Chapter Summaries

Yi Chen and his companions returned to the hostel, where Jin confronted Boss after he unleashed reanimated corpse-pets to attack them. Jin killed Boss, but a contract transferred the hostel land to a thin man and increased the world’s malice by 1%.

• Yi Chen led the group around the city and discussed William with Nash before they returned to the hostel.
• Boss waited for night and rain, then summoned the stray cats and dogs he had fed with human remains decades earlier.
• The reanimated corpse-pets climbed toward the guests’ floor, but the corridor was spotless when Boss arrived at their room.
• Boss lunged at Jin, but red lotuses exploded across his hand and destroyed both his legs as Jin questioned who had given him control over the dead creatures.
• Boss invoked a contract and a black bowler hat appeared; Jin annihilated him, but the hostel land transferred to a thin man holding a deed, raising the world’s malice by 1%.

Li Zhao’s history and the World Consciousness’s defenses against evil were revealed as a special form of malice took over Li Zhao’s building and raised the world’s malice value. The Round Hat Man entered Jin’s room, where a television began playing an unfamiliar, sinister video.

• The World Consciousness defended world 1910 by making sunlight suppress evil and prompting humans to observe curfew.
• Li Zhao’s mother secretly monitored him to prevent him from killing women, and after she died in a traffic accident, he began murdering and hiding corpses inside the resettlement building he owned.
• After Jin arrived, Li Zhao made a deal for Inhuman Strength, but she defeated him, and he handed over his property on the condition that she be killed and buried there.
• A special form of evil replaced Li Zhao, took control of the building and surrounding area, and increased the world’s malice value by 1%.
• The Round Hat Man climbed through the flooded building, absorbed resentment from the exposed corpses, and entered Jin’s room.
• The Round Hat Man found a cluster of Cancer Cells disguised as a woman, then a television began playing a smiling face as unfamiliar malice spread through the room.

Lorien, Regan, Yi Chen, and Jin waited in an isolated room while William faced a strange evil through a Video Tape. The tape trapped a round-hatted man in a quiz, and his first wrong answer showed Joker checking into the hotel.

• Lorien, Regan, Yi Chen, and Jin waited in a sealed guest room, having agreed to let the Boss's mysterious ally test William while they watched.
• Regan sensed something unusual as the Video Tape began playing for the round-hatted man.
• A smiling doll started a twelve-question game show and asked how many pieces the hotel Boss's body had been shattered into.
• The man guessed 71 pieces, but the doll revealed that Jin's explosion had reduced the Boss to fleshly powder and showed him a short film as punishment.
• The film showed Joker arriving at the hotel in the rain, paying for a room, and writing his name in the guest ledger.

The Slender Man answered questions about the hotel and watched short films that revealed a mysterious suited figure approaching his room. The figure appeared behind him and invited him to become his student, introducing himself with a name obscured in the text.

• The Slender Man answered the second and third questions correctly, then incorrectly guessed whose rice noodle roll had no scallions.
• The next short film showed the suited man opening room 406 by mistake while searching for the room with the television’s light.
• The Slender Man correctly answered several questions about the hotel before guessing that the approaching figure was Joker.
• The doll stopped speaking and the final short film showed the suited man entering room 506 and appearing behind the Slender Man on the television.
• The suited man’s Clown Mask fell off, revealing a black-hole face, and he asked Mr. Rainman to become his student.

Regan discovered that William’s Video Tape caused a nonphysical infection, while William frightened the Rain Man into destroying himself and fleeing through people touched by rain. Yi Chen pursued the Rain Man through repeated transfers, but a Good Taste Juice truck struck him just as Yi Chen was about to capture him.

• Regan deduced that watching or being near the Video Tape infected people without a physical medium, and warned the group to prepare to hunt the Rain Man.
• William told the Rain Man to run, and the Rain Man exploded himself and escaped by transferring his consciousness through rainwater to a young man several kilometers away.
• Jin searched the rain for the Rain Man’s traces, while Regan concluded that Yi Chen was the only one who could catch him.
• Yi Chen tracked the Rain Man through repeated transfers into a restaurant patron, a student, and a vagrant, asking each time whether William had deliberately let him escape.
• As Yi Chen followed the weakened Rain Man out of an alley, a Good Taste Juice truck struck and destroyed him before speeding away with its driver’s lips curled in a smile.

