Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo returned to District 009 to investigate what might have broken Carmen Field’s faith, but found a district weakened by infighting and neglect. After an ambush failed to stop him, he saw how thoroughly the District Government controlled ordinary residents’ behavior around players.

• Gene and the others concealed that Xu Huo had taken Angel's Left Eye and prepared to spread false information if the truth leaked.
• Xu Huo considered whether Carmen Field’s death and the war involving Super Players had been shaped by repeated Time Rewinds, then used a Return Ticket to travel to District 009.
• Xu Huo recalled District 009’s integration troubles, devastating losses, civil wars, and continuing disorder under a weak District Government.
• Players ambushed Xu Huo as he entered District 009, but he cut apart their binding items and they retreated after sounding whistles.
• Xu Huo surveyed the damaged, deserted city and saw government notices forbidding ordinary people from going out after dark or secretly watching players.

Xu Huo enforced silence across District 009 after killing players who disturbed the peace, then entered the District Government’s celebration banquet and forced its leaders to issue a citywide ban on noise. The Capital Prefecture fell under mandatory silence, while Xu Huo remained in control of the hall.

• Xu Huo killed six C-class players who had resumed talking loudly after passing him, then left the street.
• Xu Huo sealed off the city and entered the District Government building during a banquet celebrating the conquest of two A-class instances.
• Xu Huo ordered Chief Executive Mr. Mo to forbid anyone in the city from making a sound, threatening death to anyone who spoke.
• Several players collapsed after Xu Huo’s warning, and an A-class player’s prop device shattered when he tried to confront Xu Huo.
• Mr. Mo had his secretary broadcast an immediate mandatory silence order throughout the Capital Prefecture.

Xu Huo imposed strict rules on Capital Prefecture and challenged its leaders to enforce them, killing players who tried to destroy the city’s sealing barrier. When residents began breaking his rules, he ordered the government’s players to punish them or face his retaliation, and Mr. Mo tried to deflect the demand by claiming the rules were about to be abolished.

• Xu Huo allowed a child to use the restroom but warned everyone to stay quiet and inside the government building, then inspected the management manual and said he approved of it.
• Capital Prefecture’s players secretly planned attacks and tried to destroy the sealing barrier, but Xu Huo killed the first group sent to its distant edges.
• Residents and players across the city broke Xu Huo’s rules, while officials at the District Government building watched to see whether he would respond.
• Xu Huo returned to the government hall and ordered the players to deal with rule-breakers within thirty seconds or suffer his escalating reprisals.
• Mr. Mo claimed the government had planned to abolish the manual’s rules, but Xu Huo insisted they were good and ordered the banquet’s guest of honor to act.

Xu Huo forced Capital Prefecture’s players to control the city while he searched classified records for the precognitive Painter Jiang Jiang. He learned that Jiang Jiang’s real name was Liu Yi and that she had left District 009 under pursuit, with no confirmed trace of her since.

• Capital Prefecture’s players withdrew from the government building and ordered residents to shelter silently while they bought soundproofing props and prepared to contain anyone who made noise.
• A middle-aged player warned his companions not to provoke Xu Huo, and a woman reported that Mr. Mo’s family and the families of three council members had been killed.
• The Capital Prefecture players took control of the city, and Xu Huo ordered Mr. Mo to bring him classified files about District 009 players.
• Xu Huo searched the files for Jiang Jiang, whose real name was Liu Yi, and learned that she had left District 009 after players hunted her for her ability to foresee deaths.
• The latest government report said a suspected fortune-teller in a town had been investigated and exposed as a fraud, leaving Liu Yi’s whereabouts unknown.

Xu Huo questioned two players who had pursued Jiang Jiang, learned details that narrowed his search to three locations, and watched the Capital Prefecture descend into silent violence. As residents vented their anger and fear on the Jixin Terminal, an ordinary citizen called for awareness, public condemnation, and resistance.

• Xu Huo asked Mr. Mo to identify players involved in hunting Jiang Jiang, and Mr. Mo brought forward a man and a woman.
• Xu Huo questioned the two players, who described Jiang Jiang’s hiding places and the people who had sheltered and supported her.
• Xu Huo compared their accounts with the files, narrowed the search to three locations, and planned to investigate after daybreak.
• Players in the Capital Prefecture continued killing one another in silence, spreading fear among residents caught in the struggle.
• Residents used the Jixin Terminal to curse the District Government and players, celebrate the turmoil, and call for the Capital Prefecture to be cut off from supplies.
• An ordinary citizen argued on the Jixin Terminal that awareness, public condemnation, and collective resistance could challenge the district’s privileged people.

