Recaps

Lin Yu woke restrained in a psychiatric hospital’s seclusion room, unable to remember the Instance’s name or find Hannah and Stiller in his Item Space. He escaped using [Shady Corner] and emerged into the corridor as a doctor chased a woman he suspected was another player.

• Lin Yu realized he was restrained in a seclusion room and could not remember the Instance’s name or Clearance Conditions.
• A tall doctor entered, said he could not release Lin Yu, and began preparing an injection.
• Lin Yu discovered Hannah and Stiller were missing from his [Item Space] and used [Shady Corner] to escape into a shadow.
• The doctor failed to find Lin Yu and fled the room, allowing Lin Yu to leave the shadow and enter the corridor.
• Lin Yu saw a woman in gold-rimmed glasses run into the doctor, who chased her, and decided to help her.

Lin Yu realized that the Instance had a reincarnation mechanism and that his notebook recorded knowledge from previous attempts. He used his information advantage to pose as a prophetic Player and deceive Max, leaving her startled and increasingly inclined to believe him.

• Lin Yu discovered from the [Ancient Notebook] that he had already explored the Instance across multiple reincarnations and that Robin knew more about it than she had revealed.
• Max returned after escaping the monster doctor, and Lin Yu recognized her from the notebook as a Player from the Night Watcher.
• Lin Yu decided to exploit the information gap between himself and Max by inventing a powerful identity.
• Lin Yu told Max he was the 'Prophet,' a Monk with a Unique Profession that let him obtain answers through prophecy, and claimed he had learned her identity that way.
• Max questioned whether such a Unique Profession could exist, but Lin Yu sensed that she was beginning to believe him.

Lin Yu strengthened Max’s belief in his Prophet identity by inventing specific limits, which caused the profession and its abilities to become real. His new prophecy directed him upstairs to find Robin, but Max’s familiarity with the stairwell made Lin Yu suspicious.

• Lin Yu explained the limits and two-hour cooldown of his supposed prophetic ability until Max believed him and the ability became real.
• Lin Yu received a prophecy that going to the fourth floor would lead him to Robin and reveal one of Robin’s secrets.
• Lin Yu told Max that his prophecy pointed to a powerful teammate upstairs and reminded her that the Instance interfered with memory.
• Max agreed to go upstairs, but Lin Yu wondered how she knew where the stairs were.

Lin Yu and Max reached the fourth-floor stairwell, where Robin appeared and recognized them. Robin privately summoned Lin Yu, leaving him to wonder how much she remembered from previous cycles.

• Lin Yu questioned how Max had found the stairwell, and Max could only guess that intuition had guided her.
• Lin Yu opened the door marked "Unsafe Passage," but Robin rushed down the stairs and crushed the monster behind it with a geometric shape drawn by her paintbrush.
• Max introduced herself and Lin Yu to Robin, who consulted a small notebook before explaining that they needed to reach the first floor to clear the Instance.
• Lin Yu realized Robin had retained information across cycles and suspected that she doubted his claim to be a Prophet.
• Robin asked to speak privately with Lin Yu, and Max agreed to wander outside.

Lin Yu learned that Robin suspected he was May May from the Order and had uncovered the Instance’s looping mechanism. Using a hint from his false Prophet ability, he got Robin to reveal that the Instance was connected to the Psychology Society and the Lord of Mist Island, leaving her realizing she had been tricked into sharing information.

• Robin recognized Lin Yu as May May from the Order and explained that the Instance periodically erased their memories while she preserved records between loops.
• Robin accused Lin Yu of using the false profession Prophet to disguise his ability to predict events, and Lin Yu praised her analysis.
• Lin Yu used a hint from Rich Miser to ask Robin about the Psychology Society and the Lord of Mist Island.
• Robin panicked and demanded to know how Lin Yu had learned about the connection, then realized he had tricked her into revealing information.

