Chapter Summaries

Dr. Zhao’s convoy was ambushed by a stitched little girl and other horrifying creatures, leaving his security detail dead or transformed. A man in a suit then approached Dr. Zhao and invited him to join the Black Table.

• Dr. Zhao traveled with his secretary and armed guards toward the Second Detention Center as calls urged him not to rush to Qinggang.
• A stitched little girl stopped the convoy, survived being run over, and killed the armed personnel with strands of flesh.
• The secretary tried to escape, but a baby's cry trapped the vehicles as the dead guards transformed into Flesh Monsters and killed him.
• Dr. Zhao remained in his vehicle and loaded a magazine into his gun while the attack subsided.
• A man in a suit entered the vehicle, apologized for his method of meeting Dr. Zhao, and formally invited him to join the Black Table.

Chen Xun forced Zhao Shiming to leave with him, while the fleshly entities they left behind began spreading through Central City and reached Lu Xin’s detention center. Lu Xin fought off the monsters, then returned to his cell as the city’s cleanup personnel mobilized.

• Chen Xun revealed that Zhao Shiming’s son had helped him steal research materials and convinced Zhao Shiming to leave with him.
• Zhao Shiming identified Chen Xun as the person connected to the escaped laboratory and agreed to go with him, refusing to let Chen Xun treat his son.
• Chen Xun left the writhing flesh masses behind, and their baby-like cries began affecting people across Central City.
• Sister sensed something familiar, and Lu Xin smelled blood and heard cries coming from outside the detention center.
• Lu Xin escaped his cell, used alcohol and a curtain to burn a monster, and protected the guards from other creatures.
• After citywide alarms sounded, Lu Xin returned to the cell block and resumed his detention.

After a mutated lunatic attacked the detention center, Lu Xin reassured the guards and detainees, then worried about the consequences of shooting Zhao Hui. Chen Jing arrived to take him out of custody so he could help handle an emergency pollution incident in Central City.

• Lu Xin explained that the creature outside was a mutated lunatic and calmed the people sheltering in the cell.
• Lu Xin told the guards he had shot Zhao Hui, then learned he could face a severe sentence if Zhao Hui's influential family intervened.
• At dawn, Chen Jing arrived with Qinggang officials and called Lu Xin out of the cell.
• Chen Jing announced that Lu Xin's actions against Zhao Hui had helped expose a suspected leak and that his punishment would be offset by his merits or a fine.
• Chen Jing said the Qinggang Office had applied to take Lu Xin out temporarily to assist with an emergency pollution incident, and revealed that his fine had already been paid.

Lu Xin was released from detention and joined Chen Jing, Gecko, and Xia Chong aboard a helicopter as they investigated the Flesh Monster pollution events and a secret experimental base. Xia Chong identified the Black Table as a suspected organization behind the incidents and explained its research into controlling and enhancing the Mindless; the mission was headed toward White Tower Town.

• Chen Jing retrieved Lu Xin from the detention center and brought him by helicopter to meet Gecko and Xia Chong, who had helped secure his release.
• Xia Chong reported that three Flesh Monster pollution events had struck Satellite City No. 7, while an attack on a disguised chemical-plant experimental base left seven people dead and Zhao Shiming missing.
• Xia Chong said the immediate mission was to investigate a secret base in White Tower Town and its research on second-stage Madmen.
• Xia Chong linked the suspected experiments to the banned Black Table organization, which she believed was studying ways to control and enhance the Mindless.
• Xia Chong explained that the Mindless had extraordinary physical abilities, and Chen Jing told Lu Xin that they were among the earliest mutated beings after the Crimson Moon incident.

Xia Chong briefed Lu Xin and Chen Jing on Black Table’s experiments and revealed that the organization’s key figure was Chen Xun, the man Lu Xin had come to find. Central City’s Infiltrators warned that they would punish anyone who threatened the city or the Research Institute, even a god.

• Chen Jing explained that Qinggang aimed to investigate the Forbidden Experiment in White Tower Town and destroy Black Table.
• Xia Chong reported that Black Table was using special mental power to transform the mentally disordered into biological weapons, and that its sudden attacks suggested its research was nearing success.
• Xia Chong said Black Table had attacked a chemical plant, abducted researcher Zhao Shiming, and relied on Zhao Shiming’s son Zhao Hui to supply the laboratory.
• Xia Chong revealed that Central City’s Infiltrators had identified a key Black Table figure as Chen Xun, and Lu Xin recognized him as the Old Director’s former assistant and the person he had come to find.
• Lu Xin realized he was smiling at the news, prompting Gecko to question him and Xia Chong to scrutinize his behavior.
• Xia Chong explained that Central City tolerated ability users but would make anyone who threatened the city or the Research Institute pay, whether they were monsters or gods.

