Chapter Summaries

Sun Hang stopped a stampede, saved a hunter whose throat had been torn open, and left before the military could question him. He then ate beef noodles with Candle Dragon, who asked about his decision to help.

• Sun Hang sensed that the chameleon-headed hunter was close to anomalization, and Xue Yue noticed the hunter's growing negative emotions.
• The chameleon-headed hunter killed his companion and ran, but a sniper shot him dead as Sun Hang caught falling bystanders in a net of fungal filaments.
• Sun Hang crossed the military barricade and used life force and an electric shock to heal the wounded hunter and restart his heart.
• The captain let Sun Hang leave after learning that the man's identity and affiliation with Tianshu Tower were restricted, while the sniper was ordered to clean the scene.
• Sun Hang and Candle Dragon ate beef noodles, and he explained that Zhong Ling had taught him to add vinegar halfway through the bowl.

Sun Hang, Xue Yue, and Candle Dragon visited a bar in Dragon City, where they met the hunter Copper Finger and heard about a well-paid delivery job to Yumen. Copper Finger left after they questioned the unknown package, and the Mainframe revealed his identity and ability.

• Xue Yue told Sun Hang she had once relied on discounted chili oil to fill her stomach, and the group later followed Candle Dragon to a bar.
• Sun Hang ordered fresh milk after jokingly asking for expensive alcohol, while Candle Dragon explained that a nearby hunter was using ancient coins for divination.
• Copper Finger offered Sun Hang a job delivering a package to Yumen for eighteen thousand, but Candle Dragon warned that Yumen was a lawless place and questioned what the package contained.
• Copper Finger refused to disclose the package's contents and left the bar after Sun Hang and Candle Dragon raised concerns.
• Sun Hang asked the Mainframe to identify Copper Finger, and it reported his real name, background, and ability to turn objects touched by his right index finger into brass.

Sun Hang, Candle Dragon, and Xue Yue met tavern owner Yang Qiaoxi to recruit elite hunters for a dangerous mission in Egypt. Yang agreed to help find a team within three months and recommended that Candle Dragon also try Yumen, where powerful hunters had gathered.

• Sun Hang reviewed Copper Finger's weak combat record, and Candle Dragon explained how infected people could resist free Anomaly Memes in uninhabited zones.
• Yang Qiaoxi returned to her tavern, recognized Candle Dragon, and offered to help after learning the group had come on a mission.
• Candle Dragon revealed that the mission was in Egypt and that Tianshu Tower planned to send the team by low Earth Orbit airdrop.
• Yang agreed to recruit capable hunters within three months, provided the Federal Government and Tianshu Tower met their demands for compensation.
• Yang urged Candle Dragon to contact other old friends and try recruiting in Yumen, where many powerful hunters were gathered.

Sun Hang learned that hunters were gathering in Yumen over rumors of a treasure and accepted Copper Finger’s mysterious package-delivery task there. He retrieved the wrapped package from a department-store locker and left with its contents still unknown.

• Yang Qiaoxi told Candle Dragon and Sun Hang that hunters were gathering in Yumen over rumors of treasure, including a supposed longevity-granting Tai Sui meat.
• Sun Hang found Copper Finger’s delivery task on the Dragon City Hunter Forum and accepted it despite the unanswered questions about the package.
• Copper Finger gave Sun Hang the location and code for the package, and Sun Hang and Candle Dragon agreed to split up before their trip to Yumen.
• Sun Hang went to the Dragon City Department Store, verified his hunter credentials, and retrieved the cloth-wrapped box from locker A16.
• Sun Hang put the box in his backpack without opening it.

Sun Hang took Xue Yue to a private inn room and opened the sealed box Copper Finger had delivered. The box contained a hand-drawn card that Xue Yue thought resembled ruins, and the Mainframe traced it to an anonymous client in Chang'an.

