Moon Gate

A sect that uses a secret paper-based technique (the Sticking Technique) to repair flesh, drawing on the folk tradition of paper effigies as substitutes for the living body.

Definition

A sect that uses a secret paper-based technique (the Sticking Technique) to repair flesh, drawing on the folk tradition of paper effigies as substitutes for the living body.

Story context

This chapter delivers one of the most devastating turning points so far. Li Huowang, attempting to escape a desperate, frozen situation, unwittingly triggers the *Thousand Greats Record* ritual by sacrificing his own skin—and in the process, ignites a conflagration that kills the entire Bai family. By the time he returns to himself, the world around him is charred earth, and he is a blackened, suffering statue. He meets Liu Zongyuan of the Moon Gate, who patches his ruined body with paper skin and a paper robe. But no amount of patchwork can fix what's broken inside: Li Huowang is now the author of the very horror he swore to prevent—and he has to go back and tell Bai Lingmiao that her family is ash. Buckle up, fellow readers—this is bleak, and it stays bleak.

Why it matters

Get ready to sit with Li Huowang in the ash for a while. This chapter doesn't offer catharsis; it offers a quiet, excruciating aftermath. The reunion with Bai Lingmiao is coming, and it's going to be the emotional knife-twist of the arc. Key emotional beats to watch: Li Huowang's earlier delusional plea to Bai Sai ("I'm family") is now a corpse-laden irony. The paper skin Liu Zongyuan gives him is a fragile stopgap—stay away from water. And that tentacle-eye in his belly? Keep watching it. In the Dao-Twisted World, nothing inside you stays friendly forever.