Chapter Summaries

Liu Di learned that mutated Toxoplasma had revived and taken control of the 283 soldiers, whose bodies were dead but whose memories and consciousness remained. A scan revealed Dasha was infected too, and Liu Di resolved to find a way to save them before their remaining time ran out.

• Magic Child explained how parasites controlled hosts, and scans showed that all 283 soldiers carried mutated Toxoplasma.
• Magic Child told Liu Di that the soldiers were dead, while Toxoplasma preserved their memories and controlled their bodies; removing the parasites would kill them.
• Liu Di scanned Dasha and learned that Toxoplasma had revived her after both of her deaths and healed her radiation damage.
• Magic Child said Dasha had about five years left before the parasites would overwhelm her, while the soldiers had thirty years.
• Liu Di wept, then vowed to find a way to turn the soldiers and Dasha back into humans.

Liu Di learned that the soldiers’ bodies were sustained by a fungus and that they had lost most of their memories, while Chi Mei sat peacefully beside Little Qiu. After General Black Mountain discovered the soldiers, Liu Di declared them Ghost Hero Tian Luo and vowed to spend his life curing them.

• Liu Di told Kun Sang that the soldiers’ examination results were normal, but the red-browed soldier still remembered to attack Kun Sang before recognizing Little Qiu and walking to her.
• Chi Mei sat beside Little Qiu and repeatedly said her name, while Liu Di watched them and wept.
• Grandpa Tuo brought General Black Mountain to Ghost Island, where Black Mountain found the soldiers and excitedly called them by their codenames.
• Grandpa Tuo identified the soldiers’ condition as a Living Corpse illness, and Magic Child suggested they remembered beautiful things rather than their missions.
• Liu Di told Black Mountain that the soldiers were effectively dead and had been abandoned, then renamed them Ghost Hero Tian Luo and promised to try to cure them.
• When Grizzly said he did not know Black Mountain, Black Mountain tearfully replied that he did not know Grizzly either.

Liu Di searched for a way to revive the Heavenly Net warriors and learned of a secret brain research institute in Sea City, which he planned to break into. As supplies arrived on Ghost Island, he sent Kun Sang, Noah, and the others back to their village, while discovering that their radiation-based abilities might help him understand Little Xia’s potential.

• Black Mountain and Grandpa Tuo left Ghost Island, and Black Mountain asked Liu Di to help restore the 283 Heavenly Net warriors.
• Liu Di studied ways to reactivate the warriors’ brains, rejected methods that would violate human nature, and learned about the Second World Brain Nerve Research Institute in Sea City.
• Liu Di decided to borrow the institute’s data that night without asking Mr. Song for help.
• Nan Ruoyi delivered four large crates to Ghost Island, and Liu Di sent Kun Sang, Noah, and the others back to their village with the supplies.
• Liu Di recalled that Noah and the others had survived a nuclear explosion, gained radiation-based abilities, and could trigger their potential like Little Xia.

At Gemini Software’s global expansion press conference, Ruan Liangji repeatedly saw A Jia’s apparent ghost, only to discover A Jia was alive and playing a prank. Gemini then announced that reports of Zhang Tianjia’s death were false, while Duan Hua suspected Liu Di had staged the incident to intimidate rivals.

• Ruan Liangji announced Gemini’s global ambitions and praised Emperor San and Zhang Tianjia at the press conference.
• Ruan Liangji repeatedly glimpsed A Jia’s figure drifting past the conference room door and assumed he was hallucinating.
• Ruan Liangji found a glowing holographic projection of A Jia in his office, then discovered A Jia himself had returned alive.
• A Jia told Ruan Liangji to issue a statement correcting the reports of his death.
• Gemini announced that Zhang Tianjia had only been comatose after a car accident, and Emperor San posted that he was relieved.
• Duan Hua suspected Liu Di had faked A Jia’s death to display his power.

Liu Di made sure Yulia Village was guarded by four hidden robots, then went to a technology facility in Sea City to borrow something. There he met Shangguan Yanzhi, a wealthy young hacker planning to plant a Trojan, and agreed to help her before disappearing as she prepared to climb the wall.

• Liu Di watched Kun Sang and the others install four robots in Sentinel Mode around Yulia Village, then learned from Kun Sang that the villagers were doing well.
• After sunset, Liu Di went to Sea City's Innovation Industrial District, where nearby surveillance systems malfunctioned as he approached a research facility.
• Liu Di encountered a masked woman named Shangguan Yanzhi, who mistook him for a fellow thief and introduced herself as the Jade-Faced Young Master, Liang Shangfei.
• Magic Child identified Shangguan Yanzhi as a wealthy, highly accomplished young woman who wanted to plant a Trojan in the facility's server for a hacker-club bet.
• Liu Di agreed to accompany Shangguan Yanzhi and let her believe she could plant the Trojan, but vanished just as she threw her grappling hook over the wall.

