Recaps

Fu Qian questioned Head-Peeking Brother about the people he had eaten as they navigated the Art Prison, learning that the girl tasted best and Ivan tasted worst. They reached a spherical chamber containing a human-length black bag, leaving Fu Qian to suspect the victims had been brought there after death and deliberately frozen.

• Fu Qian asked Head-Peeking Brother which victim had tasted best, and he named a girl because she had been cool.
• When Head-Peeking Brother could not remember which path to take, Fu Qian flipped a coin and chose the left-hand fork.
• Fu Qian asked who had tasted worst, and Head-Peeking Brother named Ivan, saying he had spoiled like wood.
• Fu Qian considered whether Old Hunter had already caused the events in the Art Prison, then opened a door into a spherical chamber.
• Fu Qian found a human-length black bag in the chamber and wondered if the victims had been brought there after death and frozen.

Fu Qian followed Head-Peeking Brother through the passages beneath Ivan and found more spherical rooms where frozen bodies had been kept. The trail led to a hospital gown that suggested the girl might still be alive, but the boy was found dead behind a door.

• Fu Qian questioned Head-Peeking Brother about the bodies, and he recalled another person who had been less cold than the best-tasting one.
• Head-Peeking Brother struggled to remember the location, then recovered enough to lead Fu Qian back to a fork in the passage.
• Fu Qian found another body bag and a bloodstained hospital gown, which raised the possibility that the girl was still alive.
• Fu Qian followed the passages beyond Head-Peeking Brother's usual range and opened a door to find the thin boy's corpse.

Fu Qian examined the boy’s corpse and concluded that Ivan had used human bodies to grow the Invisible Tree’s fruit inside their skulls. When Head-Peeking Brother was drawn toward the corpse, Fu Qian set the skull ablaze, provoking a furious roar from above.

• Fu Qian inspected the boy’s opened skull and crushed hand, reasoning that the skull had been opened while the boy was alive and the later search for a key had happened after his death.
• Fu Qian suspected Ivan had used human bodies to grow the Invisible Tree’s fruit, and that Old Hunter had killed Ivan while pursuing the White Key.
• Head-Peeking Brother crawled onto the ceiling, drawn by the fragrance coming from the boy’s skull.
• Fu Qian shot Head-Peeking Brother and smashed an oil lamp into the open skull, setting its contents ablaze.
• Fu Qian threw the removed piece of skull into the fire, and Head-Peeking Brother roared in fury.

Fu Qian tried to force Head-Peeking Brother to reject his Inner World anchor by intensifying his frustration and desire. He returned to the lively courtyard with Head-Peeking Brother asleep and unharmed, but found that the flames had changed two of his fingers green.

• Fu Qian reasoned that strong will and a desire to return to the Surface World might sever Head-Peeking Brother’s connection to his anchor.
• Fu Qian intensified Head-Peeking Brother’s longing for food, destroyed the food, and provoked him by praising Ivan.
• Fu Qian plucked a strange piece from the skull while enduring the flames, and something burst as the surroundings brightened.
• Fu Qian returned to the courtyard and found Head-Peeking Brother asleep, breathing rapidly but physically unharmed.
• Fu Qian saw that the first two joints of the fingers he had held in the fire had turned green.

Fu Qian returned to Ivan’s studio to investigate the artist and the changes to his hand, while reconsidering how the Old Hunter had moved ahead of him. In the passage behind Ivan’s unfinished painting, Fu Qian realized the invisible plant was upside down and that the corpse inside its spherical space had been pollinated.

• Fu Qian concluded that the Old Hunter might have entered Art Prison a day before him, but he still could not rule out Old Man Hake as a suspect.
• Fu Qian decided to investigate Ivan and his hand, then went alone to the guard tower.
• Fu Qian picked the tower’s locked door, found Ivan absent, and discovered an unfinished abstract painting covering the passage entrance.
• Fu Qian noticed the passage behind the painting was ordinary and less vivid than its counterpart in the Inner World.
• Fu Qian reinterpreted the invisible plant as upside down, with its downward-reaching limbs as branches and its spherical space as a reproductive structure where the corpse had been pollinated.

Fu Qian explored the passage beneath the prison, following clues that seemed connected to Ivan’s experiments and the missing people. He found a hospital-gowned corpse in a Body Bag and, deeper in the passage, a freshly killed middle-aged man.

• Fu Qian returned to the passage and discovered that his ammunition had not been replenished while the blue-green discoloration spread across his finger.
• Fu Qian found a jacket resembling the boy’s clothes from the Inner World, but neither jacket contained the White Key.
• Fu Qian followed an unpleasant smell to a Body Bag containing an older corpse in a hospital gown, which appeared to have been frozen and recently thawed.
• Fu Qian continued through the passage and found a middle-aged man lying in a pool of blood with a gash across his throat.

