Chapter Summaries

Fu Qian learned about the town’s unpredictable nights, its abandoned faith, and the threat that roamed after dark. When Dorian told him to bring back a body for medical tools, Fu Qian grabbed him by the neck, leaving Dorian to stop himself from attacking.

• Dorian told Fu Qian that Xilaliya could be found in the tallest building, while the other locals stayed home because night could fall without warning.
• Dorian warned Fu Qian that something roamed outside at night and said Akons was powerless against it.
• Fu Qian learned that Dorian had used a false healing dream and that the town had changed its name to avoid hearing Akons’s name.
• Dorian asked Fu Qian to bring him a recently dead, intact body, especially one with eyes and lungs.
• Fu Qian seized Dorian by the neck, and Dorian stopped himself from stabbing him with a spike.

Fu Qian explored the ruined settlement and made his way to Akons's sanctuary as darkness suddenly fell. Inside, he found Xilaliya, whose attention fixed on the doll he carried.

• Fu Qian released Dorian after Dorian backed down and left the clinic carrying the doll.
• Fu Qian surveyed the deserted, devastated settlement and saw that the Clear Dream ring worked there.
• Fu Qian noticed signs that Akons's religious marks had been scraped away and observed residents hiding behind closed doors and curtains.
• The sky abruptly darkened as Fu Qian climbed toward the sanctuary, where he found Xilaliya crouched inside.
• Xilaliya looked at Fu Qian and fixed her gaze on the doll in his hand.

Fu Qian visited Xilaliya at Sir Akons's church while carrying the doll Doctor Dorian had made as a treatment tool. He revealed that Dorian had sent him to collect fresh materials to upgrade it, and Xilaliya realized that she was the intended material, alive or dead.

• Fu Qian found Xilaliya in the church and compared her appearance with the doll modeled after her.
• Xilaliya introduced herself and asked why Fu Qian had come, then relaxed when he said he was an outsider.
• Fu Qian explained that Doctor Dorian had made the doll for treating outsiders, and Xilaliya was shocked to hear Dorian's name.
• Xilaliya said outsiders rarely stayed after treatment and recalled that Dorian had always been an excellent physician.
• Fu Qian said Dorian had sent him to gather fresh materials to upgrade the doll and that Xilaliya did not have to be alive.
• Xilaliya stiffened and dropped the doll, but Fu Qian caught it and confirmed that she was the material Dorian wanted.

Fu Qian questioned Xilaliya about the doll-making ritual, the other potential targets, and the town’s darkness. After she described the town’s decline and admitted she had never ventured out at night, Fu Qian asked whether she knew his name, and an invisible impact shattered her face and veil.

• Fu Qian returned the doll to its place and told Xilaliya that he might choose one of the other four targets instead of her.
• Xilaliya asked about the other targets, and Fu Qian described four followers of Lord Akons he had encountered in a dream.
• Fu Qian said the followers had doubted Xilaliya’s faith and excluded her, but she accepted their feelings and spoke of the dying town.
• Fu Qian asked whether Xilaliya knew about the creatures said to emerge in the darkness, and she said she had never gone out at night.
• Fu Qian asked Xilaliya whether she knew his name, and an invisible impact shattered her face and black veil.

Fu Qian tested Xilaliya’s faith by frightening her with a dream, then confronted her failure to seek refuge with Akons. Xilaliya revealed her blasphemous beliefs, and the containment condition appeared: prevent Bitter Fruit from maturing while ensuring at least one native of Akons survived.

• Fu Qian used Clear Dream to make Xilaliya believe her head had exploded, then ended the illusion.
• Xilaliya recognized that Fu Qian had staged the scare and accused him of maliciously misleading her.
• Fu Qian questioned why Xilaliya had not sought refuge beneath Akons despite her devotion.
• Xilaliya veiled her eyes, licked the statue’s toes and leg, and declared that statues and symbols had never represented Him.
• Fu Qian received the containment condition to prevent Bitter Fruit from maturing while ensuring at least one native of Akons survived.

