Chapter Summaries

Zhang Xuezhou reopened the Yellow Springs passage at Fengxi Marsh and followed Hongku’s clues toward the dragon’s head. He reached the place where the King of Liang had begun his formation, suspecting it held an opportunity to cultivate the Fortune Technique.

• Zhang Xuezhou returned to Fengxi Marsh at night, imitated the new emperor’s tribute, and reopened the underground passage to the Yellow Springs.
• Zhang Xuezhou used the Ring of Method Control and a Water Avoidance Instruction to enter the Yellow Springs, where he found Hongku’s writing and route sketch.
• Zhang Xuezhou followed Hongku’s deductions toward the dragon’s head, using the Peacock Great Wisdom King’s feather and a Dust Avoidance Instruction to pass through soil.
• Zhang Xuezhou emerged on a green rock slab at the place where the King of Liang had begun building his formation and recognized it as a likely site for cultivating the Fortune Technique.

Zhang Xuezhou cultivated the Fortune Technique at the place where Emperor Gaozu slew the dragon and discovered that a being named Bai was trapped beneath the King of Liang’s spike. Bai explained the power of favor and predicted that the King of Liang’s fate could become Zhang Xuezhou’s own.

• Zhang Xuezhou gathered golden light from the dragon’s head and used Letting Be to cultivate the Fortune Technique, causing his power to increase.
• Bai spoke from beneath the spike and offered Zhang Xuezhou the world’s favor if he pulled it out.
• Zhang Xuezhou questioned Bai about favor and malice, then showed him the Ring of Method Control and the Peacock Great Wisdom King’s feather.
• Bai recognized the ring as his own and rejoiced when Zhang Xuezhou confirmed that the King of Liang was dead.
• Bai explained that the King of Liang had borrowed only part of his power of favor and had eventually suffered its backlash.
• Zhang Xuezhou realized that the King of Liang’s fate might someday be his own.

Zhang Xuezhou persuaded White to teach him the Dragon-Riding Technique and learned its limits and White’s reliance on the Power of Favor. White realized Zhang Xuezhou could absorb that power, leaving their relationship uncertain as he suspected Zhang might be a rival.

• Zhang Xuezhou pressed White for guidance and persuaded him to explain the Dragon-Riding Technique.
• White explained that the technique transferred its user to a marked dragon lair within a hundred li, making it useful mainly for escape.
• White described his Power of Favor and said its underlying Principle could not be bestowed on Zhang Xuezhou.
• White realized Zhang Xuezhou had absorbed some of his Power of Favor when he shook the iron spike.
• Zhang Xuezhou suggested he might not live another twenty years, and White lamented that the people reaching him were weak potential rivals who could absorb the Power of Favor.

Zhang Xuezhou used his blood to take form as a fish dragon in Bai’s soul space, gaining a stronger perception of favor and a body suited to water. Bai then strengthened his Fortune Body, which grew scales and three-clawed forefeet before Zhang Xuezhou returned to the bluestone rock.

• Zhang Xuezhou argued that gaining the power of favor could affect the Great Han Dynasty and possibly help Bai escape its suppression.
• Bai asked Zhang Xuezhou to put blood on the long nail and used the space to help him take form.
• Zhang Xuezhou appeared as a fish dragon, and Bai explained that he could better sense and benefit from favor in bodies of water.
• Bai breathed golden light onto Zhang Xuezhou, enlarging his Fortune Body and giving it fine scales and three-clawed forefeet.
• Zhang Xuezhou returned to the bluestone rock beside the nail, still holding the Golden Crow Great Emperor's feather.

Zhang Xuezhou escaped the Yellow Springs after realizing Bai had not answered the new emperor’s ancestral sacrifice, then searched Fengxi Marsh for the true source of the sign. He encountered Li Shaojun digging for a ginseng doll, and Li Shaojun inferred that Zhang Xuezhou had met the person who knew his secret.

• Bai promised Zhang Xuezhou further benefits if he removed the Soul-Suppressing Nail, undermined the Great Han Dynasty, and found him a suitable body, then fell asleep in the Yellow Springs.
• Zhang Xuezhou traveled through the Yellow Springs, realized water improved his condition, and questioned whether Bai was responsible for the new emperor’s sacrificial sign.
• After the Yellow Springs receded, Zhang Xuezhou emerged by Fengxi Marsh and repeatedly recited the ancestral prayer while searching for its hidden source.
• Zhang Xuezhou found Li Shaojun digging for a slippery ginseng doll and asked about his technique for dying ninety-nine times.
• Li Shaojun realized Zhang Xuezhou knew his secret and concluded that Zhang Xuezhou must have met the person who revealed it.

