Chapter Summaries

Fu Qian spoke with Unyielding Man, a sanatorium medical worker who patrolled at night under another identity, and discussed the practice of exchanging perspectives. Their conversation ended as Unyielding Man led Fu Qian through a window toward a nearby destination.

• Fu Qian provoked Unyielding Man by asking whether he had considered replacing Dr. Selvis.
• Unyielding Man explained that he patrolled the sanatorium at night in another role to observe patients and reflect on his daytime work.
• Fu Qian described Katon Old Man's practice of two people exchanging identities, which they had named "Reflection."
• Unyielding Man considered the risks of the practice and asked whether Katon Old Man had succeeded; Fu Qian said he had.
• Unyielding Man opened a small window and led Fu Qian toward a corridor and staircase, saying their destination was just ahead.

Fu Qian and the Unyielding Man reached the stairs to the attending physician's office, where Fu Qian guessed no one was waiting inside. The Unyielding Man checked a folded note and confirmed the office was empty, leaving the nature of his earlier claims unresolved.

• Fu Qian climbed through a window with the Unyielding Man and learned that staff avoided the area because Servis rarely visited.
• The Unyielding Man asked who Fu Qian expected to find behind the office door, and Fu Qian answered that he hoped no one was there.
• Fu Qian suspected the Unyielding Man's earlier claims had been a test rather than the truth.
• The Unyielding Man unfolded a pale golden note, read it twice, and confirmed that the office was empty.

Fu Qian tested Unyielding Man’s story about the empty room and realized the internist was the director’s personal actor, then treated their apparent reconciliation as another chance to probe the director’s control. After confirming no one answered behind Selvis’s door, Fu Qian asked Unyielding Man where he should hide next.

• Fu Qian inferred that Unyielding Man had revealed a sealed stratagem from the director and was acting as the director’s personal actor.
• Unyielding Man declared that Fu Qian had passed a test of his willpower, and Fu Qian played along before taking the lead.
• Fu Qian went to Selvis’s door despite Unyielding Man’s warning and reached for its unlocked handle.
• Fu Qian stopped before entering and knocked on the door instead, but no one answered.
• Fu Qian withdrew and asked Unyielding Man where his actual hiding place was, leaving Unyielding Man visibly unsettled.

Fu Qian and Unyielding Man reached the attending physician’s office but were interrupted by a group leaving a laboratory with an elderly patient. Fu Qian approached them, and the old man recognized him and lamented his own failing health before Fu Qian boasted that he had finally convinced people he was well.

• Fu Qian knocked three times on the attending physician’s office door but chose not to look inside, frustrating Unyielding Man.
• A laboratory door opened, and several people wheeled an elderly man out on a gurney; the group noticed Fu Qian and Unyielding Man.
• Unyielding Man suggested they leave, but Fu Qian walked over and asked whether the old man had just undergone an examination.
• The old man recognized Fu Qian and said he had recovered quickly while wishing he could return to his youth.
• Unyielding Man urged Fu Qian not to disturb the old man, but Fu Qian pointed to his own head and claimed the staff had finally accepted that nothing was wrong with him.

Fu Qian calmed the sanatorium staff by pretending his concern about his own sanity explained why he and Unyielding Man were there, while also trying to lift Old Man’s spirits. He then told Unyielding Man that his conflicting concerns suggested more than one will was behind his actions.

• Fu Qian made the staff believe he had been diagnosed and was accompanying Old Man on a walk, defusing the tense encounter.
• Old Man seemed invigorated by Fu Qian’s words and left with the medical staff to rest.
• Unyielding Man questioned Fu Qian’s unnecessary performance, and Fu Qian said he had encouraged Old Man to face life with a smile.
• Fu Qian explained that he hoped to ease Old Man’s fear and resentment, which he believed could threaten their remaining seven days.
• Fu Qian pointed out that Unyielding Man worried about the train, the office, and involving patients, then suggested that more than one person’s will might lie behind those choices.

Fu Qian tested Unyielding Man’s conflicting efforts to steer him away from both the train and Selvis’s office, suspecting the Director had a divided agenda. Unyielding Man handed him a secret instruction and yielded control, leaving Fu Qian to wonder whether Selvis and the Director were separate people.

• Fu Qian concluded that Unyielding Man’s contradictory actions reflected the Director’s uncertainty about whether Fu Qian should board the train or enter Selvis’s office.
• After Fu Qian suggested that Unyielding Man’s motives were conflicted, Unyielding Man searched his clothes and handed over a pale-gold secret instruction.
• Fu Qian read the note, which directed Unyielding Man to agree with him and then let him take the lead.
• Unyielding Man told Fu Qian to lead the operation, and Fu Qian accepted.
• Fu Qian wondered whether the Director and Selvis were two different people, making the plan a three-man act.

Fu Qian deduced that Unyielding Man was caught between Selvis and a separate director, whose conflicting wills explained his contradictory behavior. He kept the note and prepared to continue the operation by letting Unyielding Man leave, while the reasons everyone followed the director’s script remained unresolved.

