Recaps

Xu Huo and the other Players tried to work out why the Castle’s owner was making dolls of them as another doll appeared, resembling the middle-aged man. As the Players stood to greet the doll maker, an invisible force crushed the middle-aged man to death at the dining table.

• The high-ponytailed woman found an incomplete doll, and Xu Huo and the sweet girl speculated that its missing arm might have been removed deliberately.
• The painted woman described following the black cat, finding the dead twenty-fifth Player, and moving his body to the dining room after taking some of his items.
• The long-clothed man suggested that the Castle’s owner might be making dolls of the Players he disliked most, while the others wondered whether someone had broken the Castle’s rules.
• The Players gathered for dinner, and the doll maker arrived carrying a doll that resembled the middle-aged man but was missing a leg.
• As the Players stood to greet the doll maker, an invisible force crushed the middle-aged man and slammed his bloodied body onto the tables and chairs.

At dinner, the Castle’s owner crushed two players without warning, leaving the survivors terrified and unsure what counted as breaking the rules. Xu Huo examined the doll designs afterward but could not determine the conditions for the deaths or the doll maker’s choices.

• The Castle’s owner killed the middle-aged man and the high ponytail at dinner, even though the latter had hidden her doll and used a defensive item.
• The painted woman asked the doll maker to make her a complete doll and returned the headless doll she had found.
• The sweet girl asked what made someone obedient, while the long-clothed man pointed out that the doll maker could not make enough dolls for everyone in seven days.
• The players returned to their rooms after dinner, and Xu Huo inspected the dolls and sketches in his Exhibition Room.
• Xu Huo reasoned that the deaths might have depended on the doll maker and the victims being present and on someone seeing an act, but he could not confirm the rules.

Xu Huo questioned the painted woman about the previous night and pieced together clues about the Castle’s dollmaker and his rules. He exposed Fluorescent Powder’s attempt to manipulate them and sent her back to her room, where she hit the doll ornament.

• Xu Huo considered how the servants’ connection to the dollmaker might affect the Dungeon’s rules and questioned the painted woman about what she had seen the previous night.
• The painted woman confirmed that No. 25 and a middle-aged man had fought the black cat, while the high-ponytailed Player had avoided it and she had seen no servants.
• Xu Huo concluded that punishments usually involved the dollmaker seeing the Player, that Player dolls could be found elsewhere, and that they could be retrieved.
• Fluorescent Powder accused Xu Huo and the painted woman of teaming up, and Xu Huo argued that she might be the non-Ticket Player rather than the painted woman.
• Xu Huo opened a portal beneath Fluorescent Powder and sent her to her own room, where she collided with the doll ornament.

Xu Huo navigated the players’ suspicions and a proposal to kill the doll maker while the dungeon produced more dolls. After catching an intact doll that appeared to belong to Zuo Yu, he returned it, leaving the players uncertain about his intentions.

• The sweet girl offered to team up with Xu Huo to kill the doll maker, but he questioned how that would clear the dungeon.
• The players found the scarred man’s headless doll at breakfast and learned that no new dolls had appeared in the Exhibition Room.
• A headless doll appeared in the scarred man’s room, and Xu Huo quietly urged the fluorescent powder to try something after her doll, missing both legs, appeared.
• An intact doll belonging to Zuo Yu appeared in the corridor, and Xu Huo caught it after it fell through a small doorway in the floor.
• Xu Huo returned the intact doll to Zuo Yu and told him to keep it safe.

Zuo Yu tried to protect his doll from the other Players, but the sweet girl destroyed it and defeated him. Xu Huo stopped her from further harming him, and the painted woman began waking Zuo Yu with a series of slaps.

• Zuo Yu fled the three Players chasing him and gave his doll to the painted woman in the dining hall.
• The sweet girl destroyed the doll with lightning, claiming she was testing the rules and trying to prevent another Player from clearing the game.
• Zuo Yu attacked the sweet girl, but she countered with red lightning that overwhelmed his defenses and knocked him unconscious.
• The painted woman stopped the sweet girl from cutting Zuo Yu's tendons, saying she was returning his gift.
• Xu Huo asked the sweet girl to stop; she agreed to back off, and the three Players who had chased Zuo Yu retreated.
• Xu Huo gestured for the painted woman to wake Zuo Yu, and she sat on him and slapped him five times.

At dinner, the doll maker killed Zuo Yu and Scarface after Zuo Yu’s doll was damaged, while Fluorescent Powder survived with her doll intact. Xu Huo and the other Players worked out more of the doll rules, but whether hiding or deliberately damaging a doll could help clear the dungeon remained uncertain.

