague would spread, while Zhou Wanwan went inside with Old Scholar Tree and Old Ancestor.
• Zhou Wanwan learned that the people in Crushed Stone Fort had the plague and persuaded a villager to take her to the sick.
• Zhou Wanwan and the trees treated the patients, and she cured the reported cases across the villages over two days.
• Zhou Wanwan told Old Scholar Tree to take the plague to Lin Bahu, and he secretly infected the general while taking more than twenty chests of treasure from his camp.
• Lin Bahu discovered the missing treasure and later learned from the military physicians that he had contracted the plague.

Zhou Wanwan bought up the estates around Yanmen Pass and ordered the people there to work the fields while she arranged to provide for the elderly and children. In the capital, families feared an imperial order would force three young women into the palace, but the edict instead matched Su Zhixia, Feng Yueyao, and Shen Yunshu to their betrothed Zhou brothers and bestowed lavish wedding gifts.

• Zhou Wanwan said she would acquire the nearby estates for ten sacks of grain each, and Shen Xiao reported that she had obtained all 168.
• Zhou Wanwan ordered the estate workers to cultivate the fields in exchange for food and promised support for the elderly and children; Shen Xiao noticed the city lord's water vats were full.
• Zhou Wanwan learned that Noble Consort Ning planned to match Su Zhixia, Feng Yueyao, and Shen Yunshu with members of the imperial family, and she sent a letter urging their families to wait.
• The families in the capital worried over the expected imperial edict, while Princess Jing'an and Princess Ningyuan taunted the eldest princess and her family.
• The eunuch read the edict matching Su Zhixia with Zhou Qingyan, Feng Yueyao with Zhou Qinghe, and Shen Yunshu with Zhou Qingchen, then presented abundant wedding gifts.