Xu Huo used District 009’s discriminatory regulations to terrorize government officials and players gathered in the government hall, killing people through a deadly lottery. As news spread and players gathered outside, a child confronted Xu Huo and called him a bad person.

• Xu Huo read the Ordinary Citizens' Declaration aloud and mocked Mr. Mo over the resentment caused by District 009’s player privileges.
• Xu Huo threatened the officials with a lottery based on their regulations, and Mr. Mo knelt and pleaded for the players’ lives.
• Xu Huo selected people with a floating arrow and killed those who begged or drew the wrong grapes.
• News of the killings spread, drawing players to the Capital Prefecture, while Xu Huo killed Outer District Players who tried to ambush him.
• A child broke away from their parents, ran up to Xu Huo, and repeatedly called him a bad person.

Xu Huo left District 009 after exposing a player's test of his limits and causing a shift in the district's balance of power. He arrived in a coastal town and ordered an iced fruit juice.

• Xu Huo questioned a little girl about why she thought he was bad, then sent her home with her parents.
• Xu Huo dragged out a mental Evolver who had used the girl to test him and severed the man's left hand.
• The injured player learned that their plan had succeeded and that District 009's balance of power would change after daylight.
• Xu Huo rested in the government building until dawn, then disappeared as the city's sealing barrier vanished.
• District 009's new government took office and abolished a series of administrative regulations.
• Xu Huo arrived in a coastal tourist town south of District 009 and ordered an iced fruit juice.

Xu Huo paid Dai Si for information about a woman he was seeking, then questioned Liu Yi about her predictions and whether the future could be changed. Liu Yi argued that countless factors shape outcomes, leaving Xu Huo uncertain whether his attempts to alter fate—or Curved Time itself—actually changed anything.

• Xu Huo paid Dai Si two thousand White Cash for an address where a pessimistic young painter might live.
• Xu Huo threatened Dai Si over the possibility that she had given him false information, and Liu Yi revealed herself as the dishwashing woman who had made a prediction about him.
• Liu Yi explained that she had foreseen two thugs dying in Dai Si's shop and believed Xu Huo's arrival was one thread among many leading to that outcome.
• Xu Huo considered how trying to prevent Xiao Yuan and Tan Qi's injuries may have helped bring them about, and questioned whether Curved Time truly changed the future.
• Liu Yi said the universe neither cared about nor acknowledged human ideas of fate, and Xu Huo asked what would eventually make him kill her.

Xu Huo questioned Liu Yi about resisting fate, then encountered two men who harassed Dai Si and wondered whether he could change their predicted deaths. Liu Yi revealed she had deliberately misled him about where they would die, leaving Xu Huo to consider whether changing parts of a prediction could alter its outcome.

• Liu Yi told Xu Huo that she had no answer about fate and described how her Teacher had accepted his foreseen death.
• Xu Huo drank with Liu Yi and Dai Si, then told two men harassing Dai Si to go home and sleep.
• Liu Yi said the two men were destined to die with blood flowing from their seven orifices, and Xu Huo considered killing them himself to test whether he could change their fate.
• Dai Si revealed that she had poisoned the liquor bottle the men took, and Xu Huo learned they had died at another roadside bar.
• Liu Yi admitted she had given Xu Huo the wrong location to test whether changing the place or method of death could break a prediction.

Xu Huo considered Liu Yi’s belief that her death in District 009 was inevitable, then watched the beach and reflected on how ordinary events came and went. An old woman urged him to appreciate what he already had, leaving him to keep looking forward.

• Liu Yi told Xu Huo that she had given up trying to escape her predicted death and would cooperate if he had a good idea.
• Xu Huo spent the next day watching children quarrel over a sandcastle until it was destroyed and washed back into the beach.
• A sudden rainstorm swept over the beach while Xu Huo held a handful of sand.
• An old woman gave Xu Huo a basin for shelter and told him that events were like rain and that he might already have what he sought.
• The rain stopped, and the old woman patted Xu Huo’s head and told him to keep looking forward.

Xu Huo left District 009 with Liu Yi, then returned to District 011, where his new wealth and influence had brought him extensive assets and free repairs to Rose Castle. The next morning, curious birds showered him with flowers, and Mr. Dong noted that they had never treated him that way.

