Recaps

Lu Qing explained the unusual Instance and its two stages to Ren Yi and Lu Zihan, then brought them into her Instance, the Lu Family Courtyard. The chapter ended with Ren Yi surveying its peaceful garden and surrounding countryside.

• Lu Qing told Ren Yi and Lu Zihan that the Calamity countdown had begun before their mission and named several possible Calamities.
• Lu Qing explained that the first stage required them to work at a buffet and meet a work target, while the second let them explore the world before the Alliance recalled them.
• Ren Yi asked about the supplementary rule, and Lu Qing said they would not know what it was until the Instance began.
• Lu Qing led Ren Yi and Lu Zihan through an antique mirror into her Instance.
• Ren Yi stepped onto a balcony and saw the garden, fields, waterways, and distant houses of the Lu Family Courtyard.

Ren Yi learned that Lu Qing’s Instance required everyone to follow their assigned identities and would be livestreamed to its inhabitants. After touring the courtyard and hearing how the broadcast worked, he chose to enter the Instance as a servant.

• Ren Yi and Lu Zihan met Auntie Chen, who explained that she was a longtime servant in Lu Qing’s Instance and addressed them as young masters.
• Lu Qing told Ren Yi and Lu Zihan that everyone in the Instance had to act according to their identities and warned them not to reveal their world or use high-tech items because the Instances would be livestreamed.
• Lu Qing showed Ren Yi and Lu Zihan around the courtyard, including its wooden house, servants’ quarters, garden, melon field, and river.
• Ren Yi asked why the Instance would be livestreamed, and Lu Qing explained that the broadcast let the world’s natives understand why they were dying as the worlds’ rules clashed.
• Ren Yi told Lu Qing that he wanted to take the identity of a servant.

Ren Yi persuaded Lu Qing to help him enter the Instance as a participant so he could test whether his rule could affect people beyond participants. Lu Qing used an Eerie Artifact to turn a randomly selected participant into a protective talisman, leaving Ren Yi’s experiment set to begin the next morning.

• Ren Yi asked Lu Qing to make him a participant so he could test whether his rule could reach people outside the Instance.
• Lu Qing agreed and warned Ren Yi that the Instance would still generate rules against him, which he would have to handle himself.
• Ren Yi and Lu Zihan spent the afternoon with A-Mu before Lu Qing led them to the servants’ quarters around midnight.
• Lu Qing explained that she would use her hibiscus hairpin, an Eerie Artifact, during the brief interval before the Instance officially began.
• When a participant appeared, Lu Qing peeled off his skin and transformed him into a protective talisman with the hairpin.

Ren Yi entered the Lu Family Courtyard Instance disguised as the participant Mo Ming and received the auxiliary rule, “Do not feel pain together with others.” After studying the servants’ rules, he joined the other participants, still needing to fulfill his quota of personally killing one participant.

• Lu Qing gave Ren Yi a warm amulet and pushed him into a cubicle to begin his disguise as a participant.
• Ren Yi received the Instance notifications identifying him as Mo Ming and learned the auxiliary rule against feeling pain together with others.
• Ren Yi examined the Lu Family Servants’ Rules and interpreted several of them as targeting Lu Zihan, himself, and Lu Qing.
• A booming voice ordered the new servants to get up, and Ren Yi left the cubicle with the others.
• Ren Yi surveyed the gathered participants, noting their weapons, groups, and potential ability users.

A-Mu assigned the participants jobs around the Lu family residence, and Ren Yi headed to the melon field, where he discovered that the watermelons had faces. Participant twenty-two also encountered a grinning watermelon as he began work.

• A-Mu assigned Ren Yi and the other participants tasks, sending Ren Yi, whose number was seventeen, to the melon field.
• Ren Yi left the courtyard ahead of the others, intending to target viewers outside the Instance rather than interact with the participants.
• Ren Yi found a pitchfork, sickle, and bucket in his plot, then watched a watermelon roll toward him and form a face.
• Participant number twenty-two followed Ren Yi but entered his own plot after realizing they had to work separately.
• Participant number twenty-two clutched the pitchfork and turned in terror when a watermelon rolled toward him with a broad grin.

Ren Yi calmly worked through the night while participant twenty-two was swallowed by the anomalous watermelon field after damaging a watermelon. By sunrise, Ren Yi had finished watering and weeding, then headed toward the courtyard instead of resting.

