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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: 归人: 

• Shen Qiao’s diary entry about the first time he met Wen Shi.
• In the present day, Shen Qiao picks up Wen Shi and they scare the taxi driver. He tells Wen Shi about Xia Qiao and disappears. His funeral is ongoing. Xia Qiao has no idea what he's signed up for, but because he's kind of useless, Shen Qiao's branch of the pan guan family has ended. Also, they're broke. 

Chapter 2: 代购:

• Xia Qiao proposes renting out rooms in the Shen house.
• Introduction of the lineage chart, Chen Bu Dao’s portrait, and Chen Bu Dao’s ignominious end.
• Introduction to Zhang Biling and Zhou Xu(’s smart mouth).
• Wen Shi takes a bath, and also reminisces about pagers.

Chapter 3: 灵相:

• If you mention Chen Bu Dao’s horrible end in front of his portrait with incense lit, he’ll hear you.
• Xia Qiao and Wen Shi arrange for Xie Wen to come by and see the rooms for rent.
• Xia Qiao wakes up to find the mourners gone. Wen Shi shows him his soul, and they talk about what it means to be "clean." Wen Shi has lost his soul, and he has come to find it. The mourners turn out to be huigu. Before Wen Shi can try and fight them, Xia Qiao gets a call from Xie Wen.
• The three of them agree to meet up the next morning.

Chapter 4: 谢问:

• Wen Shi follows the smell of his soul and fights and then eats one of three huigu.
• Introduction to puppetry. Wen Shi’s puppet follows the smell of his soul to Xiping Yuan, Wen Shi’s store.
• Discussion of Xie Wen's removal from the lineage chart and the Zhang family.
• Xie Wen shows up at the Shen house. Wen Shi notices the seal and feathers on his soul, as well as the cloud of karmic no-no.

Chapter 5: 画像:

• Wen Shi reflects on the karmic no-no that surrounds Xie Wen as he and Xie Wen square off. He gets a snack because Xie Wen's karmic no-no makes him hungry.
• Xie Wen asks how old Xia Qiao and Wen Shi are, and Xia Qiao thinks that Xie Wen is the weakest member of the Zhang family. Wen Shi and Xie Wen discuss the portrait of Chen Bu Dao.
• Xie Wen decides to move in.
• They set off to escort Shen Qiao’s ashes up the mountain.

Chapter 6: 人偶:

• The funeral bus is empty. Wen Shi fights off the thing pretending to be Xia Qiao. Xie Wen seals off the real Xia Qiao’s mouth to keep him quiet. Xie Wen asks for something to clean his hands with, and Wen Shi offers him a lighter.
• Introduction to the concept of cages. Xie Wen sends them into the cage. Explanation of why people's appearances are hazy in cages.
• There is a boy with black eyes and an old man without a face in this cage. Wen Shi and Xia Qiao are in doll bodies.

Chapter 7: 镜子:

• The explanation about why people look like they do in cages continues.
• The old man and the creepy boy go downstairs, taking doll!Xia Qiao with them. Explanation of why cages are dangerous. Wen Shi hides under the bed.
• Introduction of the concept of really powerful puppets that act just like human beings and can come alive if you don’t put a string through their heart.
• Explanation of different ways to enter a cage.
• Wen Shi finds Xie Wen in the mirror.

Chapter 8: 抽屉:

• Wen Shi has a vague recollection of someone standing over rivers of blood when he sees Xie Wen in the mirror. Xie Wen bullies Wen Shi. Xia Qiao remembers having nightmares about dolls coming to life.
• Things with locks inside a cage are important and usually mean the cage can be resolved soon.
• The creepy boy chases after Wen Shi and Xia Qiao. Wen Shi realizes that he grabbed Xie Wen’s mirror earlier and gets teased for it.

Chapter 9: 笔记:

• Wen Shi sneaks out of the storage room that they’re hiding in and leaves Xia Qiao and Xie Wen behind for their own safety. He sees the creepy boy and the old man talking about how the boy destroyed a bunch of dolls because he was afraid they would come to life and take away his grandpa’s attention.
• Xie Wen gives Wen Shi some advice and Wen Shi accuses him of sounding like Chen Bu Dao.
• Wen Shi picks the locked desk drawer and gets chased by the remains of the dolls the boy destroyed. They find the old man’s diary and discover that the boy is a puppet.

Chapter 10: 换身:

• The gang continue being chased by dolls. Wen Shi accidentally rips the creepy boy’s shirt and finds that the symbol marking him as a puppet is getting fainter as he grows older.
• Wen Shi gets ejected from his doll body as he pierces the boy's puppet-mark and Xie Wen pulls him into the mirror with him. Xia Qiao sneaks them into the bedroom. 

Chapter 11: 枯化:

• Wen Shi realizes this is a memory, not an illusion. The creepy boy is withering.
• Introduction to the concept of puppets withering.
• The boy must have been made by someone very strong. The old man transfers some of his soul to the boy using his blood.
• Discussion of why nobody uses the soul transfer technique.
• The gang realize the boy is Xia Qiao.

Chapter 12: 解笼:

• The old man is Shen Qiao. Xia Qiao comes out of hiding and begs Shen Qiao to look at him. Shen Qiao expresses his regrets about not being able to watch Xia Qiao grow up and have a cup of tea with Wen Shi.
• Wen Shi tells Xia Qiao not to look back, to let Shen Qiao depart cleanly, and remembers that someone once told him not to look back.

Chapter 13: 失联:

• Xie Wen touches a flower and it withers. His jacket is missing.
• The funeral party heads back down the mountain.
• Wen Shi uses the leftovers from Shen Qiao’s cage to make a white plum tree sapling in the backyard.
• Xia Qiao sees Shen Qiao’s branch on the lineage chart move a little, but thinks he imagined it.
• Wen Shi encounters a Roomba. He snacks but can’t get full. Xia Qiao tries to introduce him to soda.

Chapter 14: 留客:

• Wen Shi and Xia Qiao decide to visit Xie Wen’s shop.
• They try to call a rideshare car, and after a few cancellations catch a ride with a round-faced driver. The driver explains that nobody wants to go in this direction because of the bad vibes of Wangquan Road. She gives them an umbrella as she drops them off.
• Xiping Yuan is a puppet store. Introduction of Lao Mao and Da/Xiao Zhao.
• Xie Wen agrees to move into the Shen house in two days.
• Da/Xiao Zhao scare Xia Qiao with the rumors about the round-faced driver.
• Xie Wen invites Wen Shi and Xia Qiao to eat with them.

Chapter 15: 进食:

• Description of Xiping Yuan. Lao Mao and Da/Xiao Zhao cook, but Wen Shi can’t eat it. Xie Wen explains that he took in a child who liked to eat this kind of food.
• Wen Shi finds that the trail of the huigu that smelled like his soul is pointed toward Wangquan Estates.
• Wen Shi asks Xie Wen if he's ever seen his own soul. Explanation that most pan guan can't see souls beyond a vague sense of cleanliness or karmic dirt. Discussion of the strength it takes to get rid of the karmic no-no for a cage owner vs a normal person.
• Xie Wen lets Wen Shi eat the karmic no-no that’s on his body.

Chapter 16: 夜路:

• Xie Wen is alarmed by the fact that Wen Shi eats karmic no-no but not his employees’ food. Explanation that Wen Shi gradually lost his ability to eat normal food after the last time he came out of the Nothingness Doors. After Wen Shi and Xia Qiao leave, Lao Mao and Da/Xiao Zhao lament that Wen Shi no longer likes their food.
• It’s established that Xie Wen is just here to help Wen Shi find his soul, then to see him once and leave. Mention of Xie Wen’s cultivation path of detachment.
• Wen Shi and Xia Qiao meet Zhang Biling in front of the store and note that Zhang Biling is second from the bottom on the lineage chart. Zhang Biling says she just dropped by to ask for a favor, and leaves.
• Wen Shi discovers that the umbrella is gone. Xie Wen gives them another umbrella and walks them out.

Chapter 17: 翻车:

• Something is following Wen Shi, and the two people with him aren’t Xia Qiao and Xie Wen. Wen Shi pulls out his puppet strings. He throws away the umbrella with a face inside it.
• He finds Xia Qiao squatting against a pillar at Wangquan Ruins. Xia Qiao frets about how to address Xie Wen. Xie Wen shows up looking completely unruffled.
• Xia Qiao asks Wen Shi if Shen Qiao’s branch on the lineage chart will keep moving up if they keep dispelling cages, as Wen Shi is sending them into the cage. This is a problem because that branch of the family is technically all dead. Wen Shi’s hand trembles at the thought and he sends them all into mannequins. Xie Wen is half a mannequin.

