Chapter Summaries

At Jianmen Pass, Liu Di’s victory was challenged when Leip demanded an explanation for the 283 soldiers who attacked his headquarters. Mr. Song confirmed their identities and honored them, but still declared Liu Di the loser under the exercise’s rules, hoping to curb the Punisher’s growing influence.

• Mr. Song arrived at Jianmen Pass as the exercise countdown ended, and the announcement declared China victorious because the Mohist Army had held the pass for four hours.
• Leip demanded that Liu Di explain the 283 modified humans, and General Black Mountain revealed their Chinese military identification documents.
• Mr. Song confirmed that the 283 men were Chinese soldiers and awarded them first-class merit citations for their actions.
• Liu Di argued that he had used borrowed forces and Chinese infantry rather than cheated, and said the Chinese military’s spirit had defeated Leip.
• Mr. Song acknowledged the soldiers’ valor but ruled that the Mohist School had won the Jianmen Pass contest, making Liu Di the loser.

Liu Di overturned Mr. Song’s judgment of the military exercise and demonstrated that he could dismantle the Mohist Mechanical City from a distance. Mo Jiuli revealed that he was not the Mohist Giant Son and invited Liu Di to meet the real one in two days.

• Mo Jiuli argued that Liu Di had been crucial to the victory, and Black Mountain and other Chinese generals backed Liu Di’s claim to a decisive win.
• Mr. Song demanded that Leip Tongguo publicly acknowledge defeat, recognize China’s military strength, and donate thirty billion euros, while Liu Di pressured Leip over the captured B-2 bomber.
• Mr. Song declared Liu Di and the Mohist School tied, but Liu Di used an invisible force to remove tanks from the Mechanical City and leave a large gap in it.
• Mo Jiuli told Liu Di that he belonged to the Military Gate among the Mohist School’s Eight Branches, not that he was the Giant Son.
• Mo Jiuli invited Liu Di to Sanshipo, Dongshan Province, in two days to meet the true Mohist Giant Son.

Liu Di rejected Mr. Song’s efforts to recruit him and prepared to meet the Mohist School’s Giant Son, while Heavenly Net left China’s command. The China–European Nation military exercise ended in China’s favor, and Leip struggled to explain the defeat to the press.

• Mo Jiuli told Liu Di that the Giant Son had arranged a second chance to meet him, and admitted Liu Di was right that failing the contest would end the interview.
• Mr. Song postponed Gemini’s ban for a month and urged Liu Di to serve China, but Liu Di said their cooperation would end after his meeting with the Giant Son.
• Mr. Song said he had sent people to take over Heavenly Net, but his secretary reported that the Tian Luo Group had refused orders and escaped in great leaps.
• Mr. Song discovered Liu Di had vanished, while Mo Jiuli wondered at the power behind Liu Di’s leap.
• The military exercise ended with Leip returning to the European Nation with two thousand wounded soldiers and several B-2s left behind.
• Leip blamed the defeat on his soldiers’ inability to acclimate and claimed the European Nation’s main weapons had been borrowed away, leaving reporters baffled.

Liu Di visited Xiashi, where Lingxi Stores were rapidly expanding, and encountered a mysterious motorcycle rider who followed him to a restaurant. After she paid for his meal with a gold bar and left, Liu Di discovered a Golden Scarab hidden on his shirt and feared another ill-fated romance.

• Liu Di saw the Lingxi Stores’ expansion in Xiashi and noted that Magic Child’s upgrade progress had reached thirty percent.
• A woman on a Ducati followed Liu Di through the streets, then rode away in the opposite direction before he went to a Lingxi restaurant.
• Liu Di ordered twenty servings of spaghetti, and Attendant appeared through the ordering robot to recognize him and fulfill his request.
• The helmeted rider entered the restaurant, dropped a gold bar in front of Liu Di, accused him of coming to eat without money, and rode away.
• Liu Di found a Golden Scarab biting his shirt and realized it had been hidden on him.

Liu Di fled Mr. Song, then escaped a motorcycle girl who pursued him through the sky. Meanwhile, Kun Sang crashed Violent Bear’s antique car and faced a traffic officer and a BMW driver demanding money.

• Liu Di sped away from the restaurant before Mr. Song could speak with him.
• Liu Di spotted the motorcycle girl following the Silver Shuttle and ordered Magic Child to accelerate away.
• Kun Sang crashed Violent Bear’s antique car into a BMW on a street in Sea City.
• A traffic officer discovered that Kun Sang had no license plate, driver’s license, or nationality, while the four-year-old boy blamed him for the trouble.
• A blond BMW driver offered to take the blame for one hundred thousand yuan, but Kun Sang offered him only 310 yuan.