Liu Di and Shangguan Yanzhi infiltrated a heavily guarded research center, with Liu Di using his speed and abilities to evade patrols while Shangguan Yanzhi tried to hack the security system. They entered through a rear door using a stolen access card and discovered the facility’s national emblem, leaving Shangguan Yanzhi thrilled by the danger.

• Liu Di lifted Shangguan Yanzhi over the research institute’s wall and pulled her into its courtyard.
• Shangguan Yanzhi connected her palm computer to an electrical box and tried to hack the center’s security system, while Liu Di secretly bypassed its defenses.
• Liu Di spotted an armed patrol and told Shangguan Yanzhi that soldiers regularly swept the courtyard.
• Liu Di carried Shangguan Yanzhi at high speed to a rear entrance, where she opened the electronic door with an access card she claimed to have picked up.
• Liu Di warned Shangguan Yanzhi that getting caught might mean life imprisonment or the death penalty, and she responded that it sounded cool.

Liu Di and Shangguan Yanzhi entered a dusty archives room, where Liu Di searched through the research center’s paper patent records while Shangguan Yanzhi tried to infect its computer. Liu Di uncovered the center’s research into human consciousness and found a photograph of his father, Liu Zhengqing, leaving him shaken.

• Liu Di led Shangguan Yanzhi to a basement room she had mistaken for the server room and forced its old lock open.
• Liu Di used his enhanced vision to scan the archives and rapidly read the center’s paper records.
• Shangguan Yanzhi found a computer in the archives and inserted a pink USB drive to plant a virus.
• Liu Di discovered that many of the center’s patents concerned consciousness particles and the possibility that consciousness traveled to another universe after death.
• Liu Di found a photograph of Liu Zhengqing in a damaged document and recognized the father he had only seen in his mother’s photo album.

Liu Di discovered that a man with a Color Joker tattoo had worked alongside Liu Zhengqing at the research institution, then narrowly avoided being caught by Mo Lan while helping Shangguan Yanzhi hack the base. After faking the success of her Trojan, he rejected her invitation to target the Gemini Software server in Creator Building.

• Liu Di examined the institution's records and a group photo, finding a Color Joker tattoo on a young man who had worked closely with Liu Zhengqing.
• Mo Lan patrolled the corridor, and Liu Di stopped Shangguan Yanzhi from attacking him with pepper spray until he left.
• Shangguan Yanzhi struggled to breach the base's firewall, so Liu Di took over and quickly installed her Trojan, secretly replacing it with feedback code.
• Shangguan Yanzhi used Liu Di's phone to invite him onto her team and proposed targeting the Gemini Software server in Creator Building.
• Liu Di refused Shangguan Yanzhi's new target.

Shangguan Yanzhi tried to recruit Liu Di to infiltrate Gemini, claiming her club had discovered a way to bring down its servers. Liu Di agreed to meet her at Gemini Tower the next morning and invented an invisibility ability to explain how he could help, while Shangguan Yanzhi revealed she was a woman and doubted his claim.

• Shangguan Yanzhi offered Liu Di increasing sums of money to join her Gemini infiltration mission, but he refused.
• Shangguan Yanzhi showed Liu Di Mr. X's club target list, which named TO Lingxi, Gemini, and Punisher Ghost Island as its top targets.
• Shangguan Yanzhi said her club's experts believed Gemini's intelligent algorithm itself could be exploited, then invited Liu Di to join her the next day.
• Liu Di agreed to meet Shangguan Yanzhi at Gemini Tower at nine the following morning and claimed he could make them invisible inside the building.
• Shangguan Yanzhi removed her headscarf and fake beard to reveal she was a woman, then told Liu Di she did not believe his invisibility claim.

Liu Di investigated his father’s work on Consciousness Particles and ordered a Consciousness Monitor built, then visited the Tian Luo Warriors on Ghost Island. The chapter left him teaching Qi Gong in a rare Zen State while quietly assessing how much intelligence Heavenly Net had recovered.

• Liu Di examined Lawson’s photograph and learned that Liu Zhengqing had worked with Starweave on a Consciousness Radiator before leaving over its plans to control machinery by mutating human brains.
• Liu Di designed a Consciousness Monitor from research on Consciousness Particles and sent the blueprints to Nan Ruoyi to have it built.
• Liu Di considered whether the Mohist School could help cure Heavenly Net and resolved to visit its Ninth Generation Giant after reclaiming his company.
• Liu Di watched 283 Tian Luo Warriors training on Ghost Island and offered to teach them a tranquil boxing technique.
• Liu Di performed Qi Gong and reached the rare Zen State after only two attempts, while using the lesson to gauge Heavenly Net’s recovery.

