Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo researched the Game Government Base and Flower City’s policies, weighing whether He Pu might have left something at the base. After leaving the reading pod, he was approached by a Player offering Dungeon updates and introductions to weapons.

• Xu Huo read about the Game Government Base in Flower City and considered whether He Pu had hidden something there.
• Xu Huo reviewed Flower City’s generous benefits and strict limits on residents’ choices and opportunities.
• Xu Huo looked through records of Flower City’s notable figures before leaving the reading pod to browse printed materials.
• A Player offered Xu Huo recent Dungeon updates, but Xu Huo declined and told him to wait for other buyers.
• The Player followed Xu Huo and offered to connect him with sellers of weapons unavailable through ordinary channels.

Xu Huo encountered a suspicious woman at an underground station before going to the Game Government Base for a government clerk interview. After the brief interview, he saw the young interviewer depart in a flying craft and headed to find food.

• Xu Huo dismissed a player who offered him a business card and threw it away.
• At the underground station, Xu Huo noticed a woman with a cradle; after she boarded a hovercar, gunshots and breaking glass triggered an assault alarm.
• Xu Huo arrived at the Game Government Base, where the system first told him interviews were full before verifying his identity and admitting him.
• Two middle-aged interviewers asked Xu Huo about his medal and why he might save a stranger, and he asked whether he could look around the base if he did not get the job.
• As Xu Huo left, he saw the young interviewer in a flying craft and briefly felt the force of the man's blue-eyed gaze before deciding to find food.

Xu Huo visited Flower City's Welfare Park under a new disguise, posing as a donor while investigating how the city cared for its orphaned children. He left after learning that several teenagers were departing the park, including Xiao He, who was joining the powerful Han family.

• Xu Huo changed his face and clothes, then traveled to Flower City's Welfare Park.
• A security player warned Xu Huo to leave the school area, and he said he wanted to sponsor children before meeting the park director.
• The director explained that donations were divided equally, nonresidents could not adopt, and adopters had to accept monitoring; Xu Huo donated two hundred thousand White Cash.
• Several teenage children arrived to sign their departure papers, and the director praised Xiao He's decision to continue his studies with the Han family.
• A girl said the Han family's car had arrived and Xiao He would take the Han surname the next day.

Xu Huo learned how Flower City’s orphans were sorted into different futures, then spoke with a girl at Welfare Park about her hopes for children. That night, he watched Flower City’s residents react to an Outer District Player’s insult and await the arrival of Carroll Field.

• The director explained that children with exceptional genetic test results, including Xiao He, were recruited by families to train as future Players.
• Xu Huo considered the three likely fates of the park’s orphans and accepted flowers from a girl who asked him about life in the outer districts.
• The girl told Xu Huo she hoped her future students would rescue children from across the game and bring them to Flower City.
• Xu Huo returned to his hotel, arranged the flowers, and watched the city center fill with visitors after dark.
• A Flower City crowd used aircraft to force an Outer District Player and his companions to leave after the Player mocked the residents’ virtual rooms.
• The crowd gathered outside a club hoping to see Carroll Field, and a young man on the top floor called for Carroll to come look outside.

Kailuoer watched Flower City’s privileged residents mistreat Welfare Park youths before fireworks became cover for a deadly attack on outsiders. As Players and ordinary visitors were killed and trapped inside the sealed city center, Flower City’s upper class watched safely behind barriers, and one enraged Player struck at them.

• At a club, Kailuoer kept his distance from a girl from Welfare Park while the long-haired young noble seized her and gave another girl to a Server.
• The club manager signaled for the fireworks, and the city’s lights went out as the first flares rose.
• Players began dying when their heads suddenly exploded, and the attacks continued with each burst of fireworks.
• Trapped by the sealed perimeter and unable to escape or find safety indoors, ordinary visitors and Players fled into the streets as more people were killed.
• While Flower City’s upper class watched from behind protective barriers, an enraged Player attacked the barrier.

Outsider Players and residents were trapped in Flower City as its people turned a fireworks gathering into a massacre, until an unknown A-class swordsman attacked Carroll Field. The swordsman’s assault cracked the city’s foundations, and Carroll ordered his Players to drag the swordsman out.