• Fu Qian interpreted the note as evidence that the director had loosened his control and let him take the initiative.
• Fu Qian concluded that Selvis and the director likely had opposing goals, leaving Unyielding Man trapped between them.
• Fu Qian asked Unyielding Man why the note’s writer seemed to distrust him, but Unyielding Man refused to discuss the matter.
• Fu Qian declared that the next step of the operation was for Unyielding Man to leave.
• The author noted that updates might be unstable because of preparations for surgery.

Fu Qian reasoned that Selvis was allowing the Director to stage the sanatorium as an amusement park, but would not let him enter the attending physician's office. He sent the Unyielding Man away with everyone on the floor, leaving both Selvis and the Director unable to monitor what happened there.

• Fu Qian concluded that Selvis cooperated with the Director because the Director's unusual condition interested him, but that the attending physician's office was a boundary Selvis would not allow him to cross.
• Fu Qian ordered the Unyielding Man to leave the office area so neither Selvis nor the Director could monitor him in real time.
• The Unyielding Man asked whether Fu Qian had any further requirements, and Fu Qian told him to clear the entire floor of people.
• The Unyielding Man reluctantly complied and hurried through the rooms to remove everyone while Fu Qian watched without revealing his next move.

Fu Qian hid in the darkened basement to block the Directors’ view and test how they would respond. He waited in the attending physician’s office as an increasing number of silent visitors gathered beyond the curtained gate.

• Fu Qian sent the Unyielding Man away, cleared the basement, and shut off its lights to prevent the Directors from observing him.
• Fu Qian closed and locked the basement gate, hung privacy curtains over it, then waited outside the attending physician’s office without entering.
• A person descended the stairs, stopped silently behind the curtains, and later went back upstairs.
• A heavier person descended and also stood silently behind the curtains.
• More footsteps descended the stairs, bringing a crowd of silent people to gather outside the gate.

Fu Qian watched the directors gather half the sanatorium outside the black box, then entered the attending physician's office to move the standoff forward. Inside, he found a hidden compartment and used the key the director had given him.

• Fu Qian deduced that the directors had gathered the patients both to pressure Selvis and to provoke a reaction from him.
• Fu Qian realized that the people waiting outside could become dangerous if their inner darkness emerged and brought Judgment Day closer.
• Fu Qian opened the office door and entered without making a sound.
• Fu Qian found the office empty and spotted a concealed compartment behind the desk.
• Fu Qian took out the key the director had given him.

Fu Qian deduced that the Director had guided him to Selvis’s office to open a safe, using him as an unpredictable collaborator in their conflict. After Fu Qian pushed open the door, the people behind the iron door retreated, suggesting Selvis had detected a collapse in the black box; Fu Qian then entered the office with the key.

• Fu Qian suspected the Director had given him the key to Selvis’s office safe so he would open it.
• Fu Qian concluded that Selvis wanted him to enter the office while the Director was guiding him, and that Unyielding Man had been caught between them.
• Fu Qian reasoned that the Director needed him as a collaborator Selvis could not fully control.
• After Fu Qian pushed open the door, the people behind the iron door retreated up the stairs.
• Fu Qian inferred that Selvis had detected the black box’s failure and removed the onlookers, then walked into the office with the key.

Fu Qian entered Selvis’s office and opened the safe, hoping to gain leverage in the three-way contest with Selvis and the Director. He found only a notebook and a pen, leaving the safe’s purpose and contents unexplained.

• Fu Qian weighed the risks of showing goodwill to Selvis and decided instead to keep his weakness concealed.
• Fu Qian opened the hidden compartment behind the attending physician’s desk without triggering an alarm.
• Fu Qian used the key to open Selvis’s safe without turning its combination dial.
• Fu Qian discovered a notebook and a pen inside the safe.

Fu Qian opened the safe notebook to uncover information Selvis had wanted the Director to see, but found that it was another Abyss Notebook containing familiar Blood Clan records and a note he had written himself. The discovery left him facing an unexpected connection between the notebook, Selvis’s plans, and his own past.

• Fu Qian took the notebook and pen from the safe, choosing to follow Selvis’s setup rather than back away.
• Fu Qian reasoned that his increasingly unpredictable actions had forced Selvis to treat him as a dangerous bargaining partner instead of an ignorant Tool Person.
• Fu Qian opened the notebook and read that Lei Aier had pursued Selvis for the power within him while hiding her intentions through acting.
• Fu Qian recognized the notebook’s passages about the Blood Clan, including records he had seen in the Abyss Notebook Taylor had brought back.
• Fu Qian turned another page and found the note, “Jia Keke is older than 50,” which he had written himself.

Fu Qian found an Abyss Notebook in Selvis's office safe and discovered that it contained a new entry about Lasik, who apparently had used it and failed to escape the sanatorium. As Fu Qian hesitated over writing in it, someone behind him challenged him to try.

• Fu Qian examined the Abyss Notebook in the attending physician's office and found its copied contents matched the original despite different handwriting.
• Fu Qian found a new entry stating that Lasik could not leave the sanatorium.
• Fu Qian inferred that Lasik had opened the safe, tried the notebook, and suffered a despairing fate.
• Fu Qian prepared to write on the final page but hesitated, and a voice behind him urged him to try.

