Chapter Summaries

Zhang Xuezhou amplified a Ferocious Beast research video to stoke public attention, then turned back to cultivation. Ren Anran brought paintings of the Imperial Lord that revealed his Yang Corporeal Soul had become a human-faced monkey, and she and Zhang Xuezhou realized he could control both bodies—a skill Ren Yisheng might need.

• Zhang Xuezhou posted Ren Yisheng’s Ferocious Beast research video on Flying Entertainment Livestream, boosted its downloads, and erased the records of his actions.
• Zhang Xuezhou considered the risks of drawing attention from Western Capital City and decided he had to keep fighting for his future while reducing threats early.
• Zhang Xuezhou finished directing traffic to the video and resumed his daily cultivation exercises.
• Ren Anran visited Zhang Xuezhou with paintings of the Imperial Lord and explained that the mosasaur blood serum would take another month or two to prepare.
• Ren Anran imitated the Imperial Lord’s words, and Zhang Xuezhou confirmed that the Imperial Lord’s Yang Corporeal Soul had manifested as a monkey while he remained able to control both bodies.
• Ren Anran recognized that the Imperial Lord’s ability to control two bodies could be important for Ren Yisheng.

Ren Yisheng regained consciousness after being frozen for more than a year, shocking Western Capital City’s leaders and giving the elderly residents of Twilight Years Mansion hope that his Mental Strengthening knowledge could prolong their lives. The chapter ended with Ren Yisheng’s condition keeping him from being forced into Twilight Years Mansion, as the old power struggle finally eased.

• Ren Yisheng regained consciousness at Jishi Medical Center, prompting Changkong Yinghao and other Lineage heads to visit him.
• At Twilight Years Mansion, Luo Tianming and the others concluded Ren Yisheng’s return might be connected to his unusually complete Mental Strengthening knowledge.
• The elderly Sequence Holders argued over whether to seek Ren Yisheng’s teachings, but many began studying the Mental Strengthening Chapter they already had.
• Zhang Xuezhou watched the crowds gather around Ren Yisheng and worried about his own future travels between worlds and the possibility of suffering similar bodily damage.
• After reviewing Ren Yisheng’s physical condition, Changkong Yinghao and the others reassured Ren Anran and did not treat Ren Yisheng as a prospective Twilight Years Mansion resident.

Luo Tianming tried to bargain with Ren Anran for the complete Mental Strengthening Chapter in exchange for Professor Luo Hui treating Ren Yisheng. Zhang Xuezhou intervened and warned Luo Tianming that the later chapters might cause dangerous Qi Deviation, leaving the negotiations uncertain.

• Luo Tianming offered Professor Luo Hui's nerve-surgery treatment for Ren Yisheng in exchange for the complete Mental Strengthening Chapter, but Ren Anran hesitated over the risks of sharing it.
• Luo Tianming pressed Ren Anran to consider saving her father, while she weighed the chapter's harmful effects against treating Ren Yisheng with Spirit Jade.
• Ren Wuyang brought Zhang Xuezhou into the negotiation, and Luo Tianming welcomed him as someone easier to deal with.
• Zhang Xuezhou warned Luo Tianming that Professor Ren's cultivation had caused Qi Deviation and nearly killed him, prompting Luo Tianming to reconsider seeking the later chapters.

Luo Tianming weighed the risks of exchanging for the Mental Strengthening Chapter after learning about Ren Yisheng’s past medical crises, then agreed to proceed. Zhang Xuezhou proposed agreements to address both sides’ mistrust, but Luo Tianming remained uncertain whether Professor Luo Hui could restore Ren Yisheng’s health.

• Zhang Xuezhou warned Luo Tianming that Ren Yisheng had suffered Qi Deviation and other serious medical problems while cultivating the Mental Strengthening Chapter.
• Luo Tianming consulted Changkong Luo, Song Xianzhong, and Zuo Lianguang, and Song Xianzhong urged him to obtain the chapter despite the dangers.
• Luo Tianming decided to exchange for the chapter, and Zhang Xuezhou suggested that Ren Anran provide its contents before Professor Luo Hui treated Ren Yisheng.
• Luo Tianming worried that Ren Anran might give him incomplete instructions, and Zhang Xuezhou proposed a liability waiver and a second copy of the chapter from Ren Yisheng after his recovery.
• Luo Tianming accepted the proposal in principle but worried that Professor Luo Hui might not be able to restore Ren Yisheng, complicating the exchange.

