Chapter Summaries

Lu Xin and Chen Jing reached Happy Town’s outskirts and learned that more than twenty armed forces had gathered there, convinced the restricted zone contained a vast treasure. Troublemaker Kid suspected a Pollution Source had driven their leaders mad and spread the delusion through them, and revealed that he had kidnapped two leaders for investigation.

• Lu Xin and the others crossed into Happy Town’s former restricted zone, where its mental radiation appeared to have shrunk as armed forces gathered nearby.
• Chen Jing met Troublemaker Kid at a mountain lookout, where he reported that tens of thousands of troops had surrounded Happy Town and more than twenty forces had arrived.
• Troublemaker Kid explained that the forces believed Happy Town held a treasure that would let them build armies and conquer surrounding territories, and he suspected the leaders had spread madness to their followers.
• Troublemaker Kid said he and the Fortune-teller believed a Pollution Source was behind the mass delusion, while the Fortune-teller remained inside Happy Town to investigate.
• When Gecko questioned how Troublemaker Kid knew so much, he revealed that he had kidnapped two of the leaders and left them piled in the grass nearby.

Lu Xin and Chen Jing discovered that the settlement leaders had been mentally influenced to seek a treasure, confirming the Technological Church was manipulating the armed forces near Happy Town. With Chen Jing wary of risking ordinary people in a confrontation, Lu Xin proposed using Kid’s influence to counter the large-scale contamination, leaving the team poised to act.

• The team found two unconscious settlement leaders, and Gecko woke the leader wearing a mink vest, who revealed that he had come to seize a treasure.
• Chen Jing tried to question the leader, but his obsession triggered intense hostility; she concluded that an ability user had implanted powerful mental influence in him.
• Lu Xin confirmed that he could see no Mental Monster on the leader, while Chen Jing explained that the influence could be hidden deep in his mind.
• Chen Jing urged the team to protect the contaminated people gathered near Happy Town and proposed finding the source influencing them.
• Lu Xin rejected investigating the crowd directly and proposed countering the mass contamination by letting Kid fully unleash her influence.

Lu Xin and his team debated whether to let Kid unleash her influence to counter the Technological Church’s contamination around Happy Town, and Chen Jing decided to take the risk. Lu Xin and Kid drove toward the gathering points, where he told her she could stop suppressing herself and promised to protect her.

• Gecko explained how Qinggang had struggled to let Kid join the mission and warned that Lu Xin was treating her like an ordinary team member.
• The Drunkard argued that Kid’s influence could counter the contamination, while Chen Jing worried that using her might be dangerous or part of the Technological Church’s trap.
• Chen Jing decided to let Kid act without waiting for headquarters’ approval and agreed to plan the operation with Lu Xin.
• Ten minutes later, Lu Xin drove Kid toward Happy Town in a modified Technological Church vehicle.
• Lu Xin told Kid she could unleash her abilities without worrying about hurting anyone and promised to protect her.

Lu Xin encouraged Kid to reveal her true appearance to the armed men blocking their way, and her smile transformed their hostility into bewildered tenderness. After thirty seconds, Lu Xin asked Kid if she was ready to continue the ride.

• Kid joyfully removed her wig, colored contacts, jewelry, and layers of clothing, revealing her natural appearance.
• Lu Xin drove toward the armed encampment as soldiers aimed guns and rocket launchers at his car.
• Lu Xin opened the sunroof and encouraged Kid to stand up and let the world see her real appearance.
• Kid cautiously emerged through the sunroof and smiled at the soldiers while holding Lu Xin's hand.
• The soldiers dropped their weapons, wept, and apologized after seeing Kid.
• After counting to thirty, Lu Xin asked Kid if she was ready for a ride.

Lu Xin and Doll drew an armed camp’s occupants away by exposing them to Doll for exactly thirty seconds, then raced toward another gathering point. Chen Jing and the others judged the plan successful and set out to meet the shaman and capture the Wish Priest.

• Lu Xin drove Doll into view of the armed crowd for thirty seconds, then sped away as the men became infatuated and chased after them.
• Doll enjoyed the rough ride while Lu Xin drove her toward another gathering point.
• Chen Jing recorded the crowd’s reactions as Gecko, the Drunkard, and Troublemaker Kid watched the camp empty out.
• The Drunkard concluded that Lu Xin and Doll could draw away the forces around Happy Town and force the Technological Church’s planner to act.
• Chen Jing led the group to meet the shaman and capture the Wish Priest.