Fu Qian met Selvis after discovering the hidden passage into the office and reading the Abyss Notebook. Selvis sat down with him to discuss what he had found, and Fu Qian identified Lasik as an acquaintance before Selvis expressed regret over her fate.

• Fu Qian heard a voice from behind the medical cabinet and invited the hidden visitor to come in.
• Selvis opened the concealed door, and Fu Qian switched on the light to reveal him.
• Selvis objected that Fu Qian was sitting in his seat, while Fu Qian explained that he had been reading the notebook as he waited.
• Selvis joined Fu Qian at the desk and asked what he had discovered in the notebook.
• Fu Qian mentioned Lasik, and Selvis said he felt sorry for what had happened to her.

Fu Qian questioned Lord Selvis about Lasik and learned that she had appeared at the sanatorium under circumstances similar to his own. Selvis had not helped her leave, and Fu Qian ended by pointing out how difficult it was to prove someone was well enough to go.

• Fu Qian drew Selvis into discussing Lasik and said he had not come to the sanatorium looking for her.
• Selvis revealed that Lasik had been found at the same sanatorium where Fu Qian had been held.
• Selvis said Lasik had no idea how she had arrived, recalling that everything went black before she awoke in an unfamiliar place.
• Selvis explained that he had not helped Lasik leave because his duty was to keep patients from escaping.
• Fu Qian accepted that patients had to prove they were well before leaving and gestured toward the notes, remarking that it was a difficult question.

Selvis explained how Lasik had been manipulated by the Director and trapped in the sanatorium, where her attempts to challenge its strange rules led others to question her sanity. He revealed that the Harbinger had helped Lasik hide deeper inside and offered to send Fu Qian away if Fu Qian assisted him.

• Selvis said Lasik had been led by the Director to open the safe while he watched and allowed the plan to proceed.
• Selvis recalled that Lasik had insisted there should not be a fifty-second day, and Fu Qian said he regarded it as a difference in timekeeping.
• Selvis said Lasik’s behavior had grown increasingly aggressive and showed Fu Qian the scar she had left on his nose.
• Fu Qian asked whether Selvis had put Lasik in solitary confinement, and Selvis said she had hidden deeper in the sanatorium with someone’s help.
• Selvis identified Lasik’s helper as the Harbinger and offered to send Fu Qian away if he assisted him.

Fu Qian questioned Selvis about Lasik and learned how the Harbinger’s prophecies were made to come true. Selvis explained that the Harbinger would not enter the black box himself and that he had sent Lasik away because he found her ordinary, leaving Fu Qian to face the next challenge.

• Fu Qian asked Selvis whether he had secretly sent Lasik away, and Selvis said she had been near a complete breakdown after using the notebook.
• Fu Qian learned that the Harbinger had told Lasik how to use the notebook while Selvis watched.
• Selvis explained that the Harbinger considered himself a master prophet and that Selvis made his predictions come true by arranging events in the sanatorium.
• Selvis said the Harbinger knew he was waiting in the black box and would send other people in through his prophecies rather than enter himself.
• Fu Qian accused Selvis of dismissing Lasik because she was boring, and Selvis admitted that he had found her too ordinary to belong there.

Fu Qian learned how Selvis found the Truth Notebook and how the sanatorium's supernatural phenomena were used to undermine the Foreseer's confidence. He accepted Selvis's proposal to investigate the case and asked him to bring the Foreseer in.

• Fu Qian reasoned that Selvis's plan had cornered the Foreseer by forcing him to confront the Truth Notebook's supernatural power, but Lasik's collapse had let the Foreseer regain the upper hand temporarily.
• Fu Qian and Selvis compared the names Truth Notebook and Abyss Notebook, and Selvis insisted that his notebook had always remained in the sanatorium.
• Selvis explained that his fascination with the sanatorium led him to explore its hidden network until the notebook appeared to him.
• Fu Qian asked whether writing had mysteriously appeared in the notebook, and Selvis said it had always contained the same, partly incomprehensible contents.
• Fu Qian accepted Selvis's suggestion and asked him to bring the Foreseer in for the case.

Fu Qian reasoned that the sanatorium’s distorted passage of time might explain the Abyss Notebook’s impossible chronology, then helped Selvis plan to draw the Harbinger into the office. Selvis called the Harbinger over, revealing that he had been listening and that Fu Qian had been part of the trap all along.

• Fu Qian considered how the Well of Time and the sanatorium’s warped sense of time could explain the Abyss Notebook’s contradictory entries.
• Fu Qian told Selvis that drawing the Harbinger into the office would be more effective than leaving the sanatorium, and Selvis agreed to work with him.
• Fu Qian explained that the Harbinger needed to enter the office for Selvis to turn their stalemate into a three-way confrontation.
• Selvis called toward the doorway, and the Harbinger answered and appeared.
• Fu Qian recognized that the Harbinger had been listening to their conversation and that Selvis had involved him in the plan from the start.