• Sun Hang showed his Tianshu Tower pass after the receptionist suspected he had brought an underage girl to the inn, and the inn owner hurriedly arranged the best room for him and Xue Yue.
• Sun Hang checked the room for surveillance devices, then opened the disposable box with a precise cut.
• Sun Hang found a stiff card covered in hand-drawn black lines, and Xue Yue said it gave her a feeling of ruins.
• Sun Hang wondered whether the card was a treasure map connected to Yumen and asked the Mainframe to investigate its sender.
• The Mainframe reported that an anonymous client had paid Chang'an's '101' Private Detective Agency seventy-five thousand yuan to have the card drawn and sent to Dragon City.

Sun Hang, Xue Yue, and Candle Dragon arranged a guide and set out for abandoned Yumen, where Sun Hang planned to deliver a mysterious package. On the road along Dragon Bone River, Sun Hang revealed unexpected knowledge of the route, leaving Yang Qiaoxi wondering whether he had been to Yumen before.

• Sun Hang learned that the profiler had disappeared and that all records of the profile had been destroyed, leaving the package’s recipient as his only clue.
• Candle Dragon told Sun Hang and Xue Yue that recruiting people for the Egypt operation would be difficult and recommended Yang Qiaoxi as a guide to Yumen.
• The next morning, Yang Qiaoxi met Sun Hang and Candle Dragon at Dragon City’s north gate with boxes of supplies, and the group departed for Yumen.
• As they drove along Dragon Bone River, Yang Qiaoxi and Candle Dragon explained how shifting terrain and anomalous sandstorms made navigation difficult.
• Sun Hang described a route marker based on the sun and a distant mountain pass, prompting Yang Qiaoxi to ask whether he had been to Yumen before.

Sun Hang, Candle Dragon, Yang Qiaoxi, and Xue Yue fled an approaching anomalous sandstorm and took shelter in an anomalous Stone Forest. The storm stayed outside, but Yang Qiaoxi warned that they could not safely leave while it was still active.

• Sun Hang teased Candle Dragon about his past with Yang Qiaoxi, but their conversation ended when Yang Qiaoxi smelled a sandstorm and told them to turn around.
• Yang Qiaoxi led Candle Dragon and Sun Hang toward an anomalous Stone Forest, explaining that Gobi sandstorms avoided these forests.
• Sun Hang and the others sensed the sandstorm closing in, raced toward the Stone Forest, and entered just before the storm reached them.
• The sandstorm turned away from the Stone Forest, and Sun Hang examined its unusual pillars while discussing how Anomalies could counter one another.
• Xue Yue said she could not sense any emotion from the Stone Forest but still felt uneasy, while Yang Qiaoxi told the group they could not leave yet.
• Candle Dragon explained that the sandstorm hunted living beings, and Yang Qiaoxi described how people in Yumen hid in Stone Forests or fled when one approached.

Sun Hang and his companions waited out a deadly sandstorm in a stone forest before learning it had moved far north and continuing toward Yumen. When Yang Qiaoxi discovered Sun Hang’s identity, she warned him that hunters in Yumen might target him because many people doubted his achievements.

• Sun Hang considered using his abilities to escape or redirect the sandstorm, but abandoned using Wish Fulfillment to find north after it consumed too much mental energy.
• Yang Qiaoxi explained that they might need to wait hours or days, and Candle Dragon failed to contact Dragon City until a radio broadcast finally reported the sandstorm moving north.
• After lunch and a game of cards, Yang Qiaoxi calculated that the sandstorm was more than two hundred kilometers away and led the group onward toward Yumen.
• Sun Hang revealed his name and said that Xue Yue was his younger sister, prompting Yang Qiaoxi to recognize him as the person who took down Chimera Seventeen.
• Yang Qiaoxi warned Sun Hang to hide his identity in Yumen because many hunters saw him as a government-made hero and might attack him to gain fame.

Sun Hang, Yang Qiaoxi, and Candle Dragon reached the ruined city of Yumen to deliver an item, but discovered that the stated bank branch and Sima Heng Street did not exist. Yang Qiaoxi suspected the location was a code phrase meant to draw the delivery person into the open, and began preparing to search for whoever would recognize it.

