Chapter Summaries

Wen Xishu uncovered Pisces’s false return to the start, reached Sirius’s prison, and helped Sirius recover his whole body and free will. Sirius outlined an escape plan that required Horn’s help, and Horn awoke from his hallucination as Sirius reconnected with the Ark.

• Albert explained that Wen Xishu’s activated Scorpio Invitation Letter had set him on a path toward fighting Leo, then escorted him to an escape point on the chessboard.
• Wen Xishu crossed multiple dangerous time nodes, but at the ninth point he seemed to return to the storage room where the journey had begun.
• Wen Xishu realized Pisces had created a deceptive timeline rather than a true loop, avoided alerting Von Neumann, and found the escape point hidden in a ventilation duct.
• Wen Xishu reached the prison, where his attached flesh returned to Sirius and restored Sirius’s full body and free will.
• Sirius explained that he needed to leave through the Time Turbulence and proposed drawing the Ark’s powerful figures away with a disturbance.
• Wen Xishu asked Sirius to contact Horn, and Sirius’s flesh spread through the Ark until Horn woke from his hallucination.

Wen Xishu and Sirius escaped the Captain’s prison and returned to the Ark, where Horn’s uprising distracted the ship’s leaders. As the Sin Sea Behemoth attacked again, Horn refused to flee with them, leaving Wen Xishu to choose whether to trust his friend or force him to leave.

• Wen Xishu used Sirius to contact Horn, revealed a secret that convinced him the warning was real, and asked him to start a major uprising.
• Horn organized a revolt across the Ark, drawing the Captain’s and Von Neumann’s attention while Wen Xishu asked Sirius how the Captain controlled him.
• Wen Xishu and Sirius escaped through the Time Turbulence and returned to Horn, where Wen Xishu explained that he had not traveled from the future to the past.
• Horn refused to abandon the Ark and its people, insisting that saving them was the cause he was willing to die for.
• The Sin Sea Behemoth attacked again, and Sirius opened a passage through the Ark’s bulkhead, while Wen Xishu struggled to decide whether to take Horn by force or trust him to stay.

Wen Xishu loaded his save to let Horn choose his own path, then received a simulation showing Horn survived and became Slaughter Horn. The chapter ended as Horn entered the Time Turbulence and began a new journey toward the Underground Fortress to seek alliances against a god.

• Wen Xishu used Scorpio's ability to save Horn and escape the Ark inside the Sin Sea Behemoth, but the simulation showed that Horn had not accompanied Sirius and his fate was uncertain.
• Wen Xishu loaded his save, told Horn to stay and make the Ark a right answer, and escaped with Sirius while Horn vanished into the Time Turbulence.
• A new simulation showed that Horn disappeared despite being hunted, ability users died mysteriously, and Horn gained Slaughter Horn favorability +95.
• Horn emerged from the Time Turbulence near Wind City, learned that the Hidden Dragon Plan had failed, and decided to seek alliances at the Underground Fortress to defeat a god.

Wen Xishu completed the Strange Tower’s changed mission by restoring everyone aboard the Ark’s will, leaving Horn and the others to resist the Captain’s plans. Back at the place of guidance, he received Sirius’s rune and a Fishing Ground for the Bunker before returning to his own world.

• Wen Xishu realized that the Strange Tower now required him to awaken everyone on the Ark, and he completed the mission by restoring their memories and will.
• Wen Xishu understood that Horn remained aboard the Ark and wished him well as the Ark began a new resistance and uprising.
• The Guide gave Wen Xishu the rare unique rune Earth-over Marsh Trapped Beast and evaluated his performance as level six completion.
• The Guide added a Fishing Ground to a new Seventeenth Floor of the Bunker and granted its residents the Iron Lung ability.
• Wen Xishu chose to place the Fishing Ground at the bottom of the Bunker and prepared to return to his own world.

After returning to the Tower of Deception Academy, Wen Xishu learned that Zhenbar had publicly displayed visitors’ humiliating failures, while the Bunker celebrated the arrival of a sea he had brought back. Albert advised Wen Xishu not to send Sirius an acknowledgment letter, and the chapter ended with Albert preparing to take him to meet an old friend and share discoveries from the ninety-seventh floor.

