Chapter Summaries

After the hot pot insect incident, Fan Daoyi received official rewards and waited for admissions while keeping his true identity and abilities hidden. At the admissions testing event, Jiang Wanyu revealed a Wind ability, and the chapter ended as she began her tier test.

• He Piaojian and Fan Daoyi ate the insect mother, then gave statements to the police and split the reward they received.
• Fan Daoyi received an apartment and a rare item for contracting a Guixu creature, but dismissed the idea of commanding such creatures.
• Fan Daoyi watched authorities take control of Guixu entrances and later checked his exam results, finding his academic and Guixu scores sufficient for Dawn.
• Fan Daoyi arrived at the city gymnasium for admissions testing and took his seat among the candidates.
• Jiang Wanyu demonstrated a Wind ability, registered it, and placed her hand on the second stone to test her tier.

At the college entrance tests, Jiang Wanyu and Mo Chengyuan drew attention with their high ability tiers, until He Piaojian revealed an even more astonishing Fusion Realm tier. Fan Daoyi then tested at only Initial Illumination Realm First Tier, but the students celebrated him for having slain Guixu’s final boss and saved them.

• Jiang Wanyu tested as an Open Source Realm Second Tier elemental ability user with a written score of 656, then accepted Lingxiao Academy’s invitation.
• Mo Chengyuan tested as a Condensation Realm First Tier mental ability user, insulted the other students, and drew no blame from the admissions teachers.
• He Piaojian arrived late, tested as a Fusion Realm cultivator, and said he had come only to go through the motions because his boss had not told him which school to choose.
• Fan Daoyi tested as an Initial Illumination Realm First Tier spatial ability user, leaving the gymnasium stunned because the students knew he had slain Guixu’s final boss.
• The students defended Fan Daoyi and erupted into cheers of “Dao God, fucking awesome.”

Fan Daoyi chose Dawnlight Academy with He Piaojian and reversed a recruitment curse onto Dawnlight’s president. Qian Heaven then sent Fan Daoyi to investigate a hospital where the Four Fiends Cult was conducting human experiments, and Fan Daoyi saw staff manipulating patients.

• Fan Daoyi applied to Dawnlight Academy, and He Piaojian decided to apply there too after saying he would follow Fan Daoyi’s choice.
• A curse triggered when He Piaojian chose Dawnlight, but Fan Daoyi reversed it and sent a rain of knives and lightning onto Dawnlight’s president.
• At [Eight Trigrams], Qian Heaven told Fan Daoyi that the Four Fiends Cult was luring patients into a hospital for human experiments and experiments involving Guixu creatures.
• Fan Daoyi agreed to pose as a patient and infiltrate the hospital.
• A hospital guard led Fan Daoyi to the waiting area, where he watched doctors reassure patients and steer them toward a supposed wonder drug.

Fan Daoyi went to a hospital suspected of using fake medicine and agreed to a trial injection after the doctor promised cheap treatment. While he slept in the ward, the Eight Trigrams lost his location signal and feared he had entered Guixu; he woke up believing he was home.

• The doctor told Fan Daoyi his illness would be difficult to treat, then persuaded him that the hospital could help for less than a thousand yuan.
• Fan Daoyi agreed to a free trial injection and followed a nurse to a private ward, where she injected him and told him to stay for twenty-four hours.
• Fan Daoyi became drowsy in the calm ward and fell asleep.
• The Eight Trigrams watched Fan Daoyi's tracking dot, but Xun Wind sensed that his location signal had disappeared.
• The Eight Trigrams worried that Fan Daoyi had entered Guixu, and Kun Earth prepared to retrieve him from the hospital.
• Fan Daoyi woke up and wondered if he was home.

Fan Daoyi discovered that the flower procession was an illusionary passage into Guixu and encountered the little gardener in the Flower Tender's plantation. He reached a hall of players who had entered through the regular entrance and struck one of them with a shovel.

• Fan Daoyi realized the flowers were guiding patients through an artificial passage between Guixu and the present world.
• When the flower bud failed to recognize him, Fan Daoyi copied a patient's flower cluster with Origin Source and entered the plantation.
• The little gardener recognized Fan Daoyi, tried to flee, and then blamed the Flower Tender when he confronted her.
• Fan Daoyi left the gardener and wondered whether the Flower Tender and the Apothecary were connected to human experiments on the patients.
• Fan Daoyi entered a hall of players and struck one of them on the forehead with a shovel.

Fan Daoyi convinced the players that Mo Chengyuan had used mental control, then let them believe his shovel was an item that exposed the deception. After the group introduced themselves, Fan Daoyi sensed that several people were probing him with Origin Source and realized other mental ability users were hiding among them.

