Chapter Summaries

Yu Guo returned to the Seventh Branch after Zhan Xun sacrificed himself, carrying the guilt of surviving and the Sin Item that had killed him. He found Zhan Xun’s wife and daughter starting a new life and gave the girl her father’s broken hair tie, telling her who Zhan Xun was and how much he loved her.

• The Seventh Branch announced Yu Guo’s return, and he took the Cartilage Sin Item before leaving the hall in anguish.
• Yu Guo stood outside Zhan Xun’s room and saw the broken Red Cord that Zhan Xun had kept for his daughter.
• Yu Guo watched Zhan Xun’s wife accept another man’s proposal while Zhan Ci sat beside them.
• Yu Guo gave Zhan Ci the broken hair tie and told her that her father, Zhan Xun, had loved her and been willing to die for her.

After Zhan Xun’s death left Yu Guo questioning his resolve, Fang Shenyan and Ji Li urged him to recover and keep pursuing his goals. Ji Li gave Yu Guo a Space Map sin object, leaving him with four sin objects as Ji Li prepared to leave the branch.

• Yu Guo drank alone while mourning Zhan Xun and wondering whether his search for A Lian was built on a false hope.
• Fang Shenyan found Yu Guo neglecting his room and, after they argued about Zhan Xun and Xiao Qian Duyue, told him to clean up and go see Ji Li.
• Yu Guo went downstairs, where Ji Li advised him not to waver over Zhan Xun’s death and reminded him that he still had goals of his own.
• Ji Li clasped Yu Guo’s hand and revealed a Space Map sin object that weakened ghosts, bringing Yu Guo’s total to four sin objects.
• Yu Guo bowed to Ji Li and left, while Ji Li gathered his clothes and headed for the branch entrance to handle two remaining tasks.

Ji Li traveled to Huhai City to search for Butterfly Woman and meet Clyde at True Purity Daoist Academy, while the Ghost Child continued to follow him. Over drinks, Clyde explained how his Second Personality had engineered the previous mission’s survival plan and risked himself to buy Yu Guo and Zhan Xun time.

• At Shanming City's station, Ji Li watched a Ghost Child appear in place of a pickpocket and later saw it following him onto the train.
• Ji Li traveled to Huhai City to investigate True Purity Daoist Academy as a possible location of Butterfly Woman and to meet Clyde about matters he could not discuss by phone.
• At a music bar, Clyde told Ji Li that the personality he had met during the previous mission was created by his square mirror Sin Object.
• Clyde explained that his Second Personality had prepared two versions of the survival plan and used the second to draw Yu Guo and Zhan Xun toward their solution.
• Clyde revealed that he had confronted Ghost Child No. 0 to buy Yu Guo and Zhan Xun time, then allowed it to mark his Second Personality so his Main Personality could return.

Clyde told Ji Li that Gu Xingjian was using corrupted Sin Objects to control Branch No. 9 and asked him to help kill Gu Xingjian. Ji Li agreed to proceed cautiously, and Clyde revealed that Gu Xingjian had linked Ji Li and Li Yi to a place called Hell.

• Clyde explained that Gu Xingjian had distributed tampered Sin Objects to control more than half of Branch No. 9’s employees.
• Clyde asked Ji Li to secretly work with him to kill Gu Xingjian, and Ji Li warned that it would be very difficult.
• Clyde said Huang Fengjiao had returned from the last mission acting boastful and avoiding him, suggesting she had begun to waver.
• Clyde said they needed to recruit allies and seek outside support, including Branch No. 1, to oppose Gu Xingjian.
• Clyde told Ji Li that Gu Xingjian had said Ji Li and Li Yi came from the same place and that both might be needed to defeat him.
• Ji Li asked where that place was, and Clyde answered, "Hell."

Ji Li learned from Clyde that Gu Xingjian had an older brother, Gu Xingzhi, who was once meant to manage Branch No. 9, and that Gu Xingjian had already uncovered Yu Guo’s connection to Tiannan Academy of Drama. Ji Li sent Branch No. 9’s roster to Teacher Fang and ordered him to stop its employees from approaching the academy, then set out to investigate True Purity Daoist Academy.