Zhang Xuezhou secured Luo Tianming’s agreement to the Mental Strengthening Chapter and learned that the Luo Household might still possess Luo Zhong, a living head with extraordinary mental power. Ren Yisheng decided they needed to investigate the Luo Household, while Zhang Xuezhou hoped its secrets could help them develop further chapters.

• Zhang Xuezhou guided negotiations with Luo Tianming, who signed the contract, provided his fingerprint, and received the Mental Strengthening Chapter key.
• Zhang Xuezhou praised Luo Gaogao’s work on communications satellites, pleasing Luo Tianming and earning his trust.
• Zhang Xuezhou told Ren Yisheng’s dharma body that Luo Burang had described a living head in the Luo Household, likely Luo Zhong, who had survived repeated injections of Heavenly God General Medicine.
• Ren Yisheng realized Luo Zhong might possess mental power beyond his own and said they needed to investigate the Luo Household.
• Zhang Xuezhou suggested they could use the opportunity to obtain an outline of the Mental Strengthening Chapter and develop later chapters, but Ren Yisheng doubted they could succeed.

Ren Yisheng was moved to Professor Luo Hui’s laboratory for treatment, while Ren Anran and Ren Wuyang worried about his recovery and his coming dealings with Luo Zhong. Zhang Xuezhou argued that learning how Luo Hui had controlled Luo Zhong could reduce the danger, and Ren Anran considered how the Mental Strengthening Chapter might complement the Realm Technique.

• Ren Yisheng briefly regained consciousness after two days of treatment, but his long-frozen body remained almost completely paralyzed and required ongoing treatment and stimulation.
• Professor Luo Hui took Ren Yisheng to his laboratory, where he had prepared a dedicated treatment room and suspended urgent research to focus on him.
• Ren Wuyang suggested finding Spirit Jade to heal their father, but Ren Anran pointed out that locating it would be difficult, and Ren Wuyang admitted that finding a Ferocious Beast would be hard.
• Ren Anran worried about Ren Yisheng confronting Luo Zhong, while Zhang Xuezhou said the danger depended on whether they could learn how Luo Hui had kept Luo Zhong under control and obtain Luo Zhong’s Mental Strengthening Chapter.
• Ren Anran reflected that Zhang Xuezhou had advanced to seeking the sixth chapter and that mental-strength training might complement the Realm Technique, potentially enabling a Yang Corporeal Soul Dharma Form in the Body Transformation Realm.

Zhang Xuezhou awoke in the Hall of Mental Cultivation after twelve days of unconsciousness, suffering severe pain from the needles used to keep him alive. His return to consciousness left Medical Officer Chunyu without a reliable treatment for the Grand Empress Dowager, while Grand Princess Dou began weighing how to secure her own future and protect the medical officer.

• Zhang Xuezhou woke in agony, saw the Life-Prolonging Needles covering his body, and recognized that he was in the Hall of Mental Cultivation.
• Medical Officer Chunyu removed the needles and warned that Zhang Xuezhou’s condition was incurable without the Nine Revolutions Qi Uniting Technique.
• Grand Princess Dou realized that the treatment sustaining Zhang Xuezhou might be too painful and uncertain for the Grand Empress Dowager to endure.
• Grand Princess Dou considered the political risks of succeeding the Grand Empress Dowager and concluded she could no longer support replacing the emperor.
• Grand Princess Dou decided she might need to protect Medical Officer Chunyu so she would retain a reliable physician during future magical contests.

After Zhang Xuezhou survived Chunyu’s dangerous Nine Needles treatment, the Grand Empress Dowager hesitated over whether to risk the same procedure and ordered Tiying punished for failing to treat her. Meanwhile, Zhang reassured the anxious Chunyu by claiming his physiognomy guaranteed she would survive her looming crisis.

• The Grand Empress Dowager weighed the risks of Chunyu’s treatment, ordered Tiying to treat Zhang Xuezhou further, and accepted Grand Princess Dou’s recommendation to demote Tiying until she had treated a thousand commoners.
• Zhang Xuezhou recovered consciousness after the needles were removed and teased Chunyu, who feared the Grand Empress Dowager would punish her for ineffective treatment.
• Zhang offered to read Chunyu’s fortune in exchange for her Tenfold Complete Great Tonic Pill, then used a technique that caused him to suffer a backlash.
• Zhang told Chunyu she would survive with only a minor calamity, easing her fear as she awaited the Grand Empress Dowager’s decision.