Lu Xin drove Kid through the wilderness, drawing the armed forces surrounding Happy Town away as her uncontrolled influence spread across a widening area. The Technological Church’s priest learned that Qinggang had disrupted his second plan and decided to investigate their bold response rather than abandon the operation.

• Lu Xin drove Kid past successive armed camps, and her growing influence drew their personnel into a relentless chase.
• Mom explained that Kid’s powerful trait was spreading without her deliberately using her ability, and Lu Xin realized she had been suppressing it rather than failing to control it.
• Lu Xin decided to let Kid enjoy herself and planned to draw the armed forces into the wilderness before she cut off her influence.
• The priest and a man on his channel discussed Great Knight Shenze and the Rose Knight’s likely fates after their mission failed.
• The priest said Qinggang had lured his recruited believers into the wilderness and disrupted the second plan, then chose to learn what had given Qinggang confidence.

Lu Xin used Kid’s influence to draw most of Happy Town’s armed forces into the wilderness, but the clashing mental forces drove the pursuers toward collapse. As Lu Xin continued fleeing, several powerful Mental Monsters emerged among the crowd.

• Lu Xin asked Kid how she felt, and she said she was happy, so he continued the plan to scatter the pursuers across the wilderness.
• As Lu Xin drove away from Happy Town, he considered the risk that the Technological Church’s influence and Kid’s power might interact unpredictably.
• A pursuer became exhausted and emotionally tormented as he chased Lu Xin’s vehicle, and others across the wilderness began suffering the same strain.
• One pursuer’s rationality collapsed, and he felt himself merging with the surrounding crowd as his desire and distress gave way to relief.
• Lu Xin saw enormous, many-eyed Mental Monsters crawling over the pursuers, and Mom explained that they were formed from twisted desire and sought to protect people by swallowing them.

Lu Xin learned that the Technological Church’s influence had allowed abyssal Mental Monsters to emerge, and he drove toward a mountain pass to contain them while protecting Kid. Meanwhile, Chen Jing’s team followed the shaman’s warning to intercept a priest carrying a silver briefcase, who sensed someone tailing him and continued on with a shotgun.

• Mom explained that the Technological Church’s Pollution and Kid’s influence had stirred people’s greed, letting abyssal Mental Monsters crawl into reality.
• Lu Xin reassured Kid, refused to hand her over to the monsters, and drove toward a narrow mountain pass to keep them from escaping.
• Chen Jing and her team found the shaman’s message identifying a priest with a silver briefcase as a possible cause of the settlements’ madness, then chose a route to intercept him.
• The priest sensed the abyssal monsters’ arrival and walked toward Happy Town, noticing that someone was following him.
• The priest drew a double-barreled shotgun and invited his unseen pursuer to keep following.

Lu Xin and Kid lured the Mental Monsters into a mountain passage and prepared to trap them. Meanwhile, the Priest reached the bridge to Happy Town, where Qinggang’s team confronted him and demanded he come in for questioning.

• Lu Xin told Kid to withdraw her influence as their modified car raced through the mountain passage.
• The Mental Monsters swarmed the abandoned car, then saw Lu Xin and Kid waiting above them as a dark presence approached.
• The Priest walked toward Happy Town while sensing unseen footsteps following him.
• At the bridge, the Priest met a young computer user, a short-haired armed woman, and a schoolgirl waiting for him.
• The short-haired woman identified the Priest as a suspected Technological Church missionary and demanded he return with them for an investigation.
• The Priest offered to grant wishes in exchange for their support, but the woman refused and called him a criminal.

The priest used his wish ability to repel Qinggang’s ambush and counterattack, leaving Chen Jing and the others struggling to restrain him. The chapter ended with the drunkard identifying his power as one that fulfilled and twisted wishes, while the priest’s force field deflected their attacks.

• The priest sensed the shaman following him, granted her wish to follow, then collected its price by shooting her as Chen Jing and the others launched their ambush.
• The priest denied the attackers’ wishes, causing their bullets to miss and the drunkard’s illusion to fail, then fired at the apparent figures on the bridge and realized they were illusions.
• Gecko, Chen Jing, the drunkard, and the shaman attacked again, while the shaman’s curses distracted the priest and slowed him from opening his case.
• The priest fulfilled and twisted a wish, redirecting Gecko’s bullet into the shaman and exposing Chen Jing when the drunkard’s concealment shifted to the elementary school student.
• The priest aimed a submachine gun at Chen Jing, but Gecko struck his silver briefcase with a special bullet, letting the drunkard pull Chen Jing to safety.
• The priest rejected all their wishes and deflected their shots as the drunkard realized his ability fulfilled and twisted wishes.