• Zhenbar told Wen Xishu that he had turned failed challenges at the Tower of Deception Academy into public highlight reels, and Wen Xishu told him to be more considerate next time.
• Wen Xishu approved the academy’s admissions plan, which included transfer applications and an entrance exam for eighteen-year-olds.
• The Bunker’s bottom floor became an ocean, and William Hockner decided to support Wen Xishu and organize a banquet to advance his family’s interests.
• Wen Xishu told Albert about the rival Constellations and his dilemma over whether to send the Phoenix Constellation’s acknowledgment letter for Sirius.
• Albert urged Wen Xishu not to send the letter and to respect Sirius’s choice, so Wen Xishu resolved to follow his advice.
• Albert told Wen Xishu that he had discoveries from the ninety-seventh floor and was ready to introduce him to an old friend.

Albert explained to Wen Xishu how the rules beyond the ninetieth floor restricted advancement and how Mr. Jin had once forced the Five Elders to gain Three Towers stats. After Mr. Jin refused to meet them, Evelyn revealed that Xiao Jin was not his grandson and was from their own era, leaving Wen Xishu and Albert stunned.

• Albert told Wen Xishu that the upper floors had strict rules, and Mr. Jin had once risked taking the Five Elders into the ninetieth floor so they could gain Three Towers stats.
• Albert described reaching the True Ninety-Seventh Floor and suspected the Guide and its required monster kills were deliberately slowing climbers down.
• Albert and Wen Xishu went to the Healing House, where Mr. Jin refused to come out or explain why he would not leave.
• Mr. Jin asked Albert to guide Xiao Jin, and Albert returned with Wen Xishu without learning why his old friend had secluded himself.
• Evelyn met Albert and Wen Xishu and revealed that Xiao Jin was neither Mr. Jin's grandson nor a child, but came from their own era.

Evelyn told Albert and Wen Xishu how Mr. Jin repeatedly erased and reshaped Xiao Jin’s memories, then admitted that Mr. Jin feared an assassin from the Three Towers World. Wen Xishu proposed using fear to uncover Xiao Jin’s original memories, and the three prepared to begin immediately.

• Albert, Wen Xishu, and Evelyn met at Three Towers Academy, where Evelyn agreed to reveal what she knew about Mr. Jin and Xiao Jin.
• Evelyn explained that Mr. Jin had repeatedly asked her to erase Xiao Jin’s memories and create different memories that made him kind, gentle, honest, and loving.
• Evelyn revealed that Mr. Jin feared someone from the Three Towers World might kill him, though he did not know for certain that he was being targeted.
• Wen Xishu suggested that the repeated memory changes were concealing Xiao Jin’s identity and proposed using extreme fear to access his original memories.
• Albert urged them to scare Xiao Jin at once, and Evelyn offered to use a facility at the Tower of Deception Academy to simulate scenarios and intensify his fear.

Wen Xishu uncovered the secret behind Mr. Jin by entering Xiao Jin’s recovered memories, learning that Mr. Jin had tricked Capricorn and brought Xiao Jin from the Three Towers Battlefield into the Bunker. The chapter ended with Wen Xishu telling Albert and Evelyn his deductions while Xiao Jin lay unconscious.

• Albert knocked out Xiao Jin and took him with Evelyn and Wen Xishu to the Tower of Deception Academy to uncover Old Jin’s secret.
• Wen Xishu used the Recollection Archive to recreate the Chosen Train, while Evelyn intensified Xiao Jin’s fear to reach memories beneath his implanted ones.
• Wen Xishu touched a scrolling comment and entered Xiao Jin’s memory, where he witnessed Capricorn accuse Mr. Jin of deceiving him and disrupting a ritual.
• Wen Xishu realized Mr. Jin had used Capricorn’s power to bring someone important from the Three Towers Battlefield into the Bunker instead of leaving as promised.
• Wen Xishu told Albert and Evelyn that Xiao Jin was that person and that Mr. Jin’s scheme against Capricorn explained why he had not appeared and why the Bunker had no newcomers.

Wen Xishu deduced how Mr. Jin had brought Xiao Jin into the Bunker and why Mr. Jin feared leaving the Healing House, while Albert decided to confront him about the past. Wen Xishu then began a new Strange Tower climb, where his mission sent him to a mysterious “Soul Concentration Camp.”

