Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo and the others debated how the One-Third Game related to the One-Third City dungeon, especially whether killing the wrong person could make a Player a criminal and trigger the game. Xu Huo pursued a plan to formalize public safety rules and gather information, but stranded Players refused to cooperate because they valued their freedom.

• Xu Huo asked whether the One-Third Game and the One-Third City dungeon were connected, and the group considered how killing the wrong person or entering an unlocked area might trigger the game.
• Qiao Jieping suggested that killing was probably the main crime recognized by the dungeon and that officially adding names to the wanted list might expand the targets Players could pursue.
• Zhu Xiaojin pointed out that if killing the wrong person triggered the game, most Players who entered it would already be criminals, prompting Xu Huo to wonder whether the water Rubik's Cube selected criminals.
• Tang Yu argued that the group should gather information from others who had cleared the dungeon instead of speculating about every possible trigger.
• After District 5 residents reacted to Xu Huo's posted regulations, he bought aerial equipment to monitor the area and sent Zhu Xiaojin to seek cooperation with local Players.
• Stranded Players declined Xu Huo's proposal because they had abandoned clearing the dungeon and feared that surveillance would make them Wanted Criminals.

Xu Huo and his companions debated the One-Third City Dungeon’s hidden rules, including whether expanding unlocked areas and killing Wanted Criminals were connected to clearing it. Xu Huo was then appointed temporary joint administrator of eight sub-districts, and he saw photos of three other temporary law enforcement officers.

• Cheng Zhongzhi added the warning that killing someone who was not a Wanted Criminal could trigger the game to the GG board.
• The painted woman suggested that the old Wanted Criminals might already be dead, prompting the group to consider whether the government’s outdated wanted list explained the lack of Dungeon clearances.
• Zhu Xiaojin proposed that their unlocked areas might belong to the One-Third Game, and that winning the game—not killing Wanted Criminals—might be necessary to leave the Dungeon.
• Xu Huo said the group should prepare for the One-Third Game, while Zhu Xiaojin suggested they keep diaries in case they lost their memories.
• Xu Huo’s application to oversee more sub-districts was accepted, and the city government appointed him temporary joint administrator of Sub-districts 4 through 7 and 9 through 12.
• Xu Huo saw photos of the other three temporary law enforcement officers on the internal bulletin board.

Xu Huo investigated how to clear Buliu City’s dungeon while discussing the One-Third Game with other temporary law enforcement officers. Lou Zigui warned that players trapped in the city might eventually die in the game, and Xu Huo left the conversation with a request to share any progress.

• Xu Huo gave the city government an armed robot in exchange for keeping his authority as Joint Administrator, then spoke with Old Cai about the dungeon and the city government’s disappearance.
• Old Cai and Xu Huo considered whether restoring the city government and completing an official wanted notice could clear the dungeon, since killing suspected criminals had produced no progress.
• Xu Huo contacted Lou Zigui and shared what he knew about the water Rubik’s Cube, while Lou Zigui described his group’s findings about the One-Third Game.
• Lou Zigui told Xu Huo that players who entered the One-Third Game lost their memories and that some trapped players had exceeded the dungeon’s time limit without finding a way out.
• Lou Zigui asked Xu Huo to sell his group any clues he uncovered, warning that the trapped players might eventually die in the One-Third Game.

Xu Huo organized Players into a temporary law-enforcement network to identify Wanted Criminals and test whether submitting warrants could help clear the One-Third Game. The group began gathering evidence and reporting suspects, while Zhu Xiaojin brought Xu Huo a man accused of killing and eating at least ten people.

• Xu Huo shared information about possible game-clearance methods and decided to expand his law-enforcement effort across Districts 4 through 12.
• Xu Huo allowed Shen Fu and Shi Meng to claim up to a third of their required Wanted Criminals as compensation for testing whether they could leave after failing to clear the game.
• Qiao Jieping proposed investigating residents' past murders, and Cheng Zhongzhi offered to organize rewards for successful reports.
• Xu Huo hired twenty Players to work across the city, and they gathered hundreds of confession videos from local residents.
• Xu Huo submitted warrant applications backed by strong evidence, while Zhu Xiaojin and the others caught nearly twenty people with histories of murder.
• Zhu Xiaojin presented Xu Huo with a middle-aged man accused of killing at least ten people, with a neighbor's video documenting the case.

