Chapter Summaries

Xu Yinan tested an eerie flashlight and suffered a fatal distortion of his perception of time after its purple light affected him. Hu Jiu’s tests revealed the flashlight’s deadly side effects and produced three cryptic messages from the Ghost Book.

• Xu Yinan followed a doctor’s instructions to shine the eerie flashlight on white cloth, then began perceiving time as passing far more slowly.
• Xu Yinan’s distorted time perception worsened on his way home, and after a car grazed him, he experienced pain as if it lasted for months.
• Xu Yinan collapsed and died while emergency workers tried to treat him, and papers from his pockets scattered in the wind.
• Hu Jiu recorded that the flashlight’s light stopped everything within its range and caused ordinary users to perceive time abnormally before dying suddenly.
• Hu Jiu discovered that the Ghost Book had a rudimentary sense of self and received the messages “Hungry,” “Ghost Pen,” and “The holder is not the owner.”

Hu Jiu fed the Looking-Up Ghost to the Ghost Book and tested the Eerie Flashlight while considering how to learn more from headquarters. After refusing a team assignment at first, he was pressured into taking part if he wanted to become Linjiang City's person in charge, and the chapter ended with him weighing whether to attend or find a way out.

• Hu Jiu let the Ghost Book consume the Looking-Up Ghost, after which its hunger and influence seemed to subside.
• Hu Jiu spent the following days testing the Eerie Flashlight and wondering why the Mirage Ghost could not copy it or the Ghost Book.
• Lin Guangning told Hu Jiu that Liu Mingguang had gone missing and that headquarters would make Hu Jiu a candidate, not Linjiang City's person in charge.
• Fu Youhua told Hu Jiu he had to join a team assignment at the border of Linjiang City and Yuzhou City to qualify for promotion, and Hu Jiu asked about extra pay.
• Hu Jiu suspected headquarters might be testing or targeting him, considered skipping the assignment by staging an emergency, and picked up the Golden Corpse Bag.

Hu Jiu joined Cui Xueyan, Zou Cong, and Yue Renchun for a mission to investigate a spreading supernatural incident in a remote mountain village. Meanwhile, Beifeng Commune leader Zhao Lifeng sent a member to retrieve two ghosts, while Wei Xiyuan avoided taking the job.

• Hu Jiu read the sparse intelligence about the mountain village incident, then complained to Lin Guangning that the information was inadequate.
• Hu Jiu met Cui Xueyan, Zou Cong, and the strikingly handsome Yue Renchun at headquarters before the four boarded a helicopter for the mission.
• Yue Renchun asked why Liu Mingguang was absent, and Hu Jiu said Liu Mingguang was missing while privately weighing whether Yue Renchun knew him.
• In Zhenyuan City, Zhao Lifeng discussed Beifeng Commune's troubles and refused to reveal what he knew about the organization backing it.
• Zhao Lifeng asked his members to retrieve Ghost Hand and the Suicide-Hanging White Silk; Wei Xiyuan declined, and another member volunteered.

Hu Jiu and the other Ghost Tamers entered Longevity Village to investigate the disappearances and strange supernatural conditions. After passing through ominous fog and encountering villagers watching from their windows, they were offered a place to stay by an old man.

• Cui Xueyan proposed that the group share their abilities, and Zou Cong, Cui Xueyan, Hu Jiu, and Yue Renchun each revealed a codename and a basic power.
• Cui Xueyan explained that a wellness influencer and his team vanished in Longevity Village, followed by police investigators, while a drone captured footage of a birthday banquet before failing.
• Hu Jiu and the others encountered sour, rotten-smelling air and thickening fog as they approached the village.
• The group entered Longevity Village beneath a stone stele carved with the character for longevity and saw villagers watching them from behind windows.
• An old man approached and offered to lead the group to the village's only guesthouse after Yue Renchun said they had come to sightsee.
• Cui Xueyan questioned the old man's use of the word "hype," and he said he had heard it from young people.

Hu Jiu and his teammates searched Longevity Village for clues, but the villagers refused to share information. They returned to the guesthouse empty-handed, where the old man invited them to Old Master Peng's birthday banquet, giving them a new lead that seemed suspicious.

