Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo pieced together how the Shang family may have been victims of the human experiments in Museum City, advancing the disappearance mystery to 4/6. He returned to find Xiao Ling, Yu Guangnan, and Long Aotian confronting the group that had ambushed them, whose leader asked where Xu Ruosi and Xie Ling were.

• Xu Huo examined the Shang family’s memorial tablets and concluded that the Shang family had likely been subjected to human experiments rather than conducting them.
• His theory advanced the disappearance mystery to 4/6, and he pieced together a possible history of Museum City’s experiments and their exposure.
• Xu Huo heard a splash and found Xiao Ling, Yu Guangnan, and Long Aotian trying to dig through the waterway ceiling.
• The group that had ambushed them arrived, and its leader questioned them about the people killed outside.
• Xiao Ling challenged the group’s motives, then denied knowing where Xu Ruosi and Xie Ling were.

Xu Huo and his companions escaped a group of Players pursuing them and took refuge in the Corpse Hiding Hotel. They hid in the hotel’s oddly arranged rooms and began considering why the attackers were hunting Dungeon Players, leaving open whether the pursuers aimed to weaken rivals or recover items already taken.

• Xiao Ling’s group revealed Xu Huo’s hiding place, and he fought the pursuing Players before Long Aotian pulled him out through a hole in the ceiling.
• The group fled through a maze attraction toward the Corpse Hiding Hotel while the Players chased them and attacked with restraints, blades, and nets.
• Xu Huo and his companions entered the hotel, used smoke to delay their pursuers, and went to the Third Floor.
• The group muffled their footsteps and climbed through an outer window into one of the hotel rooms.
• Xiao Ling and the others questioned why the Players were hunting them, and Xu Huo suggested they might be trying to weaken rivals or find Players who had obtained valuable items.

Xu Huo and his companions hid from hostile Players in the Corpse Hiding Hotel, where the darkness brought unsettling sounds and Yu Guangnan vanished from the Restroom. Xiao Ling’s mechanical bee caught sight of a face outside the Restroom window.

• Long Aotian told Xu Huo that he had escaped a group of Players and that Liu Chengyi had likely been captured.
• Xu Huo, Xiao Ling, Long Aotian, and Yu Guangnan evaded an attack on the hotel stairs and hid in a suite.
• Xiao Ling discovered that three pursuers were inside the hotel, while two others watched its entrances.
• After dark, Long Aotian used the Restroom and returned safely, but Yu Guangnan disappeared when he went in.
• Xiao Ling sent a mechanical bee out the Restroom window, and its camera caught a face outside.

After Museum City lost power and skeletons rose from the cemetery, Xu Huo and his companions were attacked by three Players in their hotel room. Xu Huo fought back and pursued them into a darkness that seemed to distort the hotel, where he noticed the leader had been affected by his poison bluff.

• Xu Huo, Xiao Ling, and Long Aotian watched a power outage plunge Museum City into darkness as skeletons climbed from the graves and headed toward the city center.
• Three Players burst into the room and used a freezing Ability and a contract item to trap Xiao Ling and Long Aotian in separate sections.
• Xu Huo tossed Potion into the air to make the attackers dodge, then kicked one Player into the wall and used his Spiritual World to distort the room and hide the exit.
• Xu Huo and the leading Player fought with fire and items until the battle moved into the hallway.
• Xu Huo found the hallway unnaturally dark, while the leading Player created faint light in the wall and reacted to Xu Huo's warning by believing poison had touched his hand.

Xu Huo and his companions fought to survive the unnatural darkness and disappearances inside the Corpse Hiding Hotel. After Xu Huo vanished from the stairs, he found himself alone in a distorted, mirror-like part of the hotel, facing a mutilated corpse.

• Xu Huo trapped the leading Player in his Spiritual World, but the man vanished when mysterious footsteps sounded.
• Xu Huo, Xiao Ling, and Long Aotian regrouped after Xiao Ling and Long Aotian killed one Player and another escaped.
• The group climbed toward the top floor as footsteps followed them, though the dusty stairs showed no footprints beyond their own.
• Xiao Ling disappeared while standing close to Xu Huo, and Xu Huo then vanished when Long Aotian glanced away.
• Xu Huo found himself in a hotel room where the room number and hallway features appeared reversed, with a mutilated corpse in the room opposite.

Xu Huo encountered a monstrous creature in the Corpse Hiding Hotel and learned from the other players that it left people alone while they stayed in their rooms. He reunited with Peng Fengnian, who revealed that the hotel was a Mirror Hotel with no way out.