Fu Qian found Xilaliya transformed by her despair over Akons’s silence and questioned her about the Bride Lady. He proposed taking Xilaliya’s corpse and replacing the puppet with a supposedly purer symbol, leaving her to consider his blasphemous suggestion.

• Fu Qian learned that Bitter Fruit was spreading through Akons and that the mission required some natives to survive.
• Fu Qian examined Dark Xilaliya and concluded that her extreme devotion had worsened her collapse after Akons stopped responding.
• Fu Qian asked Xilaliya where the Bride Lady lived, and she turned the conversation toward the puppet beside her.
• Fu Qian explained that he could not leave the puppet as a substitute for the Great One and suggested replacing it with a symbol of Xilaliya herself.

Fu Qian found Bride Lady Sala at the address Xilaliya gave him and asked why she wore a wedding gown. Sala revealed that she was carrying a child and said it needed a father.

• Xilaliya told Fu Qian where Sala lived, and he set off through the darkness.
• Fu Qian reached Sala’s home and knocked on her door, despite hoping to encounter the mysterious entity along the way.
• Sala opened the door after Fu Qian threatened to kick it in, and he showed her Xilaliya’s doll.
• Fu Qian asked Sala why she wore a wedding gown, and she said a child needed a father.
• Sala touched her belly and murmured about the child inside as her belly moved.

Fu Qian examined Lady Sala’s mysterious pregnancy and pressed her about the child’s father and origins, provoking violent reactions from both mother and unborn child. Sala finally remembered that the child had been bestowed upon her by a great being.

• Fu Qian noticed that Sala’s unborn child gave off an intense warning and kept studying her belly despite her objections.
• After Fu Qian questioned her pregnancy, his Sanity Value fell and the unborn child cried out in his mind.
• Sala struggled to remember when the pregnancy began and insisted that a child did not need a father, while Fu Qian pointed out that she had wanted to find one.
• Fu Qian mentioned Xilaliya and suggested a church for Sala’s wedding, provoking a deafening roar and a spray of blood.
• Sala remembered that the child was a gift from the truly great Him.

Fu Qian confronted Lady Sala and discovered that a supernatural presence was growing inside her. After surviving her attack, he questioned her about the child, and Sala drew an invisible baby from her belly as its wail spread throughout Akons.

• Fu Qian provoked Lady Sala and saw her transform into a monstrous form with a grotesquely bulging belly.
• Lady Sala attacked Fu Qian, but he dodged and kicked her through a wall; a strange force in her attack made his blood congeal and pull toward his heart.
• Sala returned unharmed, and Fu Qian asked how a great being had given her a child.
• Sala recalled meeting the being in a dream, then soothed her belly and lifted out an invisible child.
• Sala cradled the invisible child as its wail sounded from all around them, seemingly merged with Akons.

Fu Qian concluded that Sala’s malformed Divine Son was probably not the Bitter Fruit, since the mission remained active after its birth. He left Sala alive with the child, having drawn the attention and anger of the Higher Being behind it, and returned to Akons’s night.

• Fu Qian reasoned that killing Sala would not satisfy the containment objective, which required some locals to survive.
• After Sala cut open her abdomen, the Divine Son fused with Akons, but the mission neither succeeded nor failed.
• Fu Qian praised the child and asked Sala whether she had chosen a name.
• Sala said she had not named the child, then settled down to rock and sing to it.
• Fu Qian left Sala alive and closed the door, carrying the Higher Being’s new grudge into Akons’s night.

Fu Qian explored the dark outskirts of Akons, suspecting that the crying came from the town itself rather than a creature following him. He met the old lady searching for her missing husband and learned how they had become separated on the way to the church.