Chunyu Tiying was stripped of her post and sent home, while Zhang Xuezhou was released from the palace to recuperate at home under medical supervision. As he left, he sought to identify a medicinal pill and asked about the court, while Chunyu weighed the difficulty of eventually returning to service.

• An old eunuch announced that Chunyu Tiying had to cure a thousand difficult cases before returning to the Imperial Medical Hall, and that Zhang Xuezhou could go home or return to the Hall for treatment.
• Zhang Xuezhou asked to go home, and the eunuchs carried him toward Sima Gate while Chunyu followed to collect her belongings.
• Zhang Xuezhou asked whether he could see His Majesty, and the eunuchs told him that the emperor was busy amid the uproar over Zhao Wan and Wang Zang.
• Zhang Xuezhou asked Chunyu about the ingredients in the Tenfold Complete Great Tonic Pill, and she explained its recipe and the difficulty of refining it.
• Chunyu parted from Zhang Xuezhou near the Imperial Medical Hall and remembered his reliable Physiognomy Technique.

Zhang Xuezhou learned that Chunyu Tiying and Zheng Wukong could temporarily suppress the Law Power obstructing his cultivation. After the two treated him with needles, the Yang Corporeal Soul Dharma Form began to fade, leaving Zhang Xuezhou able to experience its disappearance for the first time.

• Zheng Wukong realized Chunyu Tiying and Zhang Xuezhou’s dismissed-and-sent-home arrangement had set a fated calamity in motion, but he believed he could no longer change the outcome.
• Chunyu Tiying offered to help Zhang Xuezhou cultivate normally by temporarily interrupting the Law Power sealing his body, and Zhang Xuezhou agreed to let her and Zheng Wukong treat him.
• Chunyu Tiying persuaded Zheng Wukong to help, arguing that Zhang Xuezhou’s Physiognomy Technique could protect them and their students from calamities.
• Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying inserted needles into Zhang Xuezhou and identified sixty-seven acupoints they could use to counter the Law Power lodged in his body.
• As the two doctors worked, Zhang Xuezhou felt the Yang Corporeal Soul Dharma Form rapidly fade from his body.

Zhang Xuezhou learned that Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying could only temporarily suppress the Yang Corporeal Soul Dharma Form’s Incantation, which grew stronger when he cultivated or took medicine. After his pill broke their barrier, Chunyu Tiying began guiding his cultivation and explained that he would need to control more than twenty thousand minor acupoints to help treat himself.

• Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying used needles and Law Power to build a temporary barrier that kept Zhang Xuezhou from manifesting his Yang Corporeal Soul Dharma Form.
• Zhang Xuezhou revealed that he belonged to the Yin-Yang School’s Nine Heavens Sect, and Zheng Wukong warned that pills could strengthen the Incantation and overwhelm their treatment.
• Zhang Xuezhou accidentally swallowed a Tenfold Complete Great Tonic Pill, which strengthened the Incantation and broke the barrier.
• Chunyu Tiying used needles and Law Power to speed up Zhang Xuezhou’s Nine Revolutions Qi Uniting Technique, while he admitted that enough pills could help him reach the Body Integration Realm.
• Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying told Zhang Xuezhou that he would need to guide the power of more than twenty thousand minor acupoints to help suppress the Incantation.

Zhang Xuezhou learned the Medical School’s Pulse Methods and the Suspended Gourd Sect’s Pulse Classic, and used their combined principles to create a Breathing Method that suppressed the Yang Corporeal Soul Dharma Form within him. He mastered the method almost immediately, leaving Chunyu Tiying and Zheng Wukong astonished and prompting him to reconsider the difficulty of techniques involving all 108,000 acupoints.