• Xu Huo shared dinner with Liu Yi and Dai Si, then urged Liu Yi to leave District 009 with him so they could see whether her prophecy came true.
• Xu Huo used a Return Ticket to reach District 011 and learned from Mr. Dong that the District Government was paying to repair the streets and Rose Castle.
• Mr. Dong explained that families and businesses had given Xu Huo assets and money to secure his favor, making him extremely wealthy.
• Xu Huo reviewed the business accounts with Mr. Dong and asked him to arrange a visit with Huahan Werner.
• The next morning, Xu Huo entered the garden, where miniature birds perched on him and dropped flowers over his head.

Xu Huo reviewed Dr. Deng’s proposed medicines and toxins, approving continued work on the medicines while rejecting the toxins as too dangerous to test. Dr. Deng said his old colleagues might join the project, and Xu Huo offered them reduced salaries while allowing Dr. Deng to seek funding from Mr. Dong.

• Mr. Dong told Xu Huo that he had raised large mutant spiders for the Castle, and Xu Huo accepted them on the condition that they would not scare anyone.
• The butler reported that Hua Han had left the sub-district but promised to return within three days.
• Dr. Deng presented Xu Huo with plans for medicines and fungal toxins developed with several former colleagues, claiming they wanted to work in District 011.
• Xu Huo asked Dr. Deng to continue producing the medicines and provide experimental data, but refused to serve as a test subject for the toxins.
• Xu Huo told Dr. Deng to request funding from Mr. Dong and offered the prospective hires eighty percent of their salary, with bonuses calculated separately.
• Dr. Deng stopped Xu Huo from dismissing him, saying he had not finished speaking.

Xu Huo bought leaked materials from Bookworm about Stellar Pharmaceutical’s robbed secret Laboratory and agreed to deliver an item in exchange for more information about its location. The records suggested the Laboratory was in a high-risk sub-district with unusually long nights, and Xu Huo asked Bookworm whether he knew a still-operating Laboratory’s address.

• Dr. Deng told Xu Huo that Stellar Pharmaceutical’s secret Laboratory might have been robbed and gave him contacts who traded in leaked information.
• Xu Huo bypassed the brokers and asked Bookworm to sell him the Laboratory’s leaked materials.
• Bookworm offered unfinished potion formulas for a task involving a Player family leader, or information about the Laboratory’s location in exchange for delivering an item to a ticketless sub-district.
• Xu Huo agreed to the delivery arrangement, received half the materials, and coordinated a time to collect the item from a sub-district under an A-class wormhole point.
• Xu Huo studied the incomplete records and found weather data showing eight hours of daylight followed by more than twenty hours of darkness, suggesting the Laboratory might be in a high-risk sub-district outside the Ticket system.
• Xu Huo asked Bookworm whether he had the address of a Stellar Pharmaceutical secret Laboratory that was still operating normally.

Xu Huo asked Bookworm about locating an A-class Ticketless Sub-district, then met Huahan Werner to discuss whether the future could be changed and what had happened to Carmen Field. Huahan warned that the future was an endless cycle and shared a rumor that Carmen might have a place waiting for him in a Ticketless Sub-district.

• Bookworm told Xu Huo he was looking in the wrong direction and that locating a Ticketless Sub-district’s precise position would be meaningless.
• After three days at home, Xu Huo went to a Werner family estate to meet Huahan Werner on the anniversary of Huahan’s wife’s death.
• Xu Huo asked Huahan whether a foreseen future could be changed, and Huahan recalled accelerating time on himself before stopping as his body aged uncontrollably.
• Huahan warned Xu Huo not to pursue changing the future because it was an endless cycle, and said no Artificer had truly created a Time Rewind item.
• Huahan shared a rumor that Carmen Field’s mother came from a Ticketless Sub-district and that Carmen might have someone there to receive him.

Xu Huo discussed the Game Government, the future, and time control with Hua Han, then agreed to help oversee the memorial ceremony for Hua Han’s wife. After noticing odd details and the Werner family’s hostility, Xu Huo concluded that something was wrong with Hua Han’s memory.

• Hua Han told Xu Huo that the game was temporary and advised him to make gradual progress rather than pursue changing the future at all costs.
• Hua Han demonstrated different flows of time power, and Xu Huo learned to control several at different speeds over a reduced area.
• Hua Han admitted that he had visited the Ticketless Sub-district but told Xu Huo to focus on completing A-class instances and strengthening himself first.
• Xu Huo agreed to help Butler Luo prepare for and oversee Hua Han’s wife’s memorial ceremony in the estate garden.
• Kuintu Werner and his family attended the ceremony, then displayed hostility toward Xu Huo after leaving the garden.
• Xu Huo noticed odd details in Butler Luo’s account and suspected that something was wrong with Hua Han’s memory.