• Wen Xishu told Albert and Evelyn that Mr. Jin had tricked Capricorn’s smuggling ritual to make Xiao Jin a Bunker resident, and that Sagittarius may have marked Mr. Jin.
• Albert recalled that his old friends had died in the seventies and suspected a deadly hurdle or conspiracy lay between the Seventieth Floor and the ninetieth floors.
• Albert and Evelyn agreed to seek the truth from Mr. Jin, while Wen Xishu decided to climb a tower and left the mystery of Xiao Jin’s identity to the future.
• Wen Xishu chose Quality Elevation, Three Begets All Things, Two-Stage Chain, and Minimalism for his climb, and his enhanced Scorpio Knife gained the Great Tribute function.
• Wen Xishu entered the Strange Tower’s thirty-fifth-floor range and received a mission to survive in and escape the Soul Concentration Camp.

Wen Xishu entered a challenge where he had to control Chris, Zhou Fei, and Britney, three patients held in different wards of a sinister hospital. After discovering their distinct abilities and several dangerous rules, he tried to keep all three alive and prepare a way to escape.

• Wen Xishu assigned the Slaughter, Eerie, and Desire Sequences and their core items to Chris, Zhou Fei, and Britney before the challenge began.
• Chris endured electroshock torture, learned he was a veteran named Chris, and was taken toward solitary confinement as Wen Xishu unlocked a rule about silently counting numbers.
• Wen Xishu switched to Zhou Fei, learned he was a top student, and took medication that revealed rules about vomiting and thoughts being spoken aloud.
• Wen Xishu switched to Britney in the Mild Ward, where she persuaded a nonhuman doctor to leave a frail child behind and unlocked another rule.
• Wen Xishu concluded that the three characters had different strengths and needed to reach the Critical Care Ward, then received a warning that Chris might be in danger and discovered an Easter egg.

Wen Xishu used Chris to investigate the isolation room, discovering that counting numbers or touching carved number marks kept the parasites inside him dormant. After hearing Chris’s painful memories and resisting Margaret’s voice, he switched to the awakened Zhou Fei and found insects crawling over the other people in the hospital room.

• Wen Xishu guided Britney back to her room, then switched to Chris in the isolation room.
• Chris felt parasites crawling inside him, and Wen Xishu found that silently counting numbers suppressed them.
• A woman calling herself Margaret triggered Chris’s memories of war and his guilt over her death, and Wen Xishu stopped Chris from embracing the voice by making him slap himself.
• A broadcast promoted the Hall of Goodness, leading Wen Xishu to suspect that its treatments turned people into monsters and that exposing it might be necessary for a perfect ending.
• Wen Xishu discovered that touching numbers carved into the isolation-room wall let Chris keep the parasites dormant without counting, then switched to Zhou Fei.
• Wen Xishu found Zhou Fei awake in the hospital room and sensed insects crawling over the other people there.

Wen Xishu explored the ward while impersonating Zhou Fei, discovering that Zhou Fei’s drug resistance and apparent sleepwalking helped him evade the cameras. After surviving a confrontation with the white-coated figures and the revived Tea-Selling Old Man, Wen Xishu realized the wards’ danger levels were reversed and prepared to switch characters to check on Britney.

• The Tea-Selling Old Man briefly appeared in the ward, then collapsed, while Wen Xishu heard parasites crawling inside the patients.
• Wen Xishu recalled Zhou Fei’s history of taking medication and realized his drug resistance explained why he had not lost consciousness.
• After cameras turned toward him, Wen Xishu acted like Zhou Fei was sleepwalking, explored the corridors, and found a gray Concealment Rune.
• Three white-coated figures confronted Wen Xishu while carrying the Tea-Selling Old Man’s corpse, which revived and chanted Disciples’ Rules.
• Wen Xishu emptied his mind to make the figures believe parasites were inside him, then deduced that the Mild Ward and Critical Care Ward were effectively reversed.
• A prompt offered Wen Xishu the chance to switch characters, and he worried that Britney was surrounded by good people and in danger.

While controlling Britney in the Hall of Goodness, Wen Xishu uncovered that the Good People shared sensations and served a central Mother Entity, and learned that Britney had grown up inside a scripted reality show. He began planning an escape using Zhou Fei, Chris, and Britney, with Britney as bait to draw the Great Good Person’s attention.