• Fu Qian sensed that the crying was tied to Akons and wondered why the figure whose name could not be spoken had not appeared.
• Fu Qian encountered the old lady searching in the darkness for her husband, whom she described as old, thin, and bearded.
• The old lady told Fu Qian that she and her husband had gone toward the church for safety, but the lights went out and he left her hiding in an empty house to investigate.
• Fu Qian listened as the old lady explained that her husband had stopped believing in their faith, and he suspected she had a special blessing that helped her avoid dangers in the dark.

Fu Qian met an old woman searching for her missing husband and persuaded her to guide him to a young man he had encountered in the Healing Dreamscape. As they traveled through Akons, Fu Qian’s strange crying continued to affect his body, and the old woman lit a lantern near their destination.

• Fu Qian told the old woman he had found nothing in the more dangerous area and asked whether she had heard a child crying.
• The old woman said she had heard no crying, and Fu Qian asked her to help him find a tall, strong young man.
• The old woman agreed to lead Fu Qian through Akons and explained that people had begun disappearing there, first in large numbers and then night after night.
• As they walked downhill, Fu Qian said the crying continued and secretly removed a bubbling clump of blood from beneath his ribs as the abnormal flow of blood gathered toward his heart.
• The old woman lit a lantern and said their destination was just ahead.

Fu Qian questioned an old woman who guided him through Cold Mountain and learned that she did not recognize him as the outsider he had supposedly been before. He then went to visit the dejected man, drawn by a powerful, sword-shaped artifact in the man’s room, while the crying in his mind and his Heart Strike episodes continued to worsen.

• The old woman gave Fu Qian her lantern and asked whether he was an outsider, saying his face was unfamiliar.
• Fu Qian learned that the place was no longer called Akons and that the old woman disliked the name Cold Mountain, then agreed not to mention Akons to anyone else.
• The old woman advised Fu Qian to seek out Dorian before disappearing into the darkness.
• Fu Qian cleaned the blood from his wounds and went to the dejected man’s room despite the worsening effects of the crying in his mind.
• Fu Qian sensed a sacred, cold, high-ranking sword-shaped artifact beside the silent man and knocked again, telling him to open up.

Fu Qian visited a despondent man who possessed a powerful sword and asked to take it away. The man recounted how he found it underground amid chaos, but his bitter reaction to the sword revealed that he wanted nothing to do with its power.

• Fu Qian told the bowed-head brother he had come to take something the man did not want, and the brother let him into the room.
• Fu Qian examined the grime-covered sword and removed a supernatural blood clot from beneath his collarbone, startling the bowed-head brother.
• The bowed-head brother explained that he had felt something calling to him underground, where he dug up bleeding coal and found others fighting over the sword.
• After the ground collapsed, the bowed-head brother found the sword in the dark and crawled out with it much later.
• The bowed-head brother said he wished he had never received the sword and blamed the chaos around him on people accusing the church.

Fu Qian took Head-Bowed Brother’s extraordinary sword and learned the story behind it before leaving unharmed at dawn. He returned to the clinic carrying the sword and Xilaliya’s doll, where the physician immediately noticed the doll.

• Fu Qian examined the sword, and Head-Bowed Brother let him take it after explaining his painful history with it.
• Dawn arrived as Fu Qian held the sword, though he judged the change to be a coincidence and left Head-Bowed Brother alive.
• Fu Qian considered collecting unusual keepsakes to investigate whether they could anchor him to the places he had visited.
• Fu Qian returned to the clinic and knocked on the door, and the physician recognized Xilaliya’s doll through the cloudy glass.

Fu Qian visited Dr. Dorian’s clinic while carrying a doll and a sword, using both to earn the doctor’s attention. He described his injuries as punishment for past violence and settled in for an examination, leaving Dorian to consider the severity of his condition.

