Chapter Summaries

Zhang Heng confronted the college student who had been following him and accused him of killing three children while searching for something, but the student warned him to stop investigating. Zhang Heng then met Bai Qing and Chi Jia and headed with them to the concert, where they joined the crowds outside the Old Sports Stadium.

• Zhang Heng bought three cups of milk tea at Shanghai Market and spoke with the college student who had been following him.
• The college student said the original owner of his body had taken something that did not belong to him, and Zhang Heng accused him of killing three children to find it.
• The college student warned Zhang Heng that the parking-lot incident had only been a warning, while Zhang Heng mocked his milk tea order and left to meet Bai Qing and Chi Jia.
• Zhang Heng gave Bai Qing and Chi Jia their milk teas, received a message from Qin Zhen, and traveled with them by taxi toward the concert.
• Zhang Heng, Bai Qing, and Chi Jia got out near the Old Sports Stadium because of heavy traffic and walked through the crowd to meet Qin Zhen.

Qin Zhen reunited with Zhang Heng, Bai Qing, and Chi Jia after getting into a fight with a line-cutter at Burger King. When the other boys came to retaliate, a young man arriving in a convoy of sports cars recognized Zhang Heng and drove them off, leaving the group to continue their evening.

• Qin Zhen arrived with the burgers and told Zhang Heng, Bai Qing, and Chi Jia about fighting a boy who had cut in line at Burger King.
• The four shared the food near the plaza parking lot, where Bai Qing and Zhang Heng briefly brushed hands as she offered him orange juice.
• The boy Qin Zhen had fought arrived with several companions, who demanded that Qin Zhen stand still and let their friend hit him back.
• Zhang Heng tried to settle the dispute, but one of the boys moved to shove him.
• Six sports cars arrived, and a young man from the lead Bentley recognized Zhang Heng as his master and confronted the group.
• The boys left without fighting, and the young man thanked Zhang Heng for visiting his club and teaching them more moves.

Zhang Heng, Bai Qing, Qin Zhen, and Chi Jia enjoyed GEM’s concert and headed home together afterward. As Zhang Heng walked Bai Qing to her building, a cry for help and a violent crash came from the stairwell.

• Zhang Heng told Qin Zhen that the modified car club members had asked him to teach them how to drift in a Santana, making Chi Jia laugh.
• The four friends entered the stadium, took their seats, and watched GEM perform for two and a half hours, including her hit song “Bubbles.”
• After the concert, Zhang Heng suggested walking away from the crowded stadium before hailing a taxi, and the group dropped Chi Jia and Bai Qing off on the way home.
• Chi Jia pulled Qin Zhen out of the taxi to walk her downstairs, leaving Zhang Heng to escort Bai Qing to her building.
• Bai Qing thanked Zhang Heng for the concert, and he joked that he had won the money for it in a supermarket raffle.
• A crash rattled the building’s iron door, and someone in the stairwell shouted, “Help! Murder!”

Zhang Heng witnessed Bai Qing's father confront her mother, who accused him of trying to hurt her and said he had changed. Bai Qing challenged her father's secrecy and control, while Zhang Heng refused to leave them alone.

• Bai Qing's mother stumbled out of the stairwell and begged Bai Qing for help, claiming her father wanted to hurt her.
• Bai Qing's father emerged and insisted that his wife had mental problems and needed a hospital examination.
• Neighbors came out after hearing the commotion, but they returned inside after deciding it was a family dispute.
• Zhang Heng stayed despite Bai Qing's father's threats, and Bai Qing defended him and questioned her father's recent behavior.
• Bai Qing accused her father of treating her like a child and said their unhappy family life should not be forced to continue.

Bai Qing's mother accused her husband of spying on and attacking her, while Zhang Heng tried to keep them apart and the police arrived. The officers treated the incident as a family dispute and prepared to leave, despite her visible injuries and claims about hidden cameras.

• Bai Qing's mother refused to go to the hospital or return home, and Zhang Heng stopped her husband from forcing her away.
• Police arrived after Bai Qing's mother called them, and she accused her husband of installing hidden cameras and choking her.
• Bai Qing's mother showed the officers marks on her neck and described how her husband had dragged her outside.
• The heavyset officer questioned the husband but dismissed the situation as a family dispute and suggested mediation.
• The heavyset officer prepared to leave, mentioning a nearby drunken group had seriously injured someone.