• Outsider Players tried to break Flower City’s defenses and escape, but aircraft and barriers drove them back as the slaughter continued.
• The swordsman struck a Flower City woman and nearby residents with a black arc, then appeared amid the chaos as Flower City Players moved to confront him.
• The swordsman fought Carroll Field, breaking through his Defense Barrier before Carroll summoned a meteor and an unseen force struck the swordsman through several high-rises.
• The swordsman’s attacks split the streets across the city center, causing the ground and buildings to collapse as he taunted Carroll.
• Carroll transferred to an aircraft and ordered his Players to drag the swordsman out.

Xu Huo saved a little girl from the massacre in Flower City and returned her to Welfare Park before avoiding the authorities’ search. After encountering a strange figure that emerged from his shadow, he hurried back to Yongxing Hotel, where the hotel refused to let Flower City Players search without proper authorization.

• Xu Huo carried the little girl away from the panicked crowd and escaped the city center as Flower City Players slaughtered people around the barrier.
• The little girl refused to return to Welfare Park at first, then asked Xu Huo to take her to the director; Xu Huo left her near the park and told her to run along the main road.
• Xu Huo hid from an approaching aircraft, heard residents accept the cover story that Outer District Players had attacked, and waited until power returned across the city.
• A shadow pulled Xu Huo into a gray world, then vanished; Xu Huo detected a figure hidden in his shadow and tore it apart with his mental power.
• Xu Huo returned to Yongxing Hotel, where the receptionist told Flower City Players they could not search guests without official authorization and a valid reason.

Xu Huo watched Flower City players fail to force their way into Yongxing Hotel, then found the wounded A-class player who had attacked Carroll Field hiding in his room. The man revealed his grudge against Carroll and warned Xu Huo that Flower City could track him down, while Xu Huo suspected someone might also be pursuing the man.

• Xu Huo watched the hotel staff refuse entry to Flower City players, and the Fat Player mocked them for backing down.
• The wounded A-class player used a shadow fragment to follow Xu Huo into his hotel room and explained that his injuries kept reopening.
• The man said Carroll Field had caused his wife's death, but Xu Huo challenged his view of their relationship and suggested booking another room.
• Xu Huo threatened the injured man by pointing out that a C-class player might defeat a badly wounded A-class player.
• The man warned Xu Huo that Flower City players could find him because he had left traces while rescuing the girl, and Xu Huo wondered if someone was pursuing the man too.

A wounded A-class player recruited Xu Huo to help sabotage Flower City’s special ore vein, which could produce props that predict small-scale events. Xu Huo learned the vein was controlled by the Han family and their partners, but doubted the player’s plan would work.

• The wounded man explained that he had checked into Yongxing Hotel to delay Carroll Field’s retainers and asked Xu Huo to handle a task for him.
• The man told Xu Huo that Flower City’s special ore vein produced materials suited to spacetime props, including some that could predict specific events.
• Xu Huo recalled several apparent cases of precognition and questioned whether the props could truly predict the future.
• The man said the Han family shared the vein’s mining rights and revealed that his two previous companions had died near its sealed entrance.
• The man asked Xu Huo to get someone in the Han family to contaminate the vein, and Xu Huo doubted the scheme could succeed.

Xu Huo learned that the vein’s entrance lay beneath the crystal flower, then became trapped in a confrontation between the sword-wielding player and Flower City’s forces at Yongxing Hotel. After an explosion tore through the hotel and a gray shadow swept over the sealed area, the two sides began fighting while Xu Huo and the Fat Player tried to survive.

• Xu Huo refused to help the man with the sword target Carroll Field and planned to investigate the directly administered zone for clues about the vein.
• The man with the sword revealed that the vein’s entrance was beneath the crystal flower as Flower City players surrounded Yongxing Hotel.
• A masked player warned that everyone inside the hotel could become a target once capture authorization was granted, while the man with the sword taunted Carroll Field and recounted his grievance.
• Xu Huo and the Fat Player headed for the second-floor restaurant, but an explosion blasted through Yongxing Hotel and hurled players into the flames.
• The Fat Player warned Xu Huo that both groups were using them as cannon fodder, and the players inside and outside the hotel began fighting after a gray shadow swept across the area.