• Ji Li asked Clyde about Gu Xingjian’s background, and Clyde said Gu Xingjian had once described himself as a spoiled rich kid who neglected proper work.
• Clyde revealed that Gu Xingjian’s older brother, Gu Xingzhi, had been in Branch No. 9 and was originally supposed to become its manager; Huang Banxian might know what happened between them.
• Clyde told Ji Li that Gu Xingjian had sent Huang Banxian to learn Yu Guo’s secret and that Huang used Incense-Guided Soul Return to discover the name Tiannan Academy of Drama.
• Ji Li received Branch No. 9’s employee roster from Clyde and called Teacher Fang, ordering him to stop those employees from approaching Tiannan Academy and deal with any supernatural interference.
• Ji Li invited Clyde to visit True Purity Daoist Academy, but Clyde refused and asked him to tell Teacher Fang to spare Jiang Xi if they met.

Ji Li searched True Purity Daoist Academy for the wall shown in the Videotape of Butterfly Woman and Ren Yunfeng, hoping it would lead him to what Butterfly Woman had left behind. After hours of searching, a young Daoist found him and said the Grand Tutor wished to see him.

• Ji Li entered True Purity Daoist Academy and called Clyde, who recalled the Videotape had shown a wall somewhere in the academy but could not remember where.
• Ji Li decided to search the entire academy on foot, since he had no other clues to locate the wall.
• Ji Li walked through the temple for hours, checking its many walls while the Second and Third Personalities remained silent.
• While resting near the God of Wealth Hall, Ji Li was approached by a young Daoist who confirmed his surname and invited him to meet the Grand Tutor.

Ji Li met Grand Tutor Chen Shu at True Purity Daoist Academy and learned that Butterfly Woman had asked him to tell a story from the past. Chen Shu began recounting an encounter from fifty years earlier, when he and Miaojiang had not yet entered their later roles.

• A young Daoist led Ji Li through True Purity Daoist Academy to Grand Tutor’s secluded residence.
• Ji Li suspected that Chen Shu’s invitation was connected to Butterfly Woman, who had directed him to the academy.
• Chen Shu introduced himself by his secular name and said someone had asked him to tell Ji Li a story.
• Chen Shu began describing the Lower Yuan Festival fifty years earlier, when he had not yet entered the Dao and Miaojiang had not yet worn the butterfly mask.

In 1950, Chen Shu rescued a dying, elaborately dressed girl from the Hu River and brought her home, where the villagers called her Cai Yatou. After she awoke but remained silent and dependent on Chen Shu, a face emerged from his shadow and attacked her at night.

• Chen Shu found Cai Yatou floating among the lanterns on the Hu River and carried her to his home.
• Aunt Ma gave Chen Shu medicine for Cai Yatou and suggested she might become his wife if she had nowhere else to go.
• After four days unconscious, Cai Yatou woke and appeared in her colorful clothes, though she remained silent and blank.
• Chen Shu cared for Cai Yatou as villagers discussed her recovery and speculated about her origins.
• At night, a pale face emerged from Chen Shu's half-shadow and lunged at Cai Yatou, who dodged it before the candle went out.

Chen Shu recounted how he met Miaojiang, who later vanished and promised to return, to Ji Li. As Chen Shu revealed that their story involved a third person, Ji Li realized he might have been the ghost who hunted Miaojiang.

• Chen Shu dreamed that the woman in the Hu River transformed into a mysterious dead man, then woke and found unexplained candle wax beside Cai Yatou.
• Chen Shu collapsed while preparing to find a doctor for Cai Yatou, and later woke to find her gone with a letter signed Miaojiang promising to return.
• Chen Shu told Ji Li that Miaojiang had met him again twice, including the previous day, but had left a letter asking him to tell the story.
• Chen Shu explained that he became a Taoist priest because he could not forget Miaojiang, and told Ji Li that the story was theirs.
• Ji Li realized he might have been the ghost hunting Miaojiang in Chen Shu's story.

Chen Shu’s account revealed that Miaojiang had defected from Tianhai Hotel fifty years ago and that Ji Li had led the hunt for her, leaving Ji Li shaken by his past choices and uncertain sense of self. After Ji Li escaped, Chen Shu completed his transformation into a ghost, while a memory showed Miaojiang visiting the sleeping man forty years earlier.

• Chen Shu told Ji Li that Miaojiang had managed a Tianhai Hotel branch before defecting, and that Ji Li and his companions had been sent to hunt her.
• Ji Li panicked as he questioned why his past self had sided with the ghosts and whether he was truly human.
• Ji Li recognized that Miaojiang had used the Sin Object to turn Chen Shu into a ghost and had never loved him.
• Chen Shu accepted that Miaojiang had deceived and used him, but said he had been willing to remain by her side.
• Ji Li smashed through a wall with the Bronze Ancient Coffin and left as Chen Shu completed his transformation into a ghost.
• A memory showed Miaojiang visiting a sleeping man forty years earlier, touching him briefly, and playing a Bamboo Flute.

