Chapter Summaries

Bai Zhi prepared to enter the highest-difficulty Domain of Delirium Dungeon while hiding his plan to use the Dim Ark Heart to help revive Qingyi’s lost Shadow World. At home, Xia Wen’s disastrous cooking earned her punishment, and Mu Qiansè warned Bai Zhi to be careful before the Dungeon opened.

• Qingyi urged Bai Zhi to put his safety first and avoid dangerous risks, while Bai Zhi kept his plan to revive the Shadow World secret.
• Bai Zhi and Qingyi came downstairs and found Xia Wen cleaning after she wrecked the kitchen while trying to cook.
• Lin Xiaoyi explained that Tian Huo had helped Xia Wen clean up so she could still eat dinner.
• Mu Qiansè told Bai Zhi that dinner would be ready soon and cautioned him about entering the highest-difficulty Dungeon.
• Xia Wen asked for food, and Mu Qiansè told her she would get wild vegetable soup.

Bai Zhi arrived to join the Renowned Restaurant Dungeon and received a special seasoning jar from a mysterious Red-haired Loli. He boarded the train and came face-to-face with a Player he had previously antagonized.

• Bai Zhi checked the ticket list and saw that seven other Players from S-rank Stations had joined the Dungeon, including Fireworks of Romance.
• A Red-haired Loli tossed Bai Zhi the God of Cooking's Seasoning Jar, then appeared to confront him before letting him pass.
• Bai Zhi considered the jar's usefulness for his Chef role and speculated that the Loli knew more about the Dungeon than he did.
• Bai Zhi boarded the underground train during its final minute and found two Players already in the carriage.
• Bai Zhi recognized one of them as the Golden-Eyed man in a Black Military Uniform he had met before and repeatedly insulted.

Bai Zhi entered the S-rank Dungeon Renowned Restaurant alongside seven other Players and found himself trapped in a decaying corridor. The Dungeon assigned them a management assessment with death as the failure penalty, leaving the Players immobile as screams and blood poured from a nearby door.

• Bai Zhi discarded the Perfect-grade Resister of Evil Gods Title because its Sanity bonus was useless to him.
• Bai Zhi got off the train with Cloudfall Illusion and Two Lives Cycle and arrived in a dark, rundown corridor.
• Bai Zhi observed the other seven Players and noted the numbered seating, the bloodstained door, and the darkness beyond the corridor.
• A person screamed behind the wooden door as disturbing sounds and blood emerged beneath it, while the Players remained unable to move or speak.
• The system announced that the Players had entered the S-rank management Dungeon Renowned Restaurant and had to pass its assessment or die.

Bai Zhi entered a deadly chef assessment where each applicant had to prepare a common dish within an hour. He discovered that the ingredients were dangerous, weapon-wielding creatures and began facing one himself.

• The system announced that failing the assessment meant death, and the applicants were summoned one by one into a dark room.
• Cloudfall Illusion entered first, followed by the Young Girl and the other applicants, none of whom returned.
• Bai Zhi recorded how long the others took before his turn arrived, then entered the assessment room and regained control of his body.
• A hoarse voice ordered Bai Zhi to prepare a common dish within one hour, and he cleaned the stove before inspecting the ingredients.
• Bai Zhi dodged a handleless Kitchen Knife launched from a compartment and found a strange fish that had fired it.

Bai Zhi and the other Players completed the Chef recruitment assessments and introduced themselves while waiting in the Corridor. After all the Players passed, a Withered Figure appeared and told them to follow him.

• Bai Zhi defeated the Knife Fish with its own Kitchen Knife and completed his assessment.
• Bai Zhi asked the waiting Players to reveal their usernames, and Cloudfall Illusion, Two Lives Cycle, Dawn Lord▪Positive and Negative, Fireworks of Romance, and Illusory Starry Sky displayed theirs.
• Bai Zhi displayed his username, Prince▪Black&White, and said the assessment was only the beginning.
• August Desolation emerged from his assessment covered in Spider Webs, while Clouds Recall Beauty came out calm and composed.
• After all the Players passed, a Withered Figure emerged and told them to follow him.

Bai Zhi and the other Players entered their assigned rooms and learned that they had three days to prove themselves as Chefs in the dining hall. As midnight arrived, Bai Zhi was reading the handbook’s rules for work, cooking, and dangerous ingredients.