Xu Huo questioned Hua Han about inheriting his super dungeon and learned that Hua Han would not simply hand it over. The Werner family recognized how close Xu Huo was to becoming a super player, while Hua Han returned to his study and Xu Huo prepared to meet Bookworm.

• Xu Huo asked Butler Luo whether Hua Han had suddenly aged after his wife died, and she said he had already looked that way at the funeral.
• At dinner, Xu Huo asked Hua Han whether he would give him his super dungeon, and Hua Han told him to seize one himself.
• The Werner family left dinner realizing Xu Huo was advancing toward super-player status far sooner than they had expected.
• Two young Werner women offered to escort Xu Huo, but he refused and returned to Rose Castle.
• Hua Han stroked his wife's photograph and murmured that he was almost forgetting what she looked like.
• Xu Huo put away Mr. Carmen's Love Letter Collection and contacted Bookworm for the exact pickup location.

Xu Huo entered the untimed A-class instance Dream Factory in Qingzhang Town, where newcomers had to become outstanding employees to qualify for an assignment outside town. He learned that residents traded red-eye fruits for lodging and that damaging a house could lead to punishment by the factory director.

• Xu Huo traveled to the Harper United Region, where he saw two player families settle an instance dispute through an adjudicator's dice roll.
• Xu Huo learned that eye-shaped badges were associated with the Feng Family and bought dry rations before heading to Qingzhang Street.
• Two players guarding the entrance demanded a fee, but Xu Huo entered the instance without paying and vanished from the street.
• The instance identified itself as Dream Factory and set becoming an outstanding employee as its clear condition.
• A child at a Wooden Cabin told Xu Huo that three red-eye fruits could buy food and lodging for a day, and warned him that damaging a house would bring punishment from the factory director.

Xu Huo explored a starving town where residents traded Red-Eye Fruits for food and lodging, then entered the dangerous woods to gather fruit and Mutated Plants. As he collected samples, vines dragged a Player into a tree.

• Xu Huo learned from Feng Jiawen that the town required three Red-Eye Fruits for food and lodging, and gave him food in exchange for information.
• Feng Jiawen warned Xu Huo to gather fruit where there were fewer snakes, while his parents refused him lodging unless he worked at the factory or brought fruit.
• A Player told Xu Huo that the factory’s rules were strict, several Players had vanished, and the woods disrupted mental energy.
• Xu Huo entered the foggy woods, used his mental power to protect himself, and gathered Red-Eye Fruits, other fruit, and Mutated Plants.
• Vines dragged one of the Players who had entered the woods after Xu Huo up into a tree, leaving his eyes blank.

Xu Huo learned that Feng Lanni had died months ago, complicating his attempt to collect the goods Bookworm had sent him to retrieve. After the Factory’s workers finished their shift, Xu Huo heard footsteps outside and discovered that his terminal’s time had jumped to 2:12 a.m.

• Xu Huo traded three red-eye fruits to a Player for an A-class instrument and picked more fruit before returning to town.
• Feng Jiawen told Xu Huo that Feng Lanni had died half a year earlier and given her belongings away, and explained that fruit could be traded for medicine or reduced work hours.
• Xu Huo learned that the factory director appeared to punish rule-breakers, while townspeople who died were buried in the woods without funerals.
• Xu Huo questioned Bookworm about the goods, and Bookworm said the transaction was made half a year ago and three previous Players had failed to collect them.
• After lying down, Xu Huo heard footsteps outside and found that his terminal showed 2:12 a.m.

After discovering that he had lost several hours of memory, Xu Huo questioned Feng Jiawen’s parents about the town, the Factory, and its workers. He learned that the Factory Director controlled the residents through harsh rules and that the memory gaps might be part of the instance’s mental interference.

• Xu Huo confirmed that several hours had passed and questioned Feng Jiawen’s parents about Feng Lanni, learning that she had died half a year earlier and that the Factory Director knew where she was buried.
• Feng Jiawen’s parents explained that players could exchange Red-Eye Fruit for only three hours of rest and that becoming an Outstanding Employee required years of uninterrupted work.
• Xu Huo learned that many town residents had been brought in from elsewhere and given the Feng surname, while only a few residents might truly have been born with it.
• Feng Jiawen’s parents described how the Factory confined workers, enforced quotas and movement restrictions, and made rule-breakers disappear.
• Xu Huo offered Feng Jiawen one Red-Eye Fruit to teach him instrument-making, then stayed awake through the night without another memory gap.