• Xu Huo found the corpse of a missing player and hid when a huge, human-faced Monster approached.
• The Monster tore through a wall, ate from the corpse, and nearly detected Xu Huo before leaving.
• Xu Huo joined Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan, who said the Monster seemed to attack only people who left their rooms.
• Yu Guangnan called down Peng Fengnian, an old acquaintance of Xu Huo's who had been trapped in the hotel for five days.
• Peng Fengnian told Xu Huo that they could not escape because the hotel was a Mirror Hotel.

Xu Huo questioned Peng Fengnian about the Mirror Hotel’s strange rules and learned that its occupants grew hungry rapidly while a Monster stalked the halls. After Peng Fengnian went to meet Teacher Pan, Xiao Ling worried the stranded Players might turn into Aliens, but Xu Huo chose to use their knowledge while staying wary of them.

• Peng Fengnian described the Mirror Hotel’s reversed layout and explained that his group had been trapped there for five days after hearing footsteps.
• Peng Fengnian said the occupants burned through food quickly, had seen only one Monster, and found that shutting a room’s door kept the Monster from entering.
• Xu Huo questioned Peng Fengnian about the footsteps and Monster while assessing the risks and considering how to search the hotel.
• A young Player arrived and summoned Peng Fengnian to speak with Teacher Pan, leaving Xu Huo with Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan.
• Xiao Ling warned that the group might succumb to the Gluttony Urge and turn into Aliens, while Xu Huo said their information could save time and that irrational Players would be dangerous.

Xu Huo compared his group's experiences with Peng Fengnian's group to investigate the footsteps and their connection to the Mirror Hotel. The evidence suggested the footsteps inside and outside the hotel behaved differently, leaving their source and the spaces involved unresolved.

• Peng Fengnian introduced Xu Huo to Sun Bo, Lin Zhenhuai, and Gao Xiaoyue, who said their group had found no key to the hotel.
• Xu Huo learned that Peng Fengnian's group heard footsteps only at night and could find no traces, though an item they used could detect even a feather.
• Peng Fengnian explained that his group heard footsteps before following them, unlike the footsteps outside that followed people, and Gao Xiaoyue said they could not reach whoever made the sound.
• Xu Huo proposed that the footsteps might be connected to entering the Mirror Hotel and might appear around Players or target them at random.
• Peng Fengnian said his group had encountered three of six later arrivals whose locations and times matched the footsteps, while Yu Guangnan noted that the footsteps outside and inside did not behave consistently.

Xu Huo reasoned that the footsteps heard inside the Mirror Hotel could reveal a flaw in the place, and proposed searching it again after confronting the Monster. The group debated the risks and agreed to discuss whether everyone would take part.

• Xu Huo argued that the footsteps inside the Mirror Hotel were different from those outside and might point to a loophole in the hotel.
• Peng Fengnian and the others described the Monster, which appeared when they left their rooms, pursued only one person at a time, and rapidly healed from injuries.
• Xu Huo asked about the Mirror Hotel's daylight hours and learned that they matched those outside, from six in the morning until nine at night.
• Xu Huo proposed waiting for the footsteps and searching the entire hotel again, saying they should first badly injure the Monster and find its lair.
• Lin Zhenhuai and Sun Bo went to discuss Xu Huo's proposal with their companions, while Xu Huo said a one-and-done solution was best.

Xu Huo and his allies tried to drive the enormous beast out of the hotel, but it survived their traps and escaped back inside. Xu Huo chased it and ended up facing it in a corridor, where he threw an object into its mouth.

• Xu Huo, Lin Zhenhuai, Gao Xiaoyue, and their allies lured the beast upstairs, burned it, and used a cable and pulley to drag it through a window.
• Xu Huo and the others dropped the beast to the ground floor and tried to herd it toward an invisible barrier with an electrified net and a whistle artifact.
• The beast tore through the net, smashed a Player through the hotel's outer wall, and wounded him before fleeing inside.
• Xu Huo followed the beast's blood trail to an open room, where it ambushed him; he blocked it with Condensed Air, dodged away, and threw an object into its mouth.

Xu Huo and Yu Guangnan injured the monster and escaped to the seventh floor, then the Players searched the Mirror Hotel for the passage it used. By dawn, they still had no clue about the passage or the possible potion, and the injured Player was close to dying.