Lu Xin joined Qinggang's team at a secret factory in Central City, where investigators examined evidence from the Forbidden Experiment and Qinggang pressed Central City to deliver a proper outcome. Mo Yi's preliminary findings suggested the facility had pursued research into a godlike, physically perfect human, leaving Chen Jing and the others thinking of Qinggang's Kid.

• Chen Jing told Lu Xin that Li Gang had safely transferred the convoy, documents, and physical evidence after Black Table stopped pursuing them.
• Chen Jing explained that Qinggang had sent Ability Users, investigators, Mo Yi, and lawyers to oversee the case, and warned Xia Chong that other groups were watching the Forbidden Experiment investigation.
• Xia Chong asked Lu Xin to organize everything he knew about Black Table's Ability Users and abilities, and Lu Xin agreed.
• A Qinggang lawyer reassured Lu Xin that the shooting could be treated as part of emergency pollution work and promised to handle the legal side.
• Mo Yi reported that the modified woman had undergone physical enhancement and argued that the factory's secret base was researching the body of a god.
• Chen Jing and the others connected Mo Yi's idea of divine perfection to Qinggang's Kid.

After Central City sidelined Qinggang’s team from the investigation into Black Table, Lu Xin calmly revealed that Black Table’s leader, Chen Xun, was his relative and that he intended to visit him. Chen Jing arrived just as Gecko realized Lu Xin meant to confront Chen Xun, and asked whether he would bring colleagues along.

• Chen Jing summarized evidence that Black Table was pursuing an experiment to create a god and outlined the need to investigate its laboratory, find its hidden base, and gather manpower.
• Lu Xin submitted his account of the White Tower Town events, and Xia Chong said Central City would handle the investigation and sent the Qinggang team back to their hotel.
• Gecko suspected Central City was pushing them aside to conceal a secret or claim Black Table’s research, but Lu Xin remained calm and accepted that they had been excluded.
• Lu Xin told Gecko he planned to visit his relative, Chen Xun, Black Table’s leader, and said Chen Xun would not survive the visit.
• Chen Jing appeared at the doorway and asked Lu Xin whether he had considered bringing two colleagues.

Chen Jing persuaded Lu Xin to let her and Gecko accompany him on his visit to his relatives in Central City, officially to protect him. The group prepared to leave in ten minutes, with Gecko joining in hopes of earning enough credit to advance and date Linda.

• Chen Jing told Lu Xin that visiting relatives did not break their rules and offered to accompany him because Central City might clash with his family’s objectives.
• Gecko protested that Central City had told them to stay at the hotel, but Chen Jing argued they were free agents and offered him the choice to stay behind.
• Chen Jing warned that skipping the sudden mission could hurt Gecko’s chances of becoming a Level 5 Talent, and Gecko decided to go because he wanted to pursue Linda and earn more credit.
• Chen Jing handed Lu Xin and Gecko black combat uniforms and equipment, then announced they would leave in ten minutes.
• Lu Xin and Gecko changed into their gear, and Li Gang, the lawyers, and a waiting server joined the solemn departure.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko left Central City with a convoy and headed for Buffalo City to find the hidden laboratory and Lu Xin’s relative, Chen Xun. After learning that Black Table was researching the dangerous mental entity called “Life,” Lu Xin said he planned to persuade Chen Xun to reform.

• Chen Jing arranged for Lu Xin and Gecko to slip out of their hotel and leave Central City in a convoy carrying weapons and supplies.
• Lu Xin revealed that Chen Xun and Zhao Shiming had gone to Buffalo City, where the final laboratory was believed to be located.
• Chen Jing explained that Black Table was studying “Life,” an anomalous mental entity that could give flesh extreme vitality and create aggressive living monsters.
• Lu Xin and Gecko read research records describing the contamination and growth of flesh affected by “Life.”
• Chen Jing planned for the team to enter Buffalo City discreetly, and Lu Xin said he would persuade Chen Xun to stop his crimes.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko approached Buffalo City as Central City's forces established a blockade, then used the little monster's ability to enter unseen. They left the story inside the city, with Gecko already trying to befriend their timid guide.