• Participant twenty-two threw his pitchfork at a screaming watermelon and burst it, then the field swallowed him and transformed him into a human-faced watermelon.
• Ren Yi watched the incident and realized that the watermelon field was the anomaly, which turned servants who damaged their master's property into property themselves.
• Ren Yi quietly instructed a watermelon to scream louder, and it obediently joined the field's chorus while he continued working.
• Other participants endured the watermelons' screams, and those who damaged watermelons or vines were swallowed by the field.
• Ren Yi finished watering the field and clearing its weeds by sunrise, then walked toward the courtyard as livestream viewers watched.

Ren Yi finished his work in the melon field and followed Master Fu to the study, where Lu Zihan was testing his authority over the participants. Lu Zihan assigned Ren Yi to serve him and ordered him to kill an injured participant.

• Ren Yi used his ability on himself to absorb the positive emotion he had accumulated, then headed toward the courtyard to find another target for his ability.
• Master Fu met Ren Yi at the courtyard gate and took him to the study after confirming he had finished his work.
• A participant fell from the second floor after Lu Zihan ordered him to jump, breaking his leg; Ren Yi learned that Lu Zihan could punish participants who defied orders but had to act according to his status as master.
• Master Fu introduced Ren Yi as Seventeen and assigned him to serve Lu Zihan.
• Lu Zihan ordered Ren Yi to kill the injured participant lying in front of him.

Ren Yi fulfilled his requirement to kill a participant, then accompanied Lu Zihan to the study, where the two fooled around while participant eighty-seven vanished after reading a strange book. The study’s danger became clear as the remaining participants continued their work under its rules.

• Ren Yi killed the injured participant by twisting his neck, then absorbed nearby positive emotions to replenish his ammunition.
• Ren Yi joined Lu Zihan on the second floor and secretly used his illusion ability on nearby participants while harvesting energy.
• Lu Zihan led Ren Yi and the remaining participants into the study, where Master Fu had them sort books and account books.
• Lu Zihan ordered Ren Yi to massage his shoulders, and Ren Yi vigorously shook him until Lu Zihan pleaded for him to stop.
• Participant eighty-seven became absorbed in reading “Liaozhai Strange Tales,” then vanished as the book fell to the floor.

Ren Yi finished his first day of work in the Lu family courtyard and realized the melon-field task was less deadly than the other assignments. When he was ordered to watch the field overnight, he waited with a pitchfork and sensed a hidden threat attacking the other participants.

• Ren Yi ate lunch with the servants and noticed that none of the participants sent to the medicinal herb garden had returned.
• Ren Yi saw that only eight cleaning-group members remained by dinner, while twenty-eight of the original forty melon-field participants had survived.
• Amu ordered the remaining melon-field servants to guard the field overnight, and Ren Yi took the pitchfork beside his assigned plot.
• Ren Yi sensed a participant being swallowed by the soil beside a shattered watermelon, though he detected no unusual presence nearby.
• Ren Yi sensed another participant chasing something with a pitchfork as a nearby watermelon began to shake and scream.

Ren Yi watched the mysterious ghost turn participants in the watermelon fields into watermelons, but it remained invisible to his perception. Just as he feared it might skip him, he spotted two tiny red lights staring up from his shadow.

• A participant in field seventeen failed to stop a watermelon from breaking and was swallowed by the soil as Ren Yi observed through his perception.
• A capable participant in field eighteen used a pitchfork and then hovered in the air, but an unseen force tangled him and dragged him into the soil.
• Ren Yi sent Lu Zihan a picture of the flying participant, and Lu Zihan teased him about his own flying ability.
• Ren Yi waited for the ghost to attack, but no attack came, and he noticed a wisp of positive emotion from the livestream viewers dissipate.
• Ren Yi searched the fields with his ghostly perception, then saw two red lights looking up at him from the chest of his shadow.

Ren Yi discovered that the Shadow Ghost lived in the two-dimensional plane of shadows and figured out how to strike it with the pitchfork. The livestream audience praised his move, filling his progress bar with emotion, while he wished he could store the excess energy.