Liu Di fled to River Town with Little Liu, claiming he wanted to visit his mother and attend her move into a new home, though Little Liu suspected he was hiding from a woman. The next morning, Liu Di reunited with his childhood friend Zhang Qisheng as the town prepared to celebrate the move.

• A long-legged woman paid Blondie in gold to settle the accident, asked Little Liu to speak well of her to Liu Di, and gave Kun Sang another gold bar to repair the car.
• Kun Sang carried Liu Di's Viper 1986 back to the Experimental Graveyard with Little Liu, where Liu Di ordered the boy to pack for a trip to the countryside.
• Liu Di told Kun Sang to claim he was dead if a big-chested woman came looking, then drove with Little Liu to River Town and checked that no one had followed them.
• Lu Shuyun welcomed neighbors as they gathered to celebrate her move into a new house, while Liu Di noticed Little Liu beside the Viper 1986.
• Zhang Qisheng teased Liu Di about his car and lack of a girlfriend, then called out that Dazhuang had lost their bet.

Liu Di’s family celebrated moving into an extravagant new home with their neighbors when Aoya arrived on a motorcycle and gave his mother a suitcase full of gold. The townspeople assumed Aoya was Liu Di’s wealthy girlfriend, while Liu Di privately recognized the tiny Golden Scarab he had plucked from his hair.

• Liu Di and Zhang Qisheng admired the lavish new house, which Zhang had designed as a palace for Lu Shuyun.
• The neighbors welcomed the Liu family with red envelopes and gifts, while Zhang and Dazhuang joked about Liu Di’s love life.
• Aoya rode into town, congratulated Lu Shuyun, handed her a suitcase, and left after giving Liu Di a proud glance.
• Lu Shuyun and the neighbors opened the suitcase and discovered it was packed with gold bars.
• Liu Di identified the tiny Golden Scarab in his hand, then told the crowd that Aoya was a fan whose family owned gold mines.
• Zhang, Dazhuang, and the neighbors praised Liu Di, while Lu Shuyun said Aoya seemed like a good match.

After the feast, Liu Di recalled the childhood friend he had never forgotten and opened the box his father had left him. The box’s contents offered no clear answers, and a terrifying white figure appeared in his room.

• Liu Di discovered two more Golden Scarabs that Aoya had tracked using her gold-controlling ability, while Magic Child said she would remain devoted to him.
• Liu Di told his mother he intended to honor his childhood betrothal and remembered the raincoat girl who had befriended him during his episodes of memory loss.
• Liu Di recalled that he had never been able to let Lisa Fei, Nan Ruoyi, or Queen Oya replace the raincoat girl in his heart.
• Liu Di opened his father’s old cookie tin and found a metal ballpoint pen like the one he had used since childhood and a bottle of old neurological capsules.
• Liu Di clicked the pen and saw a white figure clinging upside down to the wall, grinning at him with sharp teeth.

Liu Di discovered that the strange ballpoint pen triggered personalized hallucinations, which Magic Child suspected were caused by Liu Di’s father interfering with his brain. After Liu Di questioned whether his father was real, a scientist-like white figure appeared in the room.

• Liu Di saw a Hanged Man and then a corpse-like figure, but the visions vanished when he squeezed his eyes shut.
• Magic Child explained that the vibrating ballpoint pen had activated a brain-specific frequency that caused hallucinations for both Liu Di and Magic Child.
• Liu Di saw the hallway as a sea of lava and feared Little Liu would be burned, though he knew the scene was an illusion.
• Magic Child suggested Liu Di’s father had studied his brainwaves and created a device to interfere with his cerebral cortex, and Liu Di noticed an old scar on the back of his head.
• Liu Di wondered whether the man was truly his father, then saw a scientist-like man in a white lab coat appear in the room.

Liu Di discovered that his father could trap him in a powerful hallucination and found a box of his father’s diaries. The final diary revealed research into Consciousness Particles, a disastrous experiment, and Liu Zhengqing’s flight from masked intruders.