After the police mediated Bai Qing’s parents’ fight, Zhang Heng suspected the danger was not over and prepared to return to her home that night. The chapter left him quietly heading out with supplies while Bai Qing remained inside, worried about her parents.

• The chubby police officer persuaded Bai Qing’s mother to give her husband another chance, and the officers left for another call.
• Bai Qing’s father coldly led his family back inside, while Bai Qing thanked Zhang Heng and apologized before following them.
• Zhang Heng and Bai Qing exchanged messages about her parents, the hidden cameras, and the moon.
• After returning home, Zhang Heng packed sportswear, sneakers, and assembled LEGO bricks into his backpack.
• Zhang Heng waited for his grandfather to fall asleep, then quietly left because he believed the night’s events were not over and wanted to check what happened next.

While surveilling Bai Qing’s apartment, Zhang Heng dozed off and dreamed of a decayed port town where a grotesque old man asked if he had finally come. He awoke to Bai Qing’s scream and found her mother dead in a blood-soaked living room, with her husband standing over the body holding a knife.

• Zhang Heng waited in his grandfather’s Volkswagen near Bai Qing’s apartment, watching the building through the night.
• Zhang Heng fell asleep and dreamed he was in a gloomy, decayed port town, where a deformed old man greeted him as if he had been expected.
• Zhang Heng woke at 4:47 a.m. to a scream and saw that the lights in Bai Qing’s living room had come on.
• Zhang Heng rushed into the apartment complex and ran up to the sixth floor, finding Bai Qing’s front door open.
• Zhang Heng saw Bai Qing’s mother dead from multiple stab wounds and her blood-covered husband standing over her with a fruit knife.

After Bai Qing’s father was arrested for killing her mother, Zhang Heng comforted Bai Qing and then returned to explain why he doubted her father was the murderer. He used an Oath Ring to test Bai Qing and prepared to tell her something that sounded crazy.

• Zhang Heng protected Bai Qing at the murder scene, then accompanied her to the police station while officers arrested her father and investigated.
• Bai Qing’s grandparents took her to a nearby hotel, where she mourned the loss of her mother and feared her father would spend his life in prison.
• Zhang Heng arrived at Bai Qing’s hotel room and told her they had a lot to do, despite the evidence pointing to her father as the killer.
• Zhang Heng used an Oath Ring, a Small Knife, and a written oath to test whether Bai Qing was telling the truth and was truly herself.
• Zhang Heng asked Bai Qing to trust him before he explained why he believed her father might not be the murderer.

Zhang Heng explained to Bai Qing that aliens had replaced people and argued that her mother’s death had been staged to frame her father. Bai Qing joined his investigation, and they decided to examine her mother’s body for evidence that could clear her father.

• Bai Qing struggled to believe Zhang Heng’s claim that aliens had infiltrated human society and replaced people around them.
• Zhang Heng explained that Bai Qing’s mother may have staged her own death to frame her father, using the earlier argument and his possession of a fruit knife as evidence against him.
• Zhang Heng suggested that Bai Qing’s father had installed cameras because he suspected her mother of cheating, rather than because he was an alien replacement.
• Zhang Heng told Bai Qing he was investigating the college student and the three children who drowned, and claimed he belonged to the Alien Species Invasion Prevention Association.
• Bai Qing refused to stay behind and asked Zhang Heng to investigate her mother’s death so they could clear her father of suspicion.
• Zhang Heng and Bai Qing decided to start by examining her mother’s body.

Zhang Heng and Bai Qing broke into the funeral home to examine Bai Qing’s mother’s body. Zhang Heng used the Infinite Blocks to turn a Lego model into a working CT scanner, hoping to find out whether the corpse’s internal structure revealed how the strange beings replaced people.

• Zhang Heng and Bai Qing sneaked into the funeral home after closing so he could inspect Bai Qing’s mother’s body.
• When a security guard passed, Zhang Heng and Bai Qing hid in a makeup room, where he comforted her until she stopped trembling.
• Zhang Heng and Bai Qing reached the refrigerated storage room and opened the compartment holding her mother’s body.
• Zhang Heng assembled a Lego CT scanner and used the Infinite Blocks to make it functional.