• Wen Xishu concluded that the parasites formed a hive mind whose fully taken-over hosts could share memories and perceptions, then returned Zhou Fei to bed and switched to Britney.
• Wen Xishu observed that the mild-symptom ward’s apparent games and laughter were repetitive performances, while children who acted out of sync drew the Good People’s attention.
• Britney’s memories revealed that her life had been secretly scripted and broadcast, and that she had discovered the deception and manipulated the show’s producers into arranging her parents’ deaths.
• Wen Xishu noticed that a parasitized cat was ignored by the patients and later observed the Good People reacting to one another’s food, confirming that they shared sensations while retaining some of their hosts’ desires.
• Wen Xishu inferred that the Great Good Person could not monitor every host at once and began shaping an escape plan, intending to use Zhou Fei to learn the rules, Chris to overcome obstacles, and Britney to lure the entity’s attention.

Wen Xishu used Britney’s cooking to draw the good people away from their posts, then guided Zhou Fei into the Critical Care Ward to reach Chris’s locked cell. He persuaded Zhou Fei to recount his formative memories, rapidly unlocking Sage abilities and raising the possibility that Chris could escape without a key.

• Wen Xishu had Britney prepare popular dishes, attracting the good people to the Mild Ward cafeteria and creating an opportunity to move Zhou Fei.
• Wen Xishu used the Concealment Rune to guide Zhou Fei from the Moderate Ward into the Critical Care Ward and to Chris’s solitary confinement cell.
• Wen Xishu spoke to Zhou Fei through Chris, proved he could control both of them, and explained that he intended to help all three escape.
• Wen Xishu convinced Zhou Fei to recount pivotal events from his life, triggering several stages of memory accumulation and unlocking Sage abilities.
• Wen Xishu realized that leveling Chris might let him escape the locked cell without a key, while Zhou Fei’s memories began revealing clues.

Wen Xishu uncovered Zhou Fei’s memories of alternating experiences that he mistook for sleepwalking and suggested that both versions were real, with drugs and manipulation hiding the truth. He began controlling Zhou Fei and approached Chris, hoping Chris’s memories would reveal more about the monster-filled city and the force behind it.

• Wen Xishu examined Zhou Fei’s memories and learned that Zhou Fei repeatedly woke in bed after witnessing disturbing events, including his father shedding skin and a child with a split-open face.
• Zhou Fei recalled that his cousin Zhou Ming had apologized and promised to reveal a secret, but he believed that experience vanished whenever he woke up.
• Wen Xishu told Zhou Fei that both sets of experiences were real and that drugs and an unseen force had made him believe the truth was only a dream.
• Wen Xishu suspected that a powerful Constellation controlled the city and had built false lives around Zhou Fei and Britney because they were unusually valuable or special.
• Wen Xishu took control of Zhou Fei, entered the isolation room, and introduced himself to Chris as someone who had come to get him out.

While controlling Zhou Fei, Wen Xishu unlocked Chris’s abilities by guiding him through his memories and connected their Will Affinity to the Strange Tower’s rules and the mystery of a dangerous child in Chris’s wartime past. After freeing Chris, Wen Xishu led him and Zhou Fei into the Moderate Ward to search its Archive Room for answers about Zhou Fei and Britney.

• Wen Xishu realized that the Strange Tower’s rules could help or hinder climbers and that Will Affinity might be essential to reaching the perfect ending.
• As Chris recounted his past, he revealed that soldiers blessed with unusual powers had been ordered to kill every child in a country they invaded, and that he had let a face-covered child go after the child told him he would find his own destiny.
• Wen Xishu concluded that Chris’s war, the child Longxia had tried to protect, and Will Affinity might be connected, then asked Chris to help him break out of confinement.
• Chris smashed through the iron door, and Wen Xishu persuaded Zhou Fei to continue investigating rather than escape immediately.
• Wen Xishu and Chris fought their way to the Moderate Ward, where Wen Xishu used Zhou Fei’s abilities to evade surveillance and entered the Archive Room.
• Wen Xishu searched the Archive Room and found Zhou Fei’s file.

Wen Xishu revealed the truth about Demon City and Zhou Fei’s past as they made their way toward the Mild Ward. Zhou Fei learned that his family had tried to protect him from the monsters but had been turned into good people, and he vowed to escape and avenge them.

