Recaps

Vivian tried to use her blood and Blood Magic to ward off evil spirits for Hao Ren, but both failed because his body absorbed or resisted her magic. She suspected his agreement with Raven 12345 had changed him and lent him a Bagua Plate instead.

• Vivian smeared drops of her blood onto Hao Ren's hand, but each drop vanished without affecting him.
• Vivian and Lily bickered and wrestled after Vivian suggested using Lily's blood, then settled their quarrel with rock-paper-scissors.
• Vivian cast a Bloodkin spell on Hao Ren, but it had no effect, while the spell immediately put Lily to sleep.
• Vivian concluded that Hao Ren's agreement with Raven 12345 might have changed him and advised him to ask her about it.
• Vivian gave Hao Ren a Bagua Plate as an evil-warding charm and warned him to handle her treasured artifact carefully.

Hao Ren reflected on Raven 12345’s absence and learned from Vivian about the history of the others and their decline. He was left waiting for Raven 12345 to return with answers while continuing to live with Vivian and Lily.

• Hao Ren found Raven 12345’s house empty and received a note saying she was away in Centaurus for three to five days, or possibly years.
• Hao Ren recalled that Vivian’s Bagua Plate might not have stopped his nightmares, though the nightmares had ceased for three nights.
• Hao Ren learned from Vivian that others had existed alongside humans since ancient times and had once ruled over them as gods and monsters.
• Hao Ren learned that human civilization, the decline of the others, and the arrival of Demon Hunters had pushed the others to the margins.
• Hao Ren learned that Lily was a young Werewolf and that Vivian was an ancient Bloodkin whose memories were muddled and whose life had mostly been spent sleeping.

Hao Ren adjusted to life with Lily and Vivian, whose ordinary routines hid their long histories and strange talents. Just as Lily left to see a patient, the missing Goddess finally contacted Hao Ren.

• Hao Ren observed that Lily and Vivian's daily lives had barely disrupted his routine, though Vivian kept losing jobs soon after finding them.
• Lily prepared to go see a patient and revealed that she was a licensed veterinarian and had contributed to Shen Bao since the Republic of China era.
• Vivian boasted about her ancient exploits, and Lily teased her over having no money to show for them.
• Lily left the house, and Hao Ren noticed the Goddess's number on his ringing phone.

Hao Ren visited Raven 12345 to report a strange nightmare and the wolf fur he found afterward. Raven identified a possible connection to the Dream Plane, promised to alert Shadow City headquarters, and gave Hao Ren his first work benefit: a Personal Data Terminal.

• Hao Ren told Raven 12345 about his nightmare, in which an illusion had eroded reality.
• Hao Ren left Vivian with household instructions and traveled to Raven 12345’s mansion.
• Hao Ren showed Raven 12345 the black wolf fur he had found after waking from the nightmare.
• Raven 12345 examined the fur and suspected it had seeped out from the Dream Plane.
• Raven 12345 said she would report the matter to Shadow City headquarters and gave Hao Ren a Personal Data Terminal.

Hao Ren received a Data Terminal and learned about his duties as an examiner, the Xiling Empire, and the limits on his access to support and weapons. He then pressed Raven 12345 to explain the nightmare, and she agreed to share what she was allowed to reveal.

• Hao Ren activated the Data Terminal and saw that it contained his handbook and information about the Time-Space Administration Bureau and the wider universe.
• Raven 12345 identified the blue cross as the Xiling Military Emblem and told Hao Ren it marked places where he would find allies.
• Hao Ren explored the terminal's interface and learned that requesting support and armaments required permissions he did not yet have.
• Raven 12345 told Hao Ren he could not resign and assured him examiners were not usually sent into major battles.
• Hao Ren put the terminal away and asked Raven 12345 to explain the nightmare, and she agreed to tell him what she could.

Raven 12345 explained that the Dream Plane was an unstable information space that people could enter through dreams, and warned Hao Ren about its dangers. After Hao Ren asked how he could protect himself while dealing with supernatural beings, Raven 12345 remembered that she had forgotten his new-employee enhancement.