Xu Huo fought Flower City's players as they surrounded Yongxing Hotel with weapons and a powerful spatial barrier. After reaching the barrier, he found that his A-class item could pierce it but not break it, and began testing whether he could manipulate the spatial rays within it.

• Xu Huo joined the battle around Yongxing Hotel while Flower City used explosive bullets, anesthetic nets, and sound interference to attack the Outer District Players.
• A burly Flower City player trapped the area with a barrier from his round staff and killed an attacker with a powerful shock wave.
• Xu Huo fought three players, vanished when an explosion struck the street, and used his control of Space Power to reach the barrier's edge.
• Xu Huo pierced the spatial barrier with Unbreakable but could not destroy it, so he began experimenting with the rays inside it.

Xu Huo fought off Players at Flower City’s spatial barrier, cut a passage through it, and was pursued by a powerful government Player. He wounded the pursuer with poisoned attacks, and the man realized Xu Huo had poisoned his Artifact.

• Xu Huo stabbed holes in the spatial barrier, killed a Player who attacked him, and let the older attacker escape with a Ticket.
• Xu Huo figured out that the barrier consisted of separate triangular layers and opened a passage through it.
• A burly Flower City Player attacked Xu Huo, who fled through an underground passage while evading him and the surveillance devices.
• The burly Player chased Xu Huo through the city, wrecking tunnels and buildings as Xu Huo used his Spiritual World, Cube Space, and Artifacts to counterattack.
• Xu Huo cut the pursuer’s arms and part of his foot, and the burly Player realized Xu Huo had poisoned his Artifact.

Xu Huo escaped the underground passage after the poisoned burly player vanished into the Station, then returned to find Flower City descending into widespread chaos. He watched the directly administered district seal itself off and learned that Xue Lang and other Outer District Players had raided Card City's government for advanced devices and dangerous experimental materials.

• Xu Huo used his cutting lines, spatial barrier, Spiritual World manifestation, Space Ray blades, and "Holder's Death" against the poisoned burly player, who disappeared into the Station before the attack landed.
• Xu Huo left the underground passage and found players looting Flower City as fires and explosions spread and government Players moved to contain the unrest.
• Xu Huo observed the directly administered district deploy detection instruments, Space-Time Artifact Limiters, and connected defensive barriers, then stopped to check the Jixin Terminal.
• Xu Huo watched footage of the attack on Card City's government and recognized Xue Lang among the raiders who seized spatial teleportation devices and three dangerous experimental materials.
• Xu Huo read the warning that the missing materials could produce dangerous, contaminating derivatives and saw that the attacks had left ordinary civilians largely unprotected.

Xu Huo hid from the ongoing manhunt in Mu Yan’s flower shop, where they discussed Flower City and the rumored precognitive items made from its mineral vein. After Mu Yan described a past attack that suggested the vein’s controllers had anticipated danger, Xu Huo searched for information and then looked up Jiang Jiang.

• Xu Huo took shelter in Mu Yan’s flower shop, and she let him stay after recognizing him from the Maze Dungeon.
• Mu Yan served Xu Huo noodles and described the benefits and hardships faced by players living in Flower City.
• Xu Huo and Mu Yan discussed the deadly fireworks incident and how powerful families maintained control over Flower City.
• Xu Huo asked about the mineral vein and precognitive items, and Mu Yan said outsiders rarely accessed them.
• Mu Yan recounted a large-scale attack from a year earlier, when the families controlling the vein appeared to have left in advance.
• Xu Huo searched Dimension Below for information about precognitive items, then searched for Jiang Jiang.

Xu Huo investigated whether Flower City's mineral vein was connected to foreknowledge, then learned from library records that it had been transformed by an Origin Stone brought back by a deceased Han family Super Evolver. The vein was sealed inside a separate space, leaving Xu Huo without a clear way to reach it.

• Xu Huo and Mu Yan considered why Flower City's core figures had gathered and whether the mineral vein was tied to foreknowledge, but Xu Huo could not find a way to investigate it.
• After the Attack Incident, Flower City published photos of invading players and Carroll Field declared, "The night has passed, and a new sun has risen."
• Xu Huo left Mu Yan's flower shop, checked on his Game Government Base interview results, and saw the mustached player leave disappointed.
• Xu Huo researched the mineral vein in Flower City's library and learned that an Origin Stone brought back by a Han family Super Evolver had caused special item-making minerals to appear.
• Xu Huo learned that the deceased spiritual-type Super Evolver had sealed the vein and its Origin Stone in a separate space that could not be entered without a specific method.