• Fan Daoyi knocked Mo Chengyuan unconscious and claimed he had tried to control the players’ minds.
• Fan Daoyi used the hallucinogenic pollen on his shovel to persuade a doubting player that Mo Chengyuan had deceived them.
• A player struck Mo Chengyuan with the shovel when he woke, and the others thanked Fan Daoyi for warning them.
• Chen Yang, Chu Yue, Sun Ruijie, Olivia Clark, and Fan Daoyi introduced themselves and shared their assigned identities.
• Several players sent Origin Source toward Fan Daoyi, who realized that multiple mental ability users were among them.

Fan Daoyi exposed Chu Yue’s suspicion of the butler and explained why the Guixu guides could not reliably identify the troublemaker. He then told a story in which the flower shop owner, noble, reporter, and merchant all used the unemployed vagrant to help kill the duke and frame him.

• Chu Yue questioned the butler about how he knew the troublemaker had already slipped among the guests, and he left without giving a clear answer.
• Chen Yang asked Chu Yue why she had challenged the butler, and she dismissed the inconsistent Guixu guides.
• Olivia Clark asked Fan Daoyi whether the unemployed vagrant had a story of his own, and he said everyone present played a part in it.
• Fan Daoyi described how the flower shop owner and noble arranged for the vagrant to deliver flowers that formed a deadly poison for the duke.
• Fan Daoyi explained that the reporter and merchant used the vagrant to spread news of the duke’s supposed death and incite a crowd that delayed medical help.
• Fan Daoyi concluded that the others had arranged events so the vagrant would take the blame for the duke’s death.

The players debated whether Fan Daoyi’s story was true and whether the troublemaker was one of them or an NPC, then split up to search the castle. Chu Yue learned that the troublemaker was the mastermind behind the events and heard Fan Daoyi suggest that only one person was responsible.

• Fan Daoyi defended his story about being an unemployed drifter, while Sun Ruijie, Chu Yue, and the others questioned how the new game worked and what role the unconscious Mo Chengyuan played.
• Chu Yue proposed that the troublemaker could be an NPC, and she began to believe Fan Daoyi’s story after reading his thoughts and comparing it with her own identity’s account.
• The group agreed to search the castle and meet again, and Fan Daoyi struck the sleeping Mo Chengyuan on the forehead with his shovel, leaving him unharmed but more deeply asleep.
• Chu Yue asked the butler how he defined a troublemaker, and he said the troublemaker was the mastermind behind everything that ruined the duke’s birthday.
• Fan Daoyi emerged from behind a corner and told Chu Yue that there was probably only one troublemaker orchestrating the apparent coincidences.

Fan Daoyi discussed suspicions about the players’ identities with Chu Yueru, then traded his shovel to Clark for a cane. The exchange ended with Sun Ruijie interrupting Clark and offering her food, while Fan Daoyi recognized how strongly her charm affected him.

• Chu Yueru questioned Fan Daoyi about whether the players might be the troublemaker, and he admitted he had suspected himself and offered to share his ideas.
• Fan Daoyi discussed his theory about someone who did not exist in the story with Clark, who asked for his shovel.
• Fan Daoyi identified Clark as the mental-type ability user Olivia and asked her to trade the shovel for a stick.
• Clark brought Fan Daoyi a cane, and he gave her the shovel in exchange.
• Sun Ruijie interrupted Clark before she could kiss Fan Daoyi and offered her a plate of food.

Fan Daoyi tricked Clark into taking the pollen-coated shovel, which Clark used to test its ability to block her charm. At the duke’s birthday banquet, Chen Yang confronted the duke while Chu Yue listened in, setting their plan to investigate the hidden saboteur in motion.

• Fan Daoyi left Clark with the shovel, and she tested it on Sun Ruijie, confirming that holding it broke the effect of her charm.
• Fan Daoyi met Chen Yang, who used his lie-detection ability to assess him and asked whether Clark could become a threat.
• The duke entered the banquet hall, and Chen Yang went to record his words and actions.
• Chu Yue began eavesdropping as Chen Yang approached the duke and hinted that he valued the truth, putting pressure on him over the compromising photographs.

Fan Daoyi used the pollen’s hallucinogenic effect to expose the duke’s connection to a child-trafficking network and convince Chen Yang and Chu Yue of his reconstruction. He then set a plan in motion to disrupt the mastermind’s pattern, while the duke’s birthday spectacle began to unfold.

