Chapter Summaries

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.

Zhou Wanwan encouraged Zhou Fusheng to study by suggesting he could become a top scholar and high official, and she checked on the growing schools in the stronghold. The Old Scholar Tree then told her that their new houses had returned and asked where to place them.

• Gu Sinian, Zhou Qingyan, and the other children admired the armor and weapons, and Zhou Wanwan let them choose armor to try on.
• Zhou Fusheng showed Zhou Wanwan that his injured leg had healed and lamented that the people of Zhou Family Village had looked down on him.
• Zhou Fusheng read the Three Character Classic from memory, and Zhou Wanwan, Zhou Qingyan, and Gu Sinian praised his ability and urged him to pursue the examinations.
• Excited by the prospect of surpassing Zhou Fuyu and becoming a high official, Zhou Fusheng decided to stop working in the fields and study.
• Zhou Wanwan discussed adult and children's classes with Liu Su'e, then visited the crowded school and planned to turn returned houses into classrooms.
• The Old Scholar Tree told Zhou Wanwan that their new houses had returned and asked where to put them.

Zhou Wanwan recovered hundreds of luxurious houses and rescued rare medicinal herbs, then set up hot spring pools and discovered that Khotan’s fruit trees had also been taken. The second prince and the prefect prepared to attack Black Wind Stronghold after learning Zhou Wanwan had seized the golden houses.

• Zhou Wanwan found more than five hundred houses, including one filled with valuable medicinal herbs, and agreed to give Lingbao a bath.
• Zhou Wanwan fed energy to the dying herbs, which awakened and feared that a human had come to catch them; Lingbao ordered them to stay in the heated greenhouses.
• Zhou Wanwan and the old locust tree arranged for five hot spring pools to be dug, and she learned that the peach and grape varieties had been cultivated by the second prince.
• The second prince brought several thousand soldiers toward Black Wind Stronghold after losing his fruit trees, while the prefect told Cheng Xiao that an earlier force had returned empty-handed and lost its catapults.
• Cheng Xiao revealed that Zhou Wanwan had also taken the second prince’s more than five hundred golden houses, and the prefect learned the second prince planned to attack Black Wind Stronghold in a few days.

The second prince and Cheng Xiao planned to pressure the mountain stronghold by targeting its allies and relatives, while Cheng Xiao imprisoned Feng Jiao to draw out Zhou Wanwan. Feng Yueyao rescued Feng Jiao with the Old Scholar Tree, and the chapter ended as they heard Feng Jiao’s third brother calling after them.

• The second prince ordered Cheng Xiao to kill the families of the stronghold’s members if they refused to surrender, and Zhou Fuyu suggested arresting people from Wild Field Village.
• Cheng Xiao had Feng Jiao arrested and claimed her family had been exiled, then said he would use her to make Zhou Wanwan come to her rescue.
• Feng Caigu taunted Feng Jiao about her imprisonment and the Feng Clan’s downfall, and Feng Jiao challenged her claims about their family’s past generosity.
• Feng Yueyao arrived on the Old Scholar Tree and took Feng Jiao to its treehouse, where Zhou Wanwan gave her tea.
• Feng Jiao recognized her third brother’s voice as he ran after the walking Old Scholar Tree, and Zhou Wanwan asked the tree to stop.

Feng Yunting joined Feng Jiao and Zhou Wanwan at Black Wind Stronghold, warning that fire and siege weapons could make the wooded settlement vulnerable. Zhou Wanwan discovered Luban Village had already made effective fire extinguishers and ordered them produced in large numbers to protect the forests.

• Feng Yunting arrived as a wanted criminal and told Feng Jiao and Zhou Wanwan that the emperor had purged respected officials and generals, while he had paid to keep his family safe.
• Feng Yunting said he wanted to settle at Black Wind Stronghold and asked Zhou Wanwan about buying tree people, but she explained that only she could operate them.
• Zhou Wanwan showed Feng Yunting and Feng Yueyao around the stronghold, where he pointed out that an army could surround it and set its tree-covered slopes on fire.
• Zhou Wanwan asked the village chief of Luban Village about fire extinguishers and learned that the villagers had already made them using hard-to-find medicinal herbs.
• Zhou Wanwan tested the extinguishers on wood and rapeseed-oil fires, then ordered about a thousand cylinders for every forest; the village chief agreed and said the bridge was finished.

Zhou Wanwan agreed to help Feng Yunting bring his exiled family to Black Wind Stronghold and offered him sweet potato seed stock on the condition that he use it to aid disaster victims. Feng Yunting also showed her Human Ranking jobs, but none interested her, leaving their search for work unresolved.

• Feng Yunting offered Zhou Wanwan a hundred thousand taels to bring his family to Black Wind Stronghold, and she accepted.
• Zhou Wanwan served Feng Yunting a feast and explained how sweet potatoes could produce over nine thousand jin from two crops on a mu of mountain land.
• Zhou Wanwan offered Feng Yunting sweet potato seed stock for free if he would use it to help disaster victims, and he promised to do so through his estates.
• Feng Yunting offered to connect Zhou Wanwan with jobs from the Human Ranking and showed her a booklet of listings.
• Zhou Wanwan found the listed errands and delivery work unappealing, and Feng Yunting noted that none of the jobs interested her.