• Zheng Wukong shared the Suspended Gourd Sect’s Pulse Classic with Zhang Xuezhou after Chunyu Tiying appealed to him.
• Chunyu Tiying and Zheng Wukong compared their schools’ teachings and devised a Breathing Method to keep the Incantation inside Zhang Xuezhou from breaking through his defenses.
• Zhang Xuezhou used the Breathing Method to force the Yang Corporeal Soul Dharma Form into hiding, gaining temporary freedom to improve his physical cultivation.
• Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying discovered that Zhang Xuezhou had mastered the Breathing Method in a short time and questioned how he had done it.
• Zhang Xuezhou explained that his experience with the Grain Avoidance Instruction and the nine great Evasion Techniques had prepared him to link the acupoints.
• Zhang Xuezhou concluded that the Western Sect’s technique using 108,000 acupoints might be a complex Evasion Technique rather than an impossibly difficult cultivation method.

Zhang Xuezhou listened as Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying compared medical knowledge, while promising to read their fortunes in exchange for more instruction. When Wei Shao'er arrived to check on him and seek help with her pregnancy, the two physicians assessed her symptoms, and Zhang Xuezhou urged her to let them examine her.

• Chunyu Tiying questioned how Zhang Xuezhou had mastered the self-treatment technique so quickly, and he asked her to explain more of the Medical School's Pulse Methods.
• Zheng Wukong asked Zhang Xuezhou to read Yi Shuo's fortune, and Zhang agreed before Zheng began demonstrating the pulse meridians with a wooden figure.
• Wei Shao'er arrived to make sure Zhang Xuezhou was alive and said she was counting on him to help her through childbirth.
• Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying assessed Wei Shao'er's condition, suspecting she had a hidden illness and had taken too many tonics.
• Zhang Xuezhou introduced Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying as physicians and urged Wei Shao'er to let them examine her.

Wei Shao'er sought help for the Demon Power endangering her and her unborn child, and Zhang Xuezhou tried to persuade the physicians Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying to treat her. Zheng agreed for a hundred gold, and Chunyu agreed after Zhang offered her a way to handle a court decree, leaving Wei Shao'er with a chance to receive the help she needed.

• Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying suspected Zhang Xuezhou had used his Physiognomy Technique to guide Wei Shao'er to them.
• Wei Shao'er explained that Demon Power threatened her life and her child's, and Zheng Wukong initially refused to treat her over his concerns about fees and officials.
• Wei Shao'er offered Zheng Wukong a hundred gold, and he agreed to examine her and do his best to protect them both.
• Chunyu Tiying rejected Wei Shao'er's appeal, so Zhang Xuezhou urged her to take the case and promised advice on dealing with a court decree.
• Zhang Xuezhou told Chunyu Tiying to treat nine hundred and ninety-nine cases and leave the thousandth unfinished unless she wanted to return to court, and Chunyu agreed to take Wei Shao'er's case.

Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying discovered that Wei Shao’er’s Annihilation Armor and borrowed male dragon Demon Power made her dangerous childbirth difficult to treat. Chunyu offered to help keep Wei Shao’er alive if she could gather rare medicinal ingredients within three days, leaving Wei Shao’er to decide whether to pay the steep price.

• Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying examined Wei Shao’er and realized her body annihilated Law Power and resisted most healing Techniques.
• Wei Shao’er revealed that she had borrowed a male dragon’s Demon Power, and Zheng Wukong and Chunyu Tiying warned it could alter her body and make childbirth perilous.
• Wei Shao’er explained that Zhang Xuezhou’s Supreme Purity True Technique could stop her bleeding, but his illness might keep him from reaching her in time.
• Zhang Xuezhou asked Chunyu Tiying to help bridge the gap until he could treat Wei Shao’er, and she agreed to intervene.
• Chunyu Tiying demanded three portions each of ten aged medicines within three days, and Wei Shao’er hesitated over the cost.

Chunyu Tiying agreed to use the Technique to keep Wei Shao'er alive, but demanded stringent conditions, while Zhang Xuezhou and Rong Tianding reflected on their treatment by the court and Immortal Court. Zhang urged Rong to seek cultivation, knowledge, ideas, and connections so they could gain enough power to resist others controlling their fate.

• Chunyu Tiying set demanding conditions for treating Wei Shao'er, then left with Zheng Wukong after discussing Pulse Methods and the Pulse Classic with Zhang Xuezhou.
• Zhang Xuezhou decided to visit Yang Mausoleum to investigate the aftermath of the demons' assault and opened the Spirit Jade Wei Shao'er had given him.
• Rong Tianding questioned how the court and Immortal Court treated them, and Zhang Xuezhou reminded him that their apparent losses had also brought gains.
• Zhang Xuezhou told Rong Tianding that they needed cultivation, knowledge, ideas, and connections to move upward and prevent others from manipulating their fate.