The Priest used his Wish ability to evade Qinggang’s attacks, but a child’s pranks exposed a weakness in his wish rejection. The Priest was shot and left wounded on the riverbed.

• The Priest explained how he could fulfill, reject, and distort nearby wishes, then fired toward the hidden Qinggang ability users.
• The child appeared behind the Priest, kicked him, and threw dirt into his eyes while Chen Jing and the others attacked around him.
• The Priest’s ability bent the attacks away, but the child grabbed the silver case and let go, causing the Priest to fall.
• The short-haired woman gave the child a miniature submachine gun and told him to shoot the Priest.
• The child fired only to draw a border around the Priest as a prank, but the Priest rejected that wish and the bullets struck his legs, lower abdomen, and palm.

Chen Jing and the Drunkard’s team defeated the Technological Church priest and secured his silver case, while Lu Xin and his family cleared the Mental Monsters from the mountain road. The Second Plan was destroyed, and Mom urged them to uncover the Technological Church’s true objective.

• Troublemaker Kid’s electric bullet stopped the priest from opening the silver case, and Chen Jing and the Drunkard disabled and captured him with help from Gecko.
• Chen Jing calmed the frightened Troublemaker Kid, while the Drunkard checked the wounded Medium, who asked whether her makeup had run.
• Chen Jing and the Drunkard suspected the priest had used a parasitic item to amplify his ability and believed the silver case held the core of the Second Plan.
• Lu Xin and his family finished destroying the Mental Monsters on the mountain road, then Mom wondered why the Technological Church had released them.
• Mom said the Second Plan had been destroyed and pointed toward the obscured town as the place to learn the Technological Church’s true objective.

Lu Xin cleared the road after completing his mission with Kid, then joined Chen Jing’s team and learned they had captured a Technological Church priest and recovered a contaminating silver case. The case remained unopened, but Drunkard sensed that it contained a terrifying mental entity resembling a pile of living hearts.

• Lu Xin cleared the boulders with a crowbar, fired a signal flare, and drove toward Chen Jing’s team after seeing their reply flare.
• Lu Xin found Chen Jing, Gecko, Drunkard, Troublemaker Kid, and the injured Witch at a temporary camp, where they had captured a shackled Technological Church priest and recovered a silver briefcase.
• Lu Xin told Chen Jing that he and Kid had encountered seven or eight powerful Mental Monsters and scattered the armed forces in the wilderness.
• Chen Jing explained that the captured priest was the Wish Priest behind the second plan and that the briefcase was the source of the contamination affecting the armed forces.
• Drunkard said she sensed a terrifying mental entity inside the unopened case and described it as a pile of beating, living hearts.

Chen Jing assigned the team’s missions, sending Lu Xin and Kid into Happy Town while arranging support outside. To solve the communication problem caused by the town’s intense mental radiation, Lu Xin summoned seven Infiltrators, who agreed to carry messages.

• The Drunkard recommended sending the box back to Qinggang for proper study, and Chen Jing laid out the dangers and tasks that had to be handled.
• Lu Xin volunteered to investigate Happy Town, and Chen Jing assigned the Wish Priest and Drunkard to escort the box while she, Gecko, and Troublemaker Kid handled the outskirts and incoming troops.
• Chen Jing decided that Kid would accompany Lu Xin into Happy Town, accepting responsibility for sending both of them into the dangerous zone.
• Chen Jing identified reliable communication as essential because Happy Town’s mental radiation might disrupt signals, and Lu Xin proposed finding help.
• Lu Xin summoned seven Infiltrators and asked them to relay messages between the investigators and the team outside; they offered their help, and Chen Jing ordered the mission to begin.

Lu Xin and Kid entered Happy Town’s intense mental-radiation zone and found themselves in a strange place labeled the Museum of Calamities, where Lu Xin’s family members and the Glasses Dog appeared beside them. After confirming that messages could still be exchanged with Chen Jing’s team, Lu Xin explored the museum and followed a corridor toward Happy Town.