• The old man denied that anything strange or supernatural had happened in the village, and Hu Jiu noticed that he hesitated when asked his age.
• Cui Xueyan tried to direct the team’s investigation, but Zou Cong argued that they should first learn the village’s terrain and escape routes before splitting up.
• Hu Jiu found that his phone had lost signal and secretly changed his appearance before questioning villagers, who repeatedly claimed they knew nothing.
• The four returned to the guesthouse without useful information and parted on bad terms.
• The old man invited them to Old Master Peng, the village chief’s, birthday banquet and offered them candy; the team handled the candy without touching it directly.

Cui Xueyan led her team into a fight with the Noise Ghost, but her Ghost Domain could not contain it and the group was forced to retreat. When she tried to leave Longevity Village alone, she discovered that she was still trapped inside, apparently within a powerful ghost’s domain.

• Cui Xueyan ordered Yue Renchun to lure out a ghost, and the Noise Ghost appeared and attacked Zou Cong with sound that made him cough up blood.
• Cui Xueyan used her Ghost Domain to reveal the village’s ruined state and fight the Noise Ghost, while Hu Jiu and Zou Cong helped restrain it.
• The Noise Ghost’s power grew as its sound reverberated, incapacitating Zou Cong and forcing Cui Xueyan and the others to flee back to the guesthouse.
• Cui Xueyan failed to contact headquarters, argued with her teammates, then used her Ghost Domain to try to escape Longevity Village on her own.
• Cui Xueyan found that the village entrance remained the same distance away, and suspected that an extremely powerful ghost had trapped her inside its Ghost Domain.

Hu Jiu, Yue Renchun, and Zou Cong failed to leave Longevity Village, where signs of a sinister presence were gathering. Yue Renchun told Hu Jiu that Headquarters had hidden the mission’s true purpose and urged him to cooperate, then stayed in Hu Jiu’s room despite being told to leave.

• Hu Jiu, Yue Renchun, and Zou Cong tried to leave Longevity Village but returned to the guesthouse without finding a way out.
• Hu Jiu and Yue Renchun refused to attend the birthday banquet, then spotted a strange Republican-era figure beneath a tree.
• Zou Cong found corpse water and mud beneath the tree, and the group returned to their rooms as the village grew more unsettling.
• Yue Renchun visited Hu Jiu at midnight and said Cui Xueyan had returned and gone to Zou Cong’s room.
• Yue Renchun told Hu Jiu that Headquarters had concealed the mission’s purpose, that they sought an important supernatural item, and that Zou Cong might intend to kill Cui Xueyan.
• Yue Renchun proposed that he and Hu Jiu cooperate, then lay down in Hu Jiu’s room after Hu Jiu asked him to leave.

Yue Renchun and Hu Jiu learned that Old Master Peng was holding another birthday banquet and used Yue Renchun’s jeweled pendant to question the guesthouse owner about Longevity Village’s past. The owner revealed that the village’s abnormalities were connected to Mr. Peng, leaving Yue Renchun and Hu Jiu to suspect that he was behind the supernatural incidents.

• Yue Renchun woke to find Hu Jiu keeping watch, and Hu Jiu told him Old Master Peng had invited them to a birthday banquet that night, despite having celebrated the day before.
• Yue Renchun confirmed the invitation with the guesthouse owner, then revealed his jeweled pendant to make the owner answer questions.
• The guesthouse owner recounted how Mr. Peng had arrived during a famine, helped the villagers, and eventually became village head and renamed the place Longevity Village.
• When Yue Renchun asked what had made the village eerie, the owner struggled to speak and confirmed that the abnormalities were connected to Mr. Peng before falling silent.
• Yue Renchun and Hu Jiu suspected that Mr. Peng, now Old Master Peng, was the source of the village’s supernatural incidents.

Hu Jiu and Yue Renchun entered the eerie Peng Family Mansion for Old Master Peng’s birthday banquet, where they uncovered hints of a candle linked to the village’s unnatural longevity. As the mansion’s ghosts began attacking their minds and draining their years, Hu Jiu realized Yue Renchun had aged, though he kept the discovery to himself.