Zhigeng explained how player permissions deepen their connection to Instance worlds and enable trade, crafting, and influence. She revealed that Tier 3 [Map] permission can grant additional opportunities to enter Instance worlds, though its role in the Psychology Society’s control of the current place remained unclear.

• Zhigeng agreed to tell Lin Yu important information about the Instance while reserving anything she found difficult to discuss.
• Lin Yu told Zhigeng he had unlocked the Tier 1 [Social] permission.
• Zhigeng explained that [Social] helps players maintain relationships and conduct reliable transactions with NPCs and other players, and that these relationships can support advancement to Tier 2.
• Zhigeng described Tier 2 [Codex], which reveals information about materials, NPCs, and regions and allows players to gather materials for crafting Items.
• Zhigeng told Lin Yu that Tier 3 [Map] permission can provide additional opportunities to enter the worlds of Instances.

Lin Yu learned that the asylum had once been used by the Psychology Society to create an artificial Trial Instance. Robin revealed that she had survived the brutal experiment because a member of the Psychology Society saved her.

• Robin explained that Tier 3 players could enter Instance worlds outside scheduled Instances and choose where to arrive.
• Robin said the asylum had once belonged to the Lord of Mist Island and served as a refuge for the island’s mentally ill and persecuted nobles.
• Robin revealed that Freud, the Psychology Society’s First Generation leader, had turned the asylum into a laboratory for an artificial Trial Instance.
• Lin Yu realized Robin had participated in the experiment and deduced that someone had rescued her.
• Robin admitted that a girl from the Psychology Society had saved her from a monster in the asylum.

Lin Yu learned from Zhigeng that Freud’s death in the asylum may have caused the Instance’s reincarnation mechanism and turned former Players into monsters. As they set out to find the absent director’s office and forge a permit, Lin Yu recognized a connection between the Inverted Tower’s master and the mysteries of the Instance, then asked Max to help him open doors.

• Lin Yu questioned Zhigeng about the Instance, and she explained that its reincarnation mechanism appeared after First Generation Freud died there.
• Zhigeng guessed that Freud’s soul and memory abilities had caused the changes, and that many current monsters were Players who had died in the asylum.
• Lin Yu and Zhigeng reviewed the unanswered mysteries, then agreed to seek the absent director’s office on the first floor and forge a permit.
• Zhigeng said the director might be Freud’s remnant will, the Lord of Mist Island, or an even more terrifying power, and identified that power as the master of the Inverted Tower.
• Lin Yu sent Zhigeng toward the first floor and asked Max to help him open a few doors.

Lin Yu and Max searched the second floor’s wards until they found the Two-headed Bird, while a familiar furry monster appeared and destroyed itself. Recognizing the bird heads as a clue to a presence with a crow incarnation, Lin Yu confronted the toothed head and demanded that it reveal its true self.

• Lin Yu asked Max to unlock every ward on the second floor, believing the search would help them clear the Instance.
• Max opened several wards, and Lin Yu encountered Fuzzball, who refused to talk and exploded across the room.
• After opening every other door, Max and Lin Yu found the Two-headed Bird playing chess in the final ward, and Max collapsed into sleep from exhaustion.
• Lin Yu deduced that the bird heads represented a crow and a raven, then grabbed the toothed head and demanded that the being behind it reveal itself.

Lin Yu met the God of Change, who explained that the Instance altered cognition and memory and warned him that others were seeking its inheritance. After the god departed, Lin Yu reunited with Max and headed to find Ruo Geng, still uncertain about the misleading hint concerning her.

• The God of Change appeared between the two bird heads and told Lin Yu that his visit was unexpected, though he had partly anticipated it.
• The God of Change explained that the Instance's reincarnation was an alteration of cognition and memory, and that identity and self-understanding were key to clearing it.
• The God of Change warned Lin Yu that other intruders were pursuing the inheritance and said the one who had warned him was relatively kind.
• The God of Change refused to explain the Instance's name or Clearance Conditions and hinted that Max's background would become clear soon.
• The God of Change vanished, the bird heads resumed moving, and Lin Yu woke Max before taking her back toward the first floor to find Ruo Geng.