• Chen Jing led Lu Xin and Gecko toward Buffalo City while Central City's soldiers set up a camp and cordon around it.
• Chen Jing revealed that the little monster had been following them unnoticed and explained that it vanished from people's attention when they stopped focusing on it.
• Chen Jing used her ability to make the little monster appear and persuaded it to guide them into Buffalo City without affecting their awareness.
• The little monster made Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko difficult for others to notice, allowing them to pass the blockade and walk toward the city entrance unseen.
• Gecko whispered that he would show the little monster around Qinggang and take it to the bathhouses.

Captain Li organized Central City's ability users into separate teams to search Buffalo City for the laboratory, rescue Dr. Zhao Shiming, and stop the Black Table experiment. Three hours earlier, Chen Xun persuaded Zhao Shiming to help complete the experiment, leaving the two men in cooperation as the cleanup teams prepared to enter the city.

• Captain Li briefed the assembled ability users that seven Infiltrators had vanished inside Buffalo City and assigned the teams separate routes and objectives.
• Captain Li warned that teams could not trust signals inside the city and set a ten-hour limit before headquarters would consider its final emergency response.
• Chen Xun brought Dr. Zhao Shiming into the laboratory and showed him the experiment, which had reached ninety-two percent completion.
• Chen Xun revealed surveillance images of strange figures and creatures across the city, claiming that they were all part of a single monster.
• Zhao Shiming agreed to help Chen Xun in exchange for being named as a person in charge if the experiment succeeded and being described as forced if it failed.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered the abandoned city to search for Black Table’s hidden Forbidden Experiment laboratory and its classified materials. Chen Jing began gathering information from local children, leaving the group with a lead to pursue.

• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko crossed the blockade and entered the eerie, overgrown city, while the little monster became invisible to Lu Xin when it released his wrist.
• Chen Jing told Gecko and Lu Xin to avoid Central City’s team when possible and to collect classified documents or parasitic items from the laboratory if they found an opportunity.
• The group reached a slum where children played with a newspaper bundle and residents sorted scrap and tended small gardens; Lu Xin and Sister sensed nothing unusual.
• Chen Jing asked three children to find people who knew of a clean, electrified place that vehicles and well-dressed visitors frequented, then instructed them to forget her request.
• Chen Jing explained that Black Table’s laboratory had to leave traces despite using the city’s residents as cover, and said intelligence gathering was her specialty.

Chen Jing used her ability to search Buffalo City for the laboratory, and her network of residents led the team toward a high-rise in the central district. As Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered a seemingly bustling metropolis, they realized the streets and crowds were an illusion.

• Chen Jing spread a thought through the residents, having each person contact three others and pass along information before forgetting the task.
• After walking toward the central district and searching for clues, Chen Jing received reports of electricity, heavy vehicles, helicopter activity, and a high-rise building.
• Chen Jing paid the three informants, then led Lu Xin and Gecko toward the high-rise she believed was near the laboratory.
• An unseen man watched the search on surveillance screens, inserted a thick videotape into a player, and returned to eating instant noodles.
• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered streets filled with lights, shops, workers, and schoolchildren before realizing the crowded metropolis was unnatural and had deceived them.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko became trapped in a realistic false city while investigating Buffalo City, and Chen Jing warned them against attacking its apparent residents. Xia Chong identified the distortion as the effect of the stolen 2-48-Memoir Videotape, but communication failures left the other teams to work out how to escape on their own.

• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko realized that the bustling street was an illusion produced by intense mental radiation, though Lu Xin sensed no Mental Monsters.
• Chen Jing judged that they could not safely advance or attack the apparent pedestrians because they could not distinguish real people from false images.
• Central City's teams entered Buffalo City from different directions and found themselves surrounded by the same lifelike false streetscape, with their communications blocked.
• Xia Chong recognized the scene as the effect of the stolen 2-48-Memoir Videotape and read its file, which said the tape could be stopped by finding it and cutting off its power supply.
• Xia Chong's attempt to send the file to the other teams failed, so she told her two teammates she would take them out and left the others to figure out the problem themselves.

The Central City teams encountered a city where real and false details were perfectly intertwined, and each group tried to navigate it using its own methods. Lu Xin and Chen Jing could not identify a way out, but Chen Jing ordered the team to keep moving.

