Chapter Summaries

Fu Qian revealed his supernatural power to Tommy and Norwell, then agreed to stay under house arrest while they investigated. After leaving, Tommy realized Fu Qian was likely a genuine supernatural being and decided to alert the Night Watchers and investigate Claire’s husband, while Fu Qian listened in and welcomed their approach.

• Fu Qian demonstrated supernatural power, prompting Norwell to draw his weapon and Tommy to question Fu Qian’s motives.
• Tommy allowed Fu Qian to remain in the room under house arrest and ordered him to stop working until further notice.
• After leaving, Tommy told Norwell that Fu Qian was likely a supernatural being and that Claire’s family might be in danger.
• Tommy and Norwell decided to contact the Night Watchers and investigate Claire’s husband for anything suspicious.
• Fu Qian listened to their conversation and concluded that his plan was progressing smoothly.

Fu Qian waited for the Night Watchers to investigate Rick Wesley and was soon confronted by Winona, who asked why Rick had disappeared. Fu Qian said Rick had sensed danger, leaving Winona stunned by his blunt answer.

• Fu Qian decided not to confront Rick directly and planned to use the Night Watchers to monitor him.
• A Night Watcher arrived at Fu Qian’s home and demanded to know where Rick was.
• Fu Qian identified the visitor as a Night Watcher and persuaded her to sit and speak with him.
• The woman introduced herself as Winona and told Fu Qian that Rick Wesley had disappeared from home.
• Fu Qian answered that Rick had sensed danger.

Fu Qian faced questions from Night Watchers Winona and Leilan after Winona attacked him and Leilan intervened. He learned that Leilan had not been the Wesleys’ Night Watcher friend and realized Winona was the one Claire had meant.

• Winona attacked Fu Qian with her revolver after he admitted he was a supernatural being, but Leilan stopped her with a knife.
• Leilan explained that he had investigated Fu Qian after noticing irregularities in the source of his clients, including Claire Wesley.
• Fu Qian claimed a strange force had guided Claire to him, while Winona and Leilan questioned whether his actions were connected to Wesley’s disappearance.
• Leilan confirmed that Claire had taken back ordinary water but warned that it could still have served as a signal or warning to her husband.
• Fu Qian asked whether Leilan had been the Wesleys’ friend in the Night Watchers, learned he had not known them before that day, and asked Winona if she was the friend.

Fu Qian tested how the Night Watchers reacted to his claim that Rick Wesley was not ordinary, then confirmed that Winona resisted Clear Dream and might be vulnerable to Rick’s contamination. After escaping their attack, he planned to investigate the Wesley home; meanwhile, he suddenly reappeared to attack Winona.

• Fu Qian told Winona and Leilan that Rick Wesley had been discovered as more than an ordinary person, and demonstrated that they could not reliably sense a Transcendent.
• Winona resisted Clear Dream, warned Leilan, and opened fire at Fu Qian.
• Leilan recovered and attacked the places where Fu Qian might be hiding, but his blades and emerald-green projectiles hit nothing.
• Fu Qian observed that Winona's resistance to Clear Dream supported his suspicion that Rick could contaminate people through face-to-face contact.
• Fu Qian considered checking the room Rick had forbidden others to enter, while Winona and Leilan searched for him.
• A crystalline frost spear shot from a corner toward Winona as Fu Qian suddenly appeared.

Fu Qian attacked Winona and Leilan, then listened as the Night Watchers decided to search for Mr. Rick and investigate Wesley. After they left, Fu Qian went to the Wesley residence, keeping track of Winona through the Thread of Concern.

• Fu Qian ambushed Winona, but she dodged the ice spear before an unseen force pulled her into its path and struck her.
• Leilan guarded Winona, and the two Night Watchers agreed to leave rather than keep fighting an attacker whose methods they could not understand.
• Leilan and Winona decided to find Mr. Rick and gather people to search for Gorimshaw, suspecting Wesley had a connection to the supernatural.
• Fu Qian overheard the Night Watchers discuss using Mr. Rick as bait and question whether Wesley was truly ordinary.
• Fu Qian went to the Wesley residence, using the Thread of Concern attached to Winona to monitor the Night Watchers.