• Ren Yi noticed the Shadow Ghost hiding in his shadow, but it stole his shadow and evaded his pitchfork.
• Ren Yi reasoned that the Shadow Ghost had fled because it was vulnerable where his shadow should have been, then stabbed that spot with the pitchfork.
• The Shadow Ghost returned to its human-shaped shadow and closed its red eyes after Ren Yi mouthed an apology.
• The watermelon field's laughter grew louder as Ren Yi returned to the rock, embarrassed and planning to apologize to the Shadow Ghost.
• The livestream audience flooded the chat with praise, and Ren Yi received a torrent of positive emotion but lamented that he could not store it.

After finishing his melon-patch work, Ren Yi took Lu Zihan to investigate the Herb Garden, where they found rules requiring paired workers to stay in contact and enter together. The pair entered the garden at the same time, only to be swallowed by dense fog that severely limited their vision and Ren Yi’s eerie senses.

• Ren Yi returned from the melon patch with only fourteen participants, then went upstairs and found Lu Zihan avoiding his studies.
• Lu Zihan persuaded Ren Yi to visit the Herb Garden, and they headed there together.
• Ren Yi and Lu Zihan read the Herb Garden Work Regulations, including rules about pairing, bleeding near the parasol tree, unusual roots, and work hours.
• They found the garden filled with thick, silent mist, then held hands and crossed the entrance together.
• Inside, the fog obscured Lu Zihan and reduced Ren Yi’s eerie senses to a range of about half a meter.

Ren Yi and Lu Zihan crossed the Herb Garden, where Ren Yi discovered Vine Skeletons and covered the exposed ones as required by the rules. They encountered two participants working in the fog, and Ren Yi accused them of secretly being a couple, setting up a possible rule violation.

• Lu Zihan kicked a buried Vine Skeleton Head, and Ren Yi covered it with soil according to the garden rule.
• Ren Yi and Lu Zihan found several more Vine Skeletons and spent time burying the exposed ones as they walked through the soft soil.
• Lu Zihan accidentally kicked a male participant who was loosening soil beside a female participant.
• The two participants recognized Lu Zihan and nervously explained that they were doing their assigned work.
• Ren Yi accused the participants of being a couple, despite having invented a rule against servants dating.

Ren Yi and Lu Zihan discovered that the Herb Garden fused together the flesh of people who touched, while two participants triggered the Parasol Tree’s rule and vanished through a power that erased their existence. Ren Yi realized they had [felt pain together], though the nature of the phenomenon that erased them remained unknown.

• The female participant elbowed the male participant, and Ren Yi noticed that their arms moved together as though fused.
• Ren Yi tested his and Lu Zihan’s clasped hands and found that red tissue had grown between their fingers, binding their flesh together.
• The male participant tore the fused flesh on his and the female participant’s arms, spilling blood onto the soil, and then carried her toward the sunlight.
• The blood triggered the Parasol Tree’s rule, and vines surged through the fog to attack the fleeing participants.
• Time seemed to freeze as the two participants melted into colors and foam, and the space they occupied was completely erased.
• Time resumed, the vines struck empty air, and Ren Yi realized the pair had [felt pain together].

Ren Yi figured out how the Parasol Tree ghost’s rules and the Herb Garden regulations interacted, then escaped the fog with Lu Zihan. Outside, Lu Zihan told him that Aunt Lu Qing wanted to meet him because he had met the requirements to clear the Instance.

• Ren Yi deduced that the Parasol Tree ghost’s fog fused people together and that the Herb Garden rules could cause its attacks to trigger a deadly auxiliary rule.
• Ren Yi and Lu Zihan left the Herb Garden together, and the fog cleared as soon as they crossed its boundary.
• Ren Yi discovered that his hand and Lu Zihan’s were still stuck together and considered how they could reach the servants’ dining hall.
• Lu Zihan told Ren Yi that his mother, Aunt Lu Qing, had asked him to bring Ren Yi to her because Ren Yi had met the requirements to clear the Instance.

Ren Yi realized that completing three days’ worth of servant work could fulfill the Instance’s hidden survival condition and earn a reward. Lu Zihan led him upstairs to meet Lu Qing, where Ren Yi recognized the strange animal in her arms.