Xu Huo continued enforcing order in Buliu City while Players repeatedly attacked his teams and tried to steal his work ID. After he captured several attackers, an assault on the temporary enforcement building ended with the intruders trapped by the painted woman’s recorded evidence and a barrage of paper blades.

• Xu Huo arrested a man who had killed people for food and ordered him held until the city government issued a wanted notice.
• Players ambushed Xu Huo to steal his work ID, but he defeated and imprisoned all five attackers.
• Zhu Xiaojin told Xu Huo that their teams had been attacked, and Xu Huo recruited more Players while continuing to gather evidence and wanted criminals.
• While Xu Huo was away, Players stormed the temporary enforcement building and found the prisoners missing.
• The painted woman announced that she had recorded the intruders and declared them wanted criminals, then paper blades attacked them from every direction.

Xu Huo and his allies captured players who had attacked them, but the city government still had not responded to their wanted requests, and the One-Third Game remained unexplained. During the night, Cheng Zhongzhi, Shen Fu, and several others vanished, apparently pulled into the game.

• Xu Huo used the painted woman's paper and his Spiritual World to help Zhu Xiaojin and the others defeat the attackers, though three players escaped.
• Xu Huo released the people he had hidden in the Staff Dormitory, and the group split into shifts to guard their captives while awaiting the city government's response.
• The group discussed whether time could trigger the One-Third Game and worried that players might be forced into it even if they did not seek it out.
• Xu Huo woke and found Cheng Zhongzhi and Shen Fu missing; Shi Meng and Zhu Xiaojin had seen nothing, and the recording showed no obvious cause.
• The group discovered that two captured players, an ordinary captive, and a temporary worker had also disappeared, and Zhu Xiaojin noticed Shi Meng's tense reaction.

Shi Meng tried to sabotage the players’ alliance with an explosion, but Xu Huo killed him and set terms for cooperation. After everyone agreed, Xu Huo vanished, apparently entering the game with the detained people, leaving the others unsure whether he could return.

• Shi Meng planted an explosive artifact and detonated it, destroying the former law enforcement building and injuring Tang Yu.
• Shi Meng tried to turn the players against Xu Huo, but Xu Huo killed him with a black line-like object.
• Xu Huo offered to take one-fifth of each player’s submitted Wanted Criminals in exchange for using the municipal government’s channel, and the players agreed to cooperate.
• Xu Huo vanished with the people held in the room, and Tang Yu and Zhu Xiaojin wondered whether he had entered the game and could return.

Xu Huo entered the One-Third Game, ranked the past first, and was transported to a maze for a seven-day game called Space Prison. Assigned as one of five guards, he joined a female guard in searching for keys as prisoners rushed through the maze.

• Xu Huo ranked the past, present, and future, then the water Rubik's Cube transported him to a maze with more than two hundred other participants.
• The game rules assigned participants as guards or prisoners and explained the seven-day contest, including guards' duty to kill twenty-one prisoners and prisoners' chance to win by taking a guard's key.
• Xu Huo was assigned the guard identity, and a prisoner who attacked him was erased by the water Rubik's Cube.
• A female guard proposed that she and Xu Huo work together, and they ran into the maze searching for keys.
• A tall man found a key on another Player and threw it toward Xu Huo and the female guard.

Xu Huo explored Space Prison with a female Player, learned how the guard and prisoner roles worked, and split from the Players following them. He found a region where Space Power behaved differently and discovered that shifting a Space Ray made connected spaces tremble and form geometric shapes.

• Xu Huo and the female Player examined Space Prison’s maze and discussed the dangers of opening unnumbered doors during the day.
• Xu Huo explained that guards could roam and kill prisoners while prisoners could only win by obtaining a guard’s key, then warned the female Player to find her key.
• A third guard warned Xu Huo and the female Player not to open the wrong doors, and Xu Huo split up with her to avoid the prisoners following them.
• Xu Huo continued deeper into the maze as the pursuing Players fell behind and he noticed the Space Power becoming uneven and patterned.
• Xu Huo nudged a distant Space Ray, causing connected spaces to tremble while their stable structures formed diamond-shaped cross sections and geometric solids.

Xu Huo observed the unstable spatial entities at the core of the spatial prison and warned a group of allied Players not to disturb them. He left them with a warning to hide, while the prison’s dangerous core remained intact.

