Morning mist seeped into the study reeking of oxidized iron. Tan Jinxuan picked up the bloodstained silk peach blossom[1], its remaining petals dissolving into ink that seeped through his palm. The bronze mirror rippled, showing not the study but three hundred children kneeling before a bubbling cauldron[2]—the alchemist tending the flames bore the same twisted features as Tan's own demon-possessed reflection.

  The medicine cabinet toppled. Angelica roots[3] sprouted peach tendrils that bored into floor tiles. Tan stumbled to the window and froze—Liuxi Town's morning fog had congealed, a steamed bun vendor petrified mid-call, black hairs wriggling from his bamboo baskets like spider legs.

  "You've finally awakened?" Su'e's voice echoed from the inkstone[4], now transformed into a miniature furnace housing her three-inch specter. The bronze shard[5] in her hair reflected Tan's true state: his physical body lay entombed in a peachwood sarcophagus[6], blossoms blooming from every orifice.

  The inkstone exploded. Soot formed Su'e's final message: Seek my true form eastward when the Vermilion Bird's oil depletes. Tan rushed to the bronze lamp—its vermilion fluid[7] dwindled to three drops, the wick revealing itself as a mummified demon finger.

  Torrential rain fell as liquid Bagua diagrams[8]. Tan stepped outside to find cobblestones flipping like fish scales, their undersides carved with death dates matching the sacrificed children's. A funeral shop's spirit banner[9] billowed, revealing a marriage certificate[10] embroidered in gold thread.

  The peach grove materialized where the road ended, Tan's right hand fully wooden. Each tree bore bronze mirrors[11] showing ancestral sins: his twenty-year-old self compounding elixirs, his thirty-year-old incarnation harvesting womb-blood[12], his fifty-year-old visage driving a vermilion pin through Su'e's brow. Touching a mirror, he recoiled—these weren't illusions but genetic memories[13] surfacing through lignified veins.

  Su'e's true form emerged as a charred stump[14] studded with seven bronze nails. As Tan pried them loose with the vermilion pin, amber resin[15] oozed forth, preserving the moment of a girl's heart extraction. The final nail's removal triggered an explosion—wood fragments mid-air reassembling the Demon Subjugation Notes'[16] lost chapter:

  "Moonlit Ascension is mutual annihilation. Break the cycle by becoming the lamp's wick."

  Rain reversed course. Tan witnessed Liuxi Town dissolving—the apothecary's Su'e became a paper effigy[17] with coin-eyes, playing children transformed into bleeding peach pits[18], his study suspended amidst seven soul-lamps[19] forming the Death Dipper[20].

  The demon's sigh vibrated through earth: "Did you think this town was anything but your prison?" Tan's wooden corruption reached his heart—veins now pulsed with cinnabar-infused oil[21]. The bronze lamp self-ignited, flames revealing Su'e's smile: "See the town stele."

  The eastern boundary stone[22] bled fresh characters—its founding year matched Tan's seclusion date. Below lay a mummified corpse in identical Taoist robes, peach saplings[23] sprouting from its ears bearing human-faced fruit[24]. Each chanted: "Did you truly escape this forty-nine day loop?"

  Lightning unveiled the truth—Liuxi Town was an extension of his meditation chamber, villagers being mental demons. Those "forty-nine days" were the peach demon's illusion spun through bronze lamp smoke. The real Su'e had been entombed[25] as a spiritual anchor three years prior.

  Chains snapped in the grove. Three hundred child-spirits crawled from the stele, clutching mirror shards[26] to encircle Tan. Refracted light wove a cauldron above them, its flames devouring generations of Tan souls. Tan's left arm combusted, revealing Moonlit Ascension's true text—each character vampirizing his essence.

  Tan Jinxuan tore the flesh from his burning left hand, exposing bone etched with matching sigils from Demon Subjugation Notes. As his skeletal palm pressed the spectral cauldron[27], three hundred child-spirits chanted Salvation Sutras[28]. Golden light erupted from bronze mirrors, illuminating his true destiny—the lingering soul-lamp[29] at the Death Dipper's heart.

  Su'e's remnant spirit materialized from lamp flames, her bronze shard[30] projecting the buried truth: Alchemist Tan Xiuwen and the peach demon were once Daoist partners[31], sabotaged before ascension. The demon became his soul-lamp wick to preserve his spirit, unaware he'd embraced demonic arts—Moonlit Ascension was but a ruse to entomb child-souls.

  "Awaken." Su'e's phantom reached into Tan's chest, extracting a gold-chain[32] tethering the demon's rotting essence. Amidst decaying petals lay an intact Unity Bell[33]—their past-life love token.

