Chapter Summaries

Tong Guan and Hong Fu failed to find the Skin Painting and turned to the museum’s spatial movement mystery. Jin Xi realized the museum’s exhibition halls formed a cube flattened into an abstract plane, leaving the clerks with a new explanation to pursue.

• Tong Guan and Hong Fu searched the Seventh Exhibition Hall but found no trace of the Skin Painting.
• Hong Fu proposed using a Sin Object to return to the time Skin arrived, but Tong Guan rejected the idea because it could alter the mission and invalidate their information.
• Tong Guan declared their initial operation a failure and shifted the investigation to the mystery of spatial movement.
• Tong Guan explained how deaths had raised the number of exhibition halls in the themed sections to nine, prompting Jin Xi to recognize a pattern of fifty-four halls.
• Tong Guan confirmed Jin Xi’s deduction that the World Heritage Museum was a massive cube of real space flattened into an abstract plane.

Tong Guan proposed that the museum was a shifting Rubik’s Cube whose hollow core was the Skin, and Jin Xi said she could solve it if they found all fifty-four exhibition rooms. After learning Fang Shenyan had concealed information and might be connected to the Fourth Basement Level and the Skin, Tong Guan went there with only twenty-three minutes left, leaving Jin Xi questioning his plan.

• Tong Guan explained that the museum’s fifty-four exhibition rooms formed a flat Rubik’s Cube and identified its hollow core as the Skin.
• Jin Xi said she had mapped the museum into a three-dimensional structure and could solve the cube if they located every exhibition room.
• Hong Fu recalled Ding Wangshu’s account of the Fourth Basement Level, and Tong Guan suspected Fang Shenyan had hidden information and was pursuing the Skin.
• Tong Guan linked Fang Shenyan, the Fourth Basement Level, the Skin, and Stephanie’s Smile, then left to investigate the basement.
• Jin Xi asked why Tong Guan was spending their remaining twenty-three minutes on Fang Shenyan instead of solving the Rubik’s Cube.

Tong Guan explored the Fourth Basement Level, found Feng Jiafu and a museum employee dead, and discovered evidence that Fang Shenyan had entered the Collection Vault. Fang Shenyan contacted him from inside, warning that he had sealed a dangerous painting in with himself and would become a ghost in ten minutes if Tong Guan failed to find him.

• Tong Guan mapped the Fourth Basement Level and went to the Collection Vault area to search for Fang Shenyan.
• Tong Guan found Feng Jiafu's remains beside a crushed work uniform, confirming that a museum employee had also died there.
• Tong Guan noticed ghostly energy near the locked Collection Vault and found that someone had recently used its keypad.
• Fang Shenyan contacted Tong Guan through his earpiece and said he had sealed himself inside the vault with a dangerous painting.
• Fang Shenyan told Tong Guan he had ten minutes to find him before he became a ghost and everyone died.

Tong Guan abandoned the conventional plan to solve the cube and proposed dismantling the museum by destroying its six fixed exhibition halls. He left Jin Xi to identify those halls from surveillance footage and planned to lure and eliminate the ghosts there, while the Illusion Ghost remained behind in the Seventh Exhibition Hall.

• Tong Guan returned to the Seventh Exhibition Hall and told Ding Wangshu, Jin Xi, and Hong Fu that they had ten minutes to finish the mission using a faster method.
• The Illusion Ghost revealed itself in a form identical to Hong Fu, exchanged taunts with him, and let the group leave.
• Tong Guan explained that they could dismantle the giant cube instead of solving it to expose the hidden skin.
• Jin Xi realized she could identify the six fixed exhibition halls using movement data, and Tong Guan gave her surveillance footage from the Fourth Basement Level.
• Tong Guan said he would lure the ghosts from the six major theme halls into the fixed halls and eliminate them to destroy those halls.

Tong Guan committed to a risky plan to use Broken-winged Angel to kill the ghosts in six fixed exhibition halls, relying on Jin Xi to identify their locations. He prepared to blind himself so the ghost could pursue him without being able to attack, while Hong Fu worried about what had changed Tong Guan since his return from the Fourth Basement Level.

• Tong Guan decided to gamble that the six fixed exhibition halls were created by ghosts killing people and planned to use ghosts to destroy them.
• Jin Xi identified Porcelain Hall, Exhibition Hall Five, and Tong Guan asked her to find three more halls while he handled those.
• Tong Guan explained that Broken-winged Angel could enter themed exhibition halls and had a survival rule: people must not look directly at it.
• Tong Guan planned to let Broken-winged Angel mark him, blind himself, and lure it through the exhibition halls while Hong Fu guided him over the Public Channel.
• Hong Fu questioned Tong Guan's confidence and suspected Fang Shenyan was connected to the change in his behavior.