• Yang Qiaoxi told Sun Hang that Night Fiend was a notorious, powerful Hunter, and Sun Hang confirmed her half-dragon form while defending her from being called a monster.
• The group arrived at Yumen, where Yang Qiaoxi explained that sandstorms had steadily eroded the city ruins.
• Sun Hang said his delivery instructions directed him to leave the item in the basement of Yumen Bank’s Sima Heng Street Branch, but Yang Qiaoxi said neither the street nor the bank existed.
• Candle Dragon wondered whether Copper Finger had passed along false mission details, and Yang Qiaoxi reasoned that the nonexistent location was probably a code phrase to identify the delivery person and let others observe them.
• Yang Qiaoxi stowed her motorcycle in a roofless house, pulled out a handcart, and transferred the cargo onto it.

Yang Qiaoxi led Sun Hang and the others through Yumen to deliver her goods, explaining why the hunters there protected regular suppliers. They reached the underground shelter known as Spring Breeze, where she began unloading her cargo.

• Yang Qiaoxi guided Sun Hang, Candle Dragon, and their companion through the ruins of a collapsed stadium toward Yumen Bus Station.
• Sun Hang found an old Xinhong agency card, and Yang Qiaoxi explained that the agency had closed after its owner was killed in Yumen.
• Yang Qiaoxi explained that hunters generally kept her safe because her deliveries supplied Yumen, and that harming her could cut off the city’s goods.
• A hunter watched the group enter the station, asked Yang Qiaoxi to save him cigarettes, and lowered an iron plate to reveal an underground entrance.
• Yang Qiaoxi pushed her cart down into the lit air-raid shelter, which she identified as Spring Breeze.

Sun Hang and Yang Qiaoxi brought goods to the Spring Wind stronghold, where a hunter who had feigned death attacked them and killed a guard. Sun Hang killed the hunter and absorbed his memetics, while Old Hei mourned his younger brother.

• Sun Hang sensed blood approaching, and Yang Qiaoxi and Candle Dragon prepared for a possible threat.
• Old Hei explained that the injured hunter had broken Spring Wind’s rules by poisoning a gambling winner, and he left to sell cigarettes before Yang Qiaoxi’s goods lowered their price.
• The hunter sprang up, killed Old Hei’s younger brother, and fired at Sun Hang and the others, but Sun Hang blocked the bullets with Liquid Metal.
• Sun Hang pursued the hunter, disabled his memetics, and absorbed them, though they barely increased his Blue Bar limit.
• Spring Wind’s accountant questioned Yang Qiaoxi, who explained what happened, while Old Hei blamed himself for leaving his brother alone.

Sun Hang and Candle Dragon entered Spring Breeze, where Yang Qiaoxi sold goods and Sun Hang received a gift from the stronghold’s boss. Sun Hang searched for Sima Heng Street but found no one who had heard of it, and he wondered whether the hidden person had noticed him.

• Sun Hang decided Old Hei’s younger brother could not be revived, while the others helped Old Hei gather the body and took Yang Qiaoxi’s cart deeper into the shelter.
• Yang Qiaoxi refused to divert goods already ordered and offered advance orders on strict terms, then left to handle her stock.
• Candle Dragon explained Spring Breeze’s suppliers and trade, while a suited accountant gave Sun Hang liquor, cigarettes, and thirty thousand yuan in thanks.
• Sun Hang asked the hotpot restaurant owner about Sima Heng Street, but the owner claimed not to know it.
• Sun Hang questioned more than fifty people at the antique market without finding anyone who knew Sima Heng Street, then asked Candle Dragon whether their hidden watcher had noticed him.

Sun Hang met Spring Breeze’s owner, Nagano Souya, who revealed that the delivered card was the final fragment of a treasure map tied to an expedition in the Hexi Corridor. The map could not be assembled in the correct order, and the story left Sun Hang facing the unresolved danger that once drove the map’s survivors to kill one another.