William and Catherine watched the aftermath of the Rain Man incident and discussed how his death would advance Yi Chen and his companions, while Lorien tried and failed to reach them through the Video Tape. Yi Chen and Jin recovered the Rainwater Round Hat and settled into a hotel suite, where an unexpected visitor knocked during curfew.

• William explained that he had let the Rain Man die to lower the world's malice value and help Yi Chen's group become full members, while keeping their suspicion of him in check.
• Lorien searched the Video Tape with his silver hair, but it stopped working before he could enter it.
• Yi Chen inspected the staged-looking truck accident, then met Jin in an alley and told her the Rain Man had already been crippled when he caught him.
• Jin picked up the Rainwater Round Hat, and Yi Chen told her to take it back as an evil product.
• Yi Chen, Jin, Regan, and Lorien stayed in a hotel suite, where Regan's magnetic field and Jin's Red Lotus guarded the hat.
• During the hotel's curfew blackout, someone knocked and asked to check whether the suite's windows were closed.

Yi Chen and his companions investigated a hotel employee who kept returning to close their window, but the room’s time and the window repeatedly reset. The chapter ended as Yi Chen questioned how they had checked into the hotel.

• Regan built an android to answer the employee’s late-night visit while Lorien hid Yi Chen and the others from view.
• The employee closed and locked the window, offered a guest handbook, and left when the android refused it.
• Yi Chen fell asleep, but a second knock woke him; the clock had reverted to eight and the supposedly locked window was open.
• The employee returned, entered with a spare key, closed the window, and left after the guests refused the handbook again.
• Yi Chen and Lorien stayed awake to watch the window, but it reopened when the employee knocked once more.
• Yi Chen asked how they had checked into the hotel.

Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable learned that the Calamity had driven Simulated World Serial-1910’s malignancy to 69%, but he opened an Emergency Passage to rescue Yi Chen and the others. Meanwhile, Yi Chen and his companions discovered their memories of checking into the Unknown Hotel were distorted and that William had hidden himself.

• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable learned that the Calamity had pushed Serial-1910’s malignancy to 69% and caused the world passage to close.
• Despite warnings that the recruits were likely dead and the Emergency Passage could expose the City of Husks, Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable ordered it opened and vowed to guard it himself.
• Yi Chen, Regan, Lorien, and Miss Jin compared their conflicting memories of arriving at the Unknown Hotel and realized they could not recall its name, the time, or the lobby clearly.
• Lorien warned that an unseen force capable of deceiving him and concealing the moon’s radiance would be far beyond them.
• Regan played the Smiling Face Video Tape, but it showed only colored bars and revealed no trace of William.
• Yi Chen concluded that William had hidden himself.

Yi Chen, Lorien, and Regan discovered that the hotel had trapped them in a space with no usable exits and suspected that accepting the bellhop’s manual would trigger the real danger. As a mysterious ringing began, Jin woke up and asked them to turn off the alarm.

• Yi Chen, Lorien, and Regan compared their memories and concluded that the Rain Man’s death had drawn them into a hotel-bound trap, with nighttime marking the start of danger.
• Yi Chen looked through the window and found an endless duplicate hotel, where a faceless copy of him mirrored his movements and his thrown Death Skull bounced back.
• Regan tested the guest-room exits with a bionic human and learned that the stairs looped, other rooms were sealed, and entering the red-lit safety passage cut off contact.
• Lorien and the others debated whether to accept the bellhop’s manual as they waited for him to return.
• A faint ringing sounded through the hotel, and Yi Chen proposed taking a gamble before Jin woke and complained about an alarm.

Jin covered the Infinite Hotel in tumors and detonated them, allowing Yi Chen, Regan, Lorien, and Jin to escape into the real hotel. Yi Chen escaped through a ringing phone after the Manager let him answer it, but the Manager’s overwhelming evil awakened Yi Chen’s murderous instincts.

• Jin summoned her Naraka Crimson Lotus power and filled the hotel with tumors and Red Butterflies while Yi Chen, Regan, and Lorien huddled together.
• Jin exhausted her energy, snapped her fingers, and detonated the tumors, destroying their guest room and sending the group into the real hotel corridor.
• Regan and Lorien escaped by answering a ringing public phone, and Yi Chen used it to transfer Jin before attempting to leave himself.
• The Manager appeared at the end of the corridor and unexpectedly invited Yi Chen to answer the phone.
• Yi Chen escaped through the phone, then felt his soul stir as his instincts awakened in response to the Manager’s intense evil.

