Recaps

Fu Qian guided Laurie and the Greedy Worms to use the Rebirth Club’s name to ease Lord Solondir’s suspicions and redirect their search for Selena, whom he presented as the Ancient Angel. Laurie accepted Fu Qian’s plan to pose as club members, but the group still had not found Ji Yin when Fu Qian urged them to leave.

• Fu Qian told Laurie and the Greedy Worms that Selena was connected to the Rebirth Club and referred to her as the Ancient Angel.
• Laurie admitted that the Greedy Worms were searching for Selena and asked how they could contact the club.
• Fu Qian advised the Greedy Worms to pretend to be club members so the Rebirth Club would find them.
• Laurie accepted Fu Qian’s advice and agreed to leave, but a Tooth Choker adept pointed out that they had not found Ji Yin.
• Laurie admitted that they had made arrangements regarding Ji Yin, and Fu Qian warned the group not to stay much longer.

Fu Qian deduced that Ji Yin had deliberately left Maul, helping the Greedy Worms hide their operation and gain an advantage. He then warned Laurie that An Jing’s people had been placed in the office to die and disrupt Solondir’s investigation, so Laurie and the others prepared to leave.

• Fu Qian ruled out the obvious explanations for Ji Yin’s disappearance and concluded that Ji Yin had left Maul on purpose.
• Fu Qian reasoned that Ji Yin’s absence concealed the Greedy Worms’ operation and gave them room to maneuver against Selena and Solondir.
• Laurie and the others were shocked to learn Ji Yin had already left, and Laurie asked Fu Qian whether they should do anything about the office.
• Fu Qian said the office belonged to An Jing and explained that the people there had been placed to die, potentially disrupting Solondir’s investigation.
• Laurie understood that An Jing’s people would also have become victims of the plan and thanked Fu Qian before leading the others away.

Fu Qian left Moore after explaining the Rebirth Club’s role to Solondir and deducing how Siren and An Jing planned to manipulate the Wise Dead storm. As he sailed away, the storm was quieting and Solondir’s chance to advance seemed nearly over.

• Solondir chose not to confront the Rebirth Club after learning that its members had already helped eliminate several threats.
• Fu Qian left Solondir’s office and headed for the docks, having stopped by to build the Club’s reputation.
• Fu Qian reasoned that An Jing’s plan involved having its people die during the storm to disrupt the balance between the living and the dead.
• Fu Qian deduced that Solondir was provoking An Jing into taking responsibility if his risky advancement endangered ordinary people.
• Fu Qian sailed out of Moore and saw Solondir standing in the darkness by the docks as the Wise Dead grew quiet.

Fu Qian discovered the Inverted Lake and found an intact research facility that appeared connected to the Forbidden Zone where Su Gao had nearly lost her will. Inside, he encountered a familiar-looking man beside a giant Twelve-faced Hourglass, and a voice addressed him as his Sanity Value fell.

• Fu Qian left Moore aboard Ji Yin’s surveillance ship and ate dinner while the vessel sailed away.
• Fu Qian found a clear pool in the ash sea whose reflection revealed buildings, then watched the stars and structures turn until a research facility stood before him.
• Fu Qian recognized the turning reflections as resembling the Forbidden Zone where he had once helped Su Gao avoid becoming a puppet.
• Fu Qian opened the facility’s heavy door and met a young-looking, gold-browed man who seemed to recognize him.
• Fu Qian saw a giant Twelve-faced Hourglass behind the man, and a voice sounded as his Sanity Value decreased by one.

Fu Qian entered the underground armory, where an attendant explained that he had to choose a weapon and hunt the shadows haunting the lake. The chapter left him inspecting the weapons and eyeing an ornate short gun.

• Fu Qian arrived late and lost Sanity Value while speaking with the attendant.
• The attendant led Fu Qian through the temple-like building to a heavily secured room underground.
• Fu Qian found shelves of specially made weapons and learned he could choose only one.
• The attendant explained that unseen entities cast shadows around the lake and that Fu Qian had to patrol and kill them with a calibrated weapon.
• Fu Qian examined the weapons and focused on a short gun covered in decorative scrollwork.

