Chapter Summaries

Yu Sheng and the others recovered the Weeper statue and learned that the corpse’s message pointed to the dangerous Angel Cultists. Seeking a way to leave the Otherworld early, Yu Sheng planned to create a spectacle, but thunderous applause rang through the museum before he could act.

• Yu Sheng recounted the dead man’s message, and Little Red Riding Hood recorded it while Eileen and Huli reacted to his account of the frozen hall.
• Huli sent her tails through the corridor and retrieved the Weeper statue, confirming part of the dead man’s information.
• Little Red Riding Hood warned Yu Sheng that the Angel Cultists worshipped the Dark Angel and urged him to stay away from them.
• Little Red Riding Hood explained that they could leave early if Museum Night reached a grand finale, and Yu Sheng proposed creating colossal art by destroying exhibits.
• Before Yu Sheng and Huli could carry out his plan, thunderous applause erupted throughout the museum.

Yu Sheng and his companions escaped Museum Night when their outrageous plan triggered a curtain call, then left the museum with the Weeper sculpture. After parting from Little Red Riding Hood, Yu Sheng called Baili Qing to warn the Special Operations Bureau before opening a door home.

• Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood realized that suggesting a massive Fox Tail explosion had likely created enough deviation from the museum’s script to trigger the curtain call.
• Yu Sheng kept the Weeper sculpture as his first exploration spoils, and the group returned to the ticket window, where Little Red Riding Hood’s wolves searched for traces of other visitors.
• Little Red Riding Hood took the sculpture to deliver to the Curiosity Association’s client and said she would investigate the commission and arrange Yu Sheng’s payment.
• Little Red Riding Hood warned Yu Sheng that the Special Operations Bureau would contact him about the white exhibition hall and cautioned him against contact with the Dark Angel.
• Yu Sheng and his companions parted from Little Red Riding Hood, and he called Baili Qing to notify the Special Operations Bureau before opening a door home.

Baili Qing consulted the voice resembling her own about the Dark Angels and the mysterious No. 66 Wutong Road, learning that the address might lie far beyond even subspace. Yu Sheng spent a sleepless night researching his encounter with the dead and watching Eileen tumble around in her sleep.

• Baili Qing asked the eyes outside her window what they had discovered about the One-Eye and the hidden No. 66 Wutong Road.
• The eyes said the address might be so distant that its reflection in the Crossroads was only a faint shadow, and Baili Qing revealed that its occupant had called her about opening a door at the museum.
• Yu Sheng searched the Border Communication database for information about Spirit Talk but found no method resembling his experience in the white exhibition hall.
• Eileen sleepily threatened someone from Alice's Cabin, fell off Yu Sheng's bed, and climbed back onto it, leaving Yu Sheng unable to sleep.

Unable to sleep after his first Otherworld exploration, Yu Sheng went to the attic to experiment with his blood and alchemy. He failed to control the clay arm he made, but as dawn broke, he kept sculpting a spare doll body without noticing that his first creation had begun to move.

• Yu Sheng found his bloodstained coat and wondered what his blood could do, then went to the attic to investigate.
• Yu Sheng tried to infuse his blood with spirituality but could not sense or control that power.
• Yu Sheng mixed his blood into clay, sculpted an arm, and failed to make it move.
• Yu Sheng continued making a complete spare doll body as dawn arrived, unaware that the arm's fingers twitched and the torso began to rise and fall.

Yu Sheng’s attempt to practice making Eileen a clay body unexpectedly created a second body that shared her consciousness. After Eileen discovered she could see and feel through both bodies, Yu Sheng explained his experiment, and she angrily confronted him.

• Yu Sheng finished assembling a clay doll body and noticed it seemed to breathe before he called Eileen’s name.
• The clay body transformed into a second Eileen, who woke up disoriented and fell from the table.
• Eileen realized she was simultaneously in two bodies, and Yu Sheng hurried downstairs to check on her original body.
• Both Eileens confirmed they shared one consciousness, while the new body struggled to balance.
• Yu Sheng admitted he had sculpted a backup body as an experiment, and Eileen angrily reacted to his explanation.

Yu Sheng and Eileen discovered that the newly created doll body could move beyond the oil painting’s distance restriction, though the painting still determined which body felt like Eileen’s real one. They began testing the two-body arrangement and called Huli to help.

