Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo learned that District 009 was about to merge with the game and bring a new batch of Dungeons, where early visitors might find valuable items. The Duchess offered him Tickets to explore, leaving him with the chance to visit the new Sub-district.

• Xu Huo let the painted woman buy clothes, jewelry, and food, then agreed to hire the four chefs who cooked at the Ancient Castle.
• Xu Huo visited a trading venue and encountered the Duchess and Serin, though he and Serin pretended they had never met.
• Xu Huo browsed the B-class item catalog and paid for two outfits for the little Pink Hat.
• The Duchess and Serin told Xu Huo that the Black Shoulder Badge was expanding ahead of a new Sub-district joining the game.
• The Duchess explained how new Sub-districts integrated and offered Xu Huo Tickets to explore District 009, where newly opened Dungeons might contain unclaimed items.

After meeting with the Duchess, Xu Huo returned to the game base and learned about a Dimensional Train that had been overloaded with smuggled ore. He helped sort the ore and discussed how contraband could be transported by train.

• The Duchess told Serin and Xu Huo that District 011 was peaceful compared with other sub-districts and urged Xu Huo to hold a charitable banquet for the Ancient Castle.
• Xu Huo went to the game base, where Wan Tingfang explained that a mission to repair the tracks had uncovered a Dimensional Train overloaded with ore smuggled by a Conductor.
• Shi Youzhi and the Rail Supply Department sorted and tested the ore, which had been brought back for further examination after it interfered with the tracks.
• Xu Huo asked whether trains could also be used to smuggle weapons, and Shi Youzhi explained that train rules and the Game Government made that difficult.
• Wan Tingfang talked about buying high-level items someday so she would not have to wear all her equipment at once.

Xu Huo and the Rail Supply Department team discussed evolution potions, space-jump artifacts, and life in District 011 over a workday and dinner. After returning to the Ancient Castle, Xu Huo found Dr. Deng waiting for him.

• Wan Tingfang asked about moving weapons between sub-districts, and Ai Jia explained that space crossings required rare artifacts or substantial technological and financial resources.
• Shi Youzhi treated the team to dinner, where Wan Tingfang asked about his hometown and the others shared advice about handling emergencies on the tracks.
• Wan Tingfang suspected potion-processed liquor had harmful effects, and Xu Huo warned her that Evolution Potion also had risks and that Players' bodies could deteriorate if they stopped taking it.
• Xu Huo returned to the Ancient Castle and found Dr. Deng waiting for him.

Xu Huo rejected Dr. Deng’s request to go to District 009 after suspecting the lead about Dr. Wu was bait. Back at the Ancient Castle, the painted woman subdued the Ghost Shadow, which Xu Huo identified as the special item Poster of Repentance.

• Dr. Deng told Xu Huo that Dr. Wu had reportedly been seen in District 009 and urged him to go there for the Perfect Evolution Potion, but Xu Huo refused because the information seemed suspicious and District 009 was dangerous.
• After Dr. Deng left, Xu Huo told Mr. Dong that he distrusted Dr. Deng but would wait to see what happened in District 009.
• Mr. Dong released the Ghost Shadow from the wall, and it tried to attack Xu Huo before the painted woman caught it and chased it around the Ancient Castle.
• The painted woman washed the Ghost Shadow and brought it to Xu Huo’s room, but he sent her away for breaking their agreement about entering his room.
• The next morning, Xu Huo took the now-docile Ghost Shadow and checked its item details, identifying it as the Poster of Repentance, which could kill the person being stalked.

Xu Huo tested the Poster of Repentance and planned changes to the Ancient Castle before its upcoming banquet. He arranged for the painted woman to be his companion, selected a noblewoman to invite, and asked Mr. Dong about the Welfare Institute.

• Xu Huo examined the Poster of Repentance, tested its tracking abilities, and decided not to send it after Dr. Deng.
• Xu Huo asked Mr. Dong whether he could alter the Ancient Castle and its Annex, then sketched interior changes and a spider-themed exterior for the Annex.
• Xu Huo and Mr. Dong discussed repair costs, and Mr. Dong warned Xu Huo to stay safe.
• Mr. Dong advised Xu Huo to bring a female companion to the banquet, so Xu Huo chose a black-haired noblewoman to invite.
• Xu Huo asked Mr. Dong about the Welfare Institute and learned that many children had been adopted while he was away.