Fu Qian chose a scarce double-barreled gun for his week-long duty and discovered that a hidden presence had been steadily draining his Sanity Value. He attacked the watcher as it fled, and a winged creature rose from the destruction.

• Fu Qian selected the heavy gun, which held only four rounds, and the receptionist warned him to save its bullets and stay cautious around the shadows.
• The receptionist explained that Fu Qian had to patrol for a week and check with researchers before entering occupied spaces.
• After another Sanity Value notification, Fu Qian fired toward the door, kicked it apart, and rushed outside.
• Fu Qian realized a hidden entity had been targeting him with a Sanity Value curse and marked it with a Calamity Eye as it fled through a wall.
• Fu Qian transformed his left hand into a head and blasted the fleeing target with silver-white Electric Arc, causing a huge winged creature to rise from the destruction.

Fu Qian attacked the Fallen Angel with Three Faces, and its rare Blood Face transformed nearby ordinary objects into supernatural, corrupting things. He realized the blood could have devastating effects on the target, but its spread also made him seem like a propagator of chaos and madness.

• Fu Qian unleashed Three Faces’ Fire Electricity Blood attack, but the Fallen Angel dodged most of the blast.
• Fu Qian activated Three Faces again, and its rare Blood Face released a fan-shaped spray of crimson blood that failed to reach the Fallen Angel.
• The golden-browed receptionist emerged from the storeroom and questioned Fu Qian amid the destruction.
• Fu Qian showed the receptionist a lamp stand whose silver pattern appeared to move, then pulled it away when the startled man reached for it.
• Fu Qian discovered that the blood had caused nearby ordinary materials to develop Calamity eyes and become supernatural and corrupted.

The narrator used Three Faces and Finger Guess to unleash supernatural chaos in a research facility, then suspected that his experience was an unstable episode of Etched Wisdom. He believed the Fallen Angel had returned because his destruction threatened the surrounding illusion, and greeted the figure as it appeared before him.

• The narrator activated Finger Guess, whose Scarlet Storm aura intensified the damage spreading through the research facility.
• He warned the receptionist to take cover, and the receptionist retreated into a storage room.
• The narrator fired at the returning winged figure, but his projectile vaporized before reaching it.
• He considered signs that his current experience might be Etched Wisdom, including the deserted facility and his earlier encounter with divine flesh.
• The narrator explained that he had been using destruction to pressure the runaway angel into returning, then greeted the figure before him.

Fu Qian realized the Fallen Angel had returned because it remained in the Etched Wisdom state, then watched it alter the Scarlet Storm and impose a prison-like law on him. The chapter left him wondering whether the creature wielded the authority of a true law.

• Fu Qian inferred that his opponent was still in the Etched Wisdom state and recognized that his risky strategy had persuaded it to return.
• The Fallen Angel condemned Fu Qian's sins as unforgivable and appeared in a grotesque, deformed form.
• Fu Qian suspected his Finger Guess aura had affected the creature, just as the Scarlet Storm changed from scarlet to golden orange.
• Fu Qian found that he could no longer interact with objects and realized the new law had imprisoned him without killing him.
• Fu Qian questioned whether the Fallen Angel possessed a special authority comparable to his own false law and its core of true law.

Fu Qian observed the Chief Judge, a law-associated Higher Being, as it tore corruption from its wings inside the research facility. He suspected it was connected to the Angel God Path and the Angel Lord, while the spreading rot threatened to consume the facility.

• Fu Qian asked the Chief Judge if he could appeal its verdict, but it ignored him and kept him pinned in place.
• The Chief Judge tore flesh-like rot from its wings while the surrounding facility cracked, decayed, and filled with signs of madness.
• Fu Qian moved around behind the Chief Judge and noticed the skeletal wings revealed beneath the corruption.
• Fu Qian connected the Chief Judge's self-purification and Sanity Value-removing power to the angel beings he had encountered, including the Angel Lord.
• The corruption stripped from the Chief Judge's wings spread rapidly through the research facility.