Zhang Heng scanned Bai Qing’s mother’s body and arranged for specialists to analyze the images while staying with Bai Qing through her grief. The CT results revealed an artificial-looking abnormality in the brain and a possible organism, bringing them closer to understanding the people who had been replaced.

• Zhang Heng completed a CT scan of Bai Qing’s mother’s body and waited for Infinite Blocks to run out before returning the body to the freezer with Bai Qing.
• Zhang Heng sent the scan materials to his hospital contact and his parents, then stayed with Bai Qing at the hotel while she mourned her mother.
• Bai Qing asked Zhang Heng to lie closer and comforted herself by holding his hand as he reassured her.
• Zhang Heng received two CT analyses showing that the corpse’s Fourth Ventricle was unusually large, hemispherical, and possibly artificially formed.
• Zhang Heng showed Bai Qing a faint shadow inside the Fourth Ventricle that looked like a living organism, and said they were closer to an answer.

Bai Qing met her father’s lawyer, who said her father denied killing his wife but faced evidence that made his account difficult to support. Zhang Heng suspected the shadow in the corpse’s Fourth Ventricle was a living alien and began arranging a way to investigate it, leaving the chapter with him obtaining covert surveillance devices.

• Bai Qing’s grandfather asked the lawyer about her father, and the lawyer described the murder allegation and his efforts to investigate the camera and a private investigator.
• Zhang Heng concluded the shadow in the Fourth Ventricle might be a living alien and decided to draw out its companions rather than immediately return to the funeral home.
• Zhang Heng went home and told his grandfather he might stay with Bai Qing, who was dealing with her parents’ case.
• Zhang Heng disguised himself and contacted several purported private investigators, finding one who seemed genuine.
• Zhang Heng met the investigator at a teahouse and paid him for a miniature tracker and a pinhole camera.

Zhang Heng arranged for Bai Qing to watch the funeral home and track anyone who tampered with her mother's body, while he went to school to avoid alerting the impostors. The chapter left Bai Qing keeping watch in the van as Zhang Heng returned to school, where Chi Jia angrily accused him of abandoning Bai Qing.

• Zhang Heng installed cameras at the funeral home, borrowed and modified a van, and recruited Bai Qing to watch the site and place trackers on anyone who touched her mother's body.
• Zhang Heng equipped Bai Qing to live in the van, disguised her appearance, and established “Do you like me?” and “Sorry, I'm from another world” as their identity-check code.
• Bai Qing brought Zhang Heng breakfast, passed the code-word test, and took over watching the camera feeds while Zhang Heng went to school.
• Bai Qing's grandfather requested a week of leave for her, and Chi Jia asked Zhang Heng for help finding her.
• Zhang Heng declined Chi Jia's suggestion to contact the homeroom teacher, so Chi Jia accused him of being calculating and angrily insulted the boys nearby.

Zhang Heng and Bai Qing waited for the people seeking the object in the Fourth Ventricle to make a move, and Zhang Heng left school to join Bai Qing at the funeral home. They tracked the two men who removed the object and set off toward the eastern part of the city.

• Zhang Heng confirmed that the object in the Fourth Ventricle remained unchanged and kept watching the funeral home with Bai Qing.
• Bai Qing brought Zhang Heng breakfast and completed homework, then messaged him that the men had arrived.
• Zhang Heng faked an illness to leave physics class, arranged a medical excuse, and warned his hospital contact not to reveal the CT scan.
• Bai Qing placed a tracker in a candy tin given to two men posing as freezer repairmen, and the tracker followed their vehicle east.
• Zhang Heng reached the funeral home, watched footage of the men removing the object, and prepared to follow their route with Bai Qing.

Zhang Heng and Bai Qing followed a tracking device to a suspicious glass factory, where Zhang Heng scouted the site in disguise. They found the factory heavily secured and difficult to infiltrate, leaving them short on time and options.

• Zhang Heng drove Bai Qing toward the tracking signal, and they followed it to a small glass factory.
• Zhang Heng changed his appearance with Makeup Artistry and went to scout the factory while Bai Qing waited in the van.
• Zhang Heng returned and reported that the factory refused outsiders entry, had an unusual layout, and used far more security cameras than normal.
• Zhang Heng concluded that the factory might be the aliens' nest and that its workers could have been replaced.
• Zhang Heng realized the tracker could soon be discovered, their mission deadline was approaching, and he had yet to kill an alien.