• Eileen realized that her new body had awakened in the attic more than five meters from the oil painting, and Yu Sheng suspected his blood and calling her name had brought it to life.
• Eileen described the new shell as numb and sluggish, and Yu Sheng found that the body carrying the oil painting felt like her main body.
• Yu Sheng proposed testing how far the secondary body could travel and how Eileen could adapt to controlling both shells.
• Eileen lost her balance while trying to get Huli, so Yu Sheng went to wake Huli himself.
• Huli saw the two Eileens and mistook them for immortal practitioners before Yu Sheng explained the accident.
• Yu Sheng handed Huli the oil painting and asked her to take it to the attic.

Yu Sheng tested Eileen’s connection to her oil painting and prepared to take her and Huli to the valley for further experiments, while worrying about the cost of their upcoming supplies. Their trip to the farmers market was interrupted when Ren Wenwen unexpectedly pulled up beside them.

• Huli retrieved Eileen’s oil painting, and Yu Sheng confirmed that a doll body had to stay within five meters of it to maintain Eileen’s connection.
• Yu Sheng decided to test how far Eileen’s main body could carry her secondary body and the painting, choosing the valley as the testing ground.
• Eileen adapted to controlling two bodies and began talking through both at once until Yu Sheng told her to use only one.
• Yu Sheng planned to buy food, vegetable seeds, farming tools, and building materials, then took Huli and Eileen toward the farmers market by taxi.
• Ren Wenwen arrived in a silver-gray car before Yu Sheng’s ride-hailing driver and greeted them.

Yu Sheng took Huli and Eileen to shop for supplies after Ren Wenwen gave them a ride to the Farmers Market. He stocked up on food and farming supplies for the valley, while also discovering an Otherworld nearby and recording its location as a doorway marker.

• Ren Wenwen drove Yu Sheng, Huli, and Eileen to the North Entrance of Huaiyang Street and told Yu Sheng about the Argraideans while asking about his new book.
• Yu Sheng found a Special Operations Bureau node near the market and recorded the coordinates of a nearby low-risk Otherworld called Shop as a doorway marker.
• Yu Sheng bought wholesale food for Huli and stored the goods in her tail.
• Yu Sheng bought vegetable seeds and tools because he planned to farm in the valley, then asked Huli whether her tail could store living chicks.
• Huli said she could preserve living creatures in her tail with immortal magic, and Eileen realized Yu Sheng had meant to stock up in the valley all along.

Yu Sheng finished shopping and brought his supplies, Huli, and Eileen to Nightfall Valley to prepare a camp and begin farming. As he cleared the temple ruins, his control over the valley seemed to deepen.

• Yu Sheng bought chicks and let Huli take charge of raising them, though he warned her to wait until they were grown before eating them.
• Eileen reported that she could control both bodies from a distance and was learning to move the secondary body with less direct input.
• Yu Sheng discovered a new one-tap “Open Door” filing button in Border Communication, then used it to return home with Huli and Eileen.
• At home, Yu Sheng saw Eileen’s secondary body walk around and tested its ability to move with minimal instructions; Huli named two chicks White Cut and Salt Baked.
• Yu Sheng brought everyone to Nightfall Valley, where he cleared the ruined temple’s rubble and felt his control over the land advance another step.

Yu Sheng shaped the valley into a base and tested how far apart Eileen’s two puppet bodies could remain connected. The test showed no weakening across the valley, so Yu Sheng opened a door to a distant forest to try separating them across different spaces.

• Yu Sheng reshaped the valley and built a raised platform and a small shelter for the hostel’s future base.
• Yu Sheng arranged for one of Eileen’s puppet bodies to travel with Huli while he carried the other to the mountain-range edge.
• Huli raced across the valley with Eileen aboard, while Yu Sheng used a door to reach the far side ahead of them.
• Eileen reported that her connection to the other body had no delay or noticeable weakening across the valley.
• Yu Sheng opened a door to a distant forest and asked Eileen to test whether the connection would hold across different spaces, and she agreed.

Yu Sheng and Eileen tested the limits of Eileen’s second doll body and discovered that it could act with minimal attention and perform simple tasks through instinct. Yu Sheng proposed making more bodies and experimenting with stronger materials, including replacing a doll’s wire skeleton with rebar.

