Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo learned about painter Jiang Jiang and met her at a Zhou Family banquet, where Players suddenly attacked and abducted her. Her volunteer Player bodyguards fought back, but the attackers kept her hostage as their leader warned them not to destroy their bargaining chip.

• Xu Huo learned that Jiang Jiang was a famous painter whose paintings comforted Players, and spoke with her at the Zhou Family banquet.
• Several Players broke into the banquet hall, sealed its windows, and seized Jiang Jiang amid the fleeing guests.
• Zhou Zhiyang tried to rescue Jiang Jiang, but one of her Player bodyguards knocked him unconscious and used her as bait against the attackers.
• Jiang Jiang’s bodyguards attacked the kidnappers with their items, but the Metal Player restrained her and threatened to kill her.
• Another attacker caught the Metal Player’s explosive orb in a metal box and warned her to preserve the hostages for negotiations.

Xu Huo assessed the danger posed by the Players who had seized Jiang Jiang, then intervened to rescue her. He used his Ability to neutralize their powers and ordered them to sit.

• The black-coated Player used an Artifact to trap Jiang Jiang and her protector, then took Jiang Jiang hostage while threatening the banquet hall.
• President Chang refused to rescue the hostages, and a wealthy man offered a million White Cash per person to anyone who could get them out.
• The black-coated Player's group sealed the hall and attacked as Players tried to move, killing two who were dragged toward him.
• Xu Huo used Danger Prediction to assess the five intruders and determined that the black-coated Player and the metal Player were the strongest.
• Xu Huo kicked a chair toward the group, disarmed the metal Player, rescued Jiang Jiang, and used Truth Transcends All to neutralize their powers before ordering them to sit.

Xu Huo rescued Jiang Jiang from a group of attackers and helped her evacuate the collapsing hotel. As he made his way downstairs, he found an injured boy and protected him from a short adult pretending to need help.

• Xu Huo escaped the banquet-hall fight with Jiang Jiang, and the players guarding her urged them to flee after warning that the attackers had explosives.
• Xu Huo escorted Jiang Jiang to the scenic platform, where she left in her flying vehicle and invited him to visit her at Galaxy Community.
• Xu Huo found an injured boy in the stairwell, treated his broken leg, and carried him toward safety.
• A short man ran toward Xu Huo pretending to need rescue, but Xu Huo kicked him away and pulled him back with the Kite String.
• Xu Huo reassured the frightened boy that the man was an adult who was merely short.

Xu Huo rescued a child during the hotel crisis and made Bian Yongyi arrange a place for them to stay. They reached Galaxy Community, where their car was confiscated and they had to walk to the borrowed villa.

• Bian Yongyi begged Xu Huo to spare him and offered to arrange a place in Galaxy Community.
• Xu Huo climbed down from the hotel with the child, returned him to his mother, and helped Bian Yongyi land safely using Strings and platforms.
• Bian Yongyi drove Xu Huo toward Galaxy Community and explained that his friend had agreed to let them stay at a villa.
• Xu Huo read reports that the player organization had driven the surviving Outer District Players away and was protecting District 009’s items.
• Xu Huo and Bian Yongyi entered Galaxy Community, had their car confiscated, and began walking to the villa as three cars passed them mockingly.

Xu Huo stayed at a villa with Bian Yongyi, then visited Jiang Jiang and learned more about her background. He discovered that Jiang Jiang was the other girl who had immigrated overseas and later resumed using her orphanage name as a Painter.

• A crew-cut young man confronted Bian Yongyi outside the villa and threatened him, but Xu Huo brought Bian Yongyi inside and ignored the shouting until the visitors left.
• The next morning, Xu Huo used Jiang Jiang's social media photo to find her villa and went to visit her with Bian Yongyi.
• Jiang Jiang happily welcomed Xu Huo and Bian Yongyi to breakfast, while Song Xu and several other players watched over her.
• Xu Huo received an update that Liu Yi, the other girl who had immigrated overseas, studied at a famous art academy before her adoptive parents died six years earlier.
• Liu Yi dropped out, apprenticed herself to a well-known Painter, and debuted a year later under her orphanage name, Jiang Jiang.

Xu Huo visited Jiang Jiang’s studio and learned why she kept many paintings unfinished and how her art gave players peace of mind. After discussing Wormhole Flowers and the cruelty of the game, Jiang Jiang asked him whether he liked it.