Zhang Heng planned a nighttime infiltration of the glass factory to investigate the strange presence there and locate the replaced people. After scouting the site with a drone, he entered the grounds and began moving toward the dark, heavily guarded building.

• Zhang Heng decided to enter the factory that night and asked Bai Qing to help distract the people inside if needed.
• Zhang Heng prepared equipment, met Bai Qing at the van, and explained her role in the operation.
• Zhang Heng used a drone to survey the factory and confirmed that its workers behaved unnaturally.
• Zhang Heng spotted a dark building with unusually heavy security and suspected the other workshops concealed what was inside it.
• Zhang Heng climbed over the southeast wall and crawled along a landscaped strip as a forklift passed.

Zhang Heng infiltrated the glass factory and enlisted Bai Qing to set a diversionary fire at a neighboring cardboard factory. While the security guard left to investigate, Zhang Heng entered the security office and retrieved the Workshop No. 3 shutter remote and the tracker from the candy box.

• Zhang Heng avoided the factory’s cameras by crossing the road and climbing onto Workshop No. 1’s roof, then found Workshop No. 3’s sealed windows and guarded entrance made entry difficult.
• Zhang Heng located the tracker in the security office and suspected the office also held the remote for Workshop No. 3’s rolling shutter, but a young man was on duty there.
• Zhang Heng assembled a small LEGO cat and asked Bai Qing to help create a diversion.
• Bai Qing poured gasoline on the neighboring cardboard factory wall, painted a protest message, and set the gasoline alight before fleeing.
• The young man on duty left the security office to investigate the fire, and Zhang Heng slipped inside.
• Zhang Heng took the remote labeled 3, retrieved the tracker from the candy box, and found a booklet filled with the duty man’s facial expressions.

Zhang Heng sneaked into Workshop No. 3 after using a fire to distract security, then discovered a hidden cellar beneath an old machine. He descended into it as strange ferns and an increasingly foul smell surrounded him.

• A cat knocked Cameras No. 24 and No. 25 askew, prompting the guard to send a patrol team to investigate.
• Zhang Heng returned the rolling shutter remote, slipped into Workshop No. 3, and waited for the guards to leave.
• Zhang Heng spoke with Bai Qing, who had been running from the cardboard factory after starting a fire to distract security.
• Zhang Heng moved an old can washer and uncovered a cellar entrance beneath it.
• Zhang Heng tested the cellar with the Calico Cat, then descended and found strange, ancient-looking ferns along the walls.

Zhang Heng entered the chamber behind the strange vine-covered door and discovered a breathing plant surrounded by ash and hanging pupae. As the communicator with Bai Qing failed, he saw his own face inside one of the largest pupae.

• Zhang Heng used the Calico Cat to provoke the vines covering the door, then slipped inside while they fed.
• Bai Qing heard the Calico Cat scream and tried to contact Zhang Heng, but received no answer over the crackling earpiece.
• Zhang Heng realized the communicator signal was being disrupted, possibly by an abnormal magnetic field.
• Zhang Heng found a massive plant breathing in the center of the hall and learned that its drifting ash produced the strange smell.
• Zhang Heng saw cicada-pupa-like forms hanging from the plant, including one large pupa containing his own face.

Zhang Heng discovered that a strange banyan-like organism produced both the parasitic creatures and the human bodies they used as “clothes.” His attempt to burn it failed, and he retreated after its defenses and toxic effects left him unable to continue.

• Zhang Heng examined the pupae and realized the creatures needed to grow human bodies before entering their targets through the Fourth Ventricle.
• Zhang Heng counted the small and large pupae and concluded that destroying the plant could disrupt the creatures’ reproduction.
• Zhang Heng approached the plant, but its vines became aggressive whenever he moved closer.
• Zhang Heng splashed gasoline on the plant and set it alight, but the plant extinguished the fire with red fluid and rapidly regenerated.
• Zhang Heng judged that he could not penetrate the plant’s defenses, recorded photos and video, and retreated as its fumes affected him.