Chapter Summaries

Baili Qing briefed Yu Sheng on the Special Operations Bureau’s exploration of Mist City and its plans to use Huli’s profound iron for communications. Yu Sheng then discovered that the Artificial Saintess had escaped the Holy Coffin and found her helping children weed a vegetable plot.

• Baili Qing showed Yu Sheng live images from Mist City and explained that Huli’s profound iron could help the Bureau create machine souls for Deep Dive Communicators.
• Baili Qing described Mist City’s fog-linked dangers, possible mirror-related exits, vast size, and the Holy Ascetic Society’s long presence there.
• Yu Sheng realized the Artificial Saintess had vanished from the open Holy Coffin and began searching for her.
• Yu Sheng asked a group of children if they had seen the tall Artificial Saintess, and they pointed him toward her.
• Yu Sheng followed her intermittent aura and found the Artificial Saintess weeding the vegetable plot while Xiao Xiao reminded her not to do the children’s assignment for them.

Yu Sheng found the Artificial Saintess silently weeding the children’s vegetable patch and struggled to communicate with her, learning that she remembered him and could deploy blades from her legs. After Huli and the Eileens arrived, the Saintess helped retrieve the dolls from the dirt, and Yu Sheng decided to take everyone home to investigate her sluggish, silent behavior.

• Yu Sheng sent Xiao Xiao and the other children away from the vegetable patch and asked the Artificial Saintess to come speak with him.
• The Artificial Saintess indicated that she remembered Yu Sheng, showed him her detachable blades, and remained unable to answer him in words.
• Huli charged into the field and flung the Eileens into the vegetable patch, where Yu Sheng caught one and the Artificial Saintess pulled out the other three.
• Eileen introduced herself, Huli, and Yu Sheng to the Artificial Saintess, who responded only with delayed nods and gestures.
• Yu Sheng noticed that children were gathering to watch and suggested that everyone go home to figure out how to communicate with the Artificial Saintess.

Yu Sheng and his companions helped the Artificial Saintess express her wish to return home, rescue her people, and take revenge on the Hermetic Society. She joined the Inn as its fourth member and revealed that her name was Luna.

• Yu Sheng asked the Artificial Saintess what she wanted, and she struggled to say that she wanted to go home.
• The Artificial Saintess asked Yu Sheng and his companions to save her people and help her take revenge on the Hermetic Society; Yu Sheng promised to help.
• Yu Sheng invited the Artificial Saintess to join the Inn, and she accepted, becoming its fourth member.
• Eileen declared herself captain of the Doll Action Squad and called the Artificial Saintess its vice-captain, but the Artificial Saintess ignored her.
• Huli gave the Artificial Saintess paper and a pen, and she wrote unfamiliar symbols before struggling to say her name.
• Yu Sheng understood her name as Luna and welcomed her.

Yu Sheng welcomed Luna to No. 66 Wutong Road and learned that she needed to rest in the Holy Coffin. Luna remembered her experience in the Shelter Wasteland, and she and Eileen made peace briefly before Eileen erupted at being called a shorty.

• Yu Sheng showed Luna around the inn, and she said she had to sleep in the Holy Coffin rather than in a room.
• Yu Sheng asked Luna about the wasteland, and she remembered entering the Shelter Wasteland while part of her mind remained in the Holy Coffin.
• Yu Sheng explained that his blood had repaired Luna and granted her access to the Shelter Wasteland, where she had dreamed of guarding a bonfire with her knights.
• Luna remembered slapping Eileen in the wasteland and realized the little shorty hanging from her was the same friend.
• Luna caught Eileen and told her not to fight, then called her a little shorty, prompting Eileen to angrily accuse her of doing it on purpose.

Yu Sheng found that Luna had settled in at the inn and asked Baili Qing to register her as an employee and arrange an identity card. Baili Qing also delivered two navigation manuals, leaving Yu Sheng to face the universe’s traffic regulations.

• Eileen threatened to attack Luna after recharging, but Luna remained unbothered, and Yu Sheng reassured Eileen about her charging dock and new outfit.
• Yu Sheng answered Baili Qing’s call and explained that Luna had awakened while doing farm work and had agreed to work at the inn.
• Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing to register Luna and provide her with an identity card, and Baili Qing agreed to arrange it personally.
• Baili Qing reminded Yu Sheng that he had forgotten his books, then handed him two simplified navigation manuals through a small door between their locations.
• Yu Sheng explained that he controlled his assimilated spaceship like his own body, but he still had to study the manuals’ universal traffic regulations.

Yu Sheng welcomed Engineer Sun and his team as they began building a spaceport and preparing to modify the Hermetic Society ship, while he tried to keep Huli and Eileen’s elaborate design ideas in check. He toured Fairy Tale’s rapidly growing town and learned that Red would turn eighteen the next day.