• Jiang Jiang discussed lunch with Song Xu while Bian Yongyi and Xu Huo watched.
• Song Xu left to buy groceries after ordering bodyguards to protect Jiang Jiang, and Jiang Jiang invited Xu Huo to her studio.
• Jiang Jiang explained that she left paintings unfinished because she disliked seeing them sold, then showed Xu Huo a dark self-portrait she was keeping for herself.
• Xu Huo asked about the Wormhole Flowers in Jiang Jiang’s yard, and she explained how they indicated a Sub-district’s evolution.
• Xu Huo described how poisoning and the loss of ordinary people could weaken a Sub-district, and Jiang Jiang said she preferred to remain an ordinary person.
• Jiang Jiang asked Xu Huo, “Do you like the game?”

Xu Huo spent time with Jiang Jiang at her villa, declined her group’s offer to join them, and then took her to a supposedly haunted house. After a Ghost Shadow appeared and the others chased it, Xu Huo turned around and saw Jiang Jiang holding a paintbrush.

• Xu Huo and Jiang Jiang talked about people’s motives, kindness, and whether they would risk themselves for loved ones.
• Song Xu interrupted them, and Xu Huo went to the underground theater, where he and Bian Yongyi watched a documentary while the buzz-cut young man failed to ambush them.
• Jiang Jiang’s Players agreed to invite Xu Huo into their group, but he declined because someone was waiting for him and he could not remain in District 009.
• Xu Huo agreed to take Jiang Jiang out and brought her, Song Xu, and other Players to an abandoned haunted house.
• A Ghost Shadow appeared, Song Xu and the other Players pursued it, and Xu Huo turned around to find Jiang Jiang holding a paintbrush.

Bian Yongyi discovered that Jiang Jiang’s paintings depicted people’s deaths, including his own, and died exactly as the painting foretold. Xu Huo questioned Jiang Jiang about Doctor Shang and Shang Shuming, but she denied knowing whether they were the same person.

• Bian Yongyi uncovered paintings in Jiang Jiang’s studio showing gruesome deaths, including the deaths of the villa’s Players and bodyguards.
• Bian Yongyi found a painting depicting himself impaled on the villa’s garden Fence and fled the house.
• The buzz-cut young man caught Bian Yongyi outside, killed him with a Long Needle, and left him hanging on the Fence beside the Wormhole Flowers as depicted.
• Xu Huo asked Jiang Jiang whether Doctor Shang was Shang Shuming and explained his suspicions about the children cultivated from her orphanage.
• Jiang Jiang said she did not remember Doctor Shang’s identity, believed Shang Shuming had died, and remarked that only bad people could survive.

Xu Huo pursued Jiang Jiang through galleries filled with mutated beasts, trying to learn what she knew about the doctor connected to his brother's death. Jiang Jiang escaped as the gallery space collapsed, leaving Xu Huo with a numbed left side and a promise that he would return to find her.

• Xu Huo told Jiang Jiang about his missing memories, his older brother's death, and his suspicion that Shang Shuming might be the doctor he once knew.
• Jiang Jiang transformed the haunted house into winding galleries where beasts burst from paintings, and two players who attacked Xu Huo were mauled to death.
• Xu Huo chased Jiang Jiang in the guise of a shaggy monster, cut away its fur, and used his items to intercept her.
• Jiang Jiang dissolved from Xu Huo's grasp and said she had never intended to kill him because he could not die.
• As Jiang Jiang vanished and the galleries collapsed, Xu Huo's left arm and side went numb, and she told him to return and find her.

Xu Huo escaped the collapsing gallery but emerged with the left side of his body numb and stiff. He stayed in District 009 to investigate Jiang Jiang’s connection to the Doctor and arrived at a destitute border town, where he rented a room at a rundown inn.

• Xu Huo escaped the gallery through the Five or Five Open Air Window as players gathered around the haunted house ruins and Jiang Jiang lamented that he had refused to leave.
• Xu Huo decided to remain in District 009 and investigate Jiang Jiang’s possible connection to the Doctor, then landed in a border town and struggled to move with his weakened body.
• Xu Huo saw homeless people fighting over expensive food packaging in the trash and learned that the town had become a refuge for people driven out of safer cities.
• A little girl offered Xu Huo an umbrella and a place to stay, while other children tried to lead him to lodging or earn food from him.
• Xu Huo paid for a night at a run-down inn, rejected the owner’s offer of a first-floor room, and asked him to carry the wheelchair upstairs.

