Chapter Summaries

Fu Qian recounted his visit to the museum and argued that an invisible insect, not a virus, might have caused the disaster. After Kelly and Brook questioned him and completed their evaluation, he agreed to hear their plan while continuing to doubt whether the interrogation room was real.

• Fu Qian told Kelly and Brook that an invisible insect may have caused the disaster he witnessed at the museum.
• Kelly showed Fu Qian photographs of the museum’s dead, including Shen Yuan, while Brook accused him of killing his colleague.
• Fu Qian questioned whether the museum deaths were part of the larger disaster and wondered whether his current surroundings existed only in his mind.
• Fu Qian revealed that the transparent bug had come with him into the interrogation room and asked how long it had been since the accident.
• Kelly said Fu Qian had passed their mental evaluation, and Brook explained that the museum investigation had tested whether Fu Qian would follow instructions.
• Fu Qian agreed to hear Kelly and Brook’s plan while casually playing with the bug in his hand.

Fu Qian traveled back into a seemingly ordinary world and set out to investigate the monastery where Bee Monkey City's unrest had begun. After meeting Bernard on the way, he headed toward the monastery with Bernard's cryptic words leaving him uncertain about what he would find.

• Brook and Kelly asked Fu Qian to investigate the monastery identified as the origin of Bee Monkey City's unrest.
• Fu Qian hypnotized himself and woke in a hospital office with Kelly Randa, who was treating him as her patient.
• Fu Qian tested Kelly's reaction by warning that Bee Monkey City would soon be destroyed, then concluded that this world showed none of the strange effects he had encountered before.
• Fu Qian confirmed the mission and the invisible bug were still present, then took a bus toward the monastery.
• Fu Qian spotted Bernard in a shop and asked about his supposed friend, but Bernard said the person was not really his friend.
• Bernard laughed at Fu Qian's mention of delusions, repeated that there was no advice, and dismissed Fu Qian's plan to purify his soul at the monastery.

Fu Qian visited Loretta at the monastery after Bernard suggested she could advise him about his strange visions. Loretta said others suffered the same experiences and urged him to stay anchored to reality, promising that her search for a solution—perhaps through reasonable pain—was not hopeless.

• Bernard told Fu Qian to visit Loretta at the monastery, and Fu Qian left the bookstore to find her.
• A monastery attendant directed Fu Qian to Loretta, who welcomed him in a meditation room.
• Fu Qian explained that for about a month he had seen people suddenly harm themselves and the city become deserted and dilapidated.
• Loretta recognized Bernard's influence in Fu Qian's phrasing and said she could guess why Bernard had sent him.
• Loretta told Fu Qian others suffered similar visions, advised him to anchor himself to reality, and said she was exploring a solution involving reasonable pain.

Fu Qian persuaded Loretta to let him stay at the monastery, where Nivalis welcomed him and Loretta showed him a bare room. After spending the day meditating, Fu Qian wondered why the monastery seemed so ordinary and whether Loretta had stayed there for a deeper reason.

• Loretta offered Fu Qian a place to stay at the monastery, and he accepted so he could continue investigating it.
• Loretta introduced Fu Qian to Nivalis, who allowed him to stay as long as he did not disturb anyone.
• Nivalis asked whether Fu Qian was troubled, and Fu Qian described his disturbing experiences before Nivalis wished him strength to find what he sought.
• Loretta showed Fu Qian an empty room furnished only with a stone bed and explained the monastery's informal arrangements.
• Fu Qian meditated until sunset, then questioned why nothing supernatural had happened and dismissed the idea that the monastery was an obvious gathering place for spiritual energy.

After the world around him turned dark and decayed, Fu Qian went to Loretta's room and found it empty. He staged a meditation to reinforce his role, and Loretta appeared and asked why he was there.

• Fu Qian found two small fruits in the corridor and ate one, then watched the moon turn dark red.
• Fu Qian noticed his bitten fruit had remained with him and saw dark-red streaks spreading across the monastery walls.
• Fu Qian went to Loretta's room, found it empty, and decided the other residents had vanished as well.
• Fu Qian sat on Loretta's table and pretended to meditate, acting as though the ruined surroundings were an illusion.
• Loretta appeared and asked Fu Qian why he was there.