• Ren Yi reexamined the participant panel and inferred that the Instance’s rules concealed a clearance condition tied to identity and work.
• Ren Yi concluded that servants could escape their role by completing all their contracted work, and that he had already accumulated three days’ worth by working multiple jobs.
• Ren Yi followed Lu Zihan upstairs after realizing Lu Qing had to present his contract-completion reward.
• Ren Yi met Lu Qing, Master Fu, and A-Mu beside a dining table on the second floor.
• Ren Yi recognized the striped, partly bald-tailed animal in Lu Qing’s arms and felt guilty.

Ren Yi cleared the Lu Family Courtyard Instance and stayed behind to watch what happened to the participants who failed. Lu Qing explained that they had been summoned to pay the Instance’s rent, leaving Ren Yi curious about how the eerie world operated.

• Lu Qing recognized Ren Yi’s performance, made him Lu Zihan’s study attendant, and invited him to dine with them.
• Ren Yi spent the remaining days relaxing with Lu Zihan and collecting emotional gains from the participants.
• When the countdown ended, Ren Yi cleared the Instance and chose to remain for the extra exploration period.
• The failed participants dissolved into floating characters that flew toward the night sky.
• Lu Qing congratulated Ren Yi and explained that the remaining participants had gone toward paying the Instance’s rent.

Lu Qing explained that the [Lu Family Courtyard] was one of many Instances nested within a high-level ghost’s vast Instance world, and that the space belonged to Lu Zihan’s father. After Ren Yi reached full E-Rank progress, Lu Qing offered to teach him how to make Energy Crystals so he could continue managing his energy.

• Lu Qing told Ren Yi and Lu Zihan that the Instances in the space formed a vast interconnected world and paid rent to its owner.
• Lu Zihan learned that his father owned the space, and Lu Qing scolded him for misunderstanding the rent arrangement.
• Ren Yi told Lu Qing his experiment had filled his E-Rank progress bar, then worried that his ticket to the Three-City World would be useless before he could level up.
• Lu Qing said Ren Yi could only level up after returning to the Alliance and offered to teach him to make Energy Crystals.
• Lu Qing explained that Energy Crystallizations were special currency among Instance bosses and gave Ren Yi two crystals.
• When Ren Yi expected an explanation of how to make the crystals, Lu Qing told him to eat them first.

Lu Qing gave Ren Yi an Energy Crystal containing knowledge, then brought him and Lu Zihan to a feast with the weird beings of the Lu Family Courtyard. Ren Yi apologized to Chaye, who revealed that the Instance had been made easier and warned him not to get cocky.

• Lu Qing explained that the Energy Crystal made by Lu Zihan's father could transfer knowledge directly into Ren Yi's mind, and Ren Yi swallowed it.
• Lu Qing led Ren Yi and Lu Zihan downstairs, where Master Fu and the courtyard's weird beings had gathered for a meal.
• Lu Qing thanked the weird beings for looking after the youths and told everyone to eat, and they eagerly devoured the strange dishes.
• Ren Yi sampled the food and approached the Shadow Ghost to apologize for his actions during the Instance.
• The Shadow Ghost introduced himself as Chaye, said the Instance's difficulty had been lowered and its rules had restricted everyone, then promised to show Ren Yi his true abilities next time.
• Ren Yi praised Chaye for pulling down a flying opponent and asked whether his ability was related to shadows.

Ren Yi asked Chaye about shadow abilities and his brother Ren Man’s strange power, but he could not describe Ren Man’s true form. Ren Yi and Chaye became friends, and after a night at the Lu family home, Ren Yi prepared to leave for the Three-City World.

• Chaye explained that his moonlit shadow ability let him travel through shadows and disrupt others’ coordination, but he struggled to kill participants and level up.
• Ren Yi told Chaye that Ren Man had stored a chair in a shadow and admitted he did not understand his brother’s ability or his own awakening.
• Ren Yi tried to describe Ren Man’s true form but found he could not put the vivid image into words.
• Chaye eagerly exchanged Ghost Net contacts with Ren Yi, hoping to meet Ren Man and learn from him, while Ren Yi agreed to treat Chaye to a meal.
• Ren Yi and Chaye chatted as Lu Zihan talked with the Parasol Tree and Lu Qing watched; after the banquet and a night’s rest, Ren Yi’s departure for the Three-City World arrived.

