Chapter Summaries

Lu Xin and Han Bing chose a house, then spent the evening eating ice cream, snacks, and watching a movie together. At the hotel, Han Bing asked why Lu Xin helped Qinggang, and he said he liked the life they were building before she thanked him and went inside.

• Han Bing supported Lu Xin's choice of house, and Lu Xin arranged the purchase and repairs with the realtor.
• Lu Xin thanked Han Bing for helping him and learned that she would return to work the next afternoon and had booked a hotel.
• Lu Xin treated Han Bing to dinner, ice cream, snacks, and a screening of Roman Holiday at Wanzhong Mall.
• Lu Xin drove Han Bing to her hotel late at night, avoiding a group of street thugs on the way.
• Han Bing asked Lu Xin why he helped Qinggang, and Lu Xin said he liked the life he was living and liked seeing people's lives improve.
• Han Bing thanked Lu Xin, handed him the snacks, and entered the hotel.

Han Bing argued with her handler over the deception involved in her assignment to assess and comfort Lu Xin, insisting she wanted to approach him honestly. After refusing to withdraw, she went out for wontons, fought off street thugs, and unknowingly left Lu Xin watching from a nearby alley.

• Han Bing ignored her satellite phone until her room call connected her with a handler who criticized her assessment of Lu Xin and her recent breach of protocol.
• Han Bing told the handler she rejected pretending to befriend Lu Xin and argued that the agency’s comforting approach deceived ability users.
• The handler warned Han Bing that she could still withdraw and asked whether Lu Xin would affect the Heavenly Kingdom Plan, but Han Bing said she would not withdraw and described him as someone who genuinely loved life.
• Han Bing went out into Satellite City No. 2 to find wontons and beat up four or five men who approached her on a deserted street.
• Lu Xin watched Han Bing from a dark alley and admitted that he liked the way she spoke to him, regretting that he had caused her trouble and could not apologize.

After enjoying a long vacation and making progress on his house and work, Lu Xin was summoned to Qinggang Main City for a highly confidential meeting about a plan the city had been preparing. He arrived to find his fellow Ability users waiting, but he knew nothing about the meeting despite having the highest authority.

• Lu Xin prospered at his company, received a thick envelope of project kickbacks, and spent his days working and visiting his new villa.
• Chen Jing called Lu Xin and told him his vacation was over and that he had to attend an important meeting about a long-prepared Qinggang plan.
• Director Liu approved Lu Xin's leave, and Lu Xin arranged a helicopter ride to Main City after returning his scooter to the Guard Department.
• Han Bing met Lu Xin at the Special Purity Department and explained that the meeting had the highest confidentiality level and that Lu Xin's authority exceeded everyone else's.
• Lu Xin joined Gecko, the Witch, Troublemaker Kid, the Drunkard, Watchdog, and other Ability users in a lounge, where they asked about the meeting and he insisted he knew nothing.
• Han Bing summoned Lu Xin to the meeting, and he left the lounge hoping he would finally learn what the plan was.

Professor Bai presented Qinggang’s Heavenly Kingdom Plan as a way to fundamentally reduce the threat of Mental Pollution, rather than merely defeating each incident after it caused casualties. He ended by declaring that Qinggang would build a Heaven in the human world and forge its own god.

• Han Bing escorted Lu Xin into a heavily guarded conference room, where Qinggang’s senior officials had gathered.
• Professor Bai reported the heavy casualties and resource losses caused by the Happy Town incident and warned that Qinggang’s ability to withstand another crisis was weakening.
• Professor Bai argued that Qinggang’s goal should be to prevent contamination from harming people, not simply to defeat each Pollution Source.
• Lu Xin’s family appeared in the seats behind him as Professor Bai asked how Qinggang could fundamentally alleviate or solve the growing threat of Mental Pollution.
• Professor Bai revealed the Heavenly Kingdom Plan and described its aim: build a Heaven in the human world and forge Qinggang’s own god.

Professor Bai explained Qinggang’s Heavenly Kingdom Plan, which would create a stable domain to detect and suppress mental pollution without taking control of residents’ minds. With materials recovered from the Technological Church, Qinggang could begin initial experiments, and the chapter ended with Professor Bai seeking opinions while attention turned toward Lu Xin.

• Lu Xin noticed the strange reactions of Professor Chen Liqing and Han Bing, then realized he had been smiling and wiped the expression from his face.
• Professor Bai described a domain linking Qinggang’s residents and identified the plan with the concept of a Mental Lord.
• Lu Xin compared the proposed domain with Happy Town and feared Qinggang might turn its residents into monsters like the Queen had.
• Professor Bai laid out safeguards against altering people’s identities, instability, and the emergence of a godlike will, and said the plan was necessary after Qinggang’s encounters with the Sea Nation and the Technological Church.
• Professor Bai explained that materials left behind by the Technological Church had helped Qinggang overcome technical obstacles and made initial experiments theoretically possible.
• Professor Bai finished his presentation and asked for opinions as people in the meeting room looked toward Lu Xin, while Mom watched him with anticipation.

