Chapter Summaries

The players debated the rules of Humans Catch Ghosts and secretly drew lots to determine who would become the first ghost. After drawing a human slip, Xu Huo doubted that catching the ghost would be enough to clear the Dungeon and stayed in hiding with Chu Yuan as night approached.

• Miao Yu explained that the first night's ghost would have to kill someone to become human, and the players discussed how the number of ghosts might grow.
• Xu Huo proposed keeping the lot results secret, and the group agreed before preparing eleven human slips and one ghost slip.
• Qiu Xiangdong wrote the ghost slip, and all twelve players drew lots before leaving to find hiding places.
• Xu Huo reasoned that the ghost might benefit from the rules and that catching it might not clear the Dungeon.
• Chu Yuan and Xu Huo checked their slips and found they had both drawn human; Chu Yuan suggested they work together, but Xu Huo chose to stay put.

Chu Yuan and Xu Huo spent the first night in the dark laboratory, where eerie shadows and sounds unsettled Chu Yuan while Xu Huo stayed cautious. After a scream rang out and two people passed nearby, they remained in their room and waited for morning.

• As the lights went out, Chu Yuan said he saw a blurry head outside the observation window, and Xu Huo suggested it might have been a player or a trick.
• Xu Huo admitted he had glimpsed a fast-moving, long-haired shadow near the elevator before the darkness fell.
• Chu Yuan worried about ghosts and tried to prepare for danger, but Xu Huo told him to rest and gave him a sleeping bag.
• Strange sounds of water, shifting furniture, footsteps, and an unidentifiable scream filled the laboratory during the night.
• Xu Huo sensed two people pass nearby in different directions, and he and Chu Yuan decided to wait until morning rather than go out.

After He Chunsheng was found dead, the players confirmed that two ghosts remained and agreed to search the Laboratory for clues. Xu Huo’s group explored the second basement floor, where Chu Yuan uncovered a hidden pleasure Android in the abandoned shop.

• The players found He Chunsheng’s body in a restroom, and Miao Yu determined that he had died of suffocation.
• The players found the number two written in blood on the task board, confirming that two ghosts remained.
• Miao Yu proposed keeping everyone together after dark to identify the ghosts, while the players debated how to clear the game.
• The players split into three groups and went downstairs to search the Laboratory’s second basement floor.
• Chu Yuan discovered a hidden compartment in the shop, and Xu Huo restrained the pleasure Android that sprang from it.

Xu Huo and the others searched the wrecked staff quarters, where Xu Huo focused on the unsettling paintings before a group returned from Underground Level 3 covered in powder. The remaining players descended by another elevator, and Chu Yuan’s lamp revealed a small hill in the darkness.

• Xu Huo suspected the wrecked quarters had been searched for a particular small item, but the group found nothing valuable.
• Xu Huo studied the unsigned, disturbing paintings, and Chu Yuan wondered whether they held a clue before Miao Yu dismissed the idea.
• Mao Wei, Ge Pan, and the others returned from Underground Level 3 dusted with white powder, and Ge Pan confirmed it was not harmful.
• Wu Xiaonan, Zhu Ruomin, and Chang Chengyong stayed behind while Xu Huo, Chu Yuan, and the other players took a different elevator down.
• Chu Yuan switched on his Lighting Lamp in the dark, revealing what looked like a small hill nearby.

Xu Huo and the Players discovered that Underground Level 3 was filled with corpse-strewn mounds and that a passage between the two halves of the Deep Blue Laboratory had been blocked. Unable to reach the other half because an invisible force sealed the exit, they agreed to keep playing the humans-catch-the-ghost game and test a plan to identify the ghosts.

• Xu Huo and the Players found corpses beneath the white Mutated Plants and concluded that most of the dead were Players.
• Xu Huo discovered that corpses and plants blocked the passage between the two halves of the laboratory on all three underground levels.
• Qiu Xiangdong, Ge Pan, and Miao Yu argued that the Players should search for the hidden person instead of killing one another, and the group decided to go around outside.
• The Players failed to find a way through the laboratory walls and discovered that an invisible force prevented them from leaving.
• Ge Pan proposed a gentleman's agreement, and Miao Yu suggested that everyone stay together and test them one by one to identify the ghosts.

The Players waited for the lights to go out, but when the corridor finally went dark, Chang Chengyong fled and Gan Qing identified Zhu Ruomin as a ghost. Zhu Ruomin escaped the Players’ attack, leaving them to search the Laboratory while others pursued Chang Chengyong.

