Chapter Summaries

Jiang Qiao explored the ruined ST Express shop in a dead city perched above a bottomless cliff and found a bloodstained vintage dress that stirred memories of Hometown. He left the chapter considering the dangers attached to clothes rumored to have been taken from the dead.

• Jiang Qiao entered the city near its edge and saw a smooth cliff dropping into darkness beyond it.
• Jiang Qiao searched the abandoned ST Express shop, where old packages and damaged goods reminded him of the past.
• Jiang Qiao suppressed his nostalgia, wary that supernatural forces could use memories to erode his consciousness.
• Jiang Qiao found a bloodstained white dress in a package labeled as coming from a vintage clothing store.
• Jiang Qiao recalled stories of supposedly haunted vintage garments, including a dress whose owner developed insomnia and whose recipient later died by suicide.

Jiang Qiao found a notebook describing a supernatural story-writing game that had run from December 12, 2021, to December 12, 2024, and sensed something strange in the warehouse. He began reading the first story, about a volunteer teacher whose gifted student lived with his grandmother, a local shaman.

• Jiang Qiao found a small iron box beneath bloodstained clothes and read instructions asking participants to wear the clothes and record true supernatural stories.
• Jiang Qiao figured out that participants mailed the clothes and notebook from one person to the next, and noticed the stories spanned three years on matching December 12 dates.
• Jiang Qiao sensed someone moving things at the warehouse entrance, though he detected no Supernatural Aura.
• Jiang Qiao read a story by a volunteer teacher who described a gifted, aloof student whose parents had died and whose elderly grandmother was a famous local shaman.

Jiang Qiao read a teacher’s account of a boy whose relatives had died in a series of accidents, leaving him with only his grandmother. After visiting their home and being warned not to eat an old apple from the altar, the teacher dreamed that someone was searching outside his house.

• The teacher learned that the boy’s parents, two uncles, and aunt had all died in accidents, leaving the boy and his grandmother alone.
• Villagers blamed the grandmother, a former fortune teller and healer, for the family’s deaths and avoided her.
• The teacher visited the grandmother’s clean two-story home and noticed an altar with family memorial tablets and a deity called Fude Boy.
• The grandmother insisted that the teacher take an apple from the altar, but the boy quietly warned him that it was old and unclean.
• The teacher left two hundred yuan for the boy and later dreamed that someone anxiously searched outside his house.

Liu Fude’s story described the narrator’s unsettling final days as a volunteer teacher and his fear that the Little Boy’s apple had brought him into danger. After connecting Liu Fude to the Green Lotus Sect, Jiang Qiao watched the notebook disintegrate as a Soul-Calling Banner and lit red candle appeared outside.

• The narrator left the village after three years of teaching, and the village chief later told him that the Little Boy’s Grandmother had died on the day he departed.
• The narrator recalled dreaming of the Grandmother eating an apple and remembered that the Little Boy had called an apple unclean, so he decided never to return to the village.
• Jiang Qiao read the account and realized Liu Fude had existed in his homeland long before Jiang Qiao transmigrated there.
• Jiang Qiao wondered how Liu Fude and the Green Lotus Sect could have endured for so long, then saw the notebook crumble into scraps.
• Jiang Qiao looked across the street and saw a Soul-Calling Banner above a lit red candle as the surroundings began to change.

Jiang Qiao examined the Soul-Calling Banner and unnaturally steady candle, considering how the candle might open a passage into a supernatural space. He crouched to inspect it, while the chapter recounted a girl’s eerie encounter in an alley and the fatal accident that followed.

• Jiang Qiao left the courier shop and went to inspect the Soul-Calling Banner and red candle.
• Jiang Qiao observed that the candle burned steadily despite the sinister wind and considered its possible supernatural functions.
• Jiang Qiao crouched to bring his eyes level with the candlelight.
• A story described a sick high-school girl who saw a passerby and a child on a balcony while crouching in an alley.
• The next morning, the girl learned that the child had fallen and struck an old woman, who later died.
• The girl avoided the alley afterward, and the neighborhood was eventually demolished and its residents moved away.

Jiang Qiao used a red candle to see into Deep Space and unleashed black lightning on the figures inside a residential building, destroying them before the candle burned out. He found that the surface and Deep Space versions of the building affected each other, then headed toward the city center as Don and Liu Yuanyuan heard distant thunder and encountered a fleeing living person.