• Engineer Sun arrived with his engineering team and promised Yu Sheng support for construction throughout the valley.
• Yu Sheng decided to give the ship white decorative patterns and remove its sinister spikes and chains, warning the engineers not to accept extra changes from Huli or Eileen.
• Yu Sheng visited Fairy Tale’s expanded town and saw the children’s eccentric homes, including King’s enormous cat tree.
• Rapunzel told Yu Sheng that the kingdom craftsmen and Thunder Titans had helped build the town, which the members had designed to reflect Fairy Tale’s identity.
• Rapunzel told Yu Sheng that Red would turn eighteen the next day.

On her eighteenth birthday, Little Red Riding Hood returned to Fairy Tale and found her siblings and friends had prepared a lavish celebration for her. She began opening her presents beside the bonfire, where Rapunzel and Yu Sheng had both given her exam-preparation books.

• Little Red Riding Hood finished her ordinary school day and traveled through the Shadow World to the Otherworld.
• Rapunzel and the others surprised Little Red Riding Hood with confetti and escorted her to a birthday celebration with a bonfire, barbecue, music, and a giant cake from the Special Operations Bureau.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood that Fairy Tale would celebrate every member's eighteenth birthday and explained that Baili Qing had written the cake's greeting.
• Little Red Riding Hood began opening the pile of presents beside the bonfire and found Rapunzel had given her a boxed set of "90 Days to College Entrance Exam Sprint."
• Little Red Riding Hood opened Yu Sheng's gift and found a boxed set of "120 Days to College Entrance Exam Sprint," then demanded to know if they were out of their minds.

At a bonfire birthday party, Little Red Riding Hood celebrated turning eighteen with Yu Sheng and their friends. The festivities ended with everyone wishing the sleeping Wang Jiajia a happy birthday.

• The King, Long Hair, Eileen, Mermaid, and the others helped make Little Red Riding Hood’s birthday celebration lively with fireworks, music, games, and a barbecue.
• Yu Sheng guarded the beer and allowed Little Red Riding Hood to try some, while Huli and the King also drank.
• Yu Sheng spoke with Luna beside the bonfire, and she promised to guard the fire for him.
• Little Red Riding Hood got drunk and howled with Huli before declaring they should form a fox-and-dog duo and falling asleep on a table.
• After midnight, the guests congratulated the sleeping Wang Jiajia on her birthday, and Yu Sheng quietly wished her a happy birthday.

Little Red Riding Hood woke with a hangover and discovered Rapunzel had used her phone to get her excused from class, prompting her to chase Rapunzel away. At Yu Sheng’s home, Ren Wenwen brought forms to register Luna’s identity, and her official race was listed as “Inn” member.

• Little Red Riding Hood learned Rapunzel had changed her clothes after she got sick and stolen her instant noodles to make hangover soup.
• Little Red Riding Hood found out Rapunzel had told her homeroom teacher she was drunk and did not need to attend class, then chased Rapunzel out through the window.
• Yu Sheng spoke with Luna, who said that influences lowered alertness, while Eileen continued watching television.
• Ren Wenwen arrived with forms to register Luna’s identity and organizational membership.
• Yu Sheng began filling out Luna’s identity form and found that the race field listed her as an “Inn” member.

Yu Sheng helped Luna find a piece of land to cultivate, then hurried to the Special Operations Bureau after Baili Qing reported that a Hermetic Society member had mentioned Ankaela crystal. The cultist revealed that the society called it the Angel Catalyst and sought its power to heal what they believed were lesions in the world, including the Crossroads.

• Yu Sheng encouraged Luna to choose a personal hobby, and she asked for a plot of land where she could grow wheat and vegetables.
• Yu Sheng promised Luna an empty plot, then received Baili Qing’s call about a breakthrough in the interrogation of a Hermetic Society member.
• Yu Sheng brought Eileen, Huli, and Luna to the Special Operations Bureau’s containment area to observe the interrogation.
• The Hermetic Society cultist described Ankaela crystal, or the Angel Catalyst, as a power capable of piercing the world’s lesions and potentially healing them.
• The cultist called the Crossroads the largest lesion and described its inhabitants as poison, then said the society sought the Angel Catalyst as a way to fight poison with poison.

During interrogation, a Hermetic Society cultist explained the group’s belief that the world was nearing collapse and revealed that its Angel Catalyst research began with a dead Dark Angel called the Shadowless Bones. He admitted the Society had known about Ankaela for years and turned to living Dark Angels after the Bones proved too weak.