Fu Qian entered Claire’s home and persuaded her to lead him to the forbidden room where her missing husband, Mr. Rick, might be. The two reached the door to the underground study, which no one had searched yet.

• Fu Qian used Blood Conquest to enter the Otherworldly Passage and found Claire alone, drinking wine.
• Fu Qian reassured Claire, asked her to keep her voice down, and proposed searching the room no one was allowed to enter.
• Claire said the police officers had already left and confirmed that no one had searched the forbidden room.
• Fu Qian asked Claire to finish her wine so she would look less suspicious, then had her lead him through the Wesley home.
• Claire led Fu Qian underground to the door beside a large picture frame, identifying it as the entrance to Mr. Rick’s study.

Fu Qian opened the locked room in Rick’s house and found a wall of clean, empty boxes that appeared to be hospital supplies. He suggested Rick had taken human organs and that something had licked the boxes clean, leaving Claire horrified and asking her to recall Rick’s unusual behavior.

• Fu Qian used a hairpin to open the locked room, and Claire followed him inside and turned on the light.
• Claire and Fu Qian found a stack of identical, translucent boxes in the otherwise empty room.
• Fu Qian inferred that Rick had taken the boxes from the hospital where he had worked as a surgeon.
• Fu Qian suggested that the boxes had once held body parts and had been licked clean, reminding Claire of her disturbing dreams.
• Claire vomited, and Fu Qian asked her to think of anything unusual Rick had done or said.

Fu Qian questioned Claire in Mr. Rick’s secret chamber and learned that Rick had described people afflicted by strange illnesses as parts of himself. After Fu Qian vanished, Winona found Claire, who explained why she had brought him to the chamber and revealed what she knew about it.

• Claire recalled that Mr. Rick had called hideous illnesses flowers blooming in the flesh and said their sufferers were parts of himself.
• Fu Qian suspected Rick’s contamination had drawn his victims into a shared being and concluded that the victims on the Ross side might be numerous.
• Fu Qian thanked Claire, told her she could speak freely to the people coming to help, and plunged the chamber into darkness before escaping.
• Winona rushed into the room and found Claire alone; Claire said the mysterious con man had appeared and vanished without explanation.
• Claire told Winona that the room was Mr. Rick’s secret chamber and recounted how she had been invited to explore it.

Winona investigated Claire’s encounter with Mr. Rick, unaware that Fu Qian remained hidden and had drawn her into an illusion. After realizing the conversation and lit room had only existed in a dream, Winona feared the disappearance case involved a demigod beyond her and Leilan’s control.

• Claire told Winona that Mr. Rick had expected her to come and said she did not need to hide their conversation.
• Winona promised to arrange protection for Claire and vowed that Mr. Rick would pay for his actions.
• Fu Qian listened from the darkness and revealed that he had used Blood Conquest to trap Winona in a dream.
• Winona realized the lights and conversation had been an illusion after Claire said the room had stayed dark since Winona arrived.
• Winona suspected a demigod was behind the case and feared she and Leilan could not handle it.

Fu Qian manipulated Winona into seeking stronger help from the Night Watchers while he pursued Mr. Rick’s trail to the hospital where he had worked. There, he used Clear Dream on a composed, golden-haired man walking ahead of him.

• Fu Qian decided Winona should stay with Claire and ask more powerful Night Watchers for help because her contamination might alert Mr. Rick.
• Winona left the darkened room, promised Claire she would stay as her guard, and said someone stronger would handle Mr. Rick.
• Fu Qian anticipated that the Night Watchers and the Association of Charlatans would search for Gorimshaw, giving him a chance to steer their actions.
• Fu Qian went to the old hospital where Mr. Rick had worked and sensed several transcendent presences inside.
• Fu Qian activated Clear Dream on a golden-haired, blue-eyed man walking ahead of him, causing the man to briefly lose focus.

Fu Qian investigated Rick Wesley’s former office at the hospital and found that the contamination had affected people who were not close to its source. The Night Watchers arrived and claimed the office had been empty since Rick retired, leaving Fu Qian to challenge the woman who insisted it was hers.

