Chapter Summaries

Yu Xin, Miao Ye, and Shui Sheng reached a deep-sea ruin and surveyed its exterior, confirming its entrances and a possible window. After completing their advance-team mission, they began returning to the surface, hoping to survive the ascent.

• Yu Xin, Miao Ye, and Shui Sheng descended past 7,000 meters and reached a metal structure on the seabed.
• The three put on disposable glasses developed by Tianyu Ancient Village, allowing them to see the ruin in blurry black-and-white.
• Yu Xin and his companions inspected the spherical roof and descended by cable to the cube-shaped building's corners.
• The three found several doors and a window, but could not open the doors or see through the curtained window.
• After confirming the ruin's entrances and using the glasses for fifty minutes, Yu Xin, Miao Ye, and Shui Sheng began floating toward the surface.

Yu Xin grew uneasy as he and his companions climbed away from the Nether Sea ruin, while Shui Sheng discovered that his apparent ascent was an illusion. The chapter left Shui Sheng sinking into the gaping mouth of a gigantic deep-sea monster.

• Yu Xin felt growing terror as he ascended and questioned whether the ruin had hidden its danger from him.
• Shui Sheng noticed he could see clearly without his special glasses, then found that wearing them made his vision sharper and more vivid.
• Shui Sheng saw Miao Ye, Yu Xin, and the surrounding cables disappear, but his dagger and rope movements seemed to confirm that his vision was real.
• Shui Sheng realized the dagger was sinking despite appearing to rise, and saw that the cable beneath him had been bitten through.
• Shui Sheng discovered he had been sinking all along as a gigantic Black Hole opened above him, revealing ghostly green pupils and a monster's maw.

Yu Xin and Miao Ye returned from a deep-sea expedition, while Shui Sheng remained missing. After praising and rewarding Yu Xin, Yang Ling asked him to report what the team had encountered underwater, including the building at the seafloor.

• Yu Xin and Miao Ye surfaced and were rescued, while Shui Sheng did not return.
• Yang Ling welcomed Yu Xin and asked about the dangers the team had encountered, rather than immediately questioning him about the ruins.
• Yu Xin explained that the descent had been mostly uneventful and that the team had used separate cables on the return, leaving them unaware of what happened to Shui Sheng.
• Yang Ling praised the explorers, tripled their rewards, and promised to support Shui Sheng's family for life.
• Yu Xin gave Yang Ling an organized account of the expedition and the building ten thousand meters beneath the sea.

After Yu Xin and Miao Ye separately described a strange underwater building, Yang Ling identified it as an early Nether Era structure and planned a cautious, staged exploration. Two days later, divers mapped more of the ruins at the cost of five lives, preparing to try to open the building on their next descent.

• Yang Ling questioned Yu Xin and Miao Ye separately, then sketched the huge geometric building they had found underwater.
• Yang Ling explained that the building resembled early Nether Era architecture and described a plan to explore its surroundings before entering it.
• Yang Ling told Jiang Qiao that the fleet would wait and send divers in stages rather than risk its commanders on a prolonged underwater exploration.
• After two days without further incidents, thirty divers from twenty-two warships began the second exploration in ten groups.
• Five divers died, but the teams mapped the ruins, finding a floating train station and a place resembling a vegetable market near the building.
• The fleet prepared for a third descent, when the divers would try to open the building and explore its interior.

Xie Te led his group through the Nether Sea to investigate a ruin, where Yang Ling’s talisman opened a window and revealed the building’s interior. The chapter ended as a powerful current flooded through the shattered glass.

• Xie Te descended with Gu De and Mo Ni and joined the exploration of the steel-built ruins.
• Xie Te surveyed a strange Train Station and vegetable market, avoiding the cursed objects and the darkness beyond the tracks.
• Xie Te led Groups Three and Five to open the ruin’s window using a talisman drawn by Yang Ling.
• The talisman made the glass thin and shatter, allowing a tremendous current to rush into the building and reveal what lay inside.

Xie Te and his team explored a dry, lit corridor inside the submerged structure and tested its elevator, which appeared to rise to their floor. The doors opened onto an empty, pitch-black shaft, leaving them facing an apparent danger.

