An injured carrier pigeon returns with four surviving characters: “Crown Prince, Ghost Market,” tearing open a secret agreement through which three great families maintain their power using bloodlines and hostages. Xuanyuan ventures alone into the White Lotus Tower, where his jade flute is shattered and he falls unconscious with severe injuries. Yet on the seventh floor, he encounters Wen Hongyi, who was supposed to have died many years ago. Although Xiaoyao has lost all his inner power, he still leads his team through shifting sands, swarms of insects, and a soul-devouring formation of human faces to enter the Ghost Market, where the living go in and the dead come out. The Azure Nether Guide is activated once more, and the death-soldier battalion reunites. As the Martial King throws the capital into chaos, princes muster their armies, and the First Prince returns to the capital through bloodshed, the Flowers of the Afterlife, the missing Emperor, and the haunted tower atop the mountain gradually point toward one and the same deadly trap!