• Fu Qian concluded that the medical professional he encountered had been contaminated, like two people who had obstructed him earlier.
• Fu Qian asked the medical professional where Rick Wesley’s office was, but the man said he did not know and hurried away.
• An elderly gentleman gave Fu Qian directions to Rick’s office, but Fu Qian found no room matching the address.
• Fu Qian entered a woman’s office and asked whether it had once belonged to Rick, but she insisted she had worked there for more than ten years.
• Three Night Watchers entered and said the office had been empty ever since Rick Wesley retired.
• Fu Qian used the Night Watchers’ claim to challenge the woman’s certainty that the office had always been hers.

Fu Qian investigated Rick’s former office, where he encountered an elderly woman who had mistakenly entered and three Night Watchers searching for the same place. After revealing his name and triggering their attack, he vanished with Clear Dream, and the old woman began disappearing as well.

• The elderly woman realized she had entered the wrong place, then revealed that she knew Rick’s office and asked what Fu Qian wanted with him.
• The three Night Watchers questioned Fu Qian, who introduced himself by showing them a card bearing the name Gorimshaw; their leader’s power burned it to charcoal.
• Fu Qian warned the elderly woman to stay clear of the danger, but the Night Watchers accused him of trying to take her hostage.
• Fu Qian activated Clear Dream and vanished as the Night Watchers attacked his empty position.
• A Night Watcher grabbed the elderly woman to help her escape, but she began disappearing, while a giant claw tore through Fu Qian’s afterimage.

Fu Qian confronted the supernatural force controlling the old woman and questioned its connection to Rick Wesley. After it attacked a Night Watcher to provoke him, Fu Qian observed the strike’s effects and identified it as conceptual damage.

• Fu Qian explained how he escaped Clear Dream and realized the old woman had broken free while still under an inhuman force’s influence.
• The old woman attacked Fu Qian with a phantom claw, and he dodged while greeting the mysterious entity.
• Fu Qian ended Clear Dream, restoring the three Night Watchers, and the old woman raised her claw against a rescuer.
• Fu Qian questioned the entity about Rick Wesley and refused to intervene when it brought the claw down on a Night Watcher.
• Fu Qian observed the victim stiffen without physical injury and concluded that the claw inflicted conceptual damage.

Fu Qian watched as the old woman’s attack left a Night Watcher’s body intact but damaged his Primal Self, then allowed the Night Watchers to withdraw with her. After they left, Fu Qian stayed in Mr. Rick’s former office, having already achieved his goal of giving the Night Watchers information to report.

• The Night Watchers pulled their injured teammate away from the old woman while Fu Qian watched.
• The injured Night Watcher said something was wrong as his body began to curl unnaturally, and Fu Qian recognized that the old woman’s claw had damaged his Primal Self.
• The Night Watchers’ leader decided to retreat and report the incident rather than risk his teammate’s life.
• The old woman woke from her sleepwalking, lost her supernatural power, and was no longer dangerous.
• Fu Qian told the Night Watchers they could take the old woman with them, and they withdrew with her and their injured teammate.
• Fu Qian remained in the office without searching it, since provoking the Night Watchers to act and carry information back had been his goal.

Fu Qian investigated Rick Wesley’s office and concluded that a dormant supernatural creation connected to dreams might be the source of the Sin Plague. At the Wesley mansion, Winona warned Claire that Rick was dangerous, just as an unseen speaker suggested he was hiding from an even greater threat.

• Fu Qian examined the documents in Rick Wesley’s office and reasoned that Rick’s contamination had likely mutated recently.
• Fu Qian suspected that a special creation dormant within a dream was spreading the Sin Plague and considered how to destroy it.
• Fu Qian left Rick’s office largely undisturbed so the Night Watchers might wrongly believe he had already found what he wanted.
• Claire pressed Winona for an update, and Winona said that Rick’s former contacts had shown signs of supernatural abilities.
• Winona began to warn Claire about the person Rick was hiding from when a voice beside them interrupted.

Fu Qian returned to Claire’s home, where Winona failed to stop him and tried to protect Claire by insisting she posed no threat. He questioned Winona about her search and Mr. Rick, then the Night Watchers’ reinforcements arrived as a gunshot and green light erupted beside him.