• Raven 12345 described the Dream Plane as a chaotic space overlapping reality and explained that people who died there could bring harmful things into the real world.
• Raven 12345 told Hao Ren that her influence had made him more likely to encounter unusual things, but promised to pull him out of danger when necessary.
• Hao Ren asked how the Xiling Pantheon and the Time-Space Administration Bureau viewed Demon Hunters and the Others, and Raven 12345 said she would deal with them if they found him.
• Hao Ren asked Raven 12345 for a way to protect himself, and she remembered that she had forgotten his new-employee onboarding enhancement.

Hao Ren underwent physical reinforcement in the Time-Space Administration Bureau’s Reinforcement Center after Raven 12345 shoved him into a coffin-shaped adjustment pod. The process lasted twelve seconds, and Hao Ren began checking whether it had changed him.

• Raven 12345 led Hao Ren through the mansion to a miniature Reinforcement Center and explained that it was used to adjust newly appointed inspectors.
• Hao Ren asked what reinforcement involved and grew alarmed when Raven brought up a coffin-shaped adjustment pod.
• Raven 12345 pushed Hao Ren into the pod, trapped him behind a barrier, and searched her Data Terminal for the manual.
• Raven 12345 found the switch and activated the pod, leaving Hao Ren to experience a brief stretch of darkness and disorientation.
• The pod finished after twelve seconds, and Raven 12345 pulled Hao Ren out as he began checking himself for changes.

Hao Ren learned that his new abilities had been enhanced but were sealed until he gained experience, and Raven 12345 explained the Bureau’s secrecy rules. She then assigned him a trip to Europe to pick up a new tenant.

• Hao Ren discovered he still felt ordinary, and Raven 12345 explained that his enhanced abilities were temporarily sealed by a mental conditioning program.
• Raven 12345 described Hao Ren’s physical enhancements and warned him to keep the Time-Space Administration Bureau secret from outsiders.
• Raven 12345 explained that the Bureau could reveal the Empire to civilizations only when circumstances and approval allowed it.
• Raven 12345 finished Hao Ren’s onboarding procedures and assigned him to travel to Europe to pick up a new tenant who had gotten the time zones wrong.

Hao Ren received a mission from Raven 12345 to meet an unusual client in Europe and was told to bring Vivian and Lily along. After returning home, he found them safe and invited them on the trip, leaving their response unknown.

• Raven 12345 assigned Hao Ren a European mission, promised to reimburse his expenses, and said the Data Terminal would help him find the disguised client.
• Raven 12345 told Hao Ren to bring Vivian and Lily, saying she had prepared their paperwork and that the trip could serve as team training.
• Hao Ren returned home and found the power was out because a transformer had burned out; Vivian explained that she and Lily had gone out together to check on the electricity bill.
• Lily panted with her tongue out from the heat, while Vivian transformed and used her blood mist and folding fans to cool the room.
• Hao Ren told Vivian and Lily about the mission and asked them to come with him to Europe.

Hao Ren prepared to travel to Europe on a Bureau mission with Lily and Vivian, and discovered more about his Data Terminal and the Bureau’s work. The mission details sent him to a remote town in the United Kingdom to meet his new tenant.

• Hao Ren invited Lily and Vivian to accompany him to Europe, and both agreed.
• Hao Ren misplaced his Data Terminal, which returned through a Space Gate and scolded him for leaving it on a vehicle.
• Lily tried to use the Data Terminal but lacked permission, then followed Vivian to the kitchen.
• Hao Ren read Bureau regulations covering civilization observation, apocalypses, wars, and extinction orders, and the Terminal explained that such work belonged to official investigators.
• Raven 12345 sent Hao Ren the mission details, directing him to a remote United Kingdom town where his new tenant was waiting.

Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily flew to Britain to retrieve someone, using the Time-Space Administration Bureau’s activity funds to finance the trip. As the plane prepared for takeoff, Hao Ren discovered that Vivian was terrified because she had never flown before and could never afford a ticket.