• Hu Jiu and Yue Renchun questioned a bound old man, who warned that the Peng family’s candle made people age rapidly and lose themselves before he attacked Yue Renchun’s mind.
• Yue Renchun resisted the old man’s influence, shot him dead, and theorized that Mr. Peng had been a Ghost Tamer whose death caused the village’s haunting.
• Hu Jiu and Yue Renchun entered the mansion, met Peng Yan and Madam Peng, and were invited to explore before the midnight birthday banquet.
• Hu Jiu killed the servant escorting them, then Yue Renchun became separated and suffered a terrifying vision of an old man with a red candle.
• Hu Jiu slapped Yue Renchun out of the trance and noticed that he had visibly aged, but chose not to tell him.

Hu Jiu seized the Longevity Candle during Old Master Peng’s birthday banquet and escaped the possessed villagers with Zou Cong. After temporarily suppressing the restriction on Zou Cong, Hu Jiu learned that headquarters had sent three teams to contain Longevity Village’s source ghost.

• At midnight, Hu Jiu and Yue Renchun witnessed the villagers gather for Old Master Peng’s birthday banquet, where the old man arrived carrying a red candle that made the villagers blow red lights into its flame.
• The candle’s murmurs possessed Yue Renchun and drove the villagers to attack Hu Jiu, who used the Eerie Flashlight to freeze them and steal the Longevity Candle before fleeing with Zou Cong.
• Zou Cong used Ghost-Covered Eyes to confuse Old Master Peng and the villagers, allowing him and Hu Jiu to escape to a crossroads.
• Hu Jiu learned that Zou Cong was restricted from revealing certain secrets and used the Ghost Book to temporarily suppress the supernatural forces affecting him.
• Zou Cong told Hu Jiu that headquarters had secretly dispatched three teams to contain Longevity Village’s source ghost.

Hu Jiu learned that headquarters sought Mr. Peng’s Chang Ghost to complete the Ghost Contract, then watched Zou Cong die from its curse and killed him to protect his secrets. Though the Longevity Candle’s containment cleared the clouds, Hu Jiu remained trapped in Longevity Village and planned to investigate the Peng family mansion at daylight.

• Zou Cong told Hu Jiu that Mr. Peng’s Chang Ghost enslaved living people and that headquarters wanted it to complete the Ghost Contract, a supernatural item used to control people.
• Zou Cong revealed that headquarters had tricked him into becoming bound by the Ghost Contract and explained that the Longevity Candle could steal other people’s lifespans.
• Hu Jiu asked who Zou Cong really was and suggested that he try controlling the Chang Ghost; Zou Cong was then struck by the curse’s backlash and collapsed.
• Hu Jiu watched Zou Cong die, finished him off, placed his body in a Golden Corpse Bag, and crushed his satellite phone.
• Hu Jiu considered the danger the Ghost Contract posed to his ambitions, then tried to leave the village after the clouds cleared but remained trapped.

Yue Renchun survived Old Master Peng’s aging curse, uncovered Cui Xueyan’s corpse, and learned that Peng Yan intended to trap him in the mansion. Hu Jiu escaped Longevity Village with the Lifespan-Borrowing Ghost Candle, while a Mirage Ghost’s impersonation sparked a deadly confrontation outside.

• Yue Renchun used his strange pink aura to return to youth, then followed a premonition back toward Peng Yan while the villagers pursued him.
• Yue Renchun found Cui Xueyan’s corpse in a rear room, and it exploded, revealing sludge in her lungs that matched the mud spreading from the pond.
• Yue Renchun watched Peng Yan use a suona-like sound and an uncanny dance to subdue the sludge flooding the mansion.
• Peng Yan told Yue Renchun that the villagers had been sacrificed to contain the ghosts beneath the pond, then revealed he planned to keep Yue Renchun there as a caretaker.
• Hu Jiu escaped as the Ghost Domain vanished, while a rose-pink flare spread from the Peng family mansion.
• A Mirage Ghost impersonating Zou Cong and Cui Xueyan fought over the red candle outside the village, and the candle’s effects aged the nearby officers before the male figure escaped with it.