Fu Qian found Ivan’s corpse in the underground passages and concluded that someone from the outer world had killed him. He followed a hidden route to an abandoned house, where he spotted a hospital nearby.

• Fu Qian identified the corpse as Ivan and found a bloodied scalpel beside him.
• Fu Qian considered whether one of the two missing people had killed Ivan and ruled out the idea that the blue fuzz granted supernatural vitality.
• Fu Qian took the scalpel and continued mapping the underground passages.
• Fu Qian discovered a lit trapdoor leading to an abandoned house and found several sets of footprints there.
• Fu Qian looked out from the house and recognized a hospital in the distance.

Fu Qian pieced together a theory about Ivan’s death and the missing young people, then returned to the Art Prison instead of heading straight to the hospital. There, he examined a conspicuous pink car and met Rachel, whom he suspected owned it.

• Fu Qian inferred that Ivan had obtained corpses from a nearby hospital and that two young people might have killed him before fleeing toward the hospital.
• Fu Qian considered whether an incident at the hospital had caused Tina’s strange behavior and decided the hospital was worth investigating, especially because his rival might be heading there too.
• Fu Qian returned underground to check the Art Prison side quest, then emerged into the prison yard without finding other corpses or exits.
• Fu Qian examined a clean, bright pink car that he suspected belonged to Rachel, whose husband Old Man Hake had said was missing his car.
• Rachel greeted Fu Qian, and he addressed her by name while introducing himself.

Fu Qian questioned Rachel about her absence from work and claimed to be a new police officer searching for two missing young people. Rachel agreed to give him a ride, then led him to her hidden painting studio inside the prison.

• Fu Qian called Rachel by her name, mentioned her husband Ed, and introduced himself as Anke, a new police officer.
• Fu Qian asked Rachel whether she had seen the missing young man and woman, and she said she had not.
• Rachel asked whether she should return home or go to work, but Fu Qian left the choice to her.
• Fu Qian asked Rachel for a ride, and she agreed after saying she needed to collect her things.
• Fu Qian asked to see Rachel's studio, and she led him deeper into the prison to a discreet room where she retrieved her bag.

Fu Qian examined Rachel’s dark paintings, then had her drive him to the hospital to visit Tina. He arrived with Rachel waiting nearby, using her presence to help ensure he remained in the surface world.

• Fu Qian inspected Rachel’s paintings and recognized their style as resembling the Inner World.
• Rachel explained that Ed disliked her darker works, and Fu Qian joked that she might not be emotionally mature enough to drive.
• Fu Qian asked Rachel to take him to the hospital, saying he intended to visit Tina rather than search for the missing people.
• Rachel drove Fu Qian to the hospital and agreed to wait so she could take him back to his car.
• Fu Qian entered the hospital grounds with Rachel nearby, relying on her as an anchor to the surface world.

Fu Qian searched the hospital for Tina, hoping to learn why she had appeared at his house and what had happened in the hospital’s Inner World. He found her at work and asked to speak with her.

• Fu Qian went to the hospital reception desk to ask for Tina, but the receptionist refused to help without an appointment.
• Fu Qian pointed his gun at the counter, then put it away and asked the receptionist to tell Tina that Anke was looking for her.
• Rachel questioned why the receptionist had agreed to help, and Fu Qian gave her no explanation.
• Tina hurried over to Fu Qian and asked why he had come to the hospital.
• Fu Qian told Tina he needed to talk and gestured for her to step outside.

Fu Qian asked Tina to help him investigate a corpse he had found at the Art Prison, and Tina led him toward the hospital's body storage area. Rachel stayed behind, reluctant to go near the building.

• Tina confronted Fu Qian about bringing up what happened the previous night, then noticed Rachel and recognized her.
• Tina asked Rachel why she had come with Fu Qian, and Rachel explained that Mr. Anke had asked her to drive him because his car stood out.
• Fu Qian asked where the hospital kept its bodies and told Tina he had found a corpse that seemed to belong there.
• Rachel realized Fu Qian had found the corpse at the Art Prison, and Tina offered to take him to the likely storage building.
• Rachel refused to go inside, and Fu Qian agreed to let her wait behind while he followed Tina.

Fu Qian and Tina searched a quiet corpse-storage building for a woman who was absent, then discussed Fu Qian’s green, painful hand and the events of their drunken night. Tina explained how she had given him an IV and borrowed an outfit, while Fu Qian asked why she had gone drinking.