Zhang Xuezhou caught Li Shaojun digging at Fengxi Marsh and learned he was searching for a passage into an Underworld Secret Land near Bai. Li Shaojun revealed that Bai could inflict bad luck on people who had paid a price to meet him, leaving Zhang Xuezhou to consider whether Bai could do the same to him.

• Zhang Xuezhou confronted Li Shaojun about digging at Fengxi Marsh and asked whether he was trying to reach Bai.
• Li Shaojun chased after Zhang Xuezhou and proposed they work together to find a rumored secret land.
• Li Shaojun explained that the land might be an Underworld Secret Land, which contained cold Spiritual Qi and potentially valuable treasures.
• Li Shaojun told Zhang Xuezhou that Bai could remember a person's scent from their blood, hair, nails, or clothing and make them suffer misfortune.
• Li Shaojun recounted how Bai's quarter-hour curse made him fall, get soaked, be bitten by a snake, and struck by lightning.
• Zhang Xuezhou wondered whether Bai could make him unlucky, since his Fortune Technique might counter the effect.

Li Shaojun persuaded Zhang Xuezhou to stay at Fengxi Marsh and help investigate a possible Netherworld Underworld secret realm. After Zhang left, Li Shaojun entered the hidden space beneath the marsh, where poisonous miasma drifted around a pale yellow stream.

• Li Shaojun asked Zhang Xuezhou to help search Fengxi Marsh for a secret realm, offering to split any treasures equally.
• Zhang Xuezhou agreed to stay, helped Li Shaojun dig a deep pit, then left as night approached.
• Li Shaojun used the Treasure-Seeking Technique and saw colorful poisonous miasma rise briefly from the pit before it vanished.
• Li Shaojun used the Earth Escape Technique to burrow into the pool and entered a cold, dim space where miasma drifted around a pale yellow trickle.

Zhang Xuezhou discovered that the Marquis of Sui's Pearl was stirring the Yellow Springs Water, and followed it to an Underworld Secret Land. After entering, he found the place seemed to have been visited by the King of Liang and contained no Spiritual Qi.

• Zhang Xuezhou wandered through the Yellow Springs while waiting for Li Shaojun's plan to reveal the Underworld Secret Land.
• Zhang Xuezhou realized the Marquis of Sui's Pearl was disturbing the Yellow Springs Water and tossed it into the river.
• Zhang Xuezhou followed the pearl to the dragon's tail, where the Yellow Springs Water vanished beside a huge black boulder, and entered the secret land.
• Zhang Xuezhou secured the pearl, checked that he could return, and explored the secret land.
• Zhang Xuezhou suspected the King of Liang had visited the secret land before and discovered that it had no Spiritual Qi.

Zhang Xuezhou discovered that the black boulder suppressing Bai could turn Yellow Springs Water into Fortune, and his Fortune Technique rapidly reached minor accomplishment. His progress drew the attention of a powerful old man, who attacked him and exposed his hiding place.

• Zhang Xuezhou found an inscription on the black boulder and realized it was involved in suppressing Bai.
• The new emperor’s sacrificial prayer reached the secret land, and the boulder transformed Yellow Springs Water into golden light that improved Zhang Xuezhou’s Fortune Technique.
• Zhang Xuezhou recited the sacrificial text himself, unleashing a rain of golden lotuses that advanced his Fortune Technique to minor accomplishment.
• A powerful old man appeared and declared that anyone seeking Fortune who was not his descendant must intend to overthrow him.
• The old man pierced Zhang Xuezhou’s fish-dragon form with golden light, and Zhang Xuezhou fled into hiding before the man illuminated the darkness and found him.

Zhang Xuezhou fled a powerful spiritual guardian during a Fortune Technique clash until the Marquis of Sui's Pearl interrupted the fight. After learning Li Shaojun had arrived and the pearl had absorbed the guardian, Zhang decided to have Li risk exploring the dangerous area for treasure.

• Zhang Xuezhou dodged the formidable old man's attacks, waiting for the guardian's power to weaken.
• Zhang Xuezhou returned to the gray world and knocked Li Shaojun off balance as Li examined the Marquis of Sui's Pearl.
• Li Shaojun explained how he had reached Zhang, and Zhang realized the pearl had likely subdued the dead guardian.
• Zhang Xuezhou took back the pearl and concluded that it could affect Yin Souls, though not Bai.
• When Li Shaojun complained that he had found nothing, Zhang Xuezhou claimed he had found something valuable and considered using Li's many lives to explore it.

Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun investigated a black suppression stele that released a deadly old man when touched. After Li Shaojun revived, the two argued over who should risk touching it next, and he ended up taking another turn.

• Li Shaojun discovered an inscription on the black boulder identifying it as a suppression stele that drained Spiritual Qi and Yellow Springs Water.
• Li Shaojun touched the stele, and an old man emerged, killed him with a finger, then vanished back into the boulder.
• Li Shaojun revived using the Life and Death Technique and urged Zhang Xuezhou to touch the stele in turn.
• Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun haggled over their turn-taking rule and agreed to decide who went first with a finger-guessing game.
• Li Shaojun lost three rounds and reluctantly stood before the black boulder to touch it again.

Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun repeatedly drew the figure of Gaozu out of the black boulder and absorbed him with Marquis of Sui's Pearl. After the forty-eighth capture changed the figure's words, Li Shaojun asked Zhang Xuezhou to stop using the pearl so he could test what happened next.

• Li Shaojun touched the black boulder while Zhang Xuezhou used Marquis of Sui's Pearl to absorb the attacking figure.
• Li Shaojun continued probing the boulder as Zhang Xuezhou repeatedly captured the figure, which they recognized as His Majesty Gaozu.
• The two debated whether the boulder suppressed Bai and continued absorbing Gaozu while avoiding a decision about the consequences.
• After the forty-eighth capture, Gaozu said he had waited bitterly for a hundred years and that they had finally come.
• Li Shaojun noticed the change and asked Zhang Xuezhou to stop using the pearl so he could see what happened next.

The old man revealed that the black boulder was the Reincarnation Stone and urged Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun to kill the White Demon repeatedly to reclaim stolen Fortune. After the old man vanished, Zhang Xuezhou touched the stone and was transported to another secret land, where the Marquis of Sui’s Pearl killed a horde of yin creatures.

• The old man explained that he had used stolen Fortune to stabilize the Great Han Dynasty and warned that the White Demon could escape the Yellow Springs and take new bodies.
• The old man fired a golden light at Zhang Xuezhou, but the Marquis of Sui’s Pearl suppressed it, while Li Shaojun was struck and fell.
• Zhang Xuezhou touched the Reincarnation Stone and was swept along the Yellow Springs to a different place.
• Seventy or eighty blue-faced, fanged creatures attacked Zhang Xuezhou, but the Marquis of Sui’s Pearl destroyed them as they reached him.
• Zhang Xuezhou realized that he had entered another secret land through the Reincarnation Stone.

Zhang Xuezhou used the Reincarnation Stone to travel from Fengxi Marsh to a secret land beneath Mount Tai, where he discovered the limits of the journey and an abandoned temple. He returned to his body to find Li Shaojun trying to strip him of his robe.

• Zhang Xuezhou subdued the Yin creatures with the Marquis of Sui's Pearl and learned from a big-headed ghost that the secret land lay beneath Mount Tai Temple.
• Zhang Xuezhou discovered that the secret land's exit would not connect to the mortal world until its appointed time, limiting his ability to use it for travel.
• Zhang Xuezhou inspected a ruined temple dedicated to the Orthodox God, Heavenly Capital Lord of Mount Tai, and found an ancient inscription but nothing else.
• Zhang Xuezhou used the Reincarnation Stone to return to his body and caught Li Shaojun searching him for valuables and preparing to take his Law Treasure robe.

Zhang Xuezhou learned that the Reincarnation Stone had transported only his Yang Corporeal Soul, while the Marquis of Sui’s Pearl had helped protect his connection to his body. After Gaozu conceded defeat, Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun prepared to leave the secret land, and Zhang Xuezhou resolved to ask the Divine Lord about the stones’ origins.

• Zhang Xuezhou subdued Li Shaojun, recovered his belongings, and learned that the Reincarnation Stone had sent his Yang Corporeal Soul to Mount Tai without his body.
• Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun discussed whether other Underworld Secret Lands had Reincarnation Stones, and Li Shaojun recalled that God Houtu may have left them during the era of the Human Emperors.
• Zhang Xuezhou decided to leave the secret land and ask the Divine Lord about the stones when he had the chance.
• Gaozu appeared again, said that one had escaped, and conceded defeat after Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun had repeatedly cowed him with the Marquis of Sui’s Pearl.
• Zhang Xuezhou worried that the pearl might stop working after so much use and decided not to keep testing it.

Zhang Xuezhou and Li Shaojun escaped the secret realm, and Zhang Xuezhou rode away with his treasured feather and white horse. Li Shaojun reported to Bai that he had killed Gaozu fifty times, earning praise and advice to seek a way into the Immortal Court for powerful treasures.