• The painted woman revived Zuo Yu, who thanked her and learned that the sweet girl had tried to injure her.
• The doll maker arrived for dinner, gestured for the Players to sit, and caused Zuo Yu and Scarface to burst into blood mist.
• Fluorescent Powder survived dinner with her doll intact, and the doll maker had Number One collect it afterward.
• The long-clothed man suggested that each doll’s missing parts corresponded to the Player’s body, while Fluorescent Powder blamed Zuo Yu’s death on her shattered doll.
• Xu Huo reasoned that the doll maker had to witness rule-breaking and suggested hiding a doll or reducing the number of Players, though he admitted the risks were unknown.
• Fluorescent Powder hinted she might target Xu Huo’s doll, but the painted woman threatened to kill her if she damaged it.

Xu Huo considered how doll damage and repairs might affect the Dungeon’s rules while players continued eliminating one another. By the third day, the player count had fallen to fifteen, and a glasses player received a complete doll, though it remained unclear whether hiding it would help him clear the Dungeon.

• Xu Huo warned the sweet girl that destroying dolls could have unknown consequences, and she suggested the dollmaker might not care about them.
• Xu Huo told the painted woman that killing Fluorescent Pink was unnecessary and considered whether the missing dolls might be repaired later.
• Players formed teams and reduced the number of living players to fifteen by the morning of the second day.
• On the third day, Doll Servant No. 2 gave a complete doll to the glasses player when they met in the hallway.
• Fluorescent Pink questioned why players could hide damaged dolls without punishment, and the long-clothed man warned that intact dolls might still not be satisfactory.

Xu Huo and the other players debated whether dolls could be repaired or used after their owners died, while the long-clothed man fought the player who had found his doll and recovered it broken in half. The long-clothed man then threatened to take the glasses player's complete doll, but Xu Huo argued that the group should focus on learning the Castle's rules before risking another fight.

• The long-clothed man and the sweet girl debated whether recovered dolls could be repaired and whether the players could clear the instance without them.
• A player found the long-clothed man's missing doll in the recreation room and hid it in his Storage Compartment.
• The long-clothed man fought the player in the garden, killed him, and discovered that his doll had been snapped in half.
• The long-clothed man threatened to take the glasses player's complete doll, while the sweet girl blocked the glasses player's escape.
• Xu Huo urged the players to avoid fighting over the doll and explained that a damaged doll might still matter if its owner was alive.

At dinner, the players confirmed that damaging dolls caused them to lose more parts, while hiding a damaged doll could avoid its dinner punishment but prevent its return to the dollmaker. They agreed to stay together and watch one another, but ended with a question about whether a non-Ticket player could escape the Dungeon’s rules.

• Xu Huo explained that doll damage would reveal the punishment and warned the players that losing both arms was worse than losing one.
• At dinner, the dollmaker brought the sweet girl’s doll, which was missing both legs and its right arm; the players avoided moving the corresponding body parts, and no one died.
• After dinner, the players concluded that damaging dolls made repairs harder and that hiding a damaged doll prevented it from being returned to the dollmaker.
• The players counted fourteen people remaining, discussed how damaged dolls could affect their chances of clearing the Dungeon, and agreed to stick together and watch one another.
• The painted woman objected to sleeping in the same room, and another female player asked whether the non-Ticket player was still alive and might be free of the Dungeon’s rules.

The Players found ten identical dolls with their arms missing, and the long-clothed man admitted to planting fakes before using his Ability to stop an attack. Xu Huo proposed keeping everyone in the dining room under watch, but the chapter ended with him demanding the long-clothed man agree.

• The Players spent the night watching the three women, but in the morning they found ten arm-less dolls in the dining room and no others elsewhere in the Castle.
• The long-clothed man admitted he had planted fake dolls, provoking several Players to attack him.
• The long-clothed man used his Ability, saying "Meditate," to stop the attackers, while the middle-aged man urged everyone to avoid being provoked and keep watch on him.
• The long-clothed man warned the group that Xu Huo could secretly move or hide dolls, and Xu Huo replied that other Players also had Super Evolver abilities.
• Xu Huo proposed a new agreement against planting fakes and suggested that everyone stay in the dining room; the fluorescent pink woman and sweet girl agreed, and he asked the long-clothed man for his answer.