Chapter 18: 有缘:

• Wen Shi and Xie Wen break out of the store they're in. The store owners start to close their shops, including a man who says he hasn't eaten yet.
• Wen Shi surmises that they need to hide from the cage owner and carries Xie Wen down the hallway. They see the round-faced driver looking for someone and run away from her.
• They meet up with Xia Qiao, Zhang Biling, Zhou Xu, and some other people hiding in a storefront.

Chapter 19: 依照:

• Introduction to Zhou Xu’s hero-worship of his aunt Zhang Lan.
• Explanation of why they don’t need to possess objects in this cage.
• People in cages don't usually speak to living people, but an old lady talked to Zhou Xu earlier.
• Zhang Biling takes some of the others on a bathroom break, and Wen Shi and Xie Wen slip out to investigate. Xia Qiao and Zhou Xu follow them.
• Wen Shi finds a shop with pictures of the round-faced driver on the wall. An old lady tries to close the shop with Wen Shi still inside, but is prevented by his strings.

Chapter 20: 矛盾:

• Xie Wen scolds Wen Shi for sneaking into an empty room in a cage on his own. Explanation of the dangers of sealed spaces inside cages.
• Wen Shi asks if he knew Xie Wen in the past. It’s revealed that he doesn’t have his memories.
• They see an old shopkeeper dragging a bloodstained chair out of her shop, followed by a memory of the round-faced driver having a car accident.
• They meet up with Zhang Biling and realize that the people in the cage don't act like extensions of the cage owner's consciousness.
• They see the old woman eating what they think is normal meat, until she bites down on a ring.

Chapter 21: 传说:

• The old lady throws up into a trash can.
• Zhou Xu and Wen Shi look at the ring and see themselves and a ghost in the reflection. But when Zhou Xu turns around he only sees Zhang Biling.
• They almost get influenced into entering the elevator with the old lady, but Wen Shi stops them. Zhang Biling notices that Wen Shi has the hands of a puppetmaster.
• Explanation that the more puppets a puppetmaster can control, the more powerful they are. Zhou Xu’s uncle can control six puppets at once, but the strongest puppetmaster in history (Wen Shi) could control twelve.

Chapter 22:

• Xie Wen asks if Wen Shi is hungry again. Tsundere ensues. Wen Shi touches Xie Wen’s ungloved hand as he feeds.
• Xie Wen confesses that he made the (puppet) ring that the old lady choked on. The old lady doesn’t actually know what the round-faced driver’s ring looks like, so Wen Shi deduces that the cage master is one of the shop owners.
• Explanation of how Zhou Xu isn’t allowed to do pan guan stuff because his soul is unstable.
• The plaid guy's wound is bleeding and Zhang Biling says that's normal inside cages.
• Zhang Biling draws talismans to protect the shop they’re hiding in.
• Zhou Xu and Xia Qiao make a bathroom run. Discussion of how peeing in cages (and dreams) works. Zhou Xu gets weird and creepy in the bathroom, and Wen Shi and Xie Wen arrive.
• Explanation of multi-master cages. They realize that the female cage owner might be possessing one of the people in hiding with them.
• Wen Shi notices that the talismans Zhang Biling made are reversed from what they should be. Reveal that Zhang Biling is being possessed by the round-faced driver.
• Flashback to her death and explanation that she’s looking for Lao Song.

Chapter 23: 回家:

• The shop owners attack the group.
• Explanation of puppetmasters who can use their strings to bind or strangle things. Wen Shi summons his python to confine the shop owners so the round-faced driver, Yue Qin, can find who she’s looking for.
• Conversation with Lao Song and dispelling of the cage.

Chapter 24: 张岚:

• They exit the cage and meet Zhang Lan and Xiao Hei.
• Introduction of Zhang Yalin and his box of Wen Shi’s treasures.
• List of Chen Bu Dao’s disciples and their specializations, and the rumors that Chen Bu Dao kept one disciple especially close to him.
• Reminder that the Zhang family was instrumental in the sealing away of Chen Bu Dao.
• Shen Qiao’s branch on the lineage chart overtakes Zhang Biling’s.

Chapter 25: 意外:

• Zhang Lan and Zhang Yalin discuss Xie Wen and Wen Shi.
• Explanation of Xie Wen's relationship with the rest of the family.
• Zhou Xu wakes up and explains what happened inside the cage to them.
• Wen Shi and Xia Qiao go back to the mall, following the scent of Wen Shi's soul. They visit Lao Song in the hospital and Wen Shi makes the remnants of the round-faced driver’s cage into a cat by accident.

Chapter 26: 搬家:

• Xia Qiao explains the pros of having a phone.
• Xie Wen moves into the Shen house.
• Wen Shi thinks about how the first pan guan tried to stay as pure as possible, while later generations have moved away from that path. Also, the risks of being a pan guan.

Chapter 27: 往事:

• Introduction of Songyun Mountain.
• Wen Shi’s memory of the other disciples being afraid of him after he touched a bird and it died. Chen Bu Dao takes him up the mountain and shows him that he won't hurt Chen Bu Dao.
• Chen Bu Dao gives him a Golden-Winged Great Peng to raise. Wen Shi wakes up and reveals that the bird was a puppet.

Chapter 28: 踪迹:

• Zhang Lan and Zhang Yalin bicker over Xiao Hei, and mention Bu Ning.
• Zhang Lan visits the Shen household and is surprised to find Xie Wen there. Zhang Lan invites Wen Shi to join patrol duty. Explanation of how pan guan territory is split up. Wen Shi refuses her invitation. He tells her that his surname is Chen.
• Zhang Lan tries to use a tracking talisman using his fake name, which is unsuccessful.
• Xie Wen’s jacket has become a puppet that he’s using to track Wen Shi’s soul. Xie Wen was expecting to watch over Wen Shi from afar, but he didn't expect for Wen Shi's soul to be missing.

Chapter 29: 偶遇:

• Zhou Xu, his classmate Sun Siqi, Da Dong, and Haozi enter Sanmi Shop and get roped into a mystery/escape room game.
• Wen Shi gives the cat that he made to Lao Song.
• Xie Wen and Lao Mao are “getting groceries” and Wen Shi and Xia Qiao are “buying a phone” and they all end up at Sanmi Shop.

Chapter 30: 密室:

• Zhou Xu lets slip that Zhang Lan asked Da Dong and Haozi to keep an eye on Wen Shi. Haozi and Da Dong try to leave to escape the awkward, only to discover that they are already inside the cage.
• Explanation of cage vortices and note that there are a lot of cages in the Sanmi Shop area.
• The party enters the cage in single-file.

Chapter 31: 奶妈:

• Da Dong thinks about the prevailing theories about Xie Wen.
• He and Wen Shi realize the hands on their shoulders aren’t connected to real people, then go through a door.
• The shop employee tells them the story of the Shen family and Shen Manyi’s disappearance. Wen Shi and Da Dong take on the roles of the nanny and the butler.
• Da Dong chides Wen Shi for his sloppy puppet strings, noting that the highest level puppetmasters can have their strings however they like, or even forego the strings, but that's out of their league.

Chapter 32: 成双:

• Da Dong demonstrates puppetry to Wen Shi.
• Da Dong tries to unlock a door and gets scared by a girl's voice, only to unexpectedly succeed. He suspects that he was controlled by another puppetmaster, but such a thing is only rumored to be possible.
• Description of the layout of the house.
• They find Zhou Xu and Da Dong uses his “Golden-Winged Great Peng” to break him out of the room he’s trapped in. They meet up with the rest of the group and find the memorial tablets for the Shen household.

Chapter 33: 日记:

• Haozi is in the room, but Haozi is also on the walkie-talkie. Da Dong argues that theirs is probably the real Haozi.
• Xia Qiao tells the others about a diary he found in the room he started out in. Wen Shi walks down the hallway, which reminds him of the Nothingness Doors, and grabs the diary with Xie Wen.
• Diary entry about the Real Bride, Fake Bride game and how noisy Shen Manyi is.

Chapter 34: 搞事:

• Diary entry about Mr. Li, Shen Manyi’s glasses, and Jun-ge. Half of the diary is missing.
• Xie Wen asks who the glasses belong to, and “Haozi” reacts. Wen Shi calls her by her name.
• Shen Manyi then turns into Xie Wen.

Chapter 35: 认人:

• They figure out which Xie Wen is real and Shen Manyi runs off.
• They start looking for clues and find a photograph of the household.
• Shen Manyi turns into Xie Wen again. Wen Shi figures out which one is real by tasting them, but Xie Wen motions for him to keep quiet about it.