Liu Di demonstrated the power of his boxing techniques when the Tian Luo Warriors punched through a giant wave, while Tu Yuan and Jian Xu struggled to understand the training. After learning that the warriors might regain their personalities, Liu Di left Ghost Island for Sea City to meet Shangguan Yanzhi.

• Tu Yuan and Jian Xu joined Liu Di and the Tian Luo Warriors for morning boxing but dismissed the movements as ordinary tai chi.
• Liu Di explained that the first twenty-four forms gathered strength, then led the Tian Luo Warriors in a punch that tore through a towering wave.
• Tu Yuan and Jian Xu failed to release any force, and Liu Di told them their distracting thoughts hindered their Qi Gong.
• Little Qiu brought breakfast, and Chi Mei smiled as Liu Di reflected on the Tian Luo Warriors' chance to enjoy peace and recover their personalities.
• Magic Child told Liu Di that the warriors' firm wills would soon free them from mutated Toxoplasma, as Dasha had been freed.
• Shangguan Yanzhi called Liu Di from a rooftop near the Creator Building, and he boarded a ship for Sea City to meet her.

Liu Di brought Shangguan Yanzhi to Gemini Tower to demonstrate his invisibility ability, while she tested whether she could pass unnoticed. After they entered the building, a Gemini employee collided with Shangguan Yanzhi without seeing her, leaving her astonished.

• Shangguan Yanzhi tore her clothes into a cropped top and shorts, then asked Liu Di if she looked normal enough to enter Gemini.
• Liu Di repaid a camera shop 3,300 yuan after realizing Shangguan Yanzhi had stolen the camera she wore around her neck.
• At Creator Tower, Shangguan Yanzhi tried to pass the access gate but was stopped by a guard because Liu Di had not yet used his ability.
• Shangguan Yanzhi failed to hack the access system, so Liu Di produced two Gemini employee cards and they entered the elevator.
• On the eighty-seventh floor, Shangguan Yanzhi saw Gemini's identity-recognition system and joked about how it would announce her arrival.
• A Gemini employee walked straight into Shangguan Yanzhi, failed to see her, and went on his way, astonishing her.

Shangguan Yanzhi entered Gemini Tower with Liu Di and used millions of virtual accounts to manipulate Gemini Stage’s recommendations. Her tests began distorting real users’ feeds with dark content, and she expanded the attack by posting that she liked rainy days.

• Liu Di and Shangguan Yanzhi passed through Gemini Tower unnoticed because its employees were acting as though they could not see them.
• Ruan Liangji revealed that he had been pretending not to notice Shangguan Yanzhi, while A Jia watched the pair approach the server room.
• Shangguan Yanzhi connected her handheld computer to a server and disabled Gemini’s account duplicate-checking function.
• Shangguan Yanzhi registered millions of virtual accounts and used them to post variations of “I like black,” causing Gemini Stage to recommend dark content, including the song “Black Friday.”
• Shangguan Yanzhi’s accounts posted that they liked rainy days, and Gemini Stage began flooding some users’ feeds with gloomy rain-related content.

Shangguan Yanzhi tried to exploit Gemini’s recommendation algorithm, but Liu Di overhauled the platform and created Little Shuang, an AI guardian that filtered harmful content. The chapter ended with Liu Di recognizing the danger of artificial intelligence losing control and worrying about emerging AIs worldwide.

• Shangguan Yanzhi prepared to send “I don’t like Gemini” through thirty million accounts, hoping Gemini would judge itself into shutting down.
• Liu Di overclocked Gemini’s servers and replaced its backend, purging junk information, negative content, and zombie users while disabling Shangguan Yanzhi’s handheld computer.
• Gemini updated for nearly a billion users and introduced Little Shuang, an armored figure that destroyed inflammatory and immoral content.
• Gemini’s programmers discovered that Little Shuang followed Emperor San’s Twelve Codes of Conduct and filtered information through a vast database of moral principles and errors.
• Shangguan Yanzhi realized her attempt had prompted Liu Di to consider AI’s values, and he added Little Shuang’s codes to the Attendant’s database.
• Liu Di warned that an intelligence losing control was terrifying and recognized the danger posed by thousands of AIs under development around the world.

After Shangguan Yanzhi’s attempt to break into Gemini’s servers failed, she discovered that Liu Di was actually Emperor San and was welcomed into a meeting with major internet executives. The gathering revealed that Gemini had been blacklisted and barred from international expansion or gaining more users.