At a meeting about the Heavenly Kingdom Plan, Professor Bai explained that its core candidate would gain influence over all of Qinggang and named Lu Xin and Kid as the only suitable options. Lu Xin asked whether Kid agreed to the role, easing the room’s tension, though Han Bing sensed his lingering unease.

• Professor Bai answered questions about the Heavenly Kingdom Plan and explained that its core candidate needed great power and the trust of Qinggang.
• Minister Shen asked who would serve as the plan’s core, and Professor Bai described the risks of giving one person influence over the entire city.
• Professor Bai named Kid and Mister Soldier as the two candidates, said he preferred Kid, and asked Lu Xin for his opinion.
• Mom explained that the position could make Lu Xin a Mental Lord with control over Qinggang, but Lu Xin found the prospect of owning everything pointless.
• Lu Xin asked whether Kid agreed to the role, and the meeting room visibly relaxed.
• Han Bing watched Lu Xin and seemed to sense his lingering concern that the others still did not trust him.

Lu Xin learned that Qinggang wanted Doll to join the dangerous Heavenly Kingdom Plan and agreed to ask for her informed consent. He found Doll learning from romance dramas and, unable to explain the plan clearly, decided to take her somewhere before the third update arrived.

• Professor Bai explained that Doll’s mental control and willingness to communicate had improved, then asked Lu Xin whether he agreed to her joining the Heavenly Kingdom Plan.
• Lu Xin said he would ask Doll after helping her understand the risks, and Chen Jing assured him Qinggang would suspend or cancel the experiments if danger arose.
• Lu Xin visited Doll and found her watching a costume drama among a pile of romance discs, where she imitated a scene by embracing him.
• Lu Xin asked Doll what kind of life she wanted, but her pointing at him and his attempted joke did not clarify whether she understood.
• Lu Xin realized he needed a different way to explain the decision, told Doll to wait, and told Chen Jing he wanted to take her somewhere to do something he had long considered.

Lu Xin and Kid traveled through Qinggang Main City delivering letters from fallen soldiers and researchers to their loved ones. After witnessing their grief and resolve, Lu Xin told Kid that the city needed people to protect the lives they loved.

• Lu Xin gave Captain Li Jian's mother his final message, and she wept over her son's death and the money he had mentioned.
• Lu Xin delivered Chen Cheng's letter to his fiancée, who thanked him for the words she had long wanted to hear before breaking down alone.
• Lu Xin brought a fallen man's letter to his wife, who grieved that their last argument had been about their daughter's extracurricular classes.
• Lu Xin delivered a brother's message to a boy, who said he planned to become a researcher like his brother and admired how he had died.
• Lu Xin and Kid visited many bereaved families, and Kid grew tearful as she saw how they reacted to the letters.
• Lu Xin told Kid that Qinggang needed people to protect it because they loved the lives they had built there.

Lu Xin helped Kid decide whether to accept Qinggang’s Heavenly Kingdom Plan by showing her what she might protect, and she agreed. He warned her that becoming a Mental Lord could keep her in Qinggang while he might leave, but promised that he would always return there.

• Lu Xin asked Kid whether she was willing to protect Qinggang, and Kid agreed before asking whether he was willing to let her choose.
• Lu Xin said he wanted to protect Qinggang’s way of life, while honestly telling Kid that he might not remain there forever.
• Mr. Su rebuffed officials anxious about the plan, insisting that the Heavenly Kingdom Plan belonged to Qinggang rather than any individual.
• Professor Bai told Mr. Su that a Mental Lord would inevitably emerge and that Qinggang was fortunate to have Lu Xin, Kid, and the circumstances to prepare for it.
• Lu Xin promised Kid that Qinggang would always be a place he returned to, and Kid smiled with delight.

Lu Xin conveyed Kid’s condition that she could leave Qinggang if it became a place she no longer wished to protect, and Professor Bai agreed. Qinggang planned the Heavenly Kingdom Plan’s first experiment in three days using Sea Nation residents in desperate need of treatment, with Lu Xin assigned to protect Kid as she undertook it.

• Lu Xin told Qinggang’s leaders that Kid would join the plan but might leave if Qinggang became a place she disliked.
• Professor Bai accepted Kid’s freedom to leave, saying the Heavenly Kingdom Plan depended on cooperating with people rather than building a machine.
• Professor Bai explained that the first experiment would take place in three days and involve Sea Nation residents whose condition left them little time to wait.
• Mr. Su asked Lu Xin to provide security for the experiment, and Lu Xin agreed to protect Kid.
• Lu Xin reflected that accompanying Kid had led him to help escort her toward a position of power in Qinggang.