• Winona recognized Fu Qian’s voice, attacked in a burst of fury, and then froze when he calmly approached Claire and took his seat.
• Winona abandoned her fighting stance and tried to persuade Fu Qian that Claire was an ordinary person who had no value to him.
• Fu Qian challenged Winona’s description of ordinary people and asked why she assumed Claire could not matter to him.
• Winona inferred that Fu Qian had found something at the hospital and asked what it was; he called it interesting but troublesome, then asked whether Mr. Rick had mentioned him.
• Winona said Mr. Rick had not seemed to know Fu Qian and asked how he knew the man had been found.
• A gunshot and a sea of green light appeared beside Fu Qian as the Night Watchers’ reinforcements arrived.

Leilan ambushed Fu Qian with a supernatural attack that infected him with a crystal-forming poison and gave the Night Watchers a way to track him. Leilan demanded an honest conversation, but Fu Qian suggested killing the tracker, and Leilan revealed that Los could share the tracking effect.

• Leilan launched a massive green-bullet ambush that crystallized Fu Qian’s flesh even as Fu Qian activated Blood Conquest.
• Winona tackled Claire out of the way, but Leilan assured Winona that Fu Qian had stayed in place and would not attack them pointlessly.
• Fu Qian reappeared unharmed apart from the infection, and Leilan explained that a special talisman had destabilized supernatural effects in the bullet and triggered its transformation.
• Leilan said the poison would turn Fu Qian’s body into lifeless matter and let the Night Watchers track him, then demanded an honest conversation about their goals and limits.
• Fu Qian proposed killing Leilan to stop the tracking, but Leilan revealed that Los, the Night Watchers’ demigod chief, could share the tracking effect.

Leilan explained how the Night Watchers had prepared to trap Fu Qian and tried to force him to answer their questions, but Fu Qian realized their real goal might be to keep him there. He warned that their actions could leave the city in danger, and the chapter ended with Leilan shaken by the threat.

• Leilan praised Winona for calling for backup and explained that the Night Watchers had planned around Fu Qian’s arrogance and abilities.
• Leilan offered to let Fu Qian question Claire after he answered their questions, warning that the spell’s contamination and tracking would persist.
• Fu Qian suspected that the Night Watchers’ true aim was to make him stay and possibly bring Mr. Rick to the scene.
• Fu Qian said he was unhappy with their approach and warned Claire that the city might not have much time left.
• Leilan’s composure faltered at Fu Qian’s warning.

Fu Qian left the Wesley home after challenging the Night Watchers to hunt him as their marked target, while warning that Los faced a city-destroying threat. A red-haired gunslinger stopped him outside by firing a trench through the grounds, and the chapter ended with her aiming her revolver at him.

• Fu Qian told Winona and Leilan that a city-destroying threat was brewing in Los, but refused to explain unless they hunted him down.
• Fu Qian left the Wesley home, and Leilan decided to take Claire with them while they waited to see what the Night Watchers would do.
• A roar interrupted the group as Fu Qian approached the exit, and Leilan watched the route Gorimshaw had taken.
• A red-haired gunslinger fired her revolver, creating a deep trench that blocked Fu Qian's path out of the Wesley grounds.
• The gunslinger dismissed Fu Qian's concerns about property damage and bystanders, then kept pointing her gun at him.

Fu Qian spoke with Thirteen, Los’s chief, and learned that her supernatural ability amplified the power of her guns. He revealed that he had refused to cooperate so she would come in person, then used Clear Dream on her, prompting her to aim both guns at him.

• Fu Qian asked the gunfighter demigod her name, and she identified herself as Thirteen.
• Thirteen told Fu Qian that her powerful shot had been a warning meant to persuade him to stay and cooperate.
• As they walked outside the courtyard, Thirteen explained that her ability made supernatural structures and attacks burn explosively, amplifying her bullets.
• Thirteen questioned why Fu Qian had refused to cooperate, and he said he had wanted her to appear in person.
• Fu Qian activated Clear Dream, but Thirteen quickly broke free and aimed both guns at him.