This chapter opens with a discussion of the tuoluio deadlands, where countless criminals and fugitives have sought refuge. The narrator compares this area to the "wall-like barrier" that separates a person from his senior brothers and sisters. He argues that mental power is harder to train than spiritual power, but that if he gave up, he would never be able to catch up to them. He wonders if the spirit puppet's resistance to refining his mental power stems from the fact that he thinks he has a talent for cultivating mental power before he is truly a powerful individual. He concludes that he has only been practicing mental power for a while and that he is already tired from chasing after his brothers.