• The Players waited in the Laboratory and debated whether ghosts knew their identities as the lights stayed on past the expected time.
• Wu Xiaonan, Miao Yu, and Zhu Ruomin went to the Restroom with Xu Huo and Chu Yuan waiting outside, and the corridor lights went out as they returned.
• Chang Chengyong ran from the room, and Gan Qing identified Zhu Ruomin as a ghost; Wu Xiaonan and the others attacked Zhu Ruomin as she tried to escape.
• Mao Wei’s fluff-producing grenade trapped the Players and Zhu Ruomin, and Zhu Ruomin escaped after Wu Xiaonan wounded her.
• The Players followed Zhu Ruomin’s blood trail to the elevator, ruled out her taking it, and began searching the Laboratory’s rooms.

Xu Huo and the other Players searched the Laboratory for Zhu Ruomin and Qiu Xiangdong after Chang Chengyong and Zhu Ruomin fled, but they found Chang Chengyong dead. The survivors suspected the missing Players had gone to Underground Level 3, but Chu Yuan refused to follow them there.

• Xu Huo questioned Gan Qing about how he had identified Zhu Ruomin as a ghost, and Gan Qing described seeing a faceless shadow through a window.
• Gan Qing reported that Qiu Xiangdong had disappeared after he saw an elevator descend to Underground Level 3, and the Players failed to find Zhu Ruomin that night.
• The Players waited for the lights to come on, then searched the Laboratory and found Chang Chengyong dead in a restroom, suffocated.
• Miao Yu concluded that Chang Chengyong had drawn the Ghost Draw, while the Players debated who had killed him and why Qiu Xiangdong and Zhu Ruomin were missing.
• Xu Huo suggested searching Underground Level 3, but Chu Yuan refused and threatened to seal the elevator doors.

The players tested whether the new ghosts were among them, but none showed a Ghost Shadow and no one could clear the Dungeon task. Chu Yuan then revealed that he had seen a Ghost Shadow earlier, suggesting the task might require catching one rather than identifying a ghost player.

• Ge Pan warned the remaining players to avoid risking their lives, and Wan Yunrong said she would cooperate if she became a ghost.
• At lights out, the players checked one another through the glass, but nobody had a Ghost Shadow clinging to them.
• Miao Yu questioned Gan Qing’s claim that Zhu Ruomin had been a ghost, and Xu Huo reasoned that at least one ghost had to be among them.
• Miao Yu and then the other players tried submitting one another for the task, but no one cleared the game.
• Chu Yuan said he had seen a Ghost Shadow float past earlier, and Ge Pan suggested that the task might require catching a Ghost Shadow rather than a player.

Xu Huo and the other Players cleared a corpse-blocked passage on Underground Level 3 and entered the sealed half of Deep Blue Laboratory, where they encountered Dr. Deng and a group of armed Players. The chapter ended with Ge Pan trying to calm the tense standoff after Dr. Deng warned that a fight could cause the laboratory to collapse.

• Xu Huo and the others returned to Underground Level 3 and moved the corpses blocking the passage while carefully avoiding sparks in the pollen-filled air.
• The Players opened a door connecting the two halves of Deep Blue Laboratory and explored its more lived-in rooms and underwater windows.
• Wan Yunrong mistook a sucker-covered sea creature pressing against the glass for a person, while Xu Huo noticed someone nearby.
• Mao Wei used grenades when pink fluff poured from a corridor, revealing Dr. Deng and his two bodyguards trapped in it.
• A group of eight Players arrived with a Vacuum Cleaner and freed Dr. Deng, whose bodyguards carried guns bearing the Bo Lun family crest.
• Dr. Deng warned that fighting could bury everyone beneath the island, and Ge Pan tried to defuse the confrontation as the Players remained hostile.

Xu Huo suspected Dr. Deng’s group had entered the laboratory before the dungeon opened and might be searching for something the Bo Lun family wanted. After following the other players upstairs, he and Chu Yuan reached a corridor where black sludge began spreading across the floor.

• Dr. Deng introduced the B-class Kong siblings, who said they would not interfere with the dungeon mission, while Kong Hui claimed the upper floors were safe.
• Xu Huo questioned the siblings’ story and suspected they had entered the laboratory before the dungeon began to investigate it for the Bo Lun family.
• The players debated whether the Ghost Shadow was another player or a dungeon-born item, then split up to explore the upper floors.
• Xu Huo and Chu Yuan took a separate elevator to the second basement level and found Professor Wu’s paintings and awards.
• Xu Huo grabbed Chu Yuan and threw him against the wall when black sludge began bubbling across the corridor floor.