• Fu Qian told Tina he had encountered the woman at the prison, and Tina said she knew Rachel and Ed through her uncle Hake.
• Tina searched the building for the woman but found no sign of her, so she and Fu Qian decided to wait.
• Fu Qian showed Tina that his hand had turned green and hurt, and Tina doubted her injection had caused it.
• Tina recalled that she had insisted on giving Fu Qian an IV and had borrowed another outfit for him from a friend at a bar.
• Fu Qian asked Tina why she had gone drinking.

Tina told Fu Qian that shadows had seemed to form faces and terrified her, especially when she was alone at night. Their conversation was interrupted by a girl who crawled out of a cabinet and said she had come looking for a boy, revealing herself as one of the missing pair.

• Tina explained that she had gone to the bar because she feared being alone and that patches of darkness had appeared to form faces.
• Fu Qian suggested Tina discuss her strange experience with Rachel, then joked about someone hiding in a cabinet.
• A girl crawled out of a metal cabinet, startling Tina, and challenged Fu Qian for guessing she was there.
• Fu Qian denied seeing the girl before she revealed herself, and Tina asked who she was.
• The girl said she had come to find a boy, identifying herself as one of the missing pair.

Fu Qian questioned the girl about how she and Dennis had become separated and why she suspected the hospital was involved in his disappearance. The girl had found no trace of Dennis in the hospital, leaving Tina troubled by the unexplained situation.

• The girl explained that she and Dennis had argued after finding a hole behind a painting, and she left him behind when he offered her his clothes.
• The girl returned to the underground passage to find Dennis, but found only a frozen corpse and went to the hospital because she suspected it was involved in sinister activity.
• Fu Qian explained the girl's theory to Tina, who questioned its logic, while the girl challenged Tina to rule it out.
• The girl admitted she had arrived at the hospital long ago, found no one there, and hid when Fu Qian and Tina appeared.
• The girl said she had already searched inside the hospital and found no Dennis.

Fu Qian and Tina met a girl claiming to be Emily, who insisted that Dennis was missing and urged him to involve the police and hospital. Fu Qian suspected she was his rival in disguise, and her determination to risk Dennis’s life suggested her performance had slipped.

• The girl told Fu Qian that she had searched the hospital and revealed that her companion Dennis was missing.
• Fu Qian claimed he was a police officer and offered to investigate, while the girl gave her name as Emily and agreed to proceed.
• Tina tried to persuade Emily to use a less alarming excuse, but Emily insisted that she was taking Dennis with her that day.
• Fu Qian considered how the girl’s story fit his discoveries, while suspecting that his rival had staged the encounter in the Inner World.
• Fu Qian concluded that Emily’s insistence on a dangerous plan exposed her as someone who did not share the real Emily’s concern for Dennis.

Dennis suspected they were inside the Inner World and recognized that his injured hand was worsening in strange, supernatural ways. He gained Emily’s trust enough to question her, while continuing to probe the person behind the situation for clues about the White Key.

• Dennis inferred that the group might already be in the Inner World and noticed his hand’s pain and unusual sensations had intensified.
• Dennis promised Emily that he would help find her companion and invited her to come with them, but Emily refused and said they should not follow her.
• Dennis asked Emily why she and her companion had run away, and she admitted that she hated everyone, including herself.
• Emily said her companion Dennis knew nothing, giving Dennis a glimpse into her feelings about him.
• Dennis reflected that he had questioned Emily to test his rival and gather information about the White Key, while suspecting the Old Hunter might be another senior with guidance.

The narrator questioned Emily while investigating Old Hunter’s search for Dennis and the White Key, considering whether Old Hunter was restricted to the Inner World and whether the key was there. He left Emily free to go after asking whether she had found a grimy, unlicensed clinic.

• The narrator suspected Emily was acting from information gained through the real Emily and considered how Old Hunter might have found and used her.
• The narrator weighed whether the White Key existed in both worlds or only in the Inner World, where Old Hunter seemed to operate.
• The narrator asked Emily whether Dennis would search for her if she went missing, and she said she believed he would.
• The narrator asked Emily whether she had encountered an old, unsanitary unlicensed clinic with bloody-looking fluid in its IV bottles.
• Tina protested the narrator’s description of the clinic as especially bad.

Fu Qian let Emily leave after questioning her about the Full Moon Garden, then set out with Tina to find Hake and locate Dennis. After Rachel failed to notice Emily, Fu Qian used a coin toss to decide who would stay and keep watch, wondering whether his competitor could see the scene.

• Fu Qian questioned Emily about the Full Moon Garden, then allowed her to leave after she said she would return.
• Fu Qian told Tina they should focus on finding Dennis and suggested Hake might be impatient because they had searched several places without finding the girl.
• Fu Qian and Tina found Rachel waiting outside, but she said she had not seen Emily come out of the building.
• Fu Qian decided someone needed to stay and keep watch, then used a coin toss to choose between Tina and Rachel.
• Fu Qian caught the coin and wondered whether his competitor could see what was happening.