Chapter 36: 真容:

• At Xie Wen’s urging, Wen Shi doesn’t tell everyone the answer.
• Wen Shi asks for Da Dong’s puppet string, only to realize that puppet strings aren’t usually shared because it’s such a personal thing.
• He and Da Dong each tie up a “Xie Wen” with puppet string. Da Dong freaks out and Wen Shi and Xie Wen are weirded out by the connection to each other.
• Shen Manyi seems scared of the master bedroom. Xie Wen needles her into admitting she's the fake and dropping her disguise.

Chapter 37: 霜雪:

• Sun Siqi pukes at the sight and smell of Shen Manyi, and he, Zhou Xu, and Xia Qiao end up on the sofa.
• Wen Shi deduces that she has been folded into a small space.
• He fixes Shen Manyi’s dress for her, but she wants the bow that Cai-mama tied for her. Dead people are afraid of their corpses, so the bow must be near Shen Manyi’s body. Wen Shi explodes the room with his puppet string. They find Shen Manyi’s body in the sofa.
• Wen Shi covers Shen Manyi's eyes to shield her from seeing her own corpse, and Xie Wen flashes back to a similar scene from Wen Shi's childhood.

Chapter 38: 跳楼:

• Xie Wen returns the bow to Shen Manyi. Da Dong realizes that Wen Shi is hella powerful.
• Explanation of the origin of the lineage chart.
• Shen Manyi asks to explore the rest of the house with them.
• They find a fake Haozi skin hanging on a coat rack.
• Diary entry about Mr. Li finding out about Shen Manyi.

Chapter 39: 旧习:

• Wen Shi jumps out the window and downstairs. The others freak out until Xie Wen points out that he left an escape route in the form of a string on the window.
• Lao Mao remembers Wen Shi's childhood, and how Chen Bu Dao taught him to always leave a trail when going into dangerous places alone.

Chapter 40: 失踪:

• Wen Shi sends up his python puppet to tell them to jump down to the first floor.
• Wen Shi (and Xie Wen) make Shen Manyi into a puppet so she can join them.
• Xie Wen disappears on the way down. The shop employee tells them about the disappearance of Mr. Li.

Chapter 41: 分房:

• Wen Shi is mad that Xie Wen has disappeared. He deduces that Haozi tried to imitate Xie Wen along with Shen Manyi but couldn’t because Xie Wen was too powerful.
• They decide to try and sleep Xie Wen back.
• They find Cai-mama’s burial clothes and the rest of the occupied bedrooms.
• They split up. The clock strikes 12 and everyone falls asleep.

Chapter 42: 胆量:

• Explanation of the risk of dreaming in a cage.
• Wen Shi dreams about the time he was too scared to sleep after going into a cage with Chen Bu Dao, and two later incidents where Chen Bu Dao was injured in a cage.
• When he wakes up, Xie Wen is back. Mr. Li is also in the room.

Chapter 43: 变傀:

• Xie Wen asks Wen Shi what he was dreaming about.
• They deduce that Mr. Li died from being hanged, but with more water.
• Wen Shi makes Mr. Li and Xie Wen into puppets so they won’t disappear when the clock rings and everyone wakes up. Lao Mao freaks out over Wen Shi turning Xie Wen into his puppet.
• Cai-mama’s shoes come to stare at Xia Qiao and Zhou Xu's bed.

Chapter 44: 谬误:

• Xia Qiao is sad that he isn’t a super cool puppet.
• Xie Wen interrogates Wen Shi about his python puppet.
• They posit that the cage/escape room narration is giving them inaccurate information.
• Xia Qiao wonders if Jun-ge, being taller and stronger, was the one who killed Mr. Li. The photo shows he's wrong, as both Shen Manyi's brother and Jun-ge are around the same age and size.
• Wen Shi asks Mr. Li to explain, and Mr. Li's tongue falls out.

Chapter 45: 字迹:

• Mr. Li goes into the study to find ink to write something.
• Wen Shi tries to pick a locked chest in the room and everyone feels flames. They find Shen Mansheng’s homework in the chest with admonitions from Mr. Li not to copy A-Jun’s handwriting.

Chapter 46: 日期:

• They discover that Shen Mansheng and Jun-ge probably have the same handwriting. Wen Shi suspects the diary entries were written by A-Jun.
• Wen Shi yanks Shen Manyi and Mr. Li to him and accidentally gets Xie Wen as well.
• Wen Shi figures out where Mr. Li’s body is by using his reactions as a dowsing rod. They go out into the backyard and find his body in the well, as well as a chest with letters inside, between Mr. Li and his wife Xu Yarong.
• The letters establish that Cai-mama hanged herself, and that she was from a good family. Wen Shi notices that the letter is dated to 1918.

Chapter 47: 金翅:

• They discover the year-fuckery. They split up the letters and look for clues. The letters explain why Cai-mama hanged herself after Shen Manyi almost burned to death. They find out that Shen Manyi is 16 but is stuck as her 11-year old self from the trauma.
• Shen Manyi's flashback.
• Mr. Li's flashback, and his regrets.
• Wen Shi uses them to draw out the cage owner. The house catches fire. Lao Mao saves them from the blaze with his wing.

Chapter 48: 影子:

• Lao Mao is miffed because everyone is so overawed and that isn't even the full might of a Golden-Winged Great Peng! Wen Shi remembers what the true form of the Golden-Winged Great Peng sounds like.
• Wen Shi realizes that Xie Wen is Chen Bu Dao.
• Xia Qiao nearly loses his mind following the scent of Wen Shi's soul, but Wen Shi says it's with the cage owner.
• Zhou Xu realizes that the dried tree branches he almost tripped on in the hallway are burned corpses.
• Xia Qiao realizes that Shen Mansheng isn’t in the cage at all, and that he’s the counterpart for A-Jun.

Chapter 49: 解笼:

• A-Jun finally appears, in the mirror instead of Xia Qiao’s reflection. Wen Shi insults him until he comes out.
• A-Jun is insistent that this is his territory.
• Shen Manyi confronts A-Jun about why he killed her. A-Jun flashes back to his death, stuck in 1913 with Shen Manyi and his mother’s suicide.
• Shen Manyi realizes who the other ghosts are. She and the other dead household members attack.
• Wen Shi protects the group with his Teng serpent puppet and then takes control of all eight ghosts as Da Dong is insisting that it's not possible for someone weaker than Zhang Yalin.
• A-Jun is confronted by the people he killed. He insists he has no regrets and is left behind as the others are liberated.
• Mr. Li explains why A-Jun was wrong about Shen Mansheng, and requests that Wen Shi take him to see his hometown.
• Wen Shi retrieves the shards of his soul from A-Jun.

Chapter 50: 来处:

• Wen Shi flashes back to when Chen Bu Dao picked him up out of a pile of corpses and a sea of blood.
• He remembers Chen Bu Dao helping him clean the karmic no-no off his hands.

Chapter 51: 惊蛰:

• Still a flashback: Wen Shi follows Chen Bu Dao around. He also meets the granny who brings him food until she passes away.
• Chen Bu Dao shows Wen Shi that he also has karmic no-no on his body.
• He takes Wen Shi into the granny’s cage and then turns the remnants into a fish. Wen Shi is worried the fish will be lonely, so Chen Bu Dao brings it a Wen Shi turtle to keep it company, and then Wen Shi brings another Chen Bu Dao turtle to keep the Wen Shi turtle company.
• Explanation of the other disciples’ specializations and personalities.
• Wen Shi’s decision to study puppetry.
• Wen Shi knows that Chen Bu Dao plans to trick him and take all of the karmic no-no into himself when Wen Shi is older. He learns how to use a soul cleansing array instead.
• The disciples talk about leaving Songyun Mountain once Wen Shi turns 22 next year.
• Wen Shi attacks Chen Bu Dao with his puppet strings as Chen Bu Dao comes up the mountain.
• He has a dream about Chen Bu Dao and wakes up to find Chen Bu Dao standing over him. This is his first experience with earthly emotions.

Chapter 52: 拉锯:

• Wen Shi wakes up in the present day with Xie Wen in the room. He reflects angstily on how he tried to repress his feelings for Chen Bu Dao back then, including through the cleansing array. He suspects that he succeeded, because he can't remember anything from after his childhood.
• Wen Shi remembers that Da/Xiao Zhao are puppets who used to take care of Chen Bu Dao’s disciples for him.
• Wen Shi is confused about why he doesn’t tell Xie Wen that he knows who he is, and he’s also confused about why Xie Wen doesn’t say anything about who he is.