Xu Huo learned that nobles were adopting orphans and sold Wan Tingfang his purchasing slot so he could browse the game base’s item Catalog. He found that buying the B-class Condensed Air required valuable information, then spotted a newly listed cursed sword as the chapter ended.

• Xu Huo asked Mr. Dong why nobles had recently begun adopting orphans and learned that many Player families took them away on non-Player trains.
• Xu Huo went to the game base and asked Shi Youzhi about buying another item, then paid Wan Tingfang twenty thousand White Cash for her purchasing slot.
• Xu Huo found that the B-class Condensed Air cost fifteen million White Cash and required game-approved valuable information to purchase.
• Xu Huo rejected the Blade of Storm because its three-second cooldown was too long.
• Xu Huo found a new listing for the Eye of the Deceased, a cursed sword that targeted everyone who saw its opened eye, including its wielder.

Xu Huo acquired and tested several items, including the hallucinatory Eye of the Deceased and the Pumpkin Head, which failed to scare anyone at Rose Castle. Later, he reviewed surveillance of Dr. Deng and saw that he had met with Rongxin Group executives.

• Xu Huo submitted information about Suitcase Man to meet the purchase requirements and obtained Condensed Air, the Eye of the Deceased, and a Pumpkin Head.
• Xu Huo tested Condensed Air and the Eye of the Deceased at the government base and found both useful in different ways.
• Xu Huo tried the Pumpkin Head at Rose Castle, but its ghostly effect did not work on the castle’s residents, so he lent it to the painted woman.
• The painted woman played with the Pumpkin Head at dinner while Mr. Dong made a skull out of flowers for Xu Huo.
• Xu Huo reviewed footage of Dr. Deng meeting players and Rongxin Group executives, and wondered whether Dr. Deng was planning to work with Rongxin.

Angel stayed overnight at Rose Castle and wandered into a frightening supernatural maze after the lights went out. She escaped the castle but became lost in the greenhouse and Garden Maze.

• Xu Huo returned to Rose Castle to prepare for the banquet, while Angel arrived early to practice dancing and persuaded him to let her stay overnight.
• Mr. Dong warned Angel not to wander the recently renovated castle after dark, but she left her room after midnight to explore.
• Angel saw strange sights in the darkened corridors, including a woman emerging from a painting and grotesque figures moving inside picture frames.
• Angel fled through the seemingly endless hallway, jumped from a third-floor window, and ran into the garden.
• Angel became lost in the rearranged greenhouse and then in the Garden Maze, where she struggled along its confusing paths and stairs.

Angel tried to steal from Xu Huo’s Ancient Castle but was frightened by his prank and the castle’s eerie maze. She stayed to attend the banquet as his dance partner, while the painted woman casually ordered expensive clothes and food.

• Angel ran through the endless maze as footsteps pursued her, then screamed when she encountered a pale woman holding her lamp.
• Angel returned to the Ancient Castle, where Xu Huo had staged the scare with a pumpkin mask, and collapsed after he frightened her again in the dark hallway.
• Xu Huo learned Angel had likely come to scout the castle for a profitable theft and told Mr. Dong to ask whether she still wanted to be his dance partner.
• Angel apologized to Xu Huo and explained she needed the banquet to find a suitable marriage partner, and he allowed her to stay until the evening.
• The painted woman ordered a special breakfast and an assortment of clothes, then asked Angel if she wanted anything before teasing her that she would get nothing.

At his banquet, Xu Huo challenged Serin’s religious arguments and warned him against meddling, then rejected the Duchess’s advances. The next morning, the Duchess offered to help Xu Huo enter a Dungeon in District 009 in exchange for a share of whatever he obtained.

• Serin repeatedly asked whether Xu Huo had a faith, and Xu Huo argued that people made their own choices rather than needing religion to save them.
• Xu Huo advised Serin that cults were easy to dismantle because they meddled too much and took high risks for high returns, then suggested he help the Duchess choose hats instead.
• In the restroom, Xu Huo told the painted woman not to kill Serin, then confronted Angel for wandering around his home.
• After the Dinner Party, Xu Huo helped the drunken Duchess to a guest room and declined her suggestion that they sleep together.
• The next morning, the Duchess told Xu Huo about people entering District 009 and offered to arrange a C-class Dungeon for him in exchange for a proportion of his gains.

