Chapter Summaries

Jiang Qiao waited for the Supernatural Bus and witnessed a flock of dead crows scatter an ominous aura over the ancient village, followed by two other strange omens. He boarded the bus to travel to Blue Star, leaving the village under a foreboding shadow.

• Jiang Qiao decided to travel to Blue Star to make preparations and investigate the Supernatural Bus.
• Jiang Qiao saw a flock of dead crows evade the ancient village's defenses, circle the settlement, and scatter a faint black aura over it.
• Jiang Qiao witnessed the sky turn into fiery clouds and saw invisible figures in straw raincoats and Bamboo Hats enter the ancient village.
• Jiang Qiao watched the Supernatural Bus arrive and boarded it, leaving the ancient village behind.

Jiang Qiao traveled back toward Blue Star on the Supernatural Bus, gathering signs of a coming calamity and investigating supernatural anomalies along the way. After witnessing the mist spreading from Golden Rooster Mountain, he arrived back on Blue Star following a six-month journey.

• Jiang Qiao protected passengers from ghosts on the Supernatural Bus and stopped at settlements to gather information.
• Jiang Qiao learned that top factions were secretly stockpiling supplies as supernatural materials grew more expensive.
• Jiang Qiao discovered that a temple filled with writhing eyes had appeared above Changyang Mountain, and suspected it was linked to his Dual Pupils and a deity-level entity.
• Jiang Qiao suspected the Secret Building knew more about the calamity than it admitted after it blamed anomalies and market changes on Blue Star's merger.
• Jiang Qiao passed Golden Rooster Mountain and felt the terror of its expanding mist while the other passengers remained unaware.
• Jiang Qiao returned to Blue Star after traveling for half a year.

Old Liu, a skilled welder living in Xinzhou City, heard rumors of strange deaths and other Supernatural Events outside the city while setting out to fish near his girlfriend A Fang. Though he dismissed his neighbor’s warnings, he decided to tell A Fang he would visit less often.

• Old Liu recalled surviving the Supernatural Revival and settling in Xinzhou City after fleeing Haicheng.
• As Old Liu left to go fishing, neighbors discussed villagers in Ma Family Village who had mysteriously hanged themselves.
• A neighbor recounted how Yang Sanwazi had been bewitched into obsessing over a Puppet Person contaminated with Ghost Qi.
• The neighbor warned Old Liu that several Supernatural Events had gone unreported, but Old Liu brushed off his concerns.
• Old Liu took the warning seriously enough to plan to tell A Fang he would stop visiting so often.

Old Liu caught a long-dead, rotting fish while fishing by the river and fled, convinced it signaled nearby supernatural danger. On his way back, he encountered A Fang, whose sudden appearance left him startled and delighted.

• Old Liu went to his usual fishing spot near the Hydroelectric Station and cast his line.
• Old Liu hooked a huge fish, but found that it was long dead and partly rotted when he pulled it ashore.
• Old Liu recalled the warning that catching a dead fish meant something unclean was nearby, so he abandoned his gear and hurried away.
• Old Liu decided he would report the incident and never fish there again.
• A Fang appeared on Old Liu’s path, and he greeted her with surprise and joy.

Old Liu stayed at A Fang’s shack when a storm threatened, then pondered the dead fish and rumors of hauntings before falling into a disturbing dream. He woke in the middle of the night, found A Fang missing, and heard a laugh resembling hers coming from Old Master Yang’s home.

• Old Liu brought A Fang back to her shack and spent time with her before deciding to stay overnight because a storm was approaching.
• Old Liu recalled the dead fish and stories of rotting corpses in Ma Family Village, then fell asleep and dreamed that he had become a fish surrounded by his dead relatives.
• Old Liu woke after hitting his head on a cabinet and realized A Fang was not in the room.
• Old Liu heard laughter resembling A Fang’s coming from Old Master Yang’s home and wondered if she was cheating on him.

Liu Bing entered a dream covering Xinzhou City as Old Liu, but A Fang revealed herself as a ghost wearing Old Master Yang’s human skin and killed him. He woke outside the city and reported that the dream’s Painted Skin was not its central threat.