Chapter 53: 薄纸:

• Wen Shi reflects on when he realized that Chen Bu Dao is a big fat liar. Chen Bu Dao is willing to protect him and spoil him, but as a needy disciple he’s not much different from the rest of the world. Unfortunately for him, he wants to stand next to Chen Bu Dao as an equal.
• He decides not to say anything about Xie Wen being Chen Bu Dao because he doesn’t want to go back to a teacher-student relationship dynamic.
• Xia Qiao and Lao Mao come back from Xiping Yuan with medicine for Wen Shi to soak his hands in.
• Wen Shi wonders if Chen Bu Dao is the one who made Xia Qiao.
• Wen Shi commandeers Xia Qiao’s phone to interrogate Zhou Xu about Xie Wen.

Chapter 54: 发癫:

• Sun Siqi only vaguely remembers what happened inside the cage like a normal person, but Zhou Xu remembers everything very clearly.
• Haozi ends up in the hospital, and Da Dong is very frightened.
• Zhang Lan and Zhang Yalin return from afar and throw themselves a party. One of the party guests notices that Da Dong has jumped up three spaces on the lineage chart. Da Dong tells them that Wen Shi resolved the cage, and they ask why he isn't on the lineage chart. Before their eyes, Shen Qiao's family line skyrockets to Zhang Yalin's rank, then falls back to second from last, then keeps bouncing between the two.
• Zhou Xu and Da Dong get brought in to explain what happened. Zhang Yalin interrogates Zhou Xu about Wen Shi's snake puppet.
• Zhou Xu gets a text message from Wen Shi.

Chapter 55: 手拙:

• Wen Shi gets beaten up by a phone and the pinyin system.
• He soaks his hands in medicine and remembers using it in the past.
• He makes first contact with Zhou Xu regarding Xie Wen’s past.

Chapter 56: 来历:

• Zhou Xu explains what he knows of Xie Wen’s backstory, including his mother Zhang Wan(ling). Mention of how the Zhang siblings dropped the generational “ling” character from their names, and how Zhang Wan was kicked out of the family.
• Introduction of Zhang Zhengchu, the Zhang family's rule of succession, and the story of Zhang Zhengchu's two sons. The Zhang family has never had a female family head.
• The actual reason why every pan guan family has a lineage chart in the house is to call together all pan guan in case of a catastrophe.
• Wen Shi demands baby!Xie Wen pictures.
• Zhou Xu lays out the rumors about Xie Wen's father. The story of how Zhang Wan died, and Xie Wen was struck off the lineage chart.
• Xie Wen just moved to Ningzhou last year. The return address on Zhang Wan's letters to Zhang Biling points toward Tianjin.

Chapter 57: 夜谈:

• Wen Shi and Xie Wen have a midnight chat in the garden. Wen Shi asks Xie Wen what he was like as a child. Xia Qiao sees them and misunderstands what’s going on.

Chapter 58: 飞鸟:

• Wen Shi accidentally throws a tantrum because Xie Wen doesn't ask to come to Mr. Li's hometown with him.
• Xie Wen accidentally damages the stair railing with his karmic no-no.
• Description of Xie Wen’s place on the second floor of the Shen house. Lao Mao is in bird form and Da/Xiao Zhao are in cat form.
• Xie Wen’s hand is withering. The puppets worry that Wen Shi will find out who Xie Wen is, but Xie Wen isn’t worried.
• Xie Wen is also going to Tianjin because the jacket puppet found traces of Wen Shi's soul there.
• Xia Qiao gets up early to rescue his phone from Wen Shi’s clutches. Wen Shi and Xia Qiao decide to take the train to Tianjin, but Wen Shi’s ID is all old and can’t be used. They con a ride out of Xie Wen and Lao Mao (or maybe it’s the other way around?) and buy Wen Shi a phone on the way.
• Wen Shi discovers his sense of taste is coming back at a rest stop.
• They take Mr. Li back to his hometown but everything has changed.

Chapter 59: 真容:

• Xia Qiao discovers that Lao Mao drives without the rear mirrors, and that he's the only one worried about this. Xia Qiao gets carsick because his soul is unstable.
• The gang talks to a local shopkeeper/keeper of the family grave about the Shen family that used to live in the area, and they discover that Shen Mansheng survived the fire and left for Tianjin. The shopkeeper shows them the photo of the family and, upon seeing Shen Mansheng's face, realizes that he is Shen Qiao.
• Zhou Xu texts Wen Shi to say that he did some detective work and Zhang Wan probably lived in Tianjin.
• Zhang Lan and Zhang Yalin decide to follow Wen Shi.

Chapter 60: 借宿:

• Zhang Yalin goes to report to their grandfather, and then the Zhang siblings and Zhou Xu start a comedic puppet-driven car chase. Unfortunately for the Zhang siblings, Zhou Xu is texting Wen Shi the entire time.
• The Xie/Wen gang end up staying overnight with a family that Xie Wen used to know in Tianjin.
• They meet Lu Wenjuan, whose name Lao Mao knows because he's seen it on a grave.

Chapter 61: 入笼:

• Lu Wenjuan creeps Xia Qiao out, and the gang give her fake names.
• They determine that they have entered a cage.
• Wen Shi and Xia Qiao are confused about why they have been running into so many cages lately and how easy it's been to fall into them.
• Wen Shi angsts about his one-sided feelings for Xie Wen.

Chapter 62: 饺子:

• Lu Wenjuan’s TV is playing a horror movie about dumplings.
• Xie Wen and Wen Shi discuss Lu Wenjuan’s death.
• Lu Wenjuan comes back and offers them dumplings on pain of re-enacting the horror movie that was playing on the TV. Nobody gets the “prize” in the dumplings.

Chapter 63: 幻境:

• Lu Wenjuan tries to convince the gang to drink dumpling soup and then waits for them to feel sleepy. Xia Qiao panics about having drunk the soup and Lao Mao almost outs himself as a puppet.
• Lu Wenjuan tells them about the cleansing ceremony that will happen tomorrow.
• Xia Qiao and Wen Shi see heart demons.

Chapter 64: 大沐:

• Wen Shi vs. heart demon!Xie Wen. He then wakes up with the real Xie Wen standing over him.
• Explanation of heart demons.
• They go downstairs and don't find any sign of Lu Wenjuan. The TV is playing a "show" with a bonfire led by a person in a mask and red robe.
• Wen Shi decides to pay the village head a visit, only to discover that it’s raining and the space outside the house has become an instakill zone.
• The next morning, Lu Wenjuan takes them to the cleansing ceremony, where Zhou Xu is “in charge of” the ritual and the Zhang siblings are fellow people in need of cleansing.

Chapter 65: 怪习:

• Wen Shi gets a headache from the crying.
• Zhou Xu gets in a tussle with the village leader, Old Wu, over the ritual. Zhou Xu tries to tell Old Wu that he can't burn the others, but Old Wu insists that bad things will happen if they aren't cleansed.
• The villagers get scared into hurrying forward with the ritual when there is a clap of thunder, and they fear that the rain will come back.
• The gang accidentally all summon a thunderstorm at the same time to scare off the villagers.
• After it actually starts raining, Lu Wenjuan tells them they can't stay outside.

Chapter 66: 恳谈:

• Everyone takes shelter at Lu Wenjuan’s house.
• Huigu start climbing out of the ground and the outside becomes an instakill zone.
• Discussion of how huigu are made and how they can be used.
• Zhang Yalin strikes up a conversation with Wen Shi about his puppetry. This includes talking about the great ancestor Wen Shi’s treasures and bones that Zhang Yalin keeps with him.

Chapter 67: 彩头:

• Zhang Yalin keeps digging himself into the ancestor-worship hole.
• Lu Wenjuan gets stressed out by Wen Shi’s refusal to drink the dumpling soup. Lu Wenjuan explains that she’s been trying to keep them safe. She knows she’s dead, but this isn’t the village where she lived.
• Explanation of how the dumplings are used to select a sacrifice for the Mountain God.
• She explains that uncleanness causes disaster, and that the village used to be quiet, clean, and safe until one day when that inexplicably changed and the rain became dangerous.
• Lu Wenjuan says that she deliberately made sure they didn't get the "winning" dumplings, but Zhou Xu ate three dumplings with “prizes” inside.

Chapter 68: 失踪:

• Lu Wenjuan explains that a visitor once ran out into the instakill zone because of the heart demons, so she’s become sneaky about drugging people so they sleep through the night.
• They split up into different bedrooms to sleep, with Wen Shi and Xie Wen sharing a room. Wen Shi and Xie Wen have a strange conversation.
• Zhang Yalin discovers that Zhou Xu was stolen out from under his nose.

Chapter 69: 入口:

• Zhang Yalin explains the precautions he took to make sure Zhou Xu stayed in his bed.
• Xia Qiao had a heart demon about being chased away by Wen Shi.
• Zhang Lan tries to track Zhou Xu but the talismans all fall to the ground. With Wen Shi's help, they determine that all of the points where the talismans fall to the ground form an array. Xiao Hei draws on his knowledge passed down from Bu Ning to identify it as a door.
• They encounter huigu with human faces, including Lu Wenjuan's. Wen Shi feels hungry looking at them.
• They find the array door when the huigu try to escape Wen Shi through it, and enter it.
• Wen Shi and Xie Wen hold hands.