Xu Huo recovered in the hotel while investigating Jiang Jiang and waiting for a way to leave District 009. He befriended Xiao Yuan, a badly mistreated street child, and invited her to share a meal.

• Xu Huo learned that Jiang Jiang’s painting items were a pair of B-class creations by the Artificer Dan Qing, who had been killed after making them.
• Xu Huo hired the little girl outside the hotel to buy food, and she returned with his meal and the change.
• The girl said she was eight, then admitted she was nine, and took Xu Huo’s leftovers home.
• The next morning, the girl returned with worse injuries and introduced herself as Xiao Yuan; Xu Huo gave her medicine and money to buy food.
• Xu Huo invited Xiao Yuan to eat with him, and she explained that she had wanted to bring food to her grandmother before she died.

Xu Huo fought off players who attacked him in his hotel room, then learned from Xiao Yuan that girls in the city were being sold and that she was nearing the age when they would take her. After Xiao Yuan left, Xu Huo asked the hotel boss where the group who had robbed her was staying.

• Xu Huo sent Xiao Yuan away with money, then defeated four players who attacked him in his hotel room.
• Xu Huo stayed in the room as his injuries slowly improved, and Xiao Yuan returned with food that she had bought.
• Xiao Yuan arrived bruised and missing a tooth, explaining that a group had stolen her food and money.
• Xiao Yuan told Xu Huo that girls were prevented from leaving and taken away when they turned ten, and that she feared she would be sold soon.
• Xu Huo told Xiao Yuan not to come back the next day, then asked the hotel boss where the group that robbed her was staying.

Xu Huo found the thugs who had taken Xiao Yuan and made her confront the people who had harmed her and other children. After Xiao Yuan questioned whether she should punish children who had not yet committed crimes, Xu Huo sent her outside while he stayed behind.

• Xu Huo forced the boss to reveal where the thugs were hiding and list the people connected to them.
• Xu Huo went to the hideout, blocked the gunfire, and entered to find the thugs tying up Xiao Yuan while the vagrant children watched.
• Xu Huo killed one thug who attacked him, then gave Xiao Yuan the Water Knife Gun and told her to kill the others.
• Xiao Yuan shot a thug and named the crimes the group had committed against children and other victims.
• Xu Huo urged Xiao Yuan to consider whether the vagrant children deserved punishment, but she questioned condemning them for crimes they had not yet committed.
• Xu Huo put away the gun and told Xiao Yuan to wait outside.

Xu Huo fought the Players and thugs running a human trafficking organization, while Xiao Yuan watched and learned from him. After clearing out the remaining traffickers, he returned to the inn and took the innkeeper’s car.

• Xiao Yuan waited outside a door as the trafficking group surrounded the alley, and Xu Huo emerged to confront them.
• Xu Huo killed or drove off the attackers who ambushed him, including two Players who worked together to trap him in his wheelchair.
• Xu Huo defeated Brother Xing and warned Xiao Yuan that an apparent weakness could be a trap.
• Xiao Yuan showed Xu Huo where two more traffickers were hiding, and he finished off the organization without further attacks.
• Xu Huo returned to the inn, saw the innkeeper preparing to flee, and said he would borrow the innkeeper’s car.

Xu Huo took Xiao Yuan and six other street children out of their town and brought them to a welfare institute, while arranging for Xiao Yuan to travel to District 011. The chapter ended with him preparing to send her alone by non-player train to Rose Castle.

• Xu Huo invited the street children to join him and drove with Xiao Yuan and six others toward a larger city.
• Xu Huo chose a welfare institute, donated money, and arranged for the seven children to be cared for and sent to school.
• Xu Huo identified one of the institute's teachers as a problem, knocked him unconscious outside, and drove away with Xiao Yuan.
• Xu Huo bought Xiao Yuan a non-player Ticket and told her how to reach Rose Castle in District 011.

Xu Huo arranged for Xiao Yuan to travel safely, then sought a stamped ID so he could reach Jiang Jiang’s upcoming exhibition in the capital. After a violent confrontation with an ID forgery gang, he found two stamped IDs and an item among the gang leader’s belongings.