• Xu Huo used music to lure the monster close, slashed its back, and set fire to the corridor as he and Yu Guangnan retreated.
• Sun Bo knocked the climbing monster back to the ground, and Gao Xiaoyue pulled Xu Huo and Yu Guangnan up to the seventh floor.
• Xu Huo concluded that the monster could not leave the hotel grounds and proposed wearing it down to find a clue to a possible passage between spaces.
• Xu Huo, Peng Fengnian, and the others repeatedly lured the monster out while searching the hotel, but found no nest, exit, or trace of the possible potion.
• At dawn, Xu Huo found no spatial passage on the eighth floor, and Peng Fengnian reported that the injured Player had a crushed spine and might die before they escaped.
• Xu Huo revealed that he had put a Player in the monster's stomach, but said he had grabbed the first thing available and had not planted a tracker.

Xu Huo and the others tried to lure the monster, but it appeared on a different floor and returned stronger than before. Xu Huo helped some Players escape, while the others struggled to evade the beast and regroup.

• Miss Gao activated the sound item on the eighth floor, but the monster appeared between the third and fourth floors, where Xu Huo briefly saw it before it vanished.
• Xu Huo and Lin Zhenhuai found no passage, then returned to the eighth floor and found the monster had injured Yu Guangnan and Gao Xiaoyue and crushed Xiao Ling’s toy car.
• Xu Huo and Lin Zhenhuai tried to trap and attack the monster, but it avoided the blade, broke free of their traps, and tore through the rooms.
• Xu Huo pulled Peng Fengnian away from the monster and escaped through a window, telling the others to meet at their usual spot.
• Gao Xiaoyue led the monster toward Xiao Ling before escaping through a window, and Xiao Ling’s rope pulled Sun Bo back toward the beast.
• Peng Fengnian distracted the monster with Attention-Grabbing Flying Knife, and Lin Zhenhuai used his flying shield to knock it back into a room.

Xu Huo considered how the strange time cycle in Museum City might be linked to the secrets of Mirror Hotel while he and Peng Fengnian discussed their predicament and District 009’s plans. A photo of the city prompted Xu Huo to question when it had been taken, suggesting it might reveal something about the Dungeon’s time distortions.

• As the Monster tore through the hotel, Xu Huo inspected Museum City and found the streets altered, the skeletons gone, and no other Players in sight.
• Xu Huo reflected on the Sphinx’s Riddle and how its references to the stages of life might relate to Museum City’s repeating day and Mirror Hotel.
• Peng Fengnian climbed onto the balcony, and Xu Huo questioned him about District 009’s Players, their plans, and whether they had entered with Tickets.
• Peng Fengnian told Xu Huo that his group’s time in the Dungeon was nearly up and asked why the Dungeon opened every day.
• Peng Fengnian showed Xu Huo photos of Museum City, and Xu Huo asked whether one had really been taken the previous afternoon.

Xu Huo realized that Mirror Hotel and Museum City were rotating between multiple spaces, explaining the shifting cemetery and the Monster’s movements. The progress panel advanced to 5/6, and he and Peng Fengnian planned to wait until night to test whether the hotel’s exit followed the space-switching rules.

• Xu Huo compared Peng Fengnian’s photos and concluded that spaces in Museum City, including Mirror Hotel, swapped places rather than resetting over time.
• Xu Huo explained the space-swapping theory to Peng Fengnian, who agreed to share it with the others.
• Xu Huo suspected the hotel swallowed people and submitted that as an answer, causing the game progress to jump to 5/6.
• At 12:30, Xu Huo noticed bones near the cemetery and inferred that the spaces switched at least at 6:00 and 12:30.
• Peng Fengnian told Xu Huo that the group suspected the exit might appear during a space switch, while Teacher Pan thought it would be at night; Xu Huo agreed to wait until then.

Xu Huo tried to find a way out of the hotel with Peng Fengnian’s group and learned about a prop that could open doors. Teacher Pan told him Museum City’s history of the Shang family’s persecution, and Xu Huo asked why their descendants had rebuilt the city.

• Peng Fengnian’s group introduced Old Zheng, Old Eagle, and Teacher Pan, then offered Xu Huo a spatial prop and asked him to find its hidden use.
• Xu Huo questioned whether the group could be trusted, while Xiao Ling warned him not to let them use him and discard him.
• Teacher Pan explained that Museum City had once been used to confine infected people, who were poisoned and killed by the government.
• Teacher Pan told Xu Huo that Doctor Shang escaped persecution, but the government nearly wiped out his family while searching for people immune to the disease.
• Xu Huo asked why the Shang family’s descendants had secretly rebuilt Museum City.