• Yu Sheng asked how the cultist concluded that the world was terminally ill, and the cultist described apocalyptic forces beyond the observable universe that only the Supreme Saint had perceived.
• The interrogator pressed the cultist on how the Angel Catalyst could be used to destroy diseased regions, and the cultist admitted the research had been underway for about seventeen years.
• The interrogator challenged the timeline because Ankaela was the first known angel to fall, and the cultist revealed that the Society had found a naturally dead Dark Angel called the Shadowless Bones in the Adar Great Pit.
• The cultist described the Bones as a massive skeleton surrounded by whispers and said ordinary humans could safely collect samples from it.
• The cultist explained that the Bones’ remains lacked enough activity to pierce the Otherworld, so the Society sought living Dark Angels instead.
• The interrogator confronted the cultist with evidence that the Society had infiltrated Mist City at least ten years earlier, and the cultist admitted it already knew of Ankaela.

Yu Sheng and Baili Qing learned how the Hermetic Society pursued Ankaela’s Angel Catalyst and accidentally exposed the Deep Boundary City, or Mist City. The cultist revealed that the catalyst had fallen through a breach into the fog, where it was later found, though who picked it up remained unclear.

• The Hermetic Society cultist said the Angel Cult had told them about Ankaela, and they planned to collect catalyst fragments after she fought The Crossroads.
• He explained that Ankaela’s fall disrupted their experiment, causing the Angel Catalyst to pierce space and reveal the Deep Boundary City.
• The cultist said the Mist City was vast enough to contain another version of The Crossroads beneath the real one.
• He denied that the Hermetic Society had stolen the Ankaela crystal, saying it had fallen through a breach into the dense fog.
• Baili Qing recalled Yu Sheng’s earlier guess that someone might find the crystal, and Yu Sheng awkwardly noted that it was too large to fit in a pocket.

Yu Sheng and Baili Qing questioned a Hermetic Society cultist about the missing Angel Catalyst and learned that it vanished when a small craft disappeared during a Warp Jump. They concluded the cultist’s account was mostly credible, but the leads to the Hermetic Society’s hidden base remained difficult to pursue.

• A Hermetic Society cultist told the interrogators that the Sage had ordered the Angel Catalyst sent away on a small craft after the Artificial Saintess was first attacked.
• The cultist recounted that the small craft transmitted screams, ignored the Sage’s order to stop its jump, and vanished without emerging in the real universe.
• The cultist lost the ability to communicate, and Baili Qing ordered him returned to containment until he could be interrogated again.
• Yu Sheng and Baili Qing judged the cultist’s testimony mostly credible, while suspecting he had concealed details about the Adar Great Pit and Shadowless Bones.
• Baili Qing explained that the Special Operations Bureau could not locate the Hermetic Society’s hidden jump points without usable coordinates, and that the captured ship’s Navigation System had been wiped.

Yu Sheng and Baili Qing investigated the Ankaela crystals and learned that Luna had heard a strange transmission linked to a ship’s unexplained accident. Yu Sheng then connected the Hermetic Society’s unfinished warship at Feiyu-13b to the possibility of another dormant Dark Angel.

• Yu Sheng and Baili Qing visited the containment facility to examine the Ankaela crystal and secondary crystal samples.
• Yu Sheng and Baili Qing suspected the crystals were connected to the accident aboard a small vessel carrying an Ankaela crystal.
• Luna said she had heard strange screeching during prayer in the Holy Coffin and revealed that the Holy Coffin kept records.
• Baili Qing arranged for experts to extract the Holy Coffin’s system logs as she and Yu Sheng considered whether angelic power could have caused a temporal anomaly.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing that Hermetic Society believers had been building a base and a Pillar of Order ship at Feiyu-13b.
• Yu Sheng asked whether another Dark Angel might be dormant at Feiyu-13b.

Yu Sheng and Baili Qing discussed the Hermetic Society’s plans to collect Angel Catalysts and agreed to strengthen precautions around the crystals. Yu Sheng then visited his ship as the Special Operations Bureau technicians rewrote its systems, where he asked them to preserve the Hermetic Society’s identification code alongside its legal one.

• Baili Qing proposed alerting Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain and other factions, while Yu Sheng urged them to investigate places where the Dark Angel had descended.
• Huli warned that survivors of past angelic descent incidents might have been contacted or recruited by the Hermetic Society, and Baili Qing agreed they must avoid alerting the cultists.
• Baili Qing said the Ankaela crystals needed more safety precautions, and Yu Sheng suggested not carrying one during a jump.
• Yu Sheng took Eileen, Huli, and Luna to his spaceship, where Special Operations Bureau technicians were replacing its systems and cracking the Holy Coffin’s database.
• Yu Sheng asked the technicians to retain the ship’s Hermetic Society identification code as a shadow system, and they agreed despite warning that it could summon a fleet.

Yu Sheng renamed the captured spaceship the Otherworld Inn while its religious decorations were removed. Xuan Che arrived to say farewell before returning to his sect, but Yu Sheng told him about the Holy Ascetic Society’s Angel Catalyst research and its possible connection to the Great Void Spiritual Pivot.