Chapter 70: 大阵:

• Wen Shi and Xie Wen hold hands inside the array. At first Wen Shi thinks Xie Wen is a heart demon, but upon coming out of the array, he discovers that it was the real Xie Wen all along.
• They have ended up in an old-looking village. Zhang Lan tried to go through the gate to the village and was injured.
• Zhang Lan has a scare when it looks like her arm won't heal, until Xie Wen meddles. She is surprised that Wen Shi didn't get affected, but his soul isn't whole so he could hardly be shaken.
• Xiao Hei reminds Wen Shi of Bu Ning, and he has a flashback.
• Xiao Hei can't figure out the purpose of the array, but he locates the array markings. He kneels out of respect because it's one of Bu Ning's arrays.

Chapter 71: 渊源:

• Wen Shi ruminates on the mark that Bu Ning used to claim his arrays.
• He remembers a time that Chen Bu Dao came back to the mountain and seemed to be out of sorts.
• The Zhang siblings wonder if the array is the one that sealed Chen Bu Dao back in the day. Wen Shi is upset that he can't remember what happened that day.

Chapter 72: 笼主:

• Xie Wen asks the Zhang siblings how the story of Chen Bu Dao's sealing was passed down to them.
• The gang attempt to find the array’s focal point. They continue deciphering the purpose of Bu Ning’s array.
• Xie Wen proves that it is not an array to suppress someone like Chen Bu Dao. Wen Shi double-checks because he's been tricked by Chen Bu Dao too many times before.
• Wen Shi deduces: the array attacks people to keep them out because Bu Ning was keeping something dangerous hidden away. But he built in the village as a safe spot for anybody who accidentally came into the array. Xie Wen says that the portal leads to the village, which is where Lu Wenjuan is living.
• Zhang Lan posits that Bu Ning is the cage master, because who else would have one of Bu Ning's arrays in their cage? Zhang Yalin wants to find the array’s focal point, but Wen Shi says that that's impossible for Bu Ning's arrays and they'll have to drag it to themselves by force.

Chapter 73: 阵灵:

• The gang are still unable to find Zhou Xu with their search talismans.
• There is an invisible thing in the middle of where they're standing, and they wonder if Zhou Xu has been dragged into the array’s focal point.
• They get attacked by a shadow snake and other beasts as a reflection of their own puppets.
• Xie Wen puppets Wen Shi to get him out of the way of an attack.
• Wen Shi decides to throw puppets into the array until it collapses.
• They hear the sound of Songyun Mountain and the array’s focal point opens by itself. Twelve array spirits spring into being and kneel in Wen Shi's direction.

Chapter 74: 三连:

• The array spirits have been guarding Songyun Mountain for a thousand years, and now they are finally welcoming Bu Ning's old friends home.
• The Zhang siblings and Xia Qiao kneel from the pressure of the array spirits and the revelation that Wen Shi is THAT Wen Shi. Lao Mao declines to kneel with Xie Wen.
• The array opens to reveal Songyun Mountain. Inside a cave are portraits of Chen Bu Dao and his disciples.
• Explanation of the common understanding of what happened to Chen Bu Dao.
• The paintings fall off the wall and expose Wen Shi and Xie Wen. They also find Bu Ning, who is, surprise surprise, Zhou Xu.

Chapter 75: 豪赌:

• Discussion of how it makes sense that Zhou Xu is Bu Ning, actually. Wen Shi is not at all surprised that Xie Wen is Chen Bu Dao.
• Bu Ning explains that he sealed himself and the other disciples a long time ago in case they were needed a thousand years later.
• Bu Ning backstory, and the story of the vision that led Bu Ning to set the array in the first place.

Chapter 76: 山境:

• Bu Ning has feelings about Zhou Xu as his reincarnation. He also worries about Wen Shi’s missing soul.
• Wen Shi explains his experience in the Nothingness Doors.
• Bu Ning takes them back to Songyun Mountain.
• Wen Shi remembers how much he misses Songyun Mountain, and also pines over Chen Bu Dao.

Chapter 77: 洗灵:

• Wen Shi asks why Xie Wen never said anything about his missing soul when they first met. Xie Wen gives some vague answers.
• Bu Ning shows Wen Shi and Xie Wen Qingxin Lake, where he is holding back the cloud of karmic no-no.
• Wen Shi remembers hanging out with his fellow disciples by the lake.
• Bu Ning explains the logistics of how he and the other two disciples sealed the karmic no-no. He activates the soul cleansing array to show Wen Shi that it no longer works, probably because wherever it used to lead to no longer exists.
• However, all of the karmic no-no starts pouring into Xie Wen.

Chapter 78: 盘算:

• Wen Shi realizes that every time he used the soul cleansing array, Chen Bu Dao was on the other end taking the burden.
• Bu Ning is unable to stop the array because Xie Wen messed with it.
• Wen Shi charges into the karmic no-no that has enveloped Xie Wen and grabs onto him with his own puppet strings. Wen Shi angsts over being Chen Bu Dao's downfall.  Xie Wen pushes Wen Shi out of the cloud of karmic no-no.

Chapter 79: 红尘:

• Wen Shi realizes that Xie Wen intends this to be a goodbye, even though Wen Shi had decided that he'd follow after him forever.
• Xie Wen is using puppet strings to keep him out, even though he's never needed to use puppet strings before, so Wen Shi knows it's a serious situation. (I am the truly troublesome situation that he said it would take for him to need puppet strings.)
• He notices the beads and feathers on Xie Wen’s wrist.
• He asks Chen Bu Dao to let go of him, and Chen Bu Dao refuses. Wen Shi offers to eat the karmic no-no. Xie Wen reveals that he’s a puppet, and that his karmic no-no is the reason there have been so many cage vortices, and that he as a puppet should have disappeared when the real Chen Bu Dao was sealed.
• Xie Wen is weakened enough that Wen Shi can see into his mind (and it's all heart demons).

Chapter 80: 枯荣:

• Wen Shi sees a lot of himself in Xie Wen’s head. He remembers how Chen Bu Dao sent him out of the sealing array back then.
• Xie Wen remembers Wen Shi from when he was young, including the time he asked Chen Bu Dao what his childhood name was. He reflects that he’s unable to stay removed from the material world because of his feelings for Wen Shi.
• He searches the cloud of karmic no-no for the other piece of Wen Shi’s soul and is alarmed to find it’s only a fragment. Realizing that something is keeping him from dying, he looks closer and realizes that back then, Wen Shi tricked him into thinking he had left the array using a puppet that looked like him, and then tore his soul apart to form a massive cage and keep Chen Bu Dao alive.
• Wen Shi tells him that it was his turn to trick Chen Bu Dao, and that Xie Wen can no longer leave.
• Xie Wen kisses Wen Shi to give his soul back to him.

Chapter 81: 苏醒:

• Wen Shi gets back the rest of his soul and regains his memories of what happened after Chen Bu Dao was sealed. He remembers taking a disciple. He was the one who drew the portrait of Chen Bu Dao because his disciple asked what Chen Bu Dao looked like, and he could barely remember.
• He has been going through the Nothingness Doors because he doesn't have his soul.
• He wakes up on Songyun Mountain. Xie Wen is no longer withering. Lao Mao is out from the shock of having seen them kiss.
• Wen Shi realizes that Xia Qiao is probably the puppet that he used to trick Chen Bu Dao all those years ago.
• Bu Ning explains that the Songyun Mountain situation may not be the kind of cage they're used to seeing.
• Wen Shi goes to see Xie Wen.

Chapter 82: 渊源:

• Wen Shi and Xie Wen fuss over each other. Xie Wen admits that there were other ways to give Wen Shi’s soul back but he didn’t want to use them.
• Xie Wen took the karmic no-no that was in the array sealing Zhong Si and Zhuang Ye and transferred it all to his real body inside the seal, which is now being preserved by Wen Shi's cage.
• The Zhang siblings announce that they found evidence that there are actually two arrays, a newer array layered over an older array. Xie Wen suggests that the other array is Zhang Wan’s work.

Chapter 83: 柳庄:

• Wen Shi asks Xie Wen directly about Zhang Wan, and Xie Wen says that he’s met her before in Liu Village.
• Wen Shi and Bu Ning remember that Bu Ning once predicted a disaster for the village at the foot of Songyun Mountain, and they set some reinforcement talismans to protect the village, only to discover that the disaster actually happened to Liu Village.
• Chen Bu Dao took him down the mountain and they met a woman inside the cage at Liu Village who reminded Chen Bu Dao of his mother.