• Sun Hang’s search for Sima Heng Street brought the suited accountant back, who led him and Candle Dragon to meet Spring Breeze’s owner, Nagano Souya.
• Nagano Souya explained that he had survived severe Anomaly Meme infection by having his limbs and affected organs removed, and confirmed that he had commissioned the delivery.
• Sun Hang gave Nagano Souya the card, which he identified as the final fragment of a treasure map he had been collecting for his late father, the hunter Nameless.
• Nagano Souya tried to assemble the thirty-two map fragments but could not find their correct order, then explained that Nameless had said the treasure could change human civilization.
• Nagano Souya revealed that fifty-seven people entered the Hexi Corridor expedition and only thirty-two survived after the treasure provoked greed and violence; a memory-ability hunter erased their memories and divided the location among them.
• Nagano Souya said the survivors had agreed never to reunite or reassemble the map until they could solve the threat of killing one another, and he confirmed that the problem remained unsolved.

Nagano Souya explained that the treasure map fragments fit together too perfectly to be authentic and that he had sent hunter teams to investigate suspected locations. One battered convoy returned to Yumen, but its silent occupants and battle-scarred vehicles raised fears that something inhuman had come back with them.

• Nagano Souya told Sun Hang and Candle Dragon that the treasure map seemed complete without its final fragment, and that adding it made the map look wrong.
• Nagano Souya explained that he had sent two hunter teams to investigate likely treasure sites, using the hunters’ desperation for money and a better life to recruit them without pay.
• A young man called Nagano Souya to report that one team’s damaged convoy had returned to Yumen but would not answer radio calls or reveal who was inside.
• Sun Hang, Candle Dragon, and the others followed hunters and mercenaries through the abandoned city toward the returning convoy.
• Candle Dragon warned that the convoy’s occupants might no longer be human, while the lead vehicle showed severe damage and signs of a violent battle.
• A mercenary from Spring Breeze ordered the convoy to stop, and it finally halted less than five meters from him.

Simmons opened the sealed lead car and discovered its driver dissolving into blood and pus, while the other vehicles remained shut. Sun Hang examined the second car and concluded that its occupant was already dead, leaving the convoy’s fate unresolved.

• Simmons agreed to open the lead car after the hunters and mercenaries raised their reward to 6,800, but the door resisted as if something were sucking it shut.
• Simmons forced the door open, revealing a living driver whose body was melting away until only a skeleton remained.
• An experienced hunter warned everyone not to open the other doors and suggested the driver had begun dissolving when exposed to air, while a female mercenary cautioned that other factors might be responsible.
• Big Beard called to the second vehicle, and its windshield wipers moved in response, leading him to believe its occupant could hear him.
• Sun Hang sent a fungal filament into the second car and found only chaotic memes, telling Big Beard that the occupant was already dead and had acted through a lingering reflex or final obsession.

Nagano Souya recounted a cursed fog bank that had destroyed a team in the uninhabited zone, then had Xue Yue assemble the treasure map fragments. Xue Yue revealed the map’s correct arrangement, which pointed to the divided ruins of Nanhua Town.

• Nagano Souya described a team that entered a vast fog bank eight years earlier, escaped it, and melted under a curse as they traveled toward Yumen.
• Nagano Souya explained that the Dragon City Anomaly Research Institute had classified the Hexi Corridor Cursed Fog Zone as a suspected anomaly after investigation teams failed to find it.
• Sun Hang introduced Xue Yue and asked her to arrange the treasure map fragments by feel.
• Sun Hang covered Xue Yue’s eyes and coached her to follow her instincts, and she assembled the fragments into an arrangement Nagano Souya recognized as correct.
• Nagano Souya explained that the map’s mismatched center represented Nanhua Town, whose two halves had been displaced by an anomaly.

Sun Hang agreed to observe Nagano Souya’s treasure-map operation, which Tianshu Tower planned to open to hunters across Yumen while offering a bounty for information. As midnight approached, Sun Hang and Candle Dragon discussed the political risks and expected bloodshed, leaving the operation poised to begin.

