Chapter Summaries

Lin Feng used his ability and a system talisman to manipulate events, allowing Lu Zihan to kill Old Deng while Lin Feng and Chen Fang escaped through the next door. Ren Yi and Lu Zihan remained trapped with the survivors, while Lin Feng received credit for establishing leadership.

• The group opened the iron-barred gate, and Lin Feng confronted Old Deng over whether the Holy City had harmed outer-city people in Instances.
• Lin Feng immobilized Old Deng's gun and seized control of both guns with his ability, forcing the group to retreat from the gate.
• Lin Feng asked Ren Yi to use a Target Transfer Talisman on Old Deng, and Ren Yi sent Lu Zihan the signal to attack.
• Lu Zihan killed Old Deng, and Lin Feng led Chen Fang through the next door before it locked and cut off the survivors' escape.
• Ren Yi told Lu Zihan to kill the remaining people slowly, while Lin Feng received a system notification that he had completed the leadership task.

Lin Feng and Chen Fang reached the final room, where Chen Fang revealed her water ability and killed Lin Feng to steal the key. Ren Yi arrived and killed them both, then escaped through the iron door as white mist.

• Lin Feng used his floating machine gun to press the three buttons and opened the door to the fifth room with Chen Fang.
• Chen Fang transformed into water, suffocated Lin Feng, and took the key from his pocket.
• A bone blade struck Chen Fang, and she fled through the final door into a false escape that ended at a cement wall.
• Ren Yi appeared with the machine gun and shot Chen Fang and Lin Feng until they were dead.
• Ren Yi turned into white mist, passed through the iron door, and returned to the previous room.

Ren Yi and Lu Zihan finished their first Instance, where the participants’ desperate cries let them escape before Ren Yi learned how the Instance’s rewards were divided. Ren Yi left the mall with another big job expected in a few days and met Ren Man waiting to take him home.

• Chu He rejected the option to remain in the Instance, and the participants’ cries prompted Lu Zihan’s monster to vanish; a chill then pressed against Chu He’s neck.
• Ren Yi told Lu Zihan that Chen Fang had turned into water and killed Lin Feng, after which Ren Yi picked up the gun and used fake prompts to make the participants choose to leave.
• Ren Yi and Lu Zihan returned through the mirror and checked their progress, learning that the Instance converted participants’ dispersed energy into extra points for its administrators.
• Lu Qing and Lu Zi explained that the Alliance took twenty percent of the Instance’s energy and the administrators split the rest, while Ren Yi reflected on the participants’ abilities.
• Lu Qing told Ren Yi to prepare for another big job in a few days, and Ren Yi left the mall and found Ren Man waiting by his electric scooter.

Ren Yi learned that the Alliance planned a large-scale harvest of the Three-City World and that he would join Lu Qing rather than Ren Man. His application was approved, and the notice explained that he would first help maintain an Instance, then hunt freely in the world after earning entry to the descent stage.

• Ren Man told Ren Yi that the Alliance had suffered energy shortages after a failed operation and planned to take Younglings to harvest a Pasture.
• Ren Man identified the Pasture as the Three-City World, which Ren Yi had encountered that day.
• A news broadcast announced Special Harvest Plan No. 37, inviting guardians with Younglings to join the Alliance’s operation in the Three-City World.
• Ren Man told Ren Yi that he lacked the qualifications to enter and that Ren Yi would go with Lu Qing instead.
• Ren Yi confirmed arrangements with Lu Qing and Lu Zihan, submitted his information, and received approval to join the operation.
• The Alliance notice said Ren Yi would first maintain a large-scale Instance and could enter the world in his true form after completing a valid kill.

An archived anomaly file described 001, a shape-changing entity that collected positive emotions and used them to control targets' vision. The file remained open for updates after observations of the [Escape Room] Instance concluded.

• Observers recorded 001 as a floating white mass that could disguise itself as attractive inanimate objects.
• Observers found that impacts could break 001 into fragments that reassembled in a weakened state.
• Observers determined that looking directly at 001 caused temporary dizziness and blurred vision.
• Observers found that 001 collected positive emotions and converted them into Seeds.
• 001 implanted Seeds in targets to control their vision, consuming energy that it replenished by enticing others to pick it up.

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.