Xu Huo and the other Players searched for their dolls together, but the discovery of a fake doll raised suspicions of sabotage. The painted woman identified Xu Huo’s doll as real and the short man’s as fake, leaving the group accusing one another while Yun He challenged them to act on any proof.

• Yun He introduced himself to Xu Huo and agreed to cooperate, and the Players resumed breakfast together.
• Fluorescent Powder tried to buy one of Xu Huo’s items, but he told her to have some self-respect.
• The Players searched the dining room and found the purple-clothed woman’s doll missing a leg, the short man’s doll missing an arm, and an intact doll belonging to Xu Huo.
• Xu Huo noticed two Players handling items suspiciously, while the glasses player warned that sabotaging one another would not help anyone clear the Dungeon.
• The painted woman said Xu Huo’s doll was real and the short man’s doll was fake, explaining that pebbles inside the dolls revealed the difference.
• The short man suspected the other Players of switching his doll, and Yun He told them to kill him if they had proof.

The Players joined forces against the long-clothed man after the short Player exposed his own counterfeit puppet as a distraction. The sweet girl struck the long-clothed man down, but a wound on his neck suggested someone else had taken the kill, and she demanded to know who.

• The long-clothed man identified the short Player's shattered puppet as a counterfeit he had made, and the short Player admitted switching it to confuse potential attackers.
• The long-clothed man opened the Kai Hui Sutra, but the painted woman seized it and turned its pages into blades that drove him toward the exit.
• The Players attacked the long-clothed man in the Long Corridor, where he used his items to overwhelm them until the sweet girl disrupted his control with her Water Gun.
• Xu Huo intervened to protect the painted woman and kicked the long-clothed man toward the other Players, who continued the assault.
• The sweet girl pierced the long-clothed man's heart with a lightning strike and a pebble, then spotted a separate neck wound and accused someone of stealing her kill.

After the players killed the long-clothed man, they argued over his belongings and tried to cooperate through dinner, but the short man was suddenly killed for breaking a puppet rule. The older man admitted to killing him, and the survivors settled in the lounge for the night, where the painted woman began folding the scripture into paper Frogs.

• The sweet girl threatened to use her explosives against anyone who attacked her, took the long-clothed man's possessions, and failed to claim the scripture pages from the painted woman.
• Xu Huo and the others returned to dinner, where the short man's left hand rose and the puppet rule crushed him to death.
• The purple-clothed woman demanded to know who had killed the short man, and the older man admitted he had done it to enforce the rules and prevent further conflict.
• The players moved into a spatially sealed lounge for the night, where the painted woman doodled in the scripture and folded its pages into paper Frogs.
• Fluorescent Powder asked Xu Huo to make the painted woman stop folding paper.

Xu Huo and the other players hid from artifact beasts that poured out of the Castle’s paintings and attacked them through the night. At dawn, the beasts returned to the studio, and Xu Huo urged the group to find the day’s doll.

• Fluorescent Powder heard a strange scraping sound, and Xu Huo led the players into a nearby room to hide.
• Artifact beasts emerged from the paintings, surrounded the room, and broke through the players’ defenses as they searched for a way to survive without fighting back.
• The floor collapsed, dropping the players and beasts to the first floor, where the group endured about half an hour of attacks before the beasts began to wander off.
• After the beasts returned to the studio at dawn, the Painted Woman collected the paintings and asked Xu Huo how to make paper beasts like them.
• Xu Huo told the others he knew the Paper Puppeteer and then asked the group to find that day’s doll.

Players searching the Castle discussed Instance Authorization Letters and the risks Dungeon owners faced when their player Dungeon count continued accumulating. Xu Huo considered how those rules might apply to the Seventeenth Hospital, while Fluorescent Pink asked whether the Castle's owner could still use a Personal Panel.

• The glasses player explained that an Instance Authorization Letter gave a player Dungeon ownership only after they signed it.
• The purple-clothed woman described how Dungeon owners could be trapped inside Dungeons and might face accumulated Dungeon runs after leaving.
• Fluorescent Pink and the older man speculated about the dangers of losing a Dungeon and whether the Game Government offered a way around them.
• Xu Huo compared the reported rules with the Seventeenth Hospital and the skin stripper's Dungeon, questioning how Dungeon movement and Temporary Passes worked.
• Fluorescent Pink asked whether the Castle's owner could still use a Personal Panel if he had once been a player.

Xu Huo and the other Players searched the Castle while the painted woman met the Paper Puppeteer and received several puppets as gifts. Back at the restaurant, Xu Huo tested the scripture item and discussed why Yun He had died.