• Nagano Souya offered to cooperate with Tianshu Tower, and Sun Hang said Tianshu Tower would neither claim the treasure nor take over the matter for now.
• Sun Hang required Nagano Souya to publicize the treasure-map information to hunters and allow Tianshu Tower’s representatives to participate as observers.
• Candle Dragon told Sun Hang that Nagano Souya would reveal the map at midnight and that Tianshu Tower would offer a large bounty for related information.
• Sun Hang and Candle Dragon discussed the Federation Council’s suspicions and the possibility of political chaos if Pei Zongjun’s death became known.
• At a bar in Spring Breeze, Sun Hang and Candle Dragon learned that Yumen’s hunters were already anticipating the map’s release and warned that the treasure hunt would likely become a bloodbath.

Yang Qiaoxi joined Sun Hang and Candle Dragon’s expedition to Nanhua Town after Spring Breeze publicly released the treasure map, which pointed into the Uninhabited Zone and toward the Curse Fog. As hundreds of hunters and mercenaries prepared to depart, Nagano Souya made plans to personally approach a mysterious object in Hangar Zero.

• After selling her goods, Yang Qiaoxi read that Spring Breeze would release the treasure map and that its advance team had apparently been wiped out.
• At the Kang Le Bathhouse, Candle Dragon told Yang Qiaoxi that the advance team had entered the Curse Fog near Nanhua Town, and Sun Hang explained that the group planned to head there after the map was released.
• When the treasure map revealed Nanhua Town as its destination, Yang Qiaoxi asked to join the expedition as an information broker; Candle Dragon agreed to protect her because he owed her a favor.
• Yang Qiaoxi ordered protective equipment for the trip, and Candle Dragon changed her requested sniper armament to a defensive set.
• At Hangar Zero, Nagano Souya removed his prosthetic limbs and ordered the accountant to move him before a tarp-covered object, despite warnings that his crystallization was worsening.
• By dawn, more than six hundred hunters and mercenaries gathered at Spring Breeze to leave for Nanhua Town in three convoys, which Yang Qiaoxi said would reduce the danger of anomalous entity sandstorms.

As the hunters prepared to leave Yumen for Nanhua Town, Sun Hang and Candle Dragon discussed how convoys might evade the Death Sandstorm. Dragon City's White Tiger mech then appeared, and its pilot, Nagano Souya, revealed why he had brought it and asked Sun Hang to return it to Dragon City if he died; the expedition set out with White Tiger leading.

• Sun Hang proposed splitting and regrouping convoys to keep the Death Sandstorm changing targets, though Yang Qiaoxi doubted the groups could coordinate.
• A secret underground hatch opened, revealing the White Tiger mech, one of Dragon City's Four Divine Beasts.
• Nagano Souya joined the squad channel and revealed that he was White Tiger's pilot, explaining that the machine recognized only him and that his remaining life was running out.
• Nagano Souya said he had joined the expedition to fulfill his parents' and his own wish to discover the treasure, then asked Sun Hang to bring White Tiger back to Dragon City if he died.
• White Tiger led the hunters and mercenaries out of Yumen, and Sun Hang, Candle Dragon, and Yang Qiaoxi prepared to follow the convoy with the most people.

Death Sandstorm No. 5198 repeatedly changed course and threatened the convoy, forcing the groups to split up and flee across the bare Gobi. When a Hummer broke down and its passengers were left behind, Nagano Souya activated White Tiger to rescue them.

• Yang Qiaoxi and Candle Dragon discussed the convoy’s plan to redirect the sandstorm while the groups traveled toward Sunfall Ridge.
• A mercenary in Convoy Three launched the Signal Flares early, splitting the convoy into smaller groups as Sandstorm No. 5198 accelerated and changed direction.
• The sandstorm turned toward Yang Qiaoxi and Sun Hang’s group, and Nagano Souya relayed Sun Hang’s order for Convoy One to retreat so it would draw the storm away.
• The Mainframe calculated that the convoy would narrowly pass the sandstorm, but a modified Hummer lost control and stopped behind them.
• While the convoy continued without stopping, Nagano Souya activated White Tiger, tore armor from the disabled Hummer, and lifted it to carry it away.