Lu Xin reviewed his accumulated task payments and reimbursements, which totaled 19,621,766 yuan and 42 cents, before Han Bing assigned him security work for the Heavenly Kingdom Plan’s first-phase experiment. The mission was rated S-class, and Han Bing warned that the experiment’s pollution might reach nation-destroying level.

• Han Bing explained that Lu Xin’s share of the Central City incident payment was 3,149,726 yuan and 42 cents.
• Lu Xin accepted 60 percent of the ten-million-yuan reward for the Happy Town and Archbishop of Calamity mission, leaving Kid the other 40 percent.
• Han Bing listed Lu Xin’s other task rewards and reimbursements, bringing the total transfer to 19,621,766 yuan and 42 cents.
• Lu Xin signed the payment documents and clarified which expenses he still needed to repay or reimburse.
• Han Bing gave Lu Xin an S-class assignment to secure the first-phase experiment of the Heavenly Kingdom Plan and warned its pollution might be nation-destroying level.

Lu Xin learned that the Sea Nation’s men were afflicted by the nation-destroying Mermaid’s Curse, an invisible song that had pushed their country toward collapse. Qinggang planned to combine the Heavenly Kingdom Plan’s first-stage experiment with the effort to cure the pollution, making Lu Xin’s experiment the Sea Nation’s last hope.

• Han Bing gave Lu Xin a report describing the Mermaid’s Curse as nation-destroying pollution affecting every Sea Nation man aged eighteen to fifty-five.
• Lu Xin learned that the curse began three years earlier as a beautiful, undetectable song that gradually left its male listeners numb and unable to work.
• The Sea Nation’s Old Captain attacked Qinggang in hopes of gaining access to its technology or passing the crisis to Qinggang if the attack failed.
• Han Bing explained that Qinggang had resettled the unaffected women, children, and elderly, while Professor Bai’s team investigated the polluted men without finding a way to stop the song.
• Han Bing told Lu Xin that the experiment would use the Mental Lord’s power to resist the pollution and represented the Sea Nation’s last hope.

Lu Xin reviewed the Heavenly Kingdom Plan’s first-phase experiment and traveled to the Sea Nation’s floating settlement to provide core security. He saw the survivors’ extreme apathy and starvation, leaving the chapter with the scale of the nation’s pollution laid bare.

• Lu Xin learned that Kid would lead the cleansing experiment, supported by four ability users and four signal towers, while his own role was to protect Kid and prevent interference.
• Han Bing told Lu Xin that Drunkard, Watchdog, Arhat, and the Shaman had been selected as support personnel; Gecko had refused Phase Two enhancement and was assigned elsewhere.
• Lu Xin flew with Han Bing to the experimental base on the Sea Nation’s ships, where she explained that Qinggang had relocated vulnerable survivors and that a little over a hundred thousand people remained.
• Lu Xin saw corpses left among the Sea Nation’s residents and learned that many had starved because pollution had made them numb and unwilling to seek or eat food.
• Lu Xin watched helicopters drop food and water to residents who barely reacted, and he realized the Sea Nation was dying from severe pollution.

Lu Xin watched the Sea Nation's men react to a mysterious song beneath the Crimson Moon and briefly heard it after removing his helmet. Mom silenced the song before it could take hold of him, leaving the researchers relieved that he had not lost control ahead of the experiment.

• Han Bing showed Lu Xin his cabin aboard Qinggang's flagship and told him the experiment would begin at seven the next evening.
• Lu Xin put on a heavy protective suit and learned that staff had to keep their helmets on at night and report any unusual singing.
• Professor Bai brought Lu Xin and the other suited researchers to the control room to observe the Sea Nation's deck at eight o'clock.
• As the Crimson Moon rose, the Sea Nation's men woke from their daytime stupor and danced, drank, and shouted in a frenzy.
• Lu Xin removed his helmet and heard an ethereal woman's song that stirred overwhelming desire in him.
• Mom appeared beside Lu Xin and silenced the song with the sound of scissors, while Professor Bai and the others worried that Lu Xin might lose control.

Lu Xin and Professor Bai analyzed the Sea Nation’s mass contamination as a deep distortion of human instinct, while Mom explained how the Pollution Source connects to the world’s deeper mysteries. Lu Xin left determined to focus on the security work he had accepted.