Yi Chen and the others returned from World 1910 but were held in isolation while the City of Husks investigated them. The Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable explained the ranks of evil and identified the Manager they encountered as a notorious Calamity, leaving their escape under review for possible rewards.

• Yi Chen submitted the Rain Man's hat after the evil-detection system flagged him, and he and the others passed a day of examinations before being confined for three more days.
• The Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable told the four recruits that the hat's examination was complete and their identities would be restored if they passed the remaining checks.
• The Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable explained the origins of evil, the Rain Man's literary origin, and the four categories of evil: Medium, Human, Phenomenon, and Calamity.
• Yi Chen described the hotel encounter, and the Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable recognized the Manager as a famous Calamity.
• The Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable warned that the four might have to report to the Hall of Gods and said Yi Chen's escape could earn him a higher evaluation and special rewards.

Yi Chen, Jin, Lorien, and Regan faced the gods’ investigation into why the Manager had come to the Simulated World (1910) and let them escape. With Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable and Tutankhamun supporting Yi Chen’s explanation, the four were cleared and promoted to Quasi-Gods, while the Plague Focal World gained a chance to secure more resources.

• Yi Chen and the others entered the Hall of Gods after their green seals cleared them of suspected malicious infection.
• The gods questioned the four about killing the Rain Man and the Manager’s appearance, and Jin demonstrated how she had escaped the hotel room.
• Yi Chen gave an explanation based on his past as a Death Row Inmate and his wish to revisit his former world, while concealing William’s involvement.
• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable argued that the Manager had spared the group out of curiosity about their plague, and Tutankhamun vouched for Yi Chen.
• The gods accepted the explanation, promoted all four to Quasi-Gods, and granted them access to the Treasury of the Gods; Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable also secured resources for the Plague Focal World.

Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable led Yi Chen and the other newly promoted Quasi-Gods to the City of Husks library, where they could choose their rewards. Following a powerful sensation of death, Yi Chen found a sealed underground reading room and encountered its monstrous guard.

• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable explained that the Treasury of the Gods was the library in the City of Husks, while the actual treasures were kept across different God Domains.
• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable warned Yi Chen that he would destroy him if he threatened the Prime Material Plane, then discussed lost godheads and Yi Chen's path to godhood.
• A beam of divine light granted Yi Chen, Jin, Lorien, and Regan permission to search the library, and Regan went to explore books about the mind, soul, and brain.
• Yi Chen followed his sense of death deep underground, with Jin accompanying him, until they reached a sealed door covered in yellow talismans and crosses.
• A grotesque creature wearing the library's staff uniform emerged from the stairwell and invited Yi Chen to let it judge what kind of borrower he was.

Yi Chen refused the librarian’s offer to open the Forbidden Library and instead revived his living body to break through its seal. He entered the revealed room despite the impact shattering his leg.

• The librarian demanded to touch Yi Chen in exchange for opening the library, but Yi Chen refused and Jin held back.
• Yi Chen touched the sealed door, which shattered his arm, then read a wristband message saying he had to break the seal and prove he could control the evil objects inside.
• Yi Chen revived his discarded body through Death and adjusted to breathing and moving as a living human.
• Yi Chen sprinted toward the door with Nash’s chains reinforcing his leg and shattered the golden seal with a kick.
• Yi Chen entered the dust-filled library room with his leg shattered, and the librarian praised him as extraordinary.

Jin discovered that her broken War Relic was connected to Buddha Migua and chose a book that could lead her to him. She left the library determined to kill the expelled god and recover his weapon.

• Yi Chen rejected the administrator’s offer of a God-Slaying Magic Tool in exchange for touching him.
• Jin’s broken sword reacted inside the library, and the administrator identified it as a weapon once wielded by Buddha Migua.
• Jin used the sword to activate a book that changed from “Ornate Jacket” to “White Pagoda” and promised a superior treasure and a white robe from Mishan Temple.
• The administrator warned Jin that Buddha Migua was powerful and urged her to choose a safer treasure.
• Jin chose the White Pagoda book and declared that she would kill Buddha Migua.

Yi Chen found a waterlogged book tied to a Hanging Rope in the library’s death-filled depths, while Jin recovered a book linked to Mishan Buddha. At the borrowing counter, the staff authorized Jin’s dangerous temple visit and arranged delivery of Yi Chen’s rope, which he could use only in designated isolation zones.