• Hao Ren received generous activity funds from the Time-Space Administration Bureau and used them to cover the household’s expenses and the trip to Britain.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily left Roll at home with a neighbor and boarded a first-class flight to Britain.
• Vivian assured Hao Ren that she knew Britain well, spoke English, and had once spent over a hundred and thirty years there.
• Hao Ren asked Lily how she managed her identity in human society, and Lily bragged about her skills and long history among humans.
• Vivian trembled as the plane prepared for takeoff, then admitted she had never flown because she could not afford a plane ticket.

Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily flew to London for Hao Ren’s first assignment, trading stories about their past experiences with aircraft along the way. After arriving at Heathrow, they discovered Vivian’s knowledge of England was centuries out of date, leaving the trio without a clear plan to find their unknown client in a remote village.

• Vivian excitedly watched the clouds from the airplane window and recounted her past encounters with high-altitude flight and anti-aircraft artillery.
• Lily revealed that she had once stowed away on early airplanes, and she and Vivian temporarily bonded over ways to ride human transportation without paying.
• After an eleven-hour flight, Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily arrived at Heathrow Airport in London.
• Vivian said the English scenery seemed unfamiliar and revealed that her last visit had been around 1190, during a war involving someone she remembered as Lionheart.
• Hao Ren realized that he and Vivian had no reliable directions for finding their unknown client in a remote village, while Vivian pointed out that she at least spoke the language.

Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily struggled to reach their London hotel after arriving without useful language or travel preparations. They planned to rest and report to Raven 12345 before setting out for the remote mission location, while someone on the hotel’s sixth floor watched them arrive.

• Vivian tried to ask an elderly man for directions in outdated English, but Hao Ren stopped her and got the man to point them toward airport employees.
• Hao Ren asked an airport employee in Chinese for help and was directed to taxi drivers who knew some Chinese.
• Hao Ren and Vivian struggled to find a driver who could understand their address while Lily sleepwalked behind them, and they eventually found one after a long ordeal.
• The driver brought them to their reserved hotel in central London, where Vivian remarked on how much the city had changed.
• Hao Ren said they would rest, recover from jet lag, organize their information, and report to Raven 12345 before traveling to the remote destination.
• Someone on the hotel’s sixth floor opened a curtain, watched the three arrive, and closed it again.

Hao Ren and his companions settled into a hotel suite in England and tried to prepare for Raven 12345’s mission to find a place called Yuefu'erde. When Hao Ren contacted Raven 12345 for help, she admitted she had given him the wrong translation programs and promised to send a proper one while fighting a threat in outer space.

• Hao Ren checked into a two-bedroom hotel suite with Vivian and the exhausted Lily, who soon woke up energetic and called him Landlord.
• Hao Ren reviewed Raven 12345’s mission and planned to spend the next day finding the route to Yuefu'erde, which did not appear on the map.
• Vivian reminded Hao Ren to contact Raven 12345 and ask for more information about the mission.
• Hao Ren told Raven 12345 that they could not find Yuefu'erde and none of them spoke English, while Raven fought attackers in outer space.
• Raven 12345 realized she had installed the wrong translation programs and promised to send Hao Ren a normal one.

Hao Ren received Raven 12345’s universal translation program and tested its abilities with Vivian and Lily. He and Vivian then inspected the Data Terminal and discovered it contained a bizarre pregnancy and sedation compendium labeled as a weapon.

• Hao Ren activated the translation program and found that it translated Vivian’s Old English directly into his thoughts while imitating her accent.
• Lily tried to use the program, but the Data Terminal denied her authorization and explained that its music player was an approved function.
• Hao Ren invited Lily to test the translator, but it could not recognize her bark and only guessed that she had said “food.”
• Hao Ren and Vivian examined the Data Terminal for other problems and found a “Thirty-Seven Races Pregnancy and Sedation Compendium” categorized as a weapon.

