Heavenly Alliance

Story context

Han Li finally makes his public return to Heavenly Sky City, and the moment he does, the political game reaches a new level. This chapter is a masterclass in how fame functions in the Mortal Stream: not as a vanity stat, but as a combat multiplier and a political liability in equal measure. Lü Luo’s reception hall is packed with elders who are all trying to gauge exactly how dangerous this new Nascent Soul cultivator really is, and their reactions—envy, calculation, poorly disguised jealousy—paint a perfect picture of the cultivation world’s social battlefield. But the real bombshell comes when Lü Luo, alone with Han Li, unveils a scheme so elegant and so ruthless that it feels like a Cold War chess move: Senior Brother Cheng has already arranged the perfect cover for Nangong Wan by declaring her dead and recognizing her as his own sworn sister, clearing the path for her marriage to Han Li without any political fallout. Get ready, fellow Daoists—this is where our favorite paranoid mortal starts to accumulate not just power, but institutional leverage.

Why it matters

This chapter is where Han Li officially graduates from “freakishly capable loner” to “political asset with institutional memory.” The shift is subtle but critical: he is no longer just a cultivator other people want to recruit or kill; he is now someone whose reputation can be weaponized as a deterrent, and whose actions are being shaped by the careful scheming of allies who have invested heavily in him. Cheng and Lü Luo’s willingness to craft such an elaborate fiction for Nangong Wan’s sake shows just how much they value Han Li—and how much they expect in return.

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Source novel

A Record Of A Mortal S Journey To Immortality