Tong Guan entered the Porcelain Hall to provoke the Broken-winged Angel and carry out his plan, while Jin Xi searched for the remaining fixed exhibit halls. He discovered that the Broken-winged Angel and the Lotus Leaf Ghost had fused, leaving him facing a far more dangerous threat than expected.

• Jin Xi located the Porcelain Hall and Specimen Hall exhibit numbers as Tong Guan set out to handle them before the deadline.
• Tong Guan borrowed Hong Fu's Script Sin Item and headed for the Porcelain Hall, telling Hong Fu to watch over Jin Xi.
• Tong Guan entered the Porcelain Hall, thinking of Feng Jiafu's death and vowing not to let Fang Shenyan have an easy mission.
• Tong Guan found no sign of the Lotus Leaf Ghost or the Broken-winged Angel relief, then rushed toward Exhibit Hall Five to provoke an attack.
• The Broken-winged Angel appeared behind Tong Guan, and he saw in the Blood Pool that it had fused with the Lotus Leaf Ghost.

Tong Guan entered the fifth exhibition hall to destroy its murderous porcelain, but the Broken-winged Angel and Lotus Leaf Ghost trapped him between their killing methods. He blinded himself to escape the Angel’s gaze, only to trigger the Lotus Leaf Ghost’s attack.

• Tong Guan chose to enter the fifth exhibition hall and asked Jin Xi for the remaining fixed exhibition halls as the two ghosts followed him inside.
• Tong Guan found the Yuan Blue-and-white Vase with Coiling Dragon Motif, and the two ghosts began attacking it while the Broken-winged Angel petrified him through its reflection in the Blood Pool.
• The vase shattered, causing the fifth exhibition hall to collapse and freeing Tong Guan from the spreading petrification.
• Tong Guan plunged his fingers into his eyes to avoid the Broken-winged Angel’s gaze.
• Blood from Tong Guan’s blinded eyes turned into scarlet and blue-green threads that linked him to the ghosts and burrowed into his ears.

Tong Guan escaped the fifth exhibition room of the Porcelain Hall with the Broken-winged Angel ghost following in his shadow, while Hong Fu tried to suppress the Lotus Leaf Ghost. Guided by Ding Wangshu, Tong Guan reached the Specimen Hall and erased its third exhibition room, but the chapter left Hong Fu facing the Lotus Leaf Ghost as the plan continued.

• Tong Guan regained control of his body, escaped the fifth exhibition room, and hurried toward the exit while the Broken-winged Angel ghost followed without attacking.
• Hong Fu suppressed the Lotus Leaf Ghost with his blood, but the flowerpot’s water began bubbling and smoking, leaving him to face the ghost alone.
• Ding Wangshu guided Tong Guan through the Specimen Hall to its third exhibition room.
• The Broken-winged Angel ghost destroyed the Rose Crystal Eyed Butterfly specimen, erasing the Specimen Hall’s third exhibition room.

Hong Fu discovered that the flowerpot’s painting revealed the Lotus Leaf Ghost’s way out and sacrificed his arm to search its bloody water for a fish. Meanwhile, Tong Guan cleared most of the museum’s halls and hurried toward the Arts and Crafts Hall before the deadline, where an unfamiliar scream called for help.

• Hong Fu realized his blood had transformed the flowerpot’s painting into a guide for completing the Lotus Leaf Ghost’s way out.
• Hong Fu plunged his right arm into the bloody water and endured the loss of its flesh as he searched for the fish beneath the surface.
• Tong Guan dealt with the ghosts in four themed halls and headed toward the Arts and Crafts Hall with only two halls left to clear.
• Tong Guan noticed that Jin Xi had been trapped in the Painting Hall’s fixed exhibition room for nearly three minutes.
• As Tong Guan approached the Arts and Crafts Hall, a voice screamed for help and asked him to come save them.

Tong Guan reached the First Exhibition Room and destroyed the black thread, but the Broken-winged Angel began assimilating him into a ghost. With his thoughts still his own, he used Yu Guo’s Space Map Sin Object in a final attempt to save himself.

• Tong Guan ignored Ding Wangshu and Jin Xi’s cries for help and continued toward the Arts and Crafts Hall as Stephanie’s Smile attacked them.
• Ding Wangshu’s voice fell silent, and Jin Xi’s final message told Tong Guan she had done her best.
• Tong Guan reached the First Exhibition Room and destroyed the ball of black thread, resolving the floor’s objective.
• The Broken-winged Angel assimilated Tong Guan, taking control of his body while leaving his consciousness intact.
• Tong Guan ordered the Space Map to aim at himself.

Tong Guan endured the Space Map’s destructive cost and reached the Painting Hall, where he gambled that a hidden exhibition hall lay beyond its southwest wall. He found the sixth fixed exhibition hall, but “Hong Fu” revealed that Tong Guan had chosen the wrong path from the start.