• The Withered Figure led Bai Zhi and the others to a locked corridor of eight rooms and explained their three-day probation as Chefs.
• Bai Zhi warned the group that the locked doors might be protecting them and urged everyone to read the work guidelines in their rooms.
• Fireworks of Romance and Illusory Starry Sky switched rooms before the Players entered their assigned rooms.
• Bai Zhi found only a bed, a bedside lamp, a small table, an alarm clock, and a handbook in his cramped room.
• Bai Zhi read rules requiring scheduled shifts, at least three dishes daily, and quick processing of fresh ingredients during meal preparation time.
• The alarm clock reached midnight as Bai Zhi finished reading the sixth guideline.

At midnight, Bai Zhi read the remaining Employee Rules while strange visitors appeared in several players’ rooms. Fireworks of Romance heard something creak beneath her bed, and the chapter ended before it was revealed what was there.

• Bai Zhi read Rules Seven through Ten, which restricted Chefs to the Back Kitchen, warned of violent Customers, required lights to be turned off by midnight, and forbade violence except against ingredients.
• A woman with disheveled hair crawled across the wall above August Desolation and reached toward him.
• The Young Girl in Room Two spoke to a tentacle that appeared in her room and told it to take her somewhere.
• Cloudfall Illusion watched his closed door with his Golden Eyes burning, while Li Changsheng lay awake tossing a dagger and Two Lives Cycle rested motionlessly.
• Fireworks of Romance worried that she had turned off the lights one minute late, then heard a strange creaking sound beneath her bed.

Bai Zhi and the other Players prepared for their first morning shift after a strange night in the dining hall. When the Young Girl appeared, she summoned them to breakfast, leaving them to face the Customers and the work ahead.

• Bai Zhi reviewed the Employee Handbook, set his alarm, and found that the dining hall prevented him from using summoned creatures to gather information.
• Clouds Recall Beauty ▪ Earthly Homeland drew a glowing talisman in Room Eight while the Players spent the night in their rooms.
• Bai Zhi woke at six and joined Cloudfall Illusion, Two Lives Cycle, Li Changsheng, and Earthly Homeland in the corridor.
• August Desolation said a Female Ghost had dragged him into making a midnight snack after he forgot to turn off his lights.
• Bai Zhi inferred that cooking consumed Sanity Value and physical strength, and Fireworks of Romance emerged from her room looking unsteady.
• The Young Girl appeared in the corridor and told everyone to come over for breakfast.

After surviving the restaurant’s midnight snack shift, Positive and Negative returned to the group in the morning, while August Desolation and Fireworks of Romance struggled with the exhaustion of cooking for the Diners. The group followed a mirrored hallway, and Fireworks asked Bai Zhi if she could sleep in his room that night.

• August Desolation described how the restaurant’s additional midnight working hours had forced him, Fireworks of Romance, and Positive and Negative to cook for hungry Diners.
• Bai Zhi suggested that chefs could restore their depleted Sanity and stamina by eating the dishes they made, and Positive and Negative said her own cooking tasted good to her.
• Bai Zhi and the exhausted Fireworks of Romance fell behind the group as they walked through a hallway lined with mirrors disguised as windows.
• Fireworks told Bai Zhi she planned to become an idol and asked to sleep in his room that night.

Bai Zhi and Fireworks of Romance learned the kitchen’s rules and prepared for the strange customers and ingredients they would face during the three-day restaurant shift. As Breakfast Time approached, the first menu arrived from the mailbox.

• Fireworks of Romance told Bai Zhi that an Assembled Anomaly Toy Model had visited her the previous night and that its tomatoes had bitten her while she cooked.
• Bai Zhi handed Fireworks of Romance a Number Plate and declared that he would receive the customer that night as the 128th Generation Successor of Chūka Ichiban!.
• Bai Zhi, Fireworks of Romance, and the others entered the oversized kitchen, where Positive and Negative explained how ingredients and menus would be handled and warned them about starving customers at the Dish-Out Windows.
• Earthly Homeland and August Desolation discussed the chainsaw and Ink Stick among the kitchen tools as a menu drifted out of the mailbox.

The kitchen received its first wave of monstrous ingredients and menus, forcing the Players to keep the creatures alive while gathering ingredients and starting their dishes. As the kitchen descended into chaos, Fireworks of Romance used her control over its cookware to fight back.

• Li Changsheng picked up a menu and shocked an attached tentacle creature with blue electricity, revealing it as an ingredient.
• The Young Girl warned the Players to follow their menu requirements, and the Loudspeaker announced that thirteen ingredients and five menus had arrived with strict processing and cooking deadlines.
• Bai Zhi assigned the Players to restrain the rampaging ingredients without killing them, while he collected three Single-use Menus.
• Cloudfall Illusion trapped several creatures with black stones, and Earthly Homeland blocked a Steel Centipede with Spirit Talismans as a Human-faced Spider attacked her.
• Fireworks of Romance commanded the kitchen's floating pots and pans to strike the spider and attack the other ingredients.