Teacher Pan explained how a Shang descendant rebuilt Museum City and used it to exact revenge on the families of those who had persecuted the Shang family. After the descendant died by suicide, public outrage destroyed the perpetrators’ relatives’ reputations and livelihoods, and Xu Huo concluded that the revenge continued through their lasting disgrace.

• Teacher Pan told Xu Huo that the Shang family rebuilt Museum City as a tourist destination where people could disappear without raising suspicion.
• A Shang descendant abducted and killed the descendants of the people who had led the persecution, then anonymously sent their families videos of the victims’ deaths.
• The Shang descendant’s social media accounts posted the videos, exposing the old crimes and igniting public outrage against the perpetrators and their families.
• The Shang descendant was detained and released after police found no evidence against him, then killed himself two months after returning home.
• After his death, the victims’ families and the public faced relentless scrutiny, tracking, and social punishment, and Xu Huo said the revenge was complete.

Xu Huo connected the Museum City disappearances to the Shang family’s revenge and cleared the dungeon with an S-rank evaluation. He received upgraded Abilities and rewards, including the special Space Artifact Mind-Only Gate, which could travel to one world per day.

• Xiao Ling, Teacher Pan, Yu Guangnan, and Sun Bo discussed whether the Shang family’s killer had died and whether the revenge had been justified.
• Xu Huo concluded that the missing people in Museum City were the perpetrators’ descendants and relatives, killed in the Shang family’s revenge.
• Xu Huo cleared the Sphinx’s Riddle dungeon and earned an S-rank Super Evaluation with Ability upgrades, items, Potions, and White Cash.
• Xu Huo’s The Power of Writing became The Strength of Writing, forcing everyone within a hundred meters to look at him for five seconds.
• Xu Huo’s Rampaging Bison upgrade became Nonexistent Beast, enhancing his kicks and jumping ability.
• Xu Huo received Mind-Only Gate, a special Space Artifact that could take him to one world per day.

Xu Huo and the others discovered that the footsteps were tied to another space in the hotel, then realized they might be trapped in a space where Tickets and Return Tickets did not work. As midnight approached, Xu Huo warned that they might have only twelve hours left.

• Gao Xiaoyue reported footsteps on the sixth floor, and Xu Huo found his escape chance had fallen to five percent as monsters converged on the sound.
• Xu Huo helped fend off a monster while Teacher Pan and the others tried to bait the footsteps with a prop; then the players fell through the floor and reappeared in the same place.
• Xu Huo suspected the hotel spaces had switched, but the group could not confirm they were in the Corpse Hiding Hotel.
• Xiao Ling used a toy to draw Peng Fengnian and Sun Bo away, and Xu Huo told Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan that Teacher Pan's group and Peng Fengnian's group seemed trapped there.
• Xiao Ling discovered that Tickets and Return Tickets could not be used, and Xu Huo said they might have only twelve hours before they were trapped permanently.

Xu Huo and his companions became trapped in a strange overlapping space inside the hotel, where Tickets could not be used and other players vanished. Xu Huo discovered that a puppet's knife was linked to the hotel’s hallucination, and taking it revealed a Syringe in the puppet’s severed arm.

• Xu Huo, Xiao Ling, and Yu Guangnan found two decomposing player bodies and realized the hotel corridors had trapped them in a space with an unchanging view outside the windows.
• Xu Huo reasoned that the space was likely outside the Dimension Rift’s game area, then used bean seeds to trace mental interference through the hotel.
• Xu Huo’s bean plants led him to a suite as Teacher Pan and the others arrived, and a horde of life-sized puppets flooded the hallway.
• Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan followed Teacher Pan’s group toward the exit while Xu Huo stayed behind to investigate a housewife puppet carrying a matching kitchen knife.
• Xu Huo took the puppet’s knife, causing the puppets to stop and the puppet to tear off its own arm, which contained a pale green Syringe.

Xu Huo discovered that Old Zheng and Old Eagle had stolen the green potion and pursued them through the Corpse Hiding Hotel. After killing Old Zheng, he raced toward Museum City’s entrance to catch the fleeing Players, but two ambushers attacked him along the way.

• Old Zheng and Old Eagle ambushed Xu Huo, disarmed him, and stole the device and syringe before the group returned to the Corpse Hiding Hotel.
• Xu Huo pursued Old Zheng through the hotel, overcame his items, and killed him, but found no potion among his belongings.
• Xu Huo spotted Old Eagle escaping with Lin Zhenhuai and realized the group had transferred the potion and scattered.
• Xu Huo headed for Museum City’s main gate, believing the Players would have to pass through it to leave.
• Two Players ambushed Xu Huo with an invisible trap, and he freed himself and killed one of them.