• Jiang Qiao saw corpse-like figures in the residential building through the candlelight and recognized that the candle revealed an overlapping supernatural space.
• Jiang Qiao sent black lightning through the candlelight, engulfing the building and silencing its strange cries.
• The candle burned out, and Jiang Qiao saw that the Deep Space attack had left the surface building badly damaged.
• Jiang Qiao pulled up the Soul-Calling Banner and walked toward the city center to explore.
• Don and Liu Yuanyuan heard distant thunder and then saw a terrified living person rush out of a shop.

Don tried to kill Lin Chao when the man emerged from the city, but Liu Yuanyuan stopped him and questioned the badly injured survivor. Lin Chao said he had arrived by Supernatural Bus to find a grave and had escaped a skinned dog in Meimei Supermarket.

• Lin Chao ran toward Don and Liu Yuanyuan, begging for help, and Don surrounded him with corrosive water mist.
• Liu Yuanyuan suppressed Don’s supernatural power and ordered him to spare Lin Chao long enough for questioning.
• Liu Yuanyuan asked why Lin Chao was in the city, and he said he was a survivor who had come by Supernatural Bus to complete a mission.
• Lin Chao explained that his mission was to find a grave built inside a shop in the city center.
• Lin Chao said a skinned dog attacked him inside Meimei Supermarket and that he believed it was at least Sixth Tier.

Don and Liu Yuanyuan questioned Lin Chao, learned that the Supernatural Bus came to the northern bus station every thirty days, and decided to head there with him. Meanwhile, Jiang Qiao encountered a fleeing Fifth-Tier Awakened named Lin Chao and stopped him in his tracks.

• Lin Chao told Don and Liu Yuanyuan about the strange but mostly harmless phenomena he had encountered while searching for a grave for seven days.
• Liu Yuanyuan concluded that they were in the safe surface space, with most dangers lying in Deep Space.
• Lin Chao explained that the Supernatural Bus came to the northern long-distance bus station every thirty days and was his way out after he found the grave.
• Don and Liu Yuanyuan decided to travel north with Lin Chao and keep him with them until the bus arrived.
• Jiang Qiao walked through the city and observed supernatural sounds coming from shops that were empty when approached.
• A terrified Fifth-Tier Awakened named Lin Chao fled from a pet clinic, and Jiang Qiao stopped him from running closer.

Jiang Qiao questioned Lin Chao, a survivor searching for a grave in the city, then let him go and secretly watched him choose a direction. Jiang Qiao suspected Lin Chao was acting strangely but left him alone to continue exploring.

• Lin Chao told Jiang Qiao he had arrived by Ghost Train to find a grave and described a fast, childlike ghost that had been pursuing him.
• Lin Chao said he was from Village No. 301 and had lived in the Supernatural World for thirty years.
• Jiang Qiao told Lin Chao there was no grave in the direction he had come from, then disappeared.
• Lin Chao hesitated before heading toward the direction Jiang Qiao had indicated, apparently not trusting his warning.
• Jiang Qiao watched Lin Chao from an abandoned mahjong parlor and remarked on his peculiar behavior before leaving.

Lin Chao led Don and Liu Yuanyuan toward the long-distance bus station through the deserted city. A ghost child appeared beneath a flickering streetlight, and Liu Yuanyuan prepared to attack before it could escape the lamppost’s shadow.

• Lin Chao explained that the city stood on a stone pillar and that buses were the only way out he knew of.
• Don and Liu Yuanyuan noticed a streetlight that Lin Chao said had not been there before.
• A ghost child formed inside the streetlight’s shadow and faced the three without attacking.
• Liu Yuanyuan concluded that the ghost child could not leave the shadow while the light remained on and drew her saber to strike first.

Jiang Qiao investigated records from the abandoned town and found accounts of supernatural incidents hidden in ordinary diaries and police reports. The chapter ended as an Uncle Hat went to inspect the mourning apartment where a delivery streamer had experienced a strange disappearance of time and evidence.

