A Thousand Li: The Fourth Stage recap

Wu Ying returns injured to Verdant Green Waters and survives a hostile judgment that ends with him leading a new Department of Wandering Gatherers. The unfunded school becomes both his obligation and his means of serving the sect while experimental baths slowly repair his unstable wind body. He recruits and tests a first class, confronts political opposition, and begins intelligence work as Tou He struggles against a heaven-driven purifying flame. The students complete a dangerous wilderness examination, but Tou He then seals himself away to reconstruct his immortal soul and an aging former guardian dies attempting Nascent Soul ascension. A later effort to dissolve Wu Ying's department fails, and the rival gathering elder loses influence. Over several years the department expands, Wu Ying develops the defensive Old Dragon sword form, and his bond with the traveling wood cultivator endures. He remains only partly healed, ending with a clearer understanding of the Seven Winds as regional instability grows.

Previously: Wu Ying left Verdant Green Waters after being banished for striking a prince, but continued to act as a loyal representative of the sect during his travels. He helped free kidnapped prodigies, exposed a dark sect's ties to demonic forces, and gathered foreign herbs, pills, manuals, and cultivation knowledge. His journeys also carried him far from his mortal parents and the mountain where he first trained. By the time he turns homeward, he has reached Core Formation as a sword-wielding wind cultivator and is known as the Verdant Gatherer. Tou He, an established Verdant Green Waters elder, former monk, and fire-staff cultivator, remains one of Wu Ying's returning companions. Wu Ying therefore approaches his old sect with a record of service and valuable resources, but his banishment and long absence leave his standing uncertain.

Wu Ying and his wood-cultivator companion return to Verdant Green Waters, but heavenly wind still threatens his human perspective and his body remains badly damaged. A hostile gate guardian attacks the visitor, then sect officials delay their entry as a calculated insult. Tou He, Fa Yuan, and Liu Tsong eventually arrive. Fa Yuan grants the visitor honored guest status, while Liu Tsong determines that Wu Ying's distorted meridians and injured organs will require prolonged treatment. Wu Ying visits his aging parents and introduces his companion as his Tao companion. Inside the sect, he sees both the damage from an earlier attack and the rebuilding that followed. Fa Yuan warns that established elders regard his strength, reputation, and possible promotion as a threat. At the formal hearing, the gate guardian presents Wu Ying as disobedient and dangerous. Wu Ying answers by citing his service and the knowledge and resources brought home, then demands that the elders test his ability rather than judge him by submission. The sect head accepts the challenge and sends Elder Mo into the arena.

Wu Ying defeats Elder Mo and an earth-aspected martial elder, then controls a three-against-one fight by turning rain, wind, and a prepared storm against his opponents. The sect head ends Wu Ying's tornado and judges him powerful enough to approach Nascent Soul strength, but also difficult for the sect to control. Wu Ying refuses to deny his grievances or surrender his independence. Instead of expelling him, the sect head makes him head of a new Department of Wandering Gatherers. The appointment carries elder standing but little comfort: Wu Ying must produce three peak Energy Storage gatherers within a decade, including one with a route toward Core Formation, and receives no initial funding. Yin Xue offers money but admits his loyalty remains tied to the gate guardian. Wu Ying begins raising resources by offering acquired texts to Elder Kuo, while withholding his personal sword inheritance. His inspection of the established gathering operation exposes the need for his department. Its senior elder has improved profitable herb production but favors trainees with gifts and leaves other aspirants poorly taught. A former gathering senior, injured during a failed Core Formation attempt, has been training those neglected candidates.

An aging former guardian tells Wu Ying that attachment to a comfortable role stalled his cultivation, and asks Wu Ying to witness a likely fatal attempt at Nascent Soul ascension. Meanwhile, creating the new department proves expensive and logistically difficult. Wu Ying needs suitable land, equipment, travel permissions, and emergency protections for students. Liu Tsong confirms that his transformed body remains unstable and may require years of treatment or a final insight into the Seven Winds. His wood-cultivator companion faces challenges from sect elders, criticizes how his work has consumed his attention, and helps him reconnect with his parents. Advice from his father gives Wu Ying a teaching principle: provide a fair opportunity, then concentrate effort on adults who persist. Wu Ying announces open trials. Tou He, still troubled by the destructive behavior of his altered flame, enters closed-door cultivation. More than two dozen applicants arrive, but Wu Ying tests control and judgment rather than cultivation rank. He requires mortal-level aura suppression, applies pressure, leads the candidates through difficult terrain, and arranges a supervised beast ambush. Eight remain, including three female gatherers, a senior gatherer, three students linked to the established program, and one exceptionally controlled Body Cleansing cultivator.

Wu Ying continues the practical examination by testing identification, harvesting skill, restraint, and ecological judgment. The strongest applicants demonstrate that valuable resources are not always safe or wise to harvest immediately. He retains most of the finalists despite suspecting that two may report to the senior gathering elder, reasoning that his earliest lessons contain little worth stealing. His deeper physical damage remains untouched by surface cleansing, and proposed remedies range from slow alchemical restructuring to much more dangerous elemental destruction and renewal. The sect head grants the department permission to work beyond the mountain and gives Wu Ying access to the elders' library, while making clear that better support must be earned through service. The gate guardian then explains the basis of his hostility: he believes Wu Ying has diverted talented friends from their proper destinies and calls him a calamity. The accusation unsettles Wu Ying. His companion points to those friends' accomplishments and insists that their choices remain their own. Fairy Yang agrees that people inevitably affect one another's karma, but rejects the claim that Wu Ying has uniquely ruined those around him. Wu Ying accepts the slower alchemical treatment plan and emerges less willing to deny his friends' agency.

