What is the Shangji Guankou?

It's a living entity that can move and hide, tracked by observing changes in feng shui and celestial patterns. It is not a fixed location.

Why does that man have bound feet?

In Great Qi, men who work as *yuse* (male sex workers) practice foot binding as a social marker, similar to female courtesans in historical China.

A folk deity depicted as a rabbit with human features, worshipped as a patron god by male entertainers and courtesans in certain Chinese traditions.

Why is everyone boiling pots at dawn?

That's the chapter's central mystery. It's clearly a ritual or communal activity, but its purpose is deliberately left unexplained—folk horror thrives on ambiguity.

Is Great Qi the same place as Great Liang?

No. Great Qi is a different nation within the Dao-Twisted World, with its own bizarre social customs, laws, and potentially different supernatural rules.

Why is Li Huowang so paranoid about the bound feet?

Li Huowang's perception is hyper-sensitive to anything culturally "wrong" because he's constantly bracing for supernatural threats. The bound feet trigger his unease because they violate his (and the reader's) normal expectations of gender and body norms.

The Boiling Pots of Great Qi

1,247 words

Chapter 537: Great Qi

"Brother Li, head east first." With his hands behind his back, Zhuge Yuan looked up at the surrounding mountains and rivers, speaking to Li Huowang.

"Mm." Li Huowang nodded and walked forward with Li Sui, crossing mountains and wading through rivers as they went.

"Left channel blocked, right path obstructed. Go west for two li."

Li Huowang complied, though a sliver of doubt crept in. "Brother Zhuge, isn't the Shangji Guankou fixed in one place?"

"Of course not. The Shangji Guankou is a living thing—it moves, and it's exceptionally good at hiding. But its movement always causes changes in the surrounding feng shui. As long as we use the method of Divining Gold and Fixing Water, we can track its traces through the mountains and rivers." Zhuge Yuan spoke, counting on his fingers as he looked up at the constellations.

"Mm." Li Huowang nodded and said nothing more, burying his head and pressing on.

He had to admit, having Zhuge Yuan as a guide put his mind at ease, especially in the unfamiliar lands of Great Qi.

Under Zhuge Yuan's direction, they wandered and doubled back until the dead of night. Li Huowang stepped onto cracked rice paddies and stopped, staring at a town in the distance dotted with flickering lights.

The town looked sizable enough. Finding an inn there for the night shouldn't be a problem.

He glanced at Li Sui crawling on all fours to his left, then said to Zhuge Yuan, "Brother Zhuge, let's stop here for today. Rest." With that, Li Huowang led Li Sui toward the town.

"Brother Li, take the time to recover your energy tonight. By my estimation, we should catch up to the Shangji Guankou by tomorrow."

"Good. I hope everything goes smoothly."

He had been in Great Qi for a while now. The surroundings weren't exactly terrible, but they gave Li Huowang a persistent feeling of unease.

He didn't know if this was his sensitive perception warning him of danger, but even though nothing had happened, his guard never dropped.

The town drew closer, and Li Huowang's sharp nose caught the smell of burning firewood.

There were guards at the city gate, but they didn't seem particularly diligent. They huddled around a bonfire, drinking soup from bowls. When Li Huowang approached, they didn't even lift their eyelids.

Li Huowang entered the city without trouble. He had intended to find an inn, but not a single shop was open—not one. The place looked exceptionally desolate.

With no other choice, Li Huowang followed the firelight to a house and prepared to ask for shelter. Inside the small courtyard was a stove, where a man with a white cloth wrapped around his head was cooking something in a large earthenware pot.

When he heard Li Huowang's footsteps, the man adding firewood to the stove turned around.

He was a fair-skinned man, and the scent coming off him made Li Huowang suspicious.

"Daoist, is something the matter?" The man stood up, looking uneasily at the tall figure of Li Sui behind Li Huowang, clad in a straw rain cloak.

After quickly sizing the man up, Li Huowang's unease deepened. The man had bound feet!

The two feet of this grown man were only half the size of a normal person's. Walking on those three-inch golden lotuses made Li Huowang intensely uncomfortable.

Seeing the man reach for something behind him—

Clang!

The blade left its sheath. Li Huowang had already pressed his sword against the man's neck.

"What are you doing?!"

"Brother Li, Brother Li, don't be so agitated. This is Great Qi. You don't have nearly as many enemies here as you did in Great Liang. This man is merely a yuse household."