Fu Qian tested how his abilities interacted with the Chief Judge’s law-based punishment and deduced that the surrounding world was changing to keep conflicting laws in harmony. The Chief Judge escalated his sentence with holy fire, accelerating the collapse of Etched Wisdom, and Fu Qian prepared to act with a bell.

• Fu Qian dismissed Finger Guess and tried to understand how the Chief Judge’s Unforgivable Sin punishment tracked him.
• Fu Qian activated several abilities at once and found that they coexisted with his sentence without weakening it.
• Fu Qian deduced that the laws remained consistent because the surrounding space changed to reconcile their effects.
• The Chief Judge sentenced Fu Qian to Overwhelming—Great Sin, and holy fire began burning him and rapidly depleting his health.
• The holy fire accelerated the collapse of Etched Wisdom, and Fu Qian raised a gleaming bell.

Fu Qian used Eternal Clarity of Thought to interrupt the Chief Judge’s condemnation, then attacked her with Three Faces as Etched Wisdom collapsed. The Chief Judge and the research institution vanished, leaving Fu Qian in a classical building after time reset to the moment he had opened the door.

• Fu Qian rang Eternal Clarity of Thought and saw the halos dim as the Chief Judge’s sentence was interrupted.
• Fu Qian reasoned that the bell had banished all supernatural forces briefly, breaking the balance between his halos and the Chief Judge’s condemnation.
• The Chief Judge attacked with a broken sword, and Fu Qian used Three Faces to strike her with lightning, blood, and fire.
• The Chief Judge failed to bring down her sword and disappeared with Etched Wisdom and the ancient research institution.
• Fu Qian checked Tyrant's Mechanical Fist and found that time had returned to the moment he opened the door, though he remained inside a classical building.

After Etched Wisdom, Fu Qian suspected he had moved into another fallacy, where his injuries and Sanity Value remained depleted and the Burial Scroll's cooldown had not advanced. He continued posing as a cleaner in the ancient research institute, and the intercom directed him through the left door after he reported finding something extraordinary.

• Fu Qian reasoned that he might be caught in a chain of fallacies, with his condition carrying over between them.
• Fu Qian reached two doors and answered a voice from a wall intercom that he wanted to go somewhere he was allowed to go.
• The intercom told Fu Qian to go to the lake outside, and he inferred that the institute was still operational and recruiting cleaners.
• Fu Qian claimed he had dealt with something extraordinary and argued that the institute needed a thorough search.
• The intercom asked why the researchers had not noticed anything, and Fu Qian replied that he had dealt with it while checking his gun.
• The intercom directed Fu Qian to take the door on the left.

Fu Qian followed a walkie-talkie’s directions through the research institution and met a researcher who asked him to retrieve lost notes from the Backrooms. The researcher could not remember how he had lost them, echoing a similar request Fu Qian had encountered before, and Fu Qian asked how to enter the Backrooms.

• Fu Qian chose the left-hand route and followed the increasingly elaborate corridor through the institution.
• Fu Qian reached a room overlooking an endless expanse of water and spoke with someone behind its closed door.
• The researcher explained that cleaners were selected from the organization’s peripheral members and said he was investigating the beginning of the universe and the end of the supernatural.
• The researcher asked Fu Qian to enter the Backrooms and retrieve his lost notes.
• The researcher said he could not remember how he had lost the notes, and Fu Qian accepted the assignment and asked how to get there.

Fu Qian entered a chained-off chamber beneath the lake, where he found a vast arena-like room centered on a Twelve-faced Hourglass. He discovered a strange, apparently living figure staring at the hourglass and struck it with a handbell when it ignored him and began twisting unnaturally.

• Fu Qian followed the researchers’ directions to the largest room and found its entrance wrapped in chains.
• Fu Qian entered a vast, tiered chamber and recognized the Twelve-faced Hourglass at its lowest point.
• Fu Qian found a figure sitting near the hourglass, staring at it with bulging eyes and making strange sounds.
• Fu Qian tapped the wall and asked the figure about a lost notebook, but it failed to respond and began twisting unnaturally.
• Fu Qian struck the figure on the head with a handbell and told it to calm down.

Fu Qian questioned the imprisoned Thinker about missing notes and a lost calculation, suspecting a connection to the other people who had lost their knowledge. The Thinker suddenly claimed the answer lay in a cage, then mutilated his own head when Fu Qian could find nothing there.