• Xu Huo bought a non-player train ticket for Xiao Yuan, prepared clothes, money, and a communicator for her, and sent her off.
• Xu Huo learned that Jiang Jiang’s guards had increased, but planned to attend her exhibition in the capital despite its strict player controls.
• Xu Huo followed a woman to an ID forgery operation and rejected the gang leader’s offer of a temporary ID for fifty thousand White Cash.
• Xu Huo trapped and killed the gang members, then used a Micro Bomb to destroy their bodies.
• Xu Huo searched the gang leader’s desk and belongings, finding two stamped ID cards and an item.

Xu Huo drove toward the Capital Safe Zone and met Chi Nan, a woman who used Fate Cards to try to make him travel with her. He refused her offer and drove off, while Chi Nan called after him from the roadside.

• Xu Huo replaced the photo on his proof of identity with his fake face and drove out of the capital toward the Capital Safe Zone.
• On the road, Xu Huo overheard fleeing survivors discussing the attack on a mid-level Safe Zone and the sale of IDs for entry to the capital.
• At a rest stop, Chi Nan sat with Xu Huo and used her Fate Cards item to insist that he draw a card before leaving.
• Xu Huo warned Chi Nan that luck was a fixed quantity, then drew a card showing clashing, bleeding swords; Chi Nan drew another card showing someone stabbed in the abdomen.
• Chi Nan introduced her companions and offered to travel with Xu Huo, but he refused and left in his car.

Xu Huo entered the Capital Safe Zone after negotiating with Little Pink Hat to bring a woman into her Dungeon. He reached the exhibition hall disguised as a visitor and watched Jiang Jiang arrive while other Players kept guard.

• Xu Huo gave Little Pink Hat a new dress and candy, then persuaded her to pull a woman into her Dungeon in exchange for a C-class dress and limited-edition Lollipops.
• Chi Nan and her companions continued following Xu Huo, but he warned them about the danger of relying on him before they reached the Capital Safe Zone.
• Xu Huo paid a checkpoint fee and found the Safe Zone crowded with displaced residents, strict patrols, and disrupted space-time items.
• Xu Huo abandoned his car, went invisible to observe the exhibition hall, and waited for Jiang Jiang to arrive.
• After Jiang Jiang entered the building, Xu Huo disguised himself as a visitor and entered the exhibition hall.

At Jiang Jiang’s exhibition, a grieving mother accused her of foreseeing and causing players’ deaths, and Jiang Jiang admitted she had predicted Song Xu’s death. An explosion interrupted the confrontation, and Xu Huo entered Jiang Jiang’s Octagonal Gallery with her, where he asked who had provided counseling for her and Peng Ya.

• A woman accused Jiang Jiang of using her paintings to curse players, including her dead son, Song Xu.
• Jiang Jiang said she had only foreseen Song Xu’s death and that her visions could not be changed.
• Jiang Jiang revealed she had come to the exhibition because she was going to die there.
• An explosion brought down the exhibition hall ceiling as Chi Nan and Black-Clad Players fought, and Jiang Jiang helped rescue the grieving woman.
• Xu Huo opened the Octagonal Gallery, trapping himself and Jiang Jiang inside while two other players were pulled in.
• Xu Huo asked Jiang Jiang who had provided psychological counseling for her and Peng Ya.

Xu Huo fought through Jiang Jiang’s Octagonal Gallery and uncovered how its shifting paintings trapped those inside. He drew Jiang Jiang into his Book Tower Spiritual World, where her attempt to escape and attack the Manifestation failed, leaving her trapped in one of its rooms.

• Jiang Jiang used the Octagonal Gallery to restrain Xu Huo and draw him into a corridor filled with living Mutant Animals.
• Xu Huo escaped the restraint, fought through the Aliens, and navigated the gallery’s endless loop of paintings and doors despite being wounded.
• Xu Huo found a black picture frame, opened a door, and reached Jiang Jiang on a moving spiral staircase.
• Xu Huo brought Jiang Jiang into his Book Tower Spiritual World, where she failed to escape through a picture frame.
• Jiang Jiang struck at the Manifestation and was caught by the Black Sliver, but a shock wave drove it away and damaged the Book Tower.
• Xu Huo hid the round table and sent Jiang Jiang into a room in the Book Tower to wear her down before they spoke again.