Only after hearing Zhuge Yuan's calm explanation did Li Huowang understand: in Great Qi, men who sold their charms were also divided into different professions, and the man with bound feet was one such type.

When Li Huowang withdrew his sword, the man—who had already wet himself—collapsed to the ground, trembling as he kowtowed repeatedly.

"Good sir, the silver is at the bottom of the chest! It's all for you! Spare my life!"

Li Huowang also noticed what the man had behind him—a red handkerchief tucked into his belt.

"I'm not a bandit. I'm here to ask for lodging! Get up! I'm staying at your place tonight. Here, take this. The extra is your tip!"

Li Huowang pulled him up roughly and pressed a few pieces of碎 silver into the man's hand.

"This... this..." While the man was at a loss, Li Huowang had already pushed the door open and walked inside.

The space was small, the decorations simple. Despite the nature of the man's profession, the place was quite clean.

Two colored clay statues on the left altar caught Li Huowang's attention. Looking at the long ears and the three-lipped mouth on the clay figures, Li Huowang turned to the man and asked, "What are you worshipping?"

The small-footed man gave a sheepish smile. "In answer to your question, good sir, I worship Lord Hare. Everyone in our line of work worships Lord Hare."

"Heh, I figured as much."

The night was already deep. Li Huowang didn't intend to waste any more time with this man. He planned to rest as quickly as possible.

He walked up the stairs to the second floor, blocked the staircase with a cabinet, and then lay down on the bed, closing his eyes.

Nearby, Li Sui coiled herself into a tight, round cake. Her eyes were closed, but her ears twitched left and right, monitoring everything around them.

Time passed slowly. Li Huowang drifted into sleep. Outside the window, the crackling of burning firewood continued.

The sky slowly brightened. Just as the sunlight hit the window, Li Huowang's eyes snapped open. There were footsteps outside.

Li Sui was already one step ahead, crouching by the window and peeking through a crack.

"Dad, a few people are outside. They have white cloths on their heads, same as that guy. They're talking in secret."

"They've finished talking. He added more wood to the stove, and then they all left together."

Li Huowang got out of bed, pulled his weapon from under the pillow. "Time for us to go. I think that man went to report us to the authorities."

"Mm." Li Sui nodded and followed Li Huowang downstairs.

The small-footed man was already gone. Only the stove was left, still cooking.

"He's been boiling this all night?" Li Huowang wondered as he walked out of the courtyard, preparing to leave the village.

But as he passed through the town, he noticed that every single household was cooking something. His brow furrowed.

"Brother Zhuge, is this some custom of Great Qi?"

"Great Qi has no such custom. Brother Li, what month and day is it? Is the Dragon Boat Festival coming up? I remember that boiling zongzi takes a whole day and night."

Li Huowang took a deep breath and shook his head. "No. The smell of bamboo leaves is very strong. I would have noticed it. Forget it, whatever they're doing—as long as it doesn't get in my way."

With that, he quickened his pace and led Li Sui toward the city gate.

But just as he was about to reach it, a vast array of steaming stoves appeared before him. "What the hell are they doing?"

He also saw many people carrying heavy earthenware pots, heading outside the city.

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Reading Guide Decoding

Folk Horror and Rabbit Gods in the Land of Bound Feet

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

This chapter is a treasure trove of niche Chinese folk culture and historical trivia. Let's break it down.

First, the bound feet on a man. In imperial China, foot binding was overwhelmingly a practice imposed on women, symbolizing beauty and status. The idea of a man with bound feet is deeply jarring because it inverts the social order. Here in Great Qi, it signals that the man belongs to a specific yuse (鬻色) profession—literally "selling one's looks." This isn't just a random perversion; it's a deliberate worldbuilding choice that tells you Great Qi's social norms are fundamentally different from (and more unsettling than) Great Liang's.

Next, Lord Hare (兔爷). In Chinese folklore, the Jade Rabbit pounds medicine on the moon. But in Beijing's folk tradition, "Lord Hare" (also known as Rabbit God or 兔儿爷) is a clay figurine with rabbit ears, often dressed in armor, worshipped as a protective deity. However, there's a secondary, darker layer: in some contexts, Lord Hare was also a patron deity for male entertainers (including homosexual courtesans), precisely because the term "rabbit" (兔儿) evolved into slang for male prostitutes in certain periods. The novel is tapping directly into this obscure but very real folk-religion niche.