Xu Huo and Chu Yuan fought two players in a corridor swallowed by corrosive mud, then escaped by igniting the gas-filled marsh. The blast injured Chu Yuan, and they hurried away before more players could arrive.

• Chu Yuan discovered that the corridor floor had become bottomless mud, and a Black Shirt Player attacked Xu Huo and him.
• Xu Huo fought the Black Shirt Player and a Glove Player, using dolls, strings, and his sword while the mud trapped them.
• Xu Huo carried Chu Yuan out of the mud, but the Glove Player's Performer's Spotlight froze Chu Yuan and the Black Shirt Player blocked their escape.
• Xu Huo cut off the Glove Player's hand and wounded him, while Chu Yuan used Relationship Broken to restrain the Black Shirt Player.
• Xu Huo ignited the gas-filled mud with his Lighter, and he and Chu Yuan escaped the blast before leaving to avoid incoming players.

Xu Huo and Chu Yuan tried to evade the players hunting them in the Deep Blue Laboratory, while Xu Huo prepared to use alcohol and an explosion to threaten the other players. Their escape was blocked by a numbered-grid item that forced them to play hopscotch, and Xu Huo called out Mao Wei, whom he suspected was behind it.

• Chu Yuan reasoned that Dr. Deng's players had attacked them to silence them and suggested hiding until the game ended.
• Xu Huo proposed ending the Dungeon early by catching the Ghost Shadow, then set out buckets of treated alcohol to threaten the Laboratory and its players with an explosion.
• Xu Huo and Chu Yuan ran from someone approaching from downstairs, but numbered squares appeared along their route and trapped them in a hopscotch-like game.
• Xu Huo struggled to move across the numbered squares one number at a time and called out Mao Wei.

Xu Huo used the Star Binding Ball to mentally suppress Mao Wei and killed him, then uncovered how Mao Wei had tracked and trapped them. Xu Huo and Chu Yuan later encountered Gan Qing as a Ghost Shadow appeared in the women employees' dormitory.

• Mao Wei revealed himself as a ghost and attacked Xu Huo and Chu Yuan with his Kite String after trapping them in a hopscotch game.
• Xu Huo used the Star Binding Ball to distort Mao Wei's perceptions, took his items, and killed him with the Bright Red Sword.
• Xu Huo discovered that Hopscotch and Mao Wei's locating handkerchief were items, and deduced that Mao Wei, Ge Pan, and Zhu Ruomin knew one another.
• Xu Huo and Chu Yuan avoided other players near the elevator until they encountered Gan Qing, who accused them of causing an explosion.
• Gan Qing saw a Ghost Shadow behind a window and rushed into the women employees' dormitory, where he ran into Wan Yunrong.

Xu Huo, Chu Yuan, and Gan Qing encountered Wan Yunrong, who had become a ghost without knowing it, and then joined forces to survive the night. Meanwhile, Dr. Deng’s group searched the Laboratory for the Bo Lun family’s missing Potion as their plan to target the Ticket Players continued.

• Xu Huo attacked Wan Yunrong to test whether catching a Player who had become a ghost would clear the dungeon, but she escaped after splitting into three figures and leaving an electrified trap behind.
• Xu Huo concluded that catching a ghost would not clear the dungeon and reasoned that at least two Players had become ghosts, with more likely to turn the following night.
• Gan Qing told Xu Huo and Chu Yuan that he had encountered a Player from Dr. Deng’s group, and the three agreed to travel together while watching for the Ghost Shadow.
• On Underground Level 3, Dr. Deng told Kong Cheng and Kong Hui that the Potions they had found were discontinued and not what the Bo Lun family sought.
• Kong Cheng insisted the missing item could not have left the island, and Kong Hui said no Ticket Player had escaped the dungeon alive.
• Zhao Bi left to go to the Restroom despite Kong Cheng’s warning not to wander off.

Zhao Bi died after a shadow suffocated him, and Xu Huo’s group discovered another player killed the same way. When they clashed with Kong Cheng, Kong Hui, and Dr. Deng’s group, Xu Huo freed himself from the restraint of “Seven Days Civil Affairs Bureau” and escaped with Chu Yuan and the others.