• Xie Te climbed through the window into a dry corridor and left two team members behind while he led six others to explore.
• Xie Te pushed through a broken iron door and found an elevator whose doors he could not force open.
• Xie Te called the elevator and warned his team to prepare to escape in case the noise attracted evil spirits.
• The elevator indicator rose from basement level nine to the fifth floor, where Xie Te and the team retreated through the window into the sea.
• The elevator doors opened to reveal a pitch-black shaft with no elevator car.

Xie Te led his team down the elevator shaft and discovered a corridor that appeared to be part of a laboratory. They began exploring the numbered rooms, while the cause of the strange elevator and the burned skeletons remained unknown.

• Xie Te led his teammates down the dark elevator shaft after leaving people above to relay messages.
• Xie Te found burned skeletons at the bottom and noticed the elevator car and intermediate floors were missing.
• Xie Te arranged for a teammate to carry reports up the shaft because communications equipment did not work in the ruins.
• Xie Te opened the jammed elevator doors and led the team into a brightly lit metal corridor.
• Gu De observed that the corridor looked like a laboratory, and Xie Te identified numbered doors with no descriptions.

Xie Te’s team encountered a supernatural elevator that transformed Xiao Hu into a strange entity, forcing them to flee deeper into the underground corridors. They stopped at a new passage where the rooms had doorknobs and only even-numbered room numbers, unsure whether to continue exploring.

• Xie Te and his team left the identical room doors and heard the elevator activate behind them.
• The elevator doors slammed shut on Xiao Hu as the indicator descended past the Ninth Sub-level to [-99], followed by a tremendous crash.
• Xie Te saw Xiao Hu transformed into a floating mass of black flocculent matter with his head still attached, and led the team away.
• Xie Te’s team fled through several corridors and corners for ten minutes without being pursued.
• Xie Te and Gu De found a corridor of rooms with doorknobs and only even-numbered room numbers, and Xie Te told the team to stay alert and avoid entering unless necessary.

Xie Te and his team waited inside the ruins after the elevator turned dangerous, while reports from the other entrances reached Yang Ling. Yang Ling and Jiang Qiao considered which routes to explore next, leaving the western entrance as their likely entry point and the northern entrance as backup.

• Xie Te warned his team that Xiao Hu had mutated inside the elevator and told them to wait rather than return that way.
• Xie Te's teammates reassured him that they could stay calm and wait for rescuers.
• Exploration teams reported that the northern entrance led to a provisioned living area, while the southern entrance descended to a pool with a boat and an unreachable bottom.
• The western exploration team reported that its members had disappeared beneath an elevator, which later rumbled and indicated the Negative Ninety-ninth Floor.
• The eastern gate remained shut despite attempts to open it, and faint impacts were heard from inside.
• Yang Ling asked Jiang Qiao for his assessment, and Jiang Qiao recommended entering through the west, keeping the north as backup, and postponing exploration of the southern pool.

Jiang Qiao and Yang Ling chose the western window as the exploration team's entry point, while a trapped team led by Xie Te fled deeper into the ruins to avoid an approaching evil spirit. After a door slammed near an anomalous room, Xie Te discovered that Xiao Duan had disappeared.

• Jiang Qiao argued that the team should investigate the western window because something had already gone wrong there, and Yang Ling agreed and gathered the exploration team there.
• Xiao Duan heard an evil spirit approaching the five-person team, so Xie Te led them deeper into the corridor to avoid it.
• After the five had left, dead heads with closed eyes and drifting wisps appeared around the corner they had abandoned.
• Xie Te's team found an open room numbered about 4100 at a three-way junction and chose the middle passage to avoid the anomaly.
• A door slammed in the left passage, and the team ran until they thought the danger had passed.
• Xie Te noticed that Xiao Duan was missing and asked where he had gone.

After Xiao Duan disappeared in an odd-numbered room, Xie Te led the remaining group through the corridor while suspecting that the elevator had released an Evil Spirit. They reached an emergency stairwell, but Xiao Hu and a mass of other dead heads caught up with them, forcing them to flee upstairs.