• The spatial entities collided and collapsed in patches, shifting rooms upward before the prison gradually settled.
• Xu Huo examined the new spatial forms inside the giant cube and recognized their compressed, chaotic power as a rare opportunity for Spatial Evolution.
• Xu Huo asked the approaching Players whether any had undergone Spatial Evolution and warned them not to use their Space Power recklessly.
• When a spatial Super Evolver pressed him for details, Xu Huo manifested the giant cube and advised the group to observe it without touching it.
• Xu Huo restrained a Player who challenged him, then released him after the Player apologized.

Xu Huo entered the prison maze as a Guard and learned the game’s rules while the players scrambled to claim rooms. After going out on patrol, he found one of the memorized room numbers and opened the door, where a player attacked him.

• The two space-oriented Super Evolvers abandoned their companions and fled the prison’s core after Xu Huo warned them not to interfere with him.
• Players tried to impress Xu Huo during the countdown, while he faced their threatening stares and a kindly older player’s promise to take his key.
• At eight, room numbers appeared on the maze doors, and Xu Huo claimed an unnumbered room with his Guard key.
• Xu Huo read the Criminal Cleanup Plan and learned that Guards could patrol, use their Storage Compartment only for food and water, and risk being kicked out if they broke the rules.
• At 8:10, Xu Huo left his room, tracked down a memorized number, and opened the door to a player who hurled a toilet at him.

Xu Huo and a female Player hunted prisoners together while discussing how they might preserve memories and contact one another after leaving the One-Third Game. They exchanged personal tokens and set off together, with Xu Huo reaching his goal by midmorning as she killed five people.

• Xu Huo killed several Players, while another Player fleeing down the corridor was killed by a powerful second-Evolution guard.
• Xu Huo reunited with the injured female Player, who explained that she had avoided triggering the One-Third Game by killing people on a Wanted List.
• Xu Huo and the female Player exchanged a marked button and his business card as a way to remember their identities and cooperate after the game.
• Xu Huo and the female Player discussed whether the past, present, or future mattered most, choosing the past and present respectively.
• The pair hunted prisoners together, and Xu Huo reached his goal while the female Player killed five people; he gave her some of the items he carried.

Xu Huo studied the spatial prison’s giant cube, trying and failing to reproduce its shifting structure, then helped an injured guard and discovered a tiny water Rubik’s Cube containing Time Power. He left the source of the cube’s power unresolved.

• Xu Huo told the female Player to rest and went to examine the spatial prison’s giant cube.
• Xu Huo studied the cube’s shifting spatial forms and tried to construct a smaller cube inside it, but it vanished after a few seconds.
• Xu Huo gave recovery pills to a badly injured guard and offered him a name card before the guard disappeared from the corridor.
• Xu Huo found a tiny water Rubik’s Cube containing Time Power near the room matched to his key and wondered whether its power came from within itself.

Xu Huo studied the time force inside the water Rubik’s Cube in the space prison, then met Zhu Xiaojin among the new arrivals. He learned that less than an hour had passed since he left Buliu City and began explaining the game.

• Xu Huo examined the stable time force in the water Rubik’s Cube and discussed it with a guard who proposed working together after they escaped.
• At eight that night, the Players were forced out of the maze as their keys vanished, and a new group entered the space prison.
• Xu Huo recognized Zhu Xiaojin and asked about Cheng Zhongzhi and Shen Fu, but Zhu Xiaojin did not know whether they had entered.
• Zhu Xiaojin told Xu Huo that less than an hour had passed since he disappeared from Buliu City and asked him to explain the game.

Xu Huo and Zhu Xiaojin discussed surviving the Spatial Prison game and encountered Cheng Zhongzhi, who admitted accidentally killing Shen Fu. During the next round of One Third, Xu Huo gathered prisoner keys and offered them in exchange for guard keys, ending with Players bringing him the keys and claiming his stash.

• Zhu Xiaojin called for Cheng Zhongzhi and Shen Fu, but Cheng Zhongzhi arrived alone and admitted he had killed Shen Fu after mistaking him for someone else.
• Xu Huo urged Zhu Xiaojin to use the next few days to meet his Dungeon requirement, and Zhu Xiaojin promised to tell him if he cleared it.
• When the next One Third round began, Xu Huo searched the maze for keys while Zhu Xiaojin took the prisoner role and Xu Huo and the female Player became guards again.
• Xu Huo collected prisoner keys and offered them all to anyone who found a guard key, then used his mental power to take keys from nearby prisoners.
• Players found two people hiding guard keys, killed them, and brought the keys to Xu Huo, who gave away his prisoner-key stash as promised.