Chapter 84: 谢问:

• Bu Ning discovered that Liu Village and Songyun Mountain’s village were connected and easily confused when fortune-telling. He worried that what happened to Liu Village was because of their protective talismans but ultimately determines that it’s not connected. Nevertheless, he learned to keep his predictions to himself in case there were any other misunderstandings.
• The group sets off to see where the Zhang siblings found the clue, with Xie Wen teasing Wen Shi about wanting to carry him. Bu Ning suffers.
• They deduce that Zhang Wan is the one who set up the original array. She left a “letter” in the form of a piece of her soul.
• She explains that she was Xie Wen’s original mother who died too suddenly and watched her son suffer.
• The first cage Xie Wen ever dispelled was his own.

Chapter 85: 送行:

• Description of Xie Wen dispelling his own cage.
• His mother reincarnated many times, including as the woman that Wen Shi and Chen Bu Dao met in the Liu Village cage.
• Years ago, Wen Shi was worried that his and his fellow disciples’ actions had caused the Liu Village disaster, but Xie Wen’s mother explains that two of Chen Bu Dao’s outer disciples used her to switch the two villages’ fates. As a result, she and the Zhang disciple who has become Zhang Zhengchu were cursed to die horrible deaths. She recognized Zhang Zhengchu as her counterpart and that's why she left the family.
• After leaving the Zhang family, she found Xie Wen’s puppet and decided to raise him. When she stepped into the cage at Songyun Mountain, she foresaw that she would meet Xie Wen there but didn't know why.
• She explains that Lu Wenjuan’s villagers are all from Liu Village, trapped in a cage meant to be full of Songyun Mountain people. She built the array to help them return to their home but accidentally set it to Tianjin instead of Liu Village.
• Xie Wen opens a doorway to Liu Village and resolves the cage.
• Wen Shi and Xie Wen kiss again in the aftermath.

Chapter 86: 家眷:

• Wen Shi wakes up in the car in front of Lu Wenjuan’s parents’ house.
• Xia Qiao stresses about how to address Wen Shi and Xie Wen.
• They meet Lu Xiao and his wife and Xie Wen introduces Wen Shi as his family (in the “spouse and kids” sense).
• The Zhang siblings, Xiao Hei, and Zhou Xu also wake up in their car.
• Zhou Xu drops the bombshell that he’s offered to share his body with Bu Ning. Xiao Hei crashes the car into the river and Zhang Lan’s phone blows up with messages.

Chapter 87: 急召:

• Da Dong and the others tell Zhang Lan that Bu Ning’s name on the lineage chart has turned red in warning and then black as if he's alive. Zhang Lan tries to have this conversation with Bu Ning and Zhou Xu listening in.
• She looks up to find Wen Shi and Xie Wen staring at her from outside the car.
• Wen Shi and Xie Wen interrogate the Zhang siblings about who they’re going to tell about what has happened.
• Zhang Lan gets a phone call from Zhang Zhengchu and his inherited puppet A-Qi in which they learn that Zhang Zhengchu is convening all pan guan at the Zhang family estate to discuss Bu Ning’s apparent revival.

Chapter 88: 钓鱼:

• Zhang Zhengchu refuses to invite Xie Wen to the gathering. Zhang Lan hangs up rather than explain why Xie Wen should be involved, actually.
• Over at the main house, Zhang Zhengchu is thinking hard. A-Qi thinks about the little habits that all of the Zhang family heads develop as they step into their positions.
• Description of Zhang Zhengchu (old), and explanation of why the Zhang family head always ages rapidly, and the Zhang family is proliferous and well-regarded among the pan guan community due to the part they played in sealing Chen Bu Dao.
• Zhang Zhengchu is suspicious of Zhang Lan’s vague answers and decides to call Zhou Xu.
• Zhou Xu negotiates shared tastes in food with Bu Ning.
• Wen Shi reminisces about past meals and how he once accidentally used Chen Bu Dao's chopsticks. Xie Wen puts food in his bowl. Wen Shi accidentally drinks out of Xie Wen's cup.
• The group discusses how to split up the bedrooms and Zhou Xu tries to warn Xia Qiao that his brother and Xie Wen are en en en en.

Chapter 89: 惊动:

• Wen Shi invites (or what passes for it from him) Xie Wen to share a room with him, then takes it back after Xie Wen hesitates. Xie Wen admits he was just surprised that Wen Shi would ask for something he wanted.
• Xie Wen kisses Wen Shi's neck and Wen Shi is worried that his dirty puppet-string bondage fantasies may have been transmitted through the soul-cleansing array to Xie Wen, who promises he didn’t see anything. Xie Wen asks what kind of dream he wasn't supposed to see, and Wen Shi kisses him to distract him.
• In the next room, Bu Ning tries to reassure Zhou Xu that Wen Shi won’t take revenge on him seriously, but realizes that actually Wen Shi is pretty vicious. He flashes back to how Wen Shi used to sneak-attack Chen Bu Dao.
• Zhang Zhengchu calls Zhou Xu, who first mistakes him for a spam caller. After Zhou Xu tells him that Bu Ning is still with them, Zhang Zhengchu decides to have all the pan guan families convene in Tianjin instead.

Chapter 90: 邪术:

• Bu Ning asks whether Zhou Xu is actually stupid or if he's just pretending. Zhou Xu explains that he doesn’t like Zhang Zhengchu but he still is loyal to the Zhang siblings.
• Bu Ning calculates his age after Zhou Xu calls him old.
• Zhou Xu explains the ritual that all young pan guan have to go through when being presented to Zhang Zhengchu (and Bu Ning is confused because this does not line up with his memories of bowing to Chen Bu Dao) and the nightmares that he used to have. He shows Bu Ning what he saw back then in Zhang Zhengchu’s room, and Bu Ning confirms that it was not a dream and that someone was using evil techniques.
• They decide they need to alert Xie Wen and Wen Shi, with Lao Mao assigned the honor of interrupting them in the middle of… en en en.
• While Bu Ning explains what’s going on, Wen Shi remembers the beads and feathers on the wrist of Xie Wen's soul and wonders what they’re for.

Chapter 91: 山雨:

• Wen Shi continues to ponder the beads and feathers on Xie Wen’s wrist, and their possible meanings.
• They deduce that Zhang Zhengchu is the one using evil techniques.
• Explanation of why Bu Ning is the one who best understands evil techniques (after Chen Bu Dao).
• Xie Wen thinks this is what he foresaw when he was moved to leave his Xie Wen puppet a thousand years ago, as it is affecting the seal that is sealing him.
• Discussion of the unusual frequency of cage vortices where there shouldn’t be in recent years, and how Zhang Zhengchu is probably causing them to happen in order to stay alive longer, because he's the reincarnation of the disciple who swapped the Songyun Mountain's disastrous fate with Liu Village.
• The fact that the Zhang family is letting cage vortices develop and remain all over the place endangers nearby innocent people, makes additional cages and cage vortices more likely, and adds to Chen Bu Dao's karmic no-no burden.
• Zhang Zhengchu calls Zhou Xu and announces that he and the other pan guan have arrived.

Chapter 92: 会面:

• The Zhang family and the rest of the pan guan community arrive in Tianjin.
• Zhang Zhengchu and A-Qi speculate that Bu Ning has possessed a recently dead corpse.
• Introduction of the other important pan guan families, including the heads of the Suzhou Wu and Yunfu Luo families.
• Zhang Zhengchu explains the array that they’re preparing to use on Bu Ning.
• All of the characters convene, led by Xie Wen (to the Zhang family's chagrin).

Chapter 93: 养灵:

• Wen Shi uses his puppet strings to fuck up the array that the pan guan are setting.
• Wen Shi, who is connected to the array he's breaking and can feel exactly what kind of selfish person Zhang Zhengchu is, is angry that someone like Zhang Zhengchu has lived so long and has the respect of the community, and Xie Wen tells him it’s because Zhang Zhengchu is willing to resort to methods that Wen Shi would never use because they cause others pain.
• Zhang Zhengchu stabilizes the array, and he and the other elders scold Wen Shi for being an upstart.
• The peanut gallery wonders where Bu Ning is.
• Wen Shi flexes on Zhang Zhengchu and reveals who he is.
• Zhang Zhengchu reflects that if his plan had succeeded, he would have been able to stay in human form for another hundred years.
• Wen Shi explains the difference between the two different spirit-boosting arrays that Bu Ning created, and tells the rest of the pan guan families that the array they’re trying to set is powering Zhang Zhengchu at the cost of everyone else.
• The head of the Wu family recognizes Wen Shi.
• Xie Wen steps up to back Wen Shi up (and hold his hand).