• Fu Qian praised the doll’s craftsmanship, then cut open his arm with a sword to show Dr. Dorian that he needed treatment.
• Dorian inspected Fu Qian and asked whether the doll and sword belonged to him, and Fu Qian claimed they were gifts from kind people he had met.
• Fu Qian told Dorian that Xilaliya had given him the doll and praised her, then described an old woman who had guided him to the clinic.
• Dorian opened the clinic door and invited Fu Qian inside, and Fu Qian checked the room before taking a seat.
• Fu Qian blamed his injuries on a curse after beating a pregnant woman and causing her to give birth prematurely.
• When Dorian called his condition unusually severe, Fu Qian suggested that it might stem from several sins, including an earlier, rougher beating.

Fu Qian paid Dorian with Xilaliya’s doll and deliberately made his suspicious story easy to see through so Dorian would treat him as a serious threat. Dorian began another treatment, bringing out the church members’ dolls and a second doll of Xilaliya.

• Fu Qian asked Dorian whether his condition could be treated, and Dorian agreed in exchange for Xilaliya’s doll.
• Fu Qian handed over the doll, intending to provoke Dorian’s suspicion and force him to respond with everything he had.
• Dorian accepted the payment and led Fu Qian to the seat where they had conducted the previous treatment.
• Fu Qian gave Dorian his sword, and Dorian set Xilaliya’s doll opposite him.
• Dorian brought out dolls representing the four church members, then added another Xilaliya doll dressed in black.
• Fu Qian agreed when Dorian asked whether he could increase the dosage.

Fu Qian realized that his actions in the dreamlike world left no lasting effect on its inhabitants or objects, complicating his mission to stop Bitter Fruit from growing. He let Dorian hypnotize him through Xilaliya's doll and entered the vortex willingly.

• Fu Qian concluded that the duplicate Xilaliya doll showed he could not affect the natives or carry changes back to reality.
• Fu Qian considered using the Glorious Tyrant or his King of Prison Break form, but decided to watch Dorian first.
• Dorian praised Fu Qian for placing the second Xilaliya doll behind him and offered him a dirty cup of potion to help him sleep.
• Fu Qian refused the potion, saying he could fall asleep whenever he wanted, and questioned Dorian's claim that his symptoms were psychological.
• Dorian guided Fu Qian to look into the doll's eyes, and Fu Qian felt its vortex pulling at his will.
• Fu Qian chose to send his will into the vortex.

Fu Qian entered Dorian’s Healing Dreamscape and found two versions of Xilaliya, whose contrasting behavior suggested the dolls reflected different sides of their original owner. As the two Xilaliyas confronted each other over blasphemy, Fu Qian remained trapped in the powerful dream while his real body continued to suffer Heart Strike.

• Fu Qian let Dorian draw him into the Healing Dreamscape and assessed how the dream blurred his awareness and weakened his real body.
• Fu Qian met a welcoming Xilaliya in the stone chamber and recognized the dream as the full version of the setting he had previously encountered.
• A second Xilaliya appeared, pulled her veil over her eyes, and provocatively licked Akons’s emblem while mocking the first Xilaliya’s faith.
• Fu Qian concluded that Dorian influenced the dream through the dolls, which seemed to reflect distinct sides of Xilaliya rather than acting as mere puppets.
• The first Xilaliya condemned the second for blasphemy, and the second retorted that the first was committing blasphemy too.

Fu Qian watched two manifestations of Xilaliya argue over her faith, then embrace in an attempt to beguile him. He resisted their escalating seduction, but finally reached out as they pressed against him.

• Fu Qian recognized Xilaliya the First and Xilaliya the Second as opposing sides of Xilaliya's inner struggle.
• Xilaliya the Second challenged the First's persistent faith, and Fu Qian urged them and Dorian to show him their best tricks.
• Xilaliya the First accused the Second of trying to beguile Fu Qian, and the two grabbed each other by the throat before embracing.
• The embrace's fragrance weakened Fu Qian's resentment and awareness, but he resisted and threatened to leave.
• The two Xilaliyas reached for Fu Qian, who touched their hands as their bodies pressed against him.