After escaping True Purity Daoist Academy, Ji Li resolved to recover his humanity and finish the Major Event he had begun fifty years earlier. On his way back to the Seventh Branch, he was trapped on Republic Street and found himself facing a ghostly performance of “Farewell My Concubine.”

• Ji Li escaped the chaos at True Purity Daoist Academy and resolved to complete his unfinished Major Event for the people he had lost, including Haruyama Mirai, The Tong En Couple, Mo, and Miaojiang.
• Clyde told Ji Li that nine employees from Branch No. 9 had vanished while being sent to Tiannan Academy of Drama, and Ji Li warned that anyone who went there would die outside a mission.
• Ji Li took a taxi toward the Seventh Branch, but the vehicle carried him onto a deserted Republic Street before disappearing into the fog.
• Ji Li followed opera music through the fog and found a stage crowded with spectators watching a performance of “Farewell My Concubine.”

Tong Guan and Yu Guo rushed to stop the Headless Ghost from defecting from the Seventh Branch after outside ghosts lured it toward a window. They reached it as it struggled halfway through, but Yu Guo’s attempt to pull it back left the ghost tearing apart.

• Tong Guan received the Female Voice’s warning that two outside ghosts were trying to lure the Headless Ghost in Room 202 away from the Seventh Branch.
• Tong Guan and Yu Guo hurried to the second floor after learning that Ji Li and Fang Shenyan were absent and temporary authority had been assigned to them.
• Tong Guan found the Headless Ghost squeezing through a window while a cloaked ghost pulled it from outside.
• Tong Guan ordered the Headless Ghost to stop, but it ignored him because he lacked the authority to control the branch’s ghost residents.
• Yu Guo grabbed the Headless Ghost’s calves and tried to pull it back, but its waist began to split, so he threatened it with his sin objects.

Tong Guan and Yu Guo stopped the Headless Ghost from escaping with help from the Female Voice, then Tong Guan received the Seventh Branch’s Three-Star Promotion Mission. The chapter ended with Tong Guan briefing five other Executive Staff about the dangerous painting they had to retrieve.

• Tong Guan threatened the Cape Ghost with drawing Tianhai Hotel’s attention, and it disappeared; the Female Voice confirmed the other external ghosts had left.
• Yu Guo returned the Headless Ghost to Room 202, and Tong Guan concluded that an External Ghost Faction had tried to lure it away.
• The Female Voice notified Tong Guan of a new mission, and six Executive Staff gathered to review the Seventh Branch’s twelfth mission, a Three-Star Promotion Mission.
• Tong Guan introduced the five other participants: Hong Fu, Lu Wen, Ding Wangshu, Feng Jiafu, and Jin Xi.
• Tong Guan explained that the staff had three hours to retrieve the infamous skin painting Skin from the World Heritage Museum or be erased.

Tong Guan’s team planned to seize the Skin Painting before it reached the World Heritage Museum, avoiding the difficulty of finding it among hundreds of exhibits. As the group prepared to leave, Fang Shenyan arrived with a car and announced that he would join the mission.

• Hong Fu and Ding Wangshu helped the team assess the difficulty of locating and retrieving the Skin Painting from the World Heritage Museum.
• Tong Guan proposed an unconventional solution, and Jin Xi suggested robbing the painting before the mission officially began.
• Feng Jiafu realized the Skin Painting would be transported to the museum around eleven, so Tong Guan ordered the team to stake out the area and take it.
• Chang Nian worried about Tong Guan’s Three-Star Promotion Mission, while Tong Guan said he would also help Jin Xi develop through the mission.
• Tong Guan gave the team wireless earpieces in the lobby, where Fang Shenyan arrived, offered his car, and said he was joining the mission.

Fang Shenyan and Tong Guan laid out competing plans for locating and retrieving the supernatural painting called the “Skin” from the World Heritage Museum. Jin Xi suggested combining their strategies as the team prepared to enter the mission.

• Yu Guo offered Fang Shenyan a Black Book and a comb, but Fang refused because his mask devoured any Supernatural Power it touched.
• Yu Guo lent the Sin Objects to Hong Fu and gave Tong Guan an important Sin Object, urging him not to abandon Fang Shenyan if their paths diverged.
• Fang Shenyan and Tong Guan agreed that all seven team members should hear the plans, so they drove together in Tong Guan’s business van.
• Fang Shenyan proposed three strategies: seize the “Skin” from its transport vehicle, locate it by burning the museum’s painting section, or use ordinary people to test the exhibition halls.
• Tong Guan proposed watching the transport vehicle and using Hong Fu’s Script Sin Item, searching the museum storage, or conducting a painstaking search as their three strategies.
• Jin Xi said Fang Shenyan’s plans were too extreme and Tong Guan’s too moderate, and suggested combining them.