Hao Ren discovered that Raven 12345 had filled his Data Terminal with locked, useless programs, then joined Lily and Vivian for breakfast. A Chinese stranger sat with them and asked whether Hao Ren was looking for a place called Yuefu'erde.

• Hao Ren and Vivian examined the Data Terminal’s thousands of unwanted, undeletable encyclopedia volumes, and Hao Ren decided to rely on its search function.
• Hao Ren and Vivian went downstairs and found Lily eating her way through the breakfast buffet.
• Hao Ren, Lily, and Vivian ate together, with Lily praising the salad and fruit while Vivian piled her plate high.
• A Chinese man joined their table and asked Hao Ren whether he was looking for a place called Yuefu'erde.

Hao Ren and his companions searched for the long-forgotten Yuefu'erde and met a man who knew its modern location and shared rumors about its haunted castle. The man revealed that he was a Demon Hunter, leaving Hao Ren to wonder whether the haunting was connected to his new tenant.

• A strange man explained that he had overheard Lily asking about Yuefu'erde and asked why the group was looking for it.
• Vivian claimed that they were tourists seeking an obscure place, and the man said Yuefu'erde was now near the town of Brusar.
• The man told Hao Ren that he was traveling to Brusar for work, making Hao Ren suspicious of the convenient coincidence.
• The man described reports of noises beneath the abandoned castle, mysterious flames, and armored figures, and said locals believed the old noble and his knights had returned as spirits.
• Hao Ren wondered whether the haunting involved his new tenant, and the man revealed that he was a Demon Hunter who exorcised ghosts.

Hao Ren and Vivian met Nangong, a man who claimed to be a Demon Hunter investigating the haunting at Yuefu'erde Castle. Vivian agreed to travel with him to learn what he was up to, and she revealed that her right hand reacted to nearby Demon Hunters.

• Nangong claimed he was a Demon Hunter and had come to investigate the haunted Yuefu'erde Castle.
• Hao Ren and Vivian recognized that Nangong knew details about Demon Hunters that ordinary people would not know, though Vivian doubted his behavior fit the profession.
• Nangong invited the group to travel with him by train, and Vivian accepted his offer to meet at the restaurant at six-thirty the next morning.
• After Nangong left, Vivian explained that traveling with him would let them observe him and keep the initiative when they reached Yuefu'erde.
• Vivian said she could identify a Demon Hunter through his blood and admitted her right hand heated up near them, then Hao Ren pointed out that it had fallen into the soup.

Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily discussed whether Mr. Nangong was connected to Demon Hunters, then watched television in their room. A news report about paranormal incidents at Yuefu'erde Castle caught Hao Ren’s attention.

• Vivian explained how Demon Hunters concealed their identities and concluded that Mr. Nangong was probably a fraud or an associate of real Demon Hunters.
• Hao Ren took the money away from Vivian after she repeatedly counted it for fun.
• Lily asked Hao Ren to request Data Terminals from Raven 12345 so they could understand foreign-language broadcasts.
• A television report showed the ruins of Yuefu'erde Castle and introduced Mr. Angus as the first person to discover its paranormal incidents.

Hao Ren and his companions learned that the reported hauntings around Yuefu'erde Castle might be connected to Raven 12345’s new arrival, while their mismatched sleep schedules turned their night at the inn into chaos. By morning, Vivian and Hao Ren were exhausted and baffled by what had happened while they slept.

• Hao Ren watched innkeeper Angus describe strange flames and paranormal events near Yuefu'erde Castle, then suspected the reports involved Raven 12345’s new arrival.
• Vivian worried that crowds of ghost hunters near the castle could draw attention to the newcomer.
• Lily announced that she was sleepy and went to bed during the day, while Hao Ren also slept and Vivian stayed awake.
• Hao Ren and Vivian ate downstairs that evening, left food beside sleeping Lily, and went back to their rooms.
• Lily woke during the night and paced beside Vivian’s bed, while Vivian exercised in the living room and Hao Ren slept through the night.
• In the morning, Vivian complained about Lily’s nighttime wandering, and Hao Ren realized the trio’s strange activities had made the inn feel like a haunted place.

Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily traveled from London to the remote town of Brusar with Nangong as their guide. They arrived at dusk, where Nangong sensed the presence of a powerful being nearby.

• Hao Ren, Vivian, and the exhausted Lily met Nangong for breakfast before leaving their hotel.
• Vivian made Lily carry their luggage, but Hao Ren took the bag from her when he saw her struggling in her sleep.
• Nangong guided Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily through London and onto a train bound for Brusar.
• The group spent the day traveling, with Lily alternating between sleeping and fidgeting.
• Hao Ren and the others arrived at the desolate Brusar station near dusk, and Nangong said he could smell a “big one.”

Hao Ren, Vivian, Lily, and Nangong reached Brusar Town while investigating the mysterious client connected to Yuefu'erde Castle. They checked into Angus's Cabin, the inn whose owner had appeared on television, and the owner welcomed them as foreign guests.

• Nangong claimed he could sense the scent of the undead, but Hao Ren and Vivian suspected he was showing off.
• The group took a taxi into Brusar Town, where Vivian sensed that few outsiders had arrived to investigate the haunted castle.
• Hao Ren and Vivian discussed whether to approach Yuefu'erde Castle at night and how to avoid drawing attention or getting caught up in danger.
• Nangong led the group to Angus's Cabin, where the owner greeted them and bragged to his attendant about having more foreign guests.

Hao Ren and Nangong heard Angus’s account of Yuefu'erde Castle’s history and its reported haunting, while crowds gathered near the ruins. Vivian told Hao Ren she had investigated the castle and found something interesting, leaving him waiting to hear what she discovered.

• Nangong introduced himself to Angus as a Chinese Demon Hunter and asked him about Yuefu'erde Castle.
• Angus recounted the castle’s history, including the family’s downfall, the underground passages, and the legend of the unburied soldiers becoming vengeful spirits.
• Angus claimed he had seen a knight’s ghost and mysterious firelight near the castle.
• Vivian told Hao Ren that Lily was sleepwalking and chewing on a table leg, then asked him to talk in his room.
• Hao Ren warned Vivian that crowds camping near the castle would make it difficult to investigate, and Vivian said she had found something interesting there.

Vivian discovered that several centuries-old undead were suppressed beneath the castle, while reports of hauntings remained unexplained. After Nangong and two other paranormal investigators set out for the castle, Vivian decided to go there with Hao Ren and Lily, leaving them poised to travel by flight and foot.

• Vivian told Hao Ren that her bats had detected many ancient undead beneath the castle, apparently held down by an intact suppressive environment.
• Vivian spotted Nangong leaving the inn with a monk and a Batman-costumed man, and the three pooled money to ride with Angus.
• Vivian decided they should reach the castle that night before the investigators found their new tenant.
• Vivian woke Lily, who sleepily agreed to follow them after dreaming that Hao Ren had made her pork ribs.
• Vivian concealed the three as they left the inn, then spread her bat wings and offered to carry Hao Ren while Lily ran below.

Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily reached the ruins of Yuefu'erde Castle, where paranormal enthusiasts and Angus’s group had gathered. As they surveyed the site, Hao Ren discovered that his enhanced vision had begun to unlock.

• Vivian flew Hao Ren toward Yuefu'erde Castle while Lily followed them in her Werewolf form, asleep and tracking them by scent.
• Lily crashed headfirst into a boulder after landing, shattered it, and woke up; Hao Ren led her and Vivian away when the noise attracted attention.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily viewed the castle ruins from a nearby hill and spotted a small camp of paranormal enthusiasts.
• Vivian pointed out Angus’s approaching vehicle, with Nangong riding in the back seat.
• Hao Ren realized he could see distant trees and rocks clearly in the dark and suspected Raven 12345’s physical enhancements were beginning to unlock.