• The Players debated whether the Paper Puppeteer's Instance Authorization Letter was in the Castle, then searched the halls instead of resting.
• Servants No. 1 and No. 2 invited the painted woman to meet the Paper Puppeteer alone in the Study Room.
• The painted woman returned with a puppet and four servant puppets, explaining that the Paper Puppeteer had given them to her and promised to make a puppet resembling Xu Huo.
• The painted woman decided not to pick the workshop lock, then followed the puppets into the Castle's tower.
• Xu Huo tested the scripture by writing and speaking the character for “cut,” creating a barrier that lasted about half a minute.
• Xu Huo told the purple-clothed woman that Yun He had died because his fighting style had been countered, not because he attracted attention.

Xu Huo argued that the dollmaker’s three satisfactory dolls might be predetermined and that the Players could clear the Dungeon by obtaining any one of them. When a Player tried to attack him, Xu Huo killed him effortlessly and returned his defective doll to the servant.

• Two Players who had received defective dolls tried to leave the dining room, but the older man and the pigeon-tattooed man attempted to stop them.
• The older man argued that following guest etiquette would eventually earn the Players satisfactory dolls, while Fluorescent Powder and the sweet girl questioned his theory.
• Xu Huo proposed that three satisfactory dolls were predetermined to appear by the seventh day and said the Players would see who got one.
• The sweet girl and Fluorescent Powder considered whether Xu Huo’s and the glasses player’s intact dolls could help them clear the Dungeon.
• One of the Players who had tried to leave suddenly attacked Xu Huo, but Xu Huo killed him with a streak of black light.
• Xu Huo told the others that a mental interference device did not make its user invincible, then returned his defective doll to the Number 1 servant.

Xu Huo and the painted woman explored the puppet maker’s Castle while the other players plotted against him and competed for puppets. After the glasses player was killed and his puppet appeared in the Exhibition Room, Xu Huo and the painted woman left with gifts and cleared the Dungeon.

• The painted woman returned with puppets and kitchen tools, and Xu Huo suspected the Castle’s owner had an ulterior motive in treating her so kindly.
• The painted woman found a portrait of a man in the studio and felt she recognized him, then chose a white bear painting for Xu Huo.
• Dove tattoo, the sweet girl, and the fluorescent powder killed the glasses player during the night.
• The glasses player’s puppet appeared in a display case the next morning, leaving the other players afraid to take it.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman collected his repaired puppet, two paintings, and Castle tour tickets before receiving notification that they had cleared the Puppets Dungeon.

After earning an A rating in a Dungeon, Xu Huo took the painted woman shopping and wondered whether her growing paper-based abilities were connected to the Gentleman of Light Medals she collected. He prepared to teleport to the next city, still uncertain what the medals meant to her.

• Xu Huo received a Dungeon Owner Favor Coupon after clearing the Dungeon with an A rating and took the painted woman shopping in Ye City.
• The painted woman worried Xu Huo was trying to get rid of her, but said she did not know where home was and preferred staying with him.
• Xu Huo searched Dimension Below for information about Gentleman of Light Medals and learned Players called their unidentified material “Government Nutrient Solution.”
• Xu Huo considered whether the four medals the painted woman owned had strengthened her ability to control paper-based items.
• After they ate, Xu Huo prepared to use a Space Teleport Artifact to reach the next city and avoid a Random Instance.

Xu Huo and the painted woman visited Cockscomb Flower City, where a restaurant owner lured them into trying a famously wriggling chicken dish. After the sunny young man spat out his food and confronted the owner, he realized the female Player who had gone to investigate the chicken was missing.

• A passerby explained how cockscomb chickens had cured a poison outbreak and inspired the two neighboring cities to adopt the flower as a shared religious symbol.
• Xu Huo learned from the local Jixin Terminal that the cities' supposed generations-old feud was mostly a few years of online arguments, and that both had been poisoned by mutated plants.
• Xu Huo, the painted woman, the sunny young man, and other Players entered a restaurant to try cockscomb chicken, while a female Player searched her watch terminal for information about it.
• The owner served chicken that was still wriggling, and the sunny young man spat out a piece and accused him of doing it on purpose.
• The owner offered vegetarian dishes and returned to the kitchen, and the sunny young man noticed that the female Player who had gone inside was missing.

Xu Huo learned that a long-standing Random Instance in Cockscomb Flower City swallowed Players without warning, and the restaurant owner described decades of unexplained disappearances. After leaving the restaurant, Xu Huo and the painted woman encountered a chained woman desperately asking passersby if they had seen her son.