• Old Liu suspected A Fang and Old Master Yang were having an affair and crept to Old Master Yang’s house to catch them.
• Old Liu saw A Fang’s severed head on the table, combing her hair, and realized she was a ghost.
• A Fang caught Old Liu as he fled, snapped his neck, and wore Old Master Yang’s human skin.
• Liu Bing woke in a tent outside Xinzhou City after dying in the dream again.
• Liu Bing told the others that changing his identity and memories had not helped him avoid the Painted Skin, which he believed was not the dream’s core.

Liu Bing and the Prayer Association personnel gave up on trying to solve Dream Disaster, which had trapped Xinzhou City in an inescapable dream. Jiang Qiao returned to Blue Star after ten years away, entered the city unharmed, and wondered what ghost was behind its mental-type Ghost Domain.

• Liu Bing and the man in the White Coats concluded that A Fang blocked every attempt to explore Dream Disaster and decided to withdraw and monitor Xinzhou City from a distance.
• The man in the White Coats warned that Xinzhou City was beyond saving as the population of Blue Star continued to dwindle.
• Liu Bing spotted a powerful young man walking into Xinzhou City without reacting to Dream Disaster, prompting the man in the White Coats to order an identification search.
• Jiang Qiao reflected on Blue Star's devastation and the changes that had taken place during his ten-year absence.
• Jiang Qiao reached Xinzhou City, recognized that it was isolated by a mental-type Ghost Domain, and wondered which ghost was responsible.

Jiang Qiao discovered that the Dream Disaster covering Xinzhou City came from a living man, who learned that his power was part of the City God of Xian'an City. The chapter ended with the man shaken by a message that Mr. Paper Figure Maker wanted to meet him at the connection passage next Monday.

• Jiang Qiao walked through Xinzhou City and found its residents and Awakened Ones asleep under a mental-type Ghost Domain.
• Jiang Qiao followed a group of conscious Vicious Ghosts to a hotel, where they told a man that Fishbone Temple was about to open for the second time.
• The Vicious Ghosts revealed that the Dream Disaster was part of the City God of Xian'an City and might be reclaimed by it.
• The man rejected the warning and refused to meet the Vicious Ghosts' master at the connection passage.
• The Vicious Ghosts said Mr. Paper Figure Maker wanted to see the man, leaving him gripping the doorway and visibly unsettled.

Jiang Qiao confronted the man who had trapped Xinzhou City’s residents in dreams, overpowering him and criticizing his disturbing manga. As the man threatened to kill the dreamers and invoked the Paper Figure Maker, Jiang Qiao held him fast.

• Jiang Qiao appeared beside the man and revealed that he knew the residents of Xinzhou City had been sent into dreams.
• Jiang Qiao forced his way into the room, suppressed the man’s supernatural power, and mocked the gruesome ending of his manga.
• The man tried to escape through a window drawn on the wall, but Jiang Qiao caught him and cut off his power.
• The man threatened that the Paper Figure Maker would retaliate and warned that the city’s residents would die in their dreams if Jiang Qiao killed him.

Jiang Qiao subdued a man who had trapped New Continent City’s residents in a dreamscape, but the man tried to save himself with flattery and excuses. Jiang Qiao asked about the Paper Effigy Maker, and the man began explaining his origins.

• The man claimed that killing him would free the living dreamscape and put New Continent City’s residents in greater danger.
• The man offered to leave and help Jiang Qiao, then excused trapping the city’s residents as part of his hunt for an enemy.
• Jiang Qiao dismissed the man’s appeals and asked who the Paper Effigy Maker was and what his current situation was.
• The man said the Paper Effigy Maker inherited the Queyi Sect’s Paper Effigy Shop, a supernatural shop with an ancient inheritance that might involve events from the Age of Darkness.

Jiang Qiao questioned a man about the Missing One Door Paper Figure Shop and learned about the Paper Figure Maker’s past and his connection to Liu Ping. He then asked about the man’s Dream Fish ability, which the man kept only partially fused to avoid being trapped in its dream.