Xu Huo sought a weapons broker in Flower City and was swindled out of one hundred thousand White Cash for an empty box. He tracked down the con artists and appeared behind them as they celebrated their scam.

• Xu Huo hired Jiao Cheng to find him weapons and followed him to a seller in a residential area.
• Xu Huo paid one hundred thousand White Cash for two supposed demolition guns, but found the box empty after the seller and Jiao Cheng disappeared.
• Xu Huo walked away from the eatery instead of confronting the people inside as they prepared to fight him.
• Jiao Cheng reunited with the other members of the scam and bragged that they had fooled Xu Huo.
• Xu Huo appeared behind the short man just as the group discussed splitting the stolen money.

Xu Huo captured Jiao Cheng and his companions after they tried to escape, then forced Jiao Cheng to guide him to Flower City’s Underground Market in search of precognition-related ore. He released Jiang Wenzhang but trapped Old Song in the Picture Frame, leaving the others to accompany him.

• Xu Huo stopped the four men from escaping with Cube Space and the Spiritual World, then subdued them with Friendly Interrogation.
• Xu Huo asked Jiao Cheng about Flower City’s Underground Market and the ore rumored to produce precognition items.
• Jiao Cheng agreed to guide Xu Huo to a contact if the other three men were released, and Xu Huo accepted.
• Xu Huo let Jiang Wenzhang out of the Picture Frame on a nearby street, where Jiang realized he had escaped.
• Xu Huo asked which man would enter the Picture Frame, and Old Song was pulled inside before the others could respond.

Xu Huo and Jiao Cheng visited Flower City’s underground market, where Xu Huo used the stalls to search for a connection to the city’s ore supply. After leaving, they entered a dangerous district, and Xu Huo asked a local Player about finding ore.

• Jiao Cheng showed Xu Huo the underground trading market and explained how sellers, buyers, and delivery workers operated there.
• Xu Huo tried to buy ore from an old stallholder, who refused to sell to them.
• Xu Huo bought a few Potions and inspected damaged props while looking for someone connected to the ore supply.
• Someone followed Xu Huo and Jiao Cheng after they left the market, so Xu Huo asked Jiao Cheng to take him to a place he frequented.
• In a dangerous district, a female Player offered to guide them, and Xu Huo asked her if she knew anyone who could help him buy ore.

Xu Huo traced an ore-smuggling operation in Flower City from Brother Yu to a cautious intermediary called Brother Song, and suspected the Han family was behind it. He then questioned Jiao Cheng about a deal in the city center, learning that it involved finding a missing child taken to Card City.

• Xu Huo forced a female Player and her companions to reveal a contact who could arrange an ore deal, then left with Jiao Cheng through the underground passages.
• Brother Yu arrived after Xu Huo had left, and the female Player told him that Xu Huo was a strong outsider who had come looking for ore.
• Brother Yu revealed to his men that the ore business served the Han family, while the female Player complained that their work was risky and underpaid.
• Xu Huo bought Brother Yu's call and message records, decoded them, and identified Brother Song as his superior and a possible link to the Han family.
• Xu Huo questioned Jiao Cheng about his city-center trade, and Jiao Cheng admitted that he had been hired to find a missing child who was taken to Card City.

Xu Huo used Brother Yu’s movements to trace his connection to Supervisor Song, a Han family company manager, after the human-trafficking recording surfaced online. The chapter ended with Xu Huo watching Song investigate the case cautiously from his home.

• Jiao Cheng told Xu Huo that the stolen recording showed a child’s suffering before death, and that posts about the trafficking case were being blocked.
• Xu Huo told Jiao Cheng to report Brother Yu to the city government and warn the Underground Market’s old man to alert him.
• Xu Huo tracked Brother Yu with A Thread of Fate Across a Thousand Miles as Brother Yu fled to downtown and met Supervisor Song.
• Xu Huo followed Song home and discovered that Song worked for a Han family company and had been trained by the Han family.
• Song asked a city government friend to investigate the trafficking case, then disconnected his personal Communicator and kept his work one active.