• Liu Di saw a ghostly figure resembling his father, who showed him a diary before vanishing.
• Liu Di became trapped in an illusion that made him march in place on the stairs for ten minutes, and security footage confirmed it.
• Liu Di’s mother told him that his father’s diaries were in a cardboard box in his bedroom.
• Liu Di found that most diaries were blank, but a battered diary from January 1996 contained Liu Zhengqing’s research notes on Consciousness Particles.
• Liu Zhengqing wrote that masked people attacked his laboratory, his assistant Xiao Jie died in the experiment chamber, and he fled with the research data.

After finding a hidden letter in his father's diary, Liu Di pieced together leads about Liu Zhengqing's disappearance and prepared to investigate them. As he drove away from home, he suddenly stopped, trembling and tearful at something ahead.

• Liu Di discovered his father's hidden letter, which argued that humans were prisoners on Earth and that someone would uncover the truth.
• Liu Di identified three leads: the Mohist School and the Second World Brain Research Center, Lennard and the Color Joker, and his father's diaries, pills, and metal pen.
• Liu Di packed up his father's belongings and told his mother he was leaving to find Liu Zhengqing.
• Liu Di drove off with the little boy, who teased him about a long-legged woman, and abruptly slammed on the brakes, trembling as he stared ahead.

Liu Di reunited with Queen Oya by mistake, then returned to the Experimental Graveyard to investigate his father’s papers, pills, and the Metal Ballpoint Pen. The next morning, he received a call confirming his meeting with the Mohist Giant Son, who had invited him to display all his abilities.

• Liu Di mistook Queen Oya for the raincoat girl he had searched for and embraced her before realizing who she was.
• Little Liu told Queen Oya that Violent Bear loved her, so Liu Di hurriedly drove away with the boy and cut off his pocket money for a month.
• Little Liu secretly found a bag of gold from Queen Oya in the car’s trunk and considered it startup capital for his plan.
• Liu Di analyzed the blank diaries and his father’s pills, finding ordinary paper and a mixture of neurological medicines with no matching market product.
• Liu Di disassembled the Metal Ballpoint Pen and found 130 precise mechanical components that could affect his neural activity, then ordered Magic Child to scan them.
• The next morning, Liu Di answered a hidden-number call and learned that the Mohist Giant Son would meet him without restricting him from displaying his abilities.

Liu Di’s hallucinations blurred into a real subway disaster as he raced back to save a derailing train. He stopped the train in midair just before it plunged from the bridge.

• Liu Di left for Ghost Island after Mr. Song agreed to discuss their dealings if Liu Di defeated the Mohist School's Giant Son.
• Liu Di saw black mist rising from the 283 Tian Luo Warriors, then learned from Magic Child that his brain was triggering increasingly vivid hallucinations.
• Liu Di mistook a vision of a subway derailment for another hallucination and continued flying onward, but Magic Child identified the scene as a real event four kilometers away.
• Liu Di turned the Silver Shuttle around and saw the train lose control on an elevated bridge over the Cross River.
• Liu Di kicked the train back onto the tracks and used a barrier of black metal to bring it to a stop before it fell.

After surviving a train accident caused by a vision of the future, Liu Di connected the phenomenon to thought and Consciousness Particles and hurried to meet the Mohist School’s Giant Son. At San Zhi Po, he encountered Aoya and learned that the person waiting in the mist was Zhang Mofeng, a calligrapher he had met before.

• The train stopped after the Man in White appeared, and Liu Di and Magic Child discussed how thought might cross time and relate to Consciousness Particles.
• Liu Di arrived at the Mohist School’s territory at San Zhi Po and followed Mo Lan through the mist toward the Giant Son.
• Liu Di greeted Mr. Song and Elder Fanxi, then continued on after joking that the railway tracks had made him late.
• Mo Lan told Liu Di that a friend had arrived, and Aoya emerged from the mist and promised to protect him while she waited.
• The Giant Son revealed himself as Zhang Mofeng and asked Liu Di whether he remembered the down-and-out calligrapher.

Liu Di faced Zhang Mofeng, one of several Mohist School Giant Sons, in a couplet contest to pass the first trial. After answering Zhang Mofeng’s challenging couplet with a precise match, Liu Di left everyone impressed, and the trial remained underway.

• Liu Di learned that Zhang Mofeng was one of multiple Mohist School Giant Sons and realized he had to pass their trials to move through the white mist.
• Zhang Mofeng challenged Liu Di to a couplet match, and Liu Di turned back after Zhang Mofeng demanded the return of his calligraphy.
• Zhang Mofeng composed a couplet about Queen Oya, and Liu Di answered with a humorous insult that made her laugh.
• Zhang Mofeng recited a difficult couplet about San Zhi Po, and Liu Di matched it with one about Wangjiang Pavilion and the river.
• Mr. Song, Zhang Mofeng, and Queen Oya were impressed by Liu Di’s quick and skillful response.