Xu Huo studied how Time Power affected Space Power inside the Spatial Prison and finally learned to sense its compressed state. That evening, he met Zhu Xiaojin and Mi Qiaonan, who believed they could complete the game after leaving, while Xu Huo remained calm about his own progress.

• Xu Huo left Mi Qiaonan to remember the prison guard numbers and went to observe the spatial core.
• Xu Huo watched a water Rubik’s Cube interact with Time Power and Space Power, then realized the forces could form a highly compressed state.
• Xu Huo tested his influence on Space Power, found that the giant cube could stabilize itself, and learned to sense the power by four in the afternoon.
• Xu Huo met Zhu Xiaojin and Mi Qiaonan that evening, and Zhu Xiaojin said he had gathered a third of the prisoners he needed.
• Mi Qiaonan said she could likely finish the game after leaving, and Xu Huo replied that he could complete it outside as well.

Xu Huo searched for the missing guard keys while other Players grew wary of him and considered stopping him. He returned to the giant cube to study its patterns, hoping to strengthen his Space Power.

• Xu Huo found one guard key, but the other two remained missing, and Zhu Xiaojin suspected someone had hidden them in the prison.
• Mi Qiaonan warned Xu Huo that the spatial prison's central area could be dangerous, and Zhu Xiaojin left with her while Xu Huo went to the giant cube.
• Other Players confronted Xu Huo about moving the spatial core, but he argued that they could not control the prison's powerful spatial and time forces.
• Xu Huo said killing all the Players would not be enough and focused on learning the giant cube's spatial patterns to improve his Space Power.
• A Player shouted that a water Rubik's Cube was rolling toward them.

Xu Huo faced streams of physical Time Power unleashed by the collapsing water Rubik’s Cube in the spatial prison. He discovered he could sense and redirect the streams across space, then pursued the player who had caused him to collide with another man.

• The water Rubik’s Cube shattered inside the giant cube, sending streams of Time Power ricocheting through the prison as players fled.
• Xu Huo realized the Time Power passed through spatial bodies and that the entire prison had become a passage for it.
• A burly player was shoved into Xu Huo, knocking him into the path of an approaching Time Power stream.
• Xu Huo raised spatial barriers, but the stream passed through them; at the last moment, he shifted it aside by manipulating the Time Power.
• Xu Huo sensed Time Power across the prison and redirected a stream toward the player who had fled after causing the collision.
• Xu Huo followed the fleeing player, using the traces of Time Power on people to locate him.

Xu Huo manipulated streams of Time Power in the spatial prison and helped the danger pass, impressing the Players around him. A short Player then explained that Super Players were not promoted by fixed rankings, but were selected according to hidden, potentially different requirements.

• A fleeing Player vanished after crossing two streams of time, while Xu Huo interfered with other streams and tested his ability to guide them.
• The streams of time stopped, became tiny water Rubik's Cubes, and disappeared, returning the spatial prison to normal.
• A short Player approached Xu Huo, asked whether Temporal Evolution could turn back time, and followed him when Xu Huo denied being able to do so.
• The short Player told Mi Qiaonan and Zhu Xiaojin that Super Evolution was necessary to become a Super Player, though it did not guarantee the title.
• The short Player explained that Super Players were outside the game's fixed Player rankings and could have different hidden qualification requirements.

Xu Huo searched the Space Prison maze for guard keys while refining his control over the Space Core, until he found a portrait identifying his Evolutions and began tracking down who had made it. By the next night, he had disguised himself and obtained a guard key through a trade.

• Shorty told Xu Huo that stronger Super Evolution might improve his chances of becoming a Super Player and exchanged Dimension Below contact details with him.
• As the hunt entered its third and fourth days, Xu Huo searched for guard keys while avoiding players who had begun sharing warnings and passing keys around to get him eliminated.
• After Xu Huo killed his sixteenth prisoner, he found a portrait of himself listing his Time and Space, Mental Power, and Body Evolutions, with a question mark beside Body.
• Xu Huo questioned prisoners about who had drawn the portrait and where they were, then covered his face and altered his appearance to limit the information players could gather about him.
• After leaving the maze that evening, Xu Huo stopped sticking with Zhu Xiaojin, and the next time he entered the maze he traded with a prisoner to obtain a guard key.