• A sunny young Player accused the restaurant of being a scam after a woman vanished, but another Player explained that a Random Instance in Cockscomb Flower City could swallow only Players; the sunny young man then disappeared himself.
• Xu Huo invited the restaurant owner to share wine and asked when the Random Instance first appeared.
• The owner recalled that it began thirty-five years earlier, when a boy vanished during a birthday feast, and said many Players had disappeared without sending word afterward.
• Xu Huo took a sobering Potion and left the restaurant with the painted woman after the owner passed out.
• A chained, haggard woman rushed toward Xu Huo and the painted woman, holding up a family Photo and asking if they had seen her son.

Xu Huo searched Dr. Wu’s former Laboratory and traced a Metal Plate to Sea Flower Manufacturing, where he found evidence that Dr. Wu had visited under the name Wu Yong. Engineer He began recalling Dr. Wu’s sudden departure and asked the painted woman why she had stayed behind.

• The painted woman promised a grieving woman that she would tell the man in the photograph to come home if she saw him.
• Xu Huo searched Dr. Wu’s abandoned Laboratory, found the name Wu Yong on a contributor list, and noticed a Little Flower resembling the pattern on the painted woman’s skirt.
• Xu Huo traced a Metal Plate to Sea Flower Manufacturing while the painted woman discussed starting a religion and accepted a bag of White Cash from him.
• At the Factory, Xu Huo found a Photo showing Dr. Wu beside the factory owner and learned from an old man that Dr. Wu had been a respected doctor and mechanic.
• Engineer He praised Dr. Wu, searched for his old diary, then wondered aloud why Dr. Wu had left without a word and why the painted woman had stayed.

Xu Huo explored a fogbound city where he had lost contact with the outside world, then met Wang Ling, another player trapped there. They continued through the city as Wang Ling warned him not to eat anything in case it made him part of the place.

• Xu Huo found that the fog blocked his perception and that he could no longer contact the outside world, though he could still use his inventory and Personal Panel.
• Xu Huo cautiously used his Spiritual World to clear the fog and discovered a mismatched city assembled from parts of different sub-districts.
• Xu Huo followed signs toward a clock tower and met Wang Ling, who had arrived shortly before him and had not encountered anyone else.
• Xu Huo and Wang Ling exchanged their player information and discussed the city's strange mixture of landmarks and recent-looking destruction.
• Wang Ling warned Xu Huo not to eat the food in the city, telling him a ghost story about an outsider who became trapped after eating something from an unreal world.

Xu Huo and Wang Ling explored an eerie, apparently abandoned city before meeting the injured sweet girl from the Doll Dungeon. Her account of when she cleared the Dungeon exposed a two-day discrepancy in Xu Huo’s timekeeping, and the chapter left him investigating the unexplained gap.

• Xu Huo and Wang Ling discussed whether they could escape the unreal space by destroying the city, then continued exploring together.
• At the time tower, Xu Huo noted its stopped clocks and the city’s strange lack of written materials and electronic screens.
• Xu Huo and Wang Ling tried to power a terminal, but it did not respond; Xu Huo suspected the tower’s mismatched times were significant.
• The sweet girl from the Doll Dungeon appeared, and Xu Huo proposed that she work with him and Wang Ling to escape.
• The sweet girl said she cleared the Doll Dungeon in its second week, revealing a two-day gap in Xu Huo’s understanding of when he had arrived.
• Xu Huo took out watches to compare the times, and the sweet girl lent him her timekeeping device.

Xu Huo marked the passage of time and split up with Wang Ling and the sweet girl to investigate the empty city. He met Meng Wenguang and three other Players, who had been trapped for six days and kept records showing their memories and notes stopped at 9:10 each night.

• Xu Huo adjusted the timing device, made several notes marking their third day in the Dungeon, and carved the same message outside the Time Tower; Wang Ling and the sweet girl made their own marks.
• The sweet girl suggested that the three search separately and meet at the Time Tower at two thirty, and Wang Ling took a photo of them in case their memories reset.
• Xu Huo questioned the sweet girl about her doll-like arm and the doll maker, then she turned down a different Forked Path.
• Xu Huo spotted Meng Wenguang jumping from a Mall and met Feng Hui, Hong Chen, and Yue Rui, who had been trapped in the city for six days.
• Meng Wenguang showed Xu Huo the group's notebook, which documented their exploration and their discovery that their records stopped after 9:10 each night.