Wu Ying finances his obligations by lecturing, although the established gathering leadership restricts his access to profitable inner-sect classes. A demanding core-area class broadens his own knowledge while forcing him to improve his teaching. In the department, only Gui Ting and Xia Hui consistently meet his standards. Liu Tsong and the sect physician begin an experimental medicinal-bath regimen that clears some damaged channels but leaves Wu Ying depleted. Recovery will require repeated treatments over years and a continuing supply of rare materials. Rival gatherers harass his students while he rests, but the class refuses to escalate the dispute. Wu Ying's traveling partner prepares to leave again, using her merchant network to seek treatment resources and contacts. He continues limited sword practice, unable to complete a fourth form because his Tao lacks the necessary resolution. The sect's right guardian then offers paid intelligence work based on Wu Ying's foreign relationships, giving the department another possible source of contribution points. Tou He returns from seclusion with an injured arm and reveals the central danger of his altered flame: it carries a heavenly imperative to purge what heaven rejects. He intends to resist that command until he controls the flame rather than obeying it.

Months of teaching, intelligence correspondence, and punishing medicinal baths pass. The department's Body Cleansing student advances surprisingly far in the outer-sect tournament through endurance and an unpleasant but legal defensive tactic, provoking Elder Mo and other opponents to challenge the department's legitimacy. Yin Xue warns that the political hostility reflects a senior leader's preferred vision for Verdant Green Waters. Wu Ying answers the pressure by sending his remaining students on a month-long wilderness examination. They must gather valuable herbs, return to camp each night, manage dangerous wildlife, and prove they can make independent decisions. Gui Ting and Xia Hui compete separately for first-disciple standing, while other students rely on complementary teamwork. The trainees ultimately choose to confront a group of Xing Tian. Their baited formation does not work as planned, but they defeat a coordinated counterattack with injuries. Back at the sect, Wu Ying lets market valuation and negotiation form part of the final assessment. He appoints an unnamed senior disciple, conditionally offers another student a subordinate rank, passes three only as a team, and dismisses an impatient trainee who ignored repeated safety advice. At the same time, Tou He enters a sealed formation to reconstruct his immortal soul and seek freedom from the harmful Tao anchor controlling his flame.

The former guardian attempts the leap from Core Formation to Nascent Soul. Protective preparations and a pill cannot save him when heavenly lightning overwhelms the process after his core shatters, killing him before the nascent soul can be born. Fairy Yang helps Wu Ying understand the attempt as the culmination of a life centered on guardianship and sacrifice. Wu Ying in turn recognizes teaching as a path that can strengthen both his own understanding and the sect. The trainee dismissed after the field examination remains resentful and secretly uses unrevoked travel privileges to gather alone. That administrative lapse becomes ammunition when Wu Ying is summoned before the sect leadership. Opponents first accuse him of building a loyal subsect, then shift toward charges of incompetence and waste. Liu Tsong and Fairy Yang defend the individualized training, and Wu Ying admits and corrects the mistake concerning the former trainee. The rival gathering elder asks that the department be dissolved and Wu Ying placed under his supervision. By winter, the answer is evident: the department survives and its students increasingly work in teams or independently. Its rival loses influence and control over valuable herbs. Wu Ying continues treatment with supplies sent by his traveling partner, while Tou He remains sealed in soul reconstruction and the new senior disciple begins an independent search for breakthrough ingredients.

Over the following years, demand for trained wandering gatherers increases and Wu Ying's department expands. He adds written and contribution-point requirements for applicants, while senior students take on more fieldwork and some teaching. The first senior disciple repeatedly seeks rare ingredients needed for advancement, despite pill impurities that may obstruct later cultivation. Wu Ying obtains limited supervised entry to territory controlled by a Nascent Soul spirit beast, extending the department's access to valuable wilderness. His own recovery remains incomplete. A long expedition with his wood-cultivator partner causes his old injuries to flare again, and she later departs in search of more treatment resources. Forced to limit his movement, Wu Ying develops the Old Dragon form, a fourth sword form designed to hold ground with economical motion while injured or outnumbered. Fairy Yang's network of female cultivators grows into a means of sharing information, exposing exploitation, and pursuing dark-sect infiltrators connected to their master's loss. Tou He remains sealed away attempting to remake his immortal soul. Wu Ying finally clarifies his Seven Winds: five belong to the earthly world, heavenly wind imposes authority, and the thousand hells provide judgment, penance, and renewal. He remains at Verdant Green Waters as an injured teacher and department head while war and displacement worsen beyond the sect.

Several years after returning, Wu Ying remains at Verdant Green Waters as an established elder and head of a growing Department of Wandering Gatherers. Its first students now undertake supervised and independent fieldwork, and the political attempt to abolish it has failed. The rival gathering elder has lost influence and some control over valuable herbs. Wu Ying's medicinal baths have improved his condition without curing it, and strenuous travel can still trigger a relapse. His wood-cultivator partner continues to travel, gather with him when possible, and seek materials for his treatment. During enforced recovery, Wu Ying creates the Old Dragon form, a fourth sword form built around restrained motion and holding a position under pressure. He also settles on a coherent understanding of the Seven Winds, joining five earthly winds with heavenly authority and the corrective force of the thousand hells, though further advancement remains uncertain. Tou He is still sealed away attempting to rebuild his immortal soul. Fairy Yang's network continues exposing exploitation and tracking dark-sect remnants, while war and displacement worsen beyond the sect.