• Xie Te inferred that odd-numbered rooms dragged away the person at the back, and the group realized Xiao Duan was likely gone.
• Xie Te theorized that Xiao Hu had become an Evil Spirit after the elevator attack and that Xiao Duan might become one too.
• Xie Te, Gu De, Mo Ni, and Lu Gang continued down the corridor and reached a doorless hatch leading to a spiraling emergency stairway.
• A strange mass appeared behind them, and Xie Te recognized Xiao Hu among the dead heads emerging from it.
• Xie Te ordered the group to move and charged upstairs into the emergency passage.

Gu De, Xie Te, Lu Gang, and Mo Ni climbed a trash-filled staircase to an office while fleeing an Evil Spirit. When footsteps appeared both above and below, they entered the office and Xie Te sealed its airtight door, only to realize Mo Ni was missing.

• The group climbed the filthy staircase, where Gu De and Xie Te noticed trash and dust that suggested the upper levels had once been inhabited.
• Xie Te found an office with an airtight door and outlined the risks of entering it or continuing upstairs.
• A sound came from below, followed by footsteps descending from above, and Lu Gang decided the group had to enter the office.
• The group rushed inside, and Xie Te used all his strength to lock the airtight door.
• Xie Te noticed that Mo Ni was gone and that only two teammates remained.

Xie Te, Gu De, and Lu Gang discovered that their memories of teammate Mo Ni and the people who entered the elevator shaft contradicted one another. They realized their memories had been interfered with, but they could not identify the missing people or when the distortion began.

• Xie Te noticed Mo Ni was missing and found that he could not remember when the team entered the office.
• Gu De and Lu Gang gave conflicting accounts of Mo Ni, with Lu Gang unable to recall the teammate Xie Te described.
• Lu Gang recounted the team’s earlier journey and remembered a familiar but unidentifiable person whose presence frightened him.
• Xie Te stopped Lu Gang from probing that memory and asked Gu De to describe his recollection.
• Gu De remembered that Mo Ni had stayed by the window and that six people descended, but could not recall the sixth person.
• Xie Te compared their accounts and realized none of them could remember the complete nine-person roster.

Xie Te, Lu Gang, and Gu De searched an office where their memories had become confused, while a closed iron door appeared to isolate them from the Evil Spirit outside. After Xie Te spotted a figure moving through the water beyond a window, the group discovered that the figure was Gu De, who had vanished from inside the office.

• Xie Te and his companions agreed to compare their memories every ten minutes and stay in the office rather than risk opening the door.
• Xie Te looked through a floor-to-ceiling window and realized the space outside was a large pool, then avoided touching the curtains.
• Lu Gang and Gu De searched the office but found nothing, and Gu De asked whether they should go outside.
• Lu Gang spotted a figure swimming toward the window, and Xie Te initially ordered the others to flee from the apparent Evil Spirit.
• Lu Gang recognized the figure as Gu De, while the Gu De who had been inside the office disappeared.

Yang Ling’s team investigated the submerged ruins and found signs that the first exploration team had vanished, while two survivors, Lu Gang and Xie Te, fled into another office area. The chapter left the investigation facing evidence of an impossible seventh explorer named Shui Sheng.

• Yang Ling’s subordinate reported that the elevator shaft contained carbonized human fat and that the laboratory corridor held an empty, damaged cage.
• The exploration team found Mo Ni’s fountain pen near the corridor, and Yang Ling ordered more personnel to search the rooms for clues about the missing first team.
• Another subordinate reported that biological traces identified in the elevator grease belonged to Xiao Hu, one of the original divers.
• During hypnotic questioning, two of the three crewmen who stayed behind named a seventh person, Shui Sheng, as part of the six-person descent team.
• Lu Gang and Xie Te saw Gu De outside the office window, escaped through the Wooden Door, and entered a vast office area.

Xie Te discovered a photograph that seemed connected to the strange events in the ruin, then confronted a false Lu Gang and found it was a Puppet Person. The photograph showed Gu De posing like a corpse in an office cubicle, leaving Xie Te facing a disturbing clue about his missing teammate and the ruin.