Hu Jiu left Longevity Village and misled headquarters about the operation, framing Zou Cong for stealing the Longevity Candle. He secured a chance to become Linjiang City's person in charge, but suspected headquarters would investigate his story further.

• Hu Jiu crossed the cordon carrying a body bag and argued with Lin Guangning about headquarters' faulty communications equipment.
• Hu Jiu told Fu Youhua that Cui Xueyan and Zou Cong had entered the village residence, fought over a red candle, and tried to kill him, while concealing his own actions.
• Fu Youhua admitted headquarters had altered the files for the bigger picture, and Hu Jiu accepted the explanation before raising his candidacy to lead Linjiang City.
• Fu Youhua promised to test Hu Jiu and offer compensation if he signed a confidentiality agreement, and Hu Jiu agreed.
• Hu Jiu realized that headquarters might expose holes in his account and that the danger was not over.

Hu Jiu was stopped by Zhu Ze and Zhao Xiujin, who claimed to represent a military research institute and tried to force him into custody. He fought back against their attacks and ended the chapter wondering whether Zhu Ze’s weak, pearly-white Ghost Domain had been mass-produced like Cui Xueyan’s.

• Hu Jiu realized his driver was acting suspiciously when the driver stopped for a car blocking the road.
• Zhu Ze and Zhao Xiujin introduced themselves as officials and ordered Hu Jiu to accompany them, but he refused and challenged their identities.
• Zhu Ze used a Ghost Domain to pull Hu Jiu from the car, and the driver later reported that Hu Jiu had left willingly before Hu Jiu’s white silk killed him.
• When Zhu Ze tried to reclaim their credentials, Hu Jiu attacked with Bloodstained White Silk, leaving Zhao Xiujin unconscious and badly mutilated.
• Zhu Ze fought Hu Jiu with his Ghost Domain, but Hu Jiu seemed immune to his attacks and retaliated with white silk and a Ghost Hand.
• Hu Jiu noticed the similarity between Zhu Ze’s unstable, pearly-white Ghost Domain and Cui Xueyan’s, and wondered whether they had been made in a laboratory.

Hu Jiu trapped Zhu Ze inside his Ghost Domain and killed him after learning of his connection to the Anomalous Research Department. He contained Zhu Ze’s ghost, collected the remaining items, and left without hearing from headquarters.

• Hu Jiu attacked Zhu Ze and used the Ghost Book to keep Zhu Ze’s Ghost Domain from moving or closing.
• Zhu Ze tried to resist and escape, but Hu Jiu kept pressuring him while refusing his offers to negotiate.
• Hu Jiu told Zhu Ze that he was killing him because he was a Ghost Tamer from headquarters, then revealed his suspicion of the Anomalous Research Department.
• Hu Jiu used the Looking-Up Ghost to provoke the ghost inside Zhu Ze, causing Zhu Ze to die as his body liquefied into sewage.
• Hu Jiu compressed the sewage into a drop, sealed it in a gold container, and collected the remaining items before leaving without a call from headquarters.

Hu Jiu returned to Linjiang City, refused to handle a worsening supernatural incident until Headquarters assigned him officially, and passed the test to become the city’s person in charge. After receiving his appointment and two supernatural items, he inspected the office building and considered using his new authority to manipulate events.

• Hu Jiu brought Zou Cong’s corpse in a Golden Corpse Bag home, then told Qian Ying he would not respond to Linjiang City’s supernatural incident and asked him to contact Headquarters.
• Xiao Mei became Hu Jiu’s new operator and told him Headquarters would test him for the Linjiang City post; she also asked about the driver killed after Hu Jiu left Longevity Village, and Hu Jiu feigned ignorance.
• Hu Jiu completed a written mental-state test at Liu Mingguang’s former property, answering questions about life-and-death choices and what he would do near revival.
• After Qian Ying reported that the incident had worsened and two suspected Ghost Tamers had fallen victim to it, Wang Xianhui informed Hu Jiu that he had passed and officially become the person in charge of Linjiang City.
• Wang Xianhui gave Hu Jiu a Longevity Potion and a White Mask, had him sign a confidentiality agreement about Longevity Village, and asked him to report the ghost he had contained.
• Hu Jiu toured the office building after Wang Xianhui left and decided he wanted to take it over as a base for manipulating events.