Ren Yi descended into the Three-City World wearing Mo Ming’s skin and set out across the wasteland toward Holy City. A grotesque Mutant Beast burst from a sand dune and confronted him.

• Ren Yi told Lu Qing he planned to keep using Mo Ming’s skin to gather energy, and Lu Qing warned him to keep the amulet on and remember that he might be separated from Lu Zihan.
• Ren Yi and Lu Zihan descended into the Three-City World, where the Ghost Net announced a seven-day calamity countdown and the rule, “Do not feel the same pain together.”
• Ren Yi checked Mo Ming’s equipment and used the worn map to determine his location near Holy City.
• Ren Yi headed toward Holy City, but his senses alerted him to something approaching from behind a sand dune.
• A huge, humanlike centipede Mutant Beast burst from the dune, and Ren Yi stared at the revolting creature.

Ren Yi killed a mutant centipede and discovered that its death had produced Positive Emotions, an energy source he stored for later use. He reached the outskirts of the Holy City and found it bustling with unusual activity.

• Ren Yi revealed part of his true form to freeze the mutant centipede, then killed it with his machete.
• Ren Yi traced a new burst of Positive Emotions to the centipede and stored the energy as a point of light.
• Ren Yi set out toward the Holy City, then used illusory tentacles to cross the wasteland quickly.
• Ren Yi spotted the Holy City and its enormous deity statue, which resembled the sword pendant he carried.
• Ren Yi approached the main gate and noticed that the city was unusually busy with mobilization.

Ren Yi was discovered outside the Holy City and mistaken for a divinely chosen savior after surviving an eerie trial. He entered the city under the title of Divine Son, secretly gathering positive emotions and planting Seeds of Illusion as he was taken to meet its religious leaders.

• A search party recognized Ren Yi from a portrait and hailed him as the Divine Son proclaimed by the Pope.
• Ren Yi learned that the Holy City believed he had received a divine revelation and knew how to save the world, so he claimed he would explain the method to the Pope.
• The search party brought Ren Yi back to the Holy City, where believers welcomed him and the convoy grew as it passed other search parties.
• Ren Yi absorbed positive emotions and secretly planted Seeds of Illusion in people along the route as a precaution.
• Ren Yi learned that the Pope ruled the Holy City, that its people worshiped Azure, and that they regarded eerie Instances as divine trials; he reached a chamber beneath the sacred statue to meet the leaders.

Ren Yi attended a meeting between the Holy City, King City, and Ember City, where the leaders discussed survivors of the Divine Selection Trial. As the prime minister challenged Ren Yi’s legitimacy, the pope questioned King City’s claims, leaving Ren Yi suspecting that no one had actually returned to King City.

• The pope welcomed Ren Yi before a video communication console and introduced him as the Holy City’s divine son, returned from the Divine Selection Trial.
• The pope asked King City to present its participants who had cleared the trial, and Ren Yi learned that King City claimed to have surviving heroes.
• King City’s prime minister refused to bring them to the meeting and challenged Ren Yi to explain the revelation he had received.
• The Ember King accused the prime minister of trying to obtain the method of saving the world from Ren Yi, while the prime minister questioned Ren Yi’s survival.
• The pope said the Holy City’s livestream showed no King City participants discovering the trial’s core conditions, and Ren Yi realized the cities could not see the final settlement.
• Ren Yi suspected that no one had truly returned to King City and that the prime minister was concealing the truth.

The Ember King explained to Ren Yi and the city leaders that the coming apocalypse would erase the entire world and that Instance participants could earn clues to a Method of Salvation. He asked Ren Yi what information he had received, while Ren Yi privately believed Ember City had only seven days left.

• King City's prime minister worried that none of its participants had returned and resented the Ember King for preventing him from questioning Holy City’s participants.
• The Ember King told Ren Yi that the coming apocalypse would destroy humanity, Mutant Beasts, the cities, and the entire world.
• Ren Yi questioned the Ember King’s warning, while the pope allowed him to handle the discussion.
• The Ember King and Ren Yi explained the Instance rule against sharing the same pain, which caused anyone who broke it to become Blank.
• The Ember King revealed that he had cleared an Instance and received a piece of information called the Method of Salvation.
• Ren Yi concluded that Ember City had only seven days left, and the Ember King asked what Method of Salvation Ren Yi had received.