Chapter 94: 梵文:

• The other family heads start to figure out what's up.
• Wen Shi is distracted from his holding hands and cuddling with Xie Wen when he hears chanting and it reminds him of a belief that he's heard of, where if monks chant as someone dies and their heart is pure enough, they can leave a blessing mark on their soul.
• He realizes that what he hears is a reverse-rebirth mantra that keeps Xie Wen from being able to reincarnate, from all the descendants who have cursed him to die a horrible death over the last thousand years.
• But Xie Wen assures him that Wen Shi is also in his heart, keeping the mantra at bay.
• Wen Shi and Xie Wen break up the earth and expose the flow of the array to prove which version of the spirit-boosting array they are using.
• Zhang Zhengchu gives up trying to pretend innocence, blaming his bad luck in running into Chen Bu Dao. Explanation of his plans to steal Bu Ning’s energy. Zhang Zhengchu attacks the Wu family head and Wen Shi and Xie Wen break the array.
• Zhang Zhengchu is exposed as a huigu and the head of the Luo family is horrified.
• Lao Mao tries to stop Zhang Zhengchu from escaping, but is stopped by the interference of the Zhang siblings. Flashback of when Zhang Zhengchu was still a good grandfather.
• Zhang Zhengchu grabs Zhang Yalin and runs away. Lao Mao turns back into his human form.

Chapter 95: 本家:

• The pan guan community struggles to absorb all this new information, including Wen Shi and Chen Bu Dao's identities. Da Dong and the other younger arrive a little late to the party.
• Zhou Xu asks if the Zhang siblings defended Zhang Zhengchu because the ritual that the children did when presented to him allowed him to control them, but Zhang Lan says that she and Zhang Yalin considered and then discarded that suspicion when none of the children showed any signs of being used as puppets. But they have definitely been influenced by Zhang Zhengchu since he raised them for many years.
• Bu Ning opens a door to the ostensibly unbreachable Zhang family estate.
• Zhang Zhengchu arrives at the estate with Zhang Yalin. Da/Xiao Zhao arrive in their beast forms to keep him from escaping.

Chapter 96: 伏诛:

• Wen Shi’s python puppet fights a dragon made of fire and grows wings. Everyone is suitably impressed by the image he presents.
• They find Zhang Zhengchu, who appears to have taken over Zhang Yalin’s body (they recognize Zhang Yalin because of Wen Shi's knucklebones). Zhang Yalin begs Zhang Lan to save him and invokes Zhang Zhengchu’s line about a puppet master’s hands being the most important thing. Zhang Lan almost falls for it but is stopped by Wen Shi.
• Zhang Daiyue’s name lights up on the lineage chart and Bu Ning refutes the belief that it means a disaster is coming. It just means he’s alive. Zhang Daiyue has been taking over each new Zhang family head’s body.
• Facing off with Xie Wen, Zhang Daiyue activates an array. All of the bystanders are killed by spikes coming out of the ground, the ground caving in, and the Zhang estate’s guardian beasts.
• Spurred by the Luo family head’s death, Zhang Daiyue remembers that he created A-Qi in memory of his friend Zhang Qi.
• Zhang Daiyue rants that he was forced to take this path because Chen Bu Dao wouldn’t help him. He insists that what happened with Liu Village was just a misstep.
• Zhang Daiyue backstory, and how he tried to find Chen Bu Dao's sealing place to take over his body before giving up and settling on his current method of staying alive.
• It’s revealed that everyone who seemed to have been killed is actually just fine, courtesy of the ancestors' arrays, puppet strings, and illusions.
• As Xie Wen is drawing his spirit out of Zhang Yalin's body, Zhang Daiyue turns himself into a puppet of the pan guan juniors, drawing on the souls of the children he blessed with the water ritual.
• With Xie Wen acting as a chain to prevent any backlash from Zhang Daiyue, Wen Shi destroys Zhang Daiyue.

Chapter 97: 荒处:

• Zhang Daiyue is turned into Wen Shi’s puppet and then destroyed.
• Wen Shi freaks out over the idea that Xie Wen might have taken damage. Xie Wen lets him look him over, until he tries to unbutton his shirt, and then kisses him.
• Wen Shi realizes they have an audience, but it turns out everyone has disappeared since they’ve entered Zhang Daiyue’s cage. They reflect that it's not at all surprising that Zhang Daiyue left a cage.

Chapter 98: “山鬼”:

• Wen Shi muses about Xie Wen’s memory when Xie Wen says he recognizes the location of the cage. He remembers one time when Xie Wen was away for a long time, and when he came back, that's when the distance between them solidified. He tried to divine where Chen Bu Dao went, and Chen Bu Dao mentioned this lake.
• They hear a ghostly woman's wail, and meet up with Zhang Biling and Xia Qiao, who is dreaming about his past after having smelled something familiar.
• Wen Shi hears some memories from Zhang Daiyue’s cage talking about a mountain ghost.

Chapter 99: 青鸟:

• The mountain ghost is definitely Chen Bu Dao, which means this is a place that he used to go to regularly, despite never staying anywhere for long.
• Wen Shi fights off some huigu-like monsters and is surprised to hear the faint sound of karmic no-no.
• The mountain reminds him of Songyun Mountain.
• He sees memory!Chen Bu Dao and learns the origins of the feathers that he wears on his wrist: Chen Bu Dao took the karmic no-no (and his feelings for Chen Bu Dao) that he washed away with the cleansing array and sent it off, turning it into birds.

Chapter 100: 怪阵:

• Wen Shi realizes that Chen Bu Dao maybe actually likes him of his own accord.
• He realizes that this is Zhang Daiyue’s memory, from when he came to beg Chen Bu Dao to save him.
• Chen Bu Dao is creating an array using his blood to deal with the cloud of karmic no-no.
• Memory!Zhang Daiyue begs Chen Bu Dao to save him and then attacks Wen Shi.

Chapter 101: 缘由:

• Zhang Daiyue’s cage dresses him as Chen Bu Dao as a manifestation of his desires.
• Wen Shi cruelly tells him that he’s dead. The cage crumbles. All of the missing people return.
• Wen Shi offers the mask and red robe to Xie Wen, but the only thing he claims is Wen Shi himself.
• Zhang Daiyue explains that he saw Chen Bu Dao putting together an array and misunderstood it as a way to live forever off the cloud of karmic no-no. In actuality, Chen Bu Dao was trying to create an array to help with the karmic no-no after his death.

Chapter 102: 归期:

• Wen Shi realizes that Zhang Daiyue lightened his own karmic debt by washing half his sin cloud into the lake, which ultimately led to Chen Bu Dao losing control of the karmic no-no. He ran away and Chen Bu Dao was left to deal with the cloud of karmic no-no threatening all the nearby innocents.
• Chen Bu Dao was about to return to Songyun Mountain to have tea with Wen Shi as it was the anniversary of the day he brought Wen Shi back to the mountain, when he realized what a disaster had been unleashed.
• He and his disciples worked to contain the sin cloud. Bu Ning remembers that Chen Bu Dao was the one who taught him the sealing array.

Chapter 103: 大礼:

• Not being able to have that birthday cup of tea with Chen Bu Dao is one of Wen Shi’s regrets, and he's mad that Zhang Daiyue is still alive after having taken everything from him. Wen Shi attempts to use a technique that will eternally imprison Zhang Daiyue’s soul, preventing it from dying and entering the cycle of reincarnation.
• Zhang Daiyue reminds him that using this technique on him when he still has a karmic debt to repay will bring heavenly wrath upon Wen Shi himself, but Wen Shi has gone kind of crazy and doesn't care.
• Eventually he is convinced to stop by Xie Wen. Instead, Zhang Biling, who remembers her past life thanks to Zhang Wan's help, serves as the Liu Village’s representative to collect the debt that he owes them.
• (In the author’s note, it is mentioned that the previously-named Zhang Dai has been renamed to Zhang Daiyue.)

Chapter 104: 消散:

• The Xie Wen puppet withers and leaves behind a withered branch. He was hiding his true appearance in the cage, when he let Wen Shi look him over.
• Wen Shi refuses to let go of the branch even while unconscious.
• Zhuang Ye and Zhong Si are being looked after at Songyun Mountain, and Bu Ning brings the unconscious Wen Shi and the other wounded there to recover too.
• Zhang Yalin is still unconscious but Xia Qiao wakes up.
• Bu Ning sets an array to keep Wen Shi from doing anything stupid, but as they rush from the room to check on Xia Qiao, they miss Wen Shi waking up.
• Xia Qiao appears to have damaged the walls, and also grown a bit.