Zhang Xuezhou questioned Kong Zhong and the other Confucian scholars about the demons’ attack on the Yang Mausoleum, then investigated the sealed tomb door. He discovered traces of Sha Qi and concluded the mausoleum was dangerous, strengthening his resolve to leave his post there.

• Kong Zhong told Zhang Xuezhou that three great demons had attacked the Yang Mausoleum half a month earlier and that the defenders had received no further orders.
• Kong Zhong and the others recounted how Lu Baibai destroyed their traps, Kong Ning killed many people, and Kong Zhong’s ancestral token drove Lu Baibai away.
• Zhang Xuezhou learned that a fire-skilled demon had entered the imperial mausoleum and that Zhi Buning had entered it but never returned.
• Zhang Xuezhou inspected the icy tomb door, sensed a stench and Sha Qi, and inferred that the Yang Mausoleum’s Two Instruments Formation had been triggered.
• Zhang Xuezhou urged that the area be filled in and ritually suppressed, then considered ways to escape his assignment as Commandant of the Palace Carriage Office.

At the Yang Mausoleum, Zhang Xuezhou warned Kong Zhong and the others that they could be punished for failing to guard the imperial tomb and urged them to seek the Emperor’s mercy before a decree arrived. Kong Zhong led the group to report Zhao Wan and Wang Zang, while Zhang Xuezhou and his companions left for Chang’an, where he admitted he had not expected them to go that far.

• Kong Zhong and the others pressed Zhang Xuezhou for news, and he warned that the Emperor could execute them for failing to protect the ancestral tomb.
• Zhang Xuezhou advised the five to beg the Emperor for mercy before an imperial decree was issued, and Kong Zhong proposed earning merit by reporting Zhao Wan and Wang Zang.
• Kong Zhong produced Sage Kong’s token and led the group toward the Emperor, promising to return once they were safe.
• Zhang Xuezhou left the Yang Mausoleum with Rong Tianding and Song Dongjia and warned the gate guards not to wander among the imperial tombs.
• On the way back to Chang’an, Zhang Xuezhou told Rong Tianding that he had only meant to provoke a plea for mercy, but accepted that the five had chosen to report Zhao Wan and Wang Zang.

The new emperor struggled to choose between obeying the gravely ill grand empress dowager by striking at the Confucian School and risking his rule by defying her. When Kong Zhong arrived with Sage Kong's Token and accused Zhao Wan and Wang Zang of wrongdoing, the new emperor saw a way to act against the Confucian School without alienating the factions that supported him.

• The empress dowager warned the new emperor that the grand empress dowager was testing his allegiance and that delay would worsen his position.
• The new emperor weighed the consequences of attacking the Confucian School, concluding that doing so could leave him powerless while refusing could make him appear disloyal.
• A eunuch reported that Kong Zhong and several great scholars were waiting outside Sima Gate with Sage Kong's Token, and the new emperor decided to receive them personally.
• Kong Zhong knelt before the new emperor and blamed Zhao Wan and Wang Zang for sending the Kong Household to guard Yang Mausoleum against powerful invaders.
• Kong Zhong accused Zhao Wan and Wang Zang of further misconduct, and the new emperor realized he could use the charges to move against the Confucian School without provoking its allied factions.

The new emperor found a way to address the accusations against Zhao Wan and Wang Zang by accepting Kong Zhong’s testimony that they had improperly appointed officials. After learning that Zhang Xuezhou had frightened Kong Zhong into confessing, the emperor summoned Zhang and hosted Kong, hoping the Confucian School leader would help improve his reputation.

• The new emperor accepted Kong Zhong’s confession about Zhao Wan and Wang Zang’s improper appointments as grounds to resolve the accusations against them.
• Kong Zhong and Du Wencai wrote down their testimony and signed it with their fingerprints in exchange for the emperor’s leniency.
• Kong Zhong explained that Dongfang Shuo had warned them they might be executed, prompting them to seek the emperor’s mercy.
• The new emperor ordered his attendants to summon Zhang Xuezhou and reprimanded him for spreading alarming claims about the court.
• The new emperor invited Kong Zhong to a banquet, and Kong praised him as a benevolent ruler.