• Yu Sheng took Eileen through a gate into a tropical rainforest, confirmed that her two bodies remained connected across dimensions, and brought her back to the valley.
• Yu Sheng summarized that Eileen needed the painting frame with one doll as her primary body, while her other body could operate at great distances but performed less well.
• Eileen discovered that her second body could move with little of her attention and could complete simple tasks through instincts that appeared after she first controlled it.
• Yu Sheng wondered whether Eileen could control a third body and suggested making more dolls, and Eileen agreed to consider testing the idea if he warned her beforehand.
• Yu Sheng proposed trying different doll materials and strengthening a future body by replacing its wire skeleton with rebar, shocking Eileen.

Yu Sheng planned improvements for the valley base, including a permanent entrance and a reinforced-concrete body for Eileen. As the valley recovered and Huli took two named chicks to raise at home, Yu Sheng received a phone call from Li Lin despite being inside the Otherworld.

• Yu Sheng suggested building Eileen a reinforced-concrete body and started planning improvements to the valley camp.
• Huli placed chicks in a makeshift coop, while Yu Sheng discussed growing food and diverting water for the inn's base.
• Yu Sheng proposed using alchemy to create a permanent passage so Eileen and Huli could enter the valley without his help.
• Yu Sheng watched the valley's vegetation and terrain recover, then agreed to let Huli take two chicks named White Cut and Salt Baked home.
• Yu Sheng received a call from Li Lin and answered after realizing his phone had a signal in the valley.

Song Cheng visited Yu Sheng to investigate the Angel Cultists at the museum and deliver the Inn’s registration documents and digital access devices. He also paid Yu Sheng a substantial reward for helping the Special Operations Bureau, leaving Yu Sheng eager to spend the money on Eileen, Huli, and his plans.

• Song Cheng arrived at Yu Sheng’s home with Li Lin and Xu Jiali, and the visitors were surprised to find two Eileens.
• Song Cheng gave Yu Sheng the Inn’s legal registration documents and explained how its digital devices could access the Special Operations Bureau’s information platform and send an emergency alert.
• Yu Sheng gave one device to Huli to hide in her tail, startling Song Cheng.
• Song Cheng explained that the Bureau was searching for the Angel Cultists and praised Yu Sheng’s detailed intelligence from the museum.
• Song Cheng offered Yu Sheng a reward for assisting in the hunt, and Yu Sheng began thinking about what the money could buy.

Yu Sheng received payment from Song Cheng and learned about the Dark Angels, including the First Angel’s history and deadly effects. The chapter ended with Song Cheng explaining that Dark Angels were believed to be invaders from beyond their world.

• Song Cheng paid Yu Sheng for his first cooperation with the Special Operations Bureau and began explaining the Dark Angel and Angel Cult.
• Song Cheng showed Yu Sheng a photograph of Contact Zero, whose body had transformed into a tree after prolonged exposure to the First Angel.
• Song Cheng explained that Dark Angels had varied characteristics and that the eye Yu Sheng saw in Nightfall Valley had weak offensive properties.
• Song Cheng described the First Angel, also called the Tree Angel or Inverted Tree, and its mental influence that could make witnesses believe they were trees.
• Song Cheng recounted the First Angel’s devastating appearances in the Otherworld and on a distant planet, where it affected over a hundred thousand people.
• Yu Sheng asked where Dark Angels came from, and Song Cheng said the prevailing theory was that they were invaders from beyond their world.

Yu Sheng learned that Dark Angel were intruders from beyond the world whose influence warped the Otherworld and transformed people into Angel Cultists. The chapter left him with the danger of investigating them too deeply and the mystery of whether they shared a mind or purpose.

• Song Cheng explained that the Special Operations Bureau suspected Yu Sheng could drive out Dark Angel because the giant eye had left after seeing him.
• Yu Sheng read files on several Dark Angel, including the Heka Star, a four-thousand-kilometer entity whose radio broadcasts might drive intelligent life mad.
• Song Cheng described how Dark Angel infected the Otherworld, making its entities and rules more dangerous, and suggested the Otherworld was a natural weak point in spacetime.
• Eileen asked why Angel Cultists followed Dark Angel, and Song Cheng said they claimed to receive visions of an apocalypse and a path to salvation.
• Song Cheng explained that the visions transformed cultists' minds and warned that scholars studying Dark Angel could be influenced and become cultists themselves.

Song Cheng and Xu Jiali explained the Dark Angels’ threat and humanity’s limited success in driving them away to Yu Sheng. After discussing the Angel Cultists’ summoning rituals and the museum’s unknown entrance, Yu Sheng asked the Special Operations Bureau to help get food deliveries and couriers to No. 66 Wutong Road.