Chapter 105: 夏樵:

• Xia Qiao is momentarily disoriented when he wakes up. He has regained his memories of the day Chen Bu Dao was sealed, and he realizes that Wen Shi created him to act as a guide back to the seal array.
• Xia Qiao remembers making himself small and weak to escape the people who would want to control him for access to the seal array, and then being found by Shen Qiao.
• Bu Ning asks Xia Qiao not to tell Wen Shi that the entrance to the seal array is at the Zhang family estate and that Xia Qiao can lead the way to the cage because he’s afraid Wen Shi will go off on his own. However, Wen Shi overhears them and forces Xia Qiao to take him to the array.
• At the door of the cage, Wen Shi tells Xia Qiao that he'll either bring Xie Wen out once the cage is dealt with... or he won't come out at all.

Chapter 106: 入妄:

• Xia Qiao realizes that Wen Shi doesn’t mean to come out of the cage alive unless he succeeds in bringing Chen Bu Dao back, and he decides to stay with Wen Shi if it comes to that.
• But Wen Shi forces him out of the cage.
• The inside of Wen Shi’s cage is Songyun Mountain, and the moon is a crescent. He finds himself, and almost loses track of who he is until he's reminded by a pain in his knuckles.
• Chen Bu Dao finds him, and he forgets why he's there.

Chapter 107: 破妄:

• Wen Shi lives an idyllic life on Songyun Mountain.
• Zhuang Ye and Bu Ning mention that they've heard of a superstition that if you bury a part of yourself near a loved one’s grave, you can find them quickly upon reincarnation.
• Wen Shi hears Chen Bu Dao's voice in the distance and realizes that time is not passing because the moon never changes. The cage starts to break apart.

Chapter 108: 赌徒:

• The cage illusion breaks and Wen Shi goes looking for Chen Bu Dao. He realizes that Chen Bu Dao has been stuck in a world full of dead things for a thousand years.
• Xia Qiao tells the others what happened and says that he can get them to the cage entrance but can’t help them get inside. Bu Ning and Zhang Biling explain that even if Wen Shi can dispel the cage, he still has to deal with the sin cloud and the karmic debt that Zhang Daiyue pushed off onto Chen Bu Dao.
• They think Wen Shi means to die in Chen Bu Dao's place, and Xia Qiao thinks he means to use the Nothingness Doors to make sure he doesn't reincarnate into some unrelated person.

Chapter 109: 指骨:

• Bu Ning wants to try and trick the cage door into believing that they are Wen Shi so it will let them in.
• They find the finger bone that Zhang Yalin carries around and realize that Wen Shi left it so if he dies, they can bury it near Chen Bu Dao and he can meet him earlier.
• They fail to enter the cage using the finger bone so Bu Ning buries it by the side of the cage.

Chapter 110: 无相:

• Bu Ning returns to the lake where Chen Bu Dao was working on his array and finds the pan guan community gathered there, intending to take on the burden of the karmic no-no.
• Wen Shi is absorbing the karmic no-no inside the sealing array when he feels assistance coming from the outside.
• He manages to find Chen Bu Dao and remove the mark of karmic debt from him. It's revealed that the beads and feathers on Chen Bu Dao’s wrist provided Wen Shi with a blessing, which combined with his creation of the cage to become the Nothingness Doors.

Chapter 111: 出门:

• History of the Zhang family estate.
• Internet gossip about ghosts and the return of Chen Bu Dao to the Zhang estate, as narrated by one seriously unlucky taxi driver.
• Bu Ning and the others bring Chen Bu Dao back to the Shen house.
• Xia Qiao realizes that maybe he’s not a puppet anymore.
• Chen Bu Dao wakes up and refuses to wait for the Nothingness Doors to appear naturally. He fetches Wen Shi out of the void but pulls him out in child form.

Chapter 112: 骗术:

• The gang discuss why Wen Shi is a child. Xia Qiao remembers Shen Qiao telling him that Wen Shi always looks like this when he comes out of the Nothingness Doors and he grows back to his normal form pretty quickly. However, Wen Shi continues to be small.
• Lao Mao shows back up and realizes that Wen Shi is perfectly fine, actually.

Chapter 113: 恢复:

• Xia Qiao stresses out over the state of the bathtub.
• Zhou Xu pats Wen Shi’s head. Bu Ning becomes a meme.
• Chen Bu Dao takes Wen Shi back to Songyun Mountain, where Da/Xiao Zhao have also revived, and plonks him in a medicinal bath.
• Wen Shi realizes that if he remains in child form, he and Chen Bu Dao may go back to a master-disciple relationship dynamic, and he decides to revert back to adult form.

Chapter 114: 天灯:

• Wen Shi finally admits that he was intentionally staying in child form.
• Wen Shi expects Chen Bu Dao to take him to task for the stupid things he’s done, but Chen Bu Dao is more interested in kissing him.
• Wen Shi accidentally asks Chen Bu Dao if he really likes him while they’re making out. Then he gets horny about Chen Bu Dao’s fingers.
• Afterwards, Chen Bu Dao remembers seeing Wen Shi backlit by the lanterns for the winter solstice, and thinks that that's when he fell in love.

Chapter 115: 亘古:

• Lao Mao and Da/Xiao Zhao wait for Chen Bu Dao and Wen Shi to wake up.
• Lao Mao remembers Wen Shi writing their names on the turtles and Chen Bu Dao "helping."
• Wen Shi wakes up with his head pillowed on Chen Bu Dao’s leg. He sees the aftermath of their night together and remembers how he used to attack Chen Bu Dao when he was younger. 

Chapter 116: 后人:

• The aftermath of everything at the Zhang family, with Zhang Lan as its head. The pan guan community mourns Zhang Zhengchu.
• Wen Shi and Xie Wen plan to return to the Shen house for Bu Ning and Zhou Xu's birthday because their souls will be unsteady on that day, only to find that everyone is at Baicui Mountain, where Chen Bu Dao's array is. They find the pan guan community smearing blood onto the array stones to help carry the burden of the karmic no-no.
• Bu Ning leaves Zhou Xu’s body, and they plan to make him a new body, but first he has to go into the ancestor soup with Zhong Si and Zhuang Ye.
• Bu Ning and Zhou Xu say their goodbyes.

Chapter 117: 道别:

• Xia Qiao completes his very first cage and appears on the lineage chart.
• Wen Shi takes Chen Bu Dao to eat spicy food but it backfires.
• Chen Bu Dao apologizes with bunnies and comes to have tea with him.
• Xia Qiao’s diary entry.

Extra 1: 魂火:

• Zhou Xu and Xia Qiao are suspicious of Wen Shi’s pot. It’s for making puppet bodies for Chen Bu Dao’s other disciples.

Extra 2: 倦鸟归巢:

• Lao Mao gets mad at Zhou Xu for eating at 2 in the morning.
• The three other disciples come back.

Extra 3: 老祖复健联盟:

• The gang puts the three disciples into their new bodies. Their limbs give out in the hot springs, and Wen Shi accidentally makes Zhong Si do a split.

Extra 4: 关于师娘:

• The disciples ask Chen Bu Dao to take Wen Shi away while they get out of the hot spring for their own preservation.
• When Zhong Si makes fun of his height, Bu Ning tosses the other two and Zhou Xu into an array and lands them at the top of a tree, where they accidentally see Wen Shi kissing Xie Wen.
• Zhou Xu confirms Wen Shi's shiniang status.

Extra 5: 言传身教：

• Zhong Si comes to terms with the fact that with Wen Shi’s promotion to shiniang, he is now the most junior.
• Zhou Xu educates the three disciples on the state of the modern world, including, unfortunately for him, his school.
• He takes them to see a movie but instead of 3D it’s 4DX.
• Wen Shi asks Chen Bu Dao how he’s better at modern stuff than Wen Shi despite waking around the same time.

Extra 6: 松云：

• Chen Bu Dao teases Wen Shi as they get ready for the winter solstice dinner with the other disciples.
• More backstory for Bu Ning, Zhuang Ye, and Zhong Si.
• Wen Shi makes lanterns for Chen Bu Dao. 

冬至 extra (Dec 22, 2022):

• The extended family make dumplings for the winter solstice.
• Wen Shi shows up, having lost several games of weiqi to Chen Bu Dao and having knocked him out and tied him up in a fit of frustration.
• Chen Bu Dao teases him back and Wen Shi heads back up the mountain to sajiao at him.
• Everyone else chokes down a serving of dog food along with their dumplings.

Chen Bu Dao birthday extra (April 25, 2023):

• Wen Shi stresses out about what to give Chen Bu Dao for his birthday. The rest of the gang considers giving him to Chen Bu Dao as a birthday gift.
• Wen Shi brings Chen Bu Dao to a place he thought he’d lost a long time ago.