And finally, the mysterious pots. Boiling something all night, carrying it out of the city at dawn—this is classic folk horror setup. It could be a seasonal ritual, an offering to a local god, or something far worse. The fact that Li Huowang's keen sense of smell can rule out zongzi leaves (a strong, distinctive aroma) means whatever's in those pots is likely meat, medicine, or something you don't want to name. The ambiguity is the point: Great Qi's customs are a closed book to our protagonist, and that ignorance is its own kind of dread.

Chapter Overview

Buckle up, fellow daoists—we're on a spirit-hunting road trip through the strange and unsettling lands of Great Qi! Li Huowang, guided by the ever-reliable Zhuge Yuan, tracks the elusive Shangji Guankou by reading the feng shui of mountains and rivers. But when night falls and they stop at a suspiciously empty town for shelter, our protagonist stumbles into a domestic nightmare: a man with bound feet, a rabbit-eared altar, and a town boiling something in secret at every doorway. It's a quieter chapter than the blood-soaked battles of Zhengde Temple, but the unease simmers low and constant, like that mysterious pot that never stops cooking. Get ready for slow-burn folk horror and a deep dive into Great Qi's bizarre social customs.

Key Plot Points

Zhuge Yuan tracks the Shangji Guankou using feng shui and celestial observation, revealing it's a living entity that moves and hides, not a fixed location.
After a day of travel, Li Huowang calls a halt for the night at a desolate town where not a single shop is open.
He seeks lodging at a house and is met by a man with bound feet (three-inch golden lotions)—a sign of Great Qi's unfamiliar and unsettling social structure.
Li Huowang's paranoia spikes: he draws his sword on the man, only to be calmed by Zhuge Yuan, who explains the man is merely a yuse household (a male sex worker).
The protagonist notices the man worships two clay statues of "Lord Hare" (兔爷), the patron deity of male courtesans.
During the night, Li Huowang wakes to find the man has left and every household in town is boiling large pots—none of which smell like zongzi (Dragon Boat Festival food).
The chapter ends with Li Huowang seeing crowds carrying earthenware pots out of the city, leaving the mystery of what they're cooking (and for whom) ominously unsolved.

Reading Guide

This is a "breather chapter," but don't let the lack of explosions fool you. The horror here is atmospheric and social rather than visceral. Pay close attention to how Li Huowang's paranoia is both justified and slightly out of step with reality—he draws a sword on a terrified yuse worker because the man's feet trigger his deep-seated cultural unease. Zhuge Yuan's role as a calm translator of local customs is invaluable here; without him, Li Huowang would have been in a fight before he even had breakfast.

Also note the domestic squabbling and petty economics: the unease of haggling for a night's stay, the silver pressed into a trembling hand, the observation that the house is "quite clean" despite the owner's profession. These details keep the narrative grounded and gritty, even when the supernatural threat is only implied.

For seasoned readers of the genre, this chapter is a masterclass in unreliable folk-horror set-dressing. Everything is ordinary: a man cooking, a town at dawn, clay statues on an altar. But the wrongness of the details—the bound feet, the rabbit god, the endless boiling—creates a subtle dread that's harder to shake than a straightforward monster attack.

Spoiler-free verdict: Great Qi is not a friendly place. It's weird in ways Li Huowang doesn't have the cultural vocabulary to understand, and that makes it terrifying.

Quick Q&A

Lore recap (TL;DR) drawn from this chapter's Cultural / Xianxia Notes — same text as the FAQ structured data on this page.

What is the Shangji Guankou?: It's a living entity that can move and hide, tracked by observing changes in feng shui and celestial patterns. It is not a fixed location.
Why does that man have bound feet?: In Great Qi, men who work as *yuse* (male sex workers) practice foot binding as a social marker, similar to female courtesans in historical China.
What is Lord Hare?: A folk deity depicted as a rabbit with human features, worshipped as a patron god by male entertainers and courtesans in certain Chinese traditions.
Why is everyone boiling pots at dawn?: That's the chapter's central mystery. It's clearly a ritual or communal activity, but its purpose is deliberately left unexplained—folk horror thrives on ambiguity.
Is Great Qi the same place as Great Liang?: No. Great Qi is a different nation within the Dao-Twisted World, with its own bizarre social customs, laws, and potentially different supernatural rules.
Why is Li Huowang so paranoid about the bound feet?: Li Huowang's perception is hyper-sensitive to anything culturally "wrong" because he's constantly bracing for supernatural threats. The bound feet trigger his unease because they violate his (and the reader's) normal expectations of gender and body norms.