• Lu Xin and Kid left the modified vehicle at the edge of Happy Town after its systems failed, then crossed into the radiation zone.
• Lu Xin found himself in a gloomy ancient hall marked “Museum of Calamities,” accompanied by Mom, Dad, Sister, and the Glasses Dog.
• Lu Xin used the Infiltrator to send a report and received a reply signed C1 warning him to be careful.
• Lu Xin and his companions passed through a hall filled with unsettling sculptures and branched corridors.
• Lu Xin chose a corridor that should lead closer to Happy Town and continued inside with growing confidence.

Lu Xin explored the Museum of Calamities and found countless bottles containing vivid scenes of people’s lives. He concluded that the museum was a cognitive illusion and began tearing at its wall, provoking the bottle-dwellers as the chapter ended.

• Lu Xin inspected several bottles and found tiny, lifelike scenes of people living ordinary and intimate moments.
• Lu Xin reasoned that the museum could not have been built there and identified a distortion of cognition as the likely cause.
• Lu Xin decided to use facts and logic to expose the museum’s false appearance, while Mom warned him that he would eventually see the world’s true form.
• Lu Xin grabbed the wall and dug his fingers into it, causing people throughout the bottles to notice him, shout, and pound on the glass.

Lu Xin broke free of the Calamity Doctor's Hall illusion and found himself in a wilderness where people lived out blissful, fabricated lives woven from spiritual radiation. He realized his family had vanished, leaving him alone as he remembered Mom asking whether he was sure he wanted to see through the illusion.

• Lu Xin tore open the wall, shattered the corridor illusion, and emerged in a wilderness with Kid beside him.
• He saw crowds of frozen, hostile people resume their movements as peaceful sleepwalkers, including people he had previously seen inside bottles.
• Lu Xin recognized that dense spiritual radiation had constructed an illusory town and trapped the people's spirits in counterfeit lives.
• He turned around and discovered Mom, Father, and Sister were gone, then remembered Mom asking whether he was sure he wanted to see through the illusion.

Lu Xin investigated the sleepwalking residents around Happy Town while struggling with the loneliness of no longer seeing his family. After disturbing the mental radiation, he heard the Queen of Happy Town calling for help.

• Lu Xin calmed himself with Kid’s support and continued investigating, reasoning that his family’s disappearance might be temporary and tied to seeing the truth.
• Lu Xin observed the sleepwalking residents and reported that they were likely the missing residents of Water Bay City, living in happy illusions created by the mental radiation.
• Lu Xin received a message from outside telling him to stay calm and reminding him that life was resilient, which eased his panic.
• Lu Xin realized he had been circling the residents and remained trapped inside the Museum of Calamities, so he deliberately walked through one resident to disrupt the mental radiation.
• Lu Xin and Kid heard a faint plea for help, and Lu Xin recognized the voice as the Queen of Happy Town.

Lu Xin confronted Qin Ran in the Museum of Calamities and rejected his claim that trapping Water Bay City’s suffering residents in idealized bottle worlds healed them. With the Queen still calling for help, Lu Xin ordered Kid to break the museum.

• Lu Xin followed the Queen’s cries through the bottle-world wilderness, disturbing the sleepwalkers and breaking one of their bottles.
• Qin Ran appeared and explained that the Technological Church had placed unhappy people from Water Bay City in bottles to give them lives they wanted.
• Lu Xin rejected Qin Ran’s justification, connecting his mission to the dead colleagues who had sacrificed themselves to protect others.
• Lu Xin accused Qin Ran of using beautiful dreams to preserve people’s despair and said he intended to stop him.
• Qin Ran warned Lu Xin about the cost of breaking a first-order parasitic object, but Lu Xin told Kid to break the museum.

Kid shattered the false world with a mental shockwave, awakening the Museum of Calamities sculptures. Lu Xin protected her from their attacks, and Kid became furious when he was wounded.

• Kid opened her parasol and sent a mental shockwave through the false world, collapsing it and drawing out the sculptures from the Museum of Calamities.
• A sculpture pulled a sword from its chest and attacked Kid, but Lu Xin blocked the blade with his own mental shockwave.
• Kid destroyed the sword-wielding sculpture with a dark-red spear, prompting the other sculptures to attack Lu Xin and Kid with their weapons.
• Lu Xin used his distorted force field to redirect the weapons into himself, shielding Kid as they pierced his body.
• Lu Xin tore the weapons from himself, and Kid touched his bloody wound, wept, and let her anger surge.