• Li Shaojun pulled Zhang Xuezhou out of the marsh, where Zhang used the Peacock Great Wisdom King's feather to clean and dry himself.
• Zhang Xuezhou mounted a summoned white horse and left Li Shaojun behind.
• Li Shaojun reached Bai at the Dragon-Slaying Stele and promised to remove the Soul-Suppressing Nail once he reached the Sole Self Realm.
• Li Shaojun told Bai he and his friends had killed Gaozu fifty times, and Bai believed him after Li swore an oath.
• Bai praised Li Shaojun and offered to teach him how to mark Gaozu, but said he would need to enter the Immortal Court to find a worthwhile treasure.

The new emperor praised Sima Xiangru’s rhapsodies as a way to express his ambitions to the grand empress dowager. Sima Tan reported that Dongfang Shuo had returned with a possible treatment for his illness, and the emperor became interested in recruiting the mysterious Li Shaojun.

• Yang Deyi recommended Sima Xiangru to the new emperor, who summoned him to Chang'an City after enjoying his rhapsodies.
• Sima Xiangru explained how “Rhapsody of the Shanglin Park” could help the new emperor convey his intentions to the grand empress dowager.
• Sima Tan reported that Dongfang Shuo had sought treatment from Li Shaojun and obtained a prescription for a Life-Creating Fortune Pill.
• The new emperor welcomed the possibility that Dongfang Shuo could recover and offered to help Zhang Xuezhou find the pill if needed.
• Sima Xiangru described Li Shaojun as a supposed descendant of the Dao Ancestor, prompting the new emperor to consider recruiting him.

Zhang Xuezhou persuaded the new emperor that Li Shaojun might be able to make the rare Life-Creating Fortune Pill, and the emperor ordered him to find Li Shaojun. Zhang Xuezhou left Luoyang with horses, travel money, and official assistance, while the emperor viewed the search as a worthwhile investment.

• The new emperor offered to restore Zhang Xuezhou's salary and reward him if he recommended Li Shaojun for court service.
• Zhang Xuezhou explained that the Life-Creating Fortune Pill was a rare, precious medicine, and the new emperor promised to provide ingredients if Li Shaojun could refine it.
• Sima Xiangru described Li Shaojun as difficult to track and asked the new emperor to give Zhang Xuezhou more time and a good horse.
• Zhang Xuezhou asked for two horses because his illness meant his older male cousin had to accompany him.
• The new emperor granted Zhang Xuezhou two fine mounts, travel money, and documents ordering local officials to assist him in finding Li Shaojun.
• Sima Tan privately dismissed the plan as nonsense, while the new emperor decided that even a six-month search could be worthwhile.

Zhang Xuezhou and Rong Tianding traveled toward Shouchun City and encountered Daoist Randeng while camping beside a river. Randeng mistook Zhang Xuezhou for a medicinal treasure spirit, then learned that Zhang recognized him and was an official of the Great Han Dynasty.

• Zhang Xuezhou and Rong Tianding rode toward Shouchun City, discussing their mounts and the cultivation realms that could let them travel faster.
• After traveling for a day, Zhang Xuezhou and Rong Tianding camped beside a river, where Zhang caught fish and they roasted them over a fire.
• Daoist Randeng, battered by Sha Qi and recent misfortunes, searched the area for spirit medicines and relief for his injuries.
• Daoist Randeng approached the camp, detected a faint medicinal scent on Zhang Xuezhou, and mistook him for a medicinal treasure spirit.
• Zhang Xuezhou addressed Daoist Randeng by name and challenged his accusation, revealing that he recognized the great cultivator and held an official badge.

Zhang Xuezhou questioned Daoist Randeng about the lingering medicinal trace from a pill he had taken, and Randeng explained the illness it had treated before sharing stories of dangerous spirit-root creatures. The conversation ended with Randeng describing Rulai’s extraordinary acupoints, while Zhang Xuezhou and Rong Tianding continued trying to draw out information.

• Zhang Xuezhou met Daoist Randeng, who had been searching for potent medicinal herbs and following a trace to find Rulai.
• Daoist Randeng recognized the medicinal trace left by Zhang Xuezhou’s pill and said its effects had cleared dangerous poisons from his body.
• Zhang Xuezhou told Daoist Randeng that a vicious Incantation had caused his illness, and Randeng revised his guess about its source.
• Daoist Randeng described the Heaven-Shaking Arrow, a poisonous grass spirit fashioned into a weapon, and the venomous snake staff owned by Brahma.
• Daoist Randeng said Rulai’s One Hundred and Eight Thousand Acupoints could protect him from poison and help him subdue Brahma.