• Wen Xishu used Zhou Fei’s ability to exploit a small loophole in the rules, then switched to Chris to lead their way toward the Mild Ward and explain what he had discovered.
• Wen Xishu told Zhou Fei that monsters had taken over Demon City and used the Hall of Goodness to suppress humans and prepare gifted people for parasitism.
• Wen Xishu revealed that Zhou Fei’s unusual perception began after he saw a child with a distorted shadow, and that his parents had drugged him to dull his senses before they were turned into good people.
• Wen Xishu explained that Zhou Fei’s uncle and brother had tried to protect him, but the good people discovered their intentions and turned them into good people as well.
• Wen Xishu and Zhou Fei hid from returning staff while Zhou Fei mourned his family, then Zhou Fei promised to escape before seeking revenge.
• Wen Xishu told Zhou Fei to stay alive and said they would meet the third victim and escape that day.

Wen Xishu helped Zhou Fei and Chris escape into the Mild Ward, where he contacted Britney and learned that she had also been helped by the mysterious child. After the three reunited, Britney agreed to share what she knew and revealed that the child had called himself Jin Shan.

• Wen Xishu used Britney to leave a message for her, then controlled Chris as he and Zhou Fei subdued two White Coats and entered the Mild Ward.
• Britney remembered that a child had exposed the staged deception surrounding her life, and Wen Xishu realized the same child connected her, Zhou Fei, and Chris.
• Wen Xishu and Zhou Fei reached the classroom, while alarms sounded in the Moderate Ward and Critical Care Ward; Britney replied that they should avoid fighting and meet her in her room.
• Wen Xishu encouraged Zhou Fei by describing how people could grow powerful even in oppressive worlds, and Zhou Fei asked whether he could avenge his family.
• Britney welcomed Zhou Fei and Chris into her room and agreed to explain what she knew about the child and the Good People.
• Britney told Wen Xishu that the child had said people knew him by the name Jin Shan.

Wen Xishu combined Britney, Zhou Fei, and Chris through Affinity of Wills, then used their powers to escape the Hall of Goodness. The trio reached the city, but no Invitation Letter appeared, and the mission ended with Wen Xishu sent to the Guide still searching for answers about Jin Shan and the failed plan.

• Wen Xishu realized that Britney, Zhou Fei, and Chris had each unlocked abilities that could help them escape the Hall of Goodness.
• Britney, Zhou Fei, and Wen Xishu joined hands, triggering Affinity of Wills and allowing Wen Xishu to merge with them, hear their thoughts, and use their abilities.
• Wen Xishu used Britney's Sincere Heart to persuade a White Coat to leave Britney's room, then learned he could switch between all three bodies and use their powers together.
• Wen Xishu pieced together a theory about Jin Shan, Mr. Jin, Longxia's plan to create a god, and Chris's role in an assassination mission, while recognizing that much of it remained speculation.
• Wen Xishu used the trio's abilities to draw guards away, scale the Hall of Goodness's outer wall, and escape into the rain-soaked city.
• Wen Xishu received a mission-completion notification instead of an Invitation Letter and was told he would proceed to the Guide, leaving him unsure whether the trio's freedom had truly changed their fate.

Wen Xishu completed the Hall of Goodness and received the Heart of Fusion as a hidden-ending reward, learning how the Strange Tower differed from the Desire Tower. Back at the Academy, he discovered that one of his Recollection Archive challenges had driven a student insane, and he decided to take responsibility before the Principal summoned him.

• Wen Xishu completed the stage, saw Zhou Fei, Chris, and Britney separate peacefully, and received the Heart of Fusion and the Good People Society facility.
• The black strange head explained that Wen Xishu had earned a hidden ending because the three obsessions valued giving him the Heart of Fusion more than changing their fates.
• Wen Xishu learned that Invitation Letters supported changing people's fates in the Desire Tower, while Strange Tower stages could reward abilities and key items.
• The Academy Spirit told Wen Xishu that Mr. Jack, Tang Rui, and Jennifer had caused a student to suffer a mental breakdown during a Recollection Archive challenge.
• Wen Xishu admitted that he had pushed the student too far and said he would handle the matter personally.
• The Academy Spirit reported that the Principal wanted to see Wen Xishu.