The Players subdued the thirteen escaped ingredients while Bai Zhi reviewed the five Menus and explained their strange requirements. The group divided the Menus among themselves, leaving August Desolation without a partner as Bai Zhi warned that the final day’s cooking would be the most difficult.

• Cloudfall Illusion restrained most of the large ingredients, while Li Changsheng electrocuted the Steel Centipede and Fireworks of Romance accidentally knocked him out of stealth with her iron pot.
• Bai Zhi calmly reviewed the Menus as Fireworks of Romance joined him, and he explained that the dishes required ingredients such as Crocodile Tears, Elephant Snot, and Centipede Excrement.
• Positive and Negative spotted a Transparent Mosquito trapped beneath Bai Zhi’s upside-down glass, and the Players spent over half an hour capturing all thirteen ingredients.
• The Players divided the five Menus among Positive and Negative, Li Changsheng and Earthly Homeland, Bai Zhi and Fireworks of Romance, Cloudfall Illusion, and Two Lives Cycle.
• August Desolation was left without a partner and moved toward Bai Zhi, hoping to team up with him.

Bai Zhi and the other Players gathered ingredients for their strange menus and began cooking, discovering that the dishes consumed the Chefs’ vitality, energy, and spirit. The chapter left Bai Zhi worried that the deadly cooking demands would grow harder over the remaining days.

• Bai Zhi and the others struggled to figure out how to collect Crocodile Tears, and Positive and Negative forced a bubbling red liquid down a crocodile’s throat until it began crying.
• Fireworks of Romance summoned bowls to collect the tears and declared that her absence would have left the culinary path in darkness.
• Cloudfall Illusion cut an elephant in half to obtain its tusks, while the Players gathered the remaining ingredients, including a Spider Venom Sac and a Mosquito Proboscis.
• Fireworks of Romance’s abilities automated Bai Zhi’s cooking equipment and utensils as he prepared his dish.
• Bai Zhi realized that cooking drained a Chef’s vitality, energy, and spirit, and suspected that some Chefs had died from cooking themselves to death.

Bai Zhi and the others prepared five dishes for the Diners, with Bai Zhi making a pot of heavily seasoned food he named Life. Fireworks of Romance delivered the dishes to the Serving Hatches, where the final dish was seized by a bloated hand from beyond the window, leaving Bai Zhi to suspect the Diners might consider chefs ingredients too.

• Bai Zhi cooked by boiling ingredients together and used the God of Cooking's Seasoning Jar, while Fireworks of Romance warned him to watch his Sanity.
• Li Changsheng and Earthly Homeland prepared dishes that looked presentable, while Cloudfall Illusion and Two Lives Cycle cooked unwashed ingredients and Positive and Negative tasted a bubbling green paste.
• Bai Zhi added salt, chili powder, rock sugar, and dish soap to his pot, named it Life, and brushed off August Desolation's concern about complaints.
• At 8:52, Fireworks of Romance placed the five dishes at their assigned Serving Hatches while the others stayed back from the unknown danger.
• A bloated pale hand shot from the final Dish-Out Window, grabbed the dish and the space behind it, and vanished; Bai Zhi wondered whether the Diners treated chefs as ingredients.

After a dangerous attack at the Serving Hatch, Bai Zhi and the other Players cleaned the kitchen and explored the dining hall during their break. The chapter ended with Bai Zhi discovering that one of his missing Shadow Guards had been frozen in the Ingredient Area’s Ice Storage.

• A waterlogged hand lunged through the Serving Hatch, leading Bai Zhi to suspect the daytime Customers and nighttime Diners were different.
• The Players discussed the danger and cleared the kitchen’s pile of animal remains by moving them to the Ingredient Area.
• The Players explored the limited accessible areas during their break, with about an hour and a half remaining before lunch.
• Cloudfall Illusion smashed a mirrored Corridor window and saw his own reflection with its back turned, then received a warning for damaging public property.
• Bai Zhi found a Shadow Guard frozen inside an ice block in the Ingredient Area’s Ice Storage.

Bai Zhi recovered his frozen Shadow Guard and [Beat Up Doll] before joining the other Players in preparing lunch from dangerous creatures. After the Loudspeaker announced the Customers’ reactions to breakfast, the group learned that Bai Zhi and Fireworks of Romance’s dish had prompted an angry complaint.