Liu Di defeated Zhang Mofeng in a contest of couplets, then used a blazing sword strike to split the White Ink Formation. He stood beneath San Zhi Po as the mist rolled back, leaving the path ahead open.

• Liu Di effortlessly matched Zhang Mofeng’s couplets until Zhang Mofeng ran out of answers and sprayed ink in frustration.
• Liu Di discovered that the white mist obstructing the way was a formation made from unusually dense water molecules, while Zhang Mofeng refused to let him pass.
• Oya drew a golden saber, but Liu Di ordered her to step back and summoned a black longsword.
• Liu Di launched into the air and unleashed a white-hot sword strike that vaporized the mist and split the formation apart.
• Liu Di stood beneath San Zhi Po with his hands behind his back as the white mist rolled away.

Liu Di cleaved open the mist around San Zhi Po, shocking everyone at the foot of the mountain, and glimpsed a thirty-meter-tall figure at its summit. As Liu Di faced the challenge of reaching Giant Son before the incense burned out, Mohist School Shield Gate disciples formed a wall of linked electromagnetic shields across the path.

• Liu Di used his liquid-metal sword to cut a broad passage through the mist at San Zhi Po, leaving Zhang Mofeng unable to stop him.
• Liu Di spotted a towering figure on the summit, but the mist soon concealed it from view.
• Fanxi called Liu Di's power an illusion, while Mo Lan speculated that using liquid metal had exhausted Liu Di's ability.
• Mo Lan explained that Giant Son had set an incense deadline for Liu Di to reach the summit and described the Shield Gate disciples' linked shields.
• More than a hundred Shield Gate disciples activated blue electromagnetic shields, blocking the plank path ahead of Liu Di.

Liu Di overwhelmed the Mohist School’s Shield Gate with his electrical ability and continued up San Zhi Po. Shangguan Yanzhi revealed her research on mutated creatures and unleashed several beasts, but Liu Di answered with a powerful creature of his own.

• Liu Di transformed into a massive bolt of lightning and shattered the Mohist School’s electrical shields as he raced up San Zhi Po.
• Shangguan Yanzhi appeared and admitted that she was an intern Giant Son assigned to stop Liu Di.
• Shangguan Yanzhi revealed a giant pangolin and explained that she belonged to the Mohist School’s Life Gate and researched rare species.
• Shangguan Yanzhi summoned a White-haired baboon and a crocodile, but Liu Di said he had pets of his own and kept walking.
• A violent roar came from the clouds, and a tall gray figure landed, frightening Shangguan Yanzhi’s beasts and shocking Mr. Song.

Liu Di advanced through Ye Yun’s plant-filled trap and confronted the Mohist Mechanical City hidden beneath San Zhi Po. Ye Yun claimed he had already fallen for her move as his black mist swept toward the fortress.

• Liu Di climbed San Zhi Po while Little Tree battled Shangguan Yanzhi’s mutated beasts, and he continued upward unharmed.
• Liu Di entered a lush garden of unusual mushrooms and met Ye Yun, the Mohist School’s Giant Son and Pang Bo’s mother.
• Ye Yun revealed her ability to control plants and warned Liu Di that continuing uphill could leave him badly injured.
• A vast metal wall emerged from the slope, revealing the Mohist Mechanical City and its weapons as Liu Di summoned dense black mist against it.
• Liu Di told Ye Yun he would try not to fight back because Cheng Long had saved his life and Pang Bo was his little brother’s friend; Ye Yun said he had already fallen for her move.

Liu Di resisted Ye Yun’s hallucinogenic mushrooms and tea, then broke free from her giant plant trap. As he continued up San Zhi Po, the mist stirred with a powerful force, and Mo Lan realized he had seen through Shui’er and Giant Son.

• Ye Yun filled the path with hallucinogenic mushroom spores, but Liu Di and Magic Child found that the toxins had no effect on him.
• Liu Di drank Ye Yun’s hallucinogenic tea and confirmed that his mind remained clear before announcing that he was leaving.
• Ye Yun used an enormous mimosa plant to wrap Liu Di in leaves, but he burst through them with black spikes.
• Liu Di teased Shui’er before continuing onward, while the white mist over San Zhi Po churned violently.
• Mr. Song asked what had happened, and Mo Lan said Liu Di had seen through Shui’er and Giant Son.