Fu Qian pretended to be relieved after returning from a nightmare world, and Loretta explained that she and Bernard had once suffered the same torment after their supposed supernatural talents changed. Loretta offered Fu Qian a needle from a small box, leaving him to face whatever risk she meant him to take.

• Fu Qian recognized that the world had switched again and acted as though he had just returned from a nightmare.
• Loretta asked how long Fu Qian had been experiencing the torment, and he said it had lasted about a month, or twenty-five days in practice.
• Loretta told Fu Qian that she and Bernard had believed they possessed supernatural talents before those talents transformed into involuntary journeys through chaotic worlds.
• Loretta said she eventually escaped the nightmares after moving to Bee Monkey, but Bernard had refused her invitation to join her there.
• Loretta warned Fu Qian that he might not return so precisely next time, then offered him a needle from a delicate box.

Loretta gave Fu Qian a Golden Needle that she said could quiet his mind and keep nightmares away. When Fu Qian pushed it deep into his temple, he saw a strange door in a distant light before Loretta pulled the needle out, leaving him wondering why the door seemed familiar.

• Loretta explained that Nivalis had given her the Golden Needle, which she had used to find relief from her own mental turmoil.
• Fu Qian accepted the needle, hoping it would protect him from nightmares, and began carefully pushing it into his temple.
• As the pain sharpened his thoughts, Fu Qian sensed a strange radiance in the darkness and saw a door at its source.
• Loretta grabbed Fu Qian's hand and pulled the needle out after he pushed it too far.
• Fu Qian apologized to Loretta but remained focused on the door, which seemed familiar to him.

Fu Qian discovered Loretta’s Golden Needle might be connected to his illness and the nightmare in Bee Monkey City, then tested whether he could harm her. After being pulled back to Dr. Kelly’s office, he recognized the baby’s cries and realized he had learned something about the doctor and Officer Brook.

• Fu Qian connected the Golden Needle’s use just over a month earlier to the onset of his illness and the Bee Monkey City incident.
• Loretta explained that the needle had helped her and suggested Fu Qian could use his experience to persuade Bernard to try it.
• Fu Qian returned the Golden Needle to Loretta, then feigned an attempt to harm her to test whether anyone was watching.
• Fu Qian was pulled from Loretta’s room into Dr. Kelly’s office and concluded that an unseen observer was protecting her and could send him into a nightmare.
• Fu Qian identified the baby’s crying in Kelly’s recording and, after focusing on it, told Kelly and Officer Brook that he had learned quite a lot.

Fu Qian told Brook and Kelly that he had found the monastery and joined the group living there. After Brook freed his upper body, Fu Qian seized an empty pistol to test their resolve, then calmly returned to explaining what he had learned.

• Fu Qian said he had spent nearly a day unconscious and had found the monastery Brook suspected.
• Fu Qian asked Brook to release his restraints, and Kelly persuaded Brook to free Fu Qian's upper body.
• Fu Qian threw files at Brook, took his pistol, and pointed it at Brook while asking Kelly to unlock the rest of his restraints.
• Fu Qian pointed the pistol into his own mouth and pulled the trigger, but discovered it was empty.
• Fu Qian handed the pistol back to Brook and resumed his account, saying he had joined the suspected group.

Fu Qian linked the monastery’s golden-needle practice and a possibly replaced Nivalis to the virus outbreak, then persuaded Brook and Kelly to give him a gun and bullets. He planned to use the monastery’s crying sound to escape their nightmare cage, with his arms restrained and the sound set to stop in exactly one hour.

• Fu Qian told Brook and Kelly that monastery members used golden needles to suppress mental corruption and suggested their wounds could have spread the virus.
• Brook described Nivalis as a representative of the monastery, while Kelly recalled treating a balding patient named Nivalis months earlier.
• Fu Qian said the Nivalis he had met looked different and suspected someone had replaced the monastery administrator before the outbreak.
• Brook planned to alert the Federation officers, but Fu Qian urged them to find the Night Watchers and escape the nightmare cage.
• Brook and Kelly gave Fu Qian a gun and bullets after restraining his arms, and Fu Qian told them to switch on the crying sound for exactly one hour.