• Bai Zhi found the Shadow Guard and [Beat Up Doll] frozen in the Ice Storage, recovered the doll, and dismissed two Shadow Guards.
• The Players fought and prepared lunch ingredients, including a grotesque mermaid, while Bai Zhi used God's Perspective to observe the kitchen.
• Bai Zhi considered poisoning the Customers with his Magic Cube but put it away, then added Aqua Regia to his lunch dish.
• The Loudspeaker announced that Li Changsheng and Earthly Homeland had earned gifts, while Positive and Negative had to prepare an extra dish after a Customer complained and died.
• The Loudspeaker played a censored complaint about Dish No. 4, drawing everyone's attention to Bai Zhi and Fireworks of Romance, who had prepared it together.

After the morning’s disastrous cooking, Bai Zhi and the others examined the gifts Li Changsheng and Earthly Homeland had received, then formed a group to explore the Dining Hall. They restored their strength with a meal and prepared to begin exploring at 1:45 p.m.

• The Loudspeaker announced that the Dining Hall would not pursue Positive and Negative after her dish killed a customer, and she went on cooking alone.
• Li Changsheng and Earthly Homeland showed the group their Strange Wine gifts, and Bai Zhi bought both bottles for 3,500 Game Coins each.
• Bai Zhi noticed that Two Lives Cycle, Cloudfall Illusion, and Positive and Negative had disappeared, then invited the remaining Players to cooperate in exploring.
• August Desolation and Earthly Homeland agreed to join the group, while Li Changsheng proposed making a dish before they explored.
• Li Changsheng led the others in cooking Shredded Potato, and Bai Zhi tasted it first; the group found it tasty and used it to restore their strength.

Bai Zhi and Fireworks of Romance explored beyond the kitchen through the shadows and found a corridor covered in Bugs and human remains. As Bai Zhi prepared to lead her through it, Fireworks of Romance worried he might kiss her while she had her eyes closed.

• Earthly Homeland handed out Sound Transmission Talismans so the Players could stay in contact during their exploration.
• Bai Zhi guessed that Menus for Chefs might provide benefits and invited the others to explore through the kitchen door with him.
• Fireworks of Romance joined Bai Zhi, while Earthly Homeland chose to accompany Li Changsheng, leaving August Desolation feeling lonely.
• Bai Zhi carried Fireworks of Romance through the shadows beneath the iron gate, and she became dizzy from the experience.
• Bai Zhi saw that the passage ahead was covered in small black Bugs, White Bones, and human Skulls.
• Fireworks of Romance shut her eyes as Bai Zhi offered to guide her through the corridor, then worried he might secretly kiss her.

Bai Zhi and Fireworks of Romance reached a T-shaped intersection after crossing a corridor filled with Bugs, and he asked why she was pursuing dignity so intensely. Fireworks of Romance explained that Dignity Value was the core of her chosen power system, then compared it with another Player’s Gratitude Value.

• Bai Zhi and Fireworks of Romance safely crossed the Bug-filled corridor and found a T-shaped intersection with a fresh scratch beside the left passage.
• Bai Zhi asked Fireworks of Romance why she cared so much about dignity, and their teasing exchange briefly turned her attention away from her gloom.
• Fireworks of Romance explained that she was Level 24 and had delayed reaching Level 25 because she was unprepared for the system’s power assessment.
• Fireworks of Romance described dignity as the core around which her future Skills and power would develop, and said unusual cores could have great growth potential.
• Fireworks of Romance told Bai Zhi about a Player who accumulated Gratitude Value by doing good deeds but was falsely accused seven times while helping old ladies cross the street.

Bai Zhi learned from Fireworks of Romance about powerful Talent Core builds and the Underworld, while their conversation mixed recruitment, debt, and teasing. Fireworks of Romance began explaining her own goal, but she stumbled and Bai Zhi caught her.

• Fireworks of Romance explained that Players gained system strength evaluations after Level 25 and described several top-tier Talent Core builds.
• Fireworks of Romance offered Bai Zhi a chance to enter the Underworld if he joined her guild, and Bai Zhi connected its inheritances to Talent Core builds.
• Fireworks of Romance demanded that Bai Zhi repay his 7,000 Game Coin loan with 10,000 coins, and Bai Zhi claimed Zhuge Yun had told him about the Underworld.
• Fireworks of Romance recalled that Zhuge Yun had once written twenty love letters at once and warned Bai Zhi to keep Talent Core information secret.
• Fireworks of Romance said she sought divine weapons from the Underworld’s inheritances, then stumbled backward and Bai Zhi caught her.