• Fu Qian struck the Thinker with the Bell Staff until the student remembered that his notes were missing.
• Fu Qian studied the Twelve-faced Hourglass and the tiers of cages, concluding that the impact site lay beneath layers of debris.
• The Thinker grew excited, claiming he had remembered the answer and understood his calculations, but then forgot what he had realized.
• Fu Qian connected the Thinker’s lost knowledge to the Brain Jellyfish and the Behind-the-Gate People.
• The Thinker leapt into a cage and insisted the answer was there, then broke open his skull and squeezed his exposed brain.

Fu Qian watched the Thinker force himself to calculate by kneading his brain, then used a low-power Gospel Blast to assist him. The Thinker connected himself to the research institute’s silver lines and transformed into something resembling a Brain Jellyfish.

• The Thinker kneaded his exposed brain in an attempt to force a breakthrough, while Fu Qian watched from the cell.
• Fu Qian sent the Thinker a low-power Gospel Blast, causing him to freeze and react with apparent pleasure.
• The Thinker extended his middle finger to touch a specific point on a silver line in the lecture hall floor.
• The Thinker tried to connect to another point, tearing apart his hand in the process.
• The Thinker stretched a tail-like ribbon from his body to another silver line, and Fu Qian recognized the brain it led back to as resembling a Brain Jellyfish.

Fu Qian studied the Thinker’s strange calculations and guessed that the cages formed a matrix whose separate points could help him recover the answer. After Fu Qian sat in a neighboring cage, the Thinker reacted, and another brain appeared there.

• Fu Qian watched the Thinker tear apart his body while stretching his tentacles into a pattern, and inferred that the Thinker’s calculations were bringing him close to an answer he could not remember.
• The Thinker pleaded with Fu Qian for help, and Fu Qian left the cage rather than using Gospel Blast on him.
• Fu Qian recognized that the tentacle pattern pointed toward other cages and suspected that the Thinker needed a calculation matrix built from multiple locations.
• Fu Qian sat in a nearby empty cage, hoping to help the Thinker recall a connection, and the Thinker reacted excitedly within seconds.
• Jellyfish-like tentacles appeared in Fu Qian’s sight, and another brain appeared in the cage as Fu Qian stood up.

Fu Qian connected the Brain Jellyfish into a matrix and used the fall point’s coordinates to reach the answer the Arcane Star Gazers had sought. As the Thinker’s mind faded while humming Miss Wen’s melody, Fu Qian reached the endpoint and found it empty and quiet.

• Fu Qian saw more Brain Jellyfish appear across the tiers and recognized that they formed a connected computational matrix.
• Fu Qian entered the fall point’s known coordinates into the illuminated matrix, and the Thinker’s answer was confirmed at great cost to him.
• Fu Qian listened as the Thinker hummed the same melody Miss Wen had translated from Kalaodola’s flesh.
• Fu Qian connected the melody to the fall point and the Crystalline Blessing, and recalled that the Sage also knew it as a password.
• Fu Qian leaped to the correct coordinates and reached a clean, silent endpoint with no Piled Objects, flesh, or crystals.

Fu Qian explored another version of Etched Wisdom, where someone had found the answer but been locked away, and the Thinker and jellyfish vanished after their radiance faded. He returned to the Behind-the-Gate Person to demand payment, and the exchange ended with laughter from others behind the door as they prepared to let him in.

• Fu Qian considered how the different versions of Etched Wisdom connected and why the point of impact remained impossible to verify.
• Fu Qian watched the Thinker and the jellyfish disappear, then left the lecture hall without finding the Chief Judge.
• Fu Qian returned to the Behind-the-Gate Person and admitted he had not found the notes, while challenging whether they had ever existed.
• Fu Qian described speaking with someone inside and accused the Behind-the-Gate Person of trying to avoid paying him.
• The Behind-the-Gate Person asked whether Fu Qian truly wanted to enter, and Fu Qian agreed as others behind the door began laughing.