• The Space Map devoured the Broken-winged Angel’s attempted assimilation, restoring Tong Guan’s control while its power destroyed his left arm.
• Tong Guan rushed to the Painting Hall, enduring blindness, blood loss, and bodily destruction as he searched for the final fixed exhibition hall.
• “Hong Fu” confronted Tong Guan in the Eighth Exhibition Hall, but he ignored it and followed clues to the room where he had once rescued Jin Xi.
• Tong Guan released the weakened Broken-winged Angel and passed through a hidden barrier in the southwest wall, entering the mysterious sixth exhibition hall.
• “Hong Fu” followed him inside and revealed that three connected paintings were its true body, then mocked Tong Guan for choosing the wrong path from the beginning.

Tong Guan revealed how the Illusion Ghost had sabotaged his path to survival, leaving him without the Skin as the mission deadline approached. Hong Fu recovered the Lotus Seed and learned Tong Guan had failed, but a mysterious figure called the survivors to the Painting Hall to carry out a different path to survival.

• Tong Guan explained that Stephanie's Smile had existed in the museum from the beginning and that the Illusion Ghost had manipulated events to make the final Painting Hall impossible to clear.
• Tong Guan admitted his path to survival had failed, then suggested Fang Shenyan would now have to pay a price.
• Hong Fu pulled the Lotus Seed from the Porcelain Hall's flower pot, causing the Bloody Water to recede, and received information identifying it as a combat-type sin object.
• Hong Fu learned from Jin Xi and Ding Wangshu that Tong Guan had failed and that they could not locate the final exhibition hall.
• A tall figure passed the Porcelain Hall and told the survivors to gather in the Painting Hall and carry out their path to survival.

Fang Shenyan’s perspective revealed that Stephanie’s Smile had partially possessed him at the mission’s start, binding their lives together and driving him to investigate the ghost’s survival rule. After killing Feng Jiafu and the Collection Vault attendant, Fang Shenyan took a sheet of human skin, which would prove essential to escaping the Fourth Basement Level.

• At midnight, Fang Shenyan gained supernatural vision and saw a crimson line linking him to Stephanie’s Smile in the Collection Vault.
• After the possession caused him to kill an unconscious companion, Fang Shenyan realized he needed to find Stephanie’s Smile’s path to survival.
• Fang Shenyan switched places with Tong Guan and took Feng Jiafu to the Fourth Basement Level, where he killed Feng Jiafu to test his connection to the ghost.
• Fang Shenyan concluded that Stephanie’s Smile wanted to become him, then entered the Collection Vault after obtaining its password from the attendant.
• Fang Shenyan killed the attendant and carried away the human skin from the painting “Skin.”

Fang Shenyan found the room containing the skin, but triggered a dangerous attempt by Stephanie's Smile to possess him completely. After moving the room into an unknown space and escaping possession, he stayed in the Collection Vault and began devising a plan to manipulate the mission's ghosts and create a new way out.

• Fang Shenyan traced Stephanie's Smile to a sealed room and realized a powerful presence behind its door was triggering his complete possession.
• Fang Shenyan cut his calf and used his blood to make the room participate in spatial movement, sending the skin into an unknown void and ending the possession.
• Fang Shenyan concluded that Stephanie's Smile had divided its attention between him and the skin, and that it was an independent special ghost.
• Fang Shenyan heard Tong Guan explain that a special point could be hidden in the blind spot of the ghosts' killing pattern, and recognized Stephanie's Smile as that point.
• Fang Shenyan decided to stay and plan how to make Tong Guan's escape route fail, draw Stephanie's Smile back to him, strengthen the White-faced Ghost Mask, and create a new way out.

Fang Shenyan revealed that he was the second “Skin” and had manipulated Tong Guan into failing his plan so Stephanie's Smile would come to him. But when the ghost arrived, it withdrew its power from Fang Shenyan, apparently deciding he no longer qualified as Skin, and he faced sudden mortal danger.

• Fang Shenyan explained that he had used Tong Guan's indecision and a ten-minute agreement to push him into a doomed plan to dismantle the Rubik's Cube.
• Fang Shenyan reasoned that he was a second Skin because he arrived at the museum at the same time as the painting, matched its other traits, and had been treated by Stephanie's Smile as the same kind of being.
• After Tong Guan failed and the original Skin became useless to Stephanie's Smile, Fang Shenyan waited for the ghost to come to him.
• Stephanie's Smile appeared in Fang Shenyan's room and rapidly withdrew its supernatural power from him instead of fully possessing him.
• Fang Shenyan realized Stephanie's Smile had judged him unfit to serve as Skin and began searching for what had changed.