Xu Huo accepted Dr. Deng’s Ticket to District 009 in exchange for a place to hide and leads, then entered the D-class Sun Museum City dungeon. He arrived with thirteen other Players, and they began discussing whether to cooperate before entering the city.

• Dr. Deng gave Xu Huo a Ticket to District 009 and asked to stay at his home until Xu Huo could escort him to another Sub-district.
• Xu Huo agreed to let Dr. Deng use the first floor and learned that the Ticket led to the D-class instance Sun Museum City.
• Xu Huo rode the Dimensional Train to District 009 and entered the Sphinx's Riddle dungeon, whose mission was to solve the mystery of disappearances in Sun Museum City.
• Fourteen Players gathered outside the city, where an older man proposed sharing information as a business deal.
• A young Player suggested that they enter Sun Museum City and look around for people who had arrived earlier.

Xu Huo and four other players explored Museum City and entered the Wax Figure Museum to investigate the disappearances. Inside, the museum’s unsettling wax figures frightened Xie Ling, while Xu Huo treated them as ordinary mannequins.

• The players studied Museum City’s layout and split into groups to search its attractions, with Xu Huo joining four others headed for the Wax Figure Museum.
• Xie Ling, Bai Wenxian, Xu Ruosi, Long Aotian, and Xu Huo introduced themselves as they walked through the narrow alleys.
• At the Wax Figure Museum entrance, a giant wax figure launched smaller figures from its mouth, and two life-size figures greeted the group when the lights came on.
• Xu Huo opened a side door and came face-to-face with a sickly-looking wax figure, frightening Xie Ling.
• Xu Huo pushed the figure aside and told the group to turn on more lights if the mannequins unsettled them.

Xu Huo and the others investigated how the wax figures in the museum moved and discussed possible explanations for the disappearances in Museum City. They found no bodies or clear answers, then entered a room arranged as a funeral hall.

• Xu Ruosi and the others found that figures damaged in the first room had been broken in the same places in the second room.
• Xu Huo discovered wires connected to the figures and demonstrated how one figure could move to mimic damage to another.
• The group debated whether the disappearances involved human experiments, hidden bodies, or several different causes, and decided to keep searching for evidence.
• The group examined wax figures arranged as corpses in the third room, then entered a funeral hall filled with coffins and smiling figures.

Xu Huo and the others explored the Wax Figure Museum before entering Ghost Story Night Talk, where they learned that guests had to tell a satisfactory ghost story for a chance at a clue about Museum City. The room descended underground, and Xu Ruosi began her story after warning everyone not to leave ahead of the rules.

• Xu Huo, Xu Ruosi, and Bai Wenxian stabbed the wax figures in the coffins, and Long Aotian's artifact knocked the heads off the figures that sat up.
• The group explored a funeral home and then entered the Ghost Story Night Talk venue through a corridor beside the viewing room.
• Xie Ling read the venue's rules: each guest had to tell one ghost story, only one guest could leave afterward, and a satisfactory story offered a fifty percent chance of a clue about Museum City.
• The group sat at the table, and the room descended underground before candles lit and the wax figures began melting.
• Xu Ruosi volunteered to tell the first story, warned the others to follow the rules after she left, and began recounting an event from her grandfather's youth.

Xu Ruosi told a frightening story about her grandfather encountering mysterious footsteps and a ghostly man on a night journey, then left to receive a clue. Long Aotian began a story about a relative hired to guard a salt yard, where he saw a crowd working despite the yard being closed.

• Xu Ruosi finished her grandfather’s tale of a night encounter that ended with a red handprint and unexplained footsteps by a river.
• Xie Ling asked whether the story was true and reminded Xu Ruosi to wait outside after receiving her clue.
• Xu Ruosi left the room without answering, and the others stayed behind as the room descended.
• Xu Huo asked who would go next, and Long Aotian volunteered to tell a story about his friend’s relative.
• Long Aotian described how the relative ignored his grandmother’s warning and saw the supposedly empty salt yard filled with workers.

Xie Ling told a story about her mother falling into a village dump pit and believing that the ghosts of dead twins had visited her. Xu Huo and Bai Wenxian questioned whether the twins had really died there, and Xie Ling said she would wait outside once she got the clue.