• Fan Daoyi confirmed that the duke was hiding evidence, then let Clark approach him under the pollen-induced illusion.
• Chen Yang and Chu Yue followed Fan Daoyi to a hidden room, where he showed them photographs and records linking them and the duke to a child-trafficking chain.
• Chu Yue recognized a child on the records as the flower shop owner's lover's younger sister, giving her a possible motive for murder.
• Fan Daoyi explained that the mastermind intended to kill the duke and proposed disrupting the plan's pattern; Chen Yang and Chu Yue accepted his lead.
• At the birthday gathering, the duke accepted a bouquet from the reporter, Clark photographed them, Chu Yue sold the scattered flowers, and Sun Ruijie spent the duke's fortune buying a bouquet for Clark.

Fan Daoyi watched Chu Yue, Chen Yang, and Clark kill the duke, then confronted Sun Ruijie when he came upstairs. Sun Ruijie’s mental defense failed against Fan Daoyi’s control, and Fan Daoyi turned him into one of the lost.

• Chu Yue stabbed the duke, and Chen Yang stabbed him again after checking that he was still alive.
• Sun Ruijie left the others and went upstairs to speak with Fan Daoyi, while the three continued attacking the duke’s corpse in an illusion.
• Sun Ruijie attacked Fan Daoyi, but Fan Daoyi countered and exposed that Sun Ruijie had been pretending to be crippled.
• Fan Daoyi blasted Sun Ruijie with an explosion, then spread hallucinogenic pollen after Sun Ruijie’s mental defense failed.
• Fan Daoyi welcomed Sun Ruijie aboard as he became one of the lost.

Fan Daoyi confronted the Flower Tender over her secret work with the Apothecary and Xuan Miao to open a passage for guixu creatures into the Present World, then ordered her to help him. She filled the area with pollen for his plan before he warned her to stop.

• Fan Daoyi broke into the Flower Tender’s room and struck her three times before demanding to know what she was doing.
• The Flower Tender blamed the Apothecary, then revealed that she had worked with him and Xuan Miao to connect the Present World to guixu through one of her flowers.
• The Flower Tender explained that their one-way gate could not let guixu creatures out, so they had created a temporary passage to bring them into the Present World and generate fear.
• Fan Daoyi spared the Flower Tender and told her to do something for him.
• The Flower Tender used a gigantic flower to scatter pollen until Fan Daoyi warned that too much could cause a dust explosion, and she stopped.

After the players mistook the flower shop owner's lover for the troublemaker, the butler revealed that the lover had been dead and their investigation was fabricated. He exposed Fan Daoyi as the actual troublemaker, leaving the players to realize he had deceived them throughout the game.

• Flower Tender told Chen Yang, Chu Yue, Clark, and Fan Daoyi that the troublemaker was dead and directed them to report to the butler.
• The players returned to the starting point, where Mo Chengyuan sat with his memory lost, and voted for the flower shop owner's lover.
• The butler explained that the lover had died long ago and had never planned a murder, contradicting the players' hallucination-filled investigation.
• Clark noticed that the butler said there had been five strangers even though six people were present.
• The butler revealed that Fan Daoyi was not on the guest list and had lied about his occupation and stories.
• Fan Daoyi admitted that he was the troublemaker and said the game had provided hints earlier.

Fan Daoyi revealed that the Troublemaker was whoever secretly controlled the game and admitted he had returned as a smurf for the reward. After the others escaped, Fan Daoyi left the game and reunited with He Piaojian and [Eight Trigrams] outside the hospital, where the group discovered why the doctors had recognized He Piaojian as an outsider.

• Fan Daoyi explained that the Troublemaker identity belonged to the mastermind and that he had entered the game again to smurf for its generous reward.
• Chen Yang, Clark, Mo Chengyuan, and the others headed through the exit, unaware that Fan Daoyi had arranged for flower seeds to be planted on their wrists.
• Fan Daoyi restored the little gardener's memories, asked her to open a door, and returned from Guixu to the mortal world.
• Fan Daoyi found He Piaojian fleeing doctors at the hospital and told them He Piaojian was his visiting friend so they would release him.
• Fan Daoyi told He Piaojian he had a lead and that they should discuss it outside, while the hospital director told the attending physician to let Fan Daoyi leave.
• Outside the hospital, [Eight Trigrams] teased He Piaojian after noticing that his hospital gown identified the place as the First Psychiatric Hospital.

After Apothecary identified the growing flesh as an Insect Disaster, Xun Wind used Intuition to foresee countless passages opening above Azure Cloud City and insect swarms destroying the city. He was struck blind by the gaze of a red-eyed being, but Kan Water restored his sight, leaving the group with a warning of the coming catastrophe.