Fu Qian brought Brook’s pistol and bullets into the world where Loretta was deceiving herself, then set out for the monastery with a plan to confront what was happening. He arrived shortly after two and waited in the dark before approaching.

• Fu Qian woke in his bedroom at 1:30 a.m. and confirmed that Brook’s pistol and six bullets had come with him.
• He encountered Shen Yuan outside his door, exposed the pistol to test whether she would react as if reality had collapsed, and watched her retreat in fear.
• Fu Qian concluded that he was in the world where Loretta was deceiving herself and checked that the test had taken less than four minutes.
• He drove to the monastery, waited in the car until 2:15, then got out and looked up at it beneath the starlight.

Fu Qian confronted Nivalis, who admitted that he controlled the nightmare and had created the Golden Needle to capture the entity behind it. Nivalis explained Loretta's role in sustaining the nightmare, but his revelation left Fu Qian facing the true master of the world around them.

• Fu Qian found Nivalis waiting in his room, and they discussed their treatment by Dr. Kelly.
• Nivalis suggested Fu Qian test whether the room was real, and Fu Qian shot him five times without injuring him.
• Nivalis admitted that he could travel between worlds and had tracked Fu Qian through the nightmare.
• Nivalis said Loretta did not know the truth, though her actions were essential to keeping the nightmare intact.
• Nivalis explained that Loretta and Bernard's gifts connected them to an entity that created reality-like nightmare bubbles.
• Nivalis revealed that he had made the Golden Needle to draw the bubbles toward Loretta and capture the entity, which now ruled the nightmare.

Fu Qian learned from Yul that people inside the nightmare became ordinary and were reborn after death with increasingly muddled minds, then escaped his attack when the one-hour window pulled him into the mental space. There, Brook threatened him over what he had learned about Nivalis, but a scimitar suddenly cut Brook's neck.

• Fu Qian deduced that Yul was a powerful Transcendent and that the nightmare stripped entrants of their original abilities.
• Yul explained that everyone who died in the nightmare was reborn elsewhere, but repeated deaths gradually damaged their minds.
• Yul attacked Fu Qian, who fired his last bullet and tried to flee before Yul warped him back into the room.
• The one-hour window transported Fu Qian to the mental space, where Kelly and Brook questioned him about Nivalis.
• Brook threatened Fu Qian for refusing to cooperate, but a scimitar emerged behind Brook and sliced through his neck.

Yul revealed that he could enter Fu Qian’s mental world and move between the nightmare’s parallel worlds, then tried to kill him. Fu Qian broke free with a monstrous transformation and revealed that he had swallowed a museum bug, leaving Yul realizing his apparent suicide attempt had been a deception.

• Yul confirmed that Fu Qian’s mental world was real and explained that he could move between the nightmare’s connected worlds.
• Yul banished Kelly and approached Fu Qian, intending to kill him and make him suffer through repeated deaths.
• Yul’s blade failed to draw blood, and a claw emerging from Fu Qian’s clothes grabbed Yul and stopped him from moving between worlds.
• Fu Qian broke his metal restraints and transformed as he recited a mangled account of his identity and beliefs.
• Yul recognized that Fu Qian had swallowed one of the museum bugs and realized Fu Qian had staged his apparent suicide to conceal it.

Fu Qian revealed that he had let the nightmare’s bugs parasitize him to gain an advantage over Yul, then forced Yul to hand over Loretta’s Golden Needle. After Fu Qian snapped the needle, the nightmare convulsed and Yul’s neck broke.

• Fu Qian explained that he had swallowed the bugs to gain a way to counter the forces watching him in the nightmare.
• Fu Qian told Yul he had thirty seconds to persuade him not to kill him, but rejected Yul’s offers of shared authority and a safe hideout.
• Fu Qian demanded Loretta’s Golden Needle, and Yul handed it over after admitting he could not escape.
• Fu Qian snapped the Golden Needle, triggering invisible turbulence throughout the space and cutting off Yul’s scream as his neck snapped.