• Yu Sheng asked whether anyone had ever killed a Dark Angel, and Xu Jiali described the Angelfall operation that damaged and banished the Goddess of Beauty but failed to destroy her.
• Song Cheng explained that Dark Angels could alter Otherworlds and that Angel Cultists’ sacrifices sometimes succeeded in attracting them.
• Song Cheng said the Bureau would inspect the museum and theater, while its investigators looked into how the cultists entered through an unregistered entrance.
• Li Lin reminded Yu Sheng that he had once been an unexpected entrance himself, and Song Cheng offered the Bureau’s help with future troubles.
• Yu Sheng asked Song Cheng whether the Bureau could arrange food deliveries and couriers to No. 66 Wutong Road.

Yu Sheng asked the Special Operations Bureau to solve the delivery problem at his home, and Song Cheng agreed while collecting Huli’s fur to investigate her origins. After the agents left, Eileen wondered why people summoned Dark Angels, and Yu Sheng went upstairs to sleep.

• Yu Sheng explained that ordinary couriers and food deliveries could not get near No. 66 Wutong Road, and Song Cheng promised to look into setting up a collection point.
• Yu Sheng asked Song Cheng about Eileen’s situation and Huli’s origins; Song Cheng said Alice’s Cabin had not replied and requested fur samples to identify Huli’s species.
• Yu Sheng gave Song Cheng several of Huli’s shed hairs, then teased Huli about cleaning up her fur and unclogging the drain filter.
• Eileen asked why people willingly summoned Dark Angels, and Yu Sheng replied that reckless people existed in every species.
• Yu Sheng told Huli and Eileen to wake him before dinner and went upstairs to catch up on sleep.

Yu Sheng woke in a strange Black Forest and learned from a talking squirrel that Little Red Riding Hood was being hunted by a wolf. After realizing the forest was connected to her, Yu Sheng heard the wolf arrive and fled with the squirrel.

• Yu Sheng woke in a vast, dim forest, found that he could still summon his phantom door, and set out to explore.
• A talking squirrel warned Yu Sheng to stay on the path and identified the place as the Black Forest.
• The squirrel mentioned Little Red Riding Hood, and Yu Sheng recognized the bloodstain from the wolf that had bitten him during Museum Night.
• The squirrel revealed that the wolf was still searching for Little Red Riding Hood and questioned how Yu Sheng had entered the forest.
• When the wolf's howls stopped, the squirrel jumped onto Yu Sheng's shoulder and urged him to run as the wolf approached.

Yu Sheng escaped the invisible wolves by reaching a lamp-lit path in the forest and learned that the forest was a place Little Red Riding Hood entered while asleep. He told the squirrel that he was her friend, not a new Little Red Riding Hood, and the squirrel began to believe him.

• Yu Sheng ran from the invisible wolves, followed the squirrel’s directions, and reached a safe path where the wolves vanished.
• Yu Sheng asked whether the wolves included the Big Bad Wolf, and the squirrel warned him that the hunter had not appeared and the worst wolf could swallow him whole.
• The squirrel explained that the forest had no end and that Yu Sheng had to keep running between safe paths and houses to hide from the wolves.
• Yu Sheng questioned the squirrel about the forest’s curse, but the squirrel said it was only a squirrel and then smoked a tiny stick.
• The squirrel described how people who returned to the forest could become connected to the wolves and eventually wear a red cloak, but Yu Sheng insisted he was Little Red Riding Hood’s friend.
• The squirrel examined Yu Sheng’s claim and seemed to accept that he was telling the truth.

Yu Sheng and the squirrel crossed the darkening Black Forest, resisting the tempting objects that appeared beside the path. They found a cottage with no one in its bed and entered to escape the approaching wolves, where the squirrel warned that they might still hear footsteps or knocking.

• The squirrel questioned how Yu Sheng had entered the forest and said children usually arrived after bedtime stories and dreams.
• As the streetlamps dimmed, the squirrel warned Yu Sheng to stay on the path and avoid the wolves’ lures.
• Yu Sheng saw tempting adult goods by the path and pond but resisted them and continued onward.
• Yu Sheng and the squirrel reached a cottage as the wolves closed in, and the squirrel told him to check whether Grandmother was in the bed.
• Yu Sheng found the bed empty, entered the cottage with the squirrel, and relaxed by the fire as the wolves’ howls faded.