• Kan Water found Fan Daoyi in excellent health, and Fan Daoyi told him about entering the flower field in Guixu.
• Flower Tender slapped Apothecary three times over his role in sending Fan Daoyi into danger, and Apothecary identified the growing flesh as an Insect Disaster.
• The group considered ways to investigate the hospital and use Apothecary's research data, then Qian Heaven retrieved a potted flower and Kan Water, Kun Earth, and Li Fire used it to create an unstable passage to Guixu.
• Qian Heaven asked Xun Wind to use Intuition to determine whether people could create many passages, and Xun Wind foresaw masked figures opening countless doors above Azure Cloud City.
• Xun Wind saw insect swarms emerge from the passages and overrun the city, then met the gaze of a scarlet-eyed being and lost his sight.
• Kan Water treated Xun Wind's eyes until his vision returned, and Xun Wind warned the group that an Insect Disaster was coming.

Fan Daoyi and the Eight Trigrams investigated the insect disaster at a hospital, where they found patients who had long been dead and buried the corpses by destroying the building. The group planned to blame the Four Fiends Cult, while Fan Daoyi teleported them away from the hospital.

• Qian Heaven sent Kan Water, Zhen Thunder, He Piaojian, and Li Fire to seal off the hospital while Xun Wind, Kun Earth, and Gen Mountain went to brief the higher-ups.
• He Piaojian and Li Fire tested whether Fan Daoyi could teleport people touching him, and Fan Daoyi teleported the group outside the hospital.
• Fan Daoyi waited as the hospital descended into chaos, caught fire, and eventually collapsed after the four returned through the mist.
• Kan Water explained that the hospital's patients had been missing organs and should have died long ago, while Zhen Thunder said the flowers had created an illusion for them.
• Li Fire said they had destroyed the hospital to bury the corpses, and He Piaojian proposed blaming the Four Fiends Cult to turn public anger against them.

After reprimanding Kan Water and He Piaojian for blowing up the hospital, Qian Heaven sent He Piaojian to handle a dispute over an injured Japanese exchange student. Fan Daoyi then joined the discussion of the Insect Disaster, and a corrected drawing helped Xun Wind identify the insects as creatures that had emerged from the sky passages.

• Qian Heaven scolded Kan Water and He Piaojian for their hospital explosion, while Kun Earth ordered them to write self-criticisms.
• Qian Heaven assigned He Piaojian to settle the Council Hall’s complaint about the Japanese exchange student beaten at Wuan Academy.
• He Piaojian returned with a settlement of 280,000 in compensation and reported that the exchange student was hospitalized and might be paralyzed on one side.
• Qian Heaven told Fan Daoyi that the team planned to investigate the Four Fiends Cult in Azure Cloud City quietly, starting with the Wang Family’s branch families.
• Fan Daoyi mentioned that he and He Piaojian had seen similar insects at a hotpot restaurant, then corrected He Piaojian’s drawing.
• Xun Wind recognized the insect in Fan Daoyi’s drawing and said one had crawled out of every passage in the sky.

Fan Daoyi and Kan Water dissected the mother body and discovered a living, shape-shifting ball of flesh inside it. Xun Wind’s prediction revealed that the ball controlled the insects, leaving Fan Daoyi wondering why Guixu had opened a passage and separately controlled the Insect Disaster.

• He Piaojian warned Qian Heaven that the mother body seemed smaller, and an investigation revealed that the investigators had cooked and eaten some of it.
• Fan Daoyi directed Kan Water to cut where the mother body had connected to the nest, and they found a living ball of flesh inside.
• Fan Daoyi trapped the ball of flesh after it transformed into water and tried to escape.
• Fan Daoyi proposed that Guixu might have created the new life-form, and Kan Water called Xun Wind in to use Intuition on it.
• Xun Wind reported that the ball of flesh controlled the insects, prompting Kan Water and Fan Daoyi to question why the Insect Disaster was being controlled separately.

Fan Daoyi learned that a fortune-teller from the [Twelve Hours] had said the [Eight Trigrams] suffered from the [Five Disadvantages and Three Deficiencies], including Qian Heaven lacking power. His casual claim that anyone could match his training results sent Xun Wind fleeing and drove Li Fire and Zhen Thunder to defend the training rankings.

• Fan Daoyi heard that the [Twelve Hours] fortune-teller had identified He Piaojian’s lack of money and Qian Heaven’s lack of power.
• He Piaojian and Zhen Thunder explained that the fortune-teller had once expected Qian Heaven to join the [Twelve Hours], but Xun Wind had recruited him into the [Eight Trigrams] first.
• Xun Wind emerged from under the table and argued with Li Fire and Zhen Thunder about his shooting skill after learning Fan Daoyi had taken his first-place record.
• Fan Daoyi said anyone with hands could achieve his results, prompting Xun Wind to storm off and Li Fire and Zhen Thunder to head to the training room.
• Kun Earth suggested that the rankings be removed because Fan Daoyi’s words had discouraged the others.