• The man told Jiang Qiao that the Missing One Door Paper Figure Shop came from the Early Nether Era, whose history was fragmented and difficult to study.
• Under Jiang Qiao’s threat, the man explained that the Paper Figure Maker had split himself apart to resist an ominous force, then reassembled his body at Cold Crow Ferry and grew stronger.
• The man revealed that the Paper Figure Maker was staying with Liu Ping in a connecting passage, and Jiang Qiao decided to seek Liu Ping out for intelligence before going to the Yellow Springs Road.
• Jiang Qiao asked about the man’s dream ability, and the man identified it as Dream Fish, a wooden fish whose sound pulled listeners into a dream.
• The man explained that he controlled only half of Dream Fish because fully fusing with it might trap him in its dream forever.

Jiang Qiao learned that the wooden fish might be connected to the City God of Xian'an City and discovered that its owner was a Ninth Tier Peak member of the Judgement Society. He took the wooden fish from the man and used it to awaken Xinzhou City's sleeping residents.

• The man explained that he had found the active wooden fish in an underground lake beneath Kunlun Mountain and doubted Ci Shan's claim that it came from Xian'an City.
• The man revealed that he belonged to the Judgement Society, which monitored the Northern Territory alongside the Guangming Society and the Old Citizens after its prophet entered reincarnation.
• The man admitted he wanted to leave the Judgement Society because the Fishbone Temple's seal had opened, then begged Jiang Qiao to let him go.
• Jiang Qiao offered to turn the man into an ordinary person, and the man threatened that the city's residents would be buried with him if Jiang Qiao harmed him.
• Jiang Qiao took the wooden fish from the man and sent gray light into it, causing Xinzhou City's sleeping residents to begin waking.

Jiang Qiao stripped the Awakened man of his supernatural power and left him disabled and unable to speak as a beggar in Xinzhou City. He restored the man’s stolen eyes to a boy, then left as the former top Awakened disappeared from the Supernatural Circle.

• Jiang Qiao extracted the man’s supernatural power and wooden fish, leaving him an ordinary person.
• The man threatened Jiang Qiao with the Judgement Society and Paper Figure Maker, so Jiang Qiao crushed his crotch and legs and damaged his voice.
• Jiang Qiao sent the disabled man to a main street in Xinzhou City and took his eyes.
• Jiang Qiao gave the eyes to a boy who had awakened blind after a dream, and the boy regained his sight.
• Jiang Qiao left the blind, speechless, crippled man behind as a beggar in Xinzhou City.

Jiang Qiao resolved the Dream Disaster in Xinzhou City and headed for the Connecting Corridor in Yue City to visit the Paper Figure Maker and an old friend, Durahan. Outside Xinzhou, the White Coats contacted the authorities and the Prayer Association while keeping their distance from the city.

• The Awakened outside Xinzhou City saw the dreamscape disappear and the city's residents moving again.
• The White Coats ordered staff to contact the city government and the Prayer Association, and warned everyone not to approach until help arrived.
• The White Coats reflected on Blue Star's decline, the rarity of powerful Awakened, and the missing strongest member of the Weird Second Generation.
• Jiang Qiao considered Blue Star's looming collapse and decided to visit the Paper Figure Maker, who had ended up with Liu Ping.
• Jiang Qiao planned to enter the Connecting Corridor through Yue City and visit Durahan at the boundary of the Abyss.

Jiang Qiao revisited Yue City, now a city-state ruled by a ruthless organization from the Supernatural World, and discovered that its former village of strange beings had vanished. After an invisible warning membrane activated, Yue City began shifting into Deep Space, and its ruler confronted him.

• Jiang Qiao arrived at Human Head Mountain and reflected on how disasters and the Guangming Society’s withdrawal had left Yue City devastated and under a new city-state government.
• Jiang Qiao found the mountain village deserted and noted that its Half-God protector and the human face he had once fought in the River of History had left.
• Jiang Qiao entered Yue City and passed through an almost imperceptible warning membrane fused with the ground.
• The city’s supernatural aura spread as pedestrians vanished and Yue City began connecting to Deep Space or replacing the real world.
• Jiang Qiao said he had come to find the Connecting Corridor and told the city’s ruler not to interfere, provoking an angry threat.

Jiang Qiao was surrounded in Yue City after the locals suspected he had killed Meng Cheng, but he easily humiliated their leader and exposed the source of his power. The chapter ended with the furious man preparing to attack after Jiang Qiao mocked his bond with a Supernatural Item.