• Long Aotian finished his salt-field ghost story, but the others found it unimpressive and moved on.
• Xie Ling told how her mother fell into a dump pit as a child, fell asleep there, and later claimed that the ghosts of twins had asked her to play.
• Xie Ling's grandmother followed a shenxian's instructions to burn joss paper and offer a toy, after which Xie Ling's mother woke by dawn and recovered.
• Xu Huo suggested the mother had imagined the twins, while Bai Wenxian argued that the pit's contents and shallow depth made it unlikely that two children had died there.
• As the room rose, Xie Ling told Xu Huo to hurry out after finding the clue because she would wait for him outside.

Xu Huo and Bai Wenxian found a clue linking the Twins to Xie Ling’s story and discovered that something besides the Players was moving through the Wax Figure Museum. As they pursued strange footsteps, an unseen hand grabbed Xu Huo’s shoulder.

• Xie Ling found an envelope outside the ghost story room, saw its message, and was shoved toward the Wax Figure Museum by a small figure.
• Bai Wenxian finished his story, and he and Xu Huo found the clue: a drawing of Twins and the words “Find these Twins, and you'll find the real clue.”
• Xu Huo and Bai Wenxian returned to the museum and found signs of a fight, a newly positioned wax figure, and a wax figure melting in the cremation furnace.
• Bai Wenxian concluded that an additional entity was in the building, and he and Xu Huo followed the sound of footsteps.
• As the footsteps sped up, Bai Wenxian rushed forward and an unseen hand grabbed Xu Huo’s shoulder.

Xu Huo burned the animated wax figures and rescued Xie Ling from being sent into the cremation furnace. Trapped beneath the Wax Figure Museum with the exit sealed, they learned that Xu Ruosi may have taken the clue connected to Xie Ling’s ghost story.

• Xu Huo and Bai Wenxian found the wax figures moving, and Xu Huo set them on fire after they attacked him.
• A red skirt and two children lured Xu Huo toward the Story Room, but he suspected the underground venue was built on lifts and stayed upstairs.
• Xu Huo stopped the cremation platform and rescued Xie Ling, who had been coated in wax and was suffocating.
• Bai Wenxian returned and reported that a metal barrier sealed the museum entrance.
• Xie Ling said a pair of twins had pushed her into the museum after she found an envelope containing her ghost story, and Xu Huo suspected Xu Ruosi had taken the other clue.

Xu Huo, Bai Wenxian, and Xie Ling investigated the missing Xu Ruosi and Long Aotian in the Wax Figure Museum and discovered the museum was underground. After escaping back to the surface, they heard eerie laughter and hurried to leave before nightfall.

• Xie Ling told Xu Huo and Bai Wenxian how a wax figure had followed her and how she had found Xu Ruosi unconscious before someone knocked her out.
• Xu Huo suspected Xu Ruosi and Long Aotian were still missing inside the museum, and the Same Kind Retriever revealed that its readings were being overridden.
• Xu Huo cut open the ghost story room's ceiling and found two recently killed players sealed inside wax shells, but they were not Xu Ruosi or Long Aotian.
• Xu Huo discovered a hollow space above the room, and the ghost story room began descending as he thrust his sword into it.
• Xu Huo, Bai Wenxian, and Xie Ling climbed through the ceiling and realized they had been underground beneath the museum and lounge.
• A child's eerie laughter sounded as Xu Huo warned that it was nearly dark and urged them to get out quickly.

Xu Huo tested whether the Wax Figure Museum’s strange events followed the stories told in its ghost-story rooms, then told a new story to investigate the clue system. He and Xie Ling returned to the entrance, where Bai Wenxian reported that the museum had changed.

• Xu Huo, Xie Ling, and Bai Wenxian failed to break through the museum’s outer wall and discussed why ghosts from some stories had appeared but not Long Aotian’s.
• Xu Huo asked Bai Wenxian to test the wall, then returned with Xie Ling to a ghost-story room to tell a story about a skin-stealing ghost.
• Xu Huo observed that no clue-bearing wax figure appeared after his story and concluded that the Secret Room provided clues based on the stories its guests told.
• Xu Huo returned the clue letter to Xie Ling, and the two fought through skulking wax figures on their way to the entrance.
• Bai Wenxian told Xu Huo and Xie Ling that the Wax Figure Museum had changed.