Lin Yu and Max followed a compass to the director’s office, where Robin had vanished despite leaving signs that she had been there. Lin Yu found the Exit Permit Slips in a desk drawer and discovered a notebook in another drawer.

• Max’s compass led her and Lin Yu to the director’s office, whose door was unlocked.
• Max entered the empty office, and Lin Yu concluded that Robin was still nearby despite being nowhere in sight.
• Lin Yu noticed fresh dust marks and fingerprints near the desk, suggesting Robin had searched it.
• Lin Yu opened a drawer and found the Exit Permit Slips, taking four of them.
• Lin Yu examined Robin’s movements and opened another drawer, where he found a notebook.

Lin Yu found a register listing the hospital’s staff and patients, including three mysterious patients on the fifth floor. He discovered a hidden button that opened a secret room where Nightingale had likely gone, and judged the entrance relatively safe.

• Lin Yu examined the register and found about 235 names, many of them apparently players.
• Lin Yu noticed that the fifth floor had three patients: Jiang Lin, one with no name, and one recorded as garbled symbols.
• Lin Yu tucked away the register and found a concealed button beneath the desk.
• Lin Yu asked Max to arrange her twelve dolls around the desk, then pressed the button and opened a hidden floor entrance.
• Lin Yu identified the opening as the secret room where Nightingale was inside and judged it relatively safe.

Lin Yu and Max discovered a wine cellar beneath the opening and found Robin unconscious beneath a false shadow. Lin Yu recognized the cellar’s connection to Mist Island wine and tried to flee with Robin, but a sinister presence confronted them.

• Lin Yu and Max descended a spiral staircase, using Max’s dolls to test the way for danger.
• Lin Yu and Max reached an ancient locked door that Robin had opened with two drawn keys, then entered a wine cellar filled with barrels.
• Lin Yu recognized the wave symbol on the door from Mist Island wine labels and suspected a connection between the winery and the asylum’s effects on memory.
• Lin Yu uncovered a canvas disguised as a shadow and found Robin unconscious beneath it.
• Lin Yu carried Robin toward the exit as Max followed with the dolls, but a cold presence and sinister chuckle stopped them.

Lin Yu realized the endless staircase was trapping him and confronted the gray monster pursuing him. He gave Max the Exit Permits and stayed behind with a bomb so she could escape with Zhigeng.

• Lin Yu and Max fled the wine cellar with the unconscious Zhigeng, but the staircase stretched endlessly as the monster pursued them.
• Lin Yu handed Zhigeng to Max, turned around, and raised the [Fear Torch] to face the unseen threat.
• The [Fear Torch] went out, and a gray-white monster with a face resembling Lin Yu’s appeared behind him.
• Lin Yu threw the three [Exit Permits] to Max, told her to guide herself with her compass, and confessed he was May May from Order, not a Prophet.
• Lin Yu made a bomb with the [Replica] and rolled down the stairs toward the monster, intending to perish with it.

After Lin Yu sacrificed himself to save Max and Zhiqing, they learned the necromancer could not be affected by the asylum’s reincarnation and prepared to leave with his exit permit. They escaped the Instance, and Jiang Lin woke in a mental hospital believing the events had been a Nightmare.

• Max dragged Zhiqing into the director’s office as an explosion sounded below, then grieved over Lin Yu’s apparent death.
• Zhiqing explained the reincarnation and the necromancer’s history, telling Max that Lin Yu could not be saved.
• Zhiqing used the previous director’s seal to complete exit permits for herself, Max, and May May.
• Zhiqing and Max left the asylum, and a white light made them lose consciousness.
• Jiang Lin woke in a mental hospital and, after speaking with her doctor, remembered the Instance as a dream.

Jiang Lin left her ward and went downstairs, where she met a suspicious patient on the second floor and made a new friend. The woman insisted they use codenames, but forgot the one she had chosen for herself.