Hu Jiu went to Linjiang City to contain a contagious supernatural incident that caused victims to develop a persecution complex and mutilate themselves. After capturing two affected Ghost Tamers at a hotel, he recognized one as Liu Tiancheng, codenamed Drunkard, and forced him into a corpse bag.

• Hu Jiu reviewed Qian Ying's account of the incident, in which paranoia spread from the affected students and staff to people who killed them.
• Hu Jiu met Qian Ying at the quarantined high school and learned that officers had also been contaminated after Xiao Zhang's failed attempt to contain the ghost.
• Hu Jiu asked for two Golden Corpse Bags and went to the hotel where two affected Ghost Tamers were hiding.
• Hu Jiu found one Ghost Tamer mutilated and trembling, snapped his neck, and placed him in a corpse bag.
• Hu Jiu found Liu Tiancheng, a Beifeng Commune member codenamed Drunkard, resisting attacks with his eyes closed, then used white silk and the Ghost Hand to force him into a corpse bag.

Hu Jiu contained the source ghost behind Linjiang City’s persecutory delusions, then learned it was a derivative of the recurring supernatural phenomenon [Unwarranted Calamity]. As Headquarters moved to take the ghost and its victims, Hu Jiu sought information about national incidents and began searching for clues about the Ghost Pen.

• Hu Jiu sent the officers away, tested how the source ghost affected people, and contained it in a sack.
• Hu Jiu told Qian Ying that containing the ghost might not reverse the damage to its victims, whose decline later slowed but did not stop.
• Hu Jiu reported the ghosts he had contained to Xiao Mei, then learned from Fu Youhua that Headquarters would take the derivative ghost and the patients.
• Hu Jiu told Fu Youhua that Liu Tiancheng and another unfamiliar Ghost Tamer from the Beifeng Commune had been near the incident, and criticized the commune.
• Hu Jiu requested public records of supernatural incidents and searched them for clues about the Ghost Pen and the former Ghost Tamer [Pen Fairy].

Zhao Lifeng resolved to keep targeting Hu Jiu, while Headquarters removed a dangerous ghost and its victims from Linjiang City. Hu Jiu refused to grant local elites special privileges and prepared to strike first against Beifeng Commune members in the city.

• Zhao Lifeng told the Beifeng Commune that Liu Tiancheng and Wu Xuan had died, then insisted Hu Jiu had to be eliminated because he suspected Hu Jiu held the ghost he sought.
• Wei Xiyuan dodged the prospect of fighting and quietly suggested Zhao Lifeng was becoming impatient, prompting the others to watch him warily.
• Headquarters took away the contagious-illness ghost and its afflicted patients, and Qian Ying asked Hu Jiu whether Zhang Yunjian could return.
• Hu Jiu refused to meet wealthy locals seeking influence, promised to protect all citizens equally, and requisitioned Liu Mingguang's gold and safe house.
• Hu Jiu left the haunted house unresolved and considered using the Longevity Candle to strike first against two Beifeng Commune members who had infiltrated Linjiang City.

Fu Youhua investigated the pattern behind staged supernatural incidents and learned that Zou Cong had fled to Beifeng Commune after killing several people in Zhenyuan City. Meanwhile, Hu Jiu returned home and rejected Han Ning’s offer to join Rose Security Company, though he considered how he might use the organization.

• Fu Youhua learned that Hu Jiu had quickly contained the Hysteria Ghost and decided Headquarters needed to revise its strategy toward him.
• Fu Youhua received a report that Zou Cong had killed several people with a red candle in Zhenyuan City before entering Beifeng Commune’s base, and recognized that several recent incidents appeared staged for surveillance cameras.
• Hu Jiu returned home, reviewed reports of suspicious supernatural incidents, and marked several for future investigation.
• Han Ning and a companion visited Hu Jiu and offered him resources in exchange for helping Rose Security Company and sharing information about Headquarters.
• Hu Jiu refused Han Ning’s offer but began considering how he could use the organization as a tool.