• Jiang Qiao read a schoolgirl’s diary about getting lost in an Underground Garage while playing hide-and-seek and noticed that her mother had died a month before the entry.
• Jiang Qiao found reports of a terrified tenant who repeatedly called the police about someone hiding in her home, though officers found no one there.
• A delivery streamer described being sent to a mourning apartment at a nonexistent address, then finding that half an hour had passed and the building and call history had changed.
• An Uncle Hat checked the streamer’s phone for suspicious apps, then went to investigate the second neighborhood and its mourning apartment.

Uncle Hat’s investigation into an alleged ash-storage room came to nothing, but the resident he questioned later died with his family in a fire. Elsewhere, Jiang Qiao found a dead Lin Chao and destroyed the little ghost that appeared in an internet café.

• Uncle Hat checked the reported apartment and property management office but found no evidence that ashes were being stored there.
• Half a month later, the old man from Room Four, Building Three, died in a fire with his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and grandson after a cheap charger short-circuited.
• While speaking with the old man’s son, Uncle Hat learned that a room in a neighboring complex had once belonged to the family and had been sold a year earlier.
• Jiang Qiao found a dead Lin Chao outside an internet café and concluded that he was a Replicant, possibly one of many in the city.
• A computer in the café turned on by itself and revealed a child ghost matching Lin Chao’s description of the little ghost hunting him.
• Jiang Qiao blasted the ghost with Ninth Rank Thunder Art, destroying it and exploding the computer.

Don, Liu Yuanyuan, and Lin Chao reached a bus station where fifty identical little ghosts appeared, turning the waiting hall into a deadly trap. The ghosts devoured Lin Chao and then charged at Don and Liu Yuanyuan despite their attempts to hide.

• Liu Yuanyuan split a little ghost with her saber, and Don destroyed its body after suspecting it was a clone or Ghost Slave.
• Don, Liu Yuanyuan, and Lin Chao entered the waiting hall and saw the display report fifty ghosts as the little ghosts appeared.
• Don and Liu Yuanyuan attacked the children and concealed themselves in water mist, while Don left Lin Chao exposed.
• The little ghosts devoured Lin Chao, then spotted Don and Liu Yuanyuan and charged at them.

Liu Yuanyuan and Don fought through a growing swarm of little ghosts at the intercity bus station, then retreated using Liu Yuanyuan’s clones to draw the ghosts away. They escaped the densest horde, but a figure appeared in the road ahead as the ghosts continued chasing them.

• Liu Yuanyuan and Don fought off the first wave of little ghosts, but streetlights awakened swarms across the bus station and surrounding streets.
• Don turned his corrosive mist into rain, dissolving many ghosts, while Liu Yuanyuan warned that they could not keep fighting indefinitely.
• Liu Yuanyuan created nine clones to lure the ghosts away, then led Don through a gap in the horde toward their original route.
• Liu Yuanyuan suspected a powerful being was controlling the ghosts, and Don worried that it might be an evil spirit in Deep Space.
• Liu Yuanyuan and Don fought their way out of the horde and ran down a deserted street, where someone suddenly appeared ahead of them.

Jiang Qiao reunited with Liu Yuanyuan and Don, who were being overwhelmed by little ghosts, and unleashed immense lightning that swept through the ghosts and surrounding buildings. Liu Yuanyuan sensed Jiang Qiao had become extraordinarily powerful, while Don could only watch in terror as the attack consumed the area.

• Don moved to attack Jiang Qiao, but Liu Yuanyuan stopped him and warned that provoking Jiang Qiao could get him killed.
• Liu Yuanyuan told Don that she had met Jiang Qiao ten years earlier in an abandoned death village and knew little about him beyond his name and immense strength.
• Jiang Qiao greeted Liu Yuanyuan, teased her for speaking too formally, and noted that he had questions for the pair.
• As the little ghosts closed in and Don struggled to hold them back, Jiang Qiao raised his hand and summoned lightning that tore open the sky.
• Enormous Lightning Tornadoes swept through the little ghosts and buildings, leaving Don trembling in fear at Jiang Qiao's overwhelming power.

Jiang Qiao destroyed the imps with his Lightning Tornado, and Liu Yuanyuan confirmed he had reached the Ninth Rank before recounting how she and Don entered the city. She shared symbols and inscriptions tied to the underworld ruins, leaving Jiang Qiao intent on meeting her friend to learn more.