• Zhao Bi was suffocated by a shadow in the restroom despite trying to defend himself with items.
• Kong Cheng and Dr. Deng found Zhao Bi’s body, and Kong Cheng led the group upstairs.
• Xu Huo, Chu Yuan, and Gan Qing met Miao Yu and found another of Dr. Deng’s players dead from suffocation.
• Kong Hui attacked Xu Huo’s group, and Kong Cheng used Random Grasp to drag Xu Huo and Chu Yuan toward him.
• Chu Yuan escaped into a Solid Wood Cabinet while Xu Huo fought Kong Hui and broke the cord restraining “Seven Days Civil Affairs Bureau.”
• Xu Huo and his companions fled behind a sandstorm, while the Kong siblings protected Dr. Deng from the storm.

After the Kong siblings sealed the elevators, Xu Huo’s group searched for allies and discussed their limited combat abilities. They found Wu Xiaonan, and Xu Huo proposed using his ambush prop to kill a B-class player as their best chance of escaping alive.

• The Kong siblings prepared to hunt the other players while forcing Dr. Deng to keep searching for the potion.
• Xu Huo’s group discovered that every elevator had been sealed with Glue Liquid, leaving them trapped in the Laboratory.
• Xu Huo asked Gan Qing, Chu Yuan, and Miao Yu about their useful Abilities and props, then led them to find the others.
• The group found Wu Xiaonan, who said she could hold off one B-class player for at least three minutes.
• Xu Huo said he had a prop suited to an ambush and proposed killing a B-class player to create a chance to escape.

Xu Huo’s group discovered that someone had altered their memories and replayed their conversation near the elevator. After Wan Yunrong opened the elevator, they hid in the corpse room and realized their ambush plan had been overheard.

• Wan Yunrong agreed to cooperate with Xu Huo’s group and offered to dissolve the resin blocking the elevator doors.
• A conversation among the Players began repeating, and Xu Huo realized someone had tampered with their memories.
• Xu Huo urged Wan Yunrong to use her Potion, and the group descended to Underground Level 3 and hid behind the corpses.
• Xu Huo explained that they had already had the same conversation minutes earlier, and Wu Xiaonan confirmed it with a recording.
• The Players concluded that the ambush plan might have been overheard and warned each other about a Player who could temporarily erase memories.

Xu Huo’s group discussed how to confront the Kong siblings and Dr. Deng, then reunited with Ge Pan, who had killed a player and taken the Vacuum Cleaner. As they planned their next move in the elevator, Xu Huo struck Ge Pan and Wu Xiaonan stabbed him.

• Wu Xiaonan proposed splitting up and using the eastern half of the building’s corridors to fight the Kong siblings, while the others debated whether to target Dr. Deng instead.
• Ge Pan emerged from hiding after the Black Shirt Player and Gel Coat Player searched the floor and returned to protect Dr. Deng.
• Ge Pan revealed that he had killed the player with the Vacuum Cleaner and joined Xu Huo’s group.
• Xu Huo’s group entered the elevator to choose a place for their plan, and Xu Huo suddenly struck Ge Pan as Wu Xiaonan stabbed him in the abdomen.

Xu Huo and the others captured Ge Pan and interrogated him about his ties to the Kong siblings and the Deep Blue Laboratory Dungeon. Ge Pan revealed what he knew, then accused Xu Huo of being a possible collaborator, leaving the group uncertain whom to trust.

• Xu Huo subdued Ge Pan, retrieved the Real Wooden Man, and used Mao Wei's Kite String to restrain him for questioning.
• Xu Huo and the others accused Ge Pan of helping the Kong siblings, letting Zhu Ruomin escape, and altering their memories; Ge Pan admitted to working for them.
• Ge Pan said the Kong siblings had ordered him to eliminate Players and revealed that the Laboratory's secret might involve a Potion.
• Ge Pan described Kong Cheng as a computer repairman and Kong Hui as a Magician skilled in controlling objects and fighting, but claimed he knew little else about them.
• When Miao Yu asked whether anyone else was working for the Kong siblings, Ge Pan pointed at Xu Huo and accused him of killing Mao Wei.

Xu Huo’s group killed Ge Pan after his escape item failed, then divided up his useful items and prepared to confront the Kong siblings. They reached Underground Level 1 and began arranging their assignments, with the plan still unfinished.

• Xu Huo questioned Ge Pan about the other infiltrators and whether the player with the Vacuum Cleaner had really died.
• Ge Pan used Irreversible Rewind, but the projector jammed and Chu Yuan shattered it with a kick.
• Xu Huo killed Ge Pan and took several of his items; the group chose Xu Zhi to use Director’s Right.
• The group went to Underground Level 1 and cut the lights’ wiring to preserve the laboratory equipment.
• Wu Xiaonan volunteered to deal with Kong Hui, while Xu Huo’s group began assigning the remaining roles.