Fang Shenyan discovered the secret of Stephanie's Smile's vessel and survived by wearing the human skin that matched it, earning the ghost's recognition as a backup vessel. With the ghost's threat resolved, he returned to the surviving staff members and told them to follow his path to survival as the mission neared its end.

• Fang Shenyan realized the original vessel was made from the skin of an armless man and that he had been rejected because he was an incomplete match.
• As Stephanie's Smile attacked, Fang Shenyan crawled inside the human skin from his backpack and put it on over his own body.
• The White-faced Ghost Mask trembled, the supernatural connection returned, and Stephanie's Smile recognized Fang Shenyan as a true backup vessel.
• Fang Shenyan deduced that the vessel was made of layered human skin and concluded that he had resolved the ghost's threat.
• At 1:37 a.m. on December 2, Fang Shenyan emerged from the Fourth Basement Level and urged the surviving staff members to use his path to survival.

Fang Shenyan reached Tong Guan in the Painting Hall and revealed a plan to have Tong Guan cut off his human skin so Hong Fu, Jin Xi, and Ding Wangshu could carry it to the Seventh Branch. He left the decision to their survival to the remaining time before he turned into a ghost.

• Hong Fu followed Fang Shenyan toward the Eighth Exhibition Hall while Jin Xi and Ding Wangshu went to prepare the car, and Hong Fu grew suspicious when they said they had not seen Fang Shenyan.
• Fang Shenyan entered the Illusion Ghost’s territory, where he found Tong Guan blind, injured, and fully assimilated by the Broken-winged Angel.
• Fang Shenyan ordered the Illusion Ghost to leave, and it withdrew, while the Broken-winged Angel remained bound by the Mission Rules.
• Tong Guan revealed that he had suspected the Illusion Ghost’s trap and had gambled that Fang Shenyan had his own plan to complete the mission.
• Fang Shenyan asked Tong Guan to cut off his human skin so Hong Fu could take it to the Seventh Branch, then warned that he had at most ten minutes before turning into a ghost and hunting the others.

Fang Shenyan had Tong Guan skin him alive to create a Skin Painting, then sent Hong Fu, Jin Xi, and Ding Wangshu racing back to the Seventh Branch with it. With only eighteen minutes left, Jin Xi proposed cutting through Republic Street, hoping the ghosts Fang Shenyan and Tong Guan would distract the powerful ghost there long enough for them to finish the task.

• Tong Guan finished skinning Fang Shenyan, who endured the pain so the others could carry his skin to the Seventh Branch.
• Fang Shenyan gave Hong Fu the human skin, a picture frame, and Sin Objects, then he and Tong Guan collapsed as Fang Shenyan began turning into a ghost.
• Ding Wangshu drove while Hong Fu and Jin Xi assembled the skin into the picture frame.
• Jin Xi argued that they had too little time to take the longer route and proposed driving through Republic Street.
• Jin Xi planned to reach Shenfeng Building in six minutes and use Fang Shenyan and Tong Guan as ghosts to distract the ghost on Republic Street.

Jin Xi persuaded the group to enter Republic Street quickly, despite the danger of facing three ghosts at once. Their van was stopped and destroyed by black threads, leaving Jin Xi gravely wounded and Ding Wangshu mortally injured as Fang Shenyan appeared in terrifying ghostly form.

• Jin Xi convinced Hong Fu and Tong Guan to follow her plan, and Fang Shenyan agreed to turn into a ghost in five minutes.
• Ding Wangshu drove the van into the blue-green mist at Jin Xi's command, but black threads pierced the vehicle and stopped it.
• Hong Fu escaped the van as it flipped and crashed, then pulled the badly wounded Jin Xi from the wreckage.
• Hong Fu dragged Ding Wangshu from the van and discovered that her lower body had been severed, leaving her beyond saving.
• Jin Xi warned Hong Fu of the figure above him, and he saw Fang Shenyan in black mist, with countless threads piercing the ground and their bodies.

Fang Shenyan nearly killed Hong Fu and Jin Xi, but Jin Xi’s flawed script call summoned a ghost tide that distracted him. As the pair fled, an opera ghost drew them into a deadly vision before a long-haired figure appeared and interrupted it.

• Fang Shenyan controlled Hong Fu with threads, while Jin Xi accidentally blotted part of her script and collapsed after its price surged.
• A mass of ghosts converged on Fang Shenyan, freeing Hong Fu, who carried Jin Xi deeper into Republic Street.
• Jin Xi realized her ambiguous script had summoned a ghost tide, which held Fang Shenyan back.
• An opera performer’s vision entranced Hong Fu and Jin Xi, and both began to suffer matching wounds as she cut her throat.
• The vision vanished, and a calm, gray-eyed man with hair reaching the ground appeared before them on an ancient opera stage.