Fu Qian questioned the person behind the locked door at the Olympiad Research Institute and realized the researchers might believe he was one of the elusive shadows they were supposed to clean up. The door remained shut, but the man’s remarks strengthened Fu Qian’s suspicion that the shadow explanation was correct.

• The person behind the door refused to open it, citing security and claiming he had no money to pay Fu Qian.
• Fu Qian asked for spiritual wealth instead, leaving the man and the onlookers briefly speechless.
• A lamp beside the door lit up and cast a shadow of Fu Qian on the ground.
• Fu Qian reasoned that the researchers might mistake him for a shadow, despite his visible appearance, and recalled that shadows could appear anywhere.
• The person behind the door said Fu Qian was different and regretted not speaking with him more earlier.

Fu Qian learned that the researchers were studying shadows and had sent him into a back room to test their effects on a captive. After he claimed he had come from Moore and suggested the researchers might be shadows themselves, they led him to a platform marked with an eyeball symbol and called it the place illuminated by the lighthouse.

• Fu Qian deduced that the researchers were observing shadows and that the back room was central to their testing procedures.
• Fu Qian asked whether they had sent him to test how a captive changed after meeting a shadow, and the Behind-the-Gate People confirmed they had conducted similar tests before.
• Fu Qian said he had come from Moore, then suggested the researchers might be shadows without knowing it themselves.
• The Behind-the-Gate People revealed a lit path, and Fu Qian followed it to a platform overlooking the sea.
• The Behind-the-Gate People identified the platform, marked by a metal eyeball symbol, as the place illuminated by the lighthouse.

Fu Qian stood on the prism to test the lighthouse’s guidance and realized that its light identified people who had fallen into a shadow state. Because he had dismantled the lighthouse’s core, no light appeared, leaving the researchers convinced that something had gone wrong and that Fu Qian had tampered with it.

• A Behind-the-Gate Person told Fu Qian to stand on the prism and accept the lighthouse’s guidance.
• Fu Qian stood on the prism and waited, but no lighthouse appeared, leaving the audience confused and uneasy.
• Fu Qian reasoned that the lighthouse served as an external anchor to reveal whether researchers had become shadows, and that the absence of light indicated an abnormal state.
• The audience accused Fu Qian of tampering with the lighthouse or blamed a failure on Moore’s side.
• Fu Qian recalled that he had dismantled the lighthouse’s core and invited the audience to test the prism themselves.

Fu Qian taunted the researchers hiding behind the door, using their own theories and academic uncertainties to provoke them. When they retaliated, he unleashed Law Remnants through their spying channels, hoping the disturbance would draw out another Higher Being hiding in the spacetime error.

• Fu Qian reasoned that the researchers might be in a compromised state and taunted them to come out from behind the door.
• Fu Qian suggested that the researchers were afraid to be seen and questioned whether their laboratory was hidden from outside observation.
• A Behind-the-Gate Person stepped forward and challenged Fu Qian over whether the man imprisoned in the Backrooms had been right.
• Fu Qian attacked the researchers for lacking a final answer about the supernatural, provoking a hostile response from the Behind-the-Gate Person.
• The researchers’ silver dots and lines lit up as they prepared another way to communicate, and Fu Qian unleashed Law Remnants through their spying channels.
• Fu Qian intensified the disturbance, hoping to draw out another Higher Being hidden in the spacetime error.

Fu Qian unleashed the Law Remnants through the research facility’s equipment and discovered that an ancient power of the Ancient Sun God was hidden there. As the sun’s radiance consumed the academy and threatened to shatter Etched Wisdom, Fu Qian sensed that this power was deliberately hastening its destruction.

• Fu Qian used the facility’s equipment to unleash the Law Remnants, overwhelming the researchers and the academy.
• A researcher cried that the light was the answer and invoked the Unseeable Wheel, revealing a sea of blazing white light.
• Fu Qian recognized the radiance as the Ancient Sun God’s power and questioned the researcher about how he had discovered it.
• The fanatic researcher ignored Fu Qian and laughed as the light and heat intensified, burning the facility to ashes.
• Fu Qian watched the sunlike figure emerge and sensed that its attack was threatening Etched Wisdom and accelerating its destruction.