Chapter Summaries

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.

Xu Huo compared the Players’ records and found that the Time Tower appeared in his photograph but not in their footage, making it central to the looping instance. After comparing arrival times and the nightly memory gaps, he suspected the phenomenon involved Multilayered Space rather than a true reset of time.

• Xu Huo examined Meng Wenguang’s notes and recordings, noticing that they ended at 9:10 p.m. and never showed the Time Tower.
• Xu Huo showed the group a photograph of the Time Tower, and Meng Wenguang and the others confirmed that their records showed a Toy Store in its place.
• Feng Hui suggested that the Players team up, and Yue Rui offered Xu Huo a matching shirt, which he accepted without putting on.
• Xu Huo reunited with Wang Ling, Lu Miaomiao, and Long Jianfeng, and they compared their arrival times and evidence about the Time Tower.
• Wang Ling proposed that the period from 9:17 p.m. to 9:01 a.m. was cut out by a time reset, while Xu Huo concluded that the instance was more likely a Multilayered Space.

Xu Huo and the others debated why their memories and records stopped at 9:17 p.m. and prepared ways to preserve evidence when that time came again. They waited beside the Time Tower, still uncertain whether they were in an overlapping space, an illusion, or an unusual Dungeon.

• Yue Rui suggested testing Wang Ling's method by reaching the Time Tower area ahead of Xu Huo and checking whether their records survived until 9:17 p.m.
• Xu Huo argued that time after 9:17 p.m. likely continued in another space or an illusion rather than vanishing or passing instantly.
• Wang Ling suggested using their bodies as records, and the group copied evidence, stored it in item slots and Storage Compartments, and prepared recording devices and marked objects.
• Xu Huo tied a broken timekeeping device around his wrist, labeled food in the Storage Compartment, and led the group to wait beside the Time Tower.
• Meng Wenguang explained that he and the others had returned to the area near their hometowns and might have been pulled into the Random Instance in Cockscomb Flower City.
• Lu Miaomiao noted that incomplete Dungeons usually did not persist for long unless they had an extreme flaw.

Xu Huo and the others tried to preserve their memories before 9:17, but he woke the next morning with no recollection of the previous night. At the time tower, they compared what remained and began to suspect that something happened to the players after 9:17, even though the abandoned city itself continued to exist.

• Before 9:17, Hong Chen made stamps for the group to record whether they had made it past that time, and everyone prepared to wait for the reset.
• After his perspective switched at 10:55 a.m., Xu Huo found a broken watch, his own notes, and a recording that revealed his companions and their investigation of the time tower.
• Xu Huo reviewed the records and concluded that the group had been returned to the starting point for the fourth time, while the city’s traces from the day remained.
• At the time tower, Meng Wenguang and Wang Ling reported that their overnight stamps and other precautions had not taken effect, though records left during the day had survived.
• Xu Huo explained that Three Seconds of Life had returned unused to his item slot, evidence that time after 9:17 existed; he suggested the players, rather than the city, were affected.
• Wang Ling and Xu Huo considered whether time-related items could resist the reset, and the group wondered if they had entered another space.

Xu Huo and the others used Wang Ling’s time artifact at the Time Tower, bringing the abandoned city back to life. The city’s residents warned them about a recent wave of crimes and directed them toward a secure hotel.

• Xu Huo and Wang Ling concluded that the abandoned city’s Dungeon was complete but had slipped out of the game’s control, and they decided to investigate the time after 9:17.
• Wang Ling used a blue gemstone artifact on the Time Tower, restarting its clock and setting it to 11:33.
• The fog lifted and the city reappeared in full, with residents, traders, workers, birds, and children going about their day.
• Two patrol officers warned the group about recent break-ins, thefts, and murders, then gave them a map and recommended a nearby high-end hotel.
• A younger patrol officer mentioned the hotel’s new Little Star security robots, and a local man said the robots were becoming widely available.

In Pumpkin City, Xu Huo’s group examined reports of break-ins and identified Little Star Company and the city government as their best leads. They split up to investigate and agreed to meet again by seven, while keeping watch for other Players.

• Xu Huo’s group visited the newsstand, where they found reports of several nearby break-ins and learned that Pumpkin City’s curved streets formed a pumpkin-like shape.
• Meng Wenguang noted that the city’s residents seemed prosperous and technologically advanced, and Xu Huo proposed investigating Little Star Company and the city government.
• Wang Ling and Long Jianfeng set out for the city government on Sixth Street, while Xu Huo, Meng Wenguang, and Feng Hui headed for Little Star Company on Sixteenth Street.
• Yue Rui and Hong Chen stayed behind to ask nearby residents for information, and Xu Huo told everyone to document their investigations and return by seven.