• Shangguan Yanzhi lamented that she could not defeat Gemini, then panicked when black sedans and suited men arrived at Gemini Tower.
• Liu Di refused to use invisibility and met A Jia, Ruan Liangji, and Gemini employees, who greeted him as Boss Emperor San.
• Liu Di led the group to a conference room and invited Shangguan Yanzhi to help develop Gemini.
• Executives from six major international internet companies entered, leaving Shangguan Yanzhi stunned by Liu Di’s influence.
• A Jia said Gemini was prohibited from expanding internationally or gaining more users, and Liu Di stated that Gemini had been blacklisted.

Liu Di learned that Gemini had received an antitrust investigation order, but Minister Nan Tianhai revealed that the real issue was a coming modern warfare exercise against an American power. Liu Di agreed to participate and promised Gemini’s international operations would continue, though victory would determine whether the company could remain abroad.

• Ruan Liangji showed Liu Di the Ministry of Commerce order requiring Gemini to suspend business development within seven days.
• Nan Tianhai arrived to explain the order and said Gemini was being investigated under antitrust regulations.
• Liu Di told A Jia that the regulations were not important, and Nan Tianhai left after revealing that Liu Di had been assigned to China’s upcoming modern warfare exercise alongside the Mohist School.
• A Jia said eight international internet companies had invested heavily in their collaboration and were preparing to launch their software.
• Liu Di recognized that the order was a pretext for Mr. Song’s pressure and agreed to compete in the exercise, promising Gemini would keep operating as usual.

After meeting China’s leaders, Liu Di received details of the classified Battle of Three Passes exercise and learned that he would represent China alongside the Mohist School. With only seven days to prepare and a need to keep Punisher’s strength concealed, he began planning how to win both the exercise and the rivalry with the Mohist School.

• Liu Di dismissed the visitors, and Shangguan Yanzhi recognized the powerful figures who had come to meet him before leaving.
• Liu Di reflected on the need to cooperate with China while ensuring the authorities would accept Punisher and Gemini’s growth.
• Liu Di opened Nan Tianhai’s email and read the classified plans for the Battle of Three Passes, a massive military exercise prepared over two years.
• Liu Di learned that he and the Mohist School would represent China, with the Mohist School having a year of preparation while he had only seven days.
• Liu Di decided he would need to defeat the Mohist School, win the exercise, and conceal as much of Punisher’s strength as possible.
• Liu Di recognized China’s opponent as an old acquaintance and began formulating his strategy.

After seven days of silent contemplation, Liu Di emerged as China prepared for a high-stakes military exercise against the European Nation. At the observation tower, the Chinese commander revealed that he descended from the author of Mohist Military Strategy.

• Liu Di emerged from the Experimental Graveyard after spending seven days in silent contemplation.
• Mr. Song and Chinese generals gathered at the coastal exercise base with Leip, Carmen, and two renowned European Nation generals.
• Leip mocked the long-haired Chinese commander as an unprofessional schoolteacher.
• The commander introduced himself as a descendant of the true author of Mohist Military Strategy.

As Huaxia and European Nation’s leaders traded barbs before a military exercise, an unidentified fast-moving object vanished from radar. The Man in White appeared in the observation room and startled Leip Tongguo, who recognized him.

• General Hawkeye and General Norman criticized China’s military traditions and the Mohist School’s technological development, while the long-haired Mohist man defended his school.
• Leip mocked Mr. Song over China’s unnamed second general, but Mr. Song said the general would arrive on time and warned Leip not to throw a tantrum.
• Radar operators from both nations detected an unidentified object approaching the watchtower at over six hundred kilometers per hour, then watched it disappear from radar.
• The Man in White appeared unnoticed at the observation-room doorway, approached Leip, and greeted him; Leip staggered back in shock.

Liu Di agreed to three restrictions Leip imposed before the two nations began a military exercise called the Battle of Three Passes. The exercise’s rules were set, and Mr. Song assigned Liu Di and Mohist School to carry the flags in the fight for Jianmen Pass.

• Leip demanded that Liu Di stay out of the battle, avoid using outside networks, and leave his private forces out of the exercise, and Liu Di agreed to all three conditions.
• The generals recognized Liu Di as the Punisher, Di Wu, and the European Nation commanders grew wary of him.
• Mr. Song presented the five-hundred-kilometer battlefield and named its three fortresses Yang Pass, Tong Pass, and Jianmen Pass.
• Mr. Song explained that China would defend Yang Pass, the European Nation would defend Tong Pass, and whichever side held a flag on Jianmen Pass for four hours would win.
• Mr. Song told Liu Di and Mohist School to carry one Chinese flag each, noting that Jianmen Pass could hold only one national flag.