Fu Qian killed Yul and broke the Golden Needle, destabilizing the overlapping nightmare. He left the interrogation room and found Loretta on a street where a boundary between sunlight and rain was spreading, but vanished before the world collapsed around her.

• Fu Qian confirmed Yul was dead, crushed his head, and saw the nightmare growing unstable after the Golden Needle broke.
• Fu Qian opened the interrogation-room door and stepped onto a crowded street divided between bright weather and torrential rain.
• Fu Qian found Loretta, offered her coffee, and reflected that Bernard had likely ignored her invitation to use the Golden Needle.
• Loretta accepted that her temporary stability had ended, then discovered Fu Qian had disappeared as the spreading boundary reached her and the surroundings fell apart.

Fu Qian returned from Loretta’s nightmare with a new item, Eternal Clarity of Thought, and inferred that the Nightmare Corridor was linked to higher powers that had been annihilated. Back home, he tested the bell’s ability to weaken supernatural effects and discovered it could disrupt even a demigod-level connection for several seconds.

• Fu Qian completed the task and learned that Loretta’s awakened consciousness had died because the higher power tied to her talent had been annihilated.
• Fu Qian connected Loretta’s and Bernard’s experiences to Wen Li’s near-possession by Eve and deduced that the Nightmare Corridor was linked to higher powers in a near-dead state.
• Fu Qian received the Eternal Clarity of Thought bell as a reward for killing Yul and read that it could briefly weaken supernatural power once every twenty-four hours.
• Fu Qian returned home to find Qin Mingze, Tan Ying, and Wu Qingyu visiting, and Qin Mingze asked about the mask and bell.
• Qin Mingze rang the bell, and Fu Qian sensed that it severed his mental connection to those nearby for several seconds, potentially disrupting demigod-level effects.

Fu Qian entered the Wasteland containment scene for 2-153, where he discovered he had apparently shot himself but healed from the wound. Two transcendent beings arrived to investigate why he was the only one alive after their companions died, and Fu Qian agreed to go with them while seeking answers of his own.

• Fu Qian prepared for the scene with the Eternal Clear Mind Rattle and the Silvery White Mask, then entered the Wasteland to conceal Angel Dungeon.
• Fu Qian woke at a table with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chin and a strange revolver, and his body healed as he recovered.
• Fu Qian examined the revolver's patterned bullets, cleaned away the blood, and heard two visitors force open his door.
• The tall and short visitors told Fu Qian that several people from their expedition had been found dead, while he alone had survived.
• Fu Qian agreed to accompany the visitors and said he had questions for them as well.

Fu Qian entered Siren Group’s base in the wasteland and learned that the other explorers had died by suicide after suffering mental influence. He refused to join the next exploration, leaving Siren Group’s response unresolved.

• Fu Qian traveled with two men to Siren Group’s towering headquarters and wore his mask to conceal his presence.
• Gary took Fu Qian’s pistol, checked his identity, and escorted him to meet Gerard.
• Gerard asked Fu Qian to describe what had happened, and Fu Qian claimed his memories had been erased by mental influence.
• Gerard said the other explorers had died by suicide and that Siren Group suspected mental influence had caused it.
• Fu Qian told Gerard he would not take part in the rest of the exploration.

Fu Qian refused Gerard’s offer to continue the Siren Group’s expedition, choosing to avoid attracting the attention of the demigod stationed nearby. He returned to his lodgings under surveillance and planned to keep a low profile while watching the group’s movements.

• Gerard offered Fu Qian triple pay and an Intermediate Tier weapon, but Fu Qian refused to continue the expedition.
• Gerard warned Fu Qian not to reveal information about the expedition, then ordered staff to reimburse him and escort him out.
• Gary suggested killing Fu Qian, but Gerard rejected the idea and ordered someone to watch him, believing he would return.
• Fu Qian settled his reimbursement, returned to his searched lodgings, and realized Siren Group watchers were still monitoring him.
• Fu Qian reviewed his documents, then went out into the City of Hope to show that he was alive while keeping his plans quiet.