• Yu Sheng walked through the spaceship as Special Operations Bureau engineers removed the Holy Ascetic Society’s religious decorations for study.
• Eileen, Huli, and Yu Sheng argued over a name for the ship, and Yu Sheng settled on the Otherworld Inn.
• Xuan Che called to say his sect had ordered him to return because an anomaly had appeared near the Great Void Spiritual Pivot.
• Xuan Che visited Yu Sheng and greeted Luna, whom Yu Sheng introduced as one of their own.
• Yu Sheng told Xuan Che that the Holy Ascetic Society had researched the Angel Catalyst for years and may have pursued a similar goal on Feiyu-13b.

Yu Sheng learned that the Hermetic Society’s missing craft might be connected to a strange ship Xuan Che’s Grand Uncle-Master once encountered in the void. Xuan Che said his Grand Uncle-Master would soon return to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain after being rescued from an unexpected marriage, leaving Yu Sheng and the others baffled.

• Yu Sheng told Xuan Che that the Hermetic Society had excavated Shadowless Bones and that a craft carrying the Ankaela crystal had vanished after transmitting strange audio.
• Xuan Che described how his Grand Uncle-Master’s damaged Immortal Boat received signals from a ship that repeatedly shifted between wreckage and an intact vessel before warning him to stop the Lapis Lazuli from departing Soma-4 on June 12, 2044.
• Yu Sheng and Xuan Che compared the strange ship to the Hermetic Society’s vanished craft, noting that both sent signals suggesting their crews had died before disappearing without a trace.
• Xuan Che revealed that his Grand Uncle-Master would return to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain after the Immortal Alliance Rectification Working Group rescued him from a former lover who had abducted him to marry her.
• Yu Sheng, Eileen, Huli, and Luna struggled to process the story, and Yu Sheng concluded that the situation must be a matter of cultural differences.

Yu Sheng arranged a trip with Eileen and the others to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain to meet Xuan Che’s Grand Uncle-Master and investigate strange phenomena and the Hermetic Society. He then proposed bringing No. 66 Wutong Road along, and Eileen was amazed by the idea.

• Yu Sheng invited Eileen to travel with him to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain, and Xuan Che agreed to arrange their departure for the next day.
• Yu Sheng explained that he wanted to meet Xuan Che’s Grand Uncle-Master and discuss the desolate star, strange ship, mysterious fragment, and Hermetic Society’s activities.
• Yu Sheng and his companions discussed the journey, and Huli offered to bring a piece of valuable material as a gift.
• Little Red Riding Hood emerged from the basement in despair after Long Hair exposed embarrassing footage, and Yu Sheng teased her about it.
• Yu Sheng proposed relocating No. 66 Wutong Road to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain, and Eileen called him a genius.

Yu Sheng brought Eileen, Huli, and Luna through his door to meet Xuan Che’s master, True Spirit Yuanling, at Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain. After arranging a quiet place for Yu Sheng’s unusual house, True Spirit Yuanling revealed that the ancient stars Taigu and Hui Jiao were younger than Yu Sheng.

• Yu Sheng opened a door to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain, and Xuan Che, Eileen, Huli, Luna, and Yu Sheng crossed into the sect.
• Xuan Che reunited with his master, True Spirit Yuanling, and Yu Sheng greeted the unusually awed elder.
• Yu Sheng explained that No. 66 Wutong Road could reset its coordinates and asked True Spirit Yuanling for a quiet place to settle it.
• True Spirit Yuanling offered the Cloud Gazing Platform and sent Xuan Yun to guide Yu Sheng and his companions there.
• After they left, True Spirit Yuanling told Xuan Che that Taigu and Hui Jiao were younger than Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng prepared to move No. 66 Wutong Road to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain and informed the Special Operations Bureau agents stationed nearby. After learning that Zheng Zhi had joined the bureau because of his unusually high spiritual sensitivity, Yu Sheng returned home to collect Eileen and head for Huli and Luna.

• Xuan Yun guided Yu Sheng and the others to Cloud Gazing Platform, where Yu Sheng chose a place to open the entrance to his home.
• Yu Sheng returned to No. 66 Wutong Road and remembered that he had not told the Special Operations Bureau about the temporary move.
• Yu Sheng met Li Lin and Zheng Zhi at the bureau's courier-station liaison post and learned that Zheng Zhi had joined the bureau as a trainee because his spiritual sensitivity was too high for ordinary life.
• Yu Sheng told Li Lin and Zheng Zhi that No. 66 Wutong Road was relocating to Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain, and Li Lin agreed to notify the bureau while they continued guarding the area.
• Yu Sheng returned home and prepared to leave with Eileen to meet Huli and Luna, while another Eileen insisted on being included.