Jin Xi outlined the plan to stake out the World Heritage Museum, while Tong Guan’s team detoured around a ghost-created barrier on Republic Street. They reached the museum with only an hour and a half left before the Skin arrived, unaware that Ji Li was trapped inside the barrier.

• Jin Xi told the team to stake out the World Heritage Museum before finalizing their plan, and Chen Wen took comfort in the experts accompanying him.
• Tong Guan stopped when the navigation failed, and Fang Shenyan identified Republic Street as a supernatural barrier created by a ghost.
• Tong Guan ordered Yu Guo to have branch members guard the street’s exits, monitor the ghosts, and contact Ji Li, not knowing Ji Li was inside the barrier.
• The team took a detour to St. Andy Cathedral Plaza and reached the World Heritage Museum after a thirty-minute trip.
• Fang Shenyan noted that the delay reduced the mission time, leaving the team an hour and a half before the Skin arrived.

Tong Guan’s team waited outside the World Heritage Museum while preparing for the painting heist, and learned that a supernatural fog had blocked Republic Street. Fang Shenyan abducted a tourist couple, then warned the team that a Female Ghost had appeared at a third-floor window.

• Tong Guan and the other employees took positions at the museum’s entrances while he and Feng Jiafu considered how the heist might fail.
• Tong Guan received Mei Sheng and Yu Guo’s messages about the fog on Republic Street, Ji Li being unreachable, and the Seventh Branch remaining secure.
• Jin Xi spotted a couple approaching the museum, and Fang Shenyan knocked them unconscious and dragged them away.
• Fang Shenyan told the team to watch the museum’s third floor because a Female Ghost had smiled at him through the glass.

After Stephanie's Smile appeared behind the museum's Third Floor windows, the employees questioned whether Skin was really the Root Ghost but decided they still had to wait for its scheduled arrival. When nothing appeared by 23:10, Fang Shenyan abandoned the painting operation and prepared to carry out his own plan.

• Fang Shenyan identified the face at the window as a replica of Stephanie's Smile, leaving Tong Guan to question whether Skin was the Root Ghost.
• Feng Jiafu argued that the true danger was inside the museum, while Ding Wangshu asked Tong Guan to rotate Group Three out of the cold; Tong Guan agreed to switch positions but insisted the team keep waiting for Skin.
• The three groups rotated locations every fifteen minutes as Fang Shenyan tied up four more tourists in the van.
• At 23:00, Fang Shenyan watched the museum, but no painting arrived; the employees waited another ten minutes without incident.
• At 23:10, Fang Shenyan stepped out of the van, declared the painting operation a failure, and said it was time for his plan.

Fang Shenyan entered the World Heritage Museum before the mission began, using six kidnapped tourists to scout its floors and test for danger. As one tourist was taken into the seventh exhibition hall, another vanished beneath the moving angel sculpture, and an eighth door appeared on the First Floor.

• Fang Shenyan rejected Tong Guan's offer to accompany him and entered the museum with six drugged, bound tourists.
• Fang Shenyan unlocked the main entrance and surveyed the First Floor, finding seven themed sculpture halls connected to many smaller rooms.
• Fang Shenyan tied five tourists to a Stone Pillar and took Xiaoqing into the seventh exhibition hall.
• The angel sculpture moved above the remaining tourists, and Xiaoqing's boyfriend vanished as an eighth door appeared.

Fang Shenyan explored the World Heritage Museum and found that its exhibition halls formed sealed straight lines, then discovered the spaces had shifted after a girl accompanying him was killed. He escaped the Sculpture Hall only to find that he and the Seventh Exhibition Hall had been moved into the Porcelain Hall on the third basement level.

• Fang Shenyan mapped the First Floor’s exhibition halls and set out to learn how many ghosts the museum contained.
• Fang Shenyan noticed that sculptures had changed orientation and realized the exhibition halls might have rotated as sealed spaces.
• Fang Shenyan found the girl’s cap and torn-off hair where she had vanished, then used the interval after her death to flee.
• Fang Shenyan escaped through the Seventh Door and emerged facing an unfamiliar corridor in the Porcelain Hall on the third basement level.