• The doctor tested the city’s air, ground, electricity, and other details, then used changes in the wind to leap over an invisible pit and continue forward.
• Xia Chong led her two teammates through a shop doorway, and they vanished when its glass door closed.
• The burly commander decided his team would ignore the illusion and continue the mission, trusting that they could defeat any strange threat.
• Lu Xin asked Sister what she had found, and she said the city’s inhabitants were real and alive, though she could not tell what was false.
• Chen Jing concluded that Black Table might be using the city to delay them and told the team to walk out.

Chen Jing identified the strange city as a force pulling them into a memory and proposed using Reverse Pollution to escape. She began influencing the apparent living people for protection, while Lu Xin and Gecko guarded her.

• Chen Jing ruled out Dreamweaver- and fantasy-type abilities and explained that the scene was drawing them into a memory rather than simply distorting their senses.
• Chen Jing decided they should leave the memory street instead of searching for its source, since it could trap them and delay their search for the laboratory.
• Chen Jing explained Reverse Pollution as an ability user influencing things within an opponent’s pollution zone to create an advantage.
• Chen Jing inferred that Lu Xin’s clue meant some people in the street were real and conscious, and said she could influence them to protect the group.
• Chen Jing removed her sunglasses and began preparing to use her ability as Lu Xin and Gecko took positions beside her to guard her.

Chen Jing, Lu Xin, and Gecko escaped the false city and reached the ruined center of Buffalo City. They spotted the laboratory where their family member was likely being held and prepared to head there.

• Chen Jing used her ability to make nearby people form a protective escort as the group pushed through the false city.
• As the street warped around them, Chen Jing warned that the longer they stayed, the deeper its memory-based pollution would trap them.
• Chen Jing ordered the group to charge out, and Gecko shot at a hidden flesh tentacle while Sister intercepted others ahead.
• The false city shattered, revealing a ruined street surrounded by rotting flesh monsters and dark buildings.
• After Chen Jing's ability faded, she told Lu Xin and Gecko to ignore the monsters and hurry to the laboratory.
• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko saw the laboratory two or three streets away, where their family member should be inside.

As the teams converged on Central City, they encountered terrifying threats in the darkness around its center. The Doctor and his companions were trapped in an alley of watching eyes, while Xia Chong and her team found themselves surrounded by a Flesh Monster in an underground garage.

• A burly man in black combat gear reached the city center with his teammates and spotted a knife-wielding girl standing atop a building.
• The Doctor and the two lunatics left the illusory city but found an alley filled with eyes that stared at them and urged them to kill one another.
• Xia Chong led her teammates out of the illusory city and into a dark underground parking lot near the city center.
• A tentacle attacked Xia Chong's team, and they discovered a huge Flesh Monster clinging to the garage ceiling.
• The Flesh Monster's cries triggered flesh and tentacles to fill the surrounding garage, trapping Xia Chong and her teammates.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered the courtyard near the hidden laboratory and found it filled with motionless people whose faces and bodies could transform. After Gecko shot one of them, the figures copied his appearance and opened fire, and the chapter left Lu Xin facing a transformed Chen Jing.

• Chen Jing assigned Gecko to scout ahead while Lu Xin stayed close to protect her as they approached the laboratory.
• Gecko checked the courtyard and climbed over its wall, followed by Lu Xin and Chen Jing.
• The group found the courtyard packed with silent, lifeless-looking people standing in rows.
• When Gecko tapped one figure, it turned around with a shifting, jumbled face that began copying his appearance.
• Gecko shot the figure, causing the courtyard's other figures to transform into copies of him and fire at the group.
• Lu Xin pulled Chen Jing behind an ornamental rock, then saw her face and body change into Gecko's appearance.

Lu Xin and several teams faced deadly attacks from people and creatures transformed by an unknown contamination. The burly team leader pulled the knife-wielding girl away from the clown’s neck, but her head turned toward him as he struck.

• Lu Xin dodged attacks from multiple Geckos in the courtyard and struggled to determine whether Chen Jing, Gecko, or he himself had been contaminated.
• Lu Xin stopped Sister from charging into the courtyard’s chaos, fearing she would attack his teammates.
• The Doctor’s team turned on one another in the eye-covered alley, with the Doctor threatening the unfocused Patient, who aimed a gun at the tightly wrapped Patient.
• Xia Chong’s team fired special bullets at the ceiling creature in the underground parking lot, but the flesh regenerated and hidden mouths and barbs injured all three team members.
• The burly team leader attacked the girl who jumped from a rooftop beneath the Crimson Moon, but she split her body apart and swept toward the clown with a dinner knife.
• The team leader seized the girl’s blood strands and dragged her away from the clown, then punched toward her as her head turned toward him.