  Rain transmuted into fire. Liuxi Town's illusion peeled in flames. Tan's wooden body fissured, oozing three centuries of sealed lamp oil[34]. He leapt into the spectral cauldron clutching Moonlit Ascension scrolls—its boiling depths churned with ancestral conscience[35].

  "Souls mend souls! Lamps fuel lamps!"

  The Vermilion Bird Lamp detonated, fusing demon bone with Tan's spine. Mirror shards coalesced into a colossal Vermilion Bird Totem[36]. As its wings unfurled, true Liuxi Town emerged—crumbling walls flanking three hundred child-graves[37], each marked by tarnished vermilion pins.

  The demon's wail softened: "Xiuwen, can you smell peach blossoms?" Its decayed spirit shed resentment, revealing the maiden's original face. Tan glimpsed Su'e's smile dissolving into the Unity Bell—her essence mending the cracked artifact.

  Dawn shattered storm clouds. The Vermilion Bird Totem fused with the eastern stele[38], its blood-inscriptions transmuting to gold: Here, on Seventh Moon Seventh Day[39], Tan immolated to suppress calamity. Charred groves birthed a sapling[39], its tender shoot clasping a bronze shard mirroring spotless skies.

  Cultural Notes:

  1.Silk peach blossom: Funerary offering symbolizing stolen youth.

  2.Cauldron (ding): Ritual vessel representing alchemical transformation.

  3.Angelica roots (danggui): Medicinal herb metaphorizing corrupted healing.

  4.Inkstone: Symbol of scholarly pursuit, here perverted into occult tool.

  5.Bronze shard: Ancient mirrors were believed to reveal spiritual truths.

  6.Peachwood sarcophagus: Paradoxical use of demon-repelling wood for containment.

  7.Vermilion fluid: Cinnabar-mercury mixture symbolizing poisoned immortality.

  8.Bagua diagrams: Represent cosmic forces now inverted into entrapment.

  9.Spirit banner (fan): Used in funerals to guide souls, here subverted.

  10.Marriage certificate: Symbolizing the protagonist's karmic bond with the demon.

  11.Bronze mirrors: Taoist tools for revealing past-life karma.

  12.Womb-blood: Dark alchemy ingredient in forbidden longevity rituals.

  13.Genetic memories: Concept of ancestral sins carried through bloodlines.

  14.Charred stump: Symbol of the peach demon's original tree form.

  15.Amber resin: Fossilized tree sap representing trapped time.

  16.Demon Subjugation Notes: Fictional manual containing forbidden counter-rituals.

  17.Paper effigy: Burning paper replicas offered to spirits in Chinese rites.

  18.Peach pits: Symbolizing trapped souls in Daoist folklore.

  19.Soul-lamps: Represent seven generations of spiritual debt.

  20.Death Dipper: Inverted Big Dipper symbolizing inescapable fate.

  21.Cinnabar-infused oil: Reference to mercury's role in failed immortality quests.

  22.Boundary stone: Marker between mortal and spirit realms.

  23.Peach saplings: Normally ward evil, here signify demonic resurgence.

  24.Human-faced fruit: Legendary renmian peaches representing damned souls.

  25.Entombed: Reference to live burial rituals for suppressing vengeful spirits.

  26.Mirror shards: Broken reflections symbolizing fragmented reality.

  27. Spectral cauldron: Alchemical metaphor for spiritual purification through suffering.

  28. Salvation Sutras (Duren Jing): Taoist text for redeeming lost souls.

  29. Soul-lamp: Represents the protagonist's role as both perpetrator and redeemer.

  30. Bronze shard: Symbolizes fragmented historical truths.

  31. Daoist partners: Spiritual couples pursuing dual cultivation in Taoist tradition.

  32. Gold-chain: Metaphor for karmic bonds spanning reincarnations.

  33. Unity Bell (Hehuan Ling): Marriage talisman symbolizing harmony, its clapper representing Su'e's sacrifice.

  34. Lamp oil: Symbolizes accumulated sins across generations.

  35. Ancestral conscience: Collective moral debt inherited through bloodlines.

  36. Vermilion Bird Totem: Symbol of cosmic renewal, replacing the cursed lamp.

  37. Child-graves: Represent collective guilt over sacrificed innocence.

  38. Eastern stele: Traditional placement for commemorating heroic sacrifices.

  39. Seventh Moon Seventh Day: Qixi Festival, symbolic of star-crossed lovers' reunion.

  40. Sapling: Symbolizes hope emerging from atonement, completing the peach wood's symbolic redemption.