• Jiang Qiao’s Lightning Tornado leveled everything within a thousand meters, and Liu Yuanyuan recognized that he had reached the Ninth Rank.
• Liu Yuanyuan told Jiang Qiao that she and Don had reached the city through ruins beneath Ma Dang Mountain, where imps attacked them after they entered the bus station.
• Liu Yuanyuan explained that an ancient village elder had copied strange writing from underworld ruins before dying, then showed Jiang Qiao the copied rules and phrases, including “Steal the Beam and Replace the Pillars.”
• Jiang Qiao wondered whether the inscriptions concerned true gods and false gods, then asked Liu Yuanyuan for her friend’s name and whereabouts.

Jiang Qiao searched the station for a hidden entrance to Deep Space, then discovered that Lin Chao was repeatedly emerging from a concealed spatial crack. The chapter ended with Jiang Qiao locating the crack and preparing to investigate it.

• Jiang Qiao learned from Liu Yuanyuan that Zhong Huai was from Tianyu Ancient Village and was stationed at Demon Port, and decided to wait for him.
• Jiang Qiao considered the legends of Immortals and the Green Lotus Sect, suspecting that the ancient path to immortality differed from the supernatural path.
• Jiang Qiao found a hidden road in the station and punched through space, but the rift opened into the Void Abyss rather than Deep Space.
• Jiang Qiao killed one Lin Chao and trapped another when they appeared, recognizing them as Replicants that kept returning.
• Jiang Qiao waited at the spot where Lin Chao appeared and detected a concealed spatial crack, declaring that he had found it.

Jiang Qiao, Liu Yuanyuan, and Don discovered that the Lin Chao they had met was a Replicant, then entered Deep Space through a portal Jiang Qiao opened. Inside, they found a bustling bus station filled with ordinary people, and Jiang Qiao realized it was intertwined with a hidden tributary of the River of History.

• Liu Yuanyuan explained that the Lin Chao they had met had never really been chased by a skinned stray dog.
• Jiang Qiao revealed that Lin Chao was a Replicant who inherited the memories of the original Lin Chao, likely created after the original died.
• Jiang Qiao opened a portal into Deep Space, and Liu Yuanyuan and Don followed him through.
• The group emerged in a crowded bus station full of ordinary people, shocking Don.
• Jiang Qiao recognized the place as a tributary of the River of History after the Simulator sent a popup to his clone.

Jiang Qiao watched the blood light over the Nether Sea and received an unexpected Simulator warning about a hidden tributary of the River of History. He connected the warning to Thunder Spirit’s severed link inside Deep Space and considered how the ruins might reveal the truth about his homeland and the world.

• Jiang Qiao learned from the drunks that the blood light heralded a major Nether Sea storm, while Demon Port’s Taboo Weapon kept the city protected.
• The Simulator activated by itself and announced that Jiang Qiao had found a hidden tributary containing secrets about supernatural origins, his homeland, and the world’s future.
• Jiang Qiao recalled that his connection to Thunder Spirit had been severed after it entered Deep Space, as had his connections in the Void Abyss and the Nether Sea.
• Jiang Qiao reviewed what he knew about supernatural contamination, his homeland’s apocalypse, the Red Moon Project, and the evacuation to Blue Star.
• Jiang Qiao wondered whether the Nether Sea’s evil gods and the false gods’ corruption were connected to the Red Moon’s pollution.

In Deep Space, Jiang Qiao learned that Liu Yuanyuan had come to Demon Port seeking the Return Journey Research Institute’s hidden Rising Sun laboratory, which studied the supernatural’s fundamental structure. Their conversation stopped when a man Jiang Qiao recognized stepped off a bus.

• Jiang Qiao wondered what the Simulator meant by a secret that could know someone in return, then used a dark-red talisman to enter Deep Space.
• Jiang Qiao asked Liu Yuanyuan about the River of History, and she explained that it held every past event and could help a Half-God resurrect.
• Jiang Qiao revealed that Deep Space corresponded to an abandoned city and contained people and actions preserved from history.
• Liu Yuanyuan admitted that the Return Journey Research Institute had built the ruin and that she had come looking for its Rising Sun laboratory, which had investigated the supernatural and discovered a new path.
• A thin man in a windbreaker stepped off a bus, and Jiang Qiao recognized him.