• Xie Te searched the reception room and wondered why the evacuated ruin had no corpses despite records describing a sudden disaster.
• Xie Te found a photograph hidden in a magazine, panicked, and realized Lu Gang had disappeared from the office area.
• Lu Gang returned and claimed he had already told Xie Te he was going to explore the corridor, though Xie Te had only a hazy memory of the conversation.
• Xie Te tested Lu Gang's identity, then stabbed and slashed him when the answers and his strange behavior raised suspicion.
• Xie Te saw that the body was a Puppet Person and recognized Gu De in the photograph, posing like a corpse in an office cubicle.

Xiao Shen’s team found Door Thirty-Six held shut by an apparent evil spirit and prepared to force it open. The chapter left them ready to confront whatever waited in the room, with Xiao Shen and three Awakened soldiers revealing their abilities and weapons.

• Xiao Shen’s team inspected the corridor’s rooms, recording their findings and collecting unusual objects for testing.
• The team discovered that Door Thirty-Six resisted opening, and Xiao Shen saw darkness and something apparently pushing back from inside.
• Xiao Shen concluded that an evil spirit was blocking the door and gathered Zhang Ming, Ma Teng, and Liu Qiang to attack it.
• Xiao Shen exposed his shriveled, supernatural hand, while Ma Teng transformed into a living dead man and Zhang Ming revealed hair that dripped filthy water and concealed body parts.
• Liu Qiang drew a Steam Pistol, and the four prepared to confront the presence behind Door Thirty-Six.

Xiao Shen, Zhang Ming, and Ma Teng forced open the unusual room and confronted a barrel-shaped Evil Spirit made from rotten human flesh. Ma Teng’s curse destroyed it, but the flesh inside had begun to stir, leaving the danger within the room unresolved.

• Ma Teng sensed a sinister presence behind the door while Zhang Ming complained that the team had found nothing in the other rooms.
• Zhang Ming sent his hair and filthy debris through the gap as Xiao Shen reached behind the door and touched a huge mass of rotten flesh.
• Zhang Ming bound the Evil Spirit with his hair while Ma Teng wedged himself between the doors and forced them open, letting the corridor lights dispel the darkness.
• The team saw that the Evil Spirit was a barrel-shaped mass of compressed human flesh, and the sprouts inside it churned as if something were about to emerge.
• Xiao Shen and Zhang Ming restrained most of the Evil Spirit, but they could not stop the flesh inside from stirring.
• Ma Teng shoved the Evil Spirit with his curse, sending it flying and causing it to disintegrate in midair.

After killing the Evil Spirit in the bucket, Ma Teng and the others discovered that the remaining darkness concealed a restricted entity, possibly a Special Weird Tale. Following orders to destroy the Evil Spirits, Liu Qiang blasted open the dark region and revealed a wall covered in strange writing made from writhing Dead Person Fingers.

• Ma Teng sensed that the darkness on the left connected to the real Evil Spirit, which could not emerge directly and used the bucket-side Evil Spirit as an entrance.
• Xiao Shen suggested the hidden entity might be a Special Weird Tale, and Ma Teng agreed it was likely being held for research.
• Zhang Ming sent his hair into the darkness, but the hair vanished, so Xiao Shen reported the anomaly and awaited orders.
• A team member returned with orders to kill all Evil Spirits in the outer area and record everything.
• Liu Qiang fired his Steam Pistol into the darkness, shattering it and revealing a metal wall covered in distorted writing made from writhing Dead Person Fingers.

Yang Ling identified the message in Room Thirty-Six as evidence of a self-aware special weird tale and ordered it brought to the surface in a bronze box. Meanwhile, a five-person exploration squad encountered a shadow filled with dead heads in an even-numbered corridor, and their scarred leader unleashed supernatural power against it.

• Yang Ling explained to Jiang Qiao how special weird tales could communicate and control their rules, then ordered a subordinate to retrieve the one in Room Thirty-Six.
• A five-person squad entered a corridor with only even-numbered doors and found traces suggesting an evil spirit had passed through.
• The squad heard what sounded like a bouncing ball and followed it to a junction, where a shadow containing numerous dead heads emerged.
• The squad leader identified one head as Xiao Hu, a missing team member who had died in the elevator shaft, and wondered where the other heads had come from.
• The leader took out a sheet of A4 paper and spoke to the approaching shadow, triggering a terrifying surge of supernatural power.