• Yi Chen followed the pull of death into a sunken section of the hidden library and dug through the ruins until he found a soaked book titled "███'s Hanging Rope".
• Jin and the administrator found Yi Chen hanging himself in a deathly state as he searched the deepest shelves; the administrator backed away when the dead surrounded him.
• Yi Chen recovered the waterlogged book, asked the administrator about its treasure, and left with Jin after hearing that he would need to ask the front desk.
• At the borrowing counter, Jin submitted the altered Mishan Buddha book and received authorization for safe transport to Mishan Temple.
• The staff classified Yi Chen’s rope as a Calamity Item, restricted its use to five isolation zones in the City of Husks, and promised delivery to his hotel within forty-eight hours.

After the library trip, Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable explained Yi Chen’s Forbidden Sin Artifact and identified the dangerous administrator as the early evil god Hou Qing. At Cloud Peak Hotel, Yi Chen used the Video Tape to contact William, who eventually pulled him into the theater space to talk.

• Regan chose the painting Sleeping for its ability to bring restful sleep, while Lorien chose a Moon Phase Stone to seek a lunar-affiliated junior.
• Yi Chen told Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable he had chosen a rope, and the Venerable explained its connection to the Dead Sea Evil God and urged him to meet that existence.
• Yi Chen described the library administrator, and Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable identified him as Hou Qing, an early evil god and progenitor of zombies.
• The four returned to Cloud Peak Hotel and felt deep discomfort from its hotel attribute, while Yi Chen remained unable to sleep.
• Yi Chen played the smiling Video Tape and waited until William appeared, then asked to speak with him in person.
• William compromised, and the chair transformed into a theater seat as the Play Skull fastened onto Yi Chen and pulled his consciousness into the Video Tape.

William explained his connection to the hotel manager and urged Yi Chen to take on difficult incidents so William could use him in his pursuit of the truth and the eradication of evil. After Yi Chen ended their conversation and rested, he was summoned to Experimental Zone Eleven to receive a forbidden item under dangerous conditions.

• William admitted that he had met the manager at a banquet two months earlier and said several events, including Rain Man's death and the new plague, had drawn the manager to the Simulated World.
• William claimed he ranked as an Elephant among the evils and asked Yi Chen to choose difficult incidents so William could play him, while describing his ultimate pursuit as finding an answer and erasing all evil.
• Yi Chen cut off William's projection, doubted parts of his account, and went to sleep believing the next day would give him a chance to grow stronger.
• A handover officer wearing a cube badge told Yi Chen that his selected forbidden item had to be collected in Experimental Zone Eleven and required him to sign a waiver acknowledging the risk of death.

Yi Chen entered a containment facility to take custody of ███'s Hanging Rope, a Forbidden Sin Artifact linked to death. After allowing the rope to kill his living body, he returned in a conceptual form with the artifact stored away and asked to leave.

• Yi Chen arrived at the containment facility with Nash, Little Grape, and his other belongings, then changed into an insulating lab coat before proceeding alone.
• The handover officer warned Yi Chen that the rope could threaten even gods and asked whether he still wished to contact it; Yi Chen agreed.
• Yi Chen felt the rope pulling him toward the gallows and ran to the room where it was kept.
• Dark Shadows carried Yi Chen into the noose, revealing that he had chosen to hang himself rather than being compelled by the rope.
• Yi Chen's body died and sank away as the monitoring feed failed, and both he and the rope disappeared from the room.
• Yi Chen appeared at the monitoring room door in a conceptual form and told the handover officer that he had put the item away.

Yi Chen left the laboratory with the Hanging Rope bound safely to him and discovered that it had granted him a compass and a ship for sailing the Dead Sea. Back at the hotel, he prepared to begin his voyage while Jin borrowed William for an expedition to an evil god’s lair.

• Yi Chen convinced the laboratory researchers that the Hanging Rope was safe on his body, then left Experimental Area One after they reported his situation to their superiors.
• Yi Chen recalled that the rope had taken him to the Gallows Platform by the Dead Sea, where he gained a skeletal compass and a medieval galleon, but decided he was not ready to sail yet.
• Jin surprised Yi Chen on his way to the hotel, and he lent her William for her planned visit to an evil god’s lair.
• Yi Chen returned to the hotel to prepare for his voyage, while Regan entered a deep sleep and Lorien began secret self-modification after receiving invitations from the Seven-Layered Heaven and Avalon.
• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable’s disease-focus acceptance plan advanced as the Prime Material Plane offered compensation and sent an engineering team to assess a world portal site.