• Soldiers and Awakened surrounded Jiang Qiao, and a middle-aged man accused him of killing Meng Cheng after Meng Cheng's Life Candle went out.
• Jiang Qiao denied the accusation and mocked the man for waiting to ambush someone he believed had killed Meng Cheng.
• The man trapped Jiang Qiao in a coffin made from six Decaying Wooden Boards, but Jiang Qiao escaped and crushed him into the ground with a stomp.
• The man summoned a powerful shadow through Divine Descent, and Jiang Qiao recognized it as the Artifact Spirit of a Supernatural Item.
• Jiang Qiao mocked the man for worshipping an object, and the humiliated man roared that he would kill him.

Jiang Qiao exposed a Ninth Tier Peak man’s forbidden pact with an Artifact Spirit and effortlessly destroyed its incarnation. After killing the man and everyone who tried to surround him, Jiang Qiao returned to the main street.

• Jiang Qiao taunted the man for worshiping an Artifact Spirit to borrow its power and revealed the man’s plan to eventually devour it.
• The man raged at Jiang Qiao and attacked, but Jiang Qiao remained untouched while the man mistook him for an illusion.
• Jiang Qiao crushed the Artifact Spirit’s incarnation, ending its Divine Descent and breaking the channel within the man.
• Jiang Qiao told the man the Artifact Spirit’s main body remained alive, then disintegrated the man.
• Jiang Qiao destroyed the surrounding soldiers, Awakened, and Supernatural Space with lightning, then reappeared on the main street.

Jiang Qiao investigated a second Supernatural passage in Yue City and found Vicious Ghosts that appeared to be pieces of a hidden puzzle. At the Management Committee headquarters, officials worried that city lord Yu Zhou and half the Guard Team had vanished, while an unseen young voice mocked Yu Zhou’s name.

• Jiang Qiao found a flaming Vicious Ghost among corpses in a ruined eastern building and discovered an identical corpse nearby.
• Jiang Qiao inferred that the Vicious Ghosts were pieces of a puzzle and inspected a Wood Door that opened onto a passage ending at a sealed iron gate.
• Jiang Qiao saw that the iron gate concealed a vast, dark void and suspected more puzzle pieces were needed to open it.
• A middle-aged official at the Management Committee headquarters panicked over the disappearance of Yu Zhou and half the Guard Team.
• An unseen young voice called Yu Zhou a lousy name.

Jiang Qiao learned that the iron gate was linked to a strange mission building and opened it by placing three Vicious Ghosts around the Wood Door. He saw a nine-story building appear beyond the gate, but his Dual Pupils could not see inside, suggesting the place involved a Half-God.

• Jiang Qiao learned from the Vice City Lord that Vicious Ghosts kept the iron gate sealed and that the building behind it forced ordinary people to undertake dangerous missions.
• Jiang Qiao connected the building to the Survivor System and the Green Lotus Sect, then chose to investigate it before traveling to the Connecting Corridor.
• Jiang Qiao arranged three Vicious Ghosts around the Wood Door, and they dissolved as the corridor and iron gate transformed.
• Jiang Qiao opened the gate and saw a nine-story building appear beyond it.
• Jiang Qiao found that his Dual Pupils could not see through the building and suspected it involved a Half-God.

Jiang Qiao entered the Malevolent Ghost Building and learned that its residents faced frequent missions, high death rates, and a chance to become Awakened only after surviving two missions. When veteran Liu Chuan tried to bully him, Jiang Qiao revealed his own strength and realized the building’s missions rapidly forced people to grow.

• Jiang Qiao entered the lobby, where residents described weekly missions, a high death rate, and the opportunity to become Awakened after two missions.
• A man called Brother Wang reassured new arrivals while secretly intending to use them as cannon fodder, and others warned that Liu Chuan might do the same to Jiang Qiao.
• Liu Chuan confronted Jiang Qiao and reached to grab his hair, but discovered Jiang Qiao was an Awakened when Jiang Qiao seized him by the neck.
• Jiang Qiao questioned Liu Chuan about his five missions and Third Tier strength, then inferred that the building’s frequent missions accelerated growth along a different path from the Survivor System.