• Jiang Lin decided to explore the lower floors and found the emergency stairwell.
• Jiang Lin passed patients painting on the walls and promised a smoking security guard she would not report him.
• Jiang Lin met a gold-rimmed-glasses woman on the second floor, who suspected she was gathering intelligence for a floor war.
• Jiang Lin explained she had come downstairs because she was bored, and the woman agreed to be friends.
• Jiang Lin gave the codename Robin, but the woman forgot the codename she had prepared.

Jiang Lin received a hidden vocabulary notebook from the seemingly unresponsive boy in the mental hospital and discovered a message inside. The chapter left her learning that her surroundings were a game, not reality.

• Jiang Lin wondered if she had amnesia and learned from the woman in gold-rimmed glasses about the nameless boy who barely reacted to anyone.
• Jiang Lin approached the boy, who unexpectedly handed her a vocabulary notebook decorated with sketches she recognized as her own.
• The boy returned to his hospital room without explaining himself, while the woman in gold-rimmed glasses offered to keep watch for Jiang Lin.
• Jiang Lin secretly opened the notebook and read the message, "You are not in reality. This is a Game!"

Jiang Lin read a notebook left by her past self and learned that she and Max were players trapped in a resetting mental hospital. She decided to search the fifth floor for a fallback item, but Max betrayed her to two doctors.

• Jiang Lin read the notebook’s warnings that her memories had been altered and that she had repeatedly attempted to escape the hospital.
• Jiang Lin told Max that they were players in a supernatural game, and Max accepted the explanation.
• Jiang Lin said they should escape together and head to the fifth floor to find the fallback item left by her past self.
• Jiang Lin discovered Max had disappeared and then saw her leading two doctors toward Jiang Lin, claiming she was a patient who wanted to escape.

Jiang Lin was restrained after Max reported her attempted escape, and Doctor Li evaluated her belief that the hospital was part of a Game. He claimed the supernatural notebook was a trick made by the second-floor patient, leaving Jiang Lin shaken and unsure what to believe.

• Jiang Lin was strapped to a chair in the fourth-floor isolation room after Max brought doctors to subdue her.
• Doctor Li questioned Jiang Lin about believing reality was a Game and trying to escape from the mental hospital.
• Jiang Lin tried to explain that she had only been joking with the second-floor patient, but Doctor Li challenged her reason for running.
• Doctor Li said Jiang Lin had repeatedly shown these delusions and claimed the second-floor patient had imitated her handwriting in the notebook.
• Doctor Li explained that the notebook's writing appeared through temperature-sensitive ink mailed by the boy's family, and said the hospital had discovered his first Item.

Doctor Li tried to convince Jiang Lin that she was a long-term patient at Jiangcheng Mental Health Center rather than a Player named Robin, and she began doubting which memories were real. After the notebook pointed her toward the fifth floor, she agreed to go there with Doctor Li and two guards to test its claim.

• Doctor Li told Jiang Lin that she had schizophrenia and amnesia, showed her medical records, and explained that she had been hospitalized for five years.
• Doctor Li played a video message from Jiang Lin’s parents, deepening her uncertainty about whether she was a patient or Robin, a member of the Night Watcher.
• Jiang Lin admitted she could not summon Items but said the notebook named the fifth floor as a backup plan.
• Doctor Li agreed to accompany Jiang Lin to the fifth floor, and two guards escorted them through the Unsafe Passage toward the stairs.

Jiang Lin followed Doctor Li to the fifth floor, where a crow mark restored her memories and convinced her the hospital was an Instance in a Game. She exposed the notebook as a Counterfeit and revealed that she was Robin, also known as May May or the Director, confronting Doctor Li as the First Generation Freud.