Zhou Wanwan accepted numerous Earth Ranking missions and set out with Feng Yunting toward Lion Camel Ridge, eager to face its notorious bandits. Feng Yunting warned her about the dangers and revealed he had brought a hundred death warriors as backup.

• Feng Yunting explained that Earth Ranking missions earned points and that Heaven Ranking missions required 100,000 points.
• Zhou Wanwan claimed she had several hundred-year-old purple lingzhi and chose many medicinal-herb, escort, and other Earth Ranking missions.
• Feng Yunting warned that an escort mission carrying three snow ginseng kings would cross the dangerous Lion Camel Ridge and Soul-Severing Gorge, but Zhou Wanwan eagerly decided to visit Lion Camel Ridge.
• Feng Yunting withdrew one hundred thousand taels of silver from one of his remaining money houses, and Old Scholar Tree carried him and Zhou Wanwan toward Qingzhou.
• As Zhou Wanwan rested on the way, Feng Yunting described Lion Camel Ridge’s brutal chieftain and said he had brought a hundred death warriors to protect them.

Zhou Wanwan reached Lion Camel Ridge and learned that its mountain king’s gang preyed on travelers, while Lingbao infiltrated the stronghold and discovered the gang planned to intercept a shipment connected to Eunuch Hai. Lingbao drugged the mountain king, but he woke up and chased it as it fled.

• Zhou Wanwan and Feng Yunting arrived at Lion Camel Ridge, where Old Scholar Tree spoke with the trees and learned the mountain king was powerful and had many stolen treasures.
• The trees revealed that corpses were buried beneath them and mocked Zhou Wanwan’s danger, so Old Scholar Tree pulled them out by their roots.
• Zhou Wanwan suggested entering the stronghold, and Lingbao went ahead to scout while she stayed behind.
• Lingbao overheard the mountain king tell his men that a shipment would pass through their territory the next day and that he planned to rob it despite Eunuch Hai’s request to guard it.
• The mountain king sensed someone nearby, but Lingbao hid underground, followed him to his room, and slipped Zhou Wanwan’s drug into his teapot.
• The mountain king drank the drugged water and collapsed, then woke as Lingbao tried to leave and chased it out of the room.

Zhou Wanwan defeated the chief of Lion Camel Ridge with Old Scholar Tree, claimed the stronghold, and discovered the bandits’ stolen riches and abused captives. She left the surviving bandits alive to work the mountain fields and freed the women, telling them they could go home.

• Old Scholar Tree restrained and beat the old fellow, and Feng Yunting told Zhou Wanwan that defeating the Earth Ranking’s ninety-ninth-ranked fighter gave her his ranking and a token for missions.
• Zhou Wanwan led her companions into Lion Camel Ridge and surveyed its defenses, supplies, and farmland.
• Lingbao found the old fellow’s room crammed with stolen valuables, and Zhou Wanwan decided to keep the bandits alive to work the land instead of killing them.
• Zhou Wanwan and Old Scholar Tree arranged for hundreds of trees to stay and watch over the bandits as they worked.
• Lingbao led Zhou Wanwan to a room containing jars full of women’s heads and dozens of abused women, and Zhou Wanwan told the survivors they could go home.

Zhou Wanwan rescued and treated more than four hundred captive women, then forced Lion Camel Ridge’s bandits to farm and put the upright second-in-command in charge. The next morning, Eunuch Hai’s party arrived at the stronghold, expecting hospitality after paying its people thousands of taels of silver.

• Zhou Wanwan offered the rescued women a place to stay, found more than a dozen women trapped in jars, and treated the captives’ wounds with Lingbao’s bathwater.
• The bandits woke and mourned their dead boss after his head fell from the sky, and Zhou Wanwan gave them the choice to farm or face punishment from the Old Scholar Tree.
• Zhou Wanwan reorganized the stronghold, and the women agreed to contribute while the bandits began farming.
• The stronghold’s second-in-command reported that Eunuch Hai’s party had arrived, and Zhou Wanwan told him to welcome them.
• Eunuch Hai’s young eunuch demanded lodging and reminded the stronghold that its people had taken several thousand taels of silver from his party.

Zhou Wanwan’s tree allies captured Xiao Dezi and the caravan’s advance party, and she questioned him about their cargo and the palace. Xiao Dezi revealed that a much larger shipment was following and described the valuable goods and rare orchids, leaving the fate of the main caravan unresolved.

• The second-in-command led Xiao Dezi and more than 200 men into the mountains, where Zhou Wanwan’s trees subdued them and forced them to work.
• Zhou Wanwan offered Xiao Dezi lighter work in exchange for news, and he explained that the caravan was carrying goods bound for Mobei.
• Xiao Dezi revealed that more than 100 loaded carriages were following the advance party.
• Xiao Dezi recognized Feng Yunting and explained that the court wanted the Feng Clan’s shops, estates, and money houses.
• Xiao Dezi described Noble Consort’s cruelty and said he had volunteered for the journey to escape palace life.
• Zhou Wanwan had Xiao Dezi bring rare orchids into her room, and he explained their value and that the Princess Consort of Mobei had requested them.