Fu Qian reasoned through how the Inner World and the Old Hunter’s trap might work, then used a coin toss to test whether the Old Hunter could affect the real world. Afterward, he set off with Rachel and redirected her toward the prison to retrieve something.

• Fu Qian considered how the Reversed Tree, the Inner and Outer Worlds, and the Old Hunter’s methods might be connected.
• Fu Qian told Rachel he would take her into the Inner World so they could confront the uncertainty firsthand.
• Fu Qian revealed the coin toss’s result, concluding that the Old Hunter could not observe or influence the real world; Tina objected to the game and asked for a surrender option.
• Rachel drove Fu Qian toward his place, and Fu Qian agreed before wondering whether the trap forced real-world visitors into the locations of their Inner World counterparts.
• Fu Qian changed their destination to the prison, saying he had forgotten to bring something.

Fu Qian took Rachel to her studio and opened a hidden compartment in a cabinet, where he found Dennis alive. He recognized the scene as Rachel’s work and confronted her about helping Dennis, while Rachel’s composed façade gave way to a furious, monstrous expression.

• Fu Qian had Rachel drive him to the prison, then walked toward her studio while she waited in the car.
• Rachel followed Fu Qian into her studio and told him not to touch her paintings.
• Fu Qian opened a cabinet and found Dennis curled up alive in a hidden compartment.
• Rachel cursed Fu Qian as he studied the disturbing scene and asked whether Dennis had found her and asked for help.

Fu Qian found Dennis hidden inside Rachel’s cabinet and took him from the prison to search for Emily before the dangerous people pursuing her could find her. Dennis revealed that he and Emily had crashed their white car into a tree, but its keys were missing, leaving Fu Qian to ask where the crash happened.

• Rachel admitted that she had found Dennis on the road and hidden him in her cabinet as part of her artwork.
• Fu Qian questioned Dennis about Ivan’s death, then persuaded Rachel to explain how she had brought Dennis to the prison and concealed him.
• Fu Qian helped Dennis out of the cabinet and drove him away from the prison, telling him that dangerous people were looking for Emily.
• Dennis agreed to answer Fu Qian’s questions after learning that the people searching for Emily were not police officers.
• Dennis said he and Emily had crashed their white car into a tree and walked away, but the car keys that had been in his jacket were missing.
• Fu Qian asked Dennis which tree they had crashed into.

Fu Qian took Dennis to the wrecked white car where Emily was hiding, bringing the two teenagers face to face. When Emily admitted she had taken and lost the car key, Fu Qian threatened Dennis with a gun and began using Russian roulette to pressure her.

• Fu Qian drove Dennis out of the city to the old white car wrecked against a tree.
• Fu Qian found Emily asleep in the passenger seat and forced her to open the car door.
• Dennis and Emily reunited, and Emily said the car belonged to Dennis's father and only Dennis had its key.
• Fu Qian questioned Emily about the key, and she admitted she had taken it but thrown it away and forgotten where.
• Fu Qian pressed his gun to Dennis's head and showed Emily that two bullets remained; Emily finally looked away from Dennis.

Fu Qian recovered the White Key from Emily, restoring his supernatural abilities and updating his mission to face and execute the Serpent of Fate behind the silver door. He brought Emily and Dennis back to town, where they stopped at Old Man Hake’s breakfast shop.

• Emily retrieved the worn White Key from the ditch and handed it to Fu Qian, updating his mission and ending the pain in his arm.
• Fu Qian recognized the key as the means to break the rules suppressing his powers and invited Emily and Dennis to come with him.
• Emily got into the car, and Dennis followed her without being stopped.
• Fu Qian drove them to the breakfast shop favored by Old Man Hake, where Jane told him to put their food on Hake’s tab.
• Fu Qian introduced Emily and Dennis to Maggie.

Fu Qian searched for the silver door required by his next task and found it in a bar, where he recognized it as one of the doors from the Nightmare Corridor. An invitation came from behind it, leaving him poised to enter.

• Fu Qian apologized to Jane, praised her, and asked whether she had seen a silver door.
• Maggie told Fu Qian there was a silver door in a nearby bar, and he left after telling Emily, Jane, and Maggie they were free to go or stay.
• Fu Qian found the closed bar and used his lockpicking skill to enter.
• Fu Qian discovered a silver-painted door in an inconspicuous corner and recognized its pattern from the Nightmare Corridor.
• Someone behind the door invited Fu Qian to come in.