• The Sea Nation’s men continued dancing in a frenzy, and some collapsed or ran into the sea as Qinggang’s people stayed away.
• Lu Xin told Professor Bai that he had heard singing but had found no Mental Monster or source for it.
• Professor Bai described the Pollution Source as a seductive fantasy that distorted desire until it destroyed the Sea Nation’s people’s instincts and values.
• Lu Xin and Professor Bai concluded that the contamination had reached the level of instinct, and Professor Bai said the Heavenly Kingdom Plan was prepared for such a challenge.
• Mom told Lu Xin that the Pollution Sources, the seven human flaws, and the thirteen abnormal mental powers could reveal the Crimson Moon’s influence and the truth about Lu Xin.
• Lu Xin said he would carry out the security work properly because he had accepted the task.

Lu Xin accompanied Kid through the final preparations for an experiment intended to affect the frenzied Sea Nation crew. As Kid expanded her mental field over the ship, the afflicted crew suffered intense pain and white mermaid-like figures emerged from their heads.

• Lu Xin spent the day supporting Kid as the team prepared and completed its equipment checks for the experiment.
• At eight o’clock, Kid lifted into the air and focused her gaze on the frenzied people aboard the Sea Nation ship, causing some to hesitate and turn toward her.
• Kid opened her umbrella and released a mental field that spread across part of the ship, making the affected crew collapse and convulse in pain.
• As Kid steadily strengthened her mental power, white shadows began emerging from the backs of the crew’s heads.
• Lu Xin watched as mermaids crawled out of the crew members’ heads and swam through the air beneath the Crimson Moon.

Lu Xin watched Kid expel the mermaids from the Sea Nation's afflicted people and expand her mental field as Qinggang's signal towers and stabilizers guided it into place. The field reached across the Sea Nation, where the still-polluted people sensed it with hostility, and Kid felt their hatred for the first time.

• Lu Xin realized the mermaids were manifestations of the Sea Nation men's distorted desires, while Kid's ability made them reject the pollution themselves.
• A dozen mermaids attacked Kid, but she restrained them with her mental power and ground them into intangible energy.
• Kid's mental field expanded rapidly as Qinggang's instruments stabilized it and the four signal towers connected to form a field.
• The field enveloped the Sea Nation, and the still-polluted people reacted with suspicion and hostility.
• Kid sensed their hatred directed at her and looked sorrowful.

Kid endured the Sea Nation contaminated people’s hatred while building her mental field, but as its radiation rose, many tried to flee into the sea. Professor Bai ordered the second-phase test, and the Drunkard used her amplified ability to stop thousands from escaping.

• Kid continued constructing her mental field despite sensing the contaminated people’s hatred and distress.
• As the field’s radiation reached 60%, some contaminated people collapsed in pain while others rushed toward the sea to escape it.
• Professor Bai ordered the four auxiliary ability users to begin the second-phase test.
• The Drunkard used the case from the Technological Church to amplify her ability and confuse the contaminated people trying to flee eastward.
• Han Bing told Lu Xin that Kid’s field could raise auxiliary users’ abilities by at least one level.

Qinggang’s auxiliary ability users contained the crazed men of the Sea Nation while Kid completed her mental domain, and Professor Bai ordered the final curse-cleansing test to begin. Lu Xin watched Kid prepare to confront the curse as the chapter ended.

• The watchdog used his three ability traits to attack the Sea Nation’s men, restrain them from jumping into the sea, and knock many to the ground.
• Han Bing explained to Lu Xin that the watchdog was a Forbidden Experiment survivor rescued by Minister Shen and named himself after a three-headed hound.
• The witch doctor used amplified curses to disrupt the Sea Nation’s men, while Arhat spread his fear of being persecuted and made them afraid to jump into the dark sea.
• The four auxiliary personnel blocked the men from four directions as Kid increased her domain’s mental-radiation density until it formed an invisible cage around the deck.
• A command-center staff member reported that the domain was complete, and Professor Bai ordered the final curse-cleansing test to begin.
• Lu Xin looked up at Kid as she prepared to confront the powerful curse.

During the final test, the Doll used her domain to drive pollution out of more than a hundred thousand people in the Sea Nation, causing their pollution traits to merge into a colossal rotten mermaid. The Doll attacked the monster, but Lu Xin and his family sensed another dangerous presence approaching from the dark coastline.

• Professor Bai began the final test, and the Doll expanded her domain while Lu Xin observed her learning to control it.
• The Doll's mental power forced pollution out of people across the Sea Nation, and their expelled traits fused into a gigantic mermaid.
• Han Bing warned Lu Xin not to intervene, and he held back as the Doll confronted the monster.
• The Doll declared that she would defeat the mermaid and bound it in sharp threads of mental power, cutting into its rotten body.
• As the Doll and the mermaid clashed, Lu Xin, Mom, Father, and Sister sensed something extremely dangerous approaching from the coastline.