• Doctor Li showed Jiang Lin the apparently empty fifth floor and admitted that a man had once reached it before security dragged him away.
• At a dangerous patient's door, Jiang Lin saw a gray crow mark and recovered memories revealing that the hospital was an Instance and the mark had preserved the truth.
• Jiang Lin rejected Doctor Li's claims and said the vocabulary notebook was her Item, but Doctor Li challenged her to store it in her Item Space.
• Jiang Lin explained that her Item authority was sealed and transformed the notebook into flowing black matter, exposing it as a Counterfeit.
• Jiang Lin revealed that she was Robin and addressed Doctor Li as the First Generation Freud, calling herself May May or the Director.

Lin Yu confronted Freud, the first-generation Player behind the asylum, and explained how he exploited Freud’s limits on controlling memories and souls to break the cycle. Freud admitted he was trying to resurrect himself, and Lin Yu’s account revealed how he had used the wine cellar, a staged death, and lost memories to deceive him.

• Freud acknowledged Lin Yu’s deductions and explained that his ability separated souls from bodies, using the Players’ souls and memories to run the asylum’s cycles.
• Lin Yu inferred that Freud wanted to resurrect himself after dying as a Player, and that he needed only fragments of Players’ souls.
• Lin Yu explained that Freud could alter memories and cognition but lacked complete control over the asylum and could not directly identify people by their souls.
• Lin Yu said Octopus and the Ninja had found an uncontrolled wine cellar, where he arranged to replace Robin with an illusion disguised as Hannah and staged his own death.
• After the reset, Lin Yu used [Closed Mind] and an Exit Permit bearing the name Jiang Lin to make the asylum believe he was Robin, while Stiller emptied his mind and helped prompt Freud to appear.

Lin Yu confronted Freud while secretly using their apparent negotiations and captured allies as bait to divert Freud’s attention from the Nightingale. As Freud’s hidden core came under threat, Lin Yu turned to Max and demanded to know why he had come to the Instance.

• Freud revealed that he wanted to use Players’ bodies and souls to resurrect, while Lin Yu argued that Freud could not act on him without certain conditions being met.
• Freud summoned patients to threaten Lin Yu physically and revealed that Stiller, Hannah, and Max had been captured.
• Lin Yu explained that the captives were bait and that Freud did not know the real Nightingale’s location.
• Lin Yu said Stiller had secretly carried the Nightingale out of the wine cellar, where she was now searching for Freud’s hidden core.
• Freud realized Lin Yu had never intended to negotiate and feared that Lin Yu planned to have him killed.
• Lin Yu asked Max what he hoped to gain by watching him work through the Instance.

Lin Yu realized Max was an abnormal hidden being, and Freud’s illusion collapsed as she acted against him. Max explained Freud’s plan to become a god by gathering souls and fabricating reality, then sent Lin Yu flying with her compass.

• Lin Yu questioned Max’s identity after realizing her name was missing from the asylum’s list and that the clues might describe her.
• Freud recognized Max as an intruder and warned Lin Yu that his death would remove the asylum’s restrictions.
• The asylum’s illusion broke apart, revealing the ruined building on Mist Island and Freud’s decomposed body.
• Stiller explained that Freud had constructed the illusion from the perceptions and memories of trapped souls.
• Max explained that Freud planned to gather souls, seize a god’s rank and Authority, and expand his fabricated world, then used her compass to send Lin Yu into the air.

Lin Yu and Stiller found Robin suppressing Freud’s remains on the 37th Island, but Robin ran back to the Asylum after hearing that Max might be possessed by a powerful entity. Freud’s brain identified the entity as an old player, prompting Lin Yu to head after Robin despite having no boat.

• Lin Yu and Stiller landed on the 37th Island and found Robin suppressing Freud’s skeleton and beating brain in an excavated grave.
• Lin Yu told Robin that Max might be an avatar or host for a powerful entity, and Robin recognized the significance of the compass.
• Robin trapped Freud’s brain in a drawn cage, gave it to Lin Yu, and raced back toward the Asylum.
• Lin Yu decided to follow Robin, while Stiller and Hannah warned him that the unknown entity was dangerous.
• Freud’s brain identified the entity as a player